Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jake was not a tracker, at least not out here with the sun nearly gone and mostly blocked out by the dark, thickening clouds. The rocky canyons were wide open in front of him and utterly, eerily silent. Damn, what he’d give for his phone and an entire squad of cops to swarm the area.
Whoever had shot at them was gone now; he knew it. He studied the rock area where they’d heard the ping of the bullet and discovered something interesting. From where the shooter had stood, the distance hadn’t been that great, one hundred feet tops.
And yet they hadn’t been hit. So the shooter had terrible aim…
Or he’d been trying to miss them.
Something shimmered on the ground and he picked it up. A tiny, round metal ball. A BB.
Callie came around the rock. “What?”
He opened his hand and showed her.
“A BB?” She looked as baffled as he felt. “But a BB gun wouldn’t have killed us.”
“It’d have hurt like hell, but no, it wouldn’t have killed us, or the horses.”
Their gazes met, and she looked no less unnerved by the knowledge. “Who the hell…?” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, it’s working,” she whispered. “I’m officially scared.”
He shoved the BB in his pocket and reached for her.
She moved right into his arms, her body fitting to his as if she’d been made for the spot.
Burying his face in her hair, he gave himself the luxury of holding her for a long moment, while his heart gave one slow roll in his chest at what might have happened out there to her if she’d been alone. “We’ve got to get back.”
“Oh my God, you’re right. He might go there next.” She grabbed her radio and called the ranch, warning them. Then she mounted Sierra. “Hurry, Jake.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. What had seemed like such a beautiful spot only a moment ago, with the wide-open canyons and little else beneath a flaming, darkening sky, now seemed too big, too wide open.
The entire ride to the ranch, he imagined them both in someone’s gun sights, and he rode just behind Callie, desperate to watch her back, to keep her safe, hating that it was entirely out of his control.
He wasn’t used to that, things being out of his control, and it was one hell of a long fifteen-minute ride, with his spine itching the whole way.
Two days later, the novelists left, thankfully none the wiser about the ranch’s increasingly aggressive stalker. Jake knew their next guests were coming right on their heels, a family reunion, with sixteen members arriving from all over the country.
He wanted to cancel them, and even Callie had agreed, but unfortunately, more than half the guests had already begun their travel, so the decision had been made to let them come.
The sheriff and a few of his men had scoured the area where the shots had originated. They’d questioned all the ranch hands. They’d questioned their neighbors. They’d put out the word in town. No one knew anything.
In spite of that, Jake’s agent called with an offer for the ranch from the New York millionaire, who’d decided she liked the idea of a tax break and a new lifestyle. She’d offered ninety percent of his asking price and was willing to guarantee the employees one year of employment.
It was all Jake had wanted. He’d be stupid not to jump on it, and yet he hesitated.
It made no sense. He had a little over a week before he had to get back to San Diego to train recruits.
His shoulder was so improved he wished he could get back to firefighting, but even “so improved” wasn’t good enough.
He knew he couldn’t handle a hose, he couldn’t climb a ladder with speed and efficiency, and he couldn’t guarantee he could lift and carry a victim, much less his gear for any length of time.
But that wasn’t what really bothered him.
He was learning to accept the fact that firefighting might be in his past, for the most part.
What he was suddenly having trouble with was imagining leaving the Blue Flame.
He liked to pretend that was because he worried about the ever-escalating danger and leaving Callie to face it alone.
Or that he’d started a new and different sort of relationship with Tucker, and that it was working for both of them.
But even he knew it was far more than that. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
They had an overnight storm that left everything clear and glistening.
The weather turned warm, almost hot. Stone came back, looking relaxed and much happier than he had when he’d left.
And when their next guests arrived, the family members spent the first afternoon getting reacquainted with each other and handling the evening chores with gusto, falling in love with the puppies, two of which they claimed.
And late that night, when the guests retired to their rooms, Jake stood in the yard in the dark spring night, restless and unsettled.
“How are you holding up?”
He turned. Callie stood there looking at him. “Better now,” he said, and she smiled.
But then it slowly faded. “You only have a week left,” she said.
“I know.”
She searched his gaze for a long moment, as if trying to make a decision. “You might not realize this, but there are still a few things you haven’t experienced out here.”
“Is that right?” Suddenly feeling a little less restless, certainly a lot less alone, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her close. “What’s that?”
She hoisted the fishing poles she held in her hand.
He laughed. “That’s definitely not what I had in mind.”
“You have something against fishing?”
“Uh…not specifically.”
“Okay then.” She handed him a fishing pole. “Let’s hit it.”
He wanted to talk to her about the offer for the ranch, about how he felt about leaving, but he looked into her face and asked, “Where to?”
“Funny thing about fishing, we need water.”
“You mean the river?”
“Well, I don’t mean my shower.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“We’re not going to get shot out there tonight, Jake.
Look, I’m not going to be afraid and nervous and pissed off all the time.
I want to live how I want to live, and so much is changing—” She pointed at him with the fishing pole when he opened his mouth.
“I know, I can’t stop change, but I sure as hell can be in charge of my own destiny.
And tonight my destiny is fishing by moonlight, which I don’t think is asking too much.
So.” She drew in a deep breath. “Yes or no?”
“Yes. To whatever you want.”
“Now there’s a dangerous promise.” She led him past the hay barn and turned right, toward the first low rocky hill across the pasture.
“No horses?”
“I need to walk.”
So they walked. The way was lit by the incredible sky, which felt so close and bright, Jake wanted to reach out and grab a star. Soon they came to the trail he’d taken on horseback many times now, so he knew exactly where the river curved alongside it, running parallel.
They walked side by side in the warm evening, their fingers brushing together. He took hers in his and smiled down at her. “You going to take advantage of me out here?”
She eyed him over. “I don’t know. It’s dirty and the ground is hard. There are bugs.”
He laughed. “I haven’t given you those complaints in a while now.”
“You ever been skinny-dipping?”
“Oh, yeah.” He sighed with remembered pleasure. “Me and Emma Peters. Good times.” He laughed again when Callie yanked her hand out of his, and he grabbed it back. “We were thirteen.”
Slightly mollified, she gave him a cool look as she left the path and headed down to the river’s edge. “I’m not thirteen.”
“For which I’m eternally grateful.” They sat there, surrounded by rocky hills and bush, utterly isolated and alone, and yet unlike the last time they’d been out here, he felt no danger.
The opposite, actually. This place, which he’d often thought so strange and stark and otherworldly, now felt as good a fit as the woman next to him.
She pulled a small jar of bait from her pocket and baited her hook.
The smell made his eyes water. “Baby,” she called him, and loaded his hook for him, then rinsed her hands in the water.
She stuck her pole in the damp, soft earth, between her knees, lay back on the ground, and stared up at the sky.
He did the same. They stayed like that for a long time, their bodies touching, the night all around them, and a peace filled him, a warm, soothing, soft peace. A little startled, he turned his head and found her looking at him.
Turning on her side, she propped her head up with her hand. “What’s the matter?”
He turned on his side, too, having just realized the truth.
He was falling for this amazing, different landscape.
He was falling for the ranch and the people on it.
And he was falling for the woman in front of him.
It was just enough to make him momentarily speechless as the blood roared in his head and his bones liquefied.
“Jake?”
He started to shake his head—couldn’t she see he was having a heart attack?—but she leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips.
“Don’t feel like talking?” she murmured. “That’s okay. I have something else we can do to pass the time.” She set aside the fishing poles and slid into his arms. He closed them tight around her and held on like she was his next breath, his lifeline. Because she was.
They walked back, talking, smiling, and in Callie’s case, feeling much more relaxed than she’d been before she’d jumped Jake’s bones on the riverbed by moonlight.
Their clothes were a little rumpled, and she was fairly certain she had river sand in places where there shouldn’t be any, but she could live with that given how good she felt.
When they came into the yard, the big house was quiet and dark. Oddly enough, Michael’s truck was parked behind Callie’s Jeep, and her cabin lights were on. She frowned. “I wonder what’s wrong for him to come out here this late.”