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To Protect His Own
Brenda Mott
Tragedy brought them togetherAll Alex wanted was to be left alone on his new ranch so he could have a second chance with his daughter, Hallie–to make a better life for them, far away from the city and the senseless shooting that had changed everything. But he can't turn his back on his neighbor Caitlin Kramer, a woman struggling to recover from her own shattered past. It hardly seems possible that any good can come from so much bad.But for Hallie and for themselves, Alex and Caitlin have to try.
“Maybe you ought to go over there and ask her if she’s Caitlin Kramer.”
But Alex knew it wasn’t a good idea. The woman in the wheelchair at the other table seemed uncomfortable in her surroundings…any fool could see that.
“Nah.” Hallie kept her full attention to her meal, munching fries, wolfing down her huge cheeseburger.
Where did she put it all?
“You want to hit a movie after this?”
The girl shook her head.
Alex hated that his little girl’s innocence had been tainted by a senseless act of violence.
“Gotta pee.” Hallie jumped up and headed for the bathroom.
Inside, she closed herself into one of the two stalls. She waited impatiently for the woman in the next one to hurry up. A few moments later she heard water running as the lady washed her hands for what seemed an eternity.
Come on, come on! Hallie stood quietly, listening for the sound of the door. At last the dryer shut off, the door snicked open, then shut with a soft click.
Hallie closed her eyes and focused. She could do this. It was easy, once you learned how. She raised her fingers to her mouth and felt her stomach begin to heave in a familiar wave of motion. Then she leaned over the toilet, purging herself of everything she’d just eaten.
But not just the food.
Of everything bad that lay like a thick, black poison inside her.
Dear Reader,
Do you ever stop and think about how the course of our lives can change in an instant? I often think about that and wonder “What if?” What if a person made a different choice at one single moment along his or her life’s journey? It fascinates me that one small action can drastically alter everything.
But sometimes the path we take is not by choice. Sometimes it’s by accident, or a seemingly cruel twist of fate. Yet I’ve found that good can come from the proverbial dark cloud. When Caitlin Kramer suffers a severe accident, she’s forced to take a long, hard look at her goals and dreams. At exactly what sort of person she is.
Alex Hunter has traveled a similar path. His main concern is protecting his daughter, and he’ll go to any length to do it, including moving to the small Colorado mountain town of Deer Creek. Little does he know that fate has plans for him. And for Caitlin.
I hope you’ll enjoy the twists and turns of Alex and Caitlin’s journey to true love. Don’t you just love a happy ending?
I enjoy hearing from my readers. You can e-mail me at BrendaMott@hotmail.com (please reference the book title on the subject line). Or stop by my author’s page at the Smoky Mountain Romance Writers Web site at smrw.org or SuperAuthors.com. Happy reading!
Brenda Mott
To Protect His Own
Brenda Mott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to the wonderful women
who made my lifelong dream come true:
my editors, past and present—Paula Eykelhof,
Beverley Sotolov, Kathleen Scheibling, Victoria Curran,
Laura Shin—and my agent, Michelle Grajkowski
of Three Seas Literary Agency.
My thanks go deeper than words can say.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
“BE CAREFUL DRIVING HOME, Caitlin. It’s starting to snow.” Shauna pulled her head back inside, then partially closed the front door behind the other woman.
“I will. Don’t forget—the indoor arena, six sharp.” Caitlin pointed an accusing finger at her longtime friend. “No hitting the snooze button. We need to get in one last practice session before I head back to school.”
“I’ll be there,” Shauna promised with a laugh.
Caitlin waved and hurried toward her Pacific-blue Jaguar, parked near the barn a short distance from Shauna Meyers’s front yard. As she headed down the dirt-and-gravel road, she flipped the heater on full blast. February in Colorado could be brutal, and it looked like tonight would be no exception. She regretted that she hadn’t worn a coat this afternoon when she’d left for Shauna’s house. She should’ve known the fickle mountain sunshine and mid-fifties temperature made no promises. But it didn’t matter. The Jaguar X had heated seats, and her long-sleeved sweater was warm enough.
She slid a CD into the stereo, then turned her wipers on as the overture to the Marriage of Figaro filled the car. The snowflakes were getting bolder, bigger, and she flicked her headlights to low beam. By the time she reached the two-lane highway, the snow was coming down in earnest. She’d hoped to get home before the roads got bad, but the ranch was a good seven miles from the Meyers’s place, and the snow was starting to stick to the pavement. Suddenly her car shimmied. She looked in her mirrors but couldn’t see anything. Yet the car handled in a way that told her something was wrong, so Caitlin pulled over to the shoulder.
Nuts! A flat tire. Left rear side. If only she’d taken Dillon up on his offer to teach her basic vehicle maintenance, including how to change a tire. At the time, his big-brother concerns seemed unnecessary. After all, she had her auto club membership. But as she stood in the falling snow, the thought of waiting for the auto club to send someone from town didn’t seem like such a good idea after all. At the pace people moved in Deer Creek, it might take a while, and she didn’t relish the thought of sitting in her car at the side of the dark mountain highway.
Besides, she realized with a groan, she’d left her cell phone at home. Again. Should she walk back to town and find a pay phone, or stay here in the hope a Good Samaritan came along? The thought was no sooner in her head when a Chevy Blazer eased around a bend in the road from the same way she’d come, and slowed to a crawl. Relieved, Caitlin waved frantically at the driver to stop. But as the Blazer pulled in behind her, the vulnerability of her situation made Caitlin suddenly wary. She relaxed, though, when she saw the lone occupant was a woman who looked not much older than her own twenty-three years.
Before she could make a move toward the vehicle, another SUV rounded the curve in the Blazer’s wake, swerving wildly. It crossed over the highway’s dotted yellow line, then veered back toward the shoulder of the road. Toward the Chevy Blazer.
Caitlin froze in the headlights.
The SUV struck the Chevy with such force, a deafening screech rent the air, and Caitlin tried to scramble out of the way. Tried to flee from the on-coming vehicles. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the Blazer skidded sideways and plunged into the ravine below. The dark-colored SUV fish-tailed as the driver attempted to correct his mistake in judgment, and struck Caitlin’s car.
Her sluggish mind reasoned that even diving into the ravine would be better than being run down. But the Jag clipped her before she could reach safety, flinging her not into the ravine, but in the opposite direction. Onto the highway. She heard squealing brakes and felt intense pain that seemed to wrack her entire body.
Then nothing.
CHAPTER ONE
CAITLIN KRAMER found it ironic that her dreams would be shattered on her birthday. She faced her physical therapist, finally realizing what she hadn’t wanted to admit in the six months since the accident. That she would be lucky to even ride a pleasure horse again. She could definitely kiss the Olympics goodbye.
It wasn’t fair to take her frustration out on Terri, but Caitlin couldn’t hide her bitterness. “Why aren’t I getting better? At this rate, I’ll never have the balance to ride a show jumper, will I?” She’d hoped the doctors were wrong, and she would be the exception to the rule and heal quickly and completely, returning to her normal self. But the regimen of physical therapy she’d undergone today proved she was the one who’d been wrong.
Caitlin tried to swallow the hot, burning sensation at the back of her throat. Nine days in a coma had left her as helpless as a newborn kitten. She’d spent the first couple of months after the wreck relearning everything. How to walk, sit and eat. How to dress herself. And now this. The painful therapy, which had begun to pay off as she forced her useless muscles to work the way they once had, only seemed to take her so far. But she’d cried enough. She was sick of it. Anger felt like a much better tool.
“You are getting better,” Terri said. “I told you this isn’t going to happen overnight.” The therapist rested one hand on the vestibulator—a piece of equipment that reminded Caitlin of an adult-size baby swing. “Do you want me to stop?”
The vestibulator was used to test balance and reflex. A netlike, mesh contraption hung suspended from the top of the metal frame, and Caitlin sat in it, feeling stupid and helpless, like a toddler being pushed by her mother. She couldn’t even balance enough to swing independently.
“No. I’m going to do this or die trying.”
Terri grinned. “That’s the attitude. Perseverance and patience are key to your recovery.” She manipulated the machine. “Maybe when you’re done here, we’ll take you over to my place and you can have a go-round on Jake’s bucking barrel.”
“Ha-ha,” Caitlin said, ashamed of her crabbiness. She seemed to have little or no control over her emotions these days. “Knowing your dear hubby’s psychotic obsession with pain, I’m sure he’d love that.”
Terri’s chuckle was low, amused. “Psychotic obsession, huh?”
“He’s a bull rider, isn’t he? He’s got to be nuts.”
“Says the show jumper who sails over seven-foot walls on a twelve-hundred-pound horse.”
Caitlin gave her a mock scowl. “I get your point.” She held her arms out from her sides. “Let’s try this again.”
An hour later she sank, exhausted, into her wheelchair. Damn, but it would be good to be rid of the thing. She hated that she still had to use the chair part-time. And feared, deep down, she would never walk completely on her own.
“How’d it go?” Her mother’s cheerful voice made Caitlin’s spirits sink lower as she watched her step into the room. To have everyone around her constantly acting upbeat and positive got old, even though she knew they meant well. There were days when she wished they’d let her throw herself on the floor and cry like a baby. Days when she wished they’d cry with her.
She looked up into her mother’s coffee-brown eyes. “Same torture, different day,” she said dryly. “Where’s Gran?”
Evelyn leaned over the chair and kissed Caitlin’s cheek. “Waiting. She’s taking us out to lunch for your birthday. To Bella Luna.”
“I don’t want to go.” She hated going out in public, putting up with curious glances and rude stares. The whispered comments and speculation ate away at what little self-confidence she had left. “Can’t we eat at home?”
“No.” Evelyn took hold of the wheelchair, and with a goodbye to Terri, began to push Caitlin from the room. “You’ve hibernated enough. It’s time to get out. Get some air.”
“I can get air at the ranch.” Foxwood Farms had become her haven away from people. Once seen as a local celebrity, now she was only someone to be pitied. She didn’t want pity or sympathy. She wanted her life back the way it was before some jerk of a drunk driver had ruined it.
“Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“Yeah, right. Then the whole town can see how I can barely feed myself, like some helpless infant.” Her fine motor skills had not yet returned to the left side of her body. And she was left-handed.
“So eat finger food,” Gran said, rising from a chair in the waiting room as Evelyn wheeled Caitlin out. “We’ll skip Bella Luna and go to Pearl’s Diner instead.” Proud and regal like her daughter-in-law, Noreen Kramer was also every bit as stubborn. And every bit as beautiful. Her silver hair curled just above the collar of her blouse. Tall and slender, her peacock-blue eyes sparkled above prominent cheekbones, sculpted not by some clever plastic surgeon, but by Mother Nature. At sixty-five, Gran could’ve easily passed for fifty.
None of the Kramer women looked their age, including her. Or at least she hadn’t before the accident. Now when Caitlin looked in the mirror, the face staring back at her seemed older. And she felt about a hundred.
She rolled her eyes at Gran. “I don’t do finger food.”
“Well, you do today. Come on.” Noreen took over, pushing the wheelchair. “Chicken fingers and French fries sound like a winner to me.”
“Ugh.” Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “No way am I putting that junk in my body.”
Noreen smothered a grin, eyes flashing as she looked at Evelyn. “Listen to her. She actually thinks she’s going to win this argument.”
ALEX HUNTER slowed his Ford Ranger as he exited the highway. “Are you hungry, Hallie?”
In the passenger seat, his twelve-year-old daughter slumped against the truck’s window, staring at nothing in particular. Her long, sandy brown hair tumbled down her back in a waist-length ponytail. At least she’d combed it today. Some days she didn’t bother.
Hallie lifted a shoulder. “I guess.”
“Pearl’s Diner okay? I hear they’ve got great burgers.” He spotted the home-style restaurant up ahead.
She nodded, but her expression said she couldn’t care less if they ate hamburgers or rocks.
Alex held back a sigh. Their move from the Denver area a few weeks ago had been tough, but there was no way he was going to stay in the city anymore. Where random violence could change people’s lives in the blink of an eye.
“Well, I’m for a double cheeseburger and a chocolate shake.” He swung into a parking space behind a sleek black Mercedes and let out a low whistle. “Wow, look at that. Guess not everyone in this town drives a pickup, huh?” He gave her a wink, tipping his new black Stetson, hoping to at least coax a smile from his daughter.
