Mountain Heiress. Cassie Miles

Was Great-Aunt Michelle haunting the place?

      “Who are you?” the ghost demanded.

      “Me? Who are you?” Gabby shot back.

      “Get out!”

      “This is my house.” Gabby’s fingers tightened on the pepper spray. Ghost or not, this person was skinny and the voice was female. If this came down to a physical confrontation, Gabby liked her odds.

      In a rush, the ghost descended the staircase. Her long, stringy hair fell past her shoulders almost to her waist. On the landing that was three steps up from the wooden newel post carved in the shape of a gargoyle, the ghost reached down. When she stood, she was holding a rifle.

      “Now,” the ghost said. “Tell me who you are.”

      The odds had shifted. Gabby had the good sense to be scared. She raised her hands beside her head and moved toward the staircase. If she could get past the ghost to the open door, she could run to her car and drive to the neighboring house, like she should have done when she first arrived.

      “Take it easy,” Gabby said. “My name is Gabriella Rousseau. Michelle was my great-aunt.”

      “You better have some identification.”

      “No problem.” She was almost to the entryway. “My wallet is in my car.”

      “Don’t take another step.”

      This girl in the long nightgown couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, and she looked upset. Her eyes were red-rimmed as though she’d been crying. Maybe all she needed was a friend. Gabby tried a smile as she inched her way forward. “How about you put down the gun?”

      “I told you not to move.”

      “Okay, sure.” She kept her eye on the bore of the rifle. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Look at me. Do I look dangerous?”

      “You look stupid in those shorts.”

      “They were a lot cuter when I put them on this morning.” Now wasn’t the time for a fashion critique. “Come on, put down the rifle.”

      “No way. They might have sent you. They might be trying to trick me.”

      “They? Who are they?”

      “Just walk to the door, real slow. I’ll be right behind you. One false move and I’ll blow a hole in your back.”

      No way was Gabby going to step into the line of fire. This girl was crazy, and she was trembling so hard that she might accidentally pull the trigger. Gabby needed to take control. As soon as she was even with the rifle, she made a quick pivot and dodged to one side. With her opposite hand, she fired a blast of pepper spray. She grabbed the long barrel of the rifle.

      With surprising strength, the thin girl yanked the gun away from her. A gunshot exploded. The girl spewed a string of profanities that would have made a Brooklyn Teamster blush.

      Gabby made another attempt to get the gun, but the girl wouldn’t let go. They wrestled for the weapon. Gabby yanked hard. Her hands slipped, and she fell backward onto her butt. She dropped her keys and pepper spray. The girl waved the rifle blindly and blasted the head off the wood gargoyle at the foot of the staircase.

      It was time for rule number three: run like hell.

      Scrambling to her feet, Gabby charged through the open door and dived down the steps leading to the porch. Her car was right there, but it didn’t matter because she’d lost the keys. Hunching her shoulders to make herself a smaller target, she ran as fast as she could in the platform sandals, putting distance between herself and the house.

      “Get back here,” the girl yelled.

      Not on your life. Gabby ducked behind a clump of some kind of mountain prickly bush and stared at the house. The figure in white stomped back and forth on the porch with the rifle in her hands, treating the place as though it was her property and she was sworn to protect it. What the hell was going on here?

      Gabby decided not to stick around and find out. The crazy girl in the nightgown might decide to get dressed and come after her. The best move would be to run through the drizzle toward the neighbor’s lights in the hope of finding reasonable people.

      She waited until Crazy Girl went into the house and then made a dash for the road. Leaping across the two narrow lanes, she came to the barbed wire fence on the opposite side. Until now, she hadn’t noticed cows or any other wildlife, but it was a good bet that the barbed wire had been erected to keep something penned in. Growing up in Brooklyn, Gabby had zero experience with cattle, but she knew they weren’t violent. Cows ate grass, not people.

      Carefully, she poked one bare leg between the strands of barbed wires. She lowered her shoulders to squeeze through, and she almost made it. The back of her hoodie snagged. She pulled. The fabric stretched but didn’t release. After another pull, she was hooked in two other places. The sweatshirt had to come off. She unzipped the front and wriggled her arms free. Balancing on one foot, she climbed through.

      The lights from the neighbor’s house were still a long way from where she was standing, and she was freezing cold. The dribbles of rain were already soaking through her long-sleeved cotton T-shirt, which was one of her favorite items of clothing. Her best friend, Hannah, had painted a romantic sketch of the Eiffel Tower on the front.

      Gabby needed the hoodie for warmth. She peered at Great-Aunt Michelle’s house and saw no sign of Crazy Girl. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds to untangle the sweatshirt. She gently maneuvered the fabric, detaching it from one of the barbs, then another. She almost had it free when she snagged the sleeve of her T-shirt. Damn, she didn’t want to ruin this shirt that Hannah had worked so hard to make. Quickly, she peeled it off over her head.

      Unsnagging the material took a careful touch, but Gabby was accustomed to working with fabric. She manipulated the threads and gently pulled. Both shirts were free and still no Crazy Girl. But someone was approaching. Gabby could hear them getting closer. She turned to face the new threat, clutching her hoodie and her shirt to her breasts to cover her leopard-patterned bra.

      A cowboy on a dark horse rode toward her. He wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before. Frankly, she would have been less startled by a zombie attack.

      Lightning flashed behind him, outlining his broad shoulders and long legs. When she glimpsed a chiseled profile under the brim of his hat, her heart did a weird little tango. He looked angry. But he was also gorgeous.

      Chapter Two

      Zach Sheffield dismounted and approached the woman who stood at the edge of his property wearing a pair of shorts, a leopard bra and nothing else. He’d never seen anything like her before. She stared with eyes as big as saucers. Her arms and legs gleamed white against the darkness. She was shivering and talking so fast that he couldn’t separate her words into anything coherent.

      Whatever she was babbling about didn’t matter. All he wanted to do was get her dried off and warmed up so she could go back to Michelle’s place where she belonged. Without speaking, he took off his denim jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

      “Thank you,” she said, “thank you, thank you.”

      The rain dripped down her forehead, streaks of eye makeup marked her cheeks and her lips quivered. She looked as pathetic as a wet cat, but he didn’t waste any sympathy on her. There was a spark of energy in those dark brown eyes that told him she wasn’t a helpless damsel in distress.

      “You can come with me,” he said.

      “Where are we going?”

      “My place. After you get dried off, I’ll take you back to your home.”

      “Home? I really hope you aren’t talking about Rousseau’s Roost. I can’t go there.” She jabbed an accusing finger at the house across the road. “There’s a crazy girl in there. She shot at me.”

      He’d