Lone Star Redemption Read online

  Rusted Spur, Texas, is full of secrets…until now

  Desperate to find her missing twin, Jessie Layton arrives at the Rayford ranch, the last place her sister was seen. But after meeting Zach Rayford, the reporter is left with only more questions. Like why is the extremely handsome rancher defending his family’s obvious lies regarding her sister?

  Zach vowed to protect his family, but it’s become more complicated…especially with his growing attraction to Jessie…. But even as they spar, a lethal danger pursues Jessie. Together they risk their lives confronting secrets that could destroy Zach’s family…if he chooses to do right by the headstrong woman who’s corralled him!

  “I know you have good reason to suspect me. But I swear to you, I’m not that kind of person.”

  He studied her face, searching its depths for…something. Sincerity, perhaps, but between them, something else ignited, the spark of something far too dangerous to contemplate.

  Or so she told herself, but with temptation arcing through her body, her eyes refused to obey. One glance at his lips and it was too late to step back. Too late to do anything but tilt back her head when he whispered, “I believe you.”

  To do anything but part her lips when his mouth fell upon hers.

  His taste was bittersweet: the mint of toothpaste mingled with the darker notes of coffee. But this sensation submerged completely beneath the unexpected pleasure, her every nerve ending flaring, awakening to his touch.

  Some slim margin of her brain warned this kiss, this passion, was too sudden and too needful, flung at her like a net….

  Dear Reader,

  As I write this morning, I’m remembering some advice my sister, a traveling hospice nurse, has shared. In the end, she tells me, people never regret not having worked more hours, acquired more things or been more successful. Instead, they worry over missed opportunities to mend relationships and spend more of their precious time with loved ones.

  Lone Star Redemption is the story of two people doing their best to fix their broken families. For career-minded reporter Jessie Layton, it’s all about finding her lost, chronically troubled twin sister—and honoring her vow to bring Haley home before their terminally ill mother dies. Stung by Haley’s behavior once too often in the past, Jessie is leery of getting caught up in another of her sister’s dramas, but she begins to rethink her position after seeing the sacrifices former marine corps fighter pilot Zach Rayford has made to return to his widowed mother and the sprawling Texas ranch she’s been left alone to run.

  As I wrote Jessie and Zach’s story, I ached for these two wounded people, both struggling to find their way through a complex moral quagmire. And I held my breath at times, terrified they wouldn’t survive a killer bent on keeping the truth hidden…no matter who must die.

  I hope you’ll enjoy Lone Star Redemption and keep your eyes open for a new tale from the Rayford Ranch at Rusted Spur, coming very soon.

  Happy reading!

  Colleen Thompson

  LONE STAR

  REDEMPTION

  Colleen Thompson

  Books by Colleen Thompson

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Passion to Protect #1729

  The Colton Heir #1776

  Lone Star Redemption #1806

  Silhouette Romantic Suspense

  Deadlier Than the Male #1631

  “Lethal Lessons”

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Capturing the Commando #1286

  Phantom of the French Quarter #1302

  Relentless Protector #1376

  COLLEEN THOMPSON

  After beginning her career writing historical romance novels, in 2004 Colleen Thompson turned to writing the contemporary romantic suspense she loves. Since then, her work has been honored with a Texas Gold Award, along with nominations for a RITA® Award, a Daphne du Maurier Award and multiple reviewers’ choice honors. She has also received starred reviews from RT Book Reviews and Publishers Weekly. A former teacher living with her family in the Houston area, Colleen has a passion for reading, hiking and dog rescue. Visit her online at www.colleen-thompson.com.

  To strong and loving families: those we’re born to, those we give birth to, and those we cobble together from the broken pieces of our hearts.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  August 1st

  If she couldn’t have her son back, was peace too much to ask?

  The question reverberated through sixty-eight-year-old Nancy Rayford’s throbbing skull with an intensity untouched by the powerful prescriptions she had taken. Still, the knocking went on, a pounding at her front door. What time was it, anyway? How long since she’d drifted off?

  Tossing aside the light throw she’d used as a blanket, she pushed herself up off the soft cushions of a leather sofa before blinking at the television. There, the muted figure of some late-night comedian clowned before his silent audience. All of them laughing up a storm, as though her sweetest boy had not been reduced to ashes in a small urn just two weeks before.

  Not a boy; a man, she reminded herself, Ian and his brother both. But she’d never known either one as a grown adult, as a soldier, thanks to her husband’s scorched-earth approach to fatherhood. Now he was gone, as well, leaving her alone here, or as alone as an aging widow could get surrounded by thousands of acres of drought-plagued range and thirsty cattle.

  The pounding started again, adding a desperate edge to the insistent rhythm. It sliced through her drugged reality, reaching a part of her that understood there must be something very wrong. Shaking overtook her at the suspicion that she would find another pair of uniformed officers at her front door, somber military personnel assigned to tell her that her surviving firstborn son, her Zach, was gone, too.

  With a cry of pain, she lurched through the empty house, her shaking hand reaching for the door before she could wonder if it might be unsafe to do so. Because he was all she had left; if he’d been taken from her now, too—

  With her heart pounding in her throat and the world careening wildly around her, she unlocked the door and flung it open so hard that it banged against the entry wall. Staring into the dark August night, she begged the same God who’d failed at every turn to heed her prayers that it not be the news she most feared. Please don’t take him, too.

  But tonight’s visitor wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt rather than the dreaded uniform. She was a gaunt and pale young woman, with eyes shadowed by exhaustion and arms that trembled with the weight of the small child she carried. The sleeping girl of three—or was it four?—years, wrapped in a blanket, her tawny hair a matted mess.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” the young woman told her, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I just can’t. I need your help, please, Nancy. C-can you take her?”

  Drained from days of headaches and weak from dehydration, Nancy felt a jolt of pure energy restore her. Her lo
ng trance shattered, and a new sense of purpose moved her forward. She raised thin arms to lift the burden from the taller woman’s arms, to cuddle the child close to her breast.

  Rather than weighing her down, the little girl’s weight made Nancy feel lighter than she had since her husband’s death, six months earlier, lighter and younger than she had in decades. And when she looked down into the precious face, so smooth and unblemished and impossibly perfect, the knowledge coursed through her, a swift river of current telling her that this was no accident at all.

  This was, instead, a miracle, a reason to go on.

  Chapter 1

  Three months later...

  Stiff and tired from hours of driving across the desolate northern Texas prairie, Jessie Layton climbed from her blue hatchback and stepped into the howling wind.

  Bent low against the gusts, she slung her purse over her shoulder and raced for the steps leading up to the wide white veranda without waiting for her cameraman to follow. By the time she made it to the mansion’s front door, she was choking on the brick-red dust, her eyes and nose streaming and long ribbons of her reddish-blond hair whipping across her face. Shivering with a cold that her leather jacket barely cut, she felt scoured and sandblasted—and angrier than ever.

  Leave it to my sister to drag me halfway to Hell.

  No. That wasn’t right. As she pushed the hair from her face, she reminded herself she hadn’t driven all the way up to the Panhandle ranch, where her twin’s trail had gone cold, for Haley’s sake, no more than she was here for the “very personal human-interest story” she’d pitched to her news director as a pretext to get out of Dallas for a few days. Though the request must have come as quite a shock considering that she’d been on the verge of breaking a story bound to make national headlines, She had really come because she’d made a promise. A promise to the mother she was about to lose.

  The thought brought with it a stab of fear, the same swirling sense of panic that threatened to pull Jessie under several times a day. She was still working to get past her father’s sudden death two years before, and he had barely acknowledged her existence, except to criticize her. Now, her mother, too, was dying, the one parent she could always count on for support, for love—Jessie couldn’t bear the thought.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, steadying her breathing, reminding herself that they still had weeks or months left. Or maybe even longer. Aggressive as the cancer was, her mom was holding her own at the moment, and the oncologist had allowed that spontaneous remissions had happened in a few rare cases.

  If she could find Haley and bring her home to make peace, they might get the miracle they needed. Or maybe Mom just wants to see her one more time before she dies... The reason didn’t matter. Finding Haley, and getting her home fast, was more important to Jessie than anything else right now. Important enough that she scarcely gave a thought to the risk to her career and the story she’d been so focused on selling to her news director.

  Henry Kucharski stumbled up the steps behind her, the bushy gray wreath that ringed his bald head swirling in the gale. A wiry little man with a woolly caterpillar of a mustache, he was struggling with the mini-cam, pulling off the lens cap as she pounded on the front door.

  “Three in the afternoon, and it might as well be full dark,” he said anxiously. “Without decent lighting, this footage won’t be worth the—”

  “Don’t you get it, Henry? I couldn’t care less about the lighting,” she said, “or the footage, either.”

  Pried loose by the wind, a nearby shutter started banging. Concerned her own knock wouldn’t be heard, Jessie tried ringing the bell but didn’t hear it. As she’d suspected when she’d first spotted the darkened windows, the storm must have caused a power outage.

  “That’s not what you told Vivian.” Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, Henry squinted against the wind. “And I’ll remind you, she’s my boss, too. You and I both know how she holds on to grudges. And how many ways she has of making our lives miserable.”

  Jessie, who towered over him in the high-heeled boots she wore with a tunic and leggings, spared him an apologetic look, remembering how allergic the poor guy was to confrontation. And how sweet he’d been to postpone his wedding anniversary dinner with his wife of twenty-six years to make the six-hour drive out here with her when it was clear that no one else would. “I’ll take full responsibility. Don’t worry.”

  She rapped at the oversize mahogany door again, more insistently this time. Please let someone be home. She’d spotted a big pickup parked out back, but for all she knew, the owners were off somewhere in another vehicle from the attached four-car garage.

  “Oh, I’m not worried about me, so much. It’s you, especially after you jammed that story on the mayor down her throat. Vivian has friends, I hear, including one very close friend supporting—” As the doorknob rattled, Henry went silent, tensing as he readied his camera.

  The moment the door cracked open, a gust sent a swirl of sand spinning into Jessie’s face. She cried out, covering her stinging eyes with her hands.

  “Come inside, out of the wind,” insisted a female voice, thin and scratchy. “Quickly, please. You’re letting in the dust.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Henry as he ushered Jessie inside and pressed a handkerchief into her hands.

  Blotting her streaming eyes, Jessie blinked in the dim light of a surprisingly formal entryway for this part of the world. Half a dozen tiny flames flickered, where someone had set out candles atop a fussy table with carved, curved ivory legs. The soft glow was reflected by a tall, ornately framed mirror, its illumination warming the cool marble floor beneath a vaulted ceiling. Like the huge old house, miles from its nearest neighbor, this entryway had been built to impress, even overwhelm, potential rivals.

  Having grown up in Dallas’s upscale Highland Park neighborhood, Jessie had long since gotten past the notion that privilege necessarily deserved protection. It was part of what made her fearless when confronting those who considered themselves untouchable, from a beloved sports legend who was systematically cheating customers at the car dealership he’d purchased, to the mayor of Dallas, who would very soon be facing his own reckoning over his crooked reelection campaign.

  The lady of the house would find herself no more immune, especially if the woman kept doing everything in her power to frustrate Jessie’s search.

  “Mrs. Rayford? Nancy Rayford?” She blinked at an attractive older woman with a silvered pixie cut and blue eyes a shade darker than her soft cabled sweater. It was hard to imagine this was the same woman who had answered her questions on the phone so brusquely before repeatedly hanging up on her. She was a tiny, mousy-looking thing, so frail and insubstantial that Jessie quickly closed the door behind her, half-afraid that a stray gust could waft her up into the shadow of the elegant curved staircase just behind her.

  “Yes, why—” Voice faltering, Mrs. Rayford took a step back before reaching for a candle with one trembling hand. Lifting its light toward Jessie, she gasped and spread her hand over her chest. “Haley? Oh, my— I thought you weren’t—”

  Jessie shook her head. “My sister. Remember? I tried to tell you on the phone.” Her heart fell with a realization. “Then, Haley really isn’t here?”

  She’d been banking on finding her sister hiding out here, after having talked her way into some menial job with some sob story about being pursued by an abusive stalker. It was Haley’s time-honored method for avoiding creditors, former lovers and, Jessie suspected, her family, as well.

  Mrs. Rayford’s blue eyes widened before she flicked a fearful glance behind her, toward the stairwell. “You’re— Then you’re really not her? Truly?”

  “We’re identical twins,” Jessie explained, offering a smile in an attempt to reassure the frightened woman. And more important, to gain her trust. “Our own father couldn’t tell us apart.�
��

  Not that he’d ever made much effort. But Nancy Rayford didn’t need to know that.

  From outside came a low hum, and a moment later, the chandelier above them flickered on. The sudden illumination revealed the older woman’s pallor, painting gaunt shadows in her hollowed cheeks.

  Reminded of her own mother’s illness, Jessie said, “I’m sorry I’ve upset you. Do you need to sit down?”

  Taking the woman by the arm, Jessie led her to a bench seat and squatted before her when Mrs. Rayford sank down to it.

  “Are you all right?” Jessie asked, thinking of heart attacks and aneurysms, and the sudden, fatal stroke that had taken her father over one of her family’s mandatory Sunday dinners. “Is there something I can get you? Someone I can call?”

  No sooner had she asked the questions than she heard the sounds of approaching boot heels on the marble. As Henry faded back, turning to hide the mini-cam still perched on his shoulder, a deep voice boomed, “Generator’s back online, Mama. Should keep us up and running for a while, anyway—”

  A tall man holding a broad-brimmed gray hat came striding through the archway and stopped short, looking in confusion from Henry to Jessie before finding Mrs. Rayford. She had leaned forward, holding her bowed head in her shaking hands.

  “What’s going on here? Mama? Is something wrong?” He rushed toward her so quickly that Jessie rose and stepped out of his way. “These people—are they bothering you?”

  Blinking back tears, his mother waved off his concern. “No, no, Zach. They’re just—” She looked to Jessie. “They took a wrong turn in the storm, but they saw our gate and stopped to ask directions to town.”

  Jessie stared in surprise. Why on earth would you lie to your own son?

  “I was just helping them when all of a sudden, one of my headaches came on,” Mrs. Rayford continued. “They’ve been very kind, but I’ll need my prescription. You remember where I keep it, don’t you? And some water, too, please.”