Page 46 of Roping Her In

She kicked out another step and moved up. After three steps, Jake grabbed onto her left elbow and steadied her as she made two more steps and made it to the top of the ramp.

“Good job, sweetheart.” He swept his lips along her cheekbone and turned to open the door for her. More cowboys came around the corner, and they tip-toed right up the steps she’d made without a problem.

“Howdy, Hailey,” Val said as he entered the admin building.

“Ma’am.” A cowboy named Ryan nodded his head at her as he went by too.

“Are you boys staying here?” Jake asked.

“Nah, we can get down to our cabin,” Val said. “We just have lunches here we’re gonna grab, and then we’ll head that way.”

“All right,” Jake said. “Text in when you get there, so we know you are safe.”

“Will do, boss,” Ryan called over his shoulder as they wove through the desks and down the hall to the staff break room. Hailey went that direction too, her stomach yowling for something to eat.

Only three men sat in the break room, and while Hailey knew all of them and liked everyone at the ranch just fine, she wanted to be by herself. She pulled her lunch out of the fridge and moved to the microwave to heat it.

“When you boys finish eating,” Jake said. “We’re gonna be pulling couches, beanbags, and anything soft into this room. If we lose power—and we might because there’s ice on the lines, and it can pull them down—our generator will kick in, but only in these back rooms. We’ll put a space heater in here, and we’ll be able to stay warm through the night.”

Hailey’s eyebrows rose. “Through the night?”

He looked at her. “I’m sure you could make it to Pete’s,” he said quietly.

She shook her head. “I can stay here.”

Jake nodded almost imperceptibly and looked back at his cowboys. “After we move the furniture, we’ll get the space heaters out while it’s light, and set out all of our bottled water and food as well.”

“You got it, boss,” Clay said.

Hailey turned toward Jake. “Can I eat in your office, and then help with everything?”

“You can sleep in my office tonight, sweetheart,” he said. “All the back rooms are on the same generator, and we can put a space heater in there.”

She nodded, took her food out of the microwave when it beeped, and headed into his office. She ate, and feeling better now that she wasn’t hangry, she went to help get the administration building ready for overnight inhabitation.

When everything got put in the same room, surprise ran through her to see that they had eight full-size couches, a navy blue beanbag, and three recliners in this building. One table held three cases of bottled water, more than the five men assembled there could ever drink in one night, and boxes of granola bars, snack-sized bags of pretzels, chips, and trail mix, fruit snacks, protein bars, and one huge tub of hot chocolate mix.

The emergency text string hadn’t been quiet for long, and Libby had put out a call for who needed what, in terms of sleeping materials and food. Jake had replied that they’d be eating anything left in the fridges in the administration building, and if something really couldn’t be spared, for the owner of it to speak up.

Only one man, a quick-witted cowboy named Bennett McPherson, had said he would not touch the blue Tupperware in the back fridge, as he’d put it there “probably a month or two ago.”

Jake had thrown it out immediately, to much laughter from the other cowboys. With the rope network set up, food could be delivered to the administration building, but Jake had taken stock of everything, and everyone had a meal for that night. Finally, he brought in a dark red blanket and laid it on the couch next to where Hailey had left her lunch.

She turned from the window when she heard him. “It seems like it stopped raining at least.”

He nodded and came closer. “Everyone is accounted for. Looks like it’s me and you here, with five cowboys.”

She smiled as he eased up beside her and put his arm around her waist. She leaned into his solid chest, almost curling protectively into him. “Are you going to sleep out there or in here with me?”

“There’s only one couch in here, sweetheart,” he whispered.

“I bet it’s as big as that bunk bed.”

Jake chuckled but shook his head. “I think we’ll give you the privacy,” he said. “And we’ll sleep—” He cut off as the power blipped out, bathing them in darkness from all sides except the window in front of her.

Hailey always marveled at how silent it became without electricity humming in the lights, or the furnace blowing, or machines running in the background. But it sent a sense of eeriness and discontentment through her at the same time, and she suppressed a shiver though Jake said the generator would click on in a few seconds.

After several long seconds, with everything still dark and the room growing colder by the moment, Hailey finally tore her gaze from the winter wonderland outside and looked at Jake. “What if it doesn’t?”