Wyoming Cowboy Protection. Nicole Helm

a role model. Oh, it almost hurt to think of. It was a pipe dream. She couldn’t allow herself to believe Peter could never find them here. Could she?

      Noah stopped talking and set the phone back in its cradle, looking far too grim. Addie’s stomach clenched. “Is everything okay?”

      “Vet said it sounded like horses got into something chemical. Poison even,” Noah said gruffly with no preamble.

      Any warmth or comfort or love of this place drained out of Addie in an instant. “Poison,” she repeated in a whisper.

      Noah frowned at her, then softened that imperceptible amount she was beginning to recognize. “Carsons have some enemies in Bent. It isn’t unheard of.”

      It was certainly possible. The Carsons were a rough-and-tumble bunch. Noah’s brother, Ty, could be gruff and abrasive when he was irritated. Grady was certainly charming, but he ran a bar and though she’d never spent any time there since the ranch and Seth took up most of her time, Laurel often spoke disparagingly of the clientele there.

      Then there was Noah’s cousin Vanessa. Sharp, antagonistic Vanessa would likely have some enemies. Or Grady’s troublemaking stepbrother.

      The problem was none of them lived at the ranch full-time. They came and went. Noah could be grumpy, but she truly couldn’t imagine him having enemies.

      She, on the other hand, had a very real enemy.

      “Are you sure?” she asked tentatively.

      “Look, I know you’ve had some trouble in your past, but who would poison my horses to get at you?”

      He had a point. A good point, even if he didn’t know the whole story. Peter would want her and Seth, not Noah or his horses. He’d never do something so small and piddly that wouldn’t hurt her directly.

      “Trust me,” Noah said, dialing a new number into the phone. “This doesn’t have a thing to do with you, and the vet said if he gets over here soon and Ty helps out, we’ll be able to save them.” Noah turned away from her and started talking into the phone, presumably to his brother, without even a hi.

      Addie stared hard at her salad preparations, willing her heart to steady, willing herself to believe Noah’s words. What would poisoned horses have to do with her?

      Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She had to believe that, but everything that had felt like settling in and comfort and routine earlier now curdled in her gut.

      Don’t ever get too used to this place. It’s not yours, and it never will be.

      She’d do well to remember it.

      October

      NOAH FROWNED AT the fence. Someone had hacked it to pieces, and now half his herd was wandering the damn mountains as a winter storm threatened in the west.

      He immediately thought of last month and the surprise poison a few of his horses had ingested. The vet had saved the horses, but Noah and Ty had never found the culprits. Noah liked to blame Laurel and her precious sheriff’s department for the crime still being unsolved, even though it wasn’t fair.

      Whoever had poisoned the horses had done a well enough job being sneaky, but not in creating much damage. For all he knew it was some kids playing a dumb prank, or even an accident.

      This right here was no accident. It was strange. Maybe it could be chalked up to a teenage prank, but something about all this felt wrong, like an itch he couldn’t reach.

      But he had to fix the fence and get the cows before he could worry about wrong gut feelings. Noah mounted his horse and headed for the cabin. He’d have to start carrying his cell to call for help if these little problems kept cropping up.

      What would Addie be up to? She’d been his housekeeper for two months now, and he had to admit in the quiet of his own mind, he’d gotten used to her presence. So used to it, he relied on it. She kept the cabin neat and clean, her cooking was better and better, and she and the boy... Well, he didn’t mind them underfoot as much as he’d thought he was going to.

      Maybe, just maybe, he’d been a little lonely in that house by himself earlier in the summer, and maybe, just maybe, he appreciated some company. Because Addie didn’t intrude on his silence or poke at him for more. The boy was loud, and getting increasingly mobile, which sometimes meant he was crawling all over Noah if he tried to sit down, but that wasn’t the kind of intrusion that bothered him. He found he rather enjoyed the child’s drooly smiles and screeches of delight.

      “What has happened to you?” he muttered to himself. He looked at the gray sky. A winter storm had been threatening for days, but it hadn’t let down its wrath yet. Noah had no doubt it would choose the most inopportune time possible. As in, right now with his cows scattered this way and that.

      He urged his horse to go a little faster. He’d need Grady and Ty, or Vanessa and Ty if Grady couldn’t get away from the bar. Maybe even Clint could come over after school, assuming he’d gone today. This was an all-hands-on-deck situation.

      But as he approached the cabin, he frowned at a set of footprints in the faint dusting of snow that had fallen this morning. The footprints didn’t go from where visitors usually parked to the door, but instead followed the fence line before clearly hopping the fence, then went up to the front window.

      A hot bolt of rage went through Noah. Someone had been at that window watching Addie. He jumped from the horse and rushed into the house. Only when he flung open the door and stormed inside did he realize how stupid he looked.

      Addie jumped a foot at her seat on the couch, where she was folding clothes. “What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked, clutching one of his shirts to her chest. It was an odd thing to see, her delicate hands holding the fabric of something he wore on his body.

      He shook that thought away and focused on thinking clearly. On being calm. He didn’t want to scare her. “Somebody broke the fence and the cows got out.”

      Addie stared at him, blue eyes wide, the color draining from her dainty face as it had the day of the poisoning. He’d assured her that had nothing to do with her, and he believed it. He believed this had nothing to do with her, too, but those footsteps and her reaction to anything wrong or sudden...

      He wondered about that. She never spoke of Seth’s father or what she might be fleeing, and her actions always seemed to back up Laurel’s theory about being on the run from an abusive husband. Especially as she now glanced worriedly at Seth’s baby monitor, as if she could see him napping in his room through it.

      Noah shook his head. He was being paranoid. Letting her fear outweigh his rational mind. He might have a bit of a soft spot for Addie and her boy, which he’d admit to no one ever, but he couldn’t let her fears become his own.

      She was his employee. If he sometimes caught himself watching her work in his kitchen... A housekeeper was all he needed. Less complicated than some of the other things his mind drifted to when he wasn’t careful.

      Luckily, Noah was exceedingly careful.

      “Going to call in some backup to help me round them up.”

      “Shouldn’t you call Laurel?” She paused when he scowled, but then continued. “Or anyone at the sheriff’s department?”

      She had a point, but he didn’t want to draw attention to repeated issues at his ranch. Didn’t want to draw the town’s attention to Addie and that something might be going on, if it did in fact connect to her.

      Maybe the smarter thing to do would be keep it all under wraps and then be more diligent, more watchful, and find whoever was pulling these little pranks himself. Mete out some Carson justice.

      Yeah, he liked that idea a lot better.

      “I’ll handle it. Don’t worry.”

      “Does this have to do with the poisoning? Do you think—”

      Noah sent her a silencing look, trying