You're Not Safe (Texas Rangers) (17 page)

She’d watched as Joan had wrapped her arms around Rory’s neck and kissed him hard on the lips. Rory had responded and kissed her back. Greer’s heart sank. She’d wanted Rory and had been ready to give him what he’d been begging for.

Finally, Rory eased out of her grip and whispered something only Joan could hear. She’d smiled, kissed him good-bye, and left.

Greer, lingering in the shadows, could have slipped away into the night and written Rory off. But she’d lost so much and to lose him was unbearable. So, she’d summoned her courage and slipped into his tent. Before she thought, she rushed up to him and kissed him on the lips. He’d folded his arms around her and held her so close she could feel the erection Joan’s touch had created. But she’d ignored his attraction for another girl and she’d deepened the kiss thinking maybe she could make him forget Joan. He’d kissed her back and then took her by the hand and led her into the woods to a soft grassy patch of land.

As she sat at her desk now, nervous energy churned in her stomach. Silly to think there’d be any kind of connection today between Rory and the woman in the news report. The cops had said Rory ran with a rough crowd and could very well have angered the wrong guy. And this woman who’d frozen to death could be a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time. There could have been any number of odd circumstances why she’d met such an odd ending.

Not her business.

Not her problem.

She had so much work to do.

And after she reminded herself again of the reasons why she should just drop this, she reached for her purse and car keys. She went in search of José. They had a quick discussion about the daily tasks still to be done, Mitch’s assignments, and the target date for harvest. Both agreed they’d be harvesting soon. And with José mumbling in Spanish, she left.

“This is stupid,” she muttered as she turned off the route onto the main road. “This is so none of my business.” Bracelets jangled on her arm as she ran her fingers through her hair and continued toward town.

She didn’t know anyone in the Austin police and likely if she approached them they’d shuffle her to the side and make her wait for hours. It wasn’t as if she had real evidence to offer them.

But she did know Ranger Tec Bragg and Rory’s case. If there was a slim possibility the two deaths were connected, he’d know.

For the second time that day, she made the thirty-minute drive into Austin. With each new mile she questioned if she’d made the right choice. Once or twice she considered turning the car around. But she somehow stayed the course.

By the time she pulled into the Rangers’ parking lot every muscle in her body quivered. Her back ached and her jaw was clenched. Bragg unsettled her in more ways than she could articulate.

As she searched the lot for his car, her breathing grew shallow. Not seeing Bragg’s vehicle, she allowed a relieved sigh to shudder through her. He wasn’t here. Relief collided with disappointment. Maybe she’d overreacted. “This is nuts. I need to leave.”

She thought back to Joan, who had lain in the snow and wished for death. That girl hadn’t been her friend, but she wasn’t so different from Greer. She had been just as lost and desperate for love.

“Damn.” Greer shut off the truck and cut across the parking lot to the main entrance of Ranger headquarters. Gritting her teeth she moved up to the security window.

An older man dressed in a Department of Public Safety uniform stared up at her with a mixture of mild curiosity and suspicion. It occurred to her she’d not taken the time to change from her shorts, faded Bonneville T-shirt, and work boots. Her long braid fell down her back and a glance at her reflection in the glass revealed a halo of stray curls framing her face. She looked a little crazed.

She tightened her grip on her purse strap. “I’d like to see Ranger Tec Bragg.”

The officer raised a bushy gray eyebrow. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No. I wanted to talk to him.”

“Is this related to a case?”

“I’m not sure.”

The officer shook his head as he reached for a pen. “Give me your name and number, and I’ll have him contact you.”

Leave her name. She hesitated.

The officer’s gaze narrowed. “Go ahead and leave me your name. I’m sure he’ll want to know you came by.”

His tone added an edge to the words. “Greer Templeton. But it’s not an emergency. I’ll call him later.”

She turned to leave, grateful to put distance between her and Bragg’s office. She’d made it ten steps outside the door when a tall man blocked her path. Annoyed, she glanced up to find Bragg, his face shadowed by the Stetson’s wide brim. Damn.

“Greer Templeton.” His deep rich tone had her squaring her shoulders.

“Ranger Bragg.” So much for a clean getaway.

His gaze burrowed into her. “What brings you my way? Mitch all right?”

She cleared her voice, annoyed at the nerves chewing at her. “He’s fine. Working with the horses this morning and in the fields in the afternoon. A little ham-fisted with the grapes, but we’re working on that.”

“The boy never did have a delicate touch.”

“No.”

“Why the visit?” The unease had melted from his voice. “Did I win a door prize last night?”

Had he made a joke? He didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who joked. “No. No. Nothing like that.”

He stood silent, letting the quiet burrow under her skin. His height had her stretching her spine, but the extra quarter-inch she eked out was paltry in comparison to his six feet three inches.

“Why have you come, Greer?”

Her name sounded as if it had been roughened with sandpaper when he spoke it. “I heard a news story on the radio about a woman that died.”

He stiffened. “What about it?”

“She froze to death?”

His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Yes.”

“I knew a girl once who tried to kill herself by running into a snowstorm.”

If it were possible, his scowl deepened. He took her elbow in his hand. “It’s hot outside. Let’s get inside.”

A glance at the building had fear shooting through her. An office shouldn’t scare her but Bragg’s office would be more like a lion’s den. “We can talk out here.”

He was already walking, tugging her with him. “It’s a hundred degrees.”

“I’m used to the heat.” Sweat soaked the back of her T-shirt.

A half smile tipped the edge of his mouth. “Then you’re a better man than I. I want out of the heat.”

She kept moving forward toward the building as if caught in a riptide. She could pull and fight, but Bragg like a riptide wouldn’t yield. And so she let herself be pulled inside. It wasn’t like she was in trouble. And she half believed her information wouldn’t be of use. She’d say her piece and then leave.

The lobby’s cool air chilled her skin and puckered her flesh. She chanced a glance at the guard who stared at her with more interest as Bragg flashed his badge and escorted her to the elevators. Neither spoke as they waited for the elevator. When the doors dinged open he guided her inside. He kept his hand on her elbow as if he expected her to bolt. Smart man. She could easily turn on her heel, slipping through the doors before they closed and scurrying out of here. It wouldn’t take much to convince her that her visit had been prompted by an active imagination.

They moved past cubicles, the hum of conversations buzzing around them. Some folks paused to look, as if wondering whom Bragg had snared. Just her luck she’d worn her Bonneville T-shirt. Smart. Imprint her business’s name in the minds of a dozen Texas Rangers.

Bragg flipped on his office lights and motioned for her to sit in a wooden chair in front of a large desk as he removed his hat and tossed it on a desk, piled high with neat stacks of papers. The office was filled with shelves, stocked with manuals and a handful of awards. No family pictures. Not even an image of Mitch.

She took her seat and rested her purse in her lap as he moved behind her and closed his door with a soft click. The exit now blocked, the room shrunk. Her feet tapped nervously on the floor.

He paused behind her, and she could feel him staring. Instead of sitting behind his desk as she’d hoped, he took the seat in the chair beside her. He settled back as if he didn’t have another worry in the world other than her.

“So you heard a news story?”

She steadied her feet, pretty sure Bragg, like most in law enforcement, could read body language. He’d no doubt guessed she was nervous, but she hoped he’d not read her as just shy of terrified. “I think I might have overreacted.”

He threaded his fingers together and rested them on his flat belly. “You’ve come all this way. Why don’t you run it past me and let me decide.”

Dark eyes bore into her. Was this what it felt like to stare into a gun barrel? “Like I said I heard the story about a woman who froze to death in East Austin.”

The faintest hint of tension tightened his shoulders. “And you said you knew someone who’d nearly died like that before.”

“It all made sense earlier, but now it feels like a stretch.”

“You ever contacted the police before about a death you read about in the paper?”

“No.” She fiddled with the bracelets on her wrist and the action caught his attention, making her stop. If he’d read her file, he’d know about the scars. She wanted to explain about the scars, explain about that regretful moment, as if needing him to understand she was not that person anymore.

Slowly he raised his gaze from her bracelets and wrists. “Then why are you here?”

She folded her hands in her lap. “You know my past pretty well.”

He didn’t speak, but the certainty in his gaze confirmed what she’d said.

“You know about the accident and my suicide attempt.”

The mention of suicide deepened his frown. “Yes.”

She’d never spoken to anyone outside of camp about the past except Lydia. “And I went to a camp for kids like me. Kids who’d tried to hurt themselves. It was called Shady Grove.”

He watched her closely, not missing a word or microexpression. Her gut tightened. Is this what prey experienced when caught in a hunter’s sights?

“Rory was there. There was also a girl there who’d tried to freeze herself to death.”

He leaned forward a fraction, and she was aware of a hint of that same soap mingling with his scent.

“We all had to talk about what we’d done as therapy. We were arranged in pods, and Rory and this other girl were in my pod. When she told her story she said she’d been waiting for the temperature to drop while she and her family were on vacation in Colorado. When the temperature dipped below zero, she snuck out in the middle of the night wearing sheer pajamas. No coat or shoes. She wanted to lie down in the snow and let the cold take her.”

“Why did she do this?”

“She’d had a boyfriend, and they were in love.” She couldn’t keep the cynicism from her voice. “Long story short she got pregnant. The boyfriend refused to see her, and the idea of telling her parents terrified her. They’d be furious. So she had an abortion, but she wasn’t counting on complications or her mother finding out. Her mother was furious. Called her all kinds of names. She said their relationship was never going to be the same again, and she went into the snow to die.”

“Who found her?”

“Ski patrol from what she said. They rushed her to a hospital barely in time to save her. Her parents were mortified. They sent her to Shady Grove to be fixed, in a manner of speaking.”

“Did the clinic help her?” The deep timbre of Bragg’s voice had her relaxing and lowering her guard.

“I think they did. She’d been at the clinic months when I arrived. She jokingly called herself ‘the official greeting committee.’ And she was a help to some of the other kids who were having a rough time. Hearing her story gave me courage to tell mine.”

“And when did she leave?”

“Days before me.”

“Do you remember her name?”

“Not all of the kids used real names. We called her Joan.”

“Joan.” He frowned. “What did she look like?”

“Tall. Blond. Freckles. Pretty smile.”

“That could be half of Austin.”

Greer shrugged, knowing he was right. “I do remember when they took her to the hospital she was in bad shape. The doctors salvaged the fingers on her right hand, but I know she lost toes on her left foot. She usually wore shoes, but I saw her coming out of the showers one day and saw the scars. The wound was still raw.” Given the same circumstance today, she’d never have done what she did next. “I asked her to show her foot at circle time.”

“Circle time?”

“Every night at seven we gathered around a fire and talked about our feelings. It could get pretty emotional sometimes.”

“Okay.”

“Color rushed Joan’s face, and I knew she was embarrassed. But she took off her shoe. I could see the deformity disgusted Rory.”

He stared at her, not speaking but not missing one word, or one inflection in her voice.

“I knew I hurt her feelings and even then I felt bad. I’d used our oath of honesty against her.” She shrugged. “Kids can be cruel.”

His brow knotted and for a moment he was silent. “Why’d you do it?”

She frowned, remembering the slight widening of Joan’s eyes and her pooling tears. “I was trying to punish her.”

“Why?”

“She was dating Rory, and I wanted him. The night before I’d seen her with him. I’d been jealous and angry. I wanted to make her feel bad. Wanted him to see I was the better choice. Anyway, she told the group she’d lost her toes to frostbite. It was a reminder every day to her how lucky she was.”

“Lucky?”

“Toes, she’d said, were a small price for a life.”

“Do you think she meant it?”

“She sounded convincing. I felt like a real creep for asking.”

“I’m assuming you saw her kissing Rory.”