Holly might have hesitated, taking it all in, but Lannie kept them moving. The noon sun had brought out the heat of the day—and as much as Holly seemed to need activity, allowing her to help with the entire load of hay hadn’t been the smartest choice of his day.
Too damned bad he’d been so distracted by watching her.
“We’ll grab something to eat on the way out of town,” he said. “I just need a moment to square away—”
Pain shot through his side; the faint music underlying his soul burst into brief static. He blinked, and found himself looking up into bright blue sky. The uneven ground pressed into his back, sharp with myriad little stones and prickery bunchgrass, and his legs were ungainly, bent and sprawling as if they’d simply forgotten how to be legs. “What,” he said quite clearly, “the hell?”
“You tell me,” Holly said, and couldn’t hide worry with her scowl. She had one hand pressed on his shoulder as if she knew the first thing he’d do was try to get up, and the other at his pulse—pounding hard and fast, but perfectly regular.
“Hey!” Faith shouted from the bottom of the slope, her accusing voice getting closer with each word. “What did you do to him?”
“To him?” Holly said, rising to that bait even as she kept Lannie’s shoulder to the ground. But she only had leverage as long as he didn’t roll aside—and that he did, rising as smoothly as he ever did. Holly made that disgusted little feline noise in her throat and came to her feet beside him.
By then Faith had reached them, heavy work boots amazingly spry along the way. “Yes!” she snapped at Holly. “You! To him!”
“Whoa,” Lannie said as the static struck again, his alarm having less to do with going down and everything to do with the potential collision of Faith and Holly. When he could see clearly again he found himself on hands and knees, blinking at the ground.
“Why did you even get up?” Faith asked in exasperation, though it was Holly’s hand at the back of his neck, quiet and firm.
Because that shouldn’t have happened at all. Never mind a second time. Or, if he counted the odd moments of the previous evening, a third or fourth or a...
“Faith,” he said, with as much authority as any man in his situation could muster, “this is not Holly’s doing.”
“Right,” Holly said. “Blame me. Awesome. I am so glad to be here.”
“You showed up and this happened,” Faith said, bending to peer at Lannie.
“This was happening when I got here,” Holly said, sounding so certain that Lannie lifted his head to look at her in surprise. “Oh, yes,” she said, seeing it. “Last night. Right in front of me.”
“You were watching me.” It warmed something inside him, which shouldn’t have mattered but did.
Holly made an exasperated sound. “Of course I was watching you. Under the circumstances, I’d have been an idiot if I’d done anything else, eh?”
He remembered to feel his own exasperation. He thought he’d hidden those moments of disorientation. Mariska wouldn’t have hesitated to call him out if she’d noticed anything wrong.
“Lannie!” Aldo’s whiskery voice carried uphill far too well. “No, no—this isn’t supposed to happen!”
Lannie rubbed his hands over his face. His legs were his own again; his mind was clear, and his soul carried his own faint inner song. “Awesome,” he muttered, deliberately echoing Holly’s flat tone.
“Yeah, now I know you’re not right,” Faith told him.
Aldo reached them and knelt down to put a hand on Lannie’s knee. “You okay, son? Ah, this is all my fault—”
“Aldo.” Lannie said it firmly. “Yesterday was not your fault. I don’t care what you said to them. There’s no reason good enough for five guys to beat up on a sixty-year-old man.”
“Seemed funny at the time,” Aldo said, looking somewhat bereft.
No doubt it had.
Lannie sighed and regained his feet. He took a brief but ruthless check of himself and found nothing amiss—except for the dent in his pride.
Alpha wasn’t bully, or overbearing. But alpha did mean strength.
His strength was smarting.
Holly kept pace with him as they headed downhill. “Look,” she said, brushing off the seat of her pants as they walked. “I’d really like to grab some things from the closest big-box store.”
“Ruidoso,” Faith told her, slipping it in between Holly’s words.
“And I’d really like to have time to rest this afternoon. And,” she said, giving Lannie a sharp eye, “I don’t really want to be in a car with you behind the wheel right now.”
He squelched that little bit of sting. “Cloudview will be there tomorrow.”
“Good.” She nodded, more or less to herself; her ponytail swung to land gently over her shoulder. Lannie should have been prepared at the spark of amusement showing in her eye, but as they reached the back of the store, she managed to take him by surprise. Again.
“Keys,” she said, and held out her hand—adding, when he only stared at her, “Ruidoso. Truck.”
And then she smiled.
* * *
Holly made off with more than the truck keys; she pulled a local map off the Internet, acquired Lannie’s credit card and his cell phone and escaped the feed store without an escort.
Not that she needed one. Lannie could no doubt find her anywhere now that he’d taken her in. He kept track of his people, that was obvious enough.
And like it or not, she was one of his people now. At least in his mind.
On the way out to Ruidoso—forty minutes of curving, challenging roads with the faint background buzz of disorientation in her head—she spent no little time wondering how she would have reacted to the man if he’d simply walked into her office looking for a consultation on a water feature. If there’d been no preestablished baggage between them.
The thought woke things in her that she would rather have left sleeping. Hot-and-bothered things that left her shifting uncomfortably in the truck’s otherwise comfortable seat. Because never mind his muscled build and strong shoulders and perfectly lean cowboy hips. Or even his eyes—Good God, those eyes.
There was that something more about him. The charisma. The way he stood even when he wasn’t pouring on the attitude. The way his other showed, even when he didn’t know it—and even when she didn’t yet know what other form he took.
The way he cared about his people.
He’s still your jailer.
He was still a complicit part of the team that now kept her away from her own life.
Remembering that should have cooled her blood somewhat. Should have. Holly distracted herself by pulling off the road long enough to call her brother—not at a phone that would reach him directly, because no phone ever did. But she dialed the number for Regan Adler, her brother’s love—and soon enough, his spouse.
“Hey,” she said into the machine that resided in a small but personable cabin home deep at the edge of Kai’s woods. “This is Holly. Hello to Kai, but this message is for Regan. We might be coming your way tomorrow. If you have time, I’d like to meet up.” Regan might be self-employed, providing lush and slyly quirky illustrations for nature guides of all sorts along with her own painting, but Holly knew better than to take her time for granted. Had been there,