Chapter 3
Chapter 3
B ailey wasn’t fooled. She was being dispatched. No one knew her father as well as she did, probably because they were so much alike. He had called one of his contacts and asked him to find something for her to do because she was driving him crazy. Not that she blamed him—she was driving herself crazy. She was not built for inactivity, not cut out for civilian life, and leaving the marines had never been in her plan. She’d intended to go all the way, to rise through the ranks and shatter records. Instead she had been ignominiously, albeit honorably, discharged due to high blood pressure. She had begged, literally begged, her superiors to keep her. They had wanted to, but her body hadn’t cooperated. No matter what combination of medicine they gave her, her blood pressure soared higher and higher until she was in near constant danger of stroking out or dropping dead. And so at the age of thirty she was tasked with starting over, of finding a new way of life when the military was all she had ever known, all she had ever loved. What now? her mind kept saying, but so far she hadn’t been able to find any answers.
So now she found herself heading to south Texas to help a rancher, some distant connection of her father’s. It was a pity job, one that forced her into an unknown place among strangers. But it was better than nothing. At least it was a way to fill the long hours and days until she got herself together and figured out what was next. And so far it was leaps and bounds ahead of being confined in the city. Bailey hated DC, or any large city, for that matter. She had grown up mainly in Africa and was used to wide open spaces, to plains and prairies. Except for the oppressive humidity, Texas looked much the same—flat, open, uninhabited. It would be boring with so little to do and nowhere to go, and so far Bailey loved it. She could already feel her blood pressure easing out of the stratosphere it routinely inhabited. Maybe getting away for a while—from home, from people, from buildings and noise and smog—would be enough to fix her, to remedy whatever was going wrong in her body. And if that happened, she could go back to the marines. That was her dream and her goal, to get healthy enough to go back.
She took a commercial flight to San Antonio where a ranch hand met her at the airport. His eyes had scanned the crowd over her head until she was the only one left. “Are you from Ridge Ranch?” she finally asked because he looked like a cowboy—kind of leathery and scrappy with thick boots and a big hat.
He blinked at her in confusion. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Bailey,” she said, extending her hand.
His grip was tentative when he took it and shook. “You’re Bailey, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and her grip was not tentative. It took him by surprise so that when he withdrew his fingers, he shook them out, wincing.
“Well,” he said. “Well. Doggone.” He remained staring at her in consternation a few beats.
“Is there a problem?” she asked, feigning ignorance. Of course there was a problem, and it was always the same problem. She was a woman when she was supposed to be a man, at least in the expectations of others. But Bailey had lived in the realm of men her entire life, and she was used to it, so she let his shock, confusion, and disappointment roll off her back.
“No, ma’am, I just…no ma’am. Let me grab your stuff.”
“I’ve got it, but thank you,” she said, tossing her duffle over her shoulder.
“That’s it, ma’am?” he asked, showing further surprise at her lone duffle.
“Yes, sir,” she said, maintaining eye contact until he looked away. She could tell him she traveled light because it was what years in the military had trained her to do. She could tell him she was low maintenance, only owning a few shirts, pants, and one change of shoes. But explaining and apologizing was a girly thing to do, and Bailey was no one’s idea of girly.
“Well, then, come along,” the cowboy said. He turned and began threading his way through the airport, Bailey keeping stride beside him. They reached the outside and Bailey sucked a breath, trying to adjust her body from the falsely conditioned air of the airport to the stifling humidity of outside. For her part, she preferred the humidity. Not having grown up with air conditioning, she had never grown accustomed to it. The cowboy reached for her door, intending to open it for her. Then he faced her, uncertain. She gave him a gentle smile. He opened the door for her and held out a hand to help her into the tall truck. She didn’t need the hand, but she took it nonetheless.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, tossing her duffle onto the seat behind.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, closing the door once she was safely inside.
Manners were nice, and Bailey was always glad for the reminder that chivalry wasn’t dead. She wasn’t the type of woman who needed help, but neither was she the type of woman to refuse it on principle. It’s nice to be nice, her mother often said, and Bailey agreed.
“Mind if I listen to the radio?” the cowboy asked.
“No, sir,” Bailey said. He tuned the radio to a country station, picked up a soda can from the console, and spit into it. Bailey turned to face the window, hiding her grimace. She could stomach a lot but had never warmed up to tobacco juice. Her stomach churned. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose until she got herself back under control. She was headed to a rough, unsettled place full of rough, unsettled men, nothing she hadn’t handled before. She would stick to herself and keep her own counsel, as she always did.
The ride to the ranch was long and might have been boring, if not for Bailey’s aforementioned love of nothing. The scenery outside was blessedly flat and uneventful with both houses and towns few and far between. Mostly there were cattle, lots and lots of cattle.
“How far is the ranch?” Bailey asked, a half hour in.
“This is the ranch, ma’am,” he said and Bailey’s gaze returned to the window.
“This is all the same ranch?” she asked, another twenty minutes later.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She wanted to ask how large it was but figured it was some kind of etiquette breach to do so. And so she kept staring out the window, watching cows and land go by, mile after mile after mile.
Forty minutes later, they arrived at a sprawling ranch house. It looked like something from the old west, Spanish style stucco with two massive annexes sprouting from the center like wings.
“Here we are, ma’am,” the cowboy said, unnecessarily so since it was the only house for miles and miles. Bailey reached for her duffle, but the cowboy put up a hand. “Uh, I’d leave that, ma’am, until you talk to Cal. It’s, uh, possible you might not be staying.”
Bailey suppressed a sigh and heaved herself from the tall truck, landing lightly on her feet. As they approached the house, a man stepped through the front door, filling it completely. He was massive, well over six feet with shoulders so wide they appeared to brush the doorway. But it was his bearing more than his size that told Bailey who he was. She had been in the military long enough to automatically know who was in charge. This man was master of his domain and, guessing from his bearing, possibly the entire world. His gaze swept her up and down—from her tidy ponytail to her polished combat boots—then quickly dismissed her and turned questioningly to her chauffer.
“This is Bailey,” the cowboy explained, pointing at her, a hint of nervousness in his tone.
The man’s gaze rested once again on Bailey. He tilted his head at her and shook it. “No. Take her back.”
“Um, excuse me,” Bailey said, taking a step forward. “You were expecting a man. Believe me, I get that a lot, but I’m also a marine, and I heard you’re in need of some help.”
He smiled at her in an amused sort of way. “Darlin’, you’re cute. And I’m certain you’re good at whatever it is you do, but this is no place for a woman, believe me. So I think it’s best for all of us if you go on back home now.” He turned dismissively away, not waiting for her reaction.
“No,” Bailey said.
The man stopped short and faced her again. “No?”
She shook her head. “I was hired for a job, and I’ll decide when it’s over. Now, if you’ll kindly show me where I’ll be staying, I’d like to freshen up.”
He took a step forward, his smile disappearing. “You realize I’m the one who’s paying you to do the job.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if I don’t pay you, then there’s no job,” he said.
“You’re going to need me to prove myself. I get that a lot, too. So let me get started, and I’ll show you I’m capable. If, after that, you still feel I’m not what you need or want, I’ll go away again.” Bailey had worked incredibly hard to cut all emotion from her tone over the years because the first one to show emotion lost. And she never lost. So she wasn’t angry or hurt, and the injustice of the situation didn’t affect her. She kept it reasonable and rational, because that was the only way to win. And Bailey always won.
The big man blinked at her, assessing. “Tell you what, little bit. You take me down right now, and the job is yours.”
She blinked at him, the only outward sign of her shock. “You want me to take you down?”
“Yes, ma’am. To the ground, right here, right now, and you can stay.”
She licked her lips, her eyes darting to the horizon. “You’re not attacking me. It’s not ethical to disable a man who’s standing still.”
“Neither is it easy. So show me what you’ve got, little one, or go away.”
Bailey took a few steps closer so they were approximately six feet apart. Behind her, the cowboy shifted in anticipation and possibly amusement. The man in front of her was certainly amused. “Let me clarify, sir, you want me to take you down to the ground, you’re requesting me to do that?”
“I’m demanding it,” he said, grinning, not even attempting to hide his laughter at her expense.
“Yes, sir,” she said and, before he could blink, withdrew a Taser from her pocket and zapped him. He dropped to the ground, convulsing as the voltage ran through his body. Bailey yanked the bolts out of his chest and retrieved them, standing over him as she did so.
“You zapped me,” he said when he could rightly talk again. His voice was tinged with no small amount of pain.
She loomed over him, hands on hips. “First of all, you never said how I had to take you down, only that I had to. Second, I’m five feet and five inches tall, what did you expect? Fight smarter, not harder, that’s my motto.”
Behind them, the cowboy leaned on his truck and guffawed, gasping in a wheezy manner that told her he probably smoked, too. The man on the ground groaned, whether in pain or defeat Baily didn’t know.
“Now, sir, where can I put my things?” Bailey demanded.