Free Black Heat by Ruby Laska

It felt better—definitely not broken. An Ace wrap and a day or two off her feet was all she needed.
    "I can probably catch a ride back to town," she said, not looking at him. They'd been walking parallel to the road, and even though no cars had passed by, they had to be close to the intersection, where traffic would be busier.
    "Hitchhike?" Cal snorted. "When you can't even run away if some nut case picks you up? I don't think so."
    Just then a car came slowly down the road. They both turned; Roan recognized the big white pickup from the ranch. And at the wheel...the same man who'd locked her in the bathroom.
    Cal jogged over to the road and had a quick conversation with him. Then he called over his shoulder. "Come on, Jimmy's going to drive you home. You need me to carry you?"
    Roan shook her head. Great. So she was going to have to ride in a small enclosed space with the man who she'd hit not once but twice, the second time after it was clear that there was no way she was getting away from him, so some might consider it...unwarranted.
    As she walked to the truck with as much dignity as she could, looking past the truck into the fields on the other side of the road to avoid having to look at either man, she burned with shame.
    This wasn't the first time she'd lashed out when she felt cornered. Or the second. Or even the tenth. It had been her pattern for so long she wasn't sure she was capable of responding any other way.
    The problem was that in the last few years Roan had started to tote up all the people she'd driven away because she'd used anger as a substitute for the emotions that she couldn't bear to face. Too many people had left her—her mother had died, her father had chosen Mimi over her—and now the only ones who put up with her were the most stubborn, the gluttons for punishment. Like Walt. He kept giving her chance after chance, as had her coworkers, until she'd finally moved past her distrust and been able to feel close to them.
    But it was too much to ask from a stranger. And too much to ask from the man she'd kissed in her apartment, and then run away from.
    Cal was holding the passenger door open, looking at her with an inscrutable expression on his face. Roan was suddenly conscious of what she must look like as she got into the truck and moved to the middle of the seat. She touched her hair, which had escaped its elastic and was tangled and wild. She'd bitten her lip at some point and she knew it must be swollen. And of course she hadn't bothered to put on any makeup for her early-morning raid.
    "Put on your seatbelt," Jimmy said.
    She did as she was told. Next to her, Cal did the same. Then Jimmy made a slow, careful three-point turn and headed back toward the ranch.
    "Roan, this is Jimmy Mason. Jimmy, meet Roan Brackens."
    "Brackens? As in the family that owns the ranch?" Jimmy asked in surprise. "Then why didn't you just bring a key?"
    "It's...complicated," Roan mumbled.
    "Well, unfortunately it may be more complicated than you're aware," Jimmy said. At least it didn't sound like he was holding a grudge about the two punches she'd thrown. Of course, there was a strong likelihood that he hadn't even noticed them; Roan probably did more damage to her knuckles pounding against his rock-hard chest than she had to him. "The police officers found your backpack."
    Roan winced; she knew it had fallen from her shoulders when she'd tried to elude Jimmy. "But there's nothing in it. Just a padlock and bolt cutters."
    "They probably won't run prints if you told them she didn't take anything," Cal said. He knew that the department was overworked; if they suspected that the break-in was simply a squatter with nowhere else to stay, they probably wouldn't pursue the case.
    "Yes. However, there's the fact that she wrote her name and phone number on it with Sharpie. They let me know they'd be pursuing that, even when I assured them that nothing was missing."
    "Oh, no." Roan put her head in her hands. How could she have