Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries) by Laura Crum

the couch with a cup of her own. The red dog jumped up next to her and put her head on Lisa's lap. To my surprise, the blue dog marched over and parked himself against my feet. He gave me a glance over his shoulder that said, as plain as words, "Don't go thinking you can pet me; I just happen to want to sit here, that's all."
    "So, what's the program?" I asked Lisa.
    "Oh, Dad will be by here when he's ready to start. We're shipping all the steers at the end of the week, so the whole ranch has to be gathered. The feed's gone. It wasn't a very good year, and this hot spell really finished it off"
    I nodded. It was already warm at eight o'clock; we weren't done with the hot weather yet.
    "Anyway, we're just gonna gather the home pasture today. With four of us, it'll be easy. We'll be done by lunch." Lisa sounded businesslike and carefree; the scared, dependent mood of last night vanished as if it had never been.
    "What about your stalker?" I asked her. "Any new thoughts?"
    "No. But things seem a lot better in the morning."
    "They always do."
    We smiled at each other. Suddenly both dogs lifted their heads and pricked their ears forward. The red dog woofed softly from her seat on the couch. Before they could do anything else, Lisa said firmly, "Don't bark. If you bark, you've had it."
    They both gave her disappointed looks, but they were quiet. Lisa and I looked out the window. A dark green pickup appeared over the hill and drove down into the little valley, going fast.
    "Tim's up early," Lisa commented. "For him, anyway."
    Tim braked and slid the truck up to the gate. The pickup had a number 6 with a circle around it painted on both doors with white paint. Tim got out and started toward the front porch.
    Whatever he'd been up to last night, it was clear it hadn't turned out too well. He had a black eye and a fat lip, his face looked puffy and bruised, and he was limping.
    Lisa got up and opened the door for him. "So what happened to you?" she asked.
    "Uh, I tripped and hit my face on the bar."
    Lisa rolled her eyes. "Why lie?"
    Tim laughed.
    "Ralph Alvarez and his buddies beat the shit out of you for trying to pick up on Tony's wife, didn't they?" Lisa demanded.
    "Tony helped, too," Tim said. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. "I think I've still got all my teeth. I'm surprised, though." His eyes laughed at the two of us. "Tony happened to pull in right when I was rolling 'round with her in the backseat of her car. Boy, was that a scene. She had her shirt off, and he's jumping in there trying to drag me out and she's screaming and people are pouring out of the bar. Tony and I are slugging it out and she's standing there yelling with those great big bare boobs out in the parking lot for everyone to see."
    Tim laughed and then winced. "My mouth doesn't work too good right now. I think four different guys had a shot at adjusting it. How 'bout some coffee?"
    Lisa went into the kitchen to get him a cup, and he sat down in the remaining empty chair. "You here to help us gather?" he asked me.
    "Sure." I watched him accept a cup of coffee from his sister, his beaten face as outwardly relaxed as ever. Tim was an odd one. For all his happy-go-lucky air, there was a strange streak of violence in him. That stunt with the hotshot yesterday, and his effort at picking a fight with Charles. Not to mention the diatribe about his father. And now this. For the first time, I allowed myself to seriously wonder whether Tim could be Lisa's stalker.
    As impossible as it seemed on first blush, he had all the credentials, really. Resenting one's father could go very deep; human history was thick with bloody stories built on that theme. Tim lived here on the ranch; he knew all about horses and cattle and tractors and trailers-it was possible, I told myself.
    And it would kill Glen if it were true. I looked over at Lisa. Maybe she was wrong about all this. Maybe these were accidents after all, just a string of coincidental bad luck.
    Lisa was