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Chapter One
“This is it. This is the perfect spot.”
Beth Dawson shifted her gaze away from the gently rolling Texas Hill Country grassland of the A Bar H Ranch’s bred heifer pasture and narrowed her eyes on Samantha “Sammie” Abel’s profile. She’d said the exact thing about the last three spots they’d considered that morning for Sammie and Alec Neisson’s upcoming wedding ceremony, waxing on about how placing a flower-covered arch on just the right knoll for the exchange of vows would be her dream come true.
Beth waited.
Sammie sighed and pushed the wide brim of her black cowboy hat up off her dark-blonde brows. “But maybe we should keep looking.”
And there it was. Beth didn’t blame Sammie for her inability to choose one of the many picturesque knolls surrounding the huge ranch’s main house. Even in January, the views of the seemingly endless pastures, dotted by copses of live oaks, mesquite, and hickory trees as well as the occasional mound of exposed granite, were all equally breathtaking.
Not to mention eight months of pregnancy hormones messing with Sammie’s normally decisive nature.
But Beth had happily volunteered to help plan Sammie and Alec’s wedding, so if need be, she would help her dear friend and fellow partner in the Grit and Grace Rodeo Roughstock Company consider every inch of the leased ranch they’d made their home. But she would certainly try to steer Sammie toward choosing a practical location, just as Beth had once steered her little sister into making good choices.
“Then let’s keep looking,” Beth said with a smile and gestured toward the white ranch truck behind them. She had insisted they use the vehicle out of deference for Sammie’s condition. The baby wasn’t due until February, but Beth refused to take any chances.
“How are you so patient?” Sammie turned toward the truck, placing a hand at the small of her back. Tall and normally lithe with the strength that came with riding ranch saddle bucking broncs competitively, Sammie now routinely complained of having more in common with one of the pregnant heifers grazing in the pasture below them.
While Sammie had accepted the practicality of pregnancy jeans, she preferred to top them with one of her soon-to-be husband’s flannel shirts and his canvas barn jacket. Beth had donned a pair of her work-worn jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and a black fleece jacket for their morning outing.
“Years of practice.” Nine, to be precise.
“Well, I don’t know what I, or Emma, Meira, and Laura, for that matter, would do without you.” Sammie made her way toward the passenger side of the dually truck.
Beth trailed her, ready to steady her if her waddle turned tippy. “I’m happy to be needed, Sammie.”
“One of these days you’ll learn not to settle for just being needed,” Sammie groused, yet allowed Beth to open the passenger side door wide for her and give her an added boost into the cab.
Unable to fathom how being needed by the people and animals she cared about could possibly be considered settling, Beth made a general sound of agreement and shut the truck door for Sammie. She rounded the front of the A Bar H truck, zipping her fleece jacket up against the late morning chill and trying to think of another spot on the ranch that would give Sammie the photo-perfect location for the wedding ceremony, yet still be close enough to the main house to be easily accessed.
Beth climbed behind the wheel and reached to start the truck.
“Is that Justin’s truck?” Sammie asked, pointing out the front windshield.
Beth looked where Sammie was pointing. Sure enough, she saw the A Bar H’s ranch manager, Justin Chadwick’s, tan truck easing its way toward the small herd of longhorns on the brink of calving. “It is. He’s probably checking on the mommas since they’re all first-timers.”
“Aww. He’s so sweet,” Sammie cooed.
Beth shot her a glance to see if she was serious. Sweet just wasn’t a word that came to mind when Beth thought of Justin Chadwick. Rigid, unyielding, old-school, stick-in-the-mud, yes. Incredibly hot with his broad shoulders, sable hair, and thickly lashed light-hazel eyes prone to darkening to a warm-caramel, absolutely. But not sweet.
Her curiosity piqued, along with a flash of concern for the bred heifers, soon to be called cows after their first calving, Beth sat forward to better see what Justin was up to.
They watched him stop his truck a fair distance from the grazing heifers and climb out. But rather than walking toward the longhorns, who ranged in color from white, to brown-and-white speckled, to solid brown, Justin went to the back of his truck. He pulled out something in what looked to be a long, brown, soft-sided case.
Sammie said, “Is that a rifle?”
Beth gasped in realization. “It is.”
She met Sammie’s wide gaze.
At the same time, they both said, “Oh no.”
Without thinking, Beth reached for the driver’s door handle. “You stay here.”
“No! Drive us down!” Sammie protested.
“It’s too steep,” Beth shot back.
Panic rising in her throat, Beth was already climbing out of the truck. She shut the door on Sammie’s protest and started down the knoll as fast as she dared, a hand planted on her black cowboy hat. Her work-worn cowboy boots skidded in the loose, rocky soil and she had to watch out for grassy clumps that would send her tumbling head over teakettle.
As much as she loved her Grit and Grace partners, she loved the animals who also called this huge ranch home a smidge more. It was just how she was wired. Whether they were rodeo rough stock owned outright by her and her friends or the saddle horses and longhorns they leased from Asher Halliday, the billion-dollar oil dynasty heir who owned the ranch, Beth loved them equally. If one of the heifers was sick or in distress of some kind, it didn’t deserve to simply be shot. There had to be an alternative.
There had to be some way she could help the animal.
Her heart already pounding, Beth broke into a run the second she hit relatively flat ground. As she closed the distance between them, uncaring where her booted feet landed now, she could see Justin unzipping the case and removing a long barrel, scoped rifle.
Despite the exertion, her blood turned cold and her feet felt as if they were encased in concrete.
Justin leaned forward and drew a red ammunition box toward him. Beth was still fifty yards away from him when he opened the box and began sliding long, pointed bullets into the gun’s chamber, the morning sun glinting off the brass of each one.
“Justin!” Beth yelled, but the crisp January breeze blew her voice right back at her.
Another bullet went into the chamber.
“Justin!” she tried again.
He turned his head toward her, his face obscured by the brim of his dark-brown cowboy hat and the upturned collar of his shearling-lined jean jacket.
His body tensed. “What’s wrong?” he called back to her.
That’s what she wanted to know, but she continued running toward him.
She could see him look up toward the knoll where the ranch truck was parked, then back at her as she neared him. “What is it?” he asked, worry clear in his voice. “Is it Sammie?” He pointed toward the knoll. “The baby?” Everyone on the A Bar H had taken a vested interest in the welfare of Sammie and Alec’s baby. The kid was going to be drowned in love.
Beth slowed to a trot and glanced over her shoulder long enough to see that Sammie had climbed back out of the truck and was watching them with one hand braced on the truck’s door and the other on her undoubtedly aching low back.
When Beth reached where Justin stood at the open tailgate of his truck, she said, “It’s not that. Sammie and the baby are fine.” She paused to catch her breath while Justin expressed his worry by glowering at her. She ignored him and demanded, “Why are you loading a gun? Is something wrong with one of the bred heifers?”
His rigid posture relaxed and he went back to loading the last of the five rounds into the rifle. “They’re fine. At the moment. This isn’t for any of them,” he said, indicating the rifle.
Beth planted her hands on her hips. “Then for what?”
“Something’s been harassing them. When I came out at first light to see if any of them had calved, I found them bunched against the fence, breathing hard and lathered, as if something had been chasing them.”
“Like what?”
Justin gestured with a tilt of his head for her to follow him. He shouldered the rifle by its strap and led Beth around the back of the truck toward a patch of dirt still holding on to moisture from the last rainfall.
He dropped to one knee and pointed at a distinct animal track left in the mud.
Beth squatted next to him to better see the print. Though slightly smaller than her palm, the paw print had distinct pads and definite claws. “That looks canine. Coyote?”
Justin pulled in a breath, then shook his head. “Too big, I think. And the ground isn’t that soft, so whatever it was, is carrying some weight. Since there aren’t any wolves left in Texas, it’s probably a largish feral dog.”
Horror shot through Beth. “A dog? You’re going to shoot a dog?”
Justin settled his hazel eyes on her. “A feral dog, Beth. They can be just as dangerous as any predator. Especially around newborn calves.”
Beth’s brain understood Justin’s logic. Agreed with it, even. But her heart rebelled with a rending intensity. “A feral dog can be tamed. You don’t have to kill it, Justin.”
The normal warm-caramel color of his eyes turned to stone-hard amber. “You think I want to kill a dog? Or whatever might have left that print?”
Beth held his gaze. Despite having lived on the A Bar H for roughly seven months and seeing Justin nearly every day while he efficiently filled his role of ranch manager and she helped tend to and train the rodeo rough stock owned outright or leased by Grit and Grace, Beth didn’t really know Justin.
She said flatly, “I have no idea what you want, Justin.”
Gritting his teeth with impotent frustration, Justin Chadwick stood and strode back toward his truck. The very last thing he wanted to do was take a life. Any life.
But what he wanted didn’t matter.
He had a job to do. A job he loved. Being entrusted with running this spread by Asher Halliday had been more than Justin could have hoped for. When, at the age of nineteen, he’d initially taken refuge on the Hallidays’ hobby ranch, the Double H, outside of The Woodlands, down Houston way, he’d been happy just to have honest work to do as a hired hand and a place to live. A place to hide.
A place where he’d found his purpose.
Then Asher, the oldest of the Halliday children and only two years older than Justin, purchased and refurbished this ranch outside of the little yet thriving town of Last Stand, Texas, and asked Justin to manage the spread while Asher continued to work at Halliday Oil. It had been like being handed a winning lottery ticket.
He hadn’t even minded when Asher had leased the ranch to his little sister Peyton’s friends-turned-partners in the Grit and Grace Rodeo Roughstock Company. The women were former competitive rodeo bronc riders and plenty worthy of his respect. And he was still in Asher’s employ, in charge of the day-to-day ranch workings.
No way would Justin allow his reservations about killing what was probably a feral dog get in his way of doing his job. Which, at its core, was seeing to the care of the ranch stock. The money on the hoof.
He grabbed his day pack out of the back of the truck and shoved the ammo box inside, next to the water and energy bars he’d packed before leaving the bunkhouse. He hadn’t planned to track whatever was harassing the bred heifers—he shied away from thinking of it as a dog, but after seeing how stressed they appeared, he wanted to at least see if he could spot the predator in the area. If he didn’t see it, he would return on an ATV and follow the tracks as best he could, then eliminate the threat.
“What are you going to do?” Beth asked from behind him.
He’d been so caught up in his own thoughts, he hadn’t heard her approach. He slung the day pack over his free shoulder and looked down into Beth Dawson’s dark-brown eyes. They normally appeared nearly black to him, a near match for her long, midnight hair. But in the bright morning light, he could pick out gradients of rich brown around her pupils. Absolutely stunning.
He cleared his throat. “On the off chance the dog, or overgrown coyote, is hanging around close by, waiting for the calves to be born, I’m going to follow those tracks at least up to that rise over there.” He pointed in the opposite direction from the knoll where she’d left the ranch truck parked, with Sammie undoubtedly waiting impatiently.
Her winged black eyebrows came sharply together. “You’re going to hunt it.”
Justin flinched at her use of the word hunt, but that was what he was going to have to do. He’d deal with the memories that would certainly be stirred up later. He sighed, because there was nothing he could do about her obviously growing anger toward him. “Yes, Beth. I’m going to hunt it.”
“But you aren’t going to kill it, though, right?”
“I’m afraid that’s kind of the point of hunting.”
Her dark eyes turned to melted chocolate as they filled with moisture.
Oh lord, she was going to cry. He’d sworn he’d never be responsible for making a woman cry, but he had to protect these animals. He set his jaw, pulled his gaze from hers, and pretended to scan the horizon.
She laid a hand on his arm. “Justin, please. Don’t kill it.”
Frustration flaring, he looked back down at her. “I have to keep these bred heifers, and the calves they’re about to birth, safe. Even if the dog—”
“Or coyote.”
He accepted her clarification with a dip of his chin. “Or coyote isn’t trying to harm the longhorns, it’s still causing them stress. Just look at them.” He gestured toward the small herd of twenty animals that remained bunched together and wary. “I would think you’d be encouraging me to eliminate whatever is freaking them out. Look at how lathered with sweat they are.”
He made sure she was giving the pregnant longhorns her full attention, and had to force his own attention off the pretty blush of color riding high on her defined cheekbones before continuing.
“The calves they are carrying represent the future of Grit and Grace. The rodeos you ladies hope to provide rough stock for are going to expect healthy calves for their roping events, and then when those babies are older, you’ll need them for steer wrestling.” Softening his tone, he finished with, “You need me to kill whatever has been chasing them, Beth.”
She chewed her full lower lip, distracting him yet again. All the women who owned and operated Grit and Grace were strikingly beautiful, as befitting women who’d been chosen to star on a reality TV show centered on female, ranch saddle, bucking bronc riders, but Justin’s attention had always been drawn to Beth. Her long black braid, kind dark eyes, and flawless fair skin had the power to knock him stupid.
But he couldn’t afford stupid anymore.
Nor could he do anything to jeopardize his place here at the A Bar H.
Beth stopped worrying her lip and pulled in a deep breath that had Justin noticing what was beneath her black fleece jacket. He began to relax, thinking his logic had convinced her that he had no choice but to go after whatever had made those prints in the mud.
Then she shook her head and opened her mouth, undoubtedly to argue more with him, but the sharp, quick beep of the ranch truck horn stopped her. They both looked toward the sound and saw Sammie stepping away from the truck’s open driver’s door and pointing with an exaggerated motion at something on the opposite ridge.
Justin looked where she was indicating and saw, right on the spot he’d intended to hike toward, a large, tan-colored dog watching them.
Without hesitating, Justin slipped the day pack off, dropping it to the ground, and took hold of the rifle. He chambered a round and settled the rifle’s butt against his shoulder. In the space of a breath, he had the dog, a large but lanky, shorthair mutt, centered in the scope. The dog appeared to be looking right at him, its dark eyes bright through the scope. One ear stood erect while the other was flopped over, but no less alert.
Justin’s heart pinched in his chest. His finger found the trigger. He eased the air out of his lungs and blocked out the past in preparation for firing the shot. But just before he squeezed the trigger, he dropped his aim to the dirt a few feet in front of the dog.
He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye right as he pulled the trigger. Beth hit the barrel of the rifle, directing his shot even lower and far wide. The bullet hit the ground a good twenty yards from where the dog was standing, sending dirt flying and the dog running back over the ridge out of sight.
Justin lowered the rifle and turned to glare at Beth.
She put her hands up, more in supplication than surrender. “Justin, please. Give me a chance to catch the dog.”
Angrier at himself for the wave of relief he felt over having his unwillingness to kill the dog exposed than at Beth’s interference, Justin snapped, “And then what?”
Beth settled her hands on her hips and shifted her gaze to the spot on the ridge where the dog had been standing before it disappeared. “Then I’ll tame it. Because if there is one thing this ranch needs, it’s a dog.”
He shook his head at her naivety and his own weakness. “What makes you think you can tame something that probably doesn’t want to be tamed?”
She squared her slender shoulders and raised her chin. “I won’t know until I try. And I will try, Justin, so don’t get in my way.”
End of Excerpt
