Page 30 of Rancher to the Rescue

When had this little girl wiggled her way into Prudence’s heart?

From Adam’s vantage point in the kitchen, he kept one eye on Prudence and Angel as he waited for Lawler to return with a DNA test kit. He sat there, tapping his fingers on the table, an uneasy feeling gripping him.

It was impossible to imagine Libby dead. His hands fisted, anger surged, and he scanned the room in search of an easy outlet. Their relationship might not have worked out, but damn. He didn’t wish death on his worst enemy. He searched his brain for the timing of their breakup sex. The time period was a still fuzzy considering it had been during calving season but had to be at least a few weeks after she walked away. They’d been together roughly eight weeks shy of a year.

Again, he smacked the flat of his palm on the tabletop.

The back door opened, and Lawler walked in. There were two kits in hand. He sidestepped a patch of broken glass on his way over. Adam figured he could clean up the shards once Lawler joined Prudence and Angel in the living room to collect her sample.

It didn’t take two minutes for the sheriff to take Adam’s DNA.

Adam glanced in the next room and his chest squeezed at watching Prudence play with the baby. Angel was on top of her blanket on the floor, her arms and legs kicking and punching. The sounds of her cooing nearly did him in.

So, the kid was cute. Didn’t mean she belonged to him.

He stood up and grabbed the broom leaning against the back door. The perp could have used it to break the window. He reminded himself to tell Prudence not to leave anything outside that could be used as a weapon. Folks forgot about things like brooms, ladders, and gardening tools. All of which could be used to smash a window without the perp getting so much as a nick.

After sweeping up as many of the big chunks as he could, he located a paper bag to use as a dustpan. He folded it over and swept up as much of the debris as he could. One thing that stood out about growing up a Firebrand was that each one knew how to be self-sufficient.

Had Adam developed a habit of depending on himself? To the extent he’d stopped letting others in?

Libby had told him she couldn’t envision living her life on the ranch, waiting around for him to come home every day, no matter how much she loved him. And she’d used the word, loved. His heart had been wrecked and his judgment clearly had gone down with it when she showed up at his door, her cheeks stained with tears.

She’d told him how much she missed him and wished things could be different.

Still nursing a bruised ego, he’d taken her by the hand and led her inside. They didn’t make it two steps in the door before her raincoat tumbled onto the floor and she stood there wearing nothing but a silk bra and panties.

Those details were etched into his mind, but the timing… The days ran together that time of year on a cattle ranch. He could rack his brain all day and still come up empty.

He walked over to the kitchen sink and wet a half dozen paper towels, a trick his mother had taught him to get all the shards. Growing up the oldest in a house of nine boys meant plenty of broken glass, be it someone dropping their drink or a ball through a window.

His childhood had been a good one despite all the fights that came with too much testosterone under one roof. Don’t even get him started on the conflict that came with nine cousins, also boys, living on the same property.

Adam had claimed the fishing cabin for himself the day he’d turned eighteen, and there’d been no objections to him moving in on the last day of high school. His mother’s only requirement was that he graduated. Sitting in a classroom for another four years sounded about as appealing as peeling wallpaper off walls with his thumbs, so he’d forgone the athletic scholarship waiting for him in favor of going straight into the family business. He’d taken two years’ worth of online classes, enough to get an associate’s degree in business.

“I’ll take these samples in. It’ll be anywhere from two to five days before I get the results from the lab,” Lawler said.

This was going to be the longest few days of Adam’s life.

“There any way to speed up the process?” Adam figured it was worth a shot to ask.

“I’m afraid not. I’ll be calling in a favor to make a play, but I can’t guarantee anything. I have no idea how backed up the lab is,” Lawler explained.

“I’d appreciate a call the minute results come in,” Adam said mostly for his own benefit. Lawler would call.

He nodded his reassurance.

“My deputy is filling out the report on the break-in here,” he said. “I have a few phone calls to make and a full inbox to attend to back at my office. I haven’t been there at all since yesterday morning.”

“Thank you for everything you’re doing on the investigation,” Adam said. Part of him wanted to ask to see Libby, to confirm with his own eyes she was gone. “How are Libby’s parents taking the news?”

“They’re shocked, of course,” he admitted. “Said they hadn’t seen her much since she moved to Austin. Needless to say, they weren’t able to help much in the investigation. They couldn’t say for sure who she’d been hanging around, who her friends were. She stopped posting on her social media page months ago.”

“Could she have gotten herself in some type of trouble?” he asked.

“Time will tell,” Lawler supplied. “When the two of you were together, did you get the impression she was mixed up with anything that might get her in a bad position?”

“No,” he admitted. “But then, I didn’t see her walking out on me when I asked her to be my wife either.”