Follow Me Home

by Leona Karr

  She tried to answer, but her chattering teeth wouldn’t let the words out. Tears of relief crystallized on her lashes.

  “Never mind. You’re okay now. I’ll get you to the ranch on horseback.” He lifted her up in his arms and carried her to a horse that was stamping and snorting clouds out of his nostrils.

  Under ordinary circumstances, Jill would have been terrified of the beast, but she didn’t even murmur when he placed her on the horse behind the saddle. When he swung up, locking her arms around his waist and ordering her to hold on tight, she did as she was told.

  As they made their way through a thick drift of trees, cascades of snow tumbled down upon them from outstretched branches of ponderosa pines. Jill rested her cheek against the warmth of his back and tightened her arms around his protective strength as her body rose and fell with the strong rhythm of the horse. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to a relieved bliss that blotted out all thought but a thankful prayer that he’d found her in time.

  At first he had cursed the storm, but now he saw how it could be turned to his advantage. The danger and challenge only heightened the sweetness of the conquest. He couldn’t have planned things better. Now he could be with her and she’d never suspect. Let the storm come. He smiled Everything was falling into place. If she only knew….

  Chapter Two

  Hal felt her arms tighten around his waist in rhythm with the rise and fall of the horse’s gait. She was like a child holding on for dear life, and he wondered if she’d ever been on a horse before. He put one hand over her tightly clasped hands, holding them firmly and guiding the reins with the other one. Her body, pressed against his back, gave warmth to his own chilled flesh. When he’d lifted her out of the snow, his heart had nearly burst with fright because she’d felt so small and fragile in his arms. He was shaken by the near tragedy. What if he hadn’t found her in time?

  “We’re almost there,” he called over his shoulder. He thought she gave a strangled reply but he wasn’t sure. A razor of cold air numbed his face, and he sank his chin lower in the collar of his sheepskin coat. Snow fell in showers upon them as he slowly urged the horse across a narrow clearing between the ranch house and a thick stand of trees bordering his mountain pasture.

  Though visibility was down to almost zero, Hal relied on both his own and his horse’s instincts to get them back to the ranch. Brr. The temperature must be dropping like a lead weight. Sheets of snow whipped across the ground, swirling in a blinding pattern. This kind of storm was death to man and beast—and women who didn’t know how to drive on slick roads, he grimly added to himself. He never would have insisted that she come if he’d known the storm was accelerating faster than any storm he’d ever seen before. He was still stunned by so narrowly averting a tragedy. After he’d hung up the phone, he’d begun to have second thoughts.

  As the minutes passed, his worry increased. Even if she had been driving at a snail’s pace, she should have reached the ranch sooner. Then he chided himself for worrying. The woman had told him she wasn’t going to come. Most likely, she’d never even started out, but a nagging uncertainty hadn’t let him rest. Finally, he’d called the rescue office and his worst fear had been confirmed when Zeb told him that she’d been gone almost an hour.

  Saddling up his horse and going after her had been pure gut instinct. And it had paid off. Her car must have stalled and she’d decided to hike to the ranch. If she hadn’t made it to the entrance posts, he never would have stumbled upon her. She should have stayed in the car. Even as he silently fumed, a rising sense of guilt nagged at him. You’re the one who insisted that she come. It’s your fault she was in the storm in the first place.

  “Well, I’m damn glad she’s here,” he muttered, knowing himself for a coward when it came to pregnant women. He could handle a mare birthing a foal or a brand-new calf slipping out into the world, but he sure as hell didn’t know what to do with a frightened seventeen-year-old girl ready to have her first baby. He just prayed the storm cleared before the stork made a landing in his guest bedroom.

  The rock exterior of the house was a dark, barely visible shadow against the white landscape. A cluster of outbuildings—a peak-roofed barn, garage, and bunkhouse—were being obliterated in cushions of rounded snow. Thank goodness for real horsepower. The battery in his four-wheel-drive had refused to turn over. He’d put off buying a new battery one storm too long. He’d have to call into town and have one sent out.

  As his experienced eyes swept across the rocky pasture, he could just make out a herd of cattle humped against the storm, he silently swore. Damn fool cattle. Instead of facing into the wind as horses had the good sense to do, his steers instinctively turned away from the blowing snow, which allowed the wind to lift up hairs and form spikes of ice all over their hides. He knew he’d lose several head to the storm, a loss he couldn’t afford. Not now. Not when someone was determined to sabotage his efforts. Anger and frustration rippled through him and he clenched his hands, whitening the knuckles of his strong fingers.

  He reined in the horse near the back door of the house, and swung easily out of the saddle. Then he reached up and lifted Jill down with the ease of handling a child. “We’re here.”

  A thankful prayer hovered on her stiff lips. Although she’d come to the ranch several times to get Randy after a 4-H horseback-riding event, she had never been inside the sprawling stone ranch house. Braced against the wind, with his arm around her shoulders, she let him propel her forward to an outside door leading to an enclosed porch.

  At that moment, a tall, snow-covered man, wearing a stocking cap and navy coat, came around the corner of the house. His arms were loaded with split logs. “Thought we’d better be laying in more wood. Got a doozy of a storm settling in,” the man said through a scarf tied around his face. As he followed Hal and Jill inside the enclosed porch, he eyed her and asked, “Is she the rescue gal, boss?”

  “The same,” Hal answered.

  The touch of irony in his tone wasn’t lost on Jill. Both of them knew that he was the one who had done the rescuing. Her pride bristled that Hal Haverly probably would not let her forget it.

  “Where’d you find her?”

  Hal ignored the question. “Take Mrs. Gaylor inside, Kirby. See if you can get her thawed out while I take care of the horse.”

  “Sure thing.” The muffled man nodded and held the kitchen door open for Jill. Hal went back outside, disappearing in mountain waves of snow as he led the horse toward the barn.

  Jill felt a blessed warmth rush at her as they entered a spacious, homey kitchen. Leaning up against the closed door, she tried to catch her breath, shivering and shaking snow from her clothing onto the waxed tile floor. She brushed at snow-laden lashes and blinked to focus on the room, which promised all the comforts of heaven to her chilled body.

  A wagon-wheel chandelier hung over a large kitchen table flanked with high-backed wooden chairs that were an antique dealer’s dream. Pots and pans hung in an orderly array over spotless counters, and a large six-burner stove with an oven the size of a car trunk dominated one red brick wall near a wide-hearthed fireplace. The room was like an oasis, quiet and serene, removed from nature’s fury outside and filled with tantalizing aromas of fresh bread and strong coffee.

  “Got hung up in the storm, did you?” the man asked as he dumped his wood in a box by the fireplace and tossed off his stocking cap and jacket. “Hal thought as much when you didn’t show up. I knew he’d bring you in. I’m Kirby. Ranch hand, chief cook and bottle-washer around here.”

  He didn’t look like a cook, Jill thought. Too thin. All sharp angles in his face and very little fat on his rangy build. Hard to guess his age. Forty, maybe. There was a trace of gray in his dull brown hair. His eyes were his best feature, a clear hazel that relieved the unattractive sparseness of his bony features.

  “Here, let me help you off with your wet things.” Deftly he lifted off the backpack, unzipped her jacket and slipped it off her shoulders. “Come on o
ver by the fire and dry out.”

  Her frozen limbs seemed slightly detached from the rest of her body, and she wavered unsteadily as they crossed the kitchen to a well-worn brown leather chair placed in front of the fireplace. Gratefully she sank down into the hearth-side chair. A snapping fire glowed red as it flung sparks in the air and sent pine-scented heat radiating into the room. Never in her life had her whole body felt so strange, and emotionally she was still reeling from the terrifying experience of nearly freezing to death.

  “What happened? Your car stall?”

  She shook her head. Without explaining, she leaned back into the soft cushion of the chair and closed her eyes, wondering if she would ever forget the near-tragedy of the last hour. The horror of what had happened came back like a scene playing in her mind’s eye. She wished her teeth would stop chattering and her body would stop quivering with the bone-deep chill. Get hold of yourself. You’re safe now.

  “Here, drink this. A bit of brandy will get your blood flowing again.” He handed her a half-filled glass and watched as she cupped her numb fingers around it.

  After several sips of the fiery liquid, she handed the glass back and croaked, “Enough.”

  He set the glass aside. “Better get them boots off.” She glimpsed a large tattoo of an anchor on his arm as he bent down in front of her and slipped off her boots. Her feet felt stiff and wooden, and she didn’t protest when he took each foot in turn, massaging them with his long bony fingers.

  Her chilled flesh began to revive under his touch, and a prickling warmth returned to her lower limbs.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She noticed then that the sharp angles in his rather homely face had softened as he stroked her feet. An expression in his hazel eyes bordered on the sensuous. She was suddenly uncomfortable. She pulled back the foot in his hands. “That’s enough. They’re warm now.”

  A smile flickered at the corner of Kirby’s lean mouth as he stood up. “You’re Randy’s mom. I’ve seen you when you’ve come to pick the boy. up.”

  “Oh, do you help with the 4-H kids?” Jill didn’t remember seeing him. If the cook had been around, he’d stayed in the background and never spoken to her.

  “Sometimes. Mostly I just fix something for them to eat. You know, hot dogs and the like. They work up an appetite when they’re riding around the place.”

  “Randy loves coming here.”

  “I told him he had the prettiest mom in these parts.” Kirby smiled. “I was hoping for a chance to meet you. Who says things don’t work out? Here you are. Right in my own kitchen. Reckon we can get to know each other real well now.”

  She didn’t like the flirtatious edge to his manner, but she decided to ignore the suggestive overtone of his friendliness. “I could use some coffee, if you have any made.”

  “Always have a pot on the stove. You want me to add some more brandy to it?”

  “No. Just black, thank you.” Her shivering began to subside, but her outdoor adventure had taken a lot more out of her than she was willing to admit.

  “Here you go.” Kirby handed her a steaming cup of strong coffee.

  She thanked him and wrapped her fingers around the warming mug. Sipping the hot liquid, she felt color returning to her face. The brandy, coffee and heat from the fire were doing their work. She almost felt human again. Even now, she couldn’t really comprehend that she’d survived such a horrible nightmare and was now safe. Who would have believed that a man on a horse would rescue her? Something right out of Old West folklore.

  She wondered what the attractive Hal Haverly would have to say when he came back to the house. No doubt he thought her an utter idiot. She’d made about every mistake in the book. No, it wasn’t her fault, she mentally corrected herself. It was that darn sedan stalled in the middle of the road. Then the horror came back. The dead man. The blood. At the memory, her stomach took a sickening plunge.

  HAL FINISHED RUBBING DOWN his Appaloosa quarter horse and put him in a’ stall with plenty of hay. “Good job, Red,” he said, patting the horse he’d named after the reddish spots on his tan hide.

  Walking down the long line of stalls, he checked on the rest of his stable, eight horses in all. He stopped to stroke the neck of one of his favorite mares. “How you doing, Calico?” He leaned against the stall gate, watching Calico’s new foal sway on long legs as the filly tugged on her mother for dinner. A man could make a fool of himself over such a pair, he thought with pride. The Appaloosa foal was perfect. Absolutely beautiful. He wished his father and grandfather were alive to see how he’d carried on the ranch and improved the breeding of these dappled horses.

  He was proud of his heritage. His grandfather had settled in northern Colorado in the late 1800s. He’d bred Appaloosa horses and run cattle. Even though the demand for strong cowboy ponies had lessened with the years, Hal’s father had kept the ranch going, and now it was his turn. The Haverly ranch was one of the few in Colorado preserving this colorful western strain of horses. As far as Hal was concerned, their beautiful coat patterns, striped hooves in black and white, and wispy manes and tails couldn’t be matched for unique beauty. The market for this hardy, agile, quick-moving steed was growing again and, until recently, the future had been looking prosperous for him and the ranch.

  His smile faded and his mouth hardened as his thoughts veered in a different direction. The ranch was his heritage, and he’d be damned if anyone was going to take it from him. Don’t think about that now. He turned away from the mare’s stall, knowing that the horses would be all right until morning. He’d have to make it back to the barn tomorrow to feed and water them. Blizzard or not, he and his ranch hands, Zack and Kirby, would have to keep up their daily chores.

  Knotting several lengths of rope together, he hooked one end on a nail outside the barn door, then trailed the rest of the rope after him as he fought his way through the biting snow to the house. When he reached the back door, he secured the end of the rope to an iron dinner chime hanging just outside. With luck, the rope guide would keep him and Zack from losing their direction in the storm as they made their way from the house to the barn.

  When Hal came into the kitchen, he swept off his cowboy hat and sent it sailing to the top peg of an antler coatrack. As he slipped off his rancher’s coat, he saw Jill sitting in his favorite chair in front of the fire, and his gut reaction was not a simple one. Not even one that made sense.

  A golden glow touched her face and burnished her deep brown hair with a softness that tempted a man’s fingers. Cushioned in his favorite chair, her trim figure irresistibly drew his eyes, with her supple legs, shapely in damp stretch pants, and a knit sweater molding her full breasts. There was no reason that the sight of her sitting there should startle him. And yet he felt off balance. Even threatened. For a brief moment her face wavered, and in a trick of memory, another pair of lovely eyes looked at him from the past, provoking and possessive. Once his life had held the promise of a woman sharing his hearth, but those dreams had been destroyed with a mockery he’d never forget.

  He quickly reined in his memories and walked over to her with a inquiring smile. “How are you doing? Better?”

  Jill had seen the startled look in his eyes when he came in, as if he was surprised to see her there. “Much better,” she said, returning his smile.

  “Good. Where’s Kirby?”

  “He went upstairs. I was just about to go up myself and meet the young couple.”

  “I owe you a big thank-you for coming,” he said as he stood in front of the fireplace with his back to the warming flames.

  Jill’s eyes slid up to his face, hoping he hadn’t noticed the assessing flicker of her eyes over his well-developed physique. He wore a dark blue wool shirt and tan-colored western pants that rode low on his hips and smoothly molded his thighs and legs. The times she’d been at the ranch with Randy, she’d watched those long legs swing easily over a saddle and had marveled at the way his body rose and fell in rhythm with a
horse’s gait. Even at a distance he was physically impressive; close up, he was almost devastating. “No thanks necessary, Mr. Haverly,” she said evenly.

  “Hal,” he corrected as he met the steady gaze of her eyes. Yes, they were the color of warm brandy, he decided and was irritated with himself for noticing.

  “Mine’s Jill,” she offered in return.

  “I know. Randy told me. He brags a lot about his mother.” Then he sobered. “I really didn’t know the storm was settling so fast until…until you didn’t show up and I got worried. I’m sorry, I insisted you come. I thought you could handle winter driving. What happened?”

  Jill forced herself to speak in an even, clear voice. “I was almost here. Then I hit a car. A dark sedan that wasn’t moving. I didn’t see it until too late and I rammed into the back of it.”

  “There was another car?”

  She nodded. “Right in the middle of the road.”

  “With someone in it?”

  She moistened her lips. “Yes, a man.”

  “And we left him out there? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? For heaven’s sake—”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I sure as hell don’t,” he swore before he could catch himself.

  Her chin came up. “I’ll explain if you’ll just give me a chance.”

  “Then do it!” He caught himself. Wrong tone. There was enough stubbornness in the lift of her chin to warn him that she wasn’t anyone he could order around. He’d have to handle her gently, like a maverick colt. For a moment, he wondered how much spirit she had in that delicious-looking body of hers. And about the challenge of taming it. Then he clamped down on these ridiculous wanderings and said evenly, “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “When I couldn’t get my Jeep back on the road, I thought I’d be better off in the other car that was still on the pavement across the road. But when I got to the sedan…when…when I got there…” She stammered and swallowed hard. “There was a man…sitting in the front seat.”