Nobody entered Vincent Costa’s private bedroom without permission.
Not ranch hands.
Not housekeepers.
Not visiting cattle buyers.
Not lawyers.
Not even his foreman unless someone inside was bleeding badly enough to make etiquette irrelevant.
Men who had worked Costa Ranch for twenty years knew the rule.
The bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall belonged to Vincent.
The office downstairs belonged to the ranch.
The kitchen belonged to everyone hungry enough to enter.
The barn belonged to whoever reached the emergency first.
But that upstairs room was his.
So when Vincent rode home at 3:15 in the morning and found a pair of soaked women’s shoes beside the staircase, his exhaustion disappeared instantly.
He had been awake for thirty-six hours.
Cold rain had soaked through the shoulders of his coat somewhere south of Laramie.
His horse was tired.
He smelled like mud, stale tobacco from other men’s cigars, cheap whiskey spilled across a saloon table, and the stockyards where a meeting had gone so badly that one cattle buyer left with a broken chair and another left without a contract.
Worst of all, ten thousand dollars was missing from the winter cattle fund.
Ten thousand dollars.
Enough to feed a household for years.
Enough to purchase eighty good cows.
Enough to cover payroll through the cold season.
Enough to turn an ordinary theft into a threat against the ranch.
Paulie Gannon had been responsible for moving the money.
Paulie had worked for Vincent for nine years.
That was the part Vincent hated most.
A thief he expected could be managed.
A loyal man becoming a thief was harder.
Vincent pushed open the ranch house door and stopped.
Women’s shoes.
Small compared with his boots.
Brown leather.
Soaked dark.
Placed neatly beside each other despite the water dripping from them.
He looked toward the sitting room.
Dark.
Kitchen.
Dark.
No voices.
No lamps except one faint glow upstairs.
His hand moved beneath his coat.
The revolver came free smoothly.
He climbed the stairs without sound.
At the top, his bedroom door stood open.
Amber lamplight spilled across the hallway.
Vincent’s jaw hardened.
He crossed the distance slowly.
One hand on the weapon.
One on the doorframe.
He entered.
Washroom first.
Empty.
Wardrobe.
Empty.
Window latched.
Curtains moving slightly from a draft.
Desk disturbed only by a large manila folder placed squarely at its center.
Then he looked toward the bed.
Someone was sleeping in it.
Vincent raised the revolver.
Then recognized the woman.
He lowered it.
Slowly.
“What in hell…”
Khloe Evans lay curled near the edge of his mattress.
His bookkeeper.
The quiet woman who could balance seven separate ledgers while three men argued around her.
The woman who apologized when other people bumped into her.
The woman who had worked at Costa Ranch for two years and had never once entered his private quarters while he was present.
Now she was asleep in his bed.
Her light-brown hair had come loose from whatever practical arrangement she wore during work.
Damp strands clung to one cheek.
Her face looked younger asleep.
Softer.
She had always been soft.
Not weak.
Soft.
There was a difference most men were too stupid to understand.
Khloe was full-figured.
Very full.
She had spent years making that reality smaller in every way except physically.
Dark colors.
Loose coats.
Arms folded in front of herself.
Standing near walls rather than in the center of rooms.
Moving aside before anyone asked.
Vincent had noticed.
He noticed almost everything on his ranch.
That was why he had never commented.
The world had apparently spent enough time telling Khloe what shape it thought she should be.
He had no intention of joining it.
Tonight she wore none of her office clothes.
Her gray skirt lay folded beside the hearth.
Her white blouse hung from the bedpost, drying.
Instead she wore an ivory nightgown someone in the household must have provided.
Thick cotton.
Long sleeves.
High lace-trimmed neckline.
Practical.
Warm.
Modest.
Her damp riding coat lay on the floor near the chair.
That explained part of the mystery.
Not all.
Vincent holstered the revolver.
Then his gaze moved toward the desk.
The folder.
Land deeds.
Of course.
He remembered shouting instructions before leaving for the cattle pens.
The county commissioner would arrive at seven.
Documents for the new grazing parcel had to be reviewed and signed physically.
Paulie had said someone would bring them.
Apparently Khloe had been sent in freezing rain after midnight.
Vincent’s anger returned.
Not at her.
At Paulie.
That bastard had sent a woman nearly four miles from the lower office to the main house in a storm because he could not be bothered to carry a folder himself.
Vincent looked back at Khloe.
She shivered.
Once.
Then again.
He crossed to the wardrobe.