The Bull Rider's Homecoming. Jeannie Watt

inching closer to the utility room, green eyes wide. Picking up a towel from the laundry basket and using it as a shield, she approached the wild hose that had broken free from its clamp during the rinse cycle and was now shooting water in all directions. She made a grab at it just as the doorbell rang.

      “Peek through the side window and see who that is,” she called as she made another grab at the hose. She caught it but now that she had the spewing hose, what was she going to do with it? She had to turn the water off somehow and she couldn’t reach the faucet behind the washer.

      “Stranger,” Katie called. “A guy.”

      Great.

      Annie opened the washer lid and tried to jam the hose inside but it instantly came free, banging the lid open and spraying her full on, soaking her hair. Sputtering, she wiped her hands over her face and slicked back her hair.

      “He looks like a cowboy,” Katie said. “He has a black hat just like Uncle Grady’s.”

      Great. Mystery cowboy.

      “Give me a second.” Something she was saying way too often of late. Since taking the job at a local Western boutique and putting in all the hours she possibly could, she seemed to be one step behind the action, playing catch-up. But she loved her job. Truly she did. Finally she was gaining financial ground, and that felt great.

      She wiped her face on the wet towel then tried to turn off the faucet, but it refused to budge. Finally she wrapped the towel around the hose, which stopped the spraying but not the flow. Muttering a word that the girls weren’t allowed to hear, much less say, she made her way out into the living room, marched to the door and opened it as far as the chain would allow. The guy standing on her porch, wearing a hat that really did look exactly like her brother’s, was tall, dark and unsmiling. In fact, he looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. The feeling was mutual. She wanted him somewhere else, too.

      “Can I help you?” she asked with more of a clip in her voice than she intended.

      “Uh,” the guy said, looking over her head at the waterworks going on behind her. The towel had come loose. “Maybe I can help you.”

      And let a man she didn’t know into the house? She thought not. “I’ve got it,” she said dismissively.

      “I don’t think so.”

      Annie jerked her chin up. “Do you need directions?” She was about to close the door in his face so she could deal with her flood.

      “I’m Trace Delaney.”

      Annie blinked at him through the cracked door. She knew the name from the bull-riding circuit, but had no idea why the guy would be standing on her porch. “Grady’s on the road.”

      His frown deepened. “I know. I’m watching Grady’s place for him. Or I guess it’s really his girlfriend’s place. He asked me to stop by and check in with you after I got here.” Once again he looked past her at the water. “Where’s the water main?”

      “Cellar. I can get it.” She didn’t like his take-charge tone, and as far as she knew, Cliff Fife was watching Lex’s place, as he always did when the couple traveled together. Her brother was very good about keeping her apprised as to what was going on in his life, and he hadn’t said one word about a change of plans. Or about a fellow bull rider “checking in” with her.

      “You sure?” Trace pointed his chin at the water behind her. Annie wanted to look but didn’t.

      “Positive.” He was most likely Grady’s friend as he said, but until she knew what was going on, the guy wasn’t coming into the house. Besides the stranger-danger factor, there was something about him that made her feel slightly off center. It was a discomforting feeling. “I’m used to handling this kind of stuff alone and I really need to get at it. Maybe we can talk some other time.” She gave him a tight smile and stepped back, getting ready to close the door.

      The man opened his mouth as if to argue then seemed to change his mind. He gave a cool nod and turned to head down the porch steps toward a black Ford truck. Annie shut the door and twisted the dead bolt before he’d hit the last step and raced toward the cellar. She could debate her level of rudeness later, after the water was turned off.

      “Let me know when he drives away,” she called to the girls. “Do not open the door.”

      “He’s driving away,” Kristen called as Annie started down the cellar steps.

      Excellent. A few minutes later she trudged back up the stairs, thinking that she needed to keep a wrench next to the main. That faucet was hard to turn. And the one behind the washer—that one needed a blowtorch.

      Now the aftermath.

      “There’s a lot of water.” Kristen edged up to stand beside her while Katie walked barefoot back and forth through the puddle in the hall.

      “Lot of water,” Annie agreed, propping her hands on her hips. She tried hard to face all disaster with equanimity. The girls needed to see that panic helped nothing.

      “Why didn’t you let the man help?” Katie asked midsplash.

      “Because I don’t know him.” She didn’t even know if he was really Trace Delaney, although she couldn’t think of one reason why a guy would pretend to be a bull-riding friend of her brother. She’d have to do a Google search as soon as she got her house dried out. She rarely watched bull riding, preferring to get her stress in other ways, so she hadn’t a clue as to what Trace Delaney looked like.

      “He’s Uncle Grady’s friend.”

      “That’s what he says, but how do we know for sure?” Annie dropped the towel she still held on the encroaching water, stopping the flow into the kitchen. Lately the teaching moments seemed to be happening with alarming regularity.

      “Oh,” Kristen said. “He might have been trying to fool us.”

      “Yes, that’s true.”

      She tried to be matter-of-fact. She didn’t want her daughters to grow up frightened—merely sensible. Kristen was a little too fearless; Katie a bit overly cautious. She’d love to edge them both toward a happy medium.

      “Girls, why don’t you get the bathroom towels? I think this is beyond mopping.”

      When she was done sopping up water, she was going to call her brother and find out why he hadn’t told her someone other than Cliff was watching Lex’s place and why that someone was checking in with her. It might all be very innocent, but she was getting a bad feeling...like maybe Grady was trying to fix her up, or, at the very least, getting her a watchdog. She did not need a fix-up and she certainly didn’t need a watchdog. She understood that her brother was trying to make up for the time he wasn’t there for her as he built his career, but what he didn’t understand was that she had been fine handling her life on her own then, and she was fine handling it alone now.

      * * *

      SO MUCH FOR DUTY.

      Trace hadn’t been wild about checking in with Grady’s sister from the beginning, but he’d agreed to do so because Grady had been nice enough to offer him a place to stay while he recovered from the shoulder surgery that had put his career on hiatus. Emphasis on hiatus. His career wasn’t anywhere near over.

      But why Grady thought his sister needed looking in on was beyond him. If she handled the waterworks with the same cool efficiency with which she’d handled him, she was probably already mopping up the damage.

      If she wasn’t...well, he had offered to help.

      He slowed as he approached a fork in the gravel road and checked the GPS. Left. He’d never been to this part of Montana, but within a matter of minutes, the GPS successfully guided him to Grady and Lex’s small ranch. The property was located almost five miles from that of Grady’s sister, so there wasn’t much of a chance of him accidentally encountering her while he was running or riding.

      As he