A Cowboy To Keep

“You don’t realize how quickly everything can fall apart until it does,” she murmured, and her eyelashes swept her cheeks. “It makes you never want anything good ever again.”

He looked at her sharply, hearing his own thoughts come straight out of her mouth. It unsettled him, this connection he suddenly felt to her.

Time to return to easier topics. “Where are you from?”

“Texas. My father owns a bull ranch there. He’s been fighting to keep it after he had a stroke last year.”

“It’s hard giving up land.” He pulled up when a wild turkey darted across the path. Three more followed, necks outstretched, legs and feet a blur. With deep-throated cackles, they disappeared again in the rustling brush.

“I know.” She blew out her cheeks. “The doctor says Dad’s got to slow down and my sister, Claire, and her fiancé, Tanner, are there helping out. He quit bull riding to help save the ranch and they’re getting married in a few months.”

“Good man.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” She shooed away the swarming gnat cloud they’d entered.

“Nothing ever is.”

“Do you ever string more than five words together?”

“Yes.” He bit back a grin at her eye roll when he didn’t elaborate. Then he spotted a boarded-up entrance over a rocky outcropping. “Hey. There’s the mine.”

They pulled up, dismounted and tied up the horses. Wooden slats crisscrossed the space, but a couple had fallen off at the bottom. Could a man crawl in through there? Only one way to find out.

“What are you doing?” she hissed when he dropped to the ground and pressed his good eye against the opening. Light filtered through the cracks and pierced some of the gloom. Nothing inside stirred. It appeared empty.

“Looking for Smiley. You?”

“I told you. He’s not here.”

“No?” He straightened and studied the remains of a campfire. “Someone stayed here. Only one set of tracks. Whoever it was didn’t stick around, though.”

If Smiley was on his own, did that mean he and the other guy, maybe Everett Ridland, had split up? If so, an explanation could be that Smiley’s partner worked on the ranch and would be able to hide in plain sight as long as he used an alias.

She blinked rapidly. “Could be a camper. We adjoin the Pike National Forest. Sometimes people get confused and pass through.”

He poked at the cinders with a twig, his gaze sweeping the bare dirt patch. “That’s a nice theory.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I hope to know him, soon.” He pointed at a set of fresh tracks leading away from the campfire onto a small footpath. “Where does that trail lead?”

Her large eyes traveled from the foot impressions to the small trail. “The ranch.”

“Where, specifically?”

“Excuse me?”

“Where does it come out?”

“Behind Tanya’s cabin.”

“Huh.”

A deep rumble sounded above them and he instinctively dove for Dani. He swept her into his arms and covered her just before the first rocks of the avalanche rolled down the bluff and smashed into his shoulder, head and back, the dirt rising up around them in a blinding cloud.

The horses neighed as the stone shower continued on and on, his mouth, his nose, his lungs filling with gritty, bitter earth. As for his heart, it bumped hard in his chest. Drummed in his ears. Then, suddenly, all was still and quiet.

Dani’s clutch on his shoulders eased and he felt her stand. He shoved to his feet but couldn’t see anything, his eyes now burning.

“Good girl, Storm. Pokey. Luckily the horses were just out of reach.”

He nodded, unseeing.

The crunch of Dani’s boots on the stone-filled area grew louder as she approached. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He rubbed his eye, clearing away the grit.

“Can you see?”

“Not at the moment, exactly.” A couple more swipes and Dani’s outline swam into focus. Her brow furrowed as she stared directly at him, her gaze questioning.

“You didn’t wipe your left eye,” she observed.

He jerked, realizing his mistake, and brushed dirt off his eyelashes and lid, the damaged nerves there making it less sensitive, according to the doctor who’d treated him.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

His hands stilled then dropped to his sides. “Can I stop you?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay. Shoot,” he answered, guessing what she wanted to know...information she might figure out sooner or later.

“Are you blind in your left eye?”

Tension coiled between his shoulder blades as he braced for the pity his brothers had given him after the injury. “Legally blind, but I can see some,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Still want me as a wrangler?”

His jaw worked at the memory of his brothers making unconscious allowances for him, how that’d made him feel less than he’d already felt after letting the family down in the worst way a man could. His chest burned. At last his good eye cleared and her features popped into sharp focus. Instead of looking sympathetic, a line appeared between her lowered brows.

“I never wanted you to begin with. With that scowl, you resemble an extra in a Coen brothers’ movie—one that doesn’t end well. And you clearly have an issue with authority, but your skills...” She trailed off and looked upward at the cliff. “You know how to handle a crisis. Thanks for saving my skin.”

A strange sensation swelled in his chest. “I like Coen brothers’ movies.”

She headed for the horses, glanced at him over her shoulder and grinned. “Why am I not surprised? We’d better go. I need to tell grounds keeping about this.”

He nodded, studying the outcropping. It looked stable enough. What had set off the avalanche? “How often do those happen?”

“It’s the first one I’ve seen since I started here. Why?”