Boone's Bounty. Vicki Thompson Lewis
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she worried about who had been pounding on a door in the middle of the night. She’d probably been foolish to take this well-traveled highway north toward Yellowstone. Early in Patricia’s marriage to Mason, soon after Josh was born, Shelby had gone over to their house for dinner. She distinctly remembered reminiscing with Patricia about that Yellowstone trip. They’d talked about the fun stops along the way and how much the family vacation had meant to them.
If Mason remembered, he would know exactly what road to take to find her. She was terrible at this cloak-and-dagger stuff, and she really should give up on Yellowstone. Except it wasn’t only Josh’s excitement that was guiding her there. The thought of seeing the place again with Josh had become the only bright spot in her otherwise frightening world. She loved the way Josh insisted on calling the geysers “geezers.” Maybe he’d mixed up the words when she’d mentioned one of the geysers was called Old Faithful.
The windowpane rattled again. Or was that a different sort of noise? She strained to hear over the whirr of the fan and the whistling of the wind. Then the noise came again. A rapid, soft tapping. On her door.
Her stomach lurched in fear and her heartbeat hammered in her ears as she crept quietly out of bed. The tapping grew slightly louder, as if someone wanted to get her attention without alerting anyone else.
Easing back the curtain a tiny slit, she peered out. Then she gasped in surprise as she recognized Boone, his big shoulders hunched against the cold. Had he come to tell her they’d cleared the road?
Her vulnerability made her hesitate before opening the door. Then she shook off any doubts. After all, she’d received nothing but kindness from this man. Now that she’d become one of the hunted, she’d have to learn to trust her instincts if she planned to survive. Her instincts told her Boone wouldn’t harm her or Josh.
Crossing to the door, she unlocked and opened it, belatedly remembering that she wore only a cotton nightgown. The cold took her breath away.
“I have to talk to you,” Boone said. His face was in shadow. “Can I—”
“Come in, for heaven’s sake,” she whispered, stepping back. “It’s freezing out.” Once he was through the door she closed it, but the room temperature seemed to have dropped thirty degrees in that short time.
“Shebby?” Josh mumbled sleepily from the bed.
She hurried over to the bed and leaned down to tuck his blue blanket against his cheek. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. It’s only Boone.”
“’Kay.” And just like that, he snuggled back under the covers and dozed off.
Shelby was amazed. Boone and Josh had spent less than twenty minutes together all told, and Boone now had the little boy’s complete trust. She straightened and turned. The room was almost totally dark, but she could make out the cowboy standing right where she’d left him by the door.
A thrill of awareness shot through her. Being alone in the dark with this virile man was the most exciting thing that had happened to her in a long while. He’d probably come over to give her a weather report or the latest information on the road, but for a moment she could fantasize that he’d come because he had a burning need to see her again.
“Do you mind talking in the dark?” she murmured as she walked back toward him. “I don’t want to wake Josh.”
“That’s okay.”
The closer she came to him, the more she felt the cold that had settled on his clothes, and it made her shiver. But she wasn’t afraid. Maybe some of Josh’s instinctive trust in Boone had rubbed off on her, because for the first time since she’d left San Antonio, she felt a little less alone.
She wrapped her arms around her body to ward off the chill and came to stand next to him. She had to move close, so she could keep her voice low. The scent of his aftershave teased her. “What is it?” she asked. “Is the road—”
“No, it’s not the road,” he said quietly. “Look, I don’t mean to mess in your business, but there’s a man in the café who might be looking for you and the boy.”
She gasped and stepped back, her romantic notions shredded by one simple statement. Oh, God, no. Not right here. She’d lulled herself into believing the weather had protected her. Her stomach began to churn. But maybe Boone was wrong. “What…does he look like?”
“Short, stocky but solid, like he works out. He has a military buzz cut.”
Nausea rose in her throat. She turned away and took several long, deep breaths until her stomach settled down a little.
“Do you know him?” Boone asked.
“I know him.”
“Is he a threat to you?”
She gazed up into his shadowed face and decided to risk telling him the truth. “I suppose. I have his son.”
Boone nodded, as if her honesty set well with him. “I figured. Josh told me his daddy has a gun.”
Shelby glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping boy, but he didn’t seem to have stirred. She lowered her voice. “Mason Fowler is a horrible person. He beat my sister and—”
He drew in a sharp breath. “Did he kill her? Josh said—”
“No,” she whispered quickly. “Patricia divorced him two years ago. She…died in a boating accident with…my parents…four months ago.” Shelby shuddered with the effort not to cry. She’d been able to stay strong until now, but this big cowboy was such a comforting presence that she was tempted to give in to her grief.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was husky, tender.
“Me, too.” She swallowed. “Anyway, Patricia didn’t leave a will, so unfortunately Mason has more of a claim to Josh than I do. He’s started the paperwork to get custody. I don’t think the process is going fast enough for him. A couple of days ago, I felt sure he was ready to take Josh for an outing and just…keep him.”
“So he wants the boy.”
“Not really.” She moved closer to Boone. She told herself it was so that he could hear her low-pitched explanation, but she also wished he’d wrap those strong arms around her. It was a dumb idea, and luckily for both of them, he didn’t pick up on her body language.
“Mason wasn’t the least interested in visitation rights after the divorce,” she continued. “For two years he hardly saw Josh. Now he’s pretending to be the perfect daddy. I’m convinced he’s only after money. My parents did leave a will, and whoever gets Josh also gets the generous maintenance allowance my parents set up for him.”
A growl of disapproval rumbled in Boone’s chest, and even though Shelby couldn’t see his face, she could feel the tension in his body. His righteous fury at hearing such news warmed her more than a blazing fire could have done.
It gave her the courage to ask the question she’d been dreading the answer to. “Does he guess I’m here somewhere?”
“I don’t think so. Eugene said he’d never laid eyes on you and Norma said she’d seen you but you went through about lunchtime and were probably way down the road by now.”
“Who are Eugene and Norma?”
“Sorry. The Sloans, the people who own the place.”
Shelby stared up at him. “They lied for me? Why would they do that?”
“Protecting the privacy of a customer might be part of it, but I think it’s also because they didn’t take a shine to this Mason character any more than I did. They might have asked themselves why he’s coming after you himself, instead of notifying the police. I wondered that, too.”
“Because it’s more his style. He’d rather intimidate me personally than trust that the law will be on his side. I have no doubt if he decides I’m in the way of his getting that money, he’ll