“Like I said before, let him come. I’d rather get him up here and meet him on my territory.” He raised a hand when she opened her mouth to speak. “But for now, I’ll go along with your plan to lay low. I need to have a word with my foreman, then we’ll take care of your car.”
She watched Eli cross the yard toward the barn. Even his walk was self-assured and confident. She’d always taken care of herself—that had been a necessity as the daughter of self-absorbed parents—so relying on someone else should have been disconcerting. But though she might not like to admit it, Eli’s utter confidence in his ability to protect them soothed her, made her feel a little less alone.
Not wanting to dwell on unwelcome emotions, she entered the house as Cameron shuffled down the stairs, the little dog Oreo following at his heels. The t-shirt Eli had loaned him came to his knees and he’d pulled on grubby jeans. One of her first priorities once she had her car was tackling their dirty laundry. He looked sleep rumpled, hair sticking up in back, which reminded Gwen that he’d soon need a trim. He reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up at her, expression troubled. She ran a hand through his bangs, brushing them back from his forehead. “You okay, bub?”
Deep gray eyes so like his uncle’s looked back at her. “I miss my mom.”
“I know you do. I miss her, too.”
“Can I have a hug?”
“Of course. Let’s sit down here.” She sat on a step, pulling him down onto her lap. He tucked his head under her chin, and she held him close, rubbing his back. She needed the contact as much as he did to help combat those moments when images of Chloe, her blood soaking onto the tile, popped into her brain. Oreo nosed Cam’s hand, then the sweet dog closed his eyes when Cameron stroked his head.
“Why’d my mom have to die?” His voice wobbled and he swiped a hand under his eyes.
She heard the door open and looked over Cameron’s head to see Eli step into the house. He stood inside the door, gaze riveted on them. She returned her attention to the child in her lap and bent her head over his. “I don’t know, Cameron. She shouldn’t have died. Justin shouldn’t have killed her. I’m going to do my best to make sure he goes to jail.”
He gave a mighty sniffle. “All right.”
“You okay for now?”
He nodded, then lifted his head to place a wet kiss on her jaw. “I love you, Aunt Gwenny. You always make me better.”
She kissed him back, then boosted him to his feet. He spied the man standing stock-still at the door. “Hi, Uncle Eli.”
The subdued greeting told her he still wasn’t sure about his uncle. Eli crossed the entryway and surprised Gwen by dropping down to sit next to her. He focused on the boy. “Cameron, I’m glad you and Gwen came to me. I’d been worried about you, and it was the right thing to do. You being here means I can keep you safe.”
Cameron nodded, his gaze intent on his uncle’s face. “Justin might try to kill us. He killed my mom.” His voice wavered but the tears remained at bay.
“You’re safe here with me, and if Justin does come here looking for you, we’ll be ready for him.” He paused. “But I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“No matter what you’re doing or where you are, I want you to keep an eye out. Kids see a lot that adults don’t notice. Anything looks odd to you, or isn’t how it should be, don’t mess around. Find me or find Gwen and tell us. You can also tell Ben Cutter.” He glanced at Gwen, then back. “I’ll introduce both of you to him and the other guys later. Ben’s got a couple of kids about your age you’d probably like to meet.” Eli paused, expression serious. “You okay being here with me, Cameron?”
Cameron nodded. “Do you have Cheerios?”
Eli flashed a grin that had Gwen clearing her throat.
“Yeah, I do. How about I set you up with Cheerios and you can watch the little TV in the kitchen while you eat. Your Aunt Gwenny and I need to get her car. Will you be okay on your own for a half hour?” He paused while Cameron considered the offer. When the child nodded, Eli rose to his feet and put a hand on his shoulder.
Gwen watched them walk together to the kitchen, the little dog trailing behind, and for the first time admitted to herself what she’d buried deep behind the hurt caused by his judgmental disregard. Elijah MacElvoy pulled at her in ways she found hard to define. All except the obvious one.
With a keen mind and a body honed by hard work, the man exuded a magnetism that made her want to ignore all the warning signals and dive headfirst without even bothering to check the depth.
Chapter Five
A tall, lanky man with jet black hair under a white cowboy hat approached the house, trailed by Bubba and a German shepherd. He tipped his head to Eli. “Boss.”
“Cut it out. Gwendolyn, this is Ben Cutter. He’s foreman and he knows the situation. The other guys call me boss, but not Ben.”
She shook the hand Ben offered. “It’s Gwen.”
“Glad you and the boy are safe, ma’am.”
“Me too.”
“My two kids are anxious to meet Cameron whenever he’s up and around.”
“He’s having breakfast, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to meet them.”
“Our house is over there.” He gestured beyond the barn to a small white-trimmed house with a tidy yard. “My wife Daisy works in Hangman’s Loss, so you’ll meet her when she gets home in the late afternoon.” The shepherd crossed to Gwen and nosed around her feet. She lowered a hand, and once he’d sniffed her fingers, she ran her hand over his head.
“And this is Milo,” Ben added.
Eli pulled keys out of his pocket. “I’m going with Gwen to get her car. If it needs it, I’ll tow it over to the shop.”
Ben nodded. “I’ve got Jed and JD over in the south pasture, moving those cattle to the lower meadow.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “And they’ll check the fence line.”
Gwen watched some sort of silent communication pass between the two men.
Eli frowned, then gave a curt nod and turned to Gwen. “You have your keys?”
She nodded, and followed him to his truck, resolutely ignoring the rumbling in her empty stomach. There were granola bars in her car.
Within minutes she was seated beside Eli in an older charcoal-gray pickup, traveling back down the gravel road she and Cameron had walked up the night before. In the daylight, she saw what had been hidden by dark. The Broken Arrow Ranch looked prosperous.
The barn and other buildings were well tended, and wide pastures dotted with cattle stretched across the valley, making her wonder how much of the land belonged to the ranch. The winding course of the creek snaked through the meadows, marked by tall trees. They weren’t the pines of the higher elevations, but deciduous trees with leaves colored the bright green of early summer.
She tilted her head to peer at the icy, snow-tipped peaks of the high Sierras, dark gray granite glinting through the white snow on the sheer faces. “Do you know how lucky you are?”
Eli turned to look at her, raised brow disappearing under the dark hat.
“In what context?”
She gestured out the window. “You get to see this every day.”
He glanced across the valley to the mountains. “Yeah, I appreciate it. That’s why I chose to stay.” He cast a look at her. “I’m surprised.”
“At what?”
“That you’d think I’m fortunate to live here.”
“Who wouldn’t think that?”
He shrugged. “Most people think, ‘Hey, that’s beautiful.’ But they’re perfectly content to have a good look and then go home to their house in the suburbs.”
She shook her head. “Maybe some people. But I think you’d be surprised how many people would give up a lot of conveniences if they could live in someplace half this beautiful. Many won’t move because they don’t know how they’d make a living.”
“What about you? There are teaching positions all over the place but you chose to stay in the Los Angeles ar
ea. You could have picked someplace else to live if you’d wanted.” He shot her a glance and shrugged wide shoulders. “You might like it for a little while, but there’s not much opportunity to socialize out here. Once the novelty wore off you’d head back to the city.”
She shouldn’t be surprised by the comment. Eli had always been quick to judge, looking on the surface and making snap judgments, not bothering to reconsider whatever pigeonhole he’d tucked her into.
“Yeah, that’s me. Missing the nightlife already.”
He waited a beat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. When she didn’t go on, he spoke. “Okay, then why did you stay?”
She debated whether to tell him the truth or let him continue with his misconceptions. Letting him think the worst about her since Chloe had first introduced them had been Gwen’s petty victory. His attitude had hurt, and letting his assumptions stand had been her way of showing she didn’t care. Now that all seemed so trivial.
“I stayed because Chloe and Cameron needed me. When she married Justin, I thought she’d be okay, and I could explore moving out of the city. My teaching position for the past two years was only temporary so I’ve been putting in applications out of the area. I was offered a contract in San Luis Obispo, but then things started to go south between Chloe and Justin so I didn’t take the position. Now I don’t have a job, which makes my chances of gaining custody of Cameron that much more difficult.”
He slowed to a stop when they reached the highway, expression thoughtful. “You’re serious about wanting custody.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say anything more, and Gwen had the unsettling foreboding that he’d fight her for Cameron. He steered onto the paved road and when he spotted her car, pulled the truck behind it and cut off the engine. Her sporty little Honda looked forlorn.
They got out of the truck and she pressed the remote to unlock her car.
Eli shrugged out of his coat and tossed it in the cab of the truck. “Pop the hood and I’ll take a look.”
Gwen pulled the release, then went to stand beside him as he raised the hood and set the supporting bar. He handed her his hat. “Hold this.” He bent over the engine compartment and Gwen thought he looked like he knew what he was about so she went to the back and opened the trunk. With no other place to put his hat, she set it on her head and rummaged through a bag.
Grabbing a granola bar and a water bottle, she returned to stand beside Eli where he was fiddling with something. She found herself staring. He was a disturbing man. Or, more accurately, he disturbed her. Maybe not handsome in the conventional sense, something about him pulled at her and always had. He lifted a hose and his long-fingered hands flexed, tendons in his forearms cording below where he’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He reached to the back of the engine compartment and the movement caused his shirt to pull away from his jeans, exposing a swath of tan skin over rippling muscle. Stretching farther revealed a strip of pale skin above his belt. The tan lines showed that while he’d spent time without a shirt, he certainly hadn’t sunbathed in the nude.
She swallowed convulsively. She didn’t want to imagine him working outside, shirtless, low-slung jeans hugging his hips. His sudden stillness had her winging her gaze back to his. Flint-colored eyes stared into hers, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew where her thoughts had strayed.
“You hungry?”
Warmth started up her neck to spread across her cheeks. She took a hasty step back and shook her head.
He straightened, eyes glinting. “I didn’t mean that kind of hungry.” He gestured toward the granola bar she held.
“I’m fine.” When he didn’t turn back to the engine, she scowled at him. “Stop looking at me like that, Eli.”
“Like what?”
Like she was berry sherbet on a hot summer day and he wanted to gobble her up in one greedy slurp. And she was having a hard time telling herself she wanted nothing to do with that image. Reaching out, he tipped up the hat brim to expose her face. “Remember, sweetheart, you were looking at me first.”
“We’re going to forget this conversation. Now, about my car, is there anything obviously wrong with it?”
He waited a beat before speaking. “No. Was it giving you any trouble before it quit?”
She shook her head, then held up a hand when he opened his mouth to speak. “And before you say it, I did not run out of gas. I had filled the tank in Bishop.”
He stared at the engine, hands on hips. “Try starting it.”
Gwen tossed his hat onto the passenger seat but before she could put the key in the ignition, the sound of an approaching vehicle had her looking up the road. Her stomach clenched. A white SUV approached, a red and blue light bar spanning the roof. “Eli, he can’t run my plates.”
He moved to stand beside her, expression thoughtful. “Right. Okay, then play along.”
The vehicle pulled over in front of Gwen’s Honda, Hangman’s Loss Police Department emblazoned on the side. The door swung open and a tall man with shoulders wide enough to get him into the NFL stepped out, settling a trooper’s hat over dense black hair. He approached, hooking his thumbs in a cop belt. The name embroidered over his uniform shirt pocket read “Morgan.” He gave a curt nod. “Eli.”
“Jack.”
Gwen felt the officer’s gaze traveling over her before he turned his attention back to Eli. She shifted, aware of undercurrents passing between the two men. Eli stepped closer and draped an arm around her shoulders. Gwen did her best to contain her surprise and thought she might not have succeeded when the officer narrowed his eyes. Silence stretched when it became clear Eli wasn’t going to introduce her.
“Car trouble?”
Fingers tightening on her shoulder kept her quiet when she sucked in a breath to reply. Tucked against Eli’s side, she felt the rumble in his chest when he spoke. “Nothing I can’t take care of. Investigating crime out here, Jack?”
“That’s my job. Got a call from the campground up the valley of shots fired. By the time I got there nobody would ‘fess up to having a firearm.” He paused, gaze continuing to track from Eli to Gwen. “You been hunting without a license?”
“No, and I haven’t heard any shots either. Anything else?”
When the officer’s gaze settled on her again, Gwen fought the urge to fidget.
“Who’s your friend?”
“My girlfriend. She’s staying with me for a few weeks.”
Jack’s gaze sharpened, a dark expression crossing his face. “Didn’t know you had a girlfriend.” He stared hard at Eli. “Make sure she drives safe. Wouldn’t want her to end up wrapped around some tree. That can be deadly.”
The arm around Gwen’s shoulders transmitted the tension tightening like a spring in Eli’s body. The officer held his gaze, and for a second she thought Eli was going to punch him, let loose with that coiled energy and punch the other man. But then the officer gave her an abrupt nod and returned to his vehicle.
He climbed in and cast a glance back at them. Gwen felt Eli press warm lips to her hair. He kept his arm around her shoulders until the other man had driven away.
Gwen looked up when Eli finally dropped his arm and put a step of distance between them. “What was that about? I thought you two were going to end up in a fistfight.”
“Past history.”
“No kidding, but why the ruse about me being your girlfriend?”
“It makes sense on a couple of levels. He’s less likely to run your plates if you’re with me. And it explains you staying at the ranch without raising questions about who you are.”
“Except he didn’t look too convinced.”
“Jack acts like an asshole most of the time, and he accomplishes that skill with as little effort as possible. Generally, he steers clear of me.” He turned back to the exposed engine. “Try starting it up.”
Gwen sat behind the wheel, put in the key, and turned it. The car started with its usual gentle purr. She narrowed her eye
s at Eli’s bland look. “It wouldn’t start last night.”
“No doubt.”
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
Humor lurked behind the gray eyes. “Could be the fuel pump. Symptoms sound right.” He moved to stand in the open door, arm resting on the roof of the car. “Turn it off and see if it starts again.”
She did as he directed, and when the car once again started, he leaned forward. “I’ll follow you back to the ranch. Jed can take a look. The guy could make an Edsel run like a dream. If you need a new pump, we can see if the auto shop in town carries them for this model car. Might need to be ordered, though.”
Gwen nodded her agreement and waited for Eli to get in the truck before easing out onto the road for the short drive. She should be worrying about how to pay for the fuel pump, but instead she couldn’t get past her reaction to Eli claiming her as his girlfriend. She thought she’d hidden her response pretty well, but having him hold her close, and then kiss her, even if it had only been on the top of her head, so closely following that moment when he’d looked all sexy under the hood of the car, and she felt like she’d been tossed into a churning sea of emotions.
No, not emotions, she decided. Hormones. Hormones were much safer than emotions. She’d had a long dry spell of being man-less, and her hormones were rising in protest, that was all.
A glance in the rearview mirror showed Eli close behind her. Since his hat was on the seat next to her, she could see the lock of hair falling across his forehead. She didn’t know why that should appeal to her, but it did, and made her want to run her fingers through that thick brown mass. Dry spell? Now that she’d thought of it, it had been a dry year. Make that a drought. She was in a man-less drought.
Why though? Certainly, part of it was she’d been so busy with work she’d hardly had time to date. The last couple months had been all about making sure the classroom was ready for the permanent teacher’s return and putting out job applications. Now that she thought about it, she’d hardly missed going out.
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