Home on the Ranch: Oklahoma: Defending the Rancher's Daughter\The Rancher Bodyguard by Carla Cassidy

Author:Carla Cassidy [Cassidy, Carla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460386019
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The moment the door opened overhead and she heard Zack’s voice, Kate had wanted to scream with joy, but she knew any sudden movement, any loud noise, could mean her death.

She’d feared she’d die down here among her mother’s jars of canned goods and ancient newspapers. She had no idea how long she’d been frozen in place, silently weeping as she faced her own death and a million regrets.

Zack came down the first two steps and crouched there, the look in his eyes emphasizing the seriousness of her situation. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“As okay as I can be,” she replied.

“We need to get you out of here.”

A bubble of hysterical laughter threatened to erupt. “Trust me, there’s nothing I’d like better than to get out of here. But how?” The laughter disappeared as despair took hold. “If I step down, I’ll be bitten. They’re agitated.” As if to punctuate her sentence several of the snakes coiled and rattled.

He frowned. “I can’t shoot them down here. The noise alone would make the others strike.”

“Somebody threw them down here,” she said, horror filling her for the hundredth time since that burlap bag had been tossed down the stairs. “Somebody knew I was down here and threw them, then shut the door.” She paused. “It wasn’t Brett, was it? We made a mistake.”

“It seems we did.” His jaw clenched tight. “Katie, you can jump to me.”

She stared at him in horror and new tears sprang to her eyes. “No! No, I can’t. It’s too far.” The thought of even attempting such a jump filled her with fear. If she didn’t make the distance the snakes would kill her with their deadly venom and she would die before help could arrive.

“Katie, honey, listen to me.” Zack’s voice was as smooth and calm as she’d ever heard it. “I’ve seen you jump from the tallest branches of a tree down to the ground. You used to leap from one porch railing to the other trying to get your dad’s attention when I’d come to visit. You can do this.”

“It wasn’t about me wanting my dad’s attention.” It was suddenly vitally important that he know what she had discovered about herself, about him, during the course of the morning. “It was about me wanting your attention, Zack. I was nothing but a kid in your eyes, but even then I wanted to be so much more. I love you, Zack. I’ve been in love with you since I was a kid.”

Her words had stunned him. She could tell by the expression on his face. “It’s okay, you don’t have to love me back,” she continued. “I just needed to tell you, I wanted to tell you in case I die.”

“Katie, honey, can we talk about this after we get you out of here?”

“Zack…I can’t jump that far.” Again, fear trembled through her, making her legs feel like jelly.

“Yes, you can. I know you can and if you get to the stairs I’ll grab you. Dammit, Katie, you can do this.

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