Hers for the Holidays by Samantha Hunter Page B

there’s not a lot I can do.”
    Ely frowned. Lydia wouldn’t be happy if Granger came by, and even more so if she knew Ely had sent him in her direction.
    “I don’t think she’ll tell you anything more than she told me. I just wanted you to have a head’s-up, in case anything else happens. Or in case there’s anything I should know, maybe.”
    Granger stood. “Okay, then.”
    Wow, closed book, Ely thought.
    “Do you know the guy who works on the ranch? Kyle?”
    “Kyle Jones? I don’t know much. He’s worked the ranch for a little less than a year, keeps to himself. Never gave me any reason to deal with him,” Sheriff Granger said with a shrug.
    Ely stood, knowing when not to push the issue. “Well, then, thank you for your time.”
    “Happy to oblige,” Granger said, shaking his hand and picking up the phone as Ely went out the door. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
    The sheriff was a nice enough guy, but Ely thought he wasn’t being completely forthright, and he’d detected some sort of change in his demeanor when Granger spoke about Lydia’s past. Taking out his cell as he got into the truck and turned the heat on, he waited until his brother Jonas picked up on the other end.
    “Ely? What’s up?” Jonas asked, sounding distracted.
    “You got a minute?”
    “Just. Have the FBI on the other line.”
    “Listen, when you get a chance, can you do a background check on a guy named Kyle Jones, probably in his late thirties. Drives a Ford Ranger, here’s the license number,” Ely said, rattling it off.
    “Looking for anything in particular?”
    “Anything...off. Criminal record, that kind of thing. Maybe his job and bank records. Also...” Ely paused, wondering if he really wanted to have Jonas look into Ginny Granger’s past. And Lydia’s.
    “What?”
    “Never mind,” he said, not wanting to go there, not yet.
    “Okay, I gotta go. I’ll let you know what I find.”
    “Thanks.”
    They hung up, and Ely pulled out of the space and scanned the dark clouds hanging to the north. They were a ways off, and he was hungry. For more than dinner, he realized with a frown, Lydia’s soft scent haunting him. Whatever was happening, he wasn’t going anywhere until she left, and he knew she was safe. For that reason and others, he was looking forward to getting back to the ranch, maybe more than he should be.

6
    L YDIA WAS SITTING in the middle of about one million items she’d pulled out of the downstairs drawers, closets and storage areas, where she had been working since that afternoon. She was hoping to sort through it all for what she wanted to keep—very little—and what would go to Goodwill or be thrown out. It was impossible. So many things just needed to go, but she felt guilty getting rid of them. It was like throwing her family history away.
    The worst part of it had been finding a stash of Christmas gifts—for her, wrapped and hidden away in the closet. Her mom mailed Lydia gifts every year. Although Lydia always told her it wasn’t necessary. She must have wrapped these just before she’d gotten sick.
    That had done Lydia in, bringing on waves of tears that wrung her out. So here she sat, surrounded by the guts of several storage closets and cheerfully wrapped presents, feeling wretched.
    Scanning the room, she was overwhelmed—again—and quite sure she could never do this. She should have never come back here, but it was too late now. Emotionally overloaded and exhausted, which seemed to be her constant state lately, she stood, trying to shake off her blues. She needed to do something positive. Something reenergizing.
    Something wild.
    Lydia wanted to feel like herself again and not the version of herself that she’d been since arriving back at the ranch. She’d been depressed, overemotional and moody—which she supposed was natural, given the situation—but she needed a break from herself. A break from everything.
    There was one thing—one person—who