“Are you pleased with what you wrote today?”
“I am. It’s a rough draft and what I do is put it away for about three months after I’ve written the manuscript. Then, I return to it to edit and polish it.”
“Have you ever had writer’s block before?”
Shaking her head, Shiloh said, “Never. My dad never did, either.” Painfully, she offered, “I think it’s the stalker, my mind is on him. He’s stolen my focus.”
“Did you think that writer’s block meant you’d lost this skill?”
“I didn’t really know.” She gave Roan a worried look. “I was scared I’d lost it.”
“But if it’s a genetic gift, you can’t lose it,” Roan pointed out mildly, giving her a slight smile.
“You’re right . . . of course. But you’re more pragmatic and logical than I am.”
Roan leaned back in his chair, enjoying their conversation. “If you can build houses,” he said wryly, “that makes you logical, too. Don’t shortchange yourself, Shiloh.”
She felt her heart swell with a quiet happiness. Roan was such a refreshing change from the men she knew in New York City. “I think you’re right.”
“And speaking of building houses,” he said, “how would you like to come out tomorrow and work with me? I need to get that porch started. Interested?” and he pinned her with his gaze. Her cheeks flushed and he saw eagerness dancing in her eyes.
“I’d love to!”
“Will it interfere with your writing schedule, though?”
“No. It will be all right.”
“I bought you a good pair of leather work gloves. They’re in my toolbox at the cabin.”
Touched with his consideration, she said, “That’s even better than roses and chocolate.” Her heart rolled in her chest over his thoughtful gift.
“Well,” Roan drawled, “I wouldn’t go that far. But you are certainly worth buying roses and chocolate for, too.”
Her heart swooned over his dark, low words. Shiloh knew if Roan did something like that, he meant it. It wasn’t about trading them off to get her into bed, which is what her other men usually tried to do. Without success. “Thanks,” she murmured, giving him a shy glance, “that means a lot.” And it did. More than she could say.
“We’ll leave at eight tomorrow morning,” Roan told her. “I spend dawn to dusk out there. You up for it?”
Was she ever!
* * *
There was a decided chill in the air when they arrived at Roan’s cabin. The eastern sunlight bathed the front of the two-story cabin, making it look like molten gold. Shiloh wore loose Levi’s, knowing she’d be down on her knees off and on all day. Laying porch was kneeling work. She wore a dark red tee with sleeves and a heavy, dark blue chambray shirt over it, plus her Levi’s jacket to ward off the chill. To be able to work closely with Roan all day long brought another kind of excitement to Shiloh. She liked being close to him. He always made her feel happy. Lighter.
Roan pulled his black Chevy pickup to the garage and climbed out. He unlocked one of the doors and retrieved two toolboxes filled with carpenter tools. He gave her the smaller, lighter wooden toolbox.
“Your gloves are in this one,” he said, handing it off to her.
“Thanks.” Today, Roan wore a black baseball cap, not his cowboy hat. Shiloh took the toolbox and followed him to the south side of the house. He had on Levi’s and a black T-shirt that sinfully outlined his upper body; she was salivating to slide her fingers across the fabric to feel his muscles beneath it. Such fantasy!
Her imagination always went wild around Roan. He inspired her on so many levels. He looked more like a black ops soldier today, not a cowboy. She wondered how many times he’d had a brush with death. He always seemed so calm and centered. Nothing seemed to rock his world, unlike her own. And it was that quiet steadiness that appealed so strongly to Shiloh.
Roan put her to work right away. He uncovered the Trex that was six feet long and told her to measure it to a certain length, then go over to the garage where he had his radial saw set up and cut them to those lengths. Shiloh liked that he trusted her. He got to work building the wooden frame.
Shiloh became lost in the process of measuring, carrying over the Trex, and then cutting it. She heard Roan hammering almost constantly and sometimes would look out the garage to see him laying down the four-by-four cedar posts that would be the template for the porch. Just watching his darkly tanned arms, the muscles in them, the gleam of sweat on them as he worked, made her feel needy and hungry for him. He worked slow but sure and the pounding of the hammer was like music of a different sort to her.
Within the first hour, Shiloh had the south side of the porch cut to lengths and had carried them over to the wooden frame. Roan was on his knees and sat up, resting back against his heels, wiping the sweat off his face. He caught and held her gaze as she straightened, brushing off her shirtsleeves.
“Time for a break,” he told her, motioning to the large ten-gallon dispenser of water he carried in the back of his truck. “Let’s hydrate.” He pushed to his feet, laid his hammer down, and took off the leather construction belt from around his narrow hips.
The sun had risen higher, feeling warm on Shiloh. She had tamed her hair into a long, single braid down her back to keep it out of the way. Pulling off her damp leather gloves, she stuffed them in her back pocket. Roan pulled the container to the end of the tailgate, filling two plastic glasses with water. He handed her one.
Their fingers met and Shiloh selfishly absorbed his momentary contact. “Thanks,” she said, thirsty.
Roan pushed the container back into the bed of the truck. The day was going to be a bright blue sky, no clouds, and the land was warming up. It was perfect. He sat down on the tailgate and patted a spot next to him. “Come sit. It’s good to take a rest.”
Shiloh tried to still her heart as Roan gave her a long, heated look. The man wanted her. She wanted him. Why was she still standing in the way? Frustrated with herself, she hopped up on the tailgate, swinging her legs beneath it as she sipped the last of the water. When Roan took off his baseball cap and wiped his sweaty brow, she thought he was incredibly rugged-looking, and so damned sexy. Trying to quell her body, she sat and gazed around at Pine Grove, not far from the cabin. The wildflowers in the nearby meadow were now blooming in wild profusion and looking like a rainbow swath to Shiloh. The air was sweetly scented with all their fragrances and she inhaled it deeply, thinking that this place was so much better than Central Park in New York City.
“Looks like you’ve got enough Trex cut to lay,” Roan said, gesturing to the Trex she’d stacked near the wooden frame.
“I think so.”
“You’re a hard, consistent worker,” Roan murmured, catching her gaze. Red tendrils curled and stuck to her temple and cheek. She was perspiring from working too. “Any problems handling that stuff?”
“No. I’ve worked with Trex before.” Shiloh had to wear a protective face mask to prevent herself from inhaling small particles as she cut it. “Do you want me to start laying it down?”
Roan smiled a little. “You’re a regular workhorse, Shiloh.”
She grinned a little. “I love feeling taxed, physically. The last six months, it’s killed me not to go for my daily jog through Central Park.” She had already taken off her jacket, but while carrying wood, she’d kept her protective chambray shirt on her arms. Splinters and cuts were always a possibility.
“You’ve jogged every day here,” Roan said. The gleam of perspiration was across Shiloh’s face. She looked healthy, flushed, her eyes radiant with happiness. This was a woman who worked as hard as he did, and loved doing it. Just one more thing to like about her, Roan thought. The way her mouth moved, her lips, made him burn with longing. She seemed at ease in his company. Not wary. Not threatened. He wondered what she would do if he tried to kiss her. It was a thought, but that was all it was. Roan knew if Shiloh came to him, it would be the only way.
“And
I love it.” Shiloh gave him a silly grin and tapped her head. “I have the most well-honed muscled brain in the world. I need to give my physical body the same kind of workout to stay in balance.”
Nodding, Roan finished off his cup of water. He slid off the tailgate, pulled the water container forward, and filled his cup again. Shiloh held hers out to him for a refill. “You’re a smart woman, balancing off mental with physical activity,” he praised. “A lot of people wouldn’t realize that.”
She thanked him for the water, drinking all of it quickly, slaking her thirst. Handing the cup back to him, she asked, “Were you in danger when you were in Special Forces?” The need to know Roan was driving her to ask more personal questions of him. She saw his mouth purse slightly as he considered it.
Allowing the water container to sit on the tailgate, he leaned against the truck frame. “Sometimes. Depended upon where my A-team was placed.”
“Like, Afghanistan? Iraq?”
“Yes. Sometimes South America.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You really have been around.”
“It was interesting,” Roan said.
“I’ll bet you could write great books about your adventures.”
“All of mine are top secret,” he said drolly, setting the cup next to the container. “Can’t breathe a word about them.”
“My dad always wrote from his military experience.”
“Yes, but probably a lot of what he did wasn’t black ops–related. Right?”
“Right.”
“Tell me about your growing-up years, Roan,” she said, and tilted her head, holding his amused gaze. She felt as if he were humoring her like a petulant, inquisitive child.
“My father was in the Army for thirty years, so I was a military brat.”
“Was he in Special Forces like you?”
“Yes, he was. That’s why I went into the teams.”
“So did you and your mom move around a lot?”
“No, because he was black ops and always being sent overseas to some country. We stayed at the Army base where his unit was based here in the States. My mother, Grace, was born and raised in Montana. And usually, we lived on her parents’ ranch when he was ordered overseas. I didn’t kick around the globe like a lot of military brats because he was an operator.”
“So you grew up on your grandparents’ ranch?”
“Yes. Liked it a lot.”
“I don’t remember much, but my dad was always getting moved from one Air Force base overseas to another, every two years. I was five years old when he left the Air Force and started his writing career, which took off like a rocket.”
“We were lucky kids, then.”
“Why lucky?” she wondered, watching how relaxed his face became when he reminisced.
“We had an anchor. A place to stay and plant roots. I think that’s important. We could make friends. Get to know the community around us.”
“You’re right,” she murmured. “I didn’t like moving very much.”
“I was restless when I was younger,” Roan admitted. “In the teams, we moved around every two to three years, depending upon what our assignment was.” He gave her a wry smile. “Now that I’m older, I like sitting in one place with no desire to be a tumbleweed anymore.”
Shiloh gestured to his cabin. “Did you buy the land from Maud to live here?”
“Actually,” Roan said, pushing away from the truck and pulling on his gloves, “Maud gave me this land as part of my employee package. She likes to help military vets and she’s given each of the wranglers who were in the military five acres to build a home on. It’s rent-free and it’s ours. She’s a very generous woman. She also bought the cabin package for me.”
“Wow,” Shiloh murmured. “That’s incredible!”
“Knocked my socks off, too,” Roan admitted with a grin. “She’s a good person, a great people manager, and she really does support vets. The woman rocks in my world.”
Sliding off the tailgate, Shiloh pulled on her gloves. “What a wonderful, priceless gift she’s given to you,” she murmured, gesturing around the area. “It’s so beautiful here. Quiet. Healing.”
“All those things,” Roan agreed. “Come on, let’s get you busy laying that Trex you cut. By the end of the day, if all goes well, we should have the first step in the porch laid.”
“And next will come the railing?”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “The work is never done when you build a house. Always something else.” As he walked with her to the cabin porch area, Roan appreciated the sway of her hips. He could see Shiloh truly enjoyed what she was doing, as if this country were breathing new life into her. Maybe it was helping to dissolve all the built-up fear she’d experienced over the last six months. Frowning, Roan settled the baseball cap on his head, wishing he had more info on her stalker.
Chapter Ten
Where the hell was Shiloh Gallagher?
Anton Leath sat in his Manhattan apartment. He’d made morning coffee earlier and scoured the New York Times intently as he smoked his second cigarette of the morning. It was his only bad habit, not even one he could give up while spending years in federal prison for murdering Isabella Gallagher.
His thick blond brows drew downward as he scanned the arts section, looking for Shiloh’s name.
Nothing.
His thick lips flattened. Opening up his laptop on the round table, he decided to go to her Facebook page. He’d gotten onto it with a false name. She had twenty thousand followers and all were avid readers of her books. Smiling as he went to her page, he knew that she had probably never even given his name a second glance. She was too busy gathering a reader base to maintain the popularity of her books. The little bitch.
Hatred welled up in Anton. Why the hell hadn’t he realized Shiloh, at ten, was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching him stab stupid Isabella? In the bloodlust of killing the woman, he’d allowed Shiloh to escape. Because he was going to stab her next. But the kid had run out of the apartment before he could get his own shit together to go after her.
With a shake of his shaggy head, his blond hair barely touching his thick, heavily muscular shoulders, he stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray. Scanning Shiloh’s Facebook page, he saw her daily entry. All it referred to was what she was writing.
So where was she? Anton had staked out her apartment with binoculars. He could easily stand in the shade between two ten-story apartment buildings, six feet of alleyway between them. It was the perfect hiding place where he couldn’t be seen, but he could see her. Unsure if the parole board had contacted Shiloh after he was given five years off for good behavior and released from prison, Anton had come back to the city to finish what he started.
But all of the last week, there were no lights on in her apartment. She had chiffon curtains across all her windows so he couldn’t see well, but he could always see her at her desk. Where did she go? Did she run away? On vacation? What? Anton didn’t know.
After being released from prison, he’d located her apartment, watched her, got her daily schedule, and then began a slow but sure campaign to unhinge the woman. Anton wanted her so distracted that when he went in for the kill, Shiloh Gallagher would never see it coming. And he’d do it in such a way that the cops would never pin it on him.
For the last six months, Anton had watched his stalking techniques work like magic on Shiloh. Last month, she rarely left her apartment, now a virtual prisoner in it. She’d become too afraid to jog daily in Central Park. Now, instead of going out to get her groceries, she had them delivered. His lips twitched. There was a soaring feeling of triumph flowing through him as he finished his coffee. He shut the lid on his laptop and stood to his six feet, stretching languidly, feeling his muscles flex.
Today, he’d go to the gym and do a two-hour workout with heavy weights. He’d picked up weight lifting in prison and found it not only made him fit and healthy, but it also took off the angry edge that was always with him. If Shiloh, at e
leven years old, hadn’t been the star witness for the prosecution, he’d never have gone to prison. Too many years of his life had been lost and as he walked down the hall to the bathroom, Anton swore he would find Shiloh. And he would kill her.
* * *
By the end of the day, the sun close to setting, Shiloh sat on the newly constructed porch, her hands draped between her open thighs. The sun spread silently through the wide valley. In the west rose the jagged Wilson Range. To the east were the Salt River Mountains. North lay the narrow valley where Yellowstone National Park sat as well as the Grand Tetons National Park.
She tugged off her work gloves, which were damp from her perspiration. Watching Roan get them two cups of water from the big dispenser in the bed of his truck, Shiloh smiled to herself. Looking to her left, she felt satisfaction. She’d cut Trex to the correct lengths for all three sides of the porch. Between them, they’d screwed it into place.
Shiloh held out her hand as Roan stopped in front of her and gave her the plastic cup. “Thanks,” she murmured.
Roan sat down next to her, about a foot between them. “I would never have guessed a writer could lay a porch,” he told her wryly, turning, meeting her eyes. Shiloh’s hair was mussed, her ponytail coming somewhat loosened over the afternoon’s hard work. Tendrils stuck damply to her temples and cheeks. He could see she was happy, her green eyes radiant, her mouth curving into that soft smile of hers. His body wanted her, no question. Roan had worked to ignore her feminine side, the woman in her. When Shiloh had shed her chambray shirt, stripping down to a sleeveless tee that outlined her breasts beneath it, Roan had groaned inwardly. The sweat had gleamed off her shoulders and arms as she used fasteners to screw the Trex into place. She was a woman who wasn’t afraid to get her hands or herself dirty. Another plus in his book.
Wind River Wrangler Page 13
