What Happens at the Ranch...

by Christy Jeffries

  A chill went down Grayson’s spine. He immediately knew what this was about.

  “I was there.” Freckles jerked a thumb at her chest. “Trust me, there wasn’t much exchanging on Agent Wyatt’s end. Just Tessa cussing up a blue streak and giving him holy hell for taking her for a ride in her daddy’s hearse.”

  “Could you please not make it sound so crude?” Mrs. King’s forced smile looked more like a grimace. “Anyway, I’m concerned that the video might not show my daughter in the most favorable light.”

  It really didn’t show either Tessa or Grayson in a favorable light. Especially because Grayson was the one being accused of not following proper protocol and might possibly have to answer to his superiors at an inquiry board.

  Grayson’s stance widened as he prepared to defend himself against a still unknown threat. “Ma’am, it’s my understanding that the video was obtained from the body cam of one of the Ridgecrest County deputy sheriffs. As long as nobody tampered with the footage, it’s an accurate portrayal of the events as they happened.”

  “I understand how the recording was acquired, Agent. My concern is the reason why the congressman is so interested in accessing it.”

  “Well...” He tilted his head, knowing no other way to put this delicately. “The video is a matter of public record. I don’t see how the sheriff could keep it from him.”

  “Oh, public records go missing all the time,” Mrs. King replied, and Grayson really hoped she wasn’t about to suggest something illegal. “But not in Teton Ridge and not while my son is in charge. Hell, Marcus put his own brother in jail. There’s no way he’d ‘accidentally misplace—’” she used the finger quotes again “—the video just to protect Tessa’s reputation. So, while I might not be able to get rid of it myself, there’s always a way to spin things to one’s advantage. After all, I haven’t gotten to where I am today without being proactive.”

  A muscle spasmed in his clenched jaw as Grayson easily guessed Mrs. King’s so-called proactive route. There was no way she’d spin anything to his advantage. But before he could ask her for clarification, Rider King yelled across the pool.

  “Hey, Sherilee, I told you I hadn’t lost my favorite bathing suit!” The old man waved the bright piña colada–printed shorts over his head like a battle flag as he walked toward them. “Although, I have no idea how they ended up in the lost and found basket at the rec center.”

  “You sure did,” Mrs. King told her brother-in-law, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Hey, wifey.” Rider wiggled his bushy gray eyebrows at Freckles. “I’m gonna throw these things on real quick and then I’ll meet you in the hot tub.”

  “Stop calling me wifey, you crazy old man,” Freckles shot back. Then she winked at Grayson before following her ex-husband to the men’s locker room.

  “I told Mitchell Junior to get rid of that tacky bathing suit years ago,” Mrs. King told Grayson as she waved at one of her grandsons who’d just executed a perfect cannonball. Then she lowered her voice. “Let this be a lesson to you, Agent Wyatt. Nothing ever stays hidden unless you hide it yourself.”

  The woman soon found another agent in need of her plant-based Garden Party pizza, but Grayson wasn’t quite ready to breathe a sigh of relief just yet. There was no doubt in his mind that Sherilee King intended on saving her daughter’s reputation by throwing him under the bus. He had no idea how she’d do it, but she clearly thought he was foolish enough to be an active participant in her plan.

  And for what?

  Was his career really worth Tessa suffering a little bit of negative press? She worked in the media, herself. It was her own colleagues who’d gotten her into this situation in the first place. Being at the Twin Kings Ranch these past few weeks almost made him forget how much he hated all these powerful people with their mind games and their publicity stunts. Almost.

  Grayson didn’t think his jaw could get any more rigid, but it did. He just needed to get through one more day. Then he could close the file on this family for good.

  * * *

  Tessa hadn’t been able to get Grayson alone since that first night at the pool when he’d convinced her to go off that diving board. Something had clicked in her brain that evening, and each night that she’d gone to the pool, she grew more and more convinced that she was ready to return to work.

  Sure, she might have another panic attack at some point down the road. Nothing was ever certain when it came to traumatic brain injuries. Yet, Tessa was now armed with the confidence that she could face the fear and work through it.

  She was done with hiding out and being shielded from the world’s reaction to an injury she might never overcome. In fact, she’d spoken to her boss yesterday and planned to be back in the studio by Monday evening. That meant today would be her last day at Twin Kings.

  Tessa stepped out of the shower and saw a text alert on her smartphone. Her mom had sent today’s agenda to all the siblings. There was a family briefing planned for eleven o’clock and a conference call planned with some PR expert named Sonya at one. Tessa still didn’t see a need for the public relations team just yet. What she did see a need for, though, was talking to Grayson one-on-one.

  The digital clock on her phone read 10:08 a.m. and she tapped at the screen with her thumb before realizing she didn’t even have his number in her list of contacts. Her legs grew restless and she couldn’t get dressed quickly enough.

  Her last relationship, as well as the one before that, had been conducted mostly through texts and emails and video chats. Yet all her interactions with Grayson had been in person. It was a weird feeling to realize that in less than twelve hours, she wouldn’t be able to simply walk outside and have him magically appear. She wouldn’t have any way of getting in touch with him after today.

  Maybe it was for the best.

  Sure, she’d kissed the man and shared some of her most personal secrets with him. However, as much as they’d talked about something physical happening between them when his assignment was officially over, was she truly ready to go there? Once she returned to her own life, all of these feelings that had been building inside her would likely run out of steam without him there to fuel the fire.

  Still. She needed to at least say goodbye to him without an audience. Tessa couldn’t afford to leave any loose strings untied—she’d learned her lesson after Davis—and they both deserved the closure. Plus, she wanted Grayson to know that he’d been an instrumental part in her getting through the past three weeks.

  Leaving the main house, Tessa kept close to the line of trees that ran the length of the road between the stables and the bunkhouse. Did her attempts to be discreet really matter, though? Everyone on this ranch was always watching. Hell, she’d been shadowed almost half of her life by either bodyguards or Secret Service agents or paparazzi. She strode into the middle of the path to walk the rest of the way. There was no sense in sneaking around now.

  She lifted her hand to knock on the bunkhouse door, not wanting to barge into the agents’ private retreat, the only place on these fifty-five-thousand-plus acres where they could get away from the members of the King family.

  Doherty, the agent who always wore a friendly smile and a Boston Red Sox cap, opened the door. “Hey, Precis—I mean, Miss King. The briefing isn’t here. It’s in the conference room next door.”

  “I know.” She swallowed down her embarrassment and straightened her shoulders. The trick was to act as though it was perfectly natural for her to show up at the bunkhouse unannounced. To act as though they should’ve been expecting her. She wasn’t Sherilee King’s daughter for nothing. “I’m looking for Agent Wyatt.”

  “Right,” Doherty said, stepping aside. “I think I saw him in the kitchen. Make yourself at home.”

  The agent left and Tessa let herself into the bunkhouse, which appeared to be empty. The beds were neatly made and several stuffed duffel bags
sat on the floor at the end of the bunks, as though the inhabitants had already packed for a quick departure. Tessa’s stomach sank when she was presented with the evidence of how eager everyone was to leave Twin Kings.

  Prior to today, she’d never needed to enter this particular building on the ranch and now she had to take a guess as to which side housed the restroom and which side housed the kitchen. She made her way through the open floor plan until she came to the alcove that held a large dining table.

  She was at the swinging door that must’ve separated the kitchen from the living quarters when she heard Grayson’s voice. “Is the doctor concerned about the rod?”

  “No,” a woman’s voice responded, sounding a bit echoey and delayed. “They said it sometimes takes longer to fuse, depending on the patient. Maddie is older than most of the people she’s operated on, so her bones are already fully developed. We knew going in that it might take longer.”

  That must be Grayson’s mother on a video conference call. Tessa should turn around and leave, but her feet wouldn’t budge. She’d been researching EDMD since Grayson had first told her about his sister, and her curiosity wouldn’t simply vanish just because it was the polite thing to do. Or because HIPAA regulations required it.

  “I knew we shouldn’t have waited so long,” Grayson said, his voice tense. “She should’ve had the procedure done years ago.”

  “Stop beating yourself up, Gray,” the woman replied, then made a yawning sound. “You can’t work thirty hours of overtime in a day that only has twenty-four hours in it. If it weren’t for you, Maddie wouldn’t have even been able to have the surgery in the first place. Let alone any of the other treatments you pay for.”

  “I just hate it that you both are going through this and I’m not there to help, Mom.”

  Tessa could imagine the stiffness of his jaw. It was how he always looked whenever he wanted to fix something or when something was holding him back.

  Oh no.

  A wave of realization smacked into Tessa, and her hand flew to her mouth.

  She was currently the “something” holding Grayson back from being with his family. She’d been selfishly hiding away on the ranch, licking her wounds and trying to overcome the aftereffects of her TBI, while all of the agents assigned to babysit her—especially Grayson—needed to return to their real lives.

  “I know you’re not allowed to give us details about your assignment, Grayson, but Maddie said she thinks it should be over soon. You’ll come and see us afterward, right?” His mom’s voice held a trace of optimism despite all the setbacks life had seemed to throw her family’s way.

  “As soon as I get the green light, I’ll be on a plane to Baltimore,” Grayson promised, and Tessa cringed knowing that the supposed green light would come as soon as she was out of his life. “Is now a good time to talk to Maddie?”

  There was a pause on the other side of the door and then some mumbling from his mom, who was maybe talking to a nurse or someone else in the hospital room. Tessa was already gripped by so much guilt for being the cause of Grayson missing out on time with his sister, she didn’t need to add eavesdropping to the list.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall as she debated whether to leave. The briefing started in ten minutes and she wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Grayson alone if she didn’t wait for him here. She was about to turn from the door and linger by the entrance to the bunkhouse when his little sister’s words stopped her.

  “Hey there, Agent Steamy. How’s the beautiful and talented Miss King?”

  “You know that I’m not at liberty to say, Mads. But if you want to ask her yourself, you can.”

  Grayson swung through the door right then, holding an open laptop in front of him. Tessa’s cheeks flooded with heat, her eyelids stretching into wide circles. Of course he’d known that she’d been there, on the other side of the door. The man had a sixth sense when it came to her, always appearing when she wasn’t expecting it.

  Tessa held up her palms, madly waving them back and forth as her eyes implored him not to turn that laptop around. He tilted his head and lifted the corner of his mouth. The knowing dare coming from his eyes suggested that if she didn’t want to be a part of the conversation, then she should’ve walked away instead of listening in.

  Grayson swung the laptop screen around, and Tessa summoned every ounce of professional stage training she possessed to fix her expression from one of mortification to one of pleasant surprise. “Hi! You must be Maddie.”

  “Oh my gosh!” The young woman blinked several times. “It really is you. Mom, it’s really her.”

  “Hello, Miss King!” Mrs. Wyatt’s face appeared on the screen as she squeezed in next to her daughter’s hospital bed. “I’m a big fan. I watch your show whenever I get the chance. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet both of you, as well. Grayson has told me so much about you.” Tessa realized her mistake as soon as she saw the smaller woman use her elbow to nudge her mother.

  “Grayson?” Maddie squinted at the camera. “My brother, Grayson, talked to you? About us?”

  Tessa chuckled, relieved his tendency to be tight-lipped wasn’t because of her. “Well, it was like pulling teeth to get him to talk, but we’ve had a lot of downtime up here on the ra—”

  “Our location is classified information.” Grayson slapped his hand over the speaker, and in doing so, brought himself next to Tessa so that they were now side by side, facing the laptop.

  Maddie rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure everyone who has access to a TV or the internet knows where Tessa King has been hiding out these past couple of weeks.”

  This time, it was Mrs. Wyatt using her elbow to gently nudge her daughter. “What Maddie meant to say is that we watched your father’s funeral and, like the rest of the world, we’re very sorry for your recent loss.”

  “Thank you.” Tessa replied to the condolences somewhat robotically because she was still stuck on the two words causing her guilt to resurface. Hiding out. She was the reason this young woman didn’t have her brother by her side in the hospital. Clearing her throat, she changed the subject. “So, Maddie, how are you feeling? Grayson told me you had surgery recently.”

  Should Tessa have mentioned the surgery? Maybe Maddie Wyatt didn’t want some stranger knowing her personal business. Tessa tried not to cast a questioning glance at Grayson as she waited for the other woman to respond. Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long.

  “Well, the recovery is taking way longer than I was hoping. I went home last week, but then I got super sick and my surgeon was worried about infection, so they readmitted me to the hospital and put me on this mega antibiotic. I’m feeling better now, so it looks like the doc will let me start physical therapy soon. If the procedure works and the rod fuses to my spine, I’m hoping to get back in the pool soon. Maybe even go for a ride on one of the horses at this equestrian center out in the country. Have you guys been doing any riding?”

  “I’ve been riding. Your brother has been...” Tessa tapped a finger to her lips. “Well, I don’t know what to call his technique on the back of a horse.”

  When Maddie grinned, even on the screen, Tessa could feel the joy radiating off her. “It’s called clinging to the saddle for dear life as he yells at everyone to slow down.”

  “I’m not that bad.” Grayson smiled at his sister and Tessa’s heart turned into a puddle.

  “Man, I wish I was up there with you guys in Wyoming,” Maddie said. “I’d love to see all your horses.”

  “Perhaps when you’re feeling better, we can...” Tessa trailed off as Grayson’s elbow lightly pressed into her upper arm, a warning of some sort. Perhaps there was something about his sister’s prognosis he hadn’t wanted to share.

  “Listen, Mads. We have a briefing meeting in about three minutes,” Grayson said, immediately filling the silence. “We have
to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” Maddie replied. “It was nice to meet you, Miss King, even if my brother won’t let you make any promises to me about visiting when I feel better. Love you, Gray.”

  The young woman was extremely astute. An invitation to come riding on the ranch was exactly what Tessa had been about to offer. And she had a feeling that was exactly why Grayson had cut her off.

  “Love you, too, Mads. Give Mom a kiss for me,” Grayson added at the last second, but the screen had already gone dark.

  With the call disconnected, an awkward silence hung between them. Tessa rocked back on her heels, debating whether she could pretend that she’d stumbled into the bunkhouse instead of the conference room by mistake.

  “So—” he tucked the closed laptop under his arm and turned to face her “—were you looking for me?”

  They were alone amid the rows of beds. After she’d been caught eavesdropping on his private conversation. There was no denying her breach into his personal space. Tessa took a deep breath and came clean. “Yeah, I was hoping to talk to you before the briefing.”

  “Is it to tell me that you’re going back to DC tonight?” he asked, his face perfectly devoid of expression one way or another. “Your network is already running an ad promoting your return on Monday night.”

  Tessa knew he didn’t think very highly of her job, which was part of the reason she was eager to return to it. She needed to put some distance between them before things went too far.

  She needed to make sure that her attraction to him wasn’t based on the fact that he’d protected her time and again. That he’d been the one to rescue her, even from her own fears. For all she knew, she could simply be suffering from some sort of damsel-in-distress syndrome. Hooking up with the bodyguard was such a cliché, and Tessa was much too analytical for something like that. If she was going to have sex with a man, she had to be sure it was for the right reasons. And she couldn’t be sure of that until she was back to being on her own.