across the road and scrambled into the protection of the trees.
Away from the spinning, colored lights she feared more than the night.
* * *
It had been three months since Leo Slattery had returned to Roaring Springs, Colorado. Three months since he’d dropped his duffel containing everything he owned onto the front porch of his grandparents’ farmhouse. Three months and he was still getting used to the quiet.
Ollie, his grandfather’s German shepherd, returned to his side after having finished his breakfast and plopped his behind on the linoleum floor. Leo smiled down at his only companion these days, a zing of energy coursing through him.
After growing up off and on at this ranch, he’d spent the majority of his post-high-school years working oil rigs and pipelines up in Alaska. The absence of whining, grinding machinery, workmen’s yells, and the clangs and bangs of metal against metal took getting used to. He wouldn’t have thought it would be difficult to acclimate to the quiet of his grandparents’ ranch.
The morning began as it always did, with Leo standing at Grandma Essie’s favorite spot—the kitchen window—sipping fresh-brewed coffee as he stared out at the sun peeking up over the glorious mountains on a late-July morning. A sad smile curved his lips as he could hear Essie’s soft, commanding voice echoing through the house she had run with a general’s attention to detail and a gentle, guiding hand. A former army nurse who had left the service after falling hard for navy man Isaac Slattery, this house had been Essie’s pride and joy, while the ranch and the land had been his grandfather’s.
Now the ranch—all of it—was Leo’s.
Unease and grief percolated low and deep in his belly. Some days he still couldn’t believe they were gone. His grandfather had passed of a stroke while out tending the herd late last year, his grandmother only four months later, in her sleep. Their longtime foreman had found her lying in bed, on her side, her hand placed over the spot where Isaac had slept beside her for more than fifty years.
Tethered, Leo had thought when he’d received the news. His grandfather had always declared he and Essie were tethered at the heart; they weren’t meant to be here without one another. And so they’d gone on. Leaving their legacy and all their hard work to their only surviving grandchild. A grandchild who, once his contract expired up north, headed back to the only place he’d ever called home.
“Time to get a start on the day.” Leo’s declaration had Ollie whining in anticipation, and the dog trotted over to the back door to wait. He filled a thermos with the last of the coffee, grabbed a stale bagel left from the grocery run he’d made early last week and shrugged into his grandfather’s old, long suede riding jacket. Isaac’s hat was an afterthought as Leo inhaled the aroma of his grandfather’s cigars—the only thing Isaac and Essie had ever argued about.
Leo took a deep breath of cool morning air once outside. What he wouldn’t give to hear their teasing bickering again. Or to see his grandfather’s dark, obsidian eyes glimmer with love as he gazed upon the woman he’d fallen for at first sight.
He closed the back door behind him and headed for the stable to saddle Duke while Ollie raced to the barn several yards away, no doubt to hunt down that pesky cat that had been lurking around the smaller structure a few days before. The dog was still excited to be back home after being boarded with a foster family after Essie’s death. One of Leo’s many regrets was that he hadn’t been able to claim the dog sooner so they could grieve their loss together.
There were days he wished he had someone to share this life with, someone besides his canine companion, but who had the time to go through all that when there was work to be done. Work that at times took him from sunrise to sunset.
“You’ll do for now, won’t you, Duke?” Rotating among the four horses his grandfather had kept when he’d downsized a few years back seemed the appropriate way for Leo to go about things, but there was something about the chestnut gelding that always called to Leo. Maybe it was that he’d been Essie’s favorite, too. Maybe it was that he could feel the horse grieving his grandparents’ loss as much as he did. Or maybe he had been spending far too much time alone out here on the seemingly endless two thousand acres.
“Won’t be alone for long, though.” Leo grunted as he saddled up Duke, then gave the other horses a good-morning pat. He had his eye on a truckload of new cattle by the end of the year, and he’d need additional help to keep the ranch running smoothly. His grandfather’s foreman had stayed long enough to get Leo acclimated, help with the season’s hay cutting and storage, then retired to spend the rest of his days in New Mexico. The other ranch hands had moved on, as well.
Which just left Leo and Gwen, his grandfather’s right-hand woman for the past four years. Part horse whisperer, Gwen had put herself through school as a large-animal veterinary assistant. The thirty-two-year-old was currently on safari in Africa, an extended honeymoon with her bride, Lacey.
Only problem with taking care of fifty head of cattle on his own was that by the time he got back from ranch duties, all he wanted to do was curl up with dinner and a book.
His hope that by the time Gwen and Lacey returned he’d have at least one of the outbuildings ready for them to move into was a fading hope, despite it being the perfect enticement for Gwen to accept the promotion. Until then...
With such a small herd, Leo didn’t need to be spending the extra money on help when he could handle things himself. But once that count quadrupled and grew, well, Gwen was going to be thrilled she’d had a vacation.
“You up for a morning run, Duke?” Leo ran his hand down the gelding’s nose. “I know I am.”
A sharp bark exploded from the direction of the barn. Duke neighed and stomped back. “That’s just Ollie,” Leo reminded the horse even as his own curiosity piqued. The German shepherd wasn’t normally quick to bark and certainly wasn’t easily spooked. “I bet he’s gotten himself tangled up again.” The still-young pup had a tendency of playing with ropes left lying around. On the bright side, Leo would bet the dog could win his share of knot-tying contests.
“I’d best go see what’s going on. You wait for me here, okay?” As if the horse was going to go anywhere. Other than to the feed bag Leo had filled the second he came into the stable. Chuckling to himself, he looped the reins around the hitching post and headed to the barn.
Ollie’s barking was getting louder. Leo found him just inside the door of the barn, at attention, nose pointed to the back corner where the hay was piled as high as the second story. “What’s going on, boy?” He bent down to scrub the dog’s undercoat. “Something got you spooked? You find that mean old cat you were chasing the other day?”
Leo froze at the rustling in the corner. That wasn’t any cat. And that barely there whimper set his ears on alert.
“Whoever you are—” Leo rose to his feet “—I don’t mean any harm, but you need to be moving on.”
More rustling. More scrambling. Metal scraping against the plank siding.
“I mean it.” He moved forward, Ollie close beside him growling low in the back of his throat. “I know it was cold out last night and you probably needed a place to—” he rounded the back of the hay bales “—sleep.” Whatever else he was planning to say evaporated from his mind. The woman crouching in the corner of the barn stared back at him with wide-eyed fear. “Hello.”
Was it possible to be perfectly coherent and still think he was imagining
