Mr. Taken

by Danica Winters

  “That was thoughtful of you,” she said. “How’s your leg doing?”

  He lifted it up high for her, wiggling it about. “It’s still attached. I’m sure it will be fine. Just a few scrapes and bruises.”

  “If you want, I can take another look at it for you.”

  Though it was bitterly cold, a warmth rose to his cheeks as he thought about her hands traveling all over his leg once again. It had been a long time since he’d let a woman touch him. Sure, she hadn’t meant it like that, but there had been something about it. And she hadn’t made it a secret that she had hated him being around Sarah.

  She had seemed so upset, jealous almost, at the thought of him having once been with Sarah. And as badly as he wanted to ask her if she was okay now, the last thing he wanted to bring up was her feelings from last night. Especially when she had made him promise not to ask her out again.

  He’d never been the desperate kind. He had enough self-respect to know when a woman didn’t want him in her life, but he couldn’t ignore the spark between them and how he still felt the same charge now that she was near. Sure, she had rebuffed his advance and he wasn’t about to make another pass at her, but that didn’t mean he didn’t hope she would come around.

  She started to walk toward the office, and as he stepped after her, he looked back at his truck. There, glaring in the windshield, was the red envelope.

  He’d have to call Wyatt and let him know about the letter. But if he was even a tiny bit right that Whitney was involved with this...she would be in trouble. Wyatt could be intense when it came to defending his family. He would make sure, regardless of Colter’s feelings toward Whitney, that she—or anyone else responsible—would be sent a message that the Fitzgeralds and Dunrovin weren’t to be messed with.

  Colter was positive that he had it all wrong. He had just seen something out of context, but until he knew for sure, he couldn’t take the risk.

  Chapter Seven

  Colter was staring at her so intently that it made the hair on the back of her neck rise. He didn’t look upset or sad. Instead he was looking at her like she had done some unspeakable thing.

  Was this about last night?

  She had spent all night tossing and turning as she had gone over every word that she had said to him. By 3:00 a.m. she had finally convinced herself that she had said what needed to be said, albeit she could have been more eloquent. Yet now, standing here with him looking at her like that, she was back to square one in thinking she had gotten things between them all wrong.

  “I...I’m sorry about last night,” she said, finally breaking the awkward silence between them.

  He blinked for a moment, almost as if he were pulling himself back to reality, and his familiar grin returned. The simple action and change made some of the tightness in her chest loosen.

  “You’re fine. I mean...” He ran his hand over the fine layer of stubble on the side of his jaw. “I hear you. I don’t want you to think that...you know...I won’t respect your boundaries. If you don’t want to go out with me, I get that. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  She had plenty to be sorry about—number one, that he’d actually believed her. She wished she could tell him that it wasn’t about him. But there was no going back and fixing what she had broken between them. She could see it in his eyes—he didn’t trust her anymore.

  Two people couldn’t have anything if they didn’t have trust.

  She wasn’t sure what to say that would make the look in his eyes disappear. “Thanks.”

  “What were you doing?” he asked, glancing toward the woodshed.

  “Huh?”

  “I saw you with the chain saw. Did you become a lumberjack overnight?” he asked with a chuckle, but the sound was forced and high.

  “One of the guests mentioned that it was sitting out when they checked in,” she said.

  He nodded, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t catch his gaze. “Did they say who put it there?”

  In truth, she hadn’t even given the saw a real thought. The man in the white car, David Hellman, had just told her about it when he checked in. He’d also told her about a downed tree.

  “You don’t think I had anything to do with the thing out in the road, do you?” she asked, taken aback at the sudden realization of what he must have been thinking of her. “I would never do anything to jeopardize this place. Dunrovin is my home. And, if I have my way, I plan to stay here for years to come,” she said, not waiting for him to answer her question.

  “Years to come?” he asked, his grin widened and some of the seriousness melted away from his gaze.

  “I know we don’t know each other well,” she said, trying to control her temper as she thought about how affronted she was that he would think her low enough to do something to upset the ranch. “But you should know that I’m not the kind of person who would hurt those that I care—”

  “About?” he asked, but from his tone she knew what he was really asking was if she cared about him.

  Yet all she could think about was that day in the barn, the day of the fire. What she was trying to convince him of was entirely true. She had been the reason her horse had been hurt. She had tried to save him, but if only she’d tried a little harder. And now here she was, with a firefighter again.

  “I just mean—” She was cut off by the ranch office’s door swinging open.

  The little rat dog came loping out, yipping loudly as Eloise followed at its heels. “Where you going?” Whitney asked, motioning toward the little dog.

  Milo plodded out of the office. The old ranch dog was a mutt but looked a bit like a Labrador retriever with a shaggy coat. Next to the well-kept Chihuahua, who was complete with a set of red nail polish, he looked even more derelict than he ever had before.

  Whitney smiled as Milo stopped beside the little dog and gave it a wet, sloppy kiss on the top of its head, promptly putting a stop to the menace’s barking.

  “Don’t you think she’s a little bit out of your league, buddy?” Colter reached down and patted Milo on the head.

  The dog looked over at her with his big brown eyes, and she swore that she saw him smile. It was almost as if the dog thought the same thing about her and Colter and was trying to send her some kind of message. She stuck her tongue out at the dog. She didn’t need anyone or anything, especially not her closest buddy, trying to remind her of who she was.

  Eloise chuckled and turned back to her. “If you wouldn’t mind, when you’re running into town, I have a note for Sarah about the menu. Would you drop it off? I can’t seem to reach her on her cell phone. It’s going straight to voice mail and I don’t want her to miss a chance to get to the grocery store before they close for the night.” Not waiting for an answer, Eloise handed her the note.

  She looked down at it and saw Sarah’s name printed across it.

  Thankfully, Colter reached over and took the note from her hand. “Did you try to text her, Mom?”

  Eloise put her hands on her hips and gave her son a matronly glare. “Do you think that I’m really that behind the times?”

  Colter shrugged, his smile shining bright. “Okay...”

  “Thank you. And when you get the food for...the little dog,” she said, like she couldn’t remember the dog’s name, either, “her owners wanted to remind you that she only eats organic and GMO-free dog food.”

  Whitney smirked. It hadn’t been an hour since she had seen the dog go out with Milo into the pasture. Whatever it ate out there couldn’t have been the prized dog food that the owners had requested, but she would make sure to keep that out of her report when and if they called to check on their dog over the next few days.

  “No problem. Did they want the filet mignon or the prime rib flavor?” she added with a sarcastic laugh. “But hey, I get it...wanting to give your animals the be
st.” Whitney glanced toward the barn and the stables where a few of the horses had stuck their heads over the gates to watch.

  She knew all too well how much she had been willing to sacrifice for the animals she loved.

  “If you’re running into town, do you mind if I ride along?” Colter asked. “Actually, why don’t we take the truck? I need to get some lumber to fix the hole in the hayloft’s floor. Unless Dad already did it?” he asked, looking to Eloise.

  She shook her head. “Your father’s been running around like a chicken with his head cut off all morning. He’s out feeding the animals, but I know he was talking about getting the rest of the barn cleaned up before the dance.”

  “If you see him, tell him not to worry about the floor. I’ll take care of it,” Colter said, motioning in the direction of the barn. “And when we get back, I’ll help him with the rest of it.”

  Eloise looked over at her and gave her a knowing smile. It was so warm and full of implied meaning that Whitney forced herself to look away, unsure of how to respond. She wished she could just tell Eloise everything, but there were so many things...things she would never understand, and even on the off chance that she did, she could probably never look at Whitney the same way again.

  It was just easier this way, keeping an emotional distance from everyone around her. Yet no one at the ranch seemed to understand.

  * * *

  THEY DROVE DOWN Main Street and toward the hardware store. The antiques shop that had once belonged to William Poe’s wife was boarded up, but the front windows were still filled with the knickknacks that she had put up for sale before her death. In most places, life had a way of moving on after someone’s death, but here in Mystery, it was as if even one person’s death was reason for the entire town to go into mourning.

  Even though it was getting near Christmas, business was slow in the downtown stores. A few people were carrying shopping bags as they walked out from the drugstore, and one woman had rolls of wrapping paper tucked under her arm.

  Colter pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. The ride to town had been quiet, almost too quiet. Yet all he could think about was the glaring red envelope on his dashboard and all the things it could mean.

  He believed Whitney was innocent—she couldn’t have had anything to do with the felled tree—but she hadn’t seemed surprised at all when he brought it up. She’d appeared upset only when he broached the subject of her somehow being involved.

  From his police buddies he’d learned that when someone was truly innocent they got angry when accused of a crime, and those who were guilty typically gave reasons they wouldn’t have done such a thing. She had done both.

  He stepped out of the truck and walked around to her side and opened her door. She turned and looked up at him. Her eyes were full of pity and something else that he couldn’t put his finger on.

  He was making something out of nothing. Being cynical wasn’t his strength. He had always left that to Waylon—and now, pressed to be that way, he didn’t like it. He liked living in a world where people were innocent until they were proved guilty.

  As she stepped out of the truck, he yearned to take her by the hand and help her.

  She walked to the sidewalk and turned to face him. “Colter, do you ever think that some things are too big to let go? That no matter how hard you try they will mess up your life forever?”

  The question made him stop in his tracks. “Where did that come from?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess I was just thinking about...everything.”

  He wasn’t sure exactly what she meant by that, and if she was talking about them or not, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. She was finally opening up to him, and this was one gift that he didn’t want to screw up.

  “I think everyone has things that happen in their life that they’re not proud of. No one is a saint. Life can be messy, but that doesn’t mean that we wall ourselves off and stop living.”

  “Protecting yourself from getting hurt again isn’t stopping from living. It’s being smart.”

  To a certain degree he could agree with her. It was so much easier to just not put himself out there—even with her. Rejection could be so hard to deal with. It made people jaded if they let it go too deep.

  “I don’t want to grow older and be one of those bitter people you see... You know what I mean?” he asked, the question as non-accusatory as possible.

  “Are you saying I’m bitter?”

  “No... Not at all.” He tried to mentally backpedal. “I just mean that I don’t want to be unhappy when I get older. When I find the woman I want to marry, I want to be with her forever. I want a life where there is nothing but great happiness—no matter what it takes.”

  “Life isn’t all sunshine and daisies. It’s pain and reflection. It’s making ends meet when there isn’t enough. It’s about struggle and hardship. And marriage would be just as hard.”

  “If you love someone with all your heart, you can get through anything—especially the hard times.”

  She smiled, but there was a deep pain in her eyes that the smile couldn’t camouflage. “Two people can’t love each other like that.”

  He couldn’t disagree with her more, and it hurt him to imagine what she had been through in life that could have made her this skeptical and dismissive of what was one of life’s greatest pleasures.

  “If you don’t think so, then you’ve never really been in love,” he said.

  Her eyes widened with surprise and she opened her mouth to speak, but held back.

  “If you really, truly love someone and they love you back, you can take on the world and whatever it has to throw at you.”

  “How many times have you been in love?” she asked.

  There was nothing quite like walking into an unwinnable situation like that. There was no right answer. “How many times have you?”

  She held her hands tightly in front of her and stared down at her fingers. “Just once. And that was enough to show me that maybe love isn’t right for me.”

  “When did it end?”

  She sucked in a long breath. “The moment he struck the match.”

  Chapter Eight

  The old adage of still waters running deep crossed his mind, but even that didn’t seem to quite fit the woman he wanted to pull into his arms. She was deeper and far more full of secrets than he ever could have guessed, and she was finally deciding to let him into her life and her past. He was honored but at the same time absolutely terrified with the pressure that he could let her down.

  “Was he trying to kill you?” he asked. His voice was thick and he tried to swallow back the bile that rose in his throat as he thought about someone coming to hurt her.

  “My death wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to take away all the things I loved first. He wanted to break me.”

  “What happened?” He leaned back against the front grille of the truck, relaxing his body in hopes that she would see that he wanted and was ready to listen to whatever she wanted to tell him.

  She bit at the skin of her bottom lip. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He stood back up, convinced his attempt at subconsciously swaying her to open up thanks to his body language hadn’t worked. As he stood, she moved closer to him, so close that he could smell the floral bouquet scent wafting up from her hair. She smelled so good, like freshly washed hair and dryer sheets.

  She balled her fists and then opened up her fingers and slipped them into his. “Thanks for just listening. I just needed... I guess I need a friend.”

  “I’m here,” he said, lacing his fingers between hers, “for whatever you need.”

  He hated the dreaded friend-zone, but he would take what he could get from this incredible woman. She had so much to offer the world, if only she would c
ome out of her shell a little bit more—and if he could be the catalyst she needed to feel safe, wanted, and loved again, he’d be more than happy to help.

  She squeezed his hand in hers and smiled up at him. “You don’t know how much that means to me. I haven’t...I haven’t talked about what happened ever since I left Kentucky.”

  “Does my mother know?”

  Whitney shook her head. “Only the basics. She knows there was a fire, and I couldn’t stay there.”

  “My mom has always had a big heart. She’s probably the only reason that me and my brothers are doing as well as we are.”

  Whitney went rigid as he ran his thumb over the back of her hand, but as he stroked she started to soften under his touch, just like a horse.

  “You know, you and your mom are a lot alike,” she said. “You both try to make everyone else around you happy. You’re so giving.”

  It made him happier than she could possibly know that she thought that much of him. Most women only complimented him on his looks or his jeans or some other superficial thing... Not that he minded that they thought him sexy—it was just nice to be recognized as something more.

  He lifted her hand, wanting to kiss her skin, but he stopped himself. She only wanted a friend, albeit friends who apparently held hands, but it was up to her to decide the speed of whatever was going on between them. “Thanks,” he said, lowering their hands back down. “But really, I’m just as flawed as any other man. I have my quirks.”

  She smiled and the darkness that had always seemed to fill the space around her lightened. “And those quirks would be...? You know, for research and friendship purposes only.”

  The way she spoke made a dash of hope move through him. Maybe she did want something more, or maybe he was just a fool for hoping.

  “Are you the kind who moves too fast?” she continued, not waiting for him to answer. “Wait...are you a mouth breather?”