Reclaiming Nick Read Free

Nick still had a scar on his hand where they’d mixed blood so many years ago. Blood brothers, through thick and thin.
    Cole St. John, wide receiver to his being quarterback, bulldogging partner, coconspirator in the case of the missing school mascot.
    Cole St. John, son of the woman who’d stolen his father, Bishop Noble.
    Nick swallowed as he sidled close to Saul’s booth. He kept his voice low and tight. “What did he do to make my father deed him our land?”
    Saul shook his head.
    Nick looked out at the bullet gray sky and its refusal to grant a glimmer of cheer. This morning from his apartment above the café he’d seen a line of black clouds piled up against the far-off mountains. He’d hoped it meant rain, but apparently it only meant high winds and trouble.
    “I may not have been the son I should have over the past ten years, Mr. Lovell, but I can promise my father this: I’ll make sure that St. John never sets one foot onto Silver Buckle land.”

    It took Piper Sullivan about 2.3 seconds to confirm that everything she’d assumed about Nick Noble hit the mark. Underneath that six-foot-one-inch frame, dark eyes, and muscular alpha-male exterior lurked a bona fide bully. A man whose world revolved around one focal point—himself.
    Case in point, his chest-thumping attack on the two tired cowboys making small talk with some pretty locals. What did he think would happen—that they’d buy the girls one too many milk shakes? maybe ask them to go for a stroll along the muddy street? She hadn’t spotted even a hint of a saloon in this no-stoplight town, and they looked like two post–high school girls stuck in a one-horse smudge on the map. And Protector of the Weak had just eliminated two of their very few options for escape.
    And if his barroom-bouncer act didn’t confirm her reporter’s instincts, his low-toned vow to the lanky man at the booth said it all.
    Nick Noble was trouble.
    “I’ll leave first thing tomorrow,” Noble growled as he moved away from the booth. Clearly the man had delivered some darknews, because Noble’s expression went from sizzling to downright hostile. And the way he poured her coffee made her want to don protective gear.
    “Thank you,” she mumbled, not wanting to add to his mood. Thanks to her father she knew how quickly a bad mood accelerated to danger, pain, and sirens. And this time, thanks to Noble, Jimmy wasn’t here to protect her.
    “You okay, miss?”
    The voice, full of more concern than she expected, jerked her from her thoughts. She looked up, frowning. Noble stood over her, coffeepot in his hand.
    “You’re hurt.” He gestured to her bandaged wrist.
    She realized she’d been rubbing it again. Even bandaged, the scar still felt funny, nearly numb. Wouldn’t it be nice if all wounds eventually went numb?
    She found a different voice. Not that he would recognize her, but she hoped to smear beyond recognition any associations for the next time they met. “It’s healing. I’ll be fine.”
    She watched as Noble filled the other woman’s coffee, then dug out her guest check. The redhead at the counter paid him, and he didn’t even look as she slipped out the door, obviously hoping for his attention. Apparently he didn’t bend easily to feminine wiles. Perfect. Piper didn’t want him assuming anything the next time she showed up with an innocent smile.
    She could do this. She could. They didn’t award her the Silver Pen for investigative journalism two years running for buckling under pressure. After going undercover at a stockyard to expose a ring of mad-cow beef smugglers and wheedling her way into a lumber company to confirm illegal clear-cutting of a national forest,she could easily fake her way onto the Silver Buckle Ranch. And hopefully into Nick Noble’s confidence.
    She owed it to Jimmy. To her mother. To herself.
    She ate slowly, gathering information, listening, plotting. Piper remembered the headline she’d read on the Internet: “Convicted