Right now, he wanted to give Kate his full attention. He’d get her settled at the camp and bring her camera back up to snap photos of the damage to the zip line. A cocktail of fury and horror swirled like acid in his stomach. Whoever had been vandalizing the Double M over the past year, trying to hurt his family’s business, had escalated. The saboteur had moved from poisoning a pond and burning crops to putting human lives at risk. Clenching his back teeth, Josh swore that if the cops wouldn’t do their job finding the cretin, he would. And there’d be hell to pay.
* * *
“You ready to move out?”
Kate glanced up at Josh when he spoke, needing a minute to replay his question in her head. Her thoughts were still miles away—namely, in a dank silo in Missouri, the memories as fresh as they were the day she’d been rescued.
“We should get on down to the campground. We’ve got things to do before it gets dark.” He held his hand out to her, offering her help getting to her feet.
A sense of warmth and security slid through her as his large, calloused hand encompassed hers, his grip firm and strong. He’d risked his life to save her. The truth flitted through her mind, sending waves of adoration and gratitude rippling through her.
On the heels of that thought, a doubt demon nipped at her sense of relief. But he put you in that position. His company was negligent.
She scowled as he pulled her up on still-wobbly legs.
His head canted to the side as he studied her furrowed brow. “Kate? What is it? Why the frown? Are you injured?”
“Um...no. Just...too much in my head.” She rubbed her temple as if she could block the disconcerting thoughts, and her fingers encountered a sticky substance. Lowering her hand, she saw the red stain, and her gut swooped. “Blood.”
Josh nodded, his mouth in a grim line. “Yeah. You’ve got a cut.” He touched the spot gently, and she noticed the sting for the first time. “Another reason to get down to the camp. I want to disinfect that. Maybe put a butterfly bandage on it.”
She turned up her palms and raked a more careful gaze over the rest of her body. What else had she missed? Her hands and arms were scraped, but not too badly. The knee of her jeans was torn, and her body ached in general from the tension in her muscles.
But she was alive. In one piece.
Josh kept his hand wrapped around hers, then tugged lightly, directing her to the back of the landing deck. “This way. I’ve got you.”
She allowed herself to lean into him, clinging to his hand, and followed him to the wooden stairs that descended to the ground. “Wh-when will they be here to pick us up?”
With one hand ensconced in Josh’s grip and her other hand holding the railing, she made her way down the steps, eager to get back to the ranch and collapse with a couple of Tylenol and a large glass of wine. In fact, forget Dawn’s challenge to face her fears. She was done. Ready to go home. Not just back to the ranch. Back to Dallas. To her condo. To her quiet life with her cat.
She’d built a simple, secure life for herself, and she was happy with it. Or...at least content.
At this moment, she could think of nothing she wanted more than her safe couch with Sadie purring beside her.
“Well...” The hesitation in Josh’s voice caught her attention.
“Well, what?”
He cut a side glance to her as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “That hasn’t been decided.”
She gave her head a small shake. “What’s to decide? They need to send someone to get us. The sooner, the better.”
“Kate, I just thought that maybe...” His voice trailed off, and he glanced away.
“Josh?” She felt the slight tightening of his grip on her hand, and a frisson of concern slithered down her spine. “They are coming, right?”
He gave her an odd look that heightened her suspicions. “Right now, Zane is taking the rest of the group back to the ranch, and...he has to deal with the insurance company...in light of...” He hitched his head toward the landing platform, not verbalizing the disaster they’d just survived.
“But we’re—”
“Safe,” he quickly finished for her, “and we have ample supplies to camp here tonight as planned.”
“Couldn’t someone else come for us? The foreman or Brady or—” She narrowed her eyes when the muscle in his jaw flexed and his brow dented in consternation. “What?”
“I’m going to talk with Zane again in a little while, but...I’d like to tell Zane that we’ll camp here tonight, then hike up to meet the rest of the group at the launch spot for the white-water rafting. We can still finish this trip.”
Her insides knotted, and jerking free of his grip, she took a stumbling step back from him as if he’d punched her in the gut. “We’re not calling off the rest of the trip? But—” Her breath caught, choking the rest of her sentence.
Josh met her gaze with a deep furrow in his brow. “Is that what you want? To quit?”
Quit. The word sawed in her gut. She hated to think of herself as a quitter, but...didn’t the circumstances call for it? If they’d been talking about a PR project or a 10K race or a low-carb diet plan, quitting would have been out of the question. Kate finished what she started. But, holy crap, she’d almost died today! If that didn’t give her an out, then what did?
“Kate,” he said, his tone soothing and his gaze softening, “full disclosure... Dawn told me about your...concerns over the trip. Because of your past.”
Her breath caught, and her heart thrashed with her outrage over Dawn’s indiscretion. She lifted a fluttering hand to the hollow of her throat, where her anxious fingers groped for the necklace she usually wore. “She told you?”
“Nothing specific. Just that you had some childhood fears to overcome.” He moved her hand from her throat and pressed it between both of his wide palms. “She wanted me to help you face your doubts and overcome your past. And you still can. I know that what happened earlier scared the hell outta you. But I swear I will keep you safe for the rest of this trip. Every strap and mounting will be double-checked, triple-checked. Every safety measure in place.” He pressed one hand over his heart. “I promise.”
“I, uh...” The heartfelt appeal in his eyes and warmth of his grip on her fingers muddled her thoughts. Why was she wavering? Squaring her shoulders, she refocused. “Every safety measure should have already been in place.”
“They were.” When she arched a skeptical eyebrow, he added, “Originally. We checked everything as recently as yesterday morning when we brought the supplies to the campsite. Someone managed to inflict the damage to the cable terminus after that.”
Her heart jolted. “As in sabotage?” she asked, fresh horror washing through her.
“Yeah.” His face darkened, and the pale blue of his eyes clouded. “Our family’s ranch has been attacked in past months, too. But here’s my thinking... If we quit right now, the vandal wins. Just like when terrorists bomb airports or concert venues, trying to disrupt our way of life, frighten us away from traveling or enjoying our freedoms. If we hide in our houses behind locked doors, the terrorists win.”
She drew a shaky breath and blew it out slowly. “But this is different.” She glanced around, feeling vulnerable but nudged by the truth Josh had just laid out. She waved a hand, trying to put her reluctance into words. “This is—”
“Exactly the same. A bully is a bully, whether they attack a country or just one person. I can’t let the saboteur win.”
The pain in his expression chipped at her will to refuse him.
His hand squeezed hers, and his eyes pleaded. “If you’ll stick it out with me, trust me to guide you through the other challenges, we can finish what we started. Finishing would be a moral victory. For both of us. Showing the vandal he hasn’t scared us off, and giving you a chance to live down your past.” He paused, his expression genuinely discouraged. “But if,
at the end of the rafting, you still want to cash in your chips and go back to the ranch, we’ll arrange a transport of some sort out for you.”
“So I’m stuck here until the end of the rafting?”
He visibly winced at her use of the word stuck. He gnawed his bottom lip for a moment, then added, “Look, let’s get settled in at the camp, get our fire started and that cut on your head tended to before the sun sets. We can reassess then.”
She stared at him, still wondering how she ended up in the middle of nowhere, alone with this dream-worthy cowboy, and her prospects for rescue dependent on taking more nerve-shattering risks. But in the face of his impassioned argument, his appeal to a moral victory, he’d left her little choice. He’d challenged her in a way that spoke to a buried part of her soul that longed for adventure. He’d deftly enlisted her sense of honor and justice, tweaked her tenacity—powerful allies swaying her to his cause. And she knew without deliberating further that she would continue on the trip, that she would put her life in his hands. His strong, calloused, tremble-calming hands.
As if he sensed her wavering, he moved one hand to glide along her jaw, his finger sliding across her cheek to cup her face. His thumb gently stroked the tender skin beside her eye, and thrilling sensations spiraled through her. “Kate, give me another chance to get this right. I won’t let you down. If you agree to stay, to make the trip with me, I promise you will not get hurt.”
She knew he couldn’t make any such promise. Accidents happened. To wit...her brush with death today. Her pulse tripped, and yet she heard herself saying, “O-k-kay.”
A smile spread across his handsome face, and he drew her close to drop a light kiss on her temple. As he turned, motioning for her to follow him to the campsite, the pragmatic part of her brain, which had obviously short-circuited at his touch, reengaged. She’d agreed to stay? To continue on this nightmare that had already almost killed her? Was she nuts?
Why had she agreed to trust Josh? Did she really believe he could deliver her home safely? He’d appealed to her emotional side, but following her feelings had landed her in trouble in the past. She knew better than to be swayed by his swoon-worthy good looks, passion-based arguments and devastating grin. Not when logic said continuing would be dangerous...in more ways than one. Traveling alone with a handsome man who’d proven he could knock down her defenses, had insights to her fears and had rooted out what made her tick could only spell disaster for her heart.
* * *
Three hours later, having cleaned up a bit, gotten a sterile bandage for her cut forehead and roasted a light supper of hot dogs over their campfire, Kate was still fretting over the plan to keep going on the trip. She sat with her legs bent, her knees drawn up to her chest, and her chin resting on crossed arms as she stared into the dancing flames. She knew she could tell Josh she’d changed her mind, but did she really want to quit or was her terrifying experience today clouding her judgment? Her old ghosts had rallied and were taunting her. She really didn’t want to make her choice based on her fear any more than she wanted to choose to stay because of an ill-advised fondness for Josh and his confusing influence over her.
Better safe than sorry, a doubt demon nudged. Safe...oh, how she longed to just stay safe, physically, emotionally. And yet—what kind of life was that?
I promise you will not get hurt. But did she trust Josh to keep that promise?
“Kate?” he said, cutting into her circular thoughts.
She blinked and focused on him, his face lit by the campfire. “Yes?”
Josh poked at the burning logs with the stick, moving a piece of wood into the glowing embers. “Can I ask you something...personal?”
She raised her chin from her crossed arms, a frisson of alarm and wariness sliding through her. She met his level gaze, his eyes so blue and piercing they seemed to glow in the dim firelight. “You can ask.” She tugged up her mouth in a quick grin. “No promises I’ll answer.”
Lifting a shoulder, he said, “Fair enough.” He turned his attention back to the fire and drew his eyebrows into a V. “Earlier today, when...everything happened...”
She gave a small grunt at his euphemism for the terrifying moments that even she hated to name, as if they still held the power to claim her life if she acknowledged them. His reasons for not wanting to name the incident specifically, she’d wager, were more rooted in guilt.
After another moment, where he seemed to be trying to find a tactful way to ask his personal question, he said, “You said, ‘Why is this happening again?’”
Kate blinked her surprise, her gut swooping. “I did?”
“Yeah.” He rolled his palm up in query. “What did you mean by that? Does it have anything to do with the fears Dawn mentioned?”
She exhaled slowly. Today of all days, after everything that had happened, she hated to give those ghosts any more face time. But since they were already out, haunting her, what could it hurt telling Josh about the event that had sent her life on a different trajectory?
“Had you zip-lined before?” he prodded when she remained silent for a moment too long. “Had other problems—”
“No, to zip-lining before.” She shifted to sit cross-legged and hugged her elbows. Despite the fire’s heat, a chill burrowed to her bones. “I fell into a grain silo when I was eight.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly as he stared at her, as if processing what she’d said. “You fell? From where? How high up?”
“The roof. I’d climbed out on it, and...it caved in.”
His eyes had rounded, and he gaped at her, slack-jawed.
She nodded, confirming his unspoken awe. “I was fearless as a kid. Adventurous. And I’d climbed the ladder on the side of one of our farm’s abandoned silos to retrieve my brother’s remote control plane. I’d taken it when I wasn’t supposed to, and it was stuck on the roof of the silo.” She paused for a moment. “I thought I could get it. But the roof was rusted, in bad shape, and I didn’t get far before it gave way.”
“Damn.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
His brow furrowed in thought before he said, “Clearly you lived to tell the tale.” He waved a hand in her direction. “But how? You had to have been hurt.”
She snorted a humorless laugh. “Oh, I was. Broken leg, concussion, many, many other bruises and internal contusions.” She shuddered remembering the pain she’d been in. “But a small amount of corn had been left in the silo for some reason. It was mostly rotten, but there was enough cushion in the muck and leftover grain to pad my fall. That slop saved my life.”
His countenance dark, Josh raked a hand over his mouth as he mulled her confession. “Geez, Kate.”
“That’s not the worst of it.” She bit her bottom lip, and her stomach rebelled as she thought about the days that followed her fall.
He’d abandoned the stick he’d been poking the fire with and swiveled to face her fully. “Not the worst? What could be worse?”
* * *
Zane leaned against the fence to the corral behind the stable and stared without really seeing anything at the almost full moon. Instead his mind’s eye saw the months of careful planning, risky financial maneuvers and hundreds of hours in execution that hung in the balance thanks to the accident today. The accident that wasn’t an accident, according to Josh.
The saboteur had struck again. Attacking his and his siblings’ startup business. If he’d thought the vandal had his sights only on his parents’ ranch, he knew better now. But why had McCall Adventures been targeted? And who could be so downright evil as to put human lives at risk this way?
The sound of voices and thud of boots on the hard-packed dirt of the ranch yard roused him from his deliberations. He cast a look over his shoulder, just as Roy and Dave approached, flanking him at the fence.
Roy clapped a hand on Zane’s shoulder. “You doin’ all right?”
“Honestly?
No. Everything’s a damn mess.” He kicked the bottom rung of the fence and bit out a curse.
“So...” Dave said, his tone cautious, “does this mean the adventure ranch business is finished?”
Zane gave the hand a side glance. “Undecided. I hope not. I’m gonna fight like hell to salvage it.”
“But for now?” Dave folded his arms on the top of the fence, his gaze still on his boss.
“We’re shutting down for now. Have to.”
“I’m sorry, man.” Dave turned to peer through the darkness to the empty corral.
“Hell of a thing, Zane. At least no one was hurt,” Roy added.
“Yeah,” Zane muttered in a desolate tone.
“You ladies having a hen party out here?” Zane’s father said, approaching from the house. The three men each greeted Michael, who sidled up to the fence next to Roy. “Something going on I should know about?”
“Just talking about the accident today and the future of the adventure biz,” Roy said.
Zane sighed. He really didn’t want to rehash or make small talk about the disaster. He had serious thinking to do. Planning. He knew the men meant well, but his nerves were still raw and he still had to deal with his rebellious brother. How could Josh even think of continuing the trip? They had to tread carefully in the next few weeks if they wanted to save the business.
“Well, if I know one thing, Zane,” his father said, “it’s that you can do anything you put your mind to. You always have. You’ll make a success of this adventures company, because my children aren’t quitters.”
“What if quitting is the financially responsible thing to do?” he asked.
His father leaned one arm and a hip against the corral fence and eyed Zane. “There are always going to be tough calls to make when you own a business. But I have faith that when the time comes, you’ll do the right thing.”
Rancher's High-Stakes Rescue Page 7