Chapter Four
Someone screamed and Kayla shot straight out of the bed, her heart racing and her legs shaking as she stood in the middle of the unfamiliar room. White curtains covered a window that revealed a view of fields that stretched to the horizon and the distant hills of Texas Hill Country. A cat was curled up at the foot of her bed. A cat?
She looked at the calico feline, white with black and orange patches, and wondered how it had gotten in here. The cat stretched and blinked, fixing green eyes on her, as if she were the interloper.
The scream echoed through the house a second time and she realized it was more of a shriek. Someone else shouted, then a door slammed. Obviously the entire family was up. And if she hadn’t been mistaken last night when Mrs. Wilder gave the list of names and locations of her children, there were several of them.
Although she was tempted to hide away in her room, Kayla dressed and brushed her hair. Before walking out the door of her borrowed bedroom, she glanced back at the cat.
“Don’t you have mice to chase?”
The feline yawned, stretched and closed her eyes.
“I don’t like cats,” she said out loud. The cat didn’t seem to care.
“I don’t like them much myself. Did the screaming banshees downstairs wake you up?”
She spun to face a younger man, maybe in his early twenties. He had dark curly hair cut close to his head, snapping brown eyes, dimples and a big smile.
“I’m Jase.” He held out a hand. “I’m the middle brother and also the smart one. No offense to your bodyguard.”
She still hadn’t spoken. He took her by surprise, with his easy banter and open smile. A few months ago she would have flirted. But she had given it up along with everything else. For the past few months her goal had been a less complicated life.
This did not fit those plans.
“I would say ‘cat got your tongue.’” He glanced past her to the cat in her room. “But that’s pretty cliché.”
“Um, I’m just...” She couldn’t speak.
“Overwhelmed?”
“Maybe a little,” she admitted.
“The cat’s name is Sheba. As in queen of. She lives up to it. And she wouldn’t chase a mouse if it crawled across her paws. Let me walk you downstairs. There’s safety in numbers. And there’s probably some breakfast in the kitchen. We usually eat after we’ve fed the livestock.”
“You’ve already fed the livestock? What time is it?”
He laughed. “Just after seven. And yes, we’ve fed, pulled a calf and gathered eggs.”
“Pulled a calf where?”
He gave her a sideways glance and grinned. “Pulled meaning delivered. The calf wasn’t coming out on his own so we helped the mama with the delivery. There’s nothing like starting your morning with a new life. Which I guess is why I’m premed.”
While they’d been talking he’d led her downstairs and through the house to the big country kitchen, where it seemed half the county had congregated for breakfast.
Boone’s mom, Maria, was standing at the stove. Two young women who looked identical were setting the table. Another sister, a little older than them, was at the sink, auburn hair falling down to veil one side of her face. A toddler on pudgy legs, her curly blond hair in pigtails, was playing with bowls and wooden spoons.
“Welcome to our zoo,” Jase Wilder said with a big smile that included everyone in the room. “The twinkies over there are Esmerelda and Alejandra. Better known to all as Essie and Allie, named after our grandmothers. They’re not as identical as they like to pretend. In the kitchen is Mama Maria, whom you met last night. Michaela and her daughter, Molly. And my lovely sister Janie.”
Janie with the auburn hair shot him a look and said nothing. Jase smiled back and answered, “Yeah, I know, Lucas is your favorite.”
“Kayla, I hope we didn’t wake you.” Maria Wilder pointed at her twin daughters. “Those two can’t keep quiet for anything.”
The sister Janie half smiled her direction. “They’re excited because you’re staying here. And you know all about fashion. They want to enter a twin pageant in San Antonio.”
“Don’t let them push you around,” Michaela warned with a half tilt of her mouth. She appeared to be in her midtwenties and as she spoke she reached to pick up her little girl. “If you’re going to survive, you have to stand your ground and become great friends with the word no.”
Kayla would have answered but the conversation was interrupted by the sound of the front door closing and voices raised in discussion, and then Boone along with a younger man in his late teens, and possibly their father, entered the kitchen.
The older Wilder, gray haired and thin, pushed a walker. His steps were slow and steady. He glanced up at her and grinned. She saw the resemblance between him and his eldest son.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t up to meet you last night,” Jesse Wilder said as he made his way to the table. “But it looks as if you’re surviving. It takes some backbone and sometimes selective hearing where this bunch is involved.”
Boone, wearing dirt-stained jeans and a button-up shirt, winked as he headed for the kitchen sink. “If it takes backbone, I think she’ll survive Clan Wilder with no problems.”
She’d been surviving for a long time. It just hadn’t always looked like it to the outside world.
“The mama cow didn’t make it.” Boone rinsed his hands, then splashed his face. Blindly he reached around, searching for a towel.
Kayla found one and pushed it into his hands. He dried his face and draped the towel over a cabinet door.
Jase’s smile had slipped away. “I thought we had her up?”
“Yeah, I thought she was okay. About thirty minutes ago she went down and we couldn’t get her back up.”
“She was our best cow,” Mr. Wilder said. He was pale, she noticed, and his hands trembled as reached for the cup of coffee Maria set down in front of him. He hooked his free arm around his wife.
“We’ll make do, Jesse. We always have.” She kissed the top of his head. “And I made a big breakfast.”
“Because eating makes everything better,” Essie, dark haired with flashing green eyes, quipped as she brought a plate of bacon to the table. “And coffee. That’s the icing on the cake of life.”
And they were all talking again, laughing and sharing smiles. Kayla stood to one side, watching, comparing this tumult with her family. The Stanfords, not the Martins. Her father’s family was quiet, disciplined and perfect. Always perfect. She had never fit.
The Martins were more like this family. More open. More accepting. They relied on their faith and openly shared it with others. But they never pushed. She liked that about them.
She liked them. And yet she didn’t feel as if she belonged. She wasn’t a Martin. She wasn’t a Stanford. She was the extra, the one who didn’t fit.
Her gaze slid to Boone. He was still standing in the kitchen, his arm around the sister named Janie. Kayla felt a tightness in her own throat as she watched brother and sister. He spoke quietly. Janie responded. And then a hand moved and she brushed back that curtain of auburn hair, revealing a tight, puckered scar that ran from her cheek down her neck.
Someone stepped close to Kayla, and an arm brushed hers. “Don’t stare. If you want a friend, she’s the best, but she doesn’t like pity.”
“What happened?” Kayla asked.
“She was burned in an accident years ago.” Jase shrugged as if what he said was common knowledge and not heartbreaking.
Conversation ended as the family all came to the table. Boone was suddenly at Kayla’s side. He pointed to a chair and then he took the one next to it, his arm brushing hers. Before she could think, he had her hand in his. Michaela, next to her, took her other hand. The family bowed their heads in unison and Jesse Wilder
prayed, thanking God for their food, for their blessings, for another day to serve Him.
After they all said amen, conversation erupted again. Kayla accepted a piece of bacon. Boone forked a pancake onto her plate, ignoring her protests that she really didn’t eat breakfast. But he didn’t speak to her. He laughed at a story his brother Lucas told. He shook his head at the twins when they told him they were going to try team roping.
There was much laughter and teasing as the family consumed the large breakfast. Kayla ate, not even realizing that she’d cleaned her plate. She felt as if she were in a foreign world here. Austin, just about an hour away, seemed as though it might as well be on a different planet.
When she’d discovered she had a bodyguard, she hadn’t expected this. He should be in the background, quietly observing. Her father was a lawyer and a politician; she’d seen bodyguards and knew how they did their jobs. And yet here she sat with this family, her bodyguard talking of cattle and fixing fence as his sisters tried to cajole him into taking them to look at a pair of horses owned by Kayla’s brother Jake Martin.
A hand settled on her back. She glanced at the man next to her, his dark eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth quirked, revealing a dimple in his left cheek.
He opened his mouth as if to say something but a heavy knock on the front door interrupted. He pushed away from the table and gave them all an apologetic look.
“I think I’ll get that.” His gaze landed on Kayla. “You stay right where you are until I say otherwise.”
“They wouldn’t come here,” she said. She’d meant to sound strong. Instead, it came out like a question.
“We don’t know what they would or wouldn’t do, because we don’t know who they are. Stay.” He walked away, Jase getting up and going after him.
Kayla avoided looking at the people who remained at the table. Conversation had of course ended. She knew they were looking at her. She knew that she had invaded their life.
And she knew that her bodyguard might seem like a relaxed cowboy, but he wasn’t. He was the man standing between her and the unknown.
* * *
Boone stepped to the window before going to the front door. He moved the curtain and peeked out. Jase was behind him, of course. Little brothers could never mind their own business.
“I didn’t ask for backup,” Boone said as he let the curtain drop back into place.
“No, you didn’t. But we’re brothers.”
“It’s just Jake. He must have found out she’s here.”
Jase had the nerve to turn tail and run. “Have fun with that. I think it’s my turn to do dishes.”
“Dishes, my—” he watched his brother head down the hall “—foot.”
He opened the door to Jake Martin. He didn’t remember Jake being quite so tall, or so angry. Yeah, it made him pity Remington Jenkins more than ever. Remington had fallen hard for Samantha Martin ten years ago when the two had been teens. Jake had run him out of town.
Boone wasn’t a seventeen-year-old kid, and he had a job that included keeping Kayla Stanford safe. So when faced with Jake’s glowering look, he just smiled and leaned against the door as if all was well. Boone had learned long ago that silence always proved successful in getting the other person to talk.
“I want to know why my sister is here and not at our place, Wilder. I want to know why we weren’t informed that she might be in danger.”
Boone stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. Jake stepped out of his way. When Boone headed down the stairs and toward the barn, Jake followed.
“Is there a reason you won’t answer me?” Jake continued as Boone opened the barn door.
“Because I don’t answer to you. I answer to Kayla and her father.” He felt bad about that, but he wouldn’t break confidentiality clauses. “I would like to know how you found out she was here.”
“She texted Samantha.”
Boone spun around to face the other man, forgetting for a second that his balance wasn’t always the best. He reached for the wall and steadied himself. “She did what?”
Jake gave him a tight smile. “What, you didn’t know? She’s not going to make this easy for you. And I don’t appreciate not being kept in the loop.”
“Then, we’ll sit down together, the three of us, and she can tell you what you want to know. If she wants you to be told, that is. But I can’t keep her safe if she’s texting everyone in the state.”
A throat cleared and he sighed. Kayla was standing in the doorway, early-morning sunlight streaming behind her, leaving her face in shadows.
“I’m not a child. You can do your job, Boone, but you’re not going to keep me from my family.”
Frustrated didn’t begin to describe how he felt at that moment. “I wouldn’t think of keeping you from your family. I would like to keep you safe. And I need honesty and a little cooperation from you to do that.”
“Honesty?” She narrowed those magnificent blue eyes at him. “You want honesty? I can do honesty. I honestly want to live my own life. I know I’ve messed up. I know they think they have something they can use against my dad. But I’d like for everyone to leave me alone. I was doing fine. I was getting my life together. I was finding pieces of myself I left behind. I was doing it. Alone. And I don’t need...” She sobbed, the sound catching in her throat, and her eyes widened.
Jake shook his head. “Part of your problem, Kayla, is that you don’t have to be alone. In any of this.”
“Not right now, Jake.” Boone knew when a woman was about to fall apart. Jake had never been soft or subtle. “Why don’t you head home and we’ll call you.”
Boone left the older man standing there as he took Kayla by the hand and led her from the barn. She gripped his hand hard, clenching her fingers around his. He didn’t really have a plan; he just knew if she was going to fall apart, the barn wasn’t the place to do it. She didn’t need to be where anyone could walk in. The last thing she needed was a lecture about family from an older brother who had just showed up in her life last year.
As they walked she seemed dazed, moving her feet one in front of the other without really paying attention. He kept hold of her hand, keeping her upright and moving. They ended up at his place. He led her up the steps and inside.
Thanks to Daron, the place smelled like wet dog, dirty socks and burned eggs. She wrinkled her nose but didn’t say much. He pointed her toward the sofa and she complied without argument.
“Do you want something to drink?”
She laughed at the question. Boone brushed a hand across his face and shook his head.
“Iced tea?” he offered the second time around.
“Thank you.” She sat curled up on his sofa, legs tucked beneath her. She reached for the afghan, sniffed and tossed it back to the opposite end. “You have a dog.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I have a dog. And I have Daron McKay. Both of them shed, smell and leave messes.”
What had started as laughter on her end suddenly turned into quiet sobs as he poured the tea. He grabbed two glasses and headed her way. She didn’t cry pretty. Or maybe she didn’t cry often and so this was the proverbial dam bursting. He sat down next to her, placing the glasses on the coffee table.
She didn’t look like a woman who wanted a hug. She was stiff and curled into the corner of the sofa. He let her be because his sister Janie was like that. She wanted to do it all herself, alone, even grieve. He was his mother’s son, so it was hard for him to let someone grieve alone. He wanted to wrap his arms around the person and he wanted to make it all okay.
Kayla elicited that response from him quicker than he would have imagined. She was about as broken as a woman could get, hiding all of that destruction behind her brazen actions and big smiles.
He wanted her pieced back together and whole.
No
t that it should matter to him. She wouldn’t be in his life that long. He guessed it was a little like his Scout leader used to say about a wilderness camping trip. Leave it better than you found it.
He’d like to leave Kayla a little better off when they parted ways.
Next to him, she’d stopped crying. She shifted, moving toward him by slow degrees. When her head touched his shoulder and she sighed, he came undone just a little. Expect the unexpected, that was what he knew about her. This softness would definitely qualify as unexpected. She melted against his side, her arm digging into his ribs just the slightest bit. He shifted and somehow that put her a little closer rather than putting distance between them.
Her face was in the crook of his neck, her breath warm, her touch light. And then she shifted a bit more, and her mouth touched his. This was crossing the line. He had that thought just as her hands moved to his shoulders, turning him to face her.
She brushed her lips over his, hesitant and seeking. The third time he fell into the kiss, giving up a little control. Her hand, soft and timid, was on his cheek. He pulled her a little closer and her hand slid to the back of his neck, her fingers skating through his hair.
Outside the dog barked; a truck door closed. He pulled away. She moved back, her eyes bright.
He started to apologize but she shook her head. “Please don’t say you’re sorry. Even if you are. I’ve felt empty for so long, Boone. I’ve raced through life trying to fill up the empty spaces. I’ve kissed men who meant nothing and made me feel nothing. You have no idea how much I needed that kiss. I needed to know that I could still feel.”
What could he say to that? He sat back on the sofa and closed his eyes.
“I’m not sure I want to be your experiment, Kayla.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She waited until he looked at her and then she grinned, a little mischievous and kind of sweet. “But it was a good kiss. I mean, if you’re worried or have doubts, you shouldn’t.”
Boone grinned.
“I’ll apologize now for the text to Samantha.” Their shoulders were touching, her fingers laced through his.
Her Rancher Bodyguard Page 5
