Stranger in Cold Creek

by Paula Graves

  His hands were the least of Riley’s worries, but Heath kept that to himself. Besides, Riley didn’t give him a chance to say anything else. He lit out of there while growling out another “Stay” order.

  Heath would stay. For the morning anyway. But it was best if he put some distance between Anna and all those parts of him that could get him in trouble.

  He went back into the kitchen, got a hug and warm greeting from Stella this time, and the woman practically put him in one of the chairs at the table.

  “How do you like your eggs?” Della asked.

  “Any way you fix them.” Heath added a wink because he figured it would make her smile. It did.

  “Tell us what you’ve been doing with yourself for the past nine years or so,” Della said as she got to work at the stove. “I seem to recall when you left here that summer you were headed to boot camp.”

  Heath nodded, took a bite of the toast that Stella set in front of him. “I enlisted in the Air Force, became a pararescuer and took college classes online. When I finished my degree, I got my commission and became a combat rescue officer.”

  “Like Riley,” Stella said.

  “Yeah, but he outranks me.”

  “How is that? Didn’t you go in the Air Force before Riley did?”

  Heath nodded again. “Only a couple months earlier, though. We’ve been in the service about the same amount of time, but for most of that I was enlisted. I’ve only been an officer for three and a half years now. And Riley’s my boss. Well, until the rest of my paperwork has cleared. That should be about the time Riley leaves for his assignment in two weeks.”

  Della stopped scrambling the eggs to look at him. “You won’t be going with him?”

  There it was. That twist to the gut. Heath tried to ease it with some more toast and coffee, but that was asking a lot of mere food products. And Della and Stella noticed all right. He’d gotten their full attention.

  “No, I won’t be going with Riley this time,” Heath said.

  He still had their attention, and judging from their stares, the women wanted more. Heath gave them the sanitized version. “The Air Force feels it’s time for me to have a stateside assignment. It’s standard procedure. A way of making sure I don’t burn out.”

  His mouth was still moving and words were coming out, but Heath could no longer hear what he was saying. That’s because Anna walked in. Or maybe it was just a Mack Truck that looked like Anna because he suddenly felt as if someone had knocked him senseless.

  She’d changed out of her sweats and T-shirt. Had put on a bra, too. And was now wearing jeans and a red sweater. Heath tried not to notice the way the clothes hugged her body. Tried not to notice her curves. Her face.

  Hell, he gave up and noticed.

  Not that he could have done otherwise. Especially when Anna poured herself a cup of coffee, sat down next to him and glanced at his crotch.

  “Back to normal?” she whispered. Then she gave him a smile that could have dissolved multiple layers of rust on old patio furniture. Dissolved a few of his brain cells, too. “So, did Riley try to give you your marching orders?”

  Since Della and Stella got very, very quiet, Heath figured they were hanging on every word, so he chose his own words carefully and spoke loud enough for the women to hear. “Something came up—”

  Anna glanced at his crotch again and laughed. Obviously, a reaction she hadn’t planned because she clamped her teeth onto her bottom lip after adding “I’m sorry.” Too late, though. Because Della and Stella weren’t just hanging on every word but every ill-timed giggle, too.

  “Well, I’m sure whatever came up—” Della paused “—you can work it out so you can stay here for at least a couple of days. That way, Anna and you have time to visit.”

  “Especially since Anna needs some cheering up,” Stella added.

  Anna certainly didn’t laugh that time. She got a deer-about-to-be-smashed-by-a-car look. “I’m fine, really,” Anna mumbled.

  Which only confirmed to Heath that she did indeed need some cheering up. Maybe this had to do with the “change of scenery or something” she’d mentioned upstairs.

  Well, hell.

  There went his fast exit, and no, that wasn’t the wrong part of his body talking, either. If Anna was down, he wanted to help lift her up.

  Stella dished up two plates of eggs for Anna and him, and she smiled at them when she set them on the table. “You two were as thick as thieves back in the day.” She snapped her fingers as if recalling something. “Anna, Heath even gave you that heart necklace you used to wear all the time. It had your and his pictures in it.”

  Hard to forget that. Heath referred to it as the great engraved debacle. He’d spent all his money buying Anna that silver heart locket as a going-away gift. Something to remember him by after he left Spring Hill and the McCord Ranch. It was supposed to be engraved with the words Be Mine.

  The engraver had screwed up and had put Be My instead.

  Since Heath hadn’t had the time to get it fixed, he’d given it to Anna anyway, but he hadn’t figured she would actually wear it. Not with that confusing, incomplete sentiment.

  “Where is that necklace?” Della asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Anna answered, and she got serious about eating her breakfast. Fast. Like someone who’d just entered a breakfast-eating contest with a reprieve from a death sentence waiting for the winner.

  Della made a sound that could have meant anything, but it had a sneaky edge to it. “I think Heath needs some cheering up, too,” Della went on. “And not because Riley was going on about that shovel. That boy needs to get a new threat, by the way,” she added to her sister before looking at Anna again. “I get the feeling Heath could use somebody to talk to.”

  Heath suddenly got very serious about eating his breakfast, as well. Either Della had ESP, or Heath sucked at covering up what was going on in his head.

  Anna finished gulping down her breakfast just a bite ahead of him, gulped down some coffee, too, and she probably would have headed out if Stella hadn’t taken her empty breakfast plate and given her a plate of cookies instead.

  “I need you to take these cookies over to Claire Davidson at her grandmother’s house.”

  “Claire’s back in town?” Anna asked, sounding concerned.

  Heath knew Claire. She’d been around a lot that summer he’d worked at the McCord Ranch, and if he wasn’t mistaken Claire had a thing for Riley. And vice versa.

  “Her grandmother’s sickly again. Thought they could use some cheering up, too.” Della shifted her attention to Heath. “And you can go with Anna. Then maybe she could show you around town.”

  “Spring Hill hasn’t changed in nine and a half years,” Anna quickly pointed out.

  “Pshaw. That’s not true. The bakery closed for one thing. And Logan bought that building and turned it into a fancy-schmancy office. It has a fancy-schmancy sign that says McCord Cattle Brokers. You can’t miss it.”

  Logan—one of Anna’s other brothers who ran the family business and probably also owned a shovel. Ditto for Logan’s twin, Lucky. At least the two of them didn’t stay at the ranch very often, so Heath might not even run into them. Well, he wouldn’t as long as he avoided the fancy-schmancy office and any of the local rodeos since Lucky was a bull rider.

  “I thought I’d go out and see if the ranch hands needed any help,” Heath suggested.

  That earned him a blank stare from the women. “You don’t have to work for your keep while you’re here,” Stella said. “You’re a guest.”

  “I know, but I like working with my hands. I miss it.” He did. Not as much as he’d miss other things—like having the job he really wanted—but grading on a curve here, ranch work was missable.

  “All right, then,” Della finally conceded. “At least walk Anna
to the truck. There might be some ice on the steps. We had a cold spell move in.”

  “Now, go,” Stella said, shooing them out. “Della and I need to clean up, and we can’t do that with y’all in here.”

  This wasn’t about cleaning. This was about matchmaking. Still, Heath grabbed his coat so he could make sure Anna didn’t slip on any ice. He only hoped Anna didn’t ask why he needed cheering up, and he would return the favor and not ask her the same thing.

  “So, why do you need cheering up?” Anna asked the moment they were outside.

  He groaned, not just at the question but also because it was at least fifty degrees with zero chance of ice.

  “Is it personal or business?” she added.

  “Is yours personal or business?” he countered.

  She stayed quiet a moment and instead of heading toward one of the trucks parked on the side of the house, she sat down in the porch swing. “Both. You?”

  “Both,” he repeated. But then he stopped and thought about her answer. “Yours is personal, as in guy troubles?”

  For some reason that made him feel as if he’d been hit by the Anna-truck again. Which was stupid. Because of course she had men in her life. Heath just wasn’t sure he wanted to hear about them.

  She nodded to verify that it was indeed guy trouble.

  No, he didn’t want to hear this, so he blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. He probably should have waited for the second or third thing, though.

  “I had a girl break up with me once because I kept calling her your name,” he said.

  “My name?” She didn’t seem to know how to react to that.

  “Uh, no. I kept saying your name because I couldn’t remember her name.” And he added a wink that usually charmed women.

  But, of course, it’d been Anna’s name. The way stuff about her often popped into his head, her name had a way of just popping out of his mouth.

  “Any other confessions you want to get off your chest and/or six-pack?” she asked. And she winked at him.

  Man, that’s what he’d always liked about Anna. She gave as good as she got. “Let me see. I don’t wear boxers or briefs. I like mayo and pepper on my French fries. And my mother’s in jail again.”

  All right, so that last one just sort of fell from his brain into his mouth.

  Anna didn’t question the again part. Maybe because she remembered the reason he’d ended up at the McCord Ranch all those years ago was that his mother had been in jail then, as well.

  In jail only after she’d stolen and spent every penny of the money that Heath had scrimped and saved for college. She’d also burned down their rental house with all his clothes and stuff still in it.

  Heath had snapped up Riley’s offer of a job and a place to stay—since at the time Heath had had neither. His father hadn’t been in his life since he was in kindergarten, and what with him being broke and homeless, he’d had few places to turn.

  If it hadn’t been for his jailbird mom, he would have never met Anna. So, in a way he owed her.

  In a very roundabout way.

  “Want to talk about why your mom’s in jail?” Anna asked.

  Well, since he’d opened this box, Heath emptied the contents for her. “Shoplifting Victoria’s Secret panties. She’d stuffed about fifty pairs in her purse—guess they don’t take up much room—and when the security guard tried to stop her, she kicked him where it hurts. Then she did the same to the manager of the store next door. Then to the off-duty cop who tried to stop her. My mom can be a real butt-kicker when it comes to high-end underwear.”

  Anna smiled, a quiet kind of smile. “I do that, too, sometimes.”

  “What?” And Heath hoped this wasn’t about butt-kicking or stealing panties.

  “Diffuse the pain with humor. I’m not very good at it, either. Pain sucks.”

  Yeah, it did, and he thought he knew exactly what she was talking about. “You lost your parents when you were a teenager.”

  “Yes, they were killed in a car accident before you and I met. I was fourteen, and I thought my world was over. That was still the worst of the world’s over moments, but I’ve had others since.”

  “Is that why you need cheering up?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. Anna stood. “I should deliver these cookies before the ice gets to them.”

  Heath put his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t touch her as she walked away. Not that he would have had a chance to do any touching. Because someone pulled up in a truck. Not a work truck, either. This was a silver one that Della would have labeled as fancy schmancy. It went well with the cowboy who stepped from it.

  Logan McCord.

  The top dog at the McCord Ranch and the CEO of McCord Cattle Brokers. He made a beeline for the porch, passing Anna along the way. She said something to him, something Heath couldn’t hear, but it put a deep scowl on Logan’s face.

  “Smart-ass,” he grumbled. “She threatened to hit me with Riley’s shovel if I didn’t make you feel welcome. So—welcome.”

  Warm and fuzzy it wasn’t, but at least it wasn’t a threat. Not yet anyway.

  “Riley called,” Logan continued. “He said I was to come over here and convince you to stay.”

  “Because of Anna, Della and Stella.”

  Logan certainly didn’t deny that, and his gaze drifted to Anna as she drove away before his attention turned back to Heath. “You’re only going to be here two weeks at most, and then you’ll leave, right?”

  Since that pretty much summed it up, Heath nodded.

  “Well, the last time you did that, it took Anna a long time to get over you. Months,” Logan emphasized. “We all had to watch her cry her eyes out.”

  Hell. Crying? Months? This was the first Heath was hearing about this, but then he hadn’t been around to see those tears. He’d been off at basic training at Lackland Air Force Base. He’d written her, of course. In the beginning at least. She’d written back to him, too, but she damn sure hadn’t mentioned tears.

  Logan took a step closer, got in his face. So close that Heath was able to determine that he used mint mouthwash and flossed regularly. “You won’t hurt my kid sister like that again.”

  “The shovel threat?” Heath asked, aiming to make this sound as light as a confrontation with Logan could be. Heath wasn’t sure friendly bones in a person’s body actually existed, but if they did, Logan didn’t have any.

  “Worse. I’ll tell Della and Stella what you’ve done and let them have a go at you. If you piss them off, the shovel will be the least of your worries.”

  Heath didn’t doubt that. In fact, the whole McCord clan would come after him if he left Anna crying again. And that meant Anna was way off-limits.

  He’d survived months in hostile territory. But Heath thought that might be a picnic compared to the next two weeks with Anna and the McCord brothers.

  Chapter Three

  HEATH HAD BEEN avoiding her for the past three days. Anna was certain of it. And she was fed up with it, partly because if Heath avoided her, it was like letting her knot-headed brothers win.

  The other partly was that she couldn’t get him off her mind, and she didn’t know what riled her more—her brothers’ winning or her own body whining and begging for something it shouldn’t get.

  Shouldn’t.

  Because another fling with Heath would only complicate her life and possibly get her heart stomped on again. That was the logical, big-girl panties argument, but the illogical, no-underwear girl wanted Heath in the hayloft again.

  And the hayloft was exactly where she spotted him.

  He was standing in the loft, tossing down bales of hay onto a flatbed truck that was parked just beneath. He was all cowboy today: jeans, a blue work shirt, Stetson, boots. Oh, and he was sweaty despite
the chillier temps.

  She wasn’t sure why the sweat appealed to her, but then she didn’t see a single thing about him that didn’t fall into the appeal category.

  Anna stood there ogling him, as she’d done in the bedroom, and she kept on doing it until his attention landed on her. Since she should at least make an attempt at not throwing herself at him, she went to the nearby corral and looked at the horses that’d been delivered earlier. It wasn’t exactly the right day for horse ogling, though, because the wind had a bite to it.

  An eternity later, which was possibly only a couple of minutes, the ranch hands drove off with the hay, and Heath made his way down the loft ladder. Then he made his way toward her.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said. All right, she should have rehearsed this or something. For a soon-to-be lawyer, she was seriously lacking in verbal finesse when it came to Heath.

  “Yeah,” he admitted in that hot drawl of his. And he admitted the reason, too. “Your brothers are right. I’m not here for long, and they said you cried a lot the last time I left.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and the outrage didn’t allow her to snap out a comeback. But her brothers were dead meat. Dead. Meat.

  “They told you that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I didn’t cry. That much,” Anna added.

  Heath lifted his eyebrow, went to her side and put his forearms on the corral fence. “The fact that you cried at all tells me that I should keep avoiding you.”

  “Should?” she challenged.

  He cursed, looked away from her. “You know I’m attracted to you. You saw proof of that in the bedroom.”

  She had, indeed. “And you know I’m attracted to you.”

  There, she’d thrown down the sexual gauntlet. But it caused him to curse again.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

  “And I don’t want to get hurt—”