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She smiled. “No, but my childhood was filled with riding horses and reading about them. I always wanted to see some. For my tenth birthday, my family went on a trip to try and find them. We were there for the entire weekend and didn’t see so much as a hoofprint. When we were driving home, Dulcie spotted a horse up on the crest of a hill. My dad pulled the car over, and we went to see. It was a bachelor stallion, a kind of lieutenant to the main herd stallion. He threatened us, but when we stopped encroaching on him, he disappeared over the hill. Over my parents’ objections, Dulcie and I ran to the top of the hill. He’d warned the others, and the two stallions started moving the herd. Dulcie and I were mesmerized. We just stood there in awe of their majesty. When my folks caught up to us, they, too, were transfixed. None of us ever forgot them. Dulcie and I planned to haunt the outer fringes of Yellowstone to see if we could catch a glimpse of them.”
She looked up at him and saw him smiling. “What?”
“I think I might have a new appreciation for the beasts.”
“I’d like to take you to see them. I won’t ask you to approve of, nor help me do some of the things I do, but I will ask that you respect my reverence for them.”
He lifted her hands to his lips. “I can do that. I can learn to appreciate those mangy critters, but it might take a long, long time with you constantly reminding me to do so.”
She leaned against him, and Spence wondered if he was making the right choice. He understood the rancher in her who said no one was going to mess with her or her animals. He also was beginning to understand the woman whose bed he shared and who writhed beneath him when they made love. But she needed to understand his first priority was to keep her and Dusty safe, and she was going to have to come to understand and accept that. If she didn’t, there’d be hell to pay.
CHAPTER11
Having installed Harper amongst her friends and sheriff’s deputies, he headed back to the crime scene. None of this made sense. Why had someone killed Dulcie? What was on the laptop? Was that what the guys in the SUVs were after, or was it more personal? Did they think Harper knew something? Whoever they were, they had to be pretty cold-blooded to leave their comrades behind.
He had Dulcie’s laptop with him. He’d made sure it hadn’t gotten left behind or was left unguarded. He picked up his phone and called Harper.
“Miss me already?” she teased.
“From the moment I left you. We’ve got Dulcie’s computer. If we need to, we can make another clone. See if you can’t figure out the password. Don’t worry about the failsafe. The password into my computer is H-A-I-T-S.”
“Dare I ask what that means?”
“It’s the Comanche word for friend.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Do you think Dulcie knew she was in danger?”
“I think so. I think that’s why she sent the computer to you. I don’t think she was stopping off to see an old flame. I think she was going somewhere she knew might be dangerous. Whatever she was after, it was important to her.”
“You don’t know that,” she said softly.
“Sure, I do and so do you. You said she was never without her laptop and yet she sent it to the one person she trusted most in the world—you. And she was willing to put you at risk in order to safeguard the information. She wouldn’t do that if she didn’t consider it vitally important.”
“That makes some sense. I’ll see what I can do.”
Spence ended the call, wishing it wasn’t necessary. He was fast learning that he began to miss Harper the moment he left her. She was becoming as necessary to him as breathing. Thinking about all he had to do in order to find Dulcie’s killer, he focused on what he needed to do and headed back to the crime scene.
“I know I didn’t get to meet her in person,” said Alice, “but I like your girl.”
Spence grinned. “Me, too. What do we know?”
“We know these two SUVs and one other were rented two days ago in Bozeman—that’s in Montana, right?”
Spence laughed. “Right, and right now we’re in Wyoming. Technically, Yellowstone National Park is in Wyoming, but several cities close by are in Montana.”
“Okay, we talked to the guy that rented the cars. He only saw three people he could identify but thought there was a whole gang—maybe ten or twelve.”
“That makes sense with all four doors to the SUVs opened. If there were only people in the front, why open the back?”
“So, we’re looking for five to seven guys.”
“Anything distinctive.”
“Yes,” Alice said, shaking her head. “But I don’t know how useful it is. He said they were foreigners with accents. He used some rather derogatory language—the gist of it being he believed them to be of Middle Eastern descent.”
“Let’s keep that among the team and make sure the rental clerk understands he is not to talk to the press or anyone else.”
“Do you suspect terrorism?”
