guilt established before anyone bothered to learn the facts. And he had been in the wrong about some things. Silver hadn’t done a thing, and yet thousands of idiots on the Internet felt like they had the right to criticize and belittle her for nothing.
His cell rang and he picked up.
“Yeah?”
“Is this Ben Miller? I’m sorry to bother you, but my name is Ayla. I’m Silver Meadows’s personal assistant.”
“Come again?” Ben frowned even though she couldn’t see him.
“I just wanted to talk to you about the current situation Silver is going through.”
“Does she know you’re calling me?” Ben asked suspiciously.
“Not yet. I’m calling at the behest of her father, Phil, who I think you met when he picked Silver up from Morgan Ranch?”
“Okay, so what’s up?”
“Firstly, after we finish our call, I’m going to recommend that you only answer your cell phone if you know the caller because your name is about to get out there.”
“My name?” Ben breathed out hard as he remembered what BB had told him. “What the hell?”
She started talking faster. “Phil really wants Silver to get this movie role with the indie film company. Releasing the information about what went down at the end of your trail ride will make her look really good and might make certain that she gets the part.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” Ben demanded.
“Because you’re part of the story, and the media will want to find you and interview you.”
“Right...” Ben almost laughed. “I doubt that.”
“Trust me, they will. I’m going to give you my personal number. If things get too hectic down there, or you get worried about your safety or the safety of your family, call me and we’ll help.”
“I still think you’re overreacting, but give me your number, and I’ll stick it in my contacts.” He wrote down what she said. “If Silver doesn’t know you’re calling me, she’s going to be pissed when she finds out.”
“I know.” Ayla sighed. “But I think this is for the best. She really wants that role, and I guess this is the only way she’s going to make sure she gets it. Free publicity for the movie, great publicity for her, and increased interest in Morgan Ranch trail rides. What could go wrong?”
* * *
Three hours later, Ben had turned his phone off completely and was convinced he was in some kind of alternate universe. One of the last calls he’d taken had been from BB telling him that there had been reporters nosing around the gates of Morgan Ranch and seen in Morgantown. It was so stupid and pointless, he couldn’t even get his head around it.
By the time he got home for dinner and turned his phone back on he’d accumulated two hundred messages and a similar amount of texts and dropped calls. He deleted almost all of them before he entered the house and took off his work boots and Stetson in the mudroom. There was no sign of Kaiden in the bathroom, so he took a quick shower and got dressed again, his thought straying to Silver and what she must be going through as they had all day.
Just as he was pulling up his jeans, Kaiden came barging into his bedroom.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Ben raised an eyebrow as he zipped up his jeans.
Kaiden held out his phone. “You’re on Reality Bites, the number-one gossip site on the Internet.”
“Yeah? Is that good?” Ben inquired as he sat down to pull on some socks.
“It’s fricking crazy! But what’s even funnier is that you’re the doofus in this story and Silver’s the heroine who saved you from imminent death.”
“She did save me.” Ben stood up. “If she hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have gotten out of that tree and climbed back up the slope. If she’s claiming credit for what happened and it does her some good, then I’m okay with it.”
“I like your attitude,” Kaiden said as he punched him on the shoulder. “You coming for dinner? Lizzie’s here with Roman and she’s helping Adam cook.”
“Cool, what are we having?” Ben followed Kaiden out into the hallway and down to the large family kitchen diner where, from the sound of it, there was already a crowd. He tried to pretend that everything was the same and that the whole world wasn’t going crazy. “Smells like roast beef to me.”
Roman, Lizzie’s son, who was about to enter kindergarten in the fall, danced over to tug on Ben’s T-shirt. “There were people with cameras at the