Page 64 of Deadly Evidence
In a town where people looked up at a tumbleweed rolling down the main street, the bus was always cause for interest...and every pair of eyes was on them both.
“I’ve been worried about you.” She turned on her heel and headed for the pickup she’d parked a few yards away. “How come you never let us know how you were?”
“It wasn’t a big deal—just a minor scratch.” His tone was level, all business—a subtle reminder that he was here because of his job and nothing more.
“So what took so long?”
“Business.”
He strolled along as if he hadn’t left here with a bullet in his arm that could have killed him, had the trajectory been just a little different. Oblivious to the fact that she’d worried about him night and day.
She shot a dark look at him over her shoulder. If he wanted to play Mr. Mysterious Tough Guy, so be it.
He caught up with her at the door of her truck. “Look—I had to follow up on some leads, or I would have come back sooner.”
His grin faded when she met his gaze, and she saw that though his words were casual, there were other, deeper emotions lurking between the surface.So you aren’t so nonchalant as you’d like to seem.
“I’m sorry,” he added quietly.
Well,therewere a couple of words she hadn’t heard a man say in a good long while.
She waited until they were both in the truck and on the highway before cutting a quick glance in his direction. “What about your injury?”
“Nothing much to tell. I went to the ER in El Paso and had the bullet removed. I’ll be on antibiotics for another ten days.”
“So it didn’t hit the bone or major vessels or nerves, then?”
“Nope. I was blessed this time around. Luis tells me he has been checking in with you every day. No further activity?”
“Nothing within sight of the house,” she said dryly. “But then, not many of the drug runners stop at the back door to say hello.”
“Anything new on your cattle?”
“No word on the stolen cattle, but Dante and I dismantled the chutes in the more distant pastures.” She flexed her hands against the steering wheel, working at the stiffness and blisters.
Her frustration was much harder to deal with. “Those two chutes and pens were a good fifty years old and built like Fort Knox—railroad tie posts and two-inch oak—but there’s no sense in making life easy for thieves. Now it’ll be a little harder for them to load up my cattle.”
Brady shifted into the corner of the bench seat so he could face her. “You figure out how many are gone?”
“Dante and I scoured the brush in every ravine we could find. We found seventy-two head of steers out there. I figure they got thirty. Five shy of a full load—which makes me wonder if they got scared off after seeing someone out on the ranch road.”
“That could have been around the time that Dante took Mia to the bus in town, and then came home with her later in the evening.”
“That’s what I figured, but they say they didn’t see anything. Of course, they might have been arguing too much to notice. Dante wasn’t all that happy about her staying longer.”
The sun had long since slipped beneath the horizon. She glanced in the rearview mirror. Behind them, maybe a mile back, she could see the dim form of another vehicle keeping pace with hers.
“That’s odd,” she said after glancing in the mirror again. “Most everyone here drives crazy fast on this highway—eighty to eighty-five, easy. I’m just going seventy.”
“He’s been following us since we left town.” Brady frowned as he looked at the side mirror on the truck. “Did you see anyone there who lives out this way?”
Anna mentally reviewed the people standing along the street in town and the scattering of familiar pickups parked near the cantina. “Not that I can think of...after my ranch, it’s another sixty miles to Brush Flats Ranch and then over a hundred to Coronado—the next town with any sort of trade. Not many people use this highway.”
“Slow down.”
“You’re kidding.” She shook her head. “If this is someone I don’t want to meet, I don’t want to make iteasierfor him.”
“Take a left.”
