come from as far away as Mexico,” Rose agreed. “I think that cave is just a storeroom, an adjunct off the main tunnel. Maybe I went down some kind of air vent, or a fissure that’s recently cracked open, which they haven’t discovered. Had you ever noticed it before?”
Galen hadn’t, and right now it was hard to think with Rose sitting on his bed, a vision of temptation. What he wanted to do was grab her and kiss her, maybe even find out what was under those happy-face pajamas. But one didn’t seduce an employee, no matter how sexy she was.
His brothers had seduced employees and made them wives.
Not me. I’m going to leave well enough alone. We shouldn’t even have sent her down an air vent or shaft or whatever the hell that stupid hole was. What was I thinking?
He’d been thinking that he wanted any excuse at all to see her, and hadn’t dreamed she’d accept this mission and throw herself into it with more gusto than any Callahan.
“We haven’t had a whole lot of chances to check out that land. First of all, it’s huge, so there’s a lot to cover. We don’t have the manpower to do it, especially when we’d be trespassing.” Galen rubbed his shoulder absently. “But Xav Phillips was over there poking around one day—he’s one of our foremen—and he noticed something funny about the ground in that area.”
“We should go back and check it out more thoroughly, maybe in daylight.”
He looked at her, stunned. “You sound way too much like my sister. Don’t even think about going back there without me.”
Rose smiled, and his slow-working brain went blank as he stared at her mouth. Those lips were just made for him to kiss. He could feel it, the call of the wild screaming through his blood.
“I won’t,” she said, and he snapped back to the present.
“I’ll fire you if you do, on the spot, no questions asked,” he warned, suddenly afraid that Rose was indeed just like his sister, with an impetuous, adventuresome nature that bordered on wildness.
Or bravery. The military would call it bravery.
His sister was too brave for her own good. And this spunky woman on the end of his bed was beginning to sound very much the same.
“I promise,” Rose said. “It wouldn’t be any fun without you, anyway.”
“I wouldn’t call what we did tonight fun.”
She smiled again. “It was a lot of fun.”
“You realize we were within a rabbit’s foot of getting shot at.”
“You had us covered. I trust your marksmanship.”
Galen closed his eyes for just a moment, opening them to stare at her. In the photo she’d snapped of the weapons cache, there’d been a few AK-47s, and a few more exotic styles of weaponry. Someone was gearing up for battle, and he wondered if Rose recognized just how little protection his rifle would have been against, say, a clip with multiple rounds in it. “While my marksmanship is decent, we didn’t want to get caught.”
“That’s true.” Rose stood, her look teasing. “Still, it was something to tell the grandkids, wasn’t it?”
He shook his head. “God, no. Monkey hear, monkey do. Didn’t you ever tell your parents, ‘Well, you did it, why can’t I?’ As far as the kids are concerned, one should never admit to anything more than sitting in church seven days a week. At least that’s my plan.”
Rose laughed. “Not a very believable one, but whatever. When you have kids, you can revise your strategy.” She went to the door. “Good night, Galen.”
He watched her disappear into the hallway. When the door closed, he turned off the lamp and tried to settle back into a relaxed state conducive to sleeping.
It wasn’t going to work. Between the tale of the tunnel under Rancho Diablo, and the sweet woman he knew was sleeping just down the hall, Galen wasn’t certain he would ever relax again.
His phone buzzed with an incoming text. He glanced at it, his gaze widening with each word.
You know a tunnel under Rancho Diablo means this ranch is sitting on Dante’s Inferno? And maybe the nine circles of Hell? You should let me go down there again to find the entrance. I just need a little more time and equipment. If there’s a tunnel, it’s reinforced, so it would be a great find to turn over to the local authorities.
Galen’s blood chilled. Rose would do it. She wouldn’t think anything about turning over information about what she’d found to the sheriff, or probably even to the government. He thought he remembered hearing that her father had been in the military in a secret division, and then was a Texas Ranger before being voted Tempest’s sheriff many years ago.
Mr. Carstairs had spawned a fighter.
Nothing good could come of such a darling girl with the genes of a warrior sitting in her bed, pondering the next phase of an adventure she was itching to ignite.
Then again, there was no reason the two of them couldn’t ignite things together. Why start a fire by yourself when you could invite a friend to create mayhem with you?
Galen jumped out of bed, tossed on a T-shirt and jeans and headed down the hall.
Chapter Four
Rose raised a brow as Galen tore through her bedroom door. “Well, hello. Come to tell me what a great idea I had?”
“No,” he said, surprising her by hopping under the covers with her. “I’ve come to put my cold feet on you, which you richly deserve, after writing me that nonsense. And if you think I’m going to argue with you by text, you’re badly mistaken. Now turn off the light, and let’s talk this out.”
She complied as he got comfortable under the duvet. “You do have cold feet.”
“Remember that,” Galen said. “Cold feet, warm heart.”
“So I hear.” They lay side by side in the dark. “I don’t usually have a cowboy jump in my bed, so I’m not sure what the standard protocol is, but do you want a cookie, and maybe a sip of hot tea? It’s not as hot as it was, because I was down in your room, but it’s still good.” She reached into the bag on her nightstand and offered him a cookie. “I’ve developed an addiction to your aunt’s baking.”
“No cookie. No tea. You’re changing the subject, trying to get my mind off your text with some sugary lures.”
“Maybe.” She sipped her tea in the darkness, loving the feel of the big, strong man tucked up next to her in bed. She could definitely get used to this. “I’m right.”
“But you won’t go through with it on your own.”
She sighed. “Just think about my plan for a few days. You’ve got to find out what’s happening under your own ranch.”
“You won’t tell a soul,” Galen said. “Not Ash, not Jace, not Fiona, not anyone.”
“Of
