Courage To Believe (Cowboys of Courage 2) Read online

  “Hey, Lucas, I’ve rigged up a couple of ropes that should keep her leg elevated and fairly still without too much discomfort. We should make it back to your place, and then we can transfer her to the pickup,” Shakota said, turning away from the horse she’d been working on. Lucas came toward her with the tent rolled under his arm to inspect it.

  From Gillian’s position, it looked like three nooses hanging at the horse’s side. She assumed her leg would thread through them, and they would be mostly tightened to keep it from bouncing with the horse’s movements. Lucas seemed to approve and thanked the woman before recruiting Garrett to help him. One man knelt on either side of Gillian, and she wrapped an arm around each set of shoulders. With one arm around her back and one under her knee, the two men lifted and managed to maneuver her onto the horse, with her ankle singing the whole time.

  Admittedly, they did their best not to shake or shift her, but that was virtually impossible when it came to getting her up on a horse whose back was shoulder height to the men. Shakota helped them tie down her leg, and for that, Gillian was thankful. Her touch was sure but tender, and she barely caused any pain at all.

  With Gillian ready to go, the rest of the group finished cleaning up the makeshift campsite, old wet clothes and all. Gillian supposed this was the end of the line. They were going to Lucas’s house, and maybe she could catch a few extra minutes there, since her stomach was ready to eat itself. But the countdown to the end of her little fantasy had begun, and she would have to practice a little acceptance.

  * * *

  Lucas watched Gillian’s leg more carefully than he needed to. He wasn’t just concerned with the way the jostling of the horse might affect the damage already done. He couldn’t keep his attention off the slim line of the limb, and even with the swelling, he could tell just how shapely it was.

  The distraction drove him mad, especially since he wasn’t usually so easily enticed. He couldn’t quite place what it was about Gillian that threw him off his game, but he didn’t want to analyze it too closely. The idea was to get her back to his place where they could whip up something to eat quickly while he contacted her aunt and uncle, and then they would get her to the county medical center.

  Garrett asked about the night they’d spent, and Lucas hesitated, his mind running to the intimacy of the tent and the heat he’d shared with Gillian. But that wasn’t what his friend meant, and Lucas cleared his throat, telling him about the storm and how he’d set up the tent and made sure the water wouldn’t cause it to collapse. “You know me. I’m a firm believer in always being prepared.”

  Shakota snorted. “Such a Boy Scout, Lucas. What about you, Gillian? What happened that you got stuck out here?”

  Lucas watched her reaction, and he caught Gillian’s sidelong glance at him. Maybe she wasn’t regretting their heated little moment together after all. “I’m not sure exactly. I know the horse got spooked, but I never saw anything that should have upset him.”

  “That’s too bad,” Shakota responded kindly. “Lucas, did you find anything?”

  He nodded. “Actually, I did run across the culprit this morning.” He saw the surprised look on Gillian’s face as she gaped at him, but he ignored it. There had been a reason he didn’t tell her about his discovery this morning. He’d wanted the passion, not the fear of poisonous slithery things. “Right about the spot where the horse dumped her, there was a rattlesnake nest buried under the roots of a tree.”

  “And it didn’t bit her?” Shakota expressed the same surprise Lucas had felt.

  “No, apparently not. But he sure as hell came after me when I found him. And he paid the price for it.”

  He didn’t say much the rest of the ride back, and neither did anyone else, but the scathing glare from Gillian spoke volumes. Clenching his jaw, Lucas thought, so much for trust. It wasn’t like he’d lied to her. In fact, they hadn’t had a single conversation about it since they woke up. They’d done far more kissing than talking, and much of the speaking they’d done was better construed as arguing.

  Geez, they had acted like a married couple!

  Pushing the thought aside as they rode up to his place, he turned to Garrett. “Do you mind putting the horses in the stables? I’ll get some breakfast going and call up the Marshalls while you do that.”

  “Of course. I’ll have Shakota help Gillian into the house.”

  Chapter 9

  Gillian seethed, and it made it easy to ignore the pain in her ankle that had been slowly moving up her leg on the ride home. Now, as she climbed off the horse with Shakota’s assistance, she wanted to swing her injured leg straight into Lucas Graham’s sexy ass. Had he thought she would throw a fit if he told her about the rattlesnake? Did he see her as some delicate, high-maintenance chick?

  She’d been stupid to think he saw her as anything else. Gillian had gotten herself into a huge mess like some novice, and she’d had to be rescued. She still couldn’t get around by herself and might be in a cast for weeks. How could she expect Lucas to see her as anything but a hot mess? Still, her indignation riled her, and she didn’t like being treated as someone who couldn’t take care of herself.

  She certainly didn’t want Lucas to feel the need to lie to her – or omit the truth – because he thought she would scream and cringe. Gillian had lived most of her life in the city, but she had plenty of exposure to things like camping. Bugs and critters were a natural hazard in the wilderness. Just because the snake happened to be poisonous didn’t mean she was going to run screaming into the night.

  Of course, she shuddered now, thinking how dangerous the situation had been, and how much worse things could be now. If, in fact, the rattler had bitten her, she would be dead by now. Or at least minus a limb. Gillian hadn’t been able to get back to civilization, and even Lucas’s rescue efforts wouldn’t have saved her in that case. She had half a mind now in her irritation to ask if his little Boy Scout survival pack had anti-venom in it.

  “You’ve got a bit of a fever,” Shakota told her as they hobbled toward the small but immaculate ranch house. Gillian had to admit, someone had worked hard on the design and build of the place and had put a lot of love and care into its creation. The brick colored paint on the wood made it very country-sheik, and the addition of modern lines, as well as unique windows and shutters, brought the place out of the eighteenth century.

  Shakota continued, “Your body is responding to the injury. But it’s not a high fever, so it’s likely a small fracture and no internal bleeding. How is your pain right now?”

  Gillian couldn’t divulge her rage, and she definitely wasn’t going to confess to the roaring of her blood through her veins due to the attraction she felt toward Lucas, fool that he was. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, I guess, so it’s down from about a nine to a four or five right now.”

  “Since you seem to be thinking clearly, I would say that’s not from shock, so it’s a good thing,” Shakota chuckled.

  Thinking clearly was a relative term, Gillian thought, and if she was assessing the situation, she hadn’t been thinking clearly since Lucas showed up in the middle of the woods last night. Her brain had gone from rapid fire to swirling to mush, and she was only just starting to come to her senses.

  Before she could say anything else, whether in her defense or to ask questions about the infuriating man who’d kept her alive last night, he came into the kitchen. He glanced at her briefly, looking a bit like a deer in headlights for just a second. Then, he turned and went to the refrigerator. “I hope you like grilled ham and cheese on sourdough and potato salad without onion.”

  Gillian blinked at him and watched him take a tomato out of the vegetable drawer to add to the rest of the makings. “You’re putting tomato on the sandwiches?” she asked, and he nodded with a grim expression. She nodded, snapping her mouth shut to keep it from watering too much. “That sounds fabulous.”

  She saw that the potato salad was already made in a bowl covered with plastic wrap, and that meant the flavors w
ould have mixed and gotten really cold. Her stomach growled loudly at the thought; it was the best way to eat the concoction. And she didn’t know a lot of people who ate tomato on a grilled sandwich, but it was her favorite.

  Garrett came in with a pillow, which he put in one of the other kitchen chairs and helped elevate her leg to rest on top of it. Gillian hadn’t looked at it very often, afraid of what she would see, and she grimaced now at the unsavory sight. The swelling and bruising made it look like some alien mass had attached to her, covering the view of her real leg and ankle. It also felt detached right now, as if the entire mass didn’t even belong to her.

  “I’ll call Carrie,” Garrett offered, palming the old fashioned corded phone from the kitchen counter, and Lucas nodded. He was making fast work of slicing the tomato and buttering the bread as the flat grilling pan heated up.

  Gillian hedged, “I noticed Aunt Carrie had a corded phone, too. You don’t see those much anymore.”

  “Out here you do,” Lucas told her without turning around. “As you noticed, you never know when bad weather’s going to cut us off from the world up here. Cordless phones need electricity, which fails for days at a time in the winter, and cell phone service is spotty at best anyway. We’ve got a tower up here now, but it doesn’t work when we’re snowed under. All we’ve got is the telephone lines and the Pony Express.”

  She wanted to laugh but didn’t, even when Shakota snorted. “Lucas’s modest. He and the rest of his rescue team are always ready to make sure everyone has a warm bed when it’s at its worst. Anyone without a generator or wood burning stove comes here or to one of three other houses where we offer shelter through the storm.”

  Gillian stared at Lucas in awe as he avoided her gaze. “I’m assuming they call you for help, and you trudge out there in the deadly weather to get them where they need to be.”

  Lucas shrugged. “One of us does. I’ve got a four wheel drive, and Mike’s got the tractor. He does a lot of the transport.” Finally, he looked at her briefly before turning to Shakota. “Garrett and Shakota have an actual shelter outside their house, sort of like an in-law suite, and they help out, too.”

  It floored her the way this community banded together. In Richmond, she didn’t even know her neighbors, much less expect this kind of generosity and openness. But most of all, she wondered about Lucas. He acted humble, though he had every reason to be cocky, and he was incredibly efficient and sexy. He was capable, kind-hearted. Yet, he acted like a cold loner. And as Gillian looked around, the small but detailed ranch house was so modest it seemed opposed to Lucas’s nature.

  Somehow, despite his rugged appearance and cowboy readiness, Gillian had imagined him being wealthy and spoiled from the moment she’d met him. While it hadn’t done anything to dampen her attraction to him, it formed an overall assessment of expectations. But this was completely different. As she looked out the kitchen window, she saw only a single stall for a horse rather than an extravagant stables and corral. This house was hand built and obviously recently completed, and it was maybe half the size of her Aunt Carrie’s.

  Gillian had never chased money, so she knew the fact that she’d thought Lucas might be made of it hadn’t led to her rampant desire for him. Still, she was shocked at how opposite this was from what she’d thought of the man. And even more baffled that she found him even more enticing knowing that he probably didn’t have a penny to his name.

  Before she could really wrap her head around it, Lucas tossed a plate in front of her with a steaming sandwich that smelled like heaven and a huge pile of his potato salad. “I just made it yesterday,” he grunted as he handed her a spoon, napkin, and glass of iced tea. “I’m no chef, but I know how to whip something up that’s not going to give you Ebola.”

  Glad to see he was getting a bit of his sense of humor back, Gillian teased, “Well, if it does, at least you have some medical training and your four wheel drive to get me down the mountain.”

  He gave her a rueful grin, and Gillian couldn’t stay mad. Sure, she was hurt and indignant at his assumption that she would have thrown a fit about the snakes, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t had good reason. And he didn’t seem to think less of her for her situation at this point. And as she tasted the meal, she forgave that last shred of grudge she wanted to hold against him. She was famished, but the sandwich and salad would have been to die for anyway.

  * * *

  Lucas was transfixed as he watched Gillian eat the food he’d set in front of her. The woman’s eyes rolled back in her head, she moaned, and her mouth moved in the most arousing way. He could imagine her reaction to a throbbing orgasm from that expression, and he sat down quickly so he could adjust himself in his jeans before either woman in the room took notice.

  He’d never been more thankful for an interruption than when Garrett stepped back around the corner and replaced the phone on the counter.

  “Those guys are beside themselves with gratitude. They’ll meet you at the clinic in about an hour.” Garrett took in the scene and asked, “Do you need our help still?”

  Lucas didn’t want them to leave, not until he’d washed his hands of Gillian. But the stubborn woman shook her head. “I think we’ll be all right. I’m assuming Lucas can get me to the vehicle in question and drive me down the mountain on his own. And if he can’t get me into the clinic, I’m betting he or someone else there knows how to roll a stretcher around.” She winked at him, and Lucas swallowed a groan of desire. Being alone with her was not going to be healthy for him. His body would suffer from a lack of attention, and it just might give him a heart attack.

  Speaking of which, he had to figure out the money situation. He couldn’t expect Sam Thorpe, the mailman, to get up the mountain in this weather, so even if the check from the auction had come, he wouldn’t get it. But then, if the check had arrived at the sheriff’s station, he had a great reason to walk away from Gillian once she was at the clinic with her family.

  Even better, if he didn’t find the check there, he’d have to swallow his pride and ask Garrett for help. That required a trip back up the mountain and a reason to disappear from Gillian’s life forever. Lucas certainly wanted a bigger taste, but he wasn’t prepared to get involved with her, even it if was just sexually, when she was headed halfway back across the country. Besides, he had some sort of emotional response to her he couldn’t afford to explore. It was better to keep his distance.

  Lucas didn’t miss the glance Shakota shot between the two of them or the look in her eyes. Sometimes, the woman’s intuition freaked him out, and he was glad the tribe was out of his jurisdiction. He didn’t think he could handle an entire community full of people who were practically mind readers.

  “If you need me, call me,” Shakota told them as she reached for Garrett’s hand. “You know we’re only a few minutes away.”

  Lucas nodded stiffly, and Gillian waved, her mouth too full to speak. He started shoveling food into his own mouth, partly because he was starving and partly to stave off any conversation Gillian might decide was important. He didn’t want to talk about anything with her, but specifically, he had no desire to talk about last night or this morning.

  And he really didn’t want a lecture on keeping pertinent information a secret.

  Of course, inhaling his food only left his plate empty sooner, which made him vulnerable to a request for speech. He got up with the dirty dishes and went to work at the sink, his back to Gillian. He had a dishwasher, but if he kept himself busy until she was done…

  “I was so wrong about you.” Gillian’s voice made Lucas wince, and her words sliced through him like a hot knife.

  “I’m sorry if I disappoint you,” he responded gruffly over the din of the dishes and running water.

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult.” Lucas froze, held his breath, and chanced a glance over his shoulder at her. Her eyes were watery, and he wanted to curse. If she cried, he was going to throw the pan he was washing through the newly installed window. But instead,
Gillian offered a sad smile. “I figured you for some rich, cocky son of a bitch. But apparently, you’re humble and kind and hardworking.”

  Lucas scoffed. “You mean I’m destitute and pathetic.”

  “I do not!” she argued, sounding a bit enraged. “Lucas, I’m trying to apologize for my misconception of you, and here you are taking it as an insult! If I wanted to piss you off, I’d be railing at you for keeping secrets from me about our situation in the woods! You didn’t tell me you found the snake nest, but since it didn’t hurt us, I don’t really care. But I do wish you’d stop harboring assumptions about me!”

  Lord, she was even more arousing when she got worked up like this. He could only imagine how fiery she was when she wasn’t injured. Giving up on the dishes, Lucas turned to face her, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms.

  “Okay, city girl. You want me to stop thinking of you like that? Then don’t stereotype me. Yes, I live on some land in the middle of nowhere and ride a horse. Yes, I did all this with my own two hands because I couldn’t afford anything else. And yes, I’m a damn Boy Scout when it comes to being prepared for any situation. It’s part of my EMT and SNR training. I’m passionate about all of that. But if I don’t get the check in the mail I was expecting a week ago, I’m going to lose all of it. Are you satisfied to know just how tough a situation I’m in?”

  Chapter 10

  Gillian had no answer to that. She felt terrible right now. She started to say something, but there was nothing that could counter what Lucas had just shared. Nor was there a way to soothe the pain in his eyes at what was obviously a humiliating confession for him.