Oh, he’d told her to sell it, but he’d said it grudgingly, no doubt about it. He’d set up a test of his own—sell and then we’ll see if there’s anything between us. They were quite a pair. Despite everything they’d shared, trust was severely lacking. He wondered if they’d ever have any faith in each other’s motives…in each other’s love.
Why hadn’t he simply countered with an announcement of his own? Why hadn’t he told her of the conclusion he’d reached earlier in the day, that she mattered more to him than the ranch?
That one was easy. Because, despite knowing that a relationship with her was more important, it had hurt that she was deliberately trying to back him into a corner, to rob him of something she knew he had valid reasons for wanting.
He rode hard over his own acres for the next few days, trying to push Karen out of his head, but she wouldn’t go. He made almost hourly calls to Dooley and Hank to make sure that she was safe, that there had been no new incidents. He’d been careful to skirt the real reason for his absence, letting them conclude that he’d had sudden business to attend to at his own ranch. Dooley grumbled that they weren’t getting a lick of work done with all the babysitting they were doing.
“I suggest you not describe sticking close to Karen as babysitting,” he suggested wryly. “I doubt she’d appreciate it.”
“Nope,” Dooley agreed, not sounding the least bit remorseful. “And to tell the truth, she’s getting tired of seeing our faces around all the time. When are you coming back over here?”
“I’m not sure,” Grady said honestly.
“Well, hurry it up. Hank and me have real work to do now that the weather’s beginning to turn for the better.”
“I’ll try to wrap things up over here soon,” Grady promised. Just as soon as he finished kicking himself in the butt for walking out on Karen in the first place.
At the end of the week, when he turned up alone at Stella’s, craving company as much as food, Grady weathered the stormy expression in Cassie’s eyes when he slid into a booth at the back.
“Why aren’t you at the ranch with Karen?” she demanded. Evidently she was unaware of the fact that he’d been gone for days now. She regarded him with an accusing look. “When she refused to stay with Cole and me, you promised to keep an eye on her.”
“Hank and Dooley have everything out there under control,” he assured her. “I checked with them less than twenty minutes ago.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said direly. “Because if anything happens to her, Grady Blackhawk, you’ll have all of us to answer to.”
Grady took the threat seriously, but it was no match for the guilt he would live with for the rest of his life if something went wrong because of his own stupid pride. He sighed. It was time to face the music.
“Make that meat loaf to go,” he said, sliding back out of the booth.
“I hope it wasn’t something I said,” Cassie told him with total insincerity.
He frowned at her. “You know damn well it was. In fact, double the order. I might as well take a peace offering with me.”
She grinned. “Take the roast chicken instead. It’s her favorite.”
“Whatever you say.”
He packed the two dinners into the truck and headed toward Karen’s, anticipation mounting with each mile he covered. He envisioned a little fussing and feuding when she first spotted him, but he ought to be able to get around that with an abject apology. Hell, he’d even help her draw up the papers to sell the ranch to Lauren, if that was what she really wanted.
And once Karen had accepted the sincerity of his apology, they could make up the way men and women had been getting back on track for years—in bed. The prospect had him stepping down just a little harder on the accelerator.
Grady was less than a mile away from the ranch when he thought he smelled smoke. As he rounded the last curve in the road, he spotted an orange glow on the horizon that had nothing to do with the setting sun. Panic crawled up his throat and made it impossible to swallow.
Sweet heaven, he thought, just as a car made a squealing turn out of the driveway onto the highway, nearly sideswiping the truck, before speeding past him in a blur. Shock had him hitting his brakes and staring, first in one direction, then the other.
There was no question about it, the ranch was on fire.
And the person most likely responsible had just come within inches of running him off the road.
* * *
Karen had just gotten out of the shower and pulled on her old flannel pajamas when she thought she smelled smoke. No sooner had the thought registered than the smoke detectors downstairs went off in a simultaneous blast of sound.
She jammed her feet into a pair of shoes, grabbed her robe and raced for the stairs. Thick gray smoke was already swirling at the foot of the steps.
“Think,” she ordered herself. “Take just a second and think.”
There was a rope ladder by the bedroom window. She could get out that way. It was safer than risking running straight into the fire the second she reached the first floor. And judging from the number of alarms blaring at once, the fire was already too widespread for her to be able to put it out herself, assuming she could even get to the fire extinguisher she kept in the kitchen.
Turning back to the bedroom, she paused long enough to grab the cordless phone and dial nine-one-one.
“It’s already bad,” she told the emergency operator. “I can’t see the flames, but the smoke is all through the downstairs.”
“Can you get out?” Birdie Cox asked, her manner calm and reassuring, even as
