It’s Christmas in Gold Valley, and this wounded widower is about to get another shot at love...

Grant Dodge didn’t expect to find a woman sleeping in an abandoned cabin on his family ranch. Or to find her so intriguing. Unlike every other woman in town, McKenna Tate doesn’t know Grant’s a widower. There’s no pity in the looks she gives him. McKenna wants him, and Grant has forgotten what it’s like to feel like a man. A no-strings fling for Christmas might be the kind of holiday cheer Grant needs...

With only a suitcase to her name, McKenna came to Gold Valley to confront her birth father. She didn’t plan to work at the Dodge ranch or fall for the gorgeous cowboy who keeps his heart roped off. But there’s no denying the way their broken pieces fit together. Hope brought her to Gold Valley—but will it be the gift that could finally heal Grant, and McKenna’s own wounded heart?

Also includes a bonus Gold Valley novella, Snowed in with the Cowboy!

Also By Maisey Yates

Welcome to Gold Valley, Oregon, where the cowboys are tough to tame, until they meet the women who can lasso their hearts.

Cowboy Christmas Blues (ebook novella)

Smooth-Talking Cowboy

Mail Order Cowboy (ebook novella)

Untamed Cowboy

Hard Riding Cowboy (ebook novella)

Good Time Cowboy

Snowed in with the Cowboy (ebook novella)

A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas

In Copper Ridge, Oregon, lasting love with a cowboy is only a happily-ever-after away. Don’t miss any of Maisey Yates’s Copper Ridge tales, available now!

Shoulda Been a Cowboy (prequel novella)

Part Time Cowboy

Brokedown Cowboy

Bad News Cowboy

A Copper Ridge Christmas (ebook novella)

The Cowboy Way

Hometown Heartbreaker (ebook novella)

One Night Charmer

Tough Luck Hero

Last Chance Rebel

Slow Burn Cowboy

Down Home Cowboy

Wild Ride Cowboy

Christmastime Cowboy

Look for more Gold Valley books coming soon!

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09594-5

A TALL, DARK COWBOY CHRISTMAS

© 2018 Maisey Yates

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Praise for New York Times

bestselling author Maisey Yates

“Yates’ new Gold Valley series begins with a sassy, romantic and sexy story about two characters whose chemistry is off the charts.”

—RT Book Reviews on Smooth-Talking Cowboy

(Top Pick)

“The banter between the Dodge siblings is loads of fun, and adding Dallas (Bennett’s surprise son) to the mix raises that humor up a notch or two.”

—RT Book Reviews on Untamed Cowboy

(Top Pick)

“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy [Yates’s] small-town romance.”

—Booklist on Part Time Cowboy

“Passionate, energetic and jam-packed with personality.”

—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on Part Time Cowboy

“[A] story with emotional depth, intense heartache and love that is hard fought for and eventually won.... This is a book readers will be telling their friends about.”

—RT Book Reviews on Brokedown Cowboy

“Yates’s thrilling seventh Copper Ridge contemporary proves that friendship can evolve into scintillating romance.... This is a surefire winner not to be missed.”

—Publishers Weekly on Slow Burn Cowboy

(starred review)

“This fast-paced, sensual novel will leave readers believing in the healing power of love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Down Home Cowboy

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Contents

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

EPILOGUE

Extract

Snowed in with the Cowboy

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

For anyone with a wounded heart this season,

and any season. May love give you hope.

CHAPTER ONE

GRANT DODGE WAS ALONE. And that was how he liked it.

He had spent the entire day out in the cold mountain air conducting roping demonstrations and leading trail rides. Not that he minded any of those things in isolation. It was the addition of people that made them somewhat challenging.

Worse than having to deal with people in a general sense was dealing with people who recognized him.

Not the typical small-town recognition; he was used to that. Though he could live without getting sad widower face from people he barely knew in the grocery store, but even then, at least it was people who knew him because he’d lived in Gold Valley all his life.

What really got to him was the people who recognized him from the news stories.

Eight years hadn’t done anything to make those moments less weird. People often couldn’t place where they knew him from, but they knew they did. And they would press, and press, until he told them.

The woman who had recognized him today had been a grandmother. A great-grandmother, even. Sweet and gray-haired and looking at him with sympathetic eyes that made him want to jump off the nearest bridge.

It always seemed worse around the holidays. Perhaps because of the sentimentality people seemed to feel that time of year. And tried to inflict on him.

He didn’t really know.

Whatever the reason, he seemed to have an uptick in well-meaning-but-irritating interactions.

Maybe that was why he always wanted to drink more this time of year, too.

He shook his head and settled down into his chair, looking around the small, cozy cabin that he called home. And then he looked into the full, inviting whiskey glass he called salvation.

He didn’t have a problem or anything. He was functional. He considered that the benchmark. Low though it might be.

He was functional enough that his family mostly joked about his drinking, which meant it was probably fine.

But the one thing he didn’t want to do was get in bed at night stone-cold sober. Sometimes he could. When the long, hard day of work came inside with him, resting on aching shoulders and the lower back that was getting touchier with each passing year—because age. Not that thirty-four was exceptionally aged, not at all. But physical labor had a way of speeding all that up.

But then, the alternative had been to spend the rest of his life working at the damned power company, living in a little house on a quiet street in a neighborhood tucked back behind the main street of Gold Valley living the life of a man lost in suburban bliss, without any of the trappings that generally made it blissful.

No children.

No wife.

Not anymore.

He never had the children, but there had been a time when he and Lindsay had hoped for them. Even though...

That had always been a pipe dream, he supposed.

But for a while, he and Lindsay had lived in a world of dreams. Reality had been too harsh. And sometimes sitting around and making plans for a future you knew wouldn’t be there was all you could do.

He took a long swallow of whiskey and leaned back in his chair. This was why he didn’t go to bed sober.

Because it was these quiet moments, the still ones—particularly this time of year—that had a way of crushing in on him, growing louder and louder in the silence of the room.

Solitude was often as welcome as it was terrifying. Sometimes it had teeth. And he did his best not to get savaged by them.

He took another swallow of whiskey and leaned back farther in the chair before setting the glass on the table with a decisive click. Then he let his head fall back.

He must’ve dozed off, because when he opened his eyes again the hands on the clock hanging on the wall had made a more pronounced journey than it would have if it had only been the few minutes it felt like.

He stretched, groaning as his joints popped. He stood, making his way over to the window and looking out into the darkness.

At least, he should have been looking out into the darkness.

Instead, he saw a dim light cutting through the trees.

They did have guests staying on the property, but none out in the woods behind Grant’s cabin.

Grant lived well out of the way, on the opposite end of Dodge land from the guest cabins. And if there was anyone out there right now, they were not where they were supposed to be.

He opened up the drawer in the kitchen and took a small flashlight out, and then shoved on his boots before heading outside. He supposed, if he were thinking clearly, he would have called his brother Wyatt. But then, he was half-asleep and a little bit drunk, so he wasn’t thinking all that clearly. Instead, he made his own way out through the trees and toward the single light that was glowing in the woods.

When he was halfway between his house and the light it occurred to him what he was probably about to walk in on.

The back of his neck went hot, tension rising inside of him.

Odds were, anyone out in the middle of nowhere at this hour was up to one thing. And he didn’t especially want to walk in and find two people having sex in the middle of the woods, interrupting his drinking and sleeping time. The teeth on that would be just a little bit too sharp to bear.

But then, if he wasn’t getting any, nobody else should, either.

Especially not right next to his house.

That only increased his irritation as he continued on toward the light, the wind whipping through the trees, the bitter cold biting through the flannel shirt he was wearing. He should’ve put a jacket on, but he hadn’t thought of it.

He swore, and then he swore again as he approached the light.

He frowned. Right. There was a cabin back here, but it was dilapidated. One of the original buildings on the property, from back in the late 1800s. One that hadn’t been inhabited in a long time. At least, not by humans. He had a feeling there had been several raccoons, and about ten thousand spiders. But not humans.

And raccoons did not light lanterns. So he could safely assume this was not a raccoon.

He was on the verge of storming in—because why the hell not?—but something stopped him. Instead, he softened his footsteps and walked up to the window.

It was not what he’d been expecting.

It was a person, but not people. And nobody was having sex.

Instead, there was a small woman, curled up beneath the threadbare blanket. She looked like she was asleep. The camping lantern next to her head was turned on, a thin, yellow band of light stretching across what he could see of her face.

She was not one of the guests; at least, he was reasonably certain. He didn’t make a practice of memorizing what they all looked like.

Mostly because he didn’t care.

It was also difficult to identify her positively because she was curled up in a ball, the blanket halfway up over her head. He shifted his position and saw there was a backpack in the corner of the room. But nothing else.

He frowned, looking at her again, and he saw that there were shoes on her feet, which were sticking out just past the edge of the blanket.

He dragged his hand over his face.

She could be a criminal. A fugitive from the law. But then, most likely she was a woman running from a difficult situation. Possibly from a man.

Which could mean there was a safety issue. And he had guests on his ranch, not to mention his younger sister, Jamie.

Jamie knew how to handle herself, of course. She was a tough-as-rawhide cowgirl who was often packing heat. But that didn’t mean Grant would knowingly expose her to danger.

It was a lot of drama that he didn’t want coming to roost.

He stood there, debating for a moment, and then he turned away from the cabin, jogging back to his house and grabbing his cell phone off the bedside table. He dialed his brother Wyatt’s number, knowing that he was going to wake up spitting mad. Because it was four-thirty in the morning, and nobody wanted to be woken up at that hour. Though the Dodges were frequently up before the sun. They had responsibilities to take care of on the ranch that dictated early mornings. Though not this early.

“What the hell?” Wyatt asked by way of greeting.

His voice was gruff, evidence that he had been asleep.

“We have a visitor,” Grant said, keeping his own voice low.

“Are you drunk?”

“No,” Grant said.

At least, he didn’t think he was. But even if he were he wouldn’t hallucinate a woman sleeping in a cabin on their land.

“Really?” Wyatt pressed.

“Not anymore,” Grant said.

“What’s our visitor?” Wyatt asked, clearly confused.

“I woke up early,” Grant said, by way of explanation. There was no need to tell Wyatt that he had fallen asleep in a chair in his living room after drinking a glass of whiskey. And that the pain in his back from sitting sleeping up had been the thing that had woken him. “I went and looked out the window and saw a light coming from the woods. I investigated. There’s a woman sleeping in one of the cabins.”

“What?”

“I wanted to call you and find out what the hell you want to do about it.”

“You could call the police,” Wyatt suggested.

“No,” Grant said. He wasn’t sure why that was his conclusion, only that it was. Just that... He had no idea what the circumstances might be. She could be young. A runaway teenage girl, and if they called the police...who knew who might come for her. It might be the very people she was running from. And he would rather make sure he wasn’t throwing her back into harm’s way.

Grant didn’t consider himself a particularly compassionate person, not these days. He’d drained all that out of him over eight years of being a caregiver to the woman he was married to. He didn’t resent it. Didn’t resent Lindsay at all. But that didn’t mean he had anything left to give anyone else. Particularly a random stranger.

That artery had been bled dry.

Still, he couldn’t ignore the fact that there was something incredibly vulnerable in the way she was sleeping. With the light on. Like she was afraid of monsters even out there in the middle of nowhere.

“Okay,” Wyatt said slowly. “Then what do you suggest?”

“She’s a tiny little woman,” Grant said. “I imagine we can handle her. Go in and talk to her. Maybe Lindy should talk to her.”

“Hell, no,” Wyatt said. “We are not sending my wife in to talk to a random stranger squatting on our property.”

Wyatt had gotten married only a couple months earlier—extremely quickly—after finally getting together with the woman he’d been obsessing over for years. Although Wyatt would never say he’d been obsessing over Lindy for that long, but Grant knew it was true.

When you were a man with no social or sex life you had a lot of time to observe things. The entire world was Grant’s own personal Where’s Waldo game. He had nothing to do but sit around and identify hidden feelings and truths in the lives of other people.

And drink. There was the drinking.

“We’re going to end up giving her a damn heart attack,” Grant said.

“She’s sleeping on our land,” Wyatt said. “As much as I don’t relish the idea of terrifying a woman, it’s not like she checked into the Embassy Suites and bought herself some privacy.”

Grant shrugged. Mostly, he didn’t want to hassle with her personally. He wanted to go back to sleep and wake up in a world where he didn’t have to contend with another person or care about their feelings or whether or not he scared them.

“You’re right there,” Wyatt pointed out. “Why don’t you wake her up?”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know. Bring her over to the house. Give her some breakfast. Unless she shoots you.”

“Which is a good point,” Grant said. “I don’t want to get shot.”

“Bring your gun.”

“I don’t want to be in a shootout.”

“Bring something.”

Grant hung up the phone. His brother was just getting on his nerves now. He grumbled and grabbed hold of his hunting knife, which was in a leather case that snapped onto his belt. He put it on his hip, grabbed his cowboy hat and went back to the front door.

He was not using a hunting knife on a woman, even if she came at him. But he supposed if there was a gun involved he might have to use something.

He just felt resigned, really. If she wanted to shoot him he might let her.

Then at least he could get some rest.

He grunted and walked out of the house again, shoving his phone in his pocket, because he should probably bring that, too. In all honesty, he would need the phone before he needed the knife.

He walked quietly across the heavily wooded ground, careful not to land any heavy footfalls. Of course, if he did, he might wake her up, startle her and send her off running. And if she did that, then she wasn’t his responsibility. Not anymore. If she wasn’t on the property, what did he care where she was?

He didn’t.

He gritted his teeth and stopped right in front of the cabin door. And then he pushed it open.

* * *

MCKENNA TATE WAS used to sleeping lightly. And tonight was no exception. She had been keeping one ear tuned into the sounds around her, just in case, even while she dozed.

Not that deep sleeping in this place was likely. It was cold, and the floor of the little cabin was hard. Two days spent in it didn’t make it feel any more like home.

Except it wasn’t fine right now, because she heard something. And that was why she’d stirred.

Suddenly, reality slammed into her. The door to the cabin was opening.

She scrambled into a sitting position, attempting to push herself onto her feet, but then the door flung open completely, and she found herself stumbling back, hitting the wall and curling up there like a startled animal ready to strike.

It was a man. Which, out here in this big bad world, was the scariest thing she could think of. She would rather tangle with a bear any day. This was definitely a man.

Silhouetted in the doorway, tall and broad and terrifying. He had a cowboy hat pulled down low over his face, and she couldn’t see any of his features. She could just see that he was big.

“Calm down,” he said, as if a command issued from a stranger would make her feel calm.

“What?” So, now she knew he was insane, which was great. Telling a woman whose sleep he’d just interrupted to be calm.

“I said,” he responded, “calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Like you would announce you were going to hurt me if that was your plan,” she said, curling up tighter.

“I have no idea what I would do if I was going to hurt you. Because I’m not going to. I do, however, want to know what you’re doing here.”

“Sleeping.”

“I can see that. Or rather, I could. Though you aren’t sleeping now.”

“Very observant. I’d give you a trophy, but I’m fresh out.”

He shifted, crossing his arms. “You’re awfully mouthy for somebody sleeping on someone else’s property.”

“And you’re awfully chatty for a guy who just found someone sleeping on his property. Don’t you have follow-up questions?”

“Several. But I don’t want you crouched there in the corner like you think I’m about to stab you.”

She snorted out a laugh. “Oh, I’m not really that worried you’re gonna randomly stab me. It’s other things I worry about with men.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, either,” he said.

His voice didn’t soften it all. He didn’t look like he felt bad for her, or like he pitied her in any way. That would not be the angle to take with him. Crying or anything like that. She could see that right away. She could paint a glorious picture of her tragic plight, and he would probably just stand there like a man carved from rock. Unmoved. Whoever he was, he was not a soft touch.

She was pretty good at identifying a soft touch. They were the kind of people who came in handy in desperate situations. People who wanted to wrap you in a blanket, give you a piece of pie and say some encouraging words so that they could go on with their day feeling like they were decent human beings.

She had a feeling this man did not care whether or not he was a decent human being.

She recognized that in him, because it was the same thing in her.

You couldn’t care much about whether or not you were decent when you mostly just wanted to be alive.

“I just want to sleep here,” she said, holding her hand out. “That’s all.”

“You don’t have anywhere else to sleep?”

“Yeah, actually, I have a mansion up on the hill. But I like a little impromptu camping. Bonus points if it’s on someone else’s land, because it adds to the spirit of adventure. I love being woken up in the middle of the night by large, angry ranchers.”

“It’s not really the middle of the night. It’s almost five in the morning.”

She groaned. “Close enough to the middle of the night in my world.”

“This is usually about the time I get up every day.”

“Don’t brag to the less fortunate,” she said. “I’m liable to get jealous of such decadent living.”

“Are you a runaway?”

She laughed. “Right. Because somebody would care if I left.” He kept on staring at her. “I’m twenty-six.”

He nodded slowly, as if now he understood. “Running from someone?”

“Nope,” she said.

Not that she’d never run from someone, but she’d given up counting on men to take care of her. That only ended one way. It all bumped along nicely for a while, and then inevitably it exploded and she was left with less than she had before. Always.

It was why she’d been resolutely without a man for about three years.

“Then why are you sleeping out here?”

“I’m new to town,” she said, keeping her tone casual, as if they’d met on a bustling street in the bright light of day and not like this.

And she was new in town. That much was true.

“My truck broke down and it cost a crap load to fix.” And ultimately she’d had to let the thing go and give it up for dead, after giving up all the money she had to get this far. “While I was waiting for the prognosis, I was stranded for a few days longer than I anticipated. Had to stay in a hotel for some extra time.” And then she’d ended up hitchhiking into Gold Valley after her truck’s inglorious death on a stretch of lonely highway. “Anyway. I ran out of money. I’m hoping to get a job in town, but I haven’t managed it yet. Even when I do get a job I’m not going to get paid for a few weeks.”

“You couldn’t camp?”

“As much as I would love to sleep out under the stars beneath this threadbare blanket, that’s a hard pass. I mean, obviously I would have if I had to.”

“Homeless shelters?”

She snorted. “I’m not homeless.”

With a hard bump of her heart against her breastbone, it hit her that...she was lying. This cabin was the only place she had to sleep. She had nowhere to go back to. Nowhere she was heading to.

That was the definition of homeless, and she was it.

She never figured rock bottom would look like a damp wooden floor. But hell, it seemed to be.

She had managed to stay a few steps ahead of that since she had been turfed from the last foster home she’d been in eight years ago. But now... Of course, it was the move back home that had done it.

Home.

Gold Valley was home.

A home that she couldn’t remember, but it was the place her father was from, the place her mother had been born. The place she had been born. She had decided that it was time to come back. Time to try and... Find where she came from. She had to do something. Otherwise, she was going to be stuck in this endless loop. Dead-end jobs, crappy apartments. Nothing but barely making ends meet forever.

She supposed that was life for some people. For a lot of people.

But she’d hit the end of it. She’d had her birth certificate in a folder with all her legal documents—all gifted to her by the great state of Oregon on her eighteenth birthday when she’d been turfed out into the real world—and it had simply been sitting there.

Her every connection printed on a black-and-white document, as flat and dead as the paper itself.

Annie Tate was listed as her mother. And under father, a name McKenna had never even heard before. Henry Dalon.

Searches for him had turned up nothing promising.

While working as a waitress, McKenna had ended up having a conversation with a customer about a website that allowed free searches for public records. And McKenna had gone searching. She’d started with her father’s name, and then switched tactics.

She’d searched her own, and discovered not the printed, digitized version of her birth certificate but a scanned version of the original. Where handwritten down in the bottom corner, and smudged, was a name that looked a lot more like Henry Dalton.

Apparently, she’d learned after calling the records office, misspellings on records were common enough. Especially when no one had requested the documents, or done any checking on them. Seeing as Annie Tate had surrendered her parenting rights when McKenna was two, it didn’t shock her that her mother had never done her due diligence making sure everything on McKenna’s birth certificate looked right.

From there, McKenna had printed off the certificate and folded it up in her backpack, a piece to the puzzle of her life she was actively trying to put together.

She’d started searching for him after that.

Annie Tate, with her common first and last name, was impossible to track down, and anyway, McKenna already knew she didn’t want to know her.

There were a few Henry Daltons, but one in particular that was in the right geographical location to be a likely candidate. Henry “Hank” Dalton.

He’d had been all over her searches. A famous rodeo rider with three sons. Three sons who were McKenna’s half brothers, most likely.

Caleb, Jacob and Gabe.

Brothers. Family.

In Gold Valley.

But she had to figure it all out. She had to get the scope of things. The lay of the land.

She watched as the man took his phone out of his pocket, and the screen lit up.

“Come with me,” he said.

Panic fluttered around in her breast like a caged bird. “Are you calling the police?”

“No,” he said, his thumb swiping over the screen a few times. “I’m taking you to my brother’s house.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s food there,” he said simply.

She scrambled to her feet, her stomach growling. She realized that she had only eaten a couple of times in the past three days. And trail mix and granola bars could only get you so far. They weren’t...food food.

“Why do you want to feed me?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said. “But you’re harmless.”

She huffed. “I’m not harmless.”

“Really?”

“I have a pocket knife. I can cut you up.”

“Right. Anyway. Harmless. And probably hungry.”

“And you care?” This offer of food and his lack of...calling the cops on her had all her defenses up. People weren’t just...nice.

It made her feel compelled to push. To push him away. To push him to get down to what his deal actually was.

She didn’t trust people. She didn’t trust anyone.

But there was always some part of her...some small part that glowed bright sometimes and made her ache.

Hope.

Yeah. Well, for all the good hope had done her. She was filthy and cold and had no money. She’d do better to expect him to turn out to be a creep than a nice person who was actually offering to feed her for nothing.

He stared back at her, his features completely shadowed still. “No. Not really.”

It was the lack of niceness that made her hackles lower, just a bit.

There was something about that honesty that struck her. People were never honest. At least, they weren’t kind and honest. There were people who were cruel, who spent no small amount of time lecturing her about how her circumstances were her own fault.

And maybe they were.

Sure, she’d been sent out to live on her own at eighteen with a garbage bag full of her belongings, but there were plenty of people who didn’t have advantages in life who probably did better than she did.

But people like this... Who could openly admit they didn’t actually care, but offered help, anyway...

There were no people like this. She had no idea what kind of anomaly she was staring down right now.

“Do you want food?” he asked, sounding irritated and impatient now.

“Yes,” she said, scrambling to a standing position. She looked at her blanket, and her backpack.

“Grab those,” he said.

Right. Because of course he was willing to bait her out of the cabin with food, but it wasn’t like he was going to let her stay here. She felt pressure behind her eyes, but she knew she wouldn’t cry. She had quit doing that a long time ago. There was no point.

“Okay,” she said, taking hold of the blanket and her bag and holding them both close.

The man took a step forward, holding out his hand, and that was when her lantern caught his face.

He was...

He was beautiful.

His dark hair was a little bit shaggy, and he had a light beard that might be intentional, or might just be because he hadn’t shaved for a few days. His nose was straight, his lips firm looking, set into a flat line. His shoulders were broad, and so was his chest, his waist lean, the tight T-shirt suggesting that he was also...well, fully and completely built.

She hadn’t made any assumptions about his looks when he had first come in, mostly because he had shocked her, waking her from a dead sleep. And then... He had sounded a bit like a curmudgeon, so she had assumed that he was an older man. But now she thought he couldn’t be much older than thirty.

“Let me take those,” he said, taking the bag and blanket from her.

She started to protest, but he had taken them before she could get the words out. It made her feel naked. He had her things. Everything she owned in the entire world. Except the lantern. She bent down and picked it up, clutching it to her chest. She would hold that.

He didn’t offer to take it from her. He turned, without a word, and walked out of the cabin, clearly just expecting her to follow.

There was an offer of food, so of course she was.

She scrambled after him. It was still dark outside, and it was cold. She had a jacket, but it was in her bag, and currently Mr. Tall, Dark and Cranky was holding it. So she figured the best thing to do would be to follow along.

The place he led her to was a small cabin, but he didn’t go to the front door; instead, he went to an old truck. “We’re going to drive to my brother’s house. It’s on the property. But I don’t really want to walk.”

She didn’t, either. In fact, she had a feeling that he didn’t mind one way or another, but had sensed that maybe she didn’t. Knew that she was cold.

Right. He doesn’t care. Don’t go applying warm and fuzzy motives to him.

She climbed cautiously into his truck, closing the door behind her. “A gentle reminder,” she said when he started the engine. “I do have a knife.”

“Yeah,” he responded, starting the engine and putting the truck in Reverse. “Me, too.”

“Why do you have a knife?”

“For all I knew you had a gun.”

She sputtered. “If I had a gun and you had a knife it wouldn’t help you.”

“It’s just a good thing it didn’t get to that.”

“Well. See that it doesn’t.”

“I know,” he said, his tone dry. “You’ll cut me.”

They didn’t speak for the short drive down the bumpy, pothole-filled dirt road. McKenna folded her hands in her lap and stared down at her fingers. There was dirt under her nails.

You’re homeless. It’s been days since you’ve had a shower.

It was amazing how you could push all of those things to the side, but the minute you had to interact with another person—a beautiful person—it all came rushing back.

“Where are we going?” Suddenly, she was full of panic.

“To my brother’s house,” he repeated. He had said that already.

“And he’s going to be there?”

“Yes,” he responded.

“Oh,” she said, looking back out the window.

So, someone else was going to see her like this. She didn’t really care. Her entire life had been a series of inglorious situations. It was just that this was the worst.

She’d done a pretty good job of letting shame roll off for most of her life. She’d been the poor kid. Had never had cool clothes. Had never been able to have friends over. Had been shuffled around homes, some good, some bad. She’d built up some tough armor over the years.

But this was a new low, and apparently...apparently shame still existed inside of her.

They pulled up to the house and her heart sank into her stomach. She hadn’t fully realized where she was. She had hitchhiked to the edge of town, and she had fully intended on camping out in the woods. She had happened upon a collection of cabins on the edge of the woods, and then had circled around, and found a dilapidated, abandoned one deeper in. She had realized she was camping out in a place people stayed in for money, but she hadn’t realized people also lived there.

Or that it was quite so fancy.

Her companion got out of the truck and headed toward the broad front steps that led to the porch. She just sat there. She took a breath, and opened the door. There was no point being timid. No point feeling like crap. She knew what she was.

And that was: more than her current situation.

It didn’t matter what these people thought of her.

It mattered if they turned out to be psychotic killers, though. But she really did have a pocket knife.

And okay, she knew that wasn’t the deadliest of weapons. But she had sat outside a self-defense class one time and had heard the woman talking about how the element of surprise was generally on your side when you were a woman. It was about the only thing on your side, so you had to use it. They didn’t expect you to fight back.

McKenna Tate had been fighting back for her entire life. She wouldn’t stop now.

And she supposed that right there was the point of that hope inside her chest she often resented. It had brought her this far. Made her feel determined. It was what kept shame and hopelessness from taking over.

As long as she never let it get out of hand, it was what kept her going.

She walked slowly up the front steps and stood next to the man. She came up to the top of his shoulder. Just barely. He was so tall. And yeah, now that she was a little bit more awake, and it was a little bit lighter out, she could see... Definitely as beautiful as she had first thought. If not more so.

She turned her face back to the door in front of her.

Her new friend knocked, and they waited.

The man that answered the door was nearly as tall as the man at her side, and just as good-looking. Though in a different way. He had that easy manner about him, a charm that the other man did not have.

She didn’t trust charm.

“Hi,” she said. “I was told there would be breakfast.”

The new man looked at the other man, and then back at her. “Wyatt Dodge,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“McKenna Tate,” she responded, grasping it with her own.

Of all the ways she had envisioned being caught by the owners of the property, she hadn’t imagined this.

And then she realized that she still didn’t know the name of the man who had found her in the cabin. The beautiful one. The one who looked like he might not remember what a joke was, much less have a whole store of them like Wyatt Dodge probably did.

She looked at him, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t offer a name.

“Come on in,” Wyatt said, still eyeing his brother speculatively.

She took him up on his invitation.

The inside of the house was even more beautiful than the outside. Rustic, but incredibly comfortable. Cozy. She suddenly became aware of how cold her nose and cheeks had been when they began to warm up.

She looked to the left of the entryway and saw that there was a fire in a rock fireplace. She wanted to go sit in front of it. She wanted to press her face against it.

But then, she also smelled food. Bacon.

She’d had many a disagreement with the man upstairs over quite a few of the circumstances in her life, but right about now she was feeling much friendlier to him. She sent up a prayer of thanks.

If anything could surprise the divine, McKenna Tate being thankful might do it.

“My wife, Lindy, is in the kitchen,” Wyatt said.

“Not cooking,” a voice rang out from the next room. “Just waiting for the bacon to be done.”

He gestured that direction and McKenna followed the directive, walking into the beautiful kitchen, to see an equally beautiful blonde woman sitting at a small breakfast table. Her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, her manner elegant even though she was wearing sweats.

“I’m cooking, technically,” Wyatt said. “It’s part of the agreement.”

“Agreement?” McKenna asked.

“Yes, I agreed to marry him and move from my winery to his ranch. But only if he cooked me breakfast at least four days a week. The other three days I get a pastry from the coffee place in town.”

McKenna’s stomach tightened. Jealousy. She was as familiar with that as she was with hunger, and right now she felt nearly overtaken by both.

Not because she wanted the man cooking the bacon, specifically. Just that it would be nice to have an arrangement like that in general. Someone who cared. Someone who would vow to cook bacon four days a week just so you would marry him.

She couldn’t imagine someone caring like that.

“What are you doing on my property, McKenna Tate?” Wyatt asked, turning toward the stove and getting bacon and some scrambled eggs out of a pan, putting them on a plate and setting them down on the table. She eyed them hungrily.

“Have a seat,” he said.

She hesitantly did as he said, sitting next to his lovely wife, and feeling every inch the bedraggled urchin that she was. “Eat.”

Her man said that.

Not that he was her man, just that he was the one that had woken her up, and she still didn’t know his name. And on principle, she wasn’t going to ask.

Still, she obeyed.

“Coffee?” Lindy asked.

“Yes, please,” she said, trying her best to eat slow, and feeling like she was going to end up failing the moment the salty, savory bacon touched her tongue. She was ravenous. She hadn’t let herself realize just how much.

“What were you doing?” Lindy asked, her voice soft.

“I just needed a place to sleep. I’m new to Gold Valley... I decided to move here,” she said. She wasn’t going to get into the whole thing about looking for her family. Not that she believed they were going to have some tearful reunion. She wasn’t that stupid. Life didn’t work that way.

Her mother, who had given birth to her, had walked away without a backward glance. A father who’d probably never even met her, maybe didn’t even know about her? Why would he want anything to do with her?

The very thought of it, of putting herself in front of him and risking a rejection, made her feel...

It didn’t matter. From what she had found out about the Daltons, they were well-off. Famous rodeo riders and owners of a massive plot of land just on the outskirts of town.

Surely they would be able to spare a little seed money to keep her off the streets. And they’d probably be happy to fling some money at her to get rid of her, anyway.

She didn’t need a family. She’d been just fine without one all this time.

What she needed was something a lot more practical than that. A shovel to dig herself out of the hole she was in.

Money would make for a decent shovel.

She cleared her throat. “I decided to move here, but I had kind of a series of less than fortunate happenings and I ran out of money before I could get a job. So, I didn’t have anywhere to stay.” She wouldn’t have jumped into the Gold Valley situation had she not lost the apartment she’d been in before in Portland. But the landlord had decided she wanted it for her adult son, and McKenna had been unceremoniously booted. Also, she hadn’t gotten her security deposit back. Which wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t like she had created a mildew stain in the bathroom. That was because the roof leaked.

“It was a desperate-times-desperate-measures kind of thing,” she said. “And... Thank you. For not calling the police. And for feeding me bacon. Which seems a little bit above and beyond, all things considered.”

“You don’t have a job yet?” Lindy asked.

“Not yet,” she said.

“What kind of jobs do you normally do?” Lindy asked.

“Aerospace engineering,” McKenna replied, taking another bite of crisp bacon. “But when I can’t find work in that field, waitressing is my fallback.”

“Sadly, we’re fresh out of aerospace engineering jobs,” Lindy said.

“Good,” McKenna said. “Because I was lying about that.”

“I had a feeling,” Lindy responded. “Not because I don’t think you could be an aerospace engineer, just because we’re nowhere near NASA.”

“I’ve done all kinds of things. I’ve been a waitress, hotel maid. You name the manual labor job that doesn’t require much lifting over fifty pounds and I’ve probably done it.”

“Basic cooking?” Lindy asked.

She shrugged. “Diner stuff.”

“Cleaning.”

“Like I said. Housekeeping.”

“I think we could find a job for you right here,” Lindy said.

McKenna frowned. “No offense. But... I’m a stranger who was caught sleeping illegally on your property. Why exactly would you want to give me a job?”

“Because sometimes life is hard and it isn’t fair,” Lindy said, her determined blue eyes meeting McKenna’s. “I’m well aware of that. And sometimes circumstances spin out of your control. It has nothing to do with whether or not you’re a good person. So, you tell me, McKenna. Are you going to steal from us?”

McKenna lifted a shoulder. “Probably not.”

“Probably not,” Wyatt repeated.

“I don’t know. Am I gravely injured? Did a family member of mine come down with a terrible illness and the only way I can get back to them is to steal money from you?” It was moot. She didn’t have any family that knew her. Or that she knew. Just family she was looking for.

“I appreciate the honesty,” Lindy said dryly. “But barring extraordinary circumstances, are you going to steal from me?”

McKenna shook her head. She was a lot of things, and definitely a little bit opportunistic. But she wasn’t an out-and-out thief. “No.”

“Well, then, I don’t see why we can’t give you a job. We can always fire you if you’re terrible at it.” She looked over at her husband when she said that part.

“Fine with me,” Wyatt said. “We were going to have to hire someone else, anyway.”

She blinked. “I...”

“We also have a place for you to stay. One that isn’t that horrible cabin in the middle of the woods that doesn’t have anything but spiderwebs in it for warmth.”

“Oh... You can’t do that.”

“Sure we can,” Lindy said. “We have a bunch of extra room.”

Throughout the entire exchange, her man stood there mute. A solid, silent presence that fairly radiated with disapproval.

“It’s fine with me,” Wyatt said. “But I don’t have time to train anyone right now.”

He shot a meaningful look over at her man. The look that he got back was not friendly at all.

“I’m going to go get dressed,” Wyatt said.

Lindy pushed up from her seat. “Ditto. Enjoy your breakfast.”

The two of them left the room, and they left her standing there with... With him. And he did not look happy.

“I guess I work here now,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“I guess so.”

“Sorry,” she responded.

He shrugged. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

“You don’t look happy.”

The corner of his mouth lifted upward. “I never look happy.”

“Oh. Well. That’s good to know.”

And then he stuck out his hand, his dark, serious eyes meeting hers. “I’m Grant Dodge. And I guess I’m your new boss.”

CHAPTER TWO

GRANT FELT LIKE the biggest asshole curmudgeon on the planet. Not that that was a new feeling for him necessarily. But he resented the fact that he had to show this girl around the ranch, and he shouldn’t. Really, he should be proud of the fact that Wyatt and Lindy were using what they had to give her a shot at digging out of the bad pit she seemed to find herself in.

But Grant didn’t have a hell of a lot of altruism left inside of him.

If they had done it without putting her in his jurisdiction, he might have been able to muster a little bit up. As it was, not so much.

“Come on, McKenna Tate,” he said, turning and walking out of the dining area, trusting that she was going to follow him. The sound of her footsteps behind him indicated that she had.

“Where are we going?”

“I expect that you’re going to want to get a look around the place. And that you’d probably like to see where you’re going to be sleeping.”

He would have to pull up the ledger to see which cabins were available, but that would be easy enough. It wasn’t that any of this was difficult. It was all getting rolled into his daily responsibilities, after all. Wasn’t extra. Not really.

But a mother hen he was not. Not even on a good day. And after the awful sleep he’d gotten, today was not a very good day.

“It doesn’t really matter if I like it or not,” she fired back. “I don’t have any other options.”

“I’m not here for this tough-girl thing you’re doing,” he said, stopping and turning to face her. “My brother is doing a damn nice thing for you. If you have to pretend that you don’t care, you can stay quiet. Otherwise, feel free to add commentary.”

Her expression went from defiant to subdued, softening slightly. Well. Apparently, she did have feelings. And wasn’t made entirely of prickles and spite.

He pushed open the front door and the two of them walked out of the house. She stayed silent, her boots loud on the steps as they made their way down to the driveway. Grant paused and looked around, always surprised at how the place looked. New, and somehow the same all at once. The cabins around the main house had been restored, each one with its own flower bed and carefully manicured walk that led up to the front door.

The entire property was refreshed. The barns painted, the hiking trails into the woods cleared.

The bones remained. The foundation. The earth. Same as it had always been.

He didn’t know if he took comfort in that or not.

He didn’t know if he took comfort in anything, really.

He just kept on living.

To do anything else would be a damn insult to Lindsay.

“Let’s walk up this way,” he said. “I’m going to show you the barn, and then we’ll walk out to the cabin you’ll be staying in. Hitting all the highlights on the way.”

His companion was much quieter than she’d been, but he imagined snapping at her had done its job. He wasn’t sorry about the silence. Having to make stupid small talk was the only thing that was worse than dealing with comforting strangers over his grief.

He led her down a gravel drive that took them to the big red barn, the one that the guests liked to see, not the one that housed the equipment. But this one had hay bales, and was a fun place to hang out and drink coffee. And really, that was its primary function. They had dinners in it, and sometimes small events.

And by they, he meant the ranch. Because he didn’t get anywhere near social engagements of that kind.

For his part, Grant preferred to do demonstrations with the animals. And any sort of behind-the-scenes work that needed doing. Things that didn’t require talking. Just another reason this little babysitting job wasn’t to his liking.

“This is like... Like ranches you see on TV,” she said, looking around the barn.

Grant turned around and he couldn’t stop the kick he felt in his chest when he got a look at the expression on McKenna’s face. It was like something had released inside her, all the tightness in her face gone slack. Her mouth had dropped open slightly, her brown eyes wide as she took in the sight of the large red structure, and the backdrop of dark green mountains dusted with pure white snow behind.

Suddenly, the place didn’t look so familiar. For one small moment he saw it for the first time, right along with her.

He was a tired man. Down to his bones. He hadn’t felt a moment of wonder in longer than he could recall. There was nothing new here. Nothing new in him.

But right then it felt like the world stopped turning, just for a second, and in that space, between his last breath and his next heartbeat, he forgot everything but the beauty around him.

And it seemed new.

But then the world moved again, and that feeling was gone.

“It’s nice,” he said, clearing his throat and charging on through to the inside of the barn.

He turned to make sure that McKenna was with him, and she was, almost hunched forward, looking around them with a strange mix of trepidation and wonder.

“Have you not been in a barn before?”

“No,” she said.

“I thought you’d done all the manual labor there was to do. There’s a lot of it to be done in barns, McKenna, let me tell you.”

“Clearly I’ve done all the city-type varieties of manual labor.”

“Have you spent most of your time living in the city?” He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t care.

“Not exclusively,” she said. “I’ve lived in my fair share of medium-size towns. It’s just that nobody was inviting me to go hang out on the ranch. I didn’t get asked to a lot of hoedowns.” She shrugged. “Or much of anything.”

He knew that a lot of people would feel sorry for her. He didn’t. She was standing in front of him healthy and on two legs. Life was tough, but it was a hell of a lot tougher when you were dead.

“You’ll probably end up at a few. Depending on how long you stay. My sister-in-law has grand plans for some big-ass Christmas party over at her winery. So.”

Her expression went soft, and then shuttered again. “I doubt I’ll be here through Christmas.”

“Don’t make me waste time training you. I don’t mind if you skip out before Christmas, but you better do the work you say you’re going to do. Understand?”

“You’re grumpy,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I am.”

“Most people don’t like being called grumpy,” she said.

“Well, I told you I wasn’t going to deal with your tough-girl act, so I suppose as long as we’re being honest, I have to take that one on the chin.”

“So this is what you do,” she said, following him out of the barn as he led them both down the path that would take them a long way to the mess hall, and would give her a good sense of the size of the property. “I mean, you’re a professional... Cowboy.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be a cowboy?”

“No,” he said.

There had been a time when all he had wanted was to get the hell away from the ranch. From his dad. From everything familiar. When he had wanted to escape and start over. Get out of Gold Valley. He hadn’t cared what he did or where he went. The only thing driving him had been anger.

And then he met Lindsay. And all he’d wanted was to make her happy.

All he’d wanted was to be a good husband.

A good man.

Because she knew he could be, and if Lindsay believed it, he wanted to make it real.

“When did you decide you wanted to be a cowboy?”

“When did you decide to become an interrogator for the police?”

“I’m curious,” she said. “First of all, I don’t get to talk to very many people. Or I haven’t talked to anyone in a while. I’ve been by myself for a couple of weeks. Second of all, I really don’t meet very many people like you.”

“Grumpy assholes?”

“Cowboys,” she said. “Assholes are par for the course, at least in my experience. Though not very many that are so aware of what they are.”

“I didn’t really decide to do it,” he said. “My brother decided to revitalize the ranch. I hated my job.”

“What did you do?”

“I worked in the office for the power company.”

“Well... That does sound boring.”

“It is. Pays well. Retirement. Benefits. All that.”

“I bet this doesn’t.”

“Yep,” he agreed.

She stopped talking for a while as they walked on the trail that wound down toward the river. The smell of the frigid water filtered through the heavy, damp scent of pine around them, the sound of the rushing rapids a comforting whisper beneath the wind in the trees. She had that look on her face again. That one that made his own eyes feel new.

He wasn’t sure that he liked that.

Wasn’t sure he liked at all that this stranger had the power to affect anything in him.

The path they were on led to the back of the mess hall, to the outdoor seating area that had a good view of the river. Even though it was just the beginning of November, his sister-in-law had put up white Christmas lights around the perimeter. Because, she said, winter was dark and any cheer was welcome. And she had also argued that white lights were not necessarily holiday specific.

She had argued these things with Wyatt, Bennett, Bennett’s wife, Kaylee, and the youngest Dodge, Jamie.

She had not argued it with Grant.

Because Grant didn’t care.

He wasn’t going to waste a moment of damned breath arguing about the appropriate date to string lights.

In the end, he’d been the one to put them up.

Somehow, he’d been the deciding vote, since he was seen as neutral ground in some ways.

Funny, he wasn’t sure he considered himself neutral. Just apathetic about pretty much anything that didn’t involve alcohol.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He liked to ride horses. In some ways, he thought that this endeavor at the Get Out of Dodge ranch had saved him. Sitting behind that desk had been a slow path to hell. When he’d been working at the power company still, his only solace really had been drinking.

He had spent so many years ignoring the way that other men his age lived their lives. Had spent so many years pushing down the kinds of appetites men his age had. Had honed his entire focus onto his wife. Not on the things they didn’t have, but on what they did have.

Their small, perfect house down in town, within walking distance of all the cute little shops that she loved so much. Cozy dinners in on the nights when she felt like eating. And sometimes, Ensure shakes on the couch with a movie on when she didn’t.

On those kinds of nights he waited until she went to bed, then heated up a TV dinner after she fell asleep. Not because he was hiding the fact that he was eating. She wouldn’t want him to do that. He just didn’t like to remind her of anything she might be missing.

He’d stripped his life down to the essentials because he didn’t want to be out living a life that Lindsay couldn’t. There was no one on earth he could talk to about it. And anyway, he spent as much time as possible talking to Lindsay when she had been alive.

The problem was, after she’d died, after he’d clawed his way out of the initial fog of grief, what he’d found on the other side was that he didn’t exactly know how to live anymore. Not like a normal person. He didn’t have a confidant, didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it.

And there had been so many things he had mentally put a blockade around. Things he couldn’t do. Things he couldn’t have.

Hell, staying at his job was a prime example.

He didn’t love it. Not even a little. But when Lindsay had been alive it had been a necessity. He’d needed that exact amount of money to keep up payments on their house. Had needed that specific kind of job so he had the kind of health insurance required to pay for her extensive treatments.

When she was gone, he hadn’t needed the job. Not anymore.

But he’d stayed in it. For years longer than he needed to. Had stayed in the house, too.

Routine, as much as anything else.

Sometimes he’d even had those chocolate meal-replacement shakes with a shot of whiskey for dinner because he’d missed them.

Realizing he was stuck, realizing that he didn’t have to live that way anymore, had been the first realization on the other side of that initial punch of grief.

That was when he’d started boxing things up. Returning some items to Lindsay’s parents, keeping just two things for himself.

Her wedding ring set and the country Christmas snowman, carved from wood that she had insisted on setting out every holiday season. He’d hated it. Had given her a hard time about how god-awful it was. Made from knotty wood, with wire arms, and strange, knitted mitten hands. He thought the thing was everything that was wrong with a holiday craft bazaar.

In the end, of course, it had been one of the things he hadn’t been able to part with.

It lived in a box up in his closet, but he had it.

The rings he kept on a chain around his neck, along with his. Hidden under his shirt, but there all the same.

It had been three years before he’d taken his own ring off his finger. He hadn’t done it for a specific reason. Not really. It was just that at some point he realized he was putting on a wedding ring every morning, and he wasn’t married.

That was when he’d added it to the chain that had her rings.

The chain seemed right.

He wasn’t married. But it was impossible not to carry that marriage with him.

It had shaped him. Changed him.

Even if there was no reason for him to live like she was still here.

Sometime after deciding to put the house up for sale, while he was still working at the power company, his drinking had gotten worse. Mostly, because he didn’t know what else to do with himself. He’d gone from one box to another.

And it was only Wyatt deciding to make some changes on the ranch that had really pulled him out of that dark, well-worn routine he’d found himself in.

His older brother had saved his life.

Damned if he’d ever tell him that, but it was the truth.

“Is this where you...eat?”

It took him a moment to realize he’d been standing there in complete silence while McKenna poked around the deck.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes we eat in the mess hall. Because it’s a little bit more centrally located than the main house. Though, when we have guests, not as much.”

“Do you have guests right now?”

He nodded. “Some. So, if we eat inside, we just make sure to avoid mealtimes. Though the appearance of ranch hands adds to the experience, I guess.”

“I would think a lot of the women would pay extra for you guys to come wandering through.” She smirked, her expression taking on an impish quality he hadn’t seen before.

He didn’t know quite what to make of that. He supposed she was saying he was good-looking.

He didn’t know why.

And he didn’t know how to feel about it, either.

“I’ll suggest Wyatt and Bennett pencil being living props into their schedule.”

“Not you?” she asked.

He shifted, feeling uncomfortable. “I think I might scare them away.”

She shrugged. “Some women dig the asshole thing.”

He cleared his throat. “I’ll make a note of that.”

He pushed open the back door, led her into the dining hall. No one was in the large room. There were rows of vacant tables and benches, all clean and ready for the next meal.

Two large dispensers of coffee from Sugar Cup were set up on a long, bright blue table that was pushed up against the back wall, along with fixings for cider, hot chocolate and tea. In exchange for sending people on to the coffeehouse, they provided the ranch with coffee. And as far as Grant was concerned, it was a pretty good deal. An employee brought out fresh urns in the morning, and picked them up in the afternoon.

Caffeine that he didn’t have to make was about the best thing he could imagine.

Except for possibly a self-refilling whiskey bottle.

“You can get coffee here in the morning,” he said. “That’s what most of us do. Wyatt and Lindy have coffee at their place, but most of the ranch hands come here.”

“Am I a...ranch hand?” she asked.

“I guess so,” he said.

The corner of her mouth tilted up, a dimple denting her cheek. “How funny.”

“Mostly, you’ll be doing chores in here, or housekeeping type stuff. Not a whole lot of heavy lifting.”

She lifted her arms, which were slim like the rest of her. “For the best.”

“Come with me, I’ll show you to your cabin.”

They walked down a long dirt road that led away from the guest cabins. Not all of the Get Out of Dodge staff lived on the property, but depending on weather or projects that were happening, it was convenient to have the lodging.

This particular little house was set far away from most of the main buildings, nestled into the trees.

It was small, with a tidy porch and a red door. It was near one of the ponds, providing a nice view from all angles. The mountains at the back, the water out the front.

He found himself looking back at her, to see if she had that look on her face again. She did. A little bit of wonder. A whole lot of awe.

“Is this it?”

“Yes,” he said.

He imagined that was an opening for witty banter of some kind. But he honestly couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t have enough experience with that kind of thing.

He walked her up to the door and punched in a code. “Four three six,” he said. “That will get you in. I’ll write it down for you.”

He pushed open the door, and held it for her. Her expression went blank as they walked inside. Like the rest of the cabins, this one had been furnished with all new stuff.

Hell, it was nicer than his place.

Small, but nice.

“Think this will work for you?”

She blinked several times in rapid succession. “Yes,” she said, her voice sounding a little bit tight. “Yes, this is fine.”

“Are you okay?”

“Are you really letting me stay here?”

“Yes,” he said. “Though, to be real technical about it, Wyatt is letting you stay here. He’s in charge. I’m just a shareholder, so to speak.”

“But I mean... You’re letting me stay here for... Nothing?”

“For work.”

She sucked in one side of her cheek, looking away from him. “I don’t have to sleep with you or anything, that’s what I’m asking.”

Heat shot down his spine, pooling in his gut. The shock of her bringing up sex, and the fact that he might be looking to trade lodging for it, caught him off guard.

“Hell, no,” he said, the denial vehement and easy.

She lifted her hands. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive. But you know, women on their own have to look out for these things. Most situations that seem too good to be true are. And most of the situations I’ve been in that were too good to be true fell apart because... Some guy expected a form of payment I wasn’t that interested in.”

“That’s not going to happen here,” he said.

She took a deep breath, clasping her hands together and looking around. “Okay. So, when do I need to start work?”

“You said you’ve worked in housekeeping at a hotel?”

“Yeah. I’ve done that a ton of times. Hotels, motels. You name it. I’ve cleaned it.”

“Okay, make the rounds on the cabins today. The supplies are in the mess hall, where we just came from. You can start in a few hours. Get some rest.”

She nodded. “I don’t... I don’t really have much in the way of—”

“Toiletries should be in the bathroom. You can use the washer and dryer in Wyatt and Lindy’s place.”

He hadn’t verified that with his brother and sister-in-law, but he figured if they were going to start giving homes to strays he could give their washer and dryer.

“So.” She looked at him. “Is he your younger brother?”

“Who?”

“Wyatt.”

“No. I’m his younger brother.”

She made a musing sound. “You seem older than him.”

He had to laugh at that. He probably did. “No.”

“You have other brothers?”

“One,” he said. “And kind of a surrogate brother. And a younger sister. She’s around. If you need anything, and you see the girl with dark hair, that’s Jamie. She’ll be happy to help out.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome. I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He lifted his hand, brushing his fingertips against the brim of his hat, and their eyes caught and held. She was pretty. He wasn’t sure if he’d realized that yet. Well, he noticed she was pretty in that way he tended to find women pretty. They were female—he liked that, and he generally liked looking at them.

But McKenna Tate was something more. With her large brown eyes and delicate, pointed chin. Her dark hair was tangled, but still glossy, hanging around her face in a wild mane. And her mouth...

Pale pink with a deep curve at the center of the top lip, the lower one round and full.

He felt...hungry.

Dammit all. That wasn’t new. Not really. But he wasn’t used to that hunger hitting hard and specific, with a woman standing right in front of him.

General craving he was used to. It was part of him. Part of his life. Wanting sex and not having it was printed on his DNA.

This was specific. Sharp and focused.

He didn’t want a mouth.

He wanted that mouth.

Those lips.

Hell. No.

He forced himself to turn away. It was that or do something stupid he couldn’t take back. Dammit, he wasn’t one for guilt or pity but the woman had asked him outright if she was going to end up owing him anything and now he was staring at her lips like a sex-starved beast.

Because he was.

He walked out the front door without saying anything, taking in a deep breath of the cold early-morning air. Hoping it would do something to jolt him. To get rid of the deep, dark need that was coursing through his veins, ten times more potent than any alcohol.

He had work to do, and he was going to focus on that.

And he wasn’t going to give one more thought to McKenna Tate’s mouth.

CHAPTER THREE

MCKENNA EMERGED FROM the cabin a few hours later feeling strangely numb. Like she might be wandering through an alternate dimension and wasn’t quite connected to her body. The cabin was so cute and neat, and she had felt weird putting her old, threadbare clothes away in the solid wood chest of drawers. Like they might dissolve the pretty cedar.

She wished that she had something warmer than what she was wearing, but her spare few items were what they were. And only what she could fit into a backpack.

A free promo phone she got on a pay-as-you-go plan, pajamas, two pairs of pants, two shirts, one pair of boots, some scattered and nearly used-up toiletries.

There were no warmer clothes in her possession at all. So she went ahead and braved the chilly afternoon, which didn’t seem like it was going to thaw at all, judging by the textured gray of the sky.

She followed Grant’s instructions and found the cleaning materials, then went to the first cabin and knocked. No one answered so she used the code he had provided for her to get inside. It was laid out similarly to her cabin, and she found cleaning it was a lot more fun than cleaning usually was. Mostly because she was used to cleaning whatever terrible apartment she lived in, or gross hotel rooms that were never going to lose the general film of seedy filth no matter how much elbow grease McKenna applied.

She moved through the row of cabins quickly and easily, feeling strangely accomplished by the end.

She was also hungry again. It had been hours since breakfast, and she had been running on empty, anyway. Of course, breakfast had been better than anything she’d had in a couple of months, so she would have thought it might sustain her. But no. It had just reminded her what it was like to have a full stomach. And now she wanted one again.

She wandered outside, wondering if it would be all right for her to go to the mess hall. Grant had mentioned that the ranch hands ate there during off-hours, and she wondered if two o’clock constituted off-hours.

She decided she was going to chance it, because she was really hungry.

She opened the door cautiously, peeking around before stepping inside.

The coffee station was still set up, and she decided that whatever there was to eat she was going to have caffeine with it.

There didn’t seem to be anyone around, so she went to the kitchen and helped herself to a bowl of soup, taking it out to the tables and sitting next to the window, bathing herself in the anemic light that was trying to get through the cloud cover. She felt warm. Warm and...safe.

She hadn’t really been aware of feeling like she was in danger, but that was partly because there had been nothing for her to do but soldier through. But now, now that she had a little bit of respite from the truly horrendous situation she’d found herself in, she could fully acknowledge how awful it had been.

She blinked, her eyes stinging slightly. She wasn’t going to cry. She didn’t do that. At least, not without a reason. Tears could be useful. They could soften your look, make people feel sorry for you.

Tears, on a personal level, were pointless.

Her thoughts drifted back to her tour guide. Grant Dodge.

Just thinking his name made her stomach tighten a little bit. And that was stupid. He was handsome. But she’d quit caring about how handsome a man was quite a while ago. Handsome didn’t mean anything.

The door to the mess hall opened and McKenna jumped, every reflex inside of her getting ready to run if she had to. Like she was in here stealing soup, instead of eating like Grant had said she could. But she felt like an outlier. An interloper.

It was her default setting, and it was difficult to just turn it off at a moment’s notice.

The woman who walked through the front door had wild, carrot-colored curls, and pink, wind-chapped cheeks. Her smile was cheery and friendly, and McKenna was taken off guard when it was immediately aimed at her. “Hi,” she said. “Are you one of the guests?”

“No,” McKenna said, reflexively wrapping her hands around her soup bowl and pulling it closer to her. “I work here.”

“Oh,” she said. “I work with Bennett Dodge. At his veterinary clinic.”

“Oh,” McKenna said. She had no idea that Bennett Dodge worked at a veterinary clinic. She could only assume that he was one of the brothers Grant had talked about. She didn’t like being caught off guard, and she didn’t like looking ignorant, so she chose not to ask any follow-up questions.

“I’m Beatrix,” she said. “Beatrix Leighton. I’m also Lindy’s sister-in-law. Well. I’m her ex-sister-in-law. She used to be married to my brother. But now she’s married to Wyatt.”

“That seems complicated,” McKenna said, somewhat interested against her will.

“Not really,” Beatrix said. “My brother was a terrible husband. And I love Lindy, and all I want is for her to be happy. Damien didn’t make her happy. Wyatt does. That’s about as simple as it gets.”

“I guess so.”

“How long have you been here?”

“About twenty minutes,” McKenna said, lifting another spoonful of soup to her lips.

Beatrix laughed and walked over to the coffee station. “No. I meant at the ranch.”

McKenna laughed. “Not much longer than that. I got here this morning.”

“Wow,” Beatrix said, filling up a coffee mug and, much to McKenna’s chagrin, taking a seat at the table across from her. “Where you from?”

“Out of town,” McKenna said.

“Okay. How did you find out about the ranch?”

“Oh, I kind of... Stumbled upon it.”

“I think you’ll like it here. They’re all great.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” From a total stranger. But McKenna wasn’t going to say that, because she was going to do her best not to alienate anyone in this place. It was warm, it was dry, there was food and coffee. While she planned her next move, there was no better place she could be. She had gone and stumbled into some kind of Hallmark Christmas movie, and she wasn’t going to question it. She was just going to accept the hospitality while she figured out how she was going to approach the Daltons.

She needed an idea that was a little bit better than wandering onto the property and announcing that she was a secret half sister.

If all else failed, she would definitely do that. But she was going to try to come up with something a little more sophisticated first.

“Have you met Jamie yet?” her chatty new friend pressed.

“No,” McKenna said.

“She’s the sister. The only sister. She’s one of my best friends. I’m here because we’re going to go riding. You can come along.”

McKenna shifted uncomfortably. “Thank you. But I have to keep working.” She also had no idea how to ride horses. She wasn’t sure she had ever been within thirty feet of one.

“Some other time,” Beatrix said. “Jamie is a great guide. That’s what she does here.”

For a moment, McKenna let herself wonder about the kind of alternate reality that might have existed where she could have... Lived on a ranch and ridden horses for a living. This whole place seemed like a sanctuary of some kind. And the whole family was just... Here. Not moving around. Not wondering where they might stay next. Not waiting for the other shoe to drop, or worrying about what might happen if a sour relationship went so sour that they had to leave it, and lose the roof over their head.

“Sure,” McKenna said, but there was basically no way in hell.

Still, she didn’t want to say that. She wasn’t sure why.

But this was such a strange, easy connection made with someone who wasn’t afraid to smile at her, and didn’t seem to want anything from her. Those kinds of connections were few and far between. McKenna wasn’t entirely sure she’d ever had an experience quite like it. So the last thing she was going to do was ruin it by being unfriendly.

“I’m sure I’ll see you around. I come by quite a bit.”

“Okay,” she said, “see you around.”

Beatrix stood, taking her coffee with her, offering a cheerful wave as she walked out the door, leaving McKenna alone with her soup.

“What the hell is this place?” she asked the empty room, obviously not expecting an answer.

She finished her soup and stood up, walking back to the kitchen. Right then, the back door opened, and Grant came in. She froze, her empty soup bowl in hand, as she stared at him for a moment, then blinked and looked away. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he returned, his voice gruff.

“I was just having lunch.”

“Good,” he said.

“Do I just...wash the bowl... Or...?”

His face remained immovable, taciturn, but he reached out and took the bowl from her hand, walking over to the sink. It was one of those large, commercial sinks with a detachable nozzle right on the spout. She wasn’t sure what they were called. Because she had certainly never lived in a place nice enough to have a kitchen that would have one. He set the bowl and spoon down in the sink, and then he did something truly unexpected. He pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, and turned the water on.

She just stood and watched while he filled the sink partway up with water, adding a little bit of soap. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, one dark brow lifting slightly as he did. He didn’t say anything.

So she just watched him.

His movements were direct. He didn’t waste any, she noticed. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy. His profile was strong, his jaw square. The dark whiskers that covered it only enhancing that sense of masculinity.

Her eyes dropped down to his forearms. They were strong, the muscles there shifting and flexing as he moved. She imagined he lifted objects over fifty pounds often. At least, his physique seemed to suggest that he did.

“Thank you,” she said, because she realized it was weird that she was standing there staring at him, and neither of them were saying anything.

“Not a problem,” he said.

“I could wash the bowl,” she said.

“Yeah, but I would’ve had to show you how it all worked. So I might as well do it. Anyway, you can learn for next time.”

“I’ll owe you. Next time you eat soup, I’ve got the bowls.”

“Much obliged,” he said, nodding his head.

Normally, she would have said that cowboy hats were cheesy, and in no way hot. But the way that he nodded just then, that black hat on his head... He was like some weird country-boy fantasy she’d never realized she had.

You’re not going to make a fantasy out of the nice guy cleaning your dishes. You don’t need guy trouble and you know that. Men are terrible dead ends with muscles, and that’s all. Just make the most of this living situation and don’t screw it up.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t look at him. Looking didn’t mean doing anything. So there.

She wasn’t sure when she had gone from thinking of him as a grumpy asshole to thinking of him as a nice guy. But she supposed the two weren’t actually mutually exclusive. He was grumpy; there was no denying that. Even now that he was doing something nice for her, he hadn’t spared her a smile. Maybe nice was the wrong word.

Good.

He seemed like one of those mythical good men that she hadn’t ever really been convinced existed.

Even the long-lost father that she wanted to meet couldn’t actually be that good of a man. He had knocked her mother up and left her alone. He had a whole family, which she certainly wasn’t part of. And sure, maybe he didn’t know about her. But still, a guy running around indiscriminately spreading his seed was hardly going to go into the good man category.

There was something about Grant that just seemed good.

Of course, she was a terrible judge of character. Or maybe she couldn’t be much of a judge at all, because she tended to need to ally herself with whoever was willing. That meant sometimes putting blinders on out of necessity.

McKenna was very good with necessity.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I might even wash two soup bowls for you.”

“I couldn’t begin to accept such generosity.”

“I’m very generous,” she said, a smile touching her lips.

Grant didn’t smile at all. She studied his eyes, kind of a dark green that reminded her of the trees that surrounded the property, trying to find a hint of humor. A glimmer of something. The man was unreadable.

“I have some work to do,” he said. “Need to get lunch and then get out.”

He was dismissing her. Which was fine. She didn’t care. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I cleaned all of the cabins.”

“Why don’t you get some rest? Come back in here at dinnertime and get something to eat. You can worry about doing a full day tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

The door to the kitchen opened, and Wyatt came in. “Hey,” he said, greeting her first, then nodding at his brother. “How’s the day going?”

“Fine,” McKenna returned.

“Good. Hey, we’re all going out to the bar in town tonight. Do you want to come?”

She was blindsided by that question. She blinked, not quite able to process the fact that her new boss had just invited her out for drinks. And suddenly, she wanted to crawl out of her skin. “Thank you,” she said, edging toward the door. “But I think I’m going to... Just rest. It’s been... It’s been a hell of a few weeks.”

“Is there anything we can help with?” Wyatt looked genuinely concerned. Grant’s expression was like a wall of granite.

“You’re helping enough. Giving me a place to stay is more than I...” Her throat tightened, and she did her best to speak around it. “Anyway. Thanks for inviting me. I’ll—”

“Grant will meet you in here tomorrow,” Wyatt said. “Breakfast time. We’re a bunch of early risers.”

“Six a.m.,” Grant said, those unfathomable green eyes settling on her. “Don’t be late.”

McKenna nodded, and backed out the door, tripping down the path and heading toward her cabin. Her cabin.

A wave of emotion swelled up in her chest. Less than twenty-four hours ago she had been curled up on the cold, damp floor of an abandoned structure out in the middle of the woods and now she had... People talking to her. People offering to help her.

A group of people inviting her out for drinks.

When she’d been younger she had something of a social group, but the last couple of years...

Everything had been so grim and stripped back, and she wasn’t sure she had even fully realized it until... Well, until she had been in Grant’s truck this morning accepting the fact that she was homeless, and without very many options.

She entered the code to her cabin, pushed open the door and shut it, leaning against it for a moment. She let her head fall back, closing her eyes. It was completely quiet. Nothing but the sound of furniture settling over the hardwood floors.

She pushed off from the door and walked down the hall toward the bathroom, stripping her clothes off as she went. She turned on the water and waited for it to heat up. Then she got inside and stood beneath the spray. She let the hot water roll over her face. Something inside of her chest cracked. Everything felt too big to be contained. She kept her face tilted up, steadfastly refusing to find out if there were tears running down her cheeks, or if it was just the shower.

It made her feel better to blame the shower. So she would leave it at that.

And tomorrow she would report for work at 6:00 a.m. By then, hopefully, she would be done with all this emotional crap.

When she got out of the shower she changed into her pajamas—something she hadn’t done since going on the road, because pajamas didn’t feel like the kind of clothes you could make a quick getaway in—and crawled into bed.

She felt that same wave of emotion begin to build inside her again. She closed her eyes. It was early, way too early to be getting into bed. But she was exhausted. Drained.

And for the first time in a very long time, McKenna Tate closed her eyes and let herself fall all the way asleep.

* * *

GRANT LEANED BACK in his chair and surveyed the surroundings. People were filtering into the Gold Valley saloon in large numbers, the end-of-workday crowd eager to get that first drink into their systems. Anything to begin that relaxation process after a day spent at the desk. He could remember that well.

His work didn’t stress him out now. He drank for other reasons.

It surprised him how relieved he was that McKenna had not taken his brother’s invitation to join them tonight. She made him feel tense. On a good day he might try to make excuses as to why that might be. Lie to himself a little bit. But today wasn’t an especially good day. He couldn’t pretend it was a mystery why.

She was beautiful. She was a woman. He wasn’t accustomed to being in proximity to a woman he found not just pretty but attractive.

Beatrix Leighton was around all the time, particularly now that she had started work at Bennett’s veterinary clinic, and had made fast friends with Jamie. She was cute, and he recognized that. But he wasn’t attracted to her. When Lindy had started coming around to the property when she and Wyatt were working on their joint venture between the winery and ranch, before the two of them had gotten together, he had known she was pretty. Closer to his age than Bea, and closer to his type—assuming he had a type—and still, she hadn’t made his skin feel too tight.

His younger brother Bennett, and Bennett’s wife, Kaylee, walked over to the table and took a seat next to and across from Grant. Kaylee was holding a bottle of beer, and Bennett had a glass of whiskey in one hand, and a bottle of beer in the other. He slid the whiskey over to Grant.

“Thanks,” Grant said.

“You’re welcome,” Bennett said, lifting his beer bottle.

Wyatt and Lindy were on their way, and apparently, Bea and Jamie would be joining them, too. It was a little bit more social than Grant was in the mood for. But he was already here. And he had whiskey, so it was fine.

He found that most social situations could be easily navigated with an alcoholic drink that he pretended required a lot of concentration. Everyone else would pick up any and all slack in the conversation and he could just sit there and drink.

“Anything new at the ranch?” Bennett asked.

“No,” he said, because he didn’t want to have a conversation about McKenna. Besides, he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt pressed to keep Bennett apprised of new hires at Get Out of Dodge.

He wasn’t even sure why McKenna came to mind just then.

“I’ll be around to put in a workday this weekend.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Grant said. “You’re busy.”

“Wyatt said there was some big fencing project. Dallas wants the payday,” Bennett said, smiling at the mention of his teenage son. “I figured I would go and make him spend quality time with me while he earns his paycheck.”

“I’m sure he’ll enjoy that,” Grant said.

Bennett had only discovered he had a son a little over a year ago. It had been a big adjustment for both Bennett and for Dallas. For the whole family, really. Bennett was the first one to have a kid, and he had showed up a teenager. Only good had come from it, though. Bennett was a great dad, and Dallas was flourishing living in Gold Valley. Plus, something about the change, whether it was the pressure of the whole event or what, had finally pushed Bennett and his best friend, Kaylee, into becoming more. It had been obvious to Grant that they should have been from the beginning. But he didn’t stick his face into people’s love lives.

Mostly, because his own was currently nonexistent. And then also because the one he’d had wasn’t anything like anyone else’s. And also wasn’t anything most people would aspire to.

“He’s mostly okay with me,” Bennett said.

“And he’s not having any girls back at the house while you and Kaylee are out?” Grant asked.

Kaylee shot Bennett a look out of the corner of her eye. “Hopefully not.”

“Dallas had a pretty rough upbringing,” Bennett said. “And I’m well aware he’s had a lot more... Experience at his age than I would like. But then, he’s also my walking, talking cautionary tale about what happens when you mess around at sixteen. So, hopefully he’ll just remember that.”

Kaylee laughed. “Yeah. Because the threat of consequences keeps teenagers from having sex.”

Grant didn’t know how to respond to that at all, so he just lifted his glass of whiskey to his lips while his brother groaned. The idea that his sixteen-year-old nephew was having sex while Grant...

Life was not fair.

Of course, he’d made his choices.

He wanted to make some different ones. But that was the problem. He didn’t know how. And at thirty-four, the conversation that he would have to have with his partner was...

It was just layers of complicated and hard and he honestly couldn’t figure out how to navigate it right now.

But then he thought of McKenna. Her brown eyes, and that soft-looking skin. Her lips.

She was managing to take over his bar time without actually being here.

“I did tell him that I was not helping him out if any angry dads came onto our properties with shotguns. He’s on his own.”

“That’s just mean,” Kaylee said. “I bet your dad defended you from a few shotgun-wielding parents.”

“I didn’t get caught,” Bennett said.

Grant took another drink. Their upbringing had been... Not so great. Bennett had been six when their mother had died. Grant had been ten. Their father was a good enough dad, but he had been fully emotionally unavailable after that had happened. Jamie had been a newborn, and their dad had been consumed with trying to parent her. Grant couldn’t blame him for that. They’d all reacted to it in different ways. Wyatt had taken his anger and channeled all of it toward their father. They had a big dustup involving their dad’s fiancée when Wyatt had been seventeen, and Wyatt had left home for years after that. Bennett had been the good one, but had been blowing off steam with sex obviously. He’d just been doing all his misbehaving under the radar.

Grant?

Grant had turned into a monster. He’d been so angry, and he hadn’t known what the hell to do with it. He hadn’t brought it home. Hadn’t brought it to his father. No. He bled it all over everyone else. By the time he’d gotten into high school he’d been the biggest asshole bully. Nothing made him angrier than happy kids with happy lives, and he’d gone out of his way to add a little misery to their existence.

The only thing he’d hated more than them was what he’d turned into. But he hadn’t known how to be any different. He didn’t talk to his brothers. He didn’t have friends. When he walked by people in the halls they cowered. And for good reason. He’d been known to shove kids straight into the wall. A quick, satisfying outlet for the rage that burned just beneath his skin.

He’d been failing every class. More than that, he’d been failing at being a person.

He’d spent a lot of time in detention, but he didn’t much care. Home. School. It didn’t matter. He didn’t feel any different wherever he went.

He could still remember, so clearly, being seventeen years old and walking into the school library and seeing her.

Blonde and beautiful with blue eyes. She’d smiled at him, and he... He’d felt it. He hadn’t been able to remember a time when he’d felt anything other than anger.

She talked to him. Like he wasn’t scary. And she’d offered to tutor him.

And he didn’t know why in the hell, to this day, he’d taken her up on it.

Except that his life had been so damned bleak he’d thought, Why the hell not?

She’d been so nice to him. Unfailingly. And that hungry, desperate part of him had fallen for her hard and fast.

You don’t have to be this way, you know. I know you’re a good guy, Grant. You’re just angry. I can understand that. I feel angry, too, sometimes.

He swallowed hard, the memory washing over him, blotting out the scene around him.

It was one of his favorite places in Gold Valley. A little out-of-the-way place just off a dirt road that wound up the mountains, right by a small creek. It was where he went when everything at school and home felt like too much.

The sunlight filtered through the trees, making Lindsay’s hair look like it was spun from gold. Like there was a halo over her head.

He’d never felt the way he did for her about anyone. Like he wanted to protect her. Keep her safe forever.

Before Lindsay, he’d only ever wanted to destroy things.

He hadn’t touched her. She was sweet. Too sweet for a guy like him.

“You get angry?” He looked at beautiful Lindsay, with her bright eyes and hopeful expression. He couldn’t imagine her being angry.

She nodded slowly. “Yes. Don’t you know I wasn’t in school last year?”

He shook his head. “No. Weren’t you guys out of town or—”

“I had cancer, Grant. I could get it again.” Her blue eyes locked with his. “That’s always a possibility. I need you to know that. I know it. It scares me. It makes me angry.”

He didn’t know what possessed him, all he knew was that he wasn’t able to make another choice. He gripped her chin and closed the distance between them, kissing her on the lips.

He blinked, finding himself back in the present. He’d been so careful with her. Because she was sweet and delicate. Because she thought he was good. Sometimes he regretted just how careful he’d been. When the cancer came back, her prognosis wasn’t good. They’d gotten married as quickly as possible. Always thinking it would go away. Always hoping. Even though, deep down, he’d known.

They’d both known. Her life wasn’t going to be long; there was no way it could be, barring a miracle. But he’d imagined that they could have something. Maybe not the kind of marriage everyone else had, but something like it.

They’d never had normal. But they’d had something pretty damned precious. In the end, being with Lindsay had changed him profoundly.

Without her... The path he had been on only ended a couple of ways. Dead young or in jail. She had saved him. And whatever he had or didn’t have now, whatever he hadn’t done...

He couldn’t regret the choices he’d made.

So, if his sixteen-year-old nephew was getting play, he had to ask himself at what point he was going to start figuring out how to live some kind of normal life.

He’d tried. Once.

He’d driven to a neighboring town and gone to a bar. He hadn’t even gotten past saying hi. The damned woman had recognized him. He was that famous guy who’d married his terminally ill high school sweetheart even knowing their life together would be short. She’d given him the saddest eyes he’d ever seen, and he’d been sure he could have gotten pity sex.

That was when he realized he didn’t want pity sex.

That had been two years ago. Two years since he’d last tried to go out and get some and had stopped himself on some kind of principle. Right about now, he was starting to think that maybe he would take pity sex.

A hot kick to his gut told him that wasn’t true. Not by a long shot.

He didn’t just want any sex. That was the thing. If he did, there were a bunch of ways to get it.

He was a man who didn’t want an emotional connection, at all, yet was unable to stomach the idea of an anonymous hookup.

He’d had enough emotional connections to last him from here to forever. He’d had an emotional connection with a woman for eight years. He didn’t want to do it again. Not ever. He valued it, over any other experience, over any other relationship, he’d ever had. He didn’t have the energy to do it again.

Lindsay had made him a better man, and he was never going to go back on that. He wouldn’t do that to her memory. Yeah, he’d given her those eight years, but she’d given them to him, too. He wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But she saw him as somebody worthwhile, and he had needed that, more than air.

Maybe that was part of why the shallow hookup thing didn’t work for him.

He almost laughed. Actually, he could see Lindsay telling him to go for it.

You’re too serious, Grant. Go have some fun.

He gritted his teeth and took another drink of whiskey. Thankfully, after that, the rest of the crew arrived, and pushed his thoughts out of that maudlin territory.

Lindy and Bea were talking about Lindy’s brother, Dane, and his recovery from a recent accident he’d suffered on the rodeo circuit. “When he’s up and around, hopefully we can get him a job on the ranch,” Lindy said.

Bea’s forehead creased. “How long do you think that will be? He was... Not so great when I saw him the other day.”

“Yeah,” Lindy said. “He’s not so great.”

Well, Grant could relate to that. Though maybe that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been trampled by a bull. He was just... Constantly trying to figure out what the hell his life was supposed to look like.

That, he related to. The fact that your life could change completely, look nothing like you wanted it to, and you could do nothing but go on living.

Grant figured that the chances of Dane getting back to riding were slim to none. Also, knowing his brother Wyatt like he did, he knew that bull riders didn’t take kindly to the idea that they might be human, or fallible in any way.

“So what’s the deal with the new girl?” Jamie asked. “The new hire?”

“You said there was nothing different happening at the ranch,” Bennett said, looking at Grant pointedly.

“We don’t talk about every new ranch hand we bring on board.”

“This sounds like something other than a random ranch hand,” Bennett commented.

“It’s a woman,” Jamie said. “She’s young.”

“She’s twenty-six,” Grant said. All heads swiveled toward him. “She told me,” he added, knowing he sounded a little defensive. “Anyway, Jamie, she’s older than you.”

“You seem to be an expert on the subject,” Kaylee said.

“I’m not an expert,” Grant said. “But I found her this morning sleeping in one of the abandoned cabins on the property. She was homeless.”

“What?” Jamie asked.

Bea was looking at him with wide eyes. “She was homeless? She didn’t say anything about that when I talked to her today.”

Leave it to Bea to have struck up a conversation with McKenna. Bea was a collector of strays, though mostly they were of the furry variety. It didn’t surprise him that she had a soft heart when it came to people, too.

“Yeah, well, I doubt it comes up in polite conversation,” Grant said.

“She didn’t... Well, she didn’t look homeless,” Bea said. “Not that there’s... I mean... That sounded mean.”

“Don’t worry about it, Bea,” Lindy said, putting her hand over Bea’s. “I know what you meant.”

“I found her this morning,” Grant said. “And today she was put in my charge. So, I spent time showing her around the ranch, and helping her figure out the job.”

“I invited her to come out tonight,” Wyatt said. “She didn’t want to.”

“Possibly because she didn’t have money to pay for drinks,” Lindy said gently.

Wyatt frowned. “I would’ve bought her drink.”

“She probably didn’t want to assume,” Lindy said.

“Well, next time I’ll make it clear.”

“I wonder what happened,” Jamie said. “I mean, it has to be pretty rough to end up sleeping in one of those god-awful cabins on the ranch property. Those things are full of spiders.”

Yeah, Grant imagined McKenna had had it pretty tough. Not just because he’d found her curled up on the floor this morning, but because her whole demeanor was like a shield. Fully designed to keep people away from her.

“Why didn’t Luke and Olivia come tonight?” Bea asked.

“From what I heard,” Jamie said, “they couldn’t get a babysitter.”

That was when Jamie held up her cell phone and showed off pictures of Luke and Olivia’s baby. Not that she was much of a baby these days.

Grant didn’t look at the pictures. He made a show of it, but he let his eyes skim over the screen. Not that he wasn’t happy for Luke. He was. Luke was like a brother to him, and the guy had had it rough growing up. He deserved every bit of happiness with Olivia that he could get. But that didn’t mean Grant wanted to look at it.

“Does anybody want another round?” Grant stood up and gestured toward the bar. “I’m going to get another drink.”

All hands around the table went up, and Grant took that as a great excuse to take a small break away from the revelry.

He was good at that. Good at using alcohol as a distraction.

Another image of McKenna filtered through his mind. McKenna would be a damned good distraction.

He gritted his teeth, pushed that out of his mind and walked over to the bar.

CHAPTER FOUR

MCKENNA COULDN’T BELIEVE she had slept all the way through the night. Not considering she’d lain down at two o’clock. But at least she was feeling revived. Renewed in some way after sleeping for so many hours. Even though it was still dark outside. She was a couple of minutes late heading over to the mess hall, but not late enough that it should matter. At least, not in her opinion. Whatever the opinion of her gruff, grumpy guide was, she didn’t know.

The conclusion she’d come to that morning that was most important was that she needed new clothes. When she got her first check from this job, that would be the thing she took care of right away.

She would also have to figure out transportation. But she didn’t want to waste money on a car. And she didn’t want to save up that long for anything. Not right now.

But today, in a pair of worn jeans, another threadbare sweater, with the heavier sweater she’d been wearing over the top of it, she was feeling slightly day-old. And then some.

At least her hair was clean. Clean and brushed and silky feeling for the first time in weeks.

As victories went, it was a small one, but she would take it.

When she walked into the mess hall, Grant was standing against the back wall, leaning against the display with the coffee on it. He lifted his cup. “You’re late.”

“I know,” she returned.

“If you know what time it is, then why didn’t you come at the right time?”

“Because it’s early? And it took a little longer for me to get ready and get over here than I realized it would.”

“Get it figured out for tomorrow,” he said, his tone hard. Uncompromising.

“Do you let anyone make mistakes?”

“Nope.”

“What about yourself?” she asked. “Are you allowed to make mistakes?”

He stared at her, the moment stretching out into two. “No,” he responded.

And the funny thing was she absolutely believed him. The gravity in his green eyes was far too severe for her to even consider that he might not be deadly serious.

“Come on,” she said, reaching past him and grabbing a coffee cup, her elbow brushing against his solid midsection. She clenched her teeth, trying not to think about just how solid that midsection was. “Mistakes are like walnuts in the cookies of life.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“It would be better without them, but somehow they end up in there half the time, anyway.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, lifted upward slightly, and McKenna’s heart leaped up half a foot in response. She didn’t know why she was reacting to him. He was hot. Big deal. Men were often hot. Sure, not commonly as hot as this one, but whatever.

Of course, there was no reason to be too...too guarded with him. He’d been nice to her, and anyway, it was better for her if he liked her. Or whatever his version of liking someone might be.

“Careful,” she said. “You almost smiled at me.”

“Won’t happen again.”

She arched a brow. “Does that make your smile a mistake, Grant?”

“No,” he said. “Just an unplanned facial tic.”

“Damn. You’re a hard case.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that one.”

He took a sip of his coffee and her eyes were drawn to his mouth. She had never really been into the cowboy thing or the beard thing. But she liked his. His mouth was... Well, it could almost be called pretty. Except for all the ruggedness that surrounded it. She shouldn’t be staring at it.

She popped the lid on her coffee cup and lifted it. “I’m ready.”

“Just fifteen minutes late now,” he said.

She chose to ignore that. She had hot coffee. She wasn’t going to spoil it with a fight. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve woken up to some decent coffee.” She took a long sip. “It’s blessed.”

“Blessed?”

“If there was a patron saint of caffeinated beverages I’d be saying a prayer of thanks to him right about now. Or her.”

“So tell me,” he said, pushing away from the coffee stand, the only indication that he was ready to get moving. McKenna started to follow him out the door. “How exactly did you find yourself in a position where you’re waking up without coffee in the morning?”

Her stomach twisted, her guard going right back up.

She squinted at him, trying to read his face. “Why do you want to know that?”

“I’m curious,” he said. “Also, maybe wanting to make sure you didn’t murder someone and are now on the run.”

“I told you I wasn’t on the run from the law,” she said.

“It’s entirely possible you’re running from becoming identified by the law. Which makes you not on the run from the law on a technicality.”

“No,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that makes me on the run from the law on a technicality actually.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s a whole series of bad choices, Grant,” she said, trying to sound light and not ashamed or depressed. “The main one being that I got screwed out of my apartment and my deposit and decided to come here.”

“Why here?”

“I found out that I have... A family connection. But I’m not sure how to approach it. You know, since random family members showing up at the front door aren’t always welcome.” She wasn’t going to tell him about what the family relationship was. Certainly wasn’t going into the fact that she was Hank Dalton’s secret baby.

“Is this your only family?”

She nodded. “At least, the only family I want to find. I could maybe track my mom down, but she gave me up. I’m not looking for a tearful reunion. Anyway, I’m not even sure why she gave me up. For all I know she had good reason.”

“Right,” he said. “So you found out you had some extended family here.”

“Yes,” she responded. It was kind of a lie. But not totally. Not that it really mattered. She lied all the time. What was one more?

“But your truck broke down.”

“Dead as a doornail.” She waved her hand in a broad gesture. “At least, barring me finding a thousand dollars. Let me tell you, that is not likely.”

“Right.”

“I don’t really have any connections. The last couple years... There hasn’t really been anyone. I figured why not start over. Totally. Somewhere new. I had a plan. Not the best plan, but I had one. I should know better than to make those by now.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” he responded.

She thought about pressing for more information, because she was curious. Curious what force on heaven or earth had ever dared oppose Grant Dodge. He seemed far too formidable for anyone or anything to dare. But she also had a feeling—a pretty rock-solid one—that he wasn’t interested in having heart-to-heart talks. Least of all with her. The man was a fortress, and she had a feeling that was by design. That he was keeping things locked up for a reason.

Hell, she could understand that.

“Don’t you want to know what we’re doing this morning?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, taking a sip of hot, fortifying coffee. “My brain is feeling just awake enough to handle that information.”

“We’re painting the barn.”

She thought of the pretty, bright-red structure he had showed her yesterday morning. “Isn’t it painted?”

“One of them.”

“There are more barns? Multiple barns?”

“Several. This is the one we keep supplies and machinery in. But Wyatt thinks that we should freshen it up for the tourists.”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t have a thought about barns, or the color of them, at all.”

“Oh, just the way you said it. Made it seem like it was something he was into, but maybe not you.”

“I’m here to support Wyatt. I would rather be here than working at the power company. That means I do whatever the man wants.”

“It must be tough,” she said. “Working with your brother. Taking orders.”

“Why do you think that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m an only child.” She frowned. Because maybe she wasn’t an only child. If it turned out she was a Dalton, then she had half siblings. But still, she had been raised one, so that counted for something. She had foster siblings sometimes, but ultimately, she was alone in life. There was no group that moved with her. No one she could reach out to when she needed something.

“I always admired the hell out of Wyatt,” Grant said. “He used to be a pro bull rider in the rodeo.”

“Really?” she asked. “That’s kind of badass.”

“Pretty damn badass,” Grant agreed.

He pushed open the door on a barn that had been worn down to the original wood, and held it for her. She went in first. There were dropcloths and ladders, paint rollers and buckets of paint, all ready to go inside.

His demeanor changed when he talked about his brother. He was a little bit less serious. A little bit less of a wall. It intrigued her. Made her want to dig a little deeper. See what other reactions she could possibly get from him.

And why not? Allies were an important thing in this world. It wouldn’t be a terrible thing to make one out of Grant Dodge if she could.

“Where are we starting?”

“Outside,” he said. “I’ll do up high, if you want to do down low.”

She huffed out a laugh. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

He shot her a look she couldn’t quite read. It almost had humor in it—almost. “I have no idea what the kids are calling much of anything these days.”

“I guess I don’t, either,” she said. “What a sobering thought.”

“You’re closer than me.”

“Not by much.”

“Twenty-six? I’d say.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Wow,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So advanced. So aged. Can you even remember what you were doing when you were my age?”

His expression turned to stone. It was an immediate shift. That little glint of humor she had seen in his green eyes, just a hint, gone flat. And just like that, her stomach fell.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

She’d said something wrong, and she wasn’t sure what. It would be nice if she could find a segue, but she needed at least one more coffee to be that nimble on her feet. “Well, I guess we can cart some paint outside.” Her verbal soft shoe was nothing to write home about.

“Right,” he said.

They hauled out one of the big five-gallon paint buckets, and he started messing around with some piece of equipment she wasn’t familiar with.

“Compressor,” he said. “I’m going to use that on the upper level.

“Wait a minute, you get the power tools? Is that because you’re a man?” She eyeballed her classic, totally uncool paint roller.

“No, I get the power tools because I know how to use them. If running a compressor was something that you did for one of your manual labor jobs, please feel free to inform me, and I will happily turn that work over to you.”

“All right, that’s a good reason. Because no, I haven’t ever used a compressor.”

He pried open the lid on the paint can and started to stir, and she found herself captivated by his movements, even while he was all covered up. This morning he had on a dark jacket and gloves, the same hat he’d been wearing yesterday on top of his head.

“Is this what you would be doing if you weren’t babysitting me?”

“I’m not babysitting. I’m training.”

She shrugged. “Well, is this what you would be doing if I wasn’t here?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Probably by myself.”

“How much of a charity case am I, Grant?”

“I’ll get the job done faster with you here.” His sidestep didn’t go unnoticed.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Do you want the answer, McKenna?”

“I don’t actually care if I’m a charity case. People in my position can’t afford to put pride over a warm meal.”

“Fair enough. It’s probably about fifty-fifty. Because let’s face it, the cleaning work that we need you for doesn’t exactly cover pay and a place to stay. And it sure as hell isn’t full-time.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

“How did you end up—”

“Working a string of menial jobs and having no connections in my life?”

“Yeah,” he said, hefting the five-gallon bucket of paint and pouring a measure into a tray.

“Foster care,” she said. “Which kind of gets you used to the transient lifestyle. Also, not the best for forming long-term attachments.”

“All your life?”

“From the time I was two.”

Most people looked at her with pity after she told them that. Most people said they were sorry. Grant Dodge just seemed to absorb it. Like she had spoken the words to a mountain, and not a man.

“I did not get good grades in school. Didn’t know how to even begin applying for financial aid for college. Didn’t want to, anyway. I struck out on my own with a guy that I met in my last home. That didn’t turn out. Had a little run of didn’t turn out. Decided that at least if I was on my own I was never going to get screwed for anyone else’s mistakes. Which ended up not being true, since my last landlord sold the place out from under me. Thought that was more a deliberate action than a mistake on her part.”

She looked up at Grant. His expression contained neither judgment nor pity, and she didn’t know quite what to do with that. Typically, it was one or the other.

“Aren’t there tenants’ rights to protect you?” he asked.

“Sure,” she answered. “But how am I going to take anyone to court? How am I going to make sure that those rights are enforced? Mostly, it isn’t going to happen.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t seem—”

“Life is not fair, Grant. Not even close.”

“Yeah, I’m actually familiar with that principle.”

Again, she didn’t ask. It was strange, because he was asking her quite a few questions. More than she had expected a guy like him to ask, certainly. But she could tell the reverse would not be welcome.

“Well, then we understand each other to a degree. I don’t expect life to be fair. And that’s why when I’m given unexpected charity, I don’t kick up a fuss. I’ve had enough of the alternative to know that if something good is going to cross my path, I’m going to take it for however long it lasts.”

“Pretty solid principle to live by,” he said.

“I haven’t got a whole hell ton of principles, but the ones I do have have served me pretty well.” She dipped the long-handled roller into the tray of paint and moved it back and forth a few times, sliding it through the ridge part of the tray to get rid of the excess.

“Anywhere?” she asked.

“Anywhere,” he responded.

While he set up the air compressor, she set about making her mark on the side of the barn. She had thought yesterday’s work was satisfying, but this was somewhere beyond that. It was therapeutic in a way. Bright red strokes over weathered, worn wood. Making something new out of something old. It was more than just cleaning, it was transforming. She and Grant worked in relative silence, nothing but the sound of the air compressor, which blended into white noise and became somewhat meditative as she worked through the lower sections of the barn. They worked until her arms ached, and she was hungry.

“Why don’t we take a lunch break?” Grant asked.

“Sounds good to me.”

He covered her paint roller in plastic, and then the two of them walked back down the trail toward the mess hall. This time, when they walked by one of the covered arena areas, there were horses, and a girl with dark hair was riding one around a set of barrels.

“That’s my sister,” he said. “Jamie.”

McKenna found herself glued to the scene in front of her. She walked over to the fence, draping her arms over the top, and just watched. Grant went to stand next to her, a silent, tall figure at her side. “She’s pretty good, isn’t she?”

“Amazing,” McKenna answered.

“You want to ride sometime?”

She turned her head toward him, her expression contorting into one of shock. “I don’t know how.”

“I can teach you,” he said.

“You could teach me?”

He hesitated. “Or Jamie could.”

She wanted Grant to teach her. And if he had been a different man she might have said that. Hell, they were talking about him teaching her to ride. If it had been a different man she probably would’ve made an innuendo out of it.

But then, if it had been a different man she wouldn’t have felt like it. There was a reason she hadn’t been with anyone in a couple of years. She was sick of all the ridiculous nonsense that came with men. The way that a nice relationship turned into a series of transactions, and then faded out into boredom before the guy abandoned her. There was always hope in the beginning. That was one of the things she hated about herself. She could never quite squash that out. She knew women who could. At the last diner she’d worked at, there had been a whole crew of women on swing shift who had been shiny and sharp like obsidian.

Pretty, but hard.

Every client that wanted something extra with his meal was met with laughter and a cutting jab, and McKenna could hold her own there. But then, they also were all in relationships, and McKenna had recently sworn off them.

She remembered talking to the shift manager, Ruby, about that.

“Why don’t you have a man, McKenna?”

“Too much trouble,” McKenna said.

“Sure,” Ruby had replied. “But they don’t have to be. If you know what you’re getting into.”

“That’s the problem,” McKenna responded. “Part of me always hopes that I’m getting into something else.”

Ruby had laughed and blown a smoke ring into the cold, early-morning air. “Oh, I quit hoping a long time ago, honey.”

“Something in me always does.”

“Give it ten years. Give it ten years and you won’t hope anymore. You’ll just be glad for a place to sleep.”

Part of McKenna had envied that. That grim resignation.

Another part of her had been afraid of it.

She wasn’t sure she wanted a life without hope. And she supposed that coming to Gold Valley, and holding out hope there was a right way to tell Hank Dalton that she was probably his daughter, was a testament to that fact. That she wanted hope. That she carried it somewhere inside of her.

But then, if there wasn’t hope at all, she didn’t see the point in walking on.

If what she had so far was representative of what she would have in the future...

Well, she might as well go lie down on that arena dirt next to Jamie Dodge’s next barrel and let her horse trample her to death.

But McKenna didn’t want to be trampled.

She wanted to live for better.

“That would be nice,” she said.

“Yeah, she’s the best, too. She’s starting a job at the Dalton ranch soon, training horses that used to be in the rodeo. The Daltons are, like, rodeo royalty.”

McKenna’s breath felt like it had been sucked from her body.

All that air had been replaced by hunger. A hunger to know more. These details about her family were something she’d had no idea she’d been desperate for.

But she was.

“Oh, yeah?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “Rodeo royalty, huh? What does, um...what does that look like?”

“I’m not totally sure. I don’t know them that well. Wyatt knows them better. He used to ride with the brothers in the rodeo. Hank, though, the father, he’s as famous as a cowboy gets.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Grant said. “Back in the eighties he did some big campaign for cigarettes or something. Famous advertising.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. But I hear he settled down in recent years. I guess you have to eventually.”

“Why is that?”

“He has a reputation. Of course, so do his sons. They’re cowboys and smoke jumpers. So, you can imagine.”

“They get a lot of play? Is that what you’re saying?”

“By all accounts, yes.”

“I mean, firefighting cowboys are pretty compelling, even I have to admit.”

“What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?”

“That even you have to admit they’re compelling.”

“I’m not easily compelled by men,” she said.

He gave her a strange look. Like he didn’t know quite what to do with her. Or like she was an alien life form that had dropped down from another planet.

“Shall we go get lunch?” she asked.

“That would be good,” he responded.

The two of them turned away from the arena and walked the rest of the way toward the mess hall. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I think you’re a good babysitter.”

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a slight grin. Friendly expressions from that man were worth their weight in gold, and as she was a woman short on gold, she would take those smiles. She wasn’t sure why it mattered. Maybe because she couldn’t remember the last time she had made another person smile. She’d been in a particular kind of poverty for most of her life. But it was the poverty of connections that was starting to get to her. Living without things she could endure. But this little bit of time she’d spent with Grant—with the entire Dodge family—made her realize how starved she was for the rest.

“So,” she said. “Riding lessons, huh?”

“If you’re up for it.”

“I think I might be.”

She had no idea if she was or not. But what she knew was that she desperately wanted to spend more time with him. Whatever that might mean.

“Tomorrow after work, then,” he said.

“Tomorrow after work.”

CHAPTER FIVE

MCKENNA COULD BARELY concentrate on the tasks at hand the entire day. Thankfully, the act of cleaning toilets was a relatively mindless one, and it gave her the opportunity to worry and look forward to the horse-riding endeavors she’d agreed to with Grant. She didn’t know anything about horses, except that of course she had gone through a phase when she was younger and had read books almost exclusively about kids who had them. Black Beauty. The White Stallion. My Friend Flicka. If there had been a horse and a scrappy kid, she had read it and fantasized about putting herself in that position.

But much like anything else, she learned early on that fantasy wasn’t reality, and it never would be.

She’d read Anne of Green Gables in one of her foster homes. Well, half of it. It had made her so angry she’d shoved it in a small space between the couch and the wall. When the foster mother had asked about it, McKenna had denied any knowledge of it, and had gotten a lecture on being more responsible with personal property.

McKenna was happy to take that one on the chin.

No one in that house needed to read that book.

It was filled with things that would never, ever happen. She couldn’t believe it. Not for one moment. No nice couple was going to show up at a train station and see a skinny, redheaded orphan girl they didn’t actually want, then take her back home and love her like a daughter. It wasn’t fair. Reading it had made her chest feel swollen, had made her cheeks feel prickly.

She had hated her. Anne with an E, who had unusual red hair and adoptive parents who loved her, and still complained about her life and her looks.

The horse books, she had decided, were a safer read. Because she didn’t harbor fantasies about living on a ranch or finding a beautiful, wild steed to ride. It had nothing to do with her life. It hadn’t even been anything she wanted. It had just been an escape. Something so different from the life she lived, being shifted between suburban neighborhoods.

A life riding horses over rolling hills with golden sun filtering through the trees. There was a lot of dappling sun in those books. And in McKenna’s mind, dappling sun was one of the most romantic images, to this day.

But it was a fantasy that didn’t get its claws into her soul, because it seemed impossible. Not like having a family someday, which seemed both impossible and like it should be as possible for her as anyone else.

It seemed surreal she was coming closer to actually having the horse fantasy than ever having the loving family fantasy. But who knew. Maybe the Daltons would fold her into their loving embrace.

The thought sent a sharp pang through her chest. Like she’d been run through with a shard of glass.

She stopped walking for a moment and stood, looking out at the mountains that surrounded the ranch. Maybe she had internalized that Anne stuff a lot more than she had realized. Because obviously part of her believed in it, even as she railed against it. Oh, that bright light of optimism that seemed to burn inside of her no matter what.

“Maybe I’ll fall off the horse and break my neck,” she said cheerfully, taking a step forward and kicking a pinecone out of the way. “Maybe the horse will hate me, and Grant will take it as a sign of my bad character and tell Wyatt to send me packing. Maybe this is all just a dream and I’m still sleeping in a hollowed-out cabin in the freezing cold.”

“Or maybe, you’re just about to have an uneventful riding lesson.” She looked up sharply, and saw Grant move onto the path.

“Good Lord, Grant,” she said. “Are you part puma? You scared the hell out of me.”

“Are you nervous?”

She flattened her mouth into a line. “I’m not the most Zen.”

“The horse I got for you could safely ride in circles at a kid’s birthday party.”

“Well. Now I feel condescended to.”

“Would you rather be condescended to, or did you want to get bucked off a horse today?”

“Condescension, please,” she said.

“Your horse is completely safe, and nothing is going to happen.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Have I ever tried to make you feel better?”

“No,” she said, puzzling. “That’s the weird thing about you. You’re not too nice, but you’re not mean, either.”

“Is that weird?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s really weird. My experience is that when you have the kind of life I had, people either look at you like you’re a very sad little puppy that they pity deeply, or they want to lecture you about how something you’ve done has put you in this position. You haven’t done either thing.”

“Well, it sounds like you’ve had some things go down.”

“Understatement.”

“People end up in weird situations, McKenna. Situations they didn’t plan on. All the damned time. And anyone who doesn’t think that? They’re just scared. They can’t stand the idea that they might find themselves homeless, trying to find a cabin to sleep in on someone else’s property. If they don’t blame some kind of moral failing in you, then what’s to keep them from suffering something that puts them in the exact same place? It’s the same with a lot of life’s crap. Sickness. People always want to know what you did. If you prayed hard enough. If your body was alkaline, or you ate enough kale. They want to believe that in the end they would have been able to do something. And most of all, they want to believe that somehow you deserve something they don’t. Fact of the matter is I’m not sure any of us deserves to have good or bad things that happen to us. They just happen. So I don’t judge you. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t have a whole lot of reasons to pity you, either.”

McKenna blinked. “My mother abandoned me.”

“I’m sorry about that.” His face stayed that same shade of beautiful neutral it almost always was.

“But you don’t feel sorry for me.”

“If I did, would it change anything?”

She frowned. “It might... Affirm my feelings.”

His brown eyes were unreadable. “You don’t need your feelings affirmed. You just have to decide what you’re going to do.”

“Well, I’m here, so obviously I’ve made some decisions.”

She didn’t like the fact that he had now graduated to lecturing her. In fact, she preferred a little mindless pity over this.

“I speak from experience when I say that people feeling sorry for you doesn’t help you do a damn thing. Especially if they are sorry without offering help.”

“I guess you’re offering help.”

“That’s Wyatt and Lindy. I’m offering to teach you how to ride a horse.”

They approached the barn—one she hadn’t been in before—and walked inside slowly.

It smelled sweet. Dense and dusty, but not entirely unpleasant. She looked around and saw stacks of hay, and could just barely see the tops of a few horses’ heads in the stall.

“What’s the smell?”

“Everything,” he said.

“What does everything mean?”

“Shavings. Hay. Dirt.” He paused and looked back at her, his expression partly shaded by the brim of his cowboy hat. “Horse urine.”

“Well.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s a bit... Earthy.”

“Horses are. It’s not a bad smell, though.”

She inhaled, letting it kind of roll over her. “No. I guess it isn’t.”

“You’ve really never been around horses?”

“No. I mostly lived in the suburbs. In around different places in Oregon. Predominantly the Portland area. I guess we went to...pumpkin patches and things? And did hayrides? But it seemed like everything was...cleaner.”

“Probably because it wasn’t a working ranch.”

“Well, okay, probably not. But I always thought it was fun.”

“This will be fun for you, too,” he said.

“Unless I do fall off and break my neck,” she pointed out.

“I won’t let that happen,” he said, his tone firm.

“Are you going to rush to lay a pillow out on the ground if my steed starts to act up?”

His green eyes were unbearably serious when they clashed with hers. “I said I won’t let that happen. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, McKenna.”

“Are you the horse whisperer?” she asked.

“I already told you I don’t make mistakes.”

She couldn’t give him a hard time about that. His tone was so very grave, and mostly, it had nothing to do with his sensibilities and everything to do with the fact that... She just wanted to believe him. Everything in her wanted to believe that Grant Dodge was a unicorn. A good man who did what he said, and who just might keep her from harm. Which made her wince internally, if only a little bit, because if life had taught her anything it was that she had to be her own savior. Not hope that someone else might be. But then, if winding up sleeping in a frost-ridden cabin with nowhere else to go had taught her anything, it was that sometimes someone had to lift you up and help you stand on your feet, or you were going to end up a tragic, modern-day rendition of the Little Match Girl.

Grant walked down to the third stall from the door, and lifted his hand to the bars on the door. A horse came forward, pressing his nose against Grant’s hand. “This is Sunflower,” he said. “She’s going to be your...what did you say? Your steed for the day.”

He unlatched the stall door, grabbing hold of a horse leash, or whatever it was, and lashing it to the thing on her face, leading the large beast out into the main area. His movements were unhurried. Easy.

She was completely glued to his every motion as he prepared the horse for the ride. The horse was beautiful, a light caramel color, all the way down to her hooves, with a white mane and tail. And as for Grant...his hands were large and firm, his muscles working with an ease that she couldn’t help but marvel at.

He did the task with the skill of a person who had done something a thousand times. She realized then that she hadn’t done anything a thousand times ever. Nothing beyond the basics.

She’d never stayed anywhere long enough or had the time or inclination to learn anything like that.

She had a skill for picking things up quickly, because in her life, adaptability had been king. She prized that. But this was...

Grant made putting a saddle on a horse look like art.

Or maybe it was just because he was so gloriously...hot.

He went to another stall, and got another horse out, this one a black, glossy animal with slim legs and a longer nose than Sunflower. And she watched him repeat the process over again, watched as a line pleated the space between his brows, watched his mouth firm as he worked.

He lifted his hat up for a moment and wiped his forearm over his brow, then set the hat on a hook on the wall, leaning forward while he tightened the horse’s saddle. His hair fell into his eyes and she felt overcome with the desire to push it back into place, even more overcome by the desire to run her fingertips over his jaw, over the bristly-looking hair there.

She had known the guy for three days, and she was obsessing over him. She wondered if she was really just that sad. That all it took was a decently good-looking man being nice to her and she was halfway to buying him a rabbit just so she could boil it later.

In fairness to her, he wasn’t just decently good-looking. He was stunning. Like he belonged in a movie and not on a ranch. Except he wasn’t as refined or polished as any of the men in movies.

She wondered if Grant even had any idea of just how good-looking he was.

He didn’t have that cockiness that gorgeous men typically possessed. Hell, she’d known men with much less going for them than Grant Dodge. Men who had swanned around like they were glorious lights of masculinity put on earth to make women swoon.

McKenna was not given to swooning.

Grant didn’t posture. He didn’t swan.

He just was. In all of his glory. And it was a whole hell of a lot of glory.

“What’s his name?” She directed her focus to Grant’s horse.

“He’s a she,” Grant responded.

“Oh, really?” She crouched down slightly, taking a peek beneath the horse’s belly. “I suppose she is.”

Grant shook his head. “Just verifying that I was correct?”

“Well, now that you mention it, I imagine if he were a he it would be pretty apparent. The phrase hung like a horse doesn’t come from nowhere.”

His face did several things right then. His brows pinched together slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling down, before returning to their neutral, flat position all before she comment on any of it.

She smiled, hoping to diffuse whatever tension had just walked its way up his spine and left him standing there stiff.

“I expect it does,” he grunted.

“I would think you know,” she said. “Having been around horses for such a long time.”

“True,” he said. She gave him her best impish grin. Men often found that charming. Many people found it charming. She could be charming when she wanted to be.

He didn’t seem charmed. Instead, he continued to ready his horse in a rather taciturn manner.

“Her name?” she pressed.

“Guinevere,” he said.

“As in... King Arthur?”

“King Arthur. Lancelot. The whole bit.”

“Did you name her?”

“Hell, no,” he said.

She didn’t know why she found that vaguely disappointing. Maybe because it seemed, for a moment, that Grant might have something of a romantic soul. He did not. Apparently.

“Well, what would you have named her?” she pressed. “If given the choice.”

“I don’t know. Something less ridiculous than Guinevere.”

“What’s a nonsilly name for a horse?”

“Jessica?”

She let out a guffaw of laughter. “Jessica. A horse named... Jessica?”

“It’s a sensible name, McKenna,” he pointed out, his tone deadpan.

“Why did you say it like that?” she asked through a gasp of laughter.

“Why did I say what like what?”

“McKenna. You said it as if Jessica is sensible, while McKenna is firmly in the same column as Guinevere, which you do not find sensible.”

He lifted a shoulder. “It’s a weird name.”

“Okay. Grant.”

He took his hat off the hook. Then he ran his hand over his head, sweeping his hair back before putting it in place. She was sad she wasn’t the one to do it. “Grant is a normal name.”

“Sure. I guess if you’re a film star from the 1920s.”

“I take it that’s a reference to Cary Grant. And he was not a star in the twenties.”

She lifted her hands, simulating surrender. “Fine. Grant is a sensible name. McKenna is King Arthur levels of silliness. I would lecture my mother about it but I don’t know where she is.”

“Mine’s dead. So I can’t exactly scold her for mine, either.”

Her stomach hollowed out. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I mean, I didn’t say that because I was trying to one-up you. Actually, I think your situation might be worse. My mom didn’t choose to leave.”

“No,” McKenna said. “I guess not. We can just agree it sucks. No one has to out-suck the other.”

One side of his mouth lifted. “Is that so? That’s not my experience with hard knocks. Typically, people want theirs to out-hard yours.”

“People with terrible lives so rarely have chances to go on and compete in the actual Olympics. Training is expensive, and all that. The Life Sucks Olympics is basically the best we’ve got. So, it’s understandable in some ways.”

He snorted. “I’ll share the gold-medal podium with you.”

“No,” she responded. “The gold medal is mine, Grant Dodge. You were not sleeping curled up on the hardwood floor a few days ago.”

“Fair play,” he relented. “I’ll take silver.”

“Silver would also be a nonsilly name for a horse, I imagine.”

“Not a black horse.”

She shrugged.

Grant took both horses by the reins and began to lead them out of the barn. She followed closely, watching as he walked between the two large beasts. He led them with no effort, without a single concern. It captivated her. The animals were huge, and they made her feel uncomfortable. Grant was guiding them around like they weighed nothing, like they were an extension of his own body.

The horses had to know that they were stronger than him. They had to. But they seemed happy to follow where he led.

When they got outside he put the reins into position, and gestured to Sunflower. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to help you get on, all right. You come up beside her and put your hand on her.”

McKenna froze. She wasn’t scared of much. Honestly, when you lived with the threat of hunger, possible rape and inevitable homelessness hanging over your head, it was tough to be too scared of the average, everyday nonsense in the world. But for some reason the big-ass horse scared her.

Grant reached out, wrapping his fingers around her wrist, and lightning scorched her. All the way down to her toes. If there were blackened footmarks beneath her shoes, she wouldn’t be surprised.

His green eyes were steady, giving no indication that he felt the same heat that she did.

He drew her closer to the horse. “I’m right here with you,” he said, his voice steady. “Remember I said nothing was going to happen to you.”

Calm washed through her, interspersed with crackles of lightning. A storm of epic proportions raging inside her.

He guided her as she pressed her palm flat against the horse. One of the horse’s muscles jumped beneath her touch, and McKenna nearly jerked her hand back, but Grant held her steady. Her heart was racing hard, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the feel of his hand, wrapped so tightly around her wrist, the touch of his calloused, bare skin against hers or because she was standing in front of a giant animal.

“Don’t be nervous,” he said.

She realized that he would be able to feel her pulse, pounding in her wrist, the way that he was holding on to her.

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Now what I want you to do is put your left foot in the stirrup.”

“My left foot?”

“Yes.”

“It seems backward.”

“No. Backward is what you’ll be if you don’t follow my instructions. Now. Lift your left foot and put it firmly into the stirrup.”

She followed that direction. And he was still holding on to her wrist.

“Now reach up,” he said. “Grab hold of the horn.”

“I assume that’s the knob on the saddle?”

“You assume correct. Now grab hold of that and hang on to it.”

“Okay,” she said, extricating herself from his hold, and grabbing the horn of the saddle with both hands. “Now what?”

“Heft yourself up there.”

“Heft myself.”

“Yes,” he said. “Heft yourself.”

“I, sir, have never hefted myself in my life.”

“Better get started if you want to go for a ride.”

She lifted, using the muscles in her leg, and her arms, finding it surprisingly easy, and a little bit faster than she anticipated.

“Swing your leg up over her,” he guided. “That’s a girl.”

And then she found herself seated on the back of the horse, perilously high off the ground.

“This is terrifying,” she said.

“You’ll be fine.”

“What if I’m not?” she asked.

“You’ll be fine.”

She huffed, hanging on to the saddle horn.

“You can’t hold on to that the whole time,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” he responded. “You’ve got to hold on to the reins.”

Grant handed them to her, his hands covering hers again as he guided her, showing how she was supposed to hold them. “This is a good beginner’s hold,” he said. “Eventually you’ll be able to do it one-handed.”

“That’s definitely what she said,” McKenna said.

“I’m going to ignore that,” he said.

“Great. Ignore that. But telling me you’re going to ignore it isn’t exactly ignoring it.”

He did ignore that. “Pull this way to go left, this way to go right. When you want to stop, you pull back. When you want to go, give her a kick.”

“A kick? That seems mean.”

“This horse could flatten you without giving it much thought. A little kick from your rounded heel to the flank doesn’t hurt. It’s a nudge. And that’s all you’re doing, because you’re just walking. A gentle nudge, and she’s going to go.”

“And pulling back is the brakes?”

“Pulling back is the brakes. But believe me. She’s an old girl. She’s not going to get frisky on you.”

“Okay,” she said, feeling nervous. “I guess I’m... Ready?”

“You’re ready,” he confirmed.

He went back over to his horse, mounted with complete ease. The grip he had on his reins looked different than hers, and he guided Guinevere into position as effortlessly as he had led the horses out of the barn.

“I’m going to lead us down the trail,” he said. “Give her a tap, and she’s going to start walking. Don’t freak out.”

“Hey,” she said. “Do I seem like the type of girl who freaks out?”

“In general? No. On a horse? Maybe.”

She breathed in deeply, giving Sunflower an experimental tap. And indeed, just like he said, the horse walked forward. She seemed to keep an effortless following distance between her nose and the ass on Grant’s beast. In fact, the horse might be a better driver than McKenna.

“There,” she called up to him. “I’m not freaking out.”

“Good job,” he said.

“Why do I get the feeling that wasn’t entirely sincere?”

“It was sincere.”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she focused on the scenery around them. Many of the trees that were spread across the flat land were bare, their branches like bony fingers reaching toward the sky, just a few lone brown and yellow leaves clinging on for dear life.

But up ahead, and growing up the mountainside, was the thick blanket of evergreens that never withered or changed. The wind blew down the hillside, across the trail, kicking up the scent of pine, damp earth and moss.

She wondered if after today she would find comfort of some kind in smells like this. In the strange, heavy scent in the barn, and in the fresh woodsy scent of the pine.

The horse’s gait was strange at first, difficult to get used to, but after a while, she settled into it. Learned to move in her saddle along with Sunflower. They rode the horses into the thick line of pine, the trail continuing on up through the evergreens and to the mountain.

It was so quiet. There was no sound beyond the intermittent breeze, the swish and flick of the horses’ tails.

It was vast. Even now where they were, closed in on the trail, surrounded on all sides by trees, she sensed that vastness. She felt like nothing more than a tiny dot, in the center of the world.

It was a strange, heavy feeling.

McKenna was often the biggest thing in her own world. Her wants. Her needs. Her hunger. Her cold. And right now, she felt like nothing. Like gold dust. A glimmer of something, but not so substantial all on her own.

It wasn’t an awful feeling. It was clarifying.

Like a relief.

If she wasn’t the center of everything, then she didn’t need to strive quite so much. Then maybe she didn’t need to worry the way she often did. Maybe she could set down concerns for the future for just a moment and be here. With the strong silent cowboy riding in front of her as she lived a moment out of time that she could never have imagined she might find herself in.

She didn’t have to pretend to be anyone else. Didn’t have to fantasize about an alternate reality. She was the one existing here, free of concern, out in the middle of nowhere, on the back of a horse.

And she felt... The strangest thing, starting at the center of her chest and spreading outward like warmth. A still, calm feeling that was like nothing else she’d ever felt.

Was it contentment? Peace?

Had she truly come out to the country and found something she hadn’t been able to find anywhere else?

She would worry about being a cliché, but she didn’t want to worry. Not now. Not now. The trail wound around, narrowing slightly, boulders rising up on either side. She was worried for a moment that her horse might not want to go through, but Sunflower kept on going. Clearly, everything that Grant had said she was. The sound of rushing water grew louder and louder, and when they made their way through the rocks, there it was. Water rushing in a torrent, flowing over the side of a cliff.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Wishing Well Falls,” he said.

She stared at it, in absolute awe. The water was a wicked beast, churning and frothing as it spilled over the side of the rocks.

If she’d felt small before, this diminished her further. She was on the back of an animal that could dispatch her with one quick move, near water that could sweep her away before she could call out for help.

All those stories of people going into the wilderness and finding themselves made sense. You could find your own insignificance out here. Your place as a thread in the patchwork of the world, rather than imagining you were the whole damn quilt.

“Let’s ride the horses down to the swimming hole,” he said, tugging his reins and starting down the trail.

“What?” The trail up ahead was steep, and the very idea filled her with dread.

“They’ll be fine,” he said.

He urged his horse forward, and she watched as Guinevere made an easy trek down the path, surefooted even on the rocky ground.

Sunflower at this point didn’t have to be urged much by her, but kept on following her leader. McKenna held on tightly, leaning back and gritting her teeth as the horse made her way down the trail.

When they reached the bottom, Grant looked back at her.

“What do you think?”

Now that her heart wasn’t racing so quickly from the stress of making it down there, she was able to appreciate the beauty. “It’s like a secret garden.”

“Like a what?” he asked.

“It’s a book I read. When I was a kid. The Secret Garden. It’s about this girl. Her parents died. And she ends up living with her aunt and uncle. But her cousin is sick, so he’s not allowed to go outside. And while she’s wandering around trying to entertain herself she finds a secret garden.”

She hadn’t minded that book much. As books about orphans went. It was realistic enough in that no one had much cared about the girl, but had taken her in out of a sense of obligation. Granted, she had held out some hope for a while that she might discover she had a distant aunt and uncle in England, so that she might have a rambling manor home to wander around.

But alas. That was not to be.

Still, she had enjoyed that book. Because it was the orphan girl who’d had something to give to the boy who still had his family. Because she had been smart, and she had been valuable.

Sometimes she wondered if the reason she had hope in her heart was because of all the books she’d read. Because they had often depicted bleak things, and sometimes had shown her things she didn’t like. But they had also taught her things about herself, and things about the world. The terrible things people believed and did, and the wonderful things, too. And the ways in which people could triumph as long as they always believed in something.

Like magical waterfalls named after wishing wells, and cowboys who seemed good, straight down to their bones.

“Do you want to explore for a minute?” he asked.

“Will the horses be okay?”

“They’ll be fine.”

Grant dismounted, and then walked over to her, reaching his hand up. She was grateful, because she wasn’t sure she could manage the dismount on her own.

She reached down, taking hold of his hand, something that still sent a shock through her, even though their hands had touched several times that day.

She leaned forward, not quite sure how to proceed, and slipped just a little bit. But even she, in all her nervous state, wasn’t as terrified as Grant looked in that moment. His eyes went wide, and then he reached up, large hands grabbing hold of her waist, and lifted her down from the horse as though she were as light as a child. He was strong. Stronger even than she had realized. And when he set her down, her toes nearly touching his, their eyes met, and she realized that he was even more handsome than she had thought.

His green eyes were blazing into hers with absolute ferocity, his chest rising and falling with a hard, heavy pitch.

He felt it, too.

She couldn’t do anything but stare. She didn’t want to move away. She felt drawn to him. To his heat. His intensity.

His hands were still wrapped around her waist, the heat from them bleeding into her skin. He flexed his fingers. Almost imperceptibly. But the slide of the fabric from her shirt against her skin, and the rasp of heat from his fingers beyond, sent a shock of attraction straight to her center like a lightning rod. She looked up, her eyes landing on his lips. She was fascinated. By the whiskers there. She wanted to touch them. She lifted her hand, her fingertips brushing him, a shudder racing through her when her hand made contact.

And then, abruptly, she found herself being set away from him, his expression ferocious.

“That’s enough,” he said.

“I...”

“We should go back.” The words were hard, brisk.

“But why?”

“Because we’ve been out long enough.” The clipped explanation wasn’t an explanation at all.

“You said we were going to explore,” she said.

“That was before I realized how late it had gotten,” he said.

He was lying. She knew he was lying. And she felt... Like someone had taken a drawer full of expectations inside of her and turned it upside down. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, whether to be offended or relieved.

Apparently, even sun-dappled horse rides could turn into total messes when she was involved.

He didn’t want her to touch him. That much was clear. He didn’t want to chase the attraction that seemed to be building between them—and not just on her side.

That made him... That only made him better, she was sure of it.

Because he was in a position of power and he could demand anything from her, and in order to keep her job, in order to keep the roof over her head, she might feel compelled to say yes.

Except the problem was, she felt compelled to say yes because she wanted to. And he was being...noble.

There was a certain sense of triumph over being right about his goodness, but a hell of a lot of frustration over the way his goodness was making him behave.

“Okay,” she said.

She got back up onto the horse all on her own. She wasn’t going to touch him. Not again.

She spent the entire trail ride back stewing, not able to enjoy the scenery.

Somewhere in there, she felt like this was just her life. There might be horses, and a beautiful scene, there might be a moment of serenity, of feeling content with her place in the world.

But then the good man was going to push her away, and she was still going to be alone.

“You’ve been fine by yourself all this time,” she muttered as she entered her cabin. “At least now you’re not alone and homeless.”

She looked around the tiny room, and she tried to convince herself that—for now at least—this was enough.

CHAPTER SIX

GRANT GOT AN unnecessarily early start on painting the next morning.

He needed to expend all the pent-up...

He couldn’t even pretend he didn’t know what it was.

Sexual frustration.

McKenna was... She was a hell of a lot of things he wished she weren’t. A hell of a lot of things he wished didn’t appeal to him. Because he had to deal with this, he knew that. He had to deal with himself, and where he was at, but he just...

He wanted to skip ahead.

He had spent eight years of marriage wanting to slow the years down. To hang on to what he and Lindsay had. He had spent the eight years since bogged down and walking his way out of a fog. And now he wanted to fast-forward through the part where he figured out what to do next, and just be there.

But no one—human, divine or other—had ever seemed to care what Grant wanted out of life and time.

Seeing as there was no way to solve that, for now, he would just paint the barn.

The sun was starting to rise, and his joints ached. He hadn’t slept. Not at all. Instead, he had been replaying that moment down by the waterfall.

He’d given thanks throughout the whole ride that she was behind him, and not in front. That even though he could sense her presence, he couldn’t see her. She’d been scared of the horse at first, but then gradually a look of awe had settled over her face and he’d had to look away.

He couldn’t see her for the whole ride, and she’d been silent for most of it. Uncharacteristic for McKenna, as far as he could tell.

He’d wanted...he didn’t know. To show her more. To show her something good. Because it was clear her life had been tough, and damn if he didn’t relate to that. So he’d decided to take her to the falls, and then he’d been even dumber and decided they should stop.

And when she’d started to dismount...

She’d slipped and there hadn’t been any thought in his mind other than taking hold of her and making sure she didn’t fall.

And all he could think was that he had promised she wouldn’t get hurt. So immediately he had grabbed on to her.

And that had been a mistake. A damned fool mistake.

She had been soft. So alive. He hadn’t touched a woman in so damned long... He hadn’t touched a woman where there was a possibility of something happening in a hell of a lot longer.

He had been a caregiver for years. But care was not what he wanted to give McKenna.

He couldn’t compare touching her with touching Lindsay, not remotely. He didn’t want to, anyway. Comparison was the last thing he was after here.

His marriage was sacred.

And maybe that was part of the problem. He had made certain promises to his wife, and he knew that death had done them part, and that was it. But the problem was...

They’d had all the sickness, none of the health. They had never gotten to half the things in those vows. He’d known there was a chance—a good chance—it might be that way. He had known they wouldn’t be together till they were old and gray. But he’d hoped...he’d hoped they’d have some healthy times in there. A few years.

They never had. It had been hit after hit. Illness, barely a recovery, infection, reoccurrence, repeat. It hadn’t been fair. Not to her. Not to them.

But he’d forsaken all others. Even though he hadn’t been able to have her.

Part of him didn’t know what to do with the fact all that could be over.

That really, truly, he could have followed that desire he’d felt for McKenna down there by the water.

She was complicated, though. Prickly and wounded and living on the same property. Entwined in his life, in his family. He had no desire to be entwined ever again.

It couldn’t be her. It could be someone. Hell, it needed to be. Soon.

He needed to get out of town. That was the only answer.

He went back into the barn to find the other bucket of paint, and then he heard footsteps behind him.

He turned around, and saw a disgruntled-looking McKenna standing in the doorway.

“You started without me.”

“I didn’t even say that was your responsibility for the day. In fact, you should go find Wyatt and see what he wants you to do.”

“I thought you were my...my Yoda. My guide.”

“Well, maybe you should find another guide.”

“What’s your problem?” she asked. “You were weird yesterday at the end of the ride, and you’re being weird now.”

“I’m not being weird.”

“Yes, you are. And I was going to let it go. I wasn’t going to say anything. But you’re being grumpy with me this morning.”

He dropped his paint roller onto the ground, not caring if it got dirty. “McKenna,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what you think this is, but let me clarify a few things for you. You work here. You work for me, you work for my brother. We are not friends. When we do work we’re not hanging out. Me taking you on that trail ride yesterday? I wasn’t being friendly.”

“No,” she said. “You weren’t being friendly at all. You just offered to take me on a completely extracurricular activity that you totally didn’t have to take me on.”

“What I did was not extraordinary. Don’t start thinking there’s anything more to this than just basic human decency.”

McKenna rolled her eyes, tossing her glossy brown hair back, angling her chin up toward him. That pouty mouth was schooled into a rounded shape that told him she was about to launch into a whole thing. As little time as he’d known her, he knew that much.

“Why are you so married to this idea that you’re grumpy?” The word married hit him like a bullet, but she carried on. “That you’re an asshole? Let me tell you something, Grant. I have known a lot of assholes. Like, a lot. You’re not one of them. You’re difficult, I’ll give you that. But you’re good. Just... Straight up good.” She waved her hand. “Hell, from my point of view you’re practically a saint.”

He didn’t hear the rest of what she said, because it was those last two things that hit hard and stuck. That rattled around inside of him, collecting speed, turning into a molten ball of flame that settled into his gut. Good. A saint.

For the first time he wondered if she knew who he was. If she knew more about him than she was letting on. It had been stupid of him to not consider that before now.

She was young, which was one reason he’d assumed that she hadn’t been glued to his human interest piece he didn’t sign on for that had played out on Good Morning America sixteen years ago, or the repeat of it eight years ago after Lindsay passed.

But it was possible she’d talked to Jamie or Bea, or hell, anyone. It wasn’t like it was a state secret he was a widower.

He didn’t want her to know. But she must.

That he was somehow better than other people was what everybody thought of him when they knew. That he was this great, sainted man who had married his high school sweetheart in spite of the fact that she was dying. That was what every news outlet had always said. Like Lindsay was a burden. And he was something special. When the fact of the matter was the only reason he mattered at all was because she had believed in him. Because she had come into his life and taught him to be something more than a raging, angry bully that was headed on a one-way ticket straight to prison or hell, possibly both.

And now he was... He didn’t even know what he was.

Just an idiot stuck in limbo who had no idea how to get out. He’d moved enough, just enough, over the past few years to convince himself he was making progress but it was a damned lie he’d told himself. As much of a lie as this idea that he was good.

And somehow this woman, this woman who made his thoughts into something entirely separate from saintly, had bought into the same lie about him.

Good. A saint.

Before he could think it through, he found himself walking toward her. The distance between them closing with each step he took.

He wasn’t good. He wasn’t good at all, he had just spent a hell of a long time on a leash. And yeah, he had chosen it. He had put it on gladly. But it wasn’t there now.

No one was here to be disappointed in him. To see him acting like an ass.

McKenna’s eyes caught his and she took a step back, then another, until she was pressed against the barn wall. And he should feel guilty. Because she looked uncertain. Because her dark eyes were wide, and her mouth was now slack, held open slightly, and she was looking at him like he might take a bite out of her throat.

The idea sent a kick of lust through his body. Yes, he did want to take a bite out of her.

He was consumed with the idea. It was all he could think about. He pressed his hand against the barn wall up by the side of her head, and leaned in. And then McKenna did something completely unexpected. She pressed her palm flat against his chest, right over where his heartbeat was raging, and met his eyes.

There was a challenge there, one that he wasn’t sure he could ignore. Because he was past the point of reason. He was past the point of himself. Of everything.

He felt more like the boy he’d been back in high school than he had for sixteen years. Feral. Angry. About absolutely everything.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.