“A Texas Ranger,” she repeated. Addie shook her head. “You told me your name was Wes Martin and that you were a rodeo rider.”
“Martin is my middle name, and I was a rodeo rider. Before I became a Ranger.”
Her mouth tightened. “And I was a child before I became an adult. That doesn’t make me a child now. You lied to me.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I didn’t want you to know who I was and that I was investigating the Moonlight Strangler.”
She stared at him, waiting for more. More that he didn’t volunteer. “You were investigating him when you met me three months ago?”
No gaze-dodging this time. Wes, or rather Weston, looked her straight in the eyes. “I met you because I was looking for him. I followed you while you were in San Antonio, and after your interview with the FBI I followed you to the hotel where you were staying. I knew exactly who you were when I introduced myself at the bar.”
That hit her like a heavyweight’s punch, and Addie staggered back.
The memories of that first meeting were still so fresh in her mind. She’d been shaken to the core after the interview with the FBI, and even though her mother and one of her brothers had made the trip to San Antonio with her, she had asked for some alone time. And had ended up at the hotel bar.
Where she’d met Wes, a rodeo rider.
Or so she’d thought.
The attraction had been instant. Intense. Something Addie had never quite felt before. Of course, that intensity had dulled her instincts because she had believed with all her heart that this was a man who understood her. A man she could trust.
That was laughable now.
“Were you trying to get information from me?” she asked, recalling all the words—the lies, no doubt—he’d told her that night.
A muscle flickered in his jaw.
Then Weston nodded.
She groaned, and now Addie was the one who cursed. “And you came back to the bar again the next night, after I’d been through the hypnosis. You knew I was an emotional wreck. You knew I was hanging by a thread, and yet you took me to your room and had sex with me. Not just that night, either, but the following night, too.”
“That was never part of the plan,” he said.
“The plan?” she snapped. “Well, your plan had consequences.” Addie had another battle with tears, but thankfully she still managed to speak. “Leave now!”
Of course he didn’t budge. Weston stayed put and took hold of her arm when she tried to bolt from the office.
The phone on her desk rang, the sound shooting through the room. Addie gasped before she realized that it wasn’t the threat that her body was preparing itself for. The threat was in her office and had hold of her.
“Ignore that call. There are things you need to know,” he insisted. “Things that might save your life.”
That stopped Addie in her tracks, and she did indeed ignore the call. “What are you talking about?”
He didn’t get a chance to answer because she heard another sound. Her mother’s voice.
“Addie?” her mother called out. It sounded as if she was in the kitchen at the back of the house. “I picked up the phone when you didn’t answer. It’s about those mares you wanted to buy.”
It was a call that Addie had been waiting on. An important one. Since she helped manage the ranch and the livestock, it was her job. But she was afraid her job would have to wait.
“Tell her to take a message,” Weston instructed.
Addie wanted to tell him a flat-out no. She didn’t want to obey orders from this lying Texas Ranger who’d taken her to his bed with the notion of getting information she didn’t even have.
“Why should I?” she snarled.
“Because you’re in danger. Your mother could be, too.”
Addie had been certain that there was nothing Weston could say that would make her agree to his order.
Nothing except that.
“Mom,” Addie said after a serious debate with herself. “Take a message. I’ll return the call soon.”
She hoped.
“Start talking,” Addie told Weston. “Tell me exactly what’s going on.”
But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he started to unbutton his shirt.
Either he’d lost his mind, or...
It was or.
Addie saw the scar on his chest. The long jagged cut that wasn’t nearly as faded and healed as the one on her face. It was one that she’d already noticed the night they’d landed in bed together. Weston had told her he’d been hooked by a bull’s horn at a rodeo.
“The Moonlight Strangler did this to me,” Weston said. “Your father nearly killed me.”
Oh, God.
“You know who my birth father is?” She couldn’t ask that fast enough.
“No. I didn’t see his face. And I didn’t have any leads to his identity until I found out the results of your DNA test.”
Addie’s heart was pounding now. Her breath thin. “You thought he’d come to me?”
Weston nodded. “I counted on it. I know your DNA match was supposed to be kept quiet, but I figured if I could find out about it, then so could the killer.”
It took her a moment to gather her voice. “You leaked my DNA results?” She shoved Weston away from her and would have bolted, but, like before, he held on.
“No,” he insisted. “But someone might have. Maybe a dirty cop or someone in the crime lab who was paid off.”
“Or it could have been you. And to think, I slept with you, not just that one night, either, but the following night, too. I...” Addie stopped because there was no way she would give him another emotional piece of herself. “You used me as bait.”
Her voice hardly had sound now, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling every inch of the proverbial knife he’d stuck in her back.
“No,” Weston repeated. “But someone did. And it worked.”
There went the rest of her breath. “Who? How?”
Weston shook his head. “I don’t know the who or the how, but I know the results.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “Addie, you’re the Moonlight Strangler’s next target.”
Weston waited for Addie’s reaction, and he didn’t have to wait long.
She shook her head, her bottom lip trembling just a little before she clamped her teeth over it. It only took a few seconds for Addie to process what Weston had just told her.
And to dismiss it.
“Why should I believe anything you say?” she asked.
Weston had no trouble hearing the hurt in her voice. No trouble hearing the anger, too. Yes, he was responsible for both, and while he’d never intended to hurt Addie, he also hadn’t wanted a serial killer to have free rein to keep on killing. Too bad he’d failed.
Addie was indeed hurt.
And the killer was still out there.
Of course, Addie knew that better than anyone else: her own sister-in-law had