Page 6 of Texas-Sized Secrets

She sat there, her jaw firmed, her lips thinning into a straight line. “In case you haven’t gotten the hint, this is the reason why I hired you. Tomorrow we come up with a plan to stop these thieves. Do you still want the job?”

More than ever. The challenge excited him, almost as much as his new boss. “Yes.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She opened the door, climbed down from the truck and threw up in the ditch.

Chapter Three

“Just like you said, the fences were cut and there were tire tracks in the dirt by the road. Other than that, we didn’t find any other evidence.” Sheriff Parker Lee stood with his hat still firmly planted on his head, despite being indoors. A smug look barely hid beneath the surface of his painted-on concern.

Mona’s stomach burbled, the acid churning nonstop since Parker Lee stepped through her door. She swore she’d never let him set foot on her property in her lifetime. But then tough times called for compromises. “You can’t tell me you’re still clueless. That’s three hits in the past month.” Mona stopped midway across the living room to face the one man she hated more than any other. “What’s it gonna take to get you to do something about this problem?”

The sheriff stepped forward and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Now, Mona, if you’d just let me take care of you like I promised, none of this would be happening.”

Her anger turned to deep dark rage. If her eyes could shoot venom, she’d have poisoned Parker Lee with one look. “Get your hands off me.”

“Mona…” His fingers tightened on her arms until they hurt.

Mona cocked her knee, ready to plant it square in his groin.

“The lady told you to get your hands off her.” Reed pushed through the screen door and entered the room. He stood with his feet braced apart, his cowboy hat in one hand.

“Bryson.” Sheriff Lee’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t expect you to be out here. I thought you headed back to Chicago.”

“Hardly.”

Mona shot a look at Reed. She’d hired him on the spot without so much as an interview. She knew nothing else about this man. “He’s with me.”

“You do know Bryson here was a deputy for all of five months before I fired him. Can’t have a deputy who refuses to follow orders.” Lee’s brows rose. “Ain’t that right?”

Reed’s lips thinned, but he refused to answer, although his gaze remained on Sheriff Lee.

Mona liked him all the more for not rising to Parker Lee’s bait. She couldn’t claim the same amount of restraint. Too often she’d come close to scratching the man’s eyes out. A purely female reaction to a lying, deceiving man. Thank God she was over him.

“Mona? What’s goin’ on here?” A booming voice sounded outside on the porch before her uncle Arty pushed through the doorway. “What’s the sheriff doin’ here?”

Her two ranch hands, Dusty Gaither and Jesse Lopez, followed him in.

“Pardon, Miss Mona,” Jesse said. “He insisted on coming in.”

Oh great. Now they could have one happy hoedown. The dry cereal she’d forced herself to eat that morning threatened to come up. “Someone made off with thirty head of Rancho Linda cattle.”

“Told your daddy to leave this place to me. Ain’t right to saddle a girl with this much responsibility.”

Mona’s head hurt and she didn’t want to take anything for the pain, but the pain was making her stomach act up.

Rosa Garcia, her housekeeper and surrogate mother, appeared by her side with a tray of lemonade and crackers. “Eat this,” she whispered.

The thought of putting anything past her lips made her even more nauseous, but if she didn’t, she’d be sick in front of all three men. Mona lifted a cracker and a glass of lemonade. “Thank you.”

“I’ve tried to tell her the same. She needs a man around here.” The sheriff’s chest puffed out as if to say he was the one who should fill that role.

Mona swallowed her cracker in two bites, choking on what Parker Lee implied. “I can manage the ranch on my own.”

Uncle Arty snorted. “Do you call losing thirty cattle managing? How many did you lose last week? Twenty more? You can’t manage a six-thousand-acre ranch with just a few Mexicans. For all you know, they’re the ones stealing from you.”

Mona set her glass on the table with a thump. “Watch it, Uncle. You’re forgetting I’m half Mexican.” She marched across the room and stood toe-to-toe with the man. “You may not have liked it that my father married a Mexican, but he loved my mother and she loved him. You should be so lucky to have that kind of relationship.”

Her uncle didn’t back down a bit. “What do you know? She died when you were little. I still think my brother only married her to spite our father.”

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