Evidence of Trust

by Stacey Joy Netzel

  “I know.”

  Instead of reassuring him, the trust in her voice increased the fear in his heart.

  When she tilted her face and met his gaze without hesitation, his breath caught in his chest. Raising one hand to the back of her head, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. She wound her arms around his neck and pressed closer. Her warm lips parted, inviting him in to drown in the intoxicating feel and taste of her.

  He fought back a groan of frustration. What was he thinking? He had to call Aaron about the threat—and Mark to arrange for barn security. She was not a temptation he could succumb to right now, yet finding the willpower to break the kiss with her soft curves molded to his body proved to be difficult.

  Distantly, he became aware of an increased noise level in the barn. The horses were getting restless in their stalls, mirroring his own frustration.

  “I’ve got to make that call,” he finally whispered against her mouth.

  In the same moment she began to draw back, the alarming combination of gas and smoke hit his nostrils. Joel’s eyes popped open. A yellow flicker at the back of the barn chilled his blood and had him frantically reaching to drag her arms from around his neck.

  “The barn is on fire!”

  She whirled around, her eyes widening at the hungry flames licking up the wall. Fingers of smoke snaked along the roof of the hayloft above their heads. A terrified ear-splitting whinny sent the other animals in the barn into all-out panic.

  “Oh my God—the horses!”

  Joel jerked Brittany around and pushed her toward the office. “Call 911 while I start getting them out.”

  Trusting her to do as he ordered, he ran for the stall closest to the flames. The horse was already full of sweat, and the whites of its eyes showed as Joel opened the stall door. The animal backed up, but the moment it came up against the wall, it bolted forward. He flung himself out of the way and still got clipped by the horse’s shoulder.

  The force bounced him against the door, nearly knocking the wind out of him. He regained his balance and scrambled after the animal, then skirted past with his back to the wall when it reached the closed doors and whirled around in mindless panic. Seconds later, he unlatched the doors and flung them open. The horse streaked past as Joel turned back for the next one.

  Fire licked along the sides of the barn now, spreading faster than he imagined possible. The smoke grew thicker as the flames devoured the dry wood. Joel ran in a crouch on the way to the back to avoid the worst of it, but it still burned his throat and lungs. After waving the next horse out, he stripped off his shirt, and dunked it in the water bucket hanging in the stall.

  Brittany was in the aisle, coughing into her arm as she reached to unlatch the next stall. Joel called her name as the horse dashed for freedom. Fisting each hand in his soaked shirt, he tore it in two before thrusting half into her hands to tie around her nose and mouth. Watery green eyes met his for a brief, thankful moment.

  They each took a side of the aisle, freeing the horses and letting them loose into the stable yard outside. Some ran, others had to be led, eating up precious time. They’d reached the last three stalls in the front when Joel noticed people gathering outside. A few worked to catch the milling horses, others just watched.

  The pop and crackle of the fire had risen to a loud roar, and as he led his next horse out, a portion of the barn collapsed in the back with a deafening boom. The bay reared up, hauling him off his feet. When he stumbled on the landing, a strong pair of arms helped him upright. His split second glimpse of a face revealed one of Highlands’ wranglers.

  “How many more?” Jon yelled.

  “Three. Take this one. I’m going back in.”

  Joel shoved the lead rope into his hands and passed Brittany at the doors on his way back inside. Two more. As he reached for Gypsy’s stall door, Brittany came up from behind and grabbed his arm. Her grip slipped on his sweat-slick skin and she shouted over the noise engulfing them. “You’ll never get near her. Get Paelo!”

  No time to argue—he went for her stallion. With the flames ever closer, it was a struggle to get the animal out. The heat made it hard to breathe even with his shirt tied around his face. Smoke stung his eyes, and tears blurred his vision, but he couldn’t let Brittany down.

  With the fire breathing down from above, he begged the stallion to move faster. “Come on, boy, help me out here.”

  Finally, he managed to get him into the aisle and out into the yard. When he saw Jon, he shoved the lead rope at the man. “Hold him—don’t let him go for anything.”

  Joel turned back to see Brittany leading the mustang from the burning building. She’d removed his shirt from her face and had it tied over the mare’s eyes as a blindfold. Their exit created a surreal picture that played in what felt like slow-motion. Woman and horse taking one step at a time, silhouetted against the glowing flames behind them.

  Another rafter crashed to the floor at the back of the barn, sending a spray of red-hot embers through the air. The mare reared up and Joel’s heart leapt into his throat when Brittany swung from the lead rope. She stuck the landing, but the mustang bounced right back into the air and wrenched the rope from her hands.

  She stumbled in front of the rearing horse, and Joel’s breath seized in his chest as Gypsy came back down right on top of her.

  He lunged forward with a shout as she crumpled to the ground beneath the deadly hooves.

  Chapter 28

  It felt like someone was hammering on her head. A steady pounding that kept time with the beat of her heart. Frowning intensified the pain and the slight swaying movement beneath her made her nauseous. Along with the overpowering stench of smoke.

  “Brittany?”

  Joel’s raspy voice made her open her eyes. His shadowed face hovered above hers. Concern clouded his expression and didn’t disappear even as a smile softened his mouth.

  “Hey, you’re awake. How you doing?”

  Her eyes had become accustomed to the dim light enough that she could see black smudges smeared across his forehead and cheeks. Her nose wrinkled. He smelled like smoke, wasn’t wearing a shirt, and she was half-lying in his lap. When she moved to sit up, a searing pain in her shoulder wrenched a gasp from her lips.

  “Easy. Just relax.” He tightened his hold until she rested her head back on his arm. “We’re on our way to the hospital. Almost there.”

  “The hospital?” Her voice croaked out of a raw throat that burned so bad she could barely swallow. Her gaze shifted toward the driver’s seat to see Mandy Cole’s profile lit by an oncoming car. Why was the young wrangler driving Joel’s truck?

  “You got a pretty nasty bump on the head, and we couldn’t wake you up,” he explained.

  Joel opened his door and slid his arm under her knees to slip out of the vehicle with her in his arms. “I can walk,” she protested.

  He bent to set her down. Dizziness made her sway and blackness rushed in to crowd the edge of her vision. She made a desperate grab for his arm.

  “I got you,” he assured her.

  Something bumped against the back of her knees, and he eased her down into a wheelchair one of the ER attendants rolled out.

  They took her to a room right away and transferred her to a bed. Lying on the white sterile sheets, she realized she reeked of smoke and was as dirty as Joel. She gingerly felt her head, then trailed her fingers down to feel blood matted in her hair. A shower sounded like heaven, but so did a nap. With the bustle of activity that filled the room in the next minute, she knew neither would happen anytime soon.

  It was after one a.m. when the nurse finished cleaning the gash on her forehead and the doctor came in to give her nine stitches along her hairline. Her headache had subsided a bit, and her shoulder only ached now, thanks to the ibuprofen they’d given her.

  “You’re lucky that horse’s hoof just grazed you,” the woman commented.

  She was a whole lot luckier than that. They all were—her, the horses, Joel. He watche
d silently from the chair beside the bed, elbows braced on his knees. They’d let him clean up in the bathroom, and someone had found him a T-shirt. Red rimmed his eyes, making it look like he’d been crying, but she knew it was from the stinging smoke.

  Her eyes burned for a different reason as guilt crept in. She should’ve given him the note right way.

  “You’ll be able to go home later this morning, but with the mild concussion, you’re going to need someone with you for at least the next twenty-four hours. Forty-eight would be best.”

  “I got that covered,” Joel said.

  The doctor glanced at him, then focused back on her work. “Good. I’ll send you home with instructions.”

  Home. The woman kept saying the word, and Britt realized it didn’t conjure up a picture of her place in Chicago. It didn’t bring to mind any one place. Instead, she found her gaze drawn to Joel once more.

  Only he’d turned his attention to the door and risen to his feet. Britt looked over to see Aaron shadowing the doorway. He nodded at her, but stepped outside with Joel. She found herself straining to hear their low voices in the hall as the doctor finished.

  “The nurses will be in each hour, and I’ll be back to check on you before I finish my shift at eight,” the doctor told her. “Get yourself some rest now.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. Tired as she was, once the woman left, Britt grew more frustrated by the minute as the men remained outside the door where she couldn’t hear a thing. She was about to call them inside when Aaron glanced over and noticed her frown. He said something to Joel, then stepped past to enter the room. Joel went the other direction and her chest tightened.

  “Where’s Joel going?”

  “To ask Mandy to grab your bag out of the truck.”

  “For the envelope,” she guessed.

  “That, and clean clothes for you.”

  She didn’t return his brief smile and shifted her gaze toward the window. “I’m sorry. I know this is all my fault.”

  “No it’s not,” Joel stated as he returned. She met his fierce frown. “That bastard is responsible, not you.”

  She shook her head. “I should’ve—”

  “What’s done is done, Britt,” Aaron interrupted. “Joel’s right, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Right now, the most important thing is that you’re okay and no one else got hurt.”

  Easy for them to say. She’d thought she was protecting her horse, but instead put all the animals and Joel in danger. If anything had happened to him in the fire…

  He stood next to Aaron, and she wished he’d come closer. At the same time, she knew she should send him away. Being with her is what could’ve gotten him killed tonight.

  “Joel’s kept me in the loop on his investigation so far,” the sheriff said. “But from here on out, we’re combining resources to nail this guy once and for all.”

  She nodded, though her mind whirled about what she could do to help. Lying in a bed like a helpless victim was not a feeling she liked one damn bit.

  Aaron glanced toward the door as Mandy entered with her duffle. She handed it to him and he set the bag on the foot of her bed before digging out the envelope. He dropped it into a plastic evidence bag, then sealed the bag. “I’m going to take what I’ve got here and get everything processed for prints. Between that and the investigation the fire Chief has started at the ranch, we might have something to work with later this morning.”

  Joel walked to the door with him and the two spoke in hushed tones again.

  “You could use me.” Both men swiveled to face her. “To draw him out, I mean. I could—”

  “Hell no.”

  That came from Joel even as Aaron shook his head. “You are going to lay low for a few days. Even better if you got out of town.”

  Her eyes widened. They wanted her to leave?

  “Listen, we’ll talk later, okay?” Joel murmured to Aaron.

  The sheriff turned to Mandy. “I have to talk to the fire chief, so I can give you a ride back to the ranch.”

  She nodded, and after Britt and Joel both thanked her, the two of them left. Joel turned and leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. Britt watched him, all the way across the room, her heart weighted with dread.

  “You want me to leave?”

  “I want you to be safe. But I might not be the best person for that job. Being next to me puts you in more danger.”

  “I think it’s the other way around.”

  “I can take care of myself, Brittany.” He uncrossed his arms and straightened to come closer to the bed. Her pulse increased with each step, but he stopped and gripped the plastic footboard. His gaze fixed on the bandage along her hairline as he asked, “Would you consider leaving? Going home early?”

  She should. To protect him and even herself. And Mark would understand, she knew that. But she realized she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Colorado any more than she could stand the thought of this being the last time she saw Joel. As it was, she only had so many days before he left, so she wanted every minute with him she could have.

  The word selfish hovered in her head, until something else occurred to her. “What if he follows me to Chicago? Who’s going to watch my back then?” She trusted him for that job, no one else. “It’s obvious from the note this person knows all about me. I mean, he knows you call me Brittany, and he knew about Daniel.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Joel finally moved to the side of the bed and sat on the edge facing her, his hip brushing against hers. “If you stay, you and I are going to have to do some major brainstorming. Come up with a list of everyone you know so Aaron and I can start digging.”

  If you stay. There was no if about it. She’d finally figured out exactly where she wanted to be, no way in hell was she going anywhere. She sat forward and placed her hand on his leg, just above his knee. He covered her hand with his, sending fissions of electricity up her arm.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  His fingers squeezed hers as his lashes lifted. Relief and something more darkened the gold-flecked eyes that met hers. “Good.”

  It’s a good thing she wasn’t hooked to a heart monitor, or the whole floor of nurses would have come running.

  “And I want to help any way I can.”

  “So long as you get that crazy idea out of your head about you being bait to lure this guy out. If anything happened to you…”

  When he trailed off, his hand came up to brush the hair away from her face, then threaded through the tangled strands to cup the back of her neck. He leaned in for a quick kiss, then gently rested his forehead against hers, well clear of the bandage. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

  “I won’t.”

  But she already had. With her pulse tripping along at breakneck speed, she realized she’d fallen in love with the man who’d made no secret of the fact he’d never stay.

  Chapter 29

  One hundred percent confident no one had followed them this time, Joel put the truck in park and reached for the ignition. A glance toward his sleeping passenger made him pause. He hugged the steering wheel while laying his head down on his arms to just look at her.

  Brittany’s head was angled away from him, but he could still see telltale circles beneath her eyes from lack of sleep and stress. Her hair needed to be washed better than the rinse the nurses had given her in the hospital, and the unpleasant stench of smoke seemed to have seeped deep into both their pores. Even with all that, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. His heart was in for a world of hurt once this was all over, but right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care. As long as she was safe and he kept her that way, nothing else mattered.

  She’d fallen asleep less than five minutes into the drive, which was not a surprise seeing as she’d barely rested in the hospital. About five a.m., he’d left for a couple hours only to return and find a seemingly en
dless stream of friends popping in to make sure she was okay. Casey, Jayne, Mitch, Jon, Randy, Billy, Mark.

  There were others he hadn’t met, and he added every single one to his growing list of names.

  He watched each person, his anxiety winding tighter with each visitor as he was unable to keep from wondering which one of them had tried to kill them less than twelve hours ago. Recalling that faint scent of gas, he had no doubt the fire had been intentionally set. Even Brittany wasn’t her usual warm, welcoming self, and more than once he caught concerned glances exchanged between her friends.

  Gina had arrived shortly before they discharged Brittany about two o’clock, and he took a moment to make sure she wasn’t planning to return to her apartment alone. Jackson was with her, she told him, and she’d head back to Denver with him for a few more days. Joel nodded his approval and added their names to the list as well. Brittany hadn’t seen it yet, but he could just imagine what she’d say when she did.

  He shut off the truck and gently closed the driver’s door before going around to her side. When he opened the passenger door, she startled awake. Her gaze found his, her green eyes so large in her pale face that his chest ached.

  He offered a reassuring smile. “It’s just me.”

  Color infused her cheeks as she sat up straighter. “Sorry. I’m not usually so…wait, where are we? This isn’t your place.”

  She stared out the windshield at the rustic cabin nestled in a small clearing, surrounded by enough Ponderosa Pines to permeate the air with their vanilla-scented bark. The sound of running water told Joel the stream they’d crossed a few minutes ago on the road ran right past the back of the cabin.

  “Aaron gave me the key to his cabin. We’re about fifteen minutes out of Estes, and he’s the only one who knows we’re here. He made sure there was no way to track us.”

  When she started to climb out of the truck, he reached forward, intending to carry her inside. She held up a hand. “I’m good. I have a bump on the head, not broken legs.”