Debbi Rawlins - No One Needs to Know

His pulse revved as he neared the buildings. In one glance, he’d know the truth. But the truth alone wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to use every moment he could to catch her vulnerable and get the evidence he needed. Even if it took a couple of days.

He pulled into a small parking area. There were several trucks lined up, mostly pickups, a tractor that had seen better days and a short yellow school bus.

Behind it was the cabin that had to be Annie’s living quarters. She hadn’t been kidding when she said it was small. But the working buildings gave a good first impression. Well spaced, old, but taken care of. In back of the barn he saw a small crowd of folks standing in a semicircle, as if they were watching a fight. Something pretty fierce, if the dust coming from the center was any indication.

He jumped out of the SUV, his inner alarm bells ringing. As he approached the crowd, he saw that the onlookers were kids—high school age—and two adults, a middle-aged woman pressing a hand to her throat and a petite twenty-something holding the arm of one of the teenagers, preventing the boy from moving forward. They all looked worried.

And then he heard it. The cry of a panicked, bleating goat.

He jogged the last few feet until he could muscle past the outer ring of spectators. It was a pygmy goat whose horns were tangled up in some high-tensile wire. Despite the name, pygmies weren’t that much smaller than other breeds of goats, and the situation was dangerous. The woman trying to free him was taking a hell of a risk. Goats were notorious for their fear response. They kicked and struggled so fiercely they sometimes died from their hearts giving out.

Tucker knew the best thing to do was let the goat be and hope he tired himself out in time for intervention. Because a person trying to save one could well end up needing a doctor.

The woman making that mistake was Annie Sheridan. He had to admit she made quick work of cutting free the wire, but he could see she’d been battered and bruised. Her blond hair was damp with sweat, her face smeared with mud and blood.

The kid next to Tucker was a big beefy guy whipping the side of his leg with a pair of thick gloves.

He nudged the boy, who did a double take. “Lend me your gloves.”

“Annie told us not to step in,” he said. “It could be dangerous.”

“I understand.”

The boy looked him up and down, then handed him the pair. Tucker slid them on as he shouldered his way closer to Annie and the struggling goat.

She had just managed to cut the second to last wire curled around the goat’s right horn when the back-leg kicking started again. Tucker ducked what could have been a very unfortunately placed hoof, then lunged forward, one hand on the back of the animal, the other grabbing on to his horn.

“What the…Get out of here, you idiot!”

“Cut the damn wire.” Tucker was holding the goat’s head back, just enough to unbalance him so he couldn’t lean on his front legs. “Now.”

Annie, grunting as the goat’s body slammed her in the side, got the final wire cut.

Tucker had to use both hands to steady the terrified creature, while Annie quickly and efficiently cleared away the loosened wire fragments from his other horn.

The goat was free now, but he didn’t know it, and Tucker didn’t want to release him until Annie was out of the way. But she was too busy shouting at him to move to see that his position was stronger.

It was someone from the crowd that finally got her attention. An older man ran up, yelling, “Annie, get the hell out of there.”

She did. Quick on her feet even with that prodigious frown on her face.

Tucker stopped looking at her and focused on making his own exit. It took a highly uncoordinated jump straight back, after which he nearly fell on his ass, but the goat did the right thing and ran toward the barn.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

For the first time, he got a good, clear look at the woman who’d just yelled at him, her fury uncompromised by her dirty face or her breathless exhaustion.

He didn’t answer. He was too busy accepting the fact that he had found Leanna Warner.

“WELL, THIS IS PERFECT,” Annie said, shaking her head. “Of course you’re Tucker Brennan.”

“And you’re Annie Sheridan.”

She nodded, made an abortive move to shake his hand, but her gloves were still on and her body had decided to alert her to a whole symphony of hurts and burns. What she would feel like when the adrenaline faded was going to be torture. “Welcome to Safe Haven,” she said. “You’re bleeding.”

He followed her gaze down to his arm where there was now a rip in his shirt. There was blood, but while the cut was long, it wasn’t deep. “Damn. I like this shirt.”

“Sorry about that.” She looked him over, just beginning to appreciate that the man in front of her was in a league she didn’t come across anymore. The McAllister brothers were prime examples of tall, dark and handsome, no doubt about it. The sheriff and Matt Gunderson, too. But Brennan had a different kind of good looks.

Even with the rip in his shirt and those hefty gloves, she could picture him sipping champagne at a ritzy social event as naturally as riding the range. He wasn’t New York fancy, though, which became very clear when he tugged off the gloves. There were some calluses, and he had a tan that wasn’t perfect enough to have come from relaxing at the spa.

He was a gentleman rancher, certainly…with thick dark hair, a strong face and intense green eyes, all of which she shouldn’t be noticing. He was doing his own inventory of her assets and liabilities, and she couldn’t begrudge him. Though if he’d been another man she might’ve found his close scrutiny a bit creepy.

“Let’s head to the cabin,” she said. “I can patch you up there.”

“I’ll be fine. You, on the other hand, are a mess.”

“Um, yes.” She couldn’t help but smile as she glanced down at herself. “Yes, I am.” It could’ve been worse had she already changed to her good clothes. She looked over her shoulder toward the barn. God bless them, the kids had already returned to their chores. Although they’d be leaving soon. “Actually, I need to make sure Levi is tending to Pinocchio before I do anything else. We can get you a cloth to put on that cut, if you think it can wait.”

“Yeah, this is nothing.” He waved dismissively. “I’m assuming Pinocchio is the unlucky goat.”

She nodded, leading him across the mix of packed dirt and gravel that became a muddy pit during rainy season. “He’s a curious guy, and he never seems deterred by the messes he gets himself into.”

“Goats can be difficult.”

“Every animal in Safe Haven can be difficult. I think they sign some kind of agreement before coming here.” She gestured vaguely. “Prelude to the tour. This is where we house the goats and chickens. We have twenty-two goats as of yesterday. We’re always on the hunt for new families for them, but only for milking and breeding, not for meat.”

On a shelf by the door, she picked up and folded a clean rag from a pile and handed it to him. He pressed it against the cut, hissing a little.

Annie figured he would be fine for the next ten minutes or so. He was a rancher, so he understood that her first responsibility was to the stock. “The chickens, they kind of came with the place. Sometimes I’ll wake up to new hens, more so roosters that people have dropped off.”

She watched Tucker scope out the barn. Feed was safely stored behind big fences. The coops were spacious and well maintained. The goats had new water tanks from a central well, which had been the most expensive improvement since she’d taken over. No more lugging pails. Cleaning troughs? That job would never disappear. But then, that was something the high school kids helped with.