LITMIR.BIZ

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get out,” she yelled.

      “If she’s a thief, she’s a damn-sure successful one,” Jake muttered. “That vest she’s got on is real fox fur.”

      That and everything else about her screamed money. She was polished and burnished and shiny all over, from the pale hair swinging around her face to the little thread of gold in her turtleneck sweater to the tips of her pointed-toe shoes. Her legs, slim and as long as forever, were wrapped tight in bootcut jeans with flowers embroidered up the side. The shoes were those killer ones with high, skinny heels that would stab desire into a man’s heart with every step they took toward him—and despair with every step away.

      He wished she’d take off the fancy sunglasses so he could see her eyes.

      Jake hit the button to roll down Buck’s window and leaned across him to talk to her. “This is my…”

      “You heard me,” she shouted. “Stay in the truck.”

      Then she whirled on one heel and pointed the gun at the ground. Tried to aim it.

      Both doors on the passenger side opened and Buck and Teddy stepped down off the running board at the same time as if they were doing some kind of coordinated dance, Buck with his rope, Teddy with a quirt in his hand.

      “What the hell?” Jake hollered. “You aim to rope a woman with a shotgun?”

      “Snake!” she screamed. “Get away from it.”

      Now it was the muzzle of her gun that was dancing, swinging around to point everywhere at once. Holy hell. She could blow them all away.

      She took a step forward on the porch, braced her legs apart in a high-heeled fighter’s stance, set the gun into her shoulder and—God help them all—propped her right elbow against her ribs to try to steady her aim. She was a right-handed shooter.

      The muzzle passed right over Jake. Unless there was a snake in the truck here with him, it was as safe as a church.

      He ducked but after a second he couldn’t not look and when he did, the wavering shotgun had left him to hover around and above and below his uncle. Buck held his doubled-up rope ready in the air and Teddy did the same with the quirt, both trying to gauge the striking distance of the good-size rattler coiled on the ground between them. They ignored the woman and the gun completely.

      “Get out of the way! I’ll take care of it,” she yelled and then her voice began to shake. “I don’t want to hit y’all…”

      Well, that told him she wasn’t from around here. And everything else about her told him she wasn’t the marksman of the year. The barrel of the gun made a big circle and swung back toward the truck again.

      Jake threw his door open and hit the ground. He crouched behind the front wheel and yelled, “They’ve killed snakes before, ma’am. Don’t worry about them. Now, put the gun down…”

      He could see Buck’s feet and he saw the rope slice down to hit the snake right behind its weaving head. The gun roared anyway.

      The whole front of the truck exploded with a crash, rattled and broke into a million pieces. For a second, Jake thought he was dead. He wasn’t even hit.

      The truck gave one last gasp and died. Antifreeze poured out of the radiator, red rivulets ran from the power steering, and bits of metal twinkled on the ground. Everywhere.

      He yelled, “You boys okay?”

      For a minute nobody answered. The sudden silence was deafening. Then, faintly from Buck, “Depends on what you mean by that.”

      Jake yelled again, trying to put a persuasive tone in his voice, “You done shooting, ma’am?”

      She didn’t answer, or if she did he couldn’t hear her.

      “Hold your fire,” he said, trying for authority instead. “I’m gonna stand up now. Put the gun down.” The recoil had probably knocked her down.

      He got up and stood behind the truck. Even in the state she was in, which basically was one of a terrible need to let go and crumple to the floor until her legs could regain their strength, Clea knew him. Her Montana Cowboy.

      Well, not hers.

      He looked her over as if to judge whether she’d take another shot, then he strode around the front of the truck and came up the steps of the porch like a man here to take charge. Who was he really? But if he’d been carrying a foal around on his saddle, he couldn’t be a bad guy. Could he?

      All she could do was lean against the wall where the recoil had thrown her. She still held the gun frozen in both hands but she couldn’t lift it. Her shoulder felt as if she’d been hit by a truck. The instructor had warned the class to hold the stock really tight but she mustn’t have held it tight enough.

      The cowboy walked straight up to her and took hold of the gun as if he’d decided that she would shoot again. Up close, he was even more rugged and handsome than she’d thought when she saw him from the road.

      However, he certainly wasn’t behaving like the mythical cowboy he’d looked to be.

      “Let go,” she said, pulling back on her weapon as hard as she could.

      “You’re liable to blast a hole in the floor,” he said. “Turn loose. All I’m gonna do is take this gun and stand it up against the wall.”

      Whatever happened to a slow, drawling, gallant “Can I help you, ma’am?”

      “Don’t talk down to me,” she snapped. “I took lessons.”

      A spark of humor flashed in his eyes but his voice stayed grim. “My advice? Ask for your money back.”

      It might’ve made her smile if she hadn’t felt so…not scared exactly, but yes, scared. And inadequate. The way Brock had made her feel sometimes. She continued to cling to the gun with both hands. He didn’t take it away but his grip was so strong she could tell she couldn’t stop him if he tried.

      So much for self-protection. This was why her instructor always said never let a bad guy get close enough to take your gun away from you. There were scarier things in the world than stealing a horse.

      For the first time in her whole life, there was no one in the house she could call on for help.

      Could Brock have hired these men to take Ariel away from her? No. He couldn’t possibly know where she was. Not yet.

      She took a deep breath and took the offensive. “Who are you? You have a nerve, all of you, coming in here as if you own the place. You’re trespassing. I warned y’all to stay in your truck.”

      “I’m Jake Hawthorne,” he said. “I live here.”

      It took her a second. “In your dreams. We may be out in the middle of nowhere and you may have your snake-killing buddies with you but no way are you moving in here.”

      “I already did.”

      That flat sincerity startled her into taking one hand off the gun to remove her sunglasses so she could look into his eyes with no barrier.

      “Didn’t you see my boots and jeans in the closet? My groceries in the kitchen? My feed and hay in the barn? My shorts in the underwear drawer?”

      It all became clear.

      “I…I’m in the wrong house?” She hated that her voice revealed just how deep her embarrassment went.

      He smiled. Sort of. With just the slightest lift at the corners of his mouth. At least he wasn’t rude enough to really laugh at her.

      “I…I leased a house with a barn for a year…”

      He nodded. “But not this one.”

      He was remarkably calm about her mistake, standing here in the middle of this mess of ruined trucks and dead rattlesnakes, so unlike the yelling, hysterical idiot

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