Rancher On the Line Read online

  “You were planning on a career,” she stated.

  “Plans change,” he said. He had a ready answer for everything, it seemed.

  She didn’t want to step on toes but if she was going to consider letting him help her, she wanted to know something about him.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  An emotion passed behind those true blues of his. Regret? Anger? Frustration? A mix of all three? Pinpointing it didn’t seem to matter to her heart. It still broke anyway.

  “Last time I checked you weren’t there.” He winked and she figured it was meant to be playful. Was this how he deflected when he didn’t want to deal with something?

  She took note. Lucas had so many coping mechanisms. It seemed he had a quick line for almost anything she said, forget serious conversation. He turned most heavy conversations into a joke or a reason to be intimate. He’d dodged giving real answers and she let him.

  “You’re right. But I am here. And if I’m going to accept your help, I want to know something more about you.” Her comment was rewarded with a show of perfectly straight, white teeth when he smiled. He had the kind of smile that caused her pulse to kick up a few notches and her breath to quicken.

  Rather than give away her reaction to him, she took another sip of coffee and curled her legs tighter around her bottom.

  “You mentioned your family. Do you have siblings?” She figured the question was safe and a good place to start.

  He laughed and his eyes lit up.

  “You could say I have a few siblings,” he stated. “Or maybe a few more than that.”

  Well, now she really was curious. “Am I supposed to guess? Three? Four?”

  “Not even close. Eight siblings to be exact. All boys,” he said much to her astonishment. Her brain couldn’t begin to process going through pregnancy after pregnancy let alone the birthing process with nine kids.

  “I can’t imagine the amount of laundry that went on in your house.” She blinked a couple of times at the thought. Luke was a baby and it felt like she had to constantly throw in a load. “And all of you have the same parents? No modern family blending?”

  “There are nine sons on my side of the family and nine more on my uncle’s side,” he said.

  “All guys?” What were the odds of that happening?

  “Yes. One set of twin cousins.” He seemed to be enjoying her shock.

  “Forget about laundry. I can’t imagine your parents’ grocery bill.” She could only imagine how poor they must have been. She pictured a life of hand-me-downs. The first few weeks of Luke’s life all she did was change his diaper and feed him. His formula equaled the price of gold.

  He really laughed now.

  “What’s so funny?” She didn’t bother to hide the defensiveness in her tone.

  “You clearly haven’t heard of the last name Firebrand,” was all he said.

  If she’d brought anything but a throw-away phone she’d look it up right then and there. “Wait a second. Why does that name ring a bell?” She snapped her fingers. “Something about cattle?”

  “A little something,” he teased, clearly having a good time at her expense. The spark in his eyes only made him more appealing.

  “Tell me what that means or I’ll get up and look your family up on my laptop right now.” She wasn’t falling into the trap of wanting something she could never have.

  “My family is one of the wealthiest in Texas.” He retrieved his cell from his back pocket, pulled up a search engine, and typed in his name. He had to stop twice to pump his right hand like he’d lost feeling and was trying to get it back. Nerve damage?

  He handed over the phone and she stared at the screen.

  “Not one of…the,” she stated. It didn’t make any sense. Why risk his life overseas when he could be sitting pretty on his family’s ranch?

  “You’re overthinking this,” came the calm voice. “I can tell by the wrinkle in your forehead.”

  Her cheeks flushed at the fact he’d noticed one of her quirks. “I’m just surprised. That’s all.”

  “Wondering why a rich kid like me would go looking for trouble in another country?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” she corrected. “It’s honorable that you wanted to serve your country. But let’s face it. You don’t need the pension.”

  “Oh yeah? What makes you think I want to lean on my family for my income? I’d rather make my own way in life,” he said. There was no hint of anger in his voice. He stated facts, like he was reading nutritional content off a cereal box when he talked about finances. The topic of his family was another story altogether. His eyes darkened, his lips thinned, hinting at a deeper story to be told there.

  “It’s a shame,” she said. “I’d fallen into the trap of thinking money could solve all problems.”

  “You’re not alone,” he quickly said.

  “If money isn’t the magic bullet, then I wonder what is?” She was thinking out loud more so than expecting an answer. Because she, for one, could attest to the fact lack of money didn’t exactly breed happiness. She’d grown up with very little but managed to put herself through school, get a degree, and then a decent job. Two years of community college before transferring to UT Dallas to finish her bachelor’s, which had taken another four while waitressing the early morning shift at a popular Brazilian breakfast haunt near campus. Working her way through school hadn’t been easy or quick but doing it on her own gave her a real sense of pride. Maybe she could understand his need for independence more than she realized. There was another connection to him she didn’t want to acknowledge or admit.

  A deep-seeded place that made her want to depend on no one but herself. Could she let someone else in?

  5

  “If you figure out the secret, let us all in on it.” Dane had no clue. All he knew for certain was that money didn’t solve all life’s problems.

  Catalina bit back a yawn as she nodded.

  “Am I keeping you awake?” Dane asked, thinking she looked a little too tempting with those sparkly eyes. So much so, thoughts of them both in bed, limbs intertwined, assaulted him.

  “Not really,” she said. “I took a nap a couple of hours ago. I’ve been churning on this code too long. Taking a step away for a little while is actually my best chance to find a solution.”

  “Does anyone else know what you were working on when you walked off your job?” Dane asked.

  “Blaine Rockwell. He’s the one who was writing the GPS code. I don’t know if he realized what it was truly for, though,” she admitted.

  “What about your competitor?” He took a sip of coffee. He did his best thinking in the middle of the night but realized not everyone was a night owl like him. The military might have trained him to wake up early, but it had never quite seeded. The minute he went on leave, he reverted back. Another not so fun fact was that cattle ranchers woke before the sun. Yet another reason Dane had never quite fit with the rest of his family.

  “Did Hanson know? Anything is possible, but I don’t believe he would care one way or the other about what Tech Corp was doing,” she said. “Other than from a purely competitive standpoint. I doubt they would know what Kal intended to do with an app like the one I’m developing.”

  “Are you sure about that? Corporate spying isn’t new and those government contracts mean big money,” he said. “I never trust anyone in business who deals with millions of dollars like they were handing out change.”

  “That is a really good point.” She hugged the pillow tighter and then pinched the corner seam between her thumb and forefinger. A nervous tic?

  “We could do a little digging into the CEO’s background. See if anything comes up,” he said.

  “I can do better than that. I can hack into his cell phone and see what his communication looks like when he thinks it’s secure,” she said.

  “You can do that?” he asked.

  She shot him a look. “With enough time, I can hack into most pieces of technology. I’d go in through his e-mail since it’ll be linked with his phone. Most CEOs use their cell more than a laptop.”

  “There’s only one problem.” He hesitated to point out the obvious but it needed to be said. She needed to continue grinding the code to create the app in the first place. He didn’t have any computer skills, hacking or otherwise. And now that he knew she had a child in the wings, time was even more of the essence. “You’re going to be busy enough already without adding to your workload.”

  “And there’s only one of me,” she agreed. “It would take time I don’t have and may not give the answers I’m looking for.”

  “Prioritizing your time is the most important thing right now,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Where’s your son?” He held up a hand before she could answer. “Never mind. You should keep that information on a need-to-know basis.”

  Again, she nodded.

  “I can cover you from a security standpoint, so you don’t have to split your focus.” He could keep watch and make sure she had enough food to keep going. She could bounce ideas off him. Although, to be fair, he wouldn’t have the first idea what she was really saying when it came to coding. Still, it might help to have a sounding board.

  She studied him for a long moment.

  “What are you really saying here, Dane?” she finally asked.

  “That’d I’d like to help, if you’ll allow it.” He couldn’t state his intention any more directly than that. She needed someone to keep watch over her while she focused. His intentions were purely platonic despite the pull of attraction he felt.

  “Why would you do that?” Her arched brow said she either couldn’t believe he would be willing to set aside his own life for hers
or she didn’t trust him to get the job done.

  “Because I can,” he stated simply.

  “Doesn’t really answer my question,” she said.

  He leaned back in his chair and caught her gaze, wondering how much he wanted to share about what was going on inside his head. “Do you have any regrets in life? Anything you wished like anything you could go back in time for ten seconds and change?”

  “Generally speaking, I don’t do regrets,” she said.

  “Why is that?” he wondered out loud.

  “They’re a waste of time and energy.” She picked up her mug and took a sip of coffee but never took her eyes off him. “And they don’t change a thing. I try to look at them as lessons and move on. If I learned from a mistake, I can’t regret it, right?”

  “Normally, I’d agree with you one hundred percent,” he said.

  “And now?” she asked.

  “I’m more ninety-five percent.” He stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. The move would make it difficult to stand up quickly, therefore making him less physically intimidating, and should put her more at ease. She might not realize all that was going on in her subconscious, but him being less of a threat to her would resonate somewhere in the back of her mind. The place that told her when to tense for a fight and when to relax. If he could get her to relax around him, she would be more likely to accept his help.

  “What happened to the five percent?” she continued, leaning forward, curious.

  “The day Lucas was captured. I’d go back to that day and tell him not to be the one to volunteer point. I’d raise my hand instead and refuse to take no for an answer because he would argue about it. There’s a reason we called him Hawkeye and it wasn’t just because of his last name. He was a damn fine soldier and nothing got past him.” Dane stopped right there. He refused to say the rest to Lucas’s widow. The two might not have been legally married but they’d been family nonetheless. The piece of paper was only a formality in his book now that he’d learned about Lucas’s son.

  “What was different that time out, if you don’t mind my asking?” Her voice was barely a whisper and there was still so much pain, even a year later.

  “Everything and nothing. We did everything the same way we always did. I’d blame bad intel but there was more to it than that. Violence had been escalating in the area. Communication felt ‘off’ that day.” He shrugged but the day had replayed in his mind dozens of times since. He’d had nightmares. The kind that woke him in a cold sweat.

  Dane never talked about that day. Not with anyone. A coil tightened in his chest now, threatening to spring, break through bone, and send rib fragments flying everywhere. This seemed like a good time to remind himself Catalina deserved to know what happened.

  He took in a sharp breath and continued. “People talk about getting bad feelings. Premonitions. We all had to learn to ignore our instincts and trust the intel, our training. Every one of us in the unit became experts at it. It’s how we survived and continued to do our jobs.” He paused long enough to polish off his coffee before setting the empty mug on the coffee table. “It’s like instincts have a shut-off valve and we had to find it during basic or there was no point in signing up for the job.”

  “Lucas talked about it with me once when he was trying to explain the changes in him.” She dropped her gaze to the pillow, still working the corner in between her thumb and forefinger. “Over the years he seemed to get better and better at shutting down his emotions. I asked him why. He used similar words. Said his survival depended on it at work.”

  “A career soldier gets really good at it. It’s the only way to do our job,” he said.

  Catalina set the pillow to one side, stood up, and walked around the coffee table. She sat beside him on the couch, and then placed her hand on top of his. The electrical current running through his veins caused a jolt that made his whole future play out in front of him—a future he didn’t deserve because it should be Lucas’s.

  He cleared his throat and jerked his hand out from underneath hers, half expecting her to withdraw or show signs of embarrassment.

  When she didn’t, a bomb detonated inside his chest. One he couldn’t afford. “You should go back to the other couch.”

  “And if I don’t?” Catalina challenged Dane with her stare. There was no way she was backing down like she had with Lucas, leaving her with the nagging feeling she could have done more. Year after year, she’d watched him become less of what made him Lucas. His compassion slipped away, like shower water in a tub drain, slowly cycling out until there wasn’t much more left than a shell.

  Without compassion, what did anyone truly have?

  “Free country,” he said angrily, but she also heard the huskiness in his voice. Were his walls threatening to crack?

  When she’d pushed the issue with Lucas once, he’d blown up at her and told her that she shouldn’t expect him to be something he wasn’t anymore. She could deal with the new him or hit the door. The old Lucas never would have issued an ultimatum. But then again, he’d seen, heard, and done things that would have to change a person. The evidence had been everywhere and she’d been so blind. Part of her had expected the old Lucas to come back once he retired and got some time away from the job. Time to be normal again. She’d started counting down the days. And despite falling out of love with him a very long time ago, she refused to walk away from the only man she’d ever truly cared about.

  Looking back, loving Lucas had become more habit than anything else. She’d loved him when they were in middle school. Loved him during high school. Loved him all throughout college. And it frustrated her to no end that she couldn’t love him enough to bring him back from the dark emotional place he’d gone.

  “Is it?” she asked, knowing full well there were too many men and women who’d paid the ultimate price for everyone else’s freedom.

  “It better be,” came the response. “Or everything we went through is for nothing.”

  She nodded and stayed by his side. He stood up and paced, raking his fingers through his dark as pitch hair.

  Catalina stood up too. She moved to the kitchen where she poured a glass of water, aware of Dane’s every move as heat came off him in palpable waves. This time, she couldn’t stand idly by when she might be able to help.

  “Talk to me,” she said softly.

  Dane whirled around to face her, his gaze the equivalent of a lion staring down its prey. A moment of fear rocketed through her. She couldn’t stop herself from trembling just a little despite believing in her heart of hearts that he would never do anything to hurt her intentionally.

  Then, he crossed the room in a couple of quick strides. She turned to follow him with her gaze, her backside pressed against the bullnose granite edge countertop. Dane ate up the real estate between them and then positioned his hands on either side of her, grabbing hold of the granite, essentially trapping her. Catalina had two choices, duck out of the box he created around her or stand there and face him down.

  For a split second, self-preservation kicked in, begging her to duck and then get as far away from this man as possible. Giving in felt like a failure. Could she live with herself if she failed twice?

  Catalina dug her heels in. She refused to give an inch despite the intensity of Dane’s stare, his threatening presence, or the fact she couldn’t think clearly when he filled her senses with his outdoorsy, spicy scent.

  “Tell me what’s going on in your mind,” she said, making eye contact and staying the course. If only she’d been so brave with Lucas, would he have drifted so far away from her? Would he have gone to that dark place that caused him to drink a little too much when he was home? Would he still be alive today? Able to hold his son? Able to tell her what she should do because she was new to this whole mom business and pretty sure she was messing it up at every turn.

  “Why do you care?” came out through clenched teeth.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” she shot back.

  “You don’t know me,” he practically growled.

  “You’re right.” She risked touching his hands.

  This time, he didn’t jerk his away. She could feel a tremor in his right hand and wanted to know how he got it. It couldn’t have been that day. Did it just happen? Another trauma? After losing two men in his unit—men he cared about—had he kept going until he’d become the target?