Overprotective Cowboy: A Mulbury Boys Novel (Hope Eternal Ranch Romance Book 2)

by Elana Johnson

  “Emma,” he called. “It’s Ted. Where are you?”

  “Get out of my house,” Robert said. “There’s no Emma here.”

  “Emma,” Ted called again, his stomach tight but the fight strong in him. He wasn’t just going to walk away from her. She’d been nervous on the phone, and Ted wanted to protect her with everything inside him.

  A scream came from somewhere in the house, and Ted’s gaze flew to Robert’s. Neither of them moved, and the thumping bass from the music in the basement was the only sound.

  Ted took a step, and Robert darted toward him. He latched onto Ted’s arm with one hand and lifted a piece of art with the other. A very pointed, very heavy piece of glass sculpture.

  “Go,” he hissed, and Ted let Robert push him through the front room and into the back of the cabin, where an expansive living room stretched to the right, with the dining room and kitchen to the left.

  Emma sat in a recliner, and it took Ted a moment to see she’d been handcuffed to the nearby TV cabinet. Tears streamed down her face, and Ted’s heart wept with her.

  He knew in that moment that he could easily fall in love with her. He’d been sliding that way already, and his strong desire to protect her, keep her safe, and learn everything about her only intensified.

  “Let me go,” he said, ripping his arm away from Robert. He rounded the couch and went to Emma. “Hey. I got your call.”

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she said, her voice so high. “I shouldn’t have called.”

  “You called him?” Robert asked, his presence coming up behind Ted. All of the rage was directed at Emma, though, and Ted’s gaze flickered to the TV cabinet. He needed to get her unhooked from that thing.

  He rose silently and turned toward Robert. “You need to let her go. I’ve already called the cops.”

  Robert searched his face, and Ted had learned a thing or two about hiding his emotions from his time in prison. He covered everything with the stone mask that had served him well in the dormitory and cafeteria as he glared right back at Robert.

  “Now,” he added.

  “Are you her boyfriend?”

  “That’s right,” Ted said, his voice utterly even.

  “Ted,” Emma said behind him.

  “Does he know?” Robert asked, leaning around Ted and shooting a dark look at Emma. He zeroed in on Ted again. “Do you know she has a ten-year-old daughter? My ten-year-old daughter? She’s been hiding her in San Antonio.”

  Shock filled Ted, though he’d known something had been hidden in Emma’s past.

  “Robert,” Emma said, her voice sharp.

  Ted found himself turning toward Emma, and she looked back at the two men standing in front of her. Time stood still while everything streamed through Ted’s mind. So much seemed to be there, and then with a snap of his fingers, it all disappeared.

  “I don’t care,” Ted said. “I didn’t know, but I don’t care.” He crouched down in front of Emma and reached up to wipe her tears. “I don’t care, Emma. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, it matters,” Robert said, and he grabbed Ted’s arm again, this time deftly handcuffing him to the handle on the sliding glass door.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Tell me her name,” Robert said again, but Emma pressed her teeth together. She’d told him plenty already, and she wasn’t going to put her daughter in danger while she was handcuffed to a piece of furniture.

  Robert wouldn’t leave until he knew where he could go to find Missy, and right now, he didn’t even know her name. San Antonio was a big place, and he’d never find her without more information.

  “You need to let us go,” Ted said. “This is going to be bad for you, Robert.”

  Robert barely flicked his eyes in Ted’s direction. All of his anger and malice stayed solely centered on Emma. She wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if Ted hadn’t rang the doorbell, but he’d been standing in the kitchen, doing something with his back turned to her as he threatened her with legal action.

  He’d told her to stay quiet, but when Emma had heard Ted call her name, she hadn’t been able to comply. He’d come. She’d called him, and though they weren’t on the best of terms, he’d come.

  He’d been the first name in her mind in her panicked state, though she could’ve called Ginger and not risked Ted’s freedom.

  He doesn’t care, she thought, and that was as magical as it was unbelievable. She’d spent so long hiding the truth about her past, as well as the evidence of the kind of person she’d been, that she hadn’t ever stopped to consider that she could outgrow all of it.

  She had become someone different. The past was the past, not a roadmap for her future.

  “All right,” Robert said in a freaky-calm kind of voice. He turned and went back into the kitchen, and Ted shifted on Emma’s right. She glanced over at him to see he had his cell phone out, and her heart leapt with hope.

  “I see how this is going to be played,” Robert said. “I was just telling Emma here when you showed up, Ted, that I had ways of making her tell me what she knows.”

  Ted tapped out a message to Nate, and sent it. Then he called 911. He looked at her, and their eyes met. Fear streamed through her, because Robert would hear him if he spoke.

  She glanced at Robert, but he still stood a dozen paces away, his back to them, as he looked down at something on the kitchen island.

  “We’ve been taken captive,” Ted whispered. “Fishing Run Cabin. Twenty minutes north of Sweet Water Falls. We need help.”

  “Dad?”

  Emma’s attention flew to the newcomer to the room—a young man who looked almost identical to Robert. “Jason,” she said, her memory of the seven-year-old fitting together with his face. “Help us.”

  “What is going on?” Jason asked, looking from Ted and Emma back to his father.

  Robert had turned from the island, and Emma couldn’t tell what his expression said. He wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed, angry, or surprised.

  “You’ve got to find the key,” Ted said. “And get us out of here.”

  “Please,” Emma added. “Jason, do you remember who I am?”

  The young man looked at her, confusion drawing his eyebrows down. “I feel like I do know you.”

  “You don’t,” Robert said. “Go back downstairs, Jason.”

  “I can’t just go back downstairs,” he said. “You have two people handcuffed in our living room.” He waved his arm toward Ted and Emma, as if Robert didn’t know they were there. “You can’t do this kind of stuff, Dad. It’s ridiculous.” He folded his arms. “Give me the key.”

  “No.”

  Jason’s jaw jutted out, and he took a couple of steps toward his father. He passed him and went into the kitchen. “Who are you?” he asked as he started opening drawers.

  “It’s Miss Clemson,” she said. “Your second-grade teacher.”

  Jason paused then, looking up. Shock ran through his expression, and he abandoned his search in the kitchen. He came toward her, recognition lighting his eyes. “It is you.” He paused near the end of the couch. “Why are you here?”

  “Your father kidnapped me,” she said.

  “Oh, come on,” Robert said. “Tell him the truth, Emma. Why can’t you tell the truth?”

  Emma swallowed, because there were so many eyes on her. Ted’s were the heaviest, and she wasn’t sure she believed that he didn’t care about her past. For a few minutes there, she had, and what a glorious few minutes they’d been.

  “He’s very angry with me,” Emma said. “Because we had a child together, and I didn’t tell him.”

  Jason’s mouth opened slightly, and his eyes widened. He looked at Robert, who gestured to Emma like everything that was happening was her fault. She certainly felt like it was.

  “So what, Dad?” Jason bit out. “You don’t care about your kids.” He stalked away from them in the living room, and Robert followed him.

  “What does that mean?”

/>   “Oh, come on,” Jason said, and he sounded exactly like his father, who’d said the same thing only a few seconds ago. “You sail into town for graduations and anything else you think you need to show your face at. But you don’t care about me. You never wanted me.”

  “That’s not true,” Robert said.

  “Oh?” Jason asked, ripping through drawers again. “When’s my birthday?”

  Everything stilled then, and Emma sensed an opportunity. “Just let us go,” she said. “We won’t say anything, and you can keep doing what you do. I don’t want child support. I just want you to leave me alone, and leave my daughter alone.”

  Robert spun toward her, pure rage on his face. “She’s my daughter too.”

  Jason scoffed and laughed, and in the next moment, he said, “Found it.”

  Robert stepped in front of him. “You will not let them go.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jason challenged. “You’re going to get blood on your precious rugs. And then what will Gustus think?”

  Robert seemed to deflate, but beside her, Ted perked up. “You’re still working for your father?”

  Robert faced them again, his eyes like live coals. “No.”

  “Yes,” Jason said. “The old man keeps tabs on everything, and he’s not going to like this.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Ted said. “Why haven’t you taken over the family business yet?”

  Emma looked at him, wondering what in the world he was doing. Adding more fuel to Robert’s fury didn’t seem like the smart thing to do.

  Ted looked at her and nodded, but Emma wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say.

  Jason tried to get past his dad, but Robert wouldn’t let him.

  All at once, Emma knew what she needed to say. “He hasn’t taken over the family business, Ted, because Robert wants all the glory without any of the responsibility.”

  “Oh, I see,” Ted said, meeting her eye. For a second, it seemed like they were just having a normal conversation about someone while they enjoyed the sunshine pouring in the windows beside them. “Just like with his son. So he sails into town for graduation, probably with a big gift, but he doesn’t want to be around for any of the hard stuff.”

  “Exactly,” Emma said. “Which is why I didn’t tell him about my daughter. She didn’t need that. She still doesn’t.”

  “Stop it,” Robert said.

  “Dad, let me release them.”

  “No,” Robert yelled. He held out his arm to keep Jason from going by, and he thrust the other one toward Ted and Emma, though they were paces away. “No. No one’s going anywhere.”

  “He only owns this place for seventeen weeks out of the year, too,” Emma said. “Can’t even take responsibility for a house full-time.”

  “Stop it,” Robert said.

  Jason pushed past his father, a bellow coming out of his mouth. Robert grunted and grabbed onto his son, and they both went to the ground. Threats were issued, and Ted yanked against his handcuffs, a frustrated sound coming from his mouth. Emma had already tried to get free from the cabinet, but nothing had budged.

  “Leave him alone,” Ted said, reaching over and slapping his palm against the glass. He stood up, and everything seemed to be happening so fast. He pulled against the door handle again; it didn’t move. He picked up his chair with one hand and threw it through the glass.

  The shattering sound brought the unseen struggle on the other side of the couch to a stop, and Ted strode away from her, the door handle from the sliding glass door dangling from his wrist.

  Before he could reach the pair, commanding, loud voices filled the air.

  “Freeze. Get down on the ground!”

  Relief filled Emma as four police officers streamed into the living room, and she couldn’t stop the tears as they flowed down her face again.

  Ted knelt with both hands on the back of his head, saying nothing. Jason said plenty, though, and the cops didn’t haul Ted to his feet, cuff him, and lead him out of the house.

  They did do that to Robert, and Jason looked at her, his hair rumpled and blood trickling out the corner of his mouth. “Here’s the key,” he said to one of the cops, and he released Ted first, and then Emma.

  She automatically reached to rub her wrist, which bore an angry red mark.

  Ted got swept away, out into the front room with two cops. Another sat Jason at the dining room table, where a paramedic knelt in front of him to tend to his lip. Another came toward Emma, who could not stop crying.

  “Are you hurt?” the man asked, and Emma didn’t know if she should shake her head yes or no. She let the man check her, and when they finally let her leave the house, she couldn’t find Ted anywhere.

  “Emma,” Ginger said, rushing forward from where the police had been holding her, and Emma hurried down the front steps and into the arms of her best friend.

  Emma pulled the blanket tighter around her legs and looked at Ginger. “We can really have the cabin in the corner?”

  “My parents decided not to come back to the ranch,” Ginger said. “It’s all yours.” She looked down and picked up her phone. “I’ll miss you here in the West Wing.”

  “The office is here.”

  “So you won’t quit?”

  “Nate has Connor here,” Emma said. “I can get Missy to school and back, and she’s been saying she wants to learn to ride in the afternoons.” She thought about the violin lessons, but she pushed her insecurities away. “So no. I can do this job, Ginger.”

  “I know you can.”

  The incident at Robert’s cabin was a day old now, and she’d talked to Fran and Matt and Missy. Saturday, she’d be driving to San Antonio one final time, and Matt and Fran would follow her back to Hope Eternal Ranch.

  They wanted to see it too, and they’d tow a trailer with everything Missy needed to start the second half of her childhood with Emma as her mother.

  Pure fear flowed through her. She’d never taken care of another human being besides herself for any length of time, and she had no idea what she was doing. Fran had said she could call anytime, but the guilt of taking Missy from Fran and Matt threatened to smother her almost all of the time. She wouldn’t be calling to ask for advice.

  No, she’d only call and text them about the awesome things Missy did. Invite them to her riding lessons and school performances and just to visit for the weekend. She’d make sure Missy called them all the time, and that they had the opportunity for video chats. All the things they’d done for her, she’d do for them.

  When she didn’t know how to discipline her daughter, or how to comfort her, Emma would not bother Fran and Matt. They’d never burdened her with the hard things of raising a child. So, with everything else, she’d just have to muddle through and figure things out the best she could.

  “And what about Ted?” Ginger asked.

  Emma shrugged, because she hadn’t spoken to him. He hadn’t texted; she hadn’t been out on the ranch at all since completing her interview with the police officer and coming back to the ranch with Ginger and Nate.

  “You like him, though, right?” Ginger asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Emma said. “I didn’t tell him about Missy, and it’s a huge elephant between us.”

  “So just go over there and shoo the wildlife out of the room.”

  Emma smiled and shook her head. Ginger’s phone went off, and she got distracted by her device. “There’s a problem in the stables.”

  “Go,” Emma said, smiling.

  Ginger looked at her, her eyebrows up. “You sure?”

  “You have a problem with a horse, Ginger, and they’re your babies.” Emma gave a light laugh, though she wasn’t sure what she had to laugh about. “Go.”

  Ginger got up and hugged Emma, and then she went. Emma sighed and leaned back into her pillows, her thoughts wandering through the next few days of getting the cabin ready for her daughter, packing the things she had here, and trying to keep up with her work on the ranch.

&
nbsp; She didn’t see Ted in the stables the next morning or evening. They didn’t walk down the lane hand-in-hand. She left on Saturday morning with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and her purse in the other.

  Ginger gave her a hug, and Jess told her to drive safe. Hannah and Michelle promised to have lunch ready when she got back, and Emma cast a glance at the Annex when she walked to her car. She wished Ted were sitting on the front steps, the four dogs who had adopted him surrounding him.

  He wasn’t.

  She hadn’t been able to work up the courage to text him or go next door and talk to him.

  “Maybe he just needs time,” she told herself as she went over the bridge and left the ranch. She knew exactly what that felt like, and he’d given her a pass several times from having to explain anything to him.

  “And now he knows,” she said. He’d said he didn’t care, that it didn’t matter that she had a daughter with Robert Knight. But his silence said otherwise.

  Emma sighed, and she knew the sound of love when she heard it. She dismissed the notion immediately—she was not in love with Ted. She sure did miss him, though, and the hole he’d left in her life gaped, grew wider, and got harder with every day that passed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ted stood in the kitchen next to the refrigerator, hoping to stay out of the way during this luncheon. He’d tried to get out of coming, but Nate had deliberately come out to the river to get him, saying, “You can’t avoid her forever.”

  “I’m not avoiding her,” Ted had said without looking at his best friend. “How did you find me?”

  “I brought Ursula.”

  Ted looked down at the German shepherd, and Ursula looked up at him. “Traitor,” he said, and Ursula whined.

  He looked at Nate, who’d raised his eyebrows. “Fine,” Ted said. “But I’m only staying for ten minutes. She doesn’t want me there.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  Ted didn’t want to argue with Nate. They’d had this conversation at least daily for the past five days, and Ted didn’t have the energy to do it again. So he’d walked back to the West Wing with Nate. He’d accepted a bottle of water from Ginger. He’d put a smile on his face.