Rancher's Covert Christmas. Beth Cornelison
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Название: Rancher's Covert Christmas
Автор: Beth Cornelison
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика
Серия: Mills & Boon Heroes
isbn: 9781474079617
isbn:
His fingers dug into her cheek and chin as he smothered her distressed cry.
Damn, damn, damn! What was he supposed to do with her? How could he shut her up?
Her fingers scrabbled feebly at the hand he had over her mouth. But having pinned her arms at her sides with his other arm, she barely reached his palm. Her efforts did little other than anger him. Why did she have to fight? Why couldn’t she have just promised her silence and left him alone?
Despite the freezing temperatures, sweat popped out on his brow. His heart thumped hard enough that he would have sworn the whole ranch would hear it. Do something! his brain screamed. But the harder she fought, the more rattled he became. The madder, the more desperate.
“Stop it!” He shook her and stumbled when she raised a foot to kick backward at him. His grip tightened as his frustration and fury grew. “I said stop!”
A whimpering mewl escaped from beneath his muffling hand. Her tears dripped from her cheeks to his fingers. Blood continued to leak from her wounds, saturating her clothes and dripping on the floor. Guilt sawed his gut, adding a bitter bite to his agitation. He could feel himself losing the tenuous hold he had on his temper.
When she tried again to break free, twisting her hips, bucking, he gave her another hard shake. “Stop it!” He gritted his teeth, growling, “Stop, stop, stop!”
She wrenched to the left, and he jerked hard back to the right. And heard a crack. Felt the give in her neck. Her body went limp and heavy in his arms.
He stilled. Stunned. An icy terror crawled through him. Slowly he peeled his fingers away from her mouth.
Her head lolled to the side, and when he relaxed the arm across her chest, her legs buckled. She slid to the ground. Inert. Silent.
His breath rasped in shallow gasps as he dropped to his knees to feel for a pulse.
OhGodohGodohGod! What had he done?
Her sightless eyes stared up at him, and acid pooled at the back of his throat. A numb stupor settled over him.
She was...dead.
He’d...murdered her.
Dazed, he slogged through the horrible truths, his sins, which flashed like slides on a screen. A review of all his transgressions. Lies. Arson. Betrayal.
And murder.
He’d killed an innocent woman.
Again.
Two weeks earlier
Deception did not sit well with Erin. Her life’s work, her history, her passion was truth. But her client had been adamant. No one was to know her true purpose for going to the Double M Ranch in Boyd Valley, Colorado. Or rather, she would be going, assuming she could sell her cover story to—she checked the notebook where she’d scribbled the names and phone numbers of her contacts—Zane McCall. Of the four co-owners of McCall Adventure Ranch, Zane was the chief business manager and, according to her client, the primary hurdle she had to pass.
Erin Palmer took a deep breath, mentally reviewing her practiced script, and tapped in the phone number she’d been given. The line rang several times, and she was about to hang up, expecting the call to go to voice mail any moment, when a low male voice answered. “H’lo?”
“Hi,” Erin said, infusing her tone with cheer, “My name is Erin Palmer. I’m looking for Zane McCall.”
“You found him. What can I do for you, Erin?”
An unexpected thrill raced through her hearing her name caressed by his sultry baritone voice.
“Well, Zane—” If he could use her first name, she could use his, too. And no, she wasn’t flirting. After all, she didn’t know anything about the guy other than the melted-dark-chocolate sound of his voice. And flirting would be unprofessional. And—
“Yes?”
Erin wet her lips and refocused her straying thoughts. “I’m a journalist for Well Traveled magazine.” She cringed internally as the lie rolled smoothly from her tongue. “I’m interested in writing a feature piece about adventure ranches and McCall Adventures specifically.” A pregnant pause followed, and Erin’s heart tapped out a staccato beat. “Um...Zane? You there?”
“Yeah. I...” She heard the creak of desk chair and his sigh. “Can I ask why?” His sexy baritone voice was now rife with suspicion.
“Why what?”
“Why McCall Adventures?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and pinched her lips together. Answering his question would require laying out an even more elaborate lie. Her gut twisted as she dug for a believable excuse. She couldn’t say, “Because that’s the cover I’m going with to get me on-site at your ranch.”
She decided to stay as close to the truth as possible. “I heard about the trouble you had with your soft opening, the failure of the zip line and—”
“Wanted to exploit our accident and drag our business through the mud?” The once enchanting voice now had an edge of steel.
Erin swallowed hard. “No! Not at all. Quite the opposite. I respect the way you’ve turned the business around and recovered from the setback. In fact, I’d like to highlight the precautions you’ve taken and the remarkable strides you’ve made toward your relaunch.” She held the phone away from her mouth and pulled a face, shocked at her fawning. Kiss up much, Erin?
After another significant pause, Zane asked, “Well Traveled magazine, you say?”
“That’s right.”
Another chair squeak filtered through the line, followed by what sounded like the clacking of a computer keyboard. A moment passed before it clicked. He was looking up the magazine, verifying her credentials! Of course he would check out her story. He was smart to do it. So she had to be smarter to pull off her cover.
“I’m not officially on staff at the magazine,” she said, quickly pulling the magazine’s website up on her own laptop. “I freelance, and I’m hoping to sell my article to Well Traveled. I’ve queried the editor-in-chief about my article idea, and she said she was interested if I could get her a draft by the end of January.”
“You mean he? The magazine’s website says the editor-in-chief is someone named Bill Sherman.”
Erin cursed silently as she brought up the staff page. Sure enough, the editor-in-chief was a man. He smiled at her from his bio picture in all his balding, bespectacled glory. Erin felt a prickle of perspiration pop out on her face.
This. This was why she hadn’t wanted to lie to Zane and his business partners. She sucked at it. Along with all her other reasons for eschewing the art СКАЧАТЬ