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them apart from him at the same time.
Don t you really know what s wrong with Jason? Barbara asked in a peculiar tone.
Gracie gave her a blank look. What do you mean?
Barbara let go of her hand and avoided her eyes. Nothing. I was just thinking out loud. It s probably
something to do with business that s got him grumpy, don t you imagine?
Gracie relaxed. Yes. I imagine it is. She sipped coffee. You know, I think I will stop by the ranch on
my way home. He can t miss this party.
That s the spirit. Barbara glanced out the window and winced. Bad weather coming again.
Probably that tropical storm headed our way. Look at those dark clouds!
I d better get moving, Gracie replied. It s getting dark, too.
You don t want to be on the roads at night when it s raining, Barbara said worriedly. The road up
to the ranch isn t paved. You ll go into the ditch for sure. It s not safe. There have been some
kidnappers around here lately, and you would be a good catch for those horrible criminals.
I drive a VW, Gracie said with easy confidence. I m not sliding into any ditches! As for kidnappers
this is Jacobsville. Nothing happens around here.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, sitting on the side of the road in the dark with rain pounding on the roof
and the car at a drunken angle in a ditch, she ate those words. She called the ranch on her cell phone.
Grange, Jason s foreman, answered.
Grange, can you tell Jason I m stuck in the ditch on the side road from the ranch? she asked
plaintively. I lost control of the car.
Sure I can. Want me to come out with the truck and get you? he asked.
She hesitated. Once she would have said yes. Now, with Jason acting so strangely, she didn t want to
put Grange in any awkward situations. Better call Jason this time, I guess, she replied.
No problem, he said gently. You okay?
I m fine.
I ll get him. He s out with the boys checking for mired cattle, so it may be a few minutes. Sit tight.
Sure thing. Thanks. She ended the call. Oh, boy. If Jason was in the middle of something, she was
going to catch hell. She d only wanted to make up with him. Now, things were worse.
Time seemed to drag while she clutched her purse in her lap and tried not to slide into the passenger
window of the little car, sitting at an odd angle in the ditch. It had been an impulsive decision to drive
out here. She should have waited.
Gracie looked out the windshield at the rushing water that came up to the hood of her little car and
hoped that Jason would hurry. Then she felt guilty that he was going to have to come out and rescue
her again. She was such a klutz, she moaned silently. Nothing she did ever ended well. She was
disaster on two legs. If only she wasn t such a scatterbrain. If only&
She heard the roar of a pickup truck and looked ahead to see one of the big, double-cabbed black
ranch trucks speeding toward her. He always drove too fast. The dirt road was muddy and flooded,
too, and she had visions of disaster if he braked too hard. She could feel his temper in the way he
swung the truck to the side of the road and stopped it. He didn t slide. He was always so much in
control of himself, even when he was raging mad.
She drew in a shaky sigh. She would be all right. Jason was always there to save her from herself.
Even if he didn t like having to do it.
Another truck, a wrecker, pulled up behind his truck. He slammed out of the driver s seat and spoke to
the driver of the wrecker. Then he came toward Gracie with long, angry strides, his wide-brimmed
hat pulled low over his eyes, his yellow slicker raincoat flapping over his boots.
The car was lying at an angle. Gracie was sitting at a forty-five-degree angle, sideways. Jason jerked
the door open and glared down at her with compressed lips.
Come on, he said gruffly, holding out both hands.
She hesitated. He couldn t possibly know why she resisted being lifted in a man s arms, even if he was
used to her idiosyncracies.
Come on, he said again, gentler this time. Gracie, I know you don t like being carried, but there s
no other way unless you want us to pull the car out of the ditch with you in it. The damned thing could
roll.
She bit her lower lip. That was even more terrifying. O& okay.
She lifted both her arms, clenching her jaw. Jason caught them and pulled her up, effortlessly, until he
could pick her up. He swung her free of the car. She wasn t wearing a raincoat another stupid
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