Kitabı oku: «Montana Red»

PRAISE FOR

GENELL DELLIN’S

“MONTANA” SERIES

“Dellin makes rodeo athletes come alive in this

modern-day western romance.”

—Booklist on Montana Gold

“Sure to please her innumerable fans.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Montana Blue

“Dellin gives her readers a real taste of the west.”

—Booklist on Montana Blue

“A fine contemporary tale…

Fans of Big Sky romances driven by the characters

will want to read Montana Blue.” —The Best Reviews

Also available by Genell Dellin

MONTANA GOLD

MONTANA BLUE

MONTANA
Red
GENELL DELLIN

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For my sisters, Linda and Bonnie, who share

my loving memories of the two funniest and

best grandpas any girls ever knew.

Homer Grady Gill and Newton Theodore Smith

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to all the activists, writers,

photographers, scientists, filmmakers, organisations

and individuals who have contributed to our

awareness, understanding and preservation

of America’s wild horses.

Dear Reader,

The most emotional environmental issue in America is wild horses. Since the late 1800s the question has been whether to love or hate them, slaughter or protect them, and that’s still true today. When, in researching this book, I found that two of my acquaintances, both lifelong horsemen and ranchers, consider them useless, it shouldn’t have shocked me. The prevailing attitude since the late 1800s has been that letting wild horses graze is a waste of grass that should be used for cattle who feed people.

But wild horses feed our spirits. The sight of a band of wild horses running against a sunset sky with manes and tails flying, or a lone stallion standing on top of a mountain cliff with head up to smell the wind, wary, proud and self-sufficient, stirs the blood. Knowing they survive by growing hard, hard hooves and eating snow for water and instinctively spreading their grazing pressure over what rough terrain they are permitted to keep and by huddling together for warmth and watching for danger together lifts the human heart. Connecting with their primal selves, shaped by the land itself, warms our souls.

The Plains Indians, when they first saw horses, called them “medicine dogs.” This is even more true of wild horses because their very wildness makes them our healers. I hope you find medicine in Montana Red.

All best,

Genell Dellin

IN WILDNESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF

THE WORLD.

—Henry David Thoreau

CHAPTER ONE

STEALING A HORSE scared her wildly, much more than she’d imagined it would—which must’ve been at least a hundred times just today.

Nothing was happening as she’d expected. Ariel didn’t nicker a greeting and the security lights weren’t shining much farther inside than the doorway and, even if they were, sweat was running into her eyes, stinging them so badly she couldn’t see. Clea squinted into the narrow cone of light emanating from the tiny flashlight she wore around her neck and then took another step.

She couldn’t breathe. And not just because the humidity was niney-nine percent. It was a bold, hard job, this horse-thieving business.

What had Brock been thinking, building a barn with no airconditioning? She couldn’t imagine that, either. People would be saying he was cutting corners, in financial trouble. Brock’s image was what drove him.

Clea wiped her eyes with her bare fingertips and moved deeper into the black of the aisle, straining to see the horses, flashing the torch from side to side to check each one as she passed. If only Ariel were a white! Or a palomino or a gray. Pray God she was still here.

If she wasn’t, Clea’d probably just break down and cry, after going through all this. She missed Ari like crazy.

More than that, she had to have her back. Somehow, being partners with Ariel was what had given her the guts to finally get the divorce she should’ve gotten three years ago.

Scared gave way to mad again, in the endless back-and-forth game of emotions playing with her. Suddenly, she wished Brock would catch her. Come on, Brockie. Look out the window and see my little light. Come on down here and tell me I can’t take my own horse. Let me practice my new self-defense skills. Hey, Brock!

Something metal fell, clanging like the bells of hell, to the concrete floor.

Clea hit the off switch on her light and slammed her back against a stall wall. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even pray. She just wished to go right through the wall behind her to hide inside with whatever horse was in there. The one kicking the side of the stall. Twice, and then he quit, thank goodness, or he might have lamed himself and it’d have been her fault.

Not to mention that he might draw somebody’s attention.

Or they all would. The whole population of the barn was stirred up now.

Time—who knew how long?—passed until she heard only a few mutterings and rustlings and a couple of thumping buckets from horses hoping that the excitement meant breakfast. The ringing noise must’ve come from the narrow feed room she’d passed on the way in. Maybe a scoop or a lid. Maybe a rat or a mouse. Or a cat.

Her breathing slowed and she used every intuition she had but she didn’t sense another person’s presence. Evidently, neither did the horses.

Oddly enough, the scare sort of calmed her down. In a weird, insane way it was as if the worst were over now.

She flashed her little light from stall to stall, found the crooked white star in the black face. Finally.

“Thank God.” Clea barely breathed the words but the mare heard and nickered to her. Quietly, as if she knew this had to be a clandestine operation. Clea crossed the aisle in three long steps, reached for the halter hanging from the wire mesh wall with one hand and slipped the door latch free with the other. Inside, quick as thought, she cupped her hand over the mare’s muzzle, stroking it for a second, whispering in her ear. Ariel had to be…her one true friend.

The pumping adrenaline was making Clea’s arms shake but her icy fingers managed to get the halter on and the strap pulled through the buckle. Once she’d led her out—Ari quiet and cooperating as if they’d planned this escape together—Clea took the time to close and fasten the stall door so that, at first glance in the morning, everything would look normal. Every minute she could buy herself was another mile down the road.

Although, now that she had her mare on a lead in her hand, she could kill anybody who tried to take her away. She had another flash of a fleeting fantasy that that somebody might be Brock and…

Enough foolishness. Get out of here.

The other horses were mostly quiet as she and Ari paraded past them, the mare’s shoes clinking on the concrete. The smell of fly spray from the automated system burned her lungs and made her want to cough, but she resisted.

Ari switched her tail and knocked a halter against the wire of the last stall they passed, hard enough to make the buckle clink but that was all. No alarms sounded and no voices yelled and no lights went on anywhere.

Once outside, the sultry Texas night slapped Clea in the face. The noises of buzzing locusts, croaking frogs and, farther away, Interstate 20 announced that the wider world was waiting. It wouldn’t be long now.

Clea kept to the shadows until they were through the gate to the pasture, then she tied the lead rope into a makeshift rein, led the mare over to the fancy new polyurethane fence, stepped up on it and mounted. Laughter—bitter, terrible, sad, hard laughter—bubbled up in her at the vision of Brock’s face, if he could see her now.

But she no longer wanted him to see her. It’d just be a big mess, and if he called in law enforcement, she would lose Ari for good.

Wait. Wait till you cross Red River. In Oklahoma you can celebrate.

One smooch and they were going, heading diagonally across the big pasture, taking approximately the same path through the tall grass Clea had come in on. Her legs and seat melted against the warm horseflesh and she felt the first glimmer of peace flow through her. She wanted so much to squeeze Ariel into a lope and fly away with her, but she took a deep breath and made herself fall into the rhythm of the mare’s long, reaching walk instead.

It was hot. So hot that even Ariel didn’t have it in her to be frisky. Good thing, because Clea didn’t dare use the flashlight now, out in the open. Even if she did, the grass made it impossible to see the ground beneath, so she wouldn’t—would not—jog or lope, no matter how much her nerves screamed that they wanted to. This was enough. Just to be together again.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she leaned forward on the sleek black neck so she could lay her cheek against it.

“You’re my gorgeous girl,” she said. “Don’t get in a hurry and step in a hole now. Nobody’ll see us.”

She hoped. She tugged at the black do-rag to make sure it covered all of her pale hair.

A mosquito rose from the grass and dived at her, hanging in the air at her cheek, singing in her ear. Clea hunched her shoulder to rub it off so she could keep her hand on the horse. The feel of Ari’s warm flesh against her palm comforted her. She wasn’t alone anymore.

And Ariel was safe.

I’ll sell your precious damned mare down the road, Clea, and I won’t be too particular about who buys her. You can bet your selfish little life on that. If you’re gone, then so is she. Maybe to the killers.

Brock’s voice was in her head, so real she thought she felt his breath on her neck. She shivered.

Her only comfort while she plotted and planned and waited to get Ariel back into her possession had been knowing that he was too greedy to sell a high-dollar horse for a killer price.

Maybe. His need to control consumed him. She’d been living in fear that it might trump greed in the face of all the inconvenience and money Clea was costing him.

The sudden glow of headlights coming around the curve on the county road she was heading for, jerked her back into the present moment and froze her in place on the horse. She could tell by the moonlit silhouette that it was a big pickup truck with lights across the top and along the running boards.

Would the driver see her rig? And then think thieves and stop to investigate? Or call the sheriff? Take her tag number?

She’d done the best she could, but her brand-new truck and trailer pulled up into a ragged bunch of mesquite by the side of the road at three in the morning were not hard to spot. This whole area was slipping fast into urban-sprawl development land and the people who lived in the new McMansions and worked in Dallas usually didn’t drive pickup trucks. It must be one of the few farmers or ranchers or horse trainers still holding on in that area. And they were the ones who might get suspicious.

For a minute she wished she hadn’t been too worried about scratching the paint on her new vehicles to drive deeper into the brush. But then the truck rolled right on by her hiding place without slowing down; she was safe again.

As safe as she could be while in illegal possession of one of the best hunter-jumpers in the country.

But it wouldn’t be long until she was out there on I-20, blended in among the eighteen-wheelers and the RVs, flying north with her darling tucked safely away out of sight—calmly, she hoped—munching hay. Just a few more minutes. They were more than halfway to the road.

Clea turned around to look behind her at the looming white house in the distance and the gabled barn behind it. The sight urged her to lope the rest of the way. She fought it down. She’d come too far to mess up now.

After what seemed a whole night’s worth of time, they reached the fence that ran along the road.

Clea slid off, untied the lead and reclipped it under Ari’s chin, murmuring nonsense to the mare, keeping the trees between them and the road as long as she could. She gave thanks again that along this side of the property was still an old barbed-wire fence with a section held up by a loop of baling wire to make a gate. No lock.

She opened it and the black mare walked right through the gap, waited for the trailer door to swing back and loaded without a bit of trouble.

“If you’ll just haul the same way you loaded, we’ll do great,” Clea said.

She let herself take a second to hug Ariel’s neck before she tied her in the slot prepared with the full hay feeder.

“You be good,” she said as she fastened the divider securely around Ariel. “Don’t give me any trouble and we’ll get to our new home a whole lot faster. You’ll love it there. It’s nice and cool.”

Ari grabbed a mouthful of hay and started chomping. Clea closed up the trailer and then went to put the gate back in place.

Excitement was starting to build deep inside her, pushing away fear and anger, coming up hot through the pool of cold sadness. She ran to the driver’s door, unlocked it, climbed in, fastened her seat belt and turned the key. She backed out into the blissfully empty road to head for the interstate. Straight south from here, all the way to the access road, then a right turn and it wasn’t half a mile to the on-ramp. The northbound on-ramp.

That was the plan.

But to follow the plan she had to drive past the main entrance to Brock’s development, Falcon Ridge. Yes, Falcon Ridge, when there wasn’t a falcon or a ridge anywhere in sight and hadn’t been for a hundred years, if ever.

It might have been the very first or just one of the first, but soon there were bound to be more of these stupid monstrosities springing up like weeds all over the farm- and ranchland of north Texas. She hated them.

And here it was now, looming ahead on her right, somehow reminding her of an enormous medieval castle and its keep somewhere out on a moor in the middle of nowhere. But no, it was a shining new, self-sufficient small town with its own specialty food shops and spa and convenience store selling gasoline. With its very own gym, coffee shop and guarded gate.

With its fake variety of townhouses, one-story houses, two-story houses, houses with yards and houses without. Fake community. Fake closeness. Well, what could be more natural for Brock to build?

The reckless need to defy her ex-husband drove her. Her arms turned the wheel with no direction whatsoever from her brain and she drove in past the gatehouse where the guard sat fast asleep. He didn’t even hear the loud purr of her diesel motor.

She followed her instincts on the streets that wound around for no reason and finally found the last one on the north side, where one of the houses backed up on the acreage she’d just crossed and the barn she’d just burgled. A bitter chuckle rang out, loud in the truck. It didn’t sound like hers but it must have been.

Her hand ached to hit the horn and summon Brock-the-Builder and his new wife, both of whom belonged here so un-equivocably—he with his fake hair and she with her fake breasts—into the yard or at least to the window so she could wave at them while she drove past. Then, in the morning, when the guys went to feed and discovered Ari was missing, Brock would know who took her.

He would never, ever, in a million years think Clea had done it herself. He might suspect she’d hired someone, but she wanted him to know she hadn’t needed to hire to get it done.

She wanted him to know her real spirit was coming back to life. She was stronger now, strong enough to confront him.

But not strong enough to let go of Ariel, now that I just got her. Better be careful.

She slowed more and idled in front of the house—ugly fake Southern mansion, with even the proportions of the pillars all wrong. Just as she’d expected. He had a new wife with fake breasts and bad taste.

Clea’s foot tapped the accelerator to make the motor growl, a noise she liked to think of as threatening.

Take that, Brock. You’d better not come after my mare.

He would, though. She knew him too well—as opposed to her realization, when she’d finally gathered the courage to leave him, that he had never known her at all.

Well, honestly, how could he? She hadn’t known herself. She’d been afraid to face her real feelings and afraid to assert her own will—when it went up against Daddy’s or Brock’s. Well, no more.

Get out. You have miles and miles and hours and hours to think about this.

She stepped on the accelerator, laid the gas to her truck and roared her way along the empty street toward the exit of the pretend-town and the still-sleeping man in the guardhouse. A frisson of new excitement mixed with relief zigzagged its way down her spine where the sweat was drying. It carried her to I-20 and kept her wits and her reflexes sharp as she merged into the traffic. She forgot about everything except reminding herself to allow for the length of her new trailer when she changed lanes and keeping her foot light on the accelerator so she could stay within the speed limit.

Of course, that was probably the best way to get noticed by a highway patrolman. She seemed to be the only person on the road traveling at a speed less than ninety miles an hour; the huge trucks whipping past made her dizzy. She’d have to get tough—only 1,499 more miles to go, or something like that. Maybe more.

Clea still couldn’t believe that she was here, in the driver’s seat, for the long haul all the way to Montana. Just like the old cattle drives—Texas to Montana. Well, Charles Goodnight had been one of her ancestors so surely she could do this.

She’d hauled her own horse a few times before on short trips to ride with friends. Also, she’d taken turns driving during the thousands of miles she’d traveled during the serious horse-showing days of her high school and college years, but it was her trainer or his assistant who did most of it. Many times she’d flown while they drove.

However, for this job she couldn’t exactly pay her trainer or hire a horse-transport company, could she?

No, she could not. For the first time ever she was on her own.

She gave herself a tight little smile in the rear-view mirror as she checked her surroundings and settled firmly into the slow lane at a solid seventy miles per hour, which she pretty much had to maintain or get hit from behind. The look of that smile lingered in her mind. She’d meant it to be a show of courage and not the scared grimace she’d glimpsed.

Clea lifted her chin and smiled again. This one was better. Scared or not, she wasn’t giving up or giving in or giving back. No way.

Free at last. Freedom. Free. I’m free. Free.

“Free.” She said it out loud. After a lifetime of being Daddy’s girl and Brock’s girl. Wife hadn’t applied to her because she’d had no more decision-making power married to Brock than she’d had with Daddy. Well, she was growing up now. She would show them she could take care of herself.

The most exciting thing about freedom was that she could do whatever she wanted. She could train Ariel herself and she could buy a trail horse or two to keep Ari company and she could go exploring. She could please herself and not worry about pleasing any man.

She could take all the pictures she wanted and work around the clock at becoming a professional photographer instead of a hobbyist, if that was what felt like the right thing to do. She could do anything, just as long as she had enough money to pay for her keep and Ari’s.

And maybe in the process she’d find whatever she was meant to do in her life.

But for now, she wouldn’t think that far ahead. She had secretly scrimped and saved for months. Selling possessions, lying about some uses of her horse money, writing checks forty dollars over the total for groceries and taking photos at horse shows for cash. Now she had enough money hidden to get her through a year at the place she’d leased and some things she could sell if necessary.

In two years, when she turned thirty, she’d have access to the trust fund from her mother. Until then, she could get a job of some kind. In the long run, if she couldn’t break into photography, which was a tough, tough field to make it in, she’d go into interior design or something that would give her a decent lifestyle. For one thing, she was determined to prove to Brock and Daddy that she could take care of herself.

Not in the style to which she was accustomed, that was for sure. She’d be living a lot differently this next year. Her new life would be stark in comparison to the old one. However, being able to breathe free and become her own real self would be worth any sacrifice.

But right now, her really most challenging goal was to hide this horse from Brock. He would be livid when he found out she had taken Ari. She closed her eyes for a split second and then concentrated on the traffic to banish him from her mind. She couldn’t bear to think about him anymore.

Revenge wouldn’t be her biggest satisfaction from this theft. Companionship would be, along with the relief of rescuing the mare. She and Ariel had a five-year history—the same amount of time as she and Brock—and she’d always been much closer to the mare than to her husband, now that she thought about it.

She and Ariel understood each other. Clea needed this mare. She loved her more than any horse she’d ever owned, even though she was by far the most ornery, four-legged creature alive—when she wanted to be. Well, maybe not more than Prince-the-Pony, but Clea had been a child then and children loved with a purity adults couldn’t match.

Relief flooded Clea then with such a sudden intensity it made her shiver and clutch harder onto the wheel. As if she’d saved her own life along with Ariel’s.

On one level, that was true. Right now, clinging to the courage to defy both Daddy and Brock and to try to make a new life alone took every ounce of strength she had.

This wasn’t a theft. This was refusing to be robbed a second time. But thinking about the past would do nothing but bring her down. She moved her mind to the future and tried to imagine herself and Ariel in their new surroundings.

The realtor who also managed the rentals at the ranch had described a rustic place with several far-flung cabins, each with its own small barn. The rent included the use of a heated indoor arena—a necessity for anyone who wanted to work with horses in the winter—and a stall in that same building during the winter months. Hundreds of miles of trails. Privacy. Great views, gorgeous natural beauty. Help from him when needed, solitude when she desired.

That man had better have been telling her the truth. Clea needed to be alone so she could sort out her mind. She was planning to do everything online except buy her groceries. Logging on as a guest on her best friend Sherilyn’s account, of course, so the people Brock would hire to find her couldn’t do it that way.

She’d be at her cabin alone all winter. What would it be like to be snowed in? She’d have to prepare by bringing in supplies of food and books and camera batteries and photo printer paper and plenty of wood to burn in case she lost electricity. Maybe she should get some snowshoes. She already had skis, which she’d shipped ahead with quite a lot of her other stuff. Maybe just surviving would keep her busy.

Clea would have to do her own barn chores for Ari and whatever inexpensive horse or horses she could find to keep Ari company. Most of her barn chores in the past had been done by other people, true, but she knew how. She could do it. She’d helped out at a million horse shows, hadn’t she?

Being the wife and hostess of a successful man had given her some skills, but how many paying jobs existed for a woman who could pretend to be fascinated when she was bored stiff—both in and out of bed? She raised her eyebrows to her reflection in the mirror. Well, it would be an asset in the oldest profession, which, if she hadn’t truly loved Brock—or thought she did at first—she would compare to her position as his wife.

No more. Never again would she give a man that power. Her days of catering to and obeying a man were gone.

Firmly, Clea looked at the road and the traffic. She blocked the past out of her mind one more time. That was another skill of hers—compartmentalizing—and she needed to use it now. No memories. No more. Just adventure ahead.

She concentrated on the sound of the tires on the road and tried to imagine details of her new life while the miles rolled by. A trip to Jackson with Brock to meet some business associates and another to ski at a private lodge near Kalispell were the only times she’d been to Wyoming or Montana. She’d never seen this place she’d leased. There wasn’t even a picture of it on the Internet.

She tried to imagine the first day, which she intended to sleep away. After so many miles and trying to sleep in the trailer—pray God she could find a fairgrounds or two where she could get Ariel out for some exercise and maybe even park close enough that she could leave her in a stall overnight—she’d sleep for a week.

Oh, no, she couldn’t! Not even for one day and night. She’d have nobody else to do the chores twice a day.

Get it down, C. Real life ahead.

She merged smoothly onto I-35E and, proud of the way she’d handled a crowded tangle of traffic, sped north, headed for Oklahoma. And then Kansas. Then Nebraska. And then Wyoming. All the way, well no, more like halfway west into it and finally north to Montana. Maybe her new home state forever—if she found out that she liked lots of winter.

Clea had intended to stop at the first convenience store she saw after she crossed Red River to buy a cup of coffee to celebrate but instead she just kept on going. Stopping would break her momentum and she felt compelled to continue moving away.

Just past Ardmore, though, the trailer started rocking. It shocked her at first and then she hoped she’d imagined it. But no. Ari was weaving and rocking it. Definitely. Clea could feel it swaying behind the truck, pulling the whole rig to one side, then the other.

Damn. She should’ve known Miss Ari wouldn’t be too good for too long.

Well, who could blame her? She wasn’t exactly used to being kidnapped from her stall in the middle of the night or to being without other horses for company.

But that wasn’t the reason. Diva that she was, center of the universe as she felt she was, Ariel felt compelled to try to get any bit of control over this whole operation that she could.

Finally, after a mile or two of intermittent rocking and swaying, Clea saw a rest area up ahead and pulled off the road. She turned off her lights because this was still the horse country of southern Oklahoma and north Texas where everybody knew everybody in the industry and someone might stop to see who she was and if she needed help.

Clea got out, walked back the length of the trailer, switched on her little flashlight and turned off the interior lights before she opened the door. She felt like a spy in a movie as she stepped in and shined the light over Ariel, who was still swaying rhythmically.

When the light reached her head, Ariel turned toward Clea with her eyes flashing, lifted a front hoof and pawed, hard.

Before Clea could open her mouth to make soothing sounds, Ari did it again and then started to rear, fighting the rope to try to get her head up, tearing at it with a vicious strength.

A terrible chill bloomed in Clea’s gut as she started moving toward the horse, making soothing noises, trying to get her mind together enough to make words. What if she’d brought Ari out here only to have her break a leg and die?

She hadn’t tied her tight enough. She’d been too happy to have her—too excited, too scared, too eager for Ariel to eat hay, too much in a hurry and too careless to make sure the tie was short enough.

Clea looked at it again. No. It wasn’t all that long.

She started stroking the mare’s muscled rump, over and over, as she started a soothing line of patter and moved toward Ari’s head.

“It’s just you, isn’t it, Ari? You’re not happy. You’re a problem child, but hey, you’ve made your point. I should’ve asked you first if you wanted to go for a long drive. Next time I’ll consult you. Okay, baby. It’s okay. Calm down now.”

The real problem was that this mare loved to be difficult and was under the illusion that she was David Copperfield. She planted her rear feet on the rubber matting and rose even higher on the front end.

Clea wanted to grab the rope and try to pull Ari down but she didn’t want to make the contrariness worse. She could hardly bear to watch. Almost.

The left hoof almost caught in the feeder.

A broken leg and it would be all over.

Wild thoughts raced each other through her head while she froze in horror. What would she do? She couldn’t shoot her own horse. She couldn’t pay for a surgery and a long recovery….

Come on, Clea. Stop it.

She set her jaw. She hadn’t gone through all this fear and effort to let it all end now, before the mare ever even saw Montana.

Ari came down and stood, trembling. Clea stepped up to the mare’s head and took hold of the rope.

“You’re working yourself into a fit,” she said in her most authoritative tone. “Ariel, settle down.”

She stroked Ari’s nose and talked to her. She patted her neck and talked to her. Ari snorted, then pricked her ears and listened.

“That’s my girl,” Clea murmured. “Now listen, sweetie…”

Sweetie threw her weight as hard as she could from side to side, then kicked out behind and swayed again, harder still. She pinned her ears, jerked her head free and tried to rear again, reaching for the wall.

No choice. No doubt. Clea would have to tranquilize the horse so they could get on down the road. They weren’t even started on this trip yet and Clea hadn’t gone through all her fear and trauma to let it all fall apart now.

Now Ari’s eyes were rolling. She made little choking sounds.

Break a leg or strangle. Great choices.

Without wasting any more breath, Clea turned and moved toward the door.

She jumped to the ground and fighting the urge to hurry—hurry that was beating harder in her veins with every sound that came from Ari—she punched in the numbers to open the door to the dressing room, letting its light come on automatically because it was on the side away from the road. She stepped up into it, closed the door almost all the way and took down the first-aid box.

Stay calm. Be deliberate. Ari was excited enough without sensing more fear from Clea.

She found the Ace tranquilizer and filled a syringe, despite her hands shaking a little. She forced herself to think positively.

Thank God, she’d had sense enough to prepare for this. She’d worried about this very thing because Ari had been hard to haul at times, so she’d asked Sherilyn’s boyfriend, a veterinarian who didn’t know Brock, to sell her the medicine and teach her how to administer it.

Sherilyn was Clea’s hairdresser and best human friend, the only person in whom Clea ever confided. The only person she trusted enough to tell about her plans for a new life, that was for sure.

With the needle and an alcohol wipe in one hand and the flashlight in the other, Clea pushed the door open with the toe of her sneaker, stepped down to the ground, went around back and shouldered the rear door aside. The trailer was still rocking.

“You have to settle down, Ari darlin’,” she said in as soothing a tone as she could muster. “Maybe take a little nap. We’ve gotta get on up the road.”

She kept on and on with the calm, slow words, trying to calm herself as much as the mare and Ariel did actually stand a bit more still when Clea reached her. Part of Clea screamed to hurry before the mare started pulling against the rope again; another part cautioned her to go slowly and do this right. That tension made her bite down on the little flashlight until she thought her teeth might break.

She found what she hoped was a good spot in a muscle—no way did she have the nerve to try for a vein—and tightened her lips around the torch in her mouth while she wiped her target clean. Through her nose she took in a long, deep breath to steady herself and slid the needle in with hands that felt stiff as wood.

Ariel squatted and pulled back but the needle was in. Clea hit the plunger and pushed it all the way.

She pulled the needle out and with a last pat on the butt, left the mare, closed up the back door, went to the dressing room and put things away. Deliberately. Efficiently. Quickly.

Heart hammering—she’d successfully managed her first emergency of the journey!—she jumped out, locked up and headed around the trailer to the truck. Ariel was looking at her through the bars on the window.

Clea felt a broad smile come over her face—victory and relief all mixed up together. She stopped in her tracks and looked at the mare, who was standing still at last. “You just hang on, my girl, and you’ll be a Montana horse before you know it.”

She couldn’t tell whether Ari’s reply expressed excitement or dismay. Whichever, it was a full-hearted whinny that reverberated thrillingly against the rocky walls of the Arbuckle Mountains and echoed up the road.

CHAPTER TWO

THE WIND whipped the stallion’s whinny of alarm up from the valley, a sound so wild and shrill that it rang Jake’s bones. The harem band fled ahead of the red stud snaking them away from the scent of the wildcat and Jake’s own horse danced beneath him. It spoiled his aim.

He used his legs to hold the gelding together and his voice to steady him while he lined up the sight again.

“Stand,” he said, surprised his voice could come out this calm with his chest so tight. “Whoa now.”

His jaw clamped down. He had one shot to save the foal. It had better be now.

The rhythm of the band’s drumming hooves matched the thunder of the blood in his arms. He steadied the rifle, drew his breath, made sure his crosshairs rested on the spot in the middle of the tawny shoulders that were folding into a crouch on the rocky ledge below and ahead of his horse.

For one split second, endless in time, he let the air out of his lungs and slowly squeezed the trigger. The back-and-forth threatening motion of the cougar’s long, black-tipped tail kept going. And going.

The shot went off at the start of the cat’s leap. At first he thought he’d missed, but its body crumpled in midair and dropped out of sight.

Jake dismounted and walked far enough to look over and down. The cougar lay within twenty yards of the foal, but neither its scent nor the sound of the shot had made the little orphan move more than a few inches away from the mare, who lay as dead as the mountain lion.

He guessed the foal at two or three weeks old. It was red like the stud, although the mare was a pale palomino. The mare must not have been dead too long or it wouldn’t still be alive to stand this dogged vigil. Its head was hanging. It wouldn’t last much longer.

What had he done?

The lion’s body would keep away any stallion that might snap the foal’s neck to put it out of its misery. Odds were slim that another mountain lion would come along. Therefore, it would have a slow death unless Jake did something.

If you have a grain of sense in your head, Hawthorne, you’ll jack in one more round and send the pathetic little bag of bones to the great grassy pasture in the sky. You’d be cruel not to do it.

True, but he’d already made the decision. He’d sacrificed the mountain lion’s beauty and wildness for the foal, so now he’d have to step up and take care of it, no matter how slim its chances. “Well, shit.”

He scanned both ways along the steep hillside for any sign of a trail that would take him down. “Come on, Stoney, my man. We’re in the nursery business now.”

He thought he could see a faint trail that the wild horses made to get down from this ridge, going to water at the small runoff lake at the bottom of the hill. He started down, leading his horse. A rock rolled out from under his feet and Stoney’s hind feet scrabbled in the gravel for purchase on the slope.

They’d have to find another way back to the road—that was for damn sure. This steep grade would be way too hard to negotiate while carrying the foal.

They finally got to the bottom and the baby turned its head to look at Jake. Weakly, it stumbled closer to the mare’s body, instinctively knowing that of the four enemies existing for wild horses—man, fire, drought and mountain lions—man was the most dangerous.

It was a filly, huddled here in a little brushy cove protected by the mountains surrounding it on three sides, where the mare had come with her. Maybe she was one of those wild mares that liked to change stallion bands every once in awhile. She’d been killed by a falling rock that rolled about a yard away after crushing half her head.

The foal’s knees buckled and she collapsed in a heap. Her spirit was what was strong about her; it showed in her eyes. But her body was dehydrated and weak. She might not even live until they got home.

Jake went back to Stoney and led him over to the baby, picked her up, and laid her, belly-down, over the big gray’s withers, feet hanging off on either side. He steadied her with his rein hand as he caught the horn with the other and the stirrup with his toe to swing up into the saddle.

Then he smooched to the gelding and started looking for a way out.

CLEA DROVE with both hands on the steering wheel as if that could make up for not keeping her eyes strictly on the two-lane road. The enormous land and sky overwhelmed her, just as they had that day during the ski trip when Brock had immersed himself in business as usual and she’d driven miles and miles alone in a rental car, exploring Montana.

Looking for something; she didn’t know what.

That day had been the beginning of the end.

She’d waked to hear Brock in the other room, dressing down somebody over the phone, cursing and demanding and then changing calls and becoming charming as he tried to make a deal. She lay there and listened to him. From what he said she knew that he’d be at it all day. The last day of the romantic vacation trip he’d given her for Valentine’s Day.

Which was the first romantic gesture he’d bothered to make in ages. Which was just as well because she could hardly stand him anymore.

She ran from the sound of his voice—into the shower, then into the dressing room where she tried to distract herself by choosing exactly the right items from her extensive new ski wardrobe. Her ski lessons were going well. She liked being out on the slopes in the crisp air and forgetting about everything except learning this new sport.

But as she slid the hangers along the rod, opened drawers and started putting pieces together, the hollow in the center of her body began to grow, inching its way into her veins, pushing her blood aside to make room for the empty tentacles stretching toward her heart with a cold efficiency that promised loneliness would soon own her. She dropped the ski clothes into a bright-colored heap on the floor, dressed in jeans and hiking boots instead, called the desk for a vehicle and walked into the living room of the suite.

Sunlight coming in through the windows lay in stripes on the floor. In the air, dust motes danced in them, held up, probably, by the raw electricity running through every nerve in her body. Brock liked to be in control and he didn’t like surprises.

She was past caring what Brock liked. That was new. She hadn’t known that before.

“I’ll be busy all day,” he said without looking up from his Blackberry phone.

“No problem,” she said. “I’ll be gone.”

He glanced at her. Just long enough to see what she was wearing. “You’re not skiing?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I want to go driving.”

This unusual stroke of independence made him actually look at her this time. He narrowed his eyes as if this was the most irritating thing she could possibly have said to him.

“I should’ve had enough sense not to bring you to a resort with no town,” he said in the tone he liked to use with her. The tone that implied You idiot child. “Gotta be spending my money or you don’t know what to do with yourself.”

She ignored that and walked past him to find her parka and bag.

“Hold on ‘til I talk to a couple of people and then I’ll call Jim to fly you down to Jackson Hole. You can shop all day.”

“Jackson is the town,” she said. “Jackson Hole is the valley.”

She slid her arms into the sleeves of the parka.

He actually dropped the phone and stood up.

“What th’ hell is the matter with you? You can’t go running around by yourself in a place you’ve never been. That’s some wild country out there. This is insane. This isn’t like you, Clea.”

It sure as hell isn’t. But maybe I’m changing.

She didn’t have the guts to go quite as far as to say that out loud, but she’d already gotten his attention. He was staring, no, glaring, at her. All she wanted was to be away from him.

“I don’t have time for this,” he snapped. “Have you lost your mind?”

She’d love to blurt out the truth of her feelings right then but even as she thought about it she knew she didn’t have the nerve. He would go ballistic.

And actually, until she had a chance to think, she didn’t know exactly what she did feel or want. So as usual, she took the easy way.

“Look,” she lied, “I saw an ad. I just want to go look at a horse.” Brock relaxed. This was something familiar. This was something he could control.

“Well, why didn’t you say so? When have I ever denied you a horse?” He sat down and began dialing the phone again. “Just remember not to use your whole fifteen K for the down payment or the rest of your nags won’t eat. I’m not putting another red cent in that account until next month.”

Halfway to the elevator, she knew she couldn’t—wouldn’t—tell lies forever to preserve the accustomed parameters of their so-called marriage. It was a bargained deal that she’d let her daddy make for her.

She’d thought she loved Brock, though. Or maybe she’d just told herself that because she wanted to please Daddy.

She was nothing but Brock’s arm ornament and his ticket into some social circles, plus his business alliances with her father. He disdained her really or he wouldn’t use that tone with her.

And why shouldn’t he? She kept her mouth shut and did as she was told and in return he bought her anything she wanted and gave her plenty of money to support her horse habit. To him, she was only as good as her manicure.

Only as good as her last social performance. Like a rodeo cowboy who was only as good as his last ride.

Clea was barely out of sight of the resort when she began to really see. The mountains and the sky, cobalt and white meeting in sharp, clean edges. Gray gravel coming through the dirty scraped snow in front of the car. One tan deer bounding across the road into green trees that were as deep as a vertical dream. Yellow sun so bright it made her smile.

This world so huge and wild it filled her heart.

She smiled to herself. Right now, that day with Brock seemed a hundred years ago. Now here she was in Montana again and she was in the middle of the end. It wouldn’t be the end of the end with Brock until somehow he accepted the fact that Ariel belonged to her. Rightfully. Morally.

But when had Brock ever cared about right and wrong?

She took a deep breath and pushed the past and future from her mind. She let the land and the sky take her again. Then she realized she was getting close to her destination. She should begin to look for the sign where she would turn in on her road. There was one, wasn’t there? According to the realtor, there was.

Holding the wheel with one hand, she fished deep into her new chocolate-brown Gucci bag to find the map the man had faxed to her, then slowed while she looked at it. Yes. The sign would be on her right and it read Firecreek Mountain Road.

After two nights, each with no more than four or five hours of nervous dozing in the living quarters of the trailer—which she could never have done without the alarm system and the gun she’d bought when she took the course in home protec-tion—she’d gone right on through exhaustion and come out the other side. A sharp edge of excitement—and quite a bit of fear also, to be totally honest—had wound her up tight.

This was her new world, the one where she would become another person. She could only pray she was strong enough to do that.

These snow-topped mountains, this endless sky, that narrow road that wound up and up, following Fire Creek to its source, as the man had described it, they all were hers now. And she’d be theirs. She’d belong to them and to the log cabin and barn he’d told her were at the top of the first high ridge.

She would not belong to any people.

She drove more and more slowly, looking for the sign, determined not to miss it because if she passed it she’d be forced to find a good place to turn the trailer around. Just the thought of having to drive even one unnecessary mile was more than she could bear. Ariel needed to get out of the trailer. She’d been exercised at both nights’ roadside rest stops, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

A bed would be wonderful, but later. Right now, a shower and something homemade to eat, even if it was only a scrambled egg and toast.

If the realtor had brought in the food and supplies that she’d ordered.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t even checked on the cost for that service. She shouldn’t have asked for it at all. If she wanted to live for at least a year on the money she had, she had to learn to think differently. From now on she had to do everything for herself, including clean her own house. She had to make every penny count.

And every brain cell. Brock would be beside himself by now and he’d be looking for her. That was a given. She’d slept in the trailer to keep from leaving a trail at horse hotels or horse people’s places, so she had to make that sacrifice count, too. She’d ordered a new cell phone no one knew about. She’d brought hair dye—Sassy Black—to cover Ari’s white markings. Perhaps she should use it before anybody here saw the mare.

There it was. The sign, Firecreek Mountain Road.

And another one, fancier, that read, Wild Horses.

Right. The realtor was all excited about the wild horse sanctuary. He said that sometimes tourists could see bands of them and sometimes they couldn’t, but they could always buy T-shirts and mugs and photographs with photos of wild horses on them and spend the night at the local motels and eat at the cafés in the little town of Pine Lodge.

She only hoped she could get close enough to shoot some pictures of the wild horses for herself. But if they wouldn’t cooperate, she could understand—at the moment, she needed her own space with a longing that went to the bone.

However, it’d be something fun to try, a challenge. Taking pictures was her other comfort, besides horses. It soothed her somehow. After her mother died, it had made her feel secure, as if whatever subject she captured would be hers to hold in her hand forever.

Which made no sense at all, since during that time she’d clung to every picture of her mother she could find, yet her mother was irrevocably gone.

That was before she’d learned that nothing is forever.

She should’ve already known.

She took the turn carefully, mindful of the way the trailer was tracking because the gravel road wasn’t very wide and the last thing she needed right now was to hang a wheel off the end of the tin horn. Once she’d straightened out the rig and headed up the first rise on the winding road into the hills, Clea let herself believe it. She was here.

And Ariel was here.

Feeling even more efficient, Clea looked at her odometer so she could measure the last leg of the journey and turn in at the correct driveway.

Then she rolled down her window so she could smell this place. Sage, she knew that smell, and a hint of pine but the dry air carried other scents, too. It was such dry air and thinner than she was used to. A whole new world from the ground up.

A chuckle began deep inside, rolled up into her throat and came out as a short but sincere belly laugh.

“Hey, Brock,” she said into the enormous space that surrounded her. “Catch me if you can.”

She’d told him once or twice that she would love to live—which was true—in northern New Mexico. Live in an artists’ colony and do nothing but take pictures in that fabulous light, she had said. He might look for her there.

Or not. Half the time, he didn’t listen to a word she said.

She glanced to her left, down into the valley along the river that flashed in and out behind some trees. There was a small ranch house and barn and some other outbuildings. Who lived there? Would she ever meet them?

How far was it on up to her place? She looked at the faxed map again and checked her mileage one more time. Not far.

Here was another hill, another ridge that led on up toward the big mountains with their striped bluffs and trees with snow still on their tops. The first high ridge. That had to be it.

Clea was going into the next switchback when she saw him. She’d turned away from the glare of sunlight off the rearview mirror and there he was, an arm’s length inside the fence, riding down the slope on the right-hand side of the road.

Coming out of the trees like a cowboy in a Russell painting, his blue shirt like sky against the green. Exactly like that.

Her heart lurched. Exactly like that, with a name like Saving the Baby or Mama’s Gone. He carried a small bright sorrel foal in front of his saddle; its long legs dangled off the sides of the big gray horse.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him—something about the sure way he sat the horse, something about the easy way his left hand held the reins and his right one rested on the baby he was rescuing. He had a presence.

Without taking her eyes from him, she slowed the rig still more and grabbed her camera from the slot in the console where she always carried it. Slipping it from the case, she raised it to her eye as she slowed even more.

The rider was looking at the foal. His hat was tilted down, but just as she passed him by he lifted his head and swept his gaze across her rig. She took the shot. Broad shoulders, a lock of black hair on his forehead, a blaze of green eyes imprinted on her mind’s eye. Then she was moving again, on around the curve.

It was one of the best photos she’d ever taken. She knew it in her gut. She knew it because she could feel that a huge smile was splitting her face and she was bubbling deep inside. What a moment! What a shot! And she’d been ready!

This had to be a good omen for her new life.

She would name it Montana Cowboy.

The sight of him haunted her as she finished the short drive to the ranch entrance that matched the X on her map. Even as she turned in under the swinging hand-carved wooden sign that read Elkhorn Ranch and started looking for her cabin, she could still see the whole gorgeous scene of the cowboy and the bright foal.

The epitome of cowboy gallantry—rescuing a creature weaker than himself. Sacrificing his time and effort to make sure that this baby would be all right instead of rounding up cattle or fixing fences or breaking colts or whatever other jobs he had to do.

She spotted the cabin sitting up a long driveway in a little meadow with blazing yellow and red leaves on the trees at its back. Fall was a fantastic time of year and one that at home often was either way too short or non-existent. She was going to enjoy this one to the fullest. She was going to love it here.

Clea parked and got out, then reached into the backseat for her jean jacket. The fall wind in Montana carried a bite of coolness that would be months yet reaching Texas.

She checked on Ariel, then left her standing in the trailer while she ran through the grass to check out the barn and the pen around it. Her lungs grabbed for more of the thin, dry air that roused her blood. This was exciting. She didn’t want to sleep after all.

The barn door stood open.

Inside, she stopped short and breathed in the smell—like that of any barn but with an overlay of age and seasoned wood. Cedar. Her eyes tried to take it all in at once. It had been built of cedar logs a long, long time ago and it had been well used. It was clean; a little neglected but not bad. The realtor had assured her everything was clean.

She smiled. Talk about different! This barn was as different from any she’d ever used as Ariel was from the horses Clea imagined had lived here before. She loved its atmo-sphere—all rustic and rough and built to be serviceable. Everything useful; nothing fancy just for show.

Somebody had left some grooming brushes and buckets in the little feed room, but she had her own, of course. Same with the feed in the barrel and the hay. They looked and smelled pretty fresh, so the former tenant must’ve just moved out.

The water tank in the pen was nearly full, too. She unloaded the mare and led her around the perimeters to let her get acclimated, then left her delirious with freedom to run around inside the pen. Clea went to the back door of the house and to her shock found it unlocked. It swung open into a kitchen with the same look as the barn: functional, rustic and actually—no doubt unintentionally—charming. The furniture was the really rough kind made of logs but there was an old blanket-covered couch in the living room that looked soft and comfortable. She loved that there was a fireplace in the wall that opened to both rooms.

The basic pots, pans and dishes were in the kitchen as promised, but the supplies weren’t at all what Clea had ordered. Right then, she didn’t even care. She’d go to town tomorrow. And she’d be sure to pay only for what she got and not what she ordered when she went by the realtor’s office.

Also, she would point out to him that neither the cabin nor the barn was exactly what he’d described to her. Try to keep him honest.

And maybe talk him down on the rent? What a good idea! She’d insist on it. She had to save money where she could.

Hurriedly, she went through the rest of the house, which turned out to be two bedrooms and a bath. The view from one bedroom was better than in the other, so it would be hers. She smiled. Or if she wanted, she could make the living room do double duty because it’d be great to have a fireplace in her bedroom.

Wood. There was quite a bit stacked neatly on the back porch and more in the yard, but she’d need a lot for a whole winter. Another thing to put on her list of questions for the realtor.

Clea pulled her rig up closer to the front door and started bringing things in. There were sheets on the bed in the room she decided she’d use for the bedroom but she wanted her own, of course. And judging by the breeze, she’d need her comforter tonight. She had to check out the thermostat and maybe get the heat going now before the house got too cool. That would save money on the electric bill, wouldn’t it? She was learning to think like a woman who couldn’t afford to be wasteful anymore.

Happily, she worked at making the house hers and brought in most of what she had in the truck and trailer. She was tired, but moving around and using her muscles was energizing her. It was so much fun to create a new nest and watch it come to life, that she couldn’t quit until she was done.

The things she’d shipped should be at the freight place by now. When she went to town she’d arrange to have them delivered.

Finally, as the sun started to slide down, exhaustion dragged at her.

All she wanted was something hot in her stomach and to lay her body down. The bed was already made with her colorful serape-striped sheets. The perfect ambience for a new life in the West.

There were eggs in the refrigerator.

She could take a hot shower and….

No! It hit her like a slap. She still had chores to do. There was no one else to take care of her mare. No sense reaching for the cell phone because nobody was close enough to do her bidding.

Clea dropped down onto the couch and let her head fall into her hands. This was it. She was on her own. It didn’t matter one bit how tired she was or what she’d rather do. Poor Ariel had nobody else to depend on.

Her eyes closed. Her body, aching for sleep now that she’d thought about it, longed to turn, lift her legs onto the sofa and stretch out. Just to reach for the blanket over the back of it and cover up….

Clea ripped herself off the couch and onto her feet. “Cowgirl up,” she muttered, made a face at herself and headed for the barn.

It took an unbelievable hour for her to orient herself, decide on a stall, bring in the feed, hay and bedding that she’d brought with her, bed the stall, set up the water bucket and fill it, catch the ornery Ariel, check her over, brush her down and put her in with her feed. When the mare was happily crunching away, Clea heaved a huge sigh of relief and trudged to the house. She didn’t feel like running anymore.

In fact, she didn’t feel like anything but a shower and sleep.

Still, there were more chores. She locked up the house and dragged a chair in front of each door. This was out in the middle of nowhere. She would have to get a dog.

Then she took her shotgun into the bedroom and slid it under the edge of the bed; thoughts of outlaws and bears and cougars drifted through her head. At that moment, as she had been those nights on the road, she was very glad she’d learned to protect herself.

Turned out the water was hot, thank goodness, and she stood under it until it ran cold. Drying off with one of the delicious, fluffy towels that matched her sheets, she could barely make her arms move. Her muscles ached. But she took an extra moment or two just to enjoy the luxurious feel of the cotton against her skin.

She wouldn’t be able to buy towels like this again for a long, long time.

Finally, she finished up, dried her hair until it was only barely damp, climbed into her new cowgirl retro-print flannel pajamas and fell into bed. Just before her eyes fell closed, she saw by the moonlight streaming in at the window that the open closet—which, like the barn, seemed to have some stuff left in it—was tiny. Really, really tiny. Far too small to even be called a closet.

That realtor was definitely going to come down on the rent.