For the first time since Kellan, Amy, and Jenna entered the room, he looked directly at her. “We’re doing this my way, Ms. Sorentino. You’re getting the guard. I’ll be in touch.”

Turning on his heel, he pushed out the door.

“I think a guard’s a good idea,” Jenna said.

Rachel chortled. “If that quack of a doctor had cleared me to go home, we wouldn’t even be discussing it.”

Amy stood at the foot of her bed, her arms on her hips, grinning sagely at her. “Not all doctors are quacks.”

“Glorified mechanics, every last one of them,” she countered. “They listen to the rattle in your engine, make assumptions about the diagnosis, replace a screw or a belt, and overcharge you for the honor of their service.”

Jenna frowned and tightened her grip on Rachel’s forearm. “You’re not thinking of escaping while the guard’s looking the other way, are you?”

Right. Like Rachel was entertaining the notion of pulling her IV out and sneaking off in the dead of night in nothing but her hospital gown.

“Tempting as that idea is, I think I’ll concede the point to the sheriff.” She couldn’t bring herself to call him Vaughn in front of her family, afraid a hint of their intimacy would seep into her tone.

Jenna blew her nose. “What happened out there in the Parillas Valley? How did you end up in a shootout against four men?”

Rachel rubbed her face. What could she say to make her sisters understand? Vaughn hadn’t mentioned the graffiti, so Rachel wasn’t sure if she was at liberty to. To complicate it further, her sisters didn’t know about the other graffiti she found around the ranch, or the other vandals she’d successfully scared off with warning shots. They’d probably find out soon enough, and when they did, they’d probably give her hell for not telling them. But she was too bone-weary to get into a dust-up over it now.

“Vau—” She bit her lip and started again. “Sheriff Cooper told me not to talk to anyone about the details of the shootout. I don’t know if he suggested that for our protection or for the good of the investigation. Let’s just say, when I shot those men, they had it coming.”

“Why? What did they do? You’re scaring me,” Amy said.

Geez, Rachel needed to stop flapping her lips. All this talking in obscurities and half-truths was making her head spin. “Nothing to be scared about. I’m sure the sheriff deputies will find the other suspects soon. Everything’s going to be fine.”

A nurse bustled past Jenna and Amy, a pink tray balanced on her hand with three paper cups. Meds, Rachel hoped. She sat up as much as she could. Her sisters scooted out of the way. As if she were a waitress, the nurse held the tray out and described the pills in each cup like they were dessert options at a restaurant. Rachel downed the ulcer med first, followed by the horse-pill—sized antibiotic.

She tried to turn down the pain med—she’d had enough of feeling like an idiot for one afternoon—but Jenna and Amy’s protestations were loud and impassioned. When Amy threatened to hold vigil at her bedside until she took the pill, Rachel caved. She loved her sisters, but she was ready for some peace and quiet.

The nurse left after checking Rachel’s IV.

“What happened to Lincoln?” Jenna asked. “Did he bolt when the men shot you? Should we send the farmhands out looking for him tonight?”

She couldn’t shield her sisters from the painful truth of Lincoln’s fate forever, or herself for that matter. She picked at a corner of the tissue box. “He was hit by a bullet.” Her throat tightened up. No way in hell was she going to cry in front of her sisters, but it hurt so badly, the knowledge that she’d lost her closest friend. “I had to . . .” Her eyes pricked with moisture. She shoved her tongue against her cheek and held her breath, fighting the grief.

“You had to put him down,” Amy finished quietly.

“Yeah.”

Jenna leaned over and gathered Rachel in a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry.”

Rachel patted her back and felt Amy on her other side, her arms around them both.

Rachel hugged them as much as her waning strength allowed. She wasn’t real good at expressing it in words, but her family meant more to her than anything in the world. More than the farm, more than her own happiness.

She’d dedicated her life to sheltering her sisters from one calamity after another, worked her fingers to the bone to keep the ranch running from the time she could get herself onto a horse, and filled the role of their parent when their mom and dad fell short. Even when all she wanted to do was retreat into herself, she stuck it out for them.

There was little she could do to shelter them from the mess she’d caused today.

A sudden pang of suffocation coursed through her. “I need time alone.”

Jenna and Amy pulled away, looking hurt. Shit. She never could seem to say the right thing to them. Sometimes their feelings were as fragile as tissue paper. “I’m sorry,” she amended. “I just—my arm hurts, and I’m tired.”

“Come on, Amy, Jenna. Let her get some rest,” Kellan said.

Jenna and Amy nodded. They flittered around the room, smoothing her blanket, refilling her water glass, and asking her a zillion questions about whether or not she wanted the television on or the blinds closed or extra pillows. Rachel worked hard to be patient, but the feeling of suffocation wouldn’t abate.

Kellan must’ve sensed her growing agitation because he spread his arms wide and herded her sisters toward the door.

“We’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Amy called over her shoulder as Kellan shuffled her into the hallway.

“Can’t wait,” Rachel called with a wave.

As soon as she was alone, she took a breath, then swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her whole body ached, but she pushed through it, knowing she had only a small window of time before the pain med kicked in and she lost her ability to form a coherent thought.

Dragging her IV, she padded into the bathroom and flipped on the light. The mirror was cruel. She looked like she’d spent the past year living in a forest. Dirt was everywhere, in the creases of her earlobes, coating her scalp, stuck in her teeth, and lodged in wrinkles on her face she didn’t even know she had.

With a groan, she rinsed her mouth out, then grabbed a handful of paper towels for a quick wash that turned into a long wash. She kept scrubbing until she felt halfway human again. Once done, she braced her hands against the sink and stared at her reflection.

Time to face up to the possibility that she’d lost more in the Parillas Valley than her beloved horse. She’d always prided herself on her ability to circumvent gossip, being neither the fodder nor the circulator. She kept to herself, which was exactly how she wanted to live. But Wallace Meyer Jr. had stripped her of her solitary peace. He and his reckless friends. She wasn’t sure she could survive the exposure the shootout would bring.

Lincoln was dead, her peace had been compromised, and for what? For Wallace Jr. and his buddies to send a message that she and her sisters weren’t wanted in town? She’d assumed the vandalism had been Catcher Creek protesters of their dude ranch, but the Meyer family lived in Tucumcari, not Catcher Creek. What did Wallace Jr. care if she opened a dude ranch?

A spinning started in her head. The drug kicking in. Squinting at her reflection, she was struck with the panicky feeling there was something she knew but couldn’t remember, some answer beyond her grasp. She reached into her head for the thought, but it danced out of range.

Succumbing to the pull of the medication, she shuffled from the bathroom, tugged the privacy curtain closed, and sank into bed with a grunt. At the table near her head was the phone. She reached over with her bad arm, sucking in a tight breath, working to ignore the pain. Get used to it, she warned herself. Tomorrow, no more meds. She needed a clear mind if she was going to solve her problems.

She lifted Vaughn’s business card and read his name. With her fingertip, she traced the outline of his badge on the paper until the image blurred in her vision. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life, but it was just her horrible luck that the two worst ones had collided right before her eyes and she’d been helpless to prevent it. She’d shot the son of a powerful person, and now, to salvage her future, she’d have to rely on the man who’d ripped her heart to shreds and kept coming back to poke at the wound.

She dropped the card on her chest and closed her eyes, praying for a dreamless sleep. But the only image she saw was Vaughn. 

Chapter Three

With his gourd-shaped figure, bald head, and whiskers, Wallace Meyer reminded Vaughn of the walruses at the San Antonio Sea World he’d seen while on vacation as a kid with his parents and younger sisters. As disarming as Meyer’s appearance was, Vaughn had run charity half marathons with Meyer over the years and knew the secret strength of his lumpy body. He’d waged political battles against the man, and therefore knew the intellect behind the whiskers and bulge of chew in his cheek. He knew the smug superiority hidden behind the genial eyes and ruddy complexion.

Meyer’s shiny scalp was immediately obvious in the hospital waiting room. Next to him sat the tightly permed blond curls of his wife’s head. Vaughn stood in the elevator hallway, his eyes on Meyer, as he reconstructed the armor of ego Rachel had punched a hole through. He smoothed a hand over his tie and swallowed repeatedly until the tingling craving for cigarettes dissipated from his throat.

He’d given up smoking cold turkey the day Rachel broke it off with him a year ago last February, to punish himself for ruining everything. It had seemed like a fit plan at the time, but as it stood now, he only craved a smoke when he had Rachel on the brain—a testament to how his dual addictions had become fused in his psyche. Pathetic, how a four-week affair a year and a half ago had screwed him up so royally.