Chapter Seven
Returning to the ranch, Sarah and Ben spoke little on the short drive. Just outside of town, she saw him reading a For Sale sign. It listed three acres and showed a phone number. It was Old Man Turner’s property.
“Do you know how much they want?” Ben asked.
“I’m not sure. The owner, Old Man Turner, is a reasonable person. He’s selling out and moving to Billings to live with his daughter. Couldn’t be all that much. Once you get outside the town proper, the property values drop.”
“Hmm,” Ben said.
She wondered why he was interested. He lived in Texas.
At the ranch gate, Ben punched in the automatic code, which she guessed Big Jim must have given him, and he muttered something about installing video cameras.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the person pestering her. Who was it? Ridley Kemper? Even Donovan Sinclair? A stranger? She shivered. No, it couldn’t be Donovan.
Ben stopped the truck at the corral and turned to her. “You know I have to move into the house now, don’t you? Can’t leave you alone up here.”
She firmed her lips but nodded. “You can have Rio’s old room.”
Waiting in the driveway was Willie, the temporary help. His brown hair, longish at the collar, hung out from under his cowboy hat. The teenager was tall and lanky, lean-faced, with a pronounced Adams apple.
Before the truck had stopped rolling, he opened Sarah’s door. “Welcome home, Miss Sarah,” he said, his voice squeaking. “Everything all right?”
“Sure, Willie, no problem.” Stepping down from the truck, she accepted his arm.
He stood for her, rock steady, watching her as though she might fall at any moment, and if she did, he’d be right there to catch her.
Just by chance, she glanced back at Ben and saw him rolling his eyes. Well, she couldn’t help it if the ranch hand had a soft spot for her. She’d never encouraged him. The kid was only eighteen!
As she started toward the house, Ben stopped her. “Sarah, we need to talk.” Deliberately using the authority of an older man, and one who’d once been a military leader, he leveled his eyes at the youth, clearly indicating he should leave them.
Willie glanced between Sarah and Ben. He swallowed and his Adams apple bobbed. “I’ll just go and work on that chicken coop you wanted, Miss Sarah. Got the baby chicks for you this morning.”
She let out a short laugh. “Shouldn’t you have built the coop first, silly?”
Willie paled, looking crushed. “I guess you’re right.”
Taking pity, she squeezed his shoulder. “It’s fine, Willie, I’m just teasing. I’ll come have a look at your progress later.”
Rallying, Willie took a last wary glance at Ben and hustled toward the barn.
Sarah walked the few steps to the corral fence and placed one booted foot on the bottom rung. She noticed the gate was hanging off a broken hinge. Big Jim should fix that. “You wanted to talk?”
He stopped beside her. “That’s right. We need to make something clear between us. Today I gave you orders to stay inside the building where you were having your meeting and to text me when you wanted to leave. Told you not to go outside.”
“I disobeyed orders?”
“Correct. You can’t do that again.”
“I’ll try. Just remember, I’m not in the military. I’m not used to taking orders like you’re my commanding officer.”
“Doesn’t matter. You have to do what I say, Sarah. Like it or not, in the military or not, I’m in charge of protecting you now. You can make this easy on me, or difficult. Just remember, my life is at risk, too.”
Sarah didn’t like it, but he made sense. “Okay,” she murmured, and in that moment something between them lightened.
His expression eased. “You grew up here.” He spread his arms out, indicating the wild Montana countryside. “It’s a great ranch, but remote. So, I’ve been curious about something. How did modeling come into your life?”
She looked out over the alfalfa seedlings, just poking their green shoots up from the earth.
“I never considered becoming a model. But one day, my girlfriends and I got all dolled up, drove into Billings to see a rock concert. We were nineteen. I wore a short skirt, lots of makeup, had my hair down.”
He nodded.
“We ate dinner first at a fancy restaurant we’d all saved up to afford.
It was a real treat. A lady in a nice dress, of a better quality than I’d ever seen before, stopped by our table.
My girlfriends and I were laughing about something or other, and this lady said to me, “Have you ever thought of becoming a fashion model?”
“Ah,” he said. “You were discovered.”
“Yeah, at the time, I didn’t know it. So, I said to her, “Um, no. I like my old blue jeans just fine.” My girlfriends cracked up. Me, too. I mean, who could take this strange woman seriously?”
He shrugged.
“She kept at me, asked my name. She said, ‘Hon, take my card. Come to New York. You’ve got The Look.’”
He met her gaze squarely. “You do.”
She glanced away. She didn’t like talking about her appearance. Not any longer. Those days were long past. In seconds, she realized she didn’t want to have this conversation. Turning away, she said, “I have to go prep for dinner. You’ll eat your meals with Big Jim and me now.”
He said, “Thanks. I’ll be installing cameras at the gate, the house, and the barn. Then I’ll set up a video feed connected to a hub at the house. And I’ll link it to my cell phone.”
Sarah left him to his work. Her modeling days were behind her, in the rearview, and even talking about them was uncomfortable. She wasn’t going to do it anymore.
****
Ben stood on a ladder and wired one of the surveillance cameras he’d brought with him to the ranch to the arching top bar over the gate. At the end of the long driveway, a man rode up on a bay gelding.
He came from across the field of the property next door.
He was a big guy, at least as big as Ben, and he sat his horse comfortably.
A pistol was holstered on his hip. Ben judged him as about his same age.
His horse’s gait seemed a tad off. If he hadn’t apprenticed for a farrier when he was a teenager, he would have never noticed.
Reining in, the man studied Ben. “Afternoon.”
Ben saw that he didn’t get off his horse and offer a hand. “Afternoon,” he returned. “You the neighbor?”
“Travis Butler.” His saddle creaked as his horse shifted its weight. “You here to mind Sarah?”
“That’s right. Ben Paxton.”
Travis Butler eyed Ben’s new camera equipment. “Not sure that stuff’ll be necessary, Paxton. I’ve been watching over her pretty close. Don’t know what you can do that we aren’t already.”
Usually slow to anger, Ben felt a sudden spurt of annoyance. “How were you at stopping the threatening emails and phone calls she’s been getting?”
The other man’s face tightened.
“Did you prevent somebody in town from leaving her a death threat on her truck?” Ben gave his screwdriver a hard twist.
“You know something, Paxton? You’ve got a smart mouth. We don’t like that around here. Not sure you’re gonna be of much use.”
Ben used his screwdriver again to finish attaching the camera mount. “You can relax, Butler. I’ll be sticking real close to Sarah from now until she’s free of this dude who’s after her.”
“Maybe you should know something,” Butler said. “Sarah and I have an understanding, got it? She and I are real close. She don’t need anyone else for that. Savvy?” He leaned forward in his saddle.
Ben faced the other. His perch on the ladder put him at eye level with the mounted man. Only the fence separated them.
“Is that right? Funny, she hasn’t said a word about a Travis or a Butler or a guy on a gelding with a quarter crack.”
“What?”
“Your horse.” He pointed his chin at the gelding’s front hoof. “Looks like a quarter crack. Or maybe navicular disease. Too bad. You should get a vet to look at that. Seems funny, but Sarah never mentioned you at all. Strange, huh?”
Butler’s face darkened. He looked dangerous. His hand drifted to prop on his hip, hovered near his holstered pistol. “My horse is fine. And don’t test me, Paxton. I won’t take any shit off you. I was a Ranger. Served in the 75th Regiment. Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
“Really?” Ben lowered his screwdriver. “How sweet. I served, too. SEAL Team Three. Iraq, Afghanistan. South America. Africa.” Casually, he resumed his work. “Back then, we SEALs ate baby Rangers like you for breakfast. Have a nice day.”
A tense moment passed while Ben turned his tool.
After several seconds, Butler said in low tones, “I’ll be seeing you. Just remember, I live here. After you leave, I’ll still be here. With Sarah.” With that, he reined his mount and rode away.
Ben knew he hadn’t seen the last of the antagonistic neighbor. He didn’t think he’d mention this particular meeting to Sarah. What was it with the men in her orbit, anyway? Old, young, middle-aged—were they all in love with her?
****
It took Ben the rest of the day, until late afternoon, to install all the cameras he wanted and connect their feeds to the house.
Cameras were only one tool in keeping a better situational awareness around the ranch, yet they could prove valuable.
Piling the empty boxes and tools into the cab of his rental truck, he saw Sarah wander down the front steps of the house and glance around.
Was she looking for him? He straightened and his heartrate sped up.
While he needed to maintain professionalism, he found it increasingly difficult to focus on anything else when she was in view.
His body reacted, his mind reacted, and everything became pinpointed on her.
These hard-ons were nearly ever-present, demanding he take action, claim her.
Make her truly his. This ferocious desire for her wasn’t going to be a secret much longer. Nature wouldn’t allow it.
Slamming the truck door, he started for her.
At the noise, she turned to him and waited.
He stopped before her. “Need something?”
She hesitated. “Dinner’s in the oven, so I have a little time.” She pushed a few papers into his hands.
He shuffled through. They were the emails she’d told him about. Each had a single line, mostly telling Sarah she was going to die. He’d get them to the police chief. “Thanks,” he said.
“I thought ... if you’re not busy ... you could teach me something.” Dipping her head, she twisted her fingers together.
Instantly, he thought of things he’d like to teach her, to learn about her, to show her, and even be shown by her.
All of them involved bare skin, groans of pleasure, and a large bed.
It was already incredibly difficult to push down thoughts of taking her nipples into his mouth.
To deny his desire to stroke her between her legs, bring her to pleasurable heights.
How he wanted that. Low in his belly, he felt a fire burning.
He fought the impulse to reach out and touch her, to smooth her shoulder, to take her hand.
“Sure,” he forced out. “Like what?”
Bareheaded, her hair spilling in burnished waves around her shoulders, she sent her gaze over the corral and the placid cattle inside.
She continued wringing her hands and a line formed between her eyebrows.
“You know how I said I’m nervous around knives?
How I had that stupid meltdown just because I saw one on Donovan Sinclair’s desk? ”
“I remember. But you didn’t melt down.”
“Oh, please don’t sugarcoat it. I lost it.”
He didn’t reply.
“Well, I guess that you’d be skilled in knife use. Isn’t it part of your training as a SEAL? Rio told me that when you two were in service, you were taught how to ... how to use one to fight.”
Surprised, he studied her. “You want to learn how to knife fight?”
She faced him. “My issues started five years ago when Ridley Kemper held his blade to my throat. Ever since then, I’ve had occasional nightmares.
Now, with this new threat, they’ve escalated to just about every night.
And it doesn’t help that whoever is stalking me uses a knife icon on his messages. ”
“Seems a reasonable response to trauma,” Ben said. “To be scared of the thing that threatened you. That event made you face your mortality. I’m no shrink, but I’ve known a lot of guys who came out of their military service with PTSD. Seems like what you’re describing, Sarah.”
She tilted her head. “You think I’ve got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying there are similarities.”
Drawing a deep breath that made her breasts rise, she said, “Well, I hate it. I hate being so frightened of an inanimate object. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me and I want it to go away.”
“So, you figure that if you learn how to properly use a knife your fears will be calmed?” He scratched his chest. “I like the notion of desensitizing yourself. Once you’ve mastered the thing you’re frightened of, you can conquer it. Something like that?”
Her eyes brightened. “Yes!”
He had to admire her gumption. She wanted to face her fears head on and overcome them. Clearly Sarah wasn’t just a pretty face. He was glad to learn more about her. He wished she hadn’t stopped talking about her life before she’d retired. He wanted to know everything.
“It’ll be dark soon,” he said, “and you’ll want to serve your dinner. There’s not enough room in the house to move around. Let’s wait until after we eat and start in the barn.”
She beamed at him, her face open and pleased, her perfect teeth gleaming, her eyes glittering, just as they had so often for the camera.
She was a true beauty, her skin, her hair, her eyes, her shape. In every way, she was perfect. No wonder the world had worshipped her image.
For a moment, Ben was dazzled. When she turned and bounced into the house, he took off his hat and stabbed fingers through his hair.
God, he wanted her. More than any other woman he’d ever met.
The fever in him was strong. He tried in vain to will away the persistent hard-on threatening the fly of his jeans.
At the last second, he regained his wits. Before she made it through the door, he called out. “Sarah?”
She turned only her head.
“There’ll be a price.”
Her expression became wary. “A price?”
“When I asked you about your life as a model, you cut the conversation off. I’m still curious.”
Her hand on the door, she lost her smile. “I don’t like talking about those days.”
“I know,” he said softly. “But you will, won’t you?” He watched the battle wage across her face.
After a moment, her reluctance obvious, she nodded.
He was pleased he’d thought to use his leverage. Now, she’d have to face him, talk to him, just the two of them, all alone, for long seconds, minutes, maybe hours. He’d get her full attention. It was an event he’d long craved.
Yet what the hell had he just promised? He shook his head. Life certainly did take strange twists and turns.
Was he really going to teach a supermodel how to kill with a knife?