Page 16 of The Earl's Wrangler
“Your mother…,” the sheriff began.
“Yeah, I know.But she looks after everyone the same way she looked after us.This is her home—our home—and you know us cowboys and cowgirls.”They protected what was theirs, period.
“Yeah, I do.”The sheriff shook Alan’s hand and then did the same to Sawyer.“I will keep my eyes open, and you all be safe.Don’t go off on your own.Stay in touch with each other.None of this deciding to go out sleeping under the damned stars for a few days.”He opened the door to his cruiser and climbed inside.“And for God’s sake, don’t do anything stupid.”He closed the door and pulled out of the drive.
“Okay,” Sawyer said.“I guess he had to have the last word.”He half expected Alan to get angry with him.It was his fault that his father had come to find him and brought all this potential danger to the ranch.Maybe he really should leave.At least the people here on the ranch, the ones he cared about, would be safe.
“Just stop,” Alan told him sharply.“I know what you’re thinking, because it’s the same crap I’d be thinking.You didn’t do this, and it isn’t your fault.Your father is the one who gambled and racked up the debts.”Alan lifted his hat and scratched his head.“Maybe we need to talk to Claude’s friend.We need someone in that world who can tell us what’s going on.”
“I can’t afford to bring in security experts.”
Alan growled.“Don’t even go there.”He turned and headed to the house.Sawyer stayed where he was, wondering how fast he could pack his shit.“Come on.Don’t just stand there.”He held the door, and Sawyer sighed and went inside.
MRS.Jhad gone to bed, but the others were still hanging around the living room.Claude joined them with a glass of whiskey, offering the others some as well.Randall accepted a glass, and Sawyer did as well because he needed it to calm his jangled nerves.“I called my friend in Dallas, and he’s sending someone.They’ll be here in the morning.”
“Do we really need to do that?”Sawyer asked.
Claude clapped him on the shoulder.“Yeah, we do.I don’t know anything about gambling debt collection, and Jase, one of the guys in my friend’s firm, knows all about it.He worked in casinos in Louisiana and Mississippi.”
Sawyer sipped the whiskey, the warmth sliding down his throat.“If you think this is for the best.I just don’t want you all to go through all this effort because of me.”
“It’s because of your father, not you,” Randall said quietly from next to him.“This isn’t your fault.”He lightly bumped his shoulder, and Sawyer wondered what he’d have done if Randall hadn’t been here.His first impressions about him had been wrong, and Sawyer was pleased that he was here.No one had backed him up the way Randall had, and the man barely knew him.One thing was clear: Randall had a good heart, and that was what mattered.He closed his eyes as Randall’s scent threatened to overwhelm him.Yeah, the guy was hot, and those eyes of his sometimes made him forget his name.
But… none of that really mattered.He couldn’t get involved with him.The idea that sophisticated Randall could be interested in a rough cowboy like him was ridiculous.George and Alan worked, but lightning like that was not going to strike twice—and definitely not for him.
Chapter 7
THE HOUSEwas quiet, and Randall had the window open for some fresh air, otherwise it would be stifling.The wind rushed outside, insects sang, and cattle made their soft sounds.A few days ago it would have been unsettling, but not tonight.He knew what the sounds were now, and they were comforting.What he didn’t expect was a creak on the floor outside his room.Randall listened for the sound again and quietly got up, slipping out of his room and down the hall.Not that he expected that someone had broken in, but his mind refused to turn off.
“What are you doing up?”Sawyer asked as he stood at the sink in the kitchen with a glass.Randall swallowed hard, his throat dry.Sawyer wore a pair of shorts and nothing else, his skin tanned and golden in the light from above the stove.Damn, his imagination had filled in some of the detail when he closed his eyes, but he really needed to work on it—he had definitely come up short.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Randall said.He got a glass himself and opened the refrigerator for some juice.He was about to sit down when Sawyer went to the living room and sat near the front window.“Is this what you do when you can’t sleep?”
Sawyer shrugged.“Sometimes, I guess.I don’t know.Usually I work hard enough that by the end of the day, I fall into bed and just sleep.Then I get up and do it all over again.I guess that’s the product of an honest, hardworking life.”He sighed and turned to look outside again.“At least that’s what I thought I was doing.I don’t know now.”
“Your father isn’t you, and he isn’t a reflection of you,” Randall said.“Look, my father was a drunk most of the time.He called it social drinking, but it was too much by whatever name he wanted to give it, and it rotted his brain.So I know what addiction and compulsion can do to someone.I also know what they do to their family.”He sat in the chair next to Sawyer.“And this has nothing to do with you.I can promise you that.”A flash came from outside, and Randall leaned closer, watching as it came again.
“There’s a storm,” he said quietly.“I hope it makes its way over here.We could use the rain.”
“I hate storms,” Randall whispered.“I used to lie in my bed with my eyes closed and tremble.My parents were usually in bed, and I was never allowed to go in their room.And my nannies… they wouldn’t stand for it.So I suffered through it alone.”He turned back to Sawyer, unable to look away from him.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”Sawyer asked.“I was an only child.”
“I had an older brother and a younger sister.My older brother died before he was a year old.He was born with a heart condition, and there was little they could do for him.That was so hard on my mom, at least that’s what she told me.Then she had me, and I was healthy, and she always said she was happy.Then she and my father had Rachel.She was their favorite, I know that, and they doted on her.But when she was five, she was at a friend’s playing and the kids went outside.Rachel apparently ran into the street to get the ball and she was hit by a car.”He remembered all of that, every miserable moment.Including the funeral, and then the way the grief seemed to tear his mom and dad apart.“It was never the same.”That was the understatement of the century.
More flashes lit the night, getting brighter, the rumbles of thunder louder.Randall pulled out his phone and brought up a radar app, then showed the approaching area of green and yellow to Sawyer.He turned away from the window.“What are you doing?”Sawyer asked when Randall’s gaze stopped on him.It refused to move.
“Watching you,” he answered honestly before he could think of some sort of cover.
“Oh,” Sawyer said as a roll of thunder rumbled through the house.Then he jumped up and hurried back toward his room.He returned a few minutes later with a shirt on and boots.“We need to get the horses inside.”Sawyer hurried out the door as Randall returned to his room, where he pulled on his boots and a pair of his new jeans before following him outside.
The wind whipped as he crossed the yard, moisture filling the air.He hurried into the barn and opened one of the paddock doors.The horse came right inside and into the stalls.Randall closed the sliding door and latched it before heading to the next one.He whistled when the horse wasn’t waiting to be let in, and she trotted over and into the stall, heading right for the hay.He did the rest for all the stalls on that side the barn before coming to the final stall.When he opened it, the horse shied away, racing to the far side of the paddock.
Thunder cracked, and he reared.Randall stepped out, speaking softly, letting the wind carry his voice.“It’s okay.Just relax.I’m going to get you inside where it’s dry and you can eat all the hay you want.”He drew closer, the horse listening and staying on four legs.
“Randall,” Sawyer said from behind him as he reached the harness, taking it and patting his neck.
“It’s okay,” he said gently, leading the horse to the barn, hoping to all hell that another clap of thunder didn’t spook him again.As soon as he got close enough to see the hay and the stall, he took off inside just as lightning lit up the night and thunder split the air.The horse bucked, and Sawyer hurried outside and closed the door behind him, leaving both of them in the paddock as the sky opened up.
