Mason. Delores Fossen

moon, he saw her. Barely. She was at least thirty yards away, her pale blue gown fluttering in the wind.

      Abbie was running as if her life depended on it.

       Chapter Two

      Abbie didn’t take the time to tell herself that it’d been a really bad idea to come to the Ryland ranch. But that’s what she would do later. For now, she just had to get out of there as fast as she could and hope that she could somehow make it to safety.

      Safety with no car, no money, no shoes.

      Clearly, she had some big strikes against her.

      Abbie glanced over her shoulder and saw one of the biggest strikes of all. Mason Ryland. Her boss and perhaps the person who wanted her dead.

      She’d been a fool to come here, and that foolishness might soon get her killed.

      With Mason’s footsteps bearing down on her, Abbie didn’t give up. She ran, praying that she would make it to the fence before he could grab her. The fence wasn’t a sure thing. First, she’d have to scale it and then try to disappear into the thick woods that surrounded the sprawling ranch. But just reaching the fence was her next obstacle.

      “Stop!” Mason yelled.

      His angry voice tore through the darkness, through her, and she had a terrifying thought.

      What if he shot her?

      After all, he had a gun. Abbie had seen it when Rusty and he had pulled the door off her. The sight of that weapon and his fierce take-no-prisoners expression had caused her heart to skip a beat or two.

      She kept running, her lungs already starved for air, but she wasn’t fast enough. With the fence still yards away, Mason grabbed her shoulder and dragged her to a stop before he whirled her around to face him.

      “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mason demanded.

      Abbie wanted to demand the same thing, but she couldn’t gather enough breath to speak. Mercy, her teeth were chattering from the chilly night air and the fear.

      “Well?” he pushed. He looked down at her. At her face. At her gown. At the garment she was wearing over her gown. “And why did you steal my shirt?”

      “I borrowed it,” Abbie managed to say. She would have done the same to a pair of shoes if she could have found them. She hadn’t. So she’d run out of his office barefoot.

      He mumbled some more profanity and stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had. But thankfully he didn’t shoot her or threaten to do it. That reprieve meant she had a chance to try to talk him out of whatever he was planning to do to her.

      “Look, I’ll just go,” she managed to say after sucking in some more air.

      “To heck you will.” He kept a punishing grip on her arm. “First, you’ll tell me about that fire and why you ran. After that, I can decide if I’ll arrest you for arson.”

      That put some air back in her lungs. “What? Arrest me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

      Mason gave her another you’ve-lost-your-mind glare, and those ice-gray eyes drilled into her. Abbie couldn’t see the color of his eyes in the darkness, but she knew them well enough from her job interview. Not that he’d given her more than a passing glance in the three days she’d worked for him.

      Well, he was doing more than glancing now.

      In addition to the glare he’d aimed at her, his gaze kept dropping to her cotton nightgown. It wasn’t a garment meant to be provocative, but she felt exposed with Mason’s attention on her.

      Mason had a way of doing that, she’d learned.

      Tall, dark and dangerous with his black hair and hard face. His brothers had those same Ryland looks, but they were softened on their faces and bodies. Not Mason. He looked like an ornery vampire.

      Without a shirt.

      Added to that were those gunmetal-gray cop’s eyes that saw, and had seen, way too much.

      Abbie slid her left hand over her chest. Over the silver chain that veed down into her gown and in between her breasts. She couldn’t let Mason see the pendant at the end of the chain. If he did, the anger and questions would come at her full blast.

      “We can stand out here and freeze our butts off,” he continued, “or you can tell me what happened.”

      Because she couldn’t tear out of his grip and because he had that gun, Abbie knew she had to give him some kind of answer. The truth?

      Probably not.

      Not until she was sure she could trust him, and so far Mason hadn’t done anything to make her believe she could. Well, except pull her out of the burning house, but she wasn’t sure yet why he’d done that. Maybe her shouts for help had drawn so much attention that he felt he had no choice but to make a show of rescuing her. He probably wouldn’t have wanted anyone saying he’d let his trainer burn to death. Even if maybe that’s what he’d wanted to happen.

      “I already told you I’m not an arsonist,” she explained. “I woke up, and the place was already on fire. I tried to get out, but when I made it to the front door, someone pushed me to the ground and shoved the door on me.”

      “What someone?” he challenged.

      Abbie shook her head. “I didn’t see his face.”

      He studied her, his glare getting even harder. “So why accuse me then?”

      Now, here’s where she had to lie. “I was scared. Talking out of my head. I’ve never come that close to dying.”

      And that, too, was a lie. A whopper, actually.

      Oh, she’d come close all right.

      The seconds crawled by, and even though her teeth were still chattering and the goose bumps were crawling all up and down her, that didn’t seem to give Mason any urgency. Even though he was no doubt cold, too.

      That no-shirt part caught her attention again.

      She didn’t want to look at him. Okay, she did. Once more she was intrigued by how the Ryland genes could have created this puzzling mix of danger and hotness. Under different circumstances, she might have been attracted to Mason Ryland.

      Abbie mentally groaned at that thought. Not good. Thoughts like that could only make this situation worse. And she was already at worse. The trick now would be to stop the damage from escalating into a full-blown nightmare.

      “I have to get out of here,” she blurted out. “I can’t stay.”

      Still no urgency from Mason, and when she tried to move, he snapped her back in place. “You honestly believe someone tried to kill you tonight?”

      Abbie thought about her answer. “Yes,” she said, even though she dreaded what he would ask next. She didn’t have to wait long.

      “Why would someone want to kill you?”

      Mason’s question hung in the air and was just as smothering and as potentially lethal as the fire and smoke had been. Abbie tried to shrug. “Since I’ve been here at the ranch, I’ve had the feeling someone’s watching me.”

      Also the truth.

      Without warning, Mason released the grip on her, but he continued that ruthless stare. “Did you tell anyone about this?”

      Abbie settled for a head shake.

      “Well, you should have,” he growled. “We have surveillance cameras all over the ranch, but they’re not monitored unless I’m aware there’s a problem. I wasn’t aware. Plus, there’s the part about me being a deputy sheriff. I would have been very interested in knowing that you thought someone might be watching you.”

      “I’m sorry,” Abbie mumbled.