Read Online Her Rancher Bodyguard by Brenda Minton - Free Book Online Page B

trust. And she didn’t want to misplace that trust.
    â€œWe’re going back for the phone,” he insisted.
    â€œFine, go back.”
    â€œTell me what happened.” His voice had grown harder, more insistent.
    â€œI can’t. Just get the phone and tell my father that I didn’t do this.”
    â€œYou tell him. It seems to me that a little communication in this family of yours might be just the thing.”
    â€œSome parents don’t want to communicate, Boone. Don’t come at me with family advice when you live up on Walton’s Mountain with homemade bread, church on Sundays and all of that encouragement.”
    He pulled to the side of the road where she’d thrown the phone. “I was wrong. You know how to communicate.”
    She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. It isn’t you that I’m angry with.”
    â€œNo, I didn’t think it was.”
    He said it so gently that her heart tugged at her, telling her to trust. She closed her eyes, trying to get a grip on that wild part of herself that wanted to outrun the pain, that wanted to push away anyone who tried to break through her defenses. She was so tired of fighting.
    She was in over her head with this man who caused that shift in her emotions. What did the client develop with the bodyguard? Patients and caregivers developed the Nightingale syndrome. Captives developed Stockholm syndrome. What did she have? The Kevin Costner syndrome. She smiled at the thought.
    Handsome bodyguard, strong but wounded heroine. She laughed out loud. As he stepped out of the truck to retrieve her phone, he glanced back.
    â€œYou find this amusing?”
    She shook her head. He was going to think she’d lost it.
    â€œNo, it isn’t. I’m just trying to find humor in a really rotten situation.”
    He returned a minute later with her phone, and he tossed it to her as he got behind the wheel. “What’s the big secret, Stanford? What didn’t your dad believe?”
    â€œYou didn’t have the right to read my texts,” she told him.
    â€œI do have the right. I thought this was just an easy gig, follow the heiress and keep her out of trouble. Instead, I’m fighting to keep you safe from a stalker, and from yourself. So if I have to read your texts in order to do my job, I will.”
    â€œSome things are private. Why do you limp?”
    â€œSome things are private.”
    â€œWhat happened in Afghanistan, Wilder? Why do you live in a camper and not with your very awesome family? Why is Daron holing up in your place and not the big mansion his daddy bought so he could play rancher?”
    â€œWatch those claws, Stanford.” He pushed his white cowboy hat back a smidge on his head, giving her a better look into his dark brown eyes.
    â€œI’m just saying, we all have secrets.”
    They sat there in the truck on the side of the road. “Let me tell you something about secrets. Secrets get people hurt. Or worse, killed. I’m trying to protect you, but I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
    â€œCould we please go now?”
    He pulled onto the road.
    â€œI can’t do this, not yet.” She needed time to be strong, and then she could tell him. Or tell someone. She knew it would come out. Sooner or later it was going to be revealed. If not by her, then by the blackmailers. How did they know?
    â€œOkay. I’m not going to push.” He pulled onto the road that led to the cottage where Samantha lived.
    They drove past Duke and Oregon’s house. The truck bounced and bumped along the rougher dirt portion of the road. In the distance she could see the roof of Brody and Grace’s house. She shifted to look at the profile of the man behind the wheel of the truck. Boone Wilder. He’d been in her life only a week. She didn’t owe him her story.
    But she did wonder how it would feel to tell him, to have him listen and