saddlebag was stuffed full of ribbon he’d secured for the mysterious pomanders, one of many wedding subjects discussed daily in the Thorn family kitchen of late. The Gold Bar Ranch covered one thousand acres, housed some sixty horses and, at the moment, was filled to the rafters with paraphernalia for a Christmastime double wedding.
His brothers, twins Owen and Jack, were marrying the women of their dreams: Ella, a farrier, and Shannon, an emergency room doctor. Although Jack and Shannon were already officially married, this would be the ceremony they’d both longed for, for years. And then there was his eldest brother, Barrett, and his wife, Shelby, who were expecting their first baby in another few weeks, which required additional piles of infant supplies scattered amid the wedding stuff. He grinned. He enjoyed the hubbub and he liked his future sisters-in-law, strong and spirited women both. Shannon, with Jack’s help, had recently outsmarted a motorcycle gang bent on murder, so the upcoming wedding festivities were doubly welcome.
Three cowboy brothers married and one with a baby on the way. He chuckled to himself. “Better you guys than me,” he said out loud. He approached the turnoff that led to the abandoned train station, grateful that he’d brought his rain gear. He was running late, of course, and his nose was still bleeding a bit after the altercation at the gas station when he’d stopped to refuel.
A shadow from his troubled past had returned. But Keegan wasn’t overly bothered by it. He could deal with trouble. He’d been doing that since he was a toddler.
Something flickered in the gathering darkness. He slowed and flipped up the wet visor of his helmet. There it was again—a weak yellow light, like a flashlight beam, bobbing along the gravel path.
Kids probably, teens sniffing out trouble. He knew. He’d done it himself, looked to unleash some of the wild energy that never seemed to dissipate, even after he’d been formally adopted by Tom and Evie Thorn when he was sixteen. He’d spent many hours combing through that abandoned train station, meeting up with people just as wild as himself, doing things he knew full well he shouldn’t have done. Drinking, smoking, vandalizing.
Fingers gripping the handlebars, he was about to press on toward home when the flashlight beam was turned upward to reveal a woman’s small face, skin luminous in the darkness.
There were two things about the face that kept him there, immobilized. First, her cheekbone was darkened. Though he could not see perfectly, he’d participated in enough brawls to know a shiner when he saw one. Second, her expression, caught in that one spurt of illumination before she vanished into the shadows.
Scared.
Not “I just walked into a spiderweb,” but a full-on look of unadulterated terror.
And that was enough to make him pull his motorcycle off the road and ease it down the gravel path in search of the frightened woman vanishing into the shadows of the abandoned station.
He figured a helmeted guy on a motorcycle would only add to the woman’s unease, so he rolled down the slope and parked the bike in the shelter of the empty water tower that glowed eerily in the gloom. After dismounting, he left his helmet on the seat, finger-combed his overgrown black hair away from his face and took the path in the direction he’d seen the woman headed, down to the busted-up platform. He decided she would probably have scooted into the depot, where at least she’d be sheltered from the storm. Where had she come from? He saw no sign of a vehicle, but the station was miles from the nearest building.
He eased through the open door. “Hello?”
Inside, a blast of chilly air hit his face, carrying the sharp scent of rust. The clouds parted to allow just enough moonlight to probe the broken windows, lending weak illumination. The old benches were still intact in some places, as well as the ticketing counter. Branches collected in moldering piles and the tapping of tiny claws indicated rats had also found the spot to be a suitable sanctuary.
“Hello?” he said again. No reply except for the rattle of pine needles dropping onto the sagging roof. “I saw you come in.”
Still no answer, but his eyes were adjusted now and he saw that the most likely hiding spot was behind the ticketing counter. He had to edge around a place where the floor had fallen out, giving way to a sort of storage cellar some fifteen feet below. One wrong step would lead to a fall that would undoubtedly result in two broken ankles or worse.
This was no place for a lady.
He picked his way carefully around the gaping hole, his cowboy boots protecting him from the protruding nails and bits of broken wood.
He heard the floor creak as the woman moved behind the counter.
He was about to try the friendly conversation approach for the second time when the woman bolted up over the top of the counter and fired a pistol at him.
The shot went close, closer than Tracy had intended. She never had been very good with guns in spite of her father’s tutelage. The dark-haired guy’s eyes flashed shock and disbelief as he stumbled at the noise, falling into a chasm where the floor ought to be. She scrambled around the ticket counter. Her heart pounded, ears ringing from the shot, sick with the notion of what she’d just done. Had she hit him?
This stranger wasn’t the killer. His eyes gleamed silvery in the gloom and his shoulders were too broad, but sheer panic had made her fire the gun anyway. She’d meant to scare, to buy time. Had she killed instead? Gripping the pistol, she edged to the crevice in the floor. “Who...who are you?”
She was relieved beyond measure when he answered.
“Keegan Thorn. And that was completely uncalled for when I was just trying to be neighborly.”
The man, she saw now as she peered over the broken flooring, was roughly her age, late twenties or early thirties. His black hair was long enough to fall across his brow as he struggled to hold on to the piece of broken flooring that dangled a foot or so down below. He wore a leather jacket and rain pants. His long legs ended in flailing boots. Dark brows framed his eyes, and for a split second she wondered what color they must be in the daylight.
“I...I thought you were someone else. Are you...all right? Um...your nose is bleeding.”
“It was bleeding when I got here, from a fist.”
Who is this guy? “What are you doing here?”
He looked up at her peevishly. “Well, I thought I was helping you out. I live at the Gold Bar, about fifteen miles from here, and I saw you heading into the train station.”
She still gripped the gun, unsure.
“Are you going to shoot at me again or help me out of this hole?”
The question startled her. “Neither. I’m sorry I shot at you, but I have to go. Don’t try to follow me.”
He grimaced, face contorted with effort. “Why would I do that?”
His questions unsettled her but she steeled herself. “You’re a stranger and I’m having a real bad night.”
“My night’s not going so great, either, and I’m not a stranger. I already told you my name, so help me up ’cause this beam’s getting
