Gambling on a Secret (13 page)

“You forget I’ve met her. Charli Monroe is no kid. Besides, I hear dating the boss is all the rage these days.”

“Now it’s your turn not to be an idiot. I’ve never crossed that line, and I’m not about to now.”

“True, but you aren’t in the Army anymore.”

He tossed back the last of the beer. While he’d been a second lieutenant in Airborne, a female sergeant in his unit had come on to him. Up until that night, they’d been friends. He’d been married, but so was she. He hadn’t pursued the harassment case, but he made sure the sergeant understood such fraternization was against the rules.

Rules he believed existed between him and Charli, despite his growing desire for her. Their professional relationship wasn’t the only reason he fought the lust. He’d never let a woman into his heart again. If he made love to Charli, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep her out.

“It doesn’t matter. Charli’s my boss and a kid.” Before Tracy had a chance to argue, he said, “We finished the stables today. Monday we’re interviewing Kyle McPherson for the ranch hand position and her horses are going to be delivered.” He glanced down at his empty beer can, surprised he didn’t want another. “Then we’ll tackle the house.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. Who else is going to help? Tom and Jesse are starting on Monday, but I’ll be putting them to work getting the pastures ready for the calves when they come. A lot of barbed wire still needs strung.” He threw away the empty can and turned on the water. He filled a glass, opened a cabinet door and grabbed a bottle of Ibuprofen. “Charli’s no different than you were when we fixed up this place.”

Glancing at her, he dumped four painkillers into his hand and imagined the gears turning behind her gray eyes.

She leaned against the doorframe. “So, what do you
really
think of her?”

Charli was smart, had a great sense of humor, didn’t put up with any bullshit and had determination by the bucketfuls. He more than admired her for her ambition to make it on her own and suspected her past hadn’t been good. She was too street smart for an Oklahoma heiress from some hick town barely boasting five hundred souls.

He swallowed the pills with a swig of water. “What’s there to think about? She’s my boss. As long as her checks don’t bounce, I’m happy as a clam.”

The chiming of the clock saved him from more questions. Tracy looked at her watch. “If I don’t want to miss the show, I have to go.” She pointed a finger at him. “You aren’t off the hook, big brother.”

“And neither are you, little sister. There’s something going on between you and Sheriff Zack Cartwright.”

Tracy threw up her arms and let out a growl. The unfamiliar urge to smile at her exasperation tugged at his lips. Tracy peered at him for a moment before she crossed the small space and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him close.

He’d been a bastard lately, and for the first time in months, he was sober long enough to realize it. Holding her close, he spoke into her long brown hair. “You be careful, sis.”

Tracy stepped away, her eyes watery. “I will.”

Chapter 6

“They’re beautiful!” Charli bounced on the bottom rail of the corral late Monday afternoon. Paul and Luke Cartwright unloaded the four mares from the back of a horse trailer.

Dylan leaned against the fence and studied her. “That they are.” He glanced at Luke Cartwright and his brother Paul leading the mares into the corral. “You did well, picking from Zack’s best mares.”

“Thanks. I love horses. I want to have my own foals and train my own horses for shows.” Charli swung her legs over the top rail and perched precariously. “I can’t wait to ride one of them. To ride them all!”

The simple excitement she found in rebuilding the ranch pulled him in. Charli had a way of showing him snippets of the joy he thought had died in his life. Like reminding him of how much he loved horses, too.

The quarter horses, two sorrels, a bay and a black, calmed down. As Luke closed up the back of the trailer, Mayor Paul Cartwright, approached Charli.

She hopped off the top rail. Her custom snakeskin boots landed in the dirt beside Mayor Cartwright. Despite still looking like she belonged on the cover of a magazine, maybe a cowgirl hid under the designer jeans, after all. Charli beamed at the older man from under the brim of a cream-colored Stetson and held out her hand to the older man.

“Miss Monroe, my nephew wanted me to tell you it has been a pleasure doing business with you.”

Luke, Zack’s father, shook her hand. “You have four extremely fine mares here. They’ll throw some nice foals, but they’re also trained to work.”

Charli smiled at the Cartwright brothers. The late morning sun glittered off the hot pink nail polish at the tips of her fingers as she propped her hands on her hips. So much for the cowgirl image.

“Cartwright horses are some of the best in this part of Texas. I couldn’t go wrong, now could I? Besides, I believe in helping out my neighbors.”

One of the sorrels ventured over. Charli held out her hand, letting the horse tentatively nuzzle it. Starting at the white star between the mare’s eyes, she ran her hand over the horse’s long face. “I think I’ll call you Aurora for the Roman goddess of dawn.”

The men laughed, and Luke said, “Just like a woman to come up with a name like that. You aren’t into that New Age stuff, are ya? Tarot cards and crystals?”

She smiled. “No, I just like Greek and Roman mythology.”

Dylan raised his brow. “You aren’t going to name the others some kooky name, are you?”

She rewarded him with one of her fiery glowers.

“You are. Let me guess, you plan to name the calves, too.”

She turned back to stroke the nervous horse. “Of course, I won’t name the calves.”

The other three horses came closer. He rubbed along the neck of the gorgeous black mare stopping next to him. The horse stomped her foot and let out a loud snort as she tossed her head from side to side a few times. As he stroked her neck and shoulder, she relaxed.

Luke ran a hand over the black’s face. “Zack wanted me to remind you about speaking at his banquet on Memorial Day. He really would like you to join him. Many of the older veterans want to hear about your experiences over there in the desert. I know you boys had it a lot different than we did in Nam. I’m sure Miss Monroe could spare you for one day.”

He saw the tactic a mile away. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Zack. No. Not interested.”

“Why not?” Charli jumped right on in. “I think it’s a great idea.”

Of course, she would think it was a great idea.

“I don’t like talking in front of people.” He gave her a look hard enough to let her know to drop the topic, though she wouldn’t. He’d learned that pretty quick with her. “Maybe sometime you could bring Jackie by. Charli’s mama was a huge fan when she sang with her sisters.”

Pink tinged her cheeks. “Dylan! I can’t believe...”

The wrinkles in Luke’s weathered face bunched on either side of his mouth, and his blue eyes twinkled. He grinned and tipped his hat at him. Tit for tat. Luke, an old rodeo cowboy and all around country boy, hated to be reminded his wife had been a rock star hippie.

Luke turned to Charli. “I’ll see what I can do. Most younger folks don’t even know she was famous back in a day. Our youngest boy, Logan, is more of a celebrity ’round here than she is.”

The sorrel mare moved away. Charli rubbed her hands on her jeans. “I’d love to meet your wife, and I have to make it a priority to catch one of Logan’s shows. I’ve heard he’s really good, from the girls at Pratt’s.”

Luke smiled with all pride and good will. “He is. Dylan, think about the banquet. We’d better get going.” He picked his hat off his head of nearly white hair and nodded like an old cowboy at Charli. As he glanced at Dylan, he stepped away.

Paul cleared his throat and shifted his feet. “Miz Monroe, I don’t mean to pry, but before we go, I have to tell you my wife shared something with me that just, well, sort of amazed me.”

“What have you heard?” A tremor sounded in Charli’s voice.

“That you were a runaway.”

Winnie Cartwright could have told Paul anything, but Dylan never expected that–

The older men looked at her with a mix of curiosity and admiration. The color drained from Charli’s face; even her freckles washed out. Paul must have noticed her response and quickly back-pedaled. “I’m sorry if I brought up a bad memory...I’m sorry, ma’am.”

She backed against the railing of the fence. Dylan stepped behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder, offering comfort for something obviously upsetting.

Her back immediately stiffened. “How do you know about my running away from home?”

Paul took his hat off and wiped his brow with the back of his gloved hand. “I’m sorry if I brought up something I shouldn’t have. Winnie said she heard it from one of her friends. Where she got the information, I don’t know.”

“It’s not something I talk about. Thank you for delivering the horses. Good day, gentlemen.” Charli stiffly nodded and strode across the corral to the gate.

Paul sniffed and watched her retreat across the driveway. “I just wanted to tell her I’m amazed she’s turned out so well. I’ve seen her grades at a board meeting at the college. She’s an excellent student and obviously knows what she’s doing here with the ranch. I wanted to let her know I’m...” Shaking his head, Paul moved away, patted his astonished older brother on the shoulder. At the pickup, Paul turned back to Dylan. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

He glanced at him and absently nodded. Charli kept her back ramrod straight and hugged herself as she headed up the walkway to the back porch. Ignoring the brothers, he followed her.

She stopped on the porch and stared at the old screen door.

“Charli?”

With eyes filled with pain, she turned to him. “I was almost sixteen when I left. The rodeo was in town, and I talked this guy I met into taking me with him.” She looked down at the peeling paint of the floorboards.

The reasons a man would take a fifteen-year-old girl away from her home sent a shudder down his spine. No doubt, she was lucky to be alive.

“That’s how you ended up in Las Vegas.”

Charli nodded, then looked at him after a moment of tense silence. He followed her into the kitchen, but assumed she’d clam up and didn’t blame her. He didn’t like discussing his past either.

She stood before the sink and stared out the window above. Not expecting her to say anything, he didn’t know how to fill the void.

“I thought I was in love with the cowboy. We ended up in Vegas a few days later, where he dumped me after hearing an Amber Alert was posted for me.” More of her mysterious past. “Apparently, someone saw me leave Arapaho Crossings with him.”

“How old was this creep?”

“Old enough to know if they found me with him, he was going to prison. Especially since his payment was my dead grandma’s diamond ring and...and me.”

Charli licked her lips, and he looked away. The fiercely primal need to protect her slithered around his gut and twisted his heart, like a mother bear with her cubs.

“You stayed in Vegas?” His voice came out as a low growl.

“Yeah.” The haunted look in her eyes made him want to pull her to him, but with nothing but more pain to offer her, he could never follow through with the desire. “I was eventually found, but I don’t talk about what happened in Vegas. You know what they say...” The idea of her in the unimaginable situation of being a runaway in Sin City made him sick. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

What could he tell her to take away her pain?

He busied himself with pouring them both a cup of the dregs from the coffee pot.

She turned to him and let her arms fall to her side, but quickly brought them back up to hug herself again. “Now you know my deep dark secrets. What happened to you in Afghanistan?”

Sharing his past wasn’t something he volunteered to do, but before he knew what he was doing, he took a deep breath and sat her mug on the counter beside her and spilled his guts. “I was the commander for a mission that was supposed to flush out a group of Bin Laden supporters in the countryside around Kandahar. Most of the mission is still top secret. I can say this, I should have suspected the woman giving us information seemed a bit too willing to help us, but I didn’t have my mind in the game the way I should have.”

He didn’t tell her the reason he couldn’t concentrate on his responsibilities. She’d only asked him what had happened in the cesspool, not about his failed marriage and the letter he’d received two days before the mission. “I ignored my warrant officer and first sergeant’s warnings.”

She waited for him to go on, but there was understanding in her eyes if he chose not to. Although he rarely talked about one of his biggest failures, he wanted to share something of himself with her.

With the memory of the four men who’d died that day weighing heavy on his heart, he tightened his hand around the mug and looked down into the black brew. “I should have listened to them. Hell, I should have seen it for myself. We walked into a trap.”

“The bombing.”

He met her gaze and nodded.