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“I’m not learning anything.”
“You’re staying in school, Luke.”
“Just ’cause you’re my legal guardian doesn’t mean I have to listen to you.”
Hannah laughed. “Oh, yes, it does. You’re not dropping out. End of discussion.”
“You can’t stop me.” Luke was three inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Hannah. If he didn’t want to go to school, there wouldn’t be much she could do to make him go.
She opened her mouth to challenge him, then decided no good could come from arguing her point when he was hungover. Hannah had taken care of others most of her life and at times like this she dreamed of only being responsible for herself.
“I bet Connor’s mother would let me live with them.”
Not on your life. “Mrs. Henderson doesn’t even want you hanging out with Connor anymore.”
“Liar.”
“You can ask her yourself.”
“Why would she say that?”
“Maybe because she caught you two drinking and she thinks you’re a bad influence on her son.”
Luke laughed, then moaned and pressed his hands to his head. “Connor drank before we started doing stuff together.”
“Did Connor talk you into drinking?”
“No. Ben Nichols and I got slammed last year.”
“Is Ben the one who gave you the pot?”
“Yeah.”
She’d found Luke smoking in the hayloft over Christmas break and had flipped out. He’d been so stoned he was lucky he hadn’t started a fire in the barn.
“Maybe you should smoke pot, then guys might like you better.” Luke could be downright ugly toward her when he wanted to be. “I bet if you weren’t such a nag, Seth wouldn’t have dumped you.”
Hannah gaped at her brother in the rearview mirror. “For your information, I broke up with him.”
Seth Markham had caught Hannah at a weak moment when he’d proposed to her following her father’s funeral. She’d been in a state of panic after learning about the financial mess the ranch was in. When Seth had promised he and his father would pay off the Blue Bison’s debts, she’d decided that marrying him was the only sensible thing to do if she didn’t want to lose her and Luke’s inheritance.
Seth had pressed her to wed right away but Hannah had needed time to grieve. Three months passed, and when she still hadn’t set a date, Seth became angry and they’d argued. He’d almost convinced her to go to the courthouse that day before he’d let it slip that he and his father had planned to sell her bison and expand their cattle herd. Hannah had promptly returned his ring.
“Watch it!”
Startled out of her trance, Hannah realized the truck had drifted onto the shoulder and was headed straight toward a hitchhiker. She slammed on the brakes, then swerved back into her lane—right into the path of a shiny metal object lying on the asphalt. The rear tire blew and the truck fishtailed off the road and down an embankment, where it stopped inches from a barbed wire fence.
“Luke, are you all right?” She craned her neck over the backseat.
Her brother crawled up from the floor. “Shit, Hannah. You could have killed us. Didn’t you see that guy?”
She looked out the passenger window. The hitchhiker had dropped his duffel bag on the ground and was jogging toward them. He wore military fatigues and a white T-shirt that showed off his powerful arms and an impressive chest. He had short, dark hair, thick beard stubble covered his face and aviator sunglasses hid his eyes. No wonder he hadn’t jumped out of the way—he’d been wearing earbuds.
Luke opened the back door and got out of the truck.
“Everyone okay?” the man asked when he reached them. He took off his shades and ran his gaze over Luke.
“We’re good,” Luke said.
Hannah joined Luke and said, “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to my driving. I didn’t hit you, did I?”
“Not by a long shot. How about you?”
His eyes were a hypnotizing shade of caramel brown. “How about me what?”
“Did you get hurt?” His sexy mouth spread into a grin.
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
He examined the rear wheel. “You’ve got a flat tire.”
Hannah peered over his shoulder. She’d been driving on bald tires for months. It had only been a matter of time before one of them blew.
“If you have a spare, I’ll put it on.”
Where were her manners? When he stood, she held out her hand. “Hannah Buck.” His warm grasp was the nicest thing she’d touched all morning.
“Alonso Marquez.”
“This is my brother, Luke,” she said.
The males shook hands and Hannah noticed Alonso was only an inch or two taller than Luke’s five-ten.
“I have a spare,” she said. “Luke, grab the wrench and jack from the toolbox.”
Her brother climbed into the truck bed and rummaged through the steel storage compartment, then handed the tools to Alonso.
Hannah closed her eyes and rubbed her brow, where a dull throb beat against her skull. The headache had begun right after she’d picked up Luke from Connor’s.
“Hey,” a deep voice whispered near her ear, and she jumped. “It’s okay.” Alonso smiled. “No one got hurt.”
Tears stung her eyes at the note of concern in the stranger’s voice. When was the last time anyone had been worried about her?
True to his word, Alonso put the spare tire on in record time.
“Thank you,” she said. “And I’m really sorry I almost ran over you.”
“Be careful.” He saluted her before walking back to retrieve his bag.
“Aren’t you going to give him a ride?” Luke asked.
“We don’t know anything about him,” she said.
“Who cares? He helped us, didn’t he?”
True, but what if Alonso turned out to be a serial killer or robbed them at gunpoint after she dropped him off farther down the road? Still...this was a lonely stretch of Highway 8 and the town of Paradise was fifteen miles away.
“Hey, mister, you want a ride?” Luke shouted.
Alonso waved Luke off, then put in his earbuds, threw his bag over his shoulder and started walking.
Luke jogged toward Alonso—funny how his hangover prevented him from doing chores but not racing after strangers. Alonso listened to Luke for a minute, then the two walked back to the truck.
“I told him that you were worried he might kill us.” Luke nudged Alonso’s arm. “Tell her what you said.”
Alonso flashed his white teeth. “I don’t kill. I save lives.”
“He’s a doctor, Hannah.”
“Trauma surgeon,” Alonso said.
Luke nodded to the man’s fatigues. “And he was an Army doctor in Afghanistan.”
Hannah would never have guessed the sexy, masculine man was a surgeon. “Why are you hitchhiking?”
“I took a personal leave from the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.” He looked at Luke. “Kid, I appreciate the thought, but your sister’s uncomfortable giving me a lift.”
Luke jutted his chin. “This truck belonged to our dad, so it’s half mine and I say you can have a ride.”
Alonso glanced between sister and brother. He didn’t care to get involved in their squabble. The teen leaned in close and Alonso caught a whiff of stale alcohol on his breath. “You can ride up front,” Luke said.
“Aren’t you a little young to be drinking?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“Last I heard the drinking age around these parts was twenty-one.”
“No one pays attention to that law.”
Touché. Alonso had drunk as a teen—not often—but he’d slammed back a few beers once in a while so the homies in the ’hood wouldn’t make fun of him. It had been tough enough that the kids had picked on him for getting good grades. If not for his little sister Lea’s asthma attacks, forcing Alonso to skip school to care for her while their mother worked, he’d have been a regular Goody Two-shoes. And Goody Two-shoes never made it out of the barrio.
“Stay out of trouble, kid.” Alonso left the siblings by their truck and started down the road. He’d walked less than a minute before Hannah pulled up next to him and lowered the passenger-side window. He took out his earbuds but kept walking.
“Where are you headed?” she asked.
“Nowhere in particular.” He’d had no plan in mind when he’d left his job—just that he hoped lots of fresh air and escaping the city would restore his faith in humanity. His coworkers thought he’d lost his mind when he’d confessed that he needed a break from the blood and gore. Their disbelief hadn’t surprised him. ER doctors and nurses were adrenaline junkies who thrived on chaos. But Alonso’s past was catching up to him. He’d grown up in a rough neighborhood, watching bad things happen to good people. His time in Afghanistan was more of the same—good soldiers losing their lives at the hands of the people they were trying to help. Then he’d returned to the States, where he tried to save more lives—kids shot by kids. Women who were beaten by their boyfriends or husbands. Drug overdoses and innocent men, women and children injured by intoxicated drivers. He’d become weary of all the death and destruction and had needed to escape it for a while.
Luke poked his head out the window. “You can stay at our ranch if you want.”
“Luke!” Obviously Hannah didn’t want Alonso anywhere near her or her brother. Smart girl.
“I’m good, thanks.” He read the indecision in Hannah’s pretty blue eyes and he let his gaze linger on her.
At first glance she came off plain looking, but upon closer inspection he noticed her eyes darkened to indigo when they shone with worry. Her mouth was a little wide and he imagined what it would feel like to kiss her full lips. Damn. He’d just met Hannah and already he was thinking of having sex with her. She was smart to be wary of him.
“Luke’s right. You deserve a lift after I almost ran you down, and then made you change a flat tire.”
“Thanks.” The word was out of his mouth before he could stop it—blame it on her baby blues. Once he got situated in the truck bed, the half window in the backseat opened.
“You can sit up front with my sister.”
“I’m fine right here.” Alonso put in his earbuds but didn’t turn on the music. He shouldn’t eavesdrop, but he was curious about the siblings.
Hannah guided the pickup onto the road and Alonso closed his eyes against the cool breeze. When he’d begun his journey five days ago the high had been seventy-three. He’d headed southeast and had walked twelve hours a day, covering almost thirty-five miles per day. Each twenty-four-hour period that passed, the temperature had dropped. He guessed the first day in November hovered near sixty-five degrees.
“Why are you so mean?” Luke’s accusation drifted through the open window.
“What are you talking about?” Hannah asked.
“Making Alonso sit in the truck bed because you think he’s some psycho.”
Alonso thought Hannah should be suspicious of him. Not only didn’t she know much about him, but he carried a handgun in his duffel bag.
“Leave it be, Luke. I don’t want to argue with you.”
Luke tapped his shoulder. “Alonso.”
“What?”
“You ever rodeo?”
“No, but I’ve ridden a bucking bronc before.” In high school he and his friends, Cruz Rivera and Victor Vicario, had spent time at the Gateway Ranch, where several cowboys had taught them how to bust broncs. It took only a few short seconds in the saddle for Alonso to figure out rodeo wasn’t his sport. He’d spent the remainder of his stay at the ranch taking care of the livestock.
“I want to learn how to ride broncs,” Luke said.
“Bronc riding can be tricky.”
“But rodeo is so cool.”
Alonso sensed a wild streak in the teen—no wonder his sister appeared stressed out. “Some high schools have rodeo teams.”
“School sucks.” Luke lowered his voice. “I’m gonna drop out.”
“I doubt your parents would approve of you quitting school.”
“My mom and dad are dead.” That Luke said it so matter-of-factly left Alonso speechless.
The truck slowed, then turned onto a dirt road and drove beneath a wooden arch with the words Blue Bison Ranch painted in white across it. He should remind Hannah to stop and let him out, but the words never came.
