Star Valley Winter

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “I hope so,” he said gruffly.

  He wasn’t sure when the anger that had driven him all afternoon had begun to mellow, but eventually his common sense had won out. Even if she had spread the infection, he had no doubt it was accidental, something beyond her control.

  She was a good vet who cared about her patients. She would never knowingly cause them harm.

  “I really hope for your sake everything turns up clean,” he said quietly.

  She flashed him another one of those watery smiles that hid a wealth of emotions. This had to be killing her. It would be tough on any vet, but especially for one as passionate and dedicated as Ellie.

  “Thanks.” After a moment, she let out a deep breath. “It’s late. I should go so you can get back to your book.”

  She didn’t look very thrilled at the idea. Truth be told, she didn’t look at all eager to walk out into the mucky snow. She looked lonely.

  “Where’s Dylan tonight?” he asked.

  “At SueAnn’s. I was afraid I’d get called out in the middle of the night to one of the other ranches and would have to leave her home alone. I really hate doing that, so Sue offered to take her for the night.”

  “You have no reason to rush off, then?”

  She blinked. “No. Why?”

  “You could stay. Keep me company.”

  Where the hell did that come from? He wanted to swallow the words as soon as they left his mouth, but it was too late now. She was already looking at him, as astounded as if he’d just offered to give her a makeover or something.

  “You…you really want my company after today?”

  The doubt in her voice just about did him in. He was such a pushover for a woman in distress. She only had to look at him out of those big, wounded eyes and he was lost, consumed with the need to take care of her—to relieve that tension from her shoulders, to tease a laugh or two out of her, to make her forget her troubles for a moment.

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Come on. Sit down.”

  Still looking as wary as if she had just crawled in to a wolverine’s den, she unzipped her coat and shrugged out of it. Underneath, she wore a daisy-yellow turtleneck covered by a fluffy navy polar fleece vest.

  She looked young and fresh and sweet, and he suddenly realized what a disastrous error in judgment he had just committed. Why hadn’t he shoved her out the door when he had the chance?

  His control around her was shaky at the best of times. Here, alone in a dimly lit barn with only the soft murmur of animals and rustling of hay surrounding them, he hoped like hell he would be able to keep his hands off her.

  She perched on the edge of his cot while he rounded up the old slat-backed wooden chair that probably dated back to his grandfather’s day. He finally found it near the sink under a pile of old cattle magazines and carried it to the circle of light near the cot.

  She was leafing through The Virginian, he saw after he sat down. Her smile was slow, almost shy. “I read this in high school English class. I remember how it made me want to cry. I think that’s when I first decided I wanted to move to Wyoming. I’ll have to see if the library in town has a copy I could read again.”

  “You can borrow that one when I’m finished if you want.”

  This time her smile came more quickly. “Thanks.”

  “It was one of my dad’s favorites. He loved them all. Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, Max Brand. All the good ones. During roundup when we were kids, he always kept a book tucked in his saddlebags to read to us by the glow of the campfire. We ate it up.”

  “You miss him, don’t you?”

  He thought of the gaping hole his parents’ deaths had left in his life. “Yeah,” he finally said. “We didn’t always get along but he was a good man. Always willing to do anything for anyone. I’d be happy if I could die with people thinking I was half the man he was.”

  “Why didn’t you get along?”

  Zoe shoved her nose against his knee, and he gave her an obligatory pat, trying to form his answer. “Mom always said we were so much alike we brought out the worst in each other. I don’t know. I thought he should have done more with the ranch. Expanded the operation, bid on more grazing rights so we could take on a bigger herd. I thought he didn’t have any ambition. Took me a long time to realize he might not have seemed ambitious to his cocky eighteen-year-old son, but only because he didn’t have to be. He didn’t see the need to strive for more when he already had everything he wanted from life.”

  “Do you?”

  His hand stilled on Zoe’s ruff. “What?”

  “Have everything you want?”

  He used to think so. A month ago he would have said yes without hesitating. He had the ranch and Lucy and his family, and it should have been enough for him. Lately, though, he’d been restless for more. Hungry. He prowled around the house at night, edgy inside his skin.

  A month ago he had kissed her just a few feet from here.

  He pushed the memory away. That had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing.

  “I’d like somebody to invent a horse that never needs shoes. But other than that, yeah. I guess I’m content.”

  It wasn’t really a lie. Right now, at least, he was more relaxed than he’d been in a long time. He refused to dwell on exactly why that might be the case and whether it had anything to do with Ellie.

  “I’d still like to expand the operation a little more, especially the cutting horse side of it. I guess you could say that’s where my heart is, in training the horses. The cattle are the lifeblood for the ranch but for me, nothing compares to turning a green-broke horse into a savvy, competition-quality cutter.”

  He paused, waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t, he peered through the dim light and realized he’d been baring his soul to the horses. Ellie was asleep, her head propped against the rough plank wall and her sable-tipped lashes fanned out over her cheeks.

  He watched her sleep for several moments, struck again by how beautiful she was. In sleep, she couldn’t hang on to that tough, take-it-on-the-chin facade she tried to show the world. Instead, she looked small and fragile, all luminous skin and delicate bones.

  For just a moment, he had a wild, fierce wish that things could be different. That he was free to slide beside her on the cot and press his mouth to that fluttering pulse at the base of her neck. That he could waken her with slow, languid kisses then spend the rest of the night making love to her in the hushed secrecy of the barn.

  As tempting as the idea was—and it had him shifting in the hard slat chair as blood surged to his groin—he knew it was impossible. In the first place, she likely wouldn’t be too thrilled to wake up and find him slobbering all over her.

  In the second, even if she didn’t push him away, even if by some miracle she opened her arms to him, welcomed him with her mouth and her hands and her body, what the hell good would it do? It wouldn’t change anything.

  Now that she was asleep, he could admit to himself that she was the cause of this restlessness prowling inside his skin. But even if he were free to kiss her again, it couldn’t change the indisputable fact that he had nothing to give her but a few heated moments of pleasure.

  For a woman like Ellie, that would never be enough. He knew it instinctively, just as he suddenly feared making love with her once would only whet his hunger, leave him starving for more. Like a little kid who was only allowed one quick lick of a delectable ice-cream cone.

  She was soft and gutsy and spirited, and if he wasn’t damn careful, he could lose his heart to her. The thought scared him worse than being in the rodeo ring with a dozen angry bulls.

  He’d been in that position once. He had loved Melanie in the beginning—or thought he did, anyway—and it had nearly destroyed him.

  Here in the silent barn, he could see his ex-wife as clearly as if she were sitting beside him. Dark, curling hair, ha
unted gray eyes, features delicate as a porcelain doll.

  She had been so unhappy from the very beginning. Nothing he did had been enough for her. If he brought her roses, she wanted orchids. If he took her to dinner, she would make some small, wistful comment about how much she enjoyed quiet evenings at home.

  Everything had always been hot or cold with her. Either she was on fire for him and couldn’t get enough or she wouldn’t let him touch her, would screech at him to keep his rough, working hands to himself.

  In retrospect, he could see all the signs of manic depression, but he’d been too young and too damn stubborn to admit then that she needed professional help. It had taken him years to realize he couldn’t have saved her, that her unhappiness had been as much a part of her as her gray eyes.

  When he couldn’t fill the empty spot inside her, when he finally gave up trying, she had turned to other men, throwing her many conquests in his face at every opportunity. The first one had eaten him up inside, and he’d gone to the Renegade to beat the hell out of the unlucky cowhand. By the fourth or fifth affair, he told himself he didn’t care.

  He could still remember his cold fury when he found out she was pregnant, the bitter, hateful words they had flung at each other like sharp heavy stones.

  At first he’d been afraid Lucy had been the product of one of her other relationships. The first time he held her, though, it had ceased to matter. He’d completely lost his heart to the chubby little girl with the big gray eyes, and he would have fought to the death if someone tried to take her from him.

  But now, as Lucy grew into her looks, it became obvious she was a Harte through and through, from that dimple in her chin to her high cheekbones to her Cupid’s bow of a mouth. She looked exactly like pictures of his mother at that age.

  Something snapped inside Melanie after Lucy was born. It might have been postpartum depression, he didn’t know, but everything she did had taken on a desperate edge. She’d spent every night haunting the Renegade in town, looking for trouble, trying to find some way out of Salt River, Wyoming. She’d found both in Zack Slater.

  He blew out a breath. Why was he even thinking about this, about her? Maybe because Melanie was the reason he could never let another woman inside him. Why he would always be quick to fury and start throwing blame around, like he’d done with Ellie earlier that day.

  He was afraid the wounds Melanie had carved in his soul would always make doubt and suspicion lurk just below the surface.

  Ellie didn’t deserve that. She deserved a man who could give her everything, especially the safe, secure home she’d never had as a kid. A man who could love her completely with a heart still whole and unscarred.

  Whoa. Where did love fit in the picture? He didn’t love her. No way. He was attracted to her and he admired certain qualities about her. Her resilience, her stubborn determination to succeed in the face of overwhelming adversity, her passion for her work. The same qualities that most irritated him, he admitted ruefully.

  And he was fiercely attracted to her, no doubt about that.

  But love? No way.

  He shifted, trying to find a more comfortable spot on the unforgiving wood chair. He didn’t want to think about this. He couldn’t give her what she deserved so he had to settle for giving her nothing.

  He knew it, had known it since he met her. So why did the realization make him so damned miserable?

  He pushed away the thoughts. They weren’t doing him any good. Instead, he turned his mind to the puzzle of the sick horses. What was the connection between them?

  Ellie.

  He wished he could be as convinced as she appeared to be that she had nothing to do with the sick horses. But what other link could there be? Like she’d said, the ranches that had been hit were miles apart and didn’t appear to share anything else in common but their veterinarian.

  Or at least they had shared Ellie. He had a feeling she would have a hard time keeping any clients unless she could prove without a doubt she wasn’t to blame for the epidemic.

  He would contract with her again to treat his horses. He had to. She would be devastated if she lost the practice. That and her kid were everything to her.

  If someone wanted to destroy her practice, they had hit on the perfect method—shattering her reputation.

  The thought had him sitting up straighter as he remembered the grisly message left in her truck. Someone out there didn’t want her in Star Valley. If he was twisted enough to leave a dead cat in her truck, wouldn’t he be capable of anything? Even something as sick and warped as harming a dozen innocent animals in order to implicate Ellie? To force her to leave by driving away her patients?

  No. He couldn’t believe it. Who would do such a thing? And how would anyone possibly manage it? Some of the animals might have been pastured near enough to roads or in distant enough corrals for someone to slip them something—maybe give them a shot without anyone noticing—but sneaking onto the Diamond Harte would be damn near impossible.

  Still, it wouldn’t hurt to mention the theory to Jess. If there was a connection between the sick horses and the warning note, his little brother would find it.

  Ellie made a little sound in her sleep, drawing his attention again. She’d be a whole lot more comfortable under the blanket with her head on his pillow instead of sitting up like that.

  Of course, then he’d be forced to find another place to sleep for the night.

  He sighed and rose to his feet, then gently eased her to the cot, knowing he didn’t have a choice. She didn’t stir at all when he drew the heavy blanket over her shoulders and tucked it under her chin.

  He returned to the hard wooden chair, leaned his head against the rough plank wall and watched her sleep for a long time.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ellie wasn’t sure what awakened her. One moment she was dreaming of lying beside Matt Harte on a white-sand beach somewhere while a trade wind rustled the leaves on the palm trees around her and water lapped against the shore, and the next her senses were filled with the musty-sweet smell of hay and the soft, furtive rustling of the horses in their stalls.

  She blinked for a moment, stuck in that hazy world between sleep and consciousness, and tried to remember why she wearing her clothes and curled up on a hard cot in someone’s barn. Her back was stiff, her neck ached from sleeping in an odd position and she felt rumpled and uncomfortable in her Ropers and jeans.

  She sat up, running a hand through tangled hair. As she did, her gaze landed on Matt across the dim, dusty barn, and the events of the night before came rushing back like the tide.

  This was his barn. She was curled up in his makeshift bed.

  Ellie winced and hit the light on her watch. Four a.m. She must have been sleeping for hours. The last time she remembered checking her watch had been midnight, when Matt had been talking about his horses.

  Embarrassed guilt flooded through her. Not only had she been rude enough to drift off in the middle of their conversation, but she had fallen asleep in the man’s bed, forcing him to sleep in that torturous hard-backed chair.

  He couldn’t possibly be comfortable, with his neck twisted and his head propped against the wall like that. But he was definitely asleep. His eyes didn’t so much as flutter, and his chest moved evenly with each slow, deep breath.

  She watched for a moment, hypnotized by the cotton rippling over his hard chest with the soft rise and fall of his breathing, then her gaze climbed higher, over the tanned column of his neck to roam across the rugged planes and angles of his face. The strong blade of a nose, the full, sensuous lips, the spike of his dark eyelashes.

  He was sinfully gorgeous and completely one in his surroundings, like something out of a Charles Russell painting.

  Had he watched her this way after she drifted off? The thought unnerved her, made her insides feel hot and liquid, but wasn’t enough to compel her to turn awa
y. Even though it was probably an invasion of his privacy, watching him like this was a temptation she couldn’t resist.

  In sleep, Matt lost the hard edges that made him seem so tough and formidable. He looked younger, more relaxed, as if only in sleep was he free to shake the mantle of responsibility that had settled on his strong, capable shoulders so young.

  What must it have been like for him after his parents died? She tried to imagine and couldn’t. He had been twenty-two and suddenly responsible for a huge ranch and two troublesome, grieving younger siblings.

  No wonder he seemed so remote and detached sometimes. He had grown up and become an adult at a time when many other young men were still having fraternity parties and taking trips to Fort Lauderdale for spring break. Instead of raising hell, Matt had raised his younger brother and sister.

  And yet he had another side. She thought of the teasing grin he reserved for his daughter, the soft, soothing voice he used to calm a fractious horse, the woofs of a contented cow dog being stroked by his gentle hands.

  He was so different from the perceptions she had formed about him that first day in Ms. McKenzie’s classroom. Before then, even. She had thought him narrow-minded and humorless. Stuffy and set in his ways. But in the weeks since, she’d come to appreciate the many layers beneath that tough exterior. Hardworking rancher, devoted family man. Honest and well-respected member of the community. He was all those things and more.

  It wouldn’t take much for her to fall headlong in love with him.

  The thought bulleted into her brain and completely staggered her. She paled, reaching for the edge of the cot to steady herself as a grim realization settled in her heart.

  She was already more than halfway there.

  She shivered, suddenly chilled to the bone despite the blanket he must have thrown across her knees.

  How had she let things go so far? After her disastrous relationship with Kurt, she had been so diligent. So fiercely careful not to let anyone into her heart.