31
Calloway Grady wasa man on a mission.Now that he couldthinkwithout his brain hurting again.Now that he had a brand-new shiny truck to replace the one that had been totaled.Now that he had dealt with the insurance company and given statements to the sheriff’s department and the WHP about the hit-and-run, and now that he could move a little easier without wincing.
Nowhe had something todo.
He had a redheaded she-devil creature to find.And woo romantically.He had an eight-point-five to beat, after all.
Cal was going to the woman he wanted.And they were going to have a serious talk about a potential relationship between them.That was a mistake he had made with Meyra a few years ago—he had never come out and told her how he felt and what he hoped for.He’d been overly cautious because she’d been very young and a lot naive.Well, he was far more serious about Augusta Dawn than he had been Meyra.Far more serious.
And he knew she was having feelings of her own.She had told him as much, right there in the hospital.Right before she’d kissed him again—and then gotten in trouble by the aunt who was working that night.
Those kinds of shenanigans did not belong in the hospital, according to Pam Tyler.Augusta Dawn Tyler should know better, too.Even if Cal was a pretty one.He was—her aunt had said so.
Auggie had agreed.
Now, he was going to her and see what shewanted.And they wouldplan.If he was lucky, he’d be invited to dinner again.Spend time with his favorite devil-creatures.He thought Clancy had said something about being with Em later tonight, too.Most of the time, they hung out here so Em could help with the girls when needed.He was good with that.He’d drive Clancy home, if needed.
He pulled into the drive.
That was when he saw the old dirty truck parked alongside the drive.Half hidden by an old shed that was probably a good four times Cal’s age.That shed was the landmark he always turned at to get out here to the Nine Sisters Ranch.
That truck shouldn’t be there.
With what had happened to him recently, with a truck thatcouldhave been that one—he wasn’t one hundred percent certain—his blood chilled.They still hadn’t found the guy who had run him off the road, and this old white truck was certainly big enough to have done it.
The painted letters on the side were blue, though.Not the green he’d thought he’d remembered.But there was some body damage, for sure.A lot of it.
It could be the one.
What in the hell was it doing so close to Auggie’s home?
Auggie’s ranch was damned isolated.There was one house beyond theirs—the original ranch house built a good fifty years before Auggie’s ranch.Cadell actually owned it now—it was on the eight hundred acres he and Cal had purchased six weeks after the love of Cal’s life had accused him of being a dirty land-grabber.
But that house wasempty.Cadell was planning to remodel it eventually.Just not now.His brother had some other projects in the works first.
Unless that was one of Auggie’s cousins, he didn’t recognize that truck at all.And he did not think it belonged there.
He hit the gas.Something didn’t feel right.And he’d been assured his woman was alone when she’d called him and asked him to come to her.Something didn’t feel right.
Cal knew something was wrong the moment he pulled to a stop in front of Auggie’s ranch.Her SUV was there.Yet not a single light in the house was on.With the huge glass front windows, lightalwaysshone.Welcomed all who came down the winding gravel road.
He had fallen in love with those windows back when he was planning to buy this ranch.That love had just deepened now that he had seen those windows in action.Complete with Markie-and-Tobi-and-Maeya sized handprints all over the bottom foot of glass.
Auggie should be inside—so where was the light?
He hurried up the steps, ready to knock.That’s when he saw—the door stood open.
And there were boot prints where there shouldn’t be.
They were aroundhissize.No one in this house should have boot prints that big.
He pushed the door the rest of the way open.He called her name.
That’s when he heard the scream.
And heknew.
He ran, up the four small steps, and down the hall.Toward the end.Toward her.
