“Did you know somebody who did drugs?” she asked. “Did some woman let you down?”
“We’re not talking about me.” He retrieved his hat. “Right now I have to check on my crew.”
“I need to make a phone call. Otherwise, I’ll be a missing person and there will be trouble,” she said.
“What kind of trouble?” He eyed her as if he knew she was already trouble.
She was safe enough telling him part of it. “A media circus. I’m a known person in Jackson Hole. I can’t just vanish.”
He dismissed her explanation. “I’ve got things to do this morning. Stay in the house and rest.”
He motioned for her to leave his office first then locked the door behind them. He tipped his hat and left her staring after him as he strode out a side exit.
No way was she kicking her heels in the house. She’d never been an indoors kind of girl. She’d explore the ranch. Maybe she’d find a phone, too.
She took a hat from a rack by the front door. In her jeans and boots, she was already clad correctly for a ranch. True to her heart, she went directly to the stable. Horses whinnied softly as she walked by. She talked to each of them, but kept walking, enjoying the familiar, pungent smells of hay, horse, and manure. At the other end the open door led to a corral. Within it was a magnificent white stallion.
“Oh, you beauty,” she cooed.
“You be careful there, miss,” came a voice from behind her. “He ain’t been trained.” A wizened older man walked up to her. He wore ranch gear, jeans, boots, a long-sleeved shirt, and a hat, which he doffed respectfully. “Hoot Hawkins is my name.”
“I’m Addie” She offered her hand. “Are you the trainer?”
“Don’t have one right now. Lookin’ for one.” He gazed at the horse and shook his head.
“Why do you have a horse and no trainer?”
“Boss’s sister, Tess, sent this fire breather. Saw him being mistreated. Bought him from the owner and shipped him here.”
“Good for her.”
“That girl has a kind heart. Knowed her since she was a tiny little thing.”
“Now you have an abused horse that needs help,” she said, eyeing the stallion with sympathy. He raced around the corral, obviously excited at being watched, but nervous, too.
Hoot sighed. “That I do. You know a trainer?”
“I train all the horses on my ranch myself.”
Hoot looked impressed. “I’d give you a tryout, but I heard you was sick. Plannin’ to stay here a while?”
“No.” She cast the stallion a look of regret. “I’d love to work with him.”
“We got some safe horses here. I’ll show ’em to you. You can pick the one you like best, in case you and the boss go for a ride later.”
She took up his offer, although she would not hold her breath waiting for Baron to invite her for a ride. He might think she’d attempt to gallop away to freedom.
At first Hoot carefully kept her back from the horses. Once he realized she knew how to behave, he let her pet them and talk quietly to them. She whiled away some time admiring the animals, who were all in tip-top condition. The stalls were in excellent shape, too. The tack room held a good selection of the best quality tack. And a wall phone.
“Would you mind if I use this?” she asked.
“Jest dial your number. I got to go check on somethin’.” With a tip of his hat, he was gone.
She wasted no time calling her ranch manager. After giving Trudy a seriously censored version of events, she said, “Capture this number on Caller ID. Give my friend Caz a call. Although he isn’t answering his phone right now. Okay. Go into town with a note. Deliver it to the hotel and make sure they promise to take it to him. Tell Caz I promise I will be there as scheduled with—”
The phone was yanked out of her hands. “She won’t be making that deal anytime soon, you scum,” Baron shouted into the receiver and hung up.
“What did you do?” she cried. “Now he’ll think I’m in trouble.”
“You won’t call your dealer again. No deliveries to that hotel, either.”
She pressed her lips together and inhaled, trying to calm herself. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“You can’t be trusted.” He took her wrist and began to drag her bodily from the tack room. She resisted, digging in her heels.
“Let go of me. You have no right.”
Instead of releasing her, he pulled her into his arms. He bent an angry look on her. “I won’t let you hurt yourself again.”
She struggled, but he only held her closer.
“The moment my back is turned, you’re trying to get hooked up again. You’ll kill yourself. You’ve got to stop.”
“No,” she said. “No.”
He wasn’t listening. Was he even seeing her? Some powerful emotion drove him, but did it relate to her or someone else?
Her body ignited from the feel of his rubbing against her. She stopped struggling. She couldn’t fight him anymore. At this dangerous moment, when she least needed to feel lust, she did. Her body wanted to sink into his, to feel her softness against his hardness. She wasn’t afraid of Baron, a man who stood when a woman entered a room. She feared her feminine desire to yield to him sexually as a means of defusing his anger.
Their eyes clashed. Could he see how much she wanted him? He saw something, for he lowered his head toward her. Desperately, she held up her palm between them. “Don’t you dare kiss me.”
“You want me,” he ground out.
“You’re acting like a cave man.” She turned her head away. Would he touch her against her will? His hot breath fluttered her hair. Would he force her?
Neither moved.
He stepped back and let her go. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”
She backed up against a stall and stared at him, breathing hard, fighting desire. Perhaps he felt lust, too, but he was fighting another strong emotion. She shook her head to clear it. “This isn’t about me at all, is it? Who in your life has a drug problem? Where is that person?”
He pulled the tack room door shut and locked it. Then he turned without a word and stalked off.
“Wait a minute,” she cried. “You can’t just manhandle me and walk away. I demand an explanation of your domineering behavior.”
Hoot reentered the stable at that instant. “Was you wantin’ to ride?” He registered the expressions on their faces, and turned as Baron strode past him. “No, I’m guessin’ not.”
“I’d like to ride,” she said, deliberately loud enough for Baron to hear even as he stalked away.
“That okay with you, boss?”
“Yes,” came a growl from the departing figure. “Tomorrow. Not today.”
Hoot shrugged. “Gotcha.” He turned back to face Addie, still standing in the stable. With an apologetic look on his face, he said, “Maybe take it easy today? Sit on the porch and relax.”
She shook off the spell she’d been under. “All right,” she said. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
That man turned her inside out. She’d never felt so instantly physically attracted to anyone. Even stranger, she’d been hot for him despite his anger at her. Why had her brain short-circuited that way? Was it some kind of atavistic feminine instinct to calm a powerful, angry male?
What was eating Baron? Why did he leap to the conclusion that she’d phoned a drug connection? Who did he know who had a drug problem?
She should find a way to escape. Being attracted to a man who yelled at her and manhandled her was bad. She was at risk.
She’d like to ride the horses, and train the wild stallion. Would she still be here tomorrow? Not if she found a way to escape.
Chapter 5
Baron ate his lunch under Miss Betty’s disapproving glare. He’d arrived in a bad temper, grumbling about the roundup, the weather, the ranch hands, the horse he’d been riding, and anything else that came to mind. Miss Betty had listened and then put him straight. Trust her to know how to do it. He
was lucky she hadn’t clipped him one with her wooden spoon.
“Don’t come into my kitchen throwin’ your weight around, thinkin’ you’re the big time rancher.” Her exasperation with him was easy to read in her stance, both hands on her hips and one hand holding the wooden spoon that had taught him a few lessons when he was a boy.
“I’m in charge now,” he said. “They should do roundup the way I want them to.”
“This is your first year back on the ranch, boy. Thinkin’ you know better than ranch hands who been doin’ roundup here since before you was born is foolish.”
“I want it done my way,” was his stubborn reply. He gulped his ice tea.
Miss Betty banged a pot hard on the gas stove. “You got Hoot, with forty years experience, and you don’t listen to his advice.”
“He wants me to do it the same old way.”
“’Course he does. Take it easy this first time,” she said, turning back and pointing the spoon at him. “Get the hands used to you bein’ the boss.”
“That’s not how it’s done in the rest of the world.”
“A ranch lives or dies based on its hands stayin’ year after year, bein’ loyal. You make them miserable, they’ll leave, and then where will you be?”
“I’ll hire new hands.”
“Look around you, boy. We’re in the middle of nowhere.” She banged the pot on the burner again. He winced at the clash of steel on iron.
“You ever talked to your daddy about how hard it is to find good workers and keep them?” She shook her head, disgusted.
He’d called his father for advice on how to run things a few times in the beginning. Dad shook him off, concerned only with J.D. Tried again only last month. Nothing. It was as if his father didn’t care what happened with the ranch, or with Baron. Only with J.D.
“As for how you been treatin’ that girl you brought here—”
Miss Betty’s aggrieved tone brought him back to where he was. “I don’t want to hear it,” he said.
“You gonna listen to me. What you gone and done this time, boy?” she asked, her manner now concerned instead of angry. “That girl’s mopin’ about the house. What did I tell you about keepin’ your hands to yourself?”
He flushed.
“Aha. I knowed it,” she exclaimed.
***
Addie sat on the front porch of the ranch house all the rest of the morning, having discreetly ascertained that none of the ranch vehicles’ keys were on the hooks in the kitchen. Baron must have removed them, in case she thought to steal a car and drive to freedom.
Miss Betty brought her lunch on a tray.
“I’m sorry to cause you more work,” Addie said, leaping up to help the older woman place the tray on a wicker side table. “I could have come to the kitchen.”
“Lot of hot air in there today. Best keep away until there’s a cooling wind.”
Miss Betty meant Baron. He must still be angry, if anger truly was what that scene in the tack room was all about.
“I made a phone call out at the tack room. He didn’t approve,” Addie said.
Miss Betty clucked.
Addie continued, “I couldn’t let my people think I’d vanished. Is there something in Baron’s past I should know about? He keeps accusing me of being a drug addict.”
Miss Betty sat down on a nearby rattan rocker, grimacing as she settled in, as if she was tired. “Not my story to tell. He had a bad experience with someone close to him.”
“That’s quite a teaser.”
“Best I can do.”
“I’ll ask him directly, then.”
Miss Betty stared at Addie. “When lunch is done I like to watch my old TV shows. I especially like Golden Days,” the older woman said with a significant look. “You remind me of that little Jelleff girl on the show.”
Addie gulped and choked. The lemonade she’d sipped almost went the wrong way. Was Miss Betty onto her? “Uh…how so?”
Miss Betty set the rocker in motion. “Smart little girl. Sticks up for herself when that brother of hers gets her in trouble.”
Caz. He’d played her mischievous brother when they were kids on TV.
“Don’t you think they were both following a script?” Addie asked.
Miss Betty shot her a shrewd look. “Maybe so, but I like that little girl. Character shines through. If that girl needed help, I’d offer it.” The housekeeper stood up. “I’ll collect the tray later. I imagine the weather’s cleared up in my kitchen by now.” She went back into the house, leaving Addie to ponder the meaning of her words.
Nothing was quite as it seemed here at the ranch. Baron Selkirk had a serious bee in his bonnet about drugs. Miss Betty affected a super loyal attitude, presenting herself as the type who did not interfere with her boss’s actions. Yet she’d strongly hinted that she knew who Addie was. Had been. That if Addie needed to escape this ranch, Miss Betty would provide assistance. There was a way home, if Addie understood right. She exhaled, finally relaxing for the first time all day. She was not a prisoner.
Probably she should take her opportunity to leave right now, but it would be convenient to hide out here for a couple of days and avoid the tabloid reporters. Get to know Baron better.
Where had that idea come from?
The cave man scene in the stable was troubling. He’d come on hot and heavy without her consent. Worse, she’d liked being touched by him that way. Liked it far too much when he’d crushed her against his chest and nearly ravished a kiss from her. Ravished. Oh, my. Then he’d backed off and even apologized for grabbing her. He hadn’t forced a kiss on her, either, despite what he must have felt in her yielding body.
Enough. She’d freshen up, then go down to the stable and see if Hoot would let her work with that white stallion.
***
Hoot shooed Addie back to the house again, “Boss’s orders.” No more horses for her today. It was odd not being with horses. She’d spent almost every waking hour of every day for the past four years with the animals.
Unwilling to sit around anymore, she rooted through the closet in the guest room and came up a tee shirt and shorts, and an old pair of sneakers that fit well enough when coupled with her thick socks. After liberally applying sunscreen she’d found in the medicine cabinet, she retrieved her borrowed hat and exited the house by the front door.
First, she paced off the area in front of the house. After walking back and forth, counting her steps, she’d done a mile. No ill effects. No weakness. She’d recovered.
Next she paced around the house. A neat vegetable garden was positioned near the kitchen door. Its lushness contrasted sharply with the parched aspect of the back yard behind the center of the house. A large pool deck was surrounded by desert plants spaced well apart. The pool was Olympic size, and a small white gazebo beyond it served as a pleasant design element and focal point for the pool area. The gazebo complemented the classic architecture of the ranch house. It evoked a turn-of-the-19th-century feel despite the presence of the in-ground pool and a batch of chaises and tables with umbrellas. The lack of a conventional lawn or flower borders showed some concern for the desert environment. Ornamental grasses dotted the yard and there were patches of sturdy native plants, but no big, water-slurping borders of lush annuals and perennials. In this part of the state, water was too precious to waste on flowers. Yet the Selkirks had an outdoor pool. It looked to be a recent addition. Maybe for the sake of the injured brother? But he was in Cheyenne, hundreds of miles away.
The ranch house was connected to a detached three-car garage by a covered walkway, again with the gingerbread feel of the gazebo. The exit directly from Baron’s office was through that walkway. A four-wheeler sat next to it. No keys in the ignition.
She checked out several outbuildings, too. Most were locked and she could only guess at their purpose. She cast a longing eye at the stable, the place she’d be happy to explore all over again. Off limits.
The sun was hot, but she needed a run. Without a p
edometer or familiar markers, she’d go for time, not distance. She was about to set off down the drive when Miss Betty appeared at the kitchen door.
“You’d best come inside and take a rest, girl.”
“I’m about to go for a jog.”
The old lady frowned. “Give yourself some time to get used to the desert. ’Tweren’t many hours ago you were nigh unto helpless.”
If Baron had stood there and forbidden Addie, she would have taken off like a shot. She owed Miss Betty more courtesy. “I did a mile walk in front of the house and I was fine.”
“That’s good.” Miss Betty shaded her eyes in the glare of the hot sun. “You trainin’ for a marathon? ’Cause otherwise, a mile is enough when less than twenty-four hours ago you couldn’t walk by yourself.”
“Baron wouldn’t let me.” He’d carried her in his powerful arms. The memory of feeling so light and so secure in Baron’s clasp made her breasts rise with a deep inhalation.
Miss Betty huffed out a breath, signaling her annoyance. “You gonna argue all day, and me with a cake in the oven that needs tendin’? You plannin’ to be a patient again, or you gonna be sensible?”
Addie kicked the gravel with her toe. “Okay, I give. You’re right.”
She walked up the two steps, and went through the screen door Miss Betty held open for her.
“Now you’re bein’ smart, girl. You take it easy the rest of today. Get a nap. Read a book.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I mean it. Don’t go runnin’ up the stairs or chinnin’ yourself at every doorframe. Get more rest.” She gave Addie a stern, no-nonsense look.
With that, Miss Betty went to check on her oven. Addie slowly walked upstairs, finding she was more tired than she’d expected. She decided to take a shower and wash off all the sunscreen and the dust she’d kicked up outside.
A few minutes later she was clean and dressed in a white cotton camp shirt and a pair of tan slacks from the closet. She was at loose ends again. The shower had revived her. Napping held no appeal. At home, she always kept busy. She trained her horses until she was physically exhausted and they were sick of the sight of her.
Captive of the Cattle Baron (Selkirk Family Ranch Book 1) Page 5