Boone's Bounty

Shelby glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping boy, but he didn’t seem to have stirred. She lowered her voice. “Mason Fowler is a horrible person. He beat my sister and—”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Did he kill her? Josh said—”

“No,” she whispered quickly. “Patricia divorced him two years ago. She…died in a boating accident with…my parents…four months ago.” Shelby shuddered with the effort not to cry. She’d been able to stay strong until now, but this big cowboy was such a comforting presence that she was tempted to give in to her grief.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was husky, tender.

“Me, too.” She swallowed. “Anyway, Patricia didn’t leave a will, so unfortunately Mason has more of a claim to Josh than I do. He’s started the paperwork to get custody. I don’t think the process is going fast enough for him. A couple of days ago, I felt sure he was ready to take Josh for an outing and just…keep him.”

“So he wants the boy.”

“Not really.” She moved closer to Boone. She told herself it was so that he could hear her low-pitched explanation, but she also wished he’d wrap those strong arms around her. It was a dumb idea, and luckily for both of them, he didn’t pick up on her body language.

“Mason wasn’t the least interested in visitation rights after the divorce,” she continued. “For two years he hardly saw Josh. Now he’s pretending to be the perfect daddy. I’m convinced he’s only after money. My parents did leave a will, and whoever gets Josh also gets the generous maintenance allowance my parents set up for him.”

A growl of disapproval rumbled in Boone’s chest, and even though Shelby couldn’t see his face, she could feel the tension in his body. His righteous fury at hearing such news warmed her more than a blazing fire could have done.

It gave her the courage to ask the question she’d been dreading the answer to. “Does he guess I’m here somewhere?”

“I don’t think so. Eugene said he’d never laid eyes on you and Norma said she’d seen you but you went through about lunchtime and were probably way down the road by now.”

“Who are Eugene and Norma?”

“Sorry. The Sloans, the people who own the place.”

Shelby stared up at him. “They lied for me? Why would they do that?”

“Protecting the privacy of a customer might be part of it, but I think it’s also because they didn’t take a shine to this Mason character any more than I did. They might have asked themselves why he’s coming after you himself, instead of notifying the police. I wondered that, too.”

“Because it’s more his style. He’d rather intimidate me personally than trust that the law will be on his side. I have no doubt if he decides I’m in the way of his getting that money, he’ll want to eliminate me completely. In some ways, I probably played right into his hands, running like this.”

“What was your plan?”

She drew strength from the soft murmur of his voice in the darkness, and the woodsy, masculine scent of him eased her panic. “At first I could only think of getting Josh out of town, and I told him we’d go to Yellowstone. Once we were on the road, I realized we couldn’t stay there, so I’d decided to continue north to Canada and get a lawyer up there to help me. But now, if Mason’s right here…”

As the shivers started again, she wrapped her arms tighter around her body. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted me to do this. Maybe he’s been goading me, hoping I’d take off. And the fact is, he does intimidate me. But I can’t let him get Josh. I just can’t.”

Boone stood there in silence for a long time. Finally he blew out a breath. “I guess you’d better let me help you.”

They were the sweetest words she’d heard in a long while, yet she couldn’t imagine what this cowboy could do. “How?”

“Leave your rental car here and come with me to the Rocking D.”

“Your…your ranch?”

“Not mine. It belongs to a good buddy of mine, Sebastian Daniels, and his new wife Matty. It’s near Canon City, in a pretty little valley. You’ll be safe there while you figure out what you want to do next.”

“Oh, Boone, that’s a wonderful offer.” The idea filled her with such longing she could taste it, but she gathered her strength and pride, wrapping them around her like a cloak. “But I can’t bring my troubles to roost at your friend’s place, especially if he’s a newlywed.”

“You don’t know Sebastian. If he found out I’d left a defenseless woman and a little boy—”

“I’m not defenseless.” She refused to come across as a victim.

“You’re not?”

“I took a self-defense class. I can take care of myself.”

“Well, that’s good,” he said patiently. “That’s real good. But it’s kinda tough taking care of yourself when you have a little shaver to worry about.”

She knew that. She just hadn’t wanted to think about it. “You have a point there,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Anyway, if Sebastian knew I’d left you to fend off some wife-beater by yourself, while taking care of the boy and all, he’d have my hide. Sebastian would want me to bring you to the Rocking D, once he understood the situation.”

She struggled to keep a grip on the pride she’d been clinging to so fiercely. She needed a champion, needed one desperately. Two champions sounded like heaven, but she couldn’t impose like that. “Sounds as if you and your friend are two in a million.”

“Not by a long shot.” He sounded embarrassed. “We’re a couple of ornery cusses, if you must know. Travis, he’s the charming one.”

“Travis?”

“Travis Evans. You’ll meet him, too. In fact, as long as we get out of here at a decent hour in the morning, you’ll get to come to his wedding.”

The conversation had taken on an unreal quality. “Boone, hold on a minute. You’re planning on putting me, with all my problems, smack-dab in the middle of wedding festivities? You can’t do that.”

“Like I said, my friends would have a fit if I did anything different.”

“Some friends you have, Boone.” She was beginning to believe she’d stumbled onto the cowboy equivalent of the Knights of the Round Table. Still, taking advantage of such gallantry wasn’t her style. “Listen, you’re wonderful to offer, but I simply can’t put you or your friends to that kind of trouble.”

“Okay.” His tone was patient. “What’s your alternative?”

Good question. She thought of Mason lurking in the café, coiled like a rattlesnake ready to strike. She could watch for him to leave before she ventured out of the room in the morning, but that would mean being trapped without any way of getting food for Josh. Explaining that problem to Josh without telling him about Mason would be tricky.

She faced the fact that she had no plan unless someone offered to be her ally. Boone had offered. “I guess my biggest problem is how to get food to Josh if the road doesn’t open right away in the morning,” she said.

“I can help you with that.”

“I would appreciate it.” She was embarrassed by how constrained her position was. She tried for an attitude of independence and self-reliance. “Once Mason leaves, Josh and I can be on our way. Kind as your gesture is, we really wouldn’t need to go with you.”

He sighed. “Shelby, I’ve seen the guy. He’s a tough customer, and he won’t stay fooled forever. Sooner or later, he’ll catch on and come back looking for you. When he does, your self-defense courses aren’t going to do you much good. If you really want to keep Josh out of his hands, you need help.”

She knew he was right. Damn it, he was so right. She’d been foolish to think she could protect Josh by herself. Reckless and foolish. Humbled by her monumental ability to miscalculate, she finally understood that her pride could endanger Josh. Because she loved him far more than her stupid pride, she had no choice but to be indebted to Boone and his friends. “Okay,” she said softly. “But I’ll find a way to make it up to you. I’ll—”

“No need,” he said. “Don’t even worry about it.”

Of course she would. The debt already sat heavy in her chest. But Josh was more important than her own comfort zone right now. “What about my rental car?” she asked.

“You can call the office in Santa Fe and tell them you were afraid to drive it over the pass. That makes sense. You shouldn’t drive it over the pass, at least not for a day or two. But you can say you found other transportation. They might charge you something extra if they have to come get it, but—”

“I don’t care about that.”