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Julie Lence
Amazon
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Amazon
ISBN-10: B00OP5PT2U
Type: Fiction
A chance encounter with the woman who ran out on him leads Jess Jansen to gamble on love one last time.
For Jess Jansen, grief and guilt are as much a part of him as riding herd. Twenty-two years he’s longed for the woman who ran out on him, and now his luck is about to change. Needing a place to hole up during a thunderstorm, the Lazy K looks to be a safe haven. There’s a barn―and a body with soft curves and sapphire eyes he’d know anywhere.
Rachael Weston is a bundle of nerves when Jess suddenly appears at her door. He shunned her once and will again if she foolishly welcomes him back into her life. But when Jess proves innocent of wrongdoing, Rachael fears revealing to him the one truth that just might cause him to turn his back on her―for good.
Excerpt
Chapter 1, Scene 1:
Mahonville, CO June 1875
Lazy K Ranch
Rachael Grant stood at the sink pumping water into an old, black kettle while listening to the rumbles of thunder overhead. The booms grew louder as the storm pushed off the mountains and moved east, chasing after the lightning streaking through the ominous clouds. The early evening sky cast shadows around the kitchen while the lace curtains hanging at the open window above the sink fluttered in the breeze.
“You’d best not hail on my garden.” She peered through the pane and narrowed her gaze in warning at the clouds, daring Mother Nature to defy her.
“Mother Nature’s never been kind to man.” Charles Parker’s chiding tone echoed between her ears. “Reckon she won’t change her ways for a woman.”
She smiled in fond remembrance of the widower who had welcomed her into his home twenty-two years ago. She’d been traveling with the Cheyenne to Wyoming, desperate to meet up with a wagon train to California when she’d miscarried. Charles and his ranch hand, Blue, had nursed her back to health. Shortly after, Charles had passed, leaving her and Blue to raise his child, and to continue growing his ranch until his son was old enough to take charge of the Lazy K.
Heavy footsteps striding across the back porch shifted her thoughts to the present. The door opened and her stepson entered. “Mm-mm, something smells good.” Stephen smacked his lips together as another bolt of lightning lit up the sky.
“Beef stew,” she said, watching him hang his hat on a peg beside the door. Taller than his pa had been, with dark hair and brown eyes flecked with gold, she knew of two girls who swooned every time they saw him. But Stephen favored Callie Ackers. Her pa’s farm bordered the southern edge of Stephen’s land, enabling Stephen to sneak off most afternoons to meet Callie despite her pa’s disapproval. She’d done the same in her younger years, met with a man her pa frowned upon.
“Think I’m gonna have two bowls.” Stephen crossed the space between them and planted a chaste kiss on top of her head. “I filled your order at the butcher and the mercantile.” He propped a shoulder against the wall between the sink and the door. “Pork’s hanging in the smokehouse. Flour and sugar are in the spring house.”
“Thank you,” she said, drying her hands on the apron tied around her waist as she went to the stove to pour him a cup of coffee. “Did you and Blue check on the herd before you went to town?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, his jaw tightened and his gaze narrowed.
“Well?” she prompted, feeling her heart rate speed up. His silence spoke volumes. She wasn’t going to like his answer.
“Two more cows are missing.”
“That makes four stolen in less than a week.” She stared at him, incredulous, a spark of anger igniting in the pit of her stomach. Before the flame roused her temper, she tamped it down and brought the cup to him. “It’s been a spell since we’ve had trouble with rustlers. We persevered then. We will now.”
“Thanks.” He took a long drink of the hot brew, set the cup on the counter. “Maybe our problem isn’t rustlers.”
Rachael frowned at the damnation rapidly clouding his gaze. She’d seen it often in recent weeks, knew the source from which it stemmed. “Matthew Ackers may be a thorn in your side, but he isn’t a thief. His only complaint with you is your fondness for his daughter. He’d feel the same toward any man who showed an interest in Callie.”
“Maybe,” he said, doubtful. “But I wasn’t thinking of him.”
“Then who? We know everyone in and around Mahonville. None of them would steal from us.”
“We don’t know everyone.” Stephen crossed his arms over his chest. “I saw our new neighbors on my way back from town. Something about Zeke and his ranch hands don’t sit right with me. They’re more like outlaws than farmers.”
“Zeke and his wife are a nice couple,” Rachael asserted as she retraced her steps to the sink. “I like Dulcie, and their baby girl is adorable.” She grasped the handle on the kettle she’d filled with water.
“I’ll get that.” Stephen shouldered her out of the way and hefted the cast iron. “Where do you want it?”
“On the stove. Behind the coffeepot. The water needs to heat so I can wash the supper dishes later.”
He did as she instructed, saying, “Just because Zeke has an adorable kid doesn’t make him good of character. I asked him if he’d seen any strangers around. He snickered before claiming he hadn’t. Said he’d keep an eye out.”
Rachael rested her lower back against the counter and folded her arms across her chest.
“He’s willing to help us.” She studied her son standing in front of the hutch. “Why do you find fault with that?”
“You wouldn’t understand. You’re not a man.”
“I’ve been the only female on this ranch since your pa passed. I understand more than you think I do.”
Stephen rolled his eyes. “You’re strong like one. But you don’t think like one.” He nodded toward a basket in the corner stuffed with household items and a knitted baby’s blanket. “I make my point with that basket you packed for them. You see a family living in a covered wagon while building a homestead. I see a man and his cohorts up to no good.” He angled his head, urging, “Look deep into their eyes. You’ll see the evil that lies within.”
“It does―”
“They caress the butts of their pistols more than Dulcie does her babe’s bottom. Do any of the other farmers around here do that?” He raised a brow.
“No, but that doesn’t mean―”
“Ma, trust me.” He hooked his thumb toward the window behind her. “They’re the enemy—the rustlers stealing our cattle.”
“Honestly, Stephen,” Rachael patronized, “you take Vincent-Bodean’s words and fears to heart. Ever since the war, he’s under the notion everyone is his enemy. He trusts no one.”
“He trusts us.”
“Because we took him in and gave him a home and a job.”
“Some of his fears make sense.”
“As if,” she retorted. “Vincent-Bodean holds a special place in my heart. He always will, but the enemy doesn’t lurk behind every bush on this ranch. The enemy doesn’t exist, except in his mind. He’s fragile up there.”
“The enemy does exist. And he’s living this close to us.” He held up his thumb and forefinger, a tiny gap between the two.
“Did you actually see our cattle on Zeke’s property?”
Stephen’s heightened coloring paled. “No.” He lowered his gaze, dug the toe of his boot into the floorboard.
“There you have it. Zeke isn’t your rustler. His property isn’t as large as the Lazy K. If he had your cows, you would’ve spotted them.”
“Maybe not.” His head snapped up.
“There’s plenty of places to the east and west where he could hide four cows, change their brands and then bring ‘em to his land.”
Rachael sighed heavily. What her stepson said made sense. Various croppings of rocks and trees shrouding ravines and open spaces of grass did make it possible for a person to hide four cows. “You can’t accuse Zeke without proof.”
“Then I’ll ride out tomorrow and have a look around.”
“Take Blue with you. Vincent-Bodean can stay here and carry out the carpet. I need to beat the dust out of it.”
“All right,” he agreed, as a knock sounded at the front door. “But you have to promise you won’t take the basket to Dulcie without me accompanying you. I didn’t care for the way Zeke’s men stared at you after Sunday service.”
“Oh, pshaw.” She waved a hand at him while passing beneath the archway into the parlor. “Set the table while I see who’s at the door.”
“You’ll let me go with you or you won’t go.” She heard him call after her.
Thunder rattled the house as she opened the door and came face-to-face with a man taller than Stephen and broader in the shoulders. Beneath his checkered shirt, his arms and chest were heavy with muscles. A gunbelt hung around his slim waist and his legs were encased in denim. Lifting her gaze, she noted a strong jaw, cheeks chiseled and weathered from the sun, and a worn Stetson pulled low to shade his eyes. “May I help you?”
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he drawled, “but there’s a storm beating down my back. Thought you might consent to letting me pay to spend the night in your barn. I—Holy shit!” He shoved back his Stetson. “Rachael Weston?”
Her gaze collided with a pair of familiar brown eyes and she froze. Then her heart resumed beating and hammered out an erratic rat-a-tat-tat. “My last name’s Grant.” She gave the surname she’d fabricated and had gone by since she’d left home.
“The hell it is.”
“You have me confused with someone else.”
“The hell I do!”
“I―” From behind her, Stephen elbowed her out of the way and sank his fist into the stomach of the man who had shunned her and broken her heart twenty-two years ago.
“Bark at my mother again and you’ll swallow your teeth.”
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