hardly let herself think about it, but her mother, Eleanor, had confessed this summer to the entire family that she’d long ago been involved with Rex Foley, the patriarch of a family that had been feuding with the McCords since Civil War days.
Not only been involved with him before she’d ever married Paige’s father, but had a child with Rex years later! Paige’s adorable youngest brother, Charlie, born after Paige’s parents had separated briefly when Paige was a little girl, was actually Rex Foley’s son!
Paige remembered, barely, a time when their family’s Dallas mansion had been filled with tension. She and her sister, Penny, had hidden together in corners all over the house, trying to avoid the angry voices and all the tears their mother cried, their father gone, supposedly just on a long business trip.
In fact, it was the last time Penny remembered the whole family being so tense until this awful summer.
Back then, her father had eventually come home. Her mother finally stopped crying all the time, and then Charlie was born. Adorable, silly, happy Charlie.
Paige and her sister had been five when he was born, and they thought he was the best present they’d ever received, playing with him as if he was one of their dolls come to life.
She’d thought everything was fine then, and it had seemed that way for so long.
But it had all been a lie.
It was still hard to even comprehend how many lies had been told or what would happen to them all from this point on. It was hard for her to even think about it for too long. She had tried to keep busy and then, thankfully, had found a job to do for her family.
A very important job.
She was happy to have a reason to be out of Dallas right now and away from all the tension at the McCord mansion.
Happy to be lying in the grass on a gorgeous November day, staring through her binoculars at a man who was every bit as gorgeous and distracting.
He climbed off of his chestnut-colored horse, let the horse take a nice, long drink from the stream nearby, then—looked like it was going to be Paige’s lucky day—started unbuttoning his chambray shirt.
Oh, my.
He pulled a bandana from his back pocket, then he bent over and dipped the bandana in the stream and turned around to face her.
Paige jerked the binoculars away from her face, as if he had a hope of seeing her from this far away. She’d just been so surprised, looking him in the face, even at a distance.
Although to be honest, she couldn’t see his face that well from this distance. Still, it looked like he’d winced at something.
She got the binoculars again, found him and saw him cooling off in the stream, washing off some of the grit from working outside all day.
Looked like he’d landed in the dirt at some point.
Not that she objected.
He lifted his face to the sun and let the water from the bandana run down his face, his neck, run in a line down what looked like a perfectly sculpted set of muscles in his chest and rock-hard abs.
Oh, my.
That water had to be cold, she thought. The days tended to be warm right now in the hill country, but the nights were cooler, dipping into the forties the past few nights.
She knew because she was camping out in the national park that lucky for her was just a few miles west of Travis Foley’s ranch. Because there certainly wasn’t much of a town anywhere nearby, and a stranger staying in a little town like Llano would be noticed.
And Paige couldn’t afford to have anyone—particularly Travis Foley—know she was here.
She went back to watching her cowboy, who’d ridden by this particular spot for the last two days in a row, working hard. She thought he was probably doing grunt work, rounding up strays, checking fences and watching for trespassers, while the boss, Travis Foley, likely sat in his air-conditioned mansion somewhere on the edge of the property, counting all his family’s oil money or checking on investments or something cushy like that.
She couldn’t imagine a Foley working his ranch day-to-day.
He had men like the one she was watching for that.
He finished cleaning up, put the bandana down and buttoned up his shirt. Then he leaned back against that big rock and lifted his face to the sky, like a man admiring the fall sunshine or the still-warm afternoon breeze.
Or maybe like a man worn-out, whether by his work or his own problems, she didn’t know.
Or a man who just really needed to get away from it all, to relax here in the peace and quiet of this empty corner of Travis Foley’s ranch.
If Paige had time, she might like to enjoy some peace and quiet with him, maybe even a little time in the dark.
It wasn’t the kind of thing Paige did, pick up a stranger for the night.
But the summer had been just awful, and sometimes she got to the point where all the problems, all the changes kept racing around in her head, one after another, piling up in there, the pressure building until she just wanted to scream.
This man, this cowboy…surely he could make her forget.
Even if it was just for a night. Not that she had time for that, either. But a woman could dream, couldn’t she?
In the meantime, she had work to do.
Once he left, she’d have a full twenty-four hours before he was back again, if the pattern of the last three days held. She had all her equipment with her in her backpack and was a little uneasy about going into the old silver mine alone—anyone who knew anything about old mines would be—but she’d taken every precaution she could.
And she was determined to do this. Her family needed her. She’d promised her brother, Blake, who was CEO of the family’s jewelry empire.
Paige stopped thinking about her cowboy. If she did her job right, she’d never even meet him. What a shame.
She put down her binoculars and pulled out her satellite phone. Regular cell coverage was lousy out here in the middle of nowhere.
Blake answered on the second ring, sounding anxious. “Well?” he asked.
“I’m set. I’m going in,” she told him. “You know what to do?”
“If I don’t hear from you by dawn, I call your friend in the mining department at the university and we come find you,” he promised. “Paige, are you sure this is safe? I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”
“The mine’s been there for a hundred years. Travis Foley let a group of archaeologists in there last year to document the petroglyphs on the walls. I got a copy of their report. The place is stable as can be—”
“Still, isn’t it dangerous to go in there alone?”
They’d been through this. They’d agreed. No one else could know. Too much was at stake.
Blake merely claimed things were difficult right now financially for the jewelry stores, but that he was handling it. Which is likely what Paige’s proud, stubborn, determined oldest brother would say if the world was about to come to an end. He’d be sure he could save it all on his own.
And she was just as determined to help him.
She didn’t think the world was coming to an end, just that the problem with the stores was a serious one, and one problem to do with her family that she could actually solve. And she was determined to do just that. Solve it.
“Blake, I’m working on my PhD in geology. I know what I’m doing. Besides, I was in that mine myself weeks ago, just to make sure the reports were right and to make sure I had the equipment I’d need. Trust me. Everything will be fine.”
Actually,