Carrie Alexander - Cowboy Comes Home

Burning ambition. Stupid choice of words, but apologizing would make it worse.

Although he sincerely doubted that it had been deliberate, the fire she’d set on the night she’d finally run away for good had burned the Vaughns’ old hay barn to the ground. Two squad cars and the volunteer fire department had shown up, along with half the town. Rio had turned himself in early that morning, when Deputy Sophie Ryan had come to the Stone ranch saying that he’d been spotted leaving the barn before the fire. No fool, the deputy had pressed Rio hard on the question of Meg’s whereabouts. He’d insisted he’d been the only one there.

They’d had no choice but to believe him, especially after he’d taken the deal the judge had offered at what was supposed to be his arraignment. The judge, a Stone family friend, had been pressured to hurry the case along…and keep the senator’s name out of it. Rio was given a choice. Join the army or face charges. For Meg’s sake, he’d capitulated. Even so, his downfall had been the talk of the town. In fact, given the pace of life in Treetop, the arson was probably still the most notorious crime in recent history.

“You never got to college?” he asked Meg.

“You know how I felt about school.” She thrust her head forward, her fingers tense on the wheel. She was speeding fifteen miles above the limit.

He returned to her question. “I went in planning to study business, but I came out with a degree in contemporary literature. My favorite class was creative writing.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not what you expected from a rank-and-file leatherhead?”

“Well, no. But I always knew you’d accomplish anything you set your mind to.” She gave him a pointed glance. “So how come you’re my stable hand?”

He shrugged. “Call it a holding pattern.”

“Holding for what?”

“I’m working on that.”

He didn’t want to tell her about the book. Not just because publication would prove him a liar. It was also her cynicism. And that she was holding back her own secrets.

But the main reason was that he’d only just begun to work his way into the project. It was still too private and new. For the past week, he’d been expanding the pieces he’d written as previous blog entries, trying to shape them into some kind of proposal for the publishers. He wasn’t convinced he had enough of a story to make a memoir beyond his experiences in Afghanistan, from brutal to banal.

The more personal revelations were a trickier proposition. So far he hadn’t touched them. Turning over the rocks and digging up the dirt, especially in public, would take every ounce of dogged grit he possessed.

Ruthlessness, too.

With some of those involved, like his biological father, he could be ruthless. Near to it, anyway.

But with Meg? That was harder to imagine. He’d never been capable of hurting her. This time, he would have to.

THEY ARRIVED at the auction, which was held in an immense barn at an exposition center. Leaving the low-slung Camaro among a lot filled with SUVs, trucks pulling trailers, and other gas guzzlers, they made their way inside. After stopping to register, they headed directly to the stalls and a small holding corral where the riding horses were being kept. The air was ripe with the earthy scents of leather, livestock and fodder.

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