In Mystery, Montana, a white-hot hunk fights fire with passion...

Though he’s ridiculously handsome and notoriously funny, it’s Colter Fitzgerald’s firefighting skills that are most needed by Whitney Barstow—at first. She’s been traumatized by fire and terrified that the arsonist sabotaging Dunrovin Ranch is a madman from her past. She’s also fearful that harm will come to any man she loves, so denies her attraction to Colter. Then why is she jealous of another woman’s hands all over him?

On the eve of the ranch’s Christmas festival, Colter wants no one but Whitney, body, soul and darkest secrets. But there’s still an arsonist to stop...before what makes the season bright is Dunrovin in flames.

Mystery Christmas

“I don’t want to date just anyone. The only one I’d love to take out is you. From the moment you came here, it’s all I’ve wanted.”

She wanted to give in to the joy of hearing those words, but her reality wouldn’t allow it.

“I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m telling you that if you just got to know me a little more, you would see that you wouldn’t want a woman like me.”

“I know you, whether you want to admit it or not.”

She gave a sardonic chuckle. “Just because we’ve been passing each other on the ranch since I got here doesn’t mean you know me. You have merely seen me. We have fundamental differences. Number one—you have more dates than a fruitcake. I don’t want a man whose attention I have to struggle to keep.”

“Unless we go out, how do you know if we have fundamental differences?” He leaned against the chair closest to him. “And, wait…does fruitcake even have dates in it?”

Acknowledgments

This series wouldn’t have been possible without a great team of people, including my editors at Harlequin—thank you for all your hard work.

Also, thank you to Suzanne Miller and the crew at Dunrovin Ranch in Lolo, Montana. Suzanne is the inspiration behind one of my favorite characters in this series, the fantastic Eloise Fitzgerald. Just like Eloise, she always greets you with a warm smile and an open heart.

Mr. Taken

Danica Winters

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DANICA WINTERS is a multiple award-winning, bestselling author who writes books that grip readers with their ability to drive emotion through suspense and occasionally a touch of magic. When she’s not working, she can be found in the wilds of Montana, testing her patience while she tries to hone her skills at various crafts—quilting, pottery and painting are not her areas of expertise. She believes the cup is neither half-full nor half-empty, but it better be filled with wine. Visit her website at www.danicawinters.net.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Whitney Barstow—This cowgirl is taking no chances after her life was nearly ended by her ex-husband when he set fire to her family’s barn. Out of fear for her family’s safety and her own, she has taken to the road and found herself thousands of miles away from her home and working the front desk at Dunrovin Ranch.

Colter Fitzgerald—Charm should have been this firefighter’s middle name. Everywhere he goes, the women of Mystery, Montana, swoon. Yet, he only has eyes for Whitney—the one woman who refuses to give him the time of day.

Wyatt Fitzgerald—Colter’s brother and the local sheriff’s deputy, who quickly finds himself neck-deep in an investigation that calls into question not only his detective skills, but a whole slew of his family’s history.

Eloise Fitzgerald—Foster mother and caregiver not only to the people in her life but to the animals as well, she is the head matriarch of the Fitzgerald clan.

William Poe—A shady county tax appraiser who has a running feud with the Fitzgeralds, he thinks everyone and everything belongs to him—including the women of Mystery, Montana.

Daryl Bucket—A long-haul trucker who has come to the aid of the family in the past but now may have more tricks up his sleeve.

Sarah Rizzo—Owner of Pretties and Pastries, the local café that has been catering the Fitzgeralds’ events, but Sarah hopes she can become even more involved with the family.

Frank Harris—On the run and potentially dangerous, Whitney’s ex-husband may have finally located the runaway—and he may do whatever it takes to make sure she doesn’t slip through his grasp once again.

To Mac,

From sea to shining sea,

it will always and forever be you and me.

Thanks for making life such an amazing adventure.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Acknowlegments

Title Page

About the Author

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Dedication

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

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

No matter how hard Whitney Barstow tried, there was one memory that never seemed to fade or be twisted by time—it was the moment she had nearly died. The smoke had filled her lungs, stealing her oxygen and making her head ache. The acrid smoke was like hands covering her mouth and nose, and however hard she tried to breathe, they only clenched harder. She had torn at the invisible hands, leaving faint scars on her face—a personal reminder of her desperation to survive.

Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in the barn. The door was closed, and when the spark had hit the hay, it was like a bomb that had gone off. She could still hear the whoomp as the dry tinder erupted into flames. And the heat. Oh, the heat. Some nights she would wake up in a cold sweat, her body’s reflexes kicking in at the mere thought of being trapped in the inferno once again.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she stared out at the barn that sat at the heart of Dunrovin Ranch, and her thoughts turned to the lives she’d lost. There would be no replacing Runs Like the Wind, her black Thoroughbred. She could still smell the scent of hay on the horse’s breath and feel her smooth gait from high in the saddle. Nothing would ever be the same. There was no going back and stopping evil from entering her life. There was no undoing what had been done.

There was only one thing she could do to keep the memories at bay—she could never ride again.

Even now, almost ten years later, she could barely step foot in a barn. If she was forced, it was only if the door was kept open and the breeze drifted through like a promise of freedom. She couldn’t be trapped again. Not by a person, and never by fire. Never.

“Whit, are you okay, sweetheart?” Mrs. Eloise Fitzgerald called out from the main office.

Whitney angrily wiped away the tear that had escaped. She didn’t have room in her life for weakness—or vulnerability. It was emotional weakness that always got her into trouble. If she just stayed tough and shut the world out—even Mrs. Fitzgerald, the kindly matriarch of the Fitzgerald family—she would never have to worry about getting hurt again.

“I’m fine,” she called back to her boss. “Just wanted a bit of fresh air before the guests started arriving for the weekend.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald walked out onto the porch and wrapped her arms around her body, shielding herself from the bitter December air. “Brr... You are going to catch your death of cold out here if you don’t get your skinny buns inside, little thing.”

Whitney snorted a laugh. It would be ironic, dying by hypothermia after nearly dying by fire. “I don’t mind the cold,” she said with a smile she hoped would calm Eloise’s nerves.

Eloise waved her inside, not letting her get away with such disregard for her well-being. “You know what I always say... You don’t have anything if you don’t have your health.”

Her health was just fine, thank you very much... It was the rest of Whitney that could really have used some work. She hadn’t been on a date in two years, and her best friend was the ranch dog, Milo, that no one else seemed to notice. Some days, when the phones were not ringing and she found herself looking for work to do, it was almost as if she and the dog were really nothing more than apparitions.

She walked over to the fence and ran her finger over one of the red Christmas lights that were looped between the posts. Maybe she was just like the Ghost of Christmas Past, an enigma sent to warn others that if they were like her, and continued living set in their ways, only bad things were bound to happen.

Or maybe she was just spending entirely too much time alone, wrapped up in her head and the things that needed to be done around the place. Ever since the murders, everything had slowed down—guests weren’t filing in and out as they once did, and even their annual Yule Night celebration was barely getting off the ground. It was almost as if the deaths of the women in and around the ranch were only a precursor of what was to come—like some dire warning that nothing could be warm and fuzzy, not even during the holidays.

Maybe she really needed to talk, to lay bare her feelings. Maybe she wasn’t alone in her fears. And as much as she dreaded opening up, if she was going to communicate with anyone, Eloise would have been a good choice. The woman had seen it all and experienced even more. She’d raised handfuls of kids from all kinds of backgrounds, been through famine and hardship, and yet always seemed to have a smile on her face and soup on the stove. She was the epitome of perfection—always put together and selfless when it came to those she cared for. And of late, all her energies had been focused on looking after the ranch and handling the uproar it had been facing. Yet, even with all this, she had been making time to come and see Whitney and ensure that she was settling into her new role on the ranch.

“You need to come on in,” Eloise called again, her teeth chattering slightly as she spoke.

For the woman’s benefit, she made her way over to the door and stepped into her cramped office, and Eloise followed. The place was overflowing with books, and papers littered the desk in no discernible order. She grimaced as she looked over at Eloise, who was staring at the mess as though it was the first time she had taken notice.

“Sweetheart,” Eloise started, “do you think it’s possible that we could get a few of these things filed away?”

“Not a problem, ma’am.” She set about shuffling the papers that sat on the farthest corner of the desk and shoving them in the already burgeoning bottom drawer of the desk. She tried to push it closed, but the drawer burped the extra copies of the ranch’s tri-fold brochures and a notepad filled with scrawled notes.

She laughed as she turned around and tried to hide the mess behind her.

Eloise smiled, ever elegant and kind even in the face of inadequacy. “Do you want me to show you how I would organize all this?”

Whitney loved how the woman didn’t try to force her through guilt, but rather the gentle and practiced hand of patience; yet she wasn’t the kind to accept acts of pity. “I think I can—”

Thankfully, there was the harsh ding of the bell at the front desk and it saved Whitney from having to ask for help. She could handle the responsibilities of the front office. In truth, the mess had diminished in size since last week, but she was sure Eloise wasn’t ready to hear that though her office was a disaster, it was cleaner than it had been in nearly a month.

As she walked out the door toward the parlor where they received guests, she was stopped when she ran into a man. Well, not any man, but Colter. The well-muscled, ridiculously handsome Fitzgerald brother who was nearly as reclusive as she. “Oh, hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to—” She took a step back from him as she realized she was so close to him that she could smell the traces of smoke on his skin even though it was masked by the heady aroma of his cologne.

It struck her that no matter how many showers a person could take or how much perfume he used to cover up the smell of a fire, it wasn’t something that could be fully erased—just like her memory, it had a way of nearly permeating into a person all the way to the soul. Or maybe it was just the fact that she knew what he did for a living, the risks he took and the panic he had to face each and every day, which brought the scent back to the front of her mind. It was almost like one of Pavlov’s dogs except firefighter equaled smoke, and smoke equaled...fear.

She took another step back. Though he was one sexy hunk of man, with his dark black cowboy hat and whiskey-colored eyes, he was the living embodiment of danger.

“You’re fine,” he said, a giant, almost comically large grin on his face. “But you know if you wanted to touch my body, all you had to do was ask.”

“Ugh. You really are full of yourself. Aren’t you, Colter?” She couldn’t help the heat that rose in her cheeks as he teased her. It wasn’t that she hadn’t imagined running her fingers over the lines of the muscles that adorned his chest. Every staff member at the ranch had a fantasy about at least one of the Fitzgerald brothers—who, of late, had been getting scooped up by women prettier and far more accomplished than her.

“I’ve been called full of something, but it ain’t usually myself,” he said, his Montana drawl kicking into an even higher gear than his smile.

“Well, if no one has had the guts to call you on it, then I’m more than happy to step up to the plate. You, Mr. Colter Fitzgerald, aren’t God’s gift to women. In fact, in case you didn’t know, you are the last man I would ever think about dating. I’d rather date...” She paused as she tried to come up with a man in place of him, but none came to mind. As the seconds ticked by, her heart rate climbed. He couldn’t see her like this. She had to be cool, calm, collected and, above all, witty—and she had nothing.

“You’d rather date whom?” he asked, with that all-too-cute grin and a wiggle of the eyebrow.

“Dang it, you know what I mean... I would rather date anyone than you.”

“As long as it’s no one else in particular, I think I like my odds.” He laughed, the sound as rich and full of depth as his eyes.

She groaned, but the sound didn’t take on the edge of real annoyance like she had wanted it to; in fact, to her ears it almost sounded like the awful noise a woman made when she was trying not to fall for a man. And she was definitely, absolutely, categorically never going to fall for the infamous jokester Colter Fitzgerald. Nope. Not gonna happen. She would never let him win her over as long as she stayed in her right mind. Not that she had a left mind, but...well... She sighed.

No.

The bell tinged to life again from the parlor, reminding her of the guests who were undoubtedly growing more impatient by the second with her absence.

“Excuse me—I have work to do. Unlike some of us,” she said under her breath as she pushed past him, careful not to touch him again.

His laughter followed her into the parlor until she shut the door to drown him out. The last thing she needed to do was spend a moment thinking about that man.

Standing at the front desk was a man and a woman. They looked to be in their midthirties, and based on the woman’s coiffed hair, to-the-sky black stilettos, and brown Louis Vuitton purse, they were definitely among their elite clientele. They had probably come here to spend their trust-fund money on some idealistic and romantic getaway that involved a horse-drawn sleigh and a bearskin rug in front of the crackling fireplace.

The woman was carrying what looked to be a slightly oversize fur ball, or maybe it was just one of those New York rats everyone talked about. Yet, as Whitney drew closer walking to the desk, the rat-looking creature picked up its ears and growled. Dog. Definitely a dog. It probably had one of those stupid names like Fifi or Fredrico. It was funny, but most of their elite guests had a dog just like that one, an accessory to their outfit—but most were cuter than the one this particular woman held.

“How may I help you folks?” Whitney said, using her practiced service-industry charm.

“It took you long enough,” the woman said, nearly spitting the words.

“Dear, I’m sure she was busy,” the man said, patting the woman lightly on the hand and drawing Whitney’s attention to the massive diamond that adorned the woman’s ring finger.

For a moment she wondered if they had drawn her attention to it on purpose, some well-practiced motion that drew even more attention to their status and wealth. Whitney forced herself to smile just a little bit brighter, but the truth in Montana was simple—no one really cared about how much money anyone had or the number of things a person owned. Respect and honor were only given to those whose character merited such accolades. It was one of the reasons she had picked this state as her home instead of staying in Kentucky.

“I don’t care if she was busy or not. We have flown halfway around the country to be here. The least she could do is be present when we arrive,” the woman said, continuing her rampage.

Whitney bit her tongue instead of telling the woman that Dunrovin Ranch was a beautiful and majestic place, but it was a long way from the Four Seasons. If the woman had wanted to be catered to hand and foot, she should have picked a resort that would have done that—and not come to a guest ranch.

“If you like,” Whitney said, forcing herself to behave, “and are interested in relaxing, there is a spa about ten miles back down the road. I can set up an appointment for you.”

“Ten miles? Where are we, on the back side of Hell?” The woman glared at her husband, who must have been the one to book their trip.

The man smiled at Whitney, clearly embarrassed by his wife’s atrocious behavior. “Is there any way we could have the masseuse come here?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Whitney said, though she was fully aware the local masseuse, Jess Lewis, would throw a holy hissy fit at the request. Yet if they gave her a few extra bucks she would quiet down in no time.

She took down the couple’s names and got them the keys to their room—the nicest private cabin at the ranch, a two-story, nearly three-thousand-square-foot log home with marble and leather everywhere. “Let me know if there’s anything further I can assist you with,” Whitney said, the forced niceties like sand on her tongue.

“Actually,” the woman said, handing over the rat creature, “I don’t want Francesca to be a bother to me this weekend. I need you to handle her.”

Whitney balked at the woman as she stuffed the dog into her hands.

Handle her? The last thing on her long list of duties was dog handler or kennel master. Whitney had work to do. She slowly lowered the dog to the floor behind the desk. “I... Uh...” she stammered.

“That’s great. Perfect,” the woman continued, clearly not used to her requests being denied no matter how asinine they might have been.

The man opened the door and waited as his wife pranced out, her stilettos clicking on the floor like the shrill impatient cadence of fingers. Whitney just stared at the computer screen for a moment as she reminded herself these kinds of people played a big part in why she had left her home state, and she took some level of comfort in the fact that they were outsiders and going to leave just as quickly as they came.

A cold wind kicked up and spilled through the door, whipping dry fragile snowflakes onto the guest book that sat at the side of the desk. She walked over and touched the door. As she looked outside, running toward the entrance of the roundabout driveway was the little rat creature. Its dark fur sat stark against the snow as it sprinted toward freedom. She stood still for a moment, letting it get away. With an owner like hers, the dog deserved to have one go at escaping.

On the other hand, Whitney would have to answer to said owners, and she could only imagine their response if the dog was actually lost. No matter how softhearted Eloise was, Whitney would probably lose her job, and therefore her room at the ranch. She would have to start all over.

This dog’s freedom wasn’t worth it.

What was the dog’s name again? “Fifi!” she called, but the dog didn’t slow down. “Fredrico!” Again, the dog simply kept running. She ran out the door, her cowboy boots thumping on the wooden porch as she made her way to the driveway. “Lassie, come home!” she cried again.

There was the boom of laughter from behind her. She turned to see Colter watching her. “Did Timmy fall in the well again?”

“Really?” she scoffed. “If you’re not going to go after the dog, at least you can be quiet.”

His laughter lightened, but he didn’t stop chuckling. “All right, all right. I’ll come to little Lassie’s rescue. Where did she go?”

She turned back and looked out at the driveway. A ’90s blue Dodge truck was rumbling down the road toward them.

“No. Stop!” she screamed at the truck, almost as though the driver could hear her through the closed windows and the crunch of gravel under the tires. The man driving didn’t even seem to see her.

He barreled down the road. Just as he was about to cross over the steel cattle guard, the little rat creature ran out. It wove in front of the truck, stopping as it stared up at the blue beast careening toward it.

“No!” Whitney yelled.

The dog took off running toward the truck. Just as they were about to collide, the dog slipped between the bars of the cattle guard that stretched across the end of the driveway, and disappeared. It wasn’t Timmy or the well, but it looked like they would have to pull off their own version of a rescue.

Chapter Two

He’d been at the save-a-life game for a long time now, but this was the first time Colter Fitzgerald had to save a dog from the jaws of a cattle guard. He waved at the guy driving the truck, motioning for him to go ahead. The guy had dark, oily hair that sparkled in the winter sun. Sitting on the man’s dashboard was a wooden bat, and the sight made chills ripple down Colter’s spine.

In a split second, everything could have really gone downhill. The driver’s grim face and demeanor were far from friendly. So much so, Colter was thankful he had not climbed down to confront them about the dog that had appeared from nowhere in front of his vehicle. He watched in relief as the trucker drove past them with a curt wave and the taillights vanished in the distance. The last thing he needed, especially in his quest to impress Whitney, was a run-in with a hard-edged stranger.

Whitney Barstow hadn’t been his mother’s employee for very long. From his recollection, it had been exactly three months since she set foot on his mother’s porch and asked for any job that didn’t involve the care and maintenance of horses. At the time, he had thought it was odd anyone would want to come to a ranch and not work with the animals, but he had let it go—everyone had their quirks. Besides, every time he caught a glimpse of her gray eyes, they made him nearly forget his name, not to mention any of her faults. To him, she was perfect, even the way she seemed to be constantly annoyed by him.

He glanced over at her as she stared into the grates of the cattle guard. “It’s okay, sweet puppy. We’re going to get you out. Don’t worry,” she cooed, her voice taking on the same soft edge she must have used with small children.

Colter smiled as she looked up at him and the sunlight caught in her hair and made it shine like each strand was spun out of gold. “What are we going to do?” she asked, motioning toward the grate.

The steel bars had been bent, apparently just enough for a small pooch to fall between. Yet instead of staying where they could simply pull it, the dog had wedged itself deep into the corner of the trough beneath. The pup shook as it stood on the collection of cracked ice and looked up at them, its eyes rimmed with white. It had to have been cold down there, and the poor creature was ill-prepared, with its short hair and low body fat, to withstand frigid temperatures for long. They’d have to act fast.

He stood up and rushed toward the barn. “I’ll grab the tractor,” he called over his shoulder.

She nodded but turned back to the dog. “Come here, baby.”

He didn’t know a great deal about the little animal that looked like a Chihuahua, but he did know that no amount of calling was going to get that dog to come to her. A dog like that was notorious for being a one-person animal. According to one guest he’d talked to, who had owned a similar dog, that was the allure—to have an animal that fawned over only its owner. It was like owning the cat of the dog world.

The barn doors gave a loud grind of metal on metal as he slid them open. He took in a deep breath. He loved the smell of animals almost as much as he loved the animals themselves. Most people might have found the scent of feed, sweat and grime too much, but for a firefighter like him, it was the perfume of life—and it reminded him how lucky he was to have the opportunity to live it. It wasn’t like the smell of ash. He’d read poem after poem that likened the scent of ash to renewal, but it never drew images of a phoenix to his mind; rather, it only reminded him of the feeling of what it was to lose and be destroyed from the inside out.

He grabbed a steel chain and the keys that hung on the wall just inside the door, and made his way back outside to the tractor parked just under the overhang.

The tractor started with a chug and a sputter. The old beast fought hard to start, thanks to the cold, but it had been through a lot. He pressed it forward and moved it out of its parking spot by the barn. The vehicle made groans and grumbles that sounded like promises of many more years of service. His parents had done a good job with the place, always setting everything up to last not just their lifetime, but for generations to come. It was hard to imagine that his parents used to have a life before—lives that didn’t revolve around the comings and goings of the ranch, its guests and the foster kids who had passed in and out of their doors.

They had spent their lives giving everything they had to this place. He could have said the same things about his intention as a firefighter; he undoubtedly would give everything he had to his job, and the lives he would affect, but it wasn’t the same. His job and lifestyle were finite. As soon as his body gave out and he was no longer physically able to do the job, someone new, younger would come in and take his place. In fact, as soon as he walked out of the station’s doors, it would be like he had never really been there at all—likely only the people whose lives he’d touched would have any lasting thoughts of him.

He blew a warm breath of air onto his chilling fingers as he drove the tractor around the corner and onto the driveway. Maybe he was wrong in thinking that he had nothing in common with the phoenix. Maybe he had simply already risen from the ashes of a firefighter who had served before him, and when he aged out, another would take his place to renew their battalion.

The thought didn’t upset him—it was an unspoken reality of their lifestyle—but when compared to his parents’ lifestyle he couldn’t help wondering if he had made the wrong choice. In all reality, he had only ever pulled one person out of a burning building, and it had been the town drunk after he had passed out with a cigarette listing from his lips. Most of his calls were accidents on the highway, grass fires and medical emergencies. If he had stayed on the ranch, he could have helped build the place up and worked on creating a legacy for his family for generations to come. As it was, none of his brothers had ever spoken of what would come.

What would come. Even with the roar of the tractor’s engine, the words echoed within him. If things continued going as they had been doing over the last few months, there wouldn’t be anything left to worry about. Reservations for the upcoming month had been tapering off rapidly. If they didn’t turn things around, by next summer they would be unable to support the overhead it took to keep the ranch up and running.

He hated being the pessimistic type, so he tried to push aside his concerns. Things were never as bad as they appeared. For him, it always seemed like things had a way of working out. Hopefully the same could be said for the ranch. At least this month they had Yule Night.

Maybe if Yule Night went especially well, it could lighten some of his parents’ burden. The last thing they needed after the murders was money troubles. It wasn’t his job, but he would do everything in his power to make sure that the ranch would stay afloat—especially if that meant he could save puppies and look every part of a hero to the one woman he wanted to like him.

Whitney stood up and waved him to bring the tractor closer. She really was incredibly beautiful. She stretched, moving her shoulders back as she pressed her hands against her hips. As he looked at where her hands touched her round curves, he wished those hands could be his. It would be incredible to feel the touch of her skin, to run his fingers down the round arch of her hips and over the strong muscles that adorned her thighs.

She was so strong. Not just physically, but emotionally, as well. In fact, she had always made a point of being so strong that he barely knew anything about her past. She kept things so close to her chest that he longed to know more, to get her to trust him enough that she would open up. As it was, all he knew about her was that she had originally been from Kentucky—but that was only thanks to the fact that he had managed to catch a quick glimpse of her application on his mother’s desk before she was hired.

Why was she so closed off? For a moment he wondered if she was hiding from something or someone, or if it was more that she was hiding something from them. No one came to nowhere, Montana, and hid on a ranch unless there was something in their lives, or in their past, that they were running away from.

Maybe one day, if he was lucky, she would open up to him. Though, just because everything seemed to work out in the end for him, he’d never call himself lucky—and that would be exactly what it would take to make Whitney think of him as anything more than just another source of annoyance.

“What took you so long?” she asked as he climbed down from the tractor and laid the chains over his shoulder.

He didn’t know what was worse: the heaviness of the chains that dug into his skin or the disgust that tore through him from her gaze. He hadn’t been gone more than a couple of minutes, yet he understood more than anyone that when there was an emergency, time seemed to slow down. Minutes turned into millennia, and those were the kinds of minutes which had a way of driving a person to madness.

He smiled, hoping some of the contempt she must have been feeling for him would dissipate. “I guess I could have put the tractor in third gear, but the way I see it, that dog ain’t going nowhere.”

She shook her head and turned away from him. Yeah, she hated him. She looked back and reached out. “Hand me the chain. We need to get the dog out of here before it gets hypothermic.”

“Here,” he said, handing her one end of the chain. “Hook this to the tractor’s bucket. I’ll get the guard.”

She took the chain and did as he instructed while he made his way over to the cattle guard and peered in at the little dog. It looked up at him and whimpered. The sound made his gut ache and he wrapped the chain around the steel so that when he raised the bucket on the machine, it would lift the gate straight up and away from the dog. He’d have to be careful to avoid hurting the animal. Something like this could get a little hairy. One little slip, one weak link in the chain, and everything could go to hell in a handbasket in just a few seconds.

He secured the chain and made his way back to the tractor. In one smooth, slow motion he raised the tractor’s bucket. The chain clinked and pulled taut, and he motioned to Whitney. “Ready?”

She gave him a thumbs-up.

He lifted the bucket higher, and the tractor shifted slightly as it fought to bring up the heavy grate that was frozen to the ground. With a pop of ice and the metallic twang, the grate pried loose from the concrete and the tractor hoisted it into the air. He rolled the machine back a few feet, just to be safe in case the chain broke. No one would get hurt, not on his watch.

He ran over to the dog and lifted it up from its den of ice. The pup was shivering and panting with fear. He ran his fingers down the animal, trying to reassure the terrified creature.

Whitney stood beside him and looked at him for a moment and smiled. There was an unexpected warmth in her eyes as she looked at him and then down at the dog. As he sent her a soft smile, she looked away—almost too quickly, as though she was avoiding his gaze. She reached down and opened up the buttons of her Western-style red shirt. “Here, let me have her,” she said, motioning for the animal.

“You’re a good dog,” he said, handing her over to Whitney.

Ever so carefully, as though she were handling a fragile Fabergé egg, she moved the dog against her skin; but not before he caught a glimpse of her red bra, a red that perfectly matched the color of her plaid shirt. His mind instinctively moved to thoughts of what rested beneath her jeans. She was probably the kind of woman who always wore matching underwear. He closed his eyes as the image of her standing in front of him in only her lingerie flashed through his mind. His body coursed to life.

It was just lust. That was all this was. Or maybe it was just that she seemed so far out of his league that he couldn’t help wanting her.

“Hey,” she said, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Hmm?” he asked, trying to look at anything but the little spot of exposed flesh of her stomach just above the dog where, if she moved just right, he was sure he could have seen more of her forbidden bra.

“Want a beer?” She pointed to something resting in the snow not far from the other side of the cattle guard.

He jumped over the gaping trench and leaned down to take a closer look. There, sitting in the fresh snow, was a green glass Heineken bottle. Jammed into the opening was a cloth, and inside was liquid. Picking it up, he pulled the cloth out and took a quick sniff. The pungent, chemical-laced aroma of gas cut through his senses like a knife.

He stuffed the rag back into the bottle and stared at the thing in his hand for a moment as Whitney came over to stand by his side.

He shouldn’t have touched it. He never should have picked the dang thing up. Now his fingerprints were all over it.

“What is it?” she asked.

He glanced over at her and contemplated telling her the truth, but he didn’t want to get her upset over something that may turn out to be nothing. Yet he couldn’t keep the truth from her forever. It couldn’t be helped.

“Unfortunately, it ain’t beer,” he said, lifting it a bit higher. “What it is is what we call a Molotov cocktail.”

Her jaw dropped and she moved to grab it, but he pulled it away. If he was right, her fingerprints didn’t need to be anywhere near this thing.

“You can’t be serious. Why...? Who?” She stared at the bottle, but let her hands drop to her sides.

His thoughts moved to the guy in the blue truck. He hadn’t seen the man drop anything out of the window, but that bottle hadn’t been there long. Or maybe Colter was wrong and someone else had come, chickened out and left the flammable grenade as a warning.

Either way, it looked as though someone had planned to act against the ranch. More, someone had wanted to hurt the place and the ones he loved.

Chapter Three

Whitney wasn’t the kind who got scared easily, but seeing that bottle in Colter’s hand had made every hair on her body stand on end. There were any number of people, thanks to the news of the deaths and the kidnapping, who had a bone to pick with Dunrovin; yet it just didn’t make sense to her that someone would come here with the intention of making things worse. Why throw a bomb? Why harm those who worked here? None of the people who currently worked or lived on the ranch were guilty of any wrongdoing.

Well, at least any wrongdoing when it came to the ranch. She couldn’t think about her past, not when it came to this. She bit the inside of her cheek as she mindlessly petted the dog that was safely tucked into her shirt.

“Do you think we should call the police?” she asked, tilting her chin in the direction of the dangerous object.

Colter sighed. “We probably should, but I’m not sure that having any more police out to the ranch is a great idea right now. Maybe this is nothing. Maybe it was just something someone had in the back of their pickup and it just bounced out as they drove over the cattle guard. Maybe it’s just spare gas or something, you know.”

His feeble attempt to make her feel better didn’t work. She could hear the lie in his voice. They both knew all too well this wasn’t just some innocuous thing. This was someone’s failed effort to cause damage.

Yet to a certain degree she agreed with him. The last thing the place needed was more negative press. Even though his brother Wyatt was a deputy for the local sheriff’s office, it didn’t mean they would be able to keep this thing under wraps. If they called 911, everyone in the county would hear about the latest development in the melodrama that the ranch was becoming. But if they didn’t inform the police, there wouldn’t be a record of it, and if something else happened...

She swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat.

Nothing else would happen. They had gotten the person responsible for the murders. They might have had a bad track record, and a bit of a target on their backs, but that didn’t mean the entire world wanted to take them down. Maybe it was just someone’s spare gas.

“Is there oil in it?” she asked, motioning to the green Heineken bottle.

He glanced down at the bottle and swirled it around, the green glass looking darker, almost as if the liquid inside had a slight red hue. “Yeah, I think so. Why?”

She smiled and some of her fears dissipated. “You know... Maybe someone was just passing through. Maybe you were right. I mean, if it’s a mixed gas—”

“It could be for a chain saw. Maybe they were going out onto the federal lands behind the ranch looking for a Christmas tree or something,” Colter said, finishing her sentence. “You are freaking amazing, you know that?”

She smiled and tried not to notice the way her heart sped up when he looked at her like that. She tried to reaffirm that her self-esteem wasn’t dependent on his approval, but no matter how hard she tried to convince herself, she couldn’t fully accept it as truth. He was so darn cute, and when he smiled, it made some of the sharp edges of her dislike soften. He wasn’t as bad as she had assumed. If anything, he had a way of making people relax; and that was just the kind of person she needed in her life. Though he couldn’t know that. Nothing could happen between them. Not now, not ever. She needed to stay independent, indifferent.

“I’m not amazing.” Even to her, she sounded coy. The last thing she wanted him to think was that she was playing some kind of demure game to get him to fall in love. She wasn’t and would never be that kind of woman—a woman who belonged more on the debutante circuit, the kind who could turn on the Southern charm with the simple wave of a hand.

He slipped his hand into hers and she stared at it in shock for a moment before letting go of him and turning away. He couldn’t like her. She couldn’t like him. If he knew the truth, he would want nothing to do with her.

“Wait. I’m sorry, Whit,” he called after her, but she didn’t slow down as she made her way back to the office.

She couldn’t let herself turn around. She couldn’t let him see the look in her eyes that she was sure was there—a look which begged for him to touch her; more, to love her with every part of his soul. She desperately wanted a love like that, but just because she wanted something, that didn’t mean that she should have it. Not when she might or might not have been done running.

The dog scrambled out of her shirt and jumped to the floor as soon as she closed the door to her office. The poor thing was covered in dirt and muck, and a piece of what looked like chewed gum was stuck to its ribs. The little thing rushed over to Milo’s bed and snuggled into the pile of blankets. She was never going to be able to explain what had happened to the owners if they found out.

If they found out.

She couldn’t tell them. No. She chuckled as she thought about all the Nos that were suddenly entering her life. Everywhere she turned, every choice she had to make came to that stark end. No.

Things really hadn’t changed that much from Kentucky.

When she was home in Louisville, it had been the same. She had told her parents she was leaving, that she was never coming back, that she was following her gut—and every word had been met with the same “No.” But they hadn’t understood. They had thought it was only out of some selfish need to spread her wings after everything that had happened with Frank. They hadn’t known the whole truth, a truth that haunted her every move and threatened to rear its ugly head and reenter her life as long as she stayed there.

And maybe part of it had been the fact that she wanted so much more. She wanted to be around horses again—not close enough to touch, but close. Once you had a love for the animals, there was no turning your back to it, no matter what kind of pain had come from them in the past.

She pressed her back against the office door and closed her eyes. No. She couldn’t dig up the past. No.

There was a knock on the door, and it sent vibrations down her spine. She turned around to see Colter standing there, looking at her through the glass.

Why couldn’t he get the message that she just wanted him to leave her alone?

Instead of opening the door, she pulled down the shade so he couldn’t see her. She couldn’t deal with him right now. And seeing him look at her like that, like there was something more than friendship budding between them, it tore at her heart. If something happened...she’d have to run. She’d have to leave this place. She couldn’t reveal her past to him or to anyone. She couldn’t allow her feelings to make her vulnerable.

“I get it—I have chapped hands,” he said with a laugh, and what she assumed was his best attempt at relieving the tension between them, but he was wrong if he thought it would be that easy.

“Or maybe it’s not my hands, but you just don’t want to talk to me,” he continued. “That’s fine. I just wanted you to know that everything is back in place and the cattle guard is down. If you need anything just let me know. I’m going to stick around and help my dad.” He stood still, almost as if he was waiting for her to answer, but she said nothing.

After a few long seconds, she heard the sounds of his heavy footfalls as he made his way off the porch. She was tempted to peek out from behind the curtain to see where he was going, if he’d finally gotten the message that she wasn’t interested, but she stopped herself. She had to be strong.

The phone rang, and she had never been more grateful for the obnoxious sound.

“Dunrovin Ranch Guest Services. This is—”

“We need more towels,” a woman said in a shrill voice, cutting her off.

She glanced down at the room number that lit up the phone’s screen. Of course it was Ms. Fancy Pants. She bit the side of her cheek as she thought of all the comebacks she would have liked to say.

“Absolutely, ma’am. I’ll have one of our staff bring them to you. Is there anything else you will be needing?”

There was the rumble of a truck and the squeak of brakes from the parking area.

“Where is the nearest club? We wanted to go dancing. You know...honky-tonking, or whatever you rednecks call it.”

She swallowed back her anger, only letting a sardonic chuckle slip past. “Ma’am, the only club we have out here is a sandwich. But if you are looking for a bar, we have several. There’s the Dog House, which is about five miles from here. It’s mostly locals, but on the weekends they usually have a few people dancing.” But it was a far cry from the country-style bar that always seemed to fill the movie screens in which everyone was dancing and there was a mechanical bull in the corner. The Dog House was one step away from being somebody’s garage. In fact, it would have made sense if that was what the place had once been.

Ms. Fancy Pants sighed so loudly that Whitney wondered if the woman had put her mouth directly on the mouthpiece. “I guess it will have to do. And I won’t even bother asking about restaurants. I’d rather go hungry than eat anything this town has to offer.”

Whitney’s dislike for the woman mounted with each of the woman’s passing syllables.

“We’ll be right over.” She hung up the phone, unable to listen to the woman’s prattling for another second.

There wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in July that she was going to face the woman who’d just called. She dialed the number for the housekeeper, but the phone rang and rang, and she left the girl who was supposed to be working a message about the towels.

She set down the phone and stared at it for a moment. On second thought, maybe she could ask Colter to help. He didn’t work for the ranch, but if he was as interested in her as he seemed to be, he might jump at the chance to come to her aid; and it might get him out of her hair for a bit and give her the time she needed to get back to center about him and her feelings.

She sighed, content with her plan, as she opened the door. There was a black Chevy truck parked in the lot, and a tall, thin blonde had her arms draped around Colter’s neck. As Whitney watched, the woman threw her head back with a laugh so high and perfect that it bounced around the courtyard until it was finally, thankfully swallowed up by the dark barn.

It was stupid to stand there and watch as the woman flipped her hair and then ran her fingers over the edges of Colter’s jacket collar, but she couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Sure, the woman was coming on to him. Whitney could understand a woman’s attraction to the trim firefighter with a gift when it came to making people at ease, but she couldn’t understand the swell of jealousy and unease that filled her as she watched.

He had held her hand, yet now his hands were on the blonde’s hips. Was Mr. Eligible Bachelor really Mr. Taken?

Had he been playing her? He had to have been. Heck, he was probably thanking his lucky stars right at that very moment that she had turned him down in time for Ms. Blonde in Tight Jeans to come and wrap her model-ish body around him like a thin blanket.

She gritted her teeth, making them squeak so loudly that it was a wonder he hadn’t heard them even at a distance.

The mysterious woman moved to her tiptoes and gave Colter a kiss on the cheek.

It was the last straw.

Whitney turned around and went back inside, slamming the door in her wake. That was fine. If Colter wanted to be with every one of the town’s available women, that was fine. He could be with all of them except her. She had better things to do with her time.

On the wall, just beside the door, was a picture of Colter in his bunker gear, a smile on his face. It was ironic. Here was a man who was sent into the flames to save people’s lives, but the best thing he had done for her was to save her from falling in love.

Chapter Four

Colter squirmed out of Sarah’s grip. At one point he wouldn’t have minded having her hands all over him, but not now—not with everything that had happened between them. That attempt at a relationship had crashed harder than the housing market. She cared about only two things: her catering business and how she could make herself happy—no matter the cost to others. Sure, the blonde chef was cute, but beauty was a depreciating asset; being genuine, kind and selfless was far more important than any outward attributes.

He glanced back over his shoulder toward the office where Whitney was working. He could have sworn he’d heard a door slam, yet thankfully, she was nowhere in sight. He would have hated for her to get the wrong idea.

“Colter, when are you going to take me out again?” Sarah asked, running her finger down the buttons on the front of his shirt.

He took hold of her hand and lowered it gently as he gave her a firm but unwavering smile. “It was fun, but—”

“But what?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes up at him.

He hated this kind of confrontation. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her or lead her on, but she was making it difficult.

“But we just don’t fit. You know what I mean?” he said, trying to take the path of least resistance.

“I bet we could fit together if we just tried, Colter,” she said, her voice soft and airy. “I just... You know when we went out, I had just broken up with Kent. I wasn’t at my best. I’d like another shot.”

“It’s not you—”

“It’s me.” She stepped back from him. “Get a new line. Or at least just learn how to tell the woman the truth. If you’re not into me, that’s fine...” Sarah flipped her hair back off her neck and straightened her jacket like she could simply brush off his rejection.

“Sarah, it really isn’t you. I’m just not looking for anything right now.” He glanced back to the ranch office as the weight of the lie rolled off his tongue and fell hard. Sarah was right; he wasn’t into her. He didn’t know why he was bothering to lie other than to save her feelings. The woman he really wanted was Whitney, and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

“When you are looking...I’ll be waiting,” she said, her playful smile returning as though she thought there was still room to hope.

He gave a resigned sigh. “Why are you here?”

“I need to finalize the catering details with your mom. Is she around?”

He motioned to the house. “I think she’s inside.”

“Are you coming to the party?” Sarah asked.

There was no right answer. If he said no, she would see him there and be upset, but he knew if he admitted he was going to be there, she would pressure him for something. He didn’t feel like dancing around another come-on.

His father walked out of the house and made a beeline for the barn. “Actually, I need to run along and help my father set things up.”

Her face fell with another rejection, but before she could say anything he jogged toward his father.

“I’ll see you at the party, then?” she called after him, but he didn’t bother to turn around; instead he slipped into the safety of the barn.

Throughout his life this kind of thing seemed to be a recurring theme—the women he didn’t want were desperate for him to commit to them, but the women he really wanted to date wouldn’t give him the time of day. He dated a lot, but it seemed like things never went too far. With the last woman, he’d gone on one date and she’d spent the entire time talking about her job. They had hit it off all right, they had been able to talk, but, like all the other women he’d gone out with, the woman wasn’t what he was looking for. The way things were going, he was never going to have another serious relationship.

Maybe he was just destined to be on his own. To some degree, he liked it that way. His fridge carried only the staples—meat log, cheese and mayonnaise. It was just like the rest of life—simple, uncluttered and what some people might have considered a bit habitual. If he did end up finding himself in a relationship, he’d have to give his routine up—women were never simple. None being more complicated than the curiosity that was Whitney Barstow.

He chuckled as he imagined her walking into his house. She’d probably turn around and walk right out if she saw how bare the place was.

It was just easier this way, deep in his world of habit and minimalism—even if it was a bit lonesome at times. He could deal with lonesome. At least it meant that he wouldn’t have to deal with heartbreak.

As the word sank in, the thoughts of his biological father moved to the front of his mind. He had only one memory of the man. Colter was two years old, and his father was leaving him and his brother Waylon on the fire department’s doorstep. He had just woken up and his eyes were still grainy from the residue of sleep. Yet he could still see his father’s eyes, the color of rye whiskey and their edges reddened with years of what he knew now was hard living. More than his eyes, he could remember the raspy smoke-riddled words he’d last said to them: “Boys,” he’d whispered, making sure he didn’t give himself away to the firemen just behind the doors. “You all don’t go into the flames. When life burns at ya...run.”

Opening himself up for a relationship was just running into the flames.

“I see Sarah’s at it again,” his adoptive father, Merle, said as he wrapped a bit of baling twine around his arm.

Colter grabbed a handful of pellets and let the mare at the end of the stalls nibble it out of his hand.

“She’s still...Sarah...” He said her name like a verb, and it was met with his father’s chuckle.

“Well, at least you can’t say that she’s a quitter. One of these days she’ll get ya tied down. Come hell or high water.”

“If she does, I’ll be in hell all right.” He rubbed the old girl’s neck, running his fingers down her silken coat. “What can I help you with?”

“If you’re really that afraid of going back out and facing your ex, I could use some help getting down the decorations for the party,” his father said, motioning toward the hayloft. “We need the lights and the rest of the wreaths. Your mother is making a fuss about everything being just perfect.”

Colter didn’t need his father to tell him why or how much was riding on their success.

“Did we sell any more tickets?” he asked as he made his way over to the ladder that led up to the hayloft and stepped up on the bottom rung.

“We’re up to about fifty. Some donations are coming in, but as of right now we are thinking that we’re only going to just about break even on the thing. We’re going to need to sell at least a hundred more tickets.”

“Who knows what will happen?” Colter said, making his way up the ladder so his father wouldn’t see the concern that undoubtedly filled his features. “Last year we had a lot of people show up at the door, right?”

“That’s what we’re banking on.”

Colter could hear the concern in his father’s voice.

“I’d hate to have to start letting people go, but if things don’t turn around...”

Whitney hadn’t been on the ranch that long. If his parents decided to start laying off staff, he had no doubt that they would do it as fairly and equitably as possible—which meant it would be based on time at the ranch, and Whitney would be among the first to be let go. He couldn’t let that happen.

Colter stepped off the ladder as he reached the top and made his way over to the corner where his parents kept the Christmas supplies for the barn. There were green and red tubs, each carefully marked with WREATHS, LIGHTS and TREE DECORATIONS. He loved how meticulous they kept everything. It made life so much easier—when there were labels to everything and instructions on how to keep things from going out of control.

The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust and scattered bits of broken hay. It was warm from the bodies of the horses below and it carried the sweet scent of grass. He remembered coming up here as a kid, hiding in the boxes and making forts with the horses’ blankets. He and Rainier, being the two youngest brothers, had spent most of their time up here, close to the horses and the things they loved the most.

He sucked in a long breath as he thought of the careening path to disaster that Rainier’s life had taken. If only his parents had made a label, or a set of instructions, for his brother, maybe his life would have gone down a different path.

Colter pulled the top bucket off the stack and moved toward the ladder. “I’ll hand this down and grab another.”

The floor creaked loudly, and as he took another step, the board beneath his foot shifted. The box in his hands blocked his view, and as he twisted to check his footing, there was a loud crack. The board gave out, and before he could move away, he was falling.

The jagged edges of the wood tore at his legs as he fell through the floor. The pain was raw and surreal, almost as though it was happening to someone else.

He’d always had this fear, but in his mind’s eye, he’d always thought that something like this would happen only at his job, when a floor was burning out from underneath him—not in the safety and security of his parents’ barn. His world, the one he’d created in his mind where everything was controlled and safe, was betraying him. It was almost the same feeling he’d had as a child... And he couldn’t believe he was back here again—feeling powerless as his world collapsed around him.

He threw the bucket and a strange, strangled sound escaped him—the guttural noise as instinct took over. The box clattered onto the floor, the lid flying open and a garland spilling out. Holding out his hands, he scratched at the floor around him. He had to stop. He had to catch himself before he hit the ground below.

His father made a thick sound, somewhere between a gasp and a call to help, just as his fingers connected with the needlelike points of the broken floor. The wood pierced his hands, but he gripped tight. Holding on in an effort to slow his fall.

Though he was strong, his elbows strained with his weight as he jerked to a stop. His feet dangled in the air, just above the bucket of pellets.

There was the grind of metal of the door and the sound of Whitney gasping behind him.

“Colter!” she called, a sharp edge of fear in her voice.

There was the warmth of blood as it slipped down his leg and spilled into the top of his boot. He let go of the wood and fell into the galvanized bucket. It tipped with his weight as it broke his fall, spilling the horses’ treats onto the dirt floor.

He threw his arms out, catching himself as he fell, but all it did was slow his descent into the dirt, muck and bits of the broken flooring. For a moment he lay there, taking mental stock of his body. He’d jarred his ankle and he was cut up, but he was going to be fine.

“Colter, are you all right?” Whitney asked, rushing to his side. She touched his shoulder gently, almost as though she would hurt him even more if she pressed too hard.

“Yeah, yeah... I’m fine,” he said, trying just as much to convince himself as her. He pushed himself up to sitting. His jeans were torn and there was a deep gash on the side of his leg. The blood was flowing from it, dotted with bits of sawdust and dirt from the ground.

“What in the hell happened?” his father asked.

Colter looked up at the floor. Where he had fallen through, the plywood was jagged on one end, but suspiciously straight on three other sides. He picked up a bit of the flooring that had landed on the ground beside him.

There, on the bit of wood, were the distinctive marks of a saw blade. He lifted the piece for his father and Whitney to see. “Everyone at the ranch knew we would be going up there for the decorations for Yule Night.”

His father took the piece of broken lumber and turned it around in his hands, inspecting the marks. “No, Colter... It had to be just some kind of accident. Maybe one of the volunteers just cut through the floor on accident. These things happen.”

Colter could hear the lie in his father’s voice.

No one would cut almost a perfect rectangle in the floor by accident. Anyone in their right mind would know the likelihood of someone getting hurt if they stepped on the spot—a spot he’d had to step on in order to get to the boxes. Someone had intended to set a trap—albeit a poor one, one that would hurt anyone who went up there and not someone specific.

He thought of the bottle of oil and gas they had found. While he had tried to convince himself the device wasn’t a threat, and was just some random discarded item, now he couldn’t be so sure. The odds of two things like this happening on the same day had to be slim to none.

Yet the bottle hadn’t been in a place where it would do much damage. In fact, if they hadn’t come across it by accident, it could simply have been covered by more snow in the coming days. Unless someone had dropped it there in an attempt to not be seen carrying it. It didn’t make sense.

If anything, this all seemed like the ill-conceived plan of a teenager, or else this was someone who wanted to simply send a message—a warning that Dunrovin was coming under attack.

Chapter Five

She could understand acting tough, but Whitney couldn’t understand Colter’s need to pretend his body wasn’t racked by pain. He walked with a limp that he couldn’t disguise as they made their way to the ranch house.

“Let me clean you up,” she said, motioning to his torn pants and the blood that stained the cloth.

“Don’t worry—I’ll be fine. It’s just a little flesh wound,” he said, but the darkness in his eyes and the deep, controlled baritone of his voice gave his pain away.

“Don’t be so stubborn. Flesh wound or not, it needs to be cleaned up. And that’s to say nothing about maybe going to the emergency room.”

Colter shook his head. “There’s no way I’m going to the doctor.” He lifted the injured leg like it was stiff as he made his way up the stairs and into the house.

She followed him inside and pointed to the oversize leather chair that sat beside the fireplace in the living room. “Sit down. I’ll be right back.”

His mouth opened as though he considered protesting for a moment, but as he looked at her, he clammed up and hobbled over to the chair and thumped down.

She made her way to the bathroom and got the first-aid kit out of the closet. She was still angry with him. Hurt or not, he’d had his hands all over the blonde in the driveway.

Though she shouldn’t have been jealous, she couldn’t help it from swelling in her like a fattening tick. She had no claim on Colter Fitzgerald. In fact, no one ever seemed to have a solitary claim on the man. He dated too much and too often for her to let herself even think about him. Yet she couldn’t help her thoughts as they drifted to the way he had looked holding the puppy.

No. She couldn’t let the thought of how cute he was alter the fact that he usually drove her crazy. They couldn’t be a thing. She wasn’t looking for a relationship—especially not with a man like him.

She walked down the hallway. As she turned the corner, the blonde and Eloise were standing beside Colter. Before they could see her, she ducked into the tiny little room that was Merle and Eloise’s private office. She felt out of place and unwelcome in the room that was neatly organized, its bookshelves color-coordinated with three-ring binders and business books. She stood there listening as the blonde fawned over the hurt Colter.

Whitney stared around the room. She shouldn’t be in here, but there was no way she was going to walk out in the living room and fake nice with the woman who was clearly head over heels for Colter—and, if truth be told, probably more up his alley than Whitney was.

The lump of jealousy inside her swelled further, threatening to burst.

She stepped back, bumping against the desk as she tried to make physical distance work in the place of the emotional distance she needed. A piece of paper slipped to the floor, landing with a rustle at Whitney’s foot.

Leaning down, she picked up the page. It was a bill from Cattleman’s Bank to the tune of more than five thousand dollars. Printed on the top, with large red letters, was the word Overdue. Though it wasn’t her bill, a feeling of sickness passed over her as she stared at the number at the bottom. There was no worse feeling than looking at a bill that you knew couldn’t be paid.

She had seen those kinds of things over and over as a child when her parents were going through their divorce. The red letters were like shining beacons from a time in her life that she never wanted to remember, yet was forced to face as she looked at the paper in her hands.

No wonder everyone on the ranch had seemed on edge. She had known things were tight with her employers, but she had no clue that things were this bad.

Laying the paper back on the stack of bills in the inbox, she stepped away from the desk and the memories it wrought.

Maybe they weren’t as bad off as she was assuming. Maybe it was just one bill that had slipped through the cracks. She was tempted to flip through the other bills that were there, but she stopped herself. It wasn’t her business. And even if she knew, there was nothing she could do to change the outcome.

On the other hand, it was her future at stake. If they couldn’t pay their regular bills, then there was no possible way that they could continue to carry a staff. She had been lucky to get the job, and it was only when she’d told Eloise about her life in Kentucky that the woman had told her to come to Montana.

The woman had been so kind to her, even offering to pay for her flight here, which now, seeing what she had, Whitney knew the woman and the ranch couldn’t afford.

And now she would just have to turn around and go home. She wouldn’t be able to find another job in the tiny community that was Mystery, Montana. There was little in the way of anything here, and no one would want to hire a girl like her—one with a past spattered throughout the media.

Whitney stared at the papers. Once again, her future was at the mercy of the world around her, and there was nothing she could do to control her destiny.

She rushed out of the office, unable to stand the indelible red ink at the top of the bill a second longer. The blonde was still standing with Colter, but before Whitney could turn and rush back down the hall, Eloise noticed her.

“There she is,” Eloise said, waving her over. “Whitney, have you met Sarah?”

She felt like a dead man walking as she made her way to the living room. Sarah was smiling, her radiant white teeth just as straight and perfect as the rest of her.

“So nice to meet you, Whitney,” she said, reaching out to shake her hand.

“Likewise.” Whitney played along, but broke away from the handshake as quickly as she could. She didn’t want to meet Colter’s girlfriend, or friend with benefits, or whatever it was that this girl was to him.

“Sarah is catering the party,” Eloise added, almost as though she could sense the tension between the two women.

Whitney forced herself to smile in an attempt to comfort Eloise. Her friend didn’t need to worry about some drama that was happening between her and Sarah. Based on the paper she had just seen, there were already enough things going on in Eloise’s life.

“That’s great. I’m sure it’s going to be marvelous,” Whitney said, her voice dripping with sugary sweetness put there only for Eloise.

Colter looked up at her and frowned. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Sure. Just fine,” she said, but she looked away out of the knowledge that if he looked at her face he would see just how bad she was at lying. She grabbed the first-aid kit out from under her arm. “Here,” she said, handing it to him.

He took the box but looked up at her like he wanted to ask her to help him.

She glanced over at Sarah.

Eloise took Sarah by the arm. “Why don’t we run along and finish up going over the menu? You were saying something about the shrimp?”

Sarah opened her mouth to protest being pulled away from the man she was clearly moving in on, but before she could speak Eloise was herding her toward the kitchen.

Whitney walked toward the front door, uncomfortable with being so close and alone with Colter. There were pictures on the wall of the staff over the years, and for a moment she stared up at them.

There was a man in one of the pictures from the early ’90s. His hair was slightly longer than everyone else’s and his eyes looked dark, almost brooding. As she stared at his features, something about him felt familiar—perhaps it was the look on his face, or the way that he seemed alone when he was surrounded by others, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Colter grumbled and cringed as he limped his way over to her side and looked up at the pictures. “This place has seen a lot of things.”

“And a lot of people come and go,” she said, instinctively glancing toward the office and then toward the kitchen, where she could hear the garbled sound of Eloise and Sarah talking.

He glanced toward the kitchen.

“What is going on between you two?” she asked, motioning toward the closed kitchen door.

His eyes widened and his mouth gaped like he was waiting for the right answers to simply start falling out.

“I saw you guys in the parking lot.” She turned away from him, unable to look him in the face as she talked. “I know it’s not any of my business. But I know...I know you date a lot. And I don’t want her to think...”

“She can think whatever she wants,” he said, finally finding his voice.

“So you’re not dating?”

He shifted his weight, but jerked as though the movement caused him pain. “I... She and I, we were a thing once. It wasn’t anything serious.”

“But she’s your ex.”

He looked over at her, catching her gaze. “I would hardly call what she and I had a relationship, so I wouldn’t really call her an ex.”

“I would,” she said, feeling the acidic tone of her words straight to her bones.

He stared at her for a moment before looking away, and her heart sank. She shouldn’t have come at him like that. They all had a past, and if he looked too deeply into hers, she had no doubt that he would find things that he didn’t like, as well. Her thoughts moved to the fire and the man who had caused it.

Colter turned to walk away, but she stopped him as she grabbed his wrist.

“I’m sorry,” she said as he turned to look at her. “I’m just upset. You didn’t do anything wrong. And I have no reason to be jealous. You can date whoever you want.”

It wasn’t as if Colter liked her anyway. If he got to know her, everything would fall apart and whatever crush he had on her would rapidly diminish.

“I don’t want to date just anyone. The only one I’d love to take out is you,” he said, pulling her hand off his wrist and wrapping her fingers between his. “From the moment you came here, it’s all I wanted.”

She wanted to give in to the joy of hearing those words, but her reality wouldn’t allow it. She was so close to losing her job, her place here, and that was to say nothing about the odd things that were starting to happen around the place.

She pulled her hand from his. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m telling you that I’m not perfect. I’m not the kind of woman who most men want to date. If you just got to know me a little more, you would see that you wouldn’t want a woman like me.”

“I know you, whether you want to admit it or not.”

She gave a sardonic chuckle. “Just because we’ve been passing each other on the ranch since I got here, that doesn’t mean you know me. You have merely seen me. There are things in my past that a man like you would never accept. We have fundamental differences. Number one—that you have more dates than a fruitcake. I don’t want a man whose attention I have to struggle to keep.”

“Unless we go out, how do you know if we have fundamental differences?” He leaned against the chair closest to him. “And wait... Does fruitcake even have dates in it?”

She groaned as she tried not to smile. He might have been right, she didn’t know if there were dates in fruitcake, but she was never going to admit it. He never ceased to irritate her. He couldn’t take anything seriously—but then again, it was one of the things she couldn’t help being attracted to.

“Just sit down,” she said, pointing to the chair he leaned on. “I will fix your leg. As long as you promise not to ask me out again.”

“Today or ever?” he said, giving her a cheeky grin.

She sighed, not wanting to give him the answer she should have. She equally loved and hated the feelings he created within her. It was so much easier to not give in to her attraction, to keep out of the reach of any man’s attentions. As soon as men entered her life, only bad things seemed to follow in their wake—drama, intrigue and danger.

Love was just too risky—especially with a man like Colter, the most eligible bachelor in the county.

He plopped down into the chair and she went to get the first-aid kit. He pulled up his shredded pants leg, unveiling his bloodied and badly cut leg. Slivers of wood were embedded in his skin.

“Maybe you should go into the emergency room?” she asked, sitting down on the floor at his feet.

He waved her off. “It’s fine as long as we get it cleaned out.”

It struck her how strong he was. He had to be hurting, yet he still fought through it to make jokes with her. She didn’t want to admit it, but he really was an incredible man. Not that she was in the market for a man—no matter how incredible.

“You didn’t give me an answer about asking you out again,” he said as she set about cleaning the wound on his leg.

She patted at the cut with the gauze soaked in hydrogen peroxide as she tried to come up with the right answer. “It’s not you... You’re great. It’s just that right now...” She glanced toward the office.

His face dropped and she watched as the hope faded from his eyes. It was almost as if part of his soul had seeped from him, and she hated herself for making something like that happen. Yet she couldn’t change her mind. She had to stick to her guns.

“Besides,” she continued, “you need to focus on where you’re walking. If you think about me all the time—I mean, look at what happened this time.” She motioned to his leg. “You fell through a floor. I’m a risk to your health.” As the words escaped her, she couldn’t help thinking about how many times that had been true for the people she had gotten close to, throughout her life.

No matter where she went, or what she did, she only brought danger, sadness and loss to the ones she loved. To protect him, and the people of the ranch, she could never love again.

Chapter Six

Overnight the sky had opened and fresh glittering snowflakes adorned Colter’s front yard. The weatherman was calling for another six inches of snow today and possibly another six tomorrow. Yet in rural Montana, six inches could turn out to be two inches, or it could be two feet—it all depended on the way the wind decided to blow and the fickle whims of the winter storm.

He loved this time of year. Some hated the cold and the constant grayness that came with living in the valley, but he’d always thought of the world around him like a blanket. The mountains were his borders and the clouds were his cover, as though he were protected from the brutal world thanks to the bosom of the world itself.

He pulled on a red sweater his mother had given him last Christmas. He needed to get back to the ranch. His parents would need his help plowing and getting ready. There were only two more days until the party. He’d need to fix the floor of the barn. Not to mention being on hand to greet the visitors who would be starting to arrive for the ranch’s holiday festivities.

If truth be told, though his parents would appreciate his help, he knew they could do it on their own—what and who he really wanted to help was Whitney and the poor little dog they had saved. Or, if she asked, that would be a convenient excuse for finding his way to the ranch’s main office.

The snow crunched under his boots as he walked out to his pickup. He started it, letting the engine warm up and stave off the bitter cold. His breath was a white cloud even in the cab of the truck. According to the dashboard temperature gauge, it was ten below. This kind of weather only lent itself to three things—breakdowns, house fires and frostbite.

He wouldn’t be surprised if he got called into work. It would be an overtime shift, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was find himself there. His hand and leg were sore from yesterday’s fall. He’d be all right, but it would be an annoyance that he would have to ignore in order to do his job—and anytime something like this happened, he always had a sinking fear that it could hinder his attempt to save someone’s life. He hated the thought of letting someone else down thanks to his own weakness.

As he drove toward the ranch, his mind wandered to his other weakness—Whitney. He couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. She didn’t want to be with him; she had made that clear. Yet, when he was around her, there was just some...a spark. Something seemed to buzz between them, and from the look in her eyes, she couldn’t ignore the feeling, either.

He just had to be around her, even if it wasn’t as anything more than a friend. He was simply drawn to her. Maybe it would turn into something more than it was, and maybe it wouldn’t, but at the very least he could have her in his life.

Whitney really was one of the most confusing women he’d ever met. One minute she seemed open to the world and a future, and the next it was like a curtain fell over her and she slipped back into the shadows of her thoughts and closed him out. Colter understood it. He had seen the look a thousand times with his brother Waylon. It was the look that came with loss and pain.

She had never really talked about her life, but she didn’t need to tell him in order for him to understand that she had some baggage. Everyone had a past. Though he tried hard to hide from his, enveloping it with humor and lightheartedness, it didn’t hurt any less when he pressed too hard against it. If she would only talk to him, maybe they could work through it together.

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