Damn, he’d hoped for a reprieve. “Do you want to know now, or would you prefer to wait until we get back?”
“Now,” she replied. “Or I’ll spend all day freaking out that I could have done something different.” She nudged Bluey to fall into step next to him as the track they were on widened. “I don’t want to ruin the day because my brain is on overdrive as I try to figure out what I should have done differently.”
“It wasn’t you as such.” What she asked for made sense, and he figured he might as well get it over with. He wanted her to enjoy today. “It did involve you, though.” He watched her as she made a sound of distress. But she had to know the details. “Janek has put a bounty on you, and he wants you back.”
“I don’t know why.” Rose heaved a sigh. “There are so many more beautiful women in the world besides me. He can have any one of them he wants.”
Calen pulled up his horse, and she did the same next to him. “Stop it.” It drove him nuts that she didn’t see how beautiful she was. “You are stunning. To me, you are the most beautiful person on the planet. Everyone sees it but you.” It was one of the many things that drew him to her. She didn’t see the person she was. He did, and he decided he would make it his mission to ensure she believed it, too, before the end of the day.
“You need your eyes tested.”
He snorted a laugh. So that’s what she was going to do, try and persuade him he was wrong. “I had that done last month.”
“If you think I’m beautiful, then you need a better eye doctor.”
“Don’t listen to his voice in your head.” Give him five minutes with Janek for making her believe the shit falling out of her mouth. “Listen to mine. You are a knockout. Period.”
“If you say so.” Clearly she was done with this part of the conversation. “So what happens now?”
“The fucking asshole who set off the alarms is down at the sheriff’s office getting read the riot act.”
“Do you think it means he’ll leave me alone?”
Not a fucking chance.
“I don’t know.” He didn’t want to lie to her, but he also didn’t want to give her a false sense of security. It was a tough position to be in. “I think your best bet is to allow us to figure out a way to keep you safe. If witness protection failed, we’re better. We won’t fail.”
“I can’t stay here,” she said slowly. “You have kids here. People who matter. I cannot bring Janek and his goons here.”
There had to be somewhere she could go. He resolved to find her a safe place to regroup. “I know.” He forced the words out of his mouth, because what she said was true. If Janek knew to look for her at Nemesis, then they needed somewhere not attached to them for her to hide. “We’ll figure it out.”
She nodded and gave him a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes, but he figured that was the best he could hope for right now. Her whole world was shattered; she needed a safe place until they figured out how to get the asshole off her back.
“Janek would be stupid to come here,” Caleb said. “But everything we’ve seen and found out about him tells us he’s arrogant enough to try it.”
“Yeah. He is.”
That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he’d take her at her word. If today was all they had, then he wanted to make the most of it. “We start to climb soon.” He pointed ahead to where the trail rose in front of them. “Do you want me to lead Bluey, or are you good?”
“I think I’m okay,” she decided. “But I’ll tell you if that changes.”
“Good girl. Just give Bluey her head, and she’ll follow Trudy. She knows this place better than either of us.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Caleb split his attention between the trail and Rose. This bit of the track was a trick, but she was doing better than okay, and before he knew it, they were close enough to smell the sulfur from the springs.
“Wow.”
He pulled Trudy to a stop just a little bit past the opening to the plateau. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
25
Rose gripped the pommel on the saddle and stood in the stirrups to see better. Steam rose from behind the rocks in front of them. Trees surrounded them in a semi-circle, and when she glanced back at where they’d come from, her breath caught in her throat. “Wow. Just wow.”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She nodded, too busy taking in the view of the ranch laid out before them. She could barely make out the cows standing in a circle around feeders. If they hadn’t passed them on the way here, she might have mistaken them for blobs on the otherwise pristine snow. She cocked her head to one side and listened. Instead of the sound of the human population, cars, and phones, the day was filled with birds, trickling streams, and nature. “It’s so quiet.”
