Her Private Bodyguard

She could see nothing in the stall to provoke this kind of display. However, a lot of things could spook a horse, from an unexpected or unfamiliar noise to a piece of plastic blowing along the ground.

Maybe Kronus sensed there was a stranger on the property. As she led the jittery stallion by the bunkhouse, her eyes focused briefly on the door, still closed against the growing light. She realized that she had been aware of that door the whole time she’d been in the yard.

Anticipating when her uninvited guest might open it? she wondered, leading the stud toward the corral. If so, it was an anticipation she didn’t want to feel. Despite her resolve, however, she remembered the impact of Grey Sellers’ eyes. And that small tug of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

She had been momentarily distracted by that memory, but her attention was abruptly brought back to Kronus, where it should have been all along. He had been nervous throughout the short journey. Now he threw up his head, jerking against the lead, and jigging to the side.

She shortened the nylon rope by changing the position of her hand, intent on controlling his head. She was by his shoulder, right where she needed to be. Even so, she could sense the gathering of muscle in those powerful hindquarters, his front hooves even seeming to lift a fraction from the ground.

Val knew that he just wanted to be gone, just to get away from whatever was frightening him. That flight instinct was highly developed in horses, and that’s exactly what Kronus wanted to do. Just get the hell out of here.

Although she was talking to him the whole time, she could feel his tension building. And she still couldn’t understand why. There was nothing—

He jerked his head up, pulling strongly against the lead she held, the whites of his eyes showing. She stayed with him, fighting to keep control. They were so near the safety of the paddock. If she could just get him through that gate and inside.

She reached for the gate with her free hand, and Kronus crow hopped, trying to pull away. He dragged her a few inches away from the fence before she was able to get his head back down.

She could feel her bad knee beginning to tremble, however, as it always did under strain. She ignored it, gritting her teeth against the pain, and grimly hung on as he jumped to the side again.

It would be dangerous for the horse to let him get loose, as crazy as he was acting. Although her land was fenced around the perimeter, there were too many ways he could do damage to himself if he got away out there.

Where it wasn’t covered with the dust he’d kicked up, Kronus’ ebony hide gleamed, his eyes still showing white. He reared again, and she held on for dear life, grateful for the leather gloves that kept her hands from being burned by the nylon rope.

When he came down, she was forced to back up a little to get out of his way. Her bad knee buckled, throwing her to the side. As she tried to regain her balance, the stallion lurched into her. The move was not deliberate, but it was effective. Still off balance, and hanging on to the lead for dear life, she fell, banging the side of her head on one of the rails of the corral before she hit the ground.

Even with the impact of her skull against the wooden post, she didn’t lose consciousness. The air around her thinned and darkened, however, and as she fought to stay conscious, she realized that she was still clinging to the lead. Instinct, maybe, but probably a foolish one, given the horse’s panic.

She couldn’t seem to will her muscles to release it and let Kronus go. Her only thought was that he could be seriously injured out on that rock-strewn terrain.

Of course, she could be even more seriously injured lying almost under his feet. She edged to her right, hunching her shoulder, as the horse reared again, almost jerking the lead out of her hand. Just then, a flash of long, blue-jean-clad legs appeared in her peripheral vision.

“Let it go,” Grey Sellers commanded, as the horse reared again, totally panicked now.

Knowing she had no choice, she released the rope. Grey had already wrapped his arm around her body and now he lifted, pulling her up and back, just as the horse came down, hooves striking the ground, too close to where Val had been only a heartbeat before.

Then the stallion whirled and took off toward the open and away from the two humans who were still on the ground. It took a second or two for Val to realize the potential for danger in what had happened. Another couple to become aware that she was practically sitting in Grey Sellers’ lap, her back against the solid muscle of his chest, his arm still around her, just beneath her breasts.

He was holding her so tightly it was hard to breathe. Or maybe that was simply delayed reaction to the events of the past few seconds. And that’s all it had taken for everything to get out of control.

Weak and disoriented, she leaned her head against his shoulder, fighting a wave of nausea. She looked up at the turquoise sky, breathing through her mouth.

“All right?” Grey asked, his voice at her ear, his lips so close that the warmth of his breath touched her cheek.

She nodded, turning her head a little so she could look at him. As she did, the abrasiveness of his early-morning beard brushed her temple. After a moment, he turned to look in the direction in which the stallion was rapidly disappearing, thundering over the dry ground.

Val knew he could run for several miles without encountering any fencing. As for the other obstacles he might tangle with on that high desert range, that was in the hands of fate. She said a quick prayer for the horse’s safety, watching him grow smaller and smaller as he raced toward the backdrop of the mountains.

When the stallion was no more than a dark speck, Grey turned to her, his voice touched with the same humor she had heard in it yesterday. “Is he always like that? ’Cause if he is, lady, you’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve.”

“He’s never done anything like that before,” Val said truthfully.

“Any idea what set him off?” Sellers asked, echoing her own questions.

She shook her head, trying to think what could have happened in the stall to make him so edgy. And there had been nothing at all on the way to the corral that had called for that reaction. She had no explanation for the horse’s uncharacteristic antics.

“All I know is, he’s going to get hurt out there,” she said, struggling against Grey’s hold. His arm was still wrapped around her rib cage, her small breasts resting on top of it.

He loosened it at her first movement, and she began to push awkwardly off his lap, embarrassed by the intimate position of their bodies. Emergency, she told herself, determined not to overreact as she had yesterday.

He would think she was some kind of neurotic. Afraid of men. Afraid of having any contact with them.

She got to her feet, but when she put weight on her leg, a shard of agony lanced through her damaged knee. The vertigo closed in again. When the world swam back into focus, seconds later, thankfully she wasn’t back on the ground. She was still standing, but she was leaning against Grey. His arm was around her again, supporting her competently and impersonally.

“I hit my head,” she explained, looking up into his eyes.

In the morning light they were like smoke, less opaque than last night. Suddenly he took her chin in his hand and turned her head. She was too surprised to resist, despite the flutter inside that his touch set off.

She quickly realized Grey wasn’t looking at her face, however. He was examining her temple, the one that had struck the wooden railing when Kronus had knocked her down. She watched his eyes widen slightly before they came back to meet hers.

“Looks like you’re going to need a few stitches,” he said.

She put her fingers over the injury, finding it unerringly, although she hadn’t been conscious of pain. She winced as she touched the gash.

Vertigo threatened once more, and, determined not to faint in his arms like some stupid Victorian, Val bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to compete with the burn at her temple and the ache in her knee. Although it hurt like hell, the sharpness of the bite had the desired effect, clearing her head.

“It’s nothing,” she said, more worried about her stud than about herself.

“Might leave a scar if you don’t get it sewed up.”

When she laughed, his eyes widened again. Did he really think she cared about a scar? Of course, he couldn’t know how many of those she already had. And she sure wasn’t concerned enough about this little cut to drive into civilization to get it stitched up. She had more important things to attend to. Like seeing to her most recent investment, whose black hide was at this moment very vulnerable, as he ran like a mad thing over some pretty rough territory.

“I have to catch him,” she said, pulling away from Grey’s hold. Thankfully, there was no vertigo when she moved this time.

Limping heavily, each step sheer torture, she made it as far as the fence, a matter of two feet, before she realized that catching the black was going to be an impossibility. She could barely walk, much less do what she needed to do to find him and bring him back.

“By the time you get mounted,” Grey said, “he’ll have disappeared. And you aren’t going to track him on that ground.”

It was possible she could still ride, she decided, assessing the pain in her knee with the ease of long practice, but he was right about the other. Even if that rocky ground lent itself to tracking, she couldn’t manage the dismounting and remounting that process would almost certainly require.

“I can’t just let him go.”

“You can until we get that tended to,” Grey said.

“But he’s my animal. My responsibility,” she protested.

“And you’re mine, Ms. Beaufort,” he said quietly. “Or have you forgotten?”

She had. She’d forgotten that this man had been sent out here to be her bodyguard. Bodyguard, she thought again, ridiculing the concept. And she never responded well to being told she couldn’t do something. At least, not since her accident.

“This is different,” she argued, her eyes drawn back to the fading trail of dust.

“Nothing in my instructions said there were things I’m not supposed to protect you from. I think that covers concussions and possible bleeding inside the skull. And I told you,” he said, “I’ve already spent their retainer. I’ll go get the car.”

She grabbed for his arm, jarring her leg again, and got sleeve instead. “I can’t just leave him out there.”

“I don’t think you’ve got much choice,” Grey said.

She didn’t, she admitted. At least, not as far as getting on a horse and hunting Kronus down was concerned. However, there was nothing to say that Grey couldn’t do that for her.

Of course, he wasn’t getting paid to look after her stud. That was not why Beneficial Life had given him that retainer he kept talking about. But what did she have to lose by asking him? she thought. Except maybe her pride. And she would gladly trade that to have Kronus safe and sound.

“You could go after him,” she suggested softly.

“I could. If I didn’t have you to look after.”

“You don’t need to look after me. I’m not in any danger. He’s the one who could get hurt. And,” she added, thinking this might sway him, “he’s a very valuable piece of horseflesh.”

That was the absolute truth. The stud represented every bit of the profit she had made last year. That wasn’t the primary reason she wanted Grey to go after him, of course. She just didn’t want the horse to be seriously injured. Maybe he’d calm down after he’d run himself out, and then—

“My responsibility is doing the job I was paid to do,” Grey said.

“Meaning you’d want to be paid to go after the horse?” she asked. “I think that can be arranged. Will you take a check? I’m afraid I don’t have much cash on hand. Of course, I may not have enough for you in my bank account. Just how much is it going to cost me, Mr. Sellers, to get you to go after my horse?”

There was a silence before he said, “It must be hell to be that cynical.”

“Not cynical,” she denied. “Just experienced. Money seems to have an almost mystical influence on people.”

“Not on me, Ms. Beaufort. Sorry to disappoint you. And the sooner we get that place on your head treated, the sooner I can get back out here and try to track your horse.”

“By then it may be too late.”

“Take it or leave it,” he said, stooping to pick up the black Stetson from the ground and beating it against his leg to knock the dust off.

“I should have known a horse wouldn’t mean much to someone like you,” she said angrily. She wasn’t even sure what she meant by that, but it felt good to make the accusation.

She began to limp away from him, heading toward the pasture and using the fence for support. Her leg seemed to get tighter and more painful with each step.

“I think you can probably afford another horse, Ms. Beaufort. Your life is another proposition. You only get one shot at that.”

The edge of sarcasm in that first sentence was obvious, just like his comment about being sorry her father’s policy wasn’t the kind that paid out cash. Both remarks said “rich bitch” so loudly he didn’t have to. It was a tone Val had heard most of her life, at least until she had moved out here, and, furious, she turned to face him.

“Kronus represents every bit of profit I made last year, Mr. Sellers,” she said. “Just for your information. But this isn’t about money. Not everything is, you know.”

She regretted saying that as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Like yesterday she didn’t seem to be able to control her tongue when she was around him. Somewhere deep inside she knew why. That knowledge wasn’t something she wanted to deal with right now, however.

“I want to look at his stall, so maybe you better join me,” she said instead, injecting sarcasm to keep her voice from betraying her. “If whatever spooked Kronus is still in there, you’ll be right there, ready to protect me from it.”

THEY DIDN’T FIND ANYTHING in the stall to explain the horse’s actions. Grey wasn’t really surprised. If something like a snake had spooked the stallion, it would have been long gone. And somehow he didn’t think that would have caused exactly the reaction he’d just seen. Maybe the horse would have been upset, but he wouldn’t have been out-and-out loco once he was away from the danger.

His eyes were examining the broken board when he became aware that Valerie Beaufort was sitting on the ground of the stallion pen, her back against its rough boards, eyes closed. As he watched, she put her head down on her bent knee.

She didn’t move, even when he walked over to stand in front of her, although she must have heard his footsteps. “You okay?” he asked.

Her head came up, eyes open, wide and very dark. Pupils dilated? Or did they just look that way because her face was so pale? Shock? Or concussion? he wondered. The gash at her temple was still bleeding sluggishly. The hair around it was matted with blood and even the shoulder of her shirt was stained.

“A little dizzy,” she said, putting her forehead back on her knee. The other leg, the one that she favored when she walked, was stretched straight out in front of her.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand.

She lifted her head enough to look at it and then up at him, but she didn’t reach for his outstretched fingers. She shook her head once, and then rested her forehead on top of her knee again.

“We need to have somebody take a look at that cut,” he said. “You may have a concussion.”

“I’m just dizzy.”

“All the more reason—”

“I told you I’m not driving into town for this scratch,” she said, overriding his attempt to make exactly that suggestion.

He watched her a moment more, weighing his options. He knew a fair amount of first aid. Even if she did have a concussion, all a hospital would do would be to keep her overnight and observe her. He could do that here, of course.

However, observing Valerie Beaufort all night wasn’t something he was eager to do. Whenever he looked at her, something happened in his gut that he didn’t understand.

Maybe it was her vulnerability. That little-girl-lost look. Or maybe she had been right before, although he didn’t like the idea any better than he knew she would. Maybe it was the fact that she limped. All he knew was that the thought of her being injured or in danger had become far more personal than any assignment should be.

“You can walk. Or I can carry you,” he said harshly. “It’s strictly up to you.”

Her eyes came up again at that. Widened first with shock that he would talk that way to her, then becoming defiant. He meant what he said, however, and something in his face or in his voice must have told her that. Her mouth tightened, but finally, after a long moment of studying his eyes, she put out her hand.

As his fingers closed around it, there was again that unwanted frisson of emotion in the bottom of his stomach. Maybe because her life was his responsibility, and because it had been in danger this morning. Or maybe, he acknowledged bitterly, it was because he knew he wasn’t good enough anymore to handle that kind of responsibility.

Chapter Three

“Taken to banging your head into brick walls now, have you?” Halley Burgess asked Val with a grin.

His big fingers were gentle, however, as he swabbed the clotted blood off the gash on her temple. Even if they hadn’t been, Val doubted she would have felt it much, considering the size and volume of her headache.

It had grown with each rut Grey had driven over to get her here. After his ultimatum, she hadn’t bothered to argue with him anymore. She had handed over the keys to her Jeep and given him the directions to Halley’s clinic on the outskirts of Rainsville.

Halley had been her doctor since she had moved out to the ranch ten years ago, although she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d visited him. In spite of her thinness and her limp, she was as healthy as the proverbial horse. Except, as the doctor had just suggested, when she had been banging her head against something that was equally hard.

“Actually, it was a fence post,” she said.

She was sitting on the end of his examination table, thankful Halley hadn’t made her lie down. She felt less like an invalid—and a whole lot less like a fool—sitting up.

“How’d you manage to do that?” he asked.

“The stud horse I bought from Kirby Gills went loco this morning. He knocked me down, and when I fell, I hit my head on the fence.”

“Went loco?” Halley echoed.

“Just…went crazy. Totally spooked. I still don’t have any idea what set him off.”

Halley didn’t say anything in response. Apparently he had cleared away enough of the dried blood to finally get a look at the wound under it. At least he had stopped dabbing and talking. After a moment he moved back, dropping the bloodstained gauze pad he’d been using onto the tray beside him.

She turned her head carefully, looking up at him. “So what’s the verdict? Am I going to live?”

“I expect so, but your friend was right. Needs a few stitches to pull that together, as fragile as the skin is there. Maybe take four or five. Then you’ll be right as rain.”

“No concussion?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that. Eyes look good, though,” Halley said, assessing them. “Head hurt?”

Val hesitated. She had a lot of experience living with her various aches and pains, and she hated to complain about any of them. An evaluation of her head injury was part of what she had come here to get, however, so it seemed stupid not to give Halley all the information that would allow him to make one.

Of course, she hadn’t exactly come voluntarily. And she suspected that Grey would ask about the possibility of a concussion, which was why she had mentioned it to Halley in the first place. And with a bang on the head there was always the chance of internal bleeding—which she didn’t want to risk.

“It feels like somebody’s working inside my skull with a jackhammer,” she said truthfully.

“I can give you something for that. Make you a little drowsy, but that’s okay, since you aren’t driving. That guy that brought you in a new hand?” he asked.

He lifted his eyes from hers and raised his eyebrows, an obvious signal to his nurse, who was standing on the other side of the examination table. Halley was probably indicating that he was ready for the local he would use to deaden the area around the cut before he sewed it up. One prick as opposed to several.

“Or is he something else?” the doctor asked, his eyes coming back to her as the nurse moved to the other side of the room.

“Something else,” she agreed.

“Boyfriend?”

“Oh, please,” she said dismissingly, her tone mocking.

“Not a ranch hand, and not a beau. You keeping secrets from old Doc Burgess, Valerie?”

“Maybe I should. The truth sounds pretty far-fetched,” she warned. “Actually, it sounds downright ridiculous. And I don’t particularly want to become a laughingstock.”

The nurse handed Halley something, keeping it behind Val’s back and out of sight, as if Val wouldn’t know what was going on. She couldn’t help smiling at that not-sosubtle subterfuge.

“I could use a good joke,” Halley said as he prepared the needle.

Val grimaced at the sting. She wasn’t sure if Halley’s comment about needing to hear a good joke was a reaction to her amusement at the nurse’s tactics or to her saying she didn’t want to become a laughingstock. And it didn’t really matter. She supposed she would have to tell him the truth in any case.

“He’s my bodyguard,” she said.

Halley’s hands hesitated, hovering a couple of inches over her temple. “Did you say…bodyguard?”

She started to nod, but he had already put his fingers on her chin, turning her head slightly to position it. He slid the needle in once more, on the other side of the gash this time. The local anesthetic must have already started to work, because the sting wasn’t nearly so bad.

“I told you it was ridiculous,” she said. “Something to do with an insurance policy the company took out on Dad. It seems that when I inherited his part of Av-Tech, I also inherited that policy. Its terms require that I have a security system on the ranch. Since I don’t, they sent him out to guard me until I can get one put in.”

“Well, he looks tough enough to handle most any kind of security,” Halley said. “Bodyguard, huh?”

She heard his chuckle as he took the suture needle the nurse handed him. It would take a minute or two for the local to take effect, so she suspected that she was going to have to give Halley the whole story while they waited.

“If he’s supposed to be guarding you, how come he let that horse beat you up?” he asked.

“He’s the one who dragged me out from under him.” Then she hesitated, knowing what she was about to say was the truth, even if she wasn’t overly eager to confess it. “I guess if he hadn’t been there, I could have really been hurt.”

“Is that when you reinjured your knee?” Halley asked.

She had been grateful when the doctor had made no comment on her limping progress into the examination room. Her leg had stiffened up royally on the ride over here, so that climbing out of the Jeep had been a test of will. Grey had offered his hand, and again she had been forced to accept, leaning on his arm as they slowly made their way inside the office.

The feel of his fingers lingered in her head. They had been rough, a little callused. A working man’s hands. And under her forearm they had felt every bit as strong and steady as they looked.

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