A Ranching Man

by Linda Turner

He had a point, one that Angel took comfort in later that evening after it grew dark and Joe left to attend a meeting of the Cattleman’s Association at the VFW hall in town. The house security alarm was set, the guards provided by the studio were armed with not only guns, but radios to summon help in case it was needed, and Buster was out there in the dark somewhere close by, watching and listening for anything that moved. For the first time in a very long time, Angel felt like she and Emma were finally safe.

  Relieved, she bathed Emma and put her to bed while Laura washed the supper dishes, then turned in early herself. By nine, Angel virtually had the house to herself. Joe had told her he wouldn’t be back until eleven, and she planned to be in bed long before then. Changing into her nightclothes, she grabbed her script and went back downstairs to study her lines in the family room.

  Concentrating shouldn’t have been a problem. The night was quiet, and outside, Buster didn’t so much as whimper. Sinking into Joe’s favorite overstuffed chair, she sighed in contentment and opened her script. She’d barely read two lines when somewhere in the house, something creaked.

  “It’s just the house settling,” she muttered when her heart jumped in her breast. “Quit acting like a fraidy cat.”

  Still, her pulse continued to race. Irritated, she tried to drag her attention back to the script, but she was fighting a losing battle. Instead of focusing on the words on the page in front of her, she found herself holding her breath and listening to the eerie, nearly silent groans and moans of the house and wondering what—or who—was causing them.

  Disgusted with herself, she snatched up the remote control to the TV, turned to a sports channel, and pumped up the volume. She didn’t care two cents about any kind of sports, but the noise blocked out everything else and helped her concentrate. Determinedly, she turned back to her script.

  When Joe quietly let himself in the house and quickly reset the alarm, he frowned at the sound of a soccer game blaring from the TV in the family room. He wouldn’t have thought either Angel or Laura were the type to be interested in sports, especially at eleven o’clock at night. Not when both women had to be up early, one to be on the set and the other to care for Emma, who invariably rose at the crack of dawn.

  Wondering what the devil was going on, he stepped into the family room, only to stop short at the sight of Angel curled up in his favorite chair. Dressed for bed, her script lying forgotten in her lap, she was sound asleep. With her hair in a halo of golden curls and her cheeks slightly flushed with sleep, she looked as innocent as the angels she was named after.

  Transfixed, Joe couldn’t take his eyes off her. He didn’t know how she did it. Every time he saw her, she was more beautiful than before. And harder to resist. It just wasn’t fair, dammit!

  Walk away, a voice in his head commanded. While you still can.

  But it was already too late for that. Long after his meeting was over, he’d sat in Ed’s Diner drinking coffee and finding excuses not to go home. And every excuse had begun and ended with Angel. Again and again, he went over all the reasons why he couldn’t want her. It changed nothing. And he didn’t have a clue what he was going to do about it.

  Considering that, he shouldn’t have gone anywhere near her. But she was slumped to the side, her head at an awkward angle. If she stayed that way all night, she’d wake up with a hell of a crick in her neck in the morning. Just thinking about it had him moving toward her. Just this once, he’d carry her upstairs and put her to bed. What would it hurt? She was asleep, and she’d never even know it until morning.

  The second he scooped her up from the chair and she nestled her head against his shoulder, he realized his mistake. He never should have touched her. Not tonight. Not when he’d been thinking of her all evening and wondering what it would be like to take her to bed. Now he knew.

  A smart man would have immediately deposited her back in the chair and got the hell out of there before she could wake up. But he couldn’t bring himself to let her go when she lay so sweet and trusting in his arms. Just a few more minutes, he promised himself. That’s all it would take to carry her to her room. Unable to resist, he started up the stairs.

  Later, he couldn’t say when he first realized that she was awake. She didn’t move so much as a muscle as he climbed the stairs, but when he reached the upstairs’ landing and glanced down at her to make sure she was still asleep, she was staring back at him with blue eyes that were dark and slumberous and sexy as hell. He felt the punch of them all the way to his toes.

  He sucked in a sharp breath, only to unwittingly draw in the warm, intoxicating scent of her. Need tightened in his gut like a fist. Put her down! he told himself. Now! But even as he bent to do so in the hallway outside her bedroom door, he knew that he’d waited too long. Surrounded by shadows, with everyone else in the house asleep, it was just the two of them alone in the dark. And he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life. There was no way he could step away from her now.

  “Joe, what—”

  “You fell asleep downstairs while you were studying your script,” he whispered in a gravelly voice. “I was just carrying you up to bed.”

  Giving in to the need to touch, he lifted a hand to gently brush her hair back from her face and very nearly groaned aloud. How could he have forgotten how soft her skin was? How delicate she was? How kissable? He watched her eyes go wide, her lips part, and could no more resist her than a wild creature could resist the call of its mate. Backing her up against the door to her room, he leaned down and hungrily covered her mouth with his.

  Her mind still fuzzy with sleep, Angel couldn’t summon a single defense against the heat that flooded through her in a rush. Moaning low in her throat, she melted against him, her arms tight around his neck, and gloried in the feel of his lean, hard body pressed to hers. How long had she been aching for him to hold her again like he would never let her go? To kiss her like he was starving for the taste of her? His tongue rubbed over hers, teasing and seducing, driving her slowly out of her mind, and all she could do was cling to him, lost in the taste and feel and wonder of him.

  One kiss led to another, and still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more and couldn’t even say the words, but somehow, he knew where she needed to be touched, caressed. Wrenching his mouth from hers, he nipped at her ear, then kissed the sensitive column of her neck, and every bone in her body just seemed to melt. Before she could do anything but gasp, his hands were roaming over her in sensuous exploration, sliding under her gown to caress her hips, her back, the fullness of her breasts. Her breath catching in her throat, she cried out softly as his thumb tenderly brushed her nipple. With nothing more than that gentle touch, he made her burn.

  Whimpering, she would have given him anything then, she wanted him that much. And it was that that finally brought her to her senses. Dear God, what was she doing? She wasn’t one of those Hollywood starlets who jumped from man to man, bed to bed. She didn’t do that kind of thing! The one time she’d made the mistake of letting her emotions rule her head, she’d fallen for a man who’d wanted nothing to do with the child they’d created together.

  Joe would never do such a thing—if she knew nothing else about him, she knew that he was a man who loved children and family. Still, she couldn’t continue to fall into his arms without risking her heart and soul. Her heart was, she knew, tougher than she’d ever thought—it would, with time, mend if broken. Her soul was another matter. It was tender and all too vulnerable. Especially to a man like Joe McBride. He was the stuff her dreams were made of—a man of principles and values, of family and tradition who worked close to the earth and knew what life was all about. He was nothing like the men in her world…and everything she couldn’t have. If she continued to give into this aching need he’d stirred in her, he could shatter her soul.

  She pushed out of his arms because she had to, because if she didn’t do it now, she would be lost. But it wasn’t easy. Standing stiff and proud before him, all she wanted to do was cry; but
she didn’t dare. If she gave into the emotions tearing at her just once, she’d end up in tears in his arms.

  “Don’t,” she said quickly when he automatically reached for her again. “Please, don’t.”

  There was something in her voice, a hint of panic, that penetrated the desire clouding Joe’s brain as nothing else could. There was no question that she didn’t want him to touch her. Standing stiffly before him, her eyes wary and hot color stinging her cheeks, she looked like she’d bolt if he made so much as one wrong move. Why? What the hell just happened?

  Concerned, he frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” she choked, keeping her voice down so it wouldn’t wake Emma or Laura. “You kissed me!”

  To deny it would have been ridiculous. “You’re damn straight I did! And you kissed me back. So what’s wrong with that? We’re two consenting adults.”

  “No, we’re not. I told you before, but I don’t think you believed me. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m like the women I play in the movies. I’m not. I’m not the angel with the bedroom eyes—”

  “I never thought you were!”

  “Didn’t you? Don’t worry, you wouldn’t be the first man to make that mistake,” she said with a trace of bitterness. “With all the stories in the tabloids, most people find it difficult to separate the real me from the characters I play on the screen. Which is why you have to believe me when I tell you that in spite of what just happened here, I’m not looking for a romp in the hay or in your bed or anywhere else.

  “I can’t deny that I’m attracted to you,” she continued, the blush heating her cheeks deepening, “but I have no intention of giving in to that. I can’t. It would be a mistake for both of us. And to be perfectly honest, I can’t afford the distraction. Emma is my only priority right now—nothing else matters but keeping her safe.”

  Standing there in the darkened hall, his body still humming from the feel of her in his arms, Joe couldn’t summon up a single argument in his own defense. Because she was right. She shouldn’t have had to remind him why, for his own sake, he had no business touching her. She was trouble tied up with a pretty bow. The kind of trouble he only had to kiss to make him forget reason. He knew that, dammit, and still he’d lost his head.

  Unless he wanted to find himself with more trouble than he was prepared to deal with, he’d make damn sure he kept his hands—and his kisses—to himself.

  “I agree,” he said stiffly. “It won’t happen again.”

  Chapter 6

  When her alarm went off the next morning, Angel jerked out of a sound sleep and quickly slapped at the clock on the nightstand before it could wake Emma, sighing in relief when silence fell immediately. It couldn’t be five yet, she thought with a quiet groan as she pushed up to frown at the clock. She’d just gone to bed. There had to be a mistake.

  But when her eyes finally focused on the digital readout, there was no mistake. Like it or not, it was time to get up. If she was still tired, she had nobody to blame but herself, her conscience taunted. If she hadn’t let Joe kiss her, if she hadn’t kissed him back without a thought to the consequences, she wouldn’t have spent most of the night crawling all over the bed dreaming about him.

  I agree. It won’t happen again.

  All too easily, she could see the stiff set of his jaw as he’d promised her that she didn’t have to worry about him touching her again. He was a man of his word. He would do everything in his power to make sure that what happened between them last night outside her bedroom door wouldn’t be repeated. And although she was thankful for the fact that he was a man of principles, deep in her heart, she ached for something she couldn’t even put a name to, something that had been lost to her long before she’d ever arrived in Liberty Hill.

  She could have cried then, could have buried her face in her pillow and given in to the mix of emotions that swirled inside her like a maelstrom. But she had to be on the set early because of the time she’d taken off yesterday afternoon, and the director would have a fit if she arrived with red-rimmed eyes and a blotchy face. So she fought back tears and with a heavy heart, rolled out of bed.

  A shower helped raise her spirits, and when she soundlessly stuck her head back in her bedroom door to check on Emma, Angel couldn’t help but smile. Sprawled across the bed with her teddy bear cuddled close, her daughter was out cold and looked as innocent as a lamb. It wouldn’t last, of course. Five minutes after she woke up, she’d be overflowing with energy and going strong. Especially today. She and Laura were driving to Colorado Springs to buy a birthday present for Kelsey, Emma’s best friend at play school back in L.A.

  Not for the first time, Angel worried if she should cancel the trip. Yesterday’s horror was still sickeningly fresh, the image of yellow roses in her trailer one she wouldn’t soon forget. If she listened to her fear, she’d keep Emma locked up tight in the house and never let her out of her sight. But she knew that’s just what the stalker would expect her to do. And by being so predictable, she might place Emma in even more danger.

  So after discussing it with Laura, she’d decided that the best way to keep Emma safe was to have no established routine and do the unexpected. And the last thing her tor mentor would expect her to do was let Emma go shopping less than twenty-four hours after he’d terrorized her again. The guards provided by the studio would accompany them and make sure they weren’t followed. The trip was only decided upon last night, so the stalker couldn’t possibly know where they were going and try to beat them there. For the day at least, they’d be safe.

  Satisfied that all was well, Angel shut the bedroom door, then quietly started down the stairs, her thoughts already jumping ahead to the first scene of the morning. In spite of the fact that she’d fallen asleep last night while she was studying the script, she had her lines down pat. She just hoped Garrett wasn’t in one of his moods. If he got a chance to make her miserable, he’d do it in a heartbeat and wouldn’t care that he was costing the studio money while he did it. Another actor would have never gotten away with that, but he was one of the best actors in Hollywood and he knew it. Short of committing murder, there wasn’t a lot he couldn’t get away with.

  Shaking her head over him, she reached the bottom of the stairs, only to frown in surprise when she saw the light was on in Joe’s study. The rest of the ground floor was bathed in darkness and silent as a tomb. Listening, she thought she heard the sound of papers rustling and tried to shrug it off as her imagination. Then she heard it again—the quiet whisper of papers moving—and froze.

  Someone was in Joe’s study.

  She told herself she was being ridiculous. The alarm was on, and Buster and the security guards were still on duty outside. No one could get inside without causing a huge ruckus first. If papers were moving around in the study, Joe must have left a window open and an early morning breeze was stirring things up.

  Knowing that, however, did nothing to eliminate the sud den hollow feeling in her stomach as she stepped toward the study. She’d just shut the window…

  “Angel?” Joe called out, appearing without warning in the study doorway. “Is that you?”

  She’d thought she was fine—until her knees went weak at the sight of him. “Joe! What are you doing up this early?”

  “I’m going to drive you to work,” he said simply. “You do have to be on the set early today, don’t you?”

  Had he made the offer at any other time, she would have been touched and gladly accepted it. But after last night and the drugging kisses they’d shared, she couldn’t be alone with him in the intimacy of his truck. It was too soon. For the sake of the agreement they’d made, it was better for both of them if they didn’t tempt fate by being alone together.

  “I appreciate the offer, but the studio’s sending a car.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll follow you to make sure you get there okay.”

  “But it’s only five miles and we never have to leave the ranch!”

  “I
t wouldn’t matter if it was two,” he retorted. “Nick said you and Emma shouldn’t go anywhere alone—even here on the ranch.”

  “But I won’t be alone. The driver will be with me.”

  “But you’ve already instructed the guards to stay here with Emma, haven’t you? Aha, I knew it!” he said when she couldn’t deny it. “You’ll put yourself at risk to keep your daughter safe. And I can’t blame you for that. But for my own peace of mind, I’ll follow you.”

  She started to point out that they didn’t even know for sure if her stalker was in Colorado, only to shut her mouth with a snap. His jaw was set at that stubborn John Wayne angle, the one that warned her he was going to protect the little woman whether she needed it or not, and there was no point in arguing further.

  “Fine,” she sighed, giving in gracefully. “Have it your way.”

  Without a word, he strode over to the alarm box and deactivated it so it wouldn’t go off when he opened the front door.

  The limo the studio was supposed to send never arrived. Already late by the time they realized it wasn’t coming, Joe drove Angel to the set himself. They arrived just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, and already the place was crawling with people. Crew members set up cameras and lights and strung what looked like miles of cable, while extras milled about in period costumes, waiting for the day’s shooting to begin. In the open pasture where filming would soon take place, wranglers corralled a herd of horses that would later be let loose in a controlled stampede, then tried to soothe them as the animals huddled together, their ears twitching nervously as they watched the madness around them.

  Studying the Hollywood cowboys with a practiced eye, Joe was relieved to see that they appeared to know what they were doing. They were, however, wasting their time trying to gentle the horses. They’d never settle down as long as there was so much shouting and yelling and people rushing about.

  He had work of his own to do, but first he meant to see that Angel was safely settled. Cutting the engine, he pushed open his door and came around to open hers. Surprised, she said, “You don’t have to stay. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”