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The loss that brought them together—and now fighting for much more—didn’t seem fair. They deserved a better chance at love.

And she wanted to explore more with Colton. She had a strong suspicion that those heated spankings he gave her were only the beginning of a wild sex life and a string of steamy nights of blazing passion.

A tingle of awareness spread through her, and she took the reprieve from thinking about her father for the rest of the drive to the hospital.

Spending the next few hours at his bedside, holding his hand and talking even when he couldn’t respond, wore her down. The nurse suggested she step out and take a break, and she felt guilty for needing one at all.

When she slunk to the waiting room and grabbed her usual coffee from the station in the corner, the strains of a game show she’d watched way too many times this week drifted through the room.

Each day was beginning to blend into the others. How much longer was she going to be here doing this? The doctors assured her that her father was making small improvements on a daily basis. She hated feeling as if she were being selfish, the brat Colton had considered her to be. That she was when he first came.

When it was finally time for her to leave, she drove home in silence without even the company of the radio. Again, the ranch seemed barren. Colton was nowhere to be seen…and she wanted to see him so damn bad.

Maybe he’d abandoned her like all the others.

Well, she still had her horse.

She strode to the barn with purpose, the fresh tang of hay in her nose. They’d cut one of the fields today and small bales had already been loaded onto the big truck to be stored for the season. Hay didn’t wait on sick owners.

She rounded the corner to enter the barn, and bowled right into Zach.

“Oh!” She almost fell over, struggling to get back the air he’d knocked out of her with his big chest.

He steadied her by the shoulder. “Sorry, Meadow. Everything all right?”

“Yes. I was just going to see Jewel.”

He gave her a look devoid of expression—odd even for a hard man like Zach Webb. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what was going on when Colton’s voice sounded from behind her.

“What’s going on here?”

A shiver ran down her spine, and she turned to him, feeling the breath hit her lungs like the only thing she needed in the world.

She looked up into the eyes of the only man who could distract her from the hell she was living through.

Without a care for what Zach thought of her being with Colton, she stepped up to him and threw her arms around his neck. Clinging to him and gathering what strength she needed to go on fighting for another day, another hour.

* * * * *

Over Meadow’s head, Colton threw a glare at Webb. That was too damn close. For days they’d been trying to think up a way to break it to Meadow that someone had brutally killed her horse.

The guys argued that Meadow was strong and they should just tell her.

Colton wanted to hand over the bastard who was responsible. Between locating the scattered herd, the constant chores and watching over Meadow, Colton didn’t have many leads. And the small-town police station was no help at all—which proved to him that he needed to take matters into his own hands.

If Colton knew anything, it was how to fight, and fight dirty. No one was going to cause any more pain to the woman he loved.

Webb narrowed his eyes at Colton. When he cupped Meadow’s head to his chest, the ranch manager looked away.

“C’mon,” he said softly to her.

Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her back toward the house, away from the barn where she wouldn’t find her horse waiting for her.

As they strolled over the thick grass, across a bit of gravel driveway, to the front porch, she was silent. What worried him more today than the previous one was how she let him lead her like a child.

She put her trust in him…but was it misplaced?

After all, Colton had taken on the task of looking out for her. That included everything important to her. When it came to her horse and her father, he hadn’t done so well.