“Did you hear that crazy witch?” Joe Hernandez turned in a drunken circle. His words seemed to be addressed to the room at large and nobody in particular.

“Dad,” Laredo muttered.

“Seriously!” Joe continued. He was holding another pint of beer. It sloshed so hard against the glass that some of it spilled onto his hand. “Damn,” he muttered. Then he looked up and managed to catch the eye of some other poor soul. “That woman was talking so much nonsense that she made me spill my beer!”

“Dad!” Laredo snapped. “Knock it off. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say about Aria.”

“Uncle Joe,” Jesse said coaxingly. “I think Laredo might be right. Let’s get you out to your truck.”

“Why?” Joe spun around toward the table. His beer sloshed over the other side of his glass and this time soaked the sleeve of his fine wool coat. “I’m fine!” He slammed his pint glass down on the table and pulled a chair out. “I’ll just sit down and have some supper! God knows I paid enough for it!”

Fortunately, there was nobody else sitting at that particular table and very little in the way of people to witness Joe’s mutterings and slurping as he ate. Laredo exchanged a look with Jesse. The two of them had been on what felt like the opposite side of the fence about a lot of things. He’d been nagging her incessantly about her ranch because his father was nagging him incessantly about her ranch. Jesse had stood firm. Honestly, Laredo admired the hell out of her for that.

“What should we do?” Jesse murmured.

Laredo blew a slow stream of air out of his mouth. “I need to go and make sure that Aria is all right.”

Joe Hernandez was plowing his way through the plate of food that Laredo had gotten for Aria up at the expansive buffet. It didn’t take him long to finish it. After that, he started in on the plate that Laredo had gotten for himself. The sight was sickening. But then Joe was drunk as a skunk and making a mess of things. He would burst out laughing one moment and become utterly morose the next. He was acting erratic, and Laredo could not understand what was behind it all.

Then Jesse chuffed out a huge sigh. “I’ll stay with him.”

“What?” Laredo felt his mouth pop open just a bit.

Jesse rolled her eyes. “He’s bound to make a fool of us all if we leave him. You have to go after Aria. She’s my friend. I know she’d be upset if you didn’t go after her, you know? So, I’ll stay here. You just go make sure Aria is okay.” Jesse pulled out her phone. “I’ll call Aunt Avery and find out what the hell is going on.”

Then Joe suddenly looked up at Jesse. “We should have never taken you in.”

“Dad!” Laredo couldn’t help it. He thunked his father in the shoulder with his fist. “You don’t say crap like that! Not even when you’re drunk.”

Other dinner attendees had begun to sit down at the surrounding tables. The low din of conversation filled the room, but Laredo could not hope that it would drown out his father’s current thread of speech.

“We took you in, you know,” Joe told Jesse.

Jesse seemed utterly unbothered by this conversation. “Yeah. I know. You’ve said this a dozen times already. You shouldn’t have taken me in. It cost too much money. And you had to spend a lot of time and energy running my ranch for me.”

Laredo sliced his hand through the air. “My God, Dad! Haven’t we gone through this enough times over the years? We grazed our cattle on Collins land for free for years and years. We could run far more cattle than we would have been able to otherwise. It gave our ranch the ability to support our beef cows on Collins land while breeding our rodeo stock on our own land. That was a bit of a big deal, Dad. It’s not like we were running Collins cattle.”

Joe waved his finger in Jesse’s face. “I paid your grazing leases every year so they wouldn’t lapse.”

“You ran your cattle on the leases,” Jesse said with an eye roll. She was remarkably calm under the circumstances. “Don’t bullshit me with this now, Uncle Joe. We’ve gone over and over it in the past, and we come back to the same thing. You did what you did for your own gain. Not mine. So, don’t pretend that you were some benevolent neighbor.”

“Rawling Collins was your best friend, Dad.” Laredo could not understand why this did not mean more to his father, but it never seemed to make a dent. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Not anymore.” Joe shoved a huge chunk of prime rib into his mouth. Then he poked at the slab of meat and laughed. “Look! It must be a Flying W cow.”

“Huh?” Laredo was still thinking about Rawling Collins and wondering why his father was being such an ass. He had to wrench his brain around to suddenly focus on the slab of meat on the plate. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s fat!” Joe laughed heartily at his own lame joke, but there was nobody around to take offense.

“Where’s Weatherby?” Laredo asked suddenly. He looked wildly around the room. Beside him, Jesse did the same.

Jesse grabbed Laredo’s arm and shoved him toward the door. “I’ve got your dad. Go find Aria. If Paul Weatherby isn’t in this room, he’s probably harassing her. For some reason, he’s decided that she’s on your side and requires a set-down because of it.”

“Shit.”

Laredo strode toward the big double doors leading out of the ballroom. He shoved them open and found himself in the wide hallway with the weird shell-patterned carpeting. He started jogging toward the front of the hotel. The hallway eventually ran into the main thoroughfare and the hotel lobby.

The lobby itself was crowded. There were guests and potential guests milling about. The front desk was packed with both patrons and employees. The whole lobby looked as though it were gold plated. A massive chandelier hung from the three-story vaulted ceiling, and a bank of glass elevators moved up and down just behind the fountain.

Wait. The fountain. Laredo started moving toward it. He could see Aria sitting on the edge of the fanciful granite creation and Paul Weatherby was standing right beside her. The bastard was glowering down at her as though he were giving her a lecture of some kind. No doubt it was arrogant and rude. That was pretty much the only way that Paul Weatherby knew how to interact.

“Paul!” Laredo snapped when he got within ten feet of the fountain. “Step away from the lady before I make you.”

Laredo felt more than saw the other people in the lobby turning to stare. It didn’t matter to him. The only thing he saw in his mind was the smirk on Paul Weatherby’s face as he turned to give Laredo an insolent look of derision.

Laredo sped up. He felt adrenaline soaking his bloodstream. His heart sped up and his hands began to tingle. His vision narrowed to one thing. Paul Weatherby’s face became the sole focus of Laredo’s entire being. He balled up his fist. Drawing back, he did not even pause before planting it against the right side of Paul Weatherby’s cheek.

The world slid to slow motion. Aria covered her mouth with her hands. There was a shout from the front desk. Weatherby stumbled backwards. His legs hit the edge of the fountain. He cartwheeled his arms in the air in a wild attempt to keep his balance, but it was no use. His expression was utterly stunned. There was a huge red mark on the right side of his face.

And then, as if some romantic comedy writer had scripted all of this nonsense, Paul Weatherby flipped over backwards into the fountain and caused a tidal wave of water to hit the edges. Aria gave a little shriek and leaped to her feet as the water nearly got her.

Laredo snagged Aria’s arm and tugged her closer to him and farther away from the drama. Weatherby was struggling to get to his feet. His shouts echoed off the glass elevator and the gold-plated trappings of the lobby. A security guard was running their direction. It was definitely time to go.

“You drunk moron!” Weatherby shouted. “I’m going to throw your ass in jail for assault!”

Laredo didn’t even bother to respond. For once, he had not had a single drop to drink. Oddly enough, he hadn’t been drinking and yet this had been one of the strangest nights of his life. He took Aria’s hand and began to run back toward the ballroom.

She put on the brakes. “I don’t want to go back!”

“Looking for another exit, not a party,” Laredo told her hurriedly. “Trust me.”

Was it good or bad that it took nothing more than that to get Aria to follow along behind him? She held tight to his hand and let him drag her down the seashell-carpeted hallway. They passed the entrance to the ballroom where the Cattleman’s Association dinner was still in full swing.

Laredo did not want to think about what his father was doing or saying in there. It would drive him insane if he tried to think about it too much. He spotted an EXIT sign and headed for that. His boots were slipping on the thin carpeting, and he could not imagine how poor Aria was managing to run in those heels.

His forearm hit the door hard. He shoved his way through and found himself in the parking garage far underneath the hotel. Finally, he stopped running and listened. There was no sound of pursuit. Why would they pursue him anyway? They—whoever they would happen to be—were probably consumed with trying to get Paul Weatherby out of the fountain and calmed down. The man was likely beside himself with anger and ill will.

“Oh my God!” Aria gasped. She let go of his hand and bent over double. She was wheezing. It sounded as though she were trying to laugh and gasp for air at the same time. “You knocked him into the fountain. Into it! He was just flopping around like a fish on a line! I’ve never seen anything so funny before in my life!”

For the first time in the entire insane series of events, Laredo allowed himself a moment to reflect. “You’re right.” He chuckled. Then he laughed. Then he felt as though he were belly laughing and sounding a bit like a crazy person. “He did look like a fish. Man, that guy is ridiculous!”

“He’s not just ridiculous though.” Aria sobered. “He’s also dangerous. Do you think he’s going to make good on any of his threats? The things he says!” Aria reached out and grabbed the lapels of Laredo’s suit jacket. “He makes it sound like he’s going to be lying in wait for us. I don’t know if he’s being serious or if he’s full of crap, and I don’t know that I want to find out. Laredo, there are a lot of dangerous things that can happen on a ranch.”

“He feels threatened.” Laredo wanted to soothe her fears. He gently slid his arms around her body and eased her closer to his chest. “He’s trying to scare us. He can’t really do anything. But that’s not the point anyway. His point is to frighten.”

“Well, it works.” She rested her cheek against his chest. “I’m frightened.”

He looked down at her, gently putting his index finger beneath her chin and making her look up at him. “For yourself?”

“No. Not for me.” She bit her full lower lip, and he felt compelled to tug it free of her even white teeth. “I’m scared for you, Laredo. Your family has a lot to lose with this whole stock contract thing. And then there’s the cattle thieving. A hundred head is nothing to laugh at.”

“We’re going to be fine.”

It felt so good to have her in his arms. He held her close and rested his chin on the top of her head. Somehow, just having her close was enough to make him feel as though everything was going to be all right. This was more than just a woman in his arms. She was more. Everything about Aria was different, and Laredo could not let that go. He could not risk losing this woman.

She nuzzled his chest and wound her arms around his waist. “I probably shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.

“Why not?” Laredo tried not to be offended.

“I’m wearing a bunch of makeup and crap on my face.” Aria sighed. “It’s probably smearing on your jacket. That’s gross. You know?”

He laughed. He could not help it. Her worries were inconsequential to him, but he knew he would never make her understand that. “I don’t care about this jacket. I have another one, and I don’t particularly like this one anyway.”

“Why did you wear it?” Aria wondered softly.

Laredo wondered how to explain. “I was so nervous getting ready that I could barely pay attention to what I was putting on. All I cared about was getting out to your place to pick you up and being on time. I was worried I was going to screw this up.”

The parking garage was almost cold and very quiet. There were echoing noises that sounded as though they were coming from miles away. Laredo felt Aria shiver against him. He cupped her cheeks in his hands and felt their warmth. Gazing down at her was a profound experience. He saw so many things in her precious expression. Determination, independence, and yet there was a vulnerability on her face that touched him deeply.

He wanted to kiss her so badly. His breath was caught in his lungs, and he could not begin to know if she would accept his advances or not. Yet when he lowered his face to hers, she looked up at him and he could see the heat in her eyes.

Their lips touched softly. The contact was utterly gentle and very sweet. He didn’t push. He didn’t want to push. For now, it was enough to move his lips gently against hers and feel the slow inhalation of her breath that told him she was excited by the way he was touching her.

Her fingers twisted in the sides of his jacket as she held tight. She was standing on her tiptoes, pressing her body against his as he kissed her until he did not know where he ended and she began.