Kayla had only invited him because of his history with Sarah. He’d known Kayla then, too. A town this small, everyone knew everyone.
He definitely didn't belong in this crowd of intelligent people, but he could bear it for an hour or so. For Sarah.
Where was Hero anyway? Somewhere in the last year he'd given her absent fiancé the nickname, only in his own skull. Hero didn't deserve her. Why couldn't she see that he was one of the chumps Chase had purposely turned his life around not to be?
It wasn't his business, no matter how much he wished differently.
After an hour of forced smiles, Sarah was about done. She'd opened gifts—some of them gag gifts like the box of Depends. Not all, though. Her sister had given her a beautiful silver charm bracelet; another friend had gifted her a year of free oil changes and tune ups. That was a great gift, especially with how rough Sarah was on her truck.
She was worn out. Sleepless nights and long days, often out in the cold weather had worn her out. She was ready to leave.
A niggling feeling wormed its way to her consciousness.
Where was James? She'd had the fleeting thought when Jessie had mentioned the party that he would be here. It was a milestone birthday. Had Kayla invited him? Her sister and James didn't get along, but surely Kayla wouldn't have left him out.
She excused herself for a bathroom break, sneaking out the door in Kayla's master bedroom to the back patio outside. Just a few minutes, then she'd return to the party. She figured she had to eat at least one piece of cake before she could escape.
It was dark and cold enough that her breath puffed out in front of her, and she had fleeting thoughts of that morning. She forced herself to recognize what was real. The moon was almost full and bright against the sky filled with stars. An owl hooted—maybe from Kayla's barn—and a whippoorwill called. In a distant pasture, a cow lowed. Just across the patio was the kitchen door.
This was not the same. She was safe here.
She wrapped her arms around her middle. She only had her sweater to protect her from the cool air.
Her phone buzzed from her pocket. Seriously, couldn't Kayla give her five minutes?
But it was James's name who lit up the screen.
She forced a cheerful note into her voice. "Hey!"
"Sarah, we need to talk." He sounded resigned, and unease filtered through her.
Perhaps he was tired from a long day in the office. His law practice often required eighty-hour weeks.
She wasn't one to talk, not with the hours she worked.
"If you're going to sing me the birthday song, I'll brace myself," she teased.
"It's your birthday? Of course it is," he mumbled.
Her heart thudded painfully and she swallowed hard. He'd forgotten her birthday completely? This was so much worse than him simply not showing up at the party.
She knew there'd been a disconnect between them lately. Even before the attack, there'd been something off. She'd thought that after the wedding in June, when she would move to Austin to be with him, it would go away. They’d grow closer, the way she’d dreamed they would since they’d met in college.
"Look, I'm sorry for the rotten timing, but I can't go on like this anymore." His words were cold through the phone line. Kind of like how she imagined him when prosecuting a case in front of a judge and jury. "I was going to do this last month, but then you'd had that scare."
A scare.
Yes, she'd certainly been frightened. Terrorized, even. She could've died. She wouldn't call it a scare.
"We both know this isn't working," he said flatly.
She'd thought she had time to fix things. "But, the wedding—"
"Sarah, there's not going to be a wedding.”
“You’re br-breaking it off,” she stammered, the inane statement falling from her lips as she struggled to understand. “Tonight?”
“Sarah, it's time we let go."
Let go. Just like that.
She took the phone away from her ear. Stared at the dark screen.
He’d hung up.
He'd broken up with her on her birthday.
She wasn't shaking. Shouldn't she be crying or something?
All she felt was numb. Was numbness one of the stages of grief? Suddenly, she couldn't remember.
A man's throat cleared from nearby, and she jumped, whirling, her fingers scrabbling on the phone's surface as she tried to dial for help.
"Hey, birthday girl. It's just me."
She struggled to regulate her breathing, to calm the blood from rushing in her ears, the itch in her feet to run.
It was Chase. Just Chase. Her friend.
He was backlit by the kitchen light streaming out the back door behind him. She hadn't heard the door open. Had he been standing there the whole time?
Had she been so caught up in her own little world that she hadn't noticed him when she'd come outside?
How much had he heard? Everything, probably.
Enough to know she was pathetic.
"You're gonna freeze out here if you stay too long."
Was it cold? Her sense of cold had fled when that base survival instinct had taken over.
There was motion behind him. He said something over his shoulder that she didn't get all of but that sounded like, "she's on the patio."
More motion, a whisper, and then he stepped forward, holding something. The door remained open behind him.
He lifted up an afghan she recognized from the back of her sister's couch. She'd given it to Kayla two years ago for Christmas. Purchased it from one of her clients, who raised Alpacas and made yarn from their wool. Sarah was not remotely crafty.
He wrapped it around her, securing it over her shoulders, and she knew a moment of warmth, the scent of man and horse. Then he stepped back, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets.
"You okay?"
"Sure. Yeah." She jutted her chin up. Nothing to see here. She was fine.
She couldn't see his eyes, backlit as he was. She didn’t have to see to know—he’d overheard.
He was just too nice to say anything. She hated that he'd seen her in this weak moment.
The cowboy hadn't been a close friend back in high school. Back then, she hadn't known how to protect herself, how to hide her feelings. She was a little afraid of what he might see on her face right now.
She didn't want to talk about James, and she really didn't want to talk about the Other Thing, so she pushed the afghan off her shoulders and straightened them. "I just needed a second to catch my breath. Let's do cake!"
He was practically vibrating with tension as she walked past him into the kitchen, forgoing a route back through Kayla’s bedroom.
He held his silence. Not a skill that many men had.
The bright lights of the kitchen were blinding. She managed to focus on Kayla and Jessie, who watched her troop back inside. They both looked slightly anxious.
As if maybe they expected her to burst into tears or...something. She didn't know what. She hadn't cried in the hospital last month. Or later, alone at home. She was fine.
Her phone buzzed again. She considered tossing it down the garbage disposal. Probably would have, too, if she hadn’t just finished uploading all her contacts after— Nope, not thinking about that. Not thinking about James, either. Or talking to him.
But when she glanced at the screen, it was the emergency call center associated with the practice. A frisson of unease went through her, but she took the call, turning her back on too many curious gazes.
"Doctor Campbell," she answered.
She absorbed the information the operator gave her. A rancher needed an exam on his daughter's prized 4H sheep on the other side of town. She agreed to take the call and rang off.
She had to go. Her duty to her clients demanded it.
Except, it was nighttime. And just the thought of going on a night call sent a shiver down her spine. She straightened her shoulders and turned to her sister and her friends. "I have to go."
"I'll go with you," Jessie said quickly. Her assistant’s eyes were too sharp. Had she seen Sarah’s momentary hesitation?
Jessie's husband stood in the doorway, holding a tiny bundle on his shoulder. The baby squalled, almost on cue. "No way," he said.
"I'll handle it," Sarah said firmly. She hated that they felt like they had to coddle her. But there was also a small part of her that wanted to curl up on her sister’s couch and let someone else handle this.
She couldn’t. She'd been a vet for five years. With the rancher on hand, examining one sheep was well within Sarah's capability.
It didn’t stop her heart from pounding. Adrenaline rushed through her veins.
Jessie looked like she would protest, her jaw cocked mulishly as she looked over her shoulder to her husband.
"I'll go," came an unexpected voice from behind her. Chase. "I'm about partied out."
She turned on him. "That is really unnecessary."
He shrugged easily. "It's not calving season yet. I'm not needed at the Triple H, and it isn't like I've got a hot date waiting for me." He winced a little after the words had left his mouth. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to admit that.
"Thanks, but I'll be fine. You've never assisted a vet before." When she turned, ready to find her coat and get moving, she caught both Kayla and Jessie making silent hand gestures and mouthing words to Chase. Now they both clasped their hands, manufacturing wide-eyed, utterly unconvincing looks of innocence.
"Oh, come on, you guys," Sarah protested. "I'm a grown woman. I don't need a babysitter." Plus, he’d just witnessed her most humiliating moment to date.
"He's not a babysitter," Jessie offered helpfully. "He's a cowboy."
Sarah shot a look over her shoulder to the man who stood immovable as a big bull, silent and watchful.
"No one said you needed a babysitter." Kayla linked her arm through Sarah's. "But it never hurts to have a friend."
A friend.
The soft thought brought immediate, unexpected tears, and Sarah blinked quickly, hoping no one had noticed.
"Fine," she agreed.
Only because it was dark. Not because she needed a friend.
Chapter 2
Kayla cleaned up the last of the paper plates and plastic cups, tossing them into a black plastic bag. Her movements were brisk and forceful. It was a poor one, but tossing the trash was at least some kind of outlet for her worry.
Something had happened when her sister had been on the phone during the party. Sarah had been on edge before she'd disappeared for her "bathroom break." Kayla had watched Sarah's tension grow as the party went on, but whoever she’d been talking to had only increased Sarah’s unease. When she’d returned, Sarah’s had reminded Kayla too much of their childhood.
She and Sarah had both grown up in foster care, then ultimately a group home. They both had attachment issues. Kayla held out hope that Sarah's engagement was it for her, even if she didn't particularly like James. He was too snooty for his own good.
And then it had been impossible not to notice Sarah’s reaction to the after-hours house call she’d agreed to make. She was nervous, even if she hid it well.
Her house had cleared out quickly after Sarah's departure. It was a weeknight, and her friends had jobs. Jessie and Herb had the new baby.
It just seemed too quiet. Not the life she'd always dreamed of during her growing-up years.
Bando's nails clicked against the linoleum kitchen floor with a soft snick, snick, snick as her Border Collie mix wandered around that room, slurping up every crumb he could find.
Her sister needed a dog.
Sarah threw herself into her work, seeking comfort there, but what Kayla had found worked best to comfort was her furry best friend.
"Sixty seconds, and then we're going out to the barn," she told the dog.
He wagged his tail so hard his whole body wiggled.
Maybe some people might judge her for talking to her dog as if he could understand, but she judged those people right back. They'd obviously never been loved by the right animal.
She’d bent to pick up the last couple of of red plastic cups, half-hidden behind an end table, when she spotted yet another crack in the plaster on the wall.
She groaned, and Bando came over to sniff at the corner. He gave one wag when he didn't find anything malicious and wandered off.
Her house was in desperate need of repair. She wasn't a builder, didn't know how to fix cracked walls, replace broken bathroom tiles, or remodel the butter-yellow eighties-style kitchen. And she didn't have the money to hire it out.
Sarah was too polite to suggest that maybe Kayla had made a mistake buying this place. She'd come out to visit Sarah from her city apartment and fallen in love with the land. And no wonder the place was on the market for cheap—because of the disrepair in the house and barn. It would be perfect for the dog rescue she'd dreamed of since she was a little girl.
She just had to find some money first.
She shrugged into her fleece-lined jean jacket and tugged on her work boots. Bando bounced at her feet, and she laughed as she pushed open the door. She grabbed a flashlight from the shelf near the door before shutting it behind her.
The bitter cold stole her breath, and she hurried across the yard to the barn several hundred yards down the drive. She could've driven, but this mini-walk would give Bando time to do his nightly business and stretch his legs. And she loved being outdoors. The group home where she and Sarah had ended up by her tenth birthday had had strict rules about outside time.
The barn was the whole reason she'd bought this property. It was two stories high and had horse stalls down both sides. With a little TLC, she could really build something here.
She almost wrenched her shoulder out of socket pulling open the large double door. Getting some WD-40 on that was one of her first orders of business.
Inside, the musty, unused smell made her nose twitch. Wind whistled through cracks in the walls.
A pile of two-by-fours took up a lot of the free space. She'd demoed several stalls herself, leaving a huge open area for the large pen she imagined, a place for the pack of dogs she'd rescue. There was plenty of room along the far wall for individual pens. She shivered as she listened to the old heating unit chug away. She hoped the building wouldn't require a new furnace.
This whole thing had been one huge risk. Sarah wasn't the only one with issues from their childhood. Making this jump had probably been the hardest decision Kayla had ever made. Hopefully not one of the dumbest.
Bando bounced around the interior of the barn, sniffing to his heart's content. She'd done quite a bit of cleanup in those first few days here, making sure there were no stray nails, no hidden farm implements that a dog could hurt itself on.
She hoped no skunks had decided to hole up here for the winter. That would be a recipe for disaster.
She was peripherally aware of Bando as she perused the space. It was too late after Sarah's party to do any real work out here tonight, but she could dream.
Imagining the place full, imagining all the good she could do and all the dogs she could help, kept her going when she started drowning in doubt.
Which was all the time.
In her mind's eye, she saw a black lab mix romping through the as of yet unbuilt pens with his best buddy, a rotty mix. They were the two types of dogs that were hardest to get adopted. She wasn't afraid of hard cases. She’d fight for her dogs to the bitter end.
She was going to accomplish this. Maybe it would make up for the empty house. Who needed a man when she would have her dogs?
Bando barked, and this time she twisted to look at him. That was a different bark than before. An alert.
"What is it, boy?" She picked through the dirt-packed floor toward the far corner, where Bando stared and pawed at something.
She came up behind him, looking over his shoulder. "What is that...?"
Bando whined, scratching at the edge of the mound of straw she hadn't thrown
out when she'd been cleaning.
There was an empty circular space in the hay, as if a medium-sized animal had curled up there at some point. Probably more than once.
"Back, boy."
Bando obeyed Kayla's stern command. He sat behind her feet. She didn't want him injured. It was likely that whatever had hidden out here had heard them coming and burrowed deeper in the hay. It could be poised to attack right this second.
The thought had her stepping back.
Minutes of stomping around the hay and tromping all over the barn hadn’t turned up any clues.
What, or who, had been in her barn?
"You don't have to stay," were the first words out of Sarah's mouth when Chase got out of his truck after following her to the Clemson ranch.
If he wasn't mistaken, the wind had picked up and he tucked his chin into the collar of his Carhartt jacket.
"Jessie'll have my hide if I abandon you now."
Her lips made the slightest twitch at that.
It was true. Her assistant was a pit bull. Even on maternity leave.
But that wasn’t the real reason. He’d seen the sheen of tears in Sarah’s eyes back in her sister’s kitchen. And right now her shoulders were unnaturally stiff. She was acting like everything was normal, but she had to be a little nervous.
Sarah went to the camper shell on the back of her truck and opened it to pull out a black leather bag from behind the tailgate. Her doctor's bag, even though it seemed so old-fashioned.
He knew better than to offer to carry it for her. She was independent enough to get offended, and he was already on thin ice. She'd only allowed him to tag along because her friends had insisted.
"The operator said the rancher was out in the barn," Sarah said. Her chin had a stubborn lilt to it, all signs of hurt erased from her expression. Brave girl.
What was Hero thinking, letting her go? Guy was an idiot.
Chase fell into step beside her, their boots crunching in the dead winter grass. The barn was set back from the house, and the tracks were rutted and muddy after the rain they'd had the last two days. She was smart not to try to drive it.
Stealing Sarah: a Cowboy Fairytales spin-off (Triple H Brides Book 3) Page 2