Читать книгу Hers for the Holidays - Samantha Hunter - Страница 11

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ELY LEFT HIS TRUCK about a hundred feet back on the road that led to Lydia’s ranch and walked the rest of the way toward the house so as not to be spotted. He’d followed her to make sure no one else did—namely, the guys who had cornered her by her car. He’d intended to step in, but she’d taken care of things pretty well on her own.

Lydia was one tough cookie, no doubt about it, he thought with a spark of admiration. Even so, Ely wanted to pound the guy who had tried to mess with her. He settled for calling in an anonymous tip to the local authorities before he drove away.

As she’d passed him on the road, he’d made the mistake of looking toward her car. For a split second, their eyes met—she’d seen him. He thought his goose was cooked, but she’d continued to drive and was clearly too panicked to have registered that it was him. His hood had been up, face obscured by the snow and the dark.

But it had been a close call.

He made his way to the edge of the trees in time to watch her pull her car into the detached garage. What was she doing? She sat for a while before she got out and walked around to the door of the huge ranch house. His hoodie wasn’t exactly the right gear for this kind of surveillance, but he hadn’t expected to be out in the woods that evening when he’d headed down for supper. He put it out of his mind, ignored the cold. Not important. He’d make sure she was safely tucked in, then he’d go back.

The area was very remote, rural. The next ranch was at least five miles away. An animal sound—a horse—came from one of the barns, breaking the temporary silence, and Ely shook his head.

None of it seemed like the Lydia he knew.

Then again, no one seemed to know her. Not really. Least of all him.

Unlike the cheerfulness of the town, the ranch was cold and dark except for some lights in a few of the outbuildings away from the house. No Christmas lights or such hung here. That was okay—it made it easier for him to move around undetected.

After she went inside, he watched the lights in the windows as she turned them on, moving through the house. The next thing he knew, he saw her slim form behind the shimmer of curtains upstairs.

Undressing.

He followed the movement of her silhouetted form as she lifted her sweater up over her head, her back forming a graceful arch as her arms rose, crossed and dispensed of the garment.

When she bent to shuck her jeans, he swallowed hard, taking in her profile, the slope of her breasts, the smooth plane of her stomach, curve of her hip. He told himself to look away, though he couldn’t seem to do it.

For a second, he wondered which Lydia was real. The leather-clad, tattooed temptress or the soft shadow of the woman hidden behind the curtains?

Was what had happened between them that night just another act, or had any of that been real? Ely shook his head hard, as if to break the spell. When he looked again, she’d moved away from the window. What was he doing here? Sometimes, there was a thin line between surveillance and Peeping Tom. Time to head out.

First, he walked back to the house, up to the porch. He didn’t have to worry about leaving a path. His footsteps were sure to be buried beneath several feet of snow by morning.

Walking up to the door, he tugged on it to make sure it was locked—it was. He walked around and did the same to the back, finding it locked securely, as well.

Good.

He ran back to his truck and climbed in, turning on the heat. However, as he put it in Reverse, the visibility out the back windows was minimal and he misjudged the distance to the drainage ditch that ran along the side of the road. The next thing he knew, the back passenger side of the vehicle lurched down the slope.

Cursing, he knew he’d have to call for a tow. And it would probably be a while before they could get to him in this weather. He tried some more, rocking the truck back and forth, spinning the tires, and knowing he was probably only literally digging himself in deeper.

And figuratively, as well, since his options were few.

He called his driving association, only to have his suspicions confirmed. It would be a few hours before they could come pull him out; by then, it might be morning. In this snow, the truck would be buried. He told them to never mind.

He muttered another curse, wondering if he should blow his cover with Lydia or walk back to town. Both had their dangers.

He returned to the house, looking up at the still-lit window, pondering his options. He really didn’t have any. Walking unfamiliar roads back to town, at night, in this weather, was not smart. Resigned to his fate, he started to move to the porch, his inner alarm sounding just a few seconds too late. He wasn’t alone.

He knew this primarily from the impression that a gun, very likely a double-barreled shotgun, was making against his spine.

“Enjoy standing around peeking in women’s windows, huh?” someone said, and Ely tensed as he felt a little extra push from the nozzle of the gun.

“I wasn’t making any trouble. I’m a friend of Lydia’s,” Ely said evenly. “I was coming over to check on her and make sure she was okay, but then my truck went off the road back near the entrance to the ranch.”

“Really? So why not call for help?”

“I did. Tow trucks are busy tonight.”

“You could have called Lydia. One of us would have come down with a winch, pulled you out. If you’re such a friend and all.”

Clearly the guy wasn’t going to put the gun down, and Ely didn’t blame him entirely.

“My name is Ely Berringer. I’m here from Philadelphia and I know Lydia from her shop, and she’s best friends with my sister-in-law, but she doesn’t know that I’m in town.”

“Yeah, well, let’s see what Lydia—or the sheriff—have to say about it.”

Ely blew out a breath, knowing there was no way he could convince the guy to change his mind. He marched toward the house, with his hands still up, prodded by the weapon pushed into his back. He could probably disarm the man, but it was risky. Better to just let Lydia clear up the misunderstanding.

Though she might tell the guy to shoot him, Ely thought sardonically.

As the man knocked sharply on the door, Ely found he was holding his breath again, wondering what Lydia’s reaction would be. His concern was short-lived as he heard her yell, and then a shotgun blast echoed through the night a few seconds later.

Ely ignored the push of the gun into his own back as he snapped around, easily disarming his captor with instincts and skill born of years of military training. The other man fell to the porch floor with a grunt, unharmed. Ely took the weapon for himself and ran around back of the house, his heart in his throat, unsure of what he’d find when he got there.

* * *

LYDIA COULDN’T SLEEP even after she was ready for bed, the events of the evening still replaying in her mind. There’d been a few problems since she’d gotten back into town, and maybe those cowboys coming after her was a coincidence, but something in her gut told her it wasn’t.

The vet’s report on the sick cow had been in the mail when she’d come home tonight—the animal had been poisoned. She was lucky it had only been one, and that the cow would be fine.

The night after she had arrived, she’d found that a message, Get Out, had been spray painted on her porch.”

None too subtle there.

Horses had been let out of the barn at night that they had to find before they froze to death, and she had been mysteriously locked inside the garage while looking for something of her father’s. Luckily she’d been able to call for help before she had to drive her car through the door to escape. Then, some fencing had been destroyed on the back acres of the fields, and Smitty had had to spend two days fixing it.

Kyle said someone was trying to warn her off—no kidding. But she couldn’t leave. She’d reported the incidents to a deputy who had dutifully written everything down, but said there was nothing he could do unless she caught someone in the act.

She wasn’t even convinced that all of the events were connected. Maybe Smitty or Kyle had accidentally locked her in the garage, not knowing she was there, or forgotten to lock the barn, and had just not wanted to own up to it. Sportsmen on ATVs or snowmobiles, or even elk, sometimes crashed through fences. The spray painting, and the cow poisoning, however, were no joke.

If someone wanted her gone, all she could do was make it clear as possible that she would be out of here—in a few weeks.

Tonight, however, had been a completely different thing. Those cowboys had nothing good on their mind, and for the first time since she’d come home, she’d really felt unsafe. Ranches picked up temporary labor all the time, men passing through, looking for work, but something about those two men had seemed off. Like they didn’t belong here.

She shook her head. How would she know? She didn’t belong here anymore, either.

She forced herself to stop thinking about it by emptying one of the upstairs closets. She didn’t want strangers going through her family’s things. Besides, a hard look at her past would be a good reminder why she didn’t belong here anymore, and why she could never belong to a guy like Ely.

It was a difficult enough task, physically and emotionally, to distract her somewhat from her troubles. In the middle of a box of photo albums, she pulled out her high school yearbook. Freshman year. Everything had been so different then, she thought. But so what? She’d had some bad breaks, but she’d recovered, right? Made something of herself. She had a good life, a new life, though somewhere down deep, she was never really sure if she deserved it.

Back then, she never would have questioned her future. She knew exactly what she’d wanted. To work the ranch, raise horses and have the same kind of life she’d known up until that point. She’d assumed she would marry one of the rodeo champs that she and her girlfriends had huge crushes on and have several pretty, well-behaved children. It was what most thirteen-year-old girls wanted. She turned to the back of the book, her eyes scanning the signatures until she found a familiar one.

Always be best of the best, Ginny.

Ginny had meant best of best friends. And they had been. Until that summer before their junior year when everything had changed. Life had changed, and all their pretty, perfect dreams had evaporated in one cruel slam of fate. But it hadn’t been fate—it had been Lydia’s fault. None of it would have happened if not for her.

Lydia sucked in a breath, closing the book sharply. She sat there on the side of her mother’s bed, looking around her at a lifetime’s collection of memories and...stuff. There was so much to go through. How was she supposed to do this by herself? She could barely get through one closet. But the idea of anyone else going through it was unbearable. Besides, there was no one else. She was on her own, like she’d been for a long time.

Putting the book down, she blocked out her worry and lay back on the bed. Tomorrow, she’d come up with a plan for dealing with it all. Right now, she was too overwhelmed and exhausted to think of anything.

Sleep crept over her before she had a chance to get back up, change or make her way to her own room. In her dreams, she was with Ginny, playing and laughing under broad, blue Montana skies.

That summer after their freshman year in high school had been perfect and full of promise. The pimages** ran through Lydia’s mind like an old slide presentation, but it all felt real, making her smile in her sleep.

Then abruptly there was noise, a rush of hooves and screams, and the eerie beeping of some machine by the side of Ginny’s hospital bed. Lydia sat with her friend, who, when she awakened, stared at Lydia accusingly.

“Why would you do this to me?” Ginny said, and then turned her face away, other angry voices chiming in. How could you do this? What were you thinking? You ruined her life forever, you selfish little bitch.

Guilt sliced Lydia to her bones, because she knew they were right. Footsteps pounded loud somewhere behind her; a nurse, or someone coming to tell her she had no right to be there. Not after what she’d done. Get out. If you’re smart, you’ll never come back.

Lydia awoke with a start, curled up on the bed, the light still on, tears coursing from her eyes.

Dammit.

The nightmares had stopped years ago, though she never really forgot. Being here brought it all back in stark, painful color.

So did the fear that followed her every time she went into town, worry that she would bump into one of Ginny’s family and have to face it all over again. The recrimination, the blame. Her mother said it was all in the past, and that Ginny was doing fine. That she had married, gotten on with her life.

Really? How fine could she be, paralyzed from the waist down, her dreams shattered?

Lydia was glad if Ginny had managed to find some happiness, but that didn’t make what she had done any more forgivable. It was why she had to get out of here as soon as she could wrap up her obligations. She didn’t like living with all these ghosts; this was all in the past and it had to be left there.

Looking at the clock through bleary eyes, she saw she had only dozed off for less than a half hour, and she was intent on doing more work. It had to be done if she was getting out of here.

She froze as a sound traveled up from the first floor.

Footsteps.

She’d heard them in her dream, too, but now she was awake. Had she imagined it? These were heavy, hard and making their way through the bottom floor.

Holding her breath, she walked carefully to the edge of the door and heard the squeak that came from the floorboard between the dining room and the kitchen.

She wasn’t imagining it. Someone was down there. She thought she heard some voices, as well. Male voices.

Smitty? Kyle? But why would they be in the house in the middle of the night? Had the cowboys who’d harassed her earlier followed her home, or found out where she lived? But she had locked the doors; made sure to do so. Suddenly Clear River was feeling a lot more dangerous than south Philly.

Another crash made her jump, and she knew she had to do something. Slipping from the room, she edged down the hall to the stairs. At the end of the hall was her father’s gun rack; his favorite shotgun was still there.

Holding her breath, she made it to the gun rack, and retrieved the weapon. Her intruder’s footsteps were only yards away, traversing the kitchen. Lydia held her breath and moved in that direction. Stopping just outside the kitchen, she swallowed with resolve and snapped the barrel of the gun into place. Silence.

“I have a gun, and if you’re not out of this house in two seconds, I’ll use it,” she warned, her voice more steady than she would have expected. She turned the corner of the kitchen just in time to see someone duck outside the back door.

She took chase, yelling after them. When she reached the back door, she fired up into the air, hoping to shock them, to perhaps see who it was.

But the shadowy intruder disappeared into the trees.

Or so she thought.

She tried to load the gun again, but no go—it had only had one shell.

No matter, it was yanked from her hands a second later as she stumbled back into the kitchen, trying to get away. She went sprawling. A sharp pain stabbed at her hand, but she ignored it as she scrambled to find another weapon, anything within reach.

“Lydia.”

She didn’t listen, panic frying her brain.

“Lydia, stop. It’s me, Ely.”

The words finally permeated her brain, and she stopped her frantic dash across the floor, as the lights flicked on.

“Lydia, are you okay? What happened?” Kyle.

Ely and Kyle, she mentally recited.

Was she still dreaming? Ely and Kyle seemed so surreal.

But it was real.

Ely held her shotgun and a second one. Handing both to Kyle, he bent down, picking her up from the floor like she weighed nothing.

“Lydia, it’s okay,” he said gently and pulled her in close.

A weak moment, she would tell herself later. Right now, Ely was the most solid thing she’d felt in days. Weeks. She allowed herself to curl into the safety and support he offered, just for a minute. God, he felt good.

Everyone was quiet until she looked down and saw the blood soaking into the material of his sweat jacket.

“You’re hurt,” she whispered.

Ely looked down, frowning, and then cursed, taking her arm in his hand.

“No, that would be you,” he said.

She looked down and saw he was right. Her hand was bleeding where she had cut it on something on the floor. She took in the sight of the wrecked kitchen, and her knees wavered a little.

“Sit,” Ely commanded, leading her to a chair.

Ely was quiet as he examined her hand.

“It’s not bad, just bleeding a lot. You have a first-aid kit around here anywhere?”

Kyle, still watching them closely, put the guns down and went to her kitchen cupboard, pulling out a small, white box.

Lydia shook her head. She wouldn’t have known that was there. Kyle knew her house better than she did. Well, he had been here all this time, and she had not been.

“I guess we had better call the sheriff, after all,” Ely said.

“I followed whoever it was out to the tree line before I came in, but he was gone,” Kyle muttered agreement.

“No, don’t call anyone,” Lydia interrupted.

Ely looked at her in surprise. “Someone broke into your house, wrecked the place. You need to report it.”

She shook her head. They wouldn’t do anything anyway, as she already knew.

“It would be a waste of time. I didn’t see who did it, and the authorities are probably busy with the storm. It’s probably just someone who thought the house was empty, or some kids out looking for excitement or something. They took off the minute I let them know I was here, so they didn’t mean me any harm,” she said, maybe a little desperately. Who was she trying to convince?

“Or whoever it was could be the one who’s been giving you trouble since you got here, and—”

Lydia cut Kyle off with a sharp look.

“Lydia—”

“Why are you here?” she whispered, interrupting him.

She knew everything was a wreck around her, and she couldn’t deal with that. Not just yet. So she focused on him.

“Tessa sent me. She wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Lydia’s eyes closed, and she shook her head.

“When you came up the side of the house, I thought you were—”

“I know. I’m sorry. My truck is stuck back on the road, and Kyle caught me out front of the house. He thought I might be trouble. We were just sorting it out when we heard the gun go off. And who’s been giving you trouble?”

“Not sure, but they—”

“Kyle, we’re fine,” Lydia interrupted him again with a direct look. “Why don’t you head back down to the bunkhouse, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ely’s gaze narrowed on her, but he didn’t say a word.

Lydia’s pretty mouth flattened into a line of displeasure as she looked at Kyle.

“So I did see you earlier,” she said. “In town.”

He nodded.

“You do know each other? From back east?” Kyle asked, still not moving.

“That’s right.” Exhausted, her hand throbbing, Lydia felt a chill travel over her skin. She was clad only in the robe she had put on after undressing, having become distracted by her thoughts and cleaning out the closet. Pulling the fabric more tightly around herself, she was aware of being far too exposed, especially with Ely pressing against her leg as he bandaged her hand. She shivered.

“We’re...friends, yes. It’s okay, Kyle, really. Goodnight.”

Kyle nodded, grabbed his rifle and headed back out the door. Lydia shook her head as Ely packed up the small first-aid kit and returned it to the cabinet. She took the moment to test her legs and stood up, feeling steadier, as she glanced around.

“I can’t believe someone would do this,” she said, more to herself than to him. Bowls and dishes that had been on the counter were broken all over the floor—it was a miracle that she hadn’t cut herself when she had went running through the kitchen after her intruder.

“What’s been going on, Lydia? You just pick up and leave Philly, and now you’re being harassed, twice in one night?”

Something about his making demands quickly set her spine on edge. She turned, nailing him with a glare.

“I think you’re the one who has some explaining to do. How did you know where I lived, and how come you were here so late at night? Have you been following me?”

“I only got here yesterday, but it was enough time to check the town records, yes, and find out where you lived.”

“I don’t live here.”

“You did,” he challenged. “Why the big secret?”

She swallowed, overly aware of him as they stood facing each other, the slight swath of cotton that she wore hardly enough to make her feel adequately covered. He seemed to notice as well, his eyes taking her in briefly before returning to her face. He didn’t say anything, but she saw the flicker of memory, of desire. Her body responded as well, her chill wearing off as her blood heated a little. She ignored it.

“I have to get dressed and take care of this mess.”

“You’re really not going to report the break-in?”

She didn’t respond, walking out of the room, leaving Ely behind. Maybe he’d take the hint and leave.

Probably not. She heard a cupboard open and close, and it sounded like he was starting to clean up.

Great. The last thing she needed right now was Ely trying to be her white knight.

She took a few minutes to get her bearings and to get some clothes on. She also had to process the fact that Ely Berringer was down in her kitchen, as real as the day was long, all sexy, muscle-bound, six-foot-something of him. The universe sure did enjoy toying with her.

If she thought her life was complicated an hour ago, now that word had taken on an entirely new meaning.