Buch lesen: «Rancher's Redemption»
Rancher’s Redemption
Beth Cornelison
MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Copyright
Beth Cornelison started writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received a bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.
Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honours for her work, including the coveted Golden Heart award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, travelling, Snoopy and spending downtime with her family.
She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 52505, Shreveport, LA 71135-2505, USA, or visit her website at www.bethcornelison.com.
To my family – you mean everything to me.
Thank you to my critique partner, Diana Duncan, for
her input and encouragement.
Thank you to Heath at Cooper Veterinary Clinic for
answering my questions about equine diseases.
Thank you to Brenda Mott for her help answering
ranching questions.
Thank you to Wally Lind and the crime scene writers
listserve for answering CSI questions.
Thank you to Marie Ferrarella, Justine Davis,
Caridad Piñeiro, Carla Cassidy and Linda Conrad, who
collaborated on THE COLTONS: FAMILY FIRST,
for making this series such fun to work on!
And thank you to Patience Smith and the rest of
the editors who worked on this continuity for the
opportunity to write Clay and Tamara’s story.
Chapter 1
He had a trespasser.
Clay Colton narrowed a wary gaze on the unfamiliar blue sedan parked under a stand of mesquite trees. This corner of the Bar None, Clay’s horse ranch, was as flat as a beer left out in the Texas sun, and he’d spotted the car from half a mile away.
He tapped his dusty white Stetson back from his forehead and wiped his sweaty brow. Finding a strange sedan on his property didn’t sit well with him—especially in light of the recent trouble his sister, Georgie, had endured. He still got sick chills thinking how a woman had broken into his sister’s home, stolen from her, passed herself off as Georgie.
A shiver crawled up Clay’s spine despite the scorching June heat. Esperanza, Texas, his home for all his twenty-six years, had always been a safe place, no real crime to mention. He clicked his tongue and gave his workhorse, Crockett, a little kick. His mount trotted forward, and as he neared the car, Clay saw that the Ford Taurus had crashed into one of the mesquites, crumpling the front fender. A fresh sense of alarm tripped through him.
“Hello? Anyone there?” Clay swung down from Crockett and cautiously approached the car. Visions of an injured, bleeding driver flashed through his mind and bumped his blood pressure higher. “Is anyone there?”
He peered into the driver’s side window. Empty. The car had been abandoned.
Removing his hat, Clay raked sweaty black hair away from his eyes and circled to the back of the sedan. The trunk was ajar, and he glimpsed a white shopping bag inside. Using one finger to nudge open the trunk, Clay checked inside the bag.
His breath caught.
The bag was full of cash.
Intuition, combined with fresh memories of Georgie’s recent brush with identity theft, tickled the nape of Clay’s neck, making the fine hairs stand up. A wrecked and abandoned sedan with a bag of money meant trouble, no matter how you added it up. He stepped back and pulled his cell phone from the clip on his belt. He dialed his friend Sheriff Jericho Yates’s number from memory.
“Jericho, it’s Clay. I’m out on the southwest corner of my land near the ravine, and I’ve come across an abandoned Taurus. The car hit a mesquite and banged up the front end, but I don’t see any sign of the driver.”
Sheriff Yates grunted. “You don’t see anyone around? Maybe the driver tried to walk out for help.”
Clay scanned the area again, squinting against the bright June sun from under the rim of his Stetson. “Naw. Don’t see anybody. But it gets better. There’s a bag of money in the trunk. A lot of money. Large bundles of bills. Could be as much as a hundred grand.”
He heard Jericho whistle his awe then sigh. “Listen, Clay. Don’t touch anything. Until I determine otherwise, you should consider the car and everything around it a crime scene.”
“Got it.”
“Read me the license plate.”
Clay rattled the numbers off.
Through the phone, Clay heard the squeak of Jericho’s office chair. “Thanks. I’ll run a check on this plate, then I’ll be right out.”
Clay thanked the sheriff and snapped his cell phone closed.
Gritting his teeth, he gave the abandoned sedan another once-over. This was the last thing his family needed. After returning his cell to his hip, Clay climbed back on Crockett and headed toward his original destination—the broken section of fence at the Black Creek ravine. Regardless of where the car and money came from and what the sheriff determined had happened to the driver, Clay had work to do, and the business of ranching waited for nothing.
Several minutes later, the rumble of car engines drew Clay’s attention. He looked up from the barbed wire he’d strung and spotted Jericho’s cruiser and a deputy’s patrol car headed toward the abandoned Taurus. He laid his wire cutters down and shucked his work gloves. Grabbing a fence post for leverage, he climbed out of the steep ravine and strode across the hard, dry earth to meet the sheriff.
Even after all these years, it felt odd to call Jericho “sheriff.” Growing up together, he and Jericho had spent hours fishing and hanging around the local rodeo stables where Clay worked whatever odd jobs he could get. Though they’d never spoken much about it, Clay and Jericho had shared another bond—single-parent homes. Jericho’s mother had left his family when he was seven.
Though Clay had known of his father, Graham Colton, the man had been an absentee father throughout Clay’s childhood. When his mother died, Clay had finished raising his brother and sister while working odd jobs on neighboring ranches. The success both Jericho and Clay had achieved as adults was a testament to their hard work and rugged determination.
Jericho met Clay halfway and extended a hand in greeting. “Clay.”
Shaking his friend’s hand, Clay nodded a hello. “Afternoon, Hoss. So what did you learn about the car?”
Jericho swiped a hand through his hair and sighed. “It’s a rental from a little outfit up the road. Reported stolen a few days ago.”
Clay arched a thick eyebrow. “Stolen?” He scowled. “Guess it figures. So now what?”
Jericho squinted in the bright sun and glanced toward the stolen Taurus where one of his deputies was already marking off the area with yellow police tape. “Chances are that money didn’t come from someone’s mattress. Heaven only knows what we could be dealing with here. I’ll call in a crime scene team to do a thorough investigation. Probably San Antonio. They’d be closest.”
A crime scene team.
The words resounded in Clay’s ears like a gong, and he stiffened.
Tamara.
He worked to hide the shot of pain that swept over him as bittersweet memories swamped his brain.
Clay had two regrets in life. The first was his failure with Ryder—the brother he’d helped raise, the brother who’d gone astray and ended up in prison.
His second was his failed marriage. Five years ago, his high-school sweetheart had walked away from their three-year marriage to follow her dream of becoming a crime scene investigator. Clay blamed himself for her leaving. If he’d been more sensitive to her needs, if he could have made her happier, if he could have found a way to—
“Clay? Did ya hear me?” Jericho’s question jolted Clay from his thoughts.
“Sorry. What?”
“I asked if you’d altered anything on or around the car before you called me. Say opening a door or moving debris?”
Clay shook his head. “I nudged the trunk open. One finger, on the edge of the trunk hood. Didn’t touch anything else.”
Jericho jerked a nod. “Good. I’ll let the CSI team know. Be sure to tell your men this area is off-limits until we finish our investigation.”
“Right.” Removing his Stetson, Clay raked his fingers through his unkempt hair. “Guess I’m just on edge considering what Georgie’s been through with that Totten woman.”
“Understandable. But there’s no reason at this point to think there’s any connection.”
“Yates.” The deputy who’d arrived with Jericho approached them.
The sheriff turned to his officer and hitched his chin toward Clay. “Rawlings, this is Clay Colton. Clay, my new deputy, Adam Rawlings.”
“Hey.” Clay nodded to the neatly groomed deputy and shook his hand.
“Sorry to interrupt, Sheriff, but I found something. Thought you should take a look.”
Jericho faced Clay, but before he could speak, Clay waved a hand. “Go ahead. I need to get back to work, too.”
Pulling his worn gloves from his back pocket, Clay strode back toward the ravine where his fence had been damaged and got busy stringing wire again. He had a large section to repair before he went back to the house, and all the usual chores of a thriving ranch to finish before he called it a day. Unfortunately, though fixing the damaged fence was hot, hard work, it didn’t require any particular mental concentration. So Clay’s thoughts drifted—to the one person he’d spent the past five years trying to get out of his head.
His ex-wife.
If he knew Tamara, not only had she achieved her dream of working in investigative law enforcement, but she was likely working for a large city department by now, moving up the ranks with her skill, gritty determination and sharp mind. Once Tamara set her sights on a goal, little could stand in her way of reaching it.
Except a misguided husband, who’d foolishly thought that ranching would be enough to fill her life and make her happy.
A prick of guilt twisted in Clay’s gut.
Why had he thought that his own satisfaction with their marriage and the challenge of getting the Bar None up and running would be enough for Tamara? Ranching had been his dream, not hers.
Why hadn’t he listened, truly heard her, when she spoke of her hopes for leaving Esperanza and her dream of working in law enforcement? Because of the newlywed happiness in other aspects of their relationship, he’d too easily dismissed signs of her discontent and her restless yearning to achieve her own professional dreams. Soon even the honeymoon stars in her eyes dimmed, and her unhappiness began eroding their marriage.
He’d ignored the warning signs until the night they’d argued over the right course of treatment for a sick stud, and he’d returned from the quarantine stable to find her packing her bags. His heartache over having to put down his best breeding stallion paled beside the pain of seeing his wife in tears, pulling the plug on their life together.
Renewed frustration burned in Clay’s chest. Failure of any kind didn’t sit well with him, but failure in his personal life was especially hard to accept. His broken marriage was a blemish in his past that marred even the success of the Bar None. His single-minded dedication to building the ranch was what had blinded him to the deterioration of his relationship with Tamara. Until it was too late.
He gave the barbed wire a vicious tug. His grip slipped, and the razor-sharp barb pierced his glove.
“Damn it!” he growled and flung off his glove to suck the blood beading on the pad of his thumb.
Stringing wire might not take much mental power, but letting his mind rehash the painful dissolution of his marriage didn’t serve any purpose. Tamara was gone, and no amount of regret or second-guessing could change that. Besides, he was married to his ranch now. Keeping the Bar None running smoothly was a labor of love that took all his energy, all his time. He’d scraped and saved, sweated and toiled to build the Bar None from nothing but a boy’s youthful dream.
But today the sense of accomplishment and pride that normally filled him when he surveyed his land or closed his financial books at the end of the day was overshadowed by the reminder of what could have been.
Clay squinted up at the blazing Texas sun, which was far lower in the sky than he’d realized. How long had he been out here?
Flipping his wrist, he checked his watch. Two hours.
Crockett snorted and tossed his mane.
“Yeah, I know, boy. Almost done. I’m ready to get back to the stables and get something to drink, too.”
Like Jack Daniel’s. Something to help take the edge off. Revived memories of Tamara left him off balance and had picked the scab from a wound he’d thought was healed.
He snipped the wire he’d secured on the last post and started gathering his tools.
“Clay?”
At first he thought he’d imagined the soft feminine voice, an illusion conjured by thoughts of his ex-wife. But the voice called his name again.
He shielded his eyes from the sun’s bright glare as he angled his gaze toward the top of the ravine. A slim, golden-haired beauty strode across the parched land and stopped at the edge of the rise. “Clay, can I talk to you?”
Clay’s mouth went dry, and his heart did a Texas two-step. “Tamara?”
Chapter 2
Clay climbed the side of the ravine in three long strides and jerked his Stetson from his head. “What are you doing here, Tamara?”
His ex-wife raised her chin a notch and flashed a stiff smile. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to today, but…I have questions I have to ask. About the crime scene.”
An odd déjà vu washed over him as he stared at her. She looked just as beautiful as the woman he’d married, fought with, made love to, and yet…she’d changed, too. Her cheeks and jaw were thinner, more angular. She’d grown her hair longer, the honey-blond shade sporting fewer highlights from the sun, and a hint of makeup shaded her blue eyes and sculpted cheekbones—a vanity she’d never bothered with when she worked beside him on the ranch.
He stood there, so absorbed by the shock of her presence and her beauty that it took a moment for her comment to sink in.
She had questions about the crime scene. Not questions about how he’d been, about their divorce, about the five years that had passed since they’d last seen each other, sitting at opposite ends of a table like two strangers in her lawyer’s office.
He blinked. Scowled. “You’re here with the CSI team from San Antonio.”
The instant the words left his mouth, Clay kicked himself mentally. Brilliant deduction, Captain Obvious.
Tamara gave him a patient grin, apparently knowing she’d surprised him and cutting him some slack. If she were rattled by their meeting, she didn’t show it. But she’d had time to prepare.
“I’ve been with the department in San Antonio since I finished my forensics training. Jericho—” She paused and lifted a hand. “That is, Sheriff Yates—called us out to sweep the scene. I need to ask you a few things. This a good time?”
Clay drew a deep breath, swiped perspiration from his forehead with his arm and jammed his hat back on his head. “Sure. Shoot.”
Tamara pulled a small notepad from the pocket of her black jeans and wet her lips.
Clay’s gaze gravitated to her mouth and froze on the hint of moisture shimmering in the sunlight. Heat that had nothing to do with the summer day flashed through his blood.
A picture of Tamara from high school flickered in his mind’s eye. Sitting on a corral fence rail at the rodeo where his mother had been riding. Her silky hair tucked behind her ears. Her blue eyes shining at him. Pure joy glowing in her face. He’d captured her cheeks between his hands and leaned in to steal his first kiss from her. She’d been startled at first. But soon after, her smile had widened, and she’d returned his kiss in kind. The first of thousands of sultry kisses they’d shared.
Yet now, gawking at her mouth like a schoolboy, he felt as awkward and uncertain as he had that day at the rodeo. But she wouldn’t welcome a kiss today the way she had back then. He’d lost the right to kiss Tamara years ago.
Warmth flared in her eyes before she averted her gaze and cleared her throat. “When was the last time you were out on this corner of the ranch?”
Clay shook himself from the unproductive nostalgia and focused on her question. “Earlier this week. Maybe Monday. I ride the perimeter to check fences and survey the property every few days. You know that.”
She stopped scribbling on her pad and gave him a penetrating glance. “Assume I know nothing and answer the questions as honestly and completely as you can.”
Gritting his teeth, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Have you disturbed anything on the scene from the way you found it?”
He shifted his weight and cocked his head, studying the pink flush of heat on her cheeks. She never could take much sun on her porcelain skin without burning. “I opened the car’s trunk. One finger on the edge of the hood. I already told Jericho all of this.” He hesitated. “You want to wear my hat until you finish out here? Your face is starting to burn.”
She snapped a startled blue gaze up to meet his. “I—No. I’ll be fine.” She furrowed her brow as she studied her notes, clearly ruffled by his offer. “Um… You didn’t touch the car otherwise?”
“No.”
After several more minutes of her rapid-fire questions, he turned and strolled over to where Crockett waited patiently. Flipping open the saddle pouch across Crockett’s hind quarters, Clay dug out the small tube of sunscreen he carried with him but rarely used.
Tamara followed him over to Crockett and reached up to stroke the gelding’s nose. “Hey, Davy Crockett. How ya doin’, boy?”
Crockett snuffled and bumped Tamara’s hand as if he remembered her.
Still patting his horse, she asked, “Do you have any knowledge of who might have left the car here?”
“No.” Clay uncapped the sunscreen and squeezed a dab on his thumb.
She consulted her notes again. “Do you have any idea where the money came from?”
“No, I don’t.” He stepped closer to Tamara, close enough to smell the delicate herbal scent of her shampoo, and she raised her gaze.
“When did you first find the—”
He reached for her, smearing the dab of sunscreen on her nose.
She caught her breath and stumbled back a step. “What are you doing?”
“Sunscreen. You’re burning.”
She grunted and gave him a perturbed glower. “Clay, I don’t—”
He reached toward her again, and she backed away another step. With a resigned sigh, she rubbed the dab of cream over her nose and cheeks, then wiped her fingers on her jeans. “There! Okay? Now I have a job to do. Will you please just answer the questions?”
He tucked the sunscreen back in his saddle pouch. “Is all this really necessary? I’ve already told Jericho everything I know.”
Her shoulders sagged with impatience and a hint of chagrin. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t necessary.”
She may have been referring to her job duties, but the underlying truth of her statement hit him like a slap in the face. Nothing had changed. Tamara wanted no part of him and his lifestyle.
He braced his hands on his hips and kicked a clod of dirt. “You’ve made that pretty clear.”
Tamara closed her eyes and released a slow breath. “Clay…”
“Forget it. Just ask your questions, Officer Colton.” He glanced at her name badge and another jab stabbed his gut. “Sorry, Officer Brown. You went back to your maiden name, huh?”
“Clay…” She studied her notepad as if it held the secrets of the universe, and the silence between them reverberated with a hundred unspoken words and years of regret.
Finally Clay took his work gloves from his back pocket and slapped them on his leg. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your job.” He turned and stuffed the gloves in his saddle pouch.
Tamara didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Clay took a sip of water from his canteen. Hesitated. “I’m happy for you, Tamara. Glad to see you’ve accomplished what you wanted.”
When she glanced up at last, suspicious moisture glinted in her eyes. But she quickly schooled her face and sucked in a deep breath.
“I—” She stopped herself. Glanced away. Flipped her notepad closed. “I’d better get back to work.”
As she started back across the dry field toward the abandoned Taurus, Clay watched her long-legged strides, the graceful sway of her hips, the shimmer of sunlight on her golden hair. His chest tightened with an emotion he dared not name. Admitting he’d missed his ex-wife served no purpose, helped no one.
Giving Crockett a pat on the neck, he grabbed the reins and planted a foot in a stirrup. And hesitated.
He angled his gaze toward the scene where Jericho and his deputy stood while Tamara’s team combed the area. Tamara pulled her hair back into a rubber band then tugged on a pair of latex gloves. Curiosity got the better of Clay.
He gave the gelding’s neck another stroke. “Sorry, Crockett. I think I’ll wait a bit before heading back to the stables.”
Shoving his Stetson more firmly in place, Clay headed over to the stand of mesquite trees to watch his ex-wife work.
Tamara took out an evidence bag and tried to steady her breathing. She’d known returning to the Bar None and seeing Clay again would be difficult. But nothing had prepared her for the impact his espresso-brown eyes still had on her.
While working in Clay’s stables early in their marriage, she’d been kicked by a mare that was spooked by a wasp. The powerful jolt of that mare’s hoof had nothing on the punch in the gut when she’d met the seductive lure of Clay’s bedroom eyes today. How could she have forgotten the way his dark gaze made her go weak in the knees?
Nothing about Clay had changed, from his mussed, raven hair that always seemed in need of a trim to the muscular body he’d earned riding horses and doing the hard work ranching required. He still wore the same dusty, white Stetson she’d given him their first Christmas together, and he radiated a strength and confidence that hummed with sex appeal.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, hoping to calm the buzz of bees swarming inside her. When she drew a deep breath for composure, she smelled the sunscreen he’d smeared on her nose, and a fresh ripple of nervous energy sluiced over her. A full day in the sun couldn’t have burned her more than the heat of his touch when he’d dabbed the cream on her. She had far too many memories of his callused hands working their magic on her not to be affected by even such casual contact.
Her heart contracted with longing. No one had ever held such a powerful sway over her senses as Clay had. Not one of the men she’d dated since her divorce from Clay could hold a candle to the fiery attraction she felt for her first love. Her cowboy lover. The man she’d thought she’d grow old with.
Tamara sighed. She had to focus, get a grip. Emotion had no place in crime scene investigation, and she had work to do. She stepped over to where the team photographer was clicking shots of the Taurus’s trunk. “You finished up front, Pete?”
“Yep. All yours. Do your thing.”
Tamara pulled out her notepad and circled to the front of the stolen sedan. She noted a small scrape on the side panel and called it to Pete’s attention.
“Saw it. Got it,” the photographer called back to her.
Tamara moved on. She scoured the ground, the hood, the windshield, the roof and the driver’s side before she opened the car door to case the interior with the same careful scrutiny. Any scratch, stain, dent, hair or foreign object had the potential of being the clue that cracked the case. Nothing was overlooked or dismissed.
As she collected a sample of fibers from the carpet, she heard a familiar bass voice and glanced toward the perimeter of the scene where Jericho Yates and his deputy stood observing.
Clay had joined his friend and was watching her work with a keen, unnerving gaze. Tamara’s pulse scrambled, and she jerked her attention back to the carpet fibers. Sheriff Yates made another quiet comment, and Clay answered, his deep timbre as smooth and rich as dark chocolate. Tamara remembered the sound of Clay’s low voice stroking her as he murmured sexy promises while they made love. Just the silky bass thrum could turn her insides to mush.
Her hand shook as she bagged the fibers and moved on to pluck an auburn hair from the passenger’s seat. She huffed her frustration with herself. She had to regain control, forget Clay was watching her and get back to business. She closed her eyes and steeled her nerves, steadying her hands and forcing thoughts of Clay from her mind.
“What you got?” said Eric Forsyth, her superior in the CSI lab, as he bent at the waist to peer through the open driver’s door.
Tamara bagged the hair and labeled it. “Not much. I’ve never seen such a clean car. It’s odd.”
Eric shrugged. “Not surprising. It’s a rental car. A company typically washes and vacuums the cars after every customer.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m not finding fingerprints or stray threads. No footprints or tire tracks around the car. Not much of anything.”
Eric scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “What’s more, anything we do find is gonna be hard to pin to whatever happened here. God knows how many people have been in this car in the past month.” He motioned to the bag in her hand. “That hair could belong to a schoolteacher from Dallas who rented the car two weeks ago.”
Tamara sighed. “Exactly why it doesn’t feel right. Even with the rental agency’s regular maintenance, we should be finding at least traces of evidence. I think someone wiped the scene.”
“You’re sure?” Her boss adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses.
“The evidence—or lack of evidence—seems to point that way.” She frowned. “Which tells me something bad happened here. Something someone doesn’t want anyone to know about.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Well, keep looking. Maybe whoever wiped the scene missed something.”
Tamara nodded. “Got it.”
Clay tensed as the lanky man with glasses who’d been speaking with Tamara walked up to Jericho and shrugged. “My team isn’t getting much for you to build a case on, Sheriff. In fact, our professional opinion is the scene has been wiped clean.”
Jericho furrowed his brow and stroked his mustache. “Nothing?”
Clay turned his attention back to Tamara as he listened to the exchange between the crime scene investigator and the sheriff.
“Well, we found a partial print on the trunk. A hair on the front seat. A scratch on the front fender—but it looks old. There’s already a little rust formed.”
“No signs of foul play or a struggle?” Jericho asked.
“Not yet. But we’re still looking.”
Clay watched Tamara comb the Taurus with a calm, methodical gaze. She moved like a cat, her movements graceful, strong and certain as she inched through the interior, pausing long enough to bag tiny bits of God-knows-what and securing the evidence. Her professionalism and confidence as she processed the scene was awe-inspiring.
He remembered her awkwardness during her first weeks on the ranch as she learned to use the equipment and handle the horses. Though she soon picked up the finer points of ranching—he didn’t know of much Tamara couldn’t do once she set her mind to it—she’d never had the passion for the daily workings of the Bar None that he’d hoped.
Today, as she scoured the stolen car, her love for her job was obvious. She had been flustered when she questioned him, but seeing her again after five years had thrown him, too. Despite the awkwardness, she’d rallied and fired her questions at him like a pro.
“I did an initial survey of the area and didn’t find much either,” Rawlings said.
“Have you found anything that’d tell us what happened to the driver? Tracks of a second car for a getaway? Footprints leaving the scene? The fact that the money is still here bothers me.” Jericho shook his head. “Who’d leave that much money behind unprotected?”
The crime scene investigator with the wire-rimmed glasses gave Clay a wary look then glanced to Jericho. “Good point. And, no. No footprints or tire tracks.”
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