Page 12 of Her Guarded Hero

“Nada,” he agreed. “You still good?”

“Yep.” She didn’t look so good, but she’d plastered a big smile on her face. The girl had game. He put his hand on her lower back and continued to guide her up the incline.

“This is better than a Stairmaster,” she said breathing hard.

“You go to the gym?”

“No, but my friend Crystal does. She’s always complaining about the Stairmaster. I imagine this is what it’s like. I stick to work around the ranch. What about you?” she panted out the question.

“During down time there is a lot of physical training. Then we’ll go on training exercises and maneuvers.”

“Yeah, you look like you could wrestle a stallion to the ground.”

“You should see some of the other guys on my team. I’m a small fry.”

Aurora’s laughter rang out through the forest. “Pull my other leg.”

“Seriously. My friend, Hunter Diaz, makes me look like I ate nothing but gruel growing up,” he grinned down at her.

“I’d like to meet him.”

“He’s engaged.”

Where the hell had that come from? Why did he feel the need to tell her that Hunter was off limits? Ah hell, was he interested in Aurora?

“Let me check my phone again.”

“Sounds good to me.” She stopped and bent forward, putting her hands on her knees.

This time he got a signal and got through. As soon as they answered he explained their situation. He checked his GPS and said how close they were to the road.

“The sheriff should be here in thirty minutes,” he told Aurora when he hung up.

“Let’s keep walking,” she said.

“No, I want you to rest.”

“I’m fine. I want to be up there, so that you can then go down with one of the deputies and show them what you found. That way they can start after the poachers. I am so sick of those bastards,” she said vehemently.

He chuckled.

“Poachers I say. Poachers.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not going to let me live in my own little world anymore?”

“Not with the sheriff on his way. You need to start thinking about who would want to fire shots at you.”

He watched as her face scrunched up. Then her fingers flew to her forehead to tenderly touch her bruise. “But that’s the thing Dalton. I don’t have any enemies. I don’t mean to toot my own horn or anything, but people really like me around here. I pay my taxes. I donate to charity. I even make jams and jellies and give them out like my grandmother did. People like me.”

God, she looked so forlorn.

Facing her, he brushed back her hair, so he could look at the bandages on her forehead. They were holding, but the swelling around the bruise was even worse. “How bad is your headache?” he asked.

“We were talking about how nice I am.”

“I believe you. I’ve found you to be extremely nice. Now tell me how bad your headache is.”