The Saddle Creek Series

Chapter 4

Lauren woke when the truck stopped, and lay shivering, listening to the evening sounds. She heard two men talking, but their voices were too far away to be distinguishable. She peeked out through the hole in the tarp and realized it was getting dark. Suddenly the tarp jerked roughly out of her hand. Like a frightened puppy in the back of a kennel, she cringed in a corner of the truck.

"Oh my God! Oh my God, I'm so, so sorry, sir. IIwell, see, I was only trying to hitch a ride to the next town, and I must have fallen asleep, and"

"It's okay now," a man said in a soft and calm voice.

Again, the voice sounded familiar. Lauren dared to look up at him and realized he was the meat-loaf-eating friend of the manager at Rosie's Diner, the one she'd so admired with the blue eyes and the drawl and manners that would have made his mama proud. Now, his gaze was even softer and more compassionate than it had been, and her fear dissolved. "It'syou!"

"And you'reyou!" His bright blue eyes twinkled. "Let me help you down." He lifted his hand toward hers.

Still trying to retain some small shred of her pride, Lauren didn't accept his offer of help. She stood, shaky and stiff all over, not sure where to go or what to do. She looked back at the road from where they had come. An escape attempt would be futile. She grabbed her backpack, stepped to the other side of the truck, and jumped to the ground.

When she rounded the front of the truck, Chase asked, "You're Lauren, right? From Rosie's?"

She screeched to a halt. "Right, but how did you? II never told you my name."

Chase laughed. "Small towns have big mouths," he said. "Susan told me. This is Amos, my ranch foreman." He motioned to the other man who had come from the barn and was standing at the corner of the truck.

"Nice to meet you," she said as she looked at Amos with surprise. He was an old, wise-looking man, the epitome of a rough-around-the-edges cowhand from the movies. He stood around five feet tall and his shoulders stooped. His weathered face looked something like a shar-pei puppy, with so many wrinkles it was difficult to distinguish any other features.

"Pleasure's mine, ma'am," said Amos before he turned and went into the barn.

"Where am I?" Lauren asked, looking around at lush, green pastures and jagged mountains reaching for the sky.

"This is my horse ranch, Jack of Aces."

"I meanwhere in the country are we? What state?"

"Wyoming, just outside the town of Saddle Creek. You said you're from back east, right? Whereabouts?"

Ignoring his question, Lauren muttered. "Wyoming. Saddle Creek. Good. I'm sure this is far enough. He won't find me here, at least not right away. Plus, I left my car." She looked at the ground, not making eye contact with her handsome chauffeur. She wanted to run in the opposite direction, but without knowing where to go and no means of traveling except by foot, she was stuck in no man's land.

"Well, alrighty then," he said. "I guess we can talk about that lateror in the morning."

As Chase took off his hat, she brought her arms up to block her face and head, expecting a blow. Fear coursed through her body from her head to her toes, and she closed her eyes tight.

"You don't need to be afraid of me or anyone here. I would never hit or beat on a woman, nor would Amos." His voice sounded calm and soothing. He ran his arm over his forehead and replaced his hat. "C'mon inside with me if ya like." He turned and headed toward the house.

What did he mean we'd talk about it in the morning? If he thinks I'm spending the night here with him, he's nuts.

She took a step toward the house, and then another until she stood at the open front door. The handsome man waited, halfway hidden by the door, for her to enter. Gathering her nerve, she stepped inside the house. She stopped abruptly, impressed by her surroundings.

The cabin was constructed of huge, hand-cut logs, tall, wide windows on both sides of the room. A wooden staircase led upstairs into an open area, something like a loft, with doors on both sides. A huge stone fireplace almost took up the entire far wall, and two comfortable-looking chairs were placed in front of it at an angle. The rest of the furniture was leather, a burgundy color, with leather fringe around the bottom. An oval-shaped hooked rug in jewel-tone colors occupied the middle of the room. The whole place felt masculine, but warm, cozy, and very safe.

Chase came up behind her. "I know we don't quite know each other, and I'm hopin' you won't think this inappropriate, but I've got a perfectly good guestroom upstairs that's been feelin' a little lonely. You're welcome to stay as long as you need to."

"SureI guess," she stuttered, as astounded by his kindness as she'd been by Susan's. Letting a virtual stranger in his house was noteworthy, but he'd offered to let her stay.

She looked to her right and through a doorway saw a large dining room furnished with an expensive-looking wooden table and chairs. A matching server sat against the far wall. A fancy chandelier with crystal droplets hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

"Let me show you to your room." Chase removed his hat and hung it on a peg on the wall inside the front door. "We're not fancy around here, so just make yourself at home, relax, and get a good night's sleep. I sleep downstairs so you'll have the entire second floor to yourself."

"That's a relief," she whispered, bowing her head and keeping her distance. She didn't know much about the man except he was very polite and sexy as hellespecially from the backside, which she appreciated as she followed him up the stairs.

"Pardon me? Did you say something?"

"UmI said your home is beautiful."

"Oh. Thanks." He opened a door to the right of the landing and flipped on the light. "Here ya go. If you need anything, just ask, and I'll see what I can do. Little girls' room is right down the hall if ya need it."

She walked into the bedroom and turned to face him. Somewhere between the restaurant and his home, he'd undone the pearl snaps on his cowboy shirt. His open shirt draped across his wide shoulders and displayed the light-brown, curly hair on his chest. Her fingers itched to feel if his hair was as soft and springy as it looked. Heat rose to her cheeks before she averted her eyes. "Thank you so much for letting me stay here. I promise I won't be a burden or cause any problems." She stared at his boots until he turned on his heels and disappeared.

After Chase had gone downstairs, Lauren looked at her accommodations and gasped. The bedroom was as beautiful and inviting as the downstairs. She set her backpack on the rich mahogany dresser, turned down the bed duvet that matched the light-blue and cream colors in the drapes and area rug. She hung what meager clothing she had in the armoire. The large room offered lots of space to move around. In fact, the one room alone appeared larger than her entire small rental house she shared with Clint in Michigan.

Yeah, I could get used to this.

She opened her backpack, took out her toothbrush and toothpaste, and went to the bathroom to freshen up before bed. When she returned to her room, she closed and locked the door. Dressed in a clean t-shirt and shorts, she settled on the wide, comfortable bed.

She wasn't sure if Jack of Aces was equipped with Wi-Fi, but she wanted to check her e-mail, mainly to contact her parents and let them know she'd left Rosie's. Working long hours at Rosie's and still recovering from her bruises, she hadn't taken the time to even open her computer. She pulled out her small notebook computer and unzipped the cover.

"Oh no!" Lauren frowned at Clint's notebook inside the protective case. In her rush to get away from him, she'd picked up his black notebook instead of her red one. Since their cases were the same shape, color, and size, it wasn't such an impossible mistake, but she was bothered by the idea of him having his grubby hands on her computer. She shrugged her shoulders. E-mail was e-mail regardless of the computer she used to access it, so she opened it up, turned it on, and waited for it to boot up.

A few minutes later, she clicked on the task bar to open the e-mail program but couldn't get in. She needed a damn password. She tried using his social security number, his birthday, his initials, his first pet's name of Spike, to include all kinds of combinations of letters and numbers as passwords but nothing worked to open e-mail. She tried other programs such as Word with everything she could think of, but it was password protected as well.

Maybe this is the real reason he's chasing me down. Not because he wants me, but because he knows I have his computer and he wants it. Maybe there's some vital information on this thing that could possibly hurt him. That could have been why he was peeking in my car windows at the diner. He was looking for his computer! I knew all along he was a sneaky bastard and up to no good.

She quickly closed down his computer, zipped it back into its case, and put it in the back of the armoire. She didn't want anything visible that reminded her of him. The man was disgusting. "I don't know what I ever saw in him."

Lauren made her way back to the bed and lay down. She was mentally exhausted from battling the fear that had spread throughout her body when she saw Clint at the diner, and physically from being jostled around in the back of the truck.

For a long while, her thoughts kept her awake. Should she even bother getting a job around here? Would he keep coming after her? Maybe she should mail his stupid computer back to him so he'd leave her alone, or she could meet him in a crowd somewhere with lots of witnesses so he'd just take the damn thing without hurting her. She had to make him promise never to look for her again.

One way or another, I've got to be free of him, once and for all.

She wondered what the dawn would bring and worried what she would do if Chase expected her to leave in the morning. She couldn't go back to Rosie's to get her car, not right away, because she was sure Clint would find her there. Since she had no transportation, maybe she could ask her host to give her a ride to the closest town.

Where can I possibly go?