“I’m the new maid,” she said, her voice shaking. “I have the uniform, see?”
“Stand still,” he ordered as he stepped closer. Close enough for her to smell the sharp scent of the soap he used, with the background aroma of hay, hard work and saddle leather. The combination was a far cry from the expensive colognes and exotic aftershaves worn by the men she’d once imagined she knew, but she decided on the spot she liked the honest smell of horse and cowboy better.
Flicking a look at her eyes, he reached for the tab of the zipper and slowly worked it downward, his breath warm against her face.
“So you’ve got the uniform,” he conceded, nodding toward the ugly gray dress, with its stiff, starched fabric. “But that doesn’t explain anything, not why you’re out here messing with the horses and certainly not why you pulled a gun on me.”
“You startled me.”
“You said something a moment ago, something about someone who was going to kill you if I called the police. Why? What’re you being coerced to do here? And what else have you done for this person already? Who have you killed?”
Fresh alarm ripped through her. “No one! I swear, I haven’t hurt anybody.” Her eyes stung as she remembered the young manager, with his bobbing Adam’s apple and his blush when she had thanked him. And his was only the latest death she carried on her conscience. “I haven’t hurt anybody here on the ranch. I was, um, I was cleaning the back wing and I—I needed to get away, just for a few minutes.”
Thanks to Jethro Colton’s obnoxious grown stepson, Trip Lowden, she had. In the three days she had worked here, she’d found that though Trip wasn’t a real Colton, the big blond jerk was all too happy to lord his “position” over the help. But she had bigger worries right now than his constant leering. Namely, convincing this cowboy, with his darker hair and his searing gaze, that she wasn’t lying to him.
“I had to find someplace quiet,” she explained. “Out here with the animals, I can almost breathe again. I can almost—almost forget....”
She pinched her lip between her teeth, making one last, desperate effort to keep from totally dissolving. To keep from blurting to a stranger the words that would surely get her killed.
Grabbing her by the arm, he said, “You’re coming with me. Inside. To find a phone to call the police and let them figure this out.”
“You can’t.” Tears streamed down her face, and her shaking knees gave way completely. But she didn’t fall, for in one swift and fluid movement, the cowboy wrapped a strong arm around her waist to support her.
In his blue eyes, she saw a glimmer of compassion. Praying it was more than wishful thinking, she whispered, “You can’t tell anyone...because I’m in hiding.”
“In hiding from what?” he asked, speaking with a gentleness that stood out in stark contrast against his chiseled features and hard muscles. “I’m Dylan, Dylan Frick, the wrangler here, and I swear I’ll see that you’re kept safe, Hope, no matter who’s been threatening you.”
“It’s my husband,” she murmured, and once she started, there was nothing she could do to stop more from leaking out, like the air from a punctured balloon. “My ex-husband, I mean. He wants me dead so I can’t testify against him. He’s already tracked me down once. Or his assassins did, Witness Protection or no Witness Protection.”
Dylan’s tanned face drained of color. “What the—the Witness Protection Program placed you here? At Dead River Ranch?”
“I’m not in WITSEC any longer. I can’t—can’t trust them anymore, not since my car was blown up. A man was killed—an innocent man in the wrong place at the wrong time.” More tears welled at the thought of him and all those others hurt by her decision to come forward. The father left to worry about her disappearance, the friends who had meant so much to her. And then there were the other victims, the ones who’d paid the price for her own selfishness and fear.
“So you ran?” the cowboy asked her.
She nodded. “I did. To the only place left for me to turn. You see, Amanda Colton was my college roommate.”
He looked confused. “You two went to veterinary school together?”
“No, not vet school. It was just for a few months back in our sophomore year....” After winning the Miss New Jersey pageant at nineteen, Hope had had to take off for the remainder of the year. She’d had duties to attend, a bigger competition to prepare for. The memory of those bright lights shimmered, a beautiful illusion from the wreckage of her life. “We were a lot different, but Amanda and I really hit it off. We both loved animals, for one thing.”
“And she’ll back up this wild story?”
“She will,” Hope swore. “I’m telling you the truth, Dylan. And Amanda told me it would be okay to come here. She said I could hang out with Prince William anytime I wanted.”
Hope still thought it was an odd choice for a horse’s name, but she was far too grateful to her friend to say anything about it.
“Prince William?” Dylan sounded surprised. “That’s not PW you were in there brushing.”
“Sixth stall down. The chestnut, Amanda told me.”
“You picked the seventh, with a half-crazy chestnut mare,” he corrected, a chill coming over his voice, “which is why Chica here nearly kicked your head off. And why we’re going to go and find out if you really know Amanda Colton as well as you claim.”
Chapter 2
The longer Dylan listened, the more he wanted to believe the woman calling herself Hope Woods.
All his life, he had been drawn to damaged creatures. Wherever he saw suffering, he felt compelled to help. Though horses and cattle were his specialty, he was aware he had a reputation around the ranch as a good listener and a better friend, the kind of guy that even the humblest of employees could turn to in a pinch. And everything about this woman, from her trembling to her tears to the desperation in her strained voice, screamed she was in trouble. The kind of trouble he couldn’t help but want to fix.
He had to admit, too, it didn’t hurt that Hope was a knockout—not just a pretty girl-next-door, either, but a certified stunner whose slender curves couldn’t be disguised by even the most shapeless of dresses. Each time he looked into those deep brown eyes of hers, framed by long lashes beaded with tears, his instincts shouted that he should be offering his protection, not holding her at gunpoint.
But even if she hadn’t first pulled the gun on him, recent events had made him wary of trusting his own instincts. After all, he’d figured Duke Johnson, who’d admitted to firing the bullet that had killed his mother, for a decent and promising young hand. And Dylan knew the nightmare was far from over, as long as the person behind all the killings remained at large, possibly hiding among those he’d known and worked with his whole life.
“Amanda ought to be outside by now,” he told Hope. “She was supposed to meet me by the corral.”
“Wait,” Hope said nervously. “Before we go, I need to— I have a hair clip and my glasses in my jacket. I just don’t want you freaking out and shooting me when I reach inside my pocket.”
“You wouldn’t be carrying an extra gun, then?”
“Not unless you’d count the AK-47 and flamethrower I keep stashed there.”
When she cocked a wry smile, he laughed, amazed that she could joke while staring down the barrel of a pistol, that she could smile at all considering what she claimed to have been through.
Tension broken for the moment, he nodded his permission and waited while she slipped on a pair of big tortoiseshell-framed glasses and wound up and secured her long hair.
“Is that supposed to be a disguise?” he ventured, wondering if she imagined for a moment she could make herself appear plain. At best, she’d downshifted her look from pinup fantasy to sexy librarian, but a woman like her couldn’t blend in if she wore a paper bag over her head.
She frowned. “It’d work a whole lot better if someone wasn’t always walking up behind me while I’m dusting and pinching the clip to let my hair down. Thinks it’s hi
larious.”
“Who does?” Dylan asked, irritated that someone would bother a new employee while she worked.
She waved off the question. “Never mind that. It’s the least of my worries right about now.”
After retrieving his own jacket where he’d left it by the sink, Dylan put it on and dropped the pistol into his pocket. “Let’s go.”
She looked surprised. “So you’re not going to march me outside with my hands up?”
“You planning on making a run for it?”
“And going where, exactly?” she asked as he pushed open the stable door.
“Cheyenne’s only forty miles,” he offered, gesturing toward the woods and pastures beyond, “as the buzzard flies.”
Narrowing her eyes at the bright sunshine, she speared him with an annoyed look and kept walking.
They met Amanda Colton by the corral, where she was watching Nitro snort and charge at every shadow. As usual, she wore her long, brown hair in a messy ponytail, and she was dressed for the tough and dirty business of working around livestock, her boots, jeans and barn jacket more functional than stylish.
Her golden eyes flicked toward Dylan. “Thought you were going to get Nitro in the chute first thing this morning so I could suture him up.”
“I’ll take care of him in just a minute. But first...”
Amanda was already looking past him, blinking in surprise when she noticed Hope. “What’s going on? Is something wrong, Auror—”
“Hope,” the woman by his side corrected. “Hope Woods, the new maid. We both have to remember, that’s who I am now.”
Casting a worried look from “Hope” to Dylan, Amanda nodded. “I’m so sorry. It’s just—you both looked so tense, and I thought that maybe you’d seen—” She cut herself off, looking uncertain.
“I caught her in one of the stalls,” Dylan reported, “a second before she pulled this gun on me.” He drew it from his pocket, keeping the muzzle pointed at the ground.
Amanda shot a horrified look at her friend. “You brought a gun to my home and nearly shot one of our most trusted people?”
Dylan glanced away, her words echoing through his head. One of our most trusted people. Would he start talking like that if he, too, turned out to be a high-and-mighty Colton?
He reminded himself that he’d never been on the receiving end of a moment of snobbery from Amanda or her sisters. Still, though the distinction went unspoken, it hung in the crisp, chill air: on this ranch, you were either the family or the help, no matter if you’d all grown up in the same house. And sick as he was, Jethro Colton would send packing any employee who forgot it for a moment.
Burrowing deeper into her jacket, Hope said, “I’m really sorry, both of you. I’m a little jumpy lately. Okay, a lot jumpy. Besides—” she shrugged, her contrite expression giving way to the kind of smile that begged them not to hate her “—I’m still a Jersey girl at heart. We all feel naked without a little steel insurance.”
“How much did you tell him?” Amanda demanded, clearly in no mood for humor.
Dylan said, “She gave me some half-baked story about Witness Protection and a car bomb. And a mad ex-husband with a long reach.”
Amanda’s striking gold eyes turned on Hope. “You told him?”
“I had to. He was going to call the police, get everybody stirred up,” Hope said, her Jersey-girl bluster giving way to welling tears...and a far more cultivated accent. Her hand shook as she wiped away the moisture. “I couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let trouble follow me here, too.”
“So it’s true, I take it?” Dylan frowned, though some part of him was relieved that Hope hadn’t been lying.
Amanda nodded. “I’m afraid so. Hope’s an old friend—”
“So she told me.”
“I couldn’t say no when she came here, so desperate for help. And the maid’s position offered perfect cover—though I seriously doubt that Hope’s ever cleaned a house before in her life.”
Hope argued, “I’ve watched, plenty, and Mrs. Perkins was nice enough to show me how to fix the vacuum cleaner. Who knew those things have bags that need changing sometimes? Or that you’re not supposed to use the scratchy side of the sponge to clean a marble surface?”
Dylan snorted, trying to imagine the kind of world Hope must have come from. Back East in New Jersey, she must’ve been some type of Colton, too. A far prissier brand, for certain—one who couldn’t be more out of place here on a working ranch.
“So Mathilda Perkins knows about her?” he asked Amanda. Though he’d never worked directly with the head housekeeper, everyone knew she ran a tight ship when it came to household staff. But the trim, fiftysomething woman was just as quick to defend “her girls” in the employee dining area if one of the hands teased a pretty housemaid or criticized the cooking.
Amanda nodded. “She does, and we’ve also informed the new police chief, Harry Peters, too. But no one else can know, Dylan. Hope’s life could depend on it.”
“And not just my life,” Hope said. “My ex’s men have already killed one other person while they were trying to get to me. I couldn’t stand it if my being here put anyone else in danger, so please—”
“You have my word,” he said.
Amanda reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Then you don’t need to worry anymore, because when Dylan Frick gives his word, he always keeps it.”
Hope sighed. “Thank you, both of you, but I suppose I’d better get back inside before anyone sees me out here. That back wing doesn’t clean itself, especially not with those tacky stepsiblings of yours messing it up as fast as they can.”
Amanda frowned, as she often did at the mention of Trip and Tawny Lowden, or their mother, Jethro’s ex-wife from his third marriage. “Yes, you’d better go, Hope, and don’t come back to the stable again until your workday’s over. Otherwise, the other employees will all start wondering why Mathilda doesn’t fire you.”
“All right,” Hope agreed, “but there’s one more thing.”
Both looked at her expectantly, but Hope’s focus had turned to Dylan.
“Now that we’ve cleared this up, you think I could have my gun back?”
“Not a chance,” he told her, returning it to his own pocket. “I don’t want you getting jumpy and blowing someone’s head off the next time they surprise you.”
Amanda backed him up, saying, “You’re perfectly safe here on the ranch—and I really don’t like guns in the house.”
Dylan supposed Amanda was thinking of her seven-month-old daughter, Cheyenne, who was just beginning to crawl. But whether or not the nervous new “maid” went around armed, none of them were really safe here, he knew, not in the long run....
Not until he found and stopped the mastermind whose botched attempt to kidnap Amanda’s baby daughter, Cheyenne Colton, had resulted in his mother’s death.
* * *
Once Hope was out of earshot, Dylan told Amanda, “Let me take care of that bull now.”
He whistled for the English shepherds, who came running moments later. They sat at his feet expectantly, tails wagging and gazes bright and eager.
Amanda held a hand up, her expression serious. “Wait, please, Dylan. I just wanted to tell you, I’m really sorry about Hope pulling that gun on you. You could’ve been killed.”
“She’s no killer,” he said. “She froze instead of shooting first and asking questions later.”
“Thank God.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended. “You wouldn’t want to lose one of your most trusted people.”
Frowning at him, she said, “You know you’re more than that. To all of us. And if this test turns out to show that you’re really family—”
He stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about that DNA test, except to say it’s all a bunch of bull—”
“However it turns out, it’ll be fine. And I for one would be proud to call you my bro—”
“I’m no Colton,” he said, the w
ords as sharp and cold as chips of ice. “I’m Faye Frick’s boy, the ranch wrangler. And that’s plenty good enough for me. You got that, Dr. Colton?”
Seeing her flush, he was instantly ashamed of the way he’d flung her kindness and acceptance back in her face, along with her desire to find a possible marrow match to save her father’s life. He knew he was behaving as irrationally as Nitro had this morning, lashing out because of pain. But the apology she deserved remained knotted tight in his throat, so he climbed back into the corral and did the one thing he was good at. The only thing that calmed the doubts and the anger and, yes, even the fear roiling inside him.
He turned his attention to the injured bull, but this time, he refused to give in to distraction. Taking his cues from the animal’s eyes and the way he held his body, Dylan used his own subtle movements and the dogs’ silent assistance to gently pressure the bull into the chute.
In under two minutes, he had the gate closed tight, and moments later, Amanda scrambled up on a rail and leaned in to give Nitro an injection to help calm him.
“Careful there,” Dylan warned, still regretting his rudeness. “Big sucker just about squashed me flat a little bit ago.”
Nitro kicked the chute’s slats and bellowed, though it was probably more from finding himself trapped than the needle’s pinch.
Backing off to give him time to settle, Amanda looked Dylan up and down, her gaze lingering on the mud ground into his jeans. “You’ve had a rough morning, haven’t you, tangling with both Nitro and Aurora?”
Grateful she was still speaking to him, he said, “That’s Hope’s real name, huh?” though he’d guessed as much from Amanda’s earlier slip.
She nodded and confided, “Since you already know the rest, yes. It’s Aurora Worthington. Our new ‘housemaid’s’ an East Coast socialite and a former Miss New Jersey.”
“Well,” he said drily, thinking how far out of his league she was. Not that he had the time, the energy or the interest to pursue some spoiled beauty queen. “I guess the judges for that pageant didn’t ask a lot of questions about biology.”
The Colton Heir Page 2
