A Lone Star Love Story

Chapter Two

Keith quickly ran after the woman. His Karina! She’d been right in front of him the whole time! That’s where he’d seen those eyes. Karina was standing over a small pool, maybe 3 or 4 drops of blood. And a piece of a red flannel. “Captain Mendes… These look like pieces of evidence. This blood might be the girl’s or our UNSUB.” That was police talk for Unknown Subject. His Karina had wanted to be a forensic investigator. She’d gone to college for it. But she never had gone into the workforce. She’d disappeared. 

Koi was standing over the pool of blood and the shirt piece when she’d heard Keith come running. She was just about to call for him, to show what she found. The blood was most likely the UNSUB’s, as the shirt piece demonstrated the girl put up a fight. Maybe the girl had been taken before the power went out. A man wearing that shirt could be on the camera! 

Keith gave her a strange look when she’d said “unsub”, and she cursed herself. He’d find out who she was. He’d ask her why she ran. He’d ask her why she wouldn’t answer his calls. He’d ask her about the ring. They’d been married, briefly. She’d overheard him one day talking to associates, saying how he was going to ditch her. How much she annoyed him. How much he hated that she’d trapped him into a marriage. 

There was supposed to be a baby. But trying to run out after hearing what he really thought about her, she’d fallen on her run through the woods… she’d had a miscarriage. She’d lost her baby. Her piece of Keith that would actually love her, it was gone… 

………….3 years earlier……….

Keith was out riding his stallion, Redstone, a red roan Clydesdale. It was hot in this part of Texas, but the stallion was kept in a special part of the barn with air-conditioning. Karina was watching him from the porch, her heart in her eyes. She loved him more than anything. He didn’t even seem to notice her. Her golden blond hair cascaded down her back in gorgeous sunset waves, her green eyes always glittered with laughter. She had a wonderful figure and long-tanned legs. 

Keith had definitely noticed those things. But he was not available for marriage. His job worried women and he didn’t want to cause some poor woman to die of a broken heart when she became a widow. He’d also seen how his parents’ marriage went. All the fighting. All the hitting. All the drinking. They were miserable together. He didn’t even know why they had stayed together. 

Keith and Karina had been caught in a… compromising situation a month or so ago. He wasn’t sure if she was carrying his child yet. But he needed to marry her, just in case. He was always bitter towards her. But apparently she couldn’t really tell. Her eyes…. They were always full of love. She was always happy to see him. He always had been bitter towards women, all but Karina. But she forced him into marriage. And he was still on edge about why. She could be after his money.

Keith met her at the door after putting up Redstone. She smiled brightly at him. She leaned in for a kiss and he backed away from her. He had to keep her at arm’s length. He couldn’t get too close to her. She’d have his baby. She’d run off, file for divorce, and ask for money to support her and that baby. She’d get everything she wanted and he’d be miserable and heartbroken. He couldn’t get too attached in case she did just that. 

Karina looked heartbroken that he’d moved away. He hadn’t kissed her since they’d gotten married. He hadn’t looked at her. He hadn’t slept in the bed with her. She thought he loved her, and that’s why he’d asked her to marry him. But as the days passed, she realized more and more that it was because of that situation a couple of months ago. She sighed. “Your dinner is on the table. I’m not hungry. If you need me, I’ll be in my room. You probably won’t need me, though.” She turned and stalked off before he could ask her what that remark was supposed to mean. 

Later on that night, Keith had a business meeting with an associate in his office. Karina had come by to relay the news of her pregnancy to him, but she could hear him talking about her, inside the office.

 “My wife? She’s in bed. Between you and me, she’s repulsive. Yeah, she can cook. But she’s not at all beautiful, I hate having a tom-boy of a wife hanging on my boots all the time! I’ve got work to do and she’s always checking up on me. I wouldn’t have had her by choice for all the money in Texas! She trapped me into marriage by coaxing me into her bed. She knew I hated the idea of being married.”

“So she tricked me, the little harlot. She messes up again, I’m kicking her out into the yard in her nightgown, you can bet my salary on it!” Keith had practically growled every word of it to his associate. Karina just stood there, the more she heard, the more the tears leaked from her eyes. Keith hated her! He found her repulsive! 

Karina slowly turned and nearly ran down the hallway to her room. She closed the door and locked it. She started packing, tears still stinging her eyes. She loved Keith, but she wasn’t going to force him to stay married to her. If he found her that repulsive, she’d leave. She’d set him free. She took off her wedding ring, laid it on the nightstand, wrote up a note for Keith to read when he went looking for her, and made sure Keith was still busy before she basically ran out the door and to her truck. Her dad had bought the truck, so Keith couldn’t accuse it of being stolen. 

She fired it up, it was an F-250. It was pretty loud. It purred like a lioness. She spun out of the driveway on her attempt to get away. Keith heard the truck and pardoned himself while we walked down the hallway to the room Karina stayed in. He knocked, “Karina?” He knocked again, a little louder when he didn’t get an answer, “Karina, baby?” His housekeeper, Leia, peaked out of her room, “She’s gone, Mr. Mendes.” 

“Gone?” Keith didn’t notice the apparent sorrow in his voice when he’d said it. Leia had been afraid of that. As the band Cinderella had once mournfully expressed, you don’t know what you’ve got, until it’s gone. Leia nodded. With that, the last bit of hope that he could fix what he’d done left with her. He was completely alone. 

Months later, when Karina was 4 months pregnant, she had fallen off the porch of the house she was renting a couple of towns over. She’d lost her baby. She’d feared that Keith would be looking for her. She’d dyed her hair, changed her name from Karina Davis to Koi Dresser, and started wearing makeup. She was covering her tracks. 

Keith had tried to find her. But after weeks of searching for his runaway bride, he’d given up, thinking something had happened to her. 

…………Present Day……….

Keith had been staring at Karina so long that she’d completely turned the color of his horse, Redstone. Keith finally noticed he’d been staring, cleared his throat, and asked the woman in front of him, “What’s your name, by chance?” Karina froze. He’d become suspicious. He couldn’t know that she was back because she’d been kicked from her rental home and this was the only job she could manage. “Koi Dresser.” Keith sighed. This wasn’t his Karina as he’d hoped. Still. He felt drawn to her. He didn’t understand why. 

“So, the red shirt. You think it could belong to the kidnapper and that the blood  belongs to the child?” Mendes asked. “No, I believe both are the kidnappers. The child put up a fight. She didn’t know her kidnapper. She didn’t want to leave with them.” Keith’s jaw dropped. She was smart. This was his Karina. He was sure of it. “That’s smart. Let’s go look into it,” Keith called over the crowd. “I’m taking Miss Koi over to the police station. Stay put. You’re all suspects in a kidnapping.” Koi followed Keith out to his patrol car, he radioed someone over to watch the store, and got behind the wheel. With that, he sped off towards the Ranger’s Office.