Safe In The Rancher's Arms: Stranded with the Rancher / Sheltered by the Millionaire / Pregnant by the Texan

But they shared another equally real type of closeness. They had stared death in the face.

Even now the words sounded too dramatic. But when she remembered looking over her shoulder and seeing the monster storm barreling toward them with ferocity, something inside her shivered with dread. Disaster had come close enough to breathe down their necks. They had escaped with their lives, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

It was probably still early. Whatever landed on them during the tornado had darkened most of the tiny holes in the cellar doors that let in light. But the few that were left filtered the faint glow of dawn.

She felt no real urgency to move. Though her hip ached where it had spent the better part of the night battling with the unforgiving floor, she was surprisingly content. Being held close in Drew’s warm, comforting embrace was better than a tranquilizer. His big body was hard and muscular, reminding her without words that she was under the protection of a confident, capable male.

There was something to be said for primitive responses. Though Beth could hold her own in most situations, the fact remained that Drew was larger and stronger and more equipped to deal with the physical challenges of their crisis.

She let her mind wander. How badly had her farm been damaged? What about Drew’s horses? And the town of Royal? Had it avoided a direct hit? Thankfully, the storm had struck late enough in the day that most children would have already been home from school. But businesses in town would still have been open.

The not knowing drove her crazy. Even so, worrying accomplished nothing. She had no other choice but to live in the moment.

Closing her eyes, she savored the unfamiliar sensation of her cheek resting on Drew’s arm. The light covering of masculine hair tickled her nose. His scent was so familiar to her now that she could pick him out of a crowd in a dark room.

He must be very uncomfortable. But there was no reason to wake him. Had he thought it odd to hold her like this?

They had been adversaries from the beginning. It seemed he was always rubbing his good fortune in her face. Though perhaps she was too sensitive on that score, because most people thought he was a great guy. In fact, the only person she knew in Maverick County who ever got crossways with the owner of Willowbrook Farms was Beth Andrews.

Their feud had gone on a long time, probably because they were too much alike. Both stubborn. Both sure they were right.

He muttered in his sleep, tightening his grasp, his fingers brushing her nipple though three thin layers: his shirt, her tank top, and a lacy bra. Was he dreaming about a woman?

Unbidden, arousal stirred in Beth’s veins. It was sweet and yearning and ultimately for naught. Nothing was going to happen. The time and place were wrong. More importantly, she and Drew had to hope that rescue was on the way and that whatever they discovered above ground was not going to be too terrible.

She felt his steady breathing ruffle the hair at her nape. Had he thought about kissing her there? Or had he been too wiped out to even notice she was a woman? How sad that their first opportunity to really get to know each other was fraught with difficulty and struggle.

Being Drew’s neighbor had been a pain in the ass until today. His repeated bluster about the problems her business caused his had added to the stress of getting the farm up and running. In the midst of his frequent complaints, she had been busy tending to her fledgling crops, learning new things she needed to know and trying to keep the checkbook in the black.

Now, there would be no going back. What would this new awareness mean to their ongoing battle?

Sometime later she realized that she must have dozed off again. One of her legs was trapped between Drew’s thighs. It was as if his body was trying to stake a claim. She knew she should wake him, if only to let him move his arm. But this moment was pleasurable despite the context.

Once they were officially awake and alert, they would have to face things like a tiny water supply, dwindling stores of food, and the reality that no one knew where they were. All the harsh realities that defined them at the moment.

Given that truth, she closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.

* * *

When Drew woke up, he stifled a groan. His body was one big throbbing toothache, and he wasn’t at all sure he would be able to stand. But having Beth tucked up against him was a bonus. Carefully, he eased his arm out from under her head, wincing as the blood returned. Beth muttered and frowned when her cheek came to rest on the unsympathetic ground.

He checked his watch. Seven thirty. Surely late enough for police and rescue personnel to begin going house to house. Rolling to his feet, he tried to ignore the sudden craving for eggs and bacon and hot coffee. Sadly, beef jerky was on the menu again. But not until Beth joined him.

Standing on the ladder, he turned on his phone and held it as close as he could to the cellar doors, praying for a signal. Still nothing...not that he really expected an overnight miracle. The storm had probably destroyed numerous cell towers.

He heard Beth sit up. “Any change?” she asked.

He wanted to be able to give her good news, but there was none. “No. You okay?” She was nothing more than a dim outline in the gloom.

“I’ve been better.”

“We have to eat and drink something. If this drags on, we’ll need to keep our energy up.” He hopped down from his perch and located more beef jerky and water. “Welcome to breakfast, Survivor-style.”

“Thanks. I think.”

He joined her on the floor, their knees touching as they sat cross-legged on the crinkly blanket. “Somehow, during all those years in the Boy Scouts, I never imagined this scenario.”

“Did you make it all the way to Eagle?”

“Yeah. My dad was a stickler for never giving up on anything.”

“Ah, now I get it,” she said. “That’s why you continue to browbeat me.”

“Eat your breakfast, woman.”

If he had to be trapped in a hole in the ground, Beth was the perfect companion. She hadn’t whined. She hadn’t panicked. Her sense of humor had survived the tornado intact even though she had to know, as he did, that things would probably get worse before they got better.

Holding her as they slept last night tapped into more than his human need to cheat death. With all the societal expectations stripped away, he discovered something deeper than physical attraction. Beth Andrews had edged her way into his heart.

That information was sensitive—need-to-know basis only. But it was something to be tucked away and savored at a later date.

“Seriously, Drew. What are we going to do to pass the time? If we can’t use our flashlights, our options are seriously limited.”

Several inappropriate suggestions came to mind immediately. But he squelched the impulse to voice them. “We can try lifting the doors again.”

“And that will take all of ten minutes.”

“Sarcasm, Beth? I thought we’d reached a détente.”

A faint noise from above interrupted her answer. He put a hand on her knee. “Shh...did you hear that?”

Four

They both froze, their ears straining in the darkness. Next came the screech of metal, followed by a muffled shout. “Anybody down there?”

Drew leapt to his feet, dragging Beth with him. “Yes,” he shouted. “Yes.”

Beth was trembling. Hell, he probably was, too. He wrapped his arm around her narrow waist and she curled her arms around him. Together, they faced the specter of uncertainty.

They waited for what seemed like forever but might only have been a minute or two. Thumps and curses rained down on them, along with dust particles that made them cough. The voice came again, louder this time. “Hang on.”

Beth leaned into him. “What’s taking so long?”

“I think they’re trying to move whatever has the doors stuck. It must be big.”

She murmured something under her breath.

“What?” he asked, still straining to hear what was going on up top.

“I hope the doors don’t break and whatever that is doesn’t fall and crush us in this pit.”

He chuckled, despite the tension gripping him. “An active imagination can be a curse at times.”

“Tell me about it.”

They fell silent again. All the commotion above them had ceased. Surely the rescue team had heard him shout.

Beth voiced his concern. “What if they didn’t hear you? What if they went away?”

“I don’t think they would give up without making sure no one is down here...even if they didn’t hear me.”

But doubt began to creep in. Why was nothing happening?

Beth burrowed her face into his chest. He held her close. “Don’t freak out. If they left, they’ll come back.” God, I hope so.

He checked his watch. “It’s almost nine.”

“What time did we hear the first shout?” The words were muffled.

“I’m not sure. Maybe ten minutes ago? Fifteen?”

The return of absolute silence was infinitely more difficult than if they had never received a ray of hope.

Beth was shaking.

He rubbed her back. “Hang on. We’ve made it this far.”

Suddenly, the loud racket returned, a shrill high-pitched noise that might have been a winch. Then a dreadful dragging scrape, and finally a human shout.

Seconds later the cellar doors were flung wide. The brilliant sunlight, after hours of captivity, blinded them.

A figure crouched at the opening. “Ms. Andrews? Are you down there?”

Drew shielded his eyes with his arm. “She is. And me, too. Is that you, Jed?”

The minutes that followed were chaos. Drew boosted Beth up the ladder, passing her up to helping hands, and then followed her. He grabbed his brother in a bear hug. “God, I’m so glad to see you.”

Jed’s face was grim. “You scared the hell out of me. No one had any idea where you were.” Two EMTs muscled in, checking Drew’s and Beth’s blood pressure, firing off questions, taking care of business. Drew gave a terse summation of the events that had stranded them below ground.

It was easy to see why he and Beth had been trapped. Her small car, now a mangled mess of metal, had been snatched up and dumped...right on top of the cellar.

When the immediate furor died, he searched for Beth. She had walked several hundred feet away and stood gazing at what was left of her fall pumpkin crop. Virtually nothing. The tornado had ripped across her land, decimating everything in its path.

The front left portion of her bungalow was sheared off, but two-thirds of the house remained intact.

He stood by her side. “I’ll help you with repairs.”

She turned to face him, her expression lost. “I appreciate the offer. But unless you know how to grow a pumpkin overnight, my revenue stream just vanished until June at the earliest.” She searched his face. “What did he tell you about your place?”

The day was already heating up. Beth slipped off his shirt and handed it to him. He slid his arms into it and fastened a few buttons. “I was very lucky. We lost a lot of fencing...and one outbuilding. But the staff and the horses are all safe.”

“Your house?”

“Minor stuff.”

Jed joined them. “Let’s get you two back to Willowbrook. You can shower and have a decent meal.”

Beth glanced at Drew’s brother, her eyes haunted. “Tell us about Royal. How bad is it?”

Jed hesitated.

Drew squeezed Beth’s hand. “Tell us, Jed. We’ve been imagining the worst.”

Jed’s shoulders slumped. He bent his head and stared at the ground before looking up with a grim-faced stare. “Mass destruction. The storm was an EF4. A quarter-mile wide and on the ground for twenty-two miles. The center of the storm missed Willowbrook, but it turned and traveled straight over Beth’s place and on east.”

“God help us,” Drew said. Nothing so tragic had ever touched the town of Royal. “How many dead?”

“As of this morning, the count stood at thirteen. A family of four...tourists. They took shelter beneath an overpass, but you know how dangerous that is. A young couple in a mobile home.”

Beth put her hand to her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks. “And the other seven?”

Jed’s jaw worked as if couldn’t form the words. “The town hall was destroyed.”

“Jesus.” Drew’s stomach pitched. Beth sobbed openly now.

Jed shook his head, grief on his face. “The deputy mayor is dead. Also, Craig Richardson, who owned the Double R. Plus five others who were in the building at the time.”

“And the mayor? Richard Vance?” Drew knew the man by sight and respected him.

“Life threatening injuries. But stable. I don’t have a clue about the total number injured. The hospital is overloaded but managing.”

Beth put her hand on Jed’s arm briefly, claiming his attention. “A pregnant woman. She stopped by my produce stand just before the storm hit. Do you know anything about her?”

“I’m afraid I do. We found her car late last night when we were searching for the two of you. The tornado flipped her vehicle. She has severe head injuries, so they’ve put her in a medically induced coma.”

Beth had stopped crying and now visibly pulled herself together. “And the baby?”

“Delivered by emergency C-section. Last I heard, they think she will make it.”

Drew remembered the odd feeling that he knew the woman. “Do you know the mother’s name?”

“They’ve listed her for now as a Jane Doe. Her car was destroyed. Cell phone and purse missing, probably in someone’s backyard five miles away.”

Jed motioned toward his car. “We need to go. Drew, after you’ve had a few minutes to rest, I know they could use the two of us in town.”

Beth still stared at her forlorn house. “You guys go on. I’ll stay here. There’s plenty to do.”

Drew realized then that Beth was definitely in shock. He put his arm around her shoulders, steering her toward the car. It disturbed him that her skin was icy cold. “We can bring some tarps over this evening, but you can’t stay here. I know you don’t want to enter the enemy camp, but I’ll promise you good food, a hot shower and a bed for as long as you need it.”

* * *

Beth allowed Drew to take charge because it was in her best interests and because she was too disheartened to deal with anything but basic needs at the moment.

The road between her house and the magnificent entrance to Willowbrook Farms was two miles long. Ninety-nine percent of the time when Beth departed her property, she turned left out of her driveway. So it felt odd to be deliberately closing the gap between her home and Drew’s. She had only been out this way once or twice, more out of curiosity than anything else. Both times she had been struck by the pristine appearance of Drew’s ranch. It was an enormous, well-cared-for equine operation.

As they drove along—slowly because of the debris littering the road—it was far too easy to see the storm’s path. The twister had clipped a section of Drew’s acreage, veered toward the private road and traveled along it until deciding to thunder across Beth’s once thriving farm. She knew in her heart she was lucky her house was still standing. There were almost surely others in far more dire straits.

“I should have gotten clean clothes,” she cried, realizing her omission.

Drew shook his head vehemently. “You can’t go inside your house until an expert checks for structural damage. Not unless you want to chance spending another night beneath a pile of rubble.”

“Low blow, Farrell,” she muttered. “What am I supposed to wear? I have plans to burn this current outfit.”

“I have seven women on my staff. I’m sure between them they can come up with a solution.”

By the time they finally pulled up in front of Drew’s classic two-story farmhouse, she was so tired her eyes had trouble focusing. He helped her out of the car. Jed followed them inside.

Drew took her arm, steering her toward the back of the house. “Food first.”

“And a bathroom.”

That made him grin. “Of course.”

Jed smiled as well. “If you would like me to, while the two of you are eating, I can round up some necessities for Ms. Andrews and have the housekeeper put them in a guest room.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you. And please call me Beth. I’m pretty sure that rescuing me from a storm cellar puts us on a first name basis.”

She was surprised when Drew spoke up, his face a mix of emotions. “Thanks, Jed. That would be great. Get a couple of the women in the front office to help you. But I’ll pick out a bedroom.”

The brothers exchanged an odd glance that Beth was unable to decipher.

In the kitchen, the housekeeper was waiting. Evidently, she had been on standby since Jed called to say he thought Drew and Beth had been found.

The size of the breakfast was overwhelming, but Beth did her best to try some of everything. Biscuits, ham, fresh peaches and eggs so light and fluffy they almost floated off the plate. Beth hated eating in her grubby clothes, but her stomach held sway, demanding to be fed. The coffee was something exotic and imported. Nothing at all like the stuff she drank at home.

She and Drew exchanged barely a dozen words as they ate. The housekeeper had excused herself, leaving them to their meal in private. Surrounded by windows, the cozy breakfast nook overlooked a small pond.

Drew touched the back of her hand briefly. “Promise me you’ll take a nap. You’ve been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours.”

Her eyes teared up again. She hated feeling so emotional, but the enormity of what had happened was almost impossible to comprehend. And she hadn’t even seen the damage elsewhere.

“You were right there with me. How can Jed expect you to go into town when you’re exhausted?”

“I’ll be fine. My house wasn’t torn apart. You’ve had a terrible shock. Give yourself time to get back on your feet.”

“I’ll nap,” she said, knowing that he was right. “But after that I want to do something to help out in the community.”

His bright blue eyes warmed her to the bone. “Fair enough. And I swear to you that we’ll take care of securing your house before dark.”

“Thanks.” She felt shy suddenly, sitting beside him in this brightly lit room. All of the appliances looked like something out of a catalog. Compared to her small, antiquated kitchen, this room was worthy of a palace.

That impression only increased as Drew ushered her down a hallway and into a large guest suite. Throughout the house, she saw beautiful, gleaming hardwood floors, accented by Oriental rugs that were probably more expensive than her car. Or what used to be her car. Panic encroached as she contemplated everything she needed to do in the aftermath of the storm. In addition to handling details about insurance claims and repairs, she wasn’t sure she had enough cash flow to wait for checks to arrive.

Drew interrupted her internal meltdown. “I thought you would like this side of the house. It gets the morning sun and you can spot the last of the hummingbirds stopping by our feeders on the way south.”

He stood with his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them. His obvious unease was so unusual she was taken aback. “Something’s bothering you,” she said quietly.

“Not bothering me,” he said quickly. “But I do have something important I want to say to you.”

“What is it?” Her stomach quivered. She couldn’t imagine what they had to discuss at this moment.

“I want you to live here at Willowbrook...until the repairs on your house are completed. No hidden agenda, I swear. I know we don’t see eye to eye, but we need to table our disagreement in the short term while things are in chaos.”

Her stomach fell to her knees. He was entirely serious. Though it seemed he was trying to be nice, suspicion reared its ugly head. “We don’t even know each other,” she said faintly.

Drew leaned against a post of the giant rice-carved bed and gave her a crooked smile. “I’m not sure you can say that anymore. We’ve lived a lifetime in the last twenty-four hours, don’t you think? I have plenty of room, and you would have online access and fax machines to deal with your insurance claims. You wouldn’t have to worry about grocery shopping or cooking or anything else. You could concentrate on getting Green Acres back in shape.”

What he offered was infinitely tempting. Her world was in tatters. But she was a mature woman. Would taking Drew’s help be too needy?

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “Thank you for the invitation.”

“Accepting help doesn’t mean you’re weak, Beth.”

“What, you’re a mind reader now?”

He crossed to where she stood by the window. “I’m grateful that my house is still standing. But if it weren’t, I would gladly accept a helping hand from my neighbor.”

“Horse hockey,” she said, laughing in spite of herself.

“It’s true. So please swallow your pride and let me do this for you.”

He liked the notion of being her savior. She could tell. It was a guy thing. Looking around the sumptuous, exquisitely decorated bedroom, she grimaced inwardly. This was a far cry from the roach-infested apartments where she had grown up. It was difficult to admit, even to herself, how much she wanted to stay.

On a normal day, she might have summoned the strength to turn him down. But after the tornado and last night’s ordeal, she was working from a final store of reserves. “I suppose I’d be a fool to say no.”

“I happen to know you’re a very smart woman.”

She couldn’t allow herself to depend on him indefinitely. This gilded world of wealth and privilege was not hers. The life she had carved out for herself was a good one, but it wasn’t this.

Even so, surely it couldn’t hurt to pretend for a while. “Okay,” she sighed. “You win. But only because I’m at a low point. And because I’m guessing that bathroom over there has a jetted tub.”

“You are and it does.”

Something happened then—something she couldn’t explain. The attraction that neither of them had acknowledged over the last months and days was tangible now. Fired in the crucible of the tornado’s fury, it had proven to be far more real than she could ever have imagined.

Desire hovered between them...around them. Drew’s expression was serious now. His warm gaze seeped into her bones, rejuvenating her. Did his interest in her have an ulterior motive? Did he think if they were intimate, he could manipulate her more easily? “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

Hunger flashed in his eyes. “Not the half of it,” he muttered.

His mouth settled over hers in slow motion. Their lips met, clung. Strong arms circled her waist, pulling her up against his big, hard frame.

Dimly, in some far recess of her subconscious, she understood that this was a really bad idea. Living in Drew’s house...accepting his help. Playing with fire.

When his tongue slid between her lips, stroking inside her mouth intimately, a curl of desire, sweet and hot, made her legs tremble. She clung to him, flashing back to their terrifying dash to the storm cellar. Would she have made it in time without him? Awash with emotions that ran the gamut from gratitude to sheer need, she kissed him back.

Drew said she was a smart woman. But here, locked in his arms, with his mouth hot and demanding on hers, she knew that she was not. Despite every obstacle standing in their way, both past and present, she wanted to share his bed.

The town they both loved had been ripped apart. Lives were lost. Her own home was in shambles.

Perhaps it was the very existence of disaster that made her reach for what she wanted. Life was short. Life was precious. Even without a happy ending, she could have Drew. It wasn’t vanity to think so. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in the restless caress of his hands.

Deliberately, she nipped his bottom lip with her teeth. “You have things to do. But I’ll be here when you’re ready.”