The Christmas Target Read online

  The cowboy who’d rescued her grabbed her shoulders and swiveled her to face him. He was so tall, she found herself confronting the broad expanse of his chest.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Anger tainted the rich smoothness of his voice. “Are you deaf? Or just suicidal?”

  Before she could reply, he turned from her and shouted across the lobby, “Nobody move or touch anything until I give the okay.”

  Still stinging from his rebuke, Jessica felt a flush of embarrassment mixed with irritation rising to her cheeks. Prepared to explain her behavior, she lifted her gaze from the open collar of his denim shirt to the man’s face. Her excuse died on her lips, and her knees threatened to go weak again.

  The cowboy mystique was alive and well in Swenson, Montana.

  Gazing down from a lofty height of well over six foot four with a body as big and sturdy as a Humvee and eyes as deep brown as the mineral-stained waters of the Everglades, the intriguing man took her breath away. His face was too rugged to call handsome with its square jaw and high cheekbones, but attractive enough to make her pulse stutter. At the corners of his eyes and mouth, fine laugh lines crinkled skin as warm and golden as South Beach sands, and his wide, appealing mouth and strong chin had a determined set.

  What was the matter with her?

  She was gawking at her rescuer like a moonstruck teenager, expecting to hear the opening strains from The Magnificent Seven any second. Her close brush with death had addled her brain.

  Hands that felt strong enough to snap her in two shook her gently, and his eyes filled with alarm. “Hell’s bells, lady, don’t faint on me.”

  His plea broke the spell, and she shook off his grasp. “I’ve never fainted in my life,” she insisted with righteous indignation.

  “There’s always a first time.”

  Before she could protest further, he scooped her into his arms.

  “Put me down. I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

  “No, you’re not. And you’re in no position to be giving orders.”

  Surprise took her breath away, stifling any more protests. He carried her across the lobby into Hayes’s empty office and deposited her on a sofa.

  “I’m okay—” She struggled to rise, but he pushed her back onto the sofa with a firm hand.

  “Stay put.” His tone left no room for argument. He pivoted on his heel and headed toward the lobby.

  “Wait!”

  He turned at her call, and she was struck again by the man’s magnetic charm. Accustomed to addressing conference rooms filled with international captains of industry, Jessica found herself suddenly tongue-tied in front of one incredibly attractive cowboy.

  His wide mouth lifted in a slow, bone-melting grin, and amusement lit his eyes at her extended silence. “Well?”

  “I… Thank you. You saved my life.”

  “Just doing my job.” With a look that made her stomach flip-flop, he touched his fingers to the brim of his hat and stepped out the door.

  Jessica propped herself on her elbows and watched him stride into the lobby, where the other customers and tellers had gathered. As her heartbeat returned to normal after revving at the stranger’s sexy smile, her previous irritation at her current assignment rose to new heights. She hadn’t been in Montana more than a few hours, and already she’d been shot at and man-handled. Max would have to cough up more than three weeks in St. Thomas to compensate for this.

  She struggled upright, swung her feet to the floor and started to stand, but her knees wouldn’t cooperate. More shaken by her close brush with death than she cared to admit, she collapsed onto the sofa with a soft grunt.

  She was where she’d intended to be, in John Hayes’s office. She might as well wait.

  ROSS MCGARRETT left the woman in John Hayes’s office and returned to the lobby. He was a man slow to anger, but at this moment he felt like Mount St. Helens ready to blow. The robber had not only come within a hairbreadth of killing a young woman, he had stolen hardworking people’s money and scared a sweet old lady half to death.

  Holding his temper in check, Ross waded into the midst of the frightened group in the bank’s lobby and strode straight to the information desk where Miss Minnie Perkins was trembling like a leaf in a gale-force wind.

  With the bank filled with people, he’d decided against using the gun in the holster at the small of his back to confront the fake Santa. Better to let the robber get away than to have someone killed. His decision, he realized, had been the right one when the man proved so trigger-happy. Ross’s next instinct had been to follow the robber into the street. Then Josh Greenlea, the deputy on duty, had roared by in hot pursuit in his cruiser. With Josh on the felon’s tail, Ross had decided to remain with the rattled customers and secure the crime scene until the technicians arrived.

  Kneeling on one knee by the information desk, Ross grasped the old woman’s cold hands. “You okay, Miss Minnie?”

  All the color had drained from her weathered face. “I need my pills.”

  Ross opened her oversize handbag and dug out the bottle of nitroglycerin from among the jumble of wadded Kleenex and grocery coupons. He popped the cap and dumped one pill into her shaking hand, then thought better of that and gripped it between his fingers. “Open wide and lift your tongue.”

  Like a baby bird, Minnie did as he asked, and he tucked the pill beneath her tongue. “Want someone to drive you to the hospital?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll be fine now.”

  Renewed anger at the robber surged through Ross. If he lived to be a thousand, he’d never understand people who felt that laws didn’t apply to them. As a young boy, Ross had been taught by his grandfather that law was the glue that held society together, and Ross’s reverence for the law had eventually led to his election as sheriff of Swenson County. He took his sworn duty seriously.

  And he took the breaking of the law within the county’s borders personally.

  Especially personal had been the murder of his wife, Kathy, last year….

  With an effort, he shoved aside that pain and the unsolved mystery. One crime at a time, he reminded himself and moved swiftly through the lobby, speaking to each witness, consoling the distraught customers and easing them away from any possible forensic evidence.

  The entire time, however, he found himself glancing into John Hayes’s office, unable to keep his eyes off the beautiful stranger who’d come so close to perishing from the shotgun’s blast. The floral fragrance of her shampoo, something tropical and exotic, still clung where his chin had brushed her sleek auburn hair when he’d yanked her from harm’s way. Her provocative scent stirred feelings he didn’t have time to deal with now.

  Concentrating on the business at hand, he realized the attractive woman in Hayes’s office had been one of two strangers in the bank that morning. The robber had been the other. His shot at her could have been a ploy intended to terrorize the others into submission. The probability that this petite and elegant woman was Santa’s accomplice was a stretch, but Ross had to check out every angle.

  “Everybody stay put till the Crime Scene Unit arrives,” he warned the others after a call to dispatch, who assured him the CSU was en route.

  Then he returned to Hayes’s office.

  At his approach, the woman leaped to her feet, all five foot three of her. She had seemed such a tiny submissive thing in his arms, but now she appeared ready to take on a wild grizzly five times her size. Her stylishly short coat and skirt revealed long, slender legs, and as he’d held her, he had registered the pleasant fact that she was deliciously rounded in all the right places. Her spunk as well as her appearance impressed him. No, spunk suggested too much heat. In spite of having come within inches of losing her life, the woman appeared cool and composed. Glacial was a better term.

  “I’m Sheriff—”

  “Where’s John Hayes?” she asked abruptly.

  Ross shrugged. “Probably taking a late lunch, but he’ll be back soon if he’s heard the news. M
ind if I ask what you’re doing here?”

  She cocked her head and observed him with defiant blue eyes, dark and deep as a mountain lake. “You said ‘sheriff.’ Am I under arrest?”

  “Should you be?”

  “I may be crazy for coming here and for not hearing the robber’s warning,” she said in a rueful tone, “but I haven’t done anything illegal.”

  “I’ll need your name and address.”

  She slid the tiny strap of a fine leather handbag off her shoulder, snapped open the gold clasp and removed a business card. “Everything you need to know is right there.”

  With interest, he scanned the card, printed on heavy, expensive stock. She was Jessica Landon with Rinehart and Associates, Financial Consultants, out of Miami. The card appeared authentic, but anyone with a computer and the right paper could print one. “You’re a long way from home.”

  Comprehension appeared to dawn suddenly in her eyes. “You don’t think I had anything to do with—”

  “Sheriff.” John Hayes, the bank’s manager, stepped into the office.

  “You expecting this lady?” Ross asked. “Ms. Landon from Miami?”

  John nodded. “We have an appointment.” He turned to Jessica. “Sorry, but I’ll have to postpone our meeting. Have you had lunch?”

  The woman looked ready to protest the delay, then seemed to think better of it. “Is there a restaurant nearby?”

  Ross nodded toward the opposite side of the street. “The café has great coffee. Good pies, too.”

  “I’m free to go?”

  Ross nodded again, irrationally wishing for an excuse to keep her around until his sense of duty kicked in.

  “Come back in an hour,” John suggested with a glance at Ross. “I imagine the sheriff will be through by then.”

  “That should do it,” Ross agreed, hoping the CSU would arrive promptly.

  Jessica Landon straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and strode out of the office and the bank as coolly as if someone almost killed her every day.

  TWO HOURS LATER, Jessica sat in the booth at the front of the café watching the controlled pandemonium at the bank across the street. Except for three rugged cowboy types, their weathered faces making their ages impossible to guess, one at the booth beside hers, the others at the counter, the restaurant was empty.

  During her vigil, she’d watched the arrival of the Crime Scene Unit van, the departure of the customers, the removal of the glass from the front walk and the covering of the window with plywood. Throughout all the activity, the tall, handsome sheriff had been a constant presence, supervising, observing, instructing, and obviously completely in charge.

  What struck Jessica most about the man, besides his distinctive good looks, was his apparent calm throughout the chaos. Nothing seemed to rattle him as he moved smoothly from task to task, person to person. He took the term laid-back to a whole new level. She could understand why the people of Swenson had elected him. He was without a doubt a good man to have around in a crisis. She just hoped he handled things quickly so she could meet with Hayes and get out of Dodge—or Swenson, as the case may be.

  “Change your mind, hon?” The waitress with a name tag identifying her as Madge reappeared at her elbow, shoved the mint she’d been sucking into the pouch of her cheek and refilled Jessica’s cup. “Want to order now?”

  Jessica had been nursing several mugs of decaf while she waited for Hayes to become available, obviously longer than he’d anticipated. At first, her close call had robbed her of her appetite, but she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and at three in the afternoon, hunger made her empty stomach ache.

  “I’ll try some pie. The sheriff recommended it.”

  The middle-aged waitress grinned and winked, exposing a lid caked with blue eye shadow. “You a friend of the sheriff?”

  “We met at the bank.” How else could Jessica describe her intimate encounter with the man who had saved her life and set her senses tingling?

  Madge made a clucking sound with her tongue. “What a hunk. He can park his boots under my bunk any day.”

  The bedroom image made Jessica flush with heat in the already stuffy room, but she wasn’t about to discuss one stranger’s attributes with another. “What kind of pie do you have?”

  Madge rattled off an impressive list, and Jessica selected chocolate cream. In moments, the waitress placed a huge wedge of pie topped with several inches of meringue in front of her and nodded toward the window. “Looks like they caught the crook.”

  Another cruiser had pulled up with a man in the back seat, apparently handcuffed, judging from his posture. The Santa suit was gone, but even from across the street, Jessica could recognize those cold, deadly eyes. The sheriff climbed into the passenger seat of the car, the deputy drove away and the Crime Scene Unit van followed.

  Within minutes, an Open sign appeared on the bank’s front door. Deserting her hardly touched pie, Jessica grabbed her coat, paid her bill and headed across the street.

  ANOTHER HOUR LATER, Jessica left the bank in an even fouler mood than when she’d first arrived. In spite of what Max had hinted, she’d hoped this assignment would be quick, a day or two at most auditing accounts, perusing records and then writing up her assessment of the ranch’s viability in the dubious comfort of her spartan hotel room.

  Max and Hayes had made other plans.

  All the paperwork she needed to complete her assignment was in the office of the Shooting Star Ranch, thirty-five miles outside of town. And Hayes had insisted that the trustees wanted a thorough inspection of the ranch, acreage, stock and buildings.

  “The family’s invited you to be their guest while you work,” Hayes had said. “That way you won’t have that long commute back and forth to the hotel and restaurants every day. The less you’re on the road this time of year, the better. Driving can be treacherous.”

  “Then I should see you in a few days,” Jessica said.

  Hayes looked surprised. “Oh, I doubt that. You should take your time, observe for yourself the assets of the ranch and how it works. Plus you have over a decade’s worth of accounts to evaluate. The trust insists on a complete evaluation of the property’s productivity. Only when the trustees are satisfied that all is as it should be will ownership be transferred.”

  “Rinehart and Associates are never anything but thorough,” Jessica said, wishing in this instance it wasn’t so. She’d never been so homesick for Miami.

  “Of course,” Hayes said soothingly. “That’s why the trustees selected you.”

  Climbing into her rental car with wet snowflakes plastering her cheeks, Jessica wished the trustees had picked another firm. She faced a thirty-five-mile drive in unfamiliar territory in increasing snow. Blessing the fact that her vehicle had snow tires, she pulled away from the curb, eased down the main street and took the turn Hayes had instructed.

  Thirty-five miles south on this road; hang a right at the Shooting Star gate. Seemed simple enough.

  Within minutes she was in deserted countryside where snow drifted against fences and turned rocky outcroppings and buttes into gigantic gnomes hovering in the cold. Working at maximum, the wipers barely kept the windshield clear enough for her to see the road ahead of her. The defroster on the rear window was minimally efficient. As much as she disliked the thought of being a houseguest among strangers, Jessica had to admit that not having to drive this far at least twice a day in this weather would be a relief. Not a single car had passed her coming from the opposite direction. The only vehicle she’d seen on the road was far behind her, headlights glaring and gaining fast. She guessed most of the natives had better sense than to risk driving in these conditions and cursed her own impatience. If she’d waited until morning, the snow might have ended.

  The car behind her was closing in on her bumper. Only a fool would drive so recklessly on these icy roads, she thought. The dark pickup loomed large in her rearview mirror.

  The truck swerved into the other lane, pulled alongside as if t
o pass, then slowed, keeping pace with her speed. She wondered if the driver was trying to signal her with some sort of message or warning, but she couldn’t see through the dark-tinted glass of the pickup’s passenger window.

  She slowed so he could pass, but the truck beside her slowed, too.

  Without warning and catching her totally off guard, the other vehicle lurched to the right and slammed into the side of her much smaller sedan.

  Jessica fought the wheel to keep her car on the pavement. Luck, not skill, kept it from spinning into a skid, and she sighed with relief as she regained control.

  The truck, however, remained alongside her. With what seemed like predetermined intent, it smashed into the side of her car again.

  In horrified disbelief, Jessica felt the sedan leave the road, airborne. With a sickening crunch of glass and metal, it plowed into a snowbank.

  The world turned briefly white when her airbag deployed, and her body slammed painfully against the restraints of her seat belt.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter Two

  Jessica, head throbbing, muscles stiff with cold, slowly regained consciousness. Moving gingerly, she tested her arms and legs. Nothing felt broken. She ran cold-numbed fingers over her body. No sign of bleeding or other injury. She was only bruised.

  And freezing to death.

  To her great relief, she discovered her door would open, and she climbed from the car. The sight that greeted her drove all further relief from her thoughts. The sedan had soared across a ditch and crashed into a wall of earth on the other side. Even if the car was drivable, she’d need a tow truck to extract it from its current resting place.

  She scanned the area, searching, with mixed emotions, for the vehicle that had hit her. She needed someone to save her from the cold, but the driver of the pickup definitely hadn’t had her welfare in mind. She should be glad he hadn’t returned to finish her off. Maybe he figured she’d perished in the crash, and if she hadn’t, the cold would kill her.