by Em Petrova
“Watkins—”
She jerked her head around at Noble’s name, and then found herself immediately searching the field for sight of him. Minich gave her a look, and she felt heat climb her face. Dipping her head, she avoided his stare.
They were discussing Noble just up and leaving. She had to bite her lips to keep from saying something, especially when they accused him of knowing he wasn’t making it for the permanent position. It was total crap—Noble was the best here, besides herself, of course.
If she was honest, they were well-matched in all ways, and that fact made her all the more solemn for the rest of the day.
As they rode back, one of the guys pointed at the horizon. A dark cloud was forming, and you could already hear the thunder from miles away. “Storm’s comin’,” he said. “Best get back quick and batten down the hatches. With the heat we’ve been havin’, when it lets loose, it’s gonna be a gully-washer.”
Everyone picked up the pace, and once they reached the ranch, they saw to the animals, tucking them away in the barn. Gracie welcomed the tasks that kept her mind off her situation, and nobody brought up Noble’s name again.
By the time dinner rolled around, she wasn’t very hungry, though the pork chops and potato salad were delicious. She wandered outside. The storm was coming closer, but it didn’t seem to be bringing any rain with it—a dry storm with lightning flashes and low booms of thunder that still had yet to reach the main ranch.
Leaning against the wall of the bunkhouse, she watched the sky. As a child, she’d always loved watching the sky light up during a storm, and now it felt like visiting with an old friend.
A shout sounded, and then another. She straightened, glancing around for the problem.
The other guys inside the bunkhouse rushed out. Langtry assessed the situation and hollered, “Dammit, it’s fire! Get on the ATVs and grab as much water as you can carry! Vin, get on the heavy equipment.” He spun to look at them all, gathered into a knot. “They’ve been workin’ on the road and all the equipment’s parked half a mile up. Who here thinks they can operate a road scraper?”
Gracie lifted her head. “I can do it.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Vin, take her with you. We’ll try to get behind the fire with the water, and you guys can push whatever dirt you can around it to contain the flames,” Langtry shouted as he ran for his truck.
In seconds, they were all rushing to load water tanks and haul everything they could to the source of the fire, while Vin and Gracie jumped into a truck and headed for the heavy equipment.
When Gracie jumped out and sized up the huge road construction equipment, Vin said, “Sure you can handle this, Dalton?”
“Yes. I’ve run the big tractors on my family’s ranch.”
He gave a nod, and she ran up to the equipment. In seconds, she was maneuvering it out onto the road headed toward the fire, with Vin right behind her on a massive backhoe.
Her heart thumped as she rolled at what felt like a snail’s pace toward the fire. Black smoke coiled upward from one of the pastures. Lightning strikes plus a dry Texas summer meant fires broke out. The Dalton Ranch had experienced something similar a few years back, and the fire had even claimed part of her cousin Hank’s house.
They’d all rallied together then, and would do so now.
She had a herd and property to help protect.
Chapter Eleven
The minute Noble rounded the bend leading to the Blackburn Ranch, he knew shit had gone wrong. He’d seen fire before, knew all that it could claim in its path of destruction.
His heart flexed as he realized the dangers. Gracie.
Stomping on the gas, he sped toward the main ranch, and then cut across the field toward the source of the smoke. As soon as he slammed to a stop, he was out of the truck. A glance told him everything he needed to know—a line of men on ATVs was trying to hold the flames back with a layer of water while others on heavy machinery created a dirt bank to enclose the ring while they all battled the flames.
Firetrucks were in the midst, along with neighbors and even some women stood along the road nearby, handing out water bottles to those who were in the worst of the heat.
When it came to fire and property, the whole community pulled together.
He stared at the scene. Where the hell was Gracie? He didn’t see her figure in the midst of the men with the water brigade. Was she out pushing the herd to safety? He sure as hell hoped she was as far from the flames as possible. With as dry as it’d been, the fire could spread for miles in the matter of minutes.
He started running.
“Langtry!” He spotted the man directing the entire operation, alongside Blackburn, who was shouting orders.
The foreman looked to him. “Where’s Gracie?”
Blackburn pierced him with a look and pointed.
Noble followed his finger to one of the huge machines he knew they’d been grading the road with for weeks. “Holy shit,” he whispered as he saw his woman seated at the controls.
People died all the time in heavy equipment accidents.
His heart slammed harder as he took off for her.
“Watkins! We need you here!” Blackburn yelled.
He looked from Gracie to the men on the ground. Blackburn was right—Gracie could handle herself, and he could do more good on the ground.
He ran up to one of the big water tanks and grabbed the end of a hose hooked up to it. When he let loose the spray of water, he realized what a battle they were in for. This was no small brush fire, and it was quickly getting out of hand. By the time they corralled the flames, who knew how much pasture would be burned.
The sun was setting, the sky dark against the flames licking the sky. He and five other men formed a line, hosing down everything in their path, but they weren’t gaining enough ground.
He dropped the hose and strode to Blackburn. “We gotta hem it in with more fire. Get propane torches and do a controlled burn so the fire doesn’t have anything beyond that circle to ignite,” he yelled over the din of the flames and shouts of men.
Blackburn gave a hard nod. “Get on it.”
He twisted to throw a look at Gracie. She’d been at it for hours, using the equipment to push up one side that faced a stand of trees in order to save the timber. She and Vin seemed to be on the winning end of that fight, at least. The rest of the pasture would be nothing but charred black earth if Noble didn’t get the torches soon.
As he ran across the field, she caught sight of him, maybe for the first time. She half-rose from her seat at the controls. He yanked his hat off and waved it to her.
She took off hers as well, and judging by the way she waved it frantically in the air, she was happy to see him. He wished to hell he could see her face right now.
* * * * *
A lump of emotion climbed Gracie’s throat and lodged there the second she set eyes on Noble.
He was here, with them all fighting for the ranch.
Her hands shook a little on the controllers, and she had to focus hard on stilling them so she didn’t make an error. She watched Noble bolt across the field for his truck parked alongside the road. Where had he been all day? It didn’t matter, did it? He was here now.
He jumped in and drove down the road to the main ranch buildings in a storm of dust.
The lightning had moved past, and good thing. They couldn’t fight more than one fire at a time.
Minutes later, Noble drove like a wild man back to the scene. He jumped out and waved his arms. She thought he must be shouting something to the others, because five men ran for the truck. They took objects out of the back and got back into position. This time they turned not streams of water on the flames but fire.
Fight fire with fire.
She let out a shout of excitement. Vin caught her eye and moved a hand in the direction they needed to conquer next with the machinery. She gave an exaggerated nod so he could see her agreement and turned for the section of flames.
>
A ring of orange flames licked toward the larger fire in the center. Hours seemed to pass, but she had no sense of time, only duty.
The part of her mind that liked to crunch numbers already had assessed the amount of loss here on the Blackburn, and so far, it didn’t amount to what it might have without so many hands on deck.
A whoop of celebration reached her, and she craned her neck to see what was happening.
Two men stood behind blackened grass, a wall of smoke before them, but not a single flame was in sight.
The efforts with the propane torches had worked, and the fire had run out of fuel in that section of the field. More shouts and whoops sounded, and she fist-punched the air too.
Then a single man broke loose of the group and ran toward her. She stilled the machinery, watching him come. The set of his shoulders was as familiar as her own face if she looked into a mirror. Noble.
She started climbing down, and he caught her up on the ground, wrapping his arms tight around her middle and lifting her off her feet.
“You came back,” she cried out.
At the same time, he said, “I love you, darlin’.”
She hurled her arms around his neck and kissed him for all it was worth. When he pulled back, he gave her that crooked smile that would melt her bones for the rest of her life.
“I never left for good, ya know.”
Her brow creased in question, but he planted a hard peck on her lips.
“I’ll tell ya when we’re finished here.” Releasing her, he smacked her on the behind. “Get back in that seat, Dalton.”
She gave him a sassy twitch of her hips. “Bet you didn’t know a girl could drive such a big piece of equipment.”
“I knew you had it in you. I admit, it’s sexy as hell, seeing you handle all that power.”
She shot him a grin and climbed back into the seat. There was a story to be told, about where he’d been, but he was back and fighting with them all.
And he loved her.
She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face now. Later, she’d find out just what exactly had taken him away from the ranch, but whatever it was, she knew he’d had a good reason.
* * * * *
Vin waved to the porch of the big house. “Take a load off. I need to talk to Blackburn.”
While he disappeared inside, Gracie and Noble sank to the porch steps and some others spread out across the yard, hats off and faces tipped to the sun. It’d been a hell of a long night.
Gracie sent Noble a look. “Now’s a good time to tell me where you ran off to.”
His smile was tired, and he was grubby but as handsome as ever. “I got a call before dawn from my dad’s neighbor saying he’d found him collapsed in the garage.”
She sucked in a gasp and pressed her fingers to her lips. “Is he all right?”
“I’ll admit I was scared out of my mind. At his age, you think the worst, and they believed it was a stroke for a while. Turns out he’s diabetic and his sugar got too low.”
“He’s still damn lucky. It’s nothing to fool around with.”
“He’s a cat with nine lives.” Noble chuckled. “It was a huge relief to hear it’s something manageable. But I didn’t have time to wake people and tell them where I went. I didn’t know how long I’d be gone either, so I took my things.”
She dipped her head. “We all assumed you’d taken off in the night.”
He reached up to brush a loose tendril of her dark hair off her cheek, his eyes fixed on her face. “I’d never do that, especially to you.”
Footsteps had them pulling away from each other, and Vin appeared. “Cook’s fixin’ up some cowboy chili to stick to our ribs after all the work we still got left today. I’m headin’ to the bunkhouse to take a load off for a few before chores. Who’s coming with me?”
All the guys jumped up, looking stiff and worn but eager for some chili.
“Hey!” Noble called out to them.
They turned.
“Don’t defile the bunkhouse bathroom after all that chili!”
Laughter followed, but Gracie heard a boot step on the porch behind them and threw a glance over her shoulder to see none other than Blackburn standing there, taking in the exchange.
“Dalton. Watkins. A word.” Blackburn turned to go into the house, leaving Gracie and Noble to stare at one another.
“What do you think he wants?” she asked, low.
“Don’t rightly know. Best get it over with.” He bumped his shoulder into hers.
Together, they stepped onto the wide front porch of the house and followed Blackburn inside. The place looked the same, a cool haven compared to the heat of the flames they’d spent most of the night battling. Then again this morning, they’d all been out checking that the herd was safe. They had round-the-clock monitors on the field to make sure it didn’t ignite a second time as well.
Gracie’s boot heels rang out on the slate floors as she made her way to Blackburn’s office as before. When she and Noble entered, he waved to the seats in front of the desk.
She tensed as she sank to the chair—she didn’t have good memories of being in this office and doubted things would improve today.
When Noble sat, he fixed Blackburn in his stare.
The man looked between them.
Gracie firmed her jaw and reached over to take Noble’s hand, right there for the man to see. Noble tightened his fingers around hers, and they gave a united front. She dared Blackburn to bring up the ultimatum he’d given her now.
Blackburn dropped his gaze to his desktop a moment and then looked at them again. “I owe you both a big thank-you.”
“Owe us all one, the way I see it,” Noble drawled.
“It took every man on this ranch to fight that fire,” she added.
“Yes, and they will all be thanked and rewarded. But I wanted to speak to you two for another reason.”
Gracie was glad she had hold of Noble’s hand, just in case she felt like punching out Blackburn’s pearly whites.
“Both of you know you’re our top picks here to stay on the ranch.”
She jerked her head to look at Noble, who was looking back. She hadn’t known Noble had been given the same information as she had, and obviously, he was just as out of the loop.
She arched a brow at Blackburn. “But last time I was here, you told me I could stay only if I stopped seeing Noble.” To punctuate her stance on this, she raised their joined hands for the man to see.
As soon as the words passed her lips, she felt Noble’s muscles lock. He half-rose from his seat to glare at Blackburn.
He nodded. “I know, and it was wrong of me. I was goin’ off past issues involving my daughter. But you two have both proven you’re not the same—you can do a great job here while still being involved in a relationship. I want to offer my apologies.”
Noble relaxed, but just barely. “So what are you offering us now?”
Blackburn sat back in his seat. “Same as I was before, minus the mumbo jumbo about the relationship. Even if we searched for a decade, it’s not likely we’d find two ranch hands as good as you.”
She pushed out the breath she’d been holding.
Noble squeezed her hand. “Would you mind excusing us for a bit to talk this through, sir?”
She almost laughed out loud—the cocky man had the audacity to ask Blackburn to leave his own office.
For a moment, he hesitated and then a trace of a grin crossed his face and he stood. “Take as much time as you’d like.”
Gracie waited for the fading sound of his footsteps on the floors before turning to Noble. “I can’t believe you—”
He silenced her with a finger over her lips. His hazel eyes loomed close. “He actually threatened to send you off the ranch because of me?”
She chewed her lip and nodded. “What did he say to you?”
“Only that I was chosen to stay.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He cocked a brow. “Why did
n’t you tell me?”
“Guess we’d better improve our communication skills if we’re making this work.”
“What is this?” He turned to her suddenly, vehemence echoing in his tone. “Gracie, what are we doing here?”
“Well… I don’t know what you’re doin’, cowboy, but I’m in love with you. And if we’re both invited to stay without conditions…”
He grabbed her, lifted her out of the chair and plunked her in his lap. Then he cupped her face and kissed her long and hard. She was breathing heavy and wiggling in his lap by the time he raised his head to stare into her eyes.
“Wonder if Blackburn’s daughter ever used this desk for makin’ love?” he drawled.
She giggled. “Prob’ly. I know I would if he were my daddy.”
“Rebel.”
She grinned and scuffed her knuckles over his angular jaw. “What do you think, Noble?”
“All I know is that where you are, I’ll be. You’re my life now, Gracie darlin’. I love you.”
Happy butterflies took flight in her stomach, and she moved in to brush her lips over his. “Then let’s do this.”
“I’ve got one more thing to negotiate.”
“What’s that?”
“A double bed in the room in the barn so we get out of the bunkhouse.”
* * * * *
Noble climbed into the passenger side of Gracie’s truck. “I’m not used to riding shotgun,” he said.
“You afraid of a woman driver?” She started the engine.
“Nah. I’ve seen you drive something ten times the size o’ this truck, remember?”
“And I did it damn well too,” she put the sass into her tone, hoping for one of his crooked smiles.
“Won’t argue that.”
“I just know you’re sitting there thinking up things to best me at.”
“Well,” he drawled, leaning back to adjust his shiny bronc ridin’ belt buckle, “I’ve got a few things in mind.”
She laughed. “You wouldn’t let me on a bronc—you took that horse to keep me from breaking a bone, remember?”
