TRACE’S MUSCLES TENSED tighter than tow wire. On a level he was loath to acknowledge, he should be happy not only that Eric had survived the past six years in the Middle East, but that he was coming home.
Trace wasn’t.
Jo shifted again, drawing his gaze to the way her full breasts swayed beneath the thin cotton of her old T-shirt. “Is he older or younger?”
“Who?”
She made a face.
“Oh, you mean Eric.” It was Trace’s turn to shift. “Older.”
“There’s just the two of you?”
He nodded.
“Do you get along?”
He stared at her.
She lifted her right palm. “Just picking up on some strange vibrations here, that’s all. If you don’t want to talk about it…”
Trace knew that by saying that, she was making it virtually impossible for him not to talk about it.
Besides, when it came to Eric, it was probably long past time Trace stared down that particular unbroken horse and tried to tame his emotions. While much of what had passed between the two of them could be chalked up to simple sibling rivalry, there was nothing simple about what was happening now.
“We used to be closer than two brothers could be,” he said thoughtfully. “We grew up doing everything together. He saved my ass when I got my foot caught in the rope lassoing my first bull. I saved his when his horse went down twenty miles out, while he was on a solo run.”
Trace trailed off, remembering that day. He’d been seventeen to Eric’s nineteen, and his brother had been an hour late for dinner. While his parents pretended not to be worried, despite his mother’s washing the same pan five times and his father staring out into the sunset as if the world had up and disappeared, Trace had saddled his own horse and gone out looking for Eric. He’d found him five miles away from where he’d been forced to put his injured horse down. Eric was walking in the general direction of the ranch house, the temperature already beginning to dip low in the January night.
“What happened to change that closeness between the two of you?” Jo asked.
Trace drew a deep breath. “I don’t know…”
That was a lie; he did know. But it was more knotty than a single conversation could untie.
“You asked yesterday out on the range why I hadn’t enlisted in the military,” he said quietly. “I know you didn’t mean for me to specifically answer the question. You were just trying to deflect mine, but…”
When his silence dragged on, she prompted, “But?”
“Well, I was the one who was supposed to ship out to marine recruit training six years ago, not Eric.”
Jo’s brows drew together. “I’m not following you.”
He clenched his fists against his thighs. “I’d signed up at a recruiting office in San Antonio after our parents died.” After he and Eric had had their first argument about the running of the ranch. “But by noon the next day, I found out that Eric had driven to that same office and pulled my paperwork, and put in his own.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. His way of playing big brother, I guess. He thought he was saving my ass by going in my place, or some damn fool thing.”
“Why didn’t you go, anyway?”
Trace gazed at her. “This ranch has been in the family for four generations. An Armstrong has always been at the reins of the lead horse. I couldn’t just get up and leave the place to run itself.”
“I’m sure Vern would have taken care of it.”
Trace nodded. “That he would have. But back then, in the wake of losing my parents so abruptly, my emotions were still raw. It was important to me that the ranch be run by either Eric or me. We owed it to our folks.”
Jo grew quiet. He watched her trace a stripe on the fabric covering the sofa with her short, unpolished thumbnail.
He squinted at her. At the way her long, shiny black hair fell like a sheet of silk over her slender shoulder. At how delicate she appeared, when beneath her fair skin he suspected she was made of molten steel.
At how patiently she listened to him, as if it was important to her to hear what he had to say, important for her to understand him.
Before he knew what he was going to do, Trace lifted a hand to cup her chin. She looked at him, the expression in her deep blue eyes questioning and curious. He brushed his lips against hers, watching as need joined the other emotions in those glistening pools.
She smiled beneath his amorous assault on her mouth. “I thought you had a few things you wanted to ask me.”
He searched her face. So beautiful. So strong. “Oh, I figure we have time enough to get around to that…”
Her lashes cast shadows against her cheeks as she looked down. “But not now.”
“Definitely not now.”
He deepened the kiss, enjoying the taste of toothpaste on her tongue, the freshness of soap on her clean skin. She was everything and nothing that he’d expected her to be. And he was fascinated beyond what he thought might be safe.
He scooted closer to her so he could feel her soft breasts against his chest, his hand drifting to her hip.
His cell phone vibrated in the holder at his belt.
Damn.
“Was that you or me?” Jo whispered.
“Unfortunately, I think it was me.” He kissed her again and then reluctantly drew back and took out the intrusive instrument.
Vern.
“What is it?” Trace grunted.
“I suspect we have a wrangler wandering about the ranch, Boss. How do you say we handle it?”
JO WAS HUNGRY. And not for the bag of barbecue-flavored chips she’d just opened, either. But seeing as she didn’t have access to what—or who—she’d rather be feasting on, she popped a potato chip into her mouth and crunched while she paced the room. She checked her cell phone, put it back down and then ate another chip, thinking about what Trace had shared with her a short time ago…and wondering if he’d be coming back.
The chips tasted little better than thinly sliced cardboard, so she dropped the nearly full bag into the wastebasket and then walked around the room, switching off lights. While she didn’t have to work in the morning, it was important that she keep herself on a tight schedule. Especially considering that she had gotten precious little sleep the night before.
Moments later she was stretched out under the top sheet in bed, staring at the ceiling.
Well, that worked.
Her mind raced with a thousand different questions as she considered the man who had been little more than a way to release stress yesterday. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, not a good idea in the long term, maybe, but good for what she’d needed at that moment.
The problem was she was wound up even tighter now.
Strange. Definitely strange.
She rolled onto her side and stared at the glowing red numbers on her digital clock. When she’d first signed on at the ranch, it had taken her awhile to get used to the almost complete silence of such an isolated location. The bunkhouse was far enough away from the stables and the cattle that she couldn’t hear more than an occasional irritated neigh every now and again. And since they all worked hard during the day, the ranch hands were done in by ten-thirty at the latest.
Jo hadn’t known crickets could be so damn loud.
She rolled to her other side…and found herself face-to-face with a shadow looming over her bed…
THE TWO-WAY RADIO ISSUED white noise, and then Vern’s voice said, “Anything on your end?”
Trace plucked the handheld unit from his belt and spoke into it. “No.”
“Copy that.”
Trace frowned as he refastened the radio and brought the ranch pickup to a halt on the far side of the cattle barn, located a couple hundred yards back from the stables. He switched off the engine and waited for the gravel dust to settle in the light of the high beams. The startled cattle made a few muffled noises, but remained quiet for the most part.
He climbed out of the truck and checked the paddock gates. It didn’t appear that the lock had been tampered with. He stepped to the barn and did the same. Nothing. Still, he opened the lock and went inside, flicking on the overhead light. Nothing appeared to be out of order.
Vern wasn’t one to sound the alarm on a whim, so Trace had taken him seriously when he’d said he suspected someone was on the property who didn’t belong here. While rustling livestock wasn’t as widespread as it was even ten years ago, what with better technology and security, there were still incidents here and there. Wildewood had been hit a time or two in the past few years, with cattle or horses coming up missing, and a figure with a bandanna around his nose and mouth and a cowboy hat showing up on the security tapes the next day. And no more than an hour later, the man responsible would be arrested by Sheriff Brody.
Vern had reported he’d heard sounds of a car near the property, then its engine stopping. And had witnessed a shadow sprinting through darkness relieved by only a waxing moon.
Trace locked up the barn again and began to head to his truck, only to backtrack and walk along the side of the building instead.
Jesus.
He plucked the radio from his belt.
“Vern, are you certain it was a car you heard?”
“How do you mean?” The foreman’s voice crackled as he answered.
“Could it have been a motorcycle engine?”
More specifically, the engine to the Harley ridden by Jo’s old boyfriend.
Yes, they definitely had someone very unwelcome on the premises…