CHRISTMAS AT THUNDER HORSE RANCH (13 page)

“Nothing’s worth losing you, Mom,” Dante said. “Or losing Emma.”

“Or Julia and Lily,” Tuck said.

“Or Roxanne,” Sean added.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Amelia stated. “So what are we going to do about this?”

Dante chuckled. “We got our pride from our father, but we got our fierce determination from you, Mom.”

“Darn right you did.” Her stern expression dissolved into a worried frown. “I hate seeing my boys injured. We have to put a stop to this. If only we knew who was doing it.”

“And why.” Dante pushed away from the table and stood. “Right now, I’m going to get a shower and then I’m going to check on Emma. Do you think we should take shifts through the night?”

Sean nodded. “I’ll take the first one. You’ve been through a lot these past couple of days. Get some sleep.”

Dante shot a glance at his mother to see if she reacted to Sean’s statement.

Amelia crossed her arms over her chest. “If you’re wondering whether or not I know about your helicopter crash, rest assured. I do. I’ve known since shortly after you visited Pierce in the hospital. You know a thing like that can’t be kept a secret.”

“I’d hate to know what other so-called secrets you know.”

“I know more than you think. I might be getting older, but I know when my sons are keeping things from me.” She gave him a grim smile. “It comes from years of practice. Anything you want to tell me?” She pinned him with her stare.

Dante almost blurted out that his engagement to Emma was a sham, but he bit down hard on his tongue to keep at least that little tidbit from her. The only two people who knew the truth were himself and Emma. No gossip would be able to pass it along to his mother. “No, Mother, I don’t have anything else to tell you.”

She snorted, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Well, get some sleep. I’ll stay up with Sean for a while. I’m too wound up to sleep, anyway.”

Dante ducked his head into his room. Emma was curled on her side, sound asleep, looking so small and fragile in his big bed. She didn’t deserve to be hurt like she had. The fall could have broken every bone in her body or killed her.

She slept with her hand tucked beneath her cheek. She’d rolled up the sleeves of the big pajama shirt he never wore and looked even sexier in it than in a bikini.

Desire stirred inside him. Knowing he would do nothing to quench it that night, Dante slipped into the bathroom, stripped off his smelly clothes and turned on the cool water. After a quick scrub, he wrapped a towel around his waist, crossed the hallway and entered his room.

Normally he slept in the buff. To spare Emma some embarrassment, he slipped into the pajama bottoms that matched the top that she wore. He bent over her to check her breathing.

Emma rolled to her back and her eyes blinked open, two beautiful brown eyes that stared up at him sleepily. “Are you coming to bed?”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Please.” She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, her lips soft and enticing.

He bent to brush his against them.

“Stay,” she entreated, tightening her hold.

Knowing it would be difficult to lie in bed beside her and not touch her or make love to her, Dante heard himself agreeing before he’d thought it all the way through. “Okay, but just until you go back to sleep.”

“No. All night.” She scooted over, making room for his big body.

When he lay down beside her, she snuggled close, resting her head in the crook of his arm.

With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes and her breathing deepened.

Dante lay still for a long time, studying Emma in the light from the lamp on the nightstand.

Her dark hair lay in soft waves around her face, emphasizing her pale skin and the angry bruises.

She’d saved his life, only to put her own in danger. She didn’t deserve it. Tomorrow, he’d get her out of there. Maybe the FBI had a safe house he could send her to until the trouble blew over.

And when they found the saboteur, he could resume his life as a CBP officer and maybe he’d look her up for a cup of coffee. If she dared see him again.

After all that had happened, he hadn’t thought as much about Sam or the war that had taken her life. All his focus had gradually shifted to Emma.

Maybe it was time to let go of Sam and get on with his life.

Emma moaned in her sleep, her brow furrowing as if she were caught in a nightmare.

Dante gathered her close and pressed his lips to an uninjured spot. “It’s okay,” he whispered against her hair. “You’re safe.”

She settled against him and grew still, a smile tilting the corners of her lips.

Dante fell asleep with Emma in his arms, praying to the Great Spirit for her protection. He wasn’t absolutely certain she was safe and that had him very concerned.

Chapter Thirteen

Emma woke the next morning to sunlight pouring in through the window onto the bed, warming the blankets. Even before she opened her eyes, she reached out for the warm body beside her.

The spot next to her was empty, the sheets still warm. Dante hadn’t been up long. The sheets still carried his scent and heat.

Emma rolled over onto her back and winced. Yes, she had some bumps and bruises, but it could have been so much worse.

Throwing back the covers, she eased out of the bed, her muscles sore and stiff. Someone had brought her bag into the room the night before. She rummaged for something to wear and unearthed a pretty red sweater and jeans.

Dressing quickly, she ran her brush through her hair and pulled it back, securing it with an elastic band. A quick peek out in the hallway and she padded across to the bathroom to relieve herself, wash her face and brush her teeth.

She left the bathroom and followed the sounds of voices down the hallway to the big kitchen where the Thunder Horse men sat around the table with their spouses.

Amelia stood by the stove, stirring fluffy yellow scrambled eggs. “Sit, Emma. We were just talking about what happened yesterday and what the boys think we should do today. You might want to weigh in.”

Roxanne sat beside Pierce, her dark red hair curling down around her shoulders, her arms crossed over her chest, green eyes flashing. “I’m not leaving. So you can get that thought right out of your mind, right now.”

“Me, neither,” Julia agreed. Lily ate slices of banana beside her in her high chair.

“Who’s leaving?” Emma asked.

“Not us!” Amelia, Julia and Roxanne said as one.

Emma smiled. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

Dante stood and offered her his chair.

Pierce spoke up. “We were saying that it would be best for all the ladies to pack up and leave until we figure out who has been trying to hurt the Thunder Horse brothers.” He tried to frown but winced for the effort.

Amelia scooped scrambled eggs onto a plate and set it on the table in front of Emma. “The men, bless their hearts, think they’d be doing us a favor by sending us off to the cities to shop until they can get to the bottom of the attacks on all of them.”

Emma stared up at Dante. “Is that true?”

Dante’s brows furrowed. “No. At least not the part about the shopping. However, we discussed it. After all that has happened, it’s not safe for the women to be here.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “So you think we’ll just pack up and leave because you men think that’s the best thing for us?”

Dante’s frown deepened. “Well, yes.”

Emma fought the smile threatening to curl her lips. She liked seeing the consternation clearly written on Dante’s face and mirrored in Tuck’s and Pierce’s expressions. “Without giving any of us a choice?”

“It’s the only way to keep you all safe,” Dante said.

“Since I’m a guest here, I’ll do whatever you say. But if I’m going to be booted out of the house, you should at least know my opinion of the ruling.” She spoke quietly but with conviction that had the men listening. Heat rose up her cheeks as all gazes fixed on her. She crossed her arms and tilted her chin up. “I think it stinks.”

The women all clapped their hands.

Roxanne took up the cause. “As Emma, the college professor, so eloquently put it, your idea stinks. So, get used to it. We’re staying put until this storm blows over.”

“And what if one of you gets hurt?” Pierce demanded. “Had that truck landed any other way, I’d be a dead man.”

“We’ll take our chances,” Amelia said. “It’s not for any one of you to make that decision for us. I can shoot just as well as any one of you boys. I know how to defend what is mine.”

Emma let go of the smile that had been creeping up around the corners of her lips. She could just picture Amelia Thunder Horse wielding a rifle, loaded for bear. Her smile faded and she glanced up at Dante. “Again, I’m just a guest here. If you ask me to leave, I’ll go back to my apartment in Grand Forks.”

Dante’s lips firmed. “No. Whoever shot down my helicopter knows you saw him. He might come after you in Grand Forks to eliminate any witnesses.”

“That’s the only other place I’d go.”

“I’m still the head of this household.” Amelia stood with her shoulders squared, holding her spatula like a scepter. “If Emma wants to stay, she can stay.”

Emma smiled at the older woman, knowing that if Dante told her he wanted her to leave, she would. She was there because of him. As much as she appreciated Amelia’s invitation, she wouldn’t feel right staying if Dante wanted her gone.

The telephone hanging on the wall beside Tuck rang. He turned and answered it, walking out of the room with the cordless handset.

Dante pulled up a chair beside her. “You should eat. You missed dinner last night.”

Emma lifted her fork, amazed at how hungry she was. She had a forkful of steaming eggs halfway to her mouth when Dante asked, “How are you feeling today?”

“I’m fine. A bit stiff and sore, but I’ll live.” She popped the eggs in her mouth and chewed.

“I wish you would let me take you to see the local doctor.”

Emma swallowed. “Really, I’m okay.” Then to end the argument, she shoved more eggs into her mouth. She wanted to be mad at his insistence on seeing a doctor, but it was nice for a change that someone was concerned about her health after her fall. Living so long on her own, she’d had to weather her illnesses alone.

Tuck returned to the kitchen and replaced the phone in its charger. “That was my buddy at the FBI. He ran that background check on Langley, Price and Ryan Yost.” Tuck paused, frowning, his gaze going to his mother. “Price is clean of any criminal record. Langley had an assault on his record from a couple of years ago, but the woman who filed the complaint retracted it.”

“The two of them showed up together on the property two weeks ago,” Amelia said. “I told them then that I wasn’t interested in discussing the sale of the land or the mineral rights.”

“And they left?” Tuck asked.

“Yes.” Amelia’s brows dipped. “Then Monty Langley came back the next day to ask if I’d consider leasing the mineral rights. He said he had some big oil company wanting to tap into the oil reserves beneath our property.”

Roxanne nodded. “They hit me up for it, as well. I did some reading. As you’re all aware, the oil industry is booming in North Dakota since they discovered the Bakken formation stretches from Canada all the way to Bismarck. This isn’t the first time speculators have been to the ranch.”

“Maddox handled them last summer,” Amelia said. “Since Maddox has been gone, they might think they can coerce me into signing something.”

Julia laughed. “They obviously don’t know anything about you.”

Amelia smiled, then said, “I need to talk to the lawyer and have each of my sons added as co-owners of the property. That way no one person—namely me—can sell without the permission of the other.”

“I don’t think any of us want the property sold or split up,” Dante said. “This is our home. It wouldn’t be right to break it up.”

His mother pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Exactly.”

Tuck cleared his throat. “Mom, you know how all of us brothers feel about Sheriff Yost.”

“I know that you don’t care for him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“It might be none of our business, but what is your relationship with the man?”

She looked away. “You know I’ve been going out to dinner with him. He’s been a perfect gentleman with me.”

Emma studied the looks on the Thunder Horse brothers’ faces. Apparently they didn’t trust the sheriff and found it troublesome that their mother did.

Amelia continued, “Though you’re right, it’s none of your business who I date, I’m still young enough to appreciate being treated like a woman, not just someone’s mother or grandmother.” She smiled at Lily, who was happily smearing banana on her face.

When the men all stared at her as if she’d lost her marbles, Emma almost laughed. They only saw their mother.

Amelia Thunder Horse was still a beautiful woman with needs and desires of her own.

“Of course you’re a woman,” Tuck said. “And I have no problem with you dating. Dad’s been gone for nearly three years now. You should get out and have some fun. Our concern is Yost. I had my buddy at the bureau run a check on Ryan Yost.”

“He’s the boy installing the security system in and around the house,” she confirmed.

Tuck stared at his mother. “Do you trust him?”

Their mother’s brows drew together. “I trust his father.”

Pierce snorted a rude word beneath his breath.

Tuck continued, “Ryan had some scuffles with the law before he became of legal age and joined the military. After he served his time, he went back to Afghanistan as a civilian contractor for a couple of years.”

“I know all that. He comes highly recommended by the security firm he works for.” Amelia rested her hands on her hips. “I didn’t hire him because he was William’s son.”

Tuck raised his hands. “Okay. I just want you to be cautious about the people you allow inside the house.”

“I am. No one knows better than I do that a lone woman on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere is an easy target. Especially when Maddox is out of the country. That’s why Maddox hired Sean. Having him here has been a godsend.”

Sean nodded. “It’s a pleasure to be here as protection for a beautiful woman who is nowhere past her prime.”

All the Thunder Horse family stared at Sean in shock.

Sean held up his hands. “Just telling it like I see it. I’ll shut up now.” He leaned his back against the wall, a ruddy blush sneaking up beneath the tan on his cheeks.

Amelia’s eyes flared and she glanced down, her lips curling. “Did you find anything else about Ryan Yost I should be concerned about?”

Tuck shook his head, almost as if he was disappointed. “Not yet.”

Amelia lifted her head and stared at Tuck. “Then leave the boy alone. I want that system installed sometime in the near future.” She folded a dishtowel over the handle of the oven and smoothed her blouse. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to steal the ladies away from you.” She raised her hand. “Not to take them on a shopping trip to the cities, but to help me sort through some things I want to box up and give to charity.”

Emma finished her breakfast, washed her plate in the sink and left it to dry on the rack. She followed the sound of female voices to the last doorway at the end of the hallway. It opened into a large room with a massive bed positioned at the center of one wall and a fireplace in the corner with a cheery fire burning.

“We’re in here,” Julia called out.

Feeling like an outsider, Emma paused at the doorway into a large walk-in closet.

Amelia sat cross-legged on the floor in front of an old trunk filled with letters, photographs and scrapbooks. If not for the strands of gray hair among the darker ones, she could have been a woman half her age.

“You have to see these pictures.” Julia patted the floor beside her. “Look at Dante at five years old. Wasn’t he a cutie?”

She handed Emma a picture of a little boy with dark hair hanging down to his shoulders.

“I let them wear their hair long during the summer. The boys liked pretending they were wild Indians in the Old West.” Amelia chuckled. “They’d spend the summers shirtless and mostly barefoot, riding horses and helping their father as much as they could.” She handed a photo to Julia. “This is Tuck when he was ten. All legs and skinny as a rail.”

Julia laughed. “He was so thin.”

Amelia reached for another stack of photos. “I couldn’t keep meat on their bones. They ran it all off.” She leafed through the pictures and handed them over to Roxanne. “There are so many of the boys hunting and fishing. We spent a lot of the summer camping out in the canyon. We’d count the wild ponies during the days and pick out the constellations in the stars at night.”

Emma enjoyed hearing stories about the boys growing up on a ranch, spending their summers running around in the sun. She loved the outdoors. As a paleontologist she spent much of her time outside digging in the dirt. At night she’d lay out under the stars, dreaming about other people who’d lived long ago, staring up at the stars, just like she was.

Roxanne held out a photo. “Is this Pierce’s father when he was young? Pierce looks just like him.”

Emma leaned over at the same time as Julia and Amelia. The man in the picture looked much like Pierce, but he was standing with his arm around a young woman with midnight black hair, dark eyes and the high cheekbones of the Lakota.

“Yes, that’s my John, before we met. He dated a young woman from the reservation up until a week before we met. They had just broken up when he met me. I guess I caught him on the rebound.” She tapped her finger to the picture. “She ended up marrying William Yost within a month of breaking up with John. She’s Ryan Yost’s mother. I believe her name was Mika, the Lakota name for
raccoon
.”

Emma stared down at the woman with the dark eyes and sultry look. “She was pretty.”

“I know.” Amelia laughed. “I don’t know what John saw in me.”

“A beautiful woman with a big heart.” Julia leaned over and hugged her mother-in-law. “I’m so glad I married into such a wonderful family.”

Amelia kissed Julia’s cheeks. “I love my sons, and I always wanted daughters. I couldn’t have picked better ones than all of you.”

Roxanne reached out to clasp Amelia’s hand. “We love you.”

Having just met the woman, Emma sat silent. She didn’t feel as though she had the right to say anything, even if deep in her heart she knew the woman was genuinely good and loving. So she sat staring at the photo of the woman and Amelia’s dead husband who looked very much like Dante.

How different would the family have been had John Thunder Horse married Mika?

And now Amelia had Mika’s son working for her.

Amelia sighed. “How much of this stuff should I get rid of?”

Julia clasped the pile of photos to her chest. “None of the pictures.”

“No, none of the photos.” Amelia glanced at the clothing hanging above her head and stood. “I should give his clothes away. It isn’t as if he’ll need them anymore.” She ran her hands along the rows of jeans and flannel shirts neatly hung by type and color. “He could wear overalls and look so handsome. I will always love John. But now that he’s been gone for three years, it’s time to let go of some of him to make room for the rest of my life.”