Taming a Dark Horse

she said as she reached for the button on the waistband of his jeans.

He sucked in a hard breath. “I’ll bet.”

Nevada looked up at him with hard brown eyes. “That’s the second time you’ve implied that I’m promiscuous. What gave you that idea?”

“You. You said you had boyfriends. Or did I misunderstand you?”

With a shake of her head, she focused her gaze on the fly of his jeans. “No. You didn’t misunderstand. And aren’t you glad I’ve got experience? Otherwise I might just get you all tangled up in this zipper.”

Linc started to growl a warning to her but the loud sound of the zipper peeling open caused his mouth to snap shut. Now wasn’t the time to press his luck. But if she didn’t step away from him soon, he was going to do something crazy. Like grab her and kiss her until she couldn’t say one more sassy word to him.

Dear Reader,

Well, it’s September, which always sounds like a fresh start to me, no matter how old I get. And evidently we have six women this month who agree. In Home Again by Joan Elliott Pickart, a woman who can’t have children has decided to work with them in a professional capacity—but when she is assigned an orphaned little boy, she fears she’s in over her head. Then she meets his gorgeous guardian—and she’s sure of it!

In the next installment of MOST LIKELY TO…, The Measure of a Man by Marie Ferrarella, a single mother attempting to help her beloved former professor joins forces with a former campus golden boy, now the college…custodian. What could have happened? Allison Leigh’s The Tycoon’s Marriage Bid pits a pregnant secretary against her ex-boss who, unbeknownst to him, has a real connection to her baby’s father. In The Other Side of Paradise by Laurie Paige, next up in her SEVEN DEVILS miniseries, a mysterious woman seeking refuge as a ranch hand learns that she may have more ties to the community than she could have ever suspected. When a beautiful nurse is assigned to care for a devastatingly handsome, if cantankerous, cowboy, the results are…well, you get the picture—but you can have it spelled out for you in Stella Bagwell’s next MEN OF THE WEST book, Taming a Dark Horse. And in Undercover Nanny by Wendy Warren, a domestically challenged female detective decides it’s necessary to penetrate the lair of single father and heir to a grocery fortune by pretending to be…his nanny. Hmm. It could work.…

So enjoy, and snuggle up. Fall weather is just around the corner.…

Happy reading!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Taming a Dark Horse

Stella Bagwell

To our own beloved horses:

Thunder, Trouble, Spider John, Diamond,

Rooster, Topper, Shy Girl, Badger, Miss Kitty,

Potion, Major Bob, Festus, Newly, Doll Brown,

Sante Fe Solid, Maggie and the baby on the way.

And also, in loving memory of Gus, my brother’s great trail horse.

STELLA BAGWELL

sold her first book to Silhouette in November 1985. More than fifty novels later, she still loves her job and says she isn’t completely content unless she’s writing. Recently, she and her husband of more than thirty years moved from the hills of Oklahoma to Seadrift, Texas, a sleepy little fishing town located on the coastal bend. Stella says the water, the tropical climate and the seabirds make it a lovely place to let her imagination soar and to put the stories in her head down on paper.

She and her husband have one son, Jason, who lives and teaches high school math in nearby Port Lavaca.

HOW TO TAME A DARK HORSE:

1 Approach him with caution—he’s an animal of flight.

2 Don’t try to rope him too quickly—let him run until he tires.

3 When he starts to show interest, give him your shoulder—he’ll want what he thinks he can’t have.

4 When he decides to get close, talk to him—sweet whispered words in his ear will calm his fearful heart.

5 Once he allows you to touch him, show him you’ll never hurt him—stroke him gently on his cheek and along his neck.

6 And finally, when he surrenders to you, give him a sugary treat—he’ll love you for a lifetime.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter One

“A nurse! Hell no! I don’t need a nurse! I just need to get out of here!”

Linc Ketchum’s loud protest rattled around the small hospital room. Normally he considered himself a quiet, unobtrusive guy, but since the terrible fire at the T Bar K horse barn two weeks ago he’d turned into a growling bear.

His tall, graying doctor gave him a stern look. “Sorry, Mr. Ketchum, but your hands and arms were badly burned and unless I’m assured that a nurse will be with you at all times, I cannot release you from this hospital. And that means round the clock. You’re still highly susceptible to infection and I don’t want any sort of pressure placed on your hands before they heal completely. Your bandages will have to be changed routinely and your skin dressed. I want to know that it’s done correctly.”

Linc looked up at Dr. Olstead. “Hell, doc, if you’re going to force me to have a nurse underfoot, I might as well stay in the hospital.”

“I can certainly arrange that. As far as I’m concerned I’d rather have you here. But your family seems to think you’ll heal better at home.”

Grimacing, Linc glanced down at the sheets covering the lower half of his body. Except for short walks down the hall and sitting for brief spells in an armchair, he’d been stuck in this bed for too long. His whole body was beginning to ache. And that was just the physical side of things. Staring at the close, pale-green walls and the small television screen hanging in one corner of the room was enough to send him to the psychiatric ward. If he didn’t get out of here soon he was going to start yelling and never stop.

“All right, doc. Whatever you say. If I have to have a nurse—well, guess there’s not much I can do about it. At least I’ll be getting out of here.” He lifted his heavily bundled hands and arms. The stiff white objects reminded him of a couple of pesky tree stumps in an otherwise clean pasture. If he had to button his jeans without assistance, or walk out of the hospital naked, he’d be forced to choose the latter. “I want to get out of this mess, doc. I want to get back to work.”

“I’m going to cut the bandaging down soon,” the doctor assured him, “but it will be at least two or three more weeks before I’ll even consider allowing you to go back to work.”

Linc opened his mouth to protest, but the doctor jumped in before he could say a word and went on to discuss the do’s and don’ts he wanted Linc to stick to once he was released from the hospital.

When the man finally left the room, Linc was overwhelmed and just a little angry at being put in such a vulnerable state. He was a man who had never needed or asked for anything. He took care of himself and had done so from the time he was a teenager. He didn’t like depending on other people for anything. But it appeared as though in the coming days he was going to have to do a lot of things he didn’t like.

The memories of the fire that had brought him here suddenly welled up in Linc’s head. He saw flames ripping at the walls of the horse barn and licking at the gates to each stable, the terrified horses rearing and pawing as they tried to escape the fire closing in around them. Their frightened squeals and whinnies had mixed with the loud roar of the crackling flames and the horrible sound still continued to wake Linc from his sleep. And though he tried to forget, he couldn’t get anything about that nightmarish night out of his mind.

Time after time, he’d run back into the burning barn, grabbing every mare that he could and opening stall gates that were being eaten up by the creeping fire. The only thing he had to be thankful for was that all his beloved horses had gotten out safely. Only one had been slightly burned and his cousin Ross had assured him that she was well on the mend. As for Linc, the ordeal had pretty much cooked his hands and arms. But when he thought of his mares and colts and stallion, he knew saving them was worth every second of the pain he was going through now.

“Well, we’ve finally gotten some good news,” Ross said now as he and his sister Victoria entered the room. “At least you’re getting out of here tomorrow. That’s something to look forward to.”

Ross Ketchum was Linc’s cousin. The two of them were almost the same age and had grown up together on the Ketchum’s T Bar K ranch. They shared the responsibilities of running the multi-million-dollar operation. In spite of Ross being talkative and outgoing and Linc liking his privacy, the two of them were more like brothers than anything else. They even shared the same physical characteristics: long legs, a lean torso full of muscles, dark-brown hair and green eyes. Only, Linc’s hair was lighter than Ross’s and his eyes a much darker, muddier green.

“Yeah,” Linc mumbled. “But where the hell am I going to go? I’d drive the boys in the bunkhouse crazy and I can’t have a nurse wandering around a bunch of naked cowboys in the mornings. Unless it was a male nurse.”

Victoria Hastings, Ross’s sister and a practicing medical doctor, looked at him and laughed. “I don’t think any nurse would be welcome in the bunkhouse.”

“Only if it was Nurse Goodbody,” Ross jokingly interjected.

Victoria rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Ross, our cousin doesn’t need a Nurse Goodbody. He needs good care and rest.”

“And that’s just what he’s going to get, sis.” Standing at the head of Linc’s bed, Ross grinned down at him. “As soon as he moves into the big house with me and Bella.”

“Oh no! That’s your place. I’m not butting in.”

The main ranch house had been built nearly fifty years earlier by Linc’s father, Randolf, and Ross’s father, Tucker. Back then, the two Ketchum men had been partners, each of them owning half of the T Bar K, a spread that covered several sections in northwestern New Mexico. Initially, both men and their wives had lived together in the monstrous house built of rock and logs. But eventually Randolf had developed heart disease, sold his half to his brother and built a modest house across the ridge from the main estate.

His cousins Seth, Ross and Victoria had always treated Linc as a sibling. All three of them had insisted he always have access to the Ketchum house and the ranch’s funds just as if he were their brother. Linc had always been grateful for their generosity, but he’d never taken advantage of it. He was his own man. And he wanted to be able to say he’d earned what he had by hard work, not by handouts.

“Damn it, Linc. The house is yours, too,” Ross said now. “It belongs to all of us. Bella and I just happen to be living in it. And you don’t have to be told there’s plenty of empty rooms in the place. In fact, there’s so many Bella doesn’t know what to do with them.”

Mutiny tightened Linc’s jaw as he looked up at his cousin. “You can fill those empty rooms with kids. That would be a damn sight better than hosting a helpless cowboy who can’t even button his own jeans.”

Ross chuckled. “We’re trying to fill them with kids, Linc. But that takes time, you know. It will take us a while to fill that many rooms.”

“Well, I’m not going to be underfoot,” Linc grumbled. “You and Bella are still newlyweds, you need to be alone.”

“Tell that to Marina,” Victoria wryly interjected.

Marina had been the cook-housekeeper for the Ketchum family since Linc and his cousins had been born. The large Hispanic woman knew more about all of them than they did themselves. She had an extra soft spot for Ross and didn’t make any bones about showing it. Nor did she worry about speaking her mind. And no doubt she would demand to help care for Linc.

“That’s another thing,” Ross quickly put in. “In the big house Marina will be available to the nurse and—”

“No!” Linc interrupted. “Marina already has too much to do. I’ll not be piling more problems on her old shoulders.”

“Damn it, Linc, you’re acting like a child.”

Since Linc couldn’t use either hand or elbow, it took some doing for him to lever himself off the mattress, but he finally managed to sit up and glare hotly at his cousin. “All right, you cocky bastard. If you think—”

“Stop it! Stop it right now!” Victoria shouted at the two men. “There’s no need for all this arguing.”

“You’re damn right, there’s not,” Ross said flatly. “Linc is going to do what I say!”

“Like hell!” Linc muttered.

Victoria interceded once again. “That’s enough. Nobody is going to make Linc do something he doesn’t want to do,” she said to Ross and then resting her hands on the footboard of the bed, she leaned toward Linc and smiled encouragingly. “I have the solution, Linc. Your parents’ old house is empty. Grady, the foreman on the fence-building crew moved out a week ago. He bought a place of his own. So we’ll have the house clean and ready for you by tomorrow.”

Relief washed over Linc’s face. “Victoria, you’re a real darlin’.”

“My husband tells me that very same thing everyday,” she teased, then walked to the head of the bed, where she bent down and placed a kiss on Linc’s clammy forehead. “Don’t worry, cuz, I’m not going to let anyone badger you. Especially my mean ol’ brother.”

“Aw, Victoria, quit babying the man,” Ross complained, but there was a half grin on his face to soften his words. “You’ll have him so spoiled by the time he gets well, he’ll be worthless to all of us.”

This time Linc didn’t let Ross’s jabs rile him. Now that he knew where he was going to go once he was released from the hospital, there was another pressing problem on his mind.

“Sounds good, Victoria, but what about a nurse? I can’t imagine any woman wanting to stay out at the ranch. Especially not round the clock.”

Victoria frowned at him. “Why not? The ranch is beautiful. And even though the house isn’t anything fancy, it’s very nice.”

Linc shrugged as memories of his mother pushed at the edges of his thoughts. Darla had hated the ranch. The dust, the livestock, the isolation and the constant work it took from her husband to make the place go. He could still remember her arguing fiercely with his father and constantly throwing in his face threats to leave him and the whole mess behind.

Eventually his mother had left the ranch. But not until his father had died from the heart disease that had slowly debilitated him. Linc had been a young teenager when his father had finally passed away and at the time he’d often wondered why Darla bothered to hang around. She’d obviously not given a hoot for her husband. And she had not shown much more concern for Linc. She’d been content to let him run loose on the ranch and more or less take care of himself.

Darla had remarried quickly after his father’s death and to his amazement, she’d demanded that Linc move to the east coast with her and her new husband. If the idea hadn’t been so ludicrous it would have been laughable. Linc had lived his whole life on the T Bar K. He’d grown up with cousins who were his own age. The place was his home and would always be his home. He wasn’t about to move to some city, away from everything he loved. So he’d chosen to stay behind and his mother had walked away without a backward glance.

“Well, yeah,” he finally said to Victoria. “But some women—”

“I’m not going to hire just some woman,” Victoria assured him. “If she isn’t nice and reasonable, dedicated and completely qualified, then she isn’t going to step foot on the ranch. Understand?”

Linc wanted to tell her that there wasn’t any such woman of that sort who’d be willing to live under the same roof with him, even in a nurse/patient situation. But he kept his mouth shut. He’d already done enough arguing and complaining and Victoria was doing the best she could. At the very least, he was grateful.

“Where are you going to find a woman like that?” Ross questioned his sister. “They don’t grow on trees around here, you know.”

She made a face at her brother. “I am a doctor, remember? I do have sources. Trust me, I’ll find one.”

Quickly skirting the bed, Ross looped his arm through Victoria’s and tugged her toward the door. “Sounds like a big job to me. You’d better get out of here and get started on it. Linc and I have important things to discuss.”

“I hope it’s horses,” Linc said from his seat on the bed. “Because I’m sure sick of discussing nurses!”

“Oh, all right, I’m out of here,” Victoria said with a helpless shake of her head. “But just remember, Linc, you can’t get back to work until you heal. And you’ll need a nurse to get you there.”

“Yeah. Well, I guess a man can stand most anything if he has to,” Linc muttered.

***

Later that afternoon, Nevada Ortiz was in the middle of trying to immunize a baby boy, who was displaying a whale of a screaming fit, when her boss, Dr. Victoria Hastings called to her.

“Nevada, as soon as you’re finished there, I want to see you in my office.”

Nevada swiped the baby’s thigh with an alcohol square and tried to still his kicking foot.

“What about Mr. Buckhorn?” Nevada called to her. “He’s in the waiting room and Joyce says he already went outside twice to smoke a cigarette.”

Clearly frustrated, Victoria let out a sigh. “All right. I’ll finish up with him and then I’ll see you in my office.”

“She sounds like she means business,” the young woman holding the baby said. “What have you done wrong, Nevada?”

Since Aztec, New Mexico, was a small town, almost everyone was acquainted with each other. And since Nevada had worked as a nurse in Aztec for six of her twenty-five years, she’d met lots of people, including the young mother holding squalling Henry.

Nevada shrugged and smiled. “Not too much today. But little Henry may disagree.” She rubbed the spot on the baby’s thigh where she’d injected him, and after about two seconds his cries were replaced with a dimpled smile. “Now see there,” she told the boy, “that wasn’t so bad, was it? And look what you get now.”

Reaching into her uniform pocket, she pulled out a red lollipop, removed the cellophane and handed the treat to the baby. Grabbing it, he let out a happy coo and Nevada patted his cheek.

“Be sure that you watch him for any signs of fever or rash,” she told the mother. “Since this is a booster, I don’t expect him to have any problems, but if he does, go ahead and give us a call.”

“I will. Thank you, Nevada.”

Once she was sure mother and baby were on their way out of the examining room, Nevada hurried to the front of the building to retrieve Mr. Buckhorn’s chart from the hundreds that filled the shelves on a wall behind the receptionist’s desk.

Leaning down, she whispered in Joyce’s ear, “Has he been outside again? Or just having a cussing fit?”

The receptionist didn’t have to be told that Nevada was talking about Mr. Buckhorn. He was the only patient left in the waiting room.

“Neither, thank God,” the receptionist answered. “I turned the television on to the Western channel. Sunset Carson is keeping him occupied.”

Smiling, Nevada picked up the elderly man’s chart and walked to the door of the waiting room. “Mr. Buckhorn, you can come back now,” she called to him.

The old Navajo slowly turned his head and leveled an annoyed look at her. “I’ve already waited too long, young lady.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the television. “I gotta see what this cowboy is gonna do with this gunslinger.”

“He’s going to shoot him, that’s what,” Nevada told him. “And Dr. Hastings is going to shoot you if you don’t get back here. She doesn’t have time to wait around on old men like you.”

Mumbling what sounded like Navajo curse words, the old man slapped a beat-up cowboy hat on his head and slowly rose to his feet. By the time he made it to Nevada, though, he was in a better mood and his wide, wrinkled grin made his dark eyes sparkle playfully.

“I’m not so old, missy. I have a girlfriend. See her every day, too.”

“Smells like you have a cigarette every day, too. You know that Doc is gonna be angry with you.”

His chuckles were full of mischief. “She’ll get over it.”

***

More than thirty minutes later, Nevada was finally able to meet with Victoria. The day had been long and both women were exhausted. Nevada practically fell into the stuffed armchair sitting near the doctor’s wide desk.

“What a day!” Nevada exclaimed. “How many patients did we see anyway?”

Victoria tried to smile. “I quit counting after we hit twenty.”

Reaching up, Nevada began to pull the pins from the braided black bun at the back of her head. Once the last one was removed, the long silky strands fell to her shoulders, and she gave the heavy mane a shake.

“So, what have I done now?” Nevada asked her boss. “Made a patient angry? I know Mr. Tallman complained about the shot I gave him. But honestly, Victoria, the man is a wimp.”

Leaning back in her chair, Victoria chuckled tiredly. “You haven’t done a thing wrong, Nevada. And you’re right, he is a wimp. But none of that is why I wanted to talk to you this evening.”

Nevada looked at her boss with interest. “Oh? What’s happened? Are you going to take off work or something?”

Victoria slowly shook her head. “Actually, I probably should take off work. But right now it’s just not feasible. Dr. Martinez is out of town on vacation and won’t be back for one more week. I have no one to replace me. At least, no one that I would trust with my patients.” Folding her hands atop the desk, she leaned up and looked intently at Nevada. “You see, I’m having a problem. I’m hunting a dependable nurse. Someone I can really count on.”

Shocked, Nevada stared at the other woman. “Oh. You mean, uh—you think I can’t handle all the work around here? I thought you and I worked well together.”

Victoria quickly waved a hand at her. “Nevada, my dear, I couldn’t do without you. You’re my right arm. And I really don’t know how I’m going to get through the next few weeks if you agree to this.”

“This?” Nevada asked carefully. “What is this?”

Massaging her forehead, Victoria said, “I need you to do me a favor. A big favor.”

“Of course. Anything,” Nevada quickly agreed.

“Wait a minute,” Victoria said as her hand fell away from her face. “You’d better hear me out before you agree. This might be a project you won’t want to get yourself into.”

Nevada scooted onto the edge of her seat. “You’ve got me curious now. And you know how much I love challenges.”

Chuckling, Victoria said, “Well, I have a feeling this will be one. You know my cousin Linc was burned badly in the barn fire at the ranch.”

Nevada nodded soberly. “Yes. How is he doing?”

“Actually, he’s going to be released from the hospital tomorrow.”

Nevada shot her boss a bright smile. “That’s good news. From what you told me, his burns were very serious. He must be doing much better.”

“He is. And Ross and I persuaded the doctor that he’d do even better if he was allowed to go home. The doctor agreed. But only if we could find a nurse to stay with him round the clock. I thought of you.”

“Me!” Nevada’s hand fluttered to her chest. “Victoria! I—I couldn’t.”

Victoria leveled a wry look at her. “You just told me you would do anything.”