by Desiree Holt
“Get out of here.” She walked around to the driver’s side of her car. “Get away from me before I have you arrested for trespassing.”
When she tried to open the car door, he shut it and leaned on it.
“I’m going to make you listen to me,” he insisted. “We can’t lose what we have.”
She stared at him. “What we have? We have nothing. So, get the hell off my driveway.”
“Nina, I don’t want to lose you. This is nothing more than a hoop I have to jump through for the time being.”
“Yeah?” She cocked her head. “So I’ll be…what, your secret whore? Because that’s what you made me feel like.”
“No, sweetheart, listen to me.”
“I’m through listening. Get out of my way.”
When he still hesitated, she brought her knee up and shoved it into his crotch.
“Jesus!” Tom bent double, his face white.
“Serves you right,” she spat, got in her car, and drove away.
For the first time in her life, Nina had no plan, no schedule, nothing to do. She managed five days at her parents’ home, doing her best to ignore the cheerful decorations and the constant Christmas carols. But then she absolutely had to get away. From everything. It was all more than she could handle. They tried to talk her into staying, but she felt suddenly as if she were suffocating.
“I’ll write, I’ll email, I’ll text,” she promised them. “But I have to make a new life for myself somewhere.”
Reluctantly, they let her go, waving to her as she pulled out of their driveway. For the first week she drove aimlessly, no particular destination in mind. Scenery rushed past her in a blur. The only people she called were her parents, to assure them she was all right and hadn’t lost her mind. She did promise to spend at least a week with them as soon as she got where she was going—wherever that happened to be.
She’d been driving for two weeks, doing her best to bury the pain and pondering what she’d do with the rest of her life, when she pulled into Freewill, Wyoming. It was noon, and the sun bathed the quaint town with a warm golden glow.
Wyoming Eats seemed the place to find lunch, if the overflowing parking lot was any indication. Despite the crowd, she was able to find a table squeezed in near the window. Munching on her chicken salad sandwich and trying to figure out if she would ever decide where to put down roots again, she stared through the window beside her booth. Her gaze landed on a bookstore across the street. Since she never knew half the time if she’d have Wi-Fi at any of the places she stayed, and she needed a new supply of titles for her e-reader, she saw this as a good opportunity to add to her electronic library. Books had become her comfort and companion. Like many independent bookstores, Books and More might not be tied into e-book networks, but she could make do with print books. Anything in which she could lose herself.
After paying her bill, she made her way across the street. When she opened the door to the shop, a bell jangled. The woman behind the counter looked up, a smile on her face.
“Hi! I thought I knew everyone here. You must be new in town.” She came out from behind the counter. “Chessie Martin.”
Nina couldn’t help but give an answering smile. The woman was so warm and friendly. As was the store, with its colorful displays, children’s reading nook, and conversation area with comfortable chairs and…wait! Did she actually see a plate of cookies?
“In a small town, people drop in frequently to browse. Or sometimes all they want is to chat. My conversation area’s sold a lot of books for me.”
“I’ll bet it has.” She shook the woman’s hand. “Nina Foster. And no, I’m not from here. At the moment, I’m not from anywhere. I guess I need a new place to put down new roots. Figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
Chessie cocked her head and studied Nina’s face. “You wouldn’t be interested in buying a bookstore, would you?”
***
Present Day
The late afternoon had already darkened, and snowflakes drifted down from a dull gray sky. Setting the car heater to full blast, Nina pulled out of the small parking lot behind the store. Even after five years, she hadn’t quite acclimated to the bitter cold of Wyoming winters. She wanted nothing more than to get home and sit in front of her fireplace with a glass of wine and a good book.
She thought about Hawk’s words to her. Something as simple as why she’d chosen the house she had brought pain whooshing up like a tornado. Driving through the cold, crisp Wyoming twilight, the long ago pain emerged again. Not nearly as sharp as it had been five years ago, but the residual agony always simmered beneath the surface, ready to pounce at any time. She still recalled how shocked people had been when she’d up and left town without advance notice to anyone. Nate Forrester had called her cell so many times—not to mention the pond scum himself, Tom Ridgeway—she’d finally had to change her number. She’d even cut ties with her few close friends. Explaining to them would have been too awful.
Time had made a great difference, enabling her to build a wall around herself—a wall no one would ever break through again. Some people might think five years was a long time to hide away her feelings, but as far as she was concerned, there was no longer any place for love or romance in her life. Oh, she’d tried dating. Rarely. But she was too locked up emotionally to take anything past one or two dates, and eventually men stopped asking her out. She’d figured out a happy-ever-after apparently wasn’t in the cards for her.
Her friend, Riley Blackwater had told her she was throwing away the rest of her life, but at least it was hers to throw. She might trust her judgment more these days but not her heart.
Of course, there was always what she silently called “the sex thing.” But as long as she had B.O.B. and all his little friends, as long as she had a lifetime supply of batteries, she could take care of herself.
Turning onto Sweet Mountain Road, her mind drifted to Blake Massie.
What’s his story, anyway? Does he live with memories so painful even the passage of years couldn’t dull them completely? What had made him such a recluse causing him to hide in such a big house?
She figured his motivation had to be pretty strong to make him so antisocial.
Tiny snowflakes whispered in the air as she pulled up to the electronic gate. She lowered her window so the camera could capture her face, raising it again at once because the air was sharp with frost. The gate opened, and she drove through, pulling up to the porch.
Nina tugged the collar of her rancher’s jacket up around her ears to keep the cold night air from biting into her skin. She grabbed the bag of books from the backseat, scurried up the walkway, and climbed the front steps. Grange opened the door before she reached to ring the bell.
“Hope you drove carefully in this mess.” His voice always sounded like he was in the bottom of a dumpster.
“Yes. Thank you. Tell Mr. Massie I hope he enjoys the books.”
“Will do. Thanks for the delivery.”
As usual he gently closed the door, leaving Nina standing on the porch. She stared at the door, shrugged, and trudged back to her car. Time to get home where her pug, Brutus, would be waiting impatiently as usual. There was a dog flap, so he could go in and out of the fenced yard, but he’d be eager for his dinner.
The thought of him made her lips curve in a smile. They had a love affair, she and Brutus, one that soothed and comforted her. One she could count on.
As she navigated the one mile stretch of road, she thought later she might IM Blake Massie to make sure he liked the books.
Idiot.
Okay, yes, she was an idiot. She never “talked to him” except from the store, so she was stepping out of routine. Still, what trouble could she possibly get into with a man she never saw?
Chapter Two
Blake Massie stood at his bedroom window, staring down at the car in his driveway. Holding the curtain open enough not to obscure his vision, he watched until the familiar SUV stopped as usual at th
e front of the house. Nina Foster grabbed the bag of books from the backseat and brought it to the door. Ten seconds, no more for her brief conversation with Grange, and she was back in her car.
Even bundled up he could tell she had a graceful way of moving. Tonight, she had the collar of her jacket flipped up against the bitter cold, her ponytail tucked inside. In warmer temperatures, the tail hung loose outside her jacket. Sometimes the breeze would catch the end of it, lifting a few of the light brown strands.
God, I’d love to see her hair loose around her face, touching her shoulders.
Sometimes he even imagined her naked in bed with him, her hair a soft curtain falling around his face. Remembering those thoughts made his cock painfully hard.
As the car pulled away, he loosened his hold on the curtain and let it fall back into place. The best he could do these days was dream about women like Nina Foster—and she was definitely playing a prominent role in his dreams. He hoped the only reason he was fixated on her was because he’d gone for so long without a woman. He couldn’t afford anything else. But from the moment he’d discovered her website and seen her picture, she’d taken up residence in his mind.
She’d personalized the Books and More website with pictures of her showing a book to a child, chatting with customers, serving cookies. Cookies! Who served cookies in a bookstore? But he’d lingered a long time on her image, long legs encased in jeans, a red Cheyenne Days sweatshirt falling delicately against what he was sure were ripe breasts, light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, revealing the clean lines of her face—a face completely lit up by her smile.
You’ve had better-looking women in your life. What’s with this one?
Grange had asked him the same thing, and he’d had no answer for him, either.
As if the thought had conjured up the man, boots clunked on the stairs, and seconds later, Grange rapped on the jamb of the open door.
“Your delivery’s here,” he announced in his gravelly voice.
“Thanks,” Blake answered him over his shoulder. “Put it on the bed.”
“You gonna stack them up with all those other books you haven’t gotten around to reading yet?”
“What I do with them is my business. You’re being a nosy old man again.”
“Yup. Sure am.” Grange’s boots scuffed over the hardwood floor, followed by the thump as he dropped the books on the bed. “If you cracked one of them open, you might spend a few minutes not feeling so sorry for yourself.”
Blake whirled, wincing as pain shot through his leg. “And what else would I be doing, old man?” he demanded. “What’s left to me?”
Grange shrugged. “Got me there. Whatever you want, I guess.”
Blake limped over to his dresser and examined himself in the mirror. The beard he’d grown covered most of the lower half of his face, disguising the hideous scars beneath it. Blake kept it trimmed, more for the sake of cleanliness than anything else. The skin still exposed resembled a sheet of shiny plastic and his left eye drooped slightly. Even though no one saw him except Grange, he always wore a neckerchief with his shirts to cover the twisted scars on his neck, but there wasn’t much he could do about his hands. His chest and back? A lost cause.
He glanced away from his image. If he couldn’t stand to see himself, how could he ask anyone else to? He was damn lucky Grange, a man who’d worked for the Massie ranch for years, had agreed to stay with him. He needed to stop yanking the man’s chain.
“Look at me,” he spat at him. “What do you expect of me?”
Grange leaned in the doorway, legs crossed at the ankles, arms across his chest. “I expect you to pay attention to what those doctors told you. They said they could do surgery on your face. Clear up some of the mess on the rest of your body. You won’t even go see them again. And you haven’t done one bit of therapy on your leg.”
“What’s the use? The Masked Rider is dead, for all intents and purposes. I’ll never ride again, much less compete.”
“You could go back and help your brother and sister with the ranch. God knows Jennie and Holt would love to have you. They say the ranch is doing better than ever, thanks to you.”
“Good for them.”
Grange moved closer to him. “Holt called again. He wants to know why you won’t at least let them help financially, after all you did for them. They feel real bad about everything.”
“We’re okay. We got a good-sized insurance settlement from the fairgrounds, enough to buy the house and take care of our needs. Anyway, it was my choice. I did what had to be done at the time. Money needs to stay with the family ranch account in case they hit another dry spell. Holt and Jennie will need the funds as a cushion.”
“Jennie keeps saying the ranch is still your home and you should be there so they can help you.”
Blake lowered his gaze so Grange couldn’t see the sadness in his eyes. He never permitted himself to think about how much he missed them. Or how the fire had destroyed much more than his face.
“Are you kidding?” He swallowed the acidic taste of self pity. “Why would they even want me in this shape?”
“Because you’re family.” Grange sounded almost angry. “When they discovered the sacrifice you made for them, they felt even worse. You tried to shut them out when they came to the hospital. Poor Jennie cried for two days.”
Blake’s heart pinched. He hated the thought of bringing any kind of pain to his siblings, but what happened wasn’t their fault. He wouldn’t be a burden to them. And he wouldn’t let Grange bully him into a meeting he was sure would only end in emotional pain for everyone.
He snorted. “They have no idea what they’d be letting themselves in for.”
“Oh, I think they do.”
“Yeah? So you say. But who wants to be around a crippled gargoyle except you? Be serious.”
“So you gonna spend your life hanging around and drinking yourself to death? You might at least try some of those books you keep ordering.” Grange gave him a lopsided smile. “You don’t fool me, son. It’s an excuse to send messages back and forth with the nice woman from the bookstore.”
He glared at Grange. “And what if it is?” He shrugged. “It isn’t like I have a lot of people hanging around to chat with me.”
“They would if you’d let them.” Grange was implacable. “The choice was yours. I say again, it’s a damn shame you haven’t spoken to your brother or your sister since…the accident. They’re all the family you got left.”
“I don’t want to be an object of their pity.” Blake still didn’t meet Grange’s eyes. “Of anyone’s pity.”
“Well, you made damn sure of that. Besides, you’ve got enough self-pity to go around for everyone.”
Blake eased himself into the chair by the bed, stretching his bad leg out in front of him. The mirror, the twinge of pain all brought the nightmare back to him with startling clarity.
***
Two years ago
Blake pulled off the mask covering most of his face and wiped away the sweat with his bandana. The gimmick had sounded good when he and Grange had first thought it up. He’d competed successfully in rodeos in high school and college then hung it up after graduation. This little stint was only for a short time, to help in an emergency situation.
“I know you’d love to be out there on the circuit,” his father told him when he came home from college, “but you studied ranch management so you could to run this place better. Got some good business knowledge and now you’re putting it to good use. Your brother and I aren’t so good at that end of things, and your sister sticks mostly to the office stuff. We need you.” He paused. “And I appreciate it,” he added, the edge missing from his voice.
He hadn’t minded so much—especially since his mother had passed away and his father’s health had begun to fail steadily. Anyway, they’d all agreed after he got his degree, he’d come home and take over the actual business management of the ranch besides helping out wherever else he was needed. Each of the
kids had their own skill set. The old man had needed all of them to keep the place operating, so he and his siblings had dug in once he was back home. He’d kept his hand in, competing in local rodeos once in a while, enough to satisfy the need in him.
Things at the ranch had gone along fine; sales of beef were good; even the rise in grain prices hadn’t killed them. They’d had several good years, and they’d all been feeling pretty good about it. Then a black cloud had stalled over them. First his father had passed away. Then they’d run into a tough winter and a dropping beef market, causing their ready cash to shrink. Local banks hadn’t been lending money too easily. Besides, none of them had wanted to saddle the ranch with a new mortgage.
Blake had known what he’d needed to do.
“I can fix this,” he’d told Grange when the two of them were hanging out at the barn late one afternoon.
Grange was like a second father to him. He’d been at the ranch since Blake was born. Although he loved Jennie and Holt like they were his own, as the eldest, Blake had a special relationship with him.
“Your brother and sister are gonna kill both of us,” he pointed out. “They’ll say you’re risking your life when you don’t have to. Not to mention defying your old man’s last wishes. And exactly how do you plan cover your absences, anyway?”
“I’ve got it figured out. My degree is in agribusiness, with a specialty in ranch management. I’ll tell everyone I’m doing consulting work and putting the fees back into the ranch.”
“They won’t want you to do it. Jennie especially will insist you keep the money for yourself.”
Blake shrugged his shoulders. “Tough shit. We all need to make a contribution, and this is mine.”