Rancher at Risk

“...Ryan Molloy.”

She plastered her smile in place and nodded silently. No sense wasting the effort to speak to the man. She’d been there, done that earlier and had felt the consequences of it ever since.

Unlike this morning, he seemed done with her, too.

“We were just talking about you,” Caleb said.

She stood straighter. “Were you?” Had he already learned what had happened on Signal Street? With Becky involved, of course, she’d had to tell Kayla. But had the darned cowboy already spread the news to her new boss?

If Caleb did know, he chose not to mention it right then. “Ryan’s come down from the ranch in Montana. I was starting to fill him in on our plans.”

And why did the cowboy need to know?

Taking a deep breath, she forced another smile.

“We’ve decided to call it a night,” Caleb said. “And before I forget to tell you—” he glanced at them both but kept his face turned toward her “—Tess and Roselynn already plan to set places for you at the Whistlestop for Sunday dinner. And Nate’s got a whole list of questions she’s saved for Lianne.” He looked at her. “Okay with you?”

“That sounds perfect.” Half the truth, since the cowboy had been invited along, too. But she had loved Caleb’s new extended family the minute she’d met them at Kayla and Sam’s wedding more than a year ago. “I’m looking forward to seeing them again.”

“Good. I’ll be back in the morning, then. Ryan, help Lianne with her gear when you bring yours in. Then you’ll both be set for the night.”

The sudden blankness in the cowboy’s face alerted her. She could read lips with the best of them, but no one caught one-hundred percent of a conversation, even after years of practice. She had missed something. Something he didn’t like. What?

She watched Caleb carefully as she said, “We’ll both be...”

“Set for the night.” He laughed. “Maybe better said, for the duration. Ryan’s moving in, too.”

Instantly, she made her face as blank as the cowboy’s. She’d had plenty of practice in that, too, and she couldn’t let Caleb see her dismay. But right now the last thing she wanted was to share space with anyone. Especially Ryan Molloy.

“You okay with that?” Caleb asked. “If not, we can get you a room at the Whistlestop.”

“No, I’m fine,” she blurted. As much as she liked his family, she needed time alone. She would have even less chance of that in a bed-and-breakfast inn than she would have had at Kayla’s. At least here she had only the cowboy around. She would stay far out of his way.

“And you?” Caleb asked Ryan.

“I don’t have a problem with it.”

As far as she could tell, he’d spoken quietly—no exaggerated mouth movements, no strained muscles in his neck. Yet standing so close to him, she could swear she felt a tiny vibration rumble through her.

Caleb nodded at her, and he and Ryan walked toward Caleb’s pickup truck.

Eyes narrowed, she looked the cowboy over from his broad shoulders to tight-fitting jeans. When she realized she was staring, she hurried around the end of her Camry. The man was irritating and confrontational—and not worth her time.

Everything inside the trunk had shifted during her trip, and it took a few moments to work some tangled straps free. Ryan reached forward to grab another bag. She nearly jumped out of her shoes. Even wearing her hearing aids, she couldn’t pick up footsteps. But people coming up from behind her never startled her. Her nerves must need time to regroup as much as she did.

He gestured at the car. “Riding a little low to the ground, isn’t it?”

“It’s packed.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. You’ve got more in there than most folks manage to cram into the back of a pickup. Looks like you brought everything you own.”

“I did,” she snapped. Regret flooded her. Why hadn’t she kept quiet? He didn’t need to know anything about her personal life.

Ryan reached for another bag.

“I can do that,” she said quickly.

He nodded. “I’ll start on the boxes in the car.”

“That’s okay.” When he turned to open a rear door, ignoring her, she managed to hold her temper in check. Barely. Surely he knew he needed to face her when he spoke. “Caleb said you have your own things to unload.”

He looked at her and shrugged. “Two duffel bags and an extra pair of boots.” One side of his mouth curved up. “From the looks of it, your stuff will take a lot longer to unload than mine. And I’m beat. I’d rather get this done before I run out of energy.”

“I can handle this,” she said.

“Hey, I recognize an order from the boss, even if you don’t. And I don’t slack off anytime, which means I’m sure not going to do it when he’s still here.”

Heat flooded her face. She turned around to look down the length of the driveway. Sure enough, Caleb had just begun to back his truck onto the road in front of the house. His truck with the engine that was loud enough to make her aids vibrate.

Wonderful. Earlier, she’d messed up reading Caleb’s words, and now she’d completely missed the clue that would have told her he hadn’t yet left.

From tiredness, that was all. Tiredness after the long drive from Chicago. Excitement over the new job. Frustration over dealing with this darned cowboy again. And...

...and fear.

Normally, she could handle anything that came her way. But every once in a while when she thought of the scope of this project, a small part of her worried she’d gotten in over her head.

She owed that to Mark, too.

Forcing a smile, she waved goodbye to Caleb. Then she turned back to Ryan, moments too late. He had pulled a box from the backseat of the Camry, taken the bag from the trunk, and was already going up the front porch steps.

The box he carried, filled with books and file folders, weighed a ton. Ryan cradled the cardboard box in one arm as though it weighed no more than the pillow she’d tossed on top of the bags in the passenger seat.

She stared at his arms and shoulders, at bulging muscles probably honed through hard labor. Nothing at all like most of the men she knew in Chicago, who sculpted their bodies at the gym. None of those men would have ventured out in public dressed the way he was, either, in boots so old and cracked that the leather had worn to suede in spots and jeans so threadbare they’d turned white in places. The perfect specimen of a true-blue, red-blooded, thank-you-ma’am-polite cowboy.

Until he’d started in on her this morning and the image had shattered like a mirror dropped on concrete.

* * *

TWO HUNDRED YARDS shy of the railroad crossing at the south end of town, the car swerved, painting black rainbows on the asphalt, straightened again, slid forward and ended up grill-first against an unyielding concrete fence. Fiberglass popped. Distressed metal collapsed, twisting and bending, folding in on itself like a beer can in the hands of a drunken man.

He could smell the rubber, hear the metal scream, feel the pounding in his temples.

But he wasn’t there....

He hadn’t been there the day of the accident. He didn’t know where he was now, other than sitting bolt upright in an inky darkness that stretched on into forever. His heart limped for a few beats as he sat waiting for his eyes to adjust.

Dead ahead a thin gold thread appeared, outlining a dark rectangle—light seeping around the edges of a window shade. Off to one side of him, bright red LED numbers hovered in the dark like a candle flame. A bedside clock, reading 5:43 a.m.