They both faced the truck and the fence beyond it, and Dawson got himself to move in that direction. “Duke?” he called.
He went past the truck and walked along the fence, searching down it toward the horizon for his brother. When he didn’t see him, he turned around and found his tall, boxy-shouldered brother striding toward him with a storm shooting thunder and lightning from his eyes.
“Daws,” he called, lifting his hand.
Dawson raised his hand too, just as Caroline came to his side and faced Duke as well. His brother came to a complete stop as if he’d run into a glass wall.
“Let the explanations begin,” Dawson muttered under his breath.
Chapter Four
Caroline’s cells vibrated with the tension now zinging through the air. Part of her wanted to slip her hand into Dawson’s as he lowered his arm, but the louder, more professional part of her told her to actually put more distance between her and the cowboy.
She did that as the brothers continued to look at one another. Caroline’s memory came forward then, and she remembered that Duke was Dawson’s half-brother.
Duke finally started walking again, his eyebrows drawn down and his mouth a thin line before he said, “What’s going on?” He finally moved his eyes to her. “Who’s this?”
“Caroline Thompson,” Dawson said, his voice a perfect diplomatic growl. “The Wildlife Conservation Officer.”
Duke’s irritation barely lifted, but he did arrive and stick out his hand. “Right. I’m Duke Rhinehart.”
“Great to meet you.” She shook his hand and looked along the fence line. “Do you want to show me where the owls are?”
“How did you get here so fast?”
“I—” Caroline sucked in a breath as Dawson’s hand slid along her waist, no skin-to-skin contact and no heat, but the intimate pressure still made her body flood with tingles.
“We were at the fireman’s breakfast,” Dawson said. “Same table, and when we saw the food, I nearly upended everything.” He made a sound that sounded like the crow barking, and it took a moment for Caroline to realize it was a laugh.
“I figured that wouldn’t be good, so we came back to the ranch, and I made breakfast.” He cut Caroline a look out of the corner of his eye as he said, “we,” his gaze quickly returning to his brother.
Duke met his eye again, held it for a moment, and then switched his gaze over to her. “What a lucky coincidence.”
She turned toward Dawson, who wasn’t going to be any help at all. He simply looked at her with those gorgeous aqua-marine eyes and gestured vaguely for her to go with Duke.
“They’re down here,” he said, and he’d already started to walk away. Since Dawson wasn’t offering upany other options, Caroline moved to follow his brother.
She didn’t want to work today, but sometimes she had to do things she didn’t want to do. Owls didn’t know what day it was, and Caroline didn’t have to keep track of her hours. She got paid to get the job done, no matter when or where that happened.
Duke had just as long of legs as Dawson did, and he didn’t slow his stride to allow them to keep up, despite the loose terrain at her feet. Caroline spent a lot of time outside, walking through dirt or down dirt roads or dealing with dirt. After all, that was what the burrowing owls lived in, and they’d become her whole life here in Three Rivers.
No one said anything as they walked, and Caroline’s mind went on the fritz. Dawson had introduced her as the Wildlife Conservation Officer, not his girlfriend.
Which would’ve been weird, she told herself. She and Dawson were not dating, even if it had seemed like he might kiss her in front of that kitchen sink.
She now knew the dog toys belonged to a cattle shepherd named Ruffin, and the coins and shiny objects had come from a pair of crows he’d named Rocks and Nugget.
She twisted and looked behind her, but the crows had flown off. Ruffin trotted along beside Dawson, his tongue hanging out, and Dawson raised his eyebrows.
Caroline faced forward again, because it wasn’texactly even ground here, and she didn’t need to trip and fall flat on her face. She wasn’t even wearing her boots, so she minded the way and kept following Duke.
Due to her experience, she found the burrowing owls before Duke started to slow and stop. “Here they are,” he said.
Caroline stepped past him and crouched down again. Ruffin came right to her side, and she looped her arm over his back. “You can’t chase them off, buddy.”
Only a few holes existed here, and she only saw two owls. She glanced around and found evidence of their tracks and inhabitation, and she sighed. “We’ll need to cordon off this part of the ranch,” she said.
“Can we keep them from spreading?” Duke asked. He seemed darker than Dawson, though when she looked up at him, she could see some of the same features in him that Dawson possessed. “Or do we have to just let them have complete run of the ranch?”