Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 25

I'll show up about one-thirty."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I need to hear Sam make that denial, to evaluate it, and then we need

to talk to him about who else could possibly have known about the arrangements."

"Okay," she said.

"What should I do about Mandy?"

"Bring her with you," he suggested. It was practical, of course. There

would be plenty of people at the Kincaid ranch who could look after the little girl while they talked to Sam.

Maybe Rosita would help her with that dam song, he lX.t.g[tJCl[lt l 1y llUlt thought, smiling in remembrance. But that wasn't why he had made that suggestion. He realized he wanted to see her again. He could admit that to himself now, even if he didn't tell her mother.

"All right."

"And don't say anything to anyone else about the call."

"-ka " t) y, she agreed.

"You're pretty d.a.m.ned agreeable tonight," he said, letting his voice relax into intimacy. He would worry about what the kidnapper had said later. Right now he just wanted to talk to her. To listen to her voice in the quiet, lavender-scented darkness that surrounded him.

"I worked out all my normal contrariness on Sam. Be glad I called him first."

He should be glad she had called him at all, Chase knew, given the mistakes he had made in the past.

"How's Mandy?" he asked aloud.

"Mandy's ... just Mandy. The same as always. Happy as a clam and totally undisturbed by what happened. At least from every indication."

"You've done a good job," he said.

"A good job raising her. Especially having to do it by yourself."

There was a small silence, and he wondered if that had been the wrong thing to say, reminding her that he hadn't been around all those years. He had meant it as a compliment--a sincere one--but maybe it had backfired. Stupid, he thought again, listening to the silence.

"She mentioned you in her prayers tonight," Samantha said. He felt the hard pressure around his heart, a feeling that was happening often enough now to start being familiar.

His daughter had prayed for him.

"You encourage that, sweetheart. I need all the prayers I can get.".

"It's going to be all right, isn't it, Chase? Nothing else is going to---" "It's going to be fine," he promised.

"I'm not going to let anything else happen to Mandy."

"I wasn't worried about Mandy," she said.

Again something happened in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

"You're not worried about me, are you?" he asked softly, his tone

deliberately belittling that concern.

"Ridiculous," she said, matching his mockery.

"I know how tough all you McCullar men are."

He could tell from her voice that she had remembered even before she

reached the end of the sentence.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, the terrible images that he lived withconstantly, now in her voice."It's okay," he said."I like you thinking that. Mac would have liked it."Again the silence stretched across the distance between them."You be careful," she said finally."I really don't want anything to happen to you."He thought about that, about the promise it held. But he was afraid to respond to it.

"I'll see you at Sam's tomorrow afternoon. You and Mandy."

"Sleep tight," she said.

He held on to the phone for a long time after she had hung up, and for

most of that time he wasn't even thinking about what the kidnapper had told Samantha. Other things took precedence. Other things that were far more important than figuring out who had planned the ambush.

He'd get around to that. Somebody had endangered Samantha and his daughter, and he hadn't forgotten it, hadn't forgotten the need to do something about it. That was still his job, he knew, and he also knew with absolute certainty that he was the best man to do it.

Chapter Thirteen "Told her she was crazy," Sam said, looking up at Chase from under his thick white brows. He was sitting behind the rosewood desk, the three of them again in the room where they had discussed the trip into Mexico to pay the original ransom. The trip that had gone to h.e.l.l in a hand-basket. "Who else knew the details?" Chase asked. He was leaning against the table along the wall. No suit this time. He was wearing a pair of Mac's jeans instead. It hadn't taken him long to get back into being more comfortable in the clothing he'd grown up in--far more appropriate for this area than what he had worn in California. Samantha's eyes s.h.i.+fted from her father's face to his at the question.

"n.o.body," Sam said.

"There are all kinds of ways people can find out information.

Listening devices, phone taps..."

"I had 'em checked. The morning after Samantha called me, I had them

do a sweep of the office. Phone's clean, intercom, everything. n.o.body overheard what we talked about in here."

Then something or somebody else, Chase thought, some other direction.

"Who brought the money to the ranch?"

he asked, pursuing one of those possibilities.

"Dawson Sanders, president of the San Antonio bank.

Brought it personally as a courtesy to me. I told him to keep his mouth shut. n.o.body at the bank knew who or what that money was for."

"But he did?"

"If Dawson wanted to steal from me, there are lots of ways for him to have done it before now. Safer and easier ways."

Which was true, Chase acknowledged.

"Who saw the ransom note?"

"You and me," Sam said.

"What'd you do with it?"

"Put it in that safe right there." The old man nodded at the portrait

of Samantha's mother hanging on the wall behind Chase."Would you check to see if it's still there?""Already did," Sam said."It's there.""Who else knows the combination?""Not a soul in this world. Not even Samantha."Chase looked at her for confirmation, and she nodded.He should have known this would be pointless. Sam Kin-caid wasn't a fool, and he wasn't careless. They were no closer to figuring out who

might have planned the ambush than they had been before.

"And ideas?" Chase asked Sam. Why not take advantage of the old man's shrewdness and experience?

"I think you probably got some bad information."

"Why?"

"You said you asked the kidnapper to get the information for you because he has friends down there. Maybe he's protecting them."That was another possibility, Chase realized. In his conversation withthe Mexican, he had left little doubt that he was out for revenge. If the kidnapper knew the person who was responsible for the attack, he might choose this way to protect him, to throw Chase off.

"This is getting us nowhere," Samantha said.

"It's getting us further than thinking I'm the one," said.

"d.a.m.n fool idea."

Chase knew the old man was hurt that that had Samantha's first thought.

Having watched him with granddaughter at the airstrip, Chase couldn't believe was anything to that theory. The only problem was, he didn't have another one.

"So what do we do?" Samantha asked."I don't think there's anything else to do. Not until Sat.u.r.day"And on Sat.u.r.day?" she asked."I take the money down.""Despite what he told us.""If we can't figure out what's going on, then I don't know what else we can do. Maybe Sam's right. Maybe it's just a hoax."

"That's what you thought the first time."

"My instincts weren't entirely wrong then," he said, reminding them

both that they had kept a couple of important things from him.

"I don't like it," Samantha said.

"I talked to him. I thought he was telling the truth. I couldn't hear

any deception in his voice."