Ashley was out cold by the time Logan pulled into park headquarters in Panther Junction. She didn’t even stir as he turned off the engine. He sat watching her for a moment under one of the few motion-activated lights in the parking lot.
Something about her seemed familiar... Maybe her mannerisms. Or the shape of her eyes. Or the way she spoke. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, or how he could possibly have met her before.
How had she ended up in the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River? Wearing a business suit, no less. She had been barefoot all night, so he could only guess she’d lost her shoes in the river. Judging by the outfit, he assumed they would have been heels, the worst possible choice for a trip to the desert.
And the gun. Why the gun? The way Ashley had pulled it out and trained it on him was evidence enough she knew about weapons. Those actions came from physical memory, created by years of experience.
What worried him most was that incident with the truck. Her head injury and the fall into the river could have been an accident. The unidentified set of tracks along the river’s edge might have been coincidence. But the truck? No doubts there. The driver had intended to run them off the road. If that other vehicle hadn’t scared them off, he hated to think what might’ve happened. And since Terlingua police hadn’t been able to find anything, there were no suspects to question.
What kind of trouble was Ashley in?
Even though Big Bend shared several hundred miles of border with Mexico, its vast, empty deserts and rugged mountains prevented far more criminal activity than the rangers could. More visitors got into trouble from dehydration than anything else. In fact, Logan couldn’t even remember the last attempted homicide.
He frowned. The answers appeared to be locked away in that woman’s mind, inaccessible. Maybe the chief ranger and the park superintendent would have better success.
“Ashley—” he nudged her shoulder “—we’re here.”
She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and then stumbled blearily beside him to the park office, waiting as he unlocked the door. By now it was after ten o’clock at night and the place was dark and empty inside. Logan flipped on a light and left Ashley in a chair near the receptionist’s desk while he telephoned Chief Ranger Ed Chambers and Superintendent Dick Barclay.
Housing for the staff assigned to Panther Junction was a short walk from headquarters, so they only waited a few minutes before the others arrived.
Ed Chambers stepped in first. Tall, with graying hair and a face lined from years working outside, the chief looked like a quintessential career ranger. And he was exceptionally good at what he did—Logan could only hope that one day his career record would be half as accomplished as Ed’s. Until then, he was grateful to have his mentorship, friendship and guidance.
The superintendent, on the other hand, stuck out like a sore thumb. He had only been stationed at Big Bend for the past six months and Logan expected him to throw in the towel any day now. But Dr. Barclay—as he insisted on being called—still kept showing up every day to make Logan’s life a little more difficult.
“Dr. Barclay. Ed,” Logan greeted them. “Here’s the woman I told you about.”
To Logan’s surprise the superintendent strode over to Ashley and extended his hand. “Ms. Watson, I’m so sorry to hear you were involved in an accident.”
Ashley blinked up at him like a pale-faced snowy owl. “You...you’ve met me?” she stammered.
Barclay turned surprised eyes on Logan, as if all the confusion was his fault. “Excuse us, Ms. Watson. We’ll be right back.”
Logan and Ed followed him across the room, where the superintendent dropped his voice to a whisper. “Everett, what happened to her?”
He shrugged. “Head trauma, concussion, memory loss. We’re not sure of the full extent.” He went on to explain how he had found her beside the river. “I brought her here because she was armed without a permit. And obviously I couldn’t drop her off at a motel somewhere.”
Ed clapped him on the shoulder, a glint in his eyes. “You did the right thing, bringing her here.”
Logan couldn’t shake the feeling that Ed was laughing at his expense. He pressed his lips together, waiting for the punchline. “What? What is it?”
“She’s a new ranger, Everett,” Barclay snapped. “She arrived from El Paso this afternoon.”
“A new r-ranger?” he spluttered. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Unique case. This hire didn’t go through the normal channels—ordered by someone at the Department of the Interior. You don’t need to know all the details.”
“So, what about the gun?” He looked from Ed to Barclay. “No permit. She wasn’t in uniform—”
“It’s not important.” Barclay cut him off with a shake of his head. He held out his hand expectantly toward Logan, who pulled Ashley’s gun from his belt and gave it to the superintendent. “I’ll talk to her about it. Everett, see to it she gets some rest and, when she’s recovered, you can begin her training.”
A pit opened in his stomach. “But surely I’m not the right one for that job. What about Rogers or Evanston?”
“You’re the only one for the job right now, because you’re the one she knows. Now quit arguing.”
“Of course, sir.” He bit his tongue as the superintendent walked back to Ashley.
Why him? He turned to Ed for help. Of all people, Ed knew what he’d gone through. How he wasn’t ready to train anyone yet, not after the way he had failed the last ranger he’d trained. It had only been three months.
And Sam Thompson had been a natural outdoorsman in top physical condition. He had absorbed everything Logan had taught him like a sponge taking in water. Or so Logan had thought until the day the search-and-rescue team had found what was left of Sam’s body baking in the June sun, a half mile off the Dodson Trail. Cause of death?
Dehydration.
So much for being a good instructor.
The worst part? That place in his gut, where intuition lived, had told him something wasn’t right, that Sam was taking too long on his patrol. It was Sam’s first time on the high Chisos trails alone, and Logan had almost called in a search team that afternoon when it grew late.
But he had talked himself out of it. Sam is a good ranger. He can take care of himself. He’ll be back anytime now.
By the time the SAR team was mobilized the next day, it was too late.
Somehow, Sam had gotten lost and ended up down Juniper Canyon and onto the Outer Rim in the open desert. Death by dehydration had probably come within a matter of hours. The fine line between life and death was even thinner when summer arrived in the desert.
Ed clapped him on the shoulder in his annoyingly brisk and cheerful way. “It’s time to get back out there, Logan. You’re good at this job and you’ve been blaming yourself way too long. Sam’s death wasn’t your fault.”
“Ed...” He ran a hand through his hair. “If I couldn’t keep him alive, with all his experience, how am I going to protect her?” He gestured to Ashley, her disheveled business suit glaringly out of place in the bright lights of headquarters.
“Protect her?” Ed’s brows pinched together. “She’s a law-enforcement ranger. You don’t have to protect her.”
Wrong word. Why had he said that? Probably because she looked so vulnerable, helpless even, sitting over there talking to the superintendent.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean ‘protect.’ Of course she can take care of herself. I meant... It’s the desert here and...” His voice trailed away as he struggled to decide exactly what he did mean.
“It’s