“Figure I can hole up in your bunkhouse.”He glanced around the property as though looking for such a structure.
“We don’t have one.”
“Sure you do.A spread this size will always have a bunkhouse.You’ve got to bring in men for spring roundup and fall gather.”He figured she’d pegged him for a city slicker.However, he’d grown up on a beef cattle ranch in Texas.Raising cattle in cow-calf operations in the two states meant there were differences in the way things were done, yet also many commonalities.
Oh, yeah.There was a bunkhouse.
“Wrong,” she said.“No place for you to stay here, sorry.”She flipped her braid from her shoulder to her back.
“Big Jim already showed me.I stowed my gear in there on a bunk,” he lied.“You can stop fighting.Rio wants me here.”He was unashamed about busting out thebrothercard.“And you need me.”
“I need a new John Deere tractor, hopefully one with a disc mower for hay making.”She turned away to collect her tools.“I’m not in the market for a babysitter.”
This had gone on long enough.He had to protect Sarah and figure out who was threatening her.Before anything bad happened, the stalker needed to be stopped.As beautiful as Sarah was in real, Technicolor life, as infatuated as he was with her, nothing had changed.Hemustcomplete his mission.
“Sarah?”He said her name softly.
When his sudden change in tone brought her twisting around to face him, he met her glare with a level gaze of his own.“Get used to it because I’m not going anywhere.”
“We’ll see about that.”She picked up her posthole digger.
“It’s settled,” he told her in deep certainty.As tall as she was, he was taller.At six-foot-three, he very deliberately loomed over her.“You’re mine now.”
Chapter Four
As usual, Sarah barelyslept.When she did doze off, otherworldly images of monstrously long angled arms cut around her, tightened and entrapped her.Scythes and sharp blades swiped through the air, their pointed tips coming for her.No matter how she struggled, she could not escape them.Fear strangled her, choked off her breath.She woke gasping, perspiring, fighting free of damp covers.
At dawn, she gave up and abandoned the bed.Showering and putting on her usual jeans, boots, and cotton shirt, she left her long hair down to dry.The damp strands fell thick and heavy to her hips.
Collecting her pistol from her nightstand where she’d begun placing it, she opened her locked bedroom door.
Because Big Jim liked to eat his breakfast each day in town at Milly’s Diner, she ate a banana and buttered toast and took her truck keys, shoulder bag, and hat off the kitchen hook.She planned to head into town as well.
Closing the door behind her, she turned around and saw him.
As though he had all the time in the world, Ben Paxton leaned back against the driver’s side door of her truck, his brawny arms crossed.A big man, he emanated strength and calmness.He wore jeans, boots, and a black felt hat.
