Rancher at Risk (22 page)

She ran to the bridge, grabbed the rope railing, jogged onto the wooden slats. She paced across one. Two. Three.

Four turned traitor. Four gave way.

Before she could plant her right foot on five, four shattered beneath her.

Her left foot plunged between sturdy slat and splintered wood. Her left hand tightened on the rope rail. Her right arm flailed, seeking. Clutching. Grasping. Touching nothing but air.

* * *

D
AMN,
THE
WOMAN
would drive him crazy.

She trusted him well enough to make love with him. To let him love her in the dark. Yet she wouldn’t trust him to help her, to take care of her. To watch out for her.

He turned from the corral and saw her, well beyond the cabins. She was
already
crazy, riding off alone and angry, pushing her horse so hard.

Disasters could happen…in an instant.

In the space of a breath.

He grabbed his reins and mounted.

He followed, feeling driven to ride at her heels but knowing the folly of them both traveling at breakneck speed. He’d get there. He knew where she was headed.

He just had to keep her in view.

She never paused, never veered from her destination and, even after she had dismounted, never looked back.

When she reached the shadow of the trees, he lost sight of her. Anxiety quickened his pace, pushed him into those shadows, crawled up his back.

Above him he could hear her boots slapping the ground. The sound made it easier to track her. It made him more eager to get to her side. A burst of speed, a few yards’ gain, and he caught the flash of leather and denim.

She had reached the cutoff for the rope bridge and once across that would come to the clearing.

He had almost made the cutoff when he heard her boots on the bridge. Seconds later, wood cracked with the sound of a rifle blast.

Heart in his throat, he vaulted the final yard upward to within sight of the bridge.

She was trapped, her leg caught between two slats, the rotted splinters of a broken slat dangling on either side of her. She gripped the rope railing with one hand. The other flailed in space.

Nothing he could do but race toward her and say his prayers. That she could hold on. That the bridge would hold his weight. That he would get there in time.

His first prayer was answered, in spades.

She found the railing with her free hand and clutched the rope, one hand beside the other. She steadied herself, changed her left hand to an underhand grip, changed her right. She tightened her fingers and pulled herself into chin-up position—just as he’d watched her do that morning in the yard. And she freed her leg from its trap.

Prayers two and three weren’t necessary.

But when she saw him standing at the bridge and started back in his direction, her expression told him he’d better ask for more help, fast.

When she halted in front of him and put her hands on her hips, she looked upset. Angry-upset. Downright furious.

She didn’t look the least bit flustered or shaken.

Her struggle had seemed to happen in slow motion. It seemed to have taken hours. In real time only minutes—if not seconds—must have passed while she worked herself free.

And he anticipated her words before she opened her mouth.

“You’re overreacting.”

Signal Street again.

“I can’t believe you followed me.”

“Lianne.” He took a deep breath. “You went tearing away from the house in no frame of mind to be on horseback. And look what happened.”

“What?” She gestured toward the bridge. “I had a minor accident. I handled it.”

No thanks to you.
She could have said it but didn’t. “You might have been killed.”

“That’s not something you can control.” Her eyes shot sparks at him. “If it had happened, I would have been the one responsible. I would have been the one not taking care of me. It’s not up to you to save me. Even a child…” She swallowed hard. “When a child grows up…” She shook her head, tugged on her hair.

He opened his mouth, but she started again.

“When Billy grew up, you would have let him go off on his own. That wouldn’t mean you didn’t care about him. But you would have let him live his life. You would have given him his independence. You would have trusted him.” Her voice broke.

“Lianne—”

“No. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want anything to do with
any
man who thinks I’m so useless I can’t function without his help.”

Chapter Eighteen

“What’s up with Lianne?” Tony asked.

Ryan took his time rinsing the saddle sponge, squeezing the excess water out of it, shaking it off. Then he looked at the old man. “I don’t know. Why?”

But he did know. She had pushed past him in a fury that morning and stalked off without giving him the chance to say another word. That was what he got for wanting to help her. That was what he got for caring that she could’ve broken her danged neck.

He ran the sponge over the soap and started working it onto his saddle harder than necessary, considering he never missed a cleanup after a ride.

“She came back in this morning and then tore out of here,” Tony said, “
after
asking me to take care of her mare. That’s not like her. Ever since she learned to tack up, she’s made a point of doing it herself.”

She was good at making points, all right. The day she’d met him, she had counted off on her fingers every blasted thing she’d wanted to get across to him.

She was good at wanting to do everything herself, too.

Tony sat staring at him.

He shrugged. “She was probably in a rush to get into the office, had a lot of work to take care of.”

“I don’t know.” Tony shook his head. “She seemed all steamed up over something. But I guess she calmed down and got done what she needed to at the house. She went off in the car before noontime.”

So she didn’t organize her hike with the scouts after all. He wasn’t about to take on any guilt over that. He finished drying the saddle and started working the conditioner into the smooth leather.

Smooth as satin. Fine as silk.

He shoved the thought away. “Then I’d reckon she went into town to see her sister and the baby.”

“Could be. Her car’s still gone, though.”

The news stopped his hand for a moment. Disappointment washed over him. He’d had the wild idea that maybe they could take a ride into town, go for supper, go anywhere. Just get away from the ranch and talk, the way they’d never had the chance to do.

Yeah,
wild.
As if he could erase the events of this morning. As if he could rewind his life. That hadn’t worked a year ago. Why would he have a hope in hell of getting his wish now?

He finished up and put everything back where it belonged.

Last night, Lianne was where she belonged. But that hadn’t lasted, had it.

And he had only himself to blame.

He left the barn, went to shower.

When he was done, she still hadn’t come home. This time, he didn’t feel the worry followed by the rush of fear. Probably because he felt confident about what he’d told Tony. She would be visiting at the hospital or taking care of Becky.

Finished dressing, he decided he’d not be the best company for supper with the cowhands. Instead, he would head into town to get something to eat.

The cab of the truck felt too quiet without the radio blaring. It felt lonely, too, which didn’t make sense at all. He and Lianne hadn’t talked much in the truck. She couldn’t read his lips when he had to keep his eyes on the road.

From the corner of his eye, he would see her patting her thigh in time to the music—not hearing the words, she had told him, but picking up some of the drumbeats. Feeling the vibrations.

He’d see her tapping away on that damned cell phone. Once in a while he’d glance over, and she’d meet his eyes and smile.

And if he were really desperate for some contact, he would inhale deeply to catch the scent of her rose perfume. He thought he could smell it now but knew he was fooling himself. He’d fooled himself about a lot of things lately.

He wasn’t deceiving himself about what he saw parked just down the street from the Double S. A silver Camry with Illinois plates.

Inside the cafe, he scanned the booths and tables. When they didn’t offer anything of interest, he checked the row of swivel stools at the counter in the back. No luck there, either.

He nodded at Dori and threaded his way through the room to an empty corner booth.

She had followed. “Hello, Ryan. It’s good to see you tonight.” She held up a carafe. “Coffee?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“I will bring you some taco chips,” she promised.

The chips came delivered by way of the next customer to enter the cafe. Ellamae. The woman plopped the basket onto the tabletop and settled in on the bench opposite him as if they had arranged to meet for supper. She gave him a wide smile.

“I saw your truck outside,” she said. “Saw Lianne’s car, too. If I’d have known you two were meeting here, I would have waited till she was ready to walk over with me.”

“Walk over?”

“From the hospital, visiting Kayla and the baby. It’s just up the street. That way.” She gestured through the window beside them as if he’d asked for directions. “I’m having supper with the judge,” she added. “But don’t worry, we’ll leave you two alone as soon as Lianne gets here. I’m sure you have lots to talk about.”

Lianne wouldn’t have supper with him if he were the last man in Flagman’s Folly and all the women and kids had gone on vacation.

“Well, of course,” she continued, “when I saw how pretty she looked all dressed up, I should’ve known she had plans for the evening.”

His hand jerked. Coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug. His stomach tightened. He wanted a slug of coffee but knew his throat wouldn’t cooperate.

Ellamae watched him sop up the spill with his napkin. She had picked up on his reaction. From that first night at the Whistlestop, she had picked up on his interest in Lianne before he’d acknowledged it to himself. That night, he had seen a look in her eyes he had told himself was concern. Now he saw something he felt certain was pity.

He braced himself to tell her the truth—he and Lianne had no plans. He and Lianne had nothing to talk about.

The door to the cafe opened. He couldn’t keep from leaning a bit to one side to see past Ellamae. Not the person he’d hoped to see and, in fact, one he didn’t want to see at all. But the man spotted him and headed his way, thumbs hooked onto his red suspenders.

“Well, hello there, Ryan.”

The Texas twang brought him right back to Signal Street on his first day in town.

The judge took a seat beside Ellamae and looked across the booth at him. “And just how are things going for you, son?”

About as bad as they could be.
He definitely didn’t want to chat with the man about that, either. As the judge himself had made a production of saying, he knew everything that went on in his town.

Not quite.
He hoped, anyhow, even though the judge had his best source of information sitting right next to him. Ellamae’s eyes gleamed, most likely proving her eagerness to fill the man in on whatever news she had to tell.

“Things are going just fine,” he said evenly.

Ellamae tilted her head and looked at him as if she thought otherwise.

The judge rested his hands on the table as if ready to pronounce his sentence. “Good. Caleb tells me you and Lianne are coming along fine, too. With the scouts and the school and all.”

“Yes, we are.” Except for that last “and all.” But Caleb couldn’t know everything that had gone on out at the ranch. If he had, he would long ago have sent his foreman packing.

“You haven’t come before my bench yet, so I reckon you’re keeping yourself out of trouble.”

Now,
that
was a statement he didn’t trust himself to answer.

“Though you remember I told you,” the judge went on, “you were welcome to show up at my office anytime—as long as you came without a lawyer and brought a clean conscience with you.”

“Judge.” Ellamae shook her head.

The judge continued to look at him. “Since you haven’t seen fit to stop by, I’m wondering if you might not be feeling as well washed as you ought.”

Beneath the table, he curled his fingers into fists, trying to steady himself and keep unwanted thoughts away. Damn, even his own father, strict enough when he’d had reason, had never made him feel this uneasy.

But he knew why. It wasn’t the way the judge’s blue eyes homed in on him. It wasn’t Ellamae’s calculating expression. It wasn’t even the pressure of trying to think how he would answer the judge.

What worried him was knowing how he had responded in other situations. And realizing how heavily that knowledge had begun to weigh on his conscience.

* * *

R
YAN
SHOVED
OPEN
the door of the Double S. He’d finished his coffee, eaten a few chips and made his excuses to get away. He sure didn’t want to stick around long enough to see which lucky man Lianne had gotten all dolled up for.

As he went down the sidewalk, headed toward his truck, he saw the lucky man anyway.

Phil, the scoutmaster, stood leaning against her Camry, his attention on the cell phone in his hands. His thumbs moved over the keys. As Ryan approached, he looked up.

“Took the night off?”

The man nodded. “Yeah. I’m waiting for Lianne.”

“Haven’t seen her.”
But I damned well will.

He nodded and kept going. The coffee he’d drunk churned in his gut. The chips he’d eaten sat like lumps of lead. The thought of the man waiting for Lianne, getting ready to have supper with her and then going who knows where with her afterward, all set him to pounding the sidewalk.

It didn’t take long until he saw the sign with the big white H. He gritted his teeth and consciously slowed his pace. No sense barging in like a madman. He’d never get beyond the lobby, where a white-haired volunteer with a grandmotherly smile sat at the information desk. She would be calling for orderlies to strap him down and doctors to sedate him.