Taking Back Tara (Ranch Lovers Romance) by Eve Paludan

 
 
 
    Taking Back Tara
    A Romance Story
    by
    Eve Paludan

 
    © 2011 by Eve Paludan
    Published by Eve Paludan,
Editor/Author for NoTreeBooks.com .

 
    Cover Design: Eve Paludan
    Cover Photo: Licensed from Jim
Glab through Shutterpoint.com

 
    Amazon Kindle Edition, License Notes
    This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If
you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an
additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book
and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you
should return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.

 
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.

 
 
    Dedication

 
    To DHD, for proving
to me that chivalry is not dead.

 
 
 
    Taking Back Tara

 
    Rain glistening on his dove-gray Stetson
and pooling in the brim, Zane McKenna tilted his head forward to dump the
accumulation, then knocked on the door of the vintage Airstream, which listed
at an awkward angle in the middle of the dirt road, right where the axle had
busted the year before, just after Tara’s second husband had burned down their
house. Tara had bought the blasted trailer from a
junkyard. To live in. She’d gotten it
just over the cattle guard on her dead husband’s ranch before it broke down.
    “Tara Lee
Turner,” Zane said her maiden name to the door, “It’s your first husband.” He
paused. “Don’t shoot this time, okay?” The last time he’d come out, she’d shot
at him. Well, up in the air, but still, it had not been a neighborly welcome
from his ex-wife.
    There was no
sound from inside the Airstream. “I know you said you wanted your privacy, but
come on, angel face, open the door.” He knocked louder, his leather-gloved
hands smarting from the wet cold. There was no answer from within.
    “I usually see
your lights at night, with my telescope, but I didn’t see any last night. Are
you OK?” He pounded this time. There was no reply.
    “I’m gonna open
the door, Tara.” Zane tried the handle of the trailer. Not locked. He wiped his muddy boots on
the welcome mat and climbed the little steps. He turned the knob slowly.
    “I swear, Tara,
I won’t even look at your face if you
still don’t want me to.” He opened the door a few inches and the hinges
creaked. The trailer was dark inside, the shades drawn. He flipped on the light
switch by the door and pushed it open all the way. The first breath he inhaled
inside the trailer almost bowled him over with the stench of something rotten.
    “What in the
name of get-all is that?!” he exclaimed. He lifted the lid of a pot on the
stovetop. Raw pinto beans were swelled with water as if she had been soaking
them to cook. A slimy mold bubbled like some science fiction creature, as if
the pot had sat there for a few days and had taken on a life of its own. He
wrinkled his nose and slammed the lid back on the pot.
    “Shit, that’s
nasty.” Tara was so finicky, she never would have left
beans to soak so long that they spoiled. Unless
something happened to her.
    His heart
pounding, Zane strode the two paces to the curtained-off bedroom and flipped on
the light. The bed was neatly made. He checked the tiny bathroom and found
everything in order, except for one thing. The bathroom mirror was completely
covered in black electrical tape. He shuddered when he saw it. He even opened
the slim shower door to see if she was pressed against the wall. Nope.
    Then Zane
looked in the tiny clothes closet to see if she was hiding from him, but all he
saw in there was black clothing. Black shirts. Black jeans. The black dress
she’d worn to Hugh’s funeral and the black hat with the monstrous, morbid black
veil that covered her burned