Cowboy in the Extreme
He filed the moment away in his mind to treasure forever. One of the first memories in a lifetime of endless ones to come, he hoped.
Kim returned a second later with a small pink rolling bag and a backpack in the shape of a bunny rabbit and set them on top of her suitcase. “I still don’t think this is a good idea.”
Her wary expression infuriated him, but he tempered his tone. “It doesn’t matter if you like it or not, Kim. Keeping Lucy safe is my job now, and I’m not going to let her down.”
Anguish flickered in her eyes and something akin to fear followed, but he didn’t take time to analyze it. He yanked up both suitcases to carry to his SUV. “I’ll be back to get Lucy.”
“No, I’ll carry her.” Kim leaned over to pick up her daughter, but Brandon caught her arm.
“You may not think much of me, Kim. And God knows, my old man was vile. But I’m not like him. I would never hurt Lucy.”
Her stunned eyes met his, the wariness dissipating. “I…know that, Brandon.”
His throat thickened, making his voice sound like he’d swallowed gravel. “That’s not the reason you kept her from me?”
She shook her head. “God, no.... I…would never think that.”
For a second, he couldn’t speak. It was as if they had stepped back in time to a moment when she trusted him and he trusted her, and their love had sparked to life.
Then he looked down at Lucy again and an image of her as a baby taunted him, hammering home the reality of the years he’d missed, and anger surged through him again.
Exhaustion lined Kim’s face as she leaned over to scoop up Lucy, and concern for her and the ordeal she’d been through tonight suffused him. They needed to get on the road so she and Lucy could rest.
So he relented and carried the suitcases to his SUV, then opened the back door for Kim to settle Lucy in the back. Kim secured the seat belt. Then he returned to the cabin and grabbed a couple of pillows to make Lucy’s ride more comfortable while Kim retrieved her purse and phone.
Kim settled into the front seat without saying a word, and he cranked the engine and headed down the drive away from the ranch. He was desperate for a confrontation, but bit his tongue.
They would have heated words, and he didn’t intend to become his father and subject Lucy to his wrath. He didn’t want to scare her again.
He punched in the sheriff’s number before they made the turn-off onto the main road from the Bucking Bronc Lodge toward San Antonio.
“Sheriff, it’s Brandon Woodstock. Kim Long and her daughter are going to my ranch until you find the person who broke in.”
“Fine. You heard from your buddy Carter?”
“No,” Brandon said. “But I’ll let you know if I do.”
When he disconnected, Kim was watching him with that wary look again.
“I need to call Johnny and tell him where we are.”
He slanted her a dark look. “Johnny knows about Lucy?”
Kim twisted her hands together, then gave a slow nod. “Brandon—”
“Don’t,” he said sharply. Pain knifed through him again. Betrayal at its worst. The two people he’d loved more than his own life had both lied to him for years. “There’s nothing you can say that will make what the two of you did to me right.”
Then he shut down. He’d had more emotional upheaval today than he’d had in years. The weight of it was choking him. Part of him wanted to roll up and die.
But then Lucy shifted in the backseat, and he saw her tiny reflection in the rearview mirror, and for the first time in years, he realized he had something important to live for. Someone more important than himself or his goals.
He had a little girl.
Love mushroomed inside him, filling him with a kind of deep-seated joy that he’d never experienced.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught Kim’s troubled expression, but he couldn’t reach out to her or forgive her, so he let the silence between them fall.
By the time they’d passed through San Antonio and sped down the long deserted stretch of country road leading to his ranch, fatigue had claimed Kim and she’d fallen asleep. Occasionally he noticed a few cars passing, one behind him in the distance, then a trucker on a late run.
But a few more miles down the road, as the scrub brush, cacti and pastureland took over and the houses and buildings of San Antonio faded into the dust, he noticed headlights behind him. Distant hills outlined the horizon, the sky an inky well with a quarter moon sitting low over the tops of the mesquite and juniper trees.
The sound of an engine speeding up broke the silence. Then tires squealed and he tensed as he realized the vehicle was bearing down on him. Was it a cop?
He checked his speedometer. He hadn’t been speeding. And it was the middle of the night. Maybe the cop was on his way to an accident somewhere, but there were no blue lights or a siren.
Then suddenly the vehicle shot forward, gaining on him fast.
Brandon frowned. Was it Carter? Could he have stolen a truck and followed them from Kim’s?
He accelerated and rounded a curve, careful to keep the SUV on the road. He had precious cargo inside.
But the truck raced forward, swerving left, then right, then zoomed up beside him and skimmed his side just as he neared the ravine. Sparks flew from the guardrail and his truck. Gripping the steering wheel to keep the SUV on the road, he lifted his foot off the gas, hoping the truck would pass. Instead, the driver suddenly swerved a hard right toward him and rammed his side.
Sweat beaded on his skin as the SUV lurched out of control. Kim jerked awake, startled.
“Brandon?”
“Hang on,” he said between gritted teeth.
The truck rammed them again, Kim cried out in shock and the SUV hit the side of a piney oak, spit gravel, then began to spin, fishtailing back and forth, skidding toward the ravine.
Chapter Four
Kim screamed as the truck skidded across the asphalt and Lucy jerked awake.
“Mommy!” Lucy cried.
“Hang on, honey,” Brandon said in a gruff voice.
Tires squealed, and the gears made a grinding noise as the truck’s headlights beamed across the ravine.
Kim clenched the dashboard to brace herself. They were going to crash!
Brandon threw out an arm to protect her as the truck spun a hundred and eighty degrees. Headlights pierced the darkness from an oncoming car and the vehicle that had slammed into them screeched past, flying down the road.
Brandon swerved closer to the ditch to avoid hitting the oncoming car, hanging on to the steering wheel to control the truck as it careened to a stop. They nosedived into the embankment, but he managed to miss going into the ravine by just a few inches.
“Mommy!” Lucy cried again.
Kim pivoted to check on her daughter. “Lucy, are you okay?”
Lucy tried to unfasten her seat belt. “What’s wrong?”
“Sorry, honey, I had to stop fast to keep from hitting that other car.” Brandon cut the engine and glanced at Kim worriedly. “Are you all right, Kim?”
She dragged in a labored breath but nodded. Brandon twisted around, clicked open Lucy’s seat belt, then helped Lucy crawl over the seat into Kim’s lap. Kim wrapped her arms around her daughter, battling tears as her gaze locked with Brandon’s.
Moonlight streaked the window, highlighting his wide strong jaw and troubled eyes.
“Brandon,” she whispered. “Who was that?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured. Then he drew her and Lucy into his arms, buried his head against them and held them. His breathing was ragged, and a fine tremor ran through him as he pressed a kiss into Lucy’s hair.
A kiss that broke her heart for him and for Lucy and all they had missed.
Guilt tugged at her, but the old hurts resurfaced. Brandon had made that choice, not her.
Still, the events of the night flashed back in a terrifying rush. The break-in. Now the accident.
Only had it been an accident? It seemed like that car had intentionally hit them.
Another shudder whipped through her, and Kim couldn’t help herself. She relaxed in Brandon’s strong embrace, welcoming his comfort.
Even if he hated her for keeping his daughter from him the past four years, he would protect her and Lucy.
But questions plagued her. Who had been driving that truck? Carter?
Had he tried to kill them to get revenge because they hadn’t helped him years ago?
BRANDON CLOSED HIS EYES, desperate to steady his pounding heart. What the hell was going on? First the break-in, now a hit-and-run?
They had to be connected.
Had Carter done this?
Surely he wouldn’t have slammed into them with Lucy in the car. Carter had a mountain of pent-up anger and bitterness, but the man he’d once known had a soft spot for kids.
Unless he’d just figured out that Lucy wasn’t his, that she was Brandon’s daughter.
Still…
The sound of another car zooming by made him whip his head up. What if the driver of that damn truck returned?
His stomach knotted as he checked the road. But a sports car raced past as if it hadn’t even seen them.
Lucy wiggled beneath his embrace, and as much as Brandon hated to let them go, he realized he was smothering them, and that they needed to get back on the road.
If that had been an intentional attack, they were sitting ducks out in the open like this.
So he slowly released them, and forced a calmness to his voice that he didn’t feel. “Everybody okay?”
Kim’s eyes still held a hint of fear, but she nodded. “Sure, we’re tough girls, aren’t we, Lucy?”
Lucy’s lower lip quivered as she looked up at her mother, then at Brandon. But she raised her little chin and nodded.
Brandon’s heart melted. “Well, then let’s go.” He tweaked Lucy’s nose. “Think you can crawl into your seat and go back to sleep?”
“I don’t know,” she said, still clinging to Kim.
“Sure you can,” Kim said with a smile. “And when you wake up, we’ll be at Brandon’s ranch.”
Brandon gently stroked Lucy’s hair. “I have a big bed your mama can tuck you into, and you can sleep as late as you want, and then we’ll have my famous cinnamon toast and look at the horses.”
Lucy studied him for a moment, her pale green eyes so like his own and his sister’s that he couldn’t drag his gaze away.
He’d protect her or die trying.
KIM WAS AFRAID Lucy might not fall back asleep, but she must have been exhausted because in minutes she was curled up with her blanket and stuffed animal again.
She wished she was as resilient. Between the break-in, hit-and-run and the tension between her and Brandon, she doubted she’d sleep another wink all night. Thankfully, Brandon hadn’t pressed for more yet, but a confrontation was inevitable.
She stole a glance at him, and noticed his rigid posture. He kept checking the mirrors, and she realized he was staying alert in case that truck returned. The thought made her sit up straighter, and she stared out the window at the passing scenery searching the darkness.
As they passed long, flat stretches of wilderness dotted with desert cacti, creosote flats, yucca and cholla, then other ranches and farmland, her mind wandered to the day she discovered her pregnancy. She had only been eighteen, but she’d been so in love with Brandon that she would never have considered doing anything but raising her baby. She’d loved their child from the moment she’d found out she had conceived.
But Brandon had broken her heart a couple of months before and was on his honeymoon.
That had hurt the worst. To know that he was celebrating his love for another woman while she faced having a child alone. A child she’d desperately wanted to raise with him.
Her thoughts stayed scattered in the past as he veered onto a long winding road that looked at if it led nowhere. Moonlight streaked the horizon, painting a golden glow over the hills and valleys, and soon she saw cattle roaming and grazing in lush pastures.
He wound down a paved drive lined with billowing oaks that created a canopy above them, and she noted several barns, stables and riding pens.
Her pulse throbbed as they reached a stone wall, carved into an arch that held a wooden sign that said The Woodstock Wagoneer.
Brandon had talked and dreamed about owning his own spread when they were growing up, and she couldn’t help but be proud that he’d accomplished it. And the name…something about it tickled her memory.
A romantic wagon ride they’d taken after prom…
No, he wouldn’t have named the ranch The Wagoneer because of that ride. Would he?
Tears pricked her eyes again, but she blinked them away. Then she spotted a sprawling white farmhouse with gigantic wraparound porches, a white picket fence and dormer windows, and her heart stopped. Flower beds filled with pansies flanked the front porch and ferns hung from the awning, swaying in the breeze. Rocking chairs created a seating area near a porch swing like the Bucking Bronc Lodge, only not as rustic. This one was painted white with blue shutters.
Like the old abandoned farmhouse where they’d played as children.
Except this house wasn’t old or abandoned. It looked exactly like the house she’d pointed to in a magazine one time when they’d been daydreaming.
She swung her gaze to Brandon’s as he cut the engine, and for a moment, their gazes locked. Memories of all the times they’d laughed and loved and dreamed together flooded her. She’d fantasized about having a home like this.
But Brandon had built it for another woman.
Pain wrenched through her as if someone had driven a knife into her chest. She threw the door open, stumbled outside the car and gasped for air.
How could she stay here on Brandon’s ranch knowing he had left her pregnant and alone while he built her dream home for another woman?
BRANDON GRITTED HIS TEETH as Kim climbed out. He hoped to hell she didn’t remember the picture of the house she’d shown him years ago. If she did, she’d know that he’d built this house for her.
That he’d never gotten over her. That he’d regretted breaking her heart and marrying Marty.
That he’d blindly hoped that one day he might win her love and trust again. He’d even contemplated asking her to let him be a father to Lucy when he’d thought she was Carter’s daughter.
How pathetic had he been?
All that time he’d tried to love another woman when Kim had been in his heart, and she had kept his child from him. Kim should have known that he would have moved hell or high water to come back to her if he’d known. That he would have sacrificed everything—the money, the job, the hopes of his own spread—just to have a child when he thought that was the one thing he’d never have.
He glanced in the backseat and saw his sleeping daughter, and the anger over his loss nearly overpowered him. When he looked up at Kim, her face was ashen in the moonlight.
A myriad of emotions flashed across her face; then she opened the door to get Lucy.
“I’ll get her,” he said, knowing Kim was exhausted and he had a flight of stairs to climb to carry her to one of the guest rooms.
Kim shook her head. “No, just get the luggage.”
“Stop arguing, Kim,” Brandon said between clenched teeth. “You’re dead on your feet. Just grab your purse and follow me.”
He opened the back door to the car, then unfastened Lucy’s seat belt and scooped his little girl into his arms. Love swelled in his chest as she snuggled up against him.
He swallowed hard, then led the way up the cobblestone steps to the wraparound porch. How many times had he sat in that porch swing and imagined Kim cuddled up beside him?
Fool. That’s what he was.
When he reached the front door, Kim hesitated, and he juggled Lucy to one side and unlocked the door, then stepped inside. He wasn’t much for decorating so the place seemed bare as he flicked on a light. It definitely needed a woman’s touch.
But it was home, so he strode up the winding staircase. Kim followed, her sigh indicating her fatigue.
He shoved open the first door to the right and gestured inside. “There are two guest rooms,” he said. “You can stay in the first one nearest the stairs. I’ll put Lucy in the one beside you. There’s a bathroom in between.”
Kim nodded, then walked with him to the second room, where he flipped on a lamp and headed toward the white four-poster bed. Foolish again. He’d let the store clerk talk him into it, saying female guests would like it. He’d thought of Joanie, who would have loved it, then a little girl that he’d never have, but he’d bought it anyway.
Kim rushed to the bed and turned down the lavender comforter, and he helped ease Lucy onto the bed. For a moment, he simply stood and looked at her, soaking in the fact that she was his child. Memorizing her face again as if he feared she was a mirage and might disappear in the night.
Finally he dragged himself away, then strode down the steps and returned a few minutes later. He dropped Kim’s bag off in the first room, then took Lucy’s little rollaway and bunny backpack and put them on the window seat in front of the dormer window in her room.
He hesitated, soaking up the sight of his daughter again, then watched Kim bend over and kiss Lucy on the forehead and tuck her in tight. He’d never thought he could feel so many emotions at once.
Love for Lucy. An instantaneous bond that overwhelmed him with the need to protect her and the desire to make up for all the time he’d lost.
Admiration for Kim because she obviously loved their daughter and was a wonderful mother.
Anger that he’d missed out on being with both of them.
Kim smoothed the covers down, then turned and looked up at him, her eyes instantly wary. She looked exhausted, and for a brief moment, he wanted to give her a reprieve. To hold and comfort her and forget all the pain between them. All the bitterness that surfaced at the thought of her with Carter.
Of her and Johnny keeping his daughter from him.
He gestured toward the door. “Downstairs. We need to talk.”
Kim bit her lip, then sighed and headed down the stairs. He followed her, then led her into the study and poured them both a drink.
He’d held his tongue during the drive.
But her reprieve was over.
He wanted answers, and he wouldn’t sleep until he had them. His heart hardened.
Although even then, nothing Kim said could ever make things right again between them.
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