Stone Cold Cowboy(15)

“There’s nothing.” Rory shook off his brother’s hand, hoping those two didn’t start spouting all kinds of assumption, thinking they knew anything. There would never be anything between him and Sadie. Right? What the hell would she want from a guy like him? A man who’d turned hard and shut off everything inside himself except his drive to get the job done, keep the ranch surviving and thriving, and see his brothers find their way out of their grief after losing their parents and become the men they were today. Happy. Making their own way in the world. Just what his parents would have wanted for them. Exactly what he’d promised them the day he put them in the ground. He’d take care of Ford and Colt. He’d make sure they always had a home and they stayed together. Granddad helped hold them together when they were kids, but as the oldest, Rory took on the responsibility of parent and big brother.

Rory fell back into his chair and avoided looking at his brothers, knowing the cold, hard truth. “I don’t know her. She doesn’t want to know me. You heard her. She thinks I’m the devil.” Rory shook his head, trying to ignore the tightening of his gut and the hurt that settled in his heart that she’d think such a thing about him. Had he become so closed off from other people that they feared him because he’d never let anyone really get to know him?

Sadie twitched and moaned again, clamping her hand down on his arm and holding tight, her nails digging into his arm. “Rory. Get them.”

“You might consider that she knew those cattle belonged to us and told her brother and his friends that you were going to go after them.”

Rory wanted to believe Ford’s words. He really did. He covered Sadie’s hand with his and she relaxed. He tried to pull his arm free, but she clamped down tight again. For whatever reason, she didn’t want to let him go. He didn’t want to let go of her. He stared at her face, hoping for any sign that she knew it was him sitting beside her. When he turned back to tell his brothers to go on home, he found they’d already gathered the empty pizza box, plates, napkins, and empty beer bottles and left without so much as a goodbye. Not that he’d have heard them; he was so focused on Sadie and the colliding thoughts in his head.

One side of himself told him he was crazy for thinking she’d wake up and be happy to see him. The other side told him to walk away now before she woke up and called him the devil to his face and ordered him out.

Neither side won; they just kept up the verbal war in his head. He talked himself out of getting to know her better and into staying right here beside her. Funny, no one talked him into anything. He wanted to stay. He wanted to convince her she didn’t know him, but he wanted her to. The why and how of it eluded him, but he didn’t get up and walk out the door. This was where he wanted to be. Right beside her.





CHAPTER 4

Sadie felt the bite of the wire cinch around her wrists, ankles, and body like a vise. She screamed and fought to get free, but nothing worked and the cold froze her down to her bones. The devil dude came after her with the knife raised over his head, slashing it down. She screamed again and his image turned into a much larger, darker man, then shifted back to the devil dude again. “Rory. Devil,” she gasped, thrashing to get away.

Someone grabbed her shoulders, shooting pain through her arms and up her neck. Her eyes flew open and she stared into a pair of golden-green hazel eyes. “Stop. You’re hurting me.”

Rory pulled his hands away from her and held them up in front of him like he was being stopped by the cops. “I’m trying to stop you from hurting yourself. Calm down. Take a breath.”

For the first time she realized she was nearly hyperventilating. She tried to put her hand on her heaving chest, but something clanked and tugged sharply on her arm. She stared down at her aching hand and saw the handcuffs. She panicked, which didn’t help her breathing situation.

“Hey, now. Look, this hand is free.” Rory picked up her hand and held it softly in his big one, which set off a new round of fear. Why was he here? Where was here? Was she under arrest?

“I didn’t steal them. I tried to stop them. You have to believe me. I’d n-n-never . . .” She couldn’t get any air. Flashes of light sparkled in her vision.

“Sadie, damnit, breathe.”

She couldn’t. Everything went dark.


Rory wanted to shake her awake. Bell rushed into the room along with a nurse and a dark-haired woman. Luna, if he remembered her name right, who worked at the diner with Sadie. He stood over Sadie feeling like he’d just been kicked in the chest by a horse.

“Rory, what happened?” Bell asked.