Protection

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Bliss arrived back at the ranch and Colt ran out to meet her before she even reached the front gate.

“It’s bad now, Bliss. He found out.”

“F-Found out?” Bliss felt her heart sink. “How?”

“Another note came and he found it.”

“Another one?” Bliss dismounted and stood in front of Colt.

“Yeah. This one’s worse,” Colt shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I see. Well, I’ll go face Daddy. He’s gonna blow, isn’t he?” Bliss winced.

“Sure as the sunrise.”

Bliss groaned and gave Colt the reins to Butterfly Kisses and began walking toward the main house.

“I’d be careful, Miss Blissful,” the oldest of the cowboys, Mose, said from where he was saddling his horse.

“He’s in a pretty foul humor, huh?” Bliss stopped before entering the house.

“He’s gotta right to be, missy.” Mose cinched his saddle.

Bliss shrugged. Daddy seemed to be overprotective of her even though she was twenty-one years old. Opening the door, she walked into the front room of her home. A bear skin rug lay in the middle of the room with overstuffed chairs and a settee littered the room in a semi circle. Every part of the room screamed masculinity. Momma would surely roll over in her grave if she saw how the house looked now, but Bliss kind of liked it.

“Bliss? Honey, is that you?” Daddy’s voice rang from the kitchen.

Bliss walked into the room and saw her father sitting at the kitchen table with two notes in front of him. Grace was stirring the soup for dinner, but sent a worried glance her way.

“Did you know about these?” Daddy motioned to the notes in front of him.

Bliss walked over and sat beside him. He gave her the notes to read.

The first one, which she had memorized, read:

Watch your back.

While the second one was her initials with a line through them and a few drops of red on the page.

Bliss rolled her eyes and ignored his question. “Daddy, this is probably some dumb kid playing a joke.”

“A kid? Coming all the way out here from town to play a joke? Your life is no joke, sweetheart.”

“Sherman, she might be right,” Grace spoke up. “This could be a bad prank.”

“I’m not chancing anything.”

Bliss sighed. “So I have to stay locked up all the time? I’d go crazy.”
“No, not that necessarily. You need someone to be with you. A bodyguard so to speak” Daddy explained.

Bliss leaned back in her seat. “So basically a shadow?”

“Just until this blows over.”

Bliss swore he thought she was still a child. She had shot a gun before, and she could take care of herself. Packing a six-shooter until the notes stopped was a reasonable reaction, but this… this was infuriating. She kept her mouth shut and simply nodded, knowing that there was no way of changing her father’s mind.

“I know just who I can get, too,” Daddy said with pride, placing a newspaper in front of her and pointing to where he had circled an ad.

“This is the Denver Post, Daddy,” Bliss reminded.