Page 30 of Rawhide and Ransom

A split second later, something heavy crashed into them. Metal crunched, glass shattered, and a woman screamed. It might’ve been Annalee herself, but she wasn’t sure. The truck shuddered some more as the other vehicle backed up and slammed into them again. More metal crunched as they were spun sideways. Then the other vehicle scraped past them and roared off.

All that was left in the cab was the sound of Hawk’s pounding heart against her ear that was pressed against his chest.

Chapter 6: Councilman in the Making

One week later

Hawk stood in the doorway of his workshop, sharpening one of his carving knives. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this happy — sore, but happy. The hit-and-run accident he and Annalee had endured together had nearly jarred his teeth loose and pulled his bones from their sockets.

The police who’d arrived on the scene hadn’t understood why he and Annalee hadn’t suffered more than bruises and general soreness. The two of them hadn’t even been in seatbelts at the time of the collision, but Hawk knew the reason. He’d been given a Psalm 91 moment with the woman he intended to marry someday. He had the first two verses memorized:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.

Yeah, he was decently strong, and he’d shielded Annalee as best he could with his body. Under normal circumstances, however, a t-bone collision like that would’ve landed them both in the hospital or worse.

Instead, he was spending his morning giving Miley her first official lesson on leather carving, and he was doing it while keeping a watchful eye on the woman he was fast falling in love with. Annalee was outside planting raised garden beds in his backyard.

Because of the hornet’s nest her presence at the hospital in Clarendon had stirred, he was now being paid to serve as her bodyguard. Paid! He had the Comanche tribal council to thank for that.

They’d called an emergency meeting the morning after his and Annalee’s accident to fund a protective detail for Running Bear’s niece and grandniece.The vote had passed unanimously. To his additional gratitude, his higher ups at Lonestar Security had seen fit to give him the assignment. The only downside was that it had forced him to take a leave of absence from his side job at Johnny’s Dairy. He hated leaving Johnny and Ashley shorthanded like that, but right now his presence was needed day and night on the rez.

He watched Annalee arch her lower back to work out a kink, giving him an eyeful of her lithe, energetic frame. Man, but his favorite farm girl sure knew how to fill a pair of jeans!

She turned her head and caught his eye. “Have you ever felt like someone was staring at you?” she called in a joking voice.

“Just doing my job,” he hollered back.

“Smooth,” Miley muttered from inside his workshop. “That’s what every woman wants to hear.”

“Clearly, I don’t keep you busy enough.” He continued sharpening his carving knife. “You seem to have way too much time on your hands to shovel out unwanted opinions.”

“If the truth hurts, Pops…” She continued to tap the head of her beveling knife with her tiny mallet, painstakingly driving her first design into the piece of damp leather. It was a pattern of roses and vines with thorns that she’d drawn herself. He’d been hoping to start her off on an easier pattern — something that contained less detail. However, she was turning out to be a natural at leather carving.

Her level of creativity came from within. She didn’t simply sketch flowers; she made the petals come alive and look like they were blowing in the breeze. Once she got the hang of using some of the more complex carving tools and techniques, she would be producing heirloom-quality masterpieces. He could feel it in his bones.

“The truth is,” he countered as he cast a look over her work to gauge her progress, “protecting you and your momismy job.”

“Yeah, well, the way you look at my mom isn’t,” she retorted sassily.

He pretended to throw his carving knife at her, and she pretended to duck. “Lucky for you, you work too cheap for me to fire you,” he lamented with a gusty expulsion of air.

“Lucky for you, I’m too grateful for the job to walk out on you in protest of my deplorable working conditions.”

“Deplorable!” He pretended to be wounded by her claim, staggering as if she sent a real blade through his heart.

“Yes, deplorable,” she snapped, sounding genuinely put out. “You broke my heart when you chased off that barn cat I wanted to adopt.”

Hawk straightened. “He was dripping with fleas.” He wasn’t about to apologize for that to a smart-mouthed teenager. He had zero interest in working inside a flea-infested shop.

“Fleas can be treated.” She sounded glum. “All you’d have to do is buy some medicine and put it on the back of his neck. It’s not cheap,” she admitted with a wary look at him from beneath her lashes, “but it would be so-o-o worth it.”

“Easy for you to say.” He was already mentally tallying the extra expenses a cat would entail. “I’d also have to buy food, a litter box, bags of litter, pay for trips to the vet, and the list goes on and on.”

“Happy employees are more productive,” Miley declared in such a sly voice that he suspected she’d rehearsed her answer. “There are whole psychology books on the topic.”

Before she could suggest a trip to the library to prove it, he muttered, “I’ll just take your word for it.”

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