Running Blind Read online

  There looked to be a couple of storage-type buildings, and a huge barn. As soon as they drove past the barn, she saw the house. It was a pretty house, obviously remodeled and added on to: two-story, white, with a wide porch running across the entire front. There was a one-story addition, with a single step leading up to an inset rectangular concrete porch. Even farther to the right was a long, low building that she assumed was the bunkhouse. Between the two houses, and set back by itself, was a cabin that could be no more than two rooms, and both of them small.

  Decker stopped his truck at an angle in front of the small porch. Dollars to doughnuts one of those doors opened into the kitchen, or more likely a mudroom leading into the kitchen. No one else was in sight. From the way Kat had described the ranch, Carlin had expected it to be bustling with activity, but except for the grazing horses she hadn’t seen any other living creature. Well, and Decker. She supposed he counted as a “living creature.”

  She got out of the car and stood in the open doorway, abruptly suspicious as she looked around. Alarm sent tingles skittering up her spine. Okay, she knew it was irrational; Kat wouldn’t have steered her wrong, wouldn’t have sent her into a dangerous situation. Still … she was out here all alone with a man she didn’t know, regardless of how he made her hormones all jittery and happy. Common sense told her everything was okay, but common sense had been wrong about Brad. Keeping her right foot on the floor mat, poised to jump back in the car and hit the door lock, she gave Decker a flinty, narrow-eyed look. Her tone was flat as she asked, “Where is everyone?”

  “Working,” he said shortly. “The cattle don’t live in the house.”

  She didn’t want that to make sense, but it did. She slid her keys into her pocket, eased her foot out of the car and onto the ground. “Lead on.”

  He reached for her car door, evidently to get her scant luggage from the vehicle, but some knee-jerk reaction made Carlin quickly thumb the remote and all the locks clicked down. Decker straightened and scowled at her. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’ll carry my own bags,” she said curtly. It was a small hill and she didn’t intend to die on it, but for now it was just the right size for needling him.

  His green eyes went cold and narrow as he hooked his thumbs in his belt. His grim mouth set in a hard line so thin she could barely see his lips. “I don’t give a damn if I carry them, you carry them, or they walk in on their own, just stop wasting time so you can get started doing your damn job, and I can get back to mine,” he barked.

  Jeez, what a grouch. She turned her head in case she couldn’t control the satisfied smile that threatened to break loose as she unlocked the car and hauled her bags out; he muttered something she was glad she couldn’t understand, then wheeled around and stalked up onto the porch.

  He opened the door, and she noticed that he didn’t have to unlock it first. He might not like it, but unlocked doors were now something in his past, at least while she was in the house alone. And that reminded her … “I’ll need a house key,” she said as she followed him into the house.

  “Why?”

  The question so stupefied her that she stopped in her tracks and stared at him. “So I can get in when you aren’t here,” she explained as slowly and carefully as if he were just now learning English.

  In response he said, “Let me show you something,” in almost exactly the same tone she’d used. He pulled the door shut with a bang. “See that round thing? We call it a doorknob, and we use it to open the door. Pay attention, now. See how I put my hand on the doorknob? Turn it to the right, and—” Slowly he demonstrated, and triumphantly thrust the door open. “I’ll be damned if the door doesn’t open! That’s how you get in when I’m not here.”

  Ohhh, bonus points for both the demonstration and the sarcasm; she knew great smart-ass-ness when she saw it, and this was championship.

  “Correction,” she cooed. “That’s how it used to work. From now on you’ll need a key, because I will be locking the door while I’m here alone during the day, and if I go to Battle Ridge for supplies I’ll lock the door when I leave. I hope you have two keys, otherwise you’ll be knocking on the door to be let into your own house.” Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she smirked at him.

  He crossed his arms and leaned a broad shoulder against the doorframe. His expression hadn’t lightened, but a glint in those green eyes suddenly gave her the impression he was almost enjoying himself. “Suppose I can’t find a key?”

  “Suppose I call a locksmith out and have the locks rekeyed?”

  “Suppose you can afford that?”

  “If I have to, I suppose I can.” Oh, yeah, she could play up-the-ante all day long.

  “Will you give me a key if you do?”

  She opened her mouth to shoot back that he could have a key only if he paid for it, but abruptly she realized the reason for his enjoyment. “Oh my God! You really don’t know where your house key is, do you?”

  He shrugged. “It’s around somewhere.”

  He was blocking most of the doorframe but one side of it was free, so she banged her head three times against the wood. Looking up at him with a scowl, she said, “I’m a woman. Wo-man. You might feel safe living way out here and not locking the house, but I don’t. I’ve been taught from the time I was in kindergarten to be cautious of strangers, to lock my doors, to park under a streetlight if I have to be out at night, and how to use my keys to jab out a man’s eyes. I need a house key. I can’t sleep in an unlocked house.”

  “Can’t jab out anyone’s eyes, either.”

  “I’d use my car key for that.”

  His lips relaxed a little and he cocked his head to the side as he studied her for a long minute. She’d spent long months trying to avoid just that kind of attention, and it didn’t escape her notice that, with Decker, she was breaking her own rules about staying under the radar. She was smart-mouthing him when an employee in desperate need of a job, as she was, should be tripping over all the yes sirs and no sirs coming out of her mouth.

  What the hell. Given the fierceness of her attraction to him, the only way to balance it out was to fight fire with fire, and keep needling him. He’d pretty much disliked her on sight—and never mind that, if she thought about it, the idea always gave her a little pang of hurt—so she’d do everything she could to keep that dislike bright and alive.

  “Fine. You’re right,” he finally said. “I’ll look for the key tonight. If I find it, I’ll have it duplicated for you.”

  “Tomorrow,” she insisted. “No longer. If you don’t take care of it, I’ll call a locksmith tomorrow.” She studied the lock on the door. “Come to think of it, I’ll call the locksmith anyway. Don’t bother looking for the key. You don’t even have a deadbolt. I’ll have one installed on all the outside doors.”

  He rolled his eyes up. “You’re paranoid, you know. People out here all tend to have rifles and such, and anyone breaking in would have to assume—”

  “I want to borrow one of your rifles, and a butcher knife, to keep in my bedroom until I can get some decent locks installed on these doors.”

  He paused, eyeing her, and after a moment said cautiously, “A butcher knife?”

  “For close-contact battle. Just in case.” She wasn’t kidding. She might be exaggerating a bit, but she wasn’t kidding. Since Brad, she’d done a lot of improbable, just-in-case things, arming herself with whatever she thought might work and cause some harm, or gain her enough time to get away, or both. She hadn’t slept with a chain saw beside her bed yet, but she didn’t rule it out, either.

  “Paranoid, homicidal, and delusional—as in, if you think you couldn’t stop someone with a rifle, you’d have a chance with a knife.”

  “Knives are more scary than guns. Most gunshots miss, you know.”

  He gave a dismissive snort. “Mine don’t.”

  No, his shots probably didn’t miss. He’d probably been hunting since he could walk. Okay, another exaggeration, but probably not