Rancher at Risk (10 page)

“Oh, yes, I will,” she confirmed, trying to push away a sudden rush of guilt. She and Kayla texted several times a day, but she hadn’t gone to visit her since…since Caleb had made Ryan her boss. She wasn’t sure if she could keep her feelings out of her voice well enough to prevent Kayla from noticing.

“It’s a lot different here than up in Chicago, isn’t it? I’ve never been that far north before. And tell you the truth, I’m just as glad to live where it stays warm for a good part of the year.” He pushed himself to a standing position, one foot on the ground, the other, the boot with the raised heel, still propped up on the rung of his stool.

He smacked that leg with the soft cloth in his hand. “This one’s giving me trouble right now. Can’t even stand up like a proper gentleman. No way to treat a lady.”

“You’re always a perfect gentleman with me.”

Smiling, he tipped his cowboy hat to her and then started toward the barn.

Sometimes when they talked, he would mention his leg. Sometimes he wouldn’t. That was his choice, just as choosing how much to say about her abilities was her decision.

Out by the school, when Ryan had asked whether or not she could hear a person’s voice, she had chosen to answer. In fact, she’d responded to all of his questions, even the ones that had thrown her off-balance—which meant most of them. He had the knack of asking things no one else had ever thought to, or of asking them in a different way than anyone had before.

He had the knack of making her think things she shouldn’t.

Right now, as she looked up and saw him crossing the yard toward her, he made her think she should have followed Tony into the barn.

Since that really would look like running, she stood her ground.

“Thought you were coming back to the office.”

“I thought we were done.”

He stopped in front of her, light from the lowering sun on his face but his Stetson putting his eyes in shadow. She could read his lips but missed the stormy-green of his eyes.

“Yeah, we were done.” Considering the set of his jaw, he had spoken grimly. “Lianne…about what happened—”

“Nothing happened,” she said quickly, “except that we both learned something new. I learned to keep a pencil out of my hand when I’m conducting an interview.”

His line. His turn now.

I learned to keep my hands off you.

But his lips didn’t move.

* * *

A
FTER
A
MORNING
spent with half his small crew in the far northern acres, Ryan headed back to the main house, letting the stallion take him home. He took a swig from the water bottle he’d learned to carry at all times to combat the dryness of the Southwest. No breeze moved the cotton-ball clouds. No air moved at all except for a shimmery haze generated by the heat of the sun.

It was only early May. What would things be like here in the dog days of summer?

A horse and rider came into view from the west, riding hard.

He swallowed against a sudden rush from the past….

Standing on the north ridge, where cell phone reception didn’t exist, spotting the horse and rider that would bring him the message no one ever wanted to hear. Making his own breakneck rush to the ranch and the pickup truck and the road into town. And finally, reaching the claustrophobic waiting room where a sad-eyed surgeon fought exhaustion and watched him fight back tears.

He blinked, sharpening his gaze.

This rider wasn’t headed his way. Judging by the angle, they would cross paths close to the ranch house. One of the hands, most likely, though he couldn’t tell from this far away. He’d given both crews his location today. They’d know where to find him in an emergency. But the rider hadn’t come from that direction.

He kept the stallion at a steady canter.

The other horse gained ground. Now he could see the rider more clearly, a slim figure with flowing hair.

Lianne.

A few days ago she had shied away from his touch like a frightened filly. He hadn’t misread her first reaction, though. The look on her face as she had fled the room only confirmed what her eyes had revealed. Interest. Attraction. And dismay.

He’d had no trouble recognizing those feelings in her expression; he’d been hit with a healthy shot of all three himself.

The days spent working in the north pastures had put some distance between them but not nearly enough. He wasn’t sure any amount of distance could take him far enough away.

He’d managed to keep himself from hanging around the barn, in view of the back porch, at daybreak. And now whenever they met in the office, he made damn sure to keep his hands to himself.

What was she doing out here?

The stallion overtook her horse with ease. Both animals pranced, ready for a competitive run. He reined in until they settled alongside each other, head to tail, leaving him facing Lianne.

Her cheeks looked rosy, either from fresh air or exercise—

He reined in this new vision as sharply as he had the stallion. “You should let me know if you plan to go off on your own.”

“I’m entitled to a lunch hour.”

“That’s not what I meant. Suppose your horse threw you? Or went lame? There’s plenty of good riding out here, but it pays to keep aware of the dangers.”

She patted the cell phone clipped to the waistband of her jeans. “I never go anywhere without this.”

“The damned things don’t always work.”

To his surprise, she simply nodded.

“Thought you didn’t know how to ride.” He’d managed to say the words mildly this time.

She ran her hand along her horse’s mane. “I’m not sure where you got that idea. You said, ‘You know about tending horses?’ And I said, ‘No, not a lot.’ I didn’t say anything about not knowing how to ride.”

“Good memory.” She’d replayed their statements word for word. “They have horses in Chicago?”

“I’m sure they have stables somewhere. That’s not where I ride.”

The stallion moved restlessly beneath him.

Ryan looked toward the pine-and pinon-covered ridge just past the western boundary. “I’m planning to check out that hiking trail Caleb mentioned. You game?”

Eyes gleaming, she nodded.

Hadn’t he known she would agree? She wouldn’t want to be left out of anything connected to her project.

He gestured to the west. “That way.”

She took off, not looking back to make sure he followed. He watched with a critical eye to see how she handled the mare. She had nice hands and a good seat.

He spent so much time checking out her riding form, he didn’t realize she’d left him in the dust—until he found himself choking on it.

Shaking his head, he followed.

Chapter Eight

As the trail narrowed, the man beside her moved to take the lead. Had she really expected anything else?

Swallowing her irritation, Lianne fell into step behind him.

When she had decided on an early lunch and asked Tony to saddle a horse for her, she hadn’t planned to have company on the ride. Hadn’t
wanted
company.

But despite everything she’d said to herself for days now about staying away from Ryan, the sight of him on the horizon had made her pulse race with pleasure.

Ahead of her he climbed over a tree limb that had fallen across the trail. He turned back, reaching out to her.

She shook her head. “I’ve got it.” She easily scaled the prickly branches and landed beside him.

He started forward again. For a long moment she stood there, staring after him.
It pays to keep aware of the dangers,
he had warned. Little did he know, all the danger she faced right now came from
him.

As she had urged her horse into a gallop toward this ridge, knowing Ryan would follow, she’d hoped he would leave his doubts about her behind.

But what were the chances of that?

She sipped from her water bottle and resumed her climb.

A few minutes later he stopped and pointed ahead of them. “The incline’s getting steeper.”

“Bring it on,” she said, unable to hold back a grin. “If you think this little hill scares me, you can think again.”

He smiled, widely enough to make his eyes crinkle at the corners, as if he liked the challenge.

When he turned away, she fanned herself and continued onward. Or upward. The incline didn’t bother her, but the heat was climbing faster than they did. Or maybe Ryan’s nearness had raised her temperature. No matter how much he infuriated her—and, oh, he did infuriate her—there was a lot to like about the man.

As the ground leveled out near the peak of the mountain, she quickly slipped her hands beneath her hair to adjust her hearing aids. A conversation wouldn’t register, but the aids picked up other sounds.

They were at a designated lookout on the well-marked trail with a concrete picnic table and benches cemented into a solid base.

Ryan leaned against a rock outcropping near the table, close to a flowing stream.

“Oh, yes.” She went down on one knee beside the stream and used both hands to splash water on her face. When she stood, she wiped the back of her arm across her forehead, scattering drops. “Hot!”

“Yeah.” He looked down into the water.

Another tree limb had fallen or been dragged onto one of the benches. Avoiding the sticky pine, she moved to the other side and took a seat. To her dismay, he followed. He swung one booted foot over the bench and straddled it, looking in her direction.

She looked at the water bottle she had set on the table.

Yes, her hearing aids allowed her to pick up some sounds or, more often, vibrations. But she didn’t need
anything
to be aware of his nearness.

He touched her arm, probably trying to get her attention. Stray water drops scattered beneath his warm hand. Without thinking, she tilted her head just a bit, remembering that hand on her cheek.

After a moment, she turned reluctantly to look at him.

“We can’t talk if you can’t see me,” he said.

“I could have seen you just as well from where you were standing.”

“This is easier.”

Not for me.

If she talked, she wouldn’t have to stare at his lips, so close to hers. She brushed at the dampness on her arm. “Too bad it’s not monsoon season here yet. We could use a good storm. For the humidity.”

How stupid, to be talking of the weather.

Inane or not, it took her right back to that first day on Signal Street.

In the bright sunshine that morning, this cowboy’s eyes had been that odd stormy-green, the color of the clouds that sometimes rolled in over Lake Michigan, carrying with them the scent of rain and the promise of an electrical storm.

“I love a good lightning storm,” she said. “All those sudden crackles and brilliant spikes. I love thunderstorms even more. I can feel the vibrations in the air. Sometimes, I can hear the thunder when it booms.”

And that day, standing close to this man, she had heard the thunder in his voice and felt it vibrate through her. Somehow she had known he could bring more trouble to her than a lightning strike and cause more harm than the most violent storm.

How right she had been.

She looked around them, searching for something else to say. “This ought to be a good trail for the scouts. Not too tough. Not too dangerous.”

He touched her arm. “Good for the kids from the school, too, I’d think.”

She nodded and focused on her bottle.

He brought her attention back to him.

This was ridiculous. She couldn’t keep talking to the space in front of her just so she could avoid looking his way. And having him touch her again and again was more dangerous than their climb.

She turned slightly on the bench. Inches separated them, yet she could feel the warmth of him against her knees. She wouldn’t let that distract her from a simple conversation.

“How old were you,” he asked, “when you started going to the residential school?”

Maybe not so simple.

Half of her wanted to run. The other half wanted to get closer to him. None of her had the nerve to meet his eyes again. She focused on his mouth and gave him the answer she had long ago memorized. “I lived with my family till I was six. Then I moved to the school.”

He pursed his lips, maybe in a whistle, but she couldn’t tell. “They just sent you away? That young?”

The concern in his face made her throat tighten. “It wasn’t a bad thing. They did what they thought was best for me.”

She could see him turning that over in his mind. She could see the questions forming. He would ask her about her deafness. He would want to know how she felt about not being able to hear.

“Did you live in a dorm?”

Yet another question that threw her off-balance. She nodded.

“What was that like?”

She paused to think. No one had ever asked her to describe dorm life. “It was…crazy. Comforting. Definitely lacking in privacy. And a lot of fun.”

“You didn’t miss your family?”

“Of course I did. At first. Especially my sister, Kayla. She’s two years younger. But the longer I stayed at school and the more comfortable I felt communicating in sign, the more I wanted to be there. With people who could understand me.” Those were the days before she had focused on all those speech lessons. Before she had worked so hard to learn to read lips.

“But you went home for holidays. And in the summer.” His expression told her he had put these as statements, not questions, because of course he would assume she had gone to see her family on school breaks.

“At first I did,” she said again. “But as I got older, I wanted to stay with my friends. It was…” She ran her finger over the torn label on her water bottle.
It was
my
choice,
she planned to say,
not my family’s.

Had she been going on too long? Babbling? Was this really such a good idea, to be sharing so much of her past with this man?

She made the mistake of looking into his eyes again.

Shrugging, she confessed, “It wasn’t a popular decision. They weren’t happy that I chose not to go home.” She didn’t want to talk about her father’s arguments and her stepmother’s pleas. She wouldn’t think about Kayla’s tears. “It was something I had to do. But when it was time to start high school, I went back to live with my family again permanently.”