Stella Bagwell - The Heiress and the Sheriff

“Here comes the sheriff,” Maggie said, sounding relieved.

Gabrielle looked away from her charred car to see a pickup—sheriff’s emblem emblazoned on the side door—roaring up the road. The vehicle pulled to a jarring stop a few yards from where she and Maggie stood in the shade.

A man wearing blue jeans, a white shirt and a black cowboy hat stepped down from the truck and approached them with long, purposeful strides. He was tall, with long muscular legs that strained against his jeans. His white shirt covered a broad expanse of strong shoulders, and his torso narrowed down to a flat waist and lean hips. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, his features were sharp and angular with high cheekbones and very dark skin. What little Gabrielle could see of his hair was black and cropped close to his head. She thought he looked Native American or Mexican—she wasn’t sure which. But she was certain of one thing. She’d never seen a more striking man. No woman could forget a man who looked like this Texas sheriff.

Without smiling, he nodded briefly at Maggie as though he knew her, then turned his attention immediately to Gabrielle. “I’m Sheriff Wyatt Grayhawk,” he informed her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She felt, more than saw, his hazel-green eyes shrewdly sizing her up, and for an instant a flash of resentment joined the throbbing in her head. Couldn’t he see she was hurt? Wasn’t her physical well-being more important than the details of the accident?

“No. I didn’t know what had happened until Ms. Fortune came along and told me.”

He looked at the other woman. “You saw the accident?”

“I’m afraid I was the cause of it, Wyatt. I’d been riding down by the creek and had gotten off to rest and water my horse. I didn’t see the snake until it struck at him. He jerked away from me and ran off in a mad gallop across the field, and right in front of Gabrielle’s car. When she swerved to miss it, the car went into a spin and crashed into a tree. By the time I finally made it up here, she’d gotten out of the car and was wandering down the road.”

The sheriff looked back at her, and Gabrielle felt the hair on the back of her neck rise as though a thunderstorm was mixing in the air.

“Your name is Gabrielle?”

His voice was low, rough and timbered with a Texas drawl. She resisted the urge to shiver. “Gabrielle Carter.”

“Where are you from, Gabrielle?”

She swallowed as another wave of helpless fear swamped her. “I don’t know.”

His eyes, which seemed unusually light for such dark skin, narrowed with suspicion. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Surely you know where you live?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated.

Maggie Fortune said, “Wyatt, I think Gabrielle has hurt her head.”

He stepped closer, and Gabrielle had to force herself to stand her ground and endure a closer scrutiny of his unnerving gaze.

“Yes, that’s quite a cut you’ve got there. Let me grab my first aid kit.” He sprinted back to his truck and came back with the kit. “I’m no doctor, but I do know a little something about cuts and scrapes. Here’s some gauze with some antiseptic. It’ll do for now, but I definitely think you’ll have to go to the hospital.”

Maggie was grateful for his help, more grateful for the distraction from his rapid-fire questions. How come he kept looking at her like he didn’t believe she truly couldn’t remember anything? Why would she lie?

“So, Gabrielle, do you have any identification on you?”

Identification! She glanced down at her somewhat faded jeans, then quickly jammed her hands in all the pockets, searching for any scrap of paper. There was nothing. No coins or tissues or lipstick. Nothing.

She lifted shocked eyes back to his face. “No. I suppose my purse was in the car. Oh, and now it’s burnt!”

The young woman appeared to be genuinely distraught, Wyatt thought. But anyone would be after the jolt she must have taken when her car slammed into the oak. She was not a Texan. At first glance her appearance had told him that much; her voice had proved it. There was no wedding band, no rings of any sort on her fingers. In fact, the only jewelry she was wearing were slender gold hoops in her ears.

“Maggie, were the Fortunes expecting any visitors from out of state?” he asked.

The other woman shook her head at his question. “Not that I’m aware of. But then, people are always dropping in unannounced. You know that, Wyatt.”

He looked back at Gabrielle Carter. He’d been friends with the Fortune family for years, and he’d never heard the name Carter mentioned. And if he’d ever seen Gabrielle, he would have remembered. She was not a woman any man would likely forget. He was struck by her beauty, even in this disheveled state.

Her long brown hair was naturally streaked with gold from the sun. The silky strands waved about her shoulders and framed an oval face that was dominated by huge hazel-green eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. Full pink lips quivered as she glanced from him to the smoldering car. Her skin—and he could see plenty of it with the skimpy top she was wearing—was smooth and tanned to a deep golden brown. He tried not to think about the luscious curves beneath the jeans and ribbed knit blouse.

“Well, I think right now, Miss Carter, you’d better let me drive you to the hospital. We’ll deal with your identity later.”

Gabrielle stared wildly at him, then turned a helpless look on the Fortune woman. “I’m not sure I want to go to the hospital with him! I don’t know where I am! I don’t have any money—”

Wyatt held up a hand to halt her protest, while beside her the woman said gently, “Please let him take you. In my panic, I didn’t even think to call an ambulance. And don’t worry about the hospital bill, Gabrielle. The ranch’s insurance will certainly cover it. Especially with me being the cause of the accident. I really feel just awful.”

“You don’t have any choice in the matter, Miss Carter,” Wyatt Grayhawk informed her none too gently. “As sheriff, I’m required to see you get medical attention. It’s the law.”

Her heart pounded as she searched his dark, stern face. Something told her there was very little, if any, compassion behind his roughly hewn features. This man didn’t care if she was lost or terrified. In fact, the skeptical expression on his face said he’d doubted her story from the start.

“I guess there’s little else I can do then, is there?” she said quietly.

“Nothing else,” he agreed, then reached for her arm.

Gabrielle wanted to jerk away from him. But she didn’t have the strength. And he was the sheriff, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t help her cause to have him riled at her.

“Everything will be all right, Gabrielle,” the woman assured her as the three of them walked to Wyatt’s pickup.

“Wyatt will take good care of you.”

Gabrielle didn’t want to think about being under the sheriff’s care. He was harder to deal with than the pain in her head.

“Do you need a lift back to the ranch?” Wyatt asked the woman.

“No. I’m going to walk back,” she told him. “Maybe I’ll find my horse on the way. You will let us know about Gabrielle?”

“I’ll call the ranch and let you know something as soon as I can. In the meantime, you might let your father-in-law, Ryan, know what’s happened.”

“I will.” The woman waved and headed down the road in the opposite direction from the charred car.

Gabrielle suddenly felt even more lost and alone without her rescuer. At least with the Fortune woman, she’d felt she had someone on her side. With Sheriff Grayhawk she felt anything but safe.

He opened the door of the vehicle and helped Gabrielle up on the bench seat, then skirted around the hood and slid behind the wheel.

“Buckle up,” he ordered as he started the engine.

She pulled the straps of the seat belt across her lap, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she couldn’t make the two ends catch.

Suddenly two dark-brown hands were pushing her fumbling fingers aside. “Here, let me do it, or we’ll never get where we’re going,” he said gruffly.

She bit down on her lip and turned her face toward the window, but his closeness couldn’t be ignored. She could smell the faint scent of his cologne and feel the brush of his warm hands as he latched the seat belt against her.

He was a forceful man in looks and presence. And though her past was a blank, she had a feeling she’d never encountered anyone like him before.

“Thank you,” she murmured, once he’d straightened away from her and set the pickup in motion.

He didn’t acknowledge her words. Instead, he turned the pickup around and headed back toward what was left of her burned car. The flames and smoke had finally been doused, and the firemen were rolling up their hoses.

Wyatt stopped the pickup. “I’m going to talk to the firemen. I’ll be right back,” he said without glancing her way.

Through a blur of pain Gabrielle watched the tall, dark sheriff walk over to the two firemen. After a brief moment of conversation he returned to the truck.

“Is there anything left inside the car?” she asked hopefully.

“The metal is still too hot to search through the thing. I’ll come back later and see what I can find. Unless you want to tell me what all this is about right now?”

At the question, she snapped her head around, causing even more pain to crush the middle of her forehead. She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

His brows arched and then he rubbed a hand over his face. “So, you’re still determined to play innocent with me. I thought once we got away from Maggie you might decide to come clean.”

Gabrielle realized she was in a partial state of shock from the accident, but try as she might she couldn’t unravel the strange things this man was saying to her.

“Come clean? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned slightly toward him, her expression desperate. “Do you know who I am? If you do, why don’t you tell me?”

Her voice was rising as though she were very near to hysteria. If she was faking this whole thing she was doing a damn good job, Wyatt thought. But hell, most women were good actresses. Lying to a man came as naturally to them as breathing.

“Calm down, lady. If you’ve got a concussion, it won’t do you any good to get all excited.”

Gabrielle’s lips parted as she stared at him in stunned fascination. “Excited! How would you feel if your head was cracking and you didn’t know who you were or where you were? Oh, I’m sure a big strong man like you would take it all in stride,” she sneered. “It would probably be just another day in the life of a Texas sheriff.”

His nostrils flared as his eyes left the highway long enough to glance at her. “That ache in your head doesn’t seem to be affecting your tongue.”

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I don’t like being accused. And you were trying to accuse me of something!”

Except for a faint lift of his brows, his features became deceptively passive. “If you don’t know who you are, how can you be certain you aren’t guilty?”

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but then a slow, sickening realization struck her. She might be a criminal. She might be anything. She just didn’t know!

“You’re right. I can’t be certain of anything,” she said wretchedly, then dropped her head in her hands.

Behind the wheel, Wyatt tried not to let the despair on her face soften him. She was a hell of a looker, but she could very well be up to no good. In his work he had to be suspicious of everyone. Personally, as a man, there was no woman he trusted. And he was doubly on his guard because of all the trouble the Fortunes had encountered lately.