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“Right. And would likely be salaciously depicted, at least by some outlets, as the Haves versus the Have Nots.”
Garrett slid a pair of sunglasses on over his eyes. “So, in other words, we’re damned if we stay and have reporters chasing after us with every new accusation. And damned if we leave town and avoid their inquiries, too.”
“Not for long, if I do my job, which I certainly plan to do.”
To Hope’s relief, for the first time since they’d met, he seemed willing to let her take charge of the volatile situation. At least temporarily. So, while Garrett drove, she worked on her laptop computer and her infant son slept.
It was only when they entered rural Laramie County, near dusk, that the trip took an eventful turn.
“Do you see that?” Hope pointed to a disabled pickup truck ahead. The hood was up on the battered vehicle. A young couple stood beside the smoking engine, apparently as unhappy with each other as they were with their transportation.
Worse, the young man—with a muscular upper body and military haircut—was on crutches, his left leg obscured by pressure bandages and a complicated brace.
Garrett drove up beside them. “Need a helping hand?”
“I’m Darcy Dunlop,” the young woman said, her thin face lighting up with relief. “And yes!”
“We’ve got it.” Her grim-faced companion shook his head.
“Tank!” Darcy said, wringing her hands in distress.
“We’ll just wait for the tow truck.”
“But the mechanic said we didn’t have to be here! As long as we leave the truck unlocked, he can take it back to the garage in town on his own.”
Tank’s jaw set, even more stubbornly.
Garrett stuck out his hand, introducing himself. “Army Medical Corps...”
The other man’s expression relaxed slightly. “Infantry. Until this.” He pointed to his injured leg. “Not sure what I’m going to do next...”
They talked a little about the fellow soldier who had saved Tank’s life, and the IED fragments that had made a mess of his limb. How his parents—who lived locally—had taken them in during the year it was going to take to recover and get his strength back.
“That’s rough,” Garrett said in commiseration.
Darcy’s lower lip trembled. “What’s worse is how far we have to go so Tank can get treatment. We either drive back and forth to the closest military hospital—which is a couple hours from here—or Tank gets his care in Laramie. And the rehab there, well, I mean everybody’s nice, but they have no experience with what’s happened to Tank.”
Garrett understood—as did Hope—that there were some things only fellow soldiers, who had served in a war zone, could comprehend. The camaraderie was as essential to healing as medical care. Garrett gave Tank a look of respect. “How about we give you a lift home.”
Darcy gave her husband a pleading look.
Shoulders slumping in relief, the former soldier consented. “Thanks.”
Knowing Tank would have more room for his leg brace in the front, Hope climbed in back to sit with Max, who was beginning to wake up. Darcy took the other side. The two women chatted while Tank gave directions to his parents’ home, a few miles north.
When they arrived, Garrett scribbled a number on the back of a business card and handed it to the other man. “I’ll be around for the next few days, taking care of some family business, so if you need anything...”
Tank shook his hand. “Appreciate it.”
Hope could see the meeting had affected Garrett. It had affected her, too.
“I don’t understand how the military can boot someone out, just because they got injured,” she fumed, as they drove away.
Garrett paused to study the unmarked intersection of country roads. No street names were showing up on her GPS screen, Hope noted. Which meant she might, indeed, have gotten lost trying to find her way to the ranch.
“It was probably his choice to get a medical discharge rather than stay in,” Garrett pointed out, pausing to glance at a set of directions he had in his pocket, before turning south again.
“Why would Tank do that when he clearly loved being part of the armed service?”
“Because doing so would have meant taking a desk job, once he had recuperated, and my guess is Tank didn’t see himself being happy that way. He probably wanted to be with his buddies—who were all still in Infantry—or out of the service completely,” he said, as they reached the entrance to the Circle H Ranch.
Hope wasn’t sure what she had expected, since Lucille had promised they would all be quite comfortable there, and have as much privacy as they needed. Maybe something as luxurious as Lucille’s Dallas mansion. But the turnoff was marked by a mailbox, and a wrought-iron sign that had definitely seen better days. The gravel lane leading up to the ranch house was bordered by a fence that was falling down in places. The barn and stables looked just as dilapidated.
Garrett cut the engine.
Handsome face taut with concern, he got out and opened the door for her. “Mom and her driver were supposed to be here ahead of us.”
Obviously, that had not happened. Max, who’d been remarkably quiet and content, let out an impatient cry.
“I know, baby,” Hope soothed, patting her son on the back. “You’re hungry. Probably wet, too.” She lifted him out of the car seat and moved to stand beside Garrett. “But we’re going to take care of all that.”
Garrett led her up onto the porch of the rambling two-story ranch house with the gabled roof. He unlocked the door and swung it open. Like him, Hope could only stare.
Chapter Three (#ufbc312c9-65ce-53b9-835a-4154de038578)
The interior of the ranch house had not been updated in decades, was devoid of all furniture and was scrupulously clean. In deference to the closed window blinds, Garrett hit switches as he moved through the four wood-paneled downstairs rooms. Sighing, he noted, “Well, at least all the lights work.”
“Does the air conditioning work?” she asked, their footsteps echoing on the scarred pine floors. It was much hotter inside the domicile than outside. And the outside was at least ninety degrees, even as the sun was setting.
“No clue.” Garrett headed upstairs. There were only two bedrooms. One bath. No beds. Or even a chair for Hope to sit in while she nursed.
They headed back downstairs, Max still fussing. Worse, she could feel her breasts beginning to leak in response. “When was the last time you were here?” Glad she’d thought to put soft cotton nursing pads inside her bra, she opened up the diaper bag she’d slung over her arm and pulled out a blanket.
Garrett stepped out onto the back porch, where a porch swing looked out over the property. “Ah—never.”
Deciding her son had waited long enough, Hope sat down on the swing and situated Max in her arms. Waving at Garrett to turn around, which he obediently did, she unbuttoned her blouse and unsnapped the front of her nursing bra. Max found her nipple and latched on hungrily. “I was under the impression this was family property.” She shifted her son more comfortably in her arms and draped the blanket over him. As he fed, they both relaxed. “That your mother grew up on the Circle H.”
“She did.” Hands in his pockets, Garrett continued looking over the property, which was quite beautiful in a wild, untamed way. Overgrown shrubbery, dotted with blossoms, filled the air with a lush, floral scent.
He studied the sun disappearing slowly beneath the horizon in a streaky burst of yellow and red. “But she and my dad sold the place after my grandfather Henderson’s death, when she was twenty-three. They used the proceeds to start Dad’s hedge fund and stake their life in Dallas.”
It was a move that had certainly paid off for Frank and Lucille Lockhart. They’d made millions. Hope turned her attention to the collection of buildings a distance away from the house. A couple of barns with adjacent corrals and a rambling one-story building with cedar siding and a tin roof. Maybe a bunkhouse? “When did the property come back into the family?”
Garrett reached down and plucked out a long weed sprouting through the bushes and tossed it aside. “My dad bought it for my mom as an anniversary gift the year he sold his company so he could retire. They were going to fix the ranch up as a retreat. He purchased property in Laramie County for all five of us kids, too. So we’d all have a tangible link to our parents’ history here.”
Hope shifted Max to her other breast, glad they had the light from the interior of the house illuminating the porch with a soft yellow glow now that it was beginning to get dark. It was just enough to allow her to see what she was doing and yet afford her some privacy, too.
“I gather your dad also grew up in West Texas?”
Garrett nodded, his handsome profile brooding yet calm as he surveyed the sagebrush, live oak trees and cedars dotting the landscape. “On the Wind River Ranch, here in Laramie County. My parents bought that back, too. My brother Wyatt started a horse farm there.”
Max nursed quickly—a sign of just how hungry he’d been. When he was done, Hope shifted her sated son upright so he could burp, and used her other hand to refasten her nursing bra. “So you all have ranches then.”
“No.” Garrett paced the length of the porch, both hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans. The action drew her attention to his masculine shoulders and spectacularly muscled flanks. Without warning, she recalled the feel of his rock-hard leg beneath her palm, the heat radiating from the apex of his thighs. Wondered what it would be like to be held against all that sheer male power and strength.
Then she pushed the disturbing notion away.
Oblivious to the lusty direction of her thoughts, he paced a little farther away. “My dad gifted me a house and a medical office building in town.” He chuckled when Max let out a surprisingly loud belch.
“It’s okay. I’m done,” Hope said.
Garrett turned to face her. Noting she had rebuttoned her blouse, he ambled toward her once again. “Sage received a small café in the historic downtown section of Laramie and the apartment above it.”
Hope spread the blanket out on the seat of the swing and laid Max down so she could change his diaper. “So you’d all eventually settle here?”
He moved even closer, gazing fondly down at her sleepy baby. The tenderness in his gaze was a surprise.
“That was their plan,” he admitted in a voice so gentle it made her mouth go dry.
She drew in a breath for calm. Which, to her consternation, did not help.
She still was wa-a-a-a-y too aware of him. Still far too curious about the man who was proving to be such an enigma—all Texas military gentleman one moment, all tough, edgy alpha male the next. Telling herself to dial it down a notch, Hope cocked her head. “What’s your plan?” she asked bluntly.
His gaze dipped to her lips, lingered. “To sell both properties and move on.”
“Your mom said your tour of duty was about up.”
“Twenty-nine days. I saved my time off for the end, so I’m on R & R through the rest of it.”
“And then...?”
“I either reenlist and become a staff physician at Walter Reed in Washington, DC...”
She could see him doing that. And probably loving it. “Or...?”
“Head up a residency program at a hospital in Seattle.”
“Where your sister Sage is living.”
He nodded.
She could imagine him teaching, too. Having all the young female residents fall hopelessly in love with him. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”
“Still thinking about it.”
“But in either case you won’t be returning to Texas.” As his mother wanted.
His sharp, assessing gaze met hers. “No.”
“Not tied to the Lone Star State in any way?” Despite the fact he and his siblings had apparently all grown up in Texas.
He raised his brows. “Are you?”
Hope nodded, her heart tightening a little in her chest. “I’ve worked in enough places to realize Texas is my home. And where I want Max to grow up.”
Feeling oddly disappointed that it was a sentiment they obviously did not share, and at the same time determined to end the unexpected intimacy that had fallen between them, she finished diapering her son, then lifted Max into her arms. “Where are we going to bunk down tonight?” she asked, shooting Garrett an all-business look. “I assume your mom had some definitive plan when she suggested we come out here. Maybe a hotel in town, assuming there is one?”
Garrett reached for his cell phone. “I’ll give my mother a call, see if I can find out what her ETA is.”
Hope headed to the SUV to get Max settled in his infant seat, so they would be ready to lock up the house and go wherever they were headed next as soon as he got off the phone. To her relief, her little boy, exhausted from the chaotic activity of the day, was already fast asleep when Garrett came out of the house, informing her, “We’ve been directed to the bunkhouse.”
Why did she suddenly have the feeling that was not a good thing? Hope stood, her hands propped on her hips. “When will everyone else be here?”
His expression as matter-of-fact as his low tone, he answered, “Noon tomorrow.”
* * *
HOPE BLINKED. SHE could not have heard right! “Noon tomorrow?”
“My mother decided to stay in Dallas and handle some things there first.”
“Unlike me, you don’t seem all that surprised.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What are you accusing me of?”
She flushed. “Nothing.” She just knew that being alone with this sexy, virile man was not a good idea. “But,” she continued hastily, “under the circumstances, I think it would be better if Max and I went into town and stayed in a hotel.”
He choked off a laugh. “What? You’re worried I’m going to put the moves on you?”
Actually, she was worried she was going to lose all common sense and put the moves on him. But not about to reveal that, she crossed her arms in front of her and quipped wryly, “Dream on, Alpha Man.”
His eyes crinkled mischievously at the corners. “Alpha Man?”
Had she really said that? She must be punchier than she’d thought. Which was par for the course, considering she’d been lured back to work three months before she had planned and then, compounding matters, having to get up at the crack of dawn to take the six o’clock flight from Dallas to DC in order to be seated next to him on the return trip. Aware he was still waiting for an explanation, she lifted a hand. “It was an insult. A friendly one.” Hope bit down on an oath. She was just making it worse.
He laughed, his husky baritone like music to her ears, as he continued giving her a long, sexy once-over. “Sounded more like a compliment to me.”
He was twisting everything around, embarrassing her and putting her off her game. Indignant, she huffed, “Of course you would think that.”
He held his ground, arms folded in front of him, biceps bunched. Again, that long steady appraisal. “Because I’m alpha?”
He definitely was not a beta.
She threaded her hands through her hair, wishing she’d thought to put it in a tight, spinsterish bun before he’d picked her up. “Can we end this repartee?”
His mother was right. They had been flirting. They were flirting now. Heaven help them both.
He leaned in and gathered her into his arms. “With pleasure.”
