Beth Cornelison - Rancher's Deadly Reunion

Ken didn’t recognize the cowboy who’d met Piper at the airport. Nor did he know anything about the little boy. The guy wasn’t one of her brothers. He’d seen the pictures of them she had on her desk at the office...and stored in her laptop. Irritation crawled through him. He didn’t like the idea that Piper had people in her life that he didn’t have at least a little information on.

Whoever the guy was, Piper had seemed startled to see him. She’d been cool and standoffish at first, but when that klutz with his big duffel had knocked her into the cowboy, he had been quick to catch her, slow to release her. Piper and the cowboy had shared a look that hinted at a history together. A history that might not be completely in the past. Something hot and not-yet smothered.

Hatred had burned his gut, and he’d wanted to charge across the airport and grab the randy cowboy by the throat. He’d vibrated with the urge to tear up the mystery rancher and leave no question that Piper was his .

But doing so would blow his cover, would mean leaving the concealed post he’d staked out ahead of Piper’s arrival. It was too soon to let her know he was here, that he’d come to Colorado to be with her, to prove to her that they belonged together.

Now, from the rental car he’d had waiting in the short-term parking lot since his arrival two hours ahead of Piper, he followed the cowboy’s pickup truck from a cautious distance, across the plain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains where crops, pastures and farms dotted the landscape.

Not wanting to be noticed, he hung back when the truck left the interstate, waited impatiently while they stopped for ice cream, then continued following from a distance as they headed northeast on a state road. He managed to keep Piper and the cowboy in sight until they turned in at a gravel driveway. Ken slowed as he drove past the rutted road the pickup had taken and studied a crude, stripped-log entry arch. Hanging from the top of the arch, a sun-aged wooden sign greeted people with Welcome to the Double M .

He paused long enough to search for GPS coordinates with his phone, planning to use satellite images to scope out the terrain tonight from his motel room. He had a cell signal, but it was mediocre at best. He grunted his disgust. Why would anyone in their right mind want to live out here in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of smelly cows? He could give Piper so much more than this!

He shook his head. No, not could ...he would give Piper more. He would show her their destinies were locked, intertwined. He would save her from this dirt hole in the middle of Nothing, Colorado. He’d even take her away from Boston, if needed. They’d find a place where no one could find them, no one could distract her, no one could interfere with his plans for the future with Piper. His Piper. His soul mate.

He’d make it happen. And just like he’d eliminated Ron Sandburg, he’d get rid of anything or anyone who stood in his way.

A menagerie of people, dogs and horses filled the ranch yard as Brady pulled to a stop near her parents’ house. Her mother was the first to reach her as she clambered from the back seat of Brady’s truck, and Melissa McCall wrapped Piper into a tight hug, while Ace and Checkers, the family’s blue heelers, circled happily with their tails thumping against her legs. Brady silently unloaded her suitcases and climbed back on the front seat without a word.

Her brothers appeared from the stable and took turns lifting Piper off the ground as they greeted her with bear hugs.

“Your dad is out in the north pasture, but he texted me to say he’d seen you arrive and would be in soon,” her mother said.

Piper nodded and watched Brady drive his truck to the foreman’s house across the ranch yard, where he’d lived with his father his whole life. He parked under a large tree and helped Connor out.

The little boy gave a wave to her, which she returned, before he ran inside with an awkward six-year-old’s gait.

“That Connor is such a sweet kid,” her mother said, putting an arm around Piper’s shoulders and walking her into the house. Zane and Josh each grabbed a suitcase and followed.

Piper swung her backpack onto the bed she’d slept in for eighteen years, then cast a gaze around her childhood bedroom. Her mother had changed little about the decor since Piper had left for college seven years earlier, and the familiar pink-and-gray chevron pattern of the curtains, the 4-H ribbons and high-school rodeo trophies on her bookshelf, and the ragged stuffed rabbit, nestled with the throw pillows on her bed, flooded her with a nostalgia that tugged in her chest.

“Jeez, Piper, did you leave anything in Boston? You’re only gonna be here a week. You needed two suitcases for seven days?” Josh griped as he tossed her suitcase onto the bed next to the backpack.

“Plus a backpack,” Zane added as he brought her second piece of luggage into the room and dropped it on the floor at the foot of her dresser.

“Hey, careful with that! My laptop’s in there,” she said, frowning at Zane. “And yes, I need two suitcases. I brought work clothes and boots for helping in the stable or pens, nicer things for dinner or going to town, and dressy stuff, shoes and makeup for Mom and Dad’s party.”

Josh snorted and shook his head. “Whatever. Glad I’m not a girl. I like to travel light.”

“Is travel light code for not change your underwear ?” she said with a smirk.

Josh faked a belly laugh. “Oh, sister dear, you are a riot!” She play-punched his arm, and Josh caught her wrist, pulling her into another bear hug. “It’s good to have you and your hundred-pound luggage home again, Pipsqueak.”

She hugged him back, then turned to give Zane a similar squeeze. “I missed you two lugs.”

“Of course, you did,” Josh replied, ruffling her hair, which he knew good and well she hated.

Though her brothers were technically identical twins, each had developed a look that matched their individual personalities. Zane, the oldest by three minutes, was also the studious and more responsible one. He kept his raven hair cut short and his square jaw clean-shaven. He’d made marginally better grades than Josh or Piper, primarily because he’d applied himself more diligently.

She yanked away from Josh’s manhandling and scowled at him. “Jerk.” She knocked his black Stetson off his head, a retaliation which she knew would irritate him, and gave him a triumphant grin.

Josh, who’d been the more athletic and adventurous twin from the get-go, wore his hair past his ears and often neglected to shave for a day or two at a time, leaving him with a scruffy shadow of a beard. Their mother claimed Josh was part wild stallion, hard to tame, and he had seemed pleased to live up to the reputation. Both had piercing blue eyes that made girls swoon, and they were happy to take advantage of that benefit. Piper had envied her brothers’ blue eyes, her own being a lackluster shade of gray.

Josh swatted at Piper with his hat as he picked it up, and Zane snorted a laugh at her expense.

“Well, some things never change,” said their mother from the doorway with an eye-roll for their shenanigans. “You two leave your sister alone and let her unpack in peace. I’m sure she’s tired after traveling all day.”

The family cat, a brown and black Maine coon mix named Zeke, trotted in and hopped up on her bed to sniff her suitcase. She reached over to pat the feline, glad to see the family pet after months away. She really needed to rethink the apartment she was in with the no-pets rule, she decided. She scratched Zeke on the cheek, the chin, then stroked his back, finishing with a scritch at the base of his tail. Zeke ate up the attention, tilting his head this way and that, encouraging her to continue.