Home on the Ranch: Oklahoma. Carla Cassidy
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He watched until she was in the passenger seat of his truck and locked inside, then he disappeared around the corner of the house where the fire still burned.
Kate leaned her head back against the seat and closed her stinging, watering eyes. What had just happened? She couldn’t make sense of it. She felt as if she were still asleep and all of this was just a horrible dream.
Why hadn’t she been able to get out of her room?
She opened her eyes and saw Jake approaching the truck. He, too, was covered with soot, his handsome features tight with concern. With Zack’s words ringing in her ears, she cracked the window down only an inch.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “God, Kate. I’ve never been so frightened for you.”
“I’m fine, just shaken.” It felt ridiculous to be speaking to him through the small crack in the window and again she wondered what had prompted Zack to tell her to lock herself into his truck. “Can you tell what happened?”
Jake shrugged. “All I know is that it looks like you lost part of your bedroom.” He pointed toward the side of the house. “I’d better get back to help. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
She nodded and he hurried away, disappearing into the darkness that now hung over the landscape. She wanted to see the damage. She wanted to know what was going on. Her impulse was to get out of the truck. This was her ranch and she should know what was happening.
What stopped her was the grim glint that had darkened Zack’s eyes as he’d ordered her into the truck. Once again she leaned her head back and closed her eyes as the cool night air caressed her from the slightly open window.
She suddenly remembered what she’d been dreaming before she’d awakened. Her dreams had been filled with Zack. She’d dreamed of his arms around her, his lips taking full and utter possession of hers. She’d imagined running her hands over his hot, smoothly muscled chest and wanting him to make love to her.
She jumped as a knock fell on the driver window. She leaned over and unlocked the door for Zack. He slid into the seat, bringing with him the smell of wildness, of the remnants of an inferno.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. She felt his exhaustion and something deeper, darker, that she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to explore.
“We got it out,” he finally said. “The outer wall of your bedroom will need to be replaced. I don’t know how much smoke damage is inside the house. I would guess your room is pretty well trashed between the smoke and water.”
She fought a weary sigh. “I’ve never heard anyone say that ranch life isn’t filled with challenges.” He stared at her for a long moment, as if she’d somehow surprised him. “What were you expecting? Tears and feet-stomping?”
“It wouldn’t be completely out of character,” he observed.
She refused to rise to his bait. “So, could you tell what happened? How the fire started?”
He pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “I’m taking you to my place for the night.”
She sat straighter in the seat. “I can’t leave,” she protested.
“You can’t stay, at least not for the rest of the night.” He placed the key in the ignition and started the engine. “I already told Sonny I’d make arrangements for you for tonight and he’s posting a guard so nobody will go into the house through the damaged area.”
“Zack, I can’t leave my home.”
“You can for tonight.” His voice held a firmness that brooked no argument. He put the truck in gear and pulled away.
Kate frowned, a flutter of worry coursing through her. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you this, I believe you about the stampede.”
Of all the things she’d expected him to say, this hadn’t been one of them. “How did we get from here to there?” she asked as they drove through the Bent Tree Ranch gates.
“I believe that it’s possible somebody intentionally spooked your herd in an effort to hurt you because of what I found when I broke down your front door to get you out of that burning bedroom.”
“What did you find?” Her heart began to hammer an unnatural rhythm.
“Somebody had tied a rope from your doorknob to the bathroom doorknob, making certain you wouldn’t be able to get out of that room.” He cast her a quick glance, his eyes glittering in the light from the dashboard. “Somebody tried to kill you tonight, Katie.”
Chapter 6
Zack tightened his fingers on the steering wheel as he thought of the rope he’d found, the rope that had made it impossible for Katie to escape the inferno of her bedroom. It had been a devious mechanism for death.
He felt her gaze on him, stunned and with more than a touch of fear. He glanced at her, noting her widened electric-blue eyes, the paleness of her skin beneath the thick layer of soot.
“The way I see it, the plan was that you would probably be overcome by smoke, the fire would overwhelm the house and that rope would have eventually burned away, leaving no trace of its existence.”
“Who spotted the fire?” she asked. Her voice held the slightest tremble.
“I did. I couldn’t sleep so I stepped outside the bunkhouse and just happened to glance toward the main house. That’s when I saw the flames and sounded the alarm.”
“So, if you’d gotten a good night’s sleep you probably would have found me dead in the morning.”
His hands once again tightened on the steering wheel. “It would seem that was the intent.”
She leaned back against the seat and released a weary sigh. “Any suspicions on who might have set the fire?”
He turned down the narrow road that led to the West property, wishing he had a different answer for her than the one he had. “None. When I woke up I just assumed all the men in the bunkhouse were sleeping, but appearances can be deceiving.”
“So it might or might not have been one of the men in the bunkhouse.” Her voice was as weary as he’d ever heard it.
“Katie, we’re not going to figure this out tonight. I’ll call Ramsey, but it’s too dark for anything to be done tonight. Let’s just get to my place, shower off the soot and smoke and get a few hours of sleep.” He felt her gaze on him and turned to meet it. “What?”
“I don’t even know where your place is. Do you live with your father and Smokey?”
“No, I live in a two-bedroom house that was originally built for the ranch manager. It’s small, nothing fancy, but it’s my space and gives me my privacy.”
They didn’t speak again as he pulled through the gates of the West ranch and he drove past the large, sprawling ranch house. “What’s that?” she asked as his headlights fell on a smaller house that was in the building process.
“That’s Tanner’s place. It burned down several weeks ago. While he’s on his honeymoon, he’s got a crew of men working to rebuild it.”
“Yes I heard about that. Are fires a normal occurrence in the lives of the West men?” she asked dryly.
He offered her a tight grin. “I’d say it’s less about the West men and more about the women they choose to hang out with.”
He wondered how long she could maintain her calm, her seemingly nonchalant attitude in the face of her own attempted murder. He had a feeling she was suffering some sort of shock.
No lights shone from the small, two-bedroom cabin Zack called home. As he pulled up front he recognized that over the past couple of hours