Her Hidden Falls Bodyguard Billionaire Cowboy - Taylor Hart Page 0,1
marrying Hardmans. Now, after Kent and Jewel had built a house on the ranch and Kane and Madison had joined them, Angela had two more women to tease about getting caught in the Hardman trap.
She pounded the sink as she remembered how she’d fallen into it just like they had. It was a subtle trap, and it worked step by step.
Come to this lunch at the ranch with me.
Oh, come see my new house.
Oh, come visit little Maggie and hold her with me.
Come to dinner with all of us.
Angela cursed. The Hardmans were a hard family to resist. Truthfully, they were a force of nature in this small town. But she wouldn’t succumb and that was something Sean didn’t understand.
She cringed again, thinking of how much she cared for Star and Charlotte; she shouldn’t have gotten close to anyone enough to become friends. Yet she’d gotten to the point where she’d grown attached to young Maggie, Charlotte and Ryan’s darling eighteen-month-old daughter. Charlotte and Ryan always referred to her as Auntie Angela, much to her delight. Holding the pudgy child was like nothing in the world. She relished the opportunity to nurture the little girl.
Angela’s mind flashed to Star’s pregnant belly. Soon, she would have a baby boy. She’d been tormenting Beau by telling him she wasn’t sure what it was, but she’d confided in Angela and Charlotte that she knew.
Despite herself, Angela felt warmth blossom outward from her heart. She loved her friends so much. There was no end to her goodwill for them and their families, and she was happy for them.
Her heart ached, but she pushed the hurt away. Babies were not in the cards for her, either.
A ding sounded from the computer, and she rushed to it, typing in her pass code. She was vigilant about checking the dark web in case someone was looking for her. Her brother had trained her how to put out feelers without unwanted attention. She scrolled through the alert and rejected it. The picture it’d found wasn’t her. The facial recognition software she used was complicated, but it wasn’t always accurate.
She wouldn’t be worried at all if that lady hadn’t snapped the picture. Now, she had to go on the offensive to make sure it didn’t pop up somewhere unwanted.
Her fingers glided across the keys as she moved with practiced care to remain anonymous. Nothing.
Another alert sounded. She clicked on the picture. Yep. This was the one she’d been afraid to see. Immediately, she deleted it. But it wasn’t the picture that held her attention.
She stared at the message that had accompanied it.
S, is that you?
A chill washed over her arms. She slammed the computer shut. No, no, no!
Technically, there was no way to decipher where her shop was just from looking at the picture, but that was of little comfort. She couldn’t forget the memory of coming back to the safe house three years ago, nor the gag-inducing image of the blood streaked across the floor and her brother. She gulped and put her hand back to her stomach, wondering how she could possibly throw up again. She staggered to the bathroom anyway, then found herself dry-heaving into the toilet.
Had she been found? She fell to her knees on the linoleum beneath her, tears blurring her vision.
After a bit, she lay on her side. The inventory and opening her shop would have to wait, because she just needed a rest. Pulling a towel over herself, she curled up into a ball, wishing she could have cuddled with her brother one last time before Rafael and his thugs had killed him.
Chapter 2
Sean rode his horse, Pepper, across the Hardman land and relished the early morning cool. It was September, and the leaves had started to change. The days were mostly warm, but the mornings gave sweet relief. He rode Pepper harder up the hill by his home. Pepper wanted to be pushed and easily climbed to the top of Sassy Mountain—not its actual name, but rather the nickname he and his brothers had given this mountain.
When he got to the top, he stared down at the Hardman land. This property had been in their family for three generations. It’d been dicey a couple of years ago when they hadn’t been sure if only he and Beau could keep the ranch afloat, but everything had turned out fine. He grinned at the two hundred head of cattle grazing below him. On the other side of the property, to the east, was