A Real Cowboy Read online

  Sammy eyed the horse warily. “I didn’t like riding that other horse so much.” He rubbed his stomach. “It hurt me.”

  “This won’t hurt,” Lucas promised. He grabbed Sammy by the waist and put him in the saddle. “Now I’m going to sit right behind you.” Lucas mounted Lucky but made sure Sammy had most of the saddle. He wrapped his arms around Sammy’s sides, taking no chances with his precious passenger.

  They rode silently until they reached the stables, where Nicolette was surrounded by Cassie, Nick and Dusty, who were obviously keeping her in place by bodily force. Cassie had her arms wrapped around Nicolette and Nick had a hand firmly on her shoulder. The two of them stepped back from her as Lucas rode in.

  Her sobs filled the air when she saw them and Sammy called to her. “I’m okay, Mom. Lucas saved me.”

  Lucas didn’t know if Nicolette would fall to the ground with relief. She looked so fragile, so broken, but she straightened her shoulders and rushed to where Lucas had halted Lucky.

  “Thank God,” she said as she reached up to help her son down. She dropped to her knees and hugged him tight, still weeping tears that Lucas knew were a mixture of both terror and relief.

  “Mom,” Sammy protested as he looked at the other cowboys and wiggled in her arms. “Mom, it’s okay. You can let me go now. I’m safe and sound.”

  Lucas dismounted at the same time Sammy managed to escape his mother’s hug. Nicolette got up from the ground and ran directly to Lucas and threw her arms around his neck.

  “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered over and over again against the hollow of his throat. With her plastered against him, he was acutely aware of every curve in her body, of the scent of her that threatened to erupt desire in him.

  He untangled her arms from around his neck and stepped back, feeling a little bit of Sammy’s embarrassment at her effusive gratefulness.

  “I called the police. Chief Bowie should be here anytime,” Dusty said.

  Lucas nodded. “Whoever took Sammy tossed him off the horse. It probably wouldn’t hurt to get Doc Washington out here to give Sammy a thorough check.”

  Dr. Eric Washington practiced in Bitterroot, but still clung to the old-fashioned notice that he practiced wherever patients needed him, and so he often made house calls around the area.

  “I’ll put a call into Doc and see if we can get him out here as soon as possible,” Nick replied. “He might want to check out Nicolette, too. She was like a rabid dog. It took all of us holding her back.”

  Nicolette’s cheeks grew pink. “Sorry, I was just so frantic.” She started to grab for Sammy again, but he danced away from her, obviously embarrassed by all the mommy love displayed in front of the other cowboys.

  “Why don’t you and Cassie take Sammy inside,” Lucas suggested. “We’ll wait out here for Chief Bowie to arrive.”

  Nicolette nodded, as if grateful to get her son into the house, where he would be safe from crazed horsemen or any other unexpected danger that might appear out of nowhere.

  When the two women and Sammy had disappeared into the house, Nick turned to Lucas. “Did you recognize the rider or the horse?” he asked.

  “The rider had on a ski mask. I can’t even tell you what color his hair was,” Lucas replied in frustration. “I didn’t recognize the horse, either. It was a big black beast that I’ve never seen before, but thankfully it was slower on its feet than my ride.”

  He stepped over to Lucky and stroked her nose. She nuzzled him in mutual affection. “I threatened to shoot him in the back and fired two shots to let him know I meant business, and that’s when he slowed down and threw Sammy off the horse.”

  “I guess we can now jump to the conclusion that the ladder against the house at Sammy’s bedroom window was there intentionally,” Dusty replied.

  Lucas’s stomach knotted with tension. What in the hell was going on here? Who would want to kidnap Sammy and why? “I just can’t believe that Lloyd would go to all this trouble over a glass of spilled milk. And I’ve never seen any of the men on the Humes ranch with that horse.”

  “We don’t really know that much about Nicolette. Maybe the danger to her son is something she brought to town when she arrived here,” Nick suggested.

  “Maybe,” Lucas replied dubiously. He thought he knew Nicolette. She’d shared her past with him. Had she left something out? Were there secrets in her past that endangered her son? Had she left New York City with her friend to escape somebody only to have the person follow her here?

  He was grateful when Chief Dillon Bowie arrived with several of his men. Lucas quickly filled them in on what had happened and that several of the other cowboys had given chase but had yet to return to the ranch.

  “We called in Doc Washington, who should be here anytime as well to check on Sammy,” Lucas said. “He seems to be fine, but he took a hard spill from the horse and I figure a checkup by the doctor wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I guess the next step is to go inside and see what Nicolette can tell us,” Dillon said. “I have a hard time believing somebody from Bitterroot would try to kidnap a kid. She’s got some difficult questions to answer.”

  Lucas followed Dillon into the house. He wanted to hear her answers, too. Somehow over the past couple of days he’d become emotionally invested in Nicolette and her son. He needed to find out if she had dark secrets that threatened her son...that might threaten everyone else on the ranch.

  Chapter 8

  Nicolette felt as if she would never be warm again. As she relived the sound of those pounding horse hooves, that horrifying moment when the rider had reached down, grabbed her son and ridden away, icy fear renewed itself over and over again inside her.

  What was going on? Why was somebody after her son? And who would make such a bold attempt to take him right from her side? This all felt like a nightmare and she couldn’t wake up. Sammy sat in the chair across from the sofa, his handheld video game in his hand.

  She didn’t want him out of her sight. Dear God, she’d been standing right next to him when he’d been carried away. If it hadn’t been for Lucas’s quick action, Sammy might have disappeared forever. And for what?

  She rubbed two fingers across the center of her forehead, where a killer headache attempted to bloom. She wanted to wrap Sammy in Bubble Wrap packaging and send him to some isolated island where she was certain he would be safe for the rest of his life.

  She wanted to wrap him in her arms and not let go until he was a full-grown man and could handle any danger that might find him.

  What on earth was happening here? Was Lloyd Green so evil he would do something like this? Over a glass of spilled milk? It just didn’t make any sense.

  When Chief Bowie walked in followed by Lucas, she sat up straighter and tried to pull herself together for whatever questions might come, questions she knew she had no answers for.

  “Rough day?” Chief Bowie asked, his gray eyes soft as he gazed at her.

  “That’s an understatement,” she replied. “Sammy, why don’t you take your game and go upstairs with Cassie so I can talk to Chief Bowie.” Although it was difficult to send him out of her sight at the moment, she didn’t want him to hear things that might frighten him even more.

  “Come on, buckaroo,” Cassie said. “Let’s see if we can make a tent out of bedsheets in my bedroom.”

  “Cool,” Sammy agreed and within moments the two had disappeared up the stairs.

  “Can you tell me exactly what happened?” Dillon asked.

  She recounted the events, and the cold inside her returned full force. She wrapped her arms around herself and then smiled gratefully as Lucas sat down next close to her, his body heat warming her.

  “The man had on a ski mask so I can’t identify him. He just appeared out of nowhere and scooped up my son. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to take Sammy,” she said.

  “What about his father?” Lucas asked.

  Nicolette looked at him in surprise. “If Samuel wanted to see Sammy, then
he has my phone number. We’d make arrangements. He certainly wouldn’t try to kidnap his own son. We haven’t even heard from Samuel since my divorce from him over two years ago.”

  “What about old boyfriends?” Dillon asked.

  “There are none,” she replied. “I’ve been far too busy as a single mother and the owner of a business to even consider romance.”

  “Is there any business-related issue that might have followed you here? Does the business owe money to people who might want to grab Sammy for some sort of ransom?” Dillon’s gaze had gone from soft to steel.

  A hysterical burst of laughter escaped her lips. “Anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn’t have money to pay a ransom. I’m broke and the store is barely functioning in the black.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no way the answer to this is that somebody is seeking a ransom.”

  “But isn’t your ex-husband wealthy?” Lucas asked.

  She turned and looked at him thoughtfully. “Samuel has a healthy monthly trust fund amount that his mother set up for him before her death, but anyone who knows Samuel would know that he’d rather hang on to his money than pay a ransom for his son.” The words came out a little more bitter than she’d intended, but truth was truth.

  She glanced back at Dillon. “Honestly, I can’t imagine that anyone from Samuel’s life would be behind this. He lives a party lifestyle and I would guess that most of the people he now surrounds himself with don’t have a clue that he was ever married or even has a son.”

  Although she felt Lucas’s gaze on her, she couldn’t look at him. She was ashamed by her choice, by her foolish belief that Samuel would be the man she’d thought he would be for her sake, for the sake of their son.

  Samuel had been a spoiled brat when she’d married him and when she’d divorced him. She had no reason to believe that he had changed since then.

  “You can’t come up with a single name for me?” Dillon asked. “Not a name from your past or since you’ve been here?”

  “Lloyd Green is the only man I’ve had any issues with here and I can’t imagine him taking it to this kind of a level,” she replied. “Sammy could have been killed being thrown from that horse.”

  “Maybe you should check Lloyd out again,” Lucas said. “He and I exchanged some heated words at the café. He knows I’m quite fond of Sammy.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “What kind of words were exchanged?” Dillon asked.

  “I warned him not to mess with Sammy and Nicolette. I might have stirred the pot a little bit,” Lucas admitted.

  “I’ll check him out, but I have to tell you, this just isn’t Lloyd’s style. He’s an in-your-face kind of guy, not the type to sneak an attack on a defenseless kid.”

  At that moment a knock fell on the door and Lucas answered and introduced Nicolette to Dr. Eric Washington. He was a tall, white-haired man whose blue eyes looked both sharp and kindly.

  “I understand there’s a little patient I need to see,” he said.

  Nicolette started to rise. “He’s upstairs.”

  Dr. Washington motioned her back on the sofa. “If I have your permission, I’ll just head upstairs and give him a look.”

  Nicolette hesitated but when Lucas touched her shoulder and gave her a reassuring nod, she sat back down. “Just let me know if you have any concerns.”

  “Of course,” the doctor agreed and then headed up the stairs.

  When he’d disappeared from her sight, Nicolette turned her attention back to Dillon. “I don’t know what else to tell you,” she said in frustration. “I don’t know how to help you. I wish I had a clue, I wish there was somebody from my past who could be responsible for what happened, but I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”

  Her voice cracked as emotion rose up to fill the back of her throat. Somebody had tried to get to her baby twice now and nobody had any answers for her.

  Lucas placed his hand on her knee and she knew it was in an effort to comfort her, to somehow assure her that everything was going to be all right. But as far as she was concerned, nothing was going to be right again until they found the man responsible for what had happened to Sammy.

  “Who went after the man?” Dillon asked, turning his attention to Lucas.

  “I think it was at least Forest, Jerod, Sawyer and maybe Clay. They blew by me so fast I just got a glimpse of them,” Lucas said. “I was more focused on getting to Sammy to make sure he was all right.”

  “I hope I don’t have to arrest any of them for murder,” Dillon said drily.

  “I hope they do kill whoever it was,” Nicolette blurted out and then was horrified by her own words. Tears misted her vision as she thought of those agonizing moments when she didn’t know if Lucas would be able to catch the man and save her son or not. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” she said, feeling as if she were about to shatter apart.

  Sammy was all she had. She was all he’d ever had, and the thought of him being gone from her was too horrifying to fully take in.

  “I understand your feelings,” Dillon replied, his gaze once again soft as he looked at her. “If I had a son and somebody had done this to him, I would want the perpetrator hung by dusk. Unfortunately even in a small ranching town we have to abide by the laws.”

  Dillon finally sat in the chair Sammy had vacated. “If you don’t mind I’ll just stick around here until those cowboys return.”

  Heavy footsteps coming down the stairs announced the return of Dr. Washington. He smiled at Nicolette in reassurance. “No broken bones, although he’s a bit banged up and bruised. I have a feeling he won’t feel so great tomorrow. He’ll be achy and sore, but other than that he should be just fine.”

  Nicolette released a sigh of relief, although the doctor just confirmed what she had thought. Sammy had taken a hard tumble, but he’d be fine. Thank God for small favors, she thought.

  Dr. Washington had been gone for only a few minutes when the sound of horses approaching thundered through the open window. Both Lucas and Dillon were on their feet immediately.

  They headed out the kitchen back door with Nicolette at their heels. Nicolette gasped as she saw the four horsemen from the ranch, one of them leading a man with his hands tied to the saddle horn of a familiar big black horse.

  The man had dirty blond hair and a scraggly mustache and beard. His pale blue eyes held both belligerence and a hint of fear. Nicolette had never seen him before in her life, but apparently everyone else knew who he was.

  “Jeff Bodine, you bastard,” Lucas said in obvious surprise. “What the hell, man?”

  “I’ll take it from here,” Dillon said.

  All the other men dismounted from their horses and Dillon stepped up to the horse where Bodine was tied. “Forest, untie him and get him down.”

  Forest lived up to his name in that he was as big as a giant oak with muscled arms and legs. He untied the man in the saddle and then bodily removed him from the horse.

  Dillon whirled Bodine around and slapped handcuffs on him and then turned him back to face him. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  “I ain’t saying nothing,” Bodine replied defiantly.

  Nicolette stepped closer to him, her heart beating frantically. “Who are you?”

  “Allow me to make the introduction,” Lucas said, scorn deepening his voice. “Jeff is our resident dopehead. He’d sell his own mother if he thought it would get him drug money. Isn’t that right, Bodine?”

  “Why did you take my son?” Nicolette stared at the man, willing him to make sense of things.

  “Right now you’re looking at charges of kidnapping, endangering the life of a child and whatever else I can tack on to make sure you spend plenty of time behind bars,” Dillon said. “Talk to me, Jeff. Make me understand why in the hell you’d do something like this.”

  Jeff rocked back on his heels. “If I cooperate will you go easy on me?”

  “You know that’s not up to me, but I’ll make sure the prosecutor kno
ws that you were cooperative,” Dillon replied.

  “Money,” Jeff said grudgingly. He looked at Nicolette. “I was offered two thousand dollars to get the kid and promised another two when I delivered him.”

  Nicolette stared at him in stunned surprise. Who would pay four thousand dollars for Sammy? This wasn’t just a fight between two cowboys in a café. It wasn’t about a glass of spilled milk and a thrown cup of tea. It was something far more insidious, far more evil, and a new chill of horror swept through her.

  * * *

  Minutes later they were all seated back in the living room. The only person standing was Jeff, who was still cuffed with his hands behind his back.

  Lucas sat next to Nicolette on the sofa, but he wanted to smash Jeff’s face in, he wanted to beat the man until he could barely stand. He thought about Sammy’s fear, about the fall from the horse that could have been deadly, and his rage was barely contained.

  Nicolette appeared shell-shocked, her face pale and her fingers curled tightly in her lap as Dillon continued to question Jeff.

  “Now that we’re all settled in, you need to tell me who offered you the money to grab the kid,” Dillon said.

  “I don’t know who he is. I never met him. Yesterday I got a phone call and this man told me he needed to get the kid, that if I was in then my total payday would be four thousand dollars.” Jeff licked his lips, as if on the verge of drooling. “I’ve never seen that much money in my whole life. At first I thought it was some kind of a joke, but the man insisted he was serious.”

  “Once you had Sammy in your custody what were you supposed to do with him?” Dillon asked.

  “Call the man and take Sammy to a motel for the night and then tomorrow night I was supposed to meet the man in a restaurant to do the handoff. I was to be there at midnight and give the kid a pill so he’d be asleep.”

  Jeff shifted from one foot to the other. “Last night I found an envelope in my mailbox with two thousand dollars inside and a pill that I was to give to the kid. There was also a motel room key.”

  “What motel?” Lucas asked, still needing to punch something, preferably Jeff’s face.