Matt stood and headed toward the kitchen. Gideon followed, leaving the other hands muttering around the kitchen table.
"Thought I'd saddle up Rufus and do some fence line checking," Matt said as he moved to wash his plate and cup in the sink. Gideon was glad to see that his brother, at least, wouldn't leave more of a mess for Alessandra. "It's been awhile since I've had a good ride."
Gideon nodded slowly, mentally running over the list of things he'd planned to do today. He made a snap decision. "I'll ride with you. We can catch up. Scarlett and Carrie weren't the only ones who missed you, you know."
It would give him a chance to talk to Matt, see if he could figure out what was causing the shadows in his brother's eyes.
Two hours later, Gideon was enjoying the familiar feel of the horse beneath him and the sounds of the horses whickering to each other.
Even though sometimes he ached to be back with the Teams, this land was part of him.
But a chill wind blew through his coat, and he hadn't gotten any closer to answers about what was going on with Matt. He'd asked about his brother's tour and gotten deflected. Asked if Matt had any romantic prospects, wondering if maybe his brother was having woman problems, and gotten shut down. There was maybe something there, but his brother wasn't talking.
They had been close in high school, before Gideon had left for the Navy. But that didn't necessarily mean they'd shared each other's confidences. Gideon had stood up for Matt once in a fistfight. Matt had covered for him when a prank had gone wrong.
But they didn't talk about their feelings. They were guys. They just didn't.
Which made it hard now to figure out how to help.
Gideon was left with a nagging feeling that something had happened on tour. But if Matt didn't want to talk about it, how could he get it out of him?
He was on the verge of giving up when he spotted a flash of white against a dark patch of mud, several yards away. He wheeled his horse closer.
Was that a cigarette butt? None of the hands smoked.
He hopped off the horse, bending to examine it. Picked it up. It was a butt.
He showed it to Matt, who didn't seem upset about it. "Could've been from someone who snuck on the place to visit the fishing pond."
"Or from someone scouting the place." Gideon didn't like the feel of it. Out of place. On the heels of the princess's arrival.
"Listen, Nate came to me last night, while you were in the barn."
Gideon looked up, still not convinced about the butt, but he flicked it back on the ground.
"He said you're treating him like a hand, not the foreman. You trying to edge him out of his job?"
"What?" Bear. How long would Alessandra's nickname haunt him?
"You've got to give a man room to do his job," Matt said.
"He's got plenty of room to do it, long as he and the hands get it right."
"You sure that's how he feels?"
Gideon didn't know. He did know he was frustrated at not knowing whether the cigarette butt was something to be worried about. Now this.
He wasn't a micro-manager, not really. Was that how the hands saw him?
He didn't know how much mental energy he could give to this, with a princess to watch out for. It was just one more thing for him to add to his never-ending list.
6
Around lunchtime, Gideon got a call from Cash that there was some chatter about continuing plots against the Glorvaird royalty.
Which was exactly what he didn't want to hear.
According to Cash, there were no whispers of the princess's location, but after finding the cigarette butt that shouldn't have been there, he spent the afternoon scouting for any other signs that a stranger had been on the ranch.
Hours of riding and tracking didn't turn up anything else, but he couldn't get rid of the sense that someone with an agenda had been here. He'd learned to trust his gut, and his gut was hardly ever wrong.
He spent the next hour in the barn, making calls to locals, asking if they'd seen any suspicious activity. Probably they all thought he was nuts, but he couldn't help that.
The sun was setting and his stomach was growling when he headed across the yard for the house. He hated the feeling of blindness. Hated thinking someone could be watching the place, and he wouldn't know until it was too late.
As he crossed the yard, the back door opened, and the princess appeared, stepping out onto the back porch. Out in the open.
The hair on the back of his neck rose all at once, and he took the porch steps at a run. "Get back," he ordered, but either she didn't share his sense of urgency or she didn't realize anything was wrong, because instead of moving, she froze.
Which meant that he collided with her, full body, knocking her off her feet. He heard her gasp as he swept her along with him, quickly thumping her back against the clapboard siding. It wasn't enough to keep her out of sight, so he tucked her head into his shoulder, too.
"I told you to stay inside," he said harshly, breath sawing in and out of his chest. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins with every throb of his heart.
She said something, but it was muffled against his chest, and he couldn't make it out.
He shuffled the both of them two feet to the left and yanked open the screen door before he pushed her inside, careful to keep himself between her and any possible threat.
Only when he had slammed the interior door shut and bodily pushed her several feet into the mudroom did he take a deep breath.
"What's the matter? Gideon?" That was Carrie's voice, coming from the kitchen.
Alessandra watched him with eyes wide and dark with fear. All the color had leached from her face.
"Gideon, let go of her."
He still held both of the princess's shoulders, though now she was at arms' length and not pressed close to him. Her flowery scent was burned into his nostrils, into his brain.
"Gideon," Carrie said again.
He shook himself out of the moment, dropped his hands to his sides, realizing for the first time with some clarity that Alessandra was dressed up. Oh, not dressed up, per se, but differently than she had been yesterday. She wore some kind of fuzzy sweater over a pale yellow dress that flared around her knees. It made her look feminine and soft, and with her hair down and wavy...
He didn't know what to do with the attraction that welled almost violently inside him, riding the tide of his rioting adrenaline and blood pressure.
He backed up a step and used one hand to take off his hat; the other he swept through his hair, hoping the motion might hide any hint of the turmoil he was experiencing.
"What were you doing outside?" he barked.
"I was coming to look for you. Matt said he thought you were still in the barn. It's suppertime."
Suppertime. When was the last time someone had cared enough to make sure he came in for supper? Something twisted in his stomach.
But the fear he'd felt when he'd seen her out in the open remained.
His nostrils flared as he contemplated what he might do to his brother. "He should've told you to stay inside. Why didn't you just call my cell?"
Carrie was still approaching, waving a wooden spoon in his direction. "I was watching through the window and saw you barrel into Allie. Her head hit the wall pretty hard—I heard the clunk from inside."
Had he done that?
"Can you give us a minute?" he asked his sister, and if the words weren't completely polite, Carrie must've seen in his expression that he was shaken up, because she disappeared into the kitchen.
He moved in close to Alessandra again, tossing his hat on a nearby hook before he reached for her. One hand cupped her shoulder while he threaded his other hand through the hair at her nape, feeling for a bump.
Crap. The sweater was as soft as it looked. And her hair was even softer.
"I'm sorry if I hurt you." He said the words more to distract himself than anything else.
It didn't work.
"I'll be all right."
From this close, her softly-spoken words were only a puff of air against his chin. "I thought I was safe here."
He didn't feel a bump or abrasion on the back of her head, but for some reason his hand got stuck there, cupping the back of her head like a boyfriend might hold a girlfriend.
He read the questions and lingering fear in her expressive eyes. "I got a call from one of my buddies and there's still some noise that your family remains a target. I don't have any evidence that someone is here, but..."
Her lip trembled, slightly. And for a prolonged moment, he really wanted to lean in and kiss her. Wanted it so bad that he let go of her completely and stepped back, so quickly that she wobbled and had to steady herself with one hand against the wall.
What was he even thinking? He was sweaty and smelled like horses from working out in the barn. He was probably the last person on earth that she'd be interested in kissing.
"I don't know..." He turned his back and ran a hand through his hair again. What was it about her that shook him up so badly? "It could be nothing, but I've got a feeling. Like something's coming."
He dared to look at her, hoping he wouldn't see an expression that meant she thought he was crazy.
She didn't. She looked slightly steadier than she had earlier, her eyes more clear.
"We don't know each other very well, but I trust you," she said. "If you want me to take more precautions, I will. Although I haven't stepped foot outside since yesterday. Until..." She nodded to the door, and he remembered the feeling of her pressed against him on the other side of that wall. Remembered too well.
And the fear that had caused it.
He nodded. "I appreciate it." He couldn't let himself think about something happening to her.
* * *
Alessandra relied on every stitch of media training she'd ever had to present a calm facade as she preceded Gideon into the kitchen.
He'd been frightened when he'd barreled into her outside. She'd felt it in the intentionality of his compact movements.
It was hard to imagine what might frighten someone like Gideon, who was so very much a soldier, so sure of himself. That in itself was scary. That fear remained with her now.
Whether the danger was real or not, he'd shielded her completely. She'd been under a protective detail hundreds of times, but she'd never had she felt so totally safe.
And then, in the mudroom... She'd thought for a moment that he would kiss her.
She'd wanted him to. Wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed by someone as virile and alive as Gideon.
Oh, she'd had a few first kisses. The rare second one. The men her father would approve of were groomed and polished. Boring. She dealt with political and social issues on a daily basis. Didn't want her dating life to revolve around them.
Until now, she hadn't known what she'd been missing.
If she'd been braver, she might've used the opportunity to stretch up on tiptoes and kiss him. But she'd chickened out.
All Gideon had seen from her was a scared rabbit, one who knew how to clean. So what? He hadn't seen how eloquent she could be. Hadn't seen her passion for children—her mostly-secret passion, as she didn't have enough time to devote to the charities she really wanted to help.
He'd probably rebuff her if she got up the courage to kiss him.
He stopped short in the kitchen, hanging back where the bright lights changed from the mudroom and hallway to the kitchen proper.
Carrie was at the stove, stirring the pot of chili they'd worked on together earlier. Alessandra could hear Scarlett giving some of the hands a preschool lesson in the dining room.
But it was Dan and Trey that Gideon was staring at. As if he'd never seen them before. "What—?"
Both men were clean shaven, and Carrie had given them both haircuts before supper. They looked completely different—in fact, Alessandra had startled at first when she'd walked into the hall and spotted Trey earlier. They even wore button-up shirts over their jeans that seemed to be freshly laundered. In the dining room, she'd seen that Brian and Chase had done the same.
"I brought my shears out from the shop this afternoon. They clean up pretty good, don't they?" Carrie asked. She patted Trey—nearest her—on the shoulder.
Alessandra looked between the Trey and Gideon, who seemed to be having some kind of stare-off contest.
"Any reason you pokes decided to get all gussied up? Today?" There was a slightly menacing tone in Gideon's words, one that would have had her cowering in her shoes if it had been aimed at her.
But Trey's chin jerked even higher. "Pretty ladies coming around makes a man want to look his best, boss."
"Maybe the ladies won't be hanging around for long," Gideon growled.
Carrie crossed her arms over her chest, aiming a glance that was almost belligerent toward her brother. "I think it's about time."
Gideon made an incoherent sound beneath his breath, and Alessandra had to pinch her lips together to keep from smiling. Carrie had told her earlier that her big brother was overprotective, but Alessandra hadn't gotten to see it in action until now. She couldn't help but wonder at the interplay among Gideon, his sister, and Trey.
Dan had wisely slipped into the dining room when he'd seen Gideon's thunderous expression.
"What about you, Gideon?" Carrie asked, her words almost a taunt. She used the first two fingers of one hand to make a clipping motion. "How long has it been since you've had a cut?"
Gideon shot an inscrutable look in Alessandra's direction before he shook his head tightly at his sister. "Not tonight."
"Gideon's probably hungry," Alessandra put in, wanting to ease the strange tension that had built at Carrie's last comment. "He didn't come in for lunch."
She moved to dish him a deep bowl of chili, nudging Carrie out of the way. The other woman slipped her arm through Trey's, and they escaped into the front hall, bypassing the dining room. The cadence of their low conversation carried, but not the actual words.
"You don't have to cook for us," he said, shouldering in next to her and running water to scrub his hands in the sink.
The scent of sharp spices rose to her as she ladled out the meat and beans.
"And I don't have to clean for you," she returned, holding out the bowl and a spoon upright for him. "It makes me feel useful."
He finished drying his hands and tucked the towel back in its holder above the sink. One eyebrow quirked. "You have a hard time relaxing? Ever go on vacation?"
A slow blush burned her cheeks, but she met his gaze squarely. She was used to her life being scheduled. Tightly packed with activities. It wasn't anything to be ashamed of. "Sometimes it's easier to stay busy."
He couldn't know how true it was, especially when living with her father and older sister. The truth was, she'd felt more affection from the cowboys and Carrie here than she had in years with her own family. Being on the Triple H felt like home.
So cleaning up a little and cooking didn't feel like chores. It felt like giving back to the people who'd helped her, who'd made her feel welcome.
* * *
For the second night in a row, Alessandra couldn't sleep. Not only did she have to contend with the images of Tim's death, but now there was the worry of someone coming after her here, on Gideon's land. After the boisterous supper and some visiting with the cowboys before bedtime, once everything had quieted, she couldn't forget those moments with Gideon's on the back porch.
She'd run to save her life, but had she managed to put Gideon and his family's and employees' lives in danger?
She crept down to the first floor, once again to the cadence of snoring cowboys in the upstairs hallway.
But this time, when she hit the bottom step, an arm like an iron band wrapped around her waist, and a hand clamped over her mouth.
She panicked and a shriek rose in her throat. Would anyone even hear her with her mouth and nose blocked?
"Ssh."
The hand moved away from her mouth, while the arm remained.
Heart thrumming like a hummingbird's wings, she struggled to draw breath. Her knees weak from fright, the band of his arm was the only thing holding her upright.
He whispered a rough word. "I didn't mean to scare you. Matt's just outside the back door. I think he's on the phone. I was trying to hear his conversation."
She panted through the pounding of her heart but couldn't manage to catch her breath.
He seemed to realize exactly how shaken up she was, because he gently turned her toward him, though the embrace was loose, with space between their bodies. "Sorry," he murmured. "Sorry."
One of his hands came up to cup her cheek, his chapped skin warm against her chilled self.
"Alessandra..."
He breathed her name—her real name. It was the first time she'd heard it since she'd been on the ranch. And then, as if he couldn't help himself, he bent his head toward her and kissed her.
Earlier, she'd wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by Gideon. The reality was like being swept away in a tsunami. Blood rushed to her face at the first brush of his lips against hers. His mouth slanted gently but firmly against hers as his nose brushed her cheek. She'd expected his beard to feel stiff and bristly, but instead it was soft, his mustache tickling her upper lip. She smiled into the kiss, and he drew away slightly, leaving only a breath between their lips.
She brushed his upper lip with her index finger. Whispered, "I've never kissed a man with a beard before."
She was close enough to make out the slight flare of his nostrils before he lowered his head to hers once more. This time he deepened the kiss, and she was lost in a wave of swirling warmth.
Too soon, he drew away, pressing his cheek against hers.
"Sorry," this time he breathed the word against her cheek.
Sorry for scaring her, or for kissing her?
Her trembling had steadied, but now her body hummed with something else entirely. "I thought..." She tried to speak, but her voice emerged wobbly. "I thought someone had gotten inside."
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