ChapterThree
Emery’s heart was beating so high and fast she could hardly catch a breath. She was standing in front of her brother’s murderer and lying to him like a fraud, imposter, hypocrite, perjurer to boot. When she’d first seen him with his gun drawn, looking like a dangerous wild west cowboy outlaw, she’d been sure her life was over. Then he’d stunned her. He’d immediately put his gun away and changed everything about his threatening stance, promising he wouldn’t hurt her. She’d never looked into eyes that blue and that sincere. Could she trust he would keep her safe? From himself or whoever had ordered him to kill her brother?
The minute she’d seen him, she knew she’d stumbled onto Greer Delta, exactly as she’d prayed she would and by following her mysterious caller’s map and very precise instructions. It was insane that she would walk right up to the one Delta she needed to find and he’d seemed to buy her story and agreed to shelter her so easily.
The crazier thing was … she actually believed he wouldn’t hurt her. There was something in his blue eyes that reassured her. She might live to regret her insanely brave quest, but it appeared that Greer Delta was exactly as the Voice had promised her, a chivalrous cowboy and protector of women.
She still couldn’t quite believe she was doing this. She’d gone back and forth arguing with herself and heaven all day after she’d talked to the Voice. Then two things had happened. The Navy had called and informed her Travis had gone AWOL and he’d been shot and killed during a “situation” they couldn’t give her details about. Then they’d asked her where she wanted his body sent for burial.
It had confirmed exactly what the Voice had said would happen.
The second thing was the video from Travis. She’d read and re-read all the Voice’s instructions and stared at the pile of money and prayed desperately to know what path she should take. It was all out of her league and terrifying. Then she finally got brave enough to watch the video her brother had asked the Voice to send to her. It was short, and it made her sob.
Travis had looked good. Strong, well-groomed, but far too serious. The video had been too brief, she’d wanted more. Travis had said, “Hi, sis. If you’re watching this, I’m gone. I want you to know that I love you. You’ve known me my whole life, and you know I love my country. That I’ve sacrificed a lot for it. You’ve seen me overcome my demons, and you’ve inspired me with your purity and innocence. Stay strong, sis.”
Then it cut off. Emery had cried then. She’d cried long and hard. When she’d finally stopped crying, she’d prayed, and she felt she had to do this. For Travis. For the country he’d loved and sacrificed for.
Everything had gone better than she could’ve planned. Now she could right the wrong done to her country and avenge her brother’s death. Things seemed to be falling into place as if heaven above orchestrated them.
Thank you, she prayed.Now please keep me safe and somehow able to keep lying convincingly to this man.
After the graveside service yesterday afternoon, she’d kissed the Weatherspoons goodbye and driven the ten hours from Salmon to Grand Junction, Colorado, stopping only to eat and get gas. She’d arrived early in the morning and crashed in a Motel 6, sleeping deeply and then waking about an hour later with the nightmare that had plagued her since she’d learned of Travis’s death. Gruesome images of Travis killing a beautiful blonde woman who had … Greer Delta’s eyes.
Yikes, she was a mess.
It was after noon today when she’d found a place to store her car for a few weeks that took cash and didn’t care what her name was. Her instructions from Mr. No-Name Compassionate Voice, aka the Voice, had said to use the cash and not leave her real name or a trace. He’d had a fake ID for her with Taylor Miles on it. He’d provided pictures of Greer Delta. Emery had studied the handsome cowboy’s face, trying to assign malice and evil to the manly lines. It wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped.
The Voice had claimed the Delta family had been deluded into believing their cause was good and right. If that was true, maybe that’s why Growly Greer didn’t look evil. Maybe the humble and good-looking cowboy wasn’t evil, but simply misguided. He had only killed her brother because he’d been tricked into thinking Travis was the bad guy. It reassured her enough to take the plunge and try to vindicate her brother’s death.
In the Voice’s instructions was the promise that if she could find the location of the weapon, the Voice could take down the real bad guys, those who had assigned the Deltas to protect the weapon and had really caused Travis’s death. So she’d tried to look at Greer Delta as a soldier following orders.
It was still disturbing being face to face with her brother’s killer.
Apparently, his extended family owned an entire vale near the town of Summit Valley. The map was very detailed, showing the exact route she could hike from Summit Valley and arrive three hours later on the south end of the Deltas’ land closest to Greer’s home.
She’d paid an exorbitant amount to a cab driver in Grand Junction to drive her to Summit Valley and arrived early this afternoon. The cab had dropped her at the map’s starting point and she’d started her trek across the mountains to their valley with only a small backpack with a couple thousand dollars in cash, travel-size makeup and toiletries, a water bottle, trail mix, clean underwear, shorts, socks, a T-shirt, and a can of bear spray. She prayed the entire time she wouldn’t get eaten alive by a bear and that somehow, someway, she’d run into Greer Delta and he’d buy her story.
It had worked eerily well. Even with Greer not appearing to know who she was, looking to be a decent human being, and taking the bait, she was petrified to get too close to him. If she hadn’t been so exhausted, dirty, and disheveled, she probably would’ve tried to hit him, scratch him, bite him, or at the very minimum give him an ‘accidental’ shot of the bear spray in her backpack. Lame rebuttals for him killing her brother, but she wasn’t some expert at revenge. Wasn’t it thirty years Inigo Montoya had sought to avenge his father’s death and ten of those years he’d worked to become the greatest sword fighter in the world? She’d had like ten minutes to figure out how to get her revenge. Heaven help her, it would most likely go awry soon.
She wasn’t sure if she was so nauseated because she hadn’t eaten a proper meal in two days, because she was in the presence of her brother’s killer and scared to death of how this operation would fail, or because of how conflicted she now felt about the man staring at her.
His blue eyes were clear and truthfully beautiful. If she didn’t know who he was and what he’d done, she could’ve gotten lost in eyes that blue. She wanted to slap herself silly, but she couldn’t stop looking at him and cataloguing a few other things that she’d seen in the pictures but was now being smacked in the face with.
His face was model handsome, with sculpted lines and a shadow of dark hair on his cheeks and strong jawline. The cowboy hat he wore was a nice compliment to his appeal, and his body was as impressive as his face. He filled out his T-shirt and jeans beautifully and was obviously a hard-working cowboy. Those defined muscles in his arms and under his T-shirt should’ve installed terror by their sheer size. She couldn’t puzzle it out—and maybe she didn’t want to—but those muscles looked comforting and attractive. He was tall, maybe six or seven inches taller than her five-foot-nine, and he wore it well.
In her fake role as Taylor, the escaping ex-girlfriend, she’d asked if he would protect her and if he would keep her safe. The Voice had claimed Greer Delta respected and protected women. Both times he’d simply said “yes” in a deep voice. He wasn’t a man of many words, but there’d been something about that cowboy tone, his blue eyes, and his bearing. This man would protect her from anything and everything.
Was his serious cowboy demeanor why he’d agreed like he had, like it was a solemn vow between them, or was there something deeper going on, something she couldn’t put her finger on? If the entire Delta family had been deluded into thinking they were working for the “good guys” but they really weren’t, maybe the reason she’d felt impressed to come here was to help Greer and his family learn the truth. Maybe they could somehow help each other.
She shouldn’t be so impressed and almost drawn to Greer Delta. She shouldn’t want this man’s protection. She should only want to hurt him like he’d hurt her. Instead, she found herself trusting that he would protect and help her. The only man she needed protection from was him, or maybe whoever his higher up was. It made no sense, and she was already sick of all the conflicting emotions battling inside of her. She was confused and tired and hungry. That was all. Her mind was too tired to even create synonyms.
She had to keep reminding herself that Greer Delta was a murderer who’d been indoctrinated to believe he was working for the good guys. It would probably be smart not to get caught in a staring contest with Mr. Blue Eyes Hypnotic Gaze as well. He might appear to be a hard-working cowboy, but she knew what he truly was. What he’d done. She had to stay sharp and leery while somehow gaining his trust.
Why had she agreed to this? She was a teacher and lover of books, especially The Princess Bride. She wasnotan actress, a special ops person, or resourceful, smart, and tough like Westley. She needed a Westley. Now there was a hero. Why was it Greer Delta appeared more attractive than Westley? Greer’s eyes were as blue as Westley’s. “With eyes like the sea after a storm,” Buttercup had said.
Oh boy. No way could she go down that rabbit hole. She was living in an upside-down nightmare. The worst part was … she’d put herself here.
No. The Voice, Greer and his family’s actions, and even Travis had put her here. Now she’d better “act well thy part” or she could be in mortal danger.