Take this, and I’ll send these people on their way.”
She tensed visibly and then, a moment later, nodded.
“I—I’ll do that,” Nancy Rayford said, her voice small as a child’s as she pressed the pill to her lips and swallowed with a sip of water. “And then, I might— I think I may go up and lie down for a bit. I’m not— I’m feeling a little—”
“Go on ahead, Mama. I’ll be up in a minute to check on both of you. And I’ll look after Eden, so there’s no need to worry.”
Bending his powerful frame, he helped the fragile woman to her feet. As soon as she was standing, she murmured to Jessie, “Forgive me,” with a plea in her eyes before she started up the stairs.
“Just her boyfriend’s name,” Jessie called after her, caring far less about this stranger’s inexplicable desire for secrecy than her promise to her mother. “Please, if you can tell me that much, I’ll be on my way.”
Zach Rayford narrowed his eyes. “It’s time for you people to leave. Now.”
Still looking at Jessie, Mrs. Rayford shook her head. “I—I’m not sure I can—”
“You don’t have to answer her.” Laserlike in its intensity, Zach’s glare flew from Jessie’s face to Henry’s, where he quickly did a double take. “What the hell? Is that a camera you’re hiding? You people are filming us? Right here in our home?”
He stalked toward Henry, saying, “Give me that right now, you little—”
Scrambling backward, Henry twisted in an attempt to keep the mini-cam out of reach, but the rancher wrested it from his hands before the older man could do anything about it.
“Wait!” Jessie said, fearing the expensive camera would be damaged. And fearing even more that her foolish attempt to appease her boss had cost her her only real chance at finding Haley.
Rayford stopped, a mirthless grin spreading across his handsome face as his gaze swung from her to Henry. “Now that I have your attention,” he said, “maybe I can get some answers. First of all, you’re going to tell me right this minute, who are you?”
He nodded toward the red-faced cameraman, who was rubbing his neck and darting glances toward the door. It didn’t take a mind reader to see that he was thinking about bolting before the rancher’s big hands found him, too.
“Henry Kucharski,” he finally murmured, shoving his own hands into the pockets of his jacket. “And I’ll need that camera back, or I’m a dead man when I get back to Dallas.”
Ignoring him, Zach looked to Jessie. “And now you,” he ordered, “the woman with the questions.”
“As I’ve told your mother,” she said, her voice tight with anger, “my name is Jessie Layton, and I’m looking for a former tenant of yours—”
“A tenant? You think we’re running some sort of a boardinghouse here?” He glanced toward his mother, who lingered on the staircase, gaping at them as she clutched the railing for dear life.
She nodded, desperately, or so it seemed to Jessie. “Back before your brother...” Mrs. Rayford explained to her son. “While you were still away, I let Frankie McFarland and his girlfriend—you remember Frankie, don’t you?—he grew up right here in Rusted Spur—talk me into renting them the old bunkhouse on the East Two Hundred.”
Jessie threw up her hands in exasperation. “If you’d only given me that name when I asked you on the phone, I wouldn’t have had to come all the way here in the first place!”
Paying no heed to her outburst, Zach stared at his mother. “That old place?” He shook his head. “But no one’s lived there in years. It was falling apart.”
“At the time, they seemed like such a nice young couple. Down on their luck, that’s all.”
“From what I remember about Frank McFarland,” Zach said grimly, “there was never one nice thing about him.”
“I thought he’d changed,” his mother said, “but I was wrong. They disappeared six months back, without doing any of the repairs they promised in exchange for cheaper rent—or paying, either, for that matter.”
Turning to look at Jessie, Zach said, “So you’re looking for this woman, right? This deadbeat with the loser boyfriend really is your sister?”
“She’s my twin, and she’s missing,” Jessie shot back, her face heating to hear this glorified cowboy running down the sister with whom she’d shared a womb—a sister who had shared her every day and every thought for the first sixteen years of their lives. No matter how embarrassed she felt to be judged by Haley’s bad behavior, it came as second nature to defend her. “And for the record, I offered to pay your mother whatever Haley owed.”
Narrowing his eyes, he glared at Henry once more. “If you’re just here to find your sister, why’d you bring a cameraman? Tell me you’re not some damned reporter—”
She pulled a card out of her purse and admitted, “Jessica Layton, Dallas Metro Update, Channel 37. But I’m really here to find my sister, for my mother’s sake.”
“I don’t buy that for a second. You’re here for some sleazy story. Here to make my mother look bad somehow,” he accused as he fumbled with the camera’s buttons. “How do I— Where’s the release on this thing, before I have to tear it apart? There’s a memory card in here, right?”
“Don’t you touch that,” Henry managed, but, thoroughly intimidated, he sounded more apologetic than outraged.
Finding the right lever, Rayford ejected the memory card and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.
“No, please. I don’t—” Jessie shook her head. “Forget that. You can keep it. Just— I need to ask your mother a few more questions. Please.”
“What I need,” he said as he jammed the mini-cam back at Henry, “is for the two of you to get the hell out of my house and off my property before I call the sheriff—or go get my gun.”
Chapter 2
Zach was gratified to see the little cameraman scuttling out the door without a moment’s hesitation.
But the slim, green-eyed woman didn’t move a muscle as she stared him down. “For the record,” she challenged, the wind from the open door whipping her long, red-gold hair around her, “you’re threatening to shoot us?”
Though he’d like nothing more than to answer, Hell, yes, he hesitated for a heartbeat, remembering reporters and their underhanded ways. Innocent as this Jessica Layton appeared, with her tangled waves and a smattering of girl-next-door freckles, there was a stubborn set to her delicate jaw that promised trouble if he wasn’t careful. For all he knew, she had a digital recorder hidden on her and would take his bluff to the law if he were stupid enough to threaten her. Not that Sheriff Canter would likely do anything but escort this troublemaking outsider to the county line, but Zach didn’t need the aggravation.
And he didn’t need her raising more questions about his mother’s strange behavior. Why hadn’t she simply told the reporter what little she knew about Layton’s sister and her boyfriend instead of acting as if there was something to hide? And why had she lied to him about the reporter and her cameraman being lost in the storm and looking for directions?
“I’m not going to shoot you,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “But I promise you, I’ll pick you up like a bawling calf and carry you straight back to your car if you don’t leave.”
To her credit—and his irritation—Jessica Layton didn’t bat an eye at the threat.
“So you’re sending me back out into this storm?” she asked.
“And straight down the road to Dallas, if I have anything to say about it,”