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An image of a face flashed through his mind, and Nate shivered as he brought the blanket all the way to his chin. He’d been safe from Oscar Dominguez while in River Bay. Now that he was out, how long before Oscar came looking for him—and his money?
* * *
The next morning,Nate emerged from the bedroom with Connor a few minutes before seven. True to his word, Spencer had set a few boxes of cereal on the countertop, with a stack of bowls and a pile of spoons.
“Lucky Charms?” He picked up the box and showed it to Connor. Once Nate had finally fallen asleep, he’d slept great. It was amazing the rest a man could get when he wasn’t being counted at midnight, and at three a.m, and again at five.
The smile grew on Connor’s face as his eyes widened. Nate chuckled as he lifted the flaps on the box. “Your daddy doesn’t let you eat these, does he?”
“No, sir,” Connor said, sobering. “Do you think he’ll be mad?”
“Nope,” Nate said, pouring the sugary cereal into a bowl for Connor. “I think your dad probably wishes he’d eaten a few more bowls of Lucky Charms.” Nate was going to have the unhealthy cereal too, despite the label on the box claiming it was made with whole grain.
Yeah, and a whole lot of sugar, Nate thought. Ward had been a bit of a health nut, and he could only imagine the types of cold cereal he’d allow Connor to consume. A bitterness entered Nate’s mind, because for all of Ward’s running and consumption of brown rice and quinoa, he’d still died very young.
Forty-one was barely starting life, and everything inside Nate tightened again. He didn’t relax until his first bite of the sugar-filled puffs, and even then, his mood had worsened. His head hurt a little, which made no sense given the amount of sleep he’d gotten last night.
The house sat in silence, and he wondered if the other cowboys were really asleep or if they had chores to attend to on the ranch. His money—if he were still a betting man—was on the latter, as animals needed to be cared for around the clock, a man’s sleep schedule notwithstanding.
He finished eating and put his bowl in the sink before he started hunting through the many drawers and cupboards in the giant kitchen. Even the chow hall at River Bay hadn’t been this big, and sixty men ate in there at the same time. He found neatly labeled shelves with everything from granola and protein bars to Pop Tarts to boxes of gelatin on them.
He counted seven other names, and his heart constricted and then tried to burst out of the tiny box it had folded itself into. He’d just opened a cabinet and spied the little white bottle that surely had painkiller in it when the back door opened.
Nate glanced at Ginger as he picked up the bottle, and then he focused on pressing and turning the lid to get it off. “Morning,” he said.
“What are you doing?” Ginger asked, taking three long strides and snatching the bottle from him.
He blinked, trying to catch up to the situation. “I have a headache.”
“These are sleeping pills.” She shook the bottle like he should know that, but he hadn’t even looked at it.
“Okay,” he said, frowning. “I didn’t even have a chance to look at it.”
Her eyebrows drew down, and her dark hazel eyes flashed with fire. “Did you sleep okay last night?”
“Once I fell asleep,” he said. “Before then…it was soquiet.” And that had left his mind to churn over too many thoughts.
“You should’ve been in the West Wing,” she said dryly, putting the bottle back on the shelf. She rummaged around for a few seconds and pulled out a much larger container. “These are your painkillers.”
“Was it noisy over there?” he asked, taking the bottle from her.
“Oh, Ursula must’ve been able to smell something. Foxes or coyotes or something. She barked all night.”
Nate tapped a few pills into his palm. “So Ursula is a dog.”
“She’s my German shepherd,” Ginger said as if he should’ve known.
“I didn’t see a dog last night.”
“She was out with Spencer,” she said. “She likes himalmostas much as me, and he takes her for me when I have to leave the ranch overnight.”
As if on cue, a dog barked somewhere beyond the back door, and Ginger turned just as the huge black and orangey-gold shepherd came into the house. Ursula’s tongue hung out of her mouth, and she had big, brown, keen eyes.
“Oh, there she is,” Ginger said, pure joy in her tone. She bent down and scrubbed Ursula’s head and neck. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you? Noisy last night, but such a good girl.”
Nate didn’t know how to make the demanding version of Ginger who’d walked through the door a few minutes ago line up with the one talking like a baby to a dog who could easily knock her down and bite off her face. Not to mention the soft, kind woman who’d held his hand yesterday and bent to his every whim.
A wicked thought ran through his mind—what else could he get her to do for him?—and he banished it quickly. Number one, all of his mental energy went to Ursula as she came over, her nails clicking against the hard floor, to sniff him.
