Home on the Ranch: Oklahoma: Defending the Rancher's Daughter / The Rancher Bodyguard. Carla Cassidy

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      She’d been so warm in his arms. The stray thought sliced through his head as he remembered holding Katie as she’d wept. He thought of that moment on the porch when she’d leaned toward him and he’d had the crazy impulse to kiss her.

      Partners, indeed. The last thing he needed in his life was a woman. He’d emotionally invested as a teenager and early twenty-year-old in the wrong woman and most recently been involved with a client who had ended up dead.

      As far as he was concerned, emotional investment in anything or anyone was vastly overrated. The Katie he had always known was nothing more than a big vacuum of emotion and he wasn’t about to get sucked into her by unexpected physical desire or the fact that they both mourned the same man.

      He was still awake around midnight when the men came in from town. He feigned sleep and listened to them stumbling around, talking in half-drunk whispers as they fell into bed. Within minutes the room was once again silent.

      Was one of these men a murderer? Had one of them met Gray on the trail that early sunny morning and killed him? At the moment Zack had no clue, not even the faintest inclination as to who might be responsible.

      * * *

      He awoke suddenly, his heart pounding, and for a moment disoriented as to where he was. He sat up and full consciousness gripped him.

      He had no idea if he’d been asleep for five minutes or fifty. The nightmare. That’s what had awakened him. The nightmare about Melissa’s death.

      Certainly it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. In the past month, nightmares about his client’s death had haunted him regularly.

      Knowing from experience that sleep wouldn’t come easily again, he slid out of bed and pulled on his jeans and boots. He moved quietly, not wanting to awaken any of the other men, and slipped out of the bunkhouse door and into the darkness of the night.

      He leaned against the bunkhouse and for a moment wished he had a cigarette. Even though he’d quit smoking more than a year before there were still times, especially lately, that he thought about a calming lungful of smoke. Fortunately, the impulse never lasted long.

      Melissa. He hadn’t been in love with her, but he’d loved her. He’d been hired to keep her safe from an abusive, soon-to-be ex-husband and in the couple of months he’d spent with her he’d come to respect and admire her strength and indomitable spirit.

      When she’d told him she didn’t need his services anymore, when she’d released him from her employment, his instincts had told him the danger still existed. But he’d ignored his instincts and now she was dead.

      The nightmare that haunted him was always the same. Even though when Melissa had been killed by her ex-husband Zack had been a hundred miles away, he dreamed of that moment of her death.

      In his dream, she stepped out of her car and waved to him, her face radiating the warm smile of a close friend. Clad in a white sundress, she looked cool and confident, stronger than he’d ever seen her in the time they’d shared together.

      As she started walking toward him, a shot rang in the air and the front of her white dress blossomed with scarlet as she crumpled to the ground. That was always when Zack awakened.

      He should have followed his instincts. He should have insisted that he remain as her employee for another day, another week, another month.

      His instincts were silent now, as if killed by the tragedy of Melissa’s senseless death. When he’d first heard about Gray’s death he should have known something wasn’t quite right, but the instincts he’d relied on so much in his line of work were quiet.

      Maybe what had awakened him hadn’t been nightmares at all, but rather dreams of Katie. Nothing had surprised him more than his physical response to her. It was more than the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman for nearly a year.

      Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that he wasn’t the only one who felt the magnetic pull of physical attraction. Katie felt it, as well. He’d seen it in her eyes as they’d stood so close together on the porch. He’d felt it simmering between them every moment they spent in each other’s company.

      Hell of a thing. The world had gone half mad. He turned to go back inside to bed, but hesitated as something caught his attention.

      A flicker of light that didn’t belong on the side of the dark house. It was there only a moment, then gone.

      He continued to stare, a surge of adrenaline filling his veins. There…again a flicker. As he stood trying to discern what it was, a lick of flame shot upward and he knew.

       Fire!

      His brain screamed it before his mouth could form the word. He remained frozen for only a millisecond, then threw open the door to the bunkhouse.

      “Fire,” he said. “The main house is on fire.”

      He didn’t wait to see how fast the men would respond. With his heart pounding frantically, he turned and ran for the house, knowing that the area where he’d seen the flames was where Katie’s bedroom was located.

      * * *

      Hot. She was hot and she knew it was all Zack West’s fault. If his eyes weren’t such a beautiful green, if his mouth wasn’t so sensual, then she wouldn’t be hot and bothered by him at all.

      The heat he generated in her wasn’t just a mental thing, but a physical thing, as well. Her body was slick with perspiration. Her hair clung to her neck in damp tendrils as she moved her hands down his sweaty, muscled chest.

      Hot.

      Too hot.

      What had begun as sensual pleasure had become something uncomfortable, almost painful. She twisted away from him, needing some air, needing to cool off before she internally combusted. In that instant she surfaced from the dream to find herself alone in her bed.

      Although she left her dreams behind, it took several moments for her brain to completely clear. She remained still, eyes closed, and wondered if perhaps she’d somehow nudged the thermostat into a heat mode instead of cool.

      As full consciousness struck, she smelled smoke in the air, heard a strange, faint crackling that snapped her eyes open.

      Instantly she squeezed her eyes tightly closed as acrid smoke made them water. Smoke? Why was the bedroom filled with smoke?

      Smoke. Heat. Fire!

      She sat up, her frantic gaze instantly captured by the deadly flames dancing across the pane of her bedroom window. Before she could move, the window shattered and flames shot inside. With a scream she leaped out of bed. Her thoughts scrambled, heart hammering in terror as she raced toward the bedroom door.

      What was happening? How had the house started on fire?

      She hesitated only the duration of a heartbeat before touching the bedroom door, hoping, praying, that the fire was only on the outside of the house and not racing throughout. The wood was warm, but not hot.

      She gasped in relief as she touched the СКАЧАТЬ