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“Not that I have to tell you. You might be the boss of this ranch, but you aren’t the boss of me.”

She was right. But suddenly, Chance very much wanted to be.

“Fair enough, gypsy. I don’t guess you’ll tell me where you’re from, either.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to.”

“Well then, take this.” Grabbing a notepad from the kitchen counter, he scribbled his phone number and handed her the paper. “This is my number. If you need anything or there’s any trouble, I want you to call me.”

A sorrow filled her eyes he didn’t understand. But he knew one thing. Gypsy would never use that number, no matter how desperate she got. “Thank you. I guess I'd better go.”

He walked her to her car and almost changed his mind when she stopped at the oldest Honda Civic he’d ever seen. It was damn near older than him. If it had been snowing, he’d have made her stay the night. But the night was clear, and the moon was full. And if he let her stay, he wasn’t sure he’d ever let her leave again.

Joy left, and he watched her drive away until she disappeared over the horizon.

Chance stared at the ceiling all night and worried.

CHAPTER 3

It only took Joy thirty minutes to find the Wilder Community Church. Why in the world would the people want to hide it on a street named Church Street? That was so obvious she’d thought it couldn’t possibly be there. The Pastor Sol, as he’d told her to call him, was younger than she’d expected and very nice. He didn’t seem to mind at all that she’d gotten him out of bed.

Once he heard her story—the part of it she could tell—he called the shelter and reserved the last bed for Joy, which was really nice. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do things like that. She just didn’t like to. And she’d never called a shelter before. But if she could sleep somewhere for free tonight instead of renting a hotel room, she could save the money she made that day on the ranch for gas and food when she left in the morning.

She’d been in and out of so many towns over the past week. The only thing she had to do was take out the special phone Detective James had given her before she left home and call him to let him know where she was and that she was all right.

With everything that had happened, she’d had to leave in ahurry. Now, even Detective James didn’t know where she was. The last time they’d spoken, he’d tried to convince her to return home, promising he could protect her. She had no doubt he’d try, but she knew firsthand that if Eddie wanted her dead, he’d kill the detective, too. The detective was a married man with children of his own. She couldn’t put his life at risk. She’d never forgive herself if something happened to him.

She’d sent her clients to a fellow photographer she trusted. She didn’t have any family. Her parents had her late in life, and she’d lost them several years earlier. She had no one. Well, no one but Puggles, her stuffie. She’d thought she had Eddie, but that had all gone wrong in the worst possible way.

And now, not only was she alone, she was on the run from the one man she’d thought she could trust.

She found her bed and cuddled with her stuffie under the blanket Pastor Sol had given her. It was so soft even Puggles liked it. And it was blue, so it reminded Puggles of the creek he’d played in back home. She pressed a kiss to his head.

It turned out the bed, which was comfy, was open because it was between the door to the bathroom and a man who was already snoring louder than a brawling bear.

Unable to sleep, she sat on the side of her bed, going through the snack bag the shelter provided.

Glancing around, she fell into the largest blue eyes she had ever seen. They belonged to a tiny slip of a girl who couldn’t be more than four or five. A teenage boy was reading a Dr. Seuss book to her. The boy noticed his little sister wasn’t paying attention, so he followed the child’s gaze to Joy.

The toddler tried to climb down from the bed, but the teen stopped her. “She’s a stranger, Celie. Remember what mommy said? We never talk to strangers.”

Celie’s bottom lip trembled. Sensing a tantrum was imminent, Joy shifted closer without leaving her bed. Holding outher hand, she said, “Hi there. I’m Joy. You absolutely should listen to your brother, Suki. Strangers might be dangerous. But now that we’ve been introduced, maybe we can be friends.” She held up Puggles. “This is Puggles. He’s my friend, too. He’s really nice. Can you introduce me to your brother?”

Celie lifted a questioning gaze to her brother. Giving Joy another hard stare, the boy relented and nodded at his sister.

The sweet girl smiled. Dropping her gaze to Puggles, the toddler held her pudgy hands out and made grabby hands.

Frowning, the teen put a protective arm around the girl, pulled her closer to his side, and began reading again. But the girl slipped out from under his arm, hopped off the bed, and raced to Joy, throwing her whole body onto Joy’s lap.

Joy smiled down at the tiny girl. “Well, hello there,” she said.

The girl just continued to smile.

Joy tried again. “What’s your name?”

The girl continued to beam at her, and the teen boy sauntered over.

“She don’t talk,” he said. “She hadn’t talked since the night my dad went crazy and chased us all out of the house with a butcher’s knife.”