Bring On The Night. Sara Orwig

the same roof with him. When they’d divorced, it had taken her forever to stop crying over him, but this seemed the only solution right now.

      Jonah slid behind the wheel and in minutes they were driving along a freeway in San Antonio, while Henry asked questions about the ranch and Jonah answered.

      “How did you inherit a ranch in the Hill Country?” she asked. “I thought all your family was up in the Panhandle.”

      “I didn’t inherit from a relative,” Jonah replied. “It was a man whose life I helped save when he was a hostage—remember? The one in Colombia?”

      She took a deep breath, because that assignment had been the last straw. That particular mission had sounded suicidal. At the time, she’d known that Jonah told her very little about what he had to do. Just enough for her to never expect to see him alive again when she kissed him goodbye. And that was when she had given him an ultimatum to choose between her or Special Forces. He had said he couldn’t quit the military.

      “Although I’m glad you got something rewarding out of that,” she said, remembering too clearly, “I’m surprised you’re moving here.”

      “I’ll see how I like ranching. I always liked it when I was a kid.”

      “That’s different, Jonah. You didn’t have full responsibility.”

      “Nope, but this ranch looks like a promising place for me to be.”

      As they sped out of the city, heading north to the ranch, they rode in silence. For the first half hour, all Kate could do was think about the gift of no rent for the coming months, and what a wonderful help that would be to her finances. Her spirits lifted, and she tried to avoid contemplating living under the same roof with Jonah, or his fury, or the future. She wanted to bask in relief over the problems his offer solved for her.

      The land was green from spring rains, and wildflowers still dotted the hillsides. At one point they reached barbed wire fencing that stretched into the distance. “This is the south boundary of my ranch,” Jonah said.

      As she continued looking out at endless pastureland, she realized they were passing a lot of acres.

      At last Jonah turned the car off the state highway onto a hard-packed dirt road, between tall stone posts. On one of the posts a sign held the Long Bar brand. Kate glanced back to see Henry sitting up, straining against his seat belt to see out the window when they bounced across a cattle guard.

      She looked at the rolling hills and saw cattle grazing in the distance. She had imagined something on a much smaller scale, and when they topped a rise and she saw a sprawling ranch house and other buildings, her surprise grew. “Jonah, this operation is enormous. You inherited all of it?”

      “Yes. It’s mine now, lock, stock and barrel.”

      “What about the other guys in on the rescue? You didn’t go get the hostage single-handedly.”

      “Nope. There were four of us back then. We lost Colin Garrick in the line of duty. Boone Devlin inherited a quarter-horse ranch, and Mike Remington inherited the house in town and the man’s baby daughter.”

      “A baby? There weren’t any relatives?”

      “Only John Frates’s in-laws. They were unfit for parenthood and are in a rehabilitation center now. Dina Frates’s father had been in prison, and both are alcoholics. They couldn’t take the baby.”

      “Who cares for them?” Kate asked.

      “They have a lifetime trust established for them by John. Savannah Remington is the attorney for it.”

      “How sad about the grandparents,” Kate remarked. She was curious about the man they had rescued. “No wonder someone held him hostage, if he had this kind of money. What happened to Colin?” she asked, remembering a handsome guy full of life.

      “He was killed on a mission,” Jonah answered, bringing back to her the seriousness of what he’d been involved in and what he had chosen over their marriage.

      “Wasn’t Colin married?” she asked, thinking back and remembering the same woman with him each time she had seen him.

      “Nope, engaged. They were planning on marrying. I heard she’s married someone else now.”

      “I’m sorry. That’s sad. I don’t know how you got used to so much needless death, Jonah.”

      “I don’t know that anyone ever does get used to it.”

      “Oh, yes. You did, or you would have been too horrified to go back into that life. And you have all this now,” she said, still amazed.

      “That’s right. I can keep it or I can sell it. I’ve thought it over and decided to keep it for a time and see how I like it. It’s a successful cattle ranch.”

      Her head whipped around. “You won’t stay here long, because this will be much too quiet for you, too placid. I can’t imagine you doing this for more than six months or so.”

      “We’ll see,” he said tightly. “Kate, my job was to do some good in the world, not to live dangerously. But that’s old territory, and there’s no need to go there now.”

      “No, there’s not. How long have you been out?”

      “Almost a year.”

      “So what have you been doing?”

      “Working for an oil company,” he replied, a muscle working in his jaw.

      “Doing what for an oil company?” she persisted, wondering how much he had changed over the years, if at all.

      “Fighting well fires,” he replied, and she shook her head. He hadn’t changed in the least. He had merely gone from one high-risk job to another. She looked again at the lush land surrounding them and the fantastic ranch house looming closer. She couldn’t imagine him staying out here, herding cattle and mending fences and keeping books. In a few months, he would be gone.

      “Look, Mom, there are cows!”

      “Yes, there are, Henry,” she replied as they neared a pasture where more Herefords grazed.

      “There are horses, too, Henry. I’ll let you ride one this evening,” Jonah said.

      “You will?”

      Henry’s voice was filled with so much eagerness and anticipation that Kate looked back at him again. His eyes were wide and sparkling. “I get to ride a horse,” he said to her in awe, and she was saddened. Had she cheated Henry badly by keeping his father from him?

      She had never thought about Jonah as being a super father, because she’d never thought about him being present enough to be any kind of a dad to a child. He had seemed so wrapped up in his military life that she had never expected him to be deeply interested in a family. Had she been wrong? And had she denied not only Jonah, but Henry as well?

      “Look, there’s a barn!” Henry exclaimed.

      Jonah took out a cell phone and called someone, and in seconds she realized he was talking to one of his ranch hands, telling him that he would be staying the night on the ranch and he had brought guests.

      She listened as Henry bounced in the seat with excitement, and Jonah made arrangements for a gentle horse to be brought up to the corral.

      She ran her hand across her head. This was a bonanza for her and for Henry in so many ways, yet at the same time she was putting her heart and her future in jeopardy. She looked at Jonah and drew a deep breath. Handsome, commanding, he was too many appealing things. If he turned out to be a loving, attentive father for Henry, she knew he would be just that much more irresistible to her. And she knew full well that he was still the same risk-taker he had always been, the same man who lived life on the edge and didn’t mind wading into a fight to help someone even when doing so put him in jeopardy.

      When Jonah led them into a house large enough to be a mansion, Henry’s eyes were