Cowboy Protector

by Margaret Daley

  “Yeah.”

  Austin opened the door and slipped out, but not before a blast of frigid air and driving horizontal snow invaded the warmth of the SUV. Hannah shivered and buttoned her heavy overcoat. By the time he held the door for her to exit the vehicle, she reminded herself how much she loved cold weather. But a few minutes later she was happy to be inside a toasty, welcoming home where the roar of the storm was muted some.

  The two deputies stomped into the kitchen behind Austin and shrugged out of their coats. “Sir, I’m Brady and this is Tom.” He pointed toward his partner, who nodded. “We’re gonna check the house first, then one of us will be on guard while the other gets some rest. Then we’ll switch. There will be one of us up and about at all times.” With a glance toward the window, he grinned. “But truthfully I can’t see anyone going out in this. So sit back and relax.”

  When the two men left the kitchen, Austin faced Hannah and took her hands, tugging her close. “Do you like to play Scrabble?”

  “Scrabble?”

  “I figure we have time to kill.” His mouth tilted upward. “Excuse the use of that word.”

  With his warm expression drawing her, she snuggled closer. “I could say I like to go in for the kill when I play games. I’m very competitive.”

  “Ah, that sounds like a challenge—” he bent his head toward hers “—and I love a good challenge. This will be interesting.”

  The feel of his mint-flavored breath fanning her lips, the mischievous gleam dancing in his eyes all worked to undermine her resolve to try to put some kind of distance between them. As much as she wanted to surrender totally to him, she wouldn’t, couldn’t. And in that moment she knew she would tell him about her past—this evening. He might never know it, but it would be her one act of love—to tell him her secret that she hadn’t told a soul in five years.

  Hannah put the seven tiles on the Scrabble board. “I won!”

  “I challenge that word.” Austin sat back in the chair at the kitchen table and crossed his arms.

  “Favella is a perfectly good word and gives me eighty-two points. That’s what kind it is.”

  “Give me that dictionary.” He waved his hand at the book lying next to her on the other side. “Aha! It’s not in here.”

  “What do you mean it isn’t? Let me see.”

  He slid the dictionary to her. “I see favela but not the other word.”

  “It’s a cluster of spores. I promise. Go look at the dictionary online.”

  He huffed. “I trust you. Not every word is in that dictionary or I probably couldn’t lift it.” But a playful look glinted in his eyes. “Just remember that when I come up with a weird word because I definitely want a rematch.”

  She heard him talking but really didn’t register much past the word trust. Would he trust her when she told him she wasn’t really Hannah Williams but Jen Davis?

  “Listen, Austin, I have something I need to tell you,” she said as he studied the board.

  He yanked his head up and held her gaze. “This sounds serious. Should we go somewhere more comfortable?”

  “No, this is fine.” She was afraid if she postponed it much longer she could chicken out. She was handing her life over to him essentially. Then she thought of the deputy in the living room who walked through here a couple of times an hour. “Well, maybe in your office where we could shut the door and have some privacy.”

  “If my interest hadn’t been piqued before, it is now.”

  Hannah started putting the game back into its box. Another delay tactic, she realized. Her hands quavered, and she dropped a fist full of tiles.

  “You okay?”

  “It’s been a long two days.”

  “Then why don’t you wait to tell me until tomorrow and get a good night’s sleep?”

  Because now that I’ve decided, I won’t get any sleep until I tell you. But it won’t be easy. She put the top on the Scrabble box. “No, let’s talk now.”

  Confusion and a hint of wariness darkened his eyes. Rising, he took her hand and drew her toward his office at the back of the house. She entered first, with him closing the door after he did.

  He strode to his black leather couch and folded his long length onto it. “Okay, we’re here and we have some privacy. What is it you want to tell me?”

  She sat on the sofa at the other end, but restlessness sped through her. She surged to her feet and began to pace. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “Hannah, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” Although he said the words in a calm, controlled voice, his mouth was pinched into a frown, his body taut.

  ELEVEN

  In the middle of Austin’s office, Hannah whirled around and faced him, clenching her hands at her sides. “First, I want you to know why I’m telling you this now. I trust you. I care about you, Misty and Caroline.”

  Totally alert, Austin straightened. “What’s wrong?”

  “When I lived in Los Angeles, I witnessed a murder by the man I was dating.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  “Yes. That incident changed everything. I’m not who you think I am. My real name is Jen Davis, but I haven’t gone by that in five years. I have used various different ones over those years. My latest one is Hannah Williams.”

  His expression went blank. “Why?”

  The word spoken with such control hit her like a huge wave when she used to surf. She wasn’t doing this right, but then this wasn’t something she’d ever done. The U.S. Marshal who had been her contact had always stressed how important it was to keep her identity hidden from everyone and especially from anyone in her family or Los Angeles. He hadn’t equipped her with how to break the rule.

  Pacing from one end of the office to the other, she tried to bring order to her thoughts that had been swept away with the crash of the wave.

  “Is this where you tell me you’re running from the law?” His question punctured the long silence.

  And she couldn’t blame him for it. She halted and pivoted toward him. “I’m not doing this right. No, I’m not running from the law in L.A., but I am—avoiding the U.S. Marshals.” She sucked in an oxygen-rich breath and looked right into those eyes that so often held a smile, a warmth. Neither was evident now. “I testified at Cullen Madison’s trial, and he went to prison for murder. His brother, Devon, is a very rich and powerful man who didn’t take kindly to that fact. I was whisked into the Witness Protection Program and placed in Montana.”

  “Why are you avoiding them?”

  “Two years ago there was a break-in at my house in a small rural community on the border with North Dakota. I thought one of Devon’s henchmen had found me and panicked. I fled, leaving that life behind and have been on the run ever since. I didn’t contact the U.S. Marshal’s office when I was supposed to. I dropped off their radar.”

  “Did he find you?”

  “No, since then I discovered my house had been one of several break-ins in that town over a period of a month. Mine being the first one.”

  He averted his gaze, a twitch in his jaw underscoring the tight restraint he was maintaining over his emotions. “Are you in the program now?”

  “No, but I’ve decided after this is all over with, I’m going to contact them again and ask to be relocated to another area of the country. I’ve stayed in Montana long enough.”

  He reestablished eye contact. “So Hannah Williams will disappear? Or should I say Jen Davis?”

  Her legs trembled so much she was afraid she couldn’t remain standing. She sank into the hardback chair near his desk. “Jen Davis died five years ago. That woman had a caring mother and a younger brother who she loved and hasn’t been able to contact in that time. When I walked away from L.A., I walked away from everything.” Her voice cracked on that last word, remembering what that meant to her.

  Something in his eyes melted, warming the brown depths. “You haven’t contacted them once? Spoken to them? Wrote them?”

  “No, the marshal I dealt
with emphasized a clean break was the best. I’d be less likely to try to call them if I invested myself totally in my new life and the opportunities to start fresh.” Her eyes misted; her throat contracted. “Maybe some can do that. I’m not one of them. You don’t know how many times I’ve started to call my mom and hung up.” A tear left a wet track on her cheek. She swiped it away. Crying didn’t do any good. It didn’t change her circumstances.

  He stared down at his hands balled on the leather couch. “So what has been happening between us isn’t real?”

  I love you. That’s about as real as it gets. “I won’t deny that I have feelings for you and Misty. I do care, but nothing can come of it.”

  His head jerked up, and he stabbed her with a hard look. “Then why did you…” He snapped his mouth closed. “Never mind. It’s not important.” He bolted to his feet.

  She rose. “Yes, it is. You want to know why I allowed these feelings we have for each other to develop when I knew it would end when I had to leave.”

  “Yes,” he bit out between clamped teeth.

  “Because I couldn’t help myself. I—” Fell in love with you and couldn’t stop it.

  “What? That you like to toy with a man? How many men have you left when you pick up and move on to the next job?”

  The force of his anger caused her to step back, hitting the chair behind her. Its crashing noise reverberated through the room. “None.”

  He laughed, no humor in the sound. “Oh, good. I’m the only unfortunate one to fall in love with you.”

  He loves me—or rather did. She wanted so badly to cherish the words, not uttered to her in years, but the look on his face spoke of the opposite now.

  She drew up as tall as she could and squared her shoulders. “I don’t toy with people’s emotions. And I certainly didn’t start out thinking that was what I was going to do as though that was my entertainment while stuck at this ranch.” Her own fury welled in her at his rage that he had a right to feel.

  “Stuck!” He closed the space between them, thrusting his face into hers. “You’re exactly like my dead wife. So all the times you talked about loving the ranch and enjoying your time here were all lies like your name.”

  He’d taken what she’d said the wrong way. “I didn’t mean that I was using you to amuse myself while here. I never felt stuck here.”

  Austin started to say something, but a knock at the door interrupted. He strode to it and opened it. “Yes?”

  “Is everything all right in here? I heard something that sounded like a crash,” Tom, the taller of the two deputies, said.

  “I accidentally backed into the chair, and it toppled.” Hannah bent and picked up the piece of furniture.

  “Oh, okay. I was just checking to make sure everything was all right. You can’t be too careful.”

  “Thank you, Deputy.” Austin waited a moment while the man left, gripping the knob so tightly his knuckles stood out. “I think it’s best you leave my office.”

  As she passed him, her steps leadened, he added, “I appreciate knowing now where things stand between us rather than the day you walk out.”

  “I’ll leave as soon as the weather permits,” she murmured, realizing that even though the conversation hadn’t gone the way she’d planned this was for the best. Even knowing the contempt he felt for her right now, she was glad she’d told him. “Good night, Austin.” The click of his door closing behind her echoed down the hallway as she trudged toward her bedroom.

  Austin leaned into the door, his forehead against the wood. Why, Lord? Why did You make me fall in love with her when You knew she wasn’t staying?

  He shoved away and spun around, facing his couch. Seeing Hannah standing before him all over again, her words ripping a fissure through his heart. He never did anything impulsively, and he certainly didn’t open himself up to others quickly. So why Hannah in less than a month? He’d have asked her to marry him rather than have her leave in a few weeks. Because the one thing he realized lately was that he wanted her in his life.

  But she’d destroyed that dream.

  He found his way to his desk, not even sure how he had, but suddenly he was in his chair, rotating it around to stare out the large floor-to-ceiling window. The snow had stopped since they had come into the room. Before him stretched a layer of white, in some places a foot and a half deep. Although after midnight, the landscape glowed in an eerie light for this time of day, almost as though the sun was rising hours early.

  He needed to see to his animals, clear paths to the barn and bunkhouse…He needed to talk to Hannah, try to make some sense out of this hurt. He needed to—No!

  Even if they talked and his anger and pain abated, she was right. There was no future for them. Ever. Bringing his fists down on the arms of his chair, he thrust himself to his feet and stood in the window, gazing out at his world. His life was his family and his ranch. A ranch that had been in his family for over a hundred and fifty years. He wouldn’t leave here to hide like a fugitive in some faraway place as though he’d done something wrong. Not even in order to be with Hannah. He couldn’t do that to Misty or Caroline. He couldn’t do that to Hannah because he would grow to hate that life and then what kind of partner would he be for her?

  He scrubbed his hands down his face, even surprised he was thinking about marriage, Hannah and what life would be like with her on the run, never feeling totally safe. The pain that ate into his gut should be enough for him to realize she’d betrayed his trust. She was no better than Jillian.

  A few hours before dawn with the curtains open and the Bible Caroline had lent her in her lap, Hannah sat near her bedroom window watching the mantle of snow brighten the surroundings. The force of the blizzard had finally petered out, but in her heart the maelstrom of emotions assailing her hadn’t. All night long, after leaving Austin in his office, she’d been battered and tossed about by those emotions until she now felt so lost as if she’d been out in the middle of the whiteout and couldn’t find her way back.

  Shoving to her feet, she paced from one end to the other. She had to make Austin understand she hadn’t intended to hurt him. She hadn’t intended to fall in love with him. That she bled as much as he did. But she didn’t know how she was going to do that. The words still evaded her.

  Lord, I can’t do this without You. I know that now. Please give me the right words to say to Austin. I messed it up last night.

  God is our refuge and strength. That verse from Psalm 41 seeped into her thoughts. The words will come. He will be with me when I need Him.

  She pivoted toward the door and stared at it for a long moment. She couldn’t talk to him now, but she needed to try in a few hours. When she turned toward her bed, its softness lured her forward. Exhaustion clung to every part of her. If she was going to make sense when she did talk to Austin, she needed some rest. She lay down on the coverlet and closed her eyes.

  Austin stood before the mirror in his bathroom off his bedroom, the skylight illuminating the area as he stared at the dark shadows under his eyes. He needed to shave, get dressed in something other than his clothes from yesterday and go check on the animals now that the storm had passed and it was dawn. Gripping the edge of the counter, he leaned into it, so weary he really just wanted to go back to bed.

  But then, why? He hadn’t slept at all the night before. He couldn’t get Hannah’s confession out of his mind. Anger, like water just before it boiled, festered beneath the surface.

  The quiet of his house taunted him. He hung his head and tried to drag to the foreground his determination to move on.

  I can do this. She’ll leave. I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. Nothing wrong—

  A creaking sound from a floorboard disrupted his pep talk. Hannah in his bedroom? His bathroom door ajar, he stepped to it and peered out, not sure he wanted to see her when his gut wrenched with the thought.

  For a few seconds, he didn’t see anything, then out of the corner of his eye, a bulky man came into his view. Not one
of the deputies. Someone he’d never seen. Another thug after Hannah?

  Every protective instinct in him vibrated to life. Stiffening, poised to surprise the man when he drew near, Austin waited, steadying his breathing to a calm level. His gaze riveted to the gun with a silencer on it. Its sight jolted him with the lethal implications.

  He had to get to Hannah.

  His nerves jiggled with tension. Each second that passed stretched his patience to the limit. His imagination ran rampant with thoughts of what could be happening to Hannah. But to leap now would be deadly to him.

  The thug came another step closer to his bathroom.

  The intruder opened his large walk-in closet door and went into it. Seeing his chance, Austin eased out of the bathroom and planted himself next to the closet a couple of feet away. When the man emerged, slowly, cautiously moving forward, Austin sprang from behind the closet door, bringing his arm down on the hand that held the weapon. But instead of the gun flying from his grasp, the man’s grip tightened about his Glock.

  The attacker swung toward Austin, only a foot away, and charged into him. Austin held his ground, his back plastered up against the wall between the closet and bathroom. The gun between them, he fought to knock it from the thug’s hand. The man’s fierce expression filled Austin’s vision as he desperately drew on a well of strength. His fingers about the Glock, too, he tried to direct it toward the intruder, but the man squeezed off a shot.

  Pain ripped through Austin’s shoulder.

  Hannah struggled to breathe. A heaviness pressed down on her chest. Her eyes bolted open.

  Devon Madison leered down on her as he straddled her on her bed. “Ah, you’re awake. I don’t want to kill you without you knowing exactly why you’re going to die today.”

  His menacingly soft, cultured voice penetrated the sleepy fog about her thoughts. Her lungs burned. She tried to take a decent breath but couldn’t.