by Carly Bloom
He wished he didn’t even know about Claire’s profile. But Beau had gleefully spilled the beans about it. It was clear that Beau had been hoping to get a rise out of Ford, but it hadn’t worked. Why should Ford care if Claire was dating?
He wasn’t jealous or upset or concerned in any way. He didn’t have the right to be. At most, he was mildly curious.
He looked at Oscar, who stared back through squinty eyes that seemed to say, Curiosity killed the cat.
Ford clicked on Claire’s profile. His heart stuttered, and he dropped his chair back to all four legs at the sight of Claire’s smiling face framed by that mass of auburn hair. Bright blue eyes stared back at him. No, through him. He shook off the sensation that she knew he was looking, that he was doing something wrong or invading her privacy. Hell, she had put it out there. Obviously, she wanted people to see it.
Username: Glass Slipper
Age: 29
On weekends you’ll find me: Shopping for ALL the shoes. Rock climbing by day, two-stepping by night, and enjoying everything the beautiful Texas Hill Country has to offer.
Looking For: Prince Charming (NO PRESSURE LOL)
Ford had read these words probably ten or thirty times (who was counting?), but they still settled in his stomach like a block of concrete.
Claire’s Sizzle profile identified her as an “active” member. What did that mean? He sure hoped it didn’t mean she was out on a night like this. Especially since Beau told him she’d recently traded in her ranch truck for a bright red, impractical chunk of low-clearance tin called a Mini Cooper. Beau said she’d thought it was cute. Cute! Ford didn’t care if it had dimples and a lollipop, mini anythings were not safe. This was Texas. People went big in Texas, and that included vehicles. If a truck, or even a goddam deer, smacked into a mini whatever, it was going to do some serious damage. That bit of obviousness, combined with the fact that Claire drove her car even faster than she ran her mouth, worried the shit out of him.
And it shouldn’t. Because she wasn’t his to worry about, and God knows he was no Prince Charming.
That boot didn’t fit.
Chapter Three
Claire was not going to panic. Her car had stalled. That was all. And she was maybe a mile from her trailer. She didn’t relish walking in this weather, though, so she checked her phone for a signal again.
Nada. Coverage was spotty on the ranch, and nonexistent in low-lying areas, which is where she and her adorable new Mini Cooper currently sat.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the sign identifying Wailing Woman Creek. She opened the door to see how much water was flowing across the concrete surface of the low-water crossing. It looked to be about the same as the last time she’d checked, just a few inches. She hated to ruin a perfectly good pair of heels. Maybe someone would come along…
Nobody would be out driving around in this, and the only people on her side of the creek were Ruben and—she gulped—Ford.
She strummed her fingers on the steering wheel and chewed her lower lip. It was raining so hard she could barely see. She pressed her nose against the window as dread crept up her spine.
She shook her hair and rolled her shoulders. Wailing Woman hadn’t seen a flash flood in years.
About time for one.
The creek was usually no more than a trickle, and the low-water bridge going across it typically dry. But every ten years or so—on nights like this—the crossing earned its designation as a flash flood zone.
She turned the key in the ignition one more time, just for grins.
The car did not start. It had either stalled in the few inches of water she’d stupidly driven into, or…
The low fuel light was on, but the operator’s manual said the Mini Cooper could go another hundred miles after it lit up. Surely, she hadn’t run out of gas. Only idiots did that!
She was pretty sure she’d run out of gas.
She smacked the steering wheel, and the car shuddered.
A bit of panic set in. Had her car just moved?
Claire cracked the door again and peeked out. The water looked higher.
She held her breath. Would the car shake again? Maybe she’d imagined it.
Nope. It shook again. Actually, it shimmied. She put her hand on the door handle. Abandoning her new car in the dead of night seemed dramatic. But so did clinging to a tree like a drowning possum.
She gritted her teeth. Like it or not, she was going to walk.
Huddling beneath her umbrella, Claire slammed the car door with her hip. It made a sturdy, solid sound. But floodwaters could lift her little car up like a toy and carry it downstream, smashing it into trees and bridges and the cars of other idiots. She looked down at the water rushing across her Laurence Dacade heels.
Shit was getting real.
Claire tiptoed through the rising water while the wind whipped at her hair. Relief washed over her when she made it to the bank. Now all she had to do was hike a mile in wet stilettos.
No problem.
Her heel snapped on the third rocky step. She toppled over, smashing her umbrella and dropping her purse.
Dammit! She stood up on shaky legs—the shoe was broken beyond repair, so she tossed the heel—and looked back at her Mini Cooper.
It was rocking. Violently. She squinted, shielding her eyes against the rain with her hand, just in time to see her precious lifted up and carried away! Anguish bubbled up like globs in a lava lamp, but it gave way to panic as the wind became deafeningly loud.
Only the sound wasn’t wind.
It was water. And Claire hadn’t cleared the flood zone, not by a long shot.
With her heart pounding, she kicked off her shoes—$348 on sale—and ran for her life.
She could do this.
And she would have, had her foot not caught on a root. Down she went again, smacking her chin on the ground. She hadn’t yet reached the top of the knoll, and the sound of the water was all-encompassing. She swallowed the knot in her throat and tried to get up while turning to look back at Wailing Woman Creek.
She didn’t need to look very far. It was at her feet.
* * *
Ford finished his bowl of soup while tucked away nice and dry in his sturdy cedar cabin. The rain pounded the metal roof, its clattering tempo chasing Oscar under the couch until only the tip of his twitchy black tail poked out.
“Scaredy cat,” Ford muttered.
A big bolt of lightning struck somewhere nearby, and the smell of ozone filled the air.
There went the lights.
Ford flipped his emergency radio to battery mode and went back to listening to the Big Verde police and county deputies chatter back and forth.
He sure was glad they’d gotten the herd off the river property this afternoon. This was the kind of weather that washed cattle away.
He rinsed his soup bowl and set it in the rack to dry. The radio was seventy percent static and thirty percent intelligible conversation. Deputy Bobby Flores made periodic reports as he patrolled the low-water crossings. His voice broke through the white noise. “Flash flood at Wailing Woman…”
Ford raised his eyebrows. There it was. Just what he’d feared.
But he had nothing to worry about. He was safe. The cattle were safe. There was no reason for the stirring sense of…what was it? Panic? Whatever it was, it was making his skin feel too tight.
Claire. Why couldn’t he stop worrying about her? She might be exasperating, but she was smart. Sure, she had a high tolerance for adrenaline and was a bit of a thrill junkie. But she wasn’t stupid. Hopefully she was where she should be on a Friday night during a severe thunderstorm warning—at home in that little tin can. And if she wasn’t? She’d grown up in Big Verde. She wouldn’t drive into a low-water crossing during a flood watch. She’d know to go the Harper’s Hill route and come across the bridge at the east entrance to the ranch.
He slammed his hand on the table. She couldn’t do Harper’s Hill in that stupid little car.
He picked up his phone,
but he hesitated to call. She was a grown woman, and she’d most likely cuss him out and remind him that she wasn’t his business anymore.
As if a woman who set your heart on fire like a never-ending case of indigestion could be referred to as business.
Deputy Flores’s voice crackled over the radio. “Can’t get across, but Wailing Woman looks clear. I’m setting up a barricade on this side.”
“You probably should have done that earlier, pal,” Ford muttered.
Ten minutes later, Deputy Flores’s voice broke through the radio again. “Car floating…”
Ford turned up the volume. Flores was breaking up, and Ford could barely hear him. But two words came through loud and clear: Little and red.
The blood in his veins turned to ice. Without another thought, Ford grabbed his hat and rushed to the closet, where he grabbed a spotlight. He might need it to scour the creek’s banks and trees.
He opened the door. The rain hit him in the face, but he barely felt it as he ran to his truck. With shaking fingers, he turned the key in the ignition, and then he peeled out.
The rain hit his windshield like a wall of water, rendering his wipers practically useless. It was a bit over a mile to Wailing Woman Creek. In good weather, it was maybe a five-minute drive.
Ford made it in two, and then sat in his truck, staring in shock. If it seemed like he’d come up on Wailing Woman too quickly, it’s because he had. It was a raging torrent of swirling brown water, well outside of its bank. He got out of the truck and walked as close as he dared. Claire’s car—and it was Claire’s car, he just knew it—had been seen floating. It would be way downstream. Claire would be trapped inside, unless she’d climbed out. People tended to panic and climb on the roofs of their vehicles when stranded at water crossings. What if she’d done that?
He turned to search the bank.
He felt crazed, and his thoughts came in images that tore his heart out. What if she was trapped in debris underwater? Or lying cold and lifeless along the shore?
He shut his eyes. Clasped a hand over them. But it didn’t stop what he saw.
Watch Abby while I’m at work. Don’t let her go down to the creek.
He didn’t have time for flashbacks. He forced his eyes open. He had to remain in the present.
A hand clasped his arm, and he spun, eyes wide.
“What the actual hell?” Claire yelled. “You drove right past me!”
She was soaking wet. Her hair was a tangled mess. She had a dirt smudge on her face, a bloody lip, and smeared makeup. He grabbed her and pulled her close, feeling the intense shivers that wracked her body. “Are you okay?”
“S-s-seriously, Ford. I was on the s-s-side of the road waving you down. I had to freaking ch-ch-chase—”
He squeezed tighter. She was half-drowned, possibly hypothermic, probably in shock, and one hundred percent pissed off that she hadn’t been able to hail a pickup truck in the middle of a flash flood with the delicate lift of her finger.
Warmth spread throughout his body, even though the springtime rain was cold.
“My car is g-g-gone!” Claire wailed.
“Good,” he said. “It was a stupid car.”
Claire gasped and pushed him away. Her nostrils flared, her eyebrows dove down in a menacing glare, and dammit, she was sexy as hell.
“You,” she said, with a measured pause, “are a j-j-jerk.”
Probably. But she had no business driving that little car. It was most likely tangled up in a tree somewhere…and she could have been in it. Was her life so full of rainbows and unicorn farts that she didn’t understand what could have happened?
Claire’s life was untouched by tragedy. Hell, it was untouched by unpleasantness. She probably couldn’t fathom the reality of what she’d barely escaped. She lived in a fairy tale.
“What were you thinking trying to cross the creek during a flood watch? Did the piece of crap stall out on you?”
“It’s not a piece of c-c-crap and I’m not sure it s-s-stalled out on me. I might have run out—”
She shut her sweet little pie hole like a steel trap and stared at him defiantly.
“You ran out of gas?” Shit. Who ran out of gas? Like, who did that? “Get in the truck,” he ordered.
“No.”
He recognized the tone, and he wasn’t in the mood for it. He wanted away from this water now. This was no time for Claire to dig in her heels.
A sharp pain stabbed him between the eyes. She knew he couldn’t leave her here. It wasn’t like anyone else was coming along. She was literally up Shit Creek without a paddle, or a car, or shoes, for that matter. “Claire. You’re cold, wet, and barefoot. You’ve got no car. Get in the truck.”
“No.”
The last drop of patience left his body. Without another word—from him, anyway—Ford bent over and grabbed Claire just below her ass, straightened up with her over his shoulder, and while she did the classic beat man on back with fists of fury move, he carried her to his pickup.
Chapter Four
The man had hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of flour. And then he’d plunked her on the seat of his truck before buckling her in like a child and angrily shutting the door.
He was a horrible rescuer. Would it kill him to offer any amount of comfort after she’d nearly died?
She’d entertained many reunion scenarios over the past few days. She’d practiced speeches, lectures, and various tirades, along with expressions of aloofness, as if she were trying to remember where she’d met him.
Ford Jarvis? The name does ring a bell…
He’d definitely rung her bell. Multiple bells. And that was all fine and dandy. But he hadn’t stopped there. Oh hell, no. He’d taken her home to meet his mother. Was she crazy for thinking he’d been serious about their relationship? Most men didn’t take a woman home for Thanksgiving just because they were currently ringing her bell. Did they?
She’d fantasized about ignoring him. Slapping him. Kissing him.
She had not prepared for any scenario where Ford saved her from a flash flood while calling her car stupid and indicating it was something she and it might have in common.
“Lift up your legs,” Ford said.
She lifted her legs, and Ford dug around beneath the seat before pulling out a blanket. He put it around her with a gentleness that didn’t match his voice, and Claire felt a bit of resolve melting and pooling around her feet.
Ford started the truck and backed it away from the raging creek. Claire let out a ragged breath. She was ready to put distance between her and Wailing Woman.
The truck’s headlights illuminated fallen branches through the onslaught of nearly horizontal rain, but they barreled right over them, heading to higher ground.
Claire risked a glance at her savior. His wet hair shimmered in the dim light of the truck’s dashboard. Water dripped off the brim of his worn cowboy hat. Strong chin, straight nose, and full, luscious lips.
They were still silent when they arrived at the fork in the road. Ford’s cabin was to the right, her little trailer to the left. “I’ve moved into—”
“Beau told me.”
Claire had known Beau and his twin brother Bryce her entire life. They’d been raised right here on the ranch. Their daddy had been the foreman for Rancho Cañada Verde for twenty-seven years. Since his retirement, they’d had trouble finding another reliable foreman.
It was hard to get ranch hands to settle down, even on a ranch like theirs.
“Beau was gossiping about me?”
“Like a clucking hen.”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing important that I can remember.”
Claire narrowed her eyes. If Beau had told Ford about her Sizzle dates, she was going to strangle a cowboy.
Ford turned left toward Miss Daisy. “Why on earth are you camping in a trailer? Your parents’ house is huge.”
“I’m not camping. I live in Miss Daisy.”
“Miss Daisy?�
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“My trailer.”
Ford looked at her like she’d grown a second head. “Did you name your car, too?”
“No.”
Yes. Poor Rosie!
“But why?” Ford asked.
Why did she name inanimate objects? Or why had she moved from her parents’ house?
“None of your business.”
“Okay. I was just making conversation. I don’t really—”
“I needed privacy,” she snapped.
Ford raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. For a guy with approximately three facial expressions, he sure could express a lot with that dang eyebrow. He was wondering what she needed privacy for.
When they’d had their…thing…Ford had lived in the bunkhouse. No privacy whatsoever. And Claire had lived in her parents’ house, where there were plenty of doors with locks, but it would have been awkward as hell to waltz down for breakfast in the morning with a ranch hand in tow.
They’d had to get creative. Hay barns. Horse barns. The bed of Ford’s pickup truck. Their favorite spot had been the ruins of the old stone chapel.
Ford shifted in his seat and yanked the brim of his hat down low.
“I can’t believe you might have run out of gas. Don’t Mini Coopers have dummy lights? Or do their owners think they’re too smart for those?”
She glared at him. He was drenched, but he didn’t shiver. In fact, it looked like he had steam rising off his slick arms as he turned down the short lane leading to her trailer.
Claire resisted the urge to ask him what was chapping his ass. Did it matter? Nope.
“I’m not used to the gas mileage the Mini Cooper gets, and I miscalculated.”
Ford shifted gears and the truck groaned. “Where the hell were you anyway? You know better than to go out on a night like this.”
“I had a date,” she said.
Ford stopped the truck. “I can’t believe it.”
“Oh, you can believe it all right. I’ve had lots of dates—”
“Claire, shut up and open your eyes.”
She opened her eyes, but she was unsuccessful in shutting her mouth. There seemed to be a small river between them and her trailer. There’d never been a small river there before.