How to Handle a Cowboy (4 page)

Sierra flailed her arms for balance, then decided it would be better to clutch the cowboy's head in both hands, so she could tilt forward and avoid the ceiling. She already had one hell of a headache, brought on as much by her concern for the kids as the repeated bashings to her brain.

Finally, they reached the transom. She could see the hallway, lit by the faint light that slanted through the front windows. How long had they been in here?

“Here, I can reach it. Stay right there.”

She had no idea what she was going to do if she got the transom open. She could probably fit through the narrow opening, but there was nothing on the other side but a smooth wooden door and a hard oak floor. She was liable to get the ultimate bonk on the head if she made it through.

But at least she'd be out of the tiny, dark, stuffy closet she was sharing with this frighteningly attractive stranger. She might have given up on love, but she apparently hadn't given up on—what would you call it? Snuggling? Yeah, snuggling. With cowboys. In the dark.

But how could she help it?

Nothing's going to hurt you. Not as long as I'm here.

What woman didn't want to hear that?

If only he'd meant it. It was a shame the whole thing was just a misunderstanding, but it was. It had to be.

Reaching over his head, she fumbled at the transom. It had originally opened from the bottom, swinging out from hinges at the top. She managed to pry open a latch, only cutting one finger and breaking two nails in the process. She pounded the bottom edge with her fist.

Nothing. No give at all.

“There must be ten layers of paint on this thing. It might as well be nailed shut.” She pounded it again, this time with the heel of her hand. “It's not working. It…”

Snap.

The lights flicked on.

She froze with the sense that a flashbulb had gone off and the two of them would be exposed forever like this, with her riding his shoulders.

“The kids must be back,” he said.

“Or somebody.” She peered right then left. There was no sign of life in the empty hallway. She lifted her voice to a shout. “
Hey! Let us out! Hey!
”

No response.

“Somebody's around,” she said. “We'll have to just wait.”

“Okay. I'll bend down till your feet can touch the ground then back away. Ready?”

She clung to his head and shifted her weight backward. “Ready.”

He grunted as he bent his knees and lowered her to the ground. One moment she was touching the ceiling, the next she was on the ground, facing the blank and frustratingly unmoving face of the closet door.

“Okay. Now I just need to back off,” he said.

He'd better back off. His head was right between her legs. If she squeezed, she could strangle him. Well, not really. If she was one of those girls who rode horses, she could, but her thighs weren't that muscular.

Unfortunately, she didn't want to strangle him. With his head between her legs and his hands on her thighs, she felt a hot rush of lust. His hands slipped down to her calves, and maybe, just maybe, he lingered there a little too long.

She grabbed his head, figuring she'd shove him to the floor if he didn't move soon. The rush of lust had turned to something stronger, and she needed to get him out of the danger zone before he realized what he was doing to her.

“Miss Dunn?” said a small voice from the other side of the door.

She froze. The knob turned in what seemed like slow motion—but not slow enough. When the door opened, she staggered and fell backward as Ridge dropped down on all fours. She writhed on his back, struggling for purchase with flailing feet.

And that's what nine-year-old Josh saw when he opened the door.

***

Ridge had to smother a laugh at the stunned expression on their rescuer's face. The kid was a puny little guy, eight or nine years old, with sandy hair and wire-framed glasses perched askew on his nose. Skinny arms protruded from the drooping sleeves of a grubby T-shirt that hung nearly to his knees. It had a picture of the Hulk's scowling face on it and said “Don't Get Me Mad” in big block letters.

The kid's nose wrinkled up in confusion as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Which was understandable, since Sierra had fallen to one side and was thrashing around on the floor.

She finally scrambled to her feet. “Josh!”

The kid squinted then wrinkled up his nose again, lifting his lip and exposing his front teeth in a grimace that reminded Ridge of a cartoon rabbit. Then he shoved his glasses up on his nose with one finger and his face relaxed again.

“Josh, where are the others?”

The boy looked longingly toward the front door then returned his gaze to Sierra and made that face again. It was evidently a technique designed to adjust his glasses while keeping his hands free.

A very ineffective technique.

“The others?” Josh poked the glasses back into position and gazed at the door again then returned his owlish gaze to Sierra, eyes wide with fake innocence. “What others?”

“The other
boys
.” She ran her hands through her hair, bringing it back to some semblance of order. “Where did they go, Josh?”

He continued looking at the door while he answered. “They left.” He looked back at her and gave her a winning smile. “Do I get a Pudding Snack? For letting you out?”

“Yes. If you tell me where the others went.”

He looked torn, as if his loyalties had been strained beyond endurance. The squinting and grimacing intensified. “They left. I don't know where.” He wiped his nose with the back of one hand. “Were you scared? In the closet?”

“No, Josh, I was just
worried.
About
you
boys.
” Her voice was rising into a shrill, barely contained hysteria. “Where did they go?”

Joshua squinted at Ridge then returned his gaze to Sierra. “You probably weren't scared because you had him to play with.”

Ridge put on his best poker face and stared straight ahead. He could feel Sierra beside him radiating tension. If he looked at her, he'd laugh as loud and long as she had back there in the closet.

He had to admit the idea of “playing” in the closet had crossed his mind, especially when he'd felt the firm, muscled tone of Sierra's smooth calves. Tennis. That was his guess. Her muscles were ropy and hard, different from a cowgirl's.

He shoved his hands in his pockets in a vain effort to forget the feel of her muscles under his palm. It had been way too long since he'd had anything to do with any kind of girl, cow or otherwise.

“I was never scared when my sister was in the closet, and we could play,” the kid said.

Ridge winced, and the urge to laugh disappeared. From the sound of it, the kid had been locked in a closet on a regular basis.

Sierra gave Josh a shaky smile, as if she wasn't sure how to respond. “We weren't playing, Josh.”

“Well, what were you doing, then? Because he was down like this, and his head—”

Sierra didn't wait for the description of what had probably been one of her most mortifying moments ever. “I know, honey. We can talk about that later.”

Ridge grinned. Judging from Joshua's determined squint, putting him off until “later” was not going to help Sierra avoid a conversation about what had been going on in the closet.

“Right now, we need to find the boys. Did they leave the building?”

The answer seemed obvious, considering Joshua had barely been able to keep his eyes away from the door. But the kid fidgeted, refusing to answer. Finally, Sierra crossed the hall to the front door, and Joshua, thin shoulders bowed under the weight of his secrets, followed.

Ridge, after briefly considering his options, trailed along as well. It was hardly a bronc ride, but at least there was something going on here, which made following Sierra a much better choice than heading back to the ranch. He wasn't up for dealing with his brothers right now. He'd just as soon they hit the road and leave him with only his own wrecked body for company.

Well, almost wrecked. A certain essential part was obviously working just fine. In fact, if he didn't forget the feel of Sierra's body in the dark, and if he couldn't take his eyes off the determined way she sashayed down the hall, that part was liable to work a little too well.

There weren't many options for a pack of kids on the run in Wynott. The town was one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it dots on the map, marking the point where Route 35 met State Road 267. The two roads merged into one two-lane highway bordered by a bar, a post office, and a hardware store. The other side of the street boasted a junk shop bearing a sign that promised “Antiques and Collectables,” a few Victorian homes clinging desperately to gentility, and Phoenix House, along with a couple of tumbledown garages whose gas pumps had been torn out years ago.

Both the quantity and quality of the houses petered out toward the east. The residents' efforts at tidy lawns and flower gardens kept things festive, but the flowers were leggy and sparse, having cooked through the hot summer. Any night now, the first frost would end their suffering.

At the very edge of town were two ramshackle brick garages, followed by a sad little park with rusty swings and a teeter-totter. Beyond the park was a gas station with a mini mart. The last few structures at the edge of town had fallen down altogether, leaving only a few piles of sunbaked boards and crumbling stone foundations. It was as if the town aged, declined, and died right in front of travelers' eyes as they headed east toward civilization.

There was no sign of a gang of boys in any direction. In fact, Wynott looked like a ghost town, deserted and baked to a crisp, presided over by a rusting water tower that bore the legend “Why Not Wynott” in faded black lettering, a remnant of the town's more optimistic days.

When they reached the sidewalk, Sierra turned to face Joshua. Crouching down to his level, she looked him in the eye. “Where did they go, Joshua?”

His back stiffened and he folded his arms over his chest. “I promised not to tell.”

“This is one of those times it's okay to break a promise.”

He remained mute, staring her straight in the eye with a combination of mute defiance and fear.

“Don't make the kid break his promise,” Ridge said. “We'll find them. It's not like there are a lot of places for them to go.”

She ignored him. “Come on, Josh.”

Ridge kicked a stone and watched it skitter over the cracks in the sidewalk. It was obvious that Josh lived by the code of the kid—which was a whole lot like the code of the cowboy but with less ambiguity. To kids, right and wrong were black and white. The world would be a better place if grown-ups had the moral fiber of nine-year-olds.

“Josh, I need to know,” Sierra urged.

“Leave him alone.” Ridge's tone was sharper than he'd intended. “It won't take us more than twenty minutes to find them.”

Sierra stood, setting her hands on her hips and glaring up at him. “Do you know what can happen to a bunch of ten-year-old boys in twenty minutes?”

“Do you know how it feels to break your promise to your buddies?”

“I told you, these boys need to respect you,” she hissed. “And you need to set an example.”

“By encouraging them to break their promises?”

He answered her fiery glare with a frown then looked down at Joshua, who had fortunately been distracted by a spider in the empty window of the brick garage next door. The kid watched it with exaggerated attention, as if the bug's progress was far more important than the two adults fighting on the sidewalk right beside him. Ridge wondered how many times Josh had heard adults fight, how many times he'd pretended not to hear.

Sierra seemed to remember Josh at the same instant, and when she turned back to Ridge, she'd changed her posture and softened her scowl. But her eyes met his in a cold challenge.

“If you're going to work with these guys, you need to lead by example, and that means doing the right thing.”

“And keeping your promises isn't the right thing?”

“Usually it is.”

Taking her arm, he led her slightly away from Josh, who was still watching the spider.

“Do you remember being a kid?” he hissed.

“Sure.”

“Do you remember how random adults' decisions were? They never seemed to have anything to do with right or wrong. It was all about convenience.” He was speaking low and fast so Josh wouldn't hear, and Sierra stepped closer. His lips almost brushed the hair curling around her ear. “You're right. Kids need to be able to respect you. And that means you have to follow the rules too. So don't you think we ought to keep our promises?”

She shot him a look that was half anger and half confusion. “Not—not right now,” she said.

Ridge bent down so his lips almost brushed her cheek. She took a step back, probably thinking he was sniffing her again. But he just wanted to make sure—very sure—that she heard what he was about to say. Her, not Josh.

“Do you know how many promises this kid's seen broken in his life?” he asked. “All of them—the ones that mattered, anyway. Every single one.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Because otherwise he wouldn't be here.”

***

Sierra hated to admit it, but the cowboy had a point.

Not that she was ready to admit she was wrong. But she could remember a few broken promises herself, and how much they'd hurt. A lot of broken promises, actually. When it came to her mother, it would be easier to enumerate the promises that had been kept.

“While we're standing here arguing, the boys are probably finding a dozen ways to hurt themselves. Why can't you just help me find the kids?”

Ridge didn't answer; he just stood there with his jaw squared and his eyes narrowed to slits. Joshua turned away from the spider he'd been watching and looked up at Ridge then set his face carefully in that exact same mulish expression, doubling the amount of male disgust aimed at Sierra.

Flinging up her hands, she turned away. “Why don't you go back to your ranch and rope some cows or something?”

She took a few steps away, taking a turn with Josh's spider. She didn't know why Ridge's refusal to help felt like a betrayal or why her eyes were tearing up.

Oh, yes she did. Back there in the closet, she'd felt a stirring that told her coming to Wynott might not be a death sentence for her love life after all. And that had made her happy and hopeful, despite the fact that she'd been
hoping
Wynott would kill her love life. The little town's empty streets were supposed to be a sanctuary, not a sentence. You couldn't make relationship mistakes when there was nobody to have a relationship with.

But Ridge Cooper was different from any man she'd ever met.

Nothing's going to hurt you. Not while I'm around.

She knew she could take care of herself. But if she had a man who said that kind of thing and really meant it, she'd be able to step out into the world more confidently. She'd have backup, and that would make her braver.

Turning away from the spider, which was disgusting anyway, she joined Josh and Ridge. The man had knelt down to look the boy in the eye. He'd put his dirty old hat back on, and looking down at his broad shoulders hunched over the boy, she felt a twinge of tenderness that surprised her.

“Good job being a man, Josh.” Ridge tousled the fine, blond hair. “Men keep their promises.”

Joshua turned and blessed Ridge with a radiant smile, hero worship shining in his eyes.

Tears stung behind her eyes again and she wished, for the umpteenth time, that she could shut off her emotions. Most nights she went to bed feeling wrung out like an old dishcloth. She'd been in police work for three years, social work for four, and if she didn't toughen up, she wouldn't make it through the fifth.

Blinking fast, she scanned the street again.
Find
the
boys
. That was priority number one.

“Hey.” Ridge nudged the side of her high-heeled boots with his toe. To her surprise, his mulish expression had softened. “Keeping promises matters to me. Especially with kids. I couldn't let that go.”

“I get it,” she said. “Let's just find them, or we won't have any kids left to make promises to.”

“If I was them, I'd go to the Mini Mart.” Ridge turned to Josh. “They got ice cream there?”

“Yep. And sodas.” The kid turned his worshipful gaze back to the cowboy. “They got beer too, if you want some.”

Sierra winced. She'd read Joshua's file, and the cowboy was dead right about the promise breaking. The kid's dad hung on longer than the mom, but he'd been a mean drunk who took out his heartbreak over his marriage on his own child. It made her burn inside just to think of it. With his pale skin, small frame, and big glasses, Joshua was about as helpless a victim as you could find.

“You think your buds are having ice cream or soda?” Ridge asked.

“Neither,” the kid said eagerly. “They're down behind the junk shop, playing in the cars.” The second he said it, he clapped his hand over his mouth. Tears sprang to his eyes. “I told,” he said. “I wasn't supposed to tell.”

“Well, I kind of tricked you, so that doesn't count.” Ridge ruffled the boy's hair in an easy, fatherly way. “You did your best, right?”

“Yeah.” Joshua nodded, but he looked miserable, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Just stupid.”

“You're not stupid. I'm sneaky, that's all.” Ridge pointed a finger at the boy's shirt, just below his chin. “What's that on your shirt?”

Josh looked down and the cowboy quickly brought up his finger to flick the boy's nose. “Gotcha,” he said. “See? Sneaky. Now that you know it, I bet I won't be able to fool you again.”

Josh grinned, the trauma of breaking his promise forgotten. “Nope, you won't fool me again.”

“I'm going to try, though.”

“No way.” The kid shook his head so hard the glasses seemed in danger of flying off his face. “You won't do it.”

Sierra watched the boy and man walk side by side, the boy struggling to match the man's long stride, the glow on his face making the usually somber child look as happy as she'd ever seen him. As they reached the junk shop, she heard the sound of boyish voices rising from behind the fence that obscured the backyard.

They'd found them. The worst of the emergency was over. And Josh was smiling.

Maybe the cowboy wasn't so bad after all.