Nate climbed up the couple of steps and opened the door, and Ted followed him, a little weirded out that there wasn’t any clinking of chains accompanying his footsteps. Just like he’d had to get used to life at River Bay, he’d have to figure out how to get used to life here at Hope Eternal Ranch.
“All right, guys,” Ginger said over the gaggle of people inside, most of whom were talking. Ted saw several more men wearing cowboy hats. Women wearing cowgirl hats. One in an apron. All of them looked fresh, and happy, and almost like they glowed.
Ted felt completely out of place, and he’d wished he’d asked Ginger to pull over so he could change his clothes. He stood halfway behind Nate as Ginger continued with, “This is Ted Burrows, our new cowboy. I expect everyone to welcome him to Hope Eternal Ranch the way we do.”
He wondered what way that was, and Nate glanced at him, questions in his eyes.
“I need to change,” Ted hissed, and recognition lit Nate’s face.
“Emma has your clothes.” He nodded toward a brunette, who was walking toward them with the widest smile on her face. “Ted, this is Emma Clemson.”
Ted blinked at her, because he knew her face, and her name tickled something in the back of his mind too. He knew this woman. He knew the slender face with the slightly pointed chin at the bottom. He knew the dark eyes with long lashes on the top and bottom. He knew the width of her shoulders, and the high cheekbones, and the dark hair that parted on the right side and fell toward her shoulders in straight sheets.
His eyes narrowed at her, because she didn’t quite look like the woman he’d seen before. She wore a lot of makeup, for one, and Ted felt sure she hadn’t in the past. He’d compartmentalized things from his past, and he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Emma smiled at him, and everything in Ted’s world got brighter. She had a gorgeous smile, with straight, white teeth, and an inner light that shone out of her dark eyes. She wore a sleeveless, purple shirt with a pair of jeans, and she said, “I’ll show you where you can change.”
Her voice wasn’t as familiar to him, and he wondered if his firm had represented her as a client. Or if she’d been a witness he hadn’t had to interview in person. Something…something worked in the back of his mind, and he knew she was tied to his old job somehow.
He followed Emma while another woman started explaining the vast amounts of food covering the counter. Emma led him away from the fray, and relief spread through Ted. He was ready to be away from the crowd. He’d lived for too long with dozens of other people in close quarters, and he just wanted to be alone.
“Here you are,” she said, handing him an obviously brand-new backpack.
Ted took it but hesitated. “Have we met?”
Something like fear flickered across her face, but she kept her smile hitched in place. “I don’t think so.”
“Of course not,” he said, feeling stupid for asking. But he’d definitely seen her face before. At least he thought he had. “Thanks.”
He ducked into the bathroom and closed the door, locking it behind him. And finally, it was quiet.
Chapter Two
Emma Clemson stared at the closed bathroom door, her heartbeat thrashing in her chest. She didn’t know Ted Burrows from any other man she’d see on the street in Sweet Water Falls. He could’ve been any tourist that came to Hope Eternal for their annual boar hunt or to sit in one of their bird blinds, hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the Texas Coastal Bend’s rarest birds.
“He doesn’t know you,” she whispered to herself, though at least half a dozen doors had been thrown wide open with that one question.
Have we met?
Emma hadn’t had to deal with anyone thinking they knew her for a while now. Life at Hope Eternal Ranch had become peaceful and easy. Her life was very common, and she lived it well below the radar of anyone who might somehow know someone from her past.
Ted was not the first prisoner Ginger had brought to the ranch through the reentry program. He wasn’t even the second. Emma had honestly never worried about someone coming out of a low-security facility knowing or recognizing her.
After all, the Knight crime family got sent to maximum security federal prisons, most of them in solitary confinement or on death row. No way Ted would’ve run into any of them.
Thankfully, Emma hadn’t either. Not in the last decade since she’d given up her teaching job and started keeping books, paying cowboys, and organizing field trips from the other side for Hope Eternal Ranch.
She’d once been the teacher bringing her students to the monarch butterfly activities here at the ranch. Now she set them up, called teachers, booked buses, and made sure everyone had a great time.
No one had ever looked at her with such interest in their eyes, and to think Emma had thought Ted was gorgeous and mysterious as he stood halfway behind Nate.
She turned away from the door and strode down the hall. Even if Ted was gorgeous and mysterious—and he was—she was not going to get involved with him. She couldn’t, and she knew it.
She could cut his paychecks and make sure he got the money in the right account. She could text him when he needed to meet with Ginger, as she also managed her best friend’s schedule around the ranch. She could endure his presence at ranch-wide lunches or dinners. She didn’t have to become friends with him, and she didn’t have to explain anything to him.
Satisfied in her resolve, which was very, very strong, Emma returned to the party and put her celebratory smile back in place. She told herself she’d be much better off alone, and that
