Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  T-N-A-3-6-8. That was what Aria had been able to decipher of the trailer’s tag. For now, she needed to get Nugget back to the barn before she started to get chilled. Sweat-soaked horses and cool spring nights were not a good combination. Then it was time to let the Hernandez ranch know that there was some fence repair needed. God knew how many of the cattle remaining on that tract of land would decide to hop the downed fence and disappear onto Clouds End pasture.

  “Ms. Aria!”

  She turned to see someone riding toward her on a four-wheeler. It was Jorge. Thank God for her staff. At least they were around in case she did something stupid like get herself attacked for interrupting a bunch of cattle rustlers.

  “Jorge!” She stood in her stirrups and waved back. “I’m fine! We’re coming back.”

  He nodded and waved his hand before circling the four-wheeler and heading back toward the barns where he and her other two grooms shared quarters. Aria let Nugget have her head as the mare set off for the barn at an energetic walk.

  Aria pulled her phone out of her pocket. She bit her lip and tried to decide if she could conceivably call Laredo for this problem. He really wasn’t the livestock guy. And if she were honest with herself, she would have to admit that she was actually looking for an excuse to call him more than anything else.

  “I’m so silly,” Aria told the mare. “Seriously.”

  So, instead of calling Laredo or sending him a text, Aria texted Jesse to let her know what had happened. Jesse would get word to Cal, and Cal was the one who controlled the cowboys in the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company. Yes. This was a much better idea. She was already having too much contact with Laredo. She was making a fool out of herself. It needed to stop. Now.

  With that in mind, Aria headed back to the barn. Jorge tried to take Nugget as soon as Aria got into the barnyard. Aria waved him off. “I’ve got this. I’ll never sleep anyway. I might as well give her a good rubdown and calm myself down at the same time.”

  Jorge muttered something beneath his breath in Spanish. Aria just laughed. The man was forever telling her she took too many chances. He was practically a father figure. He’d been at Clouds End Farm with his two cousins, Jefe and Pedro, ever since Aria could remember.

  The barn was quiet and calm. Aria loved being in here at night. The scent of hay and leather was punctuated by the sound of horses chewing or shifting their feet as they dozed. After Aria pulled the saddle off Nugget’s back, she had plenty of currying to do to get the mare’s yellow coat dry. Soon she lost herself in the rhythm of running the brush in circles over the mare’s broad back. In fact, she was so involved in her task that she did not hear Laredo Hernandez until he stood in front of her and put his hands on his hips like a disapproving father.

  “You chased cattle thieves on horseback?” Laredo fumed. “Are you insane? What were you thinking?”

  Aria took a step back in surprise. She was both stung and offended. “I was thinking that we needed to at least get a plate on that trailer or the truck or something. And that I was the only one out there to do it!”

  “Did it never occur to you that they could be armed? They could have shot at you! Why were you riding out there in the middle of the night anyway?” Laredo flung up his hands and muttered an expletive beneath his breath. “Do you have no sense of self-preservation?”

  Now it was Aria’s turn to put a hand on her hip and get snippy. Who the hell did he think he was anyway? “I’m a grown-ass woman! That’s who I am!” she said irritably. “And why the hell are you out here anyway? You’re a father with a daughter at home in bed. Tell me you didn’t drag that baby out of her bed just to come out here and yell at me!”

  “No.” He looked momentarily distracted. “I called my housekeeper. She came over to sit with Bella.”

  “You dragged Mrs. Naranjo out of bed in the middle of the night for this?” Aria didn’t know whether to be flattered or horrified.

  “It’s fine,” Laredo said dismissively. “She’s used to it.” Then he seemed to pause. “Wait just a second. How do you know who my housekeeper is?”

  “I’ve known her almost all my life,” Aria retorted. “She’s my head groom’s sister-in-law or something. I don’t know. Sometimes I lose track of the family connections. Jorge has a lot of family in the Denver area.”

  “You know my housekeeper.” He sounded as though this either bothered him, or that he felt it was extremely disturbing for some reason. Then he narrowed his gaze and looked at her suspiciously. “What does she say about me?”

  “Oh, geez, seriously?” Aria rolled her eyes. “Nothing! Why is it you think the whole world is focused on you and your problems? There are other things going on right now in the universe, you know? Your drinking problems and family issues are not the topic du jour in every single home in America. Not even most of Denver cares!”

  “My drinking issues?” His face went hard as stone. “Who said I have a drinking issue?”

  “Your truck says you have a drinking issue, Laredo. It looks like you tried to park on a wall or something.” Aria realized she wasn’t being exactly kind to him, but right now, she couldn’t make herself care. “Your attitude says you have a drinking problem. You’ve checked out of your life! Don’t you have any idea how much your daughter wants her father to be a part of her everyday wants and needs? But no! You’re too busy projecting what you want for her onto her to even care what she wants!”

  Okay. Whoa! That was going too far, and Laredo’s expression said he thought so too. She hadn’t really meant to say everything that she had. She didn’t want to get involved. In fact, she was more involved than she wanted to be already. She should just go back to being a horse trainer and focus on building her business. All of this relationship crap was for the birds. She didn’t do relationships. Men were like babies. They weren’t even like horses. At least horses learned to be independent and to use their damn brains. Men just repeated the same mistakes over and over again.

  Laredo did not say another word. Instead, he turned around and gave her his back. “You’ve made your opinion of me and my concern for your well-being quite clear. Thank you.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that!” she snapped. “Do not try to turn this around and make it about how I’m not being grateful for you driving out here in the middle of the night to pretend that you care about me!”

  His big shoulders lifted, and then he exhaled a huge breath of air. “I don’t pretend. It’s the one thing I do not do. I don’t lie. And I don’t pretend.”

  With those final words, Laredo Hernandez left her barn and did not look back. Aria heard him get in his truck and leave. Gravel flew from his tires and pelted the barn wall as he tore out of there as though he were running from the devil. And who knows, maybe he thought he was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Daddy?”

  Laredo tried to open his eyes but could not get them to function. His eyelids refused to inch up over his eyeballs. This probably had something to do with the sandpaper that someone had put on his eyes. At least it felt like sandpaper. It felt like every time he attempted to open his eyes, he was scratching his corneas.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No. He isn’t dead.”

  Wait. Whose voice was that? Laredo recognized Bella’s voice. That was easy enough. But the other voice was female. It was low and familiar in a way that made him want to wake up and open his eyes.

  Bella was shaking him. Her touch was light and gentle. Laredo suddenly realized that he wasn’t laying on anything soft. His face was smashed up against something hard and cold. His back was killing him. And apparently, he had been laying on his arm all night long—or at least however long he’d been on this floor. Assuming it was a floor, of course. It was actually kind of difficult to tell. It might be something else. Right?

  He racked his brain for some memory of the night before. He’d heard from Cal that there had been cattle thieves on the boundary between their land and Aria’s. Then he’d gone out there—to A
ria’s. And… Oh yeah, it hadn’t gone well. At all.

  There was hushed whispering in Spanish. Was that Mrs. Naranjo? Why was everyone in his bathroom? Surely he’d made it all the way to his bathroom. He was probably crashed out on the tile floor. He didn’t smell vomit, although he couldn’t really smell much of anything.

  That was when he heard the water running. It was strangely close. And it sounded weird. His bathroom was large, but he could swear he heard a garbage disposal going. Then there was more muttered Spanish.

  “What do we do?” Bella whispered.

  “Mrs. Naranjo, can I have a glass of water?” The familiar feminine voice was filled with annoyance. What was going on? Water? What was she going to do with a glass of water? He wasn’t really thirsty. Except as soon as the thought of liquid went through his head, he was suddenly desperate for a drink of water or something. Maybe juice. Juice would be good.

  The splash of liquid caught him completely off guard. A jolt traveled through his body, and he yelped before jerking to the right. One second, there was a hard surface under his body. The next, he was falling through the air. The terrifying weightlessness was followed by a crash. His shoulder hit hard, and his body collapsed in a heap on top of that. What. The. Hell?

  “Hey!” Laredo shouted. He tried to roll, but his legs were jammed up against something. What was that? The—oh, shit, it was a counter.

  Opening his eyes and forcing himself to awareness was like slogging through oatmeal after it had sat for too long. He could not even begin to imagine what the taste in his mouth was from. Or rather he could not begin to put together a list of what he could have possibly mixed together in order to create a flavor this disgusting.

  “Laredo Hernandez, open your eyes and get off this kitchen floor. You have five seconds to comply or I’m going to get the sprayer from the kitchen sink and let you have it.”

  He cracked an eyelid. “Aria?”

  “Yes. It’s Aria.” There were two furrows on her brow, and her dark eyes were angry.

  Suddenly, a honking noise shattered the relative stillness of the house. Laredo grabbed his head and groaned.

  “All right, kiddo.” Aria’s kind voice was obviously directed at Bella. “Do you have your lunch?”

  “Yep!”

  “What about your overnight bag?”

  “Double yep!”

  “Uncle Darren will take you to school and pick you up.”

  There was a tapping that Laredo was well familiar with. Bella was dancing back and forth from foot to foot with excitement. “And then I get to stay with him and Maggie and Jaeger tonight!”

  “Yep. You sure do!” The warm tone of Aria’s voice made Laredo jealous. Why couldn’t she be that nice to him?

  “Bye, Aria!”

  There was a slamming of the front door, and in the back of his very muddled brain, Laredo wondered when Bella and Aria had found the time to get acquainted like this. They seemed awfully chummy. It seemed really odd. And did Laredo want Bella associating with Aria? Aria rode horses for a living, and Laredo was trying to keep his daughter well away from that lifestyle.

  “Now,” Aria said firmly. Laredo could actually picture Aria putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. Could he feel the heat of her gaze? He thought he probably could. “Mrs. Naranjo is going home.”

  There was a soft back-and-forth conversation in Spanish. Aria spoke Spanish? That was pretty amazing. Although Laredo had no idea what the woman was saying to his housekeeper. She had stuff to do around the house today.

  “Bye, Mr. Laredo.” Mrs. Naranjo nudged him in the shoulder with what felt like her toe. Were his eyes closed again? Crap! “I see you in three days.”

  “Three days?” Laredo actually managed to sit up. Dizziness overwhelmed his senses, and he had to put one hand over his eyes to keep himself from feeling like he was going to throw up. “You can’t take the next few days off!”

  “Bet me,” the older woman said with glee. He could actually hear her laughing as she left the house with another bang of the front door.

  “She called me, you know?” Aria’s voice came from right beside him.

  Laredo slowly opened his eyes and looked to his right. There she was. Aria was sitting on the floor with her legs sort of half crossed. Her expression was troubled. She was wearing casual leggings made out of some soft cotton material that was form-fitting and would have given him a stellar view of her shapely derriere if he had been in any condition to look. He could not imagine how attractive she looked with the wide neck of her oversized sweatshirt hanging down over one shoulder. Her hair was pulled back, and her face appeared to be devoid of any makeup. She looked fresh and absolutely gorgeous.

  “What happened?” Aria’s quiet question threw him for a moment.

  Laredo managed half a shrug. “I don’t remember. Not really. I came home from your place. I think I had a drink.”

  “A drink.” The doubt in her tone cut him to the quick, mostly because it was deserved. “Just one. Right? I’m sure you only had one drink and then went to bed. And you have no idea how you woke up on the kitchen counter after having puked in the sink and then crawled up there to sleep it off.”

  Her words shamed him deeply. Was that what had happened? Seriously? That was worse than embarrassing. In fact, he could not even say what that was. He took deep breaths in and out. His stomach felt queasy, and there was a grimy sort of all-over sensation that was extremely unpleasant.

  “You need to get up.” Aria’s tone brooked no argument. “You need to get up and you need to take a shower.”

  “I have to go to work.” He felt sick at the prospect.

  “Yeah. That’s a fantastic idea,” Aria retorted. “You’ll just go in, puke on a few people, and then sleep in your office all day.”

  “Come with me,” he suggested. “You can tell my father and the other department guys what you saw last night. It will be better coming from you anyway.”

  “Why?” She was shaking her head at him and snorting sarcastically. “Because if we do it that way, you won’t have to talk?”

  “You aren’t going to cut me any slack today, are you?” He struggled to his feet. This process involved hanging on the edge of the countertop and using it to pull himself up into a standing position much like a toddler first learning to walk.

  “Don’t you think you’ve used up a lot of your slack?” She stood as well. He did not miss the fact that she took a hasty step back as though she wanted to keep a certain amount of space between them.

  Was she right? Laredo struggled to control the room’s spinning as he attempted to walk toward his bedroom. She was following along behind him. Even if he had been too consumed by vertigo to see her, he would have been able to smell her clean, fresh scent. This woman was more than he deserved. Laredo could openly admit that. He was a mess right now. But he didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to be alone. Maybe it was time to admit that.

  “I need to take a shower.” He grabbed hold of the railing and began to climb the stairs to the second floor. “Will you please help me?”

  She ran up a few steps beside him, ostensibly so she could stare down at him in obvious shock. “Excuse me? You must be joking.”

  “No.” He decided practicality was better than anything else. “Right now, there’s absolutely a possibility that I could fall, hit my head, suffer some kind of injury, and become a vegetable for the rest of my life.”

  He finally made it to the top step. One, two, three, four, five more steps to his bedroom. Once inside, she was still following him, and he figured there was a good chance that she was going to help him out even though he probably didn’t deserve this kind of compassion.

  “I am not drying you off!” she fumed. “Do you understand me? And the only reason I’m doing this is for Bella. That kid does not deserve to have a mother who ran off with the hired hand and a father who killed himself in a bathroom accident because he’s a drunk!”

  Laredo was walking better now. He br
aced some of his weight on the chest of drawers as he passed and wondered what he could say to make Aria realize that he wasn’t really as much of a mess as he might seem. He wasn’t a mess. Or rather he was committed to not being a mess. For the most part. And he wasn’t trying to take advantage of Aria by having her help him right now. He had a genuine need. He really needed help, and for some reason, he had absolute trust in Aria, more than anyone else in his life.

  “I’m going to stand right outside the door,” she informed him. “If I hear a thump, I’ll dial 911. That’s as much as I’m going to promise to do. Any more than that and you’re shit out of luck. Do you understand me?”

  “You’ve made it crystal clear,” Laredo murmured.

  Somehow, the lure of the hot water in the shower was enough to make it easier for him to move. He reached carefully into the big glass shower and flipped the water to hot. Soon there was steam filling the bathroom and the mirrors fogged over.

  “What kind of house needs a bathroom this big anyway?” Aria called from just outside the door. “Were you afraid you were going to need a four-wheeler in there or something? I think you could park your truck in there! Oh, wait.” She was snickering now as if she’d just thought of the funniest joke ever. “Was that where you were trying to park your truck the other night?”

  “Ha. Ha,” Laredo muttered. He managed to strip off his clothing. He wasn’t wearing much. He’d only had on jeans and a T-shirt when he went out to Aria’s farm last night, and apparently, he had never taken these off. “It came with the house.”

  “Yes. The house. It certainly makes a statement.”

  Laredo stepped into the hot spray of water and let the overhead rainwater jets soothe away his aches and pains. Then he thought about what Aria had said. The words lingered in the back of his mind like an unpleasant odor. “What kind of statement?”

  “The statement that Laredo Hernandez wants nothing to do with the ranch other than the money portion.” The speed at which she said the words told him that she’d been thinking about them a lot.