Kitabı oku: «Cowboy's Vow To Protect»

Chapter 1

All of the cowboys from the Holiday Ranch surrounded him. Their fists pummeled him. He tried to defend himself but there were too many of them. Each blow shot pain through him. His ribs screamed in protest and his aching knees finally buckled beneath him. When he fell to the ground they viciously kicked at him. His mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood, even though most of the blows were to his body and not to his face or head.

Help! The plea screamed over and over again in his head, but there was no help coming. In complete defeat, he curled up into a fetal ball on the lush green grass and prayed for it to stop.

Flint McCay came awake suddenly. Pain...it racked his body and for several long moments he didn’t move. He stared out the nearby window where the first light of dawn cast slivers of light.

The dream had been so strange. There was absolutely no way the other men on the Holiday Ranch would ever beat him up. They were his brothers. It was a brotherhood forged in painful childhoods and in second chances and them all growing up together here on this ranch.

He winced as he changed positions. No, his pain wasn’t from his fellow cowboys. It was from years of his own choices and a recent diagnosis that had unsettled him.

He groaned as he finally moved to a sitting position on the side of the twin-size bed. When Cass Holiday had hired a dozen young runaway boys to work at the ranch, she’d made sure they each had their own rooms in the building the men referred to as the cowboy motel.

Each man had a private room with an adjoining bathroom. The rooms were small, holding only a twin bed and a chest of drawers. It was to the bathroom Flint now headed, hoping a long, hot shower would loosen up tight muscles and ease some of his pain.

Years of bull-riding had taken its toll on him. There wasn’t a bone in his body that hadn’t been broken or sprained over the years. Now he had a trunk full of trophies, shiny belt buckles and ribbons to show for his success, and a body that at the age of thirty-four felt more like that of a ninety-year-old.

Thankfully, the shower helped and he dressed and headed around the building for the dining room in the back. Most of the cowboys were already there, filling plates from the buffet line Cord Cully, a.k.a. Cookie, prepared for them each and every morning. He also fed the cowboys at lunchtime and dinner.

“Good morning, Flint,” Mac McBride greeted him as Flint fell into the line behind him.

“Back at you,” Flint replied.

He filled his plate with bacon and scrambled eggs, with biscuits and gravy and added a spoonful of fruit salad. He carried it over to one of the picnic tables where Mac sat with Jerod Steen, Clay Madison and Dusty Crawford.

Flint slid into the seat next to Dusty, who had recently welcomed a baby boy into his life with his wife, Tricia. “How’s that kid?” he asked Dusty.

Dusty beamed. “Growing like a weed. How’s the cabin coming along?”

Several months ago Flint had bought a couple of acres of heavily wooded land with a clearing perfect for a small house. The cowboys had all pitched in to help him build a cozy, two-bedroom cabin. It was the place he’d live in when he stopped being one of Cassie’s cowboys. And whether he liked it or not that time was quickly approaching.

“The furniture was delivered last week and all I have left is to finish putting up a porch and do some trim work,” Flint replied.

“It sure is a sweet location with all the trees and that little brook that runs through the backyard,” Mac said.

“Yeah, I got lucky in grabbing it before somebody else did,” Flint said.

“Do you need some help getting the porch up?” Jerod asked. “You know some of us wouldn’t mind coming out to lend you a hand.”

“No, thanks. I think I can handle it.” The last thing he wanted his friends and fellow cowboys to know about was his weakness...his chronic pain. Besides, he’d accepted enough of their help in getting the place up.

Cowboys didn’t complain, and at least for now Flint was still a cowboy. He didn’t want to think about what happened when he stopped being a cowboy because the thought scared the hell out of him.

Breakfast continued with talk about the hot months of summer and the lack of rain. They all discussed cattle and chores and whatever else popped into their minds.

“Flint, when are you going to find some nice woman to settle down with?” Dusty asked as they were finishing the meal. “You’ve got that great cabin, now all you need is somebody to share it with.”

“That cabin isn’t meant to be shared. Women are just too...too complex for me,” Flint replied. “I prefer the company of you all when I’m relaxing in the evenings. Besides, what are you doing picking on me? What about Jerod and Mac? They’re both single.”

“Hey, don’t get me in the middle of this,” Mac protested with a laugh.

“Me, neither,” Jerod added.

There followed a rowdy debate between the single men and the committed ones, then with breakfast over they all left the dining room to head out for their morning chores.

Thank goodness Flint had it fairly easy this morning. Sawyer Quincy, the newest foreman and one of Flint’s “brothers,” had delegated him to cleaning up the barn.

The morning was already hot and without a breath of a breeze. August in Bitterroot, Oklahoma, could be brutal. In the barn it would even be hotter. He’d need to remember to hydrate himself throughout the day.

He opened the large barn door and walked in. The barn hadn’t been cleaned up since the winter, when hay bales had been pulled out to take to the cattle and horses in the pastures.

Loose hay covered the floor, and bales were helter-skelter around the space. Flint grabbed a rake and began to work on gathering the golden strands into a pile.

As he worked he whistled an old country-western tune that Mac often strummed on his guitar when they gathered in the evenings in the rec room. Those times were when Flint felt the most satisfied, when in the company of men who shared his past, believed in the same core values as he and with whom he had so much in common. And he was going to miss those times when he stopped working on the ranch.

He consciously willed his thoughts away from thinking about his future because the unknown was too daunting to consider. He’d think about that when he absolutely, positively had to. Right now he just wanted to enjoy the smell of the hay and the knowledge that in a few hours he’d share lunch with the men and later that night a few of them would gather in the rec room for more laughs and music provided by Mac and his guitar.

Within an hour he had the hay on the floor swept into neat, small piles that he then bound with twine. He’d just grabbed the hay hook off the wall when he froze. He’d heard...a noise. It hadn’t sounded like the faint rustle of a mouse, although there were certainly mice and other small varmints in the barn.

He waited a minute and listened, but heard nothing more so he got back to work. The hay bales weighed about seventy pounds apiece. He began to straighten the stacks, using the hay hook when he needed to lift and carry them from one place to another.

He rounded one corner of the stacks of hay bales and gasped in stunned shock. She was nestled in a little cubbyhole provided by the hay. Her long, dark hair hung in damp ringlets around her heart-shaped face, and her huge blue eyes stared at him both in horror and in fear.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said as she hurriedly rose to her feet.

“Maddy, what are you doing here?” he asked in stunned surprise. Maddy Taylor...he knew her from the grocery store where she occasionally checked him out when he shopped there, but he hadn’t seen her for the past couple of months. What in the heck was she doing in the middle of the hay in the Holiday barn?

Tears welled up in her eyes. “Please, please don’t tell anyone you saw me.” Her trembling fingers plucked a strand of the hay out of her long hair. “Don’t tell anyone I was here.”

“But what’s going on?” Shock still fluttered through him at her very presence in the hot barn. How long had she been here and of all places, why was she here? “What are you doing here?”

“I... I was trying to leave town. I have to...to go anyplace but here. My car broke down and...and this was the closest place to walk to...and I just needed some time to figure out what I’m going to do.” The words bubbled out of her and her entire body shook like a frightened puppy.

Flint frowned, trying to make sense of what she’d just told him. “When your car broke down why didn’t you just try to catch a ride back to your trailer?” He knew she lived in a mobile home park on the wrong side of Bitterroot.

Her eyes widened. “I... I can’t ever go back there again.”

“Why? Why do you have to leave town?” Bitterroot was a big pond of gossipmongers, but he hadn’t heard anything about Maddy in recent days. What in the heck was going on with her?

“Please...don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. I... I can’t tell anyone.” Her eyes took on a frightened haunting. “I’m sorry for being here. I’ll just get my things and leave.” She turned and grabbed the handle of a medium-size, beat-up suitcase that had been half-hidden in the hay.

“Wait...where are you going to go from here?” Flint asked. She had always been thin, but at the moment she looked positively frail. She said she couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to her trailer. “Where are you going, Maddy? Somebody else’s barn? We’re having some of the hottest days of the summer right now.”

“I... I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”

Flint took a couple of steps back from her and she walked out of her little hidey-hole with the suitcase in her hand. She was clad in a long blue, sleeveless dress that was wrinkled and damp with perspiration.

“How long have you been in here?” he asked, appalled as he thought of the hot nights and even hotter days.

“Just since last night. My car broke down and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to stay in the car so this was the closest place to walk to. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother anyone. I just need some time to get the car fixed.” She started for the barn door.

Flint watched her go, but before she could get all the way to the door he stopped her by calling her name. She turned to look at him. A simmering fear shone from her eyes.

“I have a place you can stay,” he said. “It’s a cabin in the woods about fifteen miles from here.” He couldn’t let her...he couldn’t let any woman walk out of here with no place to go on such a miserably hot day, especially since he had a place to offer her.

“A...a cabin in the woods?”

He nodded. “Nobody is staying in it right now.”

“Who knows about it?”

The question surprised him. “Just a couple of the cowboys here on the ranch. Why?”

“I don’t want anyone to find me.” Her eyes once again welled up with tears. “I don’t want anyone from town to know where I am.”

“Nobody will know you’re there,” he assured her.

“Then, yes, please. I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness, but if I could just stay there for a day or two until I can sort out my car issues, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Then let’s get you out of this hot barn. I’ll go and get my truck and I’ll pull it up to the door. I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”

He left the barn and headed for the vehicle shed in the distance. Thoughts whirled around in his head at a dizzying speed. Why was she hiding out? What had happened to her? It was obvious she was afraid of something or somebody.

Was it possible she had embezzled money from the grocery store and was making her getaway when her car had died? Was she a criminal or a victim of something?

And more important, what was he getting himself involved in by offering her the use of his cabin?

Madison sat in the passenger seat and shot a surreptitious glance to the man who was driving. Around his brown cowboy hat, his shaggy blond hair shone in the sunshine drifting in through the window. He had a strong jawline and a slightly crooked nose and yet that didn’t detract from his rugged handsomeness.

Flint McCay. She didn’t know much about him, although her heart had certainly fluttered a bit whenever she’d check him out at the grocery store.

He was definitely something of a legend around these parts. He was a champion bull-rider who had successfully ridden some of the biggest and meanest bulls in the rodeos. She also knew he was well liked around town.

She’d never heard anything bad about him, but she knew that didn’t mean anything. A man could wear a wonderful facade that drew people to him, but that same man could turn into a horrible monster when there was nobody else around.

Right now she hoped Flint was her savior. She hoped he really was taking her to a cabin in the woods where she could cool off and take a moment to breathe...to think. And she needed to think to figure out how she was going to get out of town as quickly as possible.

“Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” Flint’s question broke the silence of the ride.

“There’s nothing going on,” she lied. “I had just decided to move away from Bitterroot and in the process my car broke down.”

He cast her a quick glance, his green eyes filled with skepticism. “If it’s as simple as that, then why are you so worried about people knowing where you are?”

“I just don’t want anyone trying to change my mind about the move.” She knew he didn’t believe her. She’d said too much initially when he’d stumbled upon her in the hay and she’d never told so many lies in her life. But the reason she desperately needed to escape Bitterroot was something she’d never speak about aloud. Even if she did, nobody would ever believe her.

As they left the town of Bitterroot behind, a shiver raced through her. She clutched the seat belt fastener with one hand, just in case she had to bail out. Maybe she’d been foolish to trust Flint. Just because he had been pleasant when she’d seen him in the grocery store didn’t mean he was really a good guy.

“Relax,” he said as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Maddy, I’m not a threat to you. I’m trying to help you.”

“And I really, really appreciate it,” she replied. It comforted her somewhat that he was a Holiday Ranch cowboy. All the men who had been raised by big Cass Holiday had a reputation for being good, solid men.

Once again they both fell silent. After they had driven a ways, he made a right turn onto a dirt, tree-lined road. They traveled that road for about five minutes and then he made a left turn onto another narrow road where trees encroached on either side. After several more minutes he made a right turn onto a narrow road that was more of a trail than a real road.

Trees, casting dark shadows, crowded in and swallowed up the sunshine. The truck bounced over ruts in the road and a rabbit ran in front of them, successfully making it to the other side of their path.

They were definitely in the middle of nowhere now. For all she knew they could be in another state...another country. If he dropped her off by the side of the road right now she wasn’t sure she’d know how to get back to town.

Tension tightened her shoulders and knotted her stomach. What was she doing? Was he really taking her to a cabin? Or had she run away from the devil only to wind up in a different hell?

Then they broke through to a small clearing where a cabin sat nestled among the trees. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. A tiny sigh of relief fluttered through her. At least he hadn’t lied to her about there being a cabin.

It was a wooden structure with a big window in the front. A stone chimney rose up from the roof, promising warmth on a cold and wintry night. Although the last thing she needed to worry about right now was winter weather. She just hoped it was cooler inside the cabin than it had been in the barn.

He pulled up in front and they got out of the truck. He grabbed her suitcase from the back and then together they walked to the front door.

“What is this place?” she asked. Why would Flint have a cabin in the woods when he worked for and lived at the Holiday Ranch?

“It’s my future,” he said as he opened the door. “Eventually I plan on quitting the Holiday Ranch and when that day comes, I’ll move in here.” He gestured her inside.

She walked into a small but homey living area. To the right was the refrigerator and stove and cabinets that comprised a small kitchen. A table for two divided the kitchen area from the main living space.

A brown sofa and recliner sat in front of a stone fireplace. To the left of the fireplace a television was mounted on the wall. A bright blue crocheted afghan hung over the back of the sofa, adding a pop of color. There was a cozy warmth to the space with its rich wooden walls and lamps shaped like kerosene lanterns on the end tables.

It was definitely a male space. Other than the afghan, there were no decorative accents suggesting any feminine touches at all, but she admired the natural beauty of the space.

“This is so nice,” she finally said as grateful tears welled up in her eyes. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here for a day or two?”

He looked away from her and cleared his throat. “I’m positive. I’ll just go and turn on the air-conditioner. It’s definitely warm in here.” He disappeared through one of the doorways off the main room.

Suddenly, Madison was exhausted. After her car had broken down, she’d walked from her car to the Holiday barn. Then she’d gotten settled in the hay in the barn and had spent most of the night sobbing.

She sank down on the sofa as Flint came back into the room. “The door on the right goes to my bedroom. The door in the middle is the bathroom and the door on the left is a guest room. I’ll just put your suitcase in there.”

He grabbed the suitcase and once again disappeared. All she wanted now was to sleep, hopefully without dreams. If she just took a nap then surely she’d be able to think more clearly and figure out a real plan for what needed to happen next in her life.

When he returned to the main room, he stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, jiggled keys and frowned. “Maddy, are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”

“No, but I’d like to ask you for another favor. I hate to ask because you’re already doing so much in letting me stay here.”

“What is it?”

“I was wondering if you could call the garage and have my car towed in. I don’t have a cell phone.”

“It wouldn’t do you much good out here. The reception is definitely spotty. There’s a landline phone on the nightstand next to my bed. But if you want I can make the call to the garage for you.”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

He moved toward the front door. “I don’t mind.” She gave him the specifics of where the car was located and that she’d left the keys under the driver floor mat.

“I should give you my cell phone number in case you think of something else you need. There’s a pad and pens in the drawer in the end table.”

He pulled out the items and handed them to her. He gave her his cell phone number and she wrote it down. “There are a couple of cold drinks in the fridge, but other than that it’s pretty empty. I’ll go pick up some supplies for you and bring them back here.”

“I can pay you for whatever you spend on me,” she replied. She did have some money...all of her life savings was tucked into a bra in her suitcase. Sadly, it wasn’t much to start fresh in another town, but she had to make it work. She’d never expected to have to leave Bitterroot behind, but now she had no choice. She had to escape.

“We’ll worry about that later. I’ll see you in about an hour or so.” And with that he went out the door.

She immediately got up and locked the door behind him. She then went to the room where he intended for her to stay. The room was just large enough to hold a queen-size bed and a dresser.

The bed was covered with a white-and-yellow spread, a pleasing complement to the gleaming wooden walls. She stared at her suitcase at the foot of the bed and decided she’d unpack a few things later.

She peeked into his bedroom, where the bed was king-size and covered with an attractive black-and-gray spread. There was also a dresser in this room, but there was nothing on top of it to indicate anyone lived here.

Finally, with her exhaustion tugging heavily on her, she went back into the bedroom where her suitcase sat at the foot of the bed. She tugged it up to the bed and opened it. She wasn’t going to completely unpack, but she grabbed clean clothes and then went into the bathroom.

After spending the night in the hay in the hot barn, she desperately needed a shower. She felt dirty and itchy and intended to take advantage of the fact that Flint was gone to take the opportunity of the much-needed shower.

She found a stack of neatly folded towels beneath the sink and a bar of minty fresh-smelling soap already in the shower. There was also a bottle of shampoo on the floor inside the stall.

She took a glorious shower and shampooed her long hair three times. Then, once clad in a clean summer dress, she beelined for the sofa.

Pulling the blue afghan around her, she marveled that she was in this cabin where for the moment she felt comfortable and safe.

For the moment...

She couldn’t know what might happen when Flint returned. Would he expect payment for his kindness? And would he want a different kind of payment other than money? Would he take what he thought she owed him by force?

No...that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t let that happen. She got up from the sofa and went to the kitchen area. It took her three tries to find the drawer that held a variety of sharp knives. She grabbed the biggest, the meanest-looking one in the drawer and then returned to the sofa.

As she got comfortable once again she squeezed her eyes closed against the heart and soul weariness that had battered her for the past couple of months. She’d never believed there would come a time when she would be so much at the mercy of someone else.

In another lifetime she would have chosen to be with a cowboy like Flint. She’d always assumed that one day she’d marry a cowboy and live happily-ever-after on a ranch. He’d ride the range during the days while she stayed at home and raised babies. She moved her hand to rest on her lower belly.

Those dreams...all her dreams for herself and for her future had been shattered on a night a little over three months ago. Now the thing that frightened her most was she couldn’t see a future for herself. She didn’t know where she was going to go or how she was going to survive.