It Had to Be You: Special Bonus Edition with free novel Blue Flame (Lucky Harbor) Read online

  Tucker dropped into one of the chairs in front of Callie’s desk. “She’s off limits.”

  “Really? Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  Jake shot him a look of disbelief.

  “She’s not like one of those cheerleaders, all right? She gives a shit about people, about everyone. I mean, look how she’s protecting all of us, no questions asked. She trusts us, Jake. For no reason other than her heart tells her to. She’s been hurt, and still, she trusts.”

  “What do you mean, hurt?”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why we’re all so close here? It’s because we all have one thing in common. Sucky pasts, Callie included. So don’t even think about fucking with her.”

  “How about,” Jake said very quietly, “unless it involves you, you mind your own business, especially when it comes to Callie and me?”

  Tucker’s voice was just as quiet when he stood and got in Jake’s face. “This is my business. She cares about me, Jake. She saved my life by letting me have this job, and I’m not going to repay that by letting you screw with her head.”

  Jake laughed incredulously. “She cares about you? How about me? How about how much I care about you? I dragged your sorry ass here. I gave you this job, not Callie. I asked her to keep you here.”

  Tucker stared at him stonily.

  “Ah hell.” Jake shoved his fingers through his hair and turned in a slow circle, searching for his cool. It was a hard time coming. Things were just so damn complicated. His feelings for Callie, his feelings about not being able to work, and now these problems here at the ranch. It was all changing his perspective, and he was so tired of thinking.

  Tucker still didn’t say a word and Jake shook his head. “Forget it. Just forget it.” And like Callie had only a moment before, he walked out.

  “There you go,” Tucker said when he was alone. “Walking away again.”

  11

  Head throbbing with stress, worry, and a bunch of assorted other things, Callie started across the yard toward her cabin, the way lit by a blanket of stars. Halfway there, Shep met her, nudging her hand with the top of his head.

  At his unconditional love, a lump grew in her throat the size of a regulation football. “Hey, boy. Got your family tucked in for the night?”

  He panted alongside her, relaxed and at ease, so she knew everything was okay in the barn at least. The puppies had nearly doubled in size since they’d found them. She’d been checking on them every day, even if Tiger still wouldn’t let her touch them.

  Letting herself into her cabin, she pulled her shades and started stripping. She needed a hot bath, aspirin, and bed, and not in any special order. Down to her favorite soft silk camisole and panties, she moved toward her CD player. Some music would help her relax, help her think. She had a lot of thinking to do, but unfortunately, her cell phone rang, interrupting her thoughts.

  “You sound upset again,” Michael said.

  Upset? Try tense enough to shatter. “I’m okay.”

  “Truth, Cal. You’re working too hard. Is it worth it?”

  “You mean the ranch?”

  “I mean Jake. You’re heading for hurt.”

  “I can take care of myself.” She rubbed her temples but the ache only increased. “You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve seen you do it for years.” He let out a long breath. “Look, just give it all up and marry me. You can do whatever you want all day long.”

  She laughed, as he’d meant her to. “So you’d turn me into a housewife now, is that it?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Laughing again, she plopped to her bed and stared at the ceiling. “You know I can’t cook. I can hardly make a bed, and I don’t look good in an apron.”

  “I’ll hire a cook, and who needs a made bed? And I bet you look hot in an apron.”

  Smiling, she shook her head. “Good-night, Michael.” She tossed her phone aside, slipped on her head-phones, then hit the POWER button. Her ears filled with Sheryl Crow singing about how the “first cut is the deepest.”

  Callie knew the feeling. The room was warm and her head pounded. She stretched out on her back on the cool wood floor and closed her eyes, wondering how the hell she could fix all that was wrong in her world.

  A cold, wet something brushed her tummy and her eyes flew open, landing on two large brown ones. “Shep.” She let out a laugh, pushed the dog away, and rolled to her belly. Sheryl continue to wail in her ears, blocking out Callie’s world, and she closed her eyes again. Animals loose, Sierra mistreated, her Jeep messed with, serum and money missing…

  What was happening to her quiet, calm, beautiful world?

  Sheryl eased into another song, and Callie sighed, some of the tension finally leaving her body as sheer exhaustion took over.

  Jake walked outside, into the night. One of the horses let out a soft whinny, and then another. A pig snorted, and a cow moaned. From somewhere in the hills, not nearly far enough away, a coyote howled.

  Had he ever thought this place silent? Without thinking, he stepped onto the grass. A sound came from behind him. He whipped around, and stared into the unblinking eyes of Goose. She honked at him and lowered her head for attack.

  “Damn it—”

  Menacingly, she honked again, and pawed the ground with her webbed feet.

  Jake wasn’t a fool. Sometimes a man had to run. So he turned and loped off the grass. Her grass.

  Goose chased him to the very edge, glaring at him triumphantly, her feet firmly on her domain.

  “I’d go on a diet if I were you,” he warned, and crossed to the cabins. He looked at Tucker’s and remembered his words.

  “She saved my life by letting me have this job, and I’m not going to repay that by letting you screw with her head.”

  He really thought Jake would mess with Callie, purposely hurt her. The knowledge both burned and shamed, because it could quite possibly be true.

  There was no denying Jake felt something for her, and up front that something appeared to be no different than what he’d felt for any of the women in his past.

  But he knew this time there was another layer to the attraction between them. He knew it, felt it, dreamed it. He just didn’t know what to do about it.

  Callie seemed happy enough to shrug it all off, and that would have been Jake’s choice, too, but there was more at stake now than just emotions.

  Someone was trying to get to her, trying to unnerve her, hurt her where her heart lay. And though she was tough as nails, fiercely independent and strong-willed, it was working. It was getting to her. He could see it in her eyes, in the grim lines of her mouth, in the exhausted way she’d held her body.

  He’d been wallowing in his own problems for so long it felt good to think of something else, someone else, and as he stood there beneath a night sky, a surge of something filled his chest. It took him a moment to recognize it as the same feeling that had always come over him when he was working on a fire or a rescue.

  He had a purpose. He was needed. Since that was rare these days, he began walking again, toward Callie’s cabin now. She might not want his help, or want him to check on her, but she was damn well going to get both.

  When she didn’t answer his knock, he jiggled her door handle. It was unlocked, damn it. Didn’t she know how stupid that was? He pushed it open. “Callie.”

  Light from the small kitchen spilled into the living room. A blue display from a CD player glared in the far corner. Lying on her belly on the floor in front of it, a set of headphones holding back her wild hair, was Callie.

  At the sight of her, he sucked in a breath. She wore only a thin, silky camisole and panties, in a pale color that seemed to glow in the dark and didn’t do a thing to cover the tight, curvy body he’d been dying to touch again.

  Her head was down on her bent arms, her face turned away from him. She hadn’t moved an inch. Concern propelled him forward, and he hunkered down at her side, a hand on her back. “Callie—”

&n