borderline thin, and appeared to be in her midthirties.
“Brock! It’s me—Casey,” the woman called out to him with another wave. “Casey Brand.”
The moment Casey added the last name “Brand” to the equation, Brock made the connection. He had worked on the Brand family’s ranch, Bent Tree, since he was a teenager, and had worked his way up to ranch foreman. Taylor, Casey’s older sister, was married to his stepbrother, Clint, and had just given him a niece. So he’d heard through the grapevine that Casey was coming to Montana to help her sister with the new baby, but he hadn’t given her much thought one way or the other until he found her climbing on his fence.
Lightning lit up the gray clouds hanging over the mountains in the distance and the once-sporadic raindrops were coming with more frequency. He only had a few short minutes to stay ahead of the storm. If Casey needed rescuing, it was going to have to be quick.
“You have perfect timing!” Casey gave him a relieved smile when he halted his horse next to the fence. “Would you believe it? The engine caught on fire!”
Given that information, Brock made a split-second decision that he couldn’t leave Casey behind in the rental while he went back to the farm to get his truck.
“We need to get out of the way of this storm.” Brock walked his horse in a small circle so he could get closer to the fence.
“Is there someone you can call to come get me? I tried my sister, but she didn’t answer.”
“You can’t stay here. We’re under a tornado watch.” Brock halted his horse and held out his gloved hand to Casey. “You need to come with me. Now!”
It seemed to him that his words hadn’t registered. She stared at him with a stunned expression, but didn’t budge.
“Come on!” Brock yelled at her, his large stallion prancing anxiously in place. “Give me your hand!”
The urgency in his voice, along with a clap of thunder, finally got her moving. But instead of giving him her hand, she gave him her dog carrier.
“Hold Hercules! I’ve got to get my wallet!”
Surprised, Brock reached out his hand to take the carrier before his brain had a chance to register that there was a miniature dog, the smallest dog he’d ever seen, inside of the designer bag.
“What the hell...?” Brock’s low baritone voice was caught on a gust of wind. While he waited for Casey’s return, Brock raised the carrier to eye level so he could get a better look at his new passenger. “What in the heck are you supposed to be?”
* * *
Casey ran on the treadmill regularly, so running the short distance to the truck and back was easy for her. She grabbed her wallet then locked the door. Brock’s stallion was chomping at the bit, refusing to stand still by the fence.
“Easy, Taj...” She heard Brock trying to calm the horse while he circled back to the fence. On her way to the truck, the first raindrops had landed on the top of her head and on the tip of her nose. By the time she’d climbed back to the top of the fence, it had begun to rain in earnest. Casey straddled the fence while Brock steadied the prancing, overly excited stallion that was tossing his head and biting at the bit.
“Come on!” Brock ordered. “Use the stirrup!”
Casey grabbed ahold of the damp material of the cowboy’s chambray shirt, slipped her left foot into the stirrup and swung her right leg over the horse’s rump. Casey tucked Hercules under one arm and held on tight to Brock with the other. The heavy sheets of rain were being pushed at an angle by the wind, strong enough and hard enough that the right side of her face felt as if it were being pelted by rock salt. She tried to shield Hercules as much as she could from the rain while she tried to protect her own face by tucking her head into Brock’s back.
Casey pressed her head into the cowboy’s back, and tightened her arms around his waist. In her youth, she had been an excellent rider; she knew how to sit and she knew how to balance her weight on the back of a horse. So, even though his stallion had an extra burden to carry, the impact on the horse would be minimal. Loud claps of thunder followed the lightning strikes by only a few seconds, signaling to Casey that the lightning was too close for comfort. Riding on horseback in a lightning storm was an invitation to be struck.
“Yah, Taj!” she heard Brock yell as he leaned forward and prodded the sure-footed stallion. The stallion leapt forward and kicked his speed into an even higher gear.
Casey squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on following the movement of Brock’s body. All of her senses were being bombarded at once: the masculine scent of leather and sweat on Brock’s shirt mingled with the earthy, sweet scent of the rain, the feel of Brock’s thick thigh muscles pressed so tightly against her own, and the sound of the stallion’s hooves pounding the ground as it carried them across the flat, grassy plain. When she heard what sounded like hooves hitting gravel, she opened her eyes. From beneath the brim of her baseball cap, she saw part of a denim-blue house with a flat roof and a white trim through a canopy of trees.
On their way up the narrow gravel driveway, they passed a faded brown barn and older-model blue-and-yellow Ford tractor. Now in full view, Brock’s two-story house was square with two bay windows and kitty-corner steps leading up to covered porches on either side. Brock halted the stallion directly in front of the stairs, a maneuver Casey suspected he’d done many times before.
“Get inside. The door’s unlocked!” Brock ordered. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Brock held the carrier while she dismounted; once she was safely on the ground, he handed Hercules to her. She ran up the steps, and kept on running until she reached the shelter of the covered porch by the front door. She wiped the water off her face as best she could, but her clothing and hair and boots were sopping wet and her skin was wet beneath the material of her jeans and shirt. She hesitated by the door, not wanting to drip water all over his floor. But she heard Brock yelling at her as he dismounted, telling her to get inside. Casey took one last look at the blackened sky filled with swirling gray clouds pouring rain before she followed his direction and opened the front door to the farmhouse.
The heavy door swung open and Casey crossed the threshold into Brock’s dark world. The house was old—she estimated by the look of the lead-stained glass windows abutting the front door that it had already celebrated its centennial birthday. But it had not celebrated in grand fashion. The curtains were made of a dark cherry brocade and were drawn shut to block out any light. Cornflower blue wallpaper dotted with small white flowers contrasted oddly with the forest green shag carpet. Casey knew from her sister that Brock was separated from his wife, Shannon. Brock and Shannon had been “an item” all through middle school and high school. Shannon had been a Miss Montana first runner-up and Casey could remember looking at her when she was a preteen and thinking that Shannon was the prettiest person she’d ever seen. They had married right after high school and the marriage had produced a daughter. But, according to Taylor, they were going through a messy divorce and custody battle and Shannon had been living in California with her new boyfriend.
Yes, Shannon was probably still a very beautiful woman—but she wasn’t a housekeeper. Everything in the house seemed dingy and tired—in need of a good scrubbing to get rid of the wet-dog smell and a serious cleaning in general. Yet Casey could look past the clutter and floral decor to see the potential in the house. The dark, carved woodwork used for the crown molding, the built-in bookshelves and the stairwell, which appeared to be original to the house and beautifully made. The bay windows
