Or she might hesitate to have more kids simply because she was in her late thirties.

  For J.P., giving up his dream of being a father would be a deal-breaker.

  On the other hand, if he loved a woman the way he wanted to love, with all his body, mind and soul, and she didn’t want kids, would he be able to turn his back on her and walk away?

  The question nagged at him all the way back to his place.

  He realized he was jumping to a lot of conclusions; he and Sara hadn’t discussed the matter of children, given that it was so early in their relationship.

  If they even had a relationship.

  And suppose the topic scared her off?

  Back at the house, he parked the truck, summoned Trooper from the house and whistled for Shiloh, grazing in the nearby pasture with the other horses.

  The gelding came readily to the fence.

  Still mulling over the dilemma—could he see himself with a woman who didn’t want children?—he threw a halter over Shiloh’s head, buckled it on and led him toward the barn. Saddled the animal by muscle memory, since his mind was miles away.

  In town.

  With Sara.

  He came to no conclusion.

  Trooper, who had greeted him joyously when he got out of the truck, lay in a patch of shade now, close to the barn, his tongue lolling.

  And here was another quandary.

  Trooper lived to hang out with people, especially J.P. himself. Leaving him behind, after calling him outside, and thereby getting his hopes up, wouldn’t be kind, either.

  J.P. sighed, pulled his phone from his shirt pocket.

  Speed-dialed Cord and Shallie’s landline.

  “Hey,” a perky feminine voice answered on the third ring. “Is it really you, Uncle J.P.?”

  Carly.

  J.P. smiled. “Hey yourself,” he replied.

  “Dad just pulled up. Do you want to talk to him?” He heard curiosity in her voice; most likely she was wondering why he hadn’t called Cord’s cell. These days, reaching somebody over a landline was a crapshoot.

  Except, of course, if he happened to be calling his parents.

  “Not at the moment,” J.P. replied. “I’m on my way over there, so I’ll see your dad again soon enough. I was actually hoping you’d let my dog hang out with yours for a few hours. Cord and I have some riding to do, and it might wear Trooper out, following us around.”

  Carly was, among her other stellar traits, an avowed animal lover. “Sure!” she replied with genuine enthusiasm. “That would be great. I haven’t seen Trooper since last month, when Shallie and Dad threw that barbecue.”

  “I really appreciate this, Carly,” J.P. said. It revisited him then, that pang of disappointment he’d felt when the results of the DNA test had come in, and he’d learned that this lovely, spirited young woman wasn’t his biological daughter.

  “Anything for the Troopster,” Carly answered sweetly. “Our dogs will be happy, too. They love company, two-legged or four-legged.”

  “See you in a few, kiddo.”

  Trooper, who knew the drill, livened right up at J.P.’s beckoning whistle, trotted over, jumped onto the bales and then leaped from there into J.P.’s arms.

  They traveled overland, since that was the most direct route, and Trooper, perched in front of J.P., took every bump with more ease than a lot of humans would have.

  When they reached the Hollister ranch, Carly and the two family dogs were waiting in the front yard, none too patiently.

  Trooper gave a happy yelp and jumped gracefully to the ground, racing toward the girl and her canine companions, a streak of fur and delight.

  J.P. smiled at the sight, but remained in the saddle, having spotted Cord leading a saddled gelding out of the barn. The sun was still high, but the Hollister ranch was big, and they needed to make the most of the daylight.

  Carly approached, looked up at J.P., shading her eyes with one hand, surrounded by eager dogs. “It’s terrible, what’s been happening to the mustangs,” she said. “And the deer, too.”

  “Yeah,” J.P. agreed, adjusting his hat, remembering that Eric, Sara’s boy, could be involved.

  “Eric has nothing to do with this,” Carly said, having apparently read his mind. “He still regrets last time. He’s changed.”

  J.P. hesitated before he offered his reply. “I hope you’re right,” he said very quietly.

  “But you’re not sure,” Carly responded somewhat sadly.

  J.P. adjusted his hat, pulling the brim down lower over his eyes, since he’d left his sunglasses in his truck. “Seems like you might be sure enough for both of us,” he observed gently.

  He loved this girl as much as he loved his nieces. Maybe more, since he knew her a lot better, and it hurt to see her looking downcast.

  “Do you really think I’d still be going out with Eric if I thought he’d gone back to his old ways, Uncle J.P.?” she asked. “Like I said, he’s different now. He’s planning to go to college and everything.”

  “I don’t know the boy very well,” J.P. admitted. “But I trust your judgment, Carly. If you say he’s all right, then in all likelihood, he is.”

  Carly looked slightly happier, but when she glanced in Cord’s direction, her face fell a little. “I think Dad has his doubts,” she confessed. “And he thinks Eric and I ought to take a break, since I’ll be going off to college in September and Eric will have to stay behind and finish high school.”

  Privately, J.P. thought his friend was right, but he wasn’t fool enough to say so. He didn’t want to alienate his honorary niece any more than he already had.

  Carly would be living a whole new life when she started college. She’d make new friends, too, and some of those friends would be male. It wasn’t hard to imagine a romance sparking between her and one of those guys.

  There would be several, most likely, over the course of her college career, and she was hoping to go on to veterinary school after she’d earned her bachelor’s degree.

  A lot could happen.

  She would grow and change.

  Eric, left behind in Painted Pony Creek for another year, would, hopefully, do the same.

  Young love, J.P. thought sympathetically, can hurt like hell.

  “I can’t predict the future,” he said aloud, “but I know this much—you’ll be fine, Carly, and Eric will, too. He’s got a good mother and a damn fine uncle to steer him in the right direction.”

  Carly nodded and gave a nod as Cord joined them.

  “Good luck,” she said, addressing both men and already steering the dogs, Trooper included, away toward the house. Trooper looked back once, but at J.P.’s nod, he followed Carly.

  “We’re going to need luck,” Cord said, sounding a little grim.

  Eli was meeting them at the natural spring in the middle of the Hollister ranch. This time, instead of riding, he’d travel in the SUV. His deputies were busy elsewhere, and the feds were still holding back, grousing about budgets and being short-staffed.

  J.P. and Cord had learned all this during their lunch meeting in the back room at Sully’s, and plenty more. Melba and her people had been keeping their ears to the ground, counting on the acknowledged fact that most criminals aren’t too bright, and usually can’t resist bragging about their exploits.

  Naturally, if the local police department turned up any useful information, they would share it with Eli and his deputies.

  J.P. and Cord rode in silence across the Hollister range toward the springs.

  When they arrived, Eli was already there, standing beside his rig.

  The springs fed a small pond, and the horses strained in that direction, thirsty.

  Both riders dismounted and let the animals drink while they went to meet Eli.

  “I thought you might bring the chief along,” Cord said, with a grin.

  Eli smiled, shook his head. “Chief Summers,” he replied, “is in labor, as we speak. Dan called me about twenty minutes ago.”

  Melba and Dan Summers had remarried six months before, after being divorced for some years. They had two young daughters.

  “Is Melba okay?” Cord asked.

  “She’s fine,” Eli replied. “I have that on good authority.”

  “And Dan? How’s he doing?” J.P. asked.

  Eli chuckled. “He’s beside himself, but he’s holding up for Melba and the girls.”

  It was hard to imagine Dan Summers, former navy SEAL, FBI special agent and, most recently, the head of his own international security firm, beside himself. He was big as a grizzly bear and twice as tough.

  “Guess he’s out of practice,” Cord remarked. He and Eli swapped knowing glances. “Not that either of us had it all together when it was crunch time in the delivery room.”

  At that, they both looked at J.P.

  “What?” he snapped, feeling unaccountably testy.

  Cord laughed. “Touchy,” he said.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” Eli interceded patiently. “We can hassle the Creek’s most eligible bachelor later. Maybe over a game of poker.”

  J.P. said nothing, but his thoughts were snarky.

  “Maybe you should go on that TV show,” Cord suggested over one shoulder, heading for his horse. “The one with all the beautiful women competing to marry one guy.”

  J.P. kept pace, mounted Shiloh, gathered the reins in his left hand. “That your favorite program, Cordelia?” he chided.

  Cord gave a gruff laugh and swung up into the saddle. “Shallie and Carly never miss an episode,” he replied. “I picked up the gist of it by osmosis.”

  “Sure you did,” J.P. retorted.

  “Sounds like you’re a faithful viewer,” Cord challenged, adjusting his hat and grinning.

  Eli stood there, shaking his head, obviously waiting for them to shut up so he could tell them what to do.

  Nothing new there.

  “All right, Sheriff,” Cord said, giving their friend a brisk salute and a mocking grin. “Let’s hear your orders for the day.”

  Eli sent them in two different directions, reminded them that there could be traps hidden along grassy trails, warned them to be careful.

  The idea that his horse, or Cord’s, might be injured in such a savage way cast a dark shadow over that otherwise sunny afternoon.

  J.P. rode for several hours, stopping to let Shiloh rest when needed, kept a close eye out for traps and coils of barbwire, and found nothing. He was about to turn around and head back to the springs to meet Cord and Eli when he heard the first rifle shot.

  Two more followed, then silence.

  J.P. swore. He’d been a rancher long enough to know a signal when he heard one.

  Three shots in sequence meant one thing: trouble.

  With the sounds of that gun still vibrating in his bones, J.P. turned Shiloh and rode hard in the direction of the noise.

  Ten minutes later, he reached the top of a small hill and searched the expanse of waving grass and brush until he spotted Eli in the distance. The sheriff waved both arms in the air, and J.P. headed toward him at top speed.

  The SUV was nowhere in sight, but Cord was visible, approaching from the northeast.

  He reached the scene at about the same time as J.P.—and what a scene it was.

  A dead man lay in the tall grass, so coated in dried blood that it was impossible to tell whether he was facedown or lying on his back. A few bones jutted through torn flesh, and the flies and maggots were having a heyday.

  J.P. felt bile surge into the back of his throat, turned his head and spit.

  “Christ,” Cord said, going pale. “What the hell happened here?”

  “Stay back,” Eli instructed calmly. Wearily. “Alec and Sam are on their way.”

  Alec Stone was the county coroner, and Sam Wu was his assistant. They were the closest thing Wild Horse County had to crime-scene techs.

  “Somebody either beat this poor bastard to death with a sledgehammer or he’s been trampled,” J.P. speculated. He wasn’t going to hurl or anything like that, but he wouldn’t be eating supper that night, either. Breakfast might be off the table, too.

  Literally.

  “Look around,” Eli said, crouching beside the corpse.

  J.P. and Cord complied, noticed hundreds of hoof prints, gouged into the ground, flattening the grass.

  “I guess this rules out the sledgehammer theory,” J.P. remarked.

  “Do either of you recognize this yahoo?” Eli asked, still studying the body.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Cord retorted. As J.P. had moments earlier, he turned his head and spit.

  “No,” J.P. said. “Isn’t he carrying a wallet or something? There’ll probably be ID inside.”

  “Thank you, DCI Barnaby,” Eli replied amiably enough. “He probably is carrying a wallet, but I’m not going to be able to get to it without disturbing the body and thus pissing Alec off big-time.”

  Sirens sounded in the distance, growing closer and louder by the second.

  The horses began to nicker and prance. No doubt they were more troubled by the body than the sirens, and they were nervous as hell.

  “Where’s your SUV?” Cord asked Eli.

  “Just over that rise,” Eli answered, pointing. Beyond that low rocky hillside was the dirt road that bisected both the McCall and Hollister ranches. “The ground is pretty soft out here, so I left the rig on the road. And before you ask how I knew there was something out here, look up.”

  Both Cord and J.P. tilted back their heads.

  Saw the circling buzzards.

  “Damn,” J.P. said, wondering why he’d even bothered watching all those Westerns growing up if he hadn’t even learned to be on the lookout for those nasty birds. “What a god-awful way to die.”

  Eli huffed out a sigh. “Yeah,” he agreed glumly.

  He seemed to be taking this in stride; he was cool and calm, sitting on his heels within a foot or so of a dead man.

  From J.P’s viewpoint, the only thing worse than the gore was the stench.

  Shiloh grew more fretful, and J.P. backed the animal up a few paces, swung down from the saddle, kept his distance.

  “How long do you think he’s been dead?” he asked.

  “I’ll have to wait until Alec and Sam check him over to know for sure,” Eli answered, “but if I had to guess, I’d say a couple of days.”

  “You think he was one of the people you’ve been looking for?” asked Cord.

  “Probably,” Eli answered. Then he reached into the tall grass and drew out a steel bear trap, the kind with teeth, and held it up for the others to see.

  Cord swore again.

  The sirens grew louder.

  “I’m going to go over every inch of this place,” Cord said. He meant the entire Hollister ranch, not just the immediate area. Like J.P., he owned horses and several hundred head of cattle, but he had an additional concern, since he taught students and often led them on trail rides.

  “You’ll need a crew,” Eli said. “And it will be dangerous work. I’ll help, and so will my deputies.”

  “I’ll lend a hand, too,” J.P. said, well aware that his own land might have been sprinkled with the cruel traps. If necessary, he’d hire on as many temporary ranch hands as he needed.

  “I thought traps like that were outlawed a long time ago,” Cord put in. Like J.P., he’d dismounted. Now they both inspected their immediate surroundings for more of the things.

  “They’re available if you know where to look,” Eli said. “Watch your step, will you?” He stood up straight as they heard tires on the dirt road, male voices and the slamming of doors. “Be careful!” he shouted to the coroner, his helper, two paramedics and three deputies. “There might be traps planted in the grass.”

  “God Almighty,” J.P. sighed, taking off his hat, wiping the back of his neck with one arm and then resettling the hat. “Who does shit like this?”

  Eli was focused on the approaching group, so he didn’t answer.

  “Who does what?” Cord retorted. “Gets themselves trampled to death by a herd of wild horses?”

  “That, too. But I was talking about the barbwire and the traps. Who gets up in the morning and says to themselves, Today, I’m going to do as much damage and cause as much pain as I possibly can?”

  Cord moved to stand beside J.P., carefully avoiding the body and the pockmarked earth around it.

  He rested a hand briefly on J.P.’s shoulder. “Probably somebody who’s damaged and in a lot of pain themselves,” he answered. “You doing okay, my friend?”

  J.P. knew Cord was referring to the severe case of PTSD he’d suffered after the explosion in Afghanistan. Though he’d been ambulatory within six weeks, the psychological effects of seeing seven of his friends blown to a red mist had lasted a lot longer. He and Trooper had gotten together soon after he’d come home, and the therapy, both physical and mental, had gone on for a long, long time.

  Gradually, with the help of his family, his friends—especially Cord and Eli—his service dog, the sprawling Montana sky and the land beneath it had healed him.

  Seeing the body, gruesome as it was, hadn’t triggered him.

  Yet.

  He might get through this without a flashback, a nightmare or a killer headache.

  Then again, he might not.

  He felt tension tightening his neck and shoulders.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” he assured Cord, his tone gruff. He was determined to keep it together, but he appreciated his friend’s concern, too. Like Trooper, Eli and Cord had helped him cope when memories swamped him, tried to take him under.

  They’d sat up many a night, the three of them, swilling coffee and playing poker, and when PTSD struck in the daytime, they dug fence-post holes and chopped wood.

  “Good,” Cord responded. “As for me, I’m still not sure I won’t lose my lunch.”

  “You know,” J.P. said, “I’d feel a lot better if we got these horses out of this deep grass and onto the road.”