LITMIR.BIZ

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tan cowboy hat.

      But there was something different about this cowboy outfit.

      Beneath his jacket, he was wearing a waist holster and a gun.

      “I came in through the side door.” He tipped his head toward the hall. “It wasn’t locked.”

      That wasn’t unusual. Because the ranch hands—and the family—were often coming and going. They rarely locked up the house until bedtime. Even then, that was hit-or-miss since security wasn’t usually an issue.

      Until now, that was.

      “I didn’t see your car,” she said, and since she’d just come in from the main barn, Addie would have seen any unfamiliar vehicles in the circular driveway in front of the house.

      “I parked just off the main road and walked up. I’m sorry,” he added, following her gaze to his gun. “But I had to come.”

      That didn’t answer her other question as to why he was there, and Addie wasn’t sure if she just wanted to send him packing or try to figure out what the heck was going on.

      She went with the first option.

      Wes had crushed her heart six ways to Sunday, and there was no need for her to give him another chance to hurt her again.

      “You’re leaving,” Addie insisted, and she turned around to head to the hall so she could usher him right back out the side door.

      She didn’t get far because he took hold of her arm again. Not the tight grip he’d had before, but it was enough to keep her in place. And enough to rile her even more. “Let go of me.”

      “I can’t.” Wes opened his mouth, but any explanation he was about to give her ground to a halt. “We have to talk,” he added after a very long pause.

      “And you had to sneak in here and grab me to do that? You could have called.”

      “I had to see you in person, and I grabbed you because I didn’t want you shouting out for someone. I didn’t want to get shot before you listen to what I have to tell you. And you have to listen.”

      It was partly her bruised ego reacting, but Addie huffed, folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “You slept with me three months ago and then disappeared without so much as an email. Why should I listen to anything you have to say, huh?”

      Still no quick answer. Probably because there wasn’t one. Not one she’d want to hear anyway. But what she did want to hear was why he had on that gun holster that looked as if he’d been born to wear it. Also, why hadn’t she been able to find out anything about him online?

      Everything inside her went still.

      “Who are you, really?” she asked.

      Another long pause. “I’m not the man you think I am.”

      A burst of air left her mouth. Definitely not laughter. “Clearly. Now tell me something I don’t know.”

      The hurt came hard and fast. Addie felt as if someone had put a vise around her heart. The tears quickly followed, too, and she tried hard to blink them away. No way did she want this man to see her cry.

      “I’m sorry.” He added more of that profanity and reached out as if he might pull her into his arms.

      Addie put a stop to that. She batted his hands away. “You knew how vulnerable I was when you slept with me.”

      “Yes,” he admitted. “You’d recently found out your birth father was a serial killer.”

      There it was, all wrapped up into one neat little summary. Stripped down to bare bones with no details. But the devil was in those details.

      Well, one devil anyway.

      Her biological father.

      “Is everything you told me about your childhood the truth?” he asked.

      She hadn’t thought Wes could say anything that would surprise her, or stop her from forcing him to leave, but that did it. Addie just stared at him.

      “When you were three, some ranch hands found you in the woods near here,” Wes went on, obviously recapping details she already knew all too well. “You said you didn’t remember your name, how you got there or anything about your past. You don’t remember how you got that.”

      Before she could stop him, he brushed his fingers over her cheek. Over the small crescent-shaped scar that was there. It was faint now, just a thin whitish line next to her left eye, but Wes had obviously noticed it.

      Addie flinched, backing away from him. What the heck was going on?

      “Is all of that true?” he repeated.

      Addie mustered up another huff and tried not to react to his touch. Wes didn’t deserve a reaction. Too bad her body didn’t understand that. Of course, her body was betraying her a lot lately.

      “It’s all true,” she insisted.

      For thirty years, Addie had tried not to think of herself as that wounded little girl in the woods with a cut on her face. Because she hadn’t stayed there.

      Thanks to Sheriff Sherman Crockett and his wife, Iris.

      When no one had come forward to claim her after she’d been found, Sherman and Iris had adopted her, raised her along with their four sons on their Appaloosa Pass Ranch. They’d given her a name. A family. A wonderful life.

      Until three months ago. Then, there’d been the DNA match that no one wanted. That’s when her world was turned upside down.

      “Why did your adoptive father put your DNA in the database when he found you?” Wes asked.

      Again, it was another question she hadn’t seen coming. Her adoptive father had been killed in the line of duty when she was just twelve, so she couldn’t ask him directly, but Addie could guess why.

      “Because he could have simply been looking to see if I matched anyone in the system. But I believe he wanted to find the birth parents who’d abandoned me and make them pay.” That required a deep breath. “I’m positive he had no idea it’d lead to a killer.”

      And not just any old killer, either, but the Moonlight Strangler. He’d killed at least sixteen women, and fifteen of those crime scenes hadn’t had a trace of his DNA. But three months ago number sixteen had. And while the DNA wasn’t a match to any criminal already in the system, it had been a match to the killer’s blood kin.

      Addie.

      Wes took her by the shoulders, forcing eye contact. “The Moonlight Strangler’s really your father?”

      It took Addie a moment to realize that it was actually a question. “Yes, according to the DNA match, he is. But Sherman Crockett was my father in the only way that will ever matter.”

      If only that were true.

      Addie wanted it to be true. Desperately wanted it. But it was hard to push aside that she shared the blood and DNA of a serial killer.

      “I need to hear it from you,” Wes said. Not an order exactly. But it was close. “Is everything you said true? Do you have any memory whatsoever of why you were in those woods or who put you there?”

      Addie threw up her hands. “Of course not. The FBI has questioned me over and over again. They even had me hypnotized, and I remembered exactly what I’d already told everyone. Nothing.”

      She had no idea why Wes was asking these things, but it was time for Addie to turn the tables on him.

      “Who are you?” she demanded. “And why are you here?”

      His grip melted off her shoulders, and now it was Wes who moved away from her. “My real name is Weston Cade, and I’m a Texas Ranger.”

      Addie had to replay that several times before it sank in. After learning she was the daughter

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