Badge and a Saddle (Heroes in the Saddle Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

in their department.”
    He whistled, low
and slow. “I want to call my partner and have him check on that.”
    “No.” She sat up.
“No one can be trusted.”
    He tipped his
head. “Except me? How do you know I’m not taking you out into the hills to…”
    She smiled. He
couldn’t even say it. “Kill me? Or were you going to say, hunt turkeys?”
    A short groan came
from him and he sucked down more coffee.
    “I did some
research online at a library in Fort Worth, using…a friend’s login. Someone who
has higher clearance level than I do. ”
    “You’re a
government employee. That’s how you found me.” He sounded angry.
    “Desperation and
self-preservation. I won’t apologize.”
    He drove, silent
and frowning, for a couple miles. “Okay, it’s all starting to fit together. You
left the ranch and got to the city by…?”
    “Hitchhiking. Wearing
a blonde wig.”
    “Dangerous.” His
hand tightened on the wheel. “Do you know how many hitchhikers disappear
every—”
    “No, but again,
desperation.” He wanted to lecture her? “I could have stolen a car from the
ranch, but that would have led to more police involvement. As it was, I ran
more miles than I’ve ever run in marathons.”
    “Okay.” He held
his hands up in surrender. “As long as you never do it again.”
    She drew an X over
her heart with her finger. “Promise.”
    “Yeah, right.” He
let out a humorless laugh. “So, now I have questions.”
    Mina picked up her
cup of tea, holding it in both hands, drawing warmth into her bloodstream and
strength into her spirit. “Shoot.”
    He tapped the grip
of his gun. “Don’t tempt me.”
    ****
    Rex asked his
questions, and Mina answered, sounding honest, but something just wasn’t adding
up. He couldn’t get a fix on what, though, so he started asking the same
questions in different ways, hoping to get a glimpse of something shifting. She
stayed true to her original statement.
    He plugged in his
phone to charge it, and talked into it, recording a few things that sat heavy on
his mind. He was dead tired, and didn’t trust that he’d remember everything
once he got to Wild Oak.
    The sound of her
breathing reached him, slow and steady, and he glanced over to see her asleep.
Crazy woman. She’d risked her life to get away, then decided to trust him.
Feeling the incredible weight of that responsibility, he grudgingly
acknowledged she’d probably done the only thing she could have, in her
desperate state. There was no way he’d let her get hurt on his watch.
    He went over the
things she’d said happened five nights ago. There’d been no reports of a murder
or even a shooting in the area of the school. No unidentified bodies had shown
up, either. Whoever had done this had taken the evidence with them.
    An hour later,
when he finally pulled onto the gravel driveway to the ranch, he stopped and
waited to see if any vehicles passed by. The rising sun tinted the eastern sky
orange. He missed this place. He hadn’t counted on how much. But his job kept
him in the city, for now. Once he had enough experience in this position, he’d try
for a job closer to the ranch. It wouldn’t be as a big-city detective, but that
would be just fine with him.
    After all the
things he’d seen go down, and after hearing what Mina said she had witnessed, a
quieter, less-intense job was looking better and better.
    After five minutes
with no activity on the road, he drove along the quarter-mile stretch toward
the ranch building. Fences bordered both sides, and here and there, the cattle
grazed on the fresh spring grass. The urge to jump on a horse and ride out
across the acres of land nearly sidelined him.
    At the end of the
driveway, the old two-story white house stood strong, but looked like it needed
paint. He’d have to see to that this summer.
    Lower in the
valley, the creek cut a winding path, and the buildings and barns looked
deserted. They hadn’t had a foreman here in over a decade. One of the