by Barbara Gee
Love Me, Trust Me
Full Heart Ranch Series #2
By: Barbara Gee
Copyright ©2015 by Barbara S. Gunden
All rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Barbara Gunden, except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Table of Contents
Prologue….
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
Prologue….
The generous slice of wedding cake looked and smelled delicious. Libby had purposely chosen a plate with a big portion, because her aunt’s special recipe double-chocolate cake was one of her favorites. At the moment, however, she couldn’t bring herself to take even one bite. She’d lost her appetite when her brother and his new bride had abruptly left the table to go change out of their wedding clothes, leaving Libby, the maid of honor, alone with the best man. Which was not at all where she wanted to be.
It wasn’t like she didn’t understand the couple’s hurry to be on their way. They had a honeymoon to get to after all. The problem was that their hasty departure left Libby alone with the very man she’d been actively avoiding for the last four days. To make the situation even more irritating, she suspected the newlyweds had known exactly what they were doing when they’d abandoned her so suddenly, not giving her the opportunity to find an excuse to leave the table beforehand.
She poked at the cake with her fork, her stomach so full of butterflies there was no room for anything else. It had been a long time since she’d felt so fluttery and unsettled, and she’d forgotten how uncomfortable it was. She felt like she was back in high school being graced by the presence of the starting quarterback at the cafeteria lunch table, trying to pretend she was perfectly comfortable and at ease, when really she felt panicky and ready to jump out of her skin.
Feeling that way now was immensely disappointing, too, because Libby had honestly thought she’d moved beyond such insecurities. Four short days ago she would have proudly claimed that she was no longer affected or motivated by what men thought of her. She had grown and changed so much since coming to live at the Full Heart Ranch here in Barlow, North Dakota, and for the first time in her adult life, she finally felt free to just be herself. No more doing whatever it took to be noticed, no more trying to be someone she wasn’t in order to impress others. She was who she was—take it or leave it.
Only, as it turned out, Libby wasn’t so sure of who she was after all. Not anymore. When Detective Ryan Anderson, her brother’s friend and best man, had arrived at the ranch four days ago, her newly found woman’s roar had gotten stuck in her throat. One glimpse of him and that hard-earned sensation of freedom had disappeared. Poof. The desire to be attractive and irresistible had come flooding back, and that meant she really hadn’t changed that much after all. At least not when it came to the man who was sitting across the table from her now, watching her destroy a perfectly good piece of wedding cake.
Unprepared for such a maddening backslide into her old frame of mind, Libby’s response up to now had been to avoid the man as much as possible, and to make sure she never, ever found herself alone with him. Immature and a bit cowardly, perhaps, but it had worked.
Right up until a few minutes ago. Being carelessly abandoned by the newlyweds had blindsided her, and now she was in a very uncomfortable position.
Libby gave herself a stern internal pep talk as she reduced the last of her cake to crumbs. She could handle this, she just needed to figure out the best approach. Since pretending to be cool and unaffected by his presence wasn’t really working, she needed another plan.
She sighed quietly, resigned to her fate. Better to be straightforward about things, she supposed. Looking up from her plate, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you play football in high school?” she asked, breaking the uneasy silence.
His brows drew together in a speculative frown. The man had seriously great eyes and eyebrows. Not to mention his nose, mouth, jawline, shoulders—okay, he pretty much had seriously great everything.
“Yeah, I played. Why?”
Libby blinked, fighting the effect of those dark, dark eyes. “Quarterback, right?”
He shook his head. “Wide receiver.”
Libby didn’t try to hide her skepticism. “You were never the quarterback?”
He grinned. “Nope. I could jump too high and run too fast to be wasted at quarterback.”
“Hmph,” Libby muttered. “Cocky as a quarterback, though.”
He tilted his head, frowning again. “Why are you asking me about high school football?”
She shrugged. “Just curious. You remind me of the players I knew back then.”
“High school was an awful long time ago for me,” he pointed out. “What have I done that reminds you of an eighteen year old kid?”
Libby opened her mouth to give a flippant answer, one that gave away nothing of what she was actually feeling, but she stopped herself. That was something the old Libby would do. The new Libby, the one who was growing and maturing and no longer considered attracting cute guys her number one priority, would tell the truth. The question was, which girl was she really—old or new?
She laid down her fork and squared her shoulders, wanting desperately to be the new Libby, especially with this man.
“Sitting here with you makes me feel like I’m back in the high school cafeteria, trying to act cool and impress the football player that all the girls want, when in reality I’m nervous and jumpy and wish he would have chosen to sit somewhere else.”
He studied her for a moment, then leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, his hands clasped loosely. He didn’t smile, but there was a twinkle evident in those mesmerizing dark eyes. “Did you just tell me to get lost, Libby?”
She shook her head unconvincingly. “No, not exactly. I just hinted that sitting here with you is a little unsettling.”
“Unsettling?” He raised a brow. “I could say the same about you, you know. I’m not sure I should be sitting here thinking about how incredibly beautiful my best friend’s little sister is.”
Libby dropped her eyes. “Whatever, Ryan. So will you be heading out soon?”
He waited until she looked up again, giving her a slow smile when her eyes met his. “You know, if we were back in high school, when I was admittedly a little too cocky for my own good, I wouldn’
t let you get rid of me so easily. But since I’m thirty-two, not quite as cocky, and you basically just told me to get lost for the second time, I’ll be the gentleman I wasn’t at eighteen and honor your wish.”
He pushed his chair back and stood up. “I’m actually catching a ride to the airport with Tim and Emma. We’re going to leave as soon as Tuck and Maddy take off. You have a good summer, Libby. Maybe our paths will cross again sometime.”
Libby hastily stood, opening her mouth to apologize for her unintentional rudeness, but he was already turning away. She considered calling him back, but then Tuck and Maddy returned to the yard, where their family and friends were waiting to send them off. The next ten minutes were a flurry of hugs, well wishes and goodbyes, and then it was just Libby and her Uncle Virgil and Aunt Kay, feeling a little shell-shocked as they stood in the suddenly quiet backyard.
“Wow, where did everyone go so fast?” Libby asked, slumping into a chair and eyeing the empty tables with the remains of the wedding feast waiting to be cleaned up. “That was the quickest wedding and reception ever.”
“But it was perfect. We did pretty good with only a three day notice,” Kay declared. “It was a beautiful, intimate wedding, and I’ve never seen your brother so happy.”
“It was a great wedding, and it was so nice of Tim and Emma to come out and surprise him,” Libby said, referring to her brother’s FBI colleagues from Charlotte, North Carolina. “Did you see his face when they walked out here? It meant so much to him, especially since he’ll be transferring to the Fargo field office right away and won’t be working with them anymore.”
Kay nodded. “It made today that much more special. And I’m so glad Ryan could stay for the wedding.” She gave Libby a sideways glance. “I was glad to see you two talking a bit. You’ve avoided him like the plague these last few days, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why.”
Libby didn’t want to talk about it, not at all, but she felt she owed Kay some kind of explanation. She shrugged. “We, um, kinda got off on the wrong foot back when we first met. Back in North Carolina.”
Kay looked confused. “But didn’t he work with Tucker to keep you safe from that horrible man they were after?”
Libby nodded. “Yeah, he did, but it ended up being really awkward. Tuck had Ryan grab me off the street to get me to a safe place, but I didn’t know what was going on, and it’s possible I didn’t handle things in an especially mature manner. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”
The older woman leaned down and gave her a hug. “Okay, I can tell it’s a sore subject. But for the record, I think Ryan Anderson is a delightful man, and he helped save yours and Tuck’s hides again just a few days ago. This time at great personal risk, I might add. I, for one, will feel forever indebted to him for that.”
Libby winced at the gentle rebuke. “Me too. It’s just—well, like I said, it’s an uncomfortable situation for me.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t hold anything you might have said against you. He would’ve understood your confusion.”
“It’s more than just the things I said,” Libby admitted.
Virgil walked up and put an arm around his wife. “Leave her alone, Kay. If you make her mad she’s not going to help us with all this cleanup.”
“Oh come on, Uncle Virgil, I’d never leave you in the lurch,” Libby said, smiling at him for coming to her rescue. “Let’s get all this left-over food put away. The good news is, we aren’t going to have to cook for a week.”
The two women began carrying the food and all the dishes inside, while Virgil folded up the rented tables and chairs to be returned. Later, when the leftovers were stacked neatly in the refrigerator and the kitchen was once again sparkling clean, Libby went upstairs to her room to rest. It had been a busy few days, to say the least, and she had worked her tail off to make sure her brother’s hastily arranged marriage to Maddy—who also happened to be Libby’s best friend—went off without a hitch.
Tuck had been adamant about getting married quickly. After having their lives threatened right here on the ranch, by mercenaries working for the man Tuck had spent the last two years hunting down, her brother had been unwilling to wait any longer to make Maddy his wife. He had proposed the same night he and Ryan had fought and arrested the eight men intent on causing them harm, and now, a mere three days later, Tuck and Maddy were happily married and on their way to their honeymoon cabin in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
And Ryan Anderson was on his way back east, and Libby would probably never see him again. Thankfully she was okay with that. Well, she should be okay with it. But really she wasn’t—not if she were completely honest about it. She groaned in frustration and impatiently worked on the row of buttons on the simple blue dress she’d worn for the wedding. Why did everything have to be so confusing and messed up where that man was concerned?
She kicked the dress off and changed into comfy yoga pants and a tee shirt, then fell back onto the bed. Seriously, how pitiful could she be? She’d spent four days avoiding the way too handsome detective, and now that he was gone she completely regretted it.
She wanted a do-over. The man fascinated her. He was gorgeous and intelligent and totally alpha, and she’d been attracted to him from the very beginning. Unfortunately, prior to plucking her unsuspecting self out of a parking lot in order to hustle her to safety, Ryan and some other officers had spent over a week trailing her everywhere she went, hoping to spot anyone who might be following her.
Libby hadn’t known at the time that she was being watched, but in retrospect she was all too aware that during that period of surveillance she hadn’t conducted herself in a way that would impress Ryan, or anyone else. Because of how things had gone down then, she couldn’t even look at the man without feeling intense shame.
Thus she had chosen the avoidance route during the whole of his visit to the ranch, adding cowardice and immaturity to the less than positive traits Ryan had already seen.
Nope. It definitely didn’t look promising for a do-over.
Libby rolled over and allowed herself another few minutes to lament what might have been. She wished so badly she’d handled things differently, both then and now. It was pathetic. Because she’d been so keen to avoid him the last few days, she hadn’t even properly thanked him for risking his life to keep them all safe. And now that he was gone, she was appalled at her behavior. There was no excuse, not even the fact that she had trouble looking him in the eye because of what he knew about her.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she rolled off the bed and booted up her computer to find the address of the police department in Chandler, North Carolina. Taking an envelope from a desk drawer, she addressed it in care of Detective Ryan Anderson, then set it aside while she looked through the drawers for some paper. The only thing she could find was a legal pad, but it would do. She wrote out a brief note, thanking him for coming to North Dakota with her brother and helping to take down the horrible men who had been trying to kill them. She ended it with an apology, and she could only hope he would be able to tell it was heartfelt.
I should have thanked you face to face. It’s hard to explain why I didn’t. The best I can do is tell you that when I look at you, I see myself through your eyes, and I don’t like what I see. But that doesn’t excuse my failure to show my gratitude while you were here. My deepest thanks, Ryan. I wish you nothing but great things. Libby
CHAPTER 1
Ten months later……
Detective Ryan Anderson stood in the hallway and looked out over the large front room of the police station. He counted eleven of his fellow officers there. Some were at their desks toiling over the paperwork everyone hated, some were collaborating in groups of two or three, and two were over by the coffee maker, laughing and giving the wizened receptionist grief about the coffee.
The station coffee had become a consistent topic over the last few weeks, ever since Annabelle had explored a new local grocery outlet and discovered a pallet of five pound bags of
coffee at a price she couldn’t pass up. She had loaded ten of those bags into her car and driven them straight to the station, proud of her thrifty use of the public funds the chief had entrusted her with. Unfortunately, she hadn’t bothered to check the expiration date. The no-name coffee was a year past its prime, and the taste reflected it. Annabelle stubbornly insisted it tasted just fine. Old coffee never killed anyone and she was going to use it up if it was the last thing she did at that station.
That might take a while, though. As Ryan surveyed the room, he noticed that most desks contained at least one paper cup from the gourmet coffee shop down the street. This meant two things. One, the expired coffee wasn’t going to get used up anytime soon, and two, it was really, really bad if cops were willing to shell out their own personal funds to avoid having to drink it.
Ryan felt a smile starting as the officers teased the unrepentant Annabelle, but just as quickly the smile faded and the terrible sense of dread and betrayal that had overtaken him fifteen minutes ago twisted through him again, making even the familiar scene before him seem sinister.
Who had done it? Who had turned on him? Could his betrayer be one of the people he was watching right now?
Ryan’s distrusting gaze rested on individual officers, and he wondered. He and Officer Pennington had argued last week over the man’s questioning of a suspect, and Pennington had been uncharacteristically moody ever since. And Officer Fields was still pouting about having to take the latest rookie as his new partner, which had been Ryan’s decision. And Aimee Collison, the newest dispatcher, had been coming onto him for months with no response on his part. Had one of those three finally gotten angry enough to try to ruin his career?
Surely not. All that was just routine stuff, the kind the department dealt with every day. People got mad and hurt sometimes, but they worked through it and went on with life. The Chandler City PD wasn’t perfect, but it was a darn good place to work, and Ryan was proud of the contributions he’d made in the five years he’d been there. His fellow officers recognized his efforts, too, which was why he was considered a shoe-in to take over as chief when the current one retired in a month.
