by R. C. Ryan
It was killing him to drive away and leave her. But she’d probably kill him if he stayed.
Chapter Nineteen
Jake parked the truck behind the darkened ranch house and let himself into the barn. At this late hour, he’d expected the building to be dark, but all the lights were on.
Cory was leaning on the low rail of Honey’s pen, watching her and her puppies while they dozed. The boy looked up in surprise. “You’re not staying with Meg?”
Jake shook his head. “She wants to prove that she can take care of herself.”
“But…” Cory looked genuinely alarmed. “She shouldn’t be alone.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s no use fighting a female once she sets her mind to something. Especially that female. Your sister is one tough cookie.” Jake’s laughter faded as he studied the boy more closely, seeing the real terror in his eyes.
He put a hand on Cory’s shoulder. “Hey. What’s this all about?”
Cory turned away, avoiding his touch. “Nothing. She just shouldn’t be alone is all.”
“Do you know something I don’t?” Jake struggled to keep his tone deliberately casual and nonthreatening, but it wasn’t easy when Cory was so obviously unnerved.
The little boy avoided him, walking into Shadow’s stall and shaking out the bedroll hanging over the railing. He seemed to be shaking it as hard as he could. Almost as if, Jake thought, he was shaking the very devil out of it.
Jake heard the ping of a text message and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Seeing nothing, he glanced over at Cory. “That must have been your phone.”
Without looking Cory shook his head. “Who’d be texting me?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you check?”
The boy removed his cell phone from his pocket and turned away, blocking Jake’s view. Then he returned it to his pocket with a shrug. “Like I said. Nothing.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. He knew what he’d heard. Knew also that the boy was hiding something from him. But short of calling Cory a liar, he didn’t see much that he could do about it.
“I guess I’ll go up to bed then, unless you’d like some company.” Jake backed away, hoping Cory might relent and share whatever was bothering him.
Instead, the boy kept his back to him, looping an arm around the colt’s neck.
“All right then,” Jake called. “If you ever feel like talking, I’m always ready to listen. ’Night, Cory.”
“’Night.”
Jake studied the boy’s rigid back as he closed the barn door and latched it.
As he made his way toward the house by the light of the moon, Jake wrestled with the idea of going back and confronting Cory.
Though the boy denied knowing anything, Jake was more convinced than ever that Cory Stanford knew a whole lot more than he was admitting to.
And just what he knew could be the key to solving the mystery of who was intruding on Meg’s private life. And why.
Meg had all the lights in the house turned on. The windows of the ranch house were ablaze. To help keep her spirits up, she added another log to the fireplace. The warmth of the fire added a layer of comfort. Cory’s baseball bat at the side of her desk added an extra layer of safety. She realized it wasn’t much of a defense, but just knowing she had something handy to swing at an intruder gave her courage.
She was dressed in a pair of comfortable flannel pajama bottoms and a soft tee. Her hair was held back with a rubber band.
Because she was too nervous and keyed up to sleep, she decided to tackle some of her father’s files. She spent the next hours going over his financial ledgers, noting the cost of feed and grain for the herds, the cost of maintenance on the house and outbuildings, and the detailed list of wranglers employed to tend the herds and their payments. Her father’s meticulous bookkeeping would certainly make it easier for Meg to plan for the final payments to the wranglers at the end of round-up. Whether she was still here, or whether she was back in D.C. in her town house after directing Kirby to make the payments out of the estate, at least she would have a handle on the expenses.
Meg studied her father’s scrawl, methodically marking the date, the check number, and the amount of each transaction. It was shocking to think that he’d made these entries just days ago. And now he was gone.
She struggled to put the thought out of her mind. It was too painful to think that if she’d only come here for a visit a week ago, she would have been able to sit down with her father and catch up on his life. She could have told him about all the things she’d accomplished, and the life she’d made for herself. Maybe they could have put aside their differences to share a laugh or a hug.
Could have.
Would have.
Should have.
She tossed her head, as if to dispel the thoughts crowding her mind. There was absolutely no point in playing the guilt game. There wasn’t a chance on earth that she’d have paid a call on her father a week ago, or a year ago. All the hurt and anger of the past would have to stay in the past. There would never be an opportunity to make it right.
Now she needed to plan for her future. Hers and Cory’s.
As her finger moved down the page, she came across the last entry. It wasn’t like the others. Perhaps, Meg thought, because her father had been already feeling too weak or too sick. Had he had some warning about an impending heart attack? A warning that he chose to ignore?
The last line in the ledger showed a date and an amount. The handwriting was so shaky, the zeroes ran together. It could have been one hundred or one thousand. There was no check number, but since it was so close to her father’s passing, Meg was left to assume it had either been paid in cash, or her father had forgotten to register the check. Once she received the bank records, she could match the checks to this page and find out the details.
There was no name. Just some scrawled initials that appeared to be a P or a B, along with a T or an I.
Odd, she thought, and made a mental note to phone Kirby Bolton in the morning and ask him about it.
As she closed the ledger, she could feel her eyelids growing heavy. After the day she’d put in, with hours in the saddle riding to the high country and back, her body was beginning to protest. Like it or not, she was going to have to give in to sleep.
At the moment, it seemed too much effort to even climb the stairs to bed.
She crossed the room and lay down on the sofa, pulling the faded afghan over her.
She was asleep instantly.
Morning sunlight was just climbing over the peaks of the Tetons and slanting through the floor-to-ceiling sliding windows of the office, waking Meg from a sound sleep.
She sat up, brushing hair from her eyes. As she tossed aside the afghan and got to her feet she was feeling more than a little bit smug. She’d made it through the night without any incident, and had actually managed to sleep.
This reinforced her conviction that she’d made the right decision. It was time to get on with her life, without taking advantage of the kindness of her neighbors. She was, after all, an independent woman with a successful career. Just because some nutcase had trashed her car and property didn’t mean she couldn’t spend a few nights alone at her ranch without calling in the troops.
She padded barefoot along the hallway toward the kitchen. She would start the coffeemaker, and then head upstairs to shower and dress.
As she stepped into the kitchen, she glanced out the window and came to a halt.
A familiar truck was parked outside.
She removed the chair from beneath the doorknob, throwing open the back door before running down the steps. Peering in the truck’s window, she saw Jake behind the wheel, the driver’s seat tilted back as far as it would go, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. His hat was pulled low over his face, his rifle on the passenger seat beside him, presumably where he could grab it in a hurry.
For a moment she mer
ely drank in the sight of him. She felt a rush of such mixed emotions, she had to swallow hard as she studied the open shirt beneath the denim jacket, revealing the mat of dark hair on his chest. More dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin, adding to the rogue look that she found so appealing.
Her hero. Her champion. He’d stayed the night, even though she’d ordered him to leave.
As though sensing her presence, he woke.
She saw the way his dark eyes widened at the sight of her, before his lips curved into that wonderful, sexy smile.
“’Morning.” He lowered the window. His gaze moved slowly over her, from her bare feet to her sleep-tossed hair. “Don’t you look fetching this morning.”
“I might say the same.”
He opened the truck door and stepped out, holding the rifle loosely in one hand.
Meg arched a brow. “Expecting trouble?”
“I’m always prepared.”
“Like a Boy Scout.” She smiled. “Okay, Conway. What’s this about? I assume you spent the night here?”
“I did.” He stretched his arms above his head, causing his shirt to pull away from his faded jeans, showing a flat, hard stomach.
Meg’s heart slammed against her ribs and beat a steady tattoo.
He nodded toward the porch. “Come on. I’d rather talk inside, over coffee.” He held the door and followed her inside. “You did make coffee, didn’t you?”
“I was just about to when I spotted your truck.” She crossed to the kitchen counter and began measuring coffee and water into the coffeemaker. “There’s corn bread in the fridge. Ela didn’t want me to go hungry.”
“Bless Ela.” Jake set his rifle by the door and began rummaging through the refrigerator, bringing a plate of corn bread and a jar of strawberry preserves to the table.
A short time later Meg and Jake sat on opposite sides of the table, sipping coffee and nibbling corn bread.
“Okay.” Meg studied Jake over the rim of her cup. “Let’s talk. Why are you acting like my bodyguard?”
He took his time, wolfing down two slices of corn bread and washing them down with coffee before answering. “When I got back to my place, Cory was still awake. And he seemed alarmed that I wasn’t staying the night with you.”
“I told you I’d be fine.”
“Yeah. And that would have been enough for me, except that I found Cory’s reaction strange.”
“In what way?”
He shook his head and stretched out his long legs. “I can’t quite put my finger on it. But something about his behavior last night was off. He was jumpy. And then there’s that text he got.”
“Who would be texting Cory?”
“That’s exactly the excuse he gave me when he denied that he’d received a text. But I know what I heard, and it wasn’t coming from my phone. Since there were only the two of us in the barn at the time, it had to be someone texting Cory. But who? And why? Especially at that hour of the night.”
“So, Cory gets a text message and you decide to sleep outside my place all night?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Crazy, isn’t it? But I figured it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“And it was all for nothing.”
“How do you know that?”
She stared at him. “It’s morning, and there was no intruder.”
“Unless your intruder spotted my truck and turned tail to run away.”
Meg’s smile faded. “But how can we be sure?”
Jake shook his head. “We can’t. That’s why you just may have to agree to let me be your bodyguard for a while.”
She shoved away from the table. “Not on your life.”
“And why not?” He remained sitting, his smile still in place.
“Because you have a life to live. And so do I.”
“We’re neighbors, Meg. I can easily stay here at night and get home in plenty of time to lend a hand with the chores and see to my veterinary patients.”
“No. You don’t understand.” She leaned her palms on the tabletop and fixed him with a steady gaze. “I need to face down my fears and deal with my life as it is now. And I need to do it alone.”
“And you will. But I’ll just hang around at night and see that you’re safe.”
“Safe?” Her eyes flashed. “We both know what’s going to happen if you stay here at night.”
“Oh. That.” He gave a low chuckle. “We’ll treat this like our own private Vegas. What happens at the Stanford ranch stays at the Stanford ranch.”
“This isn’t Vegas. And I’m not having some mindless sex with my hot cowboy neighbor.”
His head came up, and he latched onto the only thing that caught his attention. “You think I’m hot?”
“I think you’re pushing your luck, Jake. Now go home. I have things to do.”
As she turned away, he saw the way she pressed a hand to the small of her back.
“All those hours in the saddle can play hell with your muscles, can’t they? Sure you wouldn’t like a massage before you shower?”
She shot a look over her shoulder. “Thanks for playing bodyguard during the night. I really do appreciate it. In fact, I’m very touched by it. But now, just go home, cowboy.”
“Sure thing.” He drained his coffee and got to his feet. “By the way, I’ll be driving into town later. If you’d like to hitch a ride, I’ll be happy to pick you up.”
When she didn’t reply he added, “I’m going to try to persuade Cory to go along. I’m hoping to pry some information out of him. You might want to give it some thought.”
She paused halfway up the stairs. Turned slowly as she mulled his words. “All right. Call me when you’re leaving and I’ll be ready to join you.”
“I could join you in that shower right now.”
“Don’t push your luck. I told you I’d go with you to town. That’s all you’re getting from me.”
“For now.” Jake whistled as he let himself out and made his way to his truck.
Chapter Twenty
Josh looked up from the stall he was mucking as Jake strolled in. “Hey, bro. Nice of you to join us.”
“Were you looking after somebody’s sick cow?” Quinn, working alongside Josh, leaned his arms on the handle of his pitchfork.
“Not this time.” Jake picked up a pitchfork and joined in, tossing a load of straw into the wagon being pulled by Cory, who hadn’t spoken a word.
“I’ll be heading to Paintbrush after breakfast.” Jake paused to turn to Cory. “Along the way I promised to pick up your sister. Want to join us?”
The boy’s head came up sharply. “You talked to her? She’s all right?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
Jake watched as Cory averted his head to mumble, “You know why. That guy.”
“The intruder?”
Cory nodded.
“So you think he’s still around?”
The boy shrugged his thin shoulders, but refused to look at Jake.
“Why is he targeting Meg?”
Silence greeted his question.
Jake decided to take Cory into his confidence. “After our talk out here last night, I figured you were right. So I slept outside your ranch in my truck, playing bodyguard.”
“You did?” Cory turned to look at him. “Did anybody come around?”
“Not that I could see. I figure if anybody tried, they’d spot my truck and take off before I had a chance to catch them.” He looked pointedly at the boy. “So what do you think? Has this intruder skipped town, or is he just laying low?”
Cory looked away. “How should I know?”
With a sigh Jake decided to enlist his brothers into turning the conversation to something light. “Who decided to assign chores this morning?”
Josh straightened. “I did. Why?”
“’Cause I noticed that you gave Cory my old dirty job.” He grinned at the boy. “My brothers always used to grab the pitchforks first so I’d be stuck with the honey wagon.”
; “Honey wagon?” Cory stared at the smelly pile of straw mixed with manure. As the light dawned, he couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Is that what you call this?”
“It suits, don’t you agree?”
Cory started laughing. “How old were you when you stopped hauling the honey wagon?”
“About your age. That’s when it dawned on me that if I got out to the barn before my brothers, I could muck and one of them would have to haul.”
“That’s just what we wanted you to think, little brother.” Quinn nudged Josh, and the two of them laughed. “That way, we got to sleep in an extra half hour while you were out here being so smart.”
“Oh yeah?” Jake nudged Cory. “Is that why I finished my chores in the barn a half hour earlier and was the first one to the breakfast table?”
Josh shot a look at Quinn. “I never thought about that. Did you?”
Quinn shook his head. “And guess who always got the biggest slice of Ela’s corn bread?”
The two men nodded in unison, while Cory and Jake shared a grin.
Jake pointed to the row of pitchforks hanging on hooks along the wall of the barn. “Help yourself to one of those, Cory, and we’ll get this work done in half the time. Then we can head on inside and let Ela spoil us.”
The boy matched his movements to Jake’s, forking wet hay, tossing it over the side of the wagon, then bending to lift another pile. When they were finished, Jake led the way toward the house. Once inside, he paused to roll his sleeves and wash at the big sink in the mudroom. Cory did the same. When Jake filled his big hands with water and used it to slick back his hair, Cory followed suit.
As Jake and Cory sauntered into the kitchen, Jake paused to sniff the air. “I smell corn bread.”
Cory nodded. “Me, too.”
Ela turned. “I saved you a big piece, Jake.”
“I thank you.” He brushed a kiss to her cheek.
Smiling, she turned to the boy. “I saved you an even bigger piece.”
He lifted himself on tiptoe to kiss her withered cheek. Then, realizing his boldness, his face turned every shade of red.
