AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lexie, her wrists bound, had kicked her way out of the straw pile. Straw clung to her hair and clothes. Rage flashed in her eyes. “You bastard!” She spat out the words as Shane held Aaron at bay with the pitchfork. “When I think about the things you did—and what you almost did here—I could kill you myself!”
Aaron’s face was pale. Blood dripped from the dirty bandage on his leg. His eyes still smoldered with hatred, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He was too weak, and getting weaker.
Still guarding Aaron with the pitchfork, Shane used his free hand to open his pocketknife and slice through the zip tie that bound Lexie’s wrists. “Find some rope and tie his hands and feet,” he told her. “Then you can use my phone to call the sheriff. Tell him to bring an ambulance.”
* * *
Lexie found some rope in the tack room. Aaron didn’t struggle as she tied his wrists behind his back. Even when she used a roll of horse wrap to cover the makeshift bandage and slow the bleeding before binding his ankles, he didn’t speak. Only his glaring, defiant eyes held any resistance.
As Lexie spoke with the sheriff on the phone, her gaze lingered on Shane. She could see new pride in his expression, in the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his jaw. Something had changed for him. Today he had protected his woman and saved her life. That had to mean as much to him as it did to her.
She could only hope that it was possible for other things to change as well.
* * *
Shane lay awake in the darkness. It was after midnight. The house was silent. Even Val had quit rattling around and gone to bed. Faintly, from the porch, the dogs yipped at some wild thing in the yard, then settled back to guarding the house. The cool night breeze wafted the scent of sage through the screened window.
Over and over, Shane’s mind replayed the day’s events—the drama in the stable, the flickering lighter, the plunging horse, and Aaron’s look of hatred as he was rendered helpless.
Most of all, Shane remembered Lexie—the terror that had gripped him when he’d heard Aaron’s threat, not for himself but for her. If Aaron had touched his lighter to the straw where she was hiding, she would have died horribly, within seconds. He remembered the sight of her, crawling out of the hay with fury in her eyes, and how relief had almost overcome him as he realized she was safe. And then she’d wrapped Aaron’s leg to slow the bleeding. How much courage and compassion had it taken for her to do that? She was amazing, his Lexie, and today he’d nearly lost her.
It had taken forty minutes for the sheriff to arrive with the ambulance. Waiting together, with Aaron lying between them on the stable floor, they’d said little. But their eyes had met often, trading unspoken questions.
While the paramedics tended Aaron’s wound and readied him for transport to a hospital, Lexie told her story to the sheriff, who shook his head, praised her detective work, then scolded her for her reckless behavior. “You’re lucky to be alive, young lady,” he’d said. “If this cowboy—” Here he’d nodded at Shane. “If he hadn’t been in the stable, the whole place would’ve burned, and you with it.”
As the ambulance was getting ready to leave, Val had arrived home. Scolding and fussing like a mother hen, she’d ushered Lexie inside to clean her up and make her rest. Shane had stayed outside to coax the spooked horse back into its stall, which took some time.
For the rest of the day and evening, he and Lexie had had precious little time to talk. Val had been a constant presence, hovering over her sister and demanding to know every detail of what had happened that morning.
Sitting across the table at supper, Lexie’s gaze had been tender and questioning. Shane had ached with the need to talk to her, to tell her how much he loved her and how sorry he was that he’d kept her at a distance. Would she forgive him, or had he hurt her so deeply that she would never trust him with her heart again?
He’d waited, hoping for the right moment. But it hadn’t come. He would have to find it tomorrow.
In the stillness, he heard the bedroom door open and close. A pale shape flitted through a shaft of moonlight. Shane’s heart leapt. Could this be happening?
“Lexie?” he whispered.
“I’m here.” Her voice was as soft as the wind. Maybe he was drea
ming.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She stood next to the bed. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “Thinking about what almost happened today—I was so scared, Shane. I’m still scared. I . . .” She hesitated, taking a breath. “I think I need you to hold me.”
Heart pounding, he raised the covers and shifted to make room for her. Clad in a silky wisp of a nightgown, she slipped into bed beside him. He wrapped her in his arms, her body trembling, her skin like soft, warm satin against his.
And as he held her close, feeling her love and trust, all that he had yearned for, hoped for, and feared to lose forever became possible.
EPILOGUE
Seven weeks later
A WAXING CRESCENT MOON HUNG LOW IN THE EVENING SKY. ITS light shone through thin clouds, casting mottled patterns across the landscape. The windmill creaked softly, its vanes turning in the light breeze.
The three women sat on the porch, the light above the door turned off to discourage flying insects. The day had been long and tiring. Tess and Lexie had spent most of it with the beef herd, making sure the steers were ready for shipment. Tomorrow the animals would be loaded into a cattle truck and hauled to a feed lot, where they’d be fattened for auction.
Val, who’d always claimed she was allergic to cows, had spent the day painting the living room. She’d made it her project to refurbish every part of the tired old house, giving it a fresh new look in time for Lexie and Shane’s late-November wedding. The work had a long way to go, but she appeared to be enjoying every minute of it.
