CHAPTER ONE
Somewhere northeast of Barstow, California
KEEP OUT. Trespassers Will Be Shot.
Clementine Wells stared at the sign on the twenty-foot barbed-wire tension gate, and craned her neck, looking for any sign of a house, any sign of someone about to shoot her. This was where she’d find the one man who could help her? She was tempted to just turn around, drive the ten hours back home and call her father to tell him he was right. She had no business trying to be a rancher. It was mid-September, and she still hadn’t been able to round up her herd.
She climbed back into the truck, shoved it into reverse, then stopped, fighting the fatigue of driving. She could see her mother as she’d looked more than a year ago.
“You can do it, Clementine.”
“I don’t know, Mom,” Clem had hedged. “It’s different running a ranch than working on it. I haven’t done this kind of physical labor since…since before I went to college.”
Before I married Nick went unsaid. Her mother hadn’t approved of the marriage, hadn’t approved of the fact that Clem had quit college in her junior year to follow Nick to San Jose, where they’d become wealthy overnight, riding the early dot.com wave. Until the divorce last year, Clem had not worked a full-time job in her entire adult life.
“Your father is a good man,” her mother had told her. “But he’s done too much for you. You need to know you can stand on your own two feet. Without us.”
“But the ranch?” Clem had never even envisioned herself taking over the ranch. “I’m not sure I’d even know where to start.”
“You’ve done every chore this ranch requires. You have a good mind. City people buy ranches all the time. Besides, if your father doesn’t take to retirement, we can come back, if you’re here.”
Claire Wells made it seem so simple.
Jim Wells, however, wasn’t as enthusiastic.
“The ranching business has changed, sweetheart,” her father had said as they rode out to watch the sunset. “I’m not sure you’re up to it. It’s not the world you knew growing up.”
Until that moment, Clem hadn’t thought she was up to it, either, but the doubt and concern in her father’s voice made her stop Archie.
“Not that I think you can’t do it,” Jim Wells had added, staring straight ahead.
“Mom thinks I can.” Clem hadn’t wanted her voice to sound so unsure. She’d realized at that moment, she wanted her father to think she could do it, too. “I can always call you for advice.”
Her father had been silent, then cleared his throat and said, “Your mother has always wanted you to be independent.”
“And now that I am?” She hadn’t felt independent. Ask her to arrange a dinner party for ten and she could do it. Ask her what she wanted to do with the rest of her life and she felt as uncertain as she had when she was nineteen.
“You know, honey, you can always come to Arizona with us, just until you figure out what you want to do with your life. The new house has an extra bedroom.”
Clem had swallowed. That would be even more humiliating. “If I ran the ranch for the next year or so, you could always come back if you find that retirement doesn’t agree with you.”
Her father started walking his horse again. “Honey, for the record, I don’t think there is such a thing as going back. It’s all about moving forward.”
It’s all about moving forward. Clementine got back out of the truck and studied the sign again, trying to make up her mind. She was the kind of person who obeyed signs. If a sign on a rest room door read Employees Only, she wouldn’t go through it, even if she’d just had a Big Gulp. She’d walk all the way around the mall to find a public rest room.
The man behind that fence was the only person who could protect her parents’ retirement. She’d spent a good portion of their money and her own, and now she didn’t think even her father could do anything that would solve this problem. It had grown—for lack of a better term—larger than even he could handle.
Ignoring the sign, she stuck out a tentative hand and rattled the gate. Yep. It was tight. She leaned over to the side to see what kind of latch it had. Just a rusty nail soldered to the chain. With gentle fingers, she tugged on the nail. It stuck. She tugged a little harder. Then it slid out and the gate sagged to the ground. She couldn’t even see the warning that trespassers would be shot anymore. She stepped over the gate and waited for a maniac to charge her with a shotgun. But nothing happened. There was just the stillness of the desert, the unending road in front of her.
Dexter Scott might be a recluse, but she didn’t believe he was a maniac. She’d done a lot of research on the man, searching for him ever since she’d heard his name. He’d been in jail for a couple of barroom fights, but there’d been nothing about him shooting defenseless women. She dragged the gate to the side of the road and, with a deep breath, got back in her truck and drove through.
It didn’t take her long to figure out how to put the gate back up. So with the rusty nail in place, Clem drove on, aware of the peaceful red desert that surrounded her. The way she figured it, if she came upon a gate she didn’t know how to unlatch, she’d take that as a sign and turn right around. But each gate, though different, was workable. As she drove past her fourth gate, she understood for the first time why the heroines in Alfred Hitchcock movies always looked in the closet.
Feeling bolder, Clementine inspected the last gate. This one was padlocked. She could justify opening gates that weren’t locked, but even if she had the skills to pick locks, she wasn’t sure she could ignore this sign. It’d be easy enough to turn around. No one had even detected her presence.
But she could see a tiny speck of a house maybe a mile in the distance. So close and yet so far. She leaned against the gate, solidly built out of steel slats, and considered her options. She could go home to the same problem that she hadn’t been able to solve or she could be brave and ask this man to help her. She put her foot in one slat. She looked around. This gate would be easy enough to scale. She could walk that mile to the house. If anything, being on foot would make her appear less threatening. With a deep breath, she buttoned up her jeans jacket and started to climb. If Dexter Scott asked, she’d say she ran out of gas. Maybe he’d give her a ride back to the truck and then she’d be able to make her request.
As she straddled the top of the fence, she stopped and listened. What was that sound? Hoofbeats? Panic overwhelmed her, as she swung her trailing leg over and tried to get her balance. No doubt about it, those were hoofbeats behind her—right behind her. She could hear a horse snort. She froze. She was in the middle of nowhere and she was going to be shot. He could bury her body anywhere and no one would ever find her.
But she didn’t hear a “Halt, who goes there,” or anything else, just the panting of a horse. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, too chicken to stare down the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun. So this was how it ended. She decided that she wanted to die on the ground. Back still toward the rider, she jumped down.
When the rider didn’t speak, Clem held up her arms to show she was unarmed. She swallowed hard and blurted over her shoulder, “I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I really need your help.”
No answer, just the agitated prancing of hooves.
“I’m harmless, really.