Defending the Rancher's Daughter

by Carla Cassidy

  For just a brief, charged moment he saw only the fact that she was a beautiful woman with eyes that beckoned and a scent that half dizzied him.

  Would kissing her somehow ease the ache that had been in his heart for the last month? Would pulling her body tight against his somehow diminish the anger that had festered in him for too many days, too many nights?

  The desire to find out might have tempted him if he didn’t remember all too clearly the last time she’d looked at him with her eyelids half open and her lips parted as if expecting a kiss.

  He stepped backward, breaking their physical contact as he pulled away from her. “Last time I stood that close to you, you scratched half the flesh off my cheek,” he said.

  Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “If you expect me to apologize, you’ll be waiting a long time. You were where you didn’t belong and it really wasn’t any of your business.”

  “You were where you didn’t belong, as well,” he reminded her.

  Her cheeks deepened in color. “That was a long time ago. What’s important isn’t the past, what’s important is the here and now.”

  “Easy for you to say. I bear the scars of the temper tantrum you threw in the past.” He reached up and touched his cheek where the small scar had ensured that he’d never completely forget Katie Sampson.

  “You’re joking, right? I didn’t really leave a scar, did I?” She stepped closer to him and once again he tensed as the scent of her surrounded him. Before he knew her intent, she reached up and traced a soft, warm finger across his cheek.

  She gasped and jerked her hand away. “Oh, Zack. Tell me the truth? Did I do that or did you get it some other way and you’re just trying to make me feel bad?”

  What in the hell was he doing? As he looked at her face, her features taut with concern and maybe just a touch of remorse, he wondered why he’d even brought up that night so long ago.

  “I’m just giving you a hard time,” he finally said. “I got this scar in a bar fight several years ago, and you’re right, what’s important is the here and now.” He stepped down from the porch. “I’d better get back to the bunkhouse before the other men come back from town.”

  “Of course. I’d like to go with you when you take the file to Dalton.”

  “That will be first thing in the morning. Dalton won’t be in the office in town tomorrow, but he has everything he needs at the ranch to start working the background checks. Don’t you need to be here for the cattle tagging?”

  He didn’t want her with him. He’d been less than twenty-four hours in her employment and she was already bothering him in a way that confused and irritated him.

  “No. Doc Edwards and the men know how to handle it.” She leaned against one of the porch railings once again, her features obscured by the night shadows. “Zack, I have no intention of you running this investigation without me. I want to be beside you every step of the way. Partners, so to speak.”

  “I don’t work with partners,” he said.

  “Well, you’ve just changed your work habits,” she replied. “I’ll be ready first thing in the morning to go with you to speak to Dalton.”

  Before he could protest again, she turned and disappeared into the house. Zack stared at the closed door, his cheek still burning from her touch.

  He placed the manila folder in his truck parked at the side of Katie’s house, then headed back to the bunkhouse with the moonlight overhead guiding his way.

  When he’d decided to give Katie a couple of days, he figured the worst he’d have to put up with from her was her explosive temper tantrums and impertinence.

  He never would have guessed that the scent of her would twist his guts into knots, that her simple touch to his face would generate enough electricity to start a storm. He never would have guessed that her mouth would tempt him to forget the fact that he had no intention of ever getting deeply involved with a woman again.

  It had been one hell of a day. First, the realization that Gray’s accident hadn’t been an accident after all and now the knowledge that Katie Sampson had the power to stir him on a level where he hadn’t been stirred in a very long time.

  George’s snores greeted him as he entered the bunkhouse. The middle-aged man had moved from in front of the television to his bed.

  With the aid of a night-light that gleamed from the kitchen area, Zack made his way to his own bunk. He shucked off his jeans, pulled his T-shirt over his head, then crawled beneath the crisp white sheets on the bed, but sleep remained elusive.

  He would have liked an opportunity to read through the file before going to bed to see if any names leaped out at him. Although Zack was aware of the American romance with cowboys, he also knew that in reality many of the workers who drifted from ranch to ranch were misfits, ex-cons and bad apples. Every rancher probably had a horror story about one of his ranch hands, but not every rancher was killed by one of his own.

  Katie had to be right about one thing. If Gray had suffered no defensive wounds, then somebody had ambushed him on the trail. Gray had been a big man, no slouch when it came to physical strength and agility. Zack had to guess that the first blow had come from behind, that Gray had been blindsided.

  That meant he probably hadn’t been on his horse when he’d been attacked. He’d dismounted to meet somebody? To speak with somebody he’d met on the trail? It had to have been somebody he knew. A man usually didn’t dismount a horse for a stranger.

  She’d been so warm in his arms. The stray thought sliced through his head as he remembered holding Katie as she’d wept. He thought of that moment on the porch when she’d leaned toward him and he’d had the crazy impulse to kiss her.

  Partners, indeed. The last thing he needed in his life was a woman. He’d emotionally invested as a teenager and early twenty-year-old in the wrong woman and most recently been involved with a client who had ended up dead.

  As far as he was concerned, emotional investment in anything or anyone was vastly overrated. The Katie he had always known was nothing more than a big vacuum of emotion and he wasn’t about to get sucked into her by unexpected physical desire or the fact that they both mourned the same man.

  He was still awake around midnight when the men came in from town. He feigned sleep and listened to them stumbling around, talking in half-drunk whispers as they fell into bed. Within minutes the room was once again silent.

  Was one of these men a murderer? Had one of them met Gray on the trail that early sunny morning and killed him? At the moment Zack had no clue, not even the faintest inclination as to who might be responsible.

  He awoke suddenly, his heart pounding, and for a moment disoriented as to where he was. He sat up and full consciousness gripped him.

  He had no idea if he’d been asleep for five minutes or fifty. The nightmare. That’s what had awakened him. The nightmare about Melissa’s death.

  Certainly it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. In the past month, nightmares about his client’s death had haunted him regularly.

  Knowing from experience that sleep wouldn’t come easily again, he slid out of bed and pulled on his jeans and boots. He moved quietly, not wanting to awaken any of the other men, and slipped out of the bunkhouse door and into the darkness of the night.

  He leaned against the bunkhouse and for a moment wished he had a cigarette. Even though he’d quit smoking more than a year before there were still times, especially lately, that he thought about a calming lungful of smoke. Fortunately, the impulse never lasted long.

  Melissa. He hadn’t been in love with her, but he’d loved her. He’d been hired to keep her safe from an abusive, soon-to-be ex-husband and in the couple of months he’d spent with her he’d come to respect and admire her strength and indomitable spirit.

  When she’d told him she didn’t need his services anymore, when she’d released him from her employment, his instincts had told him the danger still existed. But he’d ignored his instincts and now she was dead.

  The nightmare that haunted him
was always the same. Even though when Melissa had been killed by her ex-husband Zack had been a hundred miles away, he dreamed of that moment of her death.

  In his dream, she stepped out of her car and waved to him, her face radiating the warm smile of a close friend. Clad in a white sundress, she looked cool and confident, stronger than he’d ever seen her in the time they’d shared together.

  As she started walking toward him, a shot rang in the air and the front of her white dress blossomed with scarlet as she crumpled to the ground. That was always when Zack awakened.

  He should have followed his instincts. He should have insisted that he remain as her employee for another day, another week, another month.

  His instincts were silent now, as if killed by the tragedy of Melissa’s senseless death. When he’d first heard about Gray’s death he should have known something wasn’t quite right, but the instincts he’d relied on so much in his line of work were quiet.

  Maybe what had awakened him hadn’t been nightmares at all, but rather dreams of Katie. Nothing had surprised him more than his physical response to her. It was more than the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman for nearly a year.

  Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that he wasn’t the only one who felt the magnetic pull of physical attraction. Katie felt it, as well. He’d seen it in her eyes as they’d stood so close together on the porch. He’d felt it simmering between them every moment they spent in each other’s company.

  Hell of a thing. The world had gone half mad. He turned to go back inside to bed, but hesitated as something caught his attention.

  A flicker of light that didn’t belong on the side of the dark house. It was there only a moment, then gone.

  He continued to stare, a surge of adrenaline filling his veins. There…again a flicker. As he stood trying to discern what it was, a lick of flame shot upward and he knew.

  Fire!

  His brain screamed it before his mouth could form the word. He remained frozen for only a millisecond, then threw open the door to the bunkhouse.

  “Fire,” he said. “The main house is on fire.”

  He didn’t wait to see how fast the men would respond. With his heart pounding frantically, he turned and ran for the house, knowing that the area where he’d seen the flames was where Katie’s bedroom was located.

  Hot. She was hot and she knew it was all Zack West’s fault. If his eyes weren’t such a beautiful green, if his mouth wasn’t so sensual, then she wouldn’t be hot and bothered by him at all.

  The heat he generated in her wasn’t just a mental thing, but a physical thing, as well. Her body was slick with perspiration. Her hair clung to her neck in damp tendrils as she moved her hands down his sweaty, muscled chest.

  Hot.

  Too hot.

  What had begun as sensual pleasure had become something uncomfortable, almost painful. She twisted away from him, needing some air, needing to cool off before she internally combusted. In that instant she surfaced from the dream to find herself alone in her bed.

  Although she left her dreams behind, it took several moments for her brain to completely clear. She remained still, eyes closed, and wondered if perhaps she’d somehow nudged the thermostat into a heat mode instead of cool.

  As full consciousness struck, she smelled smoke in the air, heard a strange, faint crackling that snapped her eyes open.

  Instantly she squeezed her eyes tightly closed as acrid smoke made them water. Smoke? Why was the bedroom filled with smoke?

  Smoke. Heat. Fire!

  She sat up, her frantic gaze instantly captured by the deadly flames dancing across the pane of her bedroom window. Before she could move, the window shattered and flames shot inside. With a scream she leaped out of bed. Her thoughts scrambled, heart hammering in terror as she raced toward the bedroom door.

  What was happening? How had the house started on fire?

  She hesitated only the duration of a heartbeat before touching the bedroom door, hoping, praying, that the fire was only on the outside of the house and not racing throughout. The wood was warm, but not hot.

  She gasped in relief as she touched the doorknob and found it cool to her fingers. Apparently the fire wasn’t in the main section of the house but rather confined to the outer wall of her bedroom area.

  With a whoosh, the curtains in the bedroom went up in flames and with another scream Kate grabbed the knob and pulled on the door. It didn’t budge.

  The heat had become unbearable and in the light provided by the fire she could see the smoke that billowed in the room, stinging her eyes and stealing her breath.

  Out. She had to get out! Why wouldn’t the door open? She grabbed the knob with both hands and pulled as hard as she could, but the door refused to open.

  Frantic voices drifted in through the window above the roar of the flames. Zack. She heard his deep voice barking orders, and even though she should have been comforted by the fact that her men had abandoned their beds to fight the flames, she knew she’d die in this room before they got the fire extinguished.

  “Zack!” She moved as close to the window as possible and yelled his name over and over again. A spasm of coughing momentarily overwhelmed her and she fell to her knees.

  “Katie!”

  Zack’s voice penetrated her smoke-filled head and she saw his face outside the busted window. “Get out!” he cried. “Get out of there.”

  “I can’t,” she replied. Her voice sounded no louder than a whisper as once again a fit of coughing gripped her. “The door is jammed or something.” Tears streamed down her face and she felt as if she were being boiled alive.

  She was going to die. While her men sprayed water on the house to fight the fire, she was going to die in here from the smoke. Low. She needed to get low. She dropped to her knees. The smoke wouldn’t be as thick near the floor.

  How had this happened? Had she fallen asleep without blowing out one of the candles she loved to burn in the evenings? But that didn’t make sense. The fire was on the outside coming in, not on the inside burning out.

  What difference did it make now? She couldn’t breathe…there was nothing but smoke…nothing but darkness.

  Her bedroom door exploded inward and with a grateful sob she saw Zack. His face was grim as he swept her up into his arms and carried her out of the room.

  She wound her arms around his neck and buried her face against his hot, bare chest. Tears streamed down her cheeks, tears from the smoke along with ones of relief.

  When he left the house and stepped out onto the porch, she lifted her head and dragged in deep cleansing breaths of the cool night air. He laid her on the cool grass.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. She nodded, once again coughing as her lungs cleared of the noxious smoke. “I want you to get in my truck and lock the doors.”

  She frowned, wondering if the smoke had somehow addled her brain. Why would he tell her to lock herself in his truck?

  “Katie, don’t ask questions. I’ll explain later.” He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up to her feet. “Go. Lock the doors and don’t open them for anyone except me.”

  Too weak to protest, too confused to even try to make sense of anything, she obeyed. He watched until she was in the passenger seat of his truck and locked inside, then he disappeared around the corner of the house where the fire still burned.

  Kate leaned her head back against the seat and closed her stinging, watering eyes. What had just happened? She couldn’t make sense of it. She felt as if she were still asleep and all of this was just a horrible dream.

  Why hadn’t she been able to get out of her room?

  She opened her eyes and saw Jake approaching the truck. He, too, was covered with soot, his handsome features tight with concern. With Zack’s words ringing in her ears, she cracked the window down only an inch.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “God, Kate. I’ve never been so frightened for you.”

  “I’m fine, just shaken.” It felt ridiculous to b
e speaking to him through the small crack in the window and again she wondered what had prompted Zack to tell her to lock herself into his truck. “Can you tell what happened?”

  Jake shrugged. “All I know is that it looks like you lost part of your bedroom.” He pointed toward the side of the house. “I’d better get back to help. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  She nodded and he hurried away, disappearing into the darkness that now hung over the landscape. She wanted to see the damage. She wanted to know what was going on. Her impulse was to get out of the truck. This was her ranch and she should know what was happening.

  What stopped her was the grim glint that had darkened Zack’s eyes as he’d ordered her into the truck. Once again she leaned her head back and closed her eyes as the cool night air caressed her from the slightly open window.

  She suddenly remembered what she’d been dreaming before she’d awakened. Her dreams had been filled with Zack. She’d dreamed of his arms around her, his lips taking full and utter possession of hers. She’d imagined running her hands over his hot, smoothly muscled chest and wanting him to make love to her.

  She jumped as a knock fell on the driver window. She leaned over and unlocked the door for Zack. He slid into the seat, bringing with him the smell of wildness, of the remnants of an inferno.

  For a moment, neither of them spoke. She felt his exhaustion and something deeper, darker, that she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to explore.

  “We got it out,” he finally said. “The outer wall of your bedroom will need to be replaced. I don’t know how much smoke damage is inside the house. I would guess your room is pretty well trashed between the smoke and water.”

  She fought a weary sigh. “I’ve never heard anyone say that ranch life isn’t filled with challenges.” He stared at her for a long moment, as if she’d somehow surprised him. “What were you expecting? Tears and feet-stomping?”

  “It wouldn’t be completely out of character,” he observed.

  She refused to rise to his bait. “So, could you tell what happened? How the fire started?”