Colton's Ranch Refuge

by Beth Cornelison

  Beneath her, Gunnar’s leg jostled as he bounced his heel in agitation.

  Fine. Enough. She’d spoken her mind. Pressing her hand over his heart, she whispered, “At least think about what I’ve said. You deserve to be happy.”

  He continued staring across the yard, but he gave a small nod.

  Her heart aching for him, Violet curled her fingers into his shirt and snuggled her head against his shoulder. “Has Derek mentioned how Rani’s feeling? I hope she’s better in time for Thanksgiving.”

  She felt Gunnar’s muscles relax when she changed topics, and she prayed something she’d said had gotten through to him.

  Please God, let him get help. He’s hurt long enough.

  * * *

  Violet shifted her weight on his lap restlessly, and Gunnar gritted his teeth. He added holding Violet on his lap to the long list of poor choices he’d made recently. Having her soft bottom snuggled intimately against his groin, the scent of her body lotion cuddled right under his nose and her hand resting on his chest were enough to make a priest break his celibacy vows. After hearing her enumerate all the reasons they were wrong for each other last night, he’d sworn to himself to keep his hands off her. And as she’d just so clearly pointed out, she thought he needed help. She didn’t need to get tangled up with an ex-soldier who had so much garbage to deal with. Too complicated, she’d said last night. And sex would only complicate things more. As much as they both liked their kiss, pursuing the physical attraction between them was off the table.

  So why had he planted himself on the front porch with her perched in his lap, her sweet-smelling body rubbing him in all the right ways? Clearly he did need his head examined.

  She moved again, nestling deeper in the quilt and grinding her tush against his growing arousal. “Can you believe Thanksgiving is next week? Where does the time go?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “Hard to believe.” Gunnar tightened his hands into fists, fighting the urge to ravage Violet right there on his front porch. He cleared his throat and tried to redirect his thoughts. “By the way, Emma wanted me to ask you and the boys to join us for—” Gunnar paused when he noticed Mason staring at something in the woods “—Thanksgiving dinner.”

  He shifted his gaze to study the line of trees wondering what had caught the boy’s attention. A bird? An animal?

  “We’d love to. Tell her thank you. Or I will. I can call her...”

  A light flashed in the brush about one hundred yards away from where the boys played. Gunnar tensed and narrowed his gaze, trying to decipher what he’d seen.

  “Gunnar, what is it?” Violet asked.

  The flicker of light came again, a reflection of sunlight on metal. A gun?

  His adrenaline spiked, and not wasting time with questions, he lunged from the chair.

  “Get down!” He twisted his body to put himself between Violet and the gun.

  She gasped as he dropped to the porch with her, covering her with his body. She gave a small cry of pain when he crushed her under his weight. “Wh-what is it?”

  He raised his head to search the wood for another flash—from a muzzle—and his eye snagged on the twins, sitting like ducks on a pond, vulnerable, exposed.

  Hell! He had to get to them. But to do so would leave Violet unprotected. And she was, no doubt, the target. Because she could identify the Amish girls’ kidnappers.

  No time to debate.

  “Get inside! Even if you have to crawl,” he barked.

  “But my boys—!”

  “Go!” he shouted and scrambled off the porch toward the twins. As he ran stumbling down the steps to grab the kids, the trees rustled. In the woods, a dark-clad figure took off running.

  Acting on instinct, prodded by the fury that some punk would dare to trespass on his land and threaten Violet and her boys, Gunnar gave chase. He raced toward the woods, slapping branches out of his face as he plunged into the line of trees. His gaze swung back and forth, searching for the man he’d seen. He glimpsed a gray coat retreating into the woods and charged after it. Pounding through the dense foliage and underbrush, Gunnar ignored the clawing vines and grabbing branches. His focus, his mission was clear.

  Every step brought him closer to the intruder. The man struggled through the undergrowth, burdened with a large bag and dragging a piece of equipment with him. A tripod?

  Pouring on every ounce of anger and protective energy, Gunnar closed the gap between them and caught the back of the man’s coat. With a vicious tug, he brought the thug to a stumbling stop and threw him to the ground.

  “You son of a bitch!” Gunnar panted, dropping to his knees beside his quarry and seizing the man’s collar in a choking grasp. Gunnar reared his arm back, his hand balled in a fist.

  The man raised both arms to protect his face. “No, stop! I’m leaving! I—”

  Shaking with unspent adrenaline, Gunnar kept his fist drawn back, ready to pummel the man within an inch of his life. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t bust your chops?”

  “Take it easy! I won’t use the pictures. I swear!” the guy sniveled.

  “Pictures?” The word cut through the red haze of Gunnar’s fury. He looked at the equipment the guy had been hauling with him and frowned. The tripod had a camera attached to it, not a rifle. Knowing that the man had been shooting pictures rather than bullets should have been a relief, but disgust for the man’s invasion of Violet’s privacy snaked through Gunnar’s veins. Releasing the man, he snatched up the tripod and swung it like a baseball bat at the nearest tree.

  “No!” the photographer shouted as the camera smashed into small pieces.

  To be sure the guy couldn’t use any of the pictures he’d snapped, Gunnar picked up the battered camera, pried out the memory card, and shoved it in his pocket.

  “That was a two thousand dollar camera!”

  Turning back to the intruder, he hauled him to his feet and slammed him against a wide tree trunk. “You’re lucky I don’t do the same to your head.”

  He glowered at the jerk, and the guy’s face paled.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a fr-freelance photographer.”

  Gunnar scowled and grated, “Obviously. What’s your name?”

  “What’s it to you?” The guy must have had a death wish.

  Gunnar tightened his hold on the man’s collar so that the creep struggled to breathe. “What’s your name?” he repeated through gritted teeth.

  “Frank Greeley,” he rasped.

  Given a response, Gunnar loosened his grip on Greeley’s collar. “How did you know Violet was here?”

  The photographer lifted his chin and set his jaw. “I have my ways.”

  Grinding his back teeth together, Gunnar jammed his nose in the other man’s face. “How did you find her?”

  Greeley winced. “I...I saw her leave the clinic. I—I’d parked across the street and...wrote down the license p-plate number of the Suburban. Had a buddy in the DMV run it.”

  Gunnar narrowed his eyes. “So you cased the ranch, spying on my family, until you saw her here at my cabin? Is that it?”

  The photographer had the good sense not to answer.

  “In all your digging for information, did you also learn that the owners of this ranch include an FBI agent, a Philadelphia cop and a retired Special Forces soldier?”

  The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “What?”

  Gunnar tugged on Greeley’s shirt so that the guy’s feet almost left the ground. “I know twenty-five ways to kill you without a weapon. Only half of them are instant. The rest would be quite painful.”

  The photographer curled his lip, posturing, even though his eyes were wide and his complexion drained of color. “Is that a threat?”

  Gunnar snorted derisively. “You bet it is. Get off my land and stay off. If I see you within a mile of Violet and her boys or any of my family again, I’ll finish what I started today. Got it?” When the guy didn’t answer, Gunnar gave him a little shake. “Got it?”
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  Greeley gulped. “Yeah.”

  He let the photographer go, thrusting him away and taking a step back. His body still hummed with rage and tension, and he drew a few slow breaths, trying to calm his pulse as the photographer collected his bag and edged away. Gunnar flexed and balled his fists, itching to hit something. When the intrusive cameraman was a safe distance away, Gunnar released the knot of fury and frustration tangled in his gut. With a roar, he smacked his fist into a tree.

  Pain ripped up his arm and ricocheted through his body. He’d probably broken his hand, but at least he hadn’t shoved the photographer’s nasal bone into his brain or snapped the guy’s neck. If the intruder had been packing a weapon instead of a camera, if the man had harmed Violet or her twins in any way, Gunnar would have hurt the guy without regret. Nobody messed with his family.

  Shaking to his core, Gunnar sucked in another cleansing breath. His family? Violet and her boys weren’t his family. Why had he had such a strong visceral reaction, such a powerful compulsion to protect them when he’d seen the guy lurking in the woods?

  Because you care about them. Because you want them to be your family. The answer that rolled through his head rattled him. He was getting too involved with Violet, and that wouldn’t do.

  His heart thumped hard and fast against his ribs. With a shudder, he sank to his knees and flexed his hand, testing it. Okay, maybe it wasn’t broken, but it hurt like hell. Either way, he had to pull himself together before he went back to the cabin. Violet didn’t need to know how close to the edge he was—not after last night. She was already nagging him to see a counselor.

  He shut his eyes, trying to regulate his breathing, but the sights and sounds of war he’d been running from since coming back to Eden Falls lurked behind his closed eyes. His buddies’ warning shouts, the concussion of the marketplace blast, the blank stares of the dead. And the lifeless little boy...

  He shook his head viciously, trying to clear the disturbing image. He’d thought he was making progress in putting the bombing behind him. But babysitting Violet’s boys this week had been a wrenching reminder of the innocence of children, the Afghan boy who’d died far too soon and his own failure to prevent the boy’s death. If he hadn’t been distracted that day, would that boy still be alive? If he’d noticed the bomber sooner, would he have been sent home in a casket like his friends from the Special Forces team had been?

  Huffing out a harsh sigh, he climbed to his feet and made his way back through the woods to his cabin.

  Violet was on the lawn with her boys gathered onto her lap. Her wide and anxious eyes clung to him as he approached. His frustration with his jitters, the presumptive photographer and the potential danger Violet was in coalesced inside him and honed in on the most convenient target. He narrowed a glare on Violet as he stomped back toward his cabin.

  She blinked her doe eyes innocently at him. “Well? What happened? Who was it?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” he snapped.

  A tiny wrinkle dented the bridge of her nose. “Excuse me?”

  “I told you to get inside!” he steamed. “You’re a sitting duck out here!”

  She scowled at him and pulled her boys closer to her chest. “I was trying to get them inside, but as wiggly and heavy as they are, that’s not easy to do with a bum leg.”

  He dropped to a crouch in front of her, breathing hard, his back teeth grinding together. “I said you should get inside. Not them. You’re the target.”

  Violet gaped at him as if he’d grown a second head, then hiccuped a laugh. “Leave my children alone and vulnerable? In what universe do you really think I’d ever do that? Even if I didn’t suspect a sniper was in the area, which you clearly thought there was, I’d never leave my children in order to save myself.”

  “You could have been killed!” He knew the point she was making, but he wasn’t feeling particularly rational at the moment. When he remembered the terror that had streaked though him when he’d spotted that flash of light in the woods and thought someone had her in their crosshairs, a chill sank to his marrow.

  “I don’t care!” she shouted back. “I’d step in front of a moving bus to protect my children!”

  Hearing the tension and volume of his mother’s voice, Mason’s bottom lip trembled, and he loosed a plaintive wail. Hudson, who’d been happily crunching leaves in his hands, stopped and studied his brother for a moment before adding his voice to the complaint.

  Gunnar inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring, and fought to calm himself. His hands stayed clenched to keep them from shaking. He studied the two toddlers, whose eyes leaked fat crocodile tears as Violet stroked their unruly blond curls, and his heart tripped.

  He knew he’d step in front of a bus to protect the boys, too. Over the past few days, he’d grown attached to the mischievous imps. They were every bit as defenseless and needing his protection as Violet.

  But he was just one man. If danger found them, how could he protect both the boys and Violet?

  The responsibility to keep both Violet and her kids safe sat heavily on him. He’d be devastated if something happened to one of the twins. He dragged a hand over his face and sank to the frozen ground stunned by his realization. He stared at the cherub faces, damp with tears, and a rush of emotion squeezed his chest. He cared about Violet’s boys as much as he cared about—

  Violet.

  Hell. The truth bit him hard, and he struggled for a breath. He wouldn’t have been so scared by the thought of something happening to Violet if he didn’t care about her—deeply. This week he’d seen other sides of Violet the starlet—a hurting side he could relate to, a loving side his soul yearned for and an intelligent side he found engaging.

  She cooed softly to her whimpering boys, stroking their backs and hugging them close. The affection on her face, in her eyes, burrowed to his core.

  She raised a gaze to his that still glittered with a hint of consternation. “So...who was it? Did you catch them?”

  He shook himself from the disturbing track of his thoughts. “Photographer. The flash I saw was from a camera, not a muzzle.”

  Her shoulders drooped, and her expression darkened with defeat and frustration. “Great. I could live with the tabloids printing a picture of me sitting on your lap and all the inevitable conjecture about who my new lover was—”

  Just the reference to him as her lover made Gunnar’s skin flash hot and a prickly tension coil inside him.

  “—but I hate the idea that they got pictures of the boys. I’ve tried so hard to keep them out of the public eye.”

  Hudson grew bored with snuggling and wiggled free of his mother’s grip. He grabbed up the leaves he’d been crunching and tried to shove them in his mouth.

  “Oh, Hudson, no.” Violet reached for him, trying to stop him.

  “I got him.” Gunnar scooped the toddler into his lap and swiped a finger in Hudson’s mouth, cleaning out the leaves the toddler now realized weren’t so delicious after all. “There won’t be any pictures. Not from that guy.”

  He pulled the memory card from his pocket and held it out, but instead of the memory card, her attention zeroed in on his scraped knuckles.

  “Your hand,” she gasped, seizing his wrist and pulling his arm closer to examine his injuries. “You hit him?”

  “Not him, a tree.” Though his hand was sore, her touch as she gently sized up his injuries sent warmth sliding through him. “Wish it had been him, the son of a—” he censored himself, then shook his head “—but trees can’t file assault charges, and something told me this guy would have loved an excuse to draw you and me both into a legal dispute.”

  She raised a concerned glance. “Your hand is swollen, and you should disinfect those bloody knuckles.”

  “I’ll live.” He pulled his hand back and gave his fingers another test stretch and curl.

  “Just the same, I think you should let your brother take a look.”

  He gave her a dismissive grunt. “I’m fine.” />
  She pressed her mouth into a taut line of disapproval. “At least let me clean and wrap the scrapes. I make a pretty good nurse when needed.” She scooted Mason off her lap and struggled to stand. “Help me get the boys inside?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He hurried to wedge his shoulder under her armpit and hoist her to her feet. Rather than let her limp to the porch, he scooped her in his arms again and carried her to a recliner in the living room. Returning to the yard, he lifted a baby on each hip and toted them in, out of the chilly air.

  “I’m sorry you had to deal with that guy,” Violet said as she took Mason from him and chafed the boy’s icy fingers between her palms. “Telephoto lenses are part and parcel for me, I’m afraid. As much as I hate them, I’m used to the idea that my life is on public display.”

  Gunnar pulled Hudson’s coat off and warmed the baby’s hands the way Violet warmed Mason’s, then set him on the floor to play.

  Acid gnawed his gut when he thought of Violet being harassed by photographers. “You shouldn’t accept it. It’s not right that your privacy is invaded, your life put on display. I could never live like...” He let his sentence trail off when he heard himself, and he lifted his gaze to hers. An unspoken regret and understanding filled her face.

  His life and Violet’s were on divergent paths. She was all about the her career, the public spotlight and glamour. He needed his private escape, his family and a simple, uncomplicated life.

  “Then it’s good you don’t have to live with it,” she said quietly. “But for me, being a public figure means dealing with the paparazzi.” She set Mason on the floor and struggled to her feet, wincing in pain. When he surged forward, ready to help her, she waved him off. “No more carrying me. Derek wants me to walk on it.”

  He followed her as she limped to the kitchen and indulged her as she cleaned the scrapes on his knuckles and held an ice pack to his hand.

  Mentally, Gunnar added nurturing to the growing list of attributes she was surprising him with. So far, Violet had busted every preconceived notion he had about Hollywood starlets.