Page 22 of Stealing the Runaway Bride

"Morning," she whispers. Her voice is a low rasp that makes my blood turn to molten lead.

"Morning." I catch her wrist, my knuckles brushing the underside of it, my hand swallowing hers. "You okay?"

She smiles, a small, tired thing that reaches her eyes.“Better than okay.” Her mouth curves with sleepy satisfaction. ‘But unless Pine Ridge has changed its dress code overnight, I’m going to need something clean.’

I roll off the cot, the cool air hitting my bare skin, and retrieve the cotton dress from the floor. It’s wrinkled from where I dropped it last night, but it will get her as far as the main house.

I hold it out.

“For now. Linda said she’d find you something clean.”

Juliette takes it, lifting one eyebrow. ‘Are you going to turn around?’

“No.”

“I thought cowboys were supposed to be gentlemen.”

“I’m a foreman. Different rules.”

She tries to glare at me, but the flush spreading across her face ruins the effect. I watch her pull the dress over her head, the cotton sliding down every soft line I spent the night memorizing. The sight of her dressing in my loft lands hard enough to steal my breath.

“Come on,” I say before I drag her back down onto it. “We’re going to the main house. There’ll be breakfast waiting.”

"Is it safe?" she asks, her humor flickering for a second as she smooths the dress down over her hips. "For me to be out there?"

"You're on Kramer land," I say, and the territorial edge in my voice is sharp enough to draw blood. "Anyone who comes for you answers to me first."

She nods, her jaw tightening. She’s thinking about him. Conrad Marchand. The man who treats people like line items on a ledger. The man powerful enough to make trouble for Pine Ridge while Black Aspen tightens its hold on the water.

I lead her down the ladder from the loft, my hand hovering near her waist the whole way. The tack room is quiet, the smell of saddle oil and aged leather thick in the air. My workbench sits in the corner, the old half-finished cottonwood hawk resting beside my whittling knife. I didn’t start it for Juliette, but she’s the reason I picked it up again. I look at it and feel a pang of the old ghost—the man who couldn't finish the cabin in the back pasture, the man who let the weeds reclaim the garden he’d started for a woman who didn't want him.

Not this time. The bird can wait. The cattle can’t.

We step out into the yard. The sun is just clearing the jagged peaks of the mountains, washing the world in thin gold. But the air is wrong. It’s too dry. Usually, the morning air on the Ridge is damp with dew, smelling of wet pine and rich earth. Today, it smells like dust.

I look toward the western quarter. The grass looks brittle, even from here. My gut twists.

"Cag?" Juliette says, sensing the change in me.

"The wind’s wrong," I mutter. "Wait here."

I walk over to the large galvanized trough near the barn. Usually, the float valve is hissing, keeping it topped off for the horses.

It’s silent.

I look inside. The water level is low. Way too low. A thin rim of dried slime marks where the water should be. I reach down and jiggle the valve. A pathetic, rusty gurgle is the only response.

Panic, cold and sharp, needles my skin. A ranch without water isn't a ranch. It’s a graveyard.

"Hey!"

I turn to see Andy walking toward us from the main house. He’s wearing his 'Boss' face—the one where his brow is a permanent furrow and his eyes are narrowed to slits. He looks like he hasn't slept a minute.

"Cag," he says, his voice gravelly. He glances at Juliette, his eyes softening for a fraction of a second before returning to me. "The western tanks aren’t refilling. I just came from the pump house. The creek intake is pulling almost nothing."

"Black Aspen," I spit. The name tastes like poison.

"They did more than just shut the gate upstream," Andy says, rubbing the back of his neck. "They’ve diverted the flow entirely. They’re claiming 'emergency maintenance' on the tributary. Their filing lets them hold it while the claim is pending, and pending can mean months. We both know what this is. It’s a chokehold."