He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You know, maybe you should move into the apartment above the barn. Just temporarily. Colt said I could have it, but I can bunk down with Colt or at my sister’s place down the road.”
She sat up in her seat. “No. I can’t do that.”
But the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He didn’t know the woman next to him, not really. His brother had told him a lot. City girl who’d grown up with a love for horses. She’d found trick riding relatively late in life: sixteen. She was twenty-six now, and his brother said she was good, doing tricks he’d never seen before.
Brave.
But not at this moment. He felt a keen sense of protectiveness. The same kind of urge he’d felt when he’d stumbled into a village of Afghans, scared, dragged into a war they didn’t want, kids crying, women terrified. Tore him apart. The urge to shield them and keep them from harm was one he had never ignored.
“Ready?” She met his gaze, peering up at him with an unblinking stare. “You can take me home. Nothing will happen, I promise. I can handle this on my own. Don’t make this a bigger deal than it already is.”
Because then you’ll give my ex the power. He read the words in her eyes. He understood that look, too. When he’d been fighting over there, he’d seen the same expression of resolve. They didn’t want the US military’s help. They wanted to be left alone to deal with things on their own. They wanted independence.
He couldn’t blame her for that.
“As long as you think you have it handled,” he said.
“I do.”
He nodded, and she faced forward again, so clearly relieved he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of admiration for her as he put his brother’s truck in gear and drove toward her home.
“Colt told me you’ll only be Stateside for a short time?”
He appreciated her attempt at conversation. For some reason, sitting next to her made him antsy. “Going to work for DTS—Darkhorse Tactical Solutions. Just taking a sabbatical while my sister-in-law finishes cooking her baby.”
She smiled. That was better. He liked that smile. It tipped the end of her nose up and made the corners of her eyes wrinkle. Pretty eyes. Blue as the desert sky on a winter morning.
“What will you be doing for them?” she asked.
“Typical contract work.” He glanced at her as he passed between the white fencing his sister-in-law insisted was de rigueur for the ranch. He had to admit, the place looked spectacular. When he’d first driven up, he’d been blown away by the changes made since his brother’s wedding. Huge barn. Covered arena. Irrigated pasture. Turned out, they’d been sitting on a gold mine and never known it—a natural aquifer supplied water to the ranch, as well as a few neighbors, for a price.
“I’ve always wondered what a military contractor does.” She smiled again. “I assume you’re not building houses.”
He shook his head. “We’re a security service. Mostly corporate executives, although we do escort the occasional civvy. Our job is to keep someone safe while they do business in war-torn towns.”
A blond brow arched. “Business? When there’s a war going on?”
“Yup. Sometimes it’s military business, sometimes it’s civilian business. The need for oil never stops, and billion-dollar corporations need protection for the people who work to bring the product to market. Plus there’s road reconstruction companies and real estate investors—”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. War or no, life goes on.”
She lapsed into silence, and he let her contemplate his words. A lot of people had no idea what it was really like in the Middle East. All they saw were the bits on TV. Five minutes of chaos followed by days, sometimes weeks, of normalcy. Well, as normal as life in a war-torn country could be. In those moments, people tried to get on with their lives, businesses tried to regroup and recoup. It wasn’t as if life stopped. The corporate machine kept moving.
“This is it,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “Turn here.”
He followed her directions, turning down a street with two-story apartment complexes on both sides.
“Thank you,” she said as he pulled up in front of her building.
“Not so fast.” He shut off the engine. “I’m walking you to your door.”
She shook her head, the twin braids sliding behind her shoulders. “There’s no need. He’s not there. If he was, we’d see his truck parked down the road.”
“Has he done that before?”
He saw her eyes flicker. “Not lately.”
He had a feeling that “not lately” meant not within the last few days. She might be putting on a brave face, but her eyes conveyed the pictures in her mind.
“I’m still walking you to your door,” he said, slipping out of the truck. “And I’ll be by tomorrow to pick you up around ten.”
Her forehead wrinkled as though she wanted to argue, but she nodded just the same and then slid out of the vehicle. She walked ahead of him as she crossed the tiny grass hill separating the road from the apartment complex.
“I’m the second one on the left,” she explained. “Bottom floor.”
Which was why they didn’t see it at first.
BITCH.
She stopped in her tracks. He did, too. Her front door had been shielded from their view by her neighbor’s tiny porch, the word that’d been spray painted in red only visible from a certain angle.
“Son of a—” She didn’t finish what she wanted to say, but there was no need. She froze, eyes wide, hands clenching and unclenching in...what emotion did he see on her face? Dismay? Disgust? Rage? Maybe a combination of it all.
“You’re staying with me,” he said firmly.
“Yes.” She turned to face him, and to his surprise, tears glinted in her eyes. The sight kicked him in the gut. “And I’ll stay at the ranch, too, if you don’t mind.”
There was something completely mortifying about having to accept the help of a near stranger. Worse, she’d had to call her boss and tell him what had happened. Colt Reynolds had been completely kind, but then again, he always was. She’d never met someone with such a huge capacity to help people in need. In hindsight, it should be no surprise that his little brother was the same way.
Well, there was nothing little about him.
“You really don’t have to move in with your brother, though,” Carolina said, glancing behind them to make sure no silver 4x4 followed. So far, so good. No sign of James. “I can stay in my horse trailer. I do it all the time.”
“Does it have living quarters?”
“Well, no.” Not technically. She’d never been able to afford one of those big fancy trailers. Her own humble stock trailer was all she had in the world. That and her truck. “I converted the tack room into a space where I could sleep. It has a bed over the hitch and electricity for a portable stove. It works fine.”
“Does it have a bathroom?”
“Well, no—”
“A heater or air-conditioning?”
“No,