Rancher's Deadly Risk Read online

  “It wasn’t exactly...” Cassie started to explain, but the woman cut her off.

  “You stood up for my grandson, James,” she went on. “That’ll get around, too. Count on it.”

  Cassie caught her breath. “It might make it harder on him,” she protested.

  “He’s been bullied since he first started school. It’s just that way for some kids. Never figured out why. Sometimes it’s like watching sharks smell blood in the water. Lately I guess it’s getting worse.”

  Cassie faced her, peppers forgotten. “I want to help him, but I don’t know how.”

  “That’s the thing, isn’t it? We’ve been trying to figure out how to help for years. Might as well try to stop a flood with a broom. My daughter and her husband moved away from here for about ten years, so James didn’t grow up here. But he got bullied wherever he went, so it’s not just this place. You keep that in mind.”

  Before Cassie could say more, the woman turned away, apparently done with the conversation. How was keeping that in mind supposed to help? She’d been teaching long enough to know that bullying was a sad fact of life for most students. What had been learned about it over the past few decades, however, made it something that couldn’t be ignored.

  Students were often permanently scarred by even minor incidents, and when the bullying persisted they could develop posttraumatic stress disorder. It could lead to depression and even suicide, or violent outbursts. In short, it couldn’t be ignored as “just being kids.”

  She was no fool, however. Bullying could never be entirely stopped or prevented, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be reduced.

  There was, however, the basketball championship involved here. Remembering her conversation with Les last Friday, she still felt a burst of frustration that he’d chosen not to exercise the full penalty. His reasoning made sense, but he’d chosen to give the students a slap on the wrist and right now she had a sickening feeling that wasn’t helping anything at all, least of all James.

  But it was clear from what his grandmother said that he had the support and concern of his entire family. They might consider the bullying inevitable for him, but they weren’t ignoring it. That was a step in the right direction, she supposed.

  She gathered her groceries and headed for the checkout, where she got a frosty smile from a cashier she had dealt with before.

  “Trying to change the town?” the woman asked. “You should live here a while first.”

  Something inside Cassie snapped. “I’m not trying to change the town. I like this town. But don’t you teach your kids to respect teachers?”

  The woman appeared so taken aback that it might have been funny under other circumstances. She looked down at her scanner and started to run the produce through.

  “We teach them to respect,” she said finally, in a muffled voice.

  “I thought so. Sometimes they just need a little reminder. Don’t we all?”

  The cashier looked up at that, and her smile was a little more genuine. “I guess so. It’s just detention.”

  “Right. And I didn’t lie about anything.”

  There. Feeling better, she gathered her sacks and headed out to her car. Let that get around on the grapevine.

  She had heard that small towns could be incredibly gossipy, but the reality was beyond her previous experience. In just under a week everyone seemed to know what had happened, and sides were evidently being taken.

  Given that she was the new kid on the block, as it were, she suspected most views didn’t favor her much. Well, when had life ever been easy?

  * * *

  Cooking dinner for one had been a nuisance until Cassie had wised up and learned to make larger amounts and save some, either freezing the extra or putting it in the fridge for the next night. It made the effort seem more worthwhile.

  Consequently, when she answered a knock at her door and found Linc there, she had enough food to feed him and two more like him. “Come on in,” she said, no longer caring if he avoided her or she might be smarter to avoid him. Something about the encounter in the grocery store had fed her courage and self-esteem. “If you have time. I have dinner almost ready.”

  He hesitated. She almost wanted to sigh with impatience. Couldn’t the man just make up his mind? It would be easier on them both. But then she warned herself that she didn’t really know what was going on with him.

  “You must be hungry,” she remarked. “You just came from practice, right?”

  He nodded. “I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Well, tell me inside. My pasta primavera isn’t going to be very good if the pasta overcooks.”

  He followed her into the kitchen while she wondered at how he seemed to blow hot and cold. Just as she waved him to a seat, the timer for the boiling pasta sounded. “Give me a minute,” she said as she turned off the stove.

  Lifting the colander out of the boiling water, she turned it slowly, allowing it to drain thoroughly. Then she dumped the pasta into a waiting serving bowl.

  “That’s a lot of food,” he remarked.

  “I cook multiple meals at a time. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t freeze well, so unless you help me out, I’m going to be eating this for the next three or so days.”

  “It sure smells good,” he said.

  She took that as agreement and pulled two bowls out of the cupboard, placing them on the table with flatware. “So what was so urgent it couldn’t wait until morning?” She put the other ingredients in with the pasta and began tossing the mixture. Keeping her back to him made it easier. At least he wasn’t distracting her.

  “Talk. There’s a lot of talk.”

  “About the detentions? I heard some of it at the grocery.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sprinkled Parmesan on the mixture, then carried the meal to the table. “Help yourself,” she said, offering him the pasta scoop.

  He apparently did like the aroma, because he put a healthy serving into his bowl. “I never go to this much trouble for myself.”

  “I didn’t use to, either.” She sat, passing a paper napkin to him, and took a smaller portion for herself. “I was confronted by a woman in the parking lot. It wasn’t pleasant. She accused me of lying about her son pushing me.”

  “Damn,” he said. He hadn’t even picked up his fork, and when she at last forced herself to look up from her own dinner and meet those amazing blue eyes, she saw genuine concern.

  Looking Linc in the eye, she decided, was a dangerous occupation. Every time she did, she felt hormones and hunger surge in a tidal wave that wanted to drive everything out of her head. Her thoughts wandered to those broad shoulders, encased by his Western shirt, and her palms itched to touch him.

  No, it was safer to look down at her supper. No wonder eye contact was considered dangerous in so many cultures.

  “How bad was it?” he asked.

  “Bad enough. Ugly. It wasn’t much better in the store. A cashier sort of confronted me. I probably should be ashamed to admit it, but I took her on.”

  “Good for you.”

  “So is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  “In part,” he admitted. “Somehow the whole story has gotten out, and it’s not entirely accurate. Gossip never is, but you might say lines are being drawn.”

  “Against me.”

  She dared to meet his gaze again and saw tightness around his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Because no one really knows me yet. I heard that today, too. I’m being seen as an interfering outsider. So what exactly did you hear and from whom?”

  “Some of my players. I overheard them talking and inserted myself.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe all this over a few lousy detentions, but I gotta say that I think Les may have handled this all wrong. People want that championship. I know it probably seems like a minor thing to you....”

  “Actually no. And especially not here. I’ve been in much more populous areas and larger schools where championships became really huge.
It wasn’t always pretty.”

  He gave her a short nod. “Exactly. Folks here love this place, they’re mostly happy living here, but occasionally they need something to be proud of. Our football team seldom wins, but every so often, amazingly enough, our basketball team takes us to the brink of doing something that will make a lot of chests puff up.”

  “That’s understandable.” She ate another mouthful, waiting, and wishing her stomach hadn’t decided to start doing flips again. She’d felt pretty good after she’d told that cashier the truth, but now she was definitely feeling the first icy fingers of worry and maybe even fear. Did she really need to be afraid? “So what did Les do wrong?”

  “He should have told the parents the whole damn story and explained that he was going lightly. Instead he focused on you. So there’s talk running around that you lied about being shoved....”

  “I never said I was shoved.”

  “I know. But apparently Les said you had been. Or made it sound that way. He should have just left it that you’d been defied after giving the students a legitimate direction. Or he should have explained the entire situation. Now nobody has the truth, and speculation is rife. You lied. You didn’t lie. These students wouldn’t do such a thing. And then somebody put it out there that James was being bullied. God knows who. So right now you look like a troublemaker, and folks are wondering why there’s a ruckus about something that all kids do and experience.”

  She put her fork down, losing all desire to eat. “That’s the perception we have to change.”

  “Obviously. What’s worrying me is that we’ve barely begun and people are reaching the wrong conclusions. They’re finding it easier to blame you for some transgression than to believe these students could have done something wrong. And now parents are starting to rumble.”

  Her mouth turned dry. “Already? A detention and they’re that angry?”

  “They don’t know you yet, so they don’t trust you.”

  “But surely kids get detention all the time!”

  “Some do. Not these four. It would help if they were the usual suspects.”

  “God!” She’d never been one for drinking. The wines she kept, although good ones, were something she usually reserved for cooking, but now she rose, dug out two wineglasses, and poured some pinot grigio for each of them. “I hope you like wine.”

  “With a meal like this, definitely.”

  She stared at her wineglass, wondering if it was a mistake. Her mother had dealt with life’s problems by drinking too much, and it wasn’t a habit she wanted to fall into. But right now... Sighing, she sipped then put the glass down beside her bowl.

  “I can’t eat,” she said, somewhere between hopelessness and anger. Some middle ground where no matter which way she looked, her stomach did another flip. “Tell me not to make too much out of this.”

  “I wish I could. I didn’t come over here because I wasn’t worried.”

  “Damn it,” she said. “Maybe I should just take myself out of the picture. Ask Les to let me out of my contract and find another job.”

  “Are you that afraid?”

  She bridled instantly. “No!” She glared at him. “I didn’t come here to tear this town apart, but it seems to be what’s happening from what you say.”

  “It’ll settle,” he said firmly. “It’ll calm down. I just wanted you to be aware. You might hear some more ugly things.”

  “I can take people saying ugly things. What I’m not going to be able to take is another dead rat on my desk!”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute or more. Something in his gaze said he had more on his mind than the talk going around. Something almost sad.

  “If you’re going to cut and run,” he said finally, “do it now.”

  Startled out of her self-preoccupation, she gaped at him. “What do you mean by that? I’m just talking because I’m upset. Can you promise me no more rats?”

  “I’d like to, but at this point I don’t know. I wouldn’t have expected the first one. I told you. Some kid playing a prank.”

  “But now you’re not so sure.”

  He threw up a hand. “I’m not sure of anything right now. I’ve never seen this place polarize so fast. I can’t figure out what the hell is going on. Everyone knows bullying isn’t good. Everyone. They just turn a blind eye because it’s perceived as kids’ stuff. Now we have a crazy uproar over you because kids got detention for defying your authority. I can’t explain it. It’s like someone put loco weed in the water.”

  She lifted her glass then set it down and pushed it away. That wasn’t going to help anything. Rising from the table, she paced the kitchen, trying to get a handle on this.

  He was right. It seemed crazy. But she doubted that many people around here were crazy. So what the hell?

  “Somebody,” she said after a couple of minutes, “must be lying about something. In an inflammatory way.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder about that.”

  “But you didn’t hear anything from your players that might explain it?”

  “Not a thing. Just that folks are talking.”

  “People talk. If that’s all they do, it’ll settle down. The detentions were today. If there are no more, it’ll go away.”

  “I hope so.”

  She stopped and faced him. “What?”

  He shrugged. “If someone wants to get even with you for this, they’ll try to provoke another situation.”

  “I’m not that easy to provoke. Usually.”

  Then she leaned back against the counter, wrapping her arms around herself as if they could protect her. As upset as she had been by the bullying she had stumbled on, she was even more upset now. “I was just trying to do the right thing, Linc. Not infuriate half the town and threaten a championship.”

  “I know.”

  Her eyes felt hot as she looked at him. “I’m the one being bullied now. I just hope I diverted them from James.”

  Linc was touched by her concern for James, but he couldn’t deny that she was the victim now. Someone was deliberately exaggerating this entire affair and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. He suspected at least one of the bullies’ parents was mad about the detention and unwilling to believe their son could have pushed a teacher. Parents had that kind of blind spot as he knew only too well, but this seemed extreme. Then, too, the fact that the initial bullying of James had gotten out, when Les had tried so hard to keep it under wraps for the kid’s sake, left him wondering about the dimensions of this storm.

  Cassie stood there, looking lost and alone and upset, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make her feel better. She’d have to ride this storm out or leave town. She’d already mentioned the possibility herself, a reminder that had left him feeling warned.

  Knowing he was being a fool, but doing it anyway, he rose and went to gather her into his arms. The instant he drew her close, he realized he might have just made the biggest mistake of his life.

  Those luscious curves he’d been trying to ignore felt even better than he’d imagined. Womanly and welcoming, they seemed to meld right into him. She smelled so good and after the briefest hesitation, she leaned into his embrace and rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

  “You’re not alone in this,” he said, hating the way his voice had thickened, giving away the surge of desire that roared through him. He tried to keep his hips away from her, afraid his body was revealing too much as he hardened. Damn, he’d meant to offer comfort, and if she felt his arousal she might be completely put off.

  Although that would be for the best, said some nagging voice he didn’t want to hear. Being deserted once by a woman who couldn’t handle life here had been enough. He couldn’t endure that again.

  But neither could he refuse Cassie whatever comfort he could offer. It wasn’t in him to ignore another’s distress. He just wished his whole body hadn’t started humming with need. It made the comfort he was offering seem like a sham, and it reminded him
of his own terrible weakness.

  He wanted this woman, had wanted her since he first laid eyes on her. She had begun to haunt his thoughts and sometimes even his dreams. If he could be sure a simple roll in the hay would settle it...

  But he couldn’t be sure. It wouldn’t be fair to her anyway.

  She leaned farther into him, almost resting in the shelter of his arms. Then, slowly, her own arms found their way around his narrow waist.

  God, he’d forgotten how good it felt just to be hugged. The warmth of her embrace reached deep inside him, adding to the heat he already felt, but even more dangerously filling some empty hole in him.

  Damn, life could be unfair, making him want what he was pretty sure he couldn’t have. Making him want another woman he probably couldn’t trust. Making him want all kinds of things that weren’t his to take or enjoy.

  A better man would have stepped back then, feeling he’d made his point that she wouldn’t face this alone. But he was not a better man. The desire pounding in him weakened him, and drove caution to the background.

  He was certain he’d pay for this, but that couldn’t stop him. Need brought him to his emotional knees so fast he couldn’t grasp at the straws of sanity.

  He needed. He wanted. Before he even knew what he was doing, he tipped her face up and kissed her.

  She tasted faintly of the wine she had sipped. Running his tongue along her lips, he felt their full, silken smoothness and then, so unexpectedly, she opened to him and he dove in like a bee seeking nectar. Warm, almost hot, soft like her secret depths. The pounding in his body grew until he could hear the throb in his ears.

  It was as if hot ocean waves washed over him, carrying him farther and farther from the security of land. Her breasts, full and inviting, pressed against his chest, and his hands wanted so badly to wander her curves, learning each and every one of them. He could have happily drowned in her.

  But at that instant, her body wormed closer and made full contact with his pelvis. The ache that shot through him was overwhelming, but just as they made that intimate contact, she gasped and arched backward. His eyes snapped open and he gazed into hers, seeing surprise, seeing his own heat answered.