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CHAPTER ONE
Kingman, Arizona
Summer
LEXIE CHAMPION PULLED OFF HER SUNGLASSES, WIPED THE LENSES on the hem of her rumpled denim shirt, and slipped them into her pocket. Her eyes were gritty from the dusty desert wind that swept across the rodeo grounds, picking up the odors of manure, barbecue, popcorn, tobacco smoke, and diesel fumes—a mélange that, to Lexie, was as familiar as any air she’d ever breathed.
From the midway beyond the bleachers, her ears caught the music of a carousel. It blended with the bawl of cattle and the blare of the rodeo announcer’s voice as the rodeo’s opening ceremony began.
They’d driven most of the night to get here—she and the foreman, Ruben Diego, with four bucking bulls in the long gooseneck trailer. They’d arrived at the Mohave County Fairgrounds late last night and loosed the bulls down the chute into one of the holding pens. After giving their charges water and bull chow in rubber feed tubs, the two of them had crashed across the front and back seats of the heavy-duty pickup for a few hours of sleep.
Now it was late in the day. The strains of the national anthem from the arena told her that the Kingsmen Pro Rodeo, was about to get underway. The bull riding event would be last on the two-hour program. Before then, there should be time to relax, get some barbecue, maybe even change the clothes she’d driven and slept in. But Lexie was too wired to rest. All she wanted was to be right here, with her bulls. After the threatening message she’d received last week, she needed to know that the precious animals were safe.
Ruben had gone off to the midway for food and sodas. She’d told him there was no need to bring her anything, but he probably would. Ruben, a full-blooded member of the Tohono O’odham tribe, might be an employee of the Alamo Canyon Ranch, but he treated Lexie and her sister Tess as if they were his own daughters.
Alone for the moment, she leaned against the six-foot portable steel fence, resting a boot on one of the lower rungs as she gazed across the complex of pens and gates. Here the rodeo bulls, trucked in by stock contractors like the Champion family, waited to be herded through the maze of chutes, rigged with a flank strap and bull rope, mounted, and set loose to buck.
Until the instant a rider’s weight settled onto their backs, most of the animals were calm. They were bred and raised to do one job—buck that annoying cowboy off into the dust. They knew what to expect and what to do. But at up to a ton in weight, with the agility of star athletes, they were amazingly powerful, incredibly dangerous. And in the arena, at any adrenaline-charged moment, the most amiable bull could turn murderous.
Nobody knew that better than Lexie.
Her thoughts flew back to the cryptic note she’d found tucked beneath the truck’s windshield when she’d driven into Ajo for groceries last week. Written in crude block letters on a page torn from a yellow pad, it had been there when she’d come out of the store. Its simple message had sent a chill up her spine.
YOUR FAMILY OWES ME. IT’S PAYBACK TIME.
Even the memory made her shiver. Had the message been a prank? Her first impulse had been to scan the parking lot for someone who might have left it. But she’d seen no one, not even a familiar vehicle. Impulsively, she’d crumpled the page and tossed it into a trash receptacle. If anybody was watching, she wanted them to know she wasn’t scared.
Later, after realizing she’d destroyed evidence, Lexie had regretted the act. But nothing could erase the image of that message from her mind—the letters pressed hard into the yellow paper, as if in pure hatred. Why did this person think her family owed him—or her? And what did they mean by payback?
She’d told no one yet. Not Tess or their stepmother, Callie; not even Ruben. Why cause worry over what was bound to be an empty threat? But she wasn’t about to leave her bulls if there was any chance someone might harm them.
“Well, lookee here! Howdy, honey!” The slurring voice made Lexie jump. The cowhand who’d crept up behind her was dirty, unshaven, and, as her late father would’ve said, as big as a barn door. His clothes and breath reeked of cheap whiskey.
“You’re a purty little thing with that long yellow hair.” He loomed over her. “I was thinkin’ maybe you’re one o’ them buckle bunnies. I got a buckle right here if you want to see it.” His dirty hand tugged at the ordinary Western-style belt buckle and unfastened it. “You’ll like what I got underneath it even better.”
Until now, Lexie had merely been annoyed. She’d dealt with drunks at other rodeos. But now a cold fear crept over her. She was alone out here, where nobody could hear her scream over the sounds of the rodeo. The man had her backed against the fence, and he was big enough to easily overpower her. There was a pistol under the front seat of the truck, but it was parked in the lot reserved for rigs, too far away to be of any use.
She glared up at the big man, trying not to show fear. “I’m not a buckle bunny,” she said. “And you’re drunk. I don’t like drunks. Neither does my boyfriend. If you’re smart, you’ll leave before he gets back here.”
The boyfriend part was a lie, but it was the only defense she had. Unfortunately, the way the man’s yellow-toothed grin widened told her it wasn’t enough. She’d told Ruben to take his time getting back; but even if he were to show up now, the 1
50-pound foreman was pushing sixty. Without a weapon, he’d be no match for the hulking brute, and there was no one else in sight. Lexie was on her own.
