A Ranger For The Holidays. Allie Pleiter

       Chapter One

      Pine trees don’t wear gloves.

      Amelia Klondike, like any sensible person on God’s earth, knew that. She was out here in the woods to find pinecones for a Sunday school project, not accessories. She set down the last of the lemon bar and coffee she’d brought for breakfast—Amelia didn’t believe in sensible breakfasts, ever—and picked up the glove from its place among the scattered pinecones. Large, well made, worn to a comfortable softness, it was definitely a man’s glove—one that would be missed, so she should try to find its owner. She chuckled as her mind made the connection; a woman whose life’s work was a charity called Here to Help ought to be able to help one glove find the man who owned it.

      Not that Amelia was looking to find a man—gloved or otherwise—these days. Just over a year out from a publicly broken engagement, Amelia was barely starting to feel as if talk had died down and she could be seen as Little Horn’s best helping hand, not its saddest broken heart.

      She was tucking the glove in her pocket when she spotted its mate ten feet away. Then a boot...and a leg...until there, lying under the largest of the pine trees, Amelia spied the owner of those gloves.

      She blinked a few times, startled to see a large, ruggedly dressed man sprawled in the wet needles under the boughs. “Sir?” The angle of his arms and legs wasn’t that of sleep, and last night’s storm certainly wasn’t conducive to camping out under the stars. Amelia dropped the gloves and her pack on the ground and walked over to shake the man’s shoulder. “Hey, sir, are you all right?”

      He didn’t respond. Lord, help me, what do I do? she prayed as she looked around for any sign of companions or transportation. Short of Louie, her own horse, who stood inspecting a clump of grass behind her, Amelia was alone. She didn’t recognize the rather handsome man; he was clean-cut, well if casually dressed, but mud-smeared as if he’d been out here all night. As if he’d come to some kind of mishap. “Are you hurt? Sick? You don’t look like you should...”

      Amelia swallowed her words as the man groaned and turned his head to reveal a grisly wound across his forehead. “Oh, mercy!” Amelia gasped, fumbling back to her backpack for her cell phone. She had to call 911. This man needed an ambulance.

      The phone was no help—she should have known she’d get no cell service way out here. How was she going to get this poor soul to help? Amelia twisted a blond curl around her fingers in panicked consideration of her options. Sometimes text got through on almost no service and she was good friends with Lucy Benson, the sheriff. Would Lucy be nearby on a Saturday morning? She pulled up Lucy’s cell number and typed Emergency!

      She shook the man gently, pulling the scarf from her neck to wipe the worst of the drying blood from his face. Someone—or something—had taken a good whack at his forehead. Accident? Fight? Bandit? Little Horn had been experiencing its own odd crime spree in recent weeks, so there was no telling if the attractive man on the ground before her was a good guy or a bad one. If the past year had taught her anything, it was that bad guys could come in good-looking packages.

      Hero or villain, this was a hurt man in need of help, and right now she was the only help to be had. Carefully, she rolled him fully onto his back, which made him wince. “Sorry about this,” she offered as she rummaged through his pockets for a phone, wallet or, hopefully, car keys to a truck just out of sight.

      The search came up empty. No keys, no wallet, no phone. “Looks like someone had it in for you, mister.” Given all the robberies taking place in Little Horn of late, it wasn’t hard to think the criminals had expanded their cattle and equipment theft to face-to-face holdups. It took a special brand of mean to not only take a man’s valuables, but to dump him unconscious in the middle of nowhere. “Come on there, cowboy, wake up. This’d be a whole lot easier with you conscious.”

      Her phone dinged an incoming text from Lucy. Hurt? Gramps?

      It would be natural for Lucy to think any emergency of Amelia’s involved the elderly grandfather who lived with her, but not this time. Found injured man in woods just over ridge behind Palmer’s Creek. Call 9-1-1 for me?

      I’m not too far from there. On my way.

      Some days it paid well to be best friends with the local sheriff. “Help is on the way,” she told the unconscious man. Wasn’t it important to keep concussion victims awake? Why hadn’t she paid more attention when watching medical dramas? Try talking to him. She grasped one of his broad, solid shoulders and shook him a little harder. “Do you hurt anywhere? What’s your name?”

      No response other than a groan, but he had moved his hand and Amelia spied a watch. “Why’d they leave your watch when they took everything else?” She began unbuckling the old, worn timepiece—it was a long shot, but maybe the watch could at least give her a name or initials if it was engraved.

      It was. Finn: all my love, B. Mystery man had a name—and someone who missed him. “You’re no slouch to look at, Finn, B’s a lucky lady. And worried, I expect.” She’d spent enough time praying for her now-ex-fiancé, Rafe, to come off duty from the Texas Rangers safe and sound that her heart twisted in sympathy for the likely frantic B. It looked as if Finn had been out here all night, if not longer. “Wake up, Finn.” She leaned in closer to his fine features. “Finn! Finn, can you hear me?”

      A hint of awareness washed over the man’s features. He dwarfed her—she guessed him to be over six feet tall and very fit. “Can you sit up?” She tried to pull his chest vertical, but he winced and his eyes shot wide open. They locked on to her for a second, a startling sky blue contrast to his glossy dark brown hair, before losing focus again as he fell back to the ground and murmured, “Ouch.”

      “I guess you’re more hurt than you look.” Amelia pushed up the fleece he wore to see blood staining the shirt underneath. “Mercy, Finn, I don’t think you should move at all. Help is on the way, so you just sit still.”

      His hand moved to his chest. “Ribs.” He said, the word slurring a bit.

      “You might have cracked a few of those, and you’re definitely bleeding.” She took her scarf from behind his head and bunched it up against the red spot on his shirt. “Stay with me, Finn. Keep those eyes open.” She grabbed Finn’s hand, finding it alarmingly cold, and guided it to press against the scarf on his wound. His eyes found her again, the fear and confusion in his gaze going straight to the pit of her stomach.

      “My name’s Amelia, and I’m getting you help.” She bit her lip. “You just stick with me, okay?”

      Finn nodded his head. When he coughed, she could see the pain shoot through him even as he grabbed her hand. “Where am...?” Finn’s words fell off into a sharp hiss as he tried to rise again.

      Amelia put a hand gently to his shoulder. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’d better stay still.”

      Finn’s eyes wandered