man had showed her to her own room!
Margot held on to her temper when he insisted on carrying her battered suitcases up the stairs. They’d tussled briefly until Vivian became so distraught Margot feared the stress would push the dog into early labor. Gritting her teeth, she’d acquiesced, but not before letting go so abruptly the move had sent Brad stumbling backward.
He deposited the suitcases next to her bed then just stood there like a bellman expecting a tip.
“Thank you,” she murmured when he made no move to go. She told herself she should be grateful he hadn’t chosen her bedroom to make his own.
Instead, on the way down the hall, he’d motioned to the room across from hers—the guest room—as being his.
She was relieved—and a bit puzzled—he’d left her parents’ room undisturbed. The master bedroom was by far the largest of the four. Still, having him stay in the guest room was appropriate. He was a guest, albeit an uninvited and unwanted one. His story about winning the ranch in a poker game only managed to anger her further.
Once Gage came out tomorrow and they got this whole mess straightened out, the “guest” would be gone.
For now, Margot wanted nothing more than to shower off road grime and collapse into bed.
“If there’s anything you need—” he began.
“If there’s anything I need,” Margot said pointedly. “I think I know where to find it. I did, after all, grow up in this house.”
At the sudden intense emotion filling her voice, Vivian stiffened beside her.
“Are you always cranky when you’re tired?” Brad asked with an innocent air that neither of them bought.
“Bite me,” Margot snapped, her head now throbbing in earnest.
He murmured something under his breath, but she missed it. She sank down at the end of the bed covered by a quilt her mother had made for her sixteenth birthday and placed her head in her hands.
The blows just kept coming.
First the injury when a horse she’d been mounting had spooked and she’d been pushed back, slamming her head against a trailer. Her head had hit just right...or, as the doctor said, just wrong. The skull fracture she’d sustained had been serious enough for the neurologist to warn that another concussion before she was fully healed could leave her with permanent impairment.
All that paled in comparison to worry over her father’s whereabouts. He could be sick. He could be injured. He could be...dead.
Margot buried her face in her hands.
“Are you okay?”
The concern in his voice sounded genuine but thankfully Brad didn’t move any closer.
She knew she was in bad shape when she only exhaled a breath and nodded. “We’ll get this settled in the morning.”
That was his cue to leave. But he remained where he was. When she finally gathered the strength to lift her head, she found him staring at her with the oddest expression on his face.
“If you need anything, anything at all.” His hazel—or were they green?—eyes held a hint of worry. “I’m just across the hall.”
What should she say to that? Thank you for taking over my home? Thank you for stealing the ranch from a drunken old man?
Yet he was obviously trying to be nice so she cut him a break. “Okay.”
Then he was gone, taking his handsome face, impudent smile and the intoxicating scent of soap, shampoo and testosterone with him.
She stretched out on the bed and let her muscles relax. Eyes closed, she offered up a prayer for her father’s safety and well-being.
It was the last rational thought Margot had that evening.
Margot awoke the next morning to sunlight streaming through lace curtains and birdsong outside her window.
Vivian lay on the woven rag rug next to the bed. The dog lifted her head when Margot sat up, still dressed in the jeans and shirt she’d worn last night.
If that wasn’t bad enough, her eyes were gritty and her mouth tasted like sawdust.
Though having to walk down the hall to the bathroom had never particularly bothered her, for the first time Margot wished for an adjacent bath. The last thing she wanted was to tangle with Brad before she had her morning shower or coffee.
But she’d learned several hard lessons in the past couple of years and one of them was wishing didn’t change reality.
With a resigned sigh, she unlatched her suitcase and scooped up all the items she needed, then slipped down the hall to the aged bathroom with cracked white tile on the floor and a mirror that made her look like a ghost. She pulled her gaze from the disturbing image and listened. The house stood eerily silent.
Brad isn’t here.
It was too much to hope that he’d packed up his stuff and left. Though Margot had no idea where he’d gone, there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind that he’d be back.
She was familiar with the type. Add a swagger and you could be talking about three-quarters of the cowboys on the rodeo circuit. Most of them only had two things on their mind; scoring enough points to make it to the rodeo finals in Las Vegas and getting into as many women’s pants as possible.
Her dad, a successful bareback rider back in the day, had warned her shortly before she’d left Rust Creek Falls to pursue her dream of one day making it to the PRCA National finals. She’d listened respectfully to everything Boyd Sullivan had said but it was a classic case of too little, too late.
Even at nineteen, Margot had been no shy virgin facing the big bad world. She’d lost her virginity—and her innocence—her junior year in high school.
Shortly after that momentous occasion in the backseat of Rex Atwood’s Mustang, she learned Rex had been bragging about “bagging” her to his fellow rodeo team members. Margot vividly remembered the day she’d confronted him and her fist had accidentally connected with his eye.
Both of them had learned a valuable lesson that day. He’d learned what happened when you crossed Margot Sullivan and she’d learned not to believe a guy who says he loves you in the heat of passion.
* * *
The bright autumn day dawned unseasonably warm, which was lucky for the calf that had been born last night. After checking on the rest of the cattle, Brad fixed a troublesome area of fence and reined his horse in the direction of the house.
Before leaving the house at dawn, he’d opened the door to Margot’s room to see if she needed anything. Viper stood guard at the side of the bed. Golden eyes glowed with a malevolent warning. Of course, the bared teeth and the growl weren’t all that welcoming,
