KIDNAPPED COWBOY

by Lindsey Brookes

  Okay, so maybe these kids weren’t so bad after all. There was definitely something to their suggestions. Caitlin could “take him down” any time she pleased.

  Unable to help himself, Dalton smiled.

  Keep it clean, Barnes. Dirty-minded men and nosy teens were not a very good combination.

  He turned to Caitlin who was still bobbing up and down in the water beside him, a smug grin on her beautiful face.

  Reaching up, he pushed the thick, wet hair back from his face and returned her smile. “Okay, we’re even.”

  “Hardly.” The words were barely out of her mouth before she blasted him with another face full of water.

  Caught off guard again, he sputtered and cursed.

  “There,” she said, pert little nose thrust high into the air. “Now we’re even.”

  Water ran in rivulets down his face. “You think?” He rubbed his chin as if in thought. “I got you wet once. You splashed me twice.” His gaze locked with hers. “That means I owe you.”

  “Dalton!” She dove under the water to avoid any retribution he might throw her way.

  Laughing, he waited until she’d resurfaced before saying, “Thanks for saving me the trouble off dunking you. I’d say that makes us even.” Not giving her a chance to reply, he turned to the group of grinning onlookers. “Well? You kids just gonna stand there watching us all day, or are you coming in?”

  “But they’re not wearing their suits,” Leah pointed out.

  “So,” he replied.

  “You mean we’re allowed to jump in with our clothes on?” one of the girls replied in surprise.

  “Without works for me,” Jimmy said, bringing about snickers from the other boys.

  Dalton shook his wet head. “Sorry, pal. That would fall under rule number—”

  “Six,” the kids finished for him in unison. “No skinny-dipping.”

  “Are they fast learners or what?” Caitlin said proudly as she gathered up the long strands of her wet hair. Giving it a twist, she wrung the excess water from it and then tossed it back over her shoulders.

  “They have good teachers.” He winked at the young counselors and motioned them into the water.

  Zach looked at the two of them questioningly. Then, with a shrug, he laughed, shook his head, and called out to the others, “You heard them. Let’s go swim!”

  The teens whooped and hollered as they kicked off their shoes and stampeded fully clothed into the lake, their expressions priceless.

  Caitlin inched her way back to Dalton. “Has anyone ever told you, Dalton Barnes, that you are certifiably, undeniably nuts?”

  ‘About you’ was the first reply to come to mind, but thankfully it remained there. He chuckled. “More than once when I was riding the circuit.”

  Beads of water glistened at the tips of her thick lashes and on her pouty pink lips as she looked up at him. He found himself fighting the urge to kiss those liquid drops away one by one.

  She laughed. “I have to admit that doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

  “What?” he muttered, his thoughts still caught up on his wanting to kiss her.

  “That other people find you a bit on the crazy side, too,” she repeated. “I’m not surprised.”

  His gaze slid from her lips to her wet, clinging shirt. He knew every inch of the satiny flesh hidden beneath her clothes. And if they were alone…

  Splashing and playful shouts jerked his attention back to the teens around them. The reason he was in the water in the first place. Seeing the smile on Caitlin’s face as she watched her kids, made his suffering worth it.

  At that thought, he searched the water, finding Jimmy who was safely out of his reach. The ornery little shit.

  The boy smiled guiltily. “You still ticked at us for what we done to you?”

  Dalton debated his words and then replied, “I won’t lie to you, Jimmy. When I was racing down that path to cool my butt off in the lake, I was more than a little pi…p.o.’d.”

  Caitlin smiled, clearly appreciating his verbal restraint.

  The boy looked down at the water, swirling it about with his hand. “Can’t say that I blame you. We used an awful lotta that Icy stuff.”

  Dalton fought a frown. “Tell me about it. It felt like someone lit fire to my drawers.” Speaking of which, he wondered how long it would take for his butt to stop feeling like it had a heating pad glued to it.

  “Don’t go getting any ideas,” Caitlin warned Jimmy. “What you boys did to Mr. Barnes was wrong. Very wrong.” Her attempt not to laugh came out in a snort.

  “Thanks for the support,” Dalton said before turning his attention back to the boys. “Not a very smart move. What if I would’ve had some sorta allergic reaction to that stuff?”

  Several of the boys stopped horsing around in the water and hung their heads. At least they were capable of feeling regret. If only he and Caitlin could teach them not to do those kinds of things to begin with.

  “Dalton’s right,” she acknowledged, casting an admonishing glance in the boys’ direction. “Your little prank might have had serious consequences. That sort of thing will never happen again. Nothing even anything remotely like it. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Miss Myers,” they replied in unison.

  “Good.” Her smile returned. “Then let’s have some fun.”

  The horseplay resumed full force.

  Dalton hooked an arm around her waist and swam away from the group, taking her with him as he floated around to the other side of the old wooden dock.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped, glancing back over her shoulder.

  “Giving us a little more privacy and avoiding all that wild splashing in the process.” The hand he had around her waist skimmed upward to cup a breast beneath the murky water.

  She gasped again. “What are you doing?”

  He moved up against her to whisper in her ear, “I think the teens would refer to it as ‘copping a feel’.”

  “Well, stop it,” she whispered back and pushed his hand back down to her waist again. “They’ll see you.”

  He shook his head. “Not unless they’re wearing scuba gear. Even if they were, all that splashing about has the lake so stirred up they wouldn’t be able to see a thing.”

  “Even so…”

  “Stop worrying. They’re having too much fun to worry about what a couple of ‘old folks’ like us are doing.”

  “Speak for yourself. I’m not old.”

  “No, but you’re damn sexy. So what do you say? You wanna go under the water and neck for a while?”

  She laughed softly and shook her head. “You are just as ornery as those boys.”

  “I try.”

  “Something tells me you don’t have to try very hard to be that way.”

  “Lucky for me, you like a man with a naughty side.” He nibbled playfully at her ear.

  “Dalton,” she groaned. “My ear is above the water.”

  “Does that mean I’m allowed to nibble lower?”

  She pushed away and then turned, swiping a handful of water at him.

  “Now you’ve done it,” he said with a grin as he swam after her.

  “Mr. Barnes…” Jimmy called out from the other side of the dock.

  Caitlin stopped swimming and held up a hand, stopping his pursuit.

  “What?” he asked, drawing her to him.

  She pointed toward the other side of the dock. “You’re being paged.”

  As if on cue, several of the teens called out for him again.

  “I’m not done with you yet,” he warned before swimming out around the end of the dock to see what the kids wanted. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry to interrupt your make-out session,” Jimmy began.

  “You weren’t interrupting anything,” Caitlin cut in as she swam up beside Dalton. But the deepening color in her cheeks all but gave them away.

  “You needed something?” he reminded the boys.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said, his gaze sh
ifting between Dalton and his accomplices. “We wanna apologize for what we did to you earlier. It seemed real funny at the time, but Miss Myers is right. Something bad coulda happened.”

  The other boys nodded, appearing sincere in their regret.

  He smiled. “Apology accepted. I have to admit you boys got me good today. Something very few of my buddies on the circuit were ever been able to do.”

  The teens exchanged grins.

  “Just keep one thing in mind,” Dalton added, drawing their attention. “Pay backs are he—”

  “Hello,” Caitlin blurted out, cutting him off.

  He turned, expecting a look of admonishment from her for almost cursing again. Instead, her attention was focused on something beyond the horseplay going on around them.

  He followed the direction of her gaze to find Alan Martinson, his brother’s right-hand man, standing a few feet away from the edge of the lake. Dressed in a gray pinstriped suit with a collar that stood as stiff as Alan himself, he looked completely out of his element standing there.

  Dalton zeroed in on the manila envelope Martinson held clutched in his hand. Business no doubt. He looked up, seeing a look of smugness etched into the older man’s face.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why his brother kept Alan Martinson on. So what if he was good at what he did. The man had the personality of a piss ant. Grounds for firing if you asked him.

  “What the hell does he want?” he muttered under his breath.

  “I’ll go see.” Caitlin started past him, but he caught her arm, stopping her.

  “I’ll go. I don’t want you anywhere near that…slimeball.” Especially in wet clothes. Releasing her arm, he swam until his feet touched bottom and then waded out to the grassy bank to see what his brother’s henchman wanted. He knew Martinson wasn’t thrilled by Brandon’s agreeing to keep Stoney Brook open. This was one of the only times he could remember Brandon taking his side over Alan’s. And he had to admit it felt damn good.

  “Alan,” he acknowledged with a nod of his wet head as he stepped from the water, but he made no move to offer his hand in greeting.

  Neither did Martinson. He merely sneered as he eyed Dalton from head to toe. “Some things never change, I see.”

  Dalton’s expression remained stoic. “And that’s supposed to mean what exactly?”

  “Nothing but fun and games for you. That’s how it’s always been. Isn’t that right?”

  “How I run my life is no concern of yours.”

  Martinson’s sneer remained intact. “If I were your brother, I would have cut you out of my life a long time ago.”

  Dalton glared down at him, his expression hard. “You got some sorta problem with me, Martinson?”

  “What I have,” the man replied stiffly, “is a problem with losing money. And thanks to you and Miss Do-Good over there,” he nodded toward the water where Caitlin stood watching, “that’s exactly what’s happening. This place could have brought us millions.”

  Dalton raised a questioning brow. “Us?”

  “Your brother,” Martinson snapped. “This little project here to ‘save the kids’ is costing him a fortune.”

  “Money isn’t everything,” Dalton replied with a calmness he didn’t feel. Inside he was wrestling with the urge to spring at Martinson. “And that’s Miss Myers to you. She’s in charge of running Stoney Brook and will be treated with the respect she deserves.”

  Martinson snorted his contempt. “I see how she runs this place.” He did a sweep with his arm. “Kids frolicking, fully dressed, in the lake when what they should be doing is something productive. You can be sure your brother will hear all about it.”

  “How we run this place is our business.”

  “Now it’s we? As if you give a damn about those kids.”

  Dalton’s jaw clenched. “I care. And in case it’s slipped your mind, my brother turned control of Stoney Brook over to me for the summer.”

  Martinson’s expression darkened at the reminder. “A foolish decision if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  He shook a finger at Dalton. “Your brother’s wasting his money on those juvenile delinquents.”

  It took every ounce of restraint he had for Dalton not to pound the man’s face into the ground right then and there. Instead, Dalton stepped forward, forcing Martinson to take several stumbling steps backward. “If I ever hear you refer to these kids that way again, I’ll personally stuff the words right back down your throat.”

  “Fine,” the older man grumbled. “Why anyone would wanna waste their time on them,” he said, glaring at the teens, “is beyond me.”

  “I’d rather spend every minute of my day with these kids then five minutes with a man like you.” He leaned forward, towering over the much shorter Martinson. “A man who goes around acting like he’s got a stick shoved up his ass.”

  Alan stiffened and then blew out a huff of air as he shoved the envelope he was holding into Dalton’s wet shirtfront. “Here are some forms your brother needs you to sign. A waste of paperwork if you ask me. You and I both know you have no intention of sticking around much longer. Isn’t that right?”

  What he did or didn’t do was none of Alan’s business. He’d be damned if he’d respond to Alan’s provoking comment. Even to set him straight.

  Martinson looked past him to Caitlin. “Something you’d be wise to keep in mind, Miss Myers.” That said, he turned and stomped away.

  “Bastard,” Dalton muttered under his breath as his brother’s man disappeared into the woods.

  “Swim time’s over,” Caitlin announced behind him. “There’s work back at camp to be done.”

  Dalton turned, her troubled gaze meeting his as she stepped from the lake. Head held high, she walked past him, her wet clothes swishing as she went.

  “Caitlin,” he called after her.

  “Are you really leaving?” one of the girls asked as the group started for the trail in the woods.

  Leah hushed the teen, her anxious gaze darting back and forth between Dalton’s frowning face and Caitlin’s rapidly departing form.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said with a conviction he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Not when he’d finally found what he’d been searching for all his life. Now he just had to find some way to convince Caitlin of that.

  *

  The drive back to the family ranch gave Dalton a lot of time to think. And Lord knew he had a lot to think about. In the beginning, he’d been furious with his brother for forcing him into helping run Stoney Brook. He recalled thinking that his calling in life was to work with horses, not a bunch of snot-nosed kids. That he had ever felt that way ate him up inside. He’d judged those kids long before he’d ever met them. And he was man enough to admit he’d been wrong.

  Sure, the teens were troubled. And each and every one of them had faults. But then who didn’t? And they sure as hell weren’t the social wastes Martinson made them out to be. Not by a long shot.

  Caitlin’s counseling sessions seemed to be working wonders with the teens. They were starting to open up to her, something he never expected to happen when he first met the angry, closed-off-to-the-world youths. With the exception of the prank they had pulled on him that morning, their behavior had taken a noticeable turn for the better.

  Now if he could just get back in Caitlin’s good graces. She had done everything she could to avoid him after returning from the lake. Trust was an issue for her and Martinson’s driving it home that he wasn’t the kind of man who could be counted on to stick around had stirred up old insecurities. But he had no intention of going anywhere and he was going to make certain she knew that. More importantly, that she believed it. So he would treat her as he would a skittish horse. With gentleness and patience.

  He turned off the main road, passing under the weathered sign of the Three B’s Ranch. His home. That particular thought took him by surprise. When was the last time he’d thought of this place as home? For the life o
f him, Dalton couldn’t remember. It had taken one headstrong female and a bunch of rag-tag teens to make him see his own life more clearly.

  He pulled up to the house and cut the engine. Instead of getting out, he sat back in the seat, letting his gaze sweep the land around him. He had to give Brandon credit. He’d done one hell of a job managing the place on his own. Of course, his brother had sacrificed his own personal life in the process. At least, that’s what he’d been told by a few of Brandon’s friends that night at the bar. The night Caitlin chose to put her plan into action and had ended up with him instead.

  He might not have been too pleased at the time, but he was damn glad now that fate had intervened with Caitlin’s plan that night. What if it had been Brandon she had kidnapped instead? Brandon that she had ended up spending time alone with in the cabin during that storm. Would she have changed his brother’s life as she had his?

  As ridiculous as it seemed, a surge of jealousy slid through him. But he couldn’t help himself. Caitlin was his. She just hadn’t accepted it yet. His brother would have to find his own special woman. And, if fate was still in a jesting mood, that woman might just find his brother. Just as Caitlin had found him.

  Dalton pulled off his hat and placed it onto the seat beside him. Then, shoving his keys into one of the damp pockets of his jeans opened the door and stepped down from the truck.

  He straightened with a grimace. Wet jeans were not the most comfortable thing for a man to move around in. He made his way toward the house, wanting to change out of his lake-drenched clothes before he turned into a six-foot-two-inch prune.

  The door was unlocked much to his relief, seeing as how his house key was lodged deep in his clinging pants pocket. It would be a task and a half to get his hand into the wet denim to retrieve it.

  Stepping inside, he headed for the stairs at the far end of the hallway.

  “Dalton?” a deep voice called out from his brother’s office as he passed by.

  Stopping, he took a step back, looking into the room. Brandon sat behind his desk, his dark brow arched.

  “I wondered what all that swishing was coming up the hallway.” The corners of his mouth twitched as he took in Dalton’s wet clothes. “You get caught in a rainstorm I wasn’t aware came through?”