by Lara Lacombe
“Of course.” Abuelo nodded. “You are welcome here anytime.”
“I, uh, I wanted to apologize. Again,” he added, his cheeks flushing pink.
“It’s all good,” Diego said. “Like we told you before, we don’t hold you responsible for Ruben’s actions.”
Gabriel acknowledged this with a quick smile. “I appreciate that. But I still feel like I made things worse. If I hadn’t made such a stink about being a Cruz...” He looked down. “Well, there’s no way to know what might have been.”
Isabel’s heart went out to the man. It was clear he wanted to belong to a family, to have the kind of bonds that stood the test of time. They’d gotten off to a rocky start, but maybe, over time, he could become a Cruz in spirit, if not in name.
“Are you going to start rebuilding the barn soon?”
It was an obvious change of subject, but Isabel understood he wanted to move on.
“Yes,” she said. They’d spoken earlier about the plans to turn the ranch into a nonprofit organization offering services for special-needs children. Gabriel had been impressed by their plans, making her even more excited about the project. “We’ve started clearing the rubble, but it’s probably going to take a while. The insurance company will only pay what they estimate the structure was worth, and it’s going to cost more than that to build a new barn.”
Gabriel nodded. “That’s kind of why I’m here. I think I can help with that.” He punched something into his phone then flipped the screen around and passed it to Isabel.
She stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
It looked like a fund-raising website. The words SUPPORT CRUZ RANCH ran along the top in big, bold type.
“What is this?” Confusion mounted as she scrolled down the page. There was a brief description of the barn fire, along with links to what looked like several news articles. There was also an outline of their plan to become a dude ranch for special-needs children.
Wyatt leaned over, while Diego and Abuelo moved to stand behind her, reading over her shoulder. Someone had set up a collection page, asking for donations from the public to help rebuild the barn and raise start-up funds for the nonprofit. That was unexpected enough, but when she saw the amount of money that had already been raised, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
She looked up at Gabriel, searching for an explanation.
He shrugged, smiling shyly. “I wanted to help. I’m not good at ranching, but I do know my way around a computer.”
“But all this money...” She gestured to the website. “Where is it coming from?”
“The fire made the news,” he explained. “And not just in the nearby towns. Networks across the state have run stories about it, and the fact that it was no ordinary blaze. Everyone is glad you all survived, and they want to help you rebuild and recover. I set up this website so they could contribute.”
“I don’t know what to say.” She shook her head then glanced at Diego and Abuelo.
Abuelo’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “Young man,” he said, drawing Gabriel in for a hug. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Even Diego seemed touched. He grabbed Gabriel’s hand and pumped hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he tried to speak.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Gabriel replied. “I needed to make amends. I know you don’t think I have anything to be sorry for, but I had to do this for my own peace of mind.”
Isabel turned to look at Wyatt. He appeared as shocked as the rest of them.
She opened her mouth but Gabriel held up his hand. “Don’t try to tell me you can’t accept the money,” he said, successfully anticipating her objection. “The people who have donated did so because they wanted to help. You need to respect their wishes, if nothing else.”
“Hard to argue with that,” Diego muttered.
Isabel turned back to the screen, her mind whirling as she tried to process the surprise. With this amount of money, they could rebuild the barn and start the transformation from working cattle ranch into a dude ranch for special-needs children and their families. They could start to partner with specialists, begin training the horses for equine therapy...the list was long, but now they had the funds to tackle it in earnest.
It was really happening. They were going to take the leap.
She passed the phone back to Gabriel and leaned against Wyatt once more. His strength did more than prop her up—his presence and his unwavering support over the past few weeks had given her the courage to take the lead as they had committed to this new venture.
“This calls for tequila!” Abuelo announced. “Come, let us go to my study. That’s where I keep the good stuff.”
“You say you’re good at websites?” Diego clapped Gabriel on the back as they headed for the door. “I have a proposal for you...” His voice faded as they moved down the hall toward Abuelo’s study.
Once they were alone, Wyatt pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You okay?”
He was still recovering from a perforated eardrum, so she nodded to make it easier on him.
She pulled away to let him see her face when she spoke. “I just can’t believe this is happening.”
His eyes sparkled with excitement. “It’s like a sign, don’t you think?”
“I do, now that you mention it.” Isabel normally didn’t put much stock in the idea of fate or karma, but the timing of this windfall was too perfect to be denied.
“I’m so proud of you,” Wyatt said.
His words sent a tingle racing through her limbs. Wyatt’s opinion meant a lot to her, more even than that of Abuelo’s.
“Thank you,” she said, cupping his cheek with her palm.
“For what?”
“Believing in me. Supporting me. Not giving up on me.”
Wyatt laughed. “You make it sound like I’m some kind of saint.”
“You mean you’re not?” she teased.
“Hardly.” He reached for her, pulling her close so he could fit his mouth over hers.
Isabel sank into the kiss, reveling in the tickling rasp of his stubble against her skin, the warm heat of his mouth and the faint minty flavor of his toothpaste. It was a combination that made her knees weak and, she suspected, always would.
He pulled away after a moment, his eyes shining with tenderness as he looked at her face. “Ready for that tequila?” he asked. “We’ve got a lot to celebrate.”
“Only if you’re coming with me,” she said.
“Of course I am.” He got to his feet, held out his hand to help her stand. “Haven’t you realized you’re stuck with me now?”
She slid her palm against his, her heart light and her spirits high. “Lucky me.”
* * *
Don’t miss the previous books in Lara Lacombe’s
Rangers of Big Bend series,
available now from
Harlequin Romantic Suspense!
Ranger’s Baby Rescue
Ranger’s Justice
Keep reading for an excerpt from Deadly Texas Summer by Colleen Thompson.
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Deadly Texas Summer
by Colleen Thompson
Chapter 1
Wildlife biologist Emma Copley gritted her teeth as her silver Jeep bounced along the gravel road, raising a cloud of dust that hazed the stark blue southeast Texas sky. Already running late that humid August morning, she ran through a mental checklist, troubleshooting the device she and her graduate assistant had spent most of the summer testing—a machine meant to reduce the number of protected birds of prey kill
ed each year by the towering wind turbines that dotted the grassy coastal hills.
If she could only figure out why it kept randomly shutting down individual windmills, forcing the two of them to scramble to reset it by hand on four of the past six mornings. “Camera must be picking up on insect swarms,” she murmured, trying out a new idea, “or maybe bats heading back to their roosts for the day.”
From the back seat, River, the young golden retriever mix she’d adopted after last year’s breakup, responded with a sound, half yawn and half yodel, that made Emma smile...
At least until her cell rang, though reception could be hit-or-miss here. Emma grabbed the phone from her cup holder, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the caller was her mother, who was supposed to be in Amsterdam with Emma’s stepdad, on the first leg of the two-week European river cruise they’d been dreaming of for years.
“Everything okay, Mom?” Though her mother had been given the green light for travel, she was still regaining her strength after completing chemo treatments. “Are you feeling all—”
“Hey, there. Remember me?” came an unexpected male voice. The shock of hearing it, all these months later, had Emma braking so hard that River yelped and scrambled to remain on the seat. “Or are you so busy screwing everything in pants, you’ve forgotten all about the only man who’ll ever really love you?”
As a punch of nausea struck hard, nerve endings fired icy harpoons from the back of Emma’s neck and down the length of her spine. But it reminded her, too, she had a backbone. Pulling over on the empty road, she said, “You’ve spoofed her number, haven’t you? My mother’s, this time.”
Late one night a few weeks earlier, her ex-husband of four months had pulled the same stunt, using some sleazy caller ID–altering program to trick her into believing it was her best friend phoning. Instead, Emma had been treated to a clearly drunken round of accusations: how she’d destroyed their marriage, how he would make her pay. Since his method left neither an electronic trail nor witnesses to produce hard evidence that her ex-husband had violated the no-contact order, she’d had no way to stop his abusive language and his threats short of powering off her phone.
“Would you have picked up otherwise?” Jeremy asked, his voice slurred again, though it was only nine fifteen in the morning. Normally at this time, he’d be working, for the uncle in Waco who’d been kind enough to offer him a fresh start in a new city when others had been hesitant to employ a man on probation.
“You have to stop calling me. You know that.” For all the hell he’d put her through, she didn’t want to see him foul up this second chance.
She was interrupted by the same scoffing noise he’d once made when she’d warned that he’d get caught cutting class in high school. Back when he’d been the exciting sort of dangerous, the kind she’d foolishly imagined her good example could reform. For a while, it seemed she had succeeded, her hard work and academic honors inspiring him to seriously step up his game. After a few years of working alongside his father, he’d established his own home contracting business, then set about—with a focused determination that had left the shy bookworm she’d once been both charmed and flattered—convincing her that, for all their many differences, he was still great husband material.
Had he been playing the long con even then? Or had the loving, attentive man she’d married been the real Jeremy, the man he could still be if he hadn’t let his insecurities—and his attempts to self-medicate them into silence—take over his life?
“I want you to know that, on my attorney’s advice, I’m recording this conversation,” she warned, though she couldn’t get the app to start, probably because of this rural area’s weak cell signal.
In desperation, she bluffed. “The judge’s already warned you that if you violate again, you’ll end up doing jail time.”
“You’re doing him, too, aren’t you?” Jeremy accused, the irrational anger taking hold again. “I saw the looks he kept sneaking your way in the courtroom. And you think I didn’t notice your slutty little signals? You’re nothing but a whoring bit—”
“Not this again. We’re done here.” Blinking back the haze burning her eyes, she disconnected, sick of his endless accusations, which had started not long after his business had gone under just as her professional star began to rise. Sick of who she’d been for too long, with her increasingly desperate efforts to reassure him and convince him to go to counseling and at least scale back his drinking. The whole nightmare had come to a head the day he’d burst into the office of her seventy-four-year-old dean shouting obscene accusations. Fearing the poor man would have a stroke, she’d rushed in and tried to intervene. Jeremy turned on her, shoving her hard into a bank of cabinets before storming out the door. Leaving her to—As her fingers drifted to her lower abdomen, she fought back the darkest memories.
The phone rang again, the call coming this time from an unknown number, likely from some burner phone he’d picked up. She let it go to voice mail, telling herself that Jeremy had no idea that she was working hours from her home in Austin for the summer. Otherwise, he wouldn’t bother with these pathetic phone calls.
“Well, we have better things to do than listen. Right, River?” Emma half hoped that her ex might be tanked enough to leave a message that would result in actual jail time. Though he might’ve talked a good game in the courtroom, tearfully apologizing for “my part in what happened”—as if she were equally to blame—and vowing to attend court-ordered counseling, Emma trusted these raw glimpses of his unguarded anger far more than she would ever believe his rehearsed performances.
When the same caller tried again, she blocked the number. Afterward, she switched off her phone’s ringer just in case before stroking the dog’s broad golden head and whispering, “It’s over now.”
Still agitated, she spun her wheels before they suddenly caught. As the Jeep lurched forward, she fought to shake off her lingering dread. But she scarcely registered the cattle she passed, the grazing animals’ hides a rich red brown against the wispy, sunburned grasses. Scarcely noticed the silhouettes of dozens of wind turbines rising above the coastal hills.
Slowing for her turn, she made a right, only to hear the rhythmic thump of River’s fringed tail against the seat back and the sound of her excited panting.
“That’s right, girl. We’re almost there,” said Emma. “And I’ll bet your friend Russell will throw your squeaky duck a few times.”
At the mention of her beloved toy, River barked.
Laughing at the dog’s excitement, Emma felt a little of the tightness in her rib cage loosen. As late as she was to meet her grad assistant, Russell Jorgenson, who was as passionate as she was about reducing the blade strikes that had killed so many hawks and eagles, she knew he’d be eager for a game of fetch. Anything to put off donning safety harnesses and helmets and undertaking the long, steep climb up the interior steel ladder leading to the top of Turbine Number 43, an ascent that safety regulations forbade either one of them from making solo.
Don’t kid yourself. His willingness wasn’t about delaying the inevitable—or the chance to play with her dog, either.
Her assistant for this summer project, a confident twenty-four-year-old with a winning smile, had made it increasingly clear that he was interested in her, despite the fact that she was nine years older. Emma had done her best to nip it in the bud, telling him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t get involved with students—or anyone she worked with—as soon as she had realized that his attention was more than academic.
To her surprise, he’d only grinned. Then how do you expect to ever meet somebody new?
She’d shut him down with a cool look, but her instincts, along with his puppylike attentiveness to her every word and action, warned her that he hadn’t given up. And part of her—a part she hated—couldn’t help worrying that word of her student’s hopeless crush would somehow get back to Jeremy, who seemed to co
nsider their divorce, like the no-contact order, a mere technicality.
Slowing, she pulled under a gate marked, like practically every pasture in the area, with the name and famous running-K brand of the historic Kingston Ranch. As her wheels bumped over the metal grid of the cattle guard, she vowed to leave behind all thoughts of her ex-husband, along with the lingering fears that hearing his voice had managed to re-trigger.
Filled with fresh determination, she entered the enormous spread, which leased land to Green Horizon Energy for its wind turbines. At Number 43, she pulled up beside her grad assistant’s old blue pickup. Though she’d texted earlier to let Russell know that she was on her way, he wasn’t waiting for her behind the wheel as she’d expected. Nor did she see him sitting on the tailgate or near the massive turbine’s base. Had he tired of waiting and taken a short walk?
She felt a nervous flutter—tiny birds’ wings in her stomach. Exiting her vehicle, she called out his name. The ever-present wind off the Gulf of Mexico, about a dozen miles to the east, snatched the word from her mouth and carried it away. Her hair, too, was blown around, light sandy-colored wisps flapping flag-like in her face.
What she didn’t hear was any answer, though more than three hundred feet above, the normal hum of the turbine remained silent, the stillness of its blades proof that the strike deterrent system remained offline.
She opened the Jeep’s rear door and let out River.
“Find Russell. Go and find him!” Emma pitched her voice high, making it sound like the world’s most exciting game.
The young dog leaped and play-bowed in her direction, not catching on until Emma pulled out the day pack containing the beloved duck and repeated the command.
With a deep chuff of joy, the retriever bounded off, running in widening circles. Meanwhile, Emma grabbed her phone and tried another text.
I’m at your truck. Where are you?
The hummingbirds’ wings returned, beating even harder with every passing minute that the text message went unanswered. She thought again of Jeremy’s call, his enduring obsession with the delusion that she was sleeping with someone. How could she even be sure that he was still in Waco? What if he had found her, had tracked her to this location and transferred his rage to—