“Watch me.”
He caught up to her, now in the lobby. “I could talk to your husband, offer my services. Security consulting, ranch patrol. I still know how to cowboy.”
She whirled around, and the look she gave him could have cut glass. “That won’t be necessary.”
Martinelli had followed too. “Sierra, maybe you should consider it. You’re all alone out there, and if these rustlers are willing to kill?—”
“Thanks a lot, Detective.” She leveled the cutting look at Martinelli. “I appreciate the vote of confidence in my ability to protect my own property.”
She headed for the door again.
And what was his problem that for three years—even ten total—he had managed to stay away from this woman, and yet now he couldn’t let her out of his sight?
Rowan followed her through the front entrance onto Main Street. “Sierra, wait.”
She whirled to face him on the sidewalk. She shook now, and oh, he wanted to reach out, to catch her arms.
To pull her to himself.
But, hello, Mr. Too Late. She was taken.
“Wait?” She laughed then, nothing of humor in it. “I’ve been waiting for ten years. I waited for letters that never came. I waited for phone calls. I waited for you to keep your promise to…” She swallowed, wrapped her arms around herself, looked away, and her voice dropped. “…to come back to me.”
Oh. He had made that promise.
“It was complicated.”
“Complicated.” She spat out the word. “You know what’s complicated? Running a ranch. Grieving. Raising a child alone.”
He stared at her, and for some reason, the stupid words fell out of his mouth. “Sierra, I’m sure you and your husband can work it out.”
Her mouth opened, and then again, a laugh. Only this time, thick with…what? Disbelief? Maybe because for sure he’d gone too far.
“I’m not married, thanks.”
A beat. And then he just…just fell into it. “When I saw the boy with that man yesterday, I assumed he was your husband.”
No. He did not say that. Leave. Leave now?—
Her eyes widened. “You were watching my ranch.”
He swallowed. “I was driving by. I saw him teaching the kid to rope, saw you both head inside. It looked like…family.”
“It looked like a family because it is a family. Just not the kind you’re thinking of.” Sierra stepped closer—close enough that he could smell the scent of hay and horses that clung to her clothes. “That man is Walt Morrison. He works for me. Has worked for us since before Grandpa died. He’s teaching my son to rope because there’s no one else to do it.”
The words hit him harder than they should have. No one else to do it. No father figure, no husband, no man in her life?
She’d been doing it all alone, just as she’d said.
“I can help.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need your help.”
“Really?”
She stiffened, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Six pregnant cows stolen, your grandfather dead under suspicious circumstances, and you don’t need help?”
“Not from you.”
