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“You don’t have to come. I know you have stuff to do.” There was a fair amount of guilt in her gaze too if he wasn’t mistaken. And that was his fault. He’d messed everything up. He’d started this whole complication when he’d taken her up to his hotel room that night. Now they couldn’t even look each other in the eyes without things getting weird.
“I’m coming with you.” He turned and walked back to his desk where he slid open the bottom drawer to access the lockbox that held his pistol. “Can’t be too careful if they’re armed.” He checked to make sure the safety was on and then shoved the gun into the waistband of his jeans and pulled his coat off the back of his chair.
Surprisingly, Tess didn’t argue as he followed her out the door. He was likely the last person she wanted to spend the afternoon with, but he couldn’t let her go back up that mountain alone. Not when people were randomly shooting firearms.
“We’re taking my UTV,” Tess announced, heading straight for the garage across the driveway. “I’ve already loaded up some gear. And I’m driving.”
He didn’t argue. He’d seen Tess handle those machines. She knew her way around the mountain trails. The woman happened to be fully capable, but he wasn’t about to let her walk into a potentially dangerous confrontation without backup.
“We could call Chief Holbrook.” He followed her into the garage and grabbed a helmet from a shelf nearby.
“We can call her when we get up there.” Tess put on her helmet and adjusted the chinstrap. “We need to hurry.”
“Right.” Silas slid into the front seat next to her and clicked in his seat belt.
Tess started the engine. “I brought my bag just in case.” She gestured to the back where her veterinarian supplies were stashed inside the small tailgate. Just before Jace died, Tess had finished her schooling to become a veterinarian so she could save them money by caring for the animals on the ranch. Little did they know at the time, she’d soon be too busy running the whole operation to open her own practice.
Silas kept his eyes straight ahead as she drove them out of the garage. What could he say to her? She’d clearly been avoiding him every bit as much as he’d been avoiding her these last few weeks. She couldn’t seem to even glance at him for longer than two seconds without looking away.
Instead of trying to make conversation, he kept his eyes on the scenery. Tess had her eyes trained on the trail in front of them, steering around the barn and through the pasture behind the house and then finally into the trees where the grades started to get steeper.
“So… um… we haven’t really talked about… well… you know,” she half yelled over the growl of the UTV’s engine.
“No, I guess we haven’t.” He had to raise his voice too. He’d made sure they hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss what had happened between them. What good would come from talking about it? He wanted to forget. Holding her, kissing her, making love to her. He wanted all of those images to disappear. But they hadn’t. They came back to him all the time—just as vivid and clear as if he were right back in that hotel room with her.
“We probably should talk about it.” Tess’s gaze darted to him but then quickly shifted back to the narrow well-traveled path ahead of them.
Did they have to go over the reasons that night shouldn’t have happened? He already knew them all.
Tess didn’t give him the chance to change the subject. “I mean, I think we both know what happened was a mistake.”
Or, more accurately,hewas a mistake. Always had been. His mom hadn’t meant to get pregnant after a one-night stand at nineteen. Because of him, she couldn’t finish school, she never had enough money, and they had to keep moving around to make ends meet. She didn’t come out and tell him he was the biggest mistake of her life, but she might as well have, the way she always complained when he needed a new pair of shoes or money for a school field trip. And then there’d been all the ways she’d pretended she didn’t have a kid, making him hide in his room when someone picked her up for a date…
Forget it.
That was all in the past. The day after he’d graduated from high school—with honors, thank you very much—he’d gone directly to the local recruitment office, and he’d never looked back.
Looking back did no good.
“Let’s just forget about that night. Put it behind us.” He didn’t intend to be treated like the biggest mistake of anyone else’s life ever again. “We can pretend it never happened. It didn’t mean anything anyway.”
It was past time to move on.
CHAPTER THREE
Lifting her eyes to the mountainous horizon ahead, Tess tightened her grip on the UTV’s steering wheel. Up ahead, the crags in the peaks were still snow covered, and though the snowfields were shrinking with the changing of the season, the stark blotches of white dotting the mountainside still glared against the brilliant blue sky. But even with that beautiful view stretched out in front of her, the tension from her hands made its way through her arms and into her shoulders and neck.
She tried to focus on avoiding the ruts in the trail and the various rocks that had rolled into their path, but sitting next to Silas was jarring. Especially today of all days. May 12. Once, the date had marked one of the happiest days of her life, but now it had become just another day in her chaotic life.
Tess found her gaze wandering to the man next to her again. She was trying to pretend That Night had never happened. She was really trying. But it clearly hadn’t been as easy for her as it had for him. She kept reliving every intimate moment of the few hours they’d spent together. How she’d lounged in his arms until she finally snuck back to her hotel room. How they’d ordered room service first, and he’d fed her strawberries and whipped cream while they stayed in bed together for as long as they could get away with. Like they’d be able to hide from reality…
“You missed the turn,” Silas called, keeping his stony gaze forward.
Damn it. He had her all flustered and distracted. “Hold on.” She cranked the wheel to turn around, then carefully steered up the switchbacks, irritation flaring. Why’d the man come up here with her anyway? Instead of rushing into their office, she should’vecalledAiden. Then she wouldn’t be stuck with Silas alone out here all afternoon. Tess snuck another peek at him, noticing his rigid posture hadn’t changed.
The UTV crested the final switchback and the view of the high meadow opened up before her—the threadbare grasses that had been laden by heavy winter snows were rising again, new and green. A thick stand of pine trees stood at the southern edge where their property—herproperty—bordered the public land. In the center of the meadow, the cluster of white tents they used when they moved the cattle twice a year were nestled next to the small glacial pond with depths that turned the water turquoise.
Parking the UTV at the edge of the woods, Tess cut the engine. “We’ll have to go on foot. I don’t want to risk spooking the horses again.”
