The High Country Rancher Read Online Free PDF Page B

employ, at least on a twenty-five-hundred-acre ranch. Baylor could have hidden Endicott anywhere. Maybe she should give it up and go back to square one. Good, old-fashioned, pound-the-pavement, last-person-to-see-him-alive kind of stuff. Someone had to have seen something. She just had to pose the right question to the right person.
    She opened her eyes and was startled. The object of her crack-of-dawn investigation stood next to her car holding the reins to a couple of horses.
    “Good morning,” he said. “You’ll never get any nosing around done sitting in your car.”
    Damn, she’d been caught. “You have a better plan?”
    “How about I give you a tour of the ranch on horseback. You can search for Endicott anywhere you’d like.”
    “And if I find him?” The air inside the vehicle went hot.
    “You can cuff me and take me to jail.”
    “Deal.” She rolled up the driver’s-side window, climbed out of the car and locked it. “I haven’t ridden in a while. Is he gentle?”
    “Jericho? Yeah. The last person he dumped lived to tell about it.”
    She grinned, feeling like a 4-H student at her first horse show.
    Baylor handed her the reins, watched her mount up and settle into the saddle. He could only hope that his method worked. That the beautiful detective would drive away happy and convinced there wasn’t a body hidden somewhere on the Bellwether.
    “We’ll head east. That’s the most remote area of the ranch. Lots of game trails. Abandoned mine shafts. I don’t run cattle out there for that reason.”
    “Too dangerous?”
    “One wrong step and you don’t come home.” Heturned his horse and headed for the main road. They’d follow it for a couple of miles and take the Bear Creek trailhead just before Harley Neville’s place.
    Mariah nudged her horse up next to Baylor’s and tried to relax. The feel of her sidearm on her belt offered some comfort. Searching without a search warrant, riding next to a suspect, all seemed a little strange to her, but if it helped her pull together a case, it’d be worth the risk.
    “Shoot. I forgot my lunch in the car.” She attempted to turn the horse back toward her vehicle.
    “Don’t worry.” Baylor patted his saddlebag. “I brought enough for two.” He grinned and her heartbeat went haywire.
    Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Her certainty about his involvement in Endicott’s disappearance seemed to flail whenever she was with him. Something about his easygoing style sucked her in and changed her mind.
    Baylor spurred his horse and she followed suit as they settled into a slow canter that ate up the distance.
    The sweet scent of honey locust and pine sap hung in the air. The rhythm of the horses’ hooves against the dirt lulled her into a contented state that she’d rarely achieved since she’d started working at the sheriff’s department.
    Baylor reined his horse in and waited for her to do the same. “Here’s our trail. It’s a steep climb, but the view on top is worth it.”
    There was that sensation again. That zing of pleasure across her nerves, that flutter in her chest. “Looks like it would be too much work to get a body up there.” She stared up the sloping trail as it disappeared into the trees.
    Her comment put an edge of tension in the air between them, which was precisely what she needed to pull her back down to earth. Until the Endicott case was solved, and Baylor was cleared, she had to sock the odd feelings away somewhere so they didn’t interfere with her job.
    “A good strong horse and some determination. It could be done,” he said without hesitation.
    She stared at him, trying to gauge his emotions, but his face gave nothing away. Was he joking or dead serious, she couldn’t be sure.
    “Let’s head up. Make sure it’s clear.” He tipped his hat, the one shielding his features from her scrutiny.
    She fell in behind him, leaning forward in the saddle as her horse trudged up the first steep incline, then took a right