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Jake hit the button to roll down Buck’s window and leaned across him to talk to her. “This is my…”
“You heard me,” she shouted. “Stay in the truck.”
Then she whirled on one heel and pointed the gun at the ground. Tried to aim it.
Both doors on the passenger side opened and Buck and Teddy stepped down off the running board at the same time as if they were doing some kind of coordinated dance, Buck with his rope, Teddy with a quirt in his hand.
“What the hell?” Jake hollered. “You aim to rope a woman with a shotgun?”
“Snake!” she screamed. “Get away from it.”
Now it was the muzzle of her gun that was dancing, swinging around to point everywhere at once. Holy hell. She could blow them all away.
She took a step forward on the porch, braced her legs apart in a high-heeled fighter’s stance, set the gun into her shoulder and—God help them all—propped her right elbow against her ribs to try to steady her aim. She was a right-handed shooter.
The muzzle passed right over Jake. Unless there was a snake in the truck here with him, it was as safe as a church.
He ducked but after a second he couldn’t not look and when he did, the wavering shotgun had left him to hover around and above and below his uncle. Buck held his doubled-up rope ready in the air and Teddy did the same with the quirt, both trying to gauge the striking distance of the good-size rattler coiled on the ground between them. They ignored the woman and the gun completely.
“Get out of the way! I’ll take care of it,” she yelled and then her voice began to shake. “I don’t want to hit y’all…”
Well, that told him she wasn’t from around here. And everything else about her told him she wasn’t the marksman of the year. The barrel of the gun made a big circle and swung back toward the truck again.
Jake threw his door open and hit the ground. He crouched behind the front wheel and yelled, “They’ve killed snakes before, ma’am. Don’t worry about them. Now, put the gun down…”
He could see Buck’s feet and he saw the rope slice down to hit the snake right behind its weaving head. The gun roared anyway.
The whole front of the truck exploded with a crash, rattled and broke into a million pieces. For a second, Jake thought he was dead. He wasn’t even hit.
The truck gave one last gasp and died. Antifreeze poured out of the radiator, red rivulets ran from the power steering, and bits of metal twinkled on the ground. Everywhere.
He yelled, “You boys okay?”
For a minute nobody answered. The sudden silence was deafening. Then, faintly from Buck, “Depends on what you mean by that.”
Jake yelled again, trying to put a persuasive tone in his voice, “You done shooting, ma’am?”
She didn’t answer, or if she did he couldn’t hear her.
“Hold your fire,” he said, trying for authority instead. “I’m gonna stand up now. Put the gun down.” The recoil had probably knocked her down.
He got up and stood behind the truck. Even in the state she was in, which basically was one of a terrible need to let go and crumple to the floor until her legs could regain their strength, Clea knew him. Her Montana Cowboy.
Well, not hers.
He looked her over as if to judge whether she’d take another shot, then he strode around the front of the truck and came up the steps of the porch like a man here to take charge. Who was he really? But if he’d been carrying a foal around on his saddle, he couldn’t be a bad guy. Could he?
All she could do was lean against the wall where the recoil had thrown her. She still held the gun frozen in both hands but she couldn’t lift it. Her shoulder felt as if she’d been hit by a truck. The instructor had warned the class to hold the stock really tight but she mustn’t have held it tight enough.
The cowboy walked straight up to her and took hold of the gun as if he’d decided that she would shoot again. Up close, he was even more rugged and handsome than she’d thought when she saw him from the road.
However, he certainly wasn’t behaving like the mythical cowboy he’d looked to be.
“Let go,” she said, pulling back on her weapon as hard as she could.
“You’re liable to blast a hole in the floor,” he said. “Turn loose. All I’m gonna do is take this gun and stand it up against the wall.”
Whatever happened to a slow, drawling, gallant “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Don’t talk down to me,” she snapped. “I took lessons.”
A spark of humor flashed in his eyes but his voice stayed grim. “My advice? Ask for your money back.”
It might’ve made her smile if she hadn’t felt so…not scared exactly, but yes, scared. And inadequate. The way Brock had made her feel sometimes. She continued to cling to the gun with both hands. He didn’t take it away but his grip was so strong she could tell she couldn’t stop him if he tried.
So much for self-protection. This was why her instructor always said never let a bad guy get close enough to take your gun away from you. There were scarier things in the world than stealing a horse.
For the first time in her whole life, there was no one in the house she could call on for help.
Could Brock have hired these men to take Ariel away from her? No. He couldn’t possibly know where she was. Not yet.
She took a deep breath and took the offensive. “Who are you? You have a nerve, all of you, coming in here as if you own the place. You’re trespassing. I warned y’all to stay in your truck.”
“I’m Jake Hawthorne,” he said. “I live here.”
It took her a second. “In your dreams. We may be out in the middle of nowhere and you may have your snake-killing buddies with you but no way are you moving in here.”
“I already did.”
That flat sincerity startled her into taking one hand off the gun to remove her sunglasses so she could look into his eyes with no barrier.
“Didn’t you see my boots and jeans in the closet? My groceries in the kitchen? My feed and hay in the barn? My shorts in the underwear drawer?”
It all became clear.
“I…I’m in the wrong house?” She hated that her voice revealed just how deep her embarrassment went.
He smiled. Sort of. With just the slightest lift at the corners of his mouth. At least he wasn’t rude enough to really laugh at her.
“I…I leased a house with a barn for a year…”
He nodded. “But not this one.”
He was remarkably calm about her mistake, standing here in the middle of this mess of ruined trucks and dead rattlesnakes, so unlike the yelling, hysterical idiot that Brock would have been if his new truck had just been shot to pieces. In fact, she didn’t know any other man who’d act like this in such a situation.
But who cared what kind of man he was? He might be calm but there was still an undercurrent of steel resolve in him that didn’t bode well for anybody’s opposing will.
Especially a woman’s. Like most men, he saw her as a sex object. His gaze had drifted to her mouth.
She stared at him until he met her eyes.
“I am going to get a refund,” she said. “I had ten lessons and the best score in the class.”
“That’s the devil of it,” he said. “Most times, lessons can’t put a patch on real life.”
Real life. The words hit her like a blow across the back of the knees.
Clearly, this Jake Hawthorne could handle whatever real life threw at him. While she on the other hand had just proved she had a long way to go to even get started on a real life. She’d shot up his truck, misunderstood his remark about living there, moved into the wrong house. If this was the best she could do, how could she survive out here? This was a place filled with tough men.
Get tough yourself, Clea. Say what you think. Say what you want. Sound like you intend to get it.
“Is this what you do? Pin a person up against the wall where they can’t even move—after you tell them to get out of your house?”
“First experience,” he said.
He took the gun and stepped away to lean it against the wall.
“I declare, miss,” one of the old guys said. “You nearly blowed me and Teddy right out of our boots. How come you’re tryin’ to shoot your own snakes, anyhow?”
It was the one who’d killed the snake who was stomping up the steps. He had keen, very keen blue eyes that seemed to see everything. His buddy was right behind him.
Both of them were grinning at her but she was in no mood to smile back. She felt shaken now that Jake Hawthorne had finally let her go.
“Because I’m not really fond of snakes,” she said. “I thought it might get into the house. I thought it might bite me or my horse. I thought this place wasn’t big enough for both of us.”
Completely immune to her sarcasm, the old guys headed straight for her. She moved away from the wall.
“Well, o’ course that’s right,” the blue-eyed one said. “Ma’am, I’m Buck and this here’s my pardner, Teddy.”
They both tipped their hats to her.
“What I was askin’ by my question was, where is your man? Are you here by your lonesome, Miss…uh, Miss…?”
“I’m Clea.” That was all she intended to tell them.
Teddy spoke to her as if he’d known her all her life. “Well, don’t you worry none, Miss Clea. We done kilt that rattler fer you deader than a rock.” His faded brown eyes were as calm and steady as Buck’s were lively.
“You want us to get Jake out’n’ yore hair, ma’am? He can be a real bother sometimes. Won’t listen to a word nobody says. Cain’t tell him nothin’, you might say.”
Jake snorted derisively.
“This here’s quite a party you’ve throwed, Miss Clea,” Buck said. “I ain’t had me such a rousin’ good time since the Miles City Bucking Horse Contest the last year I rode.”
His twinkle and Teddy’s nod of agreement made her smile in spite of all the aggravation of her insecurities. “Usually I entertain at my own house,” she said wryly.
They laughed, then Buck drawled, “Wal, this can be your house if you want. Jake can live with us. You oughtta stay here so you’ll have a nice mantel board where we can tack up this hide.”
He lifted the dead snake. Clea screamed. She hadn’t even noticed he was carrying it by his side. Held up in the air at the old man’s shoulder, its tail brushed the floor. Its mouth was open with the fangs hanging out. It was a horrible sight.
“He’s a beauty, ain’t he?” Teddy said. “Might be near as long as Buck is tall.”
“Don’t worry none,” Buck said. “I’ll skin him out for you.”
The vision of that activity made her whirl on her heel and run into the house. Her stomach clutched. Partly because the snake repelled her so and partly because it had just occurred to her that she might never want to carry her beautiful snakeskin bag ever again.
She got as far as the worn old sofa and collapsed onto it. “Please go,” she called, through the open doorway. “And take the snake away.”
Nobody answered. Clea let her head fall back onto the top of the cushion. Even with her eyes closed, she saw the snake on the backs of her eyelids. Saw it coiled on the ground beside her truck, waiting for her when she went for the door.
Saw it dead, fangs reaching, hanging from Buck’s hand.
What if it had been a mountain lion…or a bear? At least she could stay away from a snake if she saw it soon enough. It hadn’t chased her when she went to get the gun.
Voices murmured out on the porch.
Here was another example of her mishandling real life. No, two examples. Screaming and running away.
Weariness flooded her jangled nerves. This was the wilds of Montana. She was here for a year. She felt completely exhausted and she hadn’t even found her own house yet.
The scuff of boots against the floor and the squeak of the screened door took the place of the voices. She sat up.
Buck stepped through the door. Holding both hands out to show he was without the snake. “I’m sorry, Miss Clea,” he said. “I never thought you might be scairt of a dead snake. Can I get you a cool drink of water?”
It made her feel like a character in an historical novel, a delicate lady who needed a dose of smelling salts. She opened her mouth to say no, but Buck went on to the kitchen.
When he came back with a tin cup of water he called, “Come on in, boys.”
To her, he said, “We ain’t throwin’ you outta this house ‘til you git over this little upset. Mebbe not ever. Jake can take the house over there by the lake that you’re s’posed to have.” He grinned. “Or he can move in with me and Ted, ‘cause…”
Jake interrupted, “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Buck.” He was headed for the bedroom but he glanced at Clea over his shoulder. “You can move tomorrow.”
“I’m moving today,” she said, shooting the words back at him as briskly as he’d spoken to her.
“Don’t rush her,” Buck called after him.
Teddy said, “No, don’t. But Miss Clea does need to get settled into the right place so’s she can get started on her—”
He interrupted himself to come closer to Clea, his kindly brown eyes questioning her as he finished, “Well, doing whatever you come to Montana to do, ma’am.”
“Whatever it is,” Buck added helpfully.
Hopefully. They both looked at her expectantly and fell silent, giving her a chance to tell them what she was doing here. In Jake’s house. With her bright orange cashmere afghan thrown over the arm of the couch and her burled wood bowl with its meandering turquoise inlay sitting on the mantel.
Not to mention her sheets on his bed.
She couldn’t help but like the two old-timers who were so lively and curious but no way was she going to get into her story with them.
“Runnin’ from the law, more ‘n’ likely,” Buck said with a grin and a wink.
