Chapter 2
Did I really just cut my own fence to carry a stranger through it?
Tor pointed Alpine toward home and let him have his head—the horse didn't need any urging to get going toward his barn and dinner, leaving his owner to contemplate the last fifteen minutes.
Okay, so cutting the fence had been a little ridiculous. In the heat of the moment, though, all he had been able to think of was how much it would jar the woman's ankle to be lifted over the barbed wire. He didn't want to hurt her, stranger or no.
Granted, she was an injured stranger—and God knew Tor had a history of acting before he thought when it came to saving people. At least, he had, once upon a time. He'd been more cautious since the accident with the bull.
He hadn't stopped to think this time.
Why not?
There was a more important question at the moment, though, and he realized he had spent the last several moments circling it, unwilling to face the issue head-on.
That's not who you are, Torrance Edwards. Time to cowboy up and deal with the hard issues.
Fine. The difficult question, then. Why had he suddenly been able to speak clearly as he helped this woman?
The answer came to him as easily as his speech had back there: because I wasn't worrying about it.
Dammit all to hell.
Out of all the doctors he'd seen—the best in Texas, and several other states, as well—only one neurologist had suggested there might be a psychological component to his language difficulties.
Guess she was right.
And although he'd never admit it out loud, that was part of the reason he'd rushed the injured woman into coming back to the bunkhouse with him—for some reason, helping her had brought back his ability to speak, if only temporarily.
Can talking to her help me get back to myself?
He had to find out.
No better time to start than right now, even if he seemed to be back to stammering and forcing his words out in slow motion.
I miss my old self. The one who wouldn't have stopped to worry about what to say—or how to say it.
"Your name?" he managed to get out after a few tries.
The woman had turned her head and tilted it up to look at him when he began his halting question, but didn't show any indication of the impatience he had seen from others.
"Leta Delaney," she replied.
He wanted to know more, but she didn't offer anything else.
What am I doing?
Was he seriously trying to have an actual conversation with someone he didn't know?
Apparently so, even if it took him forever to ask a single question. "Why Chet Tyler's place?"
Again, she waited patiently for him to finish, even giving him a few seconds afterward to make sure he didn't have more to say. Then she shrugged. "I found the ad online. I needed to … get away for a while."
He noticed the pause in her answer, so different from the stops in his questions. This time, he was the one who waited a little longer, and was rewarded for his own patience with more information.
"I wanted someplace off the grid, and needed it fast."
She didn’t look much like someone who'd really know what off the grid meant. The high heels being Exhibit A. Tor wanted to ask her more, but they were coming up over the slight rise that led to the bunkhouse, and he didn't think he could rush the questions that came to mind. Like, why did she need to be off the grid? Why not just check into a hotel?
And perhaps more to the point: how could he save her from whatever had her running?
* * *
Well, I asked for off the grid, Leta thought as she stared around the bunkhouse central room from her seat on the couch. She sat with her leg stretched out in front of her, propped up on pillows, a bag of frozen peas he'd retrieved from the kitchen draped over the swollen joint, her shoes—one broken, the other whole—on the floor next to her.
"Does this place even have wifi?" she asked.
Tor grinned and pulled a phone out of one of those apparently endlessly useful pockets of his and waggled it at her. "Hotspot," he managed to say after a few tries.
Leta laughed. "I guess I'm even more untraceable here than at the Tyler place," she mused aloud.
Raising one eyebrow, Tor turned up one palm and nodded. The sunlight shining in through the window momentarily slanted across the scar running down his temple and onto his cheek.
What had happened to this beautiful ranch hand, and was it connected to the speech impediment that seemed to disappear when he was distracted?
"And you're absolutely certain your boss won't mind me being here?"
This time, his pause made her think he was about to say something, but in the end, he simply nodded definitively.
Okay, then. She seemed safe enough—he'd been a perfect gentleman on the ride over, even as she remained painfully aware of the muscular chest pressed against her back, and the jeans-encased thighs on either side of her own legs, despite the painful throb of her injured ankle.
Not that she wanted to admit to being attracted to him.
It's only biology, she told herself. He's attractive, and I'm not blind. That's all. I know better to get suckered in by a pretty face and kind manners.
Again.
She bit the inside of her bottom lip at the thought of Brent.
Crap. Getting away from all reminders of her lying ex was the main reason for this attempted escape from reality.
Time to distract herself. "Are we the only ones here?" she asked. When he nodded, she realized she needed to start asking questions that couldn't be answered with a simple yes or no.
Maybe. Was it unkind to force him to speak? It didn't bother her to wait for his answer—she could stare at him for hours without complaint, she suspected—but maybe he preferred to avoid it whenever possible?
To hell with it. Trying to take some man's sensibilities into account had, in a roundabout way, landed her here in the first place. If she hadn't tried so hard to make sure Brent was okay…. No. That line of thought led right back to the source of her misery.
Make conversation, Leta.
"I thought the ranch looked pretty big," she said. "Why are you the only hand staying in the bunkhouse? Doesn't it take more than one person to run a ranch?"
A flicker of confusion shot across Tor's face, followed almost immediately by the grin that showed that dimple.
What was going on with this guy? It was like he was two different men—the confused one with the stammer, and the fast-acting, smooth-talking one with the easy smile.
Whoever he was, he was working to answer her question, so she waited. Better to concentrate on the lone hand on a giant ranch than on the throb in her ankle. The whole ankle issue was embarrassing. If she hadn't been so emotionally overwrought to begin with, she wouldn't have stopped to ask directions.
No, I wouldn't have rented someplace without vetting it in the first place.
It wasn't like Brent would be actively looking for her, after all.
And that was kind of the problem, wasn't it?
"They live in town," Tor finally said, answering her question about the other ranch hands in something of a rush.
"And you live here all alone?"
His mouth twisted a little—not in frustration, but as if trying to decide how to answer her question. Finally, he turned up his hands and shrugged a little, glancing around the bunkhouse.
Leta could tell he was working to say something else, so again, she waited. There was something oddly relaxing about being in the company of a man who didn't talk nonstop.
He'll never interrupt me while I'm speaking, she thought wryly. An image of Brent cutting across her to make a point at their last, disastrous dinner flashed through her mind, and she grimaced.
Tor froze, and guilt shot through her—clearly he thought her grimace was meant for his halting speech.
"My ankle," she said, hoping it would do as an explanation. "Do you have any ibuprofen here?" He nodded and moved toward the hallway leading to the back of the house. The relief that shone in his eyes for a moment before he shoved it down again made her glad she had come up with the cover story.
It wasn't exactly a lie, either. Her ankle did hurt.
Of course, under other circumstances, she wouldn't have admitted that; usually, she would have decided that it was better to keep moving than to show weakness.
She rested her head against the cushion behind her. Even the thought of trying to keep up all the barriers she had built over the last few months—both consciously and unconsciously—made her tired.
She could just close her eyes for a moment here and rest.
A word drifted through her mind, followed by a flood of emotion that surprised her.
Safe.
She would have to think about what it meant that she already felt safer with this stranger than she ever had with Brent.
Later. I'll think about it later.
For now, maybe she could relax into it, if only for a little while.
Really relax, for the first time since she had walked in on Brent with the woman she later learned was his wife.
* * *
When Tor returned, water and a bottle of pain-relief tablets in hand, he found Leta asleep on the couch.
The soft, pale curve of her cheek flushed slightly pink in the last rays of sunlight slanting through the window, catching Tor's gaze like a grass burr: surprising and more painful than it seemed like it ought to be for something he hadn't noticed before.
Leta Delaney was definitely beautiful, with that pale skin and dark hair, and bright green eyes that showed off the Irish ancestry that presumably gave her that surname.
That was part of what made staring at her painful, though.
Two years ago, it would never have occurred to him that someone like her wouldn't be interested in him. If she had shown up on his radar back then, he wouldn't have hesitated to make a move.
Now, the potential for rejection was all he could think about.
Oh, there were still women attracted to his money. He'd dated plenty of them in the last year, since he'd started trying to live a normal life again. Maybe even a few of them had been attracted to him in the beginning.
It didn't take long for those women to grow impatient with his halting speech, his frequent inability to remember particular words, even his frustration at his new limitations when he ran up against them.
No. Leta Delaney was gorgeous, but it didn't mean anything to Tor. It couldn't. Not after vowing never to let anyone close enough to hurt him again. His jaw tightened.
As if she could feel his stare, Leta stirred and her eyelids fluttered open. She blinked several times before the confusion in her gaze cleared up.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I must have been more tired than I thought." The light flush of her cheeks flared a deeper pink.
It took almost every ounce of self-control he had, but Tor managed not to jump in and reassure her.
Not that I'd be able to say a damn thing, anyway, he thought sourly.
The woman on his couch read the emotion in his expression, misunderstood its source, and sat up straighter. "If you want, you can take me back to my car. I can go to Mr. Tyler's cabin. Really, I feel better now. Thank you so much for helping me."
Tor frowned and shot her a dubious look as he handed over the ibuprofen and water.
"Thank you," she said, opening the bottle eagerly and shaking out two tablets.
So much for being well enough to leave.
No. He would let her stay here in the bunkhouse, while he. . . . What? Stayed in the main house? He could almost hear his Mama's voice echoing through the room: That is no way to treat a guest, Andrew Torrance Edwards.
It might, however, be the only safe way for Tor to treat a woman he found attractive.
As Leta swallowed the pills, Tor inhaled to begin the long, drawn-out process of inviting her up to the main house as his guest. She tilted her head to one sight and waited for him, as patiently as she had every other time he had spoken.
Before he could even get the first word out, though, he froze, struck by what might be the worst idea he'd ever had.
Leta Delaney had mentioned "the other ranch hands." She waited for his fractured speech without any sign of impatience—not even the small signs the other women in his life had begun showing almost immediately.
She has no idea who I am. And she's the only person I've spoken to in multiple sentences in more than two years now.
Could being around her trigger that effect again?
Without the allure of his money to entice her, she wouldn't expect any kind of romantic relationship. But maybe they could become something like friends.
Maybe she could help me get my voice back.
Hope flared in his chest like anguish, when he thought he'd wiped both out months before.
This time, he heard his mother use his middle name when chiding him, always a sign of serious intent: And even if she can't help you, Andrew Torrance Edwards, you have no business taking her to stay in the Tylers' old, broke-down shack.
It took less effort than usual for him to spit out one terse word.
"Stay."