But when he glanced over and saw the way his friend, who was ending the call with Fletcher, was watching his older brother and younger sister leave, the look of resignation on his face, Sebastian made a sharp return to reason.

  Ruby hadn’t been looking at him. She’d been watching over her big brother. The sorrow had been for Wade—not due to some ridiculous desire to have Sebastian be the one to take her home.

  He welcomed the return to reality.

  “How you doing?” Sebastian asked Wade then, a question that, a few years before, would have been completely in line with their friendship.

  In the past few years, after Sebastian had left the Marines—they’d joined together, but Wade had stayed in—they’d naturally grown apart.

  “Not you, too,” Wade said with disgust, turning so that Sebastian’s view was of the left side of Wade’s face only.

  The move, more than the words, spoke to Sebastian. He’d received his share of pity since he’d been back in Owl Creek. Had hated it every bit as much as Wade must. “You think you’re less than you were?” he asked quietly. Wade hadn’t been back long, but the man hadn’t come to see Sebastian yet, or accepted any invitations to meet for a beer.

  Anger filled Wade’s one good blue eye with such intensity that Sebastian took a step back. And heaved an inner sigh of relief.

  “Hell no. I can still take your ass. You want to give me a try?” Wade half growled, and Sebastian fully understood the note of real frustration in Wade’s half-teasing invitation. Growing up, the two of them had taken on each other more than once. Wrestled. Tried to prove who was stronger.

  No one had ever been seriously hurt, but they’d each landed bruises a time or two.

  “Lead with both fists, man, just like always,” Sebastian said then. “You know what you know. That there’s nothing less about the man you are or the power you wield with one seeing eye instead of two. It’s up to you to show the rest of the world.”

  Wade grunted. Clearly not looking for any warm feelings at the moment.

  Sebastian got that, too. A hundred percent.

  “People only know what you show them,” he said, anyway. Because he’d learned the lesson himself after his stint in the Marines had ended so abruptly.

  And because Wade Colton had picked him up, out of his insecurities, and set him straight every single summer his parents had deserted him at the cabin. Leaving Sebastian with a nanny to watch over him rather than a family to have fun with.

  “You told me once that my value was whatever I thought myself worth,” Sebastian murmured, remembering.

  The words had been with him ever since.

  Chapter 2

  Ruby was not happy about her vehicle being shot at. She’d been shaken up by being present during the potentially danger-filled episode.

  She wasn’t buying in to any theories that the violence had anything to do with her in particular. Simply a matter of wrong place, wrong time.

  There’d be vandalism at her clinic, or her home, if she was the target. Threatening notes or texts. Some kind of altercation.

  She’d lived in Owl Creek her entire life. Had never been in a long-term relationship. Wasn’t involved in anything controversial, anywhere. Nor had she ever lost an otherwise healthy patient on her operating table. She’d had to deliver some sad diagnoses. None of them brought any anger toward her to mind.

  Even online, her clinic had only good ratings. Not a single one-star anywhere.

  She’d spent the evening going over the facts, multiple times, with her brothers and sisters and parents. She answered texts from her uncle Buck, whose ranch Wade had recently started working and living on, and from her cousins, too.

  And had eventually given in to the pressure and agreed to spend the night at her folks’ well-secured home.

  “You’re a Colton,” her mother, Jenny, told Ruby as she peeked into the room Ruby had picked for the night, one of the four upstairs guest bedrooms in her parents’ newest home. The bed faced a wall of windows overlooking the lake. “Being a Colton makes you prey to anyone who could want to hurt any of us. Your father’s built an empire. You don’t do that without making enemies. Even if it’s just someone who is jealous.”

  Her mother was right, of course.

  But that didn’t change the fact that, with the shooting of Ruby’s windshield, Crosswinds was the logical target. Which meant that Sebastian and his dogs, out there all alone, could be in danger.

  She told herself, as she was lying in bed worrying about him, that having been there, hearing the gunshot, was what was keeping her awake.

  That and the fact that his programs—both search-and-rescue, and the pets he trained to help veterans with PTSD—were vastly important to her, too.

  Plus...he’d been a peripheral part of her summers growing up.

  And she’d had sex with him.

  No. That wasn’t it. And she wasn’t going to think about it.

  She just needed to make sure that he agreed that they’d never, ever talk about it or tell anyone. Ever.

  Then she wouldn’t have to worry, every time she saw him, that he’d bring it up. Or she would. That it would somehow show up and stand there between them.

  She needed it done.

  She reminded herself of this fact when, three days later, Sebastian called to tell her that Jasmine, the German shepherd she’d been checking on the night of the shooting, was having her babies. With three other veterinarians working full-time at the clinic, she was able to take a break and head out to Crosswinds.

  Ruby had counted ten puppies on the X-ray she’d done earlier in the pregnancy. Sebastian said she’d only had seven and was straining. Ruby made the ten-minute drive in eight. Pulled up with her brand-new windshield, parked on the opposite side of the little dark green medical building, her own little Crosswinds mini clinic, and ran inside.

  Sebastian stepped aside as soon as he saw her, and she went to work. Saw the sack of fluid blocking the birth canal, a situation made worse by the fact that the eighth puppy Jasmine was trying to push out was a breech. Ruby handled both issues without pause, and half an hour later, she stood over the litter, telling the big mountain man, with his shaggy hair and beard, and who was clearly worried about both Jasmine and her newborns, “You’ve got ten healthy pups there.”

  She cleaned up. Grabbed her shoulder bag, intending to leave Sebastian with the newborns he was perfectly capable of looking after. “I’ll send the bill over,” she told him. The search-and-rescue portion of Crosswinds was funded by the individuals and organizations that needed the dogs and paid for her services. Usually, she took the time to make out the charges on the computer that was set on the counter for that purpose.

  For all he knew, she was pressed to get back to the clinic. Truth was, she wasn’t feeling like herself around him.

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  She nodded, though being alone around him was what she was trying to avoid. At least until the jitters from the gunshot the other night dissipated a bit. But he was probably right. The conversation had to happen.

  Since he clearly had a plan in accompanying her to her vehicle, she waited for him to start.

  “I want to pay for your windshield.”

  What? Not at all what she’d been expecting.

  “Insurance covered it. And no. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “The police are looking into Crosswinds being targeted,” he told her what she’d assumed all along. And yet, her insides tightened uncomfortably at the news. For Sebastian. And the dogs. “I guess there’ve been a couple of anonymous complaints about the noise. When one dog barks, they all think they have to get their two cents in.” He shrugged.

  “Anonymous noise complaints?” she asked, slowing her steps as she frowned up at him. “You’re on five acres, ten minutes outside of town. Who’s close enough to hear anything?”

  His nod didn’t feel like a good thing. “That’s what I said. And what everyone else seems to get. Which apparently points more to the fact that I’m being deliberately targeted for some reason. They’re looking into that now. They didn’t find a shell casing the other night, either, so right now, all they have to go on is a size-ten shoe print. It’s not like there are traffic cams out here. And we have no way of knowing if the guy came from town or the opposite direction altogether.”

  The tension in her grew. Sebastian, the dogs, his programs—they helped so many people. And after burning herself out at the clinic, on call 24/7 for years, she’d hired more people and had been finding her own personal energy and joy return as she volunteered for Crosswinds’s PTSD dog-placement program.

  “Have you had any disgruntled customers?” she asked. “Someone whose dog didn’t perform as they thought it would?”

  He shook his head. As she’d known he would. Sebastian personally guaranteed the satisfaction of his clients. His dogs served as they were trained, or he took them back and found them good homes as pets. In all the years he’d been in business, it had only happened once that she knew of.

  “I’ve opened my life up to the police,” he said then. “We’ve had multiple interviews and they’re following up on everyone I can ever remember knowing...”

  “What about back in Boise?” she asked then. Sebastian had grown up in the city, two hours away from Owl Creek, summering at the cabin on the five acres that was now his permanent home. Property that had been in his family for decades. “Your father was a doctor, right? Maybe something to do with one of his patients?” She was grasping, she knew. Just needed him to have the answers that would bring his nightmare to an end.

  “Again, the police are investigating every possibility...”

  “What about cousins?” She knew he’d been an only child, but... “Is there someone who felt cheated by you getting the family property?”

  He shook his head. “I’m it, in terms of family.”

  The words were like a punch to her solar plexus.

  She couldn’t imagine...with five siblings and four cousins right there in town, all growing up together—sometimes all ten in the same house—the idea of having no one...

  “What do the police say?” she asked, caring much more than she wanted to. He was a friend of her brother. Not her own intimate concern. Peripheral. Not personal. No matter how many times she’d repeated the words in the past two months, her heart was not getting the distinction.

  But Ruby knew she had to.

  She’d had enough friction in her home growing up. Her parents, while respectful of each other, weren’t close. So she’d basically had two different authoritative sources to deal with on her own, going back and forth between the two, to get any sense of what was expected from her. Then, being one of six growing kids, with bright minds and a ton of energy, and add in her aunt and uncle’s broken marriage and her mother trying to compensate for her own twin leaving her husband’s brother by taking care of his four kids...

  She had enough family to last her a lifetime. And an aversion to sharing her home on a permanent basis. Except with the various animals she fostered.

  Which meant that any personal feelings she might think she was experiencing for a man with whom she’d had sex were just going to have to go away.

  She didn’t want them.

  * * *

  Sebastian watched the expressions flit across Ruby’s face as he told her the current police theory was that the culprit was exhibiting behavior that was escalating. Going from bogus complaints to random gunshots.

  He couldn’t read her. She’d always been such a curious mixture of compassion and aloofness...and not just with him. Growing up, Ruby had been the one who didn’t join in. Who preferred to make her own entertainment—reading a lot of the time—rather than jumping in a boat with the rest of them and shooting out across the water.

  Didn’t much matter what she was thinking. His missive was going to be the same.

  “You have to stop coming out here until we get this resolved.” He put it right out there. The other night...if she’d been in her SUV when the bullet had hit...

  No.

  “I’ve got puppies to watch over,” she told him, chin high, as she stood up to him. She didn’t even give him so much as a shake of her head, to let him know she was disregarding his wishes. “Fletcher told my parents that if this guy was out to hurt someone, he’d have done so,” she continued. “Oscar’s injury aside,” she added. Then just kept talking. “This person had no way of knowing that Oscar was even out there. That was an anomaly.”

  The police had said the same. And Ruby Colton was acting as though if she just kept on talking, not giving him a chance to get a word in, she’d change his mind.

  “This is my property,” he butted in when she took a breath. “All that matters here is what I say. And I’m not going to take a risk with your life...” He’d been up all night that first night after her car had been shot. Dealing with cold sweats and a mind filled with images of what could have happened.

  “So you’re going to let all the people relying on search-and-rescue dogs miss out? And all the veterans needing dogs to help them live normal lives...they just go without?”

  She had spunk. It got his ire up.

  And his appreciation, too. In spite of himself.

  “Believe it or not, Dr. Colton, we raise a lot of healthy dogs here who will get along just fine without your services for the time it takes the police to find this guy.” He was smiling. Crosswinds needed her. She knew how grateful he was for her help—most particularly with the volunteer veteran program. But his gaze bored into hers, as well. Her safety was nonnegotiable.

  “Like today?” She upped her chin another notch. “You confident you’d have ten healthy puppies right now?”

  “I only called you because I knew you were coming out to check on Jasmine, anyway,” he told her. “And the police say that the perp’s pattern, based on the shootings and the complaints, is to hit weeks apart. But this is it. Now. Today. No more until whoever is out to get me is in jail.”

  “My parents still think the shooter could be after me. With all of the public fundraising I’ve been helping with, everyone knows how much the work out here, the services Crosswinds provides, means to me.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. If the police had, they hadn’t said so.

  He wanted to fire her on the spot.

  And knew it wouldn’t do any good if someone was already after her.

  “I don’t buy it,” she told him. “If someone wanted to hurt me, they’d be going after my clinic. Putting up bad reviews. Accusing me of letting an animal die. Flattening my tire while I was at work...”

  She stopped as he cocked his head, frowning, but half smiling, too.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You sure you aren’t the perp?” he teased, even knowing it was in no way a joking matter. Just...someone had to ease the tension.

  “I’ve...given this a lot of thought over the past few days. Having my windshield wiped out, and then dealing with each member of my family—every one of them a know-it-all, mind you—I’ve had to shore up my defenses. My car was shot at while I wasn’t in it. And it wasn’t even on my property. That does not mean I need to go into hiding.”

  He opened his mouth to argue with her, but she got the next word in first. “What about you?” she blurted. “You’re right here, going on with your life, running your business, and every single one of the occurrences has to do with this place. Yet, you aren’t shutting down.”

  “I can’t shut down. Too many people rely on—”

  “Exactly,” she interrupted. “So what makes my life more valuable than yours?”

  He had an answer for that. But the challenge shooting at him from those unrelenting green eyes kept his mouth shut.

  For the time being.

  She climbed into her SUV. Shut the door on him. Started the engine.

  But he and Ruby Colton weren’t done talking about the matter.

  And when they were, he intended the last words to be his.

  Chapter 3

  Ruby had no cause to visit Crosswinds that next week. Sebastian emailed photos of the puppies feeding, telling her that Jasmine and the gang were doing great.

  She’d already released Oscar from her care.

  He had no new dogs arrive.

  And she knew he was deliberately trying not to need her.

  There also hadn’t been any other signs of unrest in her life, or, according to Wade, Sebastian’s, either. Things at Crosswinds had been running smoothly, with no upsets all week.

  And yet, she was still feeling...jittery.

  Because she needed to talk to him. To get things back on an even keel. Before Wade noticed the tension between them. The last person she’d ever want to know about her fantastical mistake with Sebastian Cross was her overprotective brother. Wade was a strong adversary on a good day. But with having his entire life upended after being blinded in one eye, with his career in the Marines no longer an option, he wasn’t in a good place mentally.

  Sitting in her office on the second Thursday in April, waiting for her two younger sisters, who’d called to say they were bringing lunch to share with her, she wondered if she should drive out to Crosswinds after work. Just get everything with Sebastian out in the open. It was not her way to let things linger, or fester, unless doing so let them slowly evaporate into the ether.

  Having sex with a client, who was also her brother’s close friend, didn’t seem to be something that would fade away quietly.

  She wasn’t acting like herself.

  Hence, her sisters bringing lunch to share with her in the middle of their busy weekday schedules. Checking up on her. Or just wanting her to know they cared.