Evidence of Trust (24 page)

No, it’d be better if she came to him on her own. He needed her to trust him—
wanted
her to, yet the past hour clearly proved something still held her back. The level at which her reticence bothered him was downright frightening because it told him he cared too much.

And yet, he couldn’t help himself. Hadn’t really been able to help himself since the day he’d met her. Didn’t she realize he’d stand by her side and do anything to keep her safe?

Maybe not after the betrayal of her fiancé and her father. God, did he identify with how something that hit so deep could screw with a person and make them doubt just about everything about themselves and others.

Letting her know he understood could help him earn her trust, but he’d never spoken to anyone about his mother. Not even his father, who’d been dealing with his own heartbreak at the time. They’d both learned how to pretend they were fine, and over the years, avoiding the subject had been easiest for both of them.

Was this woman in front of him worth the risk of unearthing that buried anguish?

The resounding
yes
in his mind sent his pulse into overdrive.

Well, shit.

Joel stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as he moved forward to stand beside her in the aisle. Letting out a silent sigh, he forced his shoulders to relax.

“Remember when you asked me if I was close with my mother?”

That got him another glance, surprised this time. “You said you weren’t.”

“I was eight when she left. She packed her bags, walked out the door, and got into some guy’s limo. My dad was at work. I begged her to stay, but she wouldn’t even look at me. The driver held me back until she shut her door, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her eyebrows raise, but kept his gaze trained on the mustang. After all the effort to keep his mother shut in the past, acknowledging her abandonment brought such an intense rush of pain, it was almost as if it’d happened yesterday instead of years ago.

A growing lump threatened to close off his throat, but he swallowed past it and drew in a deep breath to continue. “No calls. No cards. Nothing.”

“That really sucks.”

Her heartfelt declaration surprised a laugh out of him. Three little words, yet they held a wealth of understanding. “Yeah. It did.”

They both watched the mare move restlessly in her stall.

“She’s the reason you avoid relationships, isn’t she?”

For the first time in his life, he acknowledged that truth. To himself anyway.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

He ran a self-conscious hand through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck. The move had played out so much better in his mind. Now he felt too exposed. He dropped his arm back to his side and shoved his hand in his pocket as he shrugged. “I want you to know you can trust me.”

He wasn’t facing her directly, but even at an angle, he saw a telltale sheen of tears well up in her eyes. Well, crap. He hadn’t meant to make her cry again.

She reached into her own pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. “I do trust you,” she said as she handed it over. When he began to unfold the wrinkled sheet, she reached up to dash away the moisture from her cheeks. “You’re going to read that and think I don’t, but I swear, I do. I just had to see he was okay first.”

He paused long enough to read uncertainty mixed with defiance in her eyes, then dropped his gaze to the paper. By the time he read the last word, emotions rolled through him like a freight train. Fury at the man who dared threaten her. Anger at her for keeping it from him. Terror over the possibility of him failing to protect her.

It all funneled straight toward her, and he barely stopped from crumpling the paper in his fist. To get a grip on his control, he carefully refolded the sheet along the creases. “When did you get this?”

“At the apartment.”

Her answer confirmed his suspicion. “You should’ve showed this to me right away.”

“I know, but—”

“You had to see your horse—I know.” He got that, damn it. It was part of what made her
her
. He just hated that she’d lied to him.

“I’m sorry, but you would’ve insisted on calling Aaron first.”

Anger rolled around for a second pass. “Damn straight I would have. I’m going to call him right now, and don’t even
think
of trying to talk me out of it. There could be fingerprints on here.”

“The envelope it was in is in my bag.”

“
Great
.” He did nothing to hide his sarcasm. “Thank you.”

He slipped the note into his back pocket and turned for the office to make the call because he’d left his phone in the truck. When she didn’t offer any defense, guilt spun him back around. She watched him silently, as if ready to take whatever recrimination he dished out. She didn’t back down when he strode forward, but one brief flicker of her lashes revealed her tenuous composure.

So damn vulnerable and not willing to admit it.

Joel pulled her into his arms and held her tight against his chest, never wanting to let go. “I’m sorry. I’m mad at
him
, not you. I want to catch this bastard.”

“I know.”

“Paelo will be fine,” he promised. “I won’t let anything happen to either one of you.”

“I know.”

Instead of reassuring him, the trust in her voice increased the fear in his heart.

When she tilted her face and met his gaze without hesitation, his breath caught in his chest. Raising one hand to the back of her head, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. She wound her arms around his neck and pressed closer. Her warm lips parted, inviting him in to drown in the intoxicating feel and taste of her.

He fought back a groan of frustration. What was he thinking? He had to call Aaron about the threat—and Mark to arrange for barn security. She was not a temptation he could succumb to right now, yet finding the willpower to break the kiss with her soft curves molded to his body proved to be difficult.

Distantly, he became aware of an increased noise level in the barn. The horses were getting restless in their stalls, mirroring his own frustration.

“I’ve got to make that call,” he finally whispered against her mouth.

In the same moment she began to draw back, the alarming combination of gas and smoke hit his nostrils. Joel’s eyes popped open. A yellow flicker at the back of the barn chilled his blood and had him frantically reaching to drag her arms from around his neck.

“The barn is on fire!”

She whirled around, her eyes widening at the hungry flames licking up the wall. Fingers of smoke snaked along the roof of the hayloft above their heads. A terrified ear-splitting whinny sent the other animals in the barn into all-out panic.

“Oh my God—the horses!”

Joel jerked Brittany around and pushed her toward the office. “Call 911 while I start getting them out.”

Trusting her to do as he ordered, he ran for the stall closest to the flames. The horse was already full of sweat, and the whites of its eyes showed as Joel opened the stall door. The animal backed up, but the moment it came up against the wall, it bolted forward. He flung himself out of the way and still got clipped by the horse’s shoulder.

The force bounced him against the door, nearly knocking the wind out of him. He regained his balance and scrambled after the animal, then skirted past with his back to the wall when it reached the closed doors and whirled around in mindless panic. Seconds later, he unlatched the doors and flung them open. The horse streaked past as Joel turned back for the next one.

Fire licked along the sides of the barn now, spreading faster than he imagined possible. The smoke grew thicker as the flames devoured the dry wood. Joel ran in a crouch on the way to the back to avoid the worst of it, but it still burned his throat and lungs. After waving the next horse out, he stripped off his shirt, and dunked it in the water bucket hanging in the stall.

Brittany was in the aisle, coughing into her arm as she reached to unlatch the next stall. Joel called her name as the horse dashed for freedom. Fisting each hand in his soaked shirt, he tore it in two before thrusting half into her hands to tie around her nose and mouth. Watery green eyes met his for a brief, thankful moment.

They each took a side of the aisle, freeing the horses and letting them loose into the stable yard outside. Some ran, others had to be led, eating up precious time. They’d reached the last three stalls in the front when Joel noticed people gathering outside. A few worked to catch the milling horses, others just watched.

The pop and crackle of the fire had risen to a loud roar, and as he led his next horse out, a portion of the barn collapsed in the back with a deafening boom. The bay reared up, hauling him off his feet. When he stumbled on the landing, a strong pair of arms helped him upright. His split second glimpse of a face revealed one of Highlands’ wranglers.

“How many more?” Jon yelled.

“Three. Take this one. I’m going back in.”

Joel shoved the lead rope into his hands and passed Brittany at the doors on his way back inside. Two more. As he reached for Gypsy’s stall door, Brittany came up from behind and grabbed his arm. Her grip slipped on his sweat-slick skin and she shouted over the noise engulfing them. “You’ll never get near her. Get Paelo!”

No time to argue—he went for her stallion. With the flames ever closer, it was a struggle to get the animal out. The heat made it hard to breathe even with his shirt tied around his face. Smoke stung his eyes, and tears blurred his vision, but he couldn’t let Brittany down.

With the fire breathing down from above, he begged the stallion to move faster. “Come on, boy, help me out here.”

Finally, he managed to get him into the aisle and out into the yard. When he saw Jon, he shoved the lead rope at the man. “Hold him—don’t let him go for anything.”

Joel turned back to see Brittany leading the mustang from the burning building. She’d removed his shirt from her face and had it tied over the mare’s eyes as a blindfold. Their exit created a surreal picture that played in what felt like slow-motion. Woman and horse taking one step at a time, silhouetted against the glowing flames behind them.

Another rafter crashed to the floor at the back of the barn, sending a spray of red-hot embers through the air. The mare reared up and Joel’s heart leapt into his throat when Brittany swung from the lead rope. She stuck the landing, but the mustang bounced right back into the air and wrenched the rope from her hands.

She stumbled in front of the rearing horse, and Joel’s breath seized in his chest as Gypsy came back down right on top of her.

He lunged forward with a shout as she crumpled to the ground beneath the deadly hooves.

Chapter 28

It felt like someone was hammering on her head. A steady pounding that kept time with the beat of her heart. Frowning intensified the pain and the slight swaying movement beneath her made her nauseous. Along with the overpowering stench of smoke.

“Brittany?”

Joel’s raspy voice made her open her eyes. His shadowed face hovered above hers. Concern clouded his expression and didn’t disappear even as a smile softened his mouth.

“Hey, you’re awake. How you doing?”

Her eyes had become accustomed to the dim light enough that she could see black smudges smeared across his forehead and cheeks. Her nose wrinkled.
He
smelled like smoke, wasn’t wearing a shirt, and she was half-lying in his lap. When she moved to sit up, a searing pain in her shoulder wrenched a gasp from her lips.

“Easy. Just relax.” He tightened his hold until she rested her head back on his arm. “We’re on our way to the hospital. Almost there.”

“The hospital?” Her voice croaked out of a raw throat that burned so bad she could barely swallow. Her gaze shifted toward the driver’s seat to see Mandy Cole’s profile lit by an oncoming car. Why was the young wrangler driving Joel’s truck?

“You got a pretty nasty bump on the head, and we couldn’t wake you up,” he explained.

Joel opened his door and slid his arm under her knees to slip out of the vehicle with her in his arms. “I can walk,” she protested.

He bent to set her down. Dizziness made her sway and blackness rushed in to crowd the edge of her vision. She made a desperate grab for his arm.

“I got you,” he assured her.

Something bumped against the back of her knees, and he eased her down into a wheelchair one of the ER attendants rolled out.

They took her to a room right away and transferred her to a bed. Lying on the white sterile sheets, she realized she reeked of smoke and was as dirty as Joel. She gingerly felt her head, then trailed her fingers down to feel blood matted in her hair. A shower sounded like heaven, but so did a nap. With the bustle of activity that filled the room in the next minute, she knew neither would happen anytime soon.

It was after one a.m. when the nurse finished cleaning the gash on her forehead and the doctor came in to give her nine stitches along her hairline. Her headache had subsided a bit, and her shoulder only ached now, thanks to the ibuprofen they’d given her.