This wasn’t the lean teenager who’d kissed her goodbye. This was a man—weathered face and defined jaw covered with perfectly trimmed brown stubble, the kind of rugged masculinity that belonged on some Rancher’s Today magazine cover. And yet, lines bracketed those stunning eyes now, his face etched by sun and wind and experiences she’d never know about. His hands—oh, his hands—rested on powerful thighs, and she could see the calluses, the scars, the evidence of a life lived hard and far from her.
He was staring at her with the same hollow-chested expression that she probably wore, his lips slightly parted as if words had died in his throat. The same mouth that had whispered promises against her skin, that had told her he’d come back, that had kissed her like she was his entire world.
Until she wasn’t. Until he walked away and…died.
Died. She had his flag, for Pete’s sake.
So clearly, not dead. Breathing. Devastatingly, impossibly real.
The sense of it all—the grief, the hopes, the…the betrayal crashed over her in a wave so violent it stole her breath.
And then the scream ripped from her throat before she could stop it.
So, in truth, in all Rowan’s imagined reunion moments, Sierra screaming had been dead last place on the list.
That and the way she looked at him—part horror, part betrayal, all in grief?—
Yeah, tactical mistake, to show up here, at the police station. He blamed the lack of sleep at the Mountain View Motel. Rowan had managed maybe three hours, his mind churning with images of Sierra’s ranch and the boy practicing roping under the floodlights.
“Place has all the charm of a fire camp,” Saxon had said, pulling on his boots this morning. “At least in Afghanistan we knew the ground was supposed to be hard. I’m going to find coffee that doesn’t taste like motor oil. You coming?”
“Go ahead. I need to check on Mack.”
Rowan had pulled out his phone and sent a text.
Rowan
How’s the visit going? You okay?
The response had come back quickly.
Mack
Good. Dad’s showing me around the ranch. Lot of new equipment since I was a kid. Planning to stay through tomorrow if that’s okay.
So, maybe he’d overreacted. Maybe the guy had changed. And Mack was hardly an eighteen-year-old kid. He knew how to handle himself.
When Saxon returned with coffee and local gossip, the news had been grim.
“Talked to some folks at the diner. Cattle rustling’s been worse than Martinelli let on. Third ranch hit this week, always the same method. Professional operation, the cattle driven away in trucks.”
“Which ranches?”
“Collins place lost twenty head on Tuesday. Hendrick’s ranch got hit Thursday night. And this morning, someone cut Sierra Blackwood’s fence and made off with her pregnant stock.”
Rowan’s blood had turned cold. “How many head?”
“Six. All breeding cows, all pregnant.”
Oh no.
“The Blackwood ranch sits in the center of those ranches, with plenty of dirt backroads providing access routes that would let rustlers move stolen cattle without using main highways.”
“Yep. You think Elway Blackwood would have noticed unusual activity?”
“He was police commissioner for a decade, so probably.” And if Elway had gotten too close to the truth…
Rowan grabbed his keys.
