Bridal Falls Ranch Ransom Read Online Free Page B

Shrugging it off, he pulled in a breath of cool mountain air, tinged with evergreen. He’d survived on less sleep before, and he could do it again.
    Somewhere in the distance a whisper of a sound caught and held his attention.
    Turning his head slightly, he tried to pick it up for a second time.
    Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop. The steady drum of shod hooves striking the earth, but it shouldn’t surprise him. This was a ranch with lots of horses. Hoofbeats in the night were normal, but these seemed to be coming from north of the main pasture, somewhere along the road into the ranch.
    Caution edged through him. He stepped back from the railing, out of the glaring moonlight and into the shadows underneath the overhang.
    Picking out the location of the sound, he watched a single mounted rider spurt out of the tree line to the north and maneuver his horse toward the barn. The hat on his head glowed an eerie white in the blaze of moonlight and blotted out the face of its wearer from under its brim.
    He didn’t know a single cowboy poke who herded cattle at night. Maybe the lone rider’s presence signaled something more dangerous. Maybe he was here to steal more semen samples from the cryo room in the barn?
    J.P. backed through the door at the same time the rider disappeared through the main doors into the barn. He slipped on his jeans, boots and a shirt. Feeling between the mattress and box spring, he pulled out his Glock.
    If the thief stealing from Eve Brooks tried to escape, he’d pin him down at gunpoint and turn him over to the local sheriff’s department.
    Clipping the holster on his belt, he slipped outside, sticking to the shadows as he ducked from cover to cover, until he reached the barn and squeezed through a narrow opening in the massive doors at the back of the structure.
    The rustle of livestock in their stalls went with the dusty smell of sawdust and hay. The interior of the barn was pitch-black and it took an instant for his eyes to adjust as he flattened himself against the wall next to the opening.
    Scanning for movement, he picked up a flit of white near the front of the structure, near the insulated room where the stainless steel vat of frozen samples were kept.
    He couldn’t let the thug take what didn’t belong to him.
    Adrenaline pulsed in his veins. Moving away from the wall, he went straight for the tall thin figure now framed in the doorway and about to exit the barn on foot.
    He lunged for the man and body slammed him from behind, sending them both through the barn door in a tangle of flailing arms and legs.
    A feminine shriek grazed his eardrums and sucked his breath away even before they both hit the ground in a puddle of dust.
    Terror crushed Eve in its grip. She came up fighting. Kicking and screaming, she lashed out at the man who pinned her to the ground beneath him.
    “Get off of me!” she screamed, panic consuming her entire body. “Get off!”
    “Eve? What are you doing out here?” He rolled away from her and pushed up onto his knees.
    She scrambled to her feet, careful to keep her head bent forward. “I ride at night.” She turned her back on him. “I don’t appreciate being tackled. Don’t do it again.” She took off at a jog, leaving him behind in the dust.
    Focused on the back door of the lodge, she didn’t dare look over her shoulder for fear he’d take it as an invitation to follow. But there were no footsteps behind her, no pursuit. She reached the house and hurried inside, gunning for the safety of her prison upstairs. She hadn’t felt this overwhelmed since the night of the explosion. Since she’d lain in the gravel and felt her life slipping away.
    Her chest tightened as she slotted the skeleton key in the lock, turned it and stepped inside. Hand shaking, she locked herself in, hung her key on its peg and sat down on the bottom step.
    Pulling in one deep breath after another, she attempted to waylay the panic attack consuming her bit by