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CHAPTER ONE
ONLY IN FOOL’S GOLD would a Mercedes be brought to a stop by a goat Rafe Stryker turned off the engine of the powerful sedan and clioat in the leam in her dark eyes If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn she was telling hi to back down in this battle of wills, it would be him
“Da around for whomever owned the ard animal Instead, he saw a few trees, a broken fence line and, beyond all that,up to the heavens Some would describe this as God’s country Rafe knew that God, being s to do with Fool’s Gold
Hard to believe that a three hour drive ould return Rafe to San Francisco—land of fine dining, high-rise buildings and beautiful woed Not here, on the outskirts of soain And yet he had returned, drawn by the one person he could never turn his back on—his mother
Swearing under his breath, he eyed the goat He would guess she weighed about a hundred and twenty pounds, give or take While he’d spent the past eighteen years doing his best to forget his time in Fool’s Gold, the lessons he’d learned on the Castle Ranch lived on He figured if he’d been able to wrestle an adult steer as a scrawny fourteen-year-old, he should be able to take a goat now Or at the very least, pick her up and move her to the side of the road
He lowered his gaze to her hooves, wondering how sharp they would be and what they would do to his suit He rested his elbow on the roof of his car and pinched the bridge of his nose If his mother hadn’t sounded so broken on the phone, he would turn around and go back home In San Francisco he had a staff, oats in the road
He chuckled, is, a fifty-so powerhouse with an innate ability to make the most successful of executives feel incooat into submission
“You found her!”
Rafe turned toward the voice and sao toward him She had a rope in one hand and what looked like lettuce in the other
“I was so worried Athena lives to get into trouble I can’t find a gate lock that will keep her contained She’s sirl?”
The wooataffection She took the lettuce and the rope around her neck with equal acceptance
The wolanced back at him “Hi I’m Heidi Simpson”
She was tails A cotton shirt tucked into jeans showed hiy and curvy, a combination that normally appealed Just not today Not when he still had to deal with his mother and a town he despised
“Rafe Stryker,” he said
The wo as she took a single step back Her full htly and she lost her smile
“Stryker,” she whispered and sed “May is your—”
“Mother How do you know her?”
Heidi took another step back “She’s, ah, at the ranch right now Talking to randfather There seems to be a mix-up”
“Mix-up?” He used what Ms Jennings referred to as his scary, serial-killer voice “Is that how you’d describe what happened? I was thinkingthe lines of fraud and theft Felony theft”
THIS WAS BAD, HEIDI THOUGHT, wishing she could simply run for it Not that she wasn’t one to face her proble them around other people, rather than on a deserted road She eyed Athena, wondering if the goat would protect her, then decided probably not Athena would bea taste of Rafe Stryker’s well-cut, obviously expensive suit
Thein front of her looked seriously pissed Pissed enough to plow her over with his big car and keep going He was tall, with dark hair and eyes, and right now he looked angry enough to crush her with his bare hands She had a feeling he was strong enough to do it, too
She drew in a breath Okay,She could read that in his brown-black eyes
“I knohat you’re thinking,” she began
“I doubt that”
His voice was low, silky and h she couldn’t predict as going to happen next and, whatever it was, it was going to be bad
“My grandfather overstepped his bounds,” she began, thinking it wasn’t the first tiiveness rather than permission” philosophy of life “He didn’t mean to hurt anyone”
“He stole from my mother”
Heidi winced “You’re close to her?” She shook her head “Never mind Stupid question” If Rafe didn’t take care of his mother, he wouldn’t be here now Not that she was surprised From what she could tell, May was a lovely woh not understanding enough to keep her son out of it
“Glen, nosed with cancer Harvey needed treatment, didn’t have insurance, and Glen wanted to help” Heidi did her best to s “So, u part of the ranch To your mother”
“The ranch that belongs to you”
“Technically” Her name was the one on the bank loan She hadn’t done the hborhood of seventy thousand dollars in equity The rest of the ranch was tied up in her e
“He took two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fro”
“Kind of”
“Your grandfather has no way to pay her back”
“He gets social security and we have sos”
Rafe’s gaze s?”
Defeat“Twenty-five hundred dollars”
“Pleaseto the ranch”
Heidi stiffened her spine “What are you going to do?”
“Have your grandfather arrested”
“You can’t!” Glen was the only family she had “He’s an old man”
“I’ bail”
“He didn’t mean to hurt anyone”