Cowboy Protector (11 page)

“Ah, there you are. Ready to leave? I think the lady is wanting to close up.”

“Yes.” Hannah went to the counter and paid for her book, then left with Austin.

Taking her hand again, he slowly strolled toward where he’d parked his SUV. The feel of his fingers around hers was so natural that the very thought scared Hannah. She should pull away. She didn’t.

When they arrived at his red Jeep, Hannah sighed, hating that the night was coming to an end so soon. She’d forgotten what it was like to be on a date. This evening made her dream of what she couldn’t have.

He settled his hands on her shoulders, stopping her from slipping into the front seat. “I enjoyed this evening a lot. We need to do it again soon.”

“Yes,” she murmured as his fingers kneaded the tightness in her muscles. “I’d like that.”
Too much
.

His mouth hovered above hers, and she fought the impulse to rise onto her tiptoes to shorten the distance between their lips. Finally he brushed his mouth over hers, then took hers in a kiss that zinged her clear to those tiptoes. When he parted, the glimmer in his eyes, revealed by the streetlight nearby, heightened the spiraling sensations tumbling through her.

He quirked a grin. “We’d better get going before the town of Sweet Creek starts talking.”

She clutched the SUV door to keep her legs from melting into a quivering pool on the pavement. Inhaling gulps of the cool air, she stared down the street as she tried to shore up her defenses. It was useless. They lay crumbled at her feet.

Shaking her head, she started to duck to get into the Jeep when her gaze caught sight of a big Ford-150 truck. Black like the night. Two men sat in the cab, and she was sure they peered directly at them. She felt their eyes on her. Shivering, she hurriedly slid onto the seat, not taking her gaze off the truck.

Not ten seconds later, the black vehicle roared to life and pulled away from the curb, heading in the opposite direction from the ranch. She blew out a long breath. Just her imagination again. Violet’s suspicions were making her more paranoid than usual. But the fact she had to be constantly on the lookout for strangers only reinforced that anything started with Austin was doomed before it began.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come to Missoula with you?” Hannah asked above the sound of a buzz saw.

Austin slammed the car door. “Yes, I’m sure. I want you to enjoy my ranch. Take a pickup or a golf cart to the lake if you don’t want to walk. The keys are on the pegboard by the back door.”

She should argue with him, go with Misty to the doctor’s, but she had some thinking to do and every time she was around Austin he disrupted her train of thought. This was better. Besides, they were a family and should spend time together without her around. She needed to
stop integrating herself into their activities and put some physical and emotional distance between them and her.

As Austin rounded the back of the SUV, Hannah opened the door. “I have some fun things planned for us when you get back home.” She grinned at Misty. “Just think, you’ll get to throw both arms around Candy’s neck tomorrow.”

The little girl’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “And soon I’ll be able to walk again.” She thumped her leg cast, then leaned close and kissed Hannah’s cheek.

“Safe trip,” she murmured around the lump in her throat, peering into Misty’s, Caroline’s and finally Austin’s face.

As he drove off, his car disappearing over the first rise, Hannah wanted to run after the SUV and demand she go with them. She didn’t need a day by herself. She’d have a lifetime for that.

Burying her face in her hands, she kneaded her fingertips into her forehead. She had it bad. In less than a month she’d fallen in love with a wonderful man and his family.

What am I going to do?

Noise from the hammers and other equipment being used to finish the barn intruded into her mind. She couldn’t think here. The temperature was nearing fifty, and it was still before noon. Staring up at the sky, she noticed the azure blue stretched as far as she could see, disappearing behind the mountains in the distance.

She spun on her heel, marched up the steps to the deck and let herself into the house. She was going to do exactly what she said she was going to do and spend the day at the lake. Water was always calming. She could remember visiting the beach in California and listening to the waves crash against the shore. Rhythmic. Luring.

A lifetime ago. Sighing, she shoved those memories away.

Quickly she gathered some food for a picnic, putting it into her backpack, changed into her hiking boots and snagged her red jacket and digital camera. When she emerged from the back door, she ignored the vehicles Austin had offered her and headed across the field in the direction of the woods and lake. She needed to walk and think.

The sun warmed her in a matter of minutes. She slipped out of her jacket and tied it around her waist. The forecast for tomorrow was snow—lots of snow. She could hardly believe that would happen, but she’d lived here long enough to realize it was a definite possibility.

As she neared the woods that surrounded the lake, she spied a herd of elk trotting across the meadow and vanishing into the pine forest. She managed to snap a couple of photos. Eager to reach her destination and eat lunch, she entered the woods. Sunrays dappled the ground, forming a checkerboard of light and shadows. The area was surprisingly clear and easy to traverse through.

When she came into view of the lake through the stand of trees, she hurried her pace, nearly tripping over a fallen branch. Slowing her gait, she proceeded with more caution. She didn’t need to hurt herself and not be able to get back to the house. When she reached the shoreline, she shrugged out of her backpack and sank onto a boulder jutting out over the water. All she wanted to do was drink in her surroundings—the snowcapped mountains, the lake, the tall pines that enclosed her in her own world. Peaceful.

Peaceful
. The word taunted her.

After the incident at the end of the previous evening in
Sweet Creek with Austin, this morning before everyone was up, she’d sneaked into Austin’s office to use his computer to do a search on the Internet. She should’ve waited until he’d left for Missoula or until she asked him if she could, but she hadn’t slept at all the night before.

She’d panicked yet again with those two men sitting in the truck a block away. She realized she needed to know what had really happened two years before when she’d run away and dropped out of the Witness Protection Program because she thought someone sent by Devon had found her and broken into her house. She wasn’t sure she could find the answers, especially if it had been one of Devon’s men.

But after only twenty minutes, she’d discovered the truth. Her house had been one of many in a series of robberies that had plagued the small town until two teens had been stopped. She’d fled for no reason.

So did she want to contact the U.S. Marshal’s office in Billings and let them know where she was?

As long as she followed their rules and never tried to contact her family in California, she would be all right. They could relocate her to a different state because when she left Austin she couldn’t stay in Montana. Too many painful memories.

Then she remembered what Violet had said about a leak at the U.S. Marshal’s office. She couldn’t contact them. She would have to leave Montana on her own.

Before she walked away from Austin when his daughter didn’t need her anymore, she would tell him everything. Although that conversation would be hard, he deserved to know the whole truth about her. But one thing she would keep to herself: that she loved him.

Her future decided, Hannah slid off the boulder and
strolled toward her backpack on the ground. Hungry, she sat and unwrapped her sandwich.

After lunch she snapped a few more pictures, then stretched out on the soft pine needles that covered the ground and used her backpack as a pillow. Staring up, she noticed a couple of white fluffy clouds sailing across the sky. Her eyes drooped closed and with the sounds of the birds chatting in the trees, she slipped into a dreamless sleep.

Austin felt like celebrating. The news from the doctor was good. Misty’s bones were healing well, and he had gone ahead and put her in a leg immobilizer, instead of another cast. She still couldn’t bear weight on her leg and would continue to use the wheelchair, but the doctor was happy with his daughter’s progress.

Only a couple of miles to the ranch. He couldn’t wait to tell Hannah. She would share his joy and that fact made him smile. Granny had a feeling about Hannah from the first. That she would be perfect for the job. She was and much more.

Thank You, Lord, for bringing Hannah into our lives—into mine.

Less than a half a mile from the turnoff for his ranch, he spotted a black truck off the road in a small clearing. The vehicle, a brand-new shiny one, didn’t look familiar. He’d keep an eye out when he got home. Hunters sometimes wandered onto his property although he had signs up saying, “No hunting. No trespassing.” He loved the fact elk and deer ran freely on his land. But some of his neighbors supplemented their income by hosting hunting parties and other tourists.

Ten minutes later he pulled up to the front of the house,
barely containing his eagerness to see Hannah. They’d only been gone six hours. Shorter than he thought. Probably because he’d wanted to get back to the ranch—to see Hannah.

“I’ll get the wheelchair,” his grandmother said as she climbed from the car.

“That’s okay. I’ll carry Misty to the deck.” With adrenaline pumping through his system, he could easily take his daughter to her wheelchair.

After settling Misty, he opened the front door for her and his grandma. When he entered, he knew immediately Hannah was still out by the lake. The house felt empty, too quiet.

“Granny, can you take care of Misty for a while?” he asked as his daughter made her way toward her room.

His grandmother’s bright eyes twinkled. “Going to find a certain young lady?”

“I saw a truck back not too far from our gate. I want to make sure no hunters are on the property.”

“Sure. That’s all you’re going to do?” she asked with a laugh.

“Okay, I’m gonna head for the lake after I check on the progress at the barn because I want to see Hannah. There, I admitted it to you.”

Grinning, his grandmother waved her hands. “Go. Have some fun. You certainly deserve it. Misty and I are going to practice her finger knitting now that she has the use of both hands.”

He walked through the house, searching to make sure that Hannah was really gone and to tell his daughter he’d be gone for a couple of hours. Standing on the back stoop, he noticed the vehicles he’d told her to use if she wanted were still parked where they’d been that morning.

That gave him an idea. He’d saddle two horses. Hannah could ride back on her mare. Or if she didn’t feel confidant in her new skills, she could ride double with him. Actually that thought appealed to him a lot.

But it would be Hannah’s decision. He wouldn’t push her into something she wasn’t ready for. From the beginning he sensed she held something back. He wanted to know everything about her because he wasn’t going to fight the deep attraction he had for her anymore.

A rustling noise, as if squirrels scampered across dry leaves, woke Hannah up. Her lower back ached from lying on the hard ground, but she didn’t hurry to sit up. Instead, she took a moment to orient herself to her surroundings. The lake. The forest behind her, which would account for the sound. She stared straight up at the clouds thickening, turning darker.

And then she noticed the chill whispering across her front, the cold earth seeping through the thickness of her coat and jeans to make lying on the ground doubly uncomfortable. She rolled to her side and glanced at her watch. It was getting late and the clouds were moving in fast. The temperature felt as though it had dropped fifteen or twenty degrees since she’d arrived. Hannah rose and gathered up her belongings, then hiked toward the woods a hundred feet away.

Going what she thought was due east, she picked her way through the maze of predominantly tall pines. Their scent hung in the air, giving off a clean fresh aroma. Voices drifted to her, and she slowed her pace, trying to figure out where the sounds were coming from. There was a slight echo through the trees. She wanted to avoid meeting any people, but perhaps she
first needed to figure out where those men were so she could evade them.

Tilting her head and listening to the male voices, she tried to catch what was being said. The murmurs quieted, but she thought they came from the right. She snuck closer and saw two men, dressed in jeans, flannel shirts, jackets and hiking boots. The thin guy carried a rifle. The other didn’t. One hunter and the other coming along for the ride?

They stopped. Hannah hid behind a tree, flattening herself against its rough bark.

“I think we’re going around in circles,” the thinner of the two men said in a low voice she strained to hear.

“We need to pop our mark and get out of here before it gets dark.”

Mark?
Hannah tensed.
The hit men Violet had told her about?

“This time we need to make sure it’s Eloise Hill or the boss is gonna have our heads.”

“This one fits the description. We saw that last night.” The more muscular one pointed toward the way she’d come, not far from where she was hiding. “She’s here somewhere. She went in and hasn’t come out.”

I’m not Eloise Hill,
she wanted to shout, trying to pick up what else they said.

“Let’s go that way. It doesn’t look familiar.”

“How can you tell?”

The thin intruder frowned. “I just can.”

“Yeah, you’re a regular Boy Scout.” The muscle man cackled.

“Shh, we’re getting close to the lake. We can’t mess it up this time.”

Mess it up this time? Those two murders Violet told her
about? Those women’s deaths really were murder by hit men?
Confusion mingled with Hannah’s mounting fear.