Twice A Target (Task Force Eagle) (6 page)

He avoided her as much as he could during the rest of
the day too. Though Holt spent time with the baby, it wasn’t in her presence.
He trundled him out to the graveside or the barn, or he urged Maddy to saddle a
horse and take off.

She needed to talk to Holt, to explain about Rob—at
least in part—if he’d let her. Holt had once been her friend, and she was
living in his house, caring for Rob’s child. The absence of peace between them
was too awkward, too agonizing. If she could manage her thoughts and feelings,
she had to make him understand her desertion wasn’t as hasty as it seemed. That
he shouldered some of the blame didn’t ease her guilt or make her proud, but it
was a fact.

She arrived at the nursery door as Holt emerged with
his sobbing nephew. The sight of the big man holding the tiny child melted her
midsection. Barefoot, Holt wore faded jeans, aged to a softness that molded to
horseman’s thighs and lean hips. His chambray shirt hung untucked and
unbuttoned. The sight drew her gaze more than did the furious infant.

Chapter 6

“About time you heard him.” Holt jiggled his nephew.
His thunderous gaze swept her scanty attire.

How dare he snipe at her for being two seconds late!
She glared at him. “Bobby just started crying.” But she discerned not
disapproval but dismay, maybe at unwanted heat. Tough if he didn’t approve.
Tough if it turned him on. Tough that it turned her on. But pulling on more
clothes would have delayed her even longer.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” she quipped.

“I was already up.” His jaw worked as he seemed to
retrench. “Some folks say it spoils a baby to pick him up every time he cries.
But he’s so little.” His expression relaxed as he turned his gaze to Bobby, who
continued to fret.

“You can’t spoil a young infant. Crying’s the only way
he has to communicate, and he needs the assurance that someone cares.” Smiling,
she silently blessed
Baby’s First Months
—and Sara. “Besides, he’s not so
little. This pumpkin must weigh close to thirteen pounds. A bruiser, like the
other Donovan men.”

“Fourteen, according to Doc Warner today.” Holt’s grim
mouth curved in a radiant smile that softened his harsh features. Love and
pride in his nephew shone in that smile. His dedication to raising his nephew
and maintaining the ranch made her wish he didn’t resent her so much.

Her pulse skittered at his effect on her, and she took
a step backward. She had to shake this attraction to Holt. She had nowhere to
go yet that didn’t involve a sleeping bag, and Holt needed— No,
Bobby
needed her.

She forced her gaze to the baby. “He’s getting your
shirt all wet. Give him here, and I’ll change him.”

Holt glanced at the stain spreading on his blue shirt.
As if Bobby were a rain-slicked football, he handed off the soggy child. “I’ll
grab a dry shirt and get the bottle ready.” Peeling off the offending garment,
he stalked to his bedroom.

Enjoying the play of muscles in the departing male
back, Maddy sighed. It didn’t hurt to look. Stepping over the boundary Holt—and
she, if she were truthful—had set could ignite the tinder of their chemistry
into a wildfire. As it almost had eight years ago.

Bobby gulped a sob and blinked glistening eyes at
Maddy. “A-aaga.” He continued to squawk, but the screeching ceased.

“Guess he doesn’t worry about me dropping you anymore.
Come on, pumpkin. Auntie Maddy’ll get you cleaned up and dry.”

When she finished, she pulled on jeans beneath her
sleep shirt before carrying Bobby, calmer but still sniffling, to the kitchen.
Having his sleepy weight in her arms soothed her jangled nerves.

Clad in a tee shirt tucked into his jeans, Holt
lounged against the counter. He watched the microwave as if it might float away
without his stare to anchor it. “Be ready a minute.”

“The microwave, just one way this house has changed,”
she said, noting alterations as she walked and rocked the baby. Gone was the
boot-worn linoleum, replaced by the polished boards beneath it. A
digital-control range with a smooth electric cook top instead of gas burners.
Bright yellow curtains hung in the windows, and in the living room
balloon-valanced burgundy draperies and a matching carpet. “Very classy. Rob’s
wife kept herself busy.”

“I hardly know the old place. Rob took out an equity loan
so Sara could fix up the house to her liking,” he said without turning to face
her. “There’s more.”

“The baby’s room. Your old room. The master bedroom.”

“Some of it’s okay. Place needed a face-lift.”

Because she noted disapproval edging his voice, she
had to probe. “Sara wasn’t from around here. Colorado Springs, right?”

He nodded. “The Pattersons moved here five years ago.
Edgar Patterson’s manager of the Valley Bank in Rangewood. Sara was a city
girl. Like you. Rob wanted to please her.”

He’d look at anything but her, would he? He spoke to
her only when he had to and only about the baby. She longed to talk to him now
about Rob. But how to begin? A glance at the dining table gave her an opener.
On yellow sheets from a legal tablet she saw lists of names and a roughly
sketched map of the area.

Not cattle records. He did that work on the computer
in the office off the living room. What was he doing in the middle of the
night?

Holt handed her the bottle and sat at the end of the table.
When she settled the baby with the bottle, he said, “Chows down like a hungry
calf. You’d think the way he’s growing he’d adjust to the stuff by now.”

She refused to keep to their single topic. “Holt, what
are you working on here?” She nodded toward the papers.

Elbows on the table, he propped his forehead on the
heels of his hands. His expression, when he raised his eyes, was bleak. “I
might as well tell you before you hear it from somewhere else, like the
Raffertys.” His brow-pleating glower expressed his reluctance to trust her with
his secret.

“Dear God, what is it? The Pattersons haven’t done
something to take Bobby away this soon, have they?”

“It’s not that.” He shoved his fingers through his
hair. “But I did get bad news from Chris Hawke today.”

“Your attorney? Chris Hawke used to be pretty wild,
tearing up the roads on his motorcycle. Didn’t he spend the night in jail for
pummeling a boy who insulted his sister?”

“That’s Chris’s old-fashioned sense of justice. These
days he attacks legally.”

“Then he must be a fierce defender for his friends.”

One corner of Holt’s mouth quirked in acknowledgment.
“He said the custody case went to Judge Gilbert.”

“That’s bad?”

“Couldn’t be worse. According to Chris, Gilbert’s so
conservative he thinks the only decent family consists of two parents—mom and
dad, no single parents, no same-sex couples, God forbid—and two-point-five
kids.”

Maddy grinned. “Do you think Bobby qualifies as about
a point-five?”

“Maybe Espie’d donate her two boys to make up the
rest.”

His deadpan expression stopped her for a moment. Then
the gleam in his startling blue eyes clued her that the man who never smiled
had made a joke. She almost added a quip about Holt and her being the parents
in this little equation.
Don’t go there.
“But you were starting to tell
me something else.”

His jaw worked with the words before he could spit
them out. “It’s Rob and Sara. The crash. It was no accident.”

“What do you mean?” Dread congealed in her stomach
like soured milk.

“Some bastard deliberately shot out the front tires on
his pickup. That’s what sent them over the cliff.” Banked fury glowed in his
eyes. “It was murder.”

Maddy sat in stunned silence as he spelled out the
whole story. How someone had lain in wait. The high-powered, high-tech rifle
with exploding bullets. The sheriff’s reluctance to call it murder. How Holt
was conducting a private investigation.

Bobby finished the bottle, and Maddy turned him over
her shoulder to pat his back. The perfunctory duty diffused her focus, but
didn’t ease her distress at what she’d heard. Tears burned, but she blinked
them back. “Why would someone kill Rob and Sara? Murder. It makes no sense.”

“Lack of a motive is the biggest roadblock. I’ve
talked to some of the townspeople already. The only motive I can imagine is
Rob’s temper.”

“Quick to explode and quick to fizzle.”

“I thought he might have had a run-in with some cowboy
who held a grudge.” He sagged in the chair. “But I’ve found nothing so far.
Thought I’d visit the Circle-S. Have a talk with Will. Or one of the hands
there might know something.”

Murder. The idea made the loss new again. She reeled
with the horror of it and fisted her hands behind Bobby’s back. He whimpered at
the pressure, and she forced herself to relax. “I’ve done a little
investigative reporting. I have a pretty good sense of people. I could go with
you.”

He made no comment on her offer. Some things he seemed
to need time to accept. “Will’s busy with the first guests of the season. Maybe
later this week. There’s some other ranches to visit first.” He pointed to his
map. “I’ve gone over the scene of the crime and made lists of everyone Rob knew
and everyone around who uses that road regularly.”

“Could it be someone you know?”

“No telling. It occurred to me the killer might have
shot the wrong person.”

An idea straightened her shoulders. “What if someone
else has a truck like Rob’s? What if that was the reason? Someone else could
still be in danger.”

The baby produced a loud belch.

“Good boy.” Maddy cuddled him and rocked. “Now maybe
he’ll go back to sleep.”

“I don’t think the sheriff’s thought of it being the
wrong vehicle.” Holt scribbled the word
truck
. He circled it. “Thanks.
It’s worth checking out.”

Her eyes stung again and her chest ached. Feeling the drowsing
little one in her lap only served to heighten the tragedy. She had to help if
Holt would let her. “Do you have photographs of the accident scene?”

“Sheriff does. Won’t give them to me. Says it’s police
business, not DEA. I should keep out of the case. Butt out, in other words.”

“Do the photos show where the shooter was in relation
to the truck? Or what view the shooter had?”

He looked up from his notes. “They don’t show much.
Reckon I’ve been so overwrought about the whole damn affair I haven’t been much
of a detective. What are you getting at?”

“I’m not sure exactly. I could take more pictures if
you like. Of course I have no equipment other than my cameras and my laptop.”

“You’re talking about digital pictures?”

She nodded. “I generally use digital. My Nikon has
twenty-four mega pixels. That would give us sharp enough resolution. I can
format the images on my laptop but I have no printing equipment. We’d need
cutting edge, not a drugstore printer.”

“I know a place in the county seat, a lab that might
do the printing.”

There, a conversation between old friends working
together. Warmth wrapped comforting arms around her. Then the topic of the
conversation folded the shutter on her pleasure. Photographing the place where
Rob and Sara were killed.

“Okay. Let me put Bobby in his crib.” She padded to
the nursery. The infant didn’t wake as she laid him on his back. “Don’t worry,
pumpkin. You’re safe and loved.” She whispered it as a prayer and wiped her
eyes.

When she returned to sit at the table, she felt Holt’s
scrutinizing gaze as a physical touch. His eyes, hooded and brooding, held her.
Intense alertness and edgy violence in every taut muscle.

“Some son of a bitch took the last members of our
family from me and Bobby. I aim to make him pay. I appreciate any help you want
to give.” He shot to his feet and turned away from her. “Bobby could have been
with them. He could have ended up at the bottom of that steep slope.”

His gruff words branded her brain. Grisly images of
what such a crash could do to a tender little body razored pain through her.
“Holt, don’t play what if. It gets you nowhere. I should know. Rob and Sara
are...gone, but their son is alive.”

“Do you sit by his grave every day for Bobby’s sake?
Or to ease your conscience?”

The comment made her wince. She had to say it now,
while he wasn’t looking at her. “I did love Rob. I—”

“Not enough, I reckon.”

“He was my best friend. I wasn’t
in
love with
him and I couldn’t marry him. I handled things the worst possible way, I admit.
I panicked and ran. I never intended to hurt him.”

“You know what they say about good intentions.”

His harsh tone rasped like a file over her raw nerves.
She forced herself to continue. “As the wedding came closer and closer, I knew
what we had wasn’t magical, romantic, or the thrilling rush it should be. I
worried it wasn’t a lifetime thing.”

“He loved you that way.” His wide shoulders rigid, he
kept his back to her.

She wouldn’t argue the point. “I don’t know, but he
got over me. Wasn’t he happy with Sara?”

He pivoted to face her, his jaw set. “Have you seen
any pictures of Sara?”

What? She couldn’t divine what he was getting at. She
nodded slowly. “The wedding portrait. What does that have to do with anything?”

His long legs ate up the short distance to the living
room and back. He slapped the framed photograph on the table before her. “Take
a good look.”

Sara Patterson Donovan was several years younger than
Rob. The photographer had posed them standing facing each other, her cheek to
his chin. Straight blond hair draped her slim shoulders and fanned down her
back.

What she saw slapped her hard. She pushed away from
the table and stood. “No!”

“Oh, yeah, baby.” Holt grabbed her shoulders and
forced her to face the picture. “Sara looks—
looked
a lot like you. As
soon as the Pattersons moved to Rangewood, Rob went after her.”

“No, no...” She couldn’t bear it. There must be some
other explanation. “You can’t be right. Rob just liked blondes.” She tried to
pull away, but the photograph, more than Holt’s firm grasp, held her in place.

With her back flush against his hard torso, his rumble
of skepticism vibrated along her spine. His puff of breath warmed the top of
her head. “She was a city girl like you. Used to a soft life. Used to luxury.”

Through her thin shirt, his body heat seeped into her
flesh. Her shallow breaths absorbed his scent, a mingling of soap and
sun-warmed skin and leather. His hardness pressed against her spine, coaxing
warmth in her belly. Taken aback, she fought the sensual charge. She closed her
eyes against him and the smiling newlyweds in the portrait.

He tightened his grip on her shoulders, and his mouth
brushed her hair. Holt sucked in a breath, and with a growl turned away.

“Rob gave Sara everything she wanted.” He said it with
such bitterness, he might be describing Maddy. “Went into debt. Even talked me
into cosigning. I thought it was for repairs to the barn. I didn’t find out
what he’d done until I came home. He added eight feet to the house to create
that humongous bedroom and bathroom you’re in, but ran out of money before they
could put in a hot tub. All those luxuries for her, and he neglected the ranch
for fear she’d leave. Like you.”