bolted into action. Tossing the coffee can to the ground, he ignored the pain shooting through his collarbone as he charged through the woods in the direction of the screams.
It was coming from the old Tipps place. But Lilly kept that property empty. Or had up till now.
The yells were getting closer. He raced, pushing through scraggly limbs, dodging rocks and fallen logs. Two people by the sound, one of them a woman and one a child. It was about two hundred yards between his cabin and the fence line that separated the two properties. Heart pounding with adrenaline and worry about what he would find when he got there, Colt did not let up as he ran. Briars tore at his arms and face, as he could use only one hand to brush them out of the way. His broken collarbone screamed at him in pain with each stride. He ignored it and focused on the two ahead of him.
He reached the fence quickly despite it seeming as though he’d been moving in slow motion. He could see them before he reached the fence. Annie Ridgeway and Leo standing behind a pitiful excuse of a tree as a blistering-hot momma cow charged them. Colt planted his good hand on the top of the wooden post, and catapulted himself over the fence. Grimacing, the pain very nearly brought him to his knees when he landed.
No time to waste, he began yelling to draw the cow’s attention his way. “Yah!” he yelled, loud and gruff. “Get on outta here.”
Annie and Leo whooped excitedly when they saw him charging across the pasture. The momma cow halted in its tracks, looked at him and then started to charge them again.
“Yah, yah!” Colt yelled louder. Coming up on the left side of the ol’ gal, he saw her calf in the distance. So that was the problem. They’d gotten between her and her baby and she wasn’t happy.
He waved his good arm, charged at the cow for a few steps, making her think he was coming after her, and she decided to take the baby and run. Tail tucked, she trotted away, glaring back at him once as if to dare him to come after her baby.
“Colt, Colt!” Leo exclaimed, racing from behind the sapling.
Seeing two Leos running toward him, Colt fought off dizziness and willed the pain that shuddered through his shoulder to go away.
“Boy, it sure is good to see you,” Leo said, sliding to a halt in front of him. “I thought we was done for! Yessir, I sure did.”
Annie was breathing hard when she reached him. Fear shone in her eyes like red flags, intertwined with relief. “I don’t know where you came from, but—” Her voice broke and she visibly fought down the need to cry. “I’m so glad you came.”
“That was one mad momma.” Leo’s voice squeaked from having screamed so much.
“Yeah, it was.” Colt patted the kid on the head, pulling his gaze from Annie. “You’ve got to always go cautiously when you’re around mommas and their babies.”
“We were just walking, checking out the place, when Leo spotted the calf and raced off toward it. He didn’t see the momma,” Annie explained, her breathing finally getting back to normal. “I almost didn’t get Leo away from her. If you hadn’t shown up...” Her lip trembled and her unspoken words hung between them.
“You would have figured something out,” he encouraged her. Something told him she would have, too. His own fear subsided a little bit as they stared at each other.
“So where did you come from?” she asked, pressing a hand hard against her stomach as if holding back her fear.
He yanked a thumb back over his shoulder to indicate the direction he’d run from. “My place backs up to this one. My cabin is just over that fence and through the woods a little.”
Annie’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“He don’t have to be kidding, Annie Aunt! I like it,” Leo exclaimed.
Colt chuckled. “I’m just as surprised to find you here as you are to find me here. Lilly doesn’t usually rent this house out.”
“That’s what I was told. It’s perfect for us, though.”
“We didn’t even know you lived in the woods.” Leo laughed, the joy in his eyes dug into Colt like pins and needles. “Ain’t that just a big ol’ kick in the pants?”
“Leo,” Annie warned.
“Sorry,” he said, looking up at Colt as if he were about to get thirty lashes. “I’m not supposed to say ‘kick in the pants.’”
“You are also not supposed to say ‘ain’t,’” Annie added, tugging gently on his ear.
He sighed. “Or ‘can’t,’ either.”
She chuckled at that, sending a warm shot of sunshine through Colt. It spread over him like rays melting ice, while she studied him with her pale gray eyes that again looked almost lavender in the morning light. Looking at her, it hit him how pretty she was. It wasn’t something he’d noticed earlier, and it startled him to be noticing now. She had a simple, quiet look about her, a peacefulness. It drew him to her and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Colt was startled by the attraction. It felt nice, and so did smiling and chuckling as he’d been doing since he’d hopped the fence. But it also felt wrong.
Feeling the sunshine she’d sparked inside of him fading into the darkness, he fought to hang on to it. All the while knowing he didn’t deserve to feel that warmth and goodwill.
His gaze lingered on her. She was thin, but today her jeans and blouse fit her better and she didn’t look as rail thin as he’d thought. Yesterday he’d believed she looked as though she was wearing someone else’s ill-fitting clothes. Today, knowing about the loss of her home, he realized she very well could be wearing clothes she’d received from others after losing her things in the fire.
“Can I come over to see your house sometime?” Leo asked, tugging on his shirtsleeve.
“Come over. To my house?” Colt repeated the question, totally caught off guard.
“Yeah, your house. Can I come?”
He didn’t want Leo coming to his house. But looking down at the kid’s big smile, despite not wanting to feel anything, Colt felt stinging prickles of warmth. Like water on frostbite, feeling crept through him. “No—” The harsh sound of his own voice stopped Colt midsentence. He’d already run from the kid yesterday and he wasn’t proud of it. Seeing the light dim in Leo’s eyes cut straight into Colt’s icy-cold heart.
Suddenly Colt knew he couldn’t kill that light, no matter how unworthy he felt of such adoration, could he?
Chapter Four
“Leo, it’s not nice to invite yourself to someone’s home,” Annie said, trying to distract Leo’s attention. The child was persistent—which was nothing new to her. She’d known him for six years and he’d been persistent from the beginning, when he’d come into the world a month early after several weeks of trying over and over again to arrive early.
Though she shouldn’t be surprised at the harshness of Colt’s words, she was.
Call
