Page 81 of The Cowboy’s Reckoning

“Stay here. Call the sheriff again,” Jordan said.

The guy had a head start, but he wasn’t that far ahead. He ducked up the fence.

“Don’t—”

But Jordan was already racing across the pasture, sending the cow scattering. The guy must have been hiding in the pasture, watching his handiwork, never suspecting that the Matthews brothers were about to show up.

What would he have done if Lil and Meg came out to battle the flames?

The thought made him run faster. His quarry seemed to sense that he’d been seen. Jordan could make out the man looking over his shoulder before increasing his speed as he started up the low hill that rose before the boundary fence. The guy’s pace slowed, and Jordan began gaining on him, but by the time he reached the top, the man had taken off again.

Drawing on reserves he didn’t know he had, Jordan raced down the hill, closing the distance between him and the guy, so intent on catching him that he didn’t give thought to what he was going to do with him.

The guy reached the fence, threw himself flat and scrambled under it.

Jordan had to catch him before his got to the trees. He gave a mighty burst of speed as the guy got back to his feet, then caught his toe in a badger hole and went flying, landing in a heap, spitting dirt.

He scrambled to his feet and continued to the fence, half running, half limping. When he reached it, he stopped with one hand on a post, listening for the crashing of brush.

Nothing.

Either the guy was hiding, or he knew the trail. Jordan hated to turn around and head back empty-handed. All he could do now was to hope that the man had parked at the top of Kennedy Road and that Burke got the tag number.

After listening for another few minutes, he gave up and headed back to the ranch, pissed off and defeated. He was part way up the hill when someone crested it, backlit by the half-moon.

Lil.

He stopped walking and waited as she ran down the hill and then hit him hard and wrapped herself around him.

“Don’t do stupid things like that,” she muttered against his shirt.

He put an arm around her; glad she was safe. Glad they’d gotten there in time to put out the fire, even if they hadn’t caught the guy.

“Same goes for you,” he said, drawing in the scent of her smoky hair.

She lifted her chin and there was nothing he could do but kiss her before gesturing toward the top of the hill. When they reached the top, two sets of headlights bumped their way across the field. Trev pulled up on a quad, Meg right behind him on another.

“What the fuck, Jordan?”

“It’s my ranch and I’ve had it with this shit.” He kept his arm around Lil as he spoke, and her grip tightened on his waist.

Hayes was still tending the smoldering hay when they got back to the ranch.

“I would have caught him if it hadn’t been for the badger hole,” Jordan muttered after telling the story of the chase.

“And then what?” Hayes asked.

“I had enough of an adrenaline high that I probably would have knocked the snot out of him.”

Hayes gave a little snort. “And you were always the sanest one of the bunch.”

“Guess a little Wade rubbed off on me.” He tried Burke’s number again, got no answer, then stared across the pasture in the general direction the arsonist had disappeared. “Fuck.”

“Agreed,” Lil muttered.

He glanced down at her smoke-streaked face and hooked his fingers in the waist of her jeans. He needed the contact. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to his friend, but they’d agreed to wait for law enforcement. Lights flashing through the aspen indicated that the cavalry was on its way.

“Finally,” Lil said on a breath.