A man Wade never thought he’d see again.
Chapter Twenty
The sun was hiddenbehind the mountains by the time Hazel passed the Trentons’ ranch, Aspen Ridge. And it was gone from the sky completely when she arrived at the Pierce ranch.
She detoured toward the creek as she grew closer to the house and outbuildings, not wanting to alert the men she knew had arrived ahead of her. Behind the trees, she tied Annie at the creek and approached the house on foot.
It was eerily quiet. Although it was dark, it wasn’t particularly late. There should have been campfires lit in the yard where the ranch hands had been sleeping since the bunkhouse had burnt. There should have been conversation and laughter, but all she heard was the shuffling and snorting of horses from somewhere around the front of the house.
Squinting into the darkness as she grew closer, she couldn’t see a single sign of life in the yard. Where had all the men gone? Chills swept up her back, and she prayed they weren’t injured in any way. Maybe the men the scarred fellow was working with had drawn them away somehow.
But that made no sense. Lars wouldn’t have let every single one of them go. He would have insisted that some remained here to keep a guard on the house and stable.
And now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen a single man in the pastures she’d ridden past.
Swallowing hard, she turned her attention back to the house. A dim glow showed through the window. She wasn’t close enough to see inside, but the light indicatedsomeonewas in there. Whether it was only Wade, or an entire gang of men, she didn’t know.
Hazel clutched at her skirts. What should she do? She hadn’t really given it any thought beyond the driving need to get here. But now that she’d arrived, she realized how woefully unprepared she was. She had no weapon, no knowledge of who was inside, and no idea of what they’d do to take the ranch.
Deputy Wright was on his way. He had to be, and if she could hold faith in that, perhaps she could help prevent anything terrible from happening until he arrived.
She considered her options. She could create a distraction out here, bring them running from inside. But she didn’t know how many men were in there, and how many might be elsewhere.
She could search for the ranch hands, but that might take hours.
She could ride for help, go to the Trentons’ ranch. But she’d already wasted so much time just getting here. If she left, who knew what they might do to Wade. She wouldn’t leave him to face that alone, no matter how he felt about her. Even if that glance he gave her back in Crest Stone meant nothing, she wanted him to know how much he meant to her.
She would tell him exactly how she felt if she got the chance.
If she were able to talk to the scarred man and his partners, perhaps she could convince them to leave. Without a weapon and without help, it was the only option she had. And if just might work, so long as the deputy arrived quickly.
Steeling her shoulders, Hazel picked up her skirts and strode past her garden to the back door. Before she could let the fear get the best of her, she knocked.
