Rescued by the Cowboy (WEST Protection Book 1)

by Em Petrova

  A small shudder ran down her spine. “Okay, but…I don’t have any luggage.”

  He glanced down at the computer bag slung across her body and focused on her fingers fastened around the case.

  She tried to loosen her grasp and a bit of blood rushed into her fingers after holding on so tight.

  Without another word to ask why she’d traveled all the way from Detroit with only the clothes on her back, he took her by the elbow and steered her through the crowd gathering at the baggage claim.

  The warmth of his fingers sank through the layers of her top—she’d also left her jacket in the restroom—and offered enough comfort that she was able to draw a full breath into her lungs. They burned at being starved for air. All her medical training taught her shallow breathing came with a big hit of adrenaline, but in the moment, what did that matter?

  Now that she could let down her guard a little and put her safety in the hands of Ross Wynton, her adrenaline level dropped too.

  She started to shiver, and by the time they hit the exit, her teeth chattered.

  He shot her a look, two hard brackets appearing on either side of his tense lips. Wordlessly, he removed his coat, a thick canvas. When he settled it around her shoulders, she inhaled the scent of him and her stomach fluttered at his body heat trapped in the fibers.

  As he steered her through the parking lot to a truck bearing the Wynton Ranch logo of a W inside a circle, her legs started to give out.

  “Lean on me.” The rough grumble would have filled her adolescent heart with excitement at fifteen, but now it punched her with the realization that she was really here in Montana, running for her life.

  He unlocked the door and motioned her in. She managed to settle in the leather seat, aware that he locked her in with a flick of the key fob as he circled to the driver’s door. Why? In case somebody got to her while he walked around?

  Her insides heaved, and she folded her hands on her laptop case to still them from shaking. Ross again unlocked the doors to glide into the seat with all the grace of the cowboy sliding into a saddle.

  The door locks clicked once more and he started the engine. Her insides jittered. What if he thought her insane? She couldn’t blame him really. The number of times she questioned her sanity while in flight tallied in the double digits.

  As he whipped out of the lot headed toward the parking pay station, he remained silent. At the gate, he held up an ID and the security officer waved them through without paying.

  Pippa took all this in with her scientist’s mind. Observation was a major step in the process of an experiment, so she took note of the truck interior, the early morning Montana landscape of snow-covered mountains and heavy clouds banked on the horizon. She pulled in the scent of leather, an underlying hint of the ranch she remembered…and the spice of the man at the wheel.

  That brought her to observing Ross. From the corner of her eye, she studied his same strong features and the white Stetson their family favored wearing like some kind of ranch family dress code. But his features appeared stronger. His jaw an angled slice of mountain rock brushed with a five o’clock shadow.

  If he’d filled out in those areas, his body had doubled her expectations. His muscled chest stretched the black cotton T-shirt, and his biceps fought against the stitches around the sleeves. One had actually popped, and a short thread kept drawing her eye.

  “All right. Talk to me, Pippa.” He cast her a look she couldn’t read.

  Staring at her white knuckles against the black leather of her bag, she sucked in a stabilizing breath.

  Without waiting for her to start speaking, he fired a question at her. “Why don’t you have any luggage?”

  “I left it in the bathroom in Detroit. I lost my purse and jacket as well.”

  He whipped his head to pierce her in his intense gaze. “Okay, start at the top, with when you decided to call me. What happened?”

  She saw why his security company was climbing the ranks as one of the top in the US. He owned a situation—always did. When she fell off the horse into the thorn bush, he’d raced back to help her up, scolded his younger brother Josiah for laughing at her, and proceeded to pick thorns out of her arms.

  “I’m not sure if you know but my work involves gene editing.”

  “My father mentioned it.”

  She nodded. “I work in a lab. Most of the time I’m alone, but I have some assistants working with me on various projects.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “So it was odd when things started coming up missing in my office.”

  “Such as?” He ramped up the speed on the open highway that would lead to the Wynton Ranch.

  “My favorite earrings my mother gave me. And a photo of me and my best friend.”

  “Could you have misplaced them? Or they fell off your desk and got swept up by cleaning people?”

  He didn’t believe her. Hell, she hardly believed her own suspicions.

  Shaking her head, she continued, “I received death threats.”

  He whipped his head around, his expression masked. “What kind of threats?”

  “They’re notes.”

  “Do you have them?”

  “One, yes.” She started to reach into the zippered pocket of her bag.

  “Don’t get it out. I don’t want you to touch it any more than you already have.”

  “You believe there may be fingerprints on it?”

  “I’ll have my guys run a check.”

  “You can do that?”

  He sliced a glance at her that reminded her this wasn’t the boy she once knew. Ross was a man of power and skill, and every word he spoke reflected that change.

  Folding her fingers around the bag, she stared at the landscape and tried to pick up the pieces of her life. Her neck hurt from her attacker’s stronghold, and it was difficult to swallow.

  “Do you have some water?” she rasped.

  He removed one big hand from the steering wheel, leaned toward her and reached behind her seat. He withdrew a bottle, cold from the low temps.

  She took it and sipped slowly, trying not to choke around the lump lodged in her throat that she knew from many classes in anatomy and health to be swelling.

  “Better?” he asked after a minute.

  She nodded. “I knew you’d carry water. I remember your family was always prepared for any circumstance.”

  “Gotta be in this country. Now. Tell me how you got that bruise on your wrist.”

  Startled, she looked down at the purple smudge blossoming across her wrist bone. Her stomach pitched at the memory of the fight in the restroom.

  “I was attacked.”

  “Jesus Christ. Where?”

  “In the airport. It’s how I lost my belongings. I don’t even have my wallet or ID.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  Her stupid response to the question was to flush. “I had to…pee.”

  He made a strangled noise in his throat, and she wondered if he really did still have more of that boy she’d known buried inside him than she first guessed. The one who chose horses over swoony, moony-eyed girls who believed him the boyfriend material of the century.

  “Go on,” he muttered.

  “When I opened the stall door, a man was standing there. He grabbed me around the neck.” She lifted a hand to trail her fingertips over her throat.

  “How the hell did you get free?”

  “Aikido.”

  “Come again?”

  “The Japanese martial art.”

  “I know what it is. But you know it?”

  “I spent some years in Asia studying it. It…came in handy today.” Her throat clogged off more at the knowledge of what might have befallen her if she hadn’t been able to defend herself. “I took the man down and ran for it. I jumped on the plane and came straight to you.”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror for the third time in a mile, which set her on edge. A peek at the side mirror showed her they were alone on this
stretch of road. He was just being cautious. Doing his job. Using skills she put her faith in.

  “Ross, what do I do?”

  He let go of the wheel again and rested his hand on the back of hers. Some desperate need to feel the touch of a friend struck, and she twisted her hand up to grip his. He didn’t let her go, and she clung to the warmth and strength emanating from him.

  “We’ll figure it out. You’re safe now, Pippa.”

  Hearing her name fall from his lips in that rough rumble—rougher in manhood—flipped something inside her. Maybe neither of them had changed. She still held a flicker of a flame for the cowboy.

  Now more than a cowboy. He was an entrepreneur, and judging by those layers of muscle stacked on his body, he’d trained to fight.

  “Tell me how you got the idea to start your company,” she said.

  He looked at her with a crease between his long brows. “Another time, Pippa. Let’s get you to the ranch first.”

  He said to the ranch. What she heard was: to the safety of the ranch.

  She glanced in the mirror again. Nobody followed, but she had some distance to go to shake the person who wanted her dead.

  Chapter Two

  Pippa was not the little girl he remembered.

  When he last saw her, her teeth had been too big for her face, and his brother might have mentioned her resembling one of the horses at one point. His other brothers and cousins had laughed, but Ross put them in their place with a few threats to make them as toothless as babies if they didn’t shut up.

  She also used to be tall, with arms and legs she didn’t seem quite able to control. Now she was even taller—she must be five feet ten—and she’d filled out in all the right areas. Her brown hair was still pulled into a ponytail, just like when they were kids, but it appeared thicker, shinier.

  She still wore glasses too, though her hazel eyes no longer appeared owlish from behind the lenses. Instead, the dark frames lent her a studious—and maybe mysterious—air.

  One thing he recalled from her visits to Montana was her shyness, and while some of that seemed to have trickled away, he still felt her hesitation when it came to talking to him. He had to pull each word out of the woman.

  As he drove, he considered her story. She was never prone to fanciful tales in the past, and that bruise she wore, along with her skittish nature, proved something had happened to her. But death threats against a woman who worked in a lab seemed a little off to him.

  His first protocol was to get her to a safe place, and nowhere safer than the Wynton Ranch existed. Between him and his brothers, not to mention his very protective parents and a dozen or so bad-ass ranch hands who’d kick the shit out of trespasser and ask questions later, Pippa was in good hands.

  Casting a look at her tense pose, he struggled to find some words to ease her fears. He might be trained to soothe flighty clients—horses too—but knowing this woman changed some dynamic for him.

  Almost as if he could easily cross a boundary. Hell, she might as well be a little cousin to him, they’d grown up so close. He’d looked forward to the Hamlins’ visits each fall when the trout started biting.

  As he glanced at her again, he took note of her simple white button-down blouse and the hint of pale, freckled flesh above the buttons. Her breasts swelled into way more than the tiny bumps she once sported.

  He twisted his gaze away. Okay, so maybe not like a little cousin. A family friend. He’d leave it at that.

  She issued a small gasp, and he followed her gaze to the gates of the Wynton Ranch. “You changed the gates!” Her throat had a soft, husky quality heard in woman who smoked and drank. He couldn’t picture her doing either of those things, so the changes must be natural.

  He directed his attention to the gates. “Yeah, we installed these a few years ago. Lots of trouble with tourists coming up here and thinking they can just drive down any old road.” He eased the truck up to the closed black iron gates. Two halves created their ranch brand in the center.

  As soon as the camera identified his truck as being one of theirs, the locks clicked and the gates slowly swung open, parting the W in the center into a V in a half circle on either side.

  Pippa watched the gates as they passed through and twisted in her seat to look out the back at them shutting.

  “Things have changed around here.”

  His lips twitched. “We finally stepped into the next century. A hundred years of Wyntons working this ranch showed us to work smarter, not harder.”

  “I hope not all has changed. I’d hate to see robot cows walking around or something.”

  Her statement brought a smile to his face. “We haven’t gone that far. Everything around here is still flesh and blood. But we did step up security.”

  As he navigated the long road leading to the spread, he tried to see it through Pippa’s eyes. She hadn’t been here in what? Fifteen years? That’d put her around thirty. Too old for fears of the boogieman, but could her small world of laboratories and experiments keep her sheltered for reality?

  Fields lined either side of the road and stretched as far as the eye could see. Clear up to the mountains.

  “Where’s the cattle?” she asked and then cleared her throat.

  He looked closer at her. Maybe that husky quality derived from something else. He needed to get her to the ranch and examine her more. “They’re wintering over the ridge. Sunny side of the slopes this time o’ year.”

  “I guess I’ve never visited the ranch this time of year.”

  “No.” As they crested a small rise in the road, the full ranch popped into view. The big house was sided with stained wood and a stone face echoed the three chimneys, also clad in stone. Heavy timbers peaked over the front door, which was black like the gates and roofs of every building on the property.

  “A lot of changes,” she breathed.

  “Updates.”

  “I always thought this place was beautiful, but now it looks like something out of a film set.”

  “My momma will be pleased to hear you say that.”

  She turned to him, blinking. “I didn’t think about seeing your family!”

  He chuckled. “You ask for me, you get the lot of us. They’ll be mighty pleased to see ya too. But Pippa.”

  Her gaze met his, a shadow creeping into the greenish gold depths.

  “Don’t say anything about what happened to you. I’ll do that.”

  She nodded and issued a slow breath. “How do I explain the fact I came with no luggage?”

  “I’ll get Corrine on the matter. My sister loves to shop her heart out, and this is right in her wheelhouse.”

  “Corrine. She was so little last time I saw her. How old is she now?”

  “Just celebrated her twenty-first birthday last weekend.”

  “Twenty-one…” She shook her head, sending her ponytail swaying over her spine.

  He saw her nerves kick in as they pulled up in front of the garage. She didn’t move to exit the vehicle, and he faced her. “It’s okay, Pip.”

  Her eyes widened at the nickname. “Nobody’s called me that in years.”

  “I’ll always think of you as Pip.” He climbed out of the truck and by the time he reached the passenger door, she stood outside it. As he approached, he took in everything about her, from the black boots she wore, jeans that weren’t worn from hard work but in a dyeing process, and her white top, slightly crinkled from her flight and ordeal.

  His gaze zeroed in on her throat, though. A blue stripe banded across her neck, marring her freckled skin. His gut twisted, and a fury hit him he wasn’t expecting.

  “Fucking hell. Your throat,” he ground out, stepping closer to her.

  She lifted a hand. “Is it bad?”

  “Bad? Hell, Pippa. You didn’t tell me your attacker tried to strangle you!” He reached out and flicked her collar aside to see it in full detail. By full morning it’d be technicolor. No wonder her voice sounded that way.

  She froze and dropped
her gaze to his chest, refusing to meet his eyes.

  He let his arm swing to his side. “Well, at least I don’t have to carry your luggage inside. C’mon.”

  Her relieved expression told him that his joke had the effect he was going for. As he led her to the house, he kept her on his left so he could shoot with his right—his training so ingrained in him that he didn’t even think about it until they reached the front door. He ushered her in.

  When she paused in the entryway, he shook his head. “Don’t take your boots off. You remember the rules of the house. No mud, you’re fine.”

  “I might have some snow from walking across the driveway—” she began.

  He planted his hand on her lower back and nudged her toward the living room.

  * * * * *

  Pippa’s breath caught at her first sight of the space she’d spent a lot of time in as a child. Soaring ceilings with rustic, exposed support beams. Three huge chandeliers dripping in tiers of glass set at perfect intervals. Tall windows showered the room in sunlight, made brighter by reflecting off the snow outside.

  Two leather sofas faced each other over a coffee table almost the size of a twin bed. At one end of the table sat a stack of magazines she knew from memory would be on the topics of fly fishing, cowboys and ranching. In the center sat a huge spray of dried flowers as artful as ones that sat in expensive hotels in Europe.

  One thing about Mrs. Wynton, she had a lot of class.

  The room invited a person to sit—another testimony to the Wyntons’ famous hospitality. But Pippa stood with her boots rooted to the hand-scraped hardwood floors, her pulse thrumming with anxiety.

  Ross threw her a look. “You good for a minute? I’ll go find Momma.”

  She nodded and watched him stride from the room with all the confidence and bearing of a king. Which he might as well be. His family name was known as far as California, for the prime angus beef they sold to elite restaurants there.

  A high-pitched cry sounded from somewhere in the house, and seconds later a woman ran into the living room. Pippa met Mrs. Wynton’s bright eyes but jumped when the woman let out another scream.

  “You are here! Oh my God! Pippa, my dear woman. My land, you’re so beautiful!”