Page 24 of In Plain Sight

“It’s not really something we talk a lot about. It happened a long time ago,” she said.

“Okay, different scenario then. When I came into the area, I had a skirmish with some Larken wolves who pushed me into Collier territory. What if that were you? You were riding alone out there on the range when you found me, sweetheart. What if it hadn’t been me? What if it had been those Larken wolves you stumbled across out there all alone? What would you have done then?”

She shuddered again. “That happened to Lizzy once. She’s really fast and was able to outrun them until help came. I would have had Cinnamon and they wouldn’t have gotten me on horseback,” she said confidently.

I sighed. “You weren’t on horseback, Ruby. You were alone on foot, in that wooded patch.”

Her eyes dilated and I saw that she finally understood what I was saying.

“But . . .” she hesitated. I knew she was thinking through various scenarios and the frown that spread across her beautiful face told me she wasn’t winning even her imaginary situations. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “Will you teach me to fight, Bran? Like real, proper fighting, then?”

I bit back a victorious grin and kept a solemn face when I nodded. “We’ll start tomorrow right after work. I’ll set up a full training schedule immediately. Hand-to-hand, weapons, and wolf.”

She looked a little surprised at how quickly I’d agreed. She didn’t seem to realize, that was the entire point of the conversation, and what I’d wanted all along.

It had been a long day. I scooped Ruby up into my arms as she squealed and leaned in to kissed me. I carried my sexy mate to our bed and made love to her. It was not the wild and crazy sex we often shared; this was different, more intimate, and afterwards as I lay awake with her safely snuggled against me sleeping soundly, I reflected on my biggest fears. Ruby was easy to love and I could already see a long, happy life with her in my arms, but that couldn’t be, and I couldn’t tell her why.

I had easily noticed the little things that irked my mate and vowed to keep doing them and find others that equally pissed her off. I might be falling in love with Ruby, but I couldn’t stomach her truly falling for me, too. Not when I knew the heartache I would inevitably cause her.

Eventually I did fall asleep and when I awoke the next morning, Ruby was already up. I heard her rustling around in the kitchen. I jumped out of bed and found the clothes I’d worn yesterday on the chair in the living room.. I took them back to our bedroom, sure to leave them in a pile on the floor next to the hamper. I quickly brushed my teeth, and this time not only did I squeeze the toothpaste from the middle, which secretly drove me just as nuts, but I grimaced as I left the cap off and dribbled a glob down in the sink before jumping in the shower.

Halfway through my shower Ruby came in to finish getting ready. Even over the pounding water I heard her curse and growl loudly. I grinned, fighting hard not to laugh out loud.

Despite how infuriated she was with me over the little things, when I was out of the shower, dressed and ready to start the day, she still had breakfast waiting for me on the table. It was a small gesture, but it meant more to me than I could possibly say.

I pulled her close to me and marveled at how the tension she was carrying melted away at my touch. I kissed her until she sighed and pressed her body fully against me.

Pulling back, I smiled at the dazed look in her eyes. “Thank you for making breakfast. Have a great day at work.”

She nodded, then blushed. “We didn’t talk about what Thomas said. Did he find you a job?”

I nodded. “I start this morning. I’ll be working out on the range with Wyatt today.”

“Oh, good. Wyatt’s great. He’s very close friends with Thomas and will report anything you do or say back to him.”

I laughed. “After enough drinks in him, Thomas told me as much last night.”

She shook her head. “Someday you’re going to have to teach me that drinking game. Lily was completely sloshed when she showed up at Clara’s.”

She gave me another quick kiss, wished me a good first day, and disappeared. I checked the time, scarfed down the breakfast, and headed out the door myself. I beat Wyatt to our meeting place by five minutes.

A quick assessment of the guy told me he was cut from the same cloth as Thomas, just a genuinely good guy. It set my nerves on edge. I had prepared for a lot of circumstances before agreeing to this assignment but falling in love with a sassy redhead and liking the men I met along the way wasn’t something I had foreseen, or even considered as a possibility. In some ways, I supposed it helped the situation, but there was also a twinge of guilt that set in every time I thought about it and what it would do to Ruby.

That woman was a spitfire. She could talk some smack, but she couldn’t fight worth a shit. Before I proceeded with my mission, I needed to know she was capable of handling whatever backlash she got from my actions, and things were moving at a much faster rate than I had anticipated. There was no time to waste.

The work day was easy, peaceful. Wyatt was just out checking conditions on the range. That basically meant we spent the day riding horses out in the open fields. He explained that sometimes an animal would stray off and we would be responsible for finding it. Certain times of year cattle runs were necessary, or roundups to bring them back in, but early spring with no threat of snow in the forecast made for pleasant rides and downtime.

The guys rotated jobs so no one was ever stuck doing the same thing day in and day out. The rotation usually came in two-week intervals and this was the easiest, when everything was going right. When things weren’t, it could be a rough one, he had explained.

I loved being outdoors and the wide-open fields, the rolling hills, the river, even the small patches of woods felt like a little slice of heaven on Earth and I was happy. Happy wasn’t something I’d been in a very long time. The peaceful feeling of contentment with my new life scared me because I knew the blood oath I’d taken would never allow any of this to be real or permanent.

I tried not to let that thought depress me and spent the rest of the morning chatting with Wyatt as we rode along. I learned his mate owned the diner we had gotten takeout from on my first night in town. He also told me about the Six Pack and growing up with Thomas. Dammit if I didn’t like the guy even more by the time we headed in for lunch.

Lunch was served in a chow hall. There were two shifts and just about everyone that worked the ranch—farm, range, animals, or dairy—came to the chow hall for lunch.

When we walked in, I subconsciously began searching the room until my eyes rested on the curly haired redhead surrounded by a table full of men. My wolf growled in my head when she threw back her head and laughed at something one of them said.

“Come on,” Wyatt said, nudging me with his arm after we’d made it through the food line with our trays. I followed him, but never took my eyes off Ruby.

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