High Country Baby. Joanna Sims

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      Contents

       Cover

       Introduction

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Extract

       Copyright

       Chapter One

      Clint McAllister heard the familiar click of a bullet being chambered. He’d slept just like a baby once he’d polished off a fifth of tequila, and he’d awakened with a well-deserved hangover. Groggy, irritated, with a massive headache, he’d stumbled over to the edge of the wooded area just beyond his campsite to relieve himself. The last thing he’d expected was to get caught with his pants unzipped, barefoot and without his revolver. Damn rotten luck.

      “Put your hands up and turn around nice and slow.” Taylor Brand stood confident in the “ready” stance she had learned during concealed-weapon training. Like everything in her life, she had worked hard to be first in her class.

      “Just calm down...” The cowboy lifted his left hand up but moved his right hand down to his zipper.

      “Keep your hands where I can see them!” Taylor ordered, her voice clear, firm and calm. “Turn around...do it now!”

      The stranger quickly lifted his right hand back up. “Look...unless you want a show, I’ve gotta zip it up before I face you. All right?”

      “Do it quick.” Taylor told him. “Then turn around.”

      The man tucked himself in and zipped up quickly, per the lady’s orders. His belt buckle still undone, his button-down shirt still completely unbuttoned, the cowboy raised his hands above his head and turned around slowly.

      “Why are you following me?” Taylor demanded with her revolver aimed at the man’s chest.

      “Boss’s orders.” The man told her, keeping his eye on the flat black barrel of her gun. “Your uncle told me to follow you, make sure you’re safe, and that’s what I’m doin’.”

      Taylor stared hard at the unkempt cowboy with her hands steady on the gun. She was only one full day into her trek up to the Continental Divide. It was true that she had forgotten a lot about being in the wilderness over the years, but she had traveled all over the world for business and she had developed a heightened sense of awareness.

      Once she was certain she was being followed, she had waited until the first light of morning, made a wide circle back and was able to sneak up on the cowboy much more easily than she had anticipated. The empty liquor bottle she had spotted near the cowboy’s gear most likely explained how simple it had been to ambush him—he was a drinker.

      “You work at Bent Tree?” she asked him.

      The cowboy gave a slight nod of his head. Now that she was getting a better look at him, he did look familiar. She remembered a cowboy who had tipped his hat to her the first day she had arrived at her uncle’s ranch. He’d been wearing a sweat-soaked chambray shirt, a black cowboy hat and boots caked with mud and manure. But just because she could place him at Bent Tree didn’t mean that he was following her on her uncle’s orders. Uncle Hank hadn’t mentioned one word of this to her before she had headed out.

      “I’m lowerin’ my arms, lady. You got that?” the cowboy asked. For a man staring down the barrel of a gun, he seemed to have the mistaken impression that he was in charge of this encounter.