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  Maybe.

  Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable and completely unrelated cause for the fire. But I saw the looks on everyone’s faces earlier in the afternoon as we were all trying desperately to save those horses. I saw the fear. I saw the understanding.

  I still didn’t know what the connection was or if there even was a connection, but the ten years I’d spent in the Marines had taught me how to read people and assess situations pretty damn quickly. And so far, I didn’t really like what I was seeing here.

  The people themselves seemed nice enough—we’d been doing business with Cade and Boone for a couple of months and had no reason to think they were anything but good, honest guys. Likewise, we’d heard good things about the Thoresons, including Cade and Boone’s girlfriend, Janessa.

  And when I realized Becca was friends with her, well… let’s just say that gave me a whole new incentive to get to know Cade, Boone, and Janessa a little bit better.

  But there was still something going on around here. Something dangerous. Something that nobody else really seemed to understand, either.

  “Hey, asshole.” Cordell elbowed me in the side. Hard. “Were you even listening to a damn word I just said?”

  I responded with an elbow of my own, earning a satisfying grunt from my friend as I made contact with his ribs. “I don’t know who you’re calling an asshole, asshole, but whatever you were saying better have been good.”

  He grinned, his brown eyes as mischievous as ever. A year older and an inch taller, Cordell should have been the more mature one, but we’d been friends since basic training, and I’d learned pretty early on that following his lead would only get me into trouble.

  Not that I’d let that stop me. He and I had been officially reprimanded more than a few times for mostly harmless things and had been in more bar fights for more important things—like women and football—than I cared to count. We always managed to come out on top, though, and I expected this new adventure in horse breeding to work out pretty much the same way.

  Sure, there were going to be some bumps in the road—like one of our first clients almost getting us blown up in a house fire, for instance. But Cordell and I weren’t going to let a little fire keep us from doing business with Cade and Boone. Hell, if anything it just made us more curious. And it would be a damn good story to talk about down at the bar someday.

  “I was saying that we should come back and help them move some of their horses to the Thoreson ranch after we drop off Thunder back at our place.”

  Thunder was the stud we’d brought to breed with Cade and Boone’s mares—and was the reason we were all down at the stables instead of inside the house when the fire started. In some weird way, we owed our lives to that horse, and we were going to make sure he was safe and sound back at our ranch before we did anything else. The fact that Thunder came from a long line of champion thoroughbreds and was worth a lot of money—money we hadn’t yet made back on our investment—also factored into our decision making.

  That horse was worth his weight in gold. He had to be kept safe at all times.

  But after that? Yeah, I was definitely interested in checking out the Thoresons’ ranch. And giving Cade and Boone a hand, too, of course.

  “Yeah, I’m down with that.” I nodded. “We can switch our trailer out for the bigger one and come back to help. You think Becca will be there at the Thoreson place?”

  He laughed. “I can’t even bust your balls for that question. I was thinking the same thing. Pretty sure she’s staying with Janessa along with that other girl—Daisy Lynn?”

  “Yeah, but that one has something going on with the cops.” I thought back to how the girls had paired off with the two sets of guys and how Becca had seemed to be the only one in the group who might be single. Which was kind of crazy, since she was by far—in my opinion, at least—the most intriguing one. “Anyway, Cade and Boone have been good to us, so it’ll be good business to help them out now that they need a hand.”

  Cordell quirked a brow. “And if we happen to see Becca once we get to the Thoresons’ place?”

  “Then I guess it’ll be our lucky day after all.”

  Which I knew was a pretty ridiculous thing to say, considering what we’d all just gone through. But hey, who was I to question fate?

  All I knew for sure was that Becca had somehow turned up right in front of us—intriguing, quiet, beautiful, and apparently single—and I wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that go to waste.

  At the very least, I wanted to find out more about her. And beyond that?

  Well, who could predict what else fate might have in store for us?

  We had already made one trip transporting horses from Cade and Boone’s ranch back to the Triple J, but we still had one more round-trip to make before we went back home for the night. As we swept out the trailer and got it ready for the second round of horses, I pulled Cordell to the side.

  “Hey, how do you feel about asking Becca to ride back to the Tate ranch with us?”

  Cordell’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You think she’d go for that?”

  I shrugged. “Only one way to find out. But I’ve been keeping an eye on her. I’ve caught her checking us out a couple of times when she thought nobody was looking.”

  “You’re full of shit.” Cordell looked back over his shoulder to where Becca was standing and talking with her friends, then back to me. “You’re serious? How do you even know she was checking us out? What if she was just… looking this direction?”

  “Bro, I know when a chick is checking us out. How many times have I walked up to a girl at the bar and called her out on it?”

  He laughed. “That’s different. Everyone checks people out in a bar.”

  “But how often have I been wrong?” I waited for him to answer, then prompted him again when he rolled his eyes. “Come on. How often?”

  “You’ve been right a lot,” he answered, grudgingly.

  “Like, every time,” I corrected him. “And we’ve both had some damn good times with those girls, thanks to me being observant and having the balls to say something.”

  That was putting it mildly, for sure. We’d both had some wild times with girls we’d picked up. I’d never been part of a threesome before I started hanging out with Cordell, but we’d shared plenty of women between us and damn… it was fucking hot.

  I knew he liked it, too. Hell, we’d even talked about finding a girl to share who might be interested in more than just a one-night thing. Pretty sure that kind of girl was a unicorn, though. We sure hadn’t found her yet.

  “And you think Becca might be down for something like that?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, man. She’s shy. Quiet. Classy. She’d be crazy to have anything to do with a couple of guys like us.”

  He had a point. But I wasn’t going to let a few inconvenient facts get in my way. Becca was a solid ten in my eyes, but even tens enjoyed getting attention sometimes, right?

  She might surprise us. She might even be more adventurous than she looks. Wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.

  “I’m still going to ask,” I said, shrugging. “What’s the worst that can happen? She says no and you and I are stuck keeping each other company anyway?”

  “Well, when you put it like that…” He snorted, then clapped me on the back. “Go for it, bro. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

  I nodded and was doing my best to play it cool. But yeah, it was probably for the best that he was crossing his fingers. Fingers, toes, eyes, legs… anything and everything that could be crossed.

  When it came to getting a shot with Becca, I was pretty sure I’d need all the luck I could get.

  I’d been pretty sure—almost certain, in fact—that she was going to say no. Even after I’d seen that hint of curiosity in her eyes. Even after her friends had chimed in to try and persuade her.

  She’d stood her ground until the last minute, when I’d been walking away with my head up even though I’d felt
like a complete idiot.

  “Dade,” she’d said, barely loud enough for me to hear as I walked away. “I’ll go.”

  Those two words had made my entire day.

  Now she was sitting in the front of my truck between Cordell and me, looking so sweet and innocent and out of place that I was having a really hard time concentrating on the road ahead of us.

  She’d been pretty quiet for most of the drive, but I could tell from her body language that she was finally starting to relax a little. That definitely felt like a win to me.

  Of course, we were almost all the way back to Cade and Boone’s ranch, so… maybe not a huge win.

  “Are you guys still in the military?” she asked, completely out of the blue. We’d been making sort of awkward small talk for almost an hour but had all gone quiet for the past few miles.

  “What makes you think we were in the military?” Cordell asked, looking past her to shoot me a quick grin.

  “Because you both look like every military guy I’ve ever met,” she answered, turning to hold his gaze. “But you said were, so I’m guessing that means you’re finished now?”

  “Retired,” I said, having a really hard time keeping my own smile in check. She might look innocent and timid, but she clearly wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Perceptive, too. Just like I’d imagined she would be. “Feels weird to say, since I’m only twenty-nine and Cordell is thirty, but we gave some good years to the Corps.”

  “The Marines?” she asked, turning back to me. “That’s what I was going to guess.”

  “You’ve met a few?” I asked, quirking a brow. It was meant as an innocent question—well, mostly innocent—but there was no mistaking the way her cheeks immediately flushed pink. “Around campus, I’d imagine…”

  Now it was her turn to arch a perfectly manicured brow. “How do you know I’ve been to college?”

  It was hard to tell since I was still driving, but I was pretty sure I could detect the tiniest smile at the corners of her mouth.

  I was tempted to toss her earlier answer back at her and tell her that she looked like every college girl I’d ever met, but that would have been a lie.

  She was nothing like the girls I’d known back when I was her age.

  “Just a guess,” I answered, finally. “I’d be willing to bet you do pretty well in school, though. Just another hunch.”

  “Well, my parents have PhDs, so the bar was set pretty high for me.”

  “That probably doesn’t leave a lot of time for hanging out and having fun with your friends,” I said.

  “Or dating,” Cordell added.

  There it was again. That delicious pink color.

  “I don’t really…” She looked at him and then back at me. “I mean… I haven’t really dated much.”

  It was the first time I’d seen her look truly flustered. I knew that Cordell had been mostly joking with the dating comment, but I didn’t want Becca to feel awkward at all. We might be a couple of horny, opportunistic guys, but we had morals. And making a woman uncomfortable, even accidentally, went against everything we’d stood up and fought for all our lives.

  “Nothing wrong with being selective about who you spend time with,” I said, trying to fill the silence that had started to stretch out between us.

  “Nothing at all wrong with that,” Cordell added, no doubt realizing his joke hadn’t landed so well. “It’s good to have priorities. I respect that.”

  She smiled sweetly but didn’t say much of anything else for the rest of the drive. Once we got to the Tate ranch, she gave us a quick wave and thanked us for the ride as she went to go rejoin her friends.

  “Good job, Romeo,” I said once we were alone in the truck again. “Your smooth talking pretty much guaranteed we’re going home alone tonight.”

  “Hey, I tried to tone it down.” He put up his hands in a mock surrender. “I was on my best damn behavior.”

  I couldn’t really argue with that. Cordell could be wildly inappropriate at the best of times. I’d become sort of immune to it over the years, but his jokes and pranks had gotten us kicked out of plenty of bars. And parties. And card games. Pretty much anywhere good behavior or silence was required for any length of time.

  “We’re gonna have to leave her alone,” I said, sighing as I tried to tear my eyes away from where she was standing and talking with the other girls.

  “What?” He looked shocked. “Why? I thought we were just breaking the ice.”

  “Because I think she’s… you know.” I cleared my throat. “Innocent.”

  “Innocent of what?” Sometimes I wished my friend had at least a little subtlety about him. But no. That wasn’t Cordell. That would never be Cordell. “Girls always like to play hard to get at first. You know that.”

  “Sometimes, yeah,” I conceded. “And that’s part of the fun—when they obviously want you to chase them a little. But this is different. Didn’t you see the way she blushed and the look on her face when we even hinted at dating?”

  He shrugged. “I guess… yeah, I guess she did seem a little uncomfortable talking about that.”

  “More than a little.” I paused and then sighed, shaking my head. I really was going to have to spell it out for him. “Dude. She’s a virgin.”

  Cordell’s eyes went wide. “Oh, shit. Seriously?”

  “Definitely. Becca is a virgin. And that means—”

  “She’s off limits. She deserves someone special for her first time.”

  Finally.

  Now he understood.

  It killed me to admit it, but yeah. Totally off limits.

  Chapter 3

  Becca

  I felt an irrational wave of irritation as I looked out the back window of Cole’s police car. First of all, it was weird riding in the back like I was under arrest for something. Second, it was awkward sitting next to Logan, the creepy town veterinarian who’d had the hots for Janessa, while Daisy Lynn sat up in the front seat next to her boyfriend, the deputy.

  Yeah, it was all sort of weird and way outside my comfort zone.

  But the real reason I was irritated and staring blankly out the window rather than trying to participate in the awkward, stilted conversation going on in the car was that I’d been stood up.

  Okay, maybe that was a little bit of an exaggeration. But that was how I’d felt when Dade and Cordell had arranged for me to ride home with Cole, Daisy Lynn, and Logan.

  Had I just imagined that the two former Marines had been interested in me? Both of them? It wasn’t like I’d begged to ride with them in the first place. Dade had come up to ask me out of the blue and had seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me on the way back to the Tate ranch. Cordell had seemed just as interested—though maybe a little more flirty than his friend.

  I knew for sure I hadn’t just made all of that up in my head. So… what had happened? Had I come across as unfriendly? Cold? Too shy? I was definitely less worldly than either of them. Maybe that had been the problem. Maybe they were looking for a girl with more experience. It wasn’t like they would’ve been the first guys to lose interest once they’d figured out that I wasn’t going to just jump into bed with them.

  It usually took a little longer for the rejection to happen, though.

  “You’re awfully quiet back there, Becca,” Daisy Lynn said, turning to look back over her shoulder at me. “Are you still feeling okay? We might need to take you to see a doctor after all that smoke you inhaled.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. I’m not… I wasn’t down on the ground for very long before… you know.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Before those big army guys came to your rescue?”

  Cole snorted from the front seat, and I glared at my friend. “They’re Marines,” I corrected her for absolutely no reason at all. It wasn’t like I cared. “Retired Marines.” I liked facts to be accurate. “And I didn’t need them to save me. I would’ve made it out. Probably.”

  And that was a complete lie, but whatev
er. I was still thankful for their help, and I always would be—they really had saved me, no matter what I’d just said. But I certainly didn’t need their help anymore. Or their attention. Or their friendship.

  Or… anything else they might have wanted to offer.

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re okay,” Daisy Lynn said with a hint of a smile on her face. “And you have to admit those guys have gone out of their way to make sure you’ve been taken care of tonight.”

  I turned to look back out the window. I didn’t have to admit any such thing—not out loud, anyway. Not now that the hot, selfless Marines were acting so weird.

  “Have you heard anything else about the poisoned animals, Logan?” I asked, not even attempting to hide the fact that I was changing the subject. “I hope that keeping all of these extra horses at the Triple J Ranch isn’t going to make us an even bigger target.”

  “I thought about that, too,” Daisy Lynn said, thankfully taking up the new topic and turning her attention toward the veterinarian. “But it’s not like Janessa would’ve changed her mind even if there had been a direct threat. She’s going to help her guys no matter what, and it wouldn’t be like her to live in fear anyway.”

  “Yeah, there doesn’t seem to be much that scares Janessa Thoreson,” Cole added. “She’s been like that all her life.”

  “She is strong.” I nodded. “And I’ve always admired that about her. I just hope for her sake that things calm down for a while. I know she’s been awfully stressed out about her horses—and now this fire hasn’t helped matters”

  I also hoped that the fire had just been some kind of freak accident and didn’t have anything to do with the poisonings or the vandalism that had happened at the other ranches in the area. No need to give voice to those worries, though. Not when there wasn’t any obvious connection or evidence to back it up.

  “We’re still waiting on the official test results from the poisoned water,” Logan said, finally answering my earlier question. “That was what Isaac had been working on before he, ah… before he passed away.”