Her eyes widened and her eyebrows shot up, then she thought about it for a moment. “We are friends, aren’t we? It’s difficult to realize we’ve become friends in such a short time.”
“I think we’ve become more than friends. Or, at least, the possibility is there. I don’t want you to leave.” He guided his horse closer, then reached over and placed a hand on her leg. “I want you to come back after you testify, and I want you to let me go with you when you do. You won’t be safe until after you give testimony. Maybe not then. I can protect you. Iwantto protect you.”
She swallowed hard.I could so easily fall in love with you, Ryan Evers. Maybe I already have because I’ve never felt this way about anyone. But it’s so wrong.“I can’t make promises. I don’t know what WitSec will do or if they’re even responsible for me after the hearing.”
He straightened in the saddle and put a little room between their mounts. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I just wanted you to know where I stand, which is firmly beside you.”
She gave him a small smile. “Thank you. You can’t imagine how much better that makes me feel.”
After their ride in the corral, Ryan opened the gate into the pasture. “Come on, we can see some country while you practice your riding.”
He walked them straight out into the pasture, past the helicopter and toward the mountains.
Cattle meandered around, looking for food and pulling up whatever they could find.
She pointed at the cows. “What do they eat when there is no grass?”
“We feed them hay. We truck it out every day. It’s a laborious process, but we have to feed them. That’s why part of my land is planted in hay, so I don’t have to pay the outrageous price for it at the feed store.”
“That makes sense, but it seems like it would be a lot of work to harvest the hay and then store it. Where do you store it?”
“See those large cubes covered with tarps? Those are stacks of hay bales. When it’s time for feeding, we just go to one of them, load up the truck with bales and take it out to where the cows are.”
“How many cows do you have?”
“About two thousand, give or take. The amount of land I have in pasture could support more than that but I don’t want to abuse the land. I try to be a good steward of our Mother Earth. After all, it is the only home, we have.”
She tilted her head and made a quarter circle before nodding. “That's the truth.”
“Do you feel like a little loping?”
“Yeah, I think that would be fun.”
He took off and Goldy followed closely.
Once they were past the trotting phase, Kaylie loved it. It was such a feeling of freedom. She laughed.
Ryan whooped and hollered. Took his cowboy hat off and waved it in the air.
She held the reins with her right hand and the saddle horn with her left and was amazed she was still hanging on. Suddenly, she heard a loud crack.
Ryan must have heard it, too. “Follow me. Quickly.” He turned the horses and galloped back to the house as fast as he could while keeping an eye on her.
He’d left the corral gate open and rushed through it directly into the barn.
Goldy followed Star as close as she could.
“Ryan? Was that a gunshot?”
He frowned and reached for her.
She leaned down.
He swung her down from the saddle.
“Yes, and whoever fired on us was either very far away or a terrible shot. Thank God.”
“A shot?” Suddenly she thought she’d be sick. Her stomach lurched and knotted. “That means Vinnie’s found me, doesn’t it?”