Книга - Riley’s Retribution

Riley's Retribution
Rebecca York


FINAL RECKONINGWith the Montana Militia's ringleader still at large, the manhunt intensified. Big Sky forged a plan to take Boone Fowler down after they discovered he had set up shop on Courtney Rogers's spread. A master of disguise, Riley Watson infiltrated the Golden Saddle ranch to capture the sinister fugitive and unveil his terrorist bankroller. Riley was unexpectedly caught off guard by the very pregnant ranch owner who had been targeted by his enemy. Electric currents sparked between them after he snatched Courtney out of harm's way–and thawed her icy reserve with red-hot passion. Now, with innocent lives at stake, this tenacious bounty hunter vowed to protect Courtney from the deadly showdown…without blowing his cover!







He had an unsettling effect on her—like no one she’d ever met

He was so damn self-contained, yet below the surface she could sense his mind working. An aura of danger surrounded him that she couldn’t quite resist.

Too bad he was the sexiest man she’d met in a long time. That was another major problem. He made her feel hot and needy, just by the way he looked at her.

And she knew that he found her attractive. That was part of the lure of the man for her—the exhilaration of knowing that he was responding to her…even in her condition.

Her lips firmed. She should be focused on the baby, not on this cowboy who had mysteriously stepped into her life.





Riley’s Retribution


USA Today Bestselling Author




Rebecca York


Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of close to eighty books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.


CAST OF CHARACTERS

Riley Watson—He was known as the chameleon, but could he pull off the charade of his life?

Courtney Rogers—Was she an innocent bystander, or was she working with the terrorists?

Jake Bradley—He hated Riley for reasons no one knew.

Kelly Manning—Was he loyal to Courtney, or did he have another agenda?

Cameron Murphy—Would the leader of Big Sky get his bounty?

Boone Fowler—Why was he hiding out on a ranch in Montana?

Greg Nichols—What exactly happened after Courtney fired him?

Sheriff Bobby Pennington—He stood for law and order in Spur City…or did he?

Prince Nikolai of Lukinburg—He claimed to have good reasons for coming to Montana. But a hidden agenda lurked just beyond the fringes of his policy.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue




Chapter One


Even the weather was fighting her, Courtney Rogers thought as she pulled the pickup truck out of a skid on the two-lane highway.

If she’d known this freak storm was blowing up like a nasty surprise from the gods of the north, she never would have gone into Spur City.

“No, be honest. You would have left at five in the morning to beat the storm,” she muttered.

Since Ernie Hastings, her damn unreliable ranch manager, had quit six weeks ago, she’d been too short of help to send anyone else for food and other supplies. And too short of money to leave the buying to someone who might choose sugar cereal instead of oatmeal.

Only, the trip into town hadn’t quite turned out the way she’d expected. Midge Buckley had walked rapidly in the other direction when she’d seen Courtney coming, and Jeb Bittner at the general store had given her a hard time—just for the heck of it.

“Well, I guess you never really know your neighbors,” she muttered, then switched on the radio.

An antique Hank Williams song filled the cab. Unfortunately, it was the wrong choice, since old Hank was singing about lost love, and she couldn’t stop herself from reacting to the sadness of the lyrics.

When her vision blurred, she blinked her eyes.

“Get a grip,” she ordered herself. “You’ve come through bad times before. You’ll do it again.”

The swirling flakes and another recent snowfall hid the craggy Montana landscape, but she knew this stretch of road as well as she knew the vegetable garden in back of the ranch house.

She’d been born and raised in this country, and she’d been traveling back and forth to Spur City since her mom had strapped her into an infant car seat for the trip.

The Golden Saddle horse farm where she lived was a legacy from her parents. Mom had died five years ago. Dad had lived three years longer. And she’d been back home for the past two years—while her marriage was coming apart at the seams.

Her own lost love. Buried under a clash of lifestyles and values. And finally…buried for good.

She didn’t want to think about that. She’d loved Edward Rogers, even when she’d told him it was all over between them.

But she’d still prayed they could work things out. And after their divorce, her former husband had come to see her one last time before shipping out to an overseas assignment in Lukinburg.

Could they have made the out-of-kilter relationship work? She didn’t know. Because Lieutenant Edward Rogers hadn’t come home alive. He’d left her with a load of guilt and…

She tightened her hands on the wheel.

“Like Daddy always said, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. You’ve got to clean up the mess and go on from there.”

All she could do was go forward and try to dig herself out of the mess that had become her life.

Maybe her new ranch manager, Riley Watson, would make a difference.

And maybe he’d be just another piece of bad news.

Up ahead, the road crossed under a bridge, and she squinted because she thought she saw a figure on the span above her—just visible through the whirlpool of flakes.

A man was looking toward her. She couldn’t see him very well, but his posture looked strangely rigid…as if someone had fashioned him out of ice.

She squinted into the storm, trying to work out what the guy was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. Was he in trouble and looking for help from a passing motorist down here on the highway?

If so, she felt obligated to stop, because in this open country he could freeze to death if his vehicle had broken down.

She slowed, still dividing her attention between the man and the highway. Come to think of it, she didn’t see a vehicle. Had he walked to the bridge from farther down the highway?

As she squinted up at him, he moved. She blinked, trying to figure out what she was seeing. It looked as if he’d raised a rifle to his shoulder and was aiming it down toward her.

There was no other car or truck on the road.

If that guy was really planning to shoot at someone—it was her.

“No,” she whispered into the silence of the car.

Her heart was thumping as she sped up, trying to swerve out of the way or make it under the bridge before he could fire.

But she was too late. A rifle shot cracked. And the slug tore into the glass just above her head and to the right.

It was as though a stone had hit the windshield. Only that was no stone.

She skidded on the snow-covered road, skidded under the bridge, then kept barreling forward. Fighting the wheel, she managed to keep from crashing into the concrete abutment on her right. Defensive driving lessons her dad had given her leaped into her mind, and she pumped the brakes to slow her speed. But she still wasn’t able to control the truck. When she shot out from under the bridge, she was heading toward the shoulder.

Her hands were clenched on the wheel as she plunged off the snow-covered blacktop, crunched across the gravel and into a field.

Lord knew what was under the snow. The truck swayed, and she fought to keep the vehicle from turning over.

Probably her efforts had little to do with the eventual outcome, but she came to a stop against something solid she couldn’t see. Probably a rock.

Quickly she cut the engine. Still clutching the wheel, she struggled to bring her breathing back to normal as she fought a terrible sense of dread.

“Think rationally,” she ordered herself. “Going into panic mode won’t do you any good.”

One by one, she gathered her mental resources. Then, slowly and deliberately, she took a physical inventory. She felt no sudden pains. And when she moved her arms and legs, they worked. With shaky fingers, she unbuttoned her coat and reached inside to press her hand against her middle. Everything seemed to be okay—no thanks to the guy up on the bridge.

Oh, Lord—the guy on the bridge! She’d forgotten about him for a moment. Would he come down here to finish her off? Or was hitting her pickup enough?

With a jerky motion she reached for the gun that she kept in the compartment of the truck door.

Seconds ticked by. Then minutes. And she began to relax a little. It looked as if the shooter had turned tail and run.

But she was still in big trouble. The windshield was a maze of cracks, the temperature was below zero, and the snow was going to bury her truck in no time flat.

With her gun across her lap and one eye cocked toward the road, she picked up the cell phone from the seat beside her and tried to make a call.

Reception out here was never great, and the snow didn’t help. All she got was a notice on the screen that the service couldn’t make the connection.

“Oh, sugar,” she muttered, slapping the phone down and peering outside.

Despite the dire circumstances, she grinned. Her campaign to improve her language was working. She’d reached for a curse and managed to say “oh, sugar” instead of something stronger.

After waiting several minutes to make sure she wasn’t being stalked, she tried to turn the motor on again. But the truck wouldn’t start. Which meant she couldn’t run the heater. And she could already feel the cold creeping inside the cab.

She peered out the window, thinking about her limited options.

She could try to walk, which wouldn’t get her far in this weather. Or she could stay put and hope someone found her—and not the guy up on the bridge who had pulled the trigger.

Neither choice was good. But she figured that staying in the truck offered the best chance of survival.

THE SMOTHERING CLOUD OF SNOW swirling out of the sky was disorienting, Riley Watson thought as he drove toward the Golden Saddle Ranch. In fact, everything about this assignment was disorienting.

Three weeks ago he’d been working as part of a team—the Big Sky Bounty Hunters. With Bryce Martin, Jacob Powell, Aidan Campbell, Joseph Brown and the rest. Now he was all alone on a Montana highway in the middle of a blizzard—and fighting a feeling of unreality.

He swallowed hard. Too bad an explosion had changed everything.

But he knew it had been Big Sky’s best option. After escaping from Boone Fowler’s torture camp on Devil’s Fork Island, they’d pulled off a pretty nifty charade. As far as the world—and the bad guys—knew, everybody on the team, including himself, had been blown to smithereens.

The rest of the men were lying low, waiting for Riley’s signal to come out of hiding.

Like a slippery eel, Fowler had slithered away. But Big Sky had pinpointed his location. He had rented some unused buildings on the Golden Saddle Ranch and reconstituted his gang as the Montana Militia for a Free America, a supposedly law-abiding group of men who only wanted to defend themselves against the forces of big government. There were other similar groups out here—which made the cover story all too plausible.

So why had ranch owner, Courtney Rogers, given Fowler a place to stay? Was she a pal of his? Was she working for a terrorist organization? Or was she an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bad situation?

Big Sky couldn’t simply drive up to her front door, ask some pointed questions and expect straight answers. So Colonel Cameron Murphy, their leader, had devised a plan to put Riley onto the ranch where he could find out what Fowler was up to and what role Ms. Rogers was playing in the game.

Privately, Riley didn’t much like the scenario, because it could put an innocent woman in jeopardy.

If she was really innocent. He’d pored over the information they’d given him about her, trying to figure her out. She was twenty-eight. She’d been born out here in the middle of nowhere and lived all her life on the Golden Saddle—except for four years at the university, then a year in Billings after she’d gotten married. But she’d come home to the ranch when her husband had taken an overseas assignment. And her marriage had been rocky after that.

She was a rancher at heart. As a girl, she’d won a bunch of blue ribbons with her 4-H projects. And she could rope and ride, shoot and tend the stock with the best of the guys. As far as he could see, she was happy in this patch of Montana.

But Edward Rogers couldn’t stay put in one place. He liked travel—and danger. Which was how she’d ended up a widow.

And now Big Sky was messing with her life. For starters, they had paid Rogers’s ranch manager, Ernie Hastings, a large sum of money to walk out on her. Then Riley had applied for the job. His fake résumé had looked good in the e-mails he and Mrs. Rogers had exchanged. This afternoon, he was on the way to the ranch for a face-to-face interview.

His nerves were jumping. But he kept reminding himself why the colonel had picked him. He’d grown up on a ranch in Texas, so he had the skills to play the role Big Sky had assigned him.

Another point in his favor was Courtney Rogers’s situation. She was shorthanded. Her father had left the ranch in debt. And her former husband wasn’t coming to her rescue, because he’d gotten himself killed during an assignment in Lukinburg.

As Riley drove toward the Golden Saddle, his thoughts shifted from the ranch owner to Boone Fowler, and his stomach clenched.

He’d been trying not to dwell on that part of the assignment. The last time he’d seen the militia leader, Riley had been Fowler’s prisoner. Thank God he’d been in disguise. And working under an assumed name—Craig O’Riley. When they’d captured him, his hair had been long and dyed dark. Then his captors had shaved his head with a dull razor. Lucky for him, his hair was thick enough to hide the scars.

Not that he was vain enough to worry about some razor nicks on his skull spoiling his appearance. But they could have interfered with one of his biggest assets as a bounty hunter—his ability to fool his quarry into thinking he was someone else.

Among the men of Big Sky, he was known as the chameleon. For him, changing his appearance was as natural to him as changing his shirt.

Ironically, this time, he was going as himself, with sun-streaked brown hair, hazel eyes and a confident bearing he wasn’t exactly feeling. But that last part was even more important than the physical attributes. He had to convince Boone Fowler that they were equals—not former prisoner and captor. Because if Fowler cottoned on to his real identity, he was a dead man.

The stakes were too high for failure. And not just the personal stakes. Since their captivity, Big Sky had discovered that Fowler’s militia wasn’t working alone. It seemed they were tied to a terrorist movement bent on influencing American policy on Lukinburg. And the terrorists were probably in league with the former King Aleksandr Petrov—who wanted to keep his ass on the throne.

So Riley’s ultimate goal was to find out what Boone Fowler was up to, then contact Big Sky so they could scoop up him and his men and collect their bounty.

Nothing much, he thought with a laugh.

But first he had to convince Courtney Rogers to hire him so he could find out what side she was really on.

As he drove through the snow, a shape loomed above and slightly ahead of him. Uncertain of what he was seeing, he slowed.

When he drew closer, the shape resolved itself into a bridge.

The snow poured down from the sky like someone was up there emptying buckets of the stuff. But the bridge presented a man-made roof.

Once he drove into the shelter of the span, he saw something interesting—a set of skid marks on the sheltered blacktop. Obviously a vehicle had come shooting into the underpass, with the driver barely in control.

Then what?

Inching forward, he followed the trail. It emerged from the overhang and into the swirl of snow. The white stuff had almost obliterated the tire tracks on the other side, but he could follow their path as they skidded toward the right.

When he projected the trajectory to its logical conclusion, he saw a green pickup truck that had taken a header into a field.

So, had somebody rescued the driver? Or was he still inside?

Riley slowed, then pulled onto the shoulder and ahead of the vehicle.

When he climbed out, the first thing he saw was that the windshield of the truck was crazed. Maybe a rock had spun up from the road—causing a one-car accident.

Shivering in a sudden blast of cold, he was glad to be wearing a heavy shearling coat, a Western hat, boots and gloves.

The snow was up to his boot tops, making the shoulder surface slippery, and he walked carefully as he started back the way he’d come—his eyes trained on the truck.

He’d been thinking nobody was inside. Now he revised his assumption since he saw no footprints around the driver’s door and the windows were fogged. He couldn’t see much, but he did detect the vague outline of a figure behind the wheel.

He cupped his hands around his mouth as he approached. “You okay?”

Nobody answered, so he reached for the handle and pulled the door open.

Several impressions registered at once. The person inside the cab was small. A small man—no, a woman.

Her features, what he could see of them, were definitely feminine. Large camel-colored eyes. A delicate nose. Nicely shaped lips. A bit of reddish-brown hair poking from below her wool ski cap.

She was wearing a man’s heavy coat and a wool scarf. For further protection against the cold, she had wrapped a blanket around her legs. But the blanket wasn’t the main detail that smacked him in the face.

The woman held an old-fashioned, long-barreled revolver in her right hand, and it was pointed directly at his chest.

The weapon might be old, but it looked to be in excellent shape.

“Get away from me, you bastard,” she ordered in a shaky voice, “or I’ll kill you.”




Chapter Two


Riley raised his hands to shoulder level, gloved palms outward, thinking he was in deep swamp water now. Make that freezing swamp water.

He hadn’t expected an attack when he opened the door. So he hadn’t drawn his own weapon. It was a SIG-Sauer P-226—not the standard issue with Western wear. But he’d figured that enough guys carried them around here that he could get away with it.

“Put away the six-shooter. I came to help you.”

“Sure,” she answered. “That’s why you shot at me.” Her words were slurred, her face was pale, and he knew in that dangerous moment that she was suffering from hypothermia. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and she could shoot him if he blinked—or if he took a step back. On the other hand, if he stood here with snow swirling around him and tried to keep talking to her, she could drift dangerously close to death.

“Let me help you,” he said calmly.

“Get away.” Just the effort to talk seemed to be draining her remaining energy.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” he answered, edging closer. When the pistol wavered, he made his move, diving for her gun hand, pointing the weapon toward the floor even as he wrestled the gun away from her.

She had the strength of desperation, and she wasn’t willing to give up easily. As she fought him, he kept imagining disaster—one or the other of them with a gaping bullet wound turning the snow crimson.

It felt like centuries as he fought her for the gun, trying to keep either one of them from getting hurt. Probably it was only seconds.

She moaned as he twisted the weapon from her grasp. To hide it from sight, he set it on the ground below the truck.

“Oh, sugar.” She said it like a curse, and he found the combination of vehemence and ladylike language oddly endearing.

“It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right,” he murmured as he cupped one gloved hand over her shoulder.

Tears welled in her eyes, yet he saw her struggling for control. In the next moment, he found that letting his guard down was a big mistake.

Still on the offensive, she made her gloved hands into small fists, pounding against his chest and shoulders.

“Hey, cut it out,” he growled. “There’s only so far I’m willing to carry chivalry.”

The situation was still deteriorating, and he couldn’t help wondering which one of them was going to end up getting hurt.

Luckily, the hypothermia had sapped the little wildcat’s strength, and he was able to lean into the cab and wrap his arms around her, drawing her close.

“Honey?” she said.

Before he could answer, she whispered, “You came back to help me.” Whoever her honey was, he had a calming effect on the woman.

She let her head drop to his shoulder, and he cradled her against his body, thinking she felt delicate and feminine under the heavy coat she wore. Holding her was no hardship.

Her hands came up again, and he braced for an attack. But she only opened one of the buttons on his coat and slipped her gloved hand inside. When her fingers flattened against his shirtfront, he felt his heart thunk. Then she turned her face and stroked her lips against his cheek.

Easing away, he looked into her sleepy camel-colored eyes. “We need to warm you up,” he muttered.

“Oh, yeah,” she answered in a voice that had gone from panicked to sultry.

He’d climbed out of his SUV to rescue a stranded driver, and he’d expected to be greeted with relief when he opened the truck door. Instead she’d fought like a wounded tiger. Now she was coming on to him—and she probably didn’t even realize what she was doing.

Keeping his voice even, he said, “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I saw you on the road and figured you needed help.”

He watched her pull herself together and focus on him. Maybe she was really seeing him for the first time. In any event, her expression went from sexy to sharp in the blink of an eye.

“If you’re here to help me, why did you take a pot-shot at me?”

“I didn’t shoot at you,” he said, hoping he was putting the right amount of sincerity into his voice.

“Oh, yeah? If you’re on the level, then go away and leave me alone.”

He struggled to rein in his exasperation. “It’s too cold for that. Just for a minute, try to think logically. If I’d wanted to kill you, I could already have done it.”

Either the reasoning had sunk in, or she was too exhausted to keep up the struggle because he saw her shoulders sag.

He picked up her gun from the ground and shoved it into his belt. Then he reached for the lady.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting you out of the cold.”

She was back in fighting mode, kicking against him, and he ignored the thuds from her Western boots as he carried her back to the SUV, set her in the passenger seat and slammed the door before hurrying around to the driver’s side. To his chagrin, he almost lost his balance.

As he climbed behind the wheel, she was already reaching for the door handle,

He yanked her hand away. “Don’t do anything foolish. Let me get you out of this storm.”

She gave a sigh and leaned back against the seat as though admitting defeat.

But he wasn’t going to trust that. Not hardly. She was too far out of it—and too determined to fight him.

He tucked the blanket more firmly around her and fastened her seat belt, wishing he’d feel her shiver. That would be a good sign.

After starting the car, he turned up the heat and drove slowly down the road, squinting into a swirl of white and wondering how far he’d have to go before he found both of them shelter.

After twenty minutes, he spotted a red-and-blue neon sign just visible through the driving snow.

Leaning forward, he struggled to make out the words. Finally he saw Buckskin Motel. Vacancy.

“Thank God,” he murmured, then looked toward his passenger. She was sitting with her eyes closed, breathing slowly and evenly.

Was it safe to leave her?

He thought about the scene in the lobby if he showed up carrying her over his shoulder like a caveman dragging his mate off to make love. No. Better leave her in the car—unless she was going to make a run for it.

Wondering how fast he could get in and out, he pulled up beside the office door and cut the engine. Next to the office was a small restaurant. All the comforts of home.

“Do us both a favor and stay put, sugar,” he ordered, then quickly exited the SUV and dashed into the lobby.

“I need a room to wait out the storm, and maybe something to eat later,” he told the old man who came through a door in response to the tinkling bell over the door.

“You’re in luck. We’ve got a few rooms left. And Molly just made a big pot of her beef and vegetable soup.”

“I may try some,” Riley allowed. He kept one eye on his SUV while he filled out the form and paid with a credit card. His passenger didn’t move. And he felt reluctant to talk about her to the man behind the counter.

She’d said someone had shot at her, and she had a serious hole in her windshield. What if it wasn’t a stone that had done the damage? And what if the shooter was looking for her—and somebody talking about her led the bad guys to this motel?

He put long odds on that scenario. But in his years with the Special Forces and then with Big Sky, he’d learned caution. So he decided to keep her under wraps, so to speak, until he could have a coherent conversation with her.

Completing the transaction as quickly as possible, he hurried back to the SUV, then drove down the row of motel rooms and around the back where the old guy had directed him.

When he came around to the passenger door, the woman stirred. “What?”

“You can’t stay in the car. I’m no medic, but I know what you need. I’ve got to get you inside where it’s warm and cozy.”

She roused herself enough to slit her eyes and ask, “Are we at the ranch?”

“No, a motel.”

Her eyes blinked fully open, and she focused on him again—obviously seeing a man she didn’t know and didn’t trust. “I’m not going into any motel room with you.”

“If I had wanted to try anything funny, I could have done that in the car.”

Before she could object, he stepped away from the vehicle and unlocked the motel room door. Returning to the SUV, he scooped her up and carried her inside, where he laid her on the bed.

After bringing in a few things, he closed and locked the door, then fired up the heating unit under the window and put her gun in a drawer so she couldn’t grab it and shoot him. When he turned back to the woman on the bed, he saw that she was dozing again.

The thought crossed his mind that a warm bath might be just what she needed. It made sense in medical terms, but he canceled that plan as soon as it surfaced. No way was he going to do anything that intimate.

But he did pull off her boots, gloves, hat and jacket, tossing them in the general direction of the chair in the corner. Leaving the rest of her clothing on, he bundled her under the covers.

“Can you tell me your name?” he asked.

“No.”

Because she couldn’t remember? Or because she didn’t want to?

He hadn’t seen a purse in the truck. Maybe he’d missed it. She might have a wallet on her, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to pat her down.

She spoke again, her voice faint and urgent. “Honey?”

Apparently, she wanted them back on intimate terms again.

“I’m not your man,” he answered, looking at the mass of rich chestnut hair that had been hidden under her hat. The cloud of hair around her face totally changed her appearance, making her look feminine and seductive. But he didn’t have much time to study her, because she was speaking again, and her tone had turned high and urgent. “I need you to hold me. Please.”

She was calling out to another guy. But she sounded on the edge of panic. When she pushed the covers aside and swung her legs out of bed, he figured he’d better act before she exited the room into the cold and snow again.

“Come on, sugar, let’s get back into bed and get you nice and warm.” He kicked his own boots off and shrugged out of his coat.

Leaving his jeans and shirt on, he climbed into bed and gathered her to him, then pulled the blankets up around them and held her close, stroking her hair and shoulders, murmuring low, reassuring words.

Apparently he had calmed her fears because she closed her eyes and snuggled against him, burying her face in his shirt so that all he could see was her shining mass of chestnut hair.

Very appealing hair, with a strawberry scent that must have come from her shampoo.

“It’s been so long,” she murmured.

“Mmm-hmm.”

When she started to shiver, he figured she was warming up. She was going to be okay, and maybe he should let her go.

But he was enjoying holding her. She was soft and relaxed in his arms, and he hadn’t been in bed with a woman since forever; to be exact, not since before the damn prison camp. After getting out of that hellhole, he’d felt too needy, and he hadn’t wanted to inflict his insecurities on some random woman he picked up in a bar.

So he and Miss Sugar might as well share a little counterfeit intimacy. And when she realized he wasn’t her lover, they’d deal with the consequences. All that sounded logical. But he wondered how clearly he was thinking himself as he stroked his lips against that beautiful, sweet-smelling hair.

Who was she? What was she doing out on the road? Had someone really shot at her?

She was talking again, her voice still dreamy. Apparently addressing herself to her man, she said, “You came back, and there’s something I have to tell you.” She swallowed. “But I know you’re not going to like it.”

His muscles tensed as he prepared to hear some other guy’s bad news. “What do you want to tell me?” he managed to say.

She didn’t answer, and he saw to his profound relief that she had drifted into sleep again. Which postponed the inevitable confrontation.

He was exhausted, too. From the long ride through the driving snow. From fighting her. And from all the sleepless nights when he’d contemplated this assignment.

To be brutally honest, he’d hated being the lucky sucker assigned to cozy up to Boone Fowler—after being beaten and tortured in the guy’s prison camp. But he hadn’t tried to duck the job, because somebody had to do it…and he was better equipped than most. He’d always talked a good game, and he looked nothing like Fowler’s former prisoner. And he was pretty sure he knew the right buttons to push to talk his way into the militia leader’s organization.

He hoped.

He raised his head and looked at the woman next to him. She was sleeping normally.

Probably, he shouldn’t leave her alone. But that didn’t mean he had to stay in bed with her, either. He should crawl out from under the covers and try to sleep on the chair in the corner. In a minute, he thought. He’d just relax here for a little while before he heaved himself out of this nice soft bed.

His eyelids drifted closed, then snapped open again. Lying in bed with this woman was wrong, not to mention dangerous. She could wake up and strangle him.

Not likely, he told himself. He wasn’t going to sleep. He was only going to rest for a few minutes. Then he’d get up. It was a reasonable scenario. But he drifted off before he could put the plan into action.

COURTNEY’S EYES BLINKED open. For a moment she had no idea where she was, and panic choked off her breath.

Had Eddie brought her here?

She remembered talking to him just a few minutes ago.

No. That was impossible. Eddie was dead. The man next to her in bed definitely wasn’t him. She knew that for sure.

Memories floated at the edge of her consciousness, and she struggled to grasp them. When she did, they brought back a mixture of embarrassment and panic.

Someone up on the bridge had shot at her. She’d tried to get away, skidded off the road and been stuck in the truck—until this man had come along.

She’d tried to shoot him. But he’d overpowered her and driven her—where?

She looked around cautiously and didn’t see her gun.

She turned her face toward the man on the bed.

He was a handsome devil with sun-streaked brown hair, long lashes, high cheekbones and sensual lips.

Of course, his appearance didn’t mean squat. Underneath those good looks, he could still be a snake. Could she find the gun without waking him? Probably not.

The place looked like a motel room. If this guy was out to help her, why hadn’t they gone to the ranch?

Presumably, because she hadn’t told him who she was.

Vaguely she remembered his asking her name and her refusing to give it. That might be a dream, though. Like the part about Eddie.

But she couldn’t remember all the details. Her most vivid impression was that she’d been chilled to the bone—and out of her mind.

The man next to her moved, and her body went rigid.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, shifting so that he could meet her panicked gaze.

“Who are you?”

“Riley Watson.”

As the full impact of the situation hit her, she moaned. “Oh, Lord.”

“And you are?” he prompted.

“Courtney Rogers.”

His complexion went gray, and he was out of bed and halfway across the room before she could blink. “Sorry, ma’am. Wrong bed.”

They stared at each other across eight feet of charged space.

“You are the Riley Watson who applied for a job at the Golden Saddle Ranch?” she clarified, knowing she must sound like an idiot. How many other guys named Riley Watson would there be in this part of Montana?

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s not going to work out. I can’t hire you.”

He stood up straighter. “Why? Because I stopped you from shooting me?”

She felt her face heat.

“Or because I got into bed with you?”

“That part.”

“You were calling me honey. You were half out of it, and you asked me to hold you.”

“So you took advantage of me.”

“Took advantage?” he sputtered. “You’ve still got all your clothes on, haven’t you?”

She watched him consider how that must have sounded.

“And you needed me to help warm you up,” he added, then looked as if he wished he hadn’t stuck his foot further into his mouth.

She honestly hadn’t remembered the part about asking to be held, but when he said it, an embarrassing image filled her brain. How far had she gone in cozying up to this guy that she didn’t even know?

Well, as he said, she still had her clothing on. That was good. And Mr. Watson looked like he wished he could sink through the floor and into the center of the earth. That was good, too.

“You found me in my truck—after someone shot at me and I ran off the road?” she asked, struggling to change the subject.

“At you specifically? Is there someone using random motorists for target practice around here?”

It was an interesting question. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. Then she looked at her watch and puffed out a breath. “But I do know I’d better call the bunkhouse. My hands have to be worried about me.”

Glad of the chance to turn away from him, she climbed out from under the covers and sat on the side of the bed, then picked up the phone from the bedside table and dialed.

Jake, one of her ranch hands, answered immediately. “We were worried about you. Are you stuck in town?”

She hesitated for a moment, wavering between truthfulness and the need to make sure her ranch hand wasn’t worried. “No. I had some trouble on the road.”

“The storm?”

“Um,” she answered, thinking that she wasn’t going to tell him about the shooting now. Maybe not at all.

“My truck is stuck. But I have a ride. I’ll be home soon,” she said, then hung up before he could ask any more questions. Half turning, she saw that Watson was looking at her, tension stiffening his face.

“That’s one of your men?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t want to tell him that someone took a shot at you?”

“I prefer not to worry him.”

“Don’t you want him on his toes—looking for trouble?”

“I hope there won’t be any.”

He looked as if he was going to argue about that. Before he could make some kind of point, she said, “I need to go back to town. Right away.”

“If someone used you for target practice, you should go to the ranch where you’ll be safer.”

“What do you mean—if?” she demanded.

“You could be mistaken.”

“I’m not. I saw a man up on the bridge with a rifle.” She reached into her coat pocket and pulled something out, then flattened her hand, watching his eyes narrow as he saw a rifle slug lying in her palm.

“You thought I dreamed it up, didn’t you?”

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“From the floor of the truck.”

“Who do you figure might have wanted to hurt you?”

“I have no idea.” She wanted to hear him say he believed her. But that wasn’t the important issue at the moment. “I have to get back to town. It’s urgent.”




Chapter Three


Riley struggled to hold his temper. This woman had fought with him, cuddled with him, argued with him. Now she was telling him she wasn’t going to her ranch where she’d be safe. Or relatively safe, given the inconvenient fact that Montana Militia leader Boone Fowler was out there doing Lord knew what.

Since his assignment was to get a job working for her, he stayed where he was and kept his voice low and even. “Do you mind explaining your thinking to me?”

Her expression turned fierce. Standing up, she turned to face him, hands on her hips. “I have to go back to town and see the doctor.”

His throat tightened. “Were you hurt when the car went off the road?”

“I don’t think so.” She stopped and swallowed hard. “But I have to make sure the baby is all right.”

He literally felt his jaw drop open, then managed to ask, “What baby?”

He saw color come into her cheeks. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m pregnant.” She kept her gaze steady. “I’m almost seven months along.”

“Seven months?” he wheezed. His gaze dropped to her middle, where he detected a small bulge under her man’s shirt.

She took in his question and his doubtful look. “I’m carrying small,” she said.

“Oh,” was the best he could dredge up.

“I have to make sure the baby is okay.”

“Yes, right,” he answered briskly. He wasn’t going to ask her how she’d happened to get pregnant. Instead, he started rushing around the room, collecting outerwear. He had been lying in bed with her, entertaining carnal thoughts, if he were honest about it. And now he found out that she was pregnant.

Damn. He felt like a prize fool. She’d seemed small and fragile in his arms. Well, except for that bulge he hadn’t noticed at her middle. And her breasts. They were large. Probably because they were full of milk. No wait, not milk. She wouldn’t have milk yet, would she?

He kept his lips pressed together so he wouldn’t say anything stupid, and his face turned down because he didn’t want her to see the red stain spreading across his cheeks.

She’d been separated from her husband for a year before he’d died. Had she had an affair with one of her cowhands?

When she disappeared into the bathroom, he breathed out a small sigh, then retrieved her gun from the drawer and put it with her coat.

“Jerk,” he muttered to himself. He’d been letting himself get turned on by a pregnant woman. That just showed how bad off he was.

Before she could emerge, he pulled on his coat, went out and started furiously clearing the snow from the windshield.

It was less than he’d expected. While he’d been holed up with the little mother, the weather had changed. The storm had abated, leaving the sky a dark blue. And much of the snow on the ground had blown away, the way it could in this part of the state.

Ms. Rogers came out while he was doing the side windows.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Almost done,” he mumbled, wondering if he’d blown his chances for getting the job. If he had, what the hell was he going to say to the colonel—that he’d screwed up before he ever got to the ranch? On the other hand, his commander hadn’t exactly given him sterling information.

The background papers hadn’t mentioned that Ms. Rogers was pregnant. What other surprises was he going to encounter?

When he’d cleared off the snow, they climbed into the SUV, and he started back toward town. Since most of the snow was gone, the road was fairly clear.

He split his attention between the driving and his own thoughts. Maybe because he didn’t know what the hell he was going to say to Ms. Rogers when they finally discussed the ranch manager situation.

She damn well needed him. But given her previous behavior, he could believe that she might not admit that. And he couldn’t tell her that this assignment was of vital importance to the national security of the United States. Big Sky wasn’t just on the trail of domestic terrorists. They needed to nail down the connection to King Aleksandr of Lukinburg—then arrest Fowler and his gang.

And he’d better keep reminding himself that no matter how sweet and vulnerable this woman looked, she was sheltering Fowler. And he didn’t have a clue about her motives.

He brought himself up short. Vulnerable? Oh, sure.

She would have drilled him if he hadn’t gotten the gun away from her. He stole a glance at her, seeing the set line of her mouth and the tightness of her jaw.

Probably his expression was similar—to avoid giving anything away while he sorted through logic and emotion.

His job was to cozy up to her and get information about her relationship with Fowler. Her pregnancy had suddenly made the assignment more difficult. His own mother had been a single mom, and he knew how hard that would be for Courtney—especially on a horse ranch that was barely making it.

He slid her another look. She had said nothing since they’d started back toward town. Now he felt tension radiating from her.

He turned his head toward her, then followed her gaze. She was staring at the bridge ahead of them—and her vehicle, which was in the field where they’d left it.

Riley slowed, scanning the overpass. “This is where he shot at you?”

She nodded tightly.

While she was feeling off balance, he probed at her with a question. “If the attack was directed at you, who do you think would do it?” he asked.

Her face contorted. “I…don’t know.”

“Does one of your neighbors have a beef with you?” he probed.

She sighed. “People out here are big on conventional morality. Since I’m pregnant and unmarried, I’m the target of more than a few snide remarks.”

“Hmm.” He wasn’t going to ask her for any clarification. What she did in bed was her own damn business.

He cleared his throat and switched the topic back to attempted murder. “You think the righteous citizens of Spur City would shoot at a pregnant woman?”

“Well, the bullet didn’t hit me in the head. Maybe it was just meant to be a warning.”

He winced, thinking that if it was a warning shot, the rifleman had been playing fast and loose with her life.

“And the point of a warning would be?”

“Maybe they’re trying to get me to move away.”

“You mean, as in leave your ranch?”

“I’m not planning to do that!”

She looked beautifully defiant, and he had to remind himself he couldn’t trust her. Not until he found out why she’d let Boone Fowler and his gang of thugs onto her ranch.

They had hit the outskirts of the straggly little town that had the audacity to call itself a city. “Drive to the first cross street, then turn right. The clinic is the low building at the end of the block.

Riley knew he was well within the speed limit. When he saw a police car on his tail, he assumed the guy was going somewhere else. But as Riley pulled into the parking lot next to the women’s clinic, the cop followed.

He shot Ms. Rogers a quick glance. “You break any laws recently?”

She gave him a startled look. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s a cop car pulling in beside us.”

She groaned. “Just what I need. Good ol’ boy, Sheriff Bobby Pennington.”

Riley cut the engine, and she waited a beat before climbing out of the SUV.

Riley hung back, not wanting to step into the middle of anything until he understood the lay of the land.

A big man with a ruddy complexion, mirrored sunglasses and a gray trooper’s uniform strode toward her with a purposeful expression on his face. He looked like he owned the street. As he approached, he tipped back his wide-brimmed hat.

She stood with her arms at her sides, and Riley thought she was probably struggling not to fold them protectively across her middle.

“Something I can do for you?” she asked.

“Your truck was found out on the road. Just on the other side of the overpass.”

“Yes,” she answered, the one syllable coming out clipped, making it clear that she didn’t want to continue the discussion.

“What’s it doing there?”

“I ran off the road in the snowstorm.”

“From what I hear, there’s a hole in the front windshield that could have been made by a bullet.”

Her face contorted. “News gets around fast.”

“Yes it does,” he allowed.

“As it happens, the rumors are true. Somebody shot at me.”

Riley waited for her to turn over the slug she’d shown him. But she kept it in her pocket.

“You need to come to the office and report the incident.”

She hesitated for a moment. “I will. After I stop in at the doctor’s office.”

“For what? Were you hit?”

She raised her chin. “No, but I want to make sure the baby wasn’t hurt in any way, if that’s all right with you.”

The redness of his complexion deepened. “Yes. Of course. But I want you to file a report before you leave town.”

“I will,” she promised, and strode into the clinic. Riley hurried to catch up, wondering what had caused the bristly relationship between Ms. Rogers and the sheriff. Was he hostile to the militia—and hostile to her having them out at the ranch? Was it about her relationship with the town? Or was it something personal?

He tucked the questions into his growing mental file for later investigation.

When he stepped into a room decorated with cute little pictures of babies dressed up like flowers, he wanted to step right back out. But he forced himself to stand there and breathe normally. Ms. Rogers was already at the reception desk, talking to a woman in a white uniform. The rancher glanced back at him. “You might as well sit down.”

He nodded, then surveyed the audience looking him up and down as if he was a prize bull at a cattle auction. There were eight women giving him the once-over, ranging in age from teenagers to grandmas. They all sat on molded chairs. The younger ones were all visibly pregnant.

He felt his stomach muscles clench. Trying to keep his expression neutral, he sat down, holding his Western hat in his lap as he focused on a poster beside the desk advertising the opening of a shelter for battered women.

Ms. Rogers broke into his train of thought. “They’re going to fit me in, so it shouldn’t take too long.”

He suppressed the impulse to say thank God.

She hesitated for a moment, then sat in the only empty chair in the room—the one beside him. The seating was tight, and her shoulder brushed his. He knew everyone in the room was watching them, judging the level of intimacy between them.

Two of the women leaned their heads together and began whispering, and he was sure they were discussing him and Ms. Rogers.

To their right, he heard loud voices talking about the new battered-women’s shelter. The speakers sounded enthusiastic.

Courtney turned toward them, looking as though she wanted to join in, but she kept her mouth shut.

Luckily she was right about the speedy service. After only ten minutes, a nurse came out and called her name, and she disappeared into the back.

Her departure apparently freed the occupants of the room from restraint.

A gray-haired lady leaned toward him and asked, “So what’s your relationship to Mrs. Rogers?”

He blinked, thinking that nine sets of ears—the patients and the receptionist—were tuned in for his answer. And he had five seconds to account for his presence here. “I’m her new ranch manager,” he said, hoping that the fib wouldn’t matter. If Courtney decided to take him on, then it would be true. If she sent him packing, he’d be the talk of the town. But he wouldn’t be around to hear it.

“You know she’s not married,” the woman said.

“Mmm.”

“She was already divorced, but her former husband called her up. They were trying to see if they could get back together. I guess they did that all right. At least for one night.”

A teenager in the room giggled.

“He got himself killed in some foreign country after that, leaving her with the ranch and the baby.”

“How do you know so much about it?” he asked carefully.

“Everybody knows it. He asked her to meet him for some R&R, and she went rushing off to have a good time with him.”

“He was with the CIA or something like that, and he couldn’t adjust to the ranch,” another woman chipped in. “You look like you’re more suited to life out here.”

Were they suggesting that he marry Ms. Rogers—to make an honest woman of her?

“She’s a handful,” someone else murmured, and he wasn’t sure exactly who had made the comment. He’d already discovered the truth of that statement.

He slouched down in his seat, hoping that his body language discouraged further conversation.

Courtney returned a few moments later looking vastly relieved.

He saw the peanut gallery eyeing her, then him, then both of them. He stood. “How’s the baby?”

“The doctor say’s she’s fine.”

“It’s a girl?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Your new ranch manager is a good man,” someone said. “You should rely on him.”

When Mrs. Rogers’s gaze shot to him, Riley wished he could sink through the floor.

She looked as though she wanted to set the speaker straight. Before she could bad-mouth him, he took her arm and steered her through the door.

As soon as they were on the street, she turned fierce eyes to him. “What did Sandra mean—my new ranch manager?”

He struggled to keep his voice even and reasonable. “As soon as you left, one of those busybodies asked me what I was to you. What did you want me to say—that I was your lover? Or maybe I picked you up along the road, and we got friendly real fast.”

She had opened her mouth to make another comment. But she shut it again. He watched her struggling to get control of her temper before saying, “You don’t have the job yet.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“We need to finish our job interview,” she murmured, stepping into a small courtyard where the walls of two buildings cut the wind.

He followed her into the small enclosure. “Okay.”

She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “You said you grew up on a ranch and that you’ve worked on several spreads in Texas and Wyoming.”

“Yes.”

“And you did a stint in the Special Forces.”

“Yes.”

“My husband was in the service, and he hated ranch life,” she said with a challenge in her voice.

“Well, I’m not him. I came home to ranch work after the service,” he said, the lie sticking in his throat.

But it seemed to satisfy her…for the time being. He could also tell she hadn’t quite made up her mind.

She sighed. “I’d better go to the sheriff’s office.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Why?”

“Is that a trick question? I think he’s the kind of guy who will behave better if there’s a witness along—particularly a witness of the male variety.”

“You have him pegged there.”

“You’ve known him a long time?”

“No. He’s new in town.”

That was interesting, Riley thought. “What brought him here?”

“Maybe he likes being a big fish in a little pond.”

“He likes to throw his weight around?”

“Unfortunately, yes. And since he got here, the town has become a lot more…lawless.”

“Like how?”

“Like an increase in cattle rustling.”

“And shooting incidents out on the highway?”

“Yes,” she muttered.

They walked across the street to the office. Courtney breathed out a little sigh when the clerk told her that Pennington was on his dinner break. Instead of enduring an interview, she was able to fill out a form reporting the gunshot incident, and they were out of the office in under twenty minutes.

“You’re not going to leave the slug with him?” Riley asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s evidence, and I don’t want it to disappear.”

Riley considered that as they climbed back into the SUV.

COURTNEY WANTED to get out of town as quickly as possible—and back to the ranch. But she couldn’t leave yet.

“Mike’s Gas Station is at the edge of town. We need to stop there and arrange to have my truck towed.”

“Yeah, I saw it.”

On the way to Mike’s, she called Jake Bradley again and told him she’d stopped at the doctor’s to make sure the baby was okay. Jake had been at the ranch since her grade-school years. She knew he’d be concerned.

As she arranged to have the truck towed and fixed, she watched Mike eyeing her and Riley Watson with interest. But she wasn’t going to offer explanations.

Finally they started home. And it was a relief to be away from people who wanted to ask questions about her relationship with this good-looking stranger. She could just imagine some of the speculation. Had she hired him because he was young and handsome? Did she hope he’d marry her and take over the ranch? Was she looking for a guy to warm her bed at night?

She cringed inwardly. He might be attractive and sexy and strong and reliable, but that didn’t mean she was going to climb into bed with him—again.

That “again” made her cheeks hot, even though bedding down with him had been perfectly innocent. She hoped.

She also hoped that Harold Avery, the old geezer who owned the motel hadn’t seen her. If he had, the news would be all over town. She wanted to ask what Watson had said when he’d checked in, but she kept her lips pressed together.

Damn. The knowledge that she and this man were already the subject of speculation made her want to tell him she’d changed her mind about the job. Yet she silently admitted that she’d be acting against her best interests. And she knew darn well that she wasn’t being fair to him.

It was after dark when they approached the bridge again, and she couldn’t help the little frisson of fear that slithered down her spine.

When he slowed, her gaze shot to him. “What are you doing?”

“Going up there to have a look.”

“No.” Courtney heard herself say, the one syllable coming out high and strained.

“Now that we’re not in a hurry to get to the doctor’s, I want to find out what happened.”

“The guy’s long gone. And you’ll just be poking around in the dark.”

“Maybe he left a shell casing to go along with that bullet. Maybe he dropped a cigarette butt. Or leftovers from his lunch.” Without asking permission, Watson pulled to the side of the road.

She knitted her gloved hands together, holding tight, fighting her fears. She felt exposed out here on the highway, but she knew Watson was right. If there was still some evidence up on the bridge, they ought to find out what it was before it conveniently disappeared. Not that she was accusing the sheriff of anything dishonest. But there had been too many cases around here lately where the bad guys got away.

Watson opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. Then he stepped out into the cold and closed the door quickly to keep the heat inside.

She forced herself to sit quietly while the man who might or might not be her new ranch hand scaled the bridge abutment.

The clouds had blown away, and the moon had come out. In its pale light, she saw him move with agility and grace. Under other circumstances, she might have enjoyed watching him climb.

He made it to the road, then strode onto the bridge, where he switched on the light and shone it down toward the blacktop.

When he disappeared from view below the concrete railing, she felt her breath catch. But she could still see the light moving around up there.

The man was out of sight for several minutes during which she sat in the SUV gripping the edge of the seat.

She had just decided to go look for him when he popped back into view.

From his position above the highway, he waved to her, then began to climb down

“What did you find?” she demanded when he’d slipped behind the wheel and started the engine.

“He was a careful bastard. There might have been footprints in the snow, but he scuffed them away so I can’t tell the size of his boot.”

“Any shell casings?”

“No. He took them with him. And if he drank any coffee or smoked any cigarettes, he took the leavings away, too. Like I said, he was careful—or well trained. He could be a guy with a military background,” he said, dropping the observation into the conversation, then watching her closely.

She wasn’t sure what response he expected, but she only shrugged.

Watson drove to the other side of the bridge, then stopped beside her truck.

“We should unload your supplies, before some of them disappear,” he said.

She wanted to tell him that people around here didn’t steal from each other, but she wasn’t sure if that was true anymore.

“Yes. Let me help you.”

He cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t be lifting stuff, should you?”

“Nothing heavy. But there are things I can manage.”

“Okay.” He pulled off the road in back of the truck and cut the engine, but he didn’t immediately open the door.

She sensed his tension, and she wondered suddenly if he had some additional information about the man who had been up on the bridge. In response, she felt her chest tighten.

When he spoke, his voice had turned gruff, and it took several seconds for his question to filter into her consciousness, because it was the last thing she had been expecting.

“So…have you made up your mind about hiring me?” he asked.




Chapter Four


Riley waited for Courtney’s answer with his breath frozen in his lungs. In the hours since he’d met her, this assignment had become more than a job. Maybe because the flesh-and-blood woman was so much more complicated—so much more appealing—than the woman he’d read about in a briefing folder. She didn’t even look much like her pictures, which was why he hadn’t recognized her.

He wanted to ask her about Boone Fowler—about why she’d let a lowlife jerk like him onto her property. But he knew that was precisely the wrong approach. And it was against orders, too. Because as far as she was concerned, he didn’t know a damn thing about the militia leader. So all he could do was sit there waiting for her to decide his immediate future.

He had the feeling she was still weighing the pros and cons of her decision.

Instead of answering, she asked a question—something more specific than she’d put to him in town. “What’s the best material for a corral fence?”

So she was giving him a test. He was glad he had the background to say, “It depends on what you’re after. Looks, utility or price. Split rail is the cheapest. Those who go in for show favor white painted boards. Outside the main paddock, I like wire, with one line of electricity. To keep the stock from leaning on the fence.”

She nodded, then asked, “How do you tie a foal when you’re first training him?”

“The first few times, you want to make sure he’s not tied hard and fast. He might pull and injure his neck. I’d introduce a truck or car inner tube between him and the fence. That will act like a fat rubber band and offer some give.”

“What’s a chestnut?”

“I take it you don’t mean something roasting on an open fire? We’re talking about a horny, insensitive growth on a horse’s legs.”

“How would you treat it?”

“Trim it short and neat.”

“I guess you know horses.”

“Yeah.”

She heaved in a breath and let it out. “You have the job.”

“Thank you,” he said simply as they stood together on the frozen ground.

“You’ll sleep in the bunkhouse with the other hands,” she added, as though she felt it necessary to make it very clear that their afternoon in bed had been an aberration.

“I understand,” he answered, as he undid the hooks that held the tarp covering the supplies in the back of the pickup.

“It’s comfortable, but it’s nothing fancy.”

“I sure don’t need fancy. Just a bed and a chest of drawers will do,” he answered.

“And I assume the salary we discussed is satisfactory.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned his attention to the supplies. “Does it look like everything’s there?”

She carefully inspected her purchases. “Yes.”

“Good.” He opened the back of the SUV and began loading sacks of feed.

By the time they had finished, the back of his SUV was crammed to the roof, and the temperature had dropped sharply.

“Tell me about the Golden Saddle,” he said as he turned on the headlights and started down the highway again.

“Well, you already know we have twenty mares and five stallions. Most are quarter horses. But we have some Thoroughbred bloodlines, too. That might be our problem. Our prices are high, and the demand for horses like ours is falling.” She cleared her throat. “We could sell more to working cattle ranches. But that would mean we’d have to train them with cattle. And I don’t have the staff to raise both horses and cattle at the moment.”

“You didn’t mention any ‘problem’ when you advertised for a manager,” he said carefully, although he already knew that she was barely turning a profit.

“Well, that’s not the kind of thing I’d advertise, would I?” she snapped.

“Do you have any other source of income—besides the sale of horses?” he asked.

“I rent some unused buildings,” she answered.

“To whom?”

She hesitated a moment before answering, “A, um, group of…survivalists.”

“Oh, yeah?” She must be referring to Boone Fowler’s militia. So were they styling themselves as survivalists? Or was that her term for them—because she thought it was more politically correct?

She was staring hard at him. “You object to my renting to them?” she asked sharply.

He knew he’d better be careful about stepping over the line with his answer. She owned the ranch. He was her hired help.

Even so, he had to fight the impulse to tell her about his experiences in Boone Fowler’s prison camp. Instead he kept his voice even as he said, “It’s not my place to object. Not if they mind their own business.”

He wanted to ask how they happened to pick the Golden Saddle Ranch. And where—exactly—they were located on her property. But he didn’t want to seem too interested, so he held back the questions.

“The entrance to the ranch is right up ahead,” she said.

He slowed down, then turned in at a horseshoe-shaped archway.

They bumped up a gravel road that was pocked with potholes.

Floodlights illuminated the ranch yard, and he saw a low stone-and-timber house with a wide front porch, which he knew had been built early in the previous century. The structure looked solid, but in the floodlights he could see that the trim around the window frames needed painting. Probably she’d do that when she got some spare cash.

The bunkhouse and barn were nearby. And another building that he assumed was used for storage.

He pulled up in front of the house. “We should unload what you need to take inside.”

“And you can put the SUV in the storage building for the night—then unload the rest in the morning.”

“Fine.”

Apparently, some of Ms. Rogers’s hands had been listening for her to arrive, because two of them came striding toward the SUV.

One was a short, grizzled guy with the bowlegged gait of a man who has spent much of his life in the saddle. He appeared to be in his fifties. The other was taller than his companion and younger than Riley. Both men wore jeans, heavy winter coats and Western hats.

Riley and Ms. Rogers climbed out of the vehicle. The two men eyed him with undisguised interest. But it was different from the appraisal of the people in town. These guys seemed to be protective of Ms. Rogers—although that could be an act, of course.

“Jake Bradley, Kelly Manning, this is Riley Watson,” she said. “I told you I was considering him for ranch manager, and he’s going to take the job.”

“Good to meet you.” He shook hands with both of them. They helped Courtney unload her groceries. Then he drove to the storage shed and left his vehicle inside. Finally he strode to the bunkhouse.

Up close, he could see it was a little newer than the main house, but also rustic. And it was set up like a private residence, with a living room, dining room, kitchen and several bedrooms in the back. All the furniture looked comfortable but well-worn.

The man named Kelly showed him to a bedroom. “There are three bathrooms,” he said, opening several doors along the hall.

“How many hands do you have?”

“Just three at the moment. Me and Jake and Billy. They’ll be along later.”

So the ranch was understaffed. He’d have to inspect the property in the morning. There was no point in stumbling around in the dark.

Setting down his duffel bag, he longed to close the bedroom door and lie down.

Instead he squared his shoulders and followed Kelly back to the kitchen.

Jake had just taken the lid off a big pot of chili…and Riley’s stomach growled.

“That smells good.”

Jake made a grunting sound.

“So you like working for Ms. Rogers?” he asked.

“Yup,” Jake answered. Apparently he was a man of few words.

Riley scuffed his foot against a worn floorboard. “She seemed kind of hyper.”

Jake’s head snapped toward him. “She’s got a shrinking income. She’s got herself a kid to raise on her own—with the whole town acting like she did something wrong. And—”

He stopped short.

Riley wanted to ask, “And what?” But he kept his mouth shut. He should have gotten the lay of the land before coming out with any kind of strong observation. Holding up his hands, he said, “Whoa. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“You blame her for being hyper?” Jake pressed.

“I admire her—for truckin’ on. But it was a shock to find out she was pregnant.”

“Her husband was in the Special Forces. And he bought the farm on assignment in Lukinburg.”

Riley mumbled something appropriate, then changed the subject to the ranch acreage. They discussed the spread for a few minutes, then Jake said, “You want some dinner?”

“I’d appreciate it. Your chili sure does smell good.”

Kelly and Jake both joined him at the table. Billy Cramer came in during the meal, and Jake made the introductions.

Riley knew the other men were sizing him up, just like he was doing with them. Could one of them have been the man who had shot at Courtney from the bridge?

He didn’t know, but he was going to find out.

RILEY WOKE WHEN HE HEARD the hands moving around the bunkhouse. When he arrived in the kitchen twenty minutes later, the rest of them were already at the table, eating eggs, bacon and toast.

The ranch might be in financial trouble, but Courtney Rogers was feeding her men well.

A television in the corner was tuned to the weather channel. It seemed they were in for another cold, blustery day. Par for the course in Montana in winter. But at least snow wasn’t in the forecast. Of course, he’d checked the weather yesterday. And there had been no mention of snow then, either.

After eating some of the food and complimenting the chef, he turned to Kelly and said, “So, could you show me around the spread?”

The young man looked startled. “Me? Jake’s been here a lot longer.”

Jake shifted in his chair. “Go ahead. I’ll clean up here.”

Kelly nodded.

Riley dressed warmly, grabbed some carrots from the refrigerator, then followed Kelly to the barn, the most modern structure he’d seen so far on the ranch.

Unless one of the men had gotten up early and scurried over here to make sure the work area looked good for the new ranch manager, everything seemed to be up to snuff. The stalls were clean. The well-groomed horses had plenty of food and water. And the equipment in the tack room was in good condition and neatly stored.

He stopped to greet the horses in the stalls, calling them by the names on the small plates at each door and offering carrots, which were readily accepted.

They paused by a stall with a filly named Irma. A protective boot was wrapped around her left foreleg.

“What happened to her?” Riley asked.

“She overreached and bruised herself—the way they do sometimes.”

Kicked her front leg with her back, Riley mentally translated. “Yeah, that can be a problem. How are you treating the injury?”

“We started with cold hosing three times a day. Now we’re on to warm, dry bandages.”

He fed Irma a carrot, which she gobbled up, telling him her appetite was good. On a more prosperous ranch the owner might have called out the vet. But he knew it wasn’t unusual for owners to treat minor problems, which certainly saved money.

Another filly named Buttercup was obviously very pregnant.

“When is she due?” Riley asked.

“In a few weeks.”

They discussed some of the other horses, then Riley continued on his fact-finding mission. “Who’s been running things?”

“Jake.”

“He’s doing a good job.” He hesitated for a moment. “So, would he resent someone taking over?”

Kelly scuffed his foot against the hard-packed dirt. “I guess you’ll have to ask him.”

Yeah, sure.

“Has there been any vandalism at the ranch?”

Kelly looked uncomfortable.

“What?” Riley pressed.

“We got some renters. They’re using the back forty for a garbage dump.”

“What renters?”

“Ask the boss lady.”

“Okay,” Riley answered, then cleared his throat. “I noticed she took some flack in town. Do the men on the ranch—” he stopped and fumbled for what to say “—support her.”

“Everybody here now is on her side.”

“Now?” Riley probed.

“There was a guy here—Greg Nichols. He made some…nasty comments.”

“To her face?”

“Not likely. But they got back to her, and she asked him to leave.”

“Would Nichols make trouble for her?” Riley was thinking of the man who had shot at her from the bridge. If he knew her routine, he could have lain in wait for her. Or someone out here could have called him.

“Maybe.”

“What does he look like?”

“Blond hair. Blue eyes. A big scar on his right cheek.”

So he’d be easy to spot, Riley mused.

They finished the tour back at the barn. Riley could go to the house and start perusing the books. But he didn’t want to barge in on Ms. Rogers. Their first meeting had been pretty crazy. Maybe he should give her some space. And himself, too. Taking the coward’s route, he decided to have a look around some of the ranch acreage. He found himself wondering if he’d find any signs of the guy named Greg Nichols. What if he were hiding out on the ranch? Was he watching Courtney’s activities?

With a silent curse he reminded himself he wasn’t supposed to be looking for Nichols. He was supposed to locate Boone Fowler’s militia group so he could report back to Big Sky.

Of course, Nichols could be with Fowler. So maybe if he found the militia group, he’d kill two birds with one stone.

AFTER SADDLING UP a stallion named Monty, he rode east across a shallow river into rugged country with rolling hills covered by dry grass. Rugged snowcapped mountains rose in the background like sentinels.

But he could easily skirt the patches of snow that still lay in the valley shadows.

Of course, the ranch encompassed almost ten thousand acres, so there was a lot of territory to cover. But Big Sky had done aerial surveillance and pinpointed some areas to investigate.

He brought Monty to a halt and turned in the saddle, taking in the wide-open spaces that stretched around him. Out here, he and the horse might have been the only two living creatures in the world.

After two hours on the range, he found nothing out of the ordinary. So he headed back, then spent the rest of the day asking more questions, unobtrusively watching the men do their jobs and giving the horses a more thorough inspection. And all the time he was aware of Ms. Rogers’s absence.

That evening he joined the rest of the hands at dinner, working hard to convey the impression that he was a regular guy who just wanted to fit in to the established patterns of the Golden Saddle Ranch.

But when he went to sleep, he had no control over his unconscious mind. He dreamed about Courtney. Dreamed about holding her in his arms in a bed the way he had in that motel room. Only, in his sleep, the encounter hadn’t been quite so innocent. He’d started taking her clothes off, like a man uncovering buried treasure. And her hands had moved just as eagerly over him.

He woke up angry with himself. In practical terms he was thinking that probably he should have gone out and gotten laid before he took this job. Then he wouldn’t be so focused on Courtney Rogers. She fascinated him. Exasperated him. Attracted him. She’d been ready to defend herself when she thought he was the guy who’d taken a shot at her. But she was hiding out from her own ranch manager.

COURTNEY STEPPED BACK from the window. She’d been watching for Riley Watson, and he’d just stridden across the ranch yard and into the barn.

He had an unsettling effect on her, like no one she’d ever met. He was so damn self-contained, yet below the surface she could sense his mind working.

Too bad he was the sexiest man she’d met in a long time. That was another major problem. He had made her feel hot and needy, just from the way he looked at her.

And she knew that he found her attractive. That was part of the lure of the man for her—the exhilaration of knowing that he was responding to her, even in her condition.

Her lips firmed. She should be focused on the baby, not some cowboy who had just stepped into her life. Or was she so eager for attention, that she glommed on to the first guy who came along?

She stalked down the hall, then stopped short at the room that she was fixing up as a nursery. For Emily. Or maybe Hannah. She wasn’t sure of the name yet, and she hated not being able to discuss her choices with anyone.

She stroked her hand over her abdomen. “What do you think, Emily? Do you like that name? Or is Hannah better?”

She’d let her imagination blossom as she’d decorated the room. The walls were a light green, with a colorful garden of flowers and a picket fence running around the bottom three feet of the walls. And in a fit of whimsy, she’d painted the ceiling blue and added fluffy white clouds.

She fingered a pink and white blanket she’d bought on sale from an online company. Too bad nobody in Spur City had thought to give her a baby shower. With money so tight, she could have used the gifts. And she would have loved someone making a fuss over her.

That last thought made her grimace. It sounded as if she was feeling sorry for herself. And that wasn’t true. She was going to make the best life she could for herself and her daughter.

And she wasn’t going to let Riley Watson think she was a coward. Because she wasn’t. She simply hadn’t been prepared to meet anyone like him—not now.

Marching out of the baby’s room, she hurried to the front hall and pulled on her coat. It was about time she stopped hiding in her own house. But just as she stepped out the door, she saw the man ride past who had been in her thoughts—and he didn’t look as if he was just taking Monty around the ranch yard.

RILEY RODE NORTH into an area where the landscape was flatter. A couple of miles from the ranch yard, he caught sight of something interesting through the trees and ordered Monty to a halt. Just visible through a screen of branches, he could see an old cabin.

He’d better check the place out.

The militia could be using it—or that Gary Nichols guy could be squatting here.

He dismounted and tied the horse to a low pine branch. Then crept slowly forward, moving from tree to tree in case somebody took a notion to shoot at him.

The cabin sat in a large clearing. He observed it from cover for several minutes, then stepped into the open. Now that he was exposed to view, he moved more rapidly.

Maybe he should have been paying better attention to where he put his feet.

The ground was scattered with brush. When he crossed a patch with a heavy accumulation of branches and leaves, the surface gave way under his feet with a ripping sound. Before he could catch himself, he was tumbling into blackness…and cursing his own stupidity.




Chapter Five


Riley dropped through space, struggling to stay on his feet. Knees bent, he landed with a thud. As far as he could tell, he was at the bottom of a pit someone had deliberately dug.

Daylight poured in from the hole where he’d broken through. And as he tried to move his feet, he found they were stuck between some wickedly pointed stakes poking out of the ground.

They were lethal enough to pierce flesh, and he was damn lucky that he hadn’t landed on his ass.

He took a quick physical inventory, moving his arms and legs, then twisting his torso. It appeared that he hadn’t seriously injured himself in the fall, which was also damn lucky.

He looked up, inspecting the ragged hole in the brush through which he’d fallen. So—was this an animal trap… Or was this a man trap?

He brought his attention back to the broken roof above him. It looked like slender sticks had been placed across the pit. They provided just enough support to hold the brush in place. And he’d stepped through the surface—like a damn fool out for a stroll in the park.

Well, that mistake was in the past. Now he’d better figure out how to get out before whoever had set the trap came back to see if he’d caught anything.

The walls of the hole were too far apart for him to brace his back and feet and climb up that way. He decided to try to pull out the stakes, work them into the side and make a ladder. He had almost freed one, when a noise from above made him tense.

Footsteps.

Someone was up there, crunching across the open space. Coming to scoop him up.

Well, he wasn’t going to stand here waiting for the trapper to get the drop on him. Pulling his gun from the holster at his waist, he held it pointed upward in a two-handed grip, ready to shoot anybody who attacked him.

When a shadow fell across the opening, his finger tensed on the trigger.





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