“He won’t admit it, but yes,” Cole answered. “If it’s at all possible, save the horse for him. The cost doesn’t matter. And if you could make Jase a part of it in some way, maybe have him assist you in treating the bay and caring for it afterward, that would be great.”
There was something elusive there. Maia heard it, but couldn’t grasp it. “Have you always been close to Jase?”
“We met when I was given guardianship over him. We had different mothers, and I didn’t know he existed until I was contacted by the private investigators the lawyers hired to find me.”
“How could you not know you had a brother?”
Cole shrugged. “I checked out of that life a long time ago. When the lawyers told me about Jase, I was shocked.” He frowned. “The snow’s really coming down. I left Jase out there with Al, my foreman, to watch over him.”
“Weren’t you afraid you’d get caught in town?”
“I knew the storm was coming, but I thought I had a couple of more hours before it really hit. I’d never allow Jase to spend the night alone there, so one way or another, I would have gotten back to the ranch.”
Maia heard the note of honesty, of absolute determination in his voice, and she believed him. Cole was such a deceptive mixture. He’d come to the bar hunting for sex. He made no apologies for it and cared little what others thought of him. He exuded complete confidence, even a coldness, yet there were terrible shadows in his eyes. And there was Jase. He barely knew the teenager, yet he looked out for him with a fierce protectiveness she would never have credited him with having. She believed Cole would have tried to walk back to the ranch rather than leave the boy alone with just the foreman. Things didn’t add up.
“Do you have children of your own?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’d never let anyone get that close to you. You must have been terrified when you were named guardian to this boy. Why did you say you’d do it?”
“What is it they all say? So I can murder him and get all the money instead of sharing it with a kid.”
“You don’t even change expression when you hand out your nonsense. Don’t worry, Steele, I don’t want to know your deep dark secrets.”
“You think I have secrets? I thought my life was an open book. Haven’t the gossips given you the scoop on me?” The snow was nearly blinding him as he maneuvered the road. At the rate it was coming down, he wasn’t certain they would make it to the ranch before the road became impassable. Even if he could call Al to bring out the snowplow, he wasn’t all that certain it would do any good. They were no longer in front of the storm but in the thick of it.
“Don’t you have secrets? Doesn’t everyone?” Maia wanted to keep talking. She would have chosen to sit it out rather than continue driving. It was becoming difficult to see more than a foot in front of the truck.
“Even you, Doc? Do you have secrets as well? You’re always laughing and seem so carefree, yet you move from place to place, no home, nothing permanent in your life. No boyfriend who’ll get upset when you move on.”
“Who said I don’t have a boyfriend? And I usually fill in for the same vets, so I make a lot of friends along the way.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend, or you wouldn’t have let me get away with putting my hands on you while we were dancing. You aren’t that kind of woman.”
Shocked, she turned toward him, but he was staring out the window into the driving snow. “A compliment. Who would have thought?” Maia burrowed deeper into his jacket. The inside of the car was warm enough, but his jacket gave her a sense of security. She could smell his scent, masculine and outdoorsy, the spice of his aftershave. He drove with the same confidence he did everything, and it helped ease her anxiety a bit, but they seemed to be enfolded in a white, silent world. She wished he’d play music just to keep her nerves from jangling. She had nothing else to hang on to but their conversation. And he wasn’t comfortable with making small talk.
“Why don’t you have your own practice?” Cole asked, flicking a quick glance her way.
Maia stiffened. Her eyes held a wariness that hadn’t been there before.
“Maia, it was an idle question to keep the conversation going. You don’t have to answer. I detest people prying into my private life.”
He heard her swift, indrawn breath, and saw her turn toward the passenger-side window. Cole was ready instantly for trouble, peering through the windshield to try to see what might be coming at him beyond the heavy shroud of snow. He spotted dark shapes running alongside them, slipping in and out of his field of vision. “What the hell is that?”
“Wolves.”