Running Blind Read online

  Then there was tonight’s dinner to cook: spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread, and dessert would be the pies she’d picked up from Kat’s place. She’d purposely chosen something that wasn’t time-consuming or complicated, given that she hadn’t been certain what time she and Zeke would get home.

  She tried to think of mundane things, but she still shook. Her own reaction pissed her off, and that didn’t help matters at all.

  She’d let herself relax, had let her guard down, and that had been a mistake. Seeing the man she’d thought was Brad, however briefly, had come as a shock because she hadn’t been prepared. She’d let herself feel safe, become content in Battle Ridge, and she’d been thinking of other things: meal planning and recipes and that damn misbehaving white cake, and Zeke Decker. She couldn’t forget him, because he was her biggest distraction and the biggest danger to her safety, at the moment. She’d kept her distance, she had no illusions about her place here, but damn, she liked him. He was sexy and aggravating and all-man and unbearably distracting.

  She’d have to be Superwoman to be immune to him, and “super” didn’t in any way figure into her reaction to him. The “woman” part … now, that was different. Damn, again.

  She was so distracted, she didn’t hear him come up behind her. When he reached a hand around and laid it over hers—she still held a can of peas in that hand, and it was halfway in and halfway out of the pantry—she froze. Zeke didn’t touch her. He never touched her. Oh, damn. He was touching her. Come to think of it, he’d touched her a lot today, but a bear hug from behind to keep her from running in the grocery store didn’t count … much.

  His hand was hot and hard and big. His body, so close to hers, put out heat like a wood-burning stove. She hadn’t given a lot of thought to how much bigger he was than her, but standing so close how could she not be reminded?

  “You’re safe here, you know,” he said in a low voice, his tone calm and definitely softer than usual.

  Carlin shook her head, willing herself not to look at him. “I’m not safe anywhere, not really.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t drop his hand. “You can’t let a man, any man, do this to you.”

  She reached into the pantry and put the peas on a shelf. That broke the contact, but Zeke was still close, too close. She dipped down and skirted around him, a kind of evasive do-si-do.

  Not that he would just let the subject drop.

  “Let me help you.”

  She tried to laugh at that, but the sound was short and choked. She didn’t want to put Zeke or any of the others in Brad’s path. “What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice sharp. “Hunt him down and kill him for me?”

  “I was thinking maybe I could have him arrested,” Zeke said wryly. “It’s true that I have a horse and some guns here, but I’m a rancher, not a gunslinger.”

  Despite herself her lips curved in a small smile at his sally, but then the smile twisted. “I’ve tried having him arrested. It didn’t work.”

  She didn’t want to talk about Brad, didn’t want to relive the nightmare she’d managed to put out of her mind for a while. Was she careless, or was that a survival mechanism to look forward instead of staying mired in the awful circumstances of Jina’s murder?

  “Are you going to run forever?”

  “That’s a million-dollar question.” It was one she’d asked herself many times, every day, and the answer was always no. But what could she do? She couldn’t think of any way to end the nightmare. So for Zeke, she was honest. “I don’t know.”

  “Give me his name and I’ll …”

  “No!” she snapped, whirling on him. Her heart had jumped into her throat at just the idea of him doing something that might bring Brad here. She poked him in the chest with a finger. “The son of a bitch is a computer hacker. A friend died in my place, because he thought she was me, do you understand? Do you fucking understand?” She didn’t often swear like that, but when it came to Brad there were no words bad enough.

  For a long moment, Zeke stared at her, his eyebrows raised slightly. What, did he think she was a sweet young thing who didn’t know how to curse when it was appropriate? Right now was appropriate. She stared back, not giving an inch.

  “Fine,” he said, his voice tight but calm. “We’ll do this your way. Promise me one thing, though.”

  She started to tell him she owed him nothing, least of all a promise, but he seemed to be trying so she decided to play along, for now. “Maybe. What kind of promise?”

  “When you decide it’s time to leave, talk to me first.”

  “Why should I?” And how the hell had he looked at her and known she was thinking about running? Oh, right—it might have been the way she panicked in the grocery store and was going to bail out through the unloading dock in back.

  “So I can help you. When you do move on, as I’m sure you will, you need to have a plan. A plan, Carlin, something besides getting on the road and stopping when you run out of gas.” He sounded a little angry, now. “Don’t let one asshole ruin your life. You’re as safe here as you’d be anywhere else—safer than most places, because of where we are, and because you’re surrounded by people with guns who’ll fight for you.”

  Before she could respond, he headed for the back door. “I’ll lock the door behind me,” he called without looking back. “Don’t worry. I have my key.”

  ZEKE COVERTLY WATCHED Carlin as she served dinner. She’d recovered enough by the time dinner was served that no one else would ever guess that she’d had such a scare at the grocery store. She even smiled and joked with the men as she got everyone settled in, made sure they had what they needed. And again, she ate alone in the kitchen.

  The spaghetti was good and filling, the garlic bread crisp and tasty. The men ate like they were starved, and after a long day’s work, maybe they were. Spencer had a tough time eating one handed, but he managed well enough. They were all enjoying the recent upgrade in the cooking at the Rocking D. They’d be sorry when Carlin left.

  And damn it, she would leave, eventually. He’d hired her wanting her to leave as soon as Spencer was able to resume his duties in the kitchen. At least that had been the plan when he’d grudgingly hired her, and just as grudgingly agreed to keep her on until spring. But in just a couple of days she’d made her mark here, and he’d found he didn’t like the idea of her not being here. It was nice to come home to a decent hot meal and clean clothes, even if those assets did come with a sharp tongue and a nice ass that drove him to distraction.

  She’d even washed the sheets on his bed and neatly made it up, the first time his bed had been completely made since Libby had left. Carlin was a more than competent housekeeper and cook. That was the only reason he’d interfered that afternoon when she’d looked like she was on the verge of bolting.

  Yeah, right.

  It was probably a good thing he’d be so busy for the next couple of weeks, moving the cattle from free range into the pastures near the house, getting ready for the October market. Carlin would have the house to herself all day, and the next time she went to town Spencer could ride along to navigate—and to keep an eye on her, too. She didn’t want anyone else knowing about her stalker, but he could tell Spencer to make sure no one hassled her. He wouldn’t deny to himself that her safety was a big consideration.

  Spencer wasn’t going to like missing the cattle drive; it was one of his favorite times of the year. It was hard work, that was true, but it was also classic cowboy work. Some of the ranches used four-wheelers—and even helicopters, he’d heard—during roundup, but at the Rocking D they did things the old-fashioned way, on horseback.

  If all Spencer had was a simple broken arm, they might find a way to make it work. But the shoulder needed to be good and healed before he sat a saddle again. Not that the kid had ever fallen or been bucked, but there was a first time for everything, as the incident with Santos had proved. A torn rotator cuff was nothing to fuck around with.

  So Spencer would stay with C