by Marin Thomas
The look of relief in his eyes socked her in the gut.
“It’s not that I don’t want to stay—”
“I’ll give you a ride to the highway.” She didn’t want to drag this out any longer than necessary.
“That’s okay. I’d rather walk.” He was really going to leave.
She panicked. “It’ll be dark soon. Maybe you should wait until tomorrow?” Give me one more night in your arms.
“I should really go.”
You should really stay.
“I’ll get you a water bottle.” She hurried into the house and gathered several snacks for him, but when she returned outside he was gone. She checked the storage room in the barn. Empty. She stared down the road—nothing. He would have had to jog to get far enough ahead that she couldn’t see him from the house.
It was as if he’d been a figment of her imagination. But he hadn’t.
Hannah took the food inside, then returned to the barn and removed Buster from his stall. She walked him out to the corral to exercise him. She’d had to sell the other three horses because she couldn’t afford to keep them, but she couldn’t get rid of Buster. He’d been her father’s favorite. She trotted the horse in circles, changing the pace several times as the sun slowly set.
When Buster had had enough, she let him stay in the corral while she changed his water in the barn and added grain to his feeder. Finished with the chore, she went out to retrieve Buster, but froze when she saw Alonso walking back into the yard, his duffel slung over his shoulder. As he drew closer, she noticed his weary expression. He stopped a few feet from her and dropped the bag on the ground. The muscle bunched along his jaw seconds before he blew out a harsh breath. “I can’t leave.”
Hannah’s heart stopped beating.
“Until the sheriff figures out who’s messing with your ranch, you shouldn’t be by yourself.”
Her heart resumed beating in a dull throb. Alonso hadn’t returned because he couldn’t stand the idea of saying goodbye to her—he’d come back to protect her.
Chapter Six
The first week of November had come and gone at the Blue Bison and the anxious, unsettled feeling that had driven Alonso to leave the ER was slowly being replaced by a sense of calm and peace. The fresh air, physical labor and Hannah’s Crock-Pot suppers went a long way in improving his attitude. He sure hadn’t expected rural life to make such an impact on him.
Maybe it’s not rural life but Hannah that’s got you thinking the world isn’t such a bad place after all.
Because the third bedroom in the house was used as a storage room for boxes and old furniture, Hannah had offered him Luke’s room while her brother was at the boys’ ranch, but Alonso had declined the invitation. If he slept in the house, Hannah would do nothing to stop him from crawling into bed with her. He liked and admired her—she was a gutsy woman who cared deeply about her brother and her family’s ranch. He didn’t want to be the guy who used her to scratch his itch every night then split when it was convenient for him. He and Hannah lived in different worlds and eventually he’d have to return to his.
“Finished in here?” Hannah walked into the barn late Saturday morning with a smile on her face.
“You’re in a good mood,” he said. She’d worn her hair loose today instead of in her usual ponytail, and his pulse sped up when an image of those silky strands sliding through his fingers flashed before his eyes.
She stopped a few feet away from him and he caught a whiff of her earthy, sweet perfume. She’d left the first three buttons of her blouse open and he had to force himself to maintain eye contact and not stare at her cleavage.
“I think you’ve shoveled enough road apples. How would you like an official tour of the ranch?”
He’d tour a sewage treatment plant if Hannah was his guide. “Sure.”
“Be ready in ten minutes.” Then she was gone, her sashaying hips taunting him as she left the barn.
Alonso washed up at the utility sink, then changed into a clean T-shirt. Maybe he shouldn’t fight his attraction to Hannah. It was obvious she wanted him, and he was growing tired of walking around with a hard-on all day. They were both consenting adults—if they wanted to have a fling, why couldn’t they? As long as she understood that one of these mornings he and his duffel bag were hitting the road.
Hannah and a wicker basket were waiting for him when he got into the pickup. “What’s this?” He peeked inside the basket.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been on a picnic with a pretty girl before?” Mischief sparkled in her eyes.
“My picnic experience is eating Army rations on the dirt ground, but never with a pretty girl.” He buckled his belt.
“Then, it’s time you found out what you’ve been missing.” She lifted her foot off the brake and drove away from the house. “The water wells are this way.” She veered south on the dirt frontage road.
Alonso focused on the scenery—or he tried—but he couldn’t stop thinking about how... “Hannah?”
“What?”
“Are you still in love with Seth?” Part of him hoped that she still had feelings for the guy—then sleeping with her would be a lot less complicated because anything long-term was out of the question. “Sorry. I know that came out of the blue.”
“I’m not in love with Seth.”
“The other night when we ran into him at the bar, it seemed as though he might have feelings for you.”
“We’ve known each other all of our lives but he’d always treated me like a sister or cousin. I was stupid to believe his feelings for me had changed.”
“He didn’t tell you that he loved you when he proposed?”
“Nope.”
“But you went ahead and said yes anyway?”
“I thought I needed help. My father had just died and Luke was acting up.” She glanced across the seat. “I didn’t know how strong I was until I returned Seth’s ring.” She stopped the pickup next to a chain-link fence with razor wire around the top. “This well is six hundred feet deep and pumps water from an aquifer to the stock tanks on the property.”
“Do you share the aquifer with other ranches?”
“No. That’s one reason Seth wanted to marry me. His family doesn’t have an underground water source beneath their ranch. If there’s a drought, they have to haul water in for their livestock, and at ten dollars per five hundred gallons it gets expensive.”
“How many of these pumping stations do you have?”
“Two.” She drove toward a rocky incline then parked at the bottom. “You’ll love the view.”
He carried the basket of food and followed Hannah to the top of the hill. “Hey, you can see the herd from up here.”
Hannah spread a blanket on the ground. “When I was in high school, I’d come out here to do my homework.”
Once they were seated, she handed him a ham sandwich.
“No news from the sheriff on who’s targeting your property?” he asked.
“Not yet.” She offered him a water bottle. “How did you end up being a doctor in the Army?”
“I didn’t plan on enlisting. Maria Fitzgerald called in a few favors and helped me get an academic scholarship to the University of New Mexico. I talked about going to med school, but didn’t think it would happen. Then one day Maria took me to see a recruiter. They offered to pay for my med school if I committed to serve in the military afterward. When I graduated, I was commissioned as an officer and began active duty.”
“Where did you do your residency?”
“Lackland Air Force base in Texas. Then they shipped me off to an Afghanistan outpost where they were training local soldiers and police.” Alonso didn’t want to go into detail about his tour of duty in the Army. He wanted to forget that time—one day in particular—in his life. Besides, h
is stint in the Army had only lasted a year before he’d been given an honorable discharge.
“Don’t laugh, but I’ve never been out of the state of New Mexico.”
“The rest of the world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He finished his sandwich, then dug through the basket and found an apple.
“Alonso, do you regret what we did in the hayloft?”
The chunk of apple he’d just bitten off flew to the back of his throat and he coughed. “No.”
Her gaze landed everywhere but on him. “Is there someone special waiting for you in Albuquerque?”
“You must not think too highly of me if you believe I’d make love to you when I’m seeing someone else.”
“Sorry.” Her gaze softened.
“The truth...is that I’ve never been involved in a serious relationship with a woman.”
“I’m not buying that. Women swoon over men in uniform whether it’s the military kind or a white lab coat.”
“I’ve had a few hookups with women, but for the most part I remained focused on my goal to get through college then med school. Now my work schedule doesn’t allow much time for socializing.”
Hannah’s stare warmed his blood, reminding him that he wasn’t working at the moment. When she licked her lips, he gave in to temptation and kissed her. He tasted a hint of mustard and grew hungry all over again.
Her fingers threaded through his hair and pressed against his scalp, begging him to deepen the embrace. He laid her on the blanket and stretched out on top of her, groaning at the soft feel of her breasts against his chest. He rocked his pelvis against her and her fingers reached beneath his T-shirt to stroke his stomach. Like quicksand, Hannah was slowly sucking him under her spell.
A bang echoed through the air and Alonso popped off Hannah. “Was that a gunshot?”
“That’s Seth or his father skeet-shooting on their ranch.” Hannah sat up and straightened her clothes. Her hair was mussed, her lips swollen and she looked more beautiful than ever, but the gunshots had broken the romantic spell they’d been under.
“We should head back,” she said. He helped her pack up the food. “I need to pick up a roll of fencing wire at the feed store. Do you want to come with me?”
“Sure.” They made the drive to the house in silence, Alonso wondering how long before he gave up and caved in to sleeping with Hannah.
When she parked by the back porch, she said, “I’ll get my purse and be right back.”
While Alonso waited for her, he checked his phone and discovered a voice mail message.
“Dr. Marquez, this is Benson Levanthal. I know we discussed a three-month leave of absence but I’ve had two doctors quit and we’re going to be short-staffed starting December first. Is there any way you’d consider returning before then? I’ll need an answer soon.”
Click.
Alonso’s first thought was that he didn’t want to leave. But if he stayed, the attraction between him and Hannah would grow too strong, and then what? Even short flings became complicated when feelings were involved. His boss’s call had come at the perfect time. Alonso could be with Hannah in every way he wanted and still have a legit reason to leave at the end of the month.
He could have his cake and eat it, too.
* * *
“ARE YOU SUPPOSED to be calling me, Luke?” Hannah had been on her way downstairs after grabbing her purse from her bedroom when her cell phone rang and the number to the boys’ ranch came up.
“I get one call a week if I don’t have any penalty marks against me,” he said.
“What do you mean penalty marks?”
“I get docked if I don’t do my homework or I’m late for class and stuff.”
He must be toeing the line then if he was contacting her. “I miss you,” she said, surprised she really meant it.
He laughed. “You’re just saying that.”
Hannah couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her brother’s lighthearted chuckle, and she smiled. “So tell me all about it.”
“I still hate school and doing my homework, but Mrs. Fitzgerald is really nice and she doesn’t get upset if you give her the wrong answer. Yesterday we started a chapter in geometry and she let us work in pairs. It’s a lot easier when you have someone to help you with the problems.”
Hannah sat on the stair step, amazed her brother was chatting about math. He’d never had much to say about school before. “Are you eating?”
“That’s going to be the hard part about leaving here,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“The food’s great and I’m gonna have to go back to eating your casseroles.”
“Hey, we both know I’m not a great chef. Maybe you can bring your favorite recipes home and we can cook together.”
“Cool.”
“Have you had any rodeo lessons?”
“Cruz can’t let me participate until my first grade report comes out. I have to be passing all my classes.”
“When does the report come out?”
“The end of this week. And I made Bs on all my assignments so far.”
“Are you excited about riding?”
“Yeah. I get to watch the others and some of them are really good. There’s this one guy named Ricky that Cruz says has a shot at making it to the big-time.”
The longer Luke rambled on the more Hannah realized how passionate he was about rodeo. When he returned home right before Christmas she’d have to find a way for Luke to remain involved in the sport, especially if it kept him out of trouble.
“Is Alonso still there?” he asked.
“Yes. And I have to say I’m glad. We had another incident on the ranch.” Silence greeted her statement. “Someone smashed the solar panel on one of the stock tanks.”
“That sucks,” he said.
“Tell me about it. Replacing a solar panel isn’t cheap. And our property-insurance deductible rose to two thousand dollars.”
“What was it?”
“One thousand.”
“We should just sell the ranch, Hannah.”
“So you’ve said.” She didn’t want to end the call rehashing an old argument. “I know you aren’t as attached to this place as I am, but we have time to think about our options. You still have two more years of high school.”
“Mrs. Fitzgerald said she’s going to send you an invitation to spend Thanksgiving Day here. Are you gonna come?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“I might get to ride for you.”
“Yeah!” Watching her brother on the back of a bronc would be nerve-racking, but she looked forward to seeing him do something that made him happy.
“I gotta go.”
“Thanks for calling, and take care of yourself. Be safe and work hard.”
“Yeah, I know. Hey, Hannah?”
“What?”
“You be careful, too.” Luke ended the call.
Hannah sat for a moment, absorbing the warm feeling filling her. She and Luke had been at odds for so long, and today’s call brought back memories of better times between them. Whatever role fate had played in bringing Alonso into her and Luke’s lives, she sure owed him a lot. She shuddered when she imagined where things between her and Luke would be right now if he hadn’t gone to the boys’ ranch.
She heard the back door open and close.
“Hannah?”
She hurried into the kitchen. “Sorry about that. Luke called.”
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Better than okay. He’s doing great.” She led the way outside and they got into the pickup. “I was worried he phoned to ask me to come get him.”
“Glad to hear that wasn’t the case.”
“For th
e first time I feel hopeful that Luke’s changing for the better.” And she prayed the changes would stick once he returned home. She entered the highway and headed toward Paradise.
“I received a call from my boss at the hospital,” he said.
“Oh?”
“He wants me to return by the end of the month.”
A sharp pain jabbed her chest. If Alonso had to leave so soon then there was even more reason to enjoy what little time they had left together. “Do you miss working in the ER?”
“It never gets boring. Every day is different.”
The exact opposite of her life. “As you’ve seen, here every day’s pretty much the same.” She flashed a smile. “Except the weather throws a curveball once in a while.” Her seven-day week consisted of up at dawn. Feed the bison. Check the water tanks and fence line. Muck the barn. Load hay on the trailer for the next day. Eat. Then go to bed.
“You might do the same things each day but I wish I could experience that comfortableness associated with a routine. Some days I’m so mentally exhausted, I feel gutted.”
If she didn’t know better, Hannah would believe country life was growing on Alonso.
Only because it’s different from his norm. She doubted he’d be content in the boonies for very long. “Don’t you miss the excitement of saving lives?”
“Yes and no.”
“I get the yes. Tell me about the no,” she said.
“I operate mostly on gangbangers who spend their Saturday nights shooting at each other. And I’ve saved more drunk drivers than their victims.” He blew out a harsh breath. “Everything that’s supposed to make sense in the world suddenly doesn’t when the paramedics push that gurney through the ER doors.”
“I can see where that would be a little depressing. But doesn’t the good outweigh the bad? Maybe you’re saving a gangbanger but you’re giving him a chance to turn his life around.”
“That sounds nice in theory but that’s not reality.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t want to hear the gory details.”
“I do, too.” When he frowned, she said, “I’m serious.” She admired Alonso for dedicating his life to helping others, which made him all the more special.
