B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection (35 page)

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Chapter One

The scream woke Deputy Mason Ryland.

His eyes flew open, and Mason stumbled from the sofa in his
office where he’d fallen asleep. He reached for his shirt but couldn’t find it.
He had better luck with the Smith & Wesson handgun that he’d left on his
desk.

He threw open his office door and caught the scent of something
he darn sure didn’t want to smell on the grounds of his family’s ranch.

Smoke
.

The wispy gray streaks coiled around him, quickly followed by a
second scream and a loud cry for help.

Mason went in the direction of both the smoke and the voice,
racing out into the chilly October night air. He wasn’t the only one who’d been
alerted. A handful of his ranch hands were running toward the cabin-style
guesthouse about a hundred yards away. It was on fire, the orangey flames
licking their way up the sides and roof. And the place wasn’t empty.

His newly hired horse trainer, Abbie Baker, was staying
there.

That got Mason running even harder. So did another shout for
help. Oh, yeah, that shout was coming from the guesthouse all right.

“Call the fire department,” he yelled to one of the ranch
hands.

Mason also shouted out for someone to call his brothers as well
even though they would soon know anyway. All five of them, their wives and their
children lived in the family home or on the grounds of the ranch.

Mason made it to the guesthouse ahead of the others, and he
tried to pick through the smoke and the embers flicking through the night air.
He hurried to the sound of his trainer’s pleas for help.

And he cursed when he saw her.

Abbie was in the doorway, her body half in and half out of the
house, and what was left of the door was on her back, anchoring her in
place.

The smoke was thick and black, and the area was already hot
from the flames, but Mason fought his way through just as one of the ranch hands
caught up with him. Rusty Burke. Together, they latched on to the door and
started to drag it off Abbie. Not easily. It was heavy and bulky, and it didn’t
help that the flames were snapping at them.

Mason didn’t usually think in terms of worst-case scenarios,
but he had a split-second thought that his new trainer might burn to death. The
possibility gave him a much-needed jolt of adrenaline, and Rusty and he threw
the door off her. In the same motion, Mason latched on to her arm and dragged
her away from the guesthouse.

“I couldn’t get out,” she said, her voice clogged with smoke
and fear.

“You’re out now,” he let her know.

Out but not necessarily safe. The ranch hands were already
there with the hoses, but he doubted the house would stand much longer. If it
collapsed, Abbie could still be burned or hurt from the flying debris.

“Are the horses okay?” she asked. Mason was more than a little
surprised that she’d think of the animals at a time like this.

“They’re fine.” At least he was pretty sure of that. “This is
the only building on fire.”

Mason scooped her up, and she looked at him. It was pitch-dark,
probably two or three in the morning, but thanks to the flames and the hunter’s
moon, he saw her eyes widen. A single word left her mouth.

“No.”

Mason didn’t have time to question that
no
before she started struggling. She wasn’t a large woman,
five-five at the most and on the lean side, but she managed to pack a punch when
she rammed her elbow against his bare chest. He cursed and put her in a death
grip so she couldn’t fight her way out of his arms.

“I’m trying to save you,” he reminded her, and he added more
profanity when she didn’t stop fighting.

Abbie was probably still caught up in the fear and the
adrenaline, but Mason was finding it a little hard to be sympathetic with the
cold rocky ground biting into his bare feet and with her arms and legs waggling
around.

“We have to get away from the fire,” he snarled.

Those wide frightened eyes looked at the flames, and she
stopped struggling just long enough for Mason to get a better grip on her.

He started running toward the ranch office where lately he’d
been spending most of his days and nights because of the heavy workload. He
could deposit Abbie there and hurry back to see if the guesthouse could be
saved. He wasn’t hopeful, especially because the ranch wasn’t exactly in city
limits. It would take the fire department a good twenty minutes to reach
them.

The door to his office and quarters was still open, and he
hurried inside, flipped on the lights with his elbow and placed her on the sofa.
Mason looked down at her, to make sure she wasn’t injured.

She didn’t appear to be.

Visibly shaken, yes. Trembling, too. Pale and breathing way too
fast. All normal responses under the circumstances.

Her eyes met his again, and Mason saw the fear that was still
there. And maybe something else that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Did you try to kill me?” she asked.

That single question seemed to be all she could muster because
she groaned, closed her eyes, and the back of her head dropped against the
sofa.

Mason huffed. That definitely wasn’t something he expected to
hear her say. He’d been a deputy for fifteen years, and his employee no doubt
knew it. Even though most people were leery of him because…well, because he
wasn’t a friendly sort, they didn’t usually accuse him of arson or attempted
murder.

“Why would I set this fire?” he demanded.

Abbie opened her mouth, closed it and shook her head. She also
dodged his gaze. “I’m not sure what I’m saying right now. I thought I was going
to die.”

Mason guessed that was a normal response, but he was beginning
to get a bad feeling about this. “How did the fire start?”

Abbie shook her head again. “I’m not sure. I woke up, and there
was smoke all around me. I tried to get to the door, but I started coughing and
couldn’t see.” She paused, shivered. “When I got to the door and opened it, it
fell on me.” Another pause. “Or something.”

“Or something?”
he pushed.

Oh, man. The bad feeling was getting worse, and Mason blamed it
on that stupid question. Was there a nonstupid reason that she thought someone
had tried to kill her, or was this the ramblings of a woman whose mind had been
clouded with fear and adrenaline?

“Or something,”
she repeated.

Abbie pushed her light brown hair from her face. Long hair, he
noticed. Something he hadn’t realized because she always wore it tucked beneath
a baseball cap. In fact, he’d thought of her as tomboyish, but there wasn’t
anything boyish or tom about the person lying on his sofa. In that paper-thin
pale blue gown, she looked like a woman.

An attractive one.

Something Mason wished like the devil he hadn’t noticed. She
worked for him, and he didn’t tread down that path. Business and sex never sat
well with him.

“Did you leave the stove on?” he pressed.

But all he got was another head shake—something else that
didn’t please him. He wanted some answers here, and he wanted something to tamp
down that bad feeling in his gut. However, the knock on his already-open door
had him shifting in that direction.

It was his ranch hand Rusty. The lanky young man was out of
breath and looked on the verge of blurting something out before his attention
landed on Abbie. He motioned for Mason to meet him outside.

Mason looked at Abbie. “I’ll be right back.” Yeah, it sounded
like a warning and it was. By God, he was going to get those answers and settle
this uneasy feeling. He would find out why she’d thought he had tried to kill
her.

He stepped outside with Rusty, and when he got a better look at
Rusty’s face, he pulled the door shut. “More bad news?” But it wasn’t exactly a
question. Mason could already tell there was.

Rusty nodded. “The guesthouse collapsed. Nothing left to
save.”

Well, heck. That didn’t please Mason, but it could have been
much worse. His trainer could have gotten killed.

Abbie
could have gotten killed, he
mentally corrected.

And he cursed himself for thinking of her that way. Mason
blamed it on that blasted thin gown and those frightened vulnerable brown
eyes.

“There’s more,” Rusty went on, grabbing Mason’s attention.

Mason took a deep breath, ready to hear the news he probably
didn’t want to hear, but before Rusty could spill it, he saw his brother Grayson
hurrying toward them.

Like Mason, his brother was half-dressed. Jeans that he’d
probably just pulled on and no shirt. Even half-dressed, Grayson still managed
to look as if he were in charge.

And he was.

As the eldest of his five brothers and the Silver Creek town
sheriff, Grayson had a way of being in charge just by being there.

“How’s the trainer?” Grayson immediately asked.

“Alive,” Mason provided. He didn’t add the customary
and well
part to that because he wasn’t sure that was
true. He should probably look to see if she’d had a blow to the head. After all,
the door could have hit her when it became unhinged. She might even have a
broken bone or two.

“The EMTs are on the way,” Grayson explained. He looked at
Mason. “Rusty told you about the guesthouse?”

Mason nodded. “It’s gone.”

Grayson stopped next to him, his breath gusting. Probably
because he’d run all the way from the main ranch house. “Yeah. And there was a
gas can by the back porch. Rusty managed to pull it out of there before the
flames took over.”

What the devil? Mason mentally went through the reasons why
Abbie would have had a gas can on the porch, and he couldn’t immediately think
of one. She trained his cutting horses and didn’t have anything to do with any
ranch equipment that required gasoline.

“Looks like someone could have set the fire,” Grayson
concluded.

Arson. On the ranch.

The anger slammed through Mason. Even though he had five
brothers who were equal owners of the land, the ranch was
his
domain. He ran it. It was what he loved, more than a badge, more
than just about anything. And if someone had intentionally burned down the
guesthouse with Abbie inside, then that someone was going to pay and pay
hard
.

“It could have been worse,” Rusty went on, turning to Grayson.
“Mason barely got Abbie out of there in time.”

That was true. And Mason went back to Abbie’s stupid
question.

Did you try to kill me?

Had she seen something or someone? Maybe. And Mason changed
that
maybe
to a
probably
after remembering the way she’d looked at him. He was accustomed to people
shying out of his way. Used to the uneasiness that he caused with his steely
exterior, but Abbie’s fear had twisted something inside of him that he hadn’t
felt before.

The sound of sirens sliced through his anger and thoughts, and
all three of them looked in the direction of the road where there were swirls of
red-and-blue lights approaching. The fire department, an ambulance and a
sheriff’s cruiser. Could be one of his brothers, Dade or Gage, in the cruiser,
because they were both deputies.

“I’ll talk to them,” Grayson volunteered. “You stay with the
trainer until the EMTs have checked her out.”

He would, but while he was doing that, Mason could ask some
questions that might help them get to the bottom of all of this.

Grayson and Rusty headed out in the direction of the
approaching emergency responders, and Mason threw open his office door. His
attention zoomed right to the sofa where he’d left Abbie.

She wasn’t there.

Mason looked at the adjoining bathroom. Door closed. And that’s
probably where she was—maybe crying or falling apart from the inevitable
adrenaline crash.

He took a moment to pull on his boots, but when he still
couldn’t find his shirt, he crossed the large working space and knocked on the
bathroom door.

No answer.

So he knocked again, harder this time. “You okay in there?”

Still no answer.

He rethought that crying or falling-apart theory and moved on
to one that caused his concern to spike through the roof. Maybe she was
unconscious from an injury he hadn’t noticed.

No knock this time. Mason kicked down the door and was thankful
when it didn’t hit her. He looked at the sink first. Not there. Then, the
separate toilet area. Not there either. And she darn sure wasn’t in the
shower.

That’s when he noticed the bathroom window was wide-open.

What the devil was going on?

He hurried to the window and looked out. Thanks to that
hunter’s moon, he saw her. Barely. She was at least thirty yards away, her pale
blue gown fluttering in the wind.

Abbie was running as if her life depended on it.