Page 28 of Rough Ride

She lifted her hand and touched her mouth with her fingers.

“We can’t do this. It just wouldn’t work.”

With that he turned around and went back to his horse. He might have appeared not to be paying attention to what she was doing but he was. Even with the noise in the yard and the sound of the animals, he was so in tune with her that he knew exactly what she was doing.

She hesitated, then slowly walked out of the barn. It took all his control not to run after her and take back what he said. He went through the motions of settling his horse in and then headed to the house. Jerry stopped him in the yard.

“I think you need to start being a little more professional around here, boss.”

It still bothered him that a man old enough to be his father called him boss. In the military, he had no problem with it, but now…after so many years of Joe being the boss, it seemed wrong. But no matter how many times he told the foreman, Jerry wouldn’t listen to Eli.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, seems that Kana got the impression that you’re hung up on Ms. Miller.”

Not good. And he knew better than to lie outright to Jerry. He could sniff out a liar.

“She’s attractive, I give you that. But Bentley’s upset because he was in there flirting with her and I kicked his ass out to work.”

The older man studied him for a moment then nodded. “Just make sure you behave yourself. Joe wouldn’t want any harm to come to his niece. He loved that girl.”

He wanted to argue that he wouldn’t hurt her, but then it would be admitting that he was more than just a little attracted.

“I know he did. Don’t worry, I’ll keep Crysta safe and sound.”

“Did you get that fencing fixed up?” Jerry asked as he walked side by side to the house with Eli.

“Yeah. We need to call up Mitch Smith at the county. Looks like it was cut.”

“You don’t think it was Sam, do you?”

“That was my first thought but it’s on the opposite side from his ranch. Well, the second one I found was.”

“There was a second one?”

Eli nodded. “Yeah. We need to send some men out to check the perimeter. Gonna be a pain in the ass, but better safe than sorry. It’s not anything that bad, more like a diversion, so if Sam were smarter, I would say it was him. But we both know he isn’t that smart.”

Jerry chuckled. “Yeah. Brains sort of missed the train for both of them. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, boss.”

He watched the old man walk away. He’d been with Joe longer than anyone and Eli knew he could trust him. But, unfortunately, he was about the only one. There were a lot of new faces around the place and while he knew many of them, he didn’t know how far he could trust them.

With a sigh, he knew he had to call Dillon and see what he had dug up and now he would have to have a background check on everyone working there.

At least it might keep his mind busy and off Crysta—but he knew that was a lie. At least it might help a little. It would also give him an excuse to pop on over to Oahu and everything could get back to normal.

As he made his way up the stairs, he was stopped by a shout. Danny Aiona was riding into the yard along with Freddy, another hand.

“Boss, we have a problem,” Danny said, barely waiting for his horse to come to a halt before dismounting.

“Slow, down Aiona,” Eli said. He noticed Jerry was already making his way over too, a grim expression on his face.

“We got some cattle missing, boss.”

Jerry sighed and gave Eli a look.

“Damn, and I thought I’d have an early night of it. Let’s call it in.”

“And you need to go tell your partner,” Jerry said.

---