Clay: Armed and Dangerous by Cheyenne McCray Page A

deserved that and more.
    But as far as Rylie was concerned, marriage was a mistake she was damn sure she would
     never make. Happily ever after was a long damned time, and till-death-us-do-part,
     that was too much to even consider.
    She did her best to shake off the trapped feeling she got whenever she thought about
     marriage, then headed out to saddle Sass for a quick ride of the ranch boundaries.
    Less than half an hour later, she and Sass moved along the fence line, blue sky stretching
     endlessly above them and wavy thick grass shimmering in a hot breeze. The day smelled
     like fertile ground, leather, and horse, and that was fine by Rylie. Riding was the
     ultimate freedom, and riding her own stretch, land that she’d worked and suffered
     for—nothing beat that.
    Except maybe wild sex with a certain larger-than-life sheriff...
    Rylie sighed and gave Sass’s reins a gentle tug, turning toward the back quarter of
     the ranch. She so didn’t need to go there, back to obsessing about Clay, but it was
     hard to avoid. The ranch’s farthest corner at the base of the Chiricahua Mountains
     seemed so peaceful and quiet she didn’t have much to keep her mind anywhere else.
    Sass’s hooves made soft clop-clops on thy dirt path as Rylie scanned the fencing,
     looking for holes or tears. So far, nothing. She hadn’t even seen any tracks in the
     dirt that didn’t belong.
    She rounded another corner, the hot breeze making its way over her face—
    Rylie pulled Sass to a halt, and sat ramrod straight in her saddle.
    She sniffed the air again, just to be sure she hadn’t imagined the smell that snapped
     her back to full alert.
    There it was. A fruity, almost bitter scent. A man’s cologne, expensive, but jarring.
     Unpleasant.
    Rylie squinted, searching the shadows around nearby brush and trees. She knew that
     smell. She remembered it. Before she could get hold of herself, images rushed at her,
     grabbing her mind and forcing her heart to full gallop.
    Hands grabbing her...
    Reggie’s toothy leer as he held her down in the backseat of that putrid old car...
    Torn leather digging into her shoulders, her arms as she fought him...
    “You’re gonna enjoy this, bitch. You’ve been asking for it…”
    Rylie swore and ripped herself out of the past. Her fingertips flew to her cheek,
     which was somehow stinging from the slap Reggie gave her all those years ago. He’d
     ripped off her shirt, yanked down her pants, and he was working on getting his jeans
     off when Levi showed up.
    Her heart thundered even as she reminded herself it wasn’t much of a fight after that.
     Levi had snatched the little bastard off her and thrown him down. Reggie, proving
     he was stupid on top of being an asshole, got up, and then Levi really took him down.
     Punched him so hard Reggie probably heard little birdies tweeting in his brain for
     a month or two. The jerk lost a tooth, got his jaw broken, and had to eat soup through
     a straw for a long, long time.
    Levi never should have been charged for hitting the creep. Everything got sorted out
     soon enough, though, and Rylie had felt even safer when Reggie pulled up stakes and
     left town after graduation.
    Safe. Until now.
    Rylie glanced around again, trying to squash the frantic worry making her muscles
     go tense. She hadn’t imagined that smell, and she’d never known anybody but Reggie
     to blow that much money on cologne that turned to skunk oil the second he slathered
     it on in the morning.
    She sniffed the air again and smelled nothing. The woods seemed as quiet and empty
     as ever, except—
    Rylie’s skin prickled all over, and her breath caught.
    She felt eyes on her, somebody watching.
    “Get a grip,” she whispered to herself, but Sass snorted and danced. “Whoa, girl.
     Easy there.”
    The horse tugged her head against Rylie’s grip, wanting rein to run, wanting to charge
     straight home, back to the safety of the barn and the ranch house and the hands, and
     somewhere