don’t need an ambulance. Call the police, but get me home first. They can talk to me there, okay? Please?”
Her face was scratched and bruised, red hair matted with burrs and leaves. What kind of person would harm Ella Cahill? He put his rage aside and prioritized the mission. Get her home. Get her help. Punishing her attacker would have to wait.
Easing a hand under her elbow, he helped her stand slowly, gratified that there were no outward signs of broken bones or blood. He wanted to scoop her up and carry her to his truck, but she was already moving in that direction under her own power.
She pushed tangled hair from her face. “How did you know to find me here?”
“I’ve been driving the area for an hour searching for you.” He hesitated. “The cops, Larraby I mean, called the ranch before sunrise looking for you.”
“Why me?”
He still could hardly believe it himself. “They got an anonymous call that you and Candy Silverton’s nephew, were in an altercation yesterday.”
“An altercation with Luke? Who said that?”
“I don’t know, but now Luke is apparently missing.”
“Missing?” she gasped.
“Yeah, Candy called it in early this morning when she discovered his bed hadn’t been slept in. She’s worried he’s been in an accident or something.”
“And they think I have something to do with that?”
He fisted hands on his hips. “I’m not sure what they think. I wanted to find you and you didn’t answer your cell. There was no answer at your home either.”
Ella caught her lip between her teeth. “Betsy can’t work the phone very well. Owen, please get me home. She will be frantic with worry or she might have fallen. She’s not safe getting in and out of her wheelchair by herself. Her ability to walk has really deteriorated.”
“We’ll be there in fifteen.”
She followed him to the driver’s-side door, preparing to slide in as he opened it for her until she pointed to a bit of flannel lying half-hidden under a scattering of pine needles.
“There’s my jacket,” she said, frowning. “It should be near my van.”
“I’ll get it.” He picked it up. Muscles knotted in his stomach as he examined it.
“Is my phone in the pocket?” Ella called.
“No phone.” He held the jacket closer for her to see. Using the edge of the sleeve, he pulled something from her breast pocket—a broken farrier’s rasp.
The edge was covered in blood.
His gaze caught hers and he knew her mind screamed with the same question.
Whose blood was it?
Ella tried to focus on Owen as he drove to her house. Strong face, wide cheekbones, the face of a model beneath the hat, not the cowboy he was or the marine he had been. She knew he was holding back a million questions, but she had no answers for any of them. Who had taken her? She remembered what Luke told her about Bruce Reed. He’s dangerous. Her gut told her the same thing but she had not seen her attacker’s face, heard his voice. Reed had no reason to harm her. Where was her van? How had her farrier’s rasp gotten bloody? And the question that kept stabbing at her insides...where was Luke Baker?
Instead of succumbing to hysteria, she focused on the details as she tried to piece together the story for Owen. His presence was comforting, the worn knees of his jeans, his free hand brushing her wrist, eyes like stonewashed denim that flicked over her face, crew cut hair grown out now into a crown of blond that scattered across his forehead. Owen Thorn, the man she’d known since she was seven, a fixture in her life until the day he’d deployed. Just three years older than her, but he’d assumed the role of big brother over the years until he gave himself to the marines. And now here they were again, Owen standing in for her brother Ray.
She gripped his offered fingers.
His mouth tightened. “Ella, I don’t think... I mean, I’m just asking because the police will. Were you...have you been drinking?”
Blinking hard, she raised her chin. “No,” she said in a voice louder than she meant, snatching her hand away from his touch. “He poured it over me, whoever it was. If I can figure out where it happened, there will be proof. The burlap sack, the bottle he was holding. My thermos. I think it might have been Bruce Reed. He was the last one I saw before I left Candy’s ranch.”
“It’s not the time to work all that out. Let’s get you home.”
“As long as you know I wasn’t drinking,” she insisted.
Owen had no doubt heard from her brother Ray, his best friend, of her wild rebellion during their first deployment. But that was the past. Forgiven, forgiven, forgiven, she chanted silently, but her cheeks went hot with shame that Owen would even suspect such a thing.
“We’ll check on Betsy. I can ask my mom to come and stay with her while we go talk to the cops,” he said.
Anger still simmered in her belly at the doubt she imagined she’d heard in his voice. What right did he have to judge her? Especially when she hadn’t done anything wrong...this time. But where had the blood come from? Her mind was foggy from the time she’d left Reed at Candy Silverton’s stables to the moment she’d crawled out of the ravine. There had to be proof that she was telling the truth.
“I have to find my van.”
“After I get you settled, I’ll go look for it.”
“No.” Whatever it was, whatever she’d done, she would take care of it herself. Betsy counted on her. There would be no more painful moments with Owen Thorn, a man who didn’t believe her. “I’ll find it myself.”
“Not in that condition, you won’t,” he commanded, as if she was a new recruit.
“Owen...” She started to retort, but pain made her break off, clapping her hands to her temples.
He let out a long, slow breath and she could feel his gaze wandering her face. “Oh, Ella Jo,” he breathed in a voice so gentle it broke her heart.
“Don’t call me that,” she said. Tears pricked her closed eyes. “That was a lifetime ago and I’m not seven years old anymore.”
When he parked, she flung open the door and ran for the house, calling out for her sister.
* * *
Owen stood on the shadowed front porch, suddenly unsure what to do. A memory washed over him of the three of them, Ella, her brother Ray and himself, swinging on a rope across the creek behind their house, competing to see who could hang the longest before plunging into the icy water. Owen won enough times to infuriate Ray, which in turn sent Ella into gales of girlish giggles before she took her turn and beat
