Harlequin Heartwarming March 21 Box Set

by Claire McEwen

“You do what you want with him,” Seth said. “You’re the boss.”

  Owen nodded. “Okay. I will. How’s Sarge?”

  “When he broke his leg, they said he might have problems walking again, but he’s gone from a walker to a cane and gets around pretty well. It’s been hard, but he’s tough.”

  “He’s a remarkable man,” Owen said.

  That was an understatement. “When I first came face-to-face with him at the ranch, he was this hard ex-marine, six foot four with big muscles.” Seth chuckled softly, remembering that moment. “He stopped me in my tracks and gave me a needed attitude adjustment.”

  “I can imagine,” Owen said.

  If Sarge hadn’t broken his leg, Seth wondered how long it would’ve taken for anyone to know he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He sure hadn’t shared that fact. For the past year, Seth had been working on a project to convert the ranch into a summer camp for foster kids. “I want the camp functioning while Sarge is still aware and can understand what we’re doing for him and Maggie. Most importantly, I want him to participate in the camp for as long as possible.”

  Maggie had passed over five years ago, but the camp had been their dream for when they retired from group foster care. Sarge had let everything go when his wife died. But Seth knew he’d still love to see their dream become real. He owed Sarge so much, and establishing the summer camp on the land the man loved was barely a down payment on that debt.

  Owen stood. “Okay, you get back there. Do you need me to do anything else before you leave?”

  “No, thanks, just go and deal with the guy downstairs who wants to revolutionize our business.”

  As Seth stood, Owen looked a bit wistful, an expression that was not common with the man. “That ranch sounds like a whole different world.”

  It had seemed exactly like that to a teenager whom the system had written off. Seth had been beyond lucky that Sarge and Maggie took him in, along with other boys who’d been tagged as irredeemable. “It is a special place, and it’s my time to be there. Between Ben, Jake and his wife, Libby, Sarge will have one of us with him all the time to help him remember for as long as possible.”

  Owen nodded to Seth. “Good luck, and don’t worry about anything here.”

  When Owen was gone, Seth called Julia, Sarge’s nurse and caregiver at the ranch.

  She answered right away. “Hey, Seth.”

  “Just letting you know the skies have cleared and I’m going to take off at two o’clock our time. I left the truck at Downer’s Landing, so I’ll drive myself back.”

  “Good. Sarge misses you a lot.”

  He glanced around his living quarters, and all he wanted was to be on the sprawling ranch in Wyoming. “Tell him I miss him, and I’m coming home.”

  * * *

  AFTER MORE THAN an hour’s wait in the reception area of S.R. SoffTec’s corporate headquarters, Quinn Lake had finally been shown up to the twentieth-floor offices of the executive VP, Owen Karr. Since then, she’d been waiting in a conference room, staring at a huge framed poster on the wall. It had white script slashed across a solid black background. I Turn Coffee into Code.

  One of three doors to the room finally opened at 12:40 p.m. Quinn stood as a red-haired man in a gray suit strode in. He held out his hand to her. “Sorry for the wait. I’m Owen Karr, and you’re Quintin Lake?” His grip was firm.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, and he motioned her to sit down while he took a chair opposite her at the table.

  “First, honestly, I was expecting Quintin to be a man. Sorry for the sexism.”

  Quinn managed a semblance of a polite smile for him, but she didn’t apologize for being a woman determined to impress him with her presentation. “Call me Quinn,” she said, ready to give her pitch for Michael’s Shield.

  Owen cut in immediately. “Ms. Lake, I’m really busy today, so I’ll get right to the point.” His smile was placating. “We aren’t looking to buy, or buy into, any part of work from outside sources. However, if you leave your contact information and the summary of your idea, I’ll go over it when I have time. But I can’t promise you anything.”

  She knew it didn’t matter if she were a man or woman—he’d come to get rid of her. But she couldn’t just walk out without at least trying to change his mind. “Mr. Karr, Michael’s Shield is a revolutionary take on corporate cybersecurity. It’s the next step toward an almost perfect shutdown of attacks. If you could just see the data, I’m sure you’d be interested in participating when you see how viable it is.” Michael had coached her about what to say for the presentation, if she ever got to give one. Beyond that, she didn’t understand a whole lot about what her late husband had developed. She wished she did.

  “I’m sorry. I told you I might get time later on.” He stood, ready to end their meeting. “Best of luck with finding someone who can help you,” he said.

  She nodded, not even trying to find a smile as she gave him her card and the small packet with the overview of Michael’s Shield, then left. If she heard from Owen Karr again, it would be a miracle. Quinn didn’t believe in miracles much anymore.

  When she stepped into the elevator to head down to the parking garage, she was thankful that the car was already occupied by two women. She wouldn’t cry from frustration and disappointment in front of strangers. Instead, she pushed those emotions away as she reached to press the button for the lower-level parking garage. She faced the stainless steel doors as they closed and kept her eyes on her slightly distorted reflection in the polished metal.

  Wearing black pants, a white tailored shirt and gray blazer, with her blond hair pulled back in a twist, she looked serious. She was serious.

  Since Michael had died, she’d seriously been trying to keep a promise she’d made to him; she would do whatever it took to get his work in corporate cybersecurity recognized. She wouldn’t let Michael’s Shield go away just because Michael had. S.R. SoffTec was her ninth on a list of ten companies she’d thought might be interested in his work. It was also her ninth failure.

  When one of the two women behind her spoke with a Southern drawl, it caught Quinn’s attention. “I thought the boss was back for good, but now he’s taken off again.” The boss? Quinn looked beyond her own reflection in the polished door and saw the lady who was speaking. She was petite, in jeans and a plain white shirt, with a streak of bright green in her short brown hair. “I wish I’d known that before I went up to the twenty-first floor. I could’ve had sushi for lunch. Now it looks like a sandwich out of the machines.”

  The second woman was tall and thin, all in black from jeans to a turtleneck sweater, with curly gray hair around her pale face. She spoke in a slightly nasal tone. “You’d think someone on his staff would have sent a memo that he’s gone.”

  “Preston, in HR, said he’s heading to Wyoming until after the New Year. Owen Karr’s stepping in to take over.”

  A soft chime announced the tenth floor as the elevator came to a smooth stop and the doors slid open. The tall lady slipped past Quinn, and as she stepped into the corridor, she called back over her shoulder, “See you at the meeting,” before the doors shut.

  As the car continued down, Quinn moved to her right and took a full step back. That brought her almost even with the other woman. The instant she made eye contact, the woman smiled ruefully and drawled, “So, you were meeting with the VP?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The twentieth floor is Owen Karr’s territory.”

  “Yes, I met with him, but it turned out to be a waste of time.”

  “At least you talked to him,” the lady drawled. “All we got for our trouble on the twenty-first was a locked office.” The woman then answered a question that Quinn didn’t get a chance to ask. “Seems the boss has gone off to Wyoming for months, staying on some ranch up there.”

  Quinn didn’t hesitate to pin down who the boss the woman had r
eferred to was. “Figures. Owning the company and all, he’s loaded, so he’s probably heading to Jackson Hole.”

  The chime sounded for the first floor. “Being a billionaire has its perks,” the lady said on a slight chuckle. “But I heard he’s going to some small town farther east of there, closer to Cody.”

  The elevator stopped and the woman stepped toward the opening doors. Quinn was betting on her being enough of a gossip that she wouldn’t ignore a direct question if asked. “What town would Mr. Reagan be going to?”

  The lady paused, held the door open with her hand and looked back at Quinn. “Eclipse. I guess he lived there as a kid.”

  Bingo! “Well, I hope you get a decent lunch.”

  “So do I,” the woman said with feeling as she let go of the door and walked away.

  By the time the elevator arrived at the parking garage, Quinn had revised her plan of going from Seattle down to Denver where the last company on her list had its headquarters. Now that she knew where Seth Reagan was staying, she couldn’t walk away, not before she tried to find him and meet him face-to-face. As she headed over to her old gray VW Beetle, she took out her phone and did a search for Seth Reagan and Eclipse, Wyoming.

  It came up with an article from six years ago, and the only pictures attached to it were of the Seattle corporate headquarters called “The Tower.” The text chronicled his rags-to-riches story in the powerful tech world. It was about him being orphaned early in life but ending up a wealthy tech giant who dominated the world of cybersecurity development.

  Once in her car, she reread one paragraph. As a fifteen-year-old youth-at-risk, Reagan was assigned to the Eclipse Ridge Ranch, a group foster care facility north of the town of Eclipse, Wyoming. An appropriate starting point for his life at a place known for being one of the best spots to watch both lunar and solar eclipses. The tie-up line at the bottom of the article read, He certainly has “eclipsed” other great companies to become a brilliant star in his own right.

  As she started the car, Quinn smiled at the picture of Michael and herself that she kept clipped to the sun visor. They’d been at the beach in Southern California, near the historic Santa Monica Pier. They stood beside their Beetle with the vast Pacific behind them. Tall and tanned with his blond hair windblown, Michael had been grinning into the camera as he held her to his side. They both looked as if they owned the world.

  “I’m not giving up,” she whispered to the photo, then put Eclipse, Wyoming, into her phone’s GPS. The screen flashed and showed her the next stop in her journey was eight hundred and eighty miles to the east. She could be there in two and a half days. She felt better and more focused as she drove up the exit ramp behind a sleek black town car with heavily tinted windows. She followed it out onto the rain-slick Seattle streets.

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON on Seth’s third day back at the ranch. He was alone in the old red pickup truck that hadn’t been new when he’d first arrived at the ranch eighteen years ago. But it was still going, and it had a heater that worked. He was thankful for that as he drove down the county road toward the state highway.

  Since his return, every time he’d stepped outside, he’d been reminded how cold it could get in northern Wyoming in October. A fierce wind came and drove frigid air down from the foothills and across the lower valley. That wind was strong right then. He felt it hit the truck suddenly and literally push the vehicle sideways as he reached a blind curve half a mile from the highway entrance. Seth tried to get control but couldn’t before another gust hit the truck so hard he lost his hold on the steering wheel for a second and was pushed into the lane for oncoming traffic.

  “Stupid!” he yelled at himself, getting a hard grip on the wheel and putting all his strength behind an attempt to move over. He had known the blind curve was there, and he sure knew how much stronger the wind could get. The truck responded for a moment and he started drifting back into his lane. But his heart clenched when an old VW Beetle came out of nowhere heading right toward him. He leaned on the wheel hard, and then the small car was only a gray blur as it passed by him without making contact. His truck hit the gravel and dirt shoulder hard and came to a shuddering stop in a cloud of dust, dried pine needles and dead leaves.

  Seth sat back, releasing a harsh breath, his heart hammering. The truck could’ve flattened the VW if he’d been a moment later going to the right. Relieved, he twisted to look back over his shoulder and knew he might have stopped a head-on impact, but it wasn’t over. The pasture fencing was torn and broken on the other side of the pavement. Beyond the damage, a cloud of dirt and churned earth billowed into the wind, swirling crazily upward. He could barely make out the VW bouncing across the rough ground through the haze and it didn’t seem to be slowing down at all.

  He jumped out and sprinted, leaping to clear the torn fence. He ran after the car as it headed directly toward a stand of old pines. “Stop! Stop!” he screamed as loudly as he could. The car kept going, plowing full speed into the massive trunk of the first tree in its path.

  When Seth reached the VW, he was coughing from the dust and exhaust in the turbulent air. The car’s front hood was torn and compressed, the engine still running, and he heard a gasping voice coming from inside. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  Quickly, he bent down to look through the shattered driver’s-side window. The only occupant was a woman pressing her forehead to her hands that clutched the top of the steering wheel. Tangled golden blond hair hid her face, and he could barely make out her words. But she was alive and strong enough to keep talking in that unsteady voice. “This can’t be happening. It can’t.” Her shoulders under a gray hoodie trembled. “Not now. Please not now. Please. Please.”

  Relieved she was conscious, Seth said, “Ma’am?”

  There was sudden silence, then the woman slowly sat back to look over at him through the empty window frame. That’s when he saw the blood, running down from a ragged gash at her hairline above her left eye. Her face was unnaturally pale, making the bright crimson all the more horrifying.

  That was all Seth had to see. Quickly, he pulled his cell out of the pocket of his leather jacket, then punched in 911. “Don’t move, please.” There was blood everywhere. “I’m calling for help,” he said.

  She started blinking rapidly, then pressed an unsteady hand over her left eye. When the 911 dispatcher came on the line, Seth quickly gave the details and their location. Their ETA was twelve minutes. He put his phone away, thankful the wind was dying down and the dust was settling. He crouched by the shattered window to get a better look in at the woman.

  He thought she’d stopped crying, but he couldn’t be sure. Her whole body seemed to be trembling.

  “Help’s coming,” he said, worried she could go into shock. Thankfully, he’d taken an emergency first-aid course when he’d known he could be alone with Sarge at the ranch and would need to know what to do in a crisis situation. Pressure to stop the blood or at least lessen its flow was the first important step. “We need to get something on that wound.”

  “Yes, please, yes,” she whispered as she swiped at her chin with her free hand. The action only smeared more blood on her face.

  He straightened up, grabbed the door handle and pulled. It didn’t give at first, then it opened with a screech of metal on metal. Her car was still running, and he knew he needed to keep the heater going for her. With the engine in the back, he didn’t think that would be dangerous. He needed a thick pad to put on the wound, but he didn’t even have a single bandage in the truck. He had to improvise, and he could only think of one thing that he could repurpose to use on the wound.

  “Hold on,” he said as he straightened up and quickly took off his leather jacket to toss it onto the roof of the VW. He followed that with his navy thermal. Once he was down to his white T-shirt, he had that off in a second, but realized if he folded it in layers it would be far too big and thick.

&n
bsp; He quickly found the side seams and tore up each one, then ripped the neckband off. He tossed everything except the front section of the shirt up by his jacket, then folded and refolded the cotton into a reasonable facsimile of a medical pad. He crouched down to show it to the woman. “We need to get this on your wound. Close your eyes tightly, then try to push your hair out of the way for me.”

  She scrunched her eyes shut as she fumbled to get her hair back. When it was clear, Seth carefully eased the makeshift pad onto the nasty-looking gash. “You need to hold and apply the pressure yourself so you can gauge how much pain you can tolerate.”

  She shifted her left hand away from her hair and onto the folded shirt. As she held it in place, he saw a gold band on her ring finger that had been almost hidden by the blood on her hand. She winced, then looked out at him as he slowly stood. He noticed her blue eyes were clear when she looked up at him. “You…you’re going to…to freeze like that,” she said in a shaky voice.

  He hadn’t been aware of the cold until she pointed it out. “Yes, right,” he said and quickly reached for his thermal and jacket to put them back on. Then he crouched by her again. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay,” she said weakly, and he wasn’t certain if she was going to cry again or not. He’d never been good at handling a crying woman, especially if he was the reason for her tears. “I just never…you know, I didn’t expect this.”

  “That makes two of us,” he said. He’d been afraid with the blow to her head that she might be a bit out of it, but she seemed responsive and aware of what was going on. “Just relax. Help is on its way.”

  Unexpectedly, she shifted and reached out to him. Her hand was unsteady and blood-stained, but he took it without hesitating. “Help me get out,” she said in a faintly breathless voice.

  “You’re safe in the car, and you need to stay warm.” The last thing Seth wanted was for her to stand and pass out or go into shock. “Help will be here soon.”