Can she finally stop running?

Horse trainer Shelby Doucette never bothers to unpack her bags. With no roots, no ties and no fixed address but her granddad’s old sedan, she’s avoided emotional connections, and eluded her past, for fourteen years. Get in, do the job, get out. That’s always been her way. Until she meets Jake.

Widower Jake Cameron is unlike any man she’s ever known, but that doesn’t mean he can be trusted. He has a way of sneaking through her defenses, a way of making her want to stay for good. But being with Jake would mean finally facing her past. And heading directly into the storm...

“What am I going to do?”

Stranger licked the side of her face.

“You’re no help.” She shoved the dog in mock anger. “The longer we stay, the harder it’ll be to leave.” She buried her face against his rough fur. For thirteen years, caution had been her lodestar, warning her not to put out tentative roots.

How had she let Jake Cameron sneak past her defenses? His pain speaking to hers? Not enough reason to trust, but she did trust him.

One summer, her parents had rented a cottage on a barrier island in the Gulf. She had been a fearless child, dashing into the surf, entranced by the schools of small fish bumping her legs with their noses. One day she ventured out too far and a rogue wave knocked her down and sucked her under. Before she could panic, her father scooped her up. She remembered the strength of his arms and the absolute certainty nothing could harm her as long as she was with him.

With Jake, she felt a whisper of that long-ago comfort.

She couldn’t afford that indulgence.

Dear Reader,

After living in New England for decades, I’ve finally returned to the loves of my youth, the Rocky Mountain West and Western horsemanship. I’m also an avid fan of professional bull riding and love nothing better than long cross-country road trips to watch live competition. Into the Storm combines all three passions when a traveling horse trainer drops into the lives of a Colorado rancher and his two sons involved with bull riding.

I hope you’ll enjoy the tale as much as I’ve loved telling it. Please write me if you have any questions or just want to chat. I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me at helen@deprima.com or find me on Twitter, @HelenDePrima.

Happy reading. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Helen DePrima

Into the Storm

Helen DePrima

www.millsandboon.co.uk

HELEN DePRIMA grew up on horseback on her grandfather’s farm near Louisville, Kentucky. After spending a week on a dude ranch in Colorado when she was twelve, Helen fell in love with all things Western.

She spent wonderful weeks on the same ranch during her high school summers. After graduation she headed for the University of Colorado to meet the cowboy of her dreams and live happily ever after in a home on the range. Instead she fell in love with a Jersey boy bound for vet school. She earned her degree in nursing and spent four years as a visiting nurse in northern Colorado while her husband attended Colorado State University.

After her husband graduated, they settled in New Hampshire, where Helen worked first in nursing and then rehabilitating injured and orphaned wildlife. After retirement, she turned again to earlier passions: writing and the West, particularly professional bull riding.

To my husband for keeping me focused on the dream.

Acknowledgments

Thank you

To my agent, Stephany Evans, for her persistence.

To my editor Dana Grimaldi for keeping me honest.

To my wonderful critical reader Melissa Maupin for her comments, suggestions and validation.

To Earlene Fowler for her encouragement and prayers.

To the Professional Bull Riders for inspiring me to cowboy up—love you all!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Acknowledgments

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 FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE CHUTE GATE flew open and the big red bull erupted into the arena. Jake Cameron swayed forward in his third-row seat, reflexively matching his son’s moves on the bull’s back, counting the seconds from zero to eight. He surged to his feet when the horn sounded, yelling along with the sold-out crowd. The bull gave a final buck as Tom Cameron loosened his grip, slamming him hard to the dirt. Cheers turned to groans as a hoof came down on Tom’s thigh.

Jake pushed to the end of the aisle, muttering apologies and earning a sharp “Watch it, mister!” as he trod on a woman’s foot.

Tom had scrambled to his feet by the time the sports medicine team reached him. The announcer’s voice boomed over the applause. “He’s fine, folks, and his score’s going to make him feel even better. That’s ninety-two points and the event win for Tom Cameron!”

Jake climbed over the railing to the chute area in a rain of confetti and watched his son accept a silver buckle and a Stetson hatbox. Tom limped back to the exit gate and then let the two burly paramedics half carry him to the sports medicine room.

Jake followed. Yeah, that stomping would leave Tom lame for a bit, but he had left the arena upright, and winning thirty grand plus for the weekend would ease his pain considerably.

“The kid did all right.” Jake’s older son, Luke, caught up with him, pulling his electric-blue bullfighter’s jersey over his head. “Sorry we couldn’t get to him before Sidewinder did.”

“Could have been a lot worse,” Jake said. “He walked out—couldn’t have done that if he’d broken his leg again.”

They made their way to the locker room, past the organized confusion of dismantling pens and chutes. The bulls had already been herded back to the big cattle trucks waiting to haul them away for a few days’ rest before the next event.

“Just a bruise, Doc thinks,” Tom said, shifting the ice pack on his leg, “but he wants me to go for an X-ray. We’ll stay here in town overnight.”

“What a wuss!” Luke shrugged out of his protective vest. “I got butted half a dozen times and stomped twice, but you don’t see me running to the ER.”

“You would if Doc said to,” Tom said, throwing a towel at his brother’s head.

Jake chuckled. Their sparring meant no more than two colts play-fighting. Luke had been watching over his younger brother since Tom had taken his first steps, ridden in his first roundup, straddled his first bull. Stood to reason he would take up bullfighting when Tom got into serious competition.

“Well, dang!” Deke Harkins blew into the room with a cell phone clamped to his ear. “You snatched that win right out from under me, Tom, but I’ll take the next event for sure.” Catcalls went up from the cowboys changing out of jeans stained with arena dirt and bull slobber. Deke was a little hard to take just now, new to the big-time and pumped after a series of good rides. A string of buck-offs would settle him down to the gritty business of riding bulls for a living.

“Catch up with you later, sweet thing,” Deke said into the phone and stuffed it into his pocket. “Well, let’s party—I’m buying. You, too, Jake.”

“Can’t do it,” Jake said with a smile. “I’ve got a long drive ahead—my little girl’s waiting at home.”

“Hot stuff, I guess,” Deke said, elbowing him.

Tom slapped at Deke with his black felt hat. “Watch your mouth—he’s talking about my baby sister.” He turned to his father. “Why don’t you stay over? Tell Lucy to sleep at the Farleys’. You can bunk with Luke and me.”

Jake gave it a long thought, recalling the post-event rowdiness from his own rough stock days—war stories inflated by beer and testosterone and blown-off adrenaline.

“Guess I won’t,” he said, “but thanks. Tom, make sure you get that X-ray.”

The last cars and pickups were streaming out of the parking lot when Jake reached his silver Ram crew cab. The air had been springlike several hours earlier, but now the wind came out of the north and carried the scent of snow. He studied the deep-bellied purple clouds straddling his route northward—new snow over the high country for sure and maybe at lower elevations before he got home.

He pulled out his cell phone and punched his neighbor’s number. “Mike around?” he asked when Bob Farley answered.

“Out bringing the horses into the barn pasture,” Bob said. “Nothing happening yet, but it’s looking to snow like a sonofagun.”

“I figured that. I’m just leaving Albuquerque. Could Mike pick Lucy up at work? I dropped her off this morning because her Jeep’s laid up. Better than even money I won’t make it back before she gets off.”

“’Course he will. I’ll send him down as soon as he gets in—could be she’ll get off early if it’s coming down hard. Just plan for her to stay with us unless you make better time than likely. Bed down here yourself if your road’s too bad.”

“Thanks, I might if I make it that far.”

Jake keyed off, grateful for his daughter’s boyfriend, although boyfriend seemed too feeble a word—best friend and confidante came closer. He just hoped Lucy appreciated Mike’s devotion and that Mike could hold her steady long enough to finish high school. She certainly had no use for anything her father said.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Annie, I don’t know how to talk to her. Why’d you go and leave me?” He bowed his head against the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean it, girl—I know you hung on as long as you could.”

No pressure now to get on the road—he could go back inside but reckoned he wouldn’t. He’d seen too many dads hanging around behind the chutes acting like jerks, treating their sons like kids still riding in high school rodeos. Luke and Tom had done a man’s work on the ranch before they could shave. They didn’t need him riding herd on them.

And he wanted to go home. Not to the empty house, but to the ranch just north of the New Mexico border. The land sustained him like breath and blood.

His hand brushed the bottle in its brown paper bag when he stuck his phone in the center console. With Annie gone, sleep eluded him like a rope-wise old horse endlessly dodging a loop. He could generally drop off at a decent hour by timing sips of bourbon through the evening—better than pills, he supposed.

He’d bought two bottles in Albuquerque, cheaper than close to home. Jake had gone to school with the clerk at the local liquor store and didn’t need Alma gossiping about how much he bought in a month. The bag rustled seductively under his hand. A Bud with a plate of nachos had been hours ago—a little taste now couldn’t hurt, just to take the edge off the lonely drive.

He peered over his shoulder—no one watching. He broke the seal on the quart of Beam, admiring its warm amber translucency, anticipating its sweet fiery slide down his throat, and tipped the bottle to his lips. Before the first drop hit his tongue, he lowered it and screwed the cap on. Through all the heartache with Annie, he had developed a fanatical reverence for life, hard and painful as it might be. Be damned if he would take to the road liquored up, landing at the bottom of a canyon or drifting into oncoming traffic, maybe taking innocent lives with him. He thrust the bottle away and followed the last vehicles out of the parking lot.

CHAPTER TWO

SHELBY DOUCETTE’S DOG leaped down from the cab of the Kenworth and she followed, dragging her backpack and the bag holding her saddle behind her. She slammed the door on the stream of curses, nothing original, and stepped well back off the breakdown lane. The rear of the trailer twitched toward the spot where she would have been standing, and then the big rig roared away with a spray of gravel and an insolent blast of the air horn.

She made a rude gesture at the retreating taillights. “Thanks for nothing!”

Shelby looked around. The late afternoon overcast flattened details of the ravines and low buttes and lent a sepia tint to the broken landscape. Clouds like dirty cotton batting half hid the mountain peaks to the north. Half a dozen white-faced steers stared over a barbed-wire fence, but she saw no sign of a ranch house and couldn’t recall how far back it might be to the last mailbox.

She dug a large Milk-Bone from her pack and broke it in half for the rough-coated dog standing waist-high at her side. “Sorry, Stranger,” she said, pocketing the other piece. “Gotta make these last.”

An empty cattle hauler roared past, headed south; otherwise the road stretched empty in both directions.

“Guess we’re on our own,” she said, slinging her pack over one shoulder and her saddle over the other. “Let’s keep moving.”

Her old car breaking down south of Albuquerque had been bad luck, but at least she’d found a mechanic willing to work on it. She knew she should swap the 1990 Town Car for something more reliable, but the vehicle was her last link to the part of her past she wanted to remember.

“Stop it!” she said with a shudder. The dog looked up at her. “It’s okay, boy. Just smacking myself upside the head.” She talked more to the dog and to the horses she trained than she did with humans. “You told me not to trust that guy, but we were due in Colorado yesterday.”

Her new boss had been sympathetic when she’d called this morning—sure, he could pick her up in Durango. Maybe he’d be willing to fetch her from... She looked around for some kind of landmark. From wherever they were.

She checked her cell phone—no signal, of course. Just as well—she hated asking favors. Which left her on foot somewhere north of Hind Shoe, New Mexico, with daylight fading fast and a veil of snow advancing on the wind.

She’d been comfortable in shirtsleeves when they’d set out from Albuquerque, but she’d felt a bite in the air at the last truck stop and had slipped on the good down jacket she’d bought for ten bucks at a Lubbock flea market. The wind picked up, sending occasional tumbleweeds bounding across the road and whipping the first snowflakes in her face. She zipped the jacket to her chin and pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt.

She started walking. If she didn’t catch a ride, she and Stranger could hunker down under the next bridge until the snow passed. Not bitter cold—the tiny thermometer dangling from her zipper pull read thirty-one degrees. Stranger generated a lot of heat, and she could wrap her saddle blanket around her feet and legs. With luck, she could find dry wood for a fire. They’d be okay.

Wet snow began clinging to the ragged bushes dotting the landscape, looking like the blossoms on the blackberry bushes back home. Stranger shook his rough coat from time to time, and Shelby brushed the dampness from her hood before it could soak through. In the distance a dark slash marked the whitening landscape; she hoped the gully would be deep enough to warrant a bridge.

Intent on reaching shelter, she didn’t hear the big pickup until it whooshed past in the inch of slush already built up on the pavement. She dropped the saddle to wave her arms, but the taillights were already flashing. The driver was braking too hard. She began to run as the truck fishtailed in a slow-motion pirouette and crashed nose down in the shallow ditch.

She didn’t think the truck had hit hard enough to rupture the fuel line, but the engine was still running. Slipping in the snow, she yanked open the driver’s door. The whiskey fumes hit her when she reached in to turn off the ignition. An uncapped bottle rolled into the ditch.

Blood ran from the driver’s nose—idiot wasn’t wearing his seat belt—and he had a nasty scrape on one cheekbone. His hair shone silver as he fumbled off his brown felt hat and gave her a lopsided grin. “Howdy, miss—you need a lift?”

She caught him as he slumped toward her.

CHAPTER THREE

DARKNESS BROKEN BY glaring light, sleet like tiny burns on his face, then falling and wet and cold. A woman’s voice: “Work with me, cowboy.” Darkness again.

The woman’s voice roused him: “Jacob, can you hear me? Open your eyes.”

He must be dead! No one but Ma ever called him Jacob.

“Come on, open your eyes.” A Southern voice, not his mother’s. He gave a grunting gasp of relief and squinted into a bright light.

“Open ’em wide—good. How many fingers?”

He managed to count three fingers.

“You know what day it is?”

He wrinkled his forehead, rummaging for the right answer. “Yesterday?”

She laughed. “Fair enough. Okay, you can go back to sleep.”

* * *

JAKE OPENED HIS eyes to level sunlight throwing shadows across stained ceiling tiles. Where was he?

He thought he remembered a woman’s voice, a silhouette bending over him. A soft rustle to his right made him turn his head. The room spun, his stomach heaved. Closed his eyes, waited and then tried again. Someone in the next bed—he could see only a wild mane of dark hair.

“Annie?” He knew it couldn’t be Annie.

The woman threw back the covers and swung her denim-clad legs out of bed. She yawned widely and pushed her hair back from her face before crossing to where he lay.

“Welcome back,” she said. “How do you feel?”

Like he’d been trampled by a flock of dirty sheep. The left side of his face ached and so did his nose. He made a wordless sound of disgust.

“That good, huh? Could have been lots worse, with Jim Beam as your copilot.”

“Wha...?”

“You remember anything?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to order his thoughts. “Bull riding ended about four—I hung around maybe half an hour. I called home before I hit the road...” No, that didn’t sound right. “I called my neighbor.” And opened the bottle. Had he taken a drink? Pretty sure he hadn’t.

He opened his eyes. “You called me Jacob.”

“That’s your name, isn’t it? The picture on your license even looks like you.”

He grabbed for the region where his wallet should have been and discovered he wore only his briefs.

“I hung your clothes to dry,” she said, gesturing toward his shirt and Wranglers draped over a chair. “You slipped in the snow and got pretty wet, plus whiskey all over your jeans. Don’t worry, your wallet’s on the table, minus fifteen bucks for your half of the room.”

He jacked himself up on his elbows and promptly fell back, groaning. “I gotta tell you, miss, I don’t recall a thing except...” A bizarre image surfaced. “I could swear I saw someone leading a calf...”

She laughed. “You saw Stranger. Stranger, come.”

Jake found himself looking up into a grizzled brown face, pink tongue lolling between massive jaws. “Whoa, he’s bigger than a calf!”

“Maybe a little bigger—he’s a mastiff-wolfhound mix, the vet thought. Or deerhound and Great Dane. We were hoping for a ride. I thought you were going to stop, then you started to skid—”

Bile rose in his throat. “Did I wreck my rig?”

“Not to speak of, just nose-dived into the ditch. The rear wheels were still on hard gravel, so I got it back on the road—you had passed out.” She frowned. “Maybe I should have gotten you to an emergency room, but you didn’t seem much hurt, and you smelled like a distillery. I didn’t want you to have trouble with the cops or your insurance.”

She moved toward him. “Need some help sitting up? Let me—”

“No! I mean, no, thanks.” He heaved himself up against the vinyl-padded headboard and took a couple deep breaths. When his head cleared, he took his first good look at his rescuer.

Tall, probably close to his own five-ten, with arms and shoulders toned like a gymnast. Thick wavy hair, more black than brown, green eyes and amber skin over high cheekbones. Part Indian, he’d lay money, but he couldn’t guess which tribe. With the jeans she wore a black tank top. Maybe in her early thirties, but wariness in her eyes added years and reminded him of a she-coyote watching from just out of range.

“Guess I owe you for getting me out of the ditch last night,” he said.

She shrugged. “Maybe you wouldn’t have crashed if you hadn’t tried to stop for us. Call it even—Stranger and I didn’t have to spend the night under a bridge.”

Jake looked around—faded floral spreads on the beds, a blond bedside table scarred with cigarette burns and a single armchair upholstered in cracked pink vinyl. “Where did we spend the night?”

“I passed a sign that said Welcome to Cuba, wherever that is,” she said, “and pulled in at the first Vacancy sign—the Plainsman Motel.”

“Did the clerk offer you the hourly rate?”

Her face flamed. “You mean...”

“So I’ve heard—I wouldn’t know personally.”

“No wonder the guy looked at me funny when I asked for two beds.” Her chin came up. “Who cares? He’ll never see me again.”

“You know my name,” Jake said. He had a monster headache, but at least the room had stopped spinning. “What’s yours?”

“Shelby.”

Jake waited.

“Doucette,” she said.

“Cajun, am I right? I used to rodeo with a cowboy from Louisiana.” He stuck his hand out. “Howdy, Shelby Doucette. Where you headed?”

“A ranch near Durango,” she said, touching his hand briefly. “A lady adopted a couple mustangs—her husband wants me to start them.”

“That’ll be Ross Norquist—I heard about those horses. He can’t say no to Liz, but he’s scared she’ll get herself killed. You any good at breaking horses?”

“I gentle horses. And I am good at it—I’ve been doing it for more than ten years.” She took a deep breath. “I hate to ask, but could I ride with you as far north as you’re going? I can ask Mr. Norquist to pick me up from wherever you drop me off.”

“Shoot, girl, my spread’s less than an hour west from his. I’ll drive you straight to his corral.” He started to throw the covers back and then grinned. “If you’ll toss me my britches.”

He refused her offer of help into the bathroom—shaming enough she’d dragged him in here and undressed him. He braced his hands on the sink before looking into the mirror and then swore.

“You okay in there?”

“Yeah, fine—just got a look at my face.”

He heard her chuckle. “Pretty scary.”

She had cleaned most of the blood off his face and fixed a strip of adhesive tape across the bridge of his nose. He touched it gingerly—probably broken, not for the first time. Two black eyes and a long scrape along his right cheek made him look like the loser in a bar brawl.

By the time he came out fully dressed, he felt closer to normal. Shelby had covered the tank top with a blue plaid flannel shirt and had tamed her hair into a thick braid tied with red yarn.

The morning sun had already reduced last night’s snow to slushy puddles in the graveled parking lot. Jake squinted up and down the row of concrete block units, relieved he didn’t see any familiar vehicles. Bad enough he’d be answering questions about his face without explaining his rig parked outside a hot-pillow joint.

“I threw the floor mat in the back last night,” Shelby said, “and left the windows open a crack to air out the cab.”

Jake shook his head. “Must have been close to a quart of bourbon spilled—I guess I didn’t screw the cap on tight.”

She held out his keys, but he waved them off. “You drive,” he said. “There’s a good little diner about ten miles north—we’ll get breakfast there.”

* * *

A ROUND-CHEEKED WOMAN wearing a snowy apron bustled out to greet them when they entered Rosie’s Kitchen. “Jake, I was so scared for your boy last night, when we watching on the TV. That bull, stepping right on his leg!” She pinched his chin and turned his face right and left. “What, you’re riding bulls, too? Crazy like Tom?”

“Nothing that exciting, Rosie,” he said, giving her a quick hug. “Smacked into my steering wheel.” He nodded toward Shelby. “This lady came along and got my rig out of the ditch.”

“You’re one lucky hombre.” She swatted his chest with her order pad. “Coffee first, while I fix your usual.” She took Shelby’s order for a cheese omelet and returned to the kitchen, yelling in Spanish at a doleful-looking man at the grill—her husband, Martin, Jake told Shelby.

“You want some bacon or sausage with your omelet?” Jake asked.

“I’d love some,” Shelby said, “but I lay off meat for a few days before I start new horses, especially ones that haven’t been around people much. Horses are prey animals. It’s better if I don’t smell like I might want them for my next meal.”

“Where’d you learn that? I never heard it before, but it makes sense.”

“From my granddaddy, and he heard it from his granddaddy. I don’t know if it matters, but what can it hurt?”

“How’d you hear about Ross’s mustangs?”

“I keep a standing ad in Western Horseman,” she said, “but most of my jobs come by word of mouth. The rancher I worked for last in Lubbock knew Mr. Norquist.”

By the time Jake had downed his first cup of coffee and most of his cheese and bean enchilada with green chili, the headache had retreated to a small zone behind his left eye. He slouched on the red leatherette and watched Shelby devour her omelet.

“You being afoot the backside of nowhere, I’m guessing your car broke down,” he said. “Where abouts?”

She grimaced. “Albuquerque. I had to leave it at the Lincoln dealership—they need to find a fuel filler tube for a ’90 Town Car.”

“Whoa, girl! No telling how long that will take! Shouldn’t you have something easier to fix, traveling cross-country between jobs?”

“I expect I should,” she said with a sigh, “but it belonged to my granddaddy. It’s a good road car and big enough to sleep in if I need to. I caught a ride with a trucker who was going to be passing through Durango. The service manager vouched for him—his brother-in-law. Once we got off the Interstate, he changed his mind about the ride being free.” She tightened her lips. “I told him I’d sooner walk.”

“Miserable so-and-so, setting you down miles from nowhere!”

“My choice—better than what he had in mind. Stranger backed me up.”

Jake glanced out the window at the dog sunning himself in the bed of the truck. “Guess somebody with evil intentions might walk soft around a dog that size.”

“He’s meek as a mouse unless he gets worried about me,” she said. “Then, stand back.”

“Funny name for a dog.”

“From my mama’s favorite gospel song.” She sang in a husky contralto. “I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger a’traveling through this world of woe.” I found him limping along I-30 in Arkansas just about starved and his paws worn bloody from running on pavement. Somebody must have dumped him off.”

He couldn’t fathom anyone being so heartless, although he’d seen worse. “Some people just aren’t worth killing.”

He refused to let her pay for her breakfast and climbed back into the passenger seat. “I could drive,” he said, “but you’re doing fine. This road takes us all the way to Durango. I’ll give you directions to Norquist’s from there.”

He sipped coffee from his travel mug while Shelby maneuvered his rig out of the cramped parking lot and onto Route 550 headed north. The sun shone and he had a full belly; he hadn’t known such uncomplicated pleasure since just after his daughter’s birth, he reckoned, before the sky had started to fall in slow motion. He stretched his legs and leaned back.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHELBY SETTLED BEHIND the wheel. Stranger gave a contented sigh and stretched out on the backseat to chew his red rubber KONG.

She sneaked a glance at Jake and then looked quickly back at the road. No wedding ring, but she could see a tanned-over mark where one had been. His hair had fooled her about his age. Once she had sponged the blood off his face, she pegged him as early forties, possibly good-looking once the bruising and swelling subsided. She’d come to think of his build as cowboy-cut, narrow-hipped and heavily muscled through the chest and shoulders from wrestling calves and bucking sixty-pound bales.

Not that she cared. She had left a man behind in Texas, a nice guy who had mistaken their shared love of horses for a prelude to wedding bells. The ugly scene she’d staged still made her cringe, but she’d made sure he wouldn’t come chasing after her with a ring in his pocket.

Shelby put Texas behind her. Not a cloud marred the morning sky, and last night’s snow lay on the red-gold buttes and bluffs like sugar icing on a layer cake. Silver peaks appeared teasingly to the north, only to disappear as the road dipped to cross a shallow wash or follow a winding valley. Her heart quickened with anticipation. She had crisscrossed the prairie states for more than a decade, with a couple of jobs in California, but somehow her wanderings had never brought her to the spine of the Rockies.

“So there stood Great-Great Grandpa Jacob, eyeball to eyeball with the grizzly and no weapon but his Navy Colt the Yankees let him keep. He got the bear, right through the mouth, but the bear got him, too—fell spang on him and half scalped him on the way down.”

Shelby realized Jake had been talking a blue streak—she’d seen that with concussions, sometimes drowsiness, sometimes running off at the mouth.

“I guess he survived,” she said.

“Only because some Ute girls picking berries found him the next day. My great-great grandma probably never saw a white man before, never mind a redheaded one—”

“You’re part Indian?” She glanced again at his face. Mighty light-skinned, but something about the tilt of his eyes and the shape of his mouth...

“I know I don’t look it,” he said. “I take after old Jacob, redheaded like him before my hair turned. Our ranch backs up to Ute land, so I grew up hunting and fishing and scrapping with my cousins on the rez. My boys have dark hair and brown eyes, but my daughter got the red hair. It looks a lot better on her than it did on me.”

“The lady at the diner said your sons are bull riders?”

“Tom rides bulls, and Luke’s a bullfighter with the Professional Bull Riders tour. I don’t know who takes more risk—Tom riding once, maybe twice a night, or Luke every time the gate opens. I can’t say much—I rode rough stock myself till my wife put her foot down. Of course, the prize money’s better nowadays.” He gave a wry laugh. “In between getting busted up.”

“So now your wife frets about them.”

He looked away. “Annie died coming on two years ago—complications of lupus.”

Before she could respond, they crested the next rise and she caught her breath. The peaks, pure with new snow, reared like a breaking wave frozen against the impossibly blue sky.

“Pretty, huh?” he said. “Always grabs me when I come home this way. Durango’s just ahead. You need anything before we go on to Norquist’s?”

“Not for me, but I’ll need a sack of food for Stranger—I couldn’t carry but enough for a couple days.”

Entering a new town always excited her, like holding a lottery ticket. Maybe this would be the place where she could finally stop running. She never actually counted on winning the jackpot, but she still let herself dream about having a real address and shopping in stores where people would come to know her name.

They passed chain hotels and box stores on the strip before turning onto Main Avenue lined with Victorian storefronts. The shrill hoot of a train whistle startled her. Just off the main street, a steam locomotive chuffed beside a gingerbread station.

“Durango and Silverton Railroad,” Jake said. “That engine shows up in a lot of Western movies. It hauled silver ore down from the mines back in the 1880s and now tourists.”

He pointed out a red brick storefront sandwiched between a shop displaying leather vests and hats in the window and Burke’s Sundries with T-shirts and postcards in racks on the sidewalk. Ornate gold letters spelled out Silver Queen Saloon and Dance Emporium across the plate-glass window.

“My daughter works there weekends and after school some days. She’s stashing her paychecks for college. At least I hope that’s how she’ll use the money.”

“Isn’t she underage to work at a saloon? Sorry, none of my business.”

“The Queen stopped serving liquor during Prohibition, but folks around here would shoot anybody who tried to change the name. Margie serves the best food in town—in La Plata County, for that matter. Chicken-fried steak and liver with bacon and onions...” He rolled his eyes and smacked his lips.

“No sushi or veggie wraps, I’m guessing.”

Jake laughed. “Not hardly.” He checked his watch. “Too bad she isn’t serving lunch yet, but we could stop for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. Margie makes a dried peach pie that’s been written up in the Denver Post—some food show even featured it.”

“I’d better get out to the Norquist ranch.” Spending the whole morning—and the night before—with Jake Cameron had become claustrophobic, too comfortable for her peace of mind.

“Maybe another time,” he said, and directed her to the Farm and Ranch Exchange on the outskirts of town. A rustic log structure anchored an ell, sided with pale shingles, and a steel shed with loading bays.

“Might as well pick up a few things myself,” he said, “as long as I’m here.” He climbed down from the truck.

She entered the store with Stranger at her side, breathing in the comforting smells of leather and molasses feed, saddle soap and new sisal. Hunting and fishing supplies filled the front room, with mounted heads of deer and elk and pronghorns staring sightlessly from the smoke-darkened walls. Garden supplies, hardware and pet products could be found in the next room, according to the sign over a wide archway. She found the proper dog food and followed Jake to the checkout.

A heavy-shouldered man, dark-skinned with a single long braid, stood behind a long counter. “Hey, cousin. Nice win for Tom, but you look like you did about three seconds on Bodacious.”

“Skidded off the road on my way home,” Jake said. “No real harm done.”

“June’s been asking about you.”

“I’m keeping pretty busy with the boys gone so much.” He looked away. “Calving season, you know. Tell her hey for me.”

He nodded toward Shelby. “Meet Shelby Doucette—she’s going to start those mustangs for Ross Norquist. I’m giving her a ride up to his place.”

“Oscar Buck,” the man said, reaching across the counter to shake her hand. “What tribe, sister?”

“Choctaw a long way back,” she said, “crossed with Cajun and a dash of runaway slave.”

“Don’t mind Oscar,” Jake said. “He’s nosy as a pup but not near as smart.”

Oscar grinned as if he’d heard the gibe before.

“Ross will sure be glad to see you,” Oscar said. “He’s caught between Liz wanting to treat those horses like pet ponies and his boy itching to play rodeo with them. Either way, somebody’s bound to get hurt.”

He peered over the counter. “Handsome dog you got there.”

“Stranger, sit,” Shelby said. “Paws.” Stranger sat and placed both front paws on the countertop beside the forty-pound bag of Science Diet Large Breed.

Oscar laughed and extended his hand for the dog to sniff. “Howdy, Stranger. Any friend of Cousin Jake’s is welcome.”

He turned back to Jake. “I stopped for coffee at the Queen yesterday,” he said. “Lucy sure is jacked up about some play she’s in.”

Jake rubbed his forehead. “Mike Farley and the high school drama teacher are all that’s keeping her in school—she’s still set on trying her luck in Hollywood or New York. I hate to think what’ll happen when Mike leaves for Boulder in the fall.” He scribbled a list on the back of an envelope fished from his pocket. “You want to get this up for me? Put the dog food on my account, too.”

“No, thanks!” Shelby dug a roll of bills from her jeans and laid down three twenties. “We pay our own way.”

Jake shrugged. Oscar took the bills and gave her change before tucking the bag under one arm. “Meet you around back.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Jake said, climbing into the driver’s seat. “I don’t want Oscar spreading the tale I wasn’t fit to drive. He’s got a big heart and a bigger mouth.”

Shelby handed him the keys. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Shoot, I felt fine soon as I got some caffeine into my system. I’ve driven that road more times than I care to count, taking my wife down to the University Medical Center. I kind of enjoyed the chance to sit back and look around.”

Oscar heaved a final bag of cattle cake into the back of the truck beside several bales of straw. “I can’t give you a full keg of fence staples till the truck comes in tomorrow,” he said.

“No problem,” Jake replied. “I’ll send one of the boys to pick it up.”

Jake drove north on Route 550 a dozen miles before turning onto a narrow gravel road, climbing between sandstone walls until the canyon opened into a sheltered valley. Snow still lay along the lane, but new buds shone golden on the willows overhanging a brawling creek. Jake drove past a neat frame house to the cluster of barns and sheds beyond. He tapped his horn, and two men emerged from a long pole barn. The older man, his weathered face furrowed with puzzlement, strode to the truck as Jake ran down his window.

“Howdy, Jake. What brings you—”

“Saved you a trip, Ross. Here’s your horse tamer.”

Norquist bent and peered past Jake. “Shelby Doucette? Dang, girl—you’re mighty welcome here. This yahoo—” he jerked his head at the younger man behind him “—he’s hot to break those horses the old-fashioned way.”

“Reckon we’ll try your way first.” A younger man, tight-muscled under a Blue Seal T-shirt, sauntered forward with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “Since Ma’s set on it. I’m Gary Norquist—just holler when you need help.”

Shelby sighed inwardly—one of those. He would give her no respect as a woman or as a trainer. Jerks like the truck driver were less trouble. She could blow them off with Stranger’s help, but she needed to work around Gary Norquist.

She wished for the hundredth time she looked her age or, even better, as old as she felt. She played down her looks the best she could. Once, she had cut her hair boy-short, but it had grown out in a halo of soft dark curls, making her look maybe fifteen. Skinning it back in a braid at least looked businesslike. She stuck with relaxed jeans and shapeless shirts, rarely wore shorts and didn’t own a dress. Sometimes in her dreams she felt a skirt flutter around her knees and woke with her heart pounding, weeping tears she never shed in her waking hours.

“Thanks, but I work strictly with the horses’ owner. Stranger, to me,” she said without turning her head. She heard a scramble of claws, and the dog sat at her side, ears pricked.

The smirk faded from Gary Norquist’s face.

“You must be Shelby.” A lanky woman with gray-shot auburn hair haphazardly gathered into a bun had come up behind them. “I’m Liz Norquist,” she said, wringing Shelby’s hand. “The boys keep saying horse-breaking is men’s work, but I reckon we’ll show them different. Come, see the horses.” She strode toward a fenced enclosure, her denim skirt flapping around her legs.

Her husband and son fell in behind her, Gary rolling his eyes and muttering. “Come along, Jake,” Ross said. “See what we’ve let ourselves in for.”

“We did like you told us,” Liz said. “Water and good hay, otherwise we’ve let them be.”

Three horses stood at the far end of a long corral. Two mares huddled together while a young stallion possibly two years old stamped and snorted at a little distance. Shelby studied the horses. One of the mares, a red roan, looked close to foaling but in decent shape for wintering on the open range. The younger bay mare clung close to the older horse’s side. The colt stood between the other horses and the humans by the fence.

Ross pointed at the colt in disgust. “I agreed to a couple of mares, and they show up with that! Guess he pushed into the trailer with the others and they couldn’t get him out. Last thing I need around here is a stud making trouble, but he might make a decent cow pony once he’s cut.”

Shelby almost protested at the thought of gelding the colt. He looked like a throwback to Barb ancestors, rose-gray with his reddish baby coat already shading toward silver. His shaggy forelock couldn’t disguise the dished face and delicate ears of a classic Arabian. She sighed. Most owners wouldn’t chance a mare with a stud of undocumented lineage and no guarantee he’d breed true.

Liz jostled her elbow. “When do we start?”

Shelby checked the corral; ample hay lay scattered near the fence, and a stock tank brimmed with water. “Tomorrow morning,” she said. “No more hay today—I want them a little hungry.”

She turned to Norquist. “Can you put up a round pen? I won’t need it tomorrow, but soon.”

“We figured you’d want one—got the sections ready.”

“Guess you’re all set,” Jake said. “I’ll get along home.” He dug into his wallet and handed her a battered business card: Cameron’s Pride—Red Angus—Hesperus CO. “Call me if you need a ride to get your car. I still owe you.”

She took the card. She had been at ease with Jake Cameron, almost a sense of homecoming and a quiver of something long forgotten or ruthlessly beaten down. Loneliness swept her as she watched him walk away. She shook it off and stuck his card in her pocket before turning back toward the corral.

CHAPTER FIVE

JAKE PULLED THE sack of dog food from his truck and leaned it against the barn. He’d heard a thing or two about Gary Norquist, but Shelby should be safe enough with Stranger at her side. He looked once more at the group by the corral, sighed deeply and got behind the wheel. Maybe she’d call him; more likely Ross and Liz would drive her to Albuquerque and make a weekend of it.

He’d felt pretty decent riding up from Cuba and then driving from Durango. Now his head ached anew and the scrape on his cheekbone burned. He checked his watch—coming on to noon, plenty of time to reach the ranch before Lucy got home from school. At least his beat-up face would give them something to talk about for a minute or two before she left again or shut herself in her room.

Tom and Luke would be home by suppertime. Lucy got along fine with her brothers, using them as a buffer between herself and her father. They didn’t encourage her acting ambitions, but they understood her passion to chase a dream. Weekends were the worst, with the boys on the road, but Lucy’s drama club activities and her job kept her out of the house.

All said, Jake might as well not have a daughter. Somehow the sunny little girl who had been his and Annie’s delight had become a beautiful but sullen stranger who slept under his roof. She seemed to hold some secret grudge against him, but when he asked her outright to tell him what was wrong, she would say only, “You wouldn’t understand, and it’s too late anyway.” He’d hardly had a civil conversation with her since Annie died.

Tire tracks in the snow led from the main road to the log ranch house, the same vehicle in and out after the snow had stopped during the night. Mike must have brought her home in his rig this morning to pick up what she needed for school. Jake’s relief shamed him—hours before he would have to deal with her. Maybe he should just give in, let her drop out of school and see how she liked making her own way in Tinsel Town.

He gritted his teeth. She was going to graduate if he had to drive her to the high school every morning and pick her up in the afternoon. He only hoped Mike could persuade her to follow him to the University of Colorado after her senior year.

He had just backed up to the feed shed to unload when Luke and Tom arrived in Luke’s Explorer. Luke handed Tom a pair of crutches and held the kitchen door open for him to hobble through the back door.

A few minutes later Luke came out dressed in work clothes and rubber paddock boots. He grabbed a fifty-pound bag of cow cake from his father and slung it over his shoulder.

“Just a deep bruise, Doc thinks,” he told Jake. “He said Tom should skip next weekend if he’s got any sense.”

“Yeah, right.” Jake pulled another bag from the truck and turned to face Luke. “Before you ask, I put my rig in a ditch on the way home yesterday. Oscar asked if I drew Bodacious in the short round, but it looks worse than it is,” he said. “And I picked up a hitchhiker along the way—the lady horse trainer Ross Norquist ordered up for Liz’s mustangs. I dropped her off at their ranch.”

“Hitchhiking! In March? What the—”

“She got a ride from Albuquerque with a trucker who figured she should give him something extra for his trouble. She told him she’d rather walk.”

Luke whistled. “Hope she knows how to handle herself. One of these days Gary Norquist needs to get the whuppin’ he deserves.”

“Best kind of defense—she’s got a dog size of a weanling calf.”

Luke pulled a bale of straw toward the tailgate. “What’s this for?”

“Mulch—I thought maybe we’d try to bring the vegetable garden back.” Jake’s eyes flicked toward a weed-choked patch just south of the house. Annie had delighted in her kitchen garden. He and the kids had kept it up even when she could do no more than sit in a lawn chair and supervise. “Maybe Lucy will take an interest.”

Luke slapped Jake’s shoulder. “Maybe, but me and Tom will keep after it if she doesn’t.” He stacked the bales beside the toolshed. “Let’s rustle up some lunch, then I’ll fix that stretch of fence past the creek. Last time I rode out that way it looked like a bull elk sat on it.”

They kicked off their muddy boots before entering the sunlit great room. Jake’s parents had knocked out interior walls to create a living space where the family spent most of their indoor time. A fridge and a massive gas range filled one corner, a round oak table dominated the center of the room, and a scuffed leather couch faced the wide fireplace. Plants Annie had tended lovingly sat along the ledge of a wide west-facing window—geraniums, aloes, a bay laurel and a huge flowering cactus Jake had given her as a tiny plant their first Christmas together. Scarlet blossoms still clung to the cascading stems; Jake harbored an unreasonable anger it should bloom so extravagantly with Annie dead.

Tom sat in the recliner with an ice pack draped across his left thigh. Annie had bought the chair for Jake after a cow, resentful of being separated from her calf, had landed him with five broken ribs. As she’d weakened, the chair had become her command post from which she coached Jake and the boys through simple meal prep. Now whoever needed it most used it, although Jake never sat there without sharing it with Annie’s ghost.

Luke set an iron skillet on the range and threw in half a pound of bacon while Jake pulled eggs from the fridge.

“Don’t scramble the eggs to rubber,” Tom said. “And toss me a fresh ice pack—this one’s thawed.”

Luke fetched the heavy ice pack from the freezer and dropped it in his brother’s lap. “Anything else? Champagne? Couple of buckle bunnies?”

“Hey, Doc said I should rest my leg,” Tom said. “Guess I won’t be able to stretch wire with you.”

“Aw, stop whining for sympathy.”

A thundering silence filled the room. Annie’s presence—or rather her absence—hung in the air. She’d have been exclaiming over Tom’s injury and whipping up his favorite lunch.

They had just finished eating when Mike Farley’s blue pickup pulled behind the house. A door slammed and Lucy Cameron blew into the kitchen, her red-gold hair flying. She skidded to a halt by Tom’s chair.

“Hey, big bro! Nice win—I watched at Mike’s last night. How’s the leg?”

“Just bruised—it won’t keep me from riding.” Tom jerked his chin toward Jake. “Get a load of the old man.”

Lucy turned toward Jake. Her blue eyes widened. “What happened? Are you okay?” For a moment the brittle mask slipped—Jake thought she might actually care.

“Skidded off the road coming home last night,” he said. “The driving was pretty bad—I’m glad you stayed at Mike’s.” He peered out the window. “You steal his rig?”

“I forgot my stupid uniform for work,” she said. “Mike’s got basketball practice, so I drove home to get it. I’ve got a rehearsal till five and then the Queen till closing. Mike will bring me home.”

She whirled toward the stairs but turned back with one foot on the step. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

He smiled, although it hurt his scraped cheek. “I’m fine—you should see the other guy.”

“That’s good.” She pounded up the stairs and galloped out the door moments later with her striped tunic flying behind her like a flag.

“I think we just got brushed by Hurricane Lucy,” Tom said. “I don’t know how Mike puts up with her—she’d drive me nuts.”

* * *

LUKE DROVE OUT on Thursday with Tom riding shotgun, headed for the next event in Des Moines. Ordinarily they would have driven straight through to arrive for Friday night’s go-round but they had decided to stretch the trip over two days to pamper Tom’s leg.

“Maybe I’ll just watch,” Tom had said, but Jake knew he’d be straddling his bulls, hoping to land on his sound leg and hop to a safe getaway.

Jake headed for the barn after they left. He and Luke had mended the downed fence, but he still needed to check on the line camp at the far edge of their spread. The boys took turns sleeping in the old cabin during the summer break in the bull-riding schedule, keeping an eye on the cow and calf pairs grazing there. Great pasture, but sometimes a cat would come in from the backcountry for a feed of fresh veal. He needed to hire another hand, but it was hard to compete with the better wages and easier hours in the gas fields around Farmington.

He couldn’t find the hammer he might need for repairs on the cabin; maybe it was in his rig. When he rummaged under the driver’s seat, he found a well-chewed rubber dog toy. Must belong to Shelby Doucette’s dog; he’d heard Stranger working at something while they drove. Shelby had no transportation into town for a replacement. He pulled keys from his pocket. The cabin could wait.

When he reached Durango, he stopped at the Farm and Ranch Exchange before heading north to the Norquist ranch. Forty pounds of food wouldn’t last long for a dog Stranger’s size; he’d pick up another bag, just to be neighborly.

Oscar studied him from across the counter at the Exchange. “You don’t look quite so much like you been kicked in the face,” he said. “You here for those fence staples?”

“Yeah, and I’ll take some of that dog food we stopped for on Monday.” He hoped Oscar would remember what Shelby had bought. “Could be Norquist’s trainer is running short for her big mutt.”

“You’re a day late—Gary bought a bag yesterday. Guess he figures to bribe his way into her jeans.”

Jake’s fist balled on the counter. “I knew he’d be trouble.”

“He tried getting cute with my sister’s youngest girl,” Oscar said. “While she was working evenings at Denny’s. Kept coming by around quitting time, sweet-talking about how pretty she is and how he could show her a good time after work.”

“That’s Lorrie? The one who joined the Air Force?”

“That’s her. She’s way too smart to fall for a line like that,” Oscar said, “but he had her spooked. She started asking me or her dad to pick her up after work. One night business was slow and her boss told her to punch out early.”

“So no ride waiting.”

A grin lit Oscar’s face. “I got there just about the time Gary tried to force her into his rig. I lit up the parking lot like Mile High Stadium and leaned on my horn. The manager and half a dozen customers came running out and heard him call her a dirty squaw just before he took a swing at me.”

Oscar inspected his knuckles. “I had to defend myself. One of us ended up needing dental work.”

“Not you, I’d guess.” Jake pulled the dog toy out of his pocket. “Just sell me another one of these. Her dog left it in my rig—they probably get lost pretty easy.”

“Whatever happened to flowers and candy?” Oscar held up a hand. “Just saying, brother.”

Jake shrugged and paid for the rubber KONG. Oscar pulled a sample package of Greenies dog chews from under the counter. “Take these too, pard.”

Jake didn’t try to protest—Oscar knew him too well. They had been best buds since the day they’d fought to a standstill at age nine over a mustang that had eluded both of them.

His speed dropped as he approached the turnoff to Norquist’s spread. He must be nuts, trailing after Shelby Doucette like a lovesick teenager. What did he know about her except she was an able horse trainer?

Okay, she was beautiful and smart about horses, but he’d be stupid to get involved—he had enough headaches with Lucy. How would she react? With anger, seeing her father interested in any woman after her mother? Too much to hope she’d be glad for him—she’d sulked and refused to come along the couple of times he’d taken June Buck and her kids out for a movie and pizza.

He turned in at the ranch road and parked by the barn. Shelby stood outside the steel-pole round pen watching Liz Norquist work the bay mare on a long line. Stranger lay in the sun nearby, chewing on a curl of hoof paring.

Jake closed his door softly, not wanting to spook the horse. Stranger lifted his head and stood with a soft woof. Shelby turned, and he thought he caught a flash of welcome, even gladness on her face. Just as quickly it faded, replaced by a polite smile.

He pulled the old toy from his pocket. “Your buddy left this in my rig.”

“You shouldn’t have driven all this way to bring it,” she said. “Mr. Norquist trimmed up the roan mare’s feet, so Stranger’s got plenty to chew on. But thanks.” She turned to the dog. “Thank Mr. Cameron, Stranger.”

Jake hunkered down and presented the toy. “You can call me Jake, Stranger.”

The dog took the KONG from Jake’s hand and offered a paw.

“I thought about picking up more dog food,” Jake said, straightening, “but Oscar said you already had plenty.”

Shelby’s expression turned blank. “Someone from the ranch bought another bag yesterday.” She turned toward the pen. “Come see how the bay is doing.”

The mare’s hide gleamed like mahogany in the spring sunshine; the unkempt mane and forelock had been combed and plucked. “Looks like a different horse,” Jake said. “You’ve got her shed out and trimmed up nice. You starting the roan next?”

Shelby laughed. “No need—she’s just a stray. She’s got what looks like an old rope burn on her off-rear fetlock and a healed fistula on her withers. We’ll handle her just enough to get her used to people again. Liz won’t have any trouble getting her under saddle after she drops her foal.”

Jake peered into the corral where the pregnant mare stood nosing the hay piled beside the fence. “That horse looks familiar. Any idea where she’s from?”

“Some national parkland near here—I forget the name.” She snapped her fingers. “Mesa Verde, I think.”

Jake laughed. “Now I know her. She’s an escape artist from the Ute Reservation—six or seven owners, including Oscar. I helped him doctor that fistula. I doubt he’ll want her back—she’s more trouble than she’s worth. Make sure the gate has a good latch and then chain it, or she’ll take off cross-country with Ross’s whole string behind her.’”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Shelby said with a rueful laugh. “I hope Liz can hang on to her long enough to get her foal weaned. The bay’s coming right along—we’ll have a saddle on her in a couple more days. Then I’ll start the colt.” She sighed. “Mr. Norquist is right. He’ll need to be gelded, but I’d wait if he were mine. He’s on the smallish side—I’d like to see him get a little more growth.”

“Why don’t you offer to buy him? Ross didn’t want him in the first place.”

“And do what with him? I can’t keep a horse at a post office box.” She turned away. “Stranger and I travel light.”

Jake took a deep breath. “Maybe I could—”

“Well, howdy, Mr. Cameron.” Gary Norquist’s voice made them both jump. “Here to check on the little lady?” He moved closer to Shelby, and she sidestepped toward the fence.

“Pick her up to a lope,” she said to Liz. “Don’t let her cut in on you.”

Liz nodded and flicked the loose end of the rope. The horse flowed around the circular enclosure in a smooth rocking-horse gait, throwing in a flourish of her heels as she passed the observers.

“She tries that under saddle,” Gary said, “I’ll straighten her out pretty quick.”

“Your mom won’t need your help,” Shelby said without turning her head. “She’s doing just fine.”

Jake heard Gary mutter a curse, echoed by a soft growl from Stranger, and resisted the impulse to backhand him. Shelby gave no sign she’d heard him.

“Give her a few more circuits at a walk, Liz, then we’ll quit while she’s still having fun.” Shelby turned back to Jake. “Thanks again for bringing Stranger’s KONG, Mr. Cameron.” He heard dismissal in her voice.

“I picked up an extra at the Exchange,” Jake said, “and Oscar thought Stranger might like these.” He handed her the new toy and the dog treats.

He got a warmer smile, and Stranger put both paws on Jake’s shoulders, almost staggering him and treating him to a wet swipe of the tongue.

“Glad he’s friendly,” Jake said, rumpling the dog’s ears. “I’d hate to have him coming at me in a bad mood.”

“Down, Stranger!” Shelby grasped the dog’s collar. “He knows who he likes.” She didn’t look at Gary.

Jake turned to go, his boots dragging, but he had no excuse to hang around. “Remember, you’ve got a ride coming when your car’s ready,” he said over his shoulder. “Just give me a call.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind.” The gate clanged as she let herself into the round pen with Liz and the bay mare.

CHAPTER SIX

SHELBY DIDN’T TURN around until she heard Jake’s truck start up. She’d made a rule long ago never to allow anyone to come too close, just as she never formed an attachment to the horses she trained. Occasionally she ran across one that tempted her, like the gray colt, but she always reminded herself how owning a horse would slow her down when she had to move on.

She opened the gate for Liz to lead the bay into the pen with the roan, slipping Liz a chunk of apple to give the mare. She didn’t hold with handing out treats every time a horse did something right, but training stuck longer with food rewards. The bay had decent lines and no bad habits from previous poor handling; she’d make Liz a good mount.

“I saw you talking to Jake Cameron,” Liz said, hitching the mare to a fence post. “He have some business with Ross?”

Shelby explained Jake’s errand—it sounded pretty lame.

“Maybe he’s got a green horse and wanted to see how you work. Although he’s a pretty fair hand with horses himself from what I’ve heard—breaks them gentle.”

“Old guy like him can’t ride rough stock,” Gary said, leaning his elbows on the fence and peering between the rails. “His son’s my age—me and Tom were the same year in high school.”

“Except Tom graduated,” his mother said with a snort, “unlike some.” She bore down with the currycomb so the mare shifted sideways. “Sorry, sugar.”

“Jake’s a good man,” she said to Shelby. “He went through hell with his wife sick so long and then lost her in spite of everything he could do. His boys were grown and handled it pretty good, but his daughter—”

“Stuck-up little—”

“Take a hitch in it, Gary,” his mother said over her shoulder. “Don’t you even think about Lucy Cameron. Jake’s wearing the boots that can still kick your butt.”

“I ain’t scared of him,” Gary said, “but she’s just a baby. I fancy a real woman.” He turned and swaggered toward the barn.

Liz sighed deeply and resumed her grooming. “He’s my son,” she said, “and I love him, but I don’t much like him. You let me know if he’s bothering you.”

Shelby couldn’t think of anything kind to say. She’d known from the moment her boots hit the ground Gary would be a problem. With luck she could stay out of his way and be gone before he got up the nerve to make his move. Liz and Ross Norquist were good folks; she couldn’t think what they’d done to deserve such a son.

* * *

THREE DAYS LATER, Shelby sat on a bale in the center of the round pen pulling loose handfuls of alfalfa and strewing them around her feet. She didn’t look directly at the gray colt but tracked his movements from the corner of her eye. He’d done a lot of snorting and pawing when she had first entered the pen two hours earlier. Finally he inched closer, ears sharply pricked and nostrils distended.

She gathered hay from the ground and rubbed it between her palms to release its fragrance. The colt extended his neck...

“Want me to drop a loop on him? You’re never gonna catch him that way.”

At the sound of Gary’s voice, the horse snorted and bolted to the far side of the pen. Shelby controlled the urge to leap to her feet swearing.

“No rope.” She managed to keep her voice soft. “Where’s your mother?” She had stationed Liz just inside the stable door to head off any such intrusion.

“Gone into town for a tractor part,” Gary said. “I figured I’d hang around in case you needed some help. Stud colt, you can’t never tell.”

She wanted to tell him he could help by taking himself to the next county or maybe the next state.

Stranger would have warned her of Gary’s approach, but she’d locked him in the tack room so he wouldn’t distract the colt. She stood and slipped through the gate, working her way around the pen at an unhurried pace but never turning her back on Gary.

“I been in the shed working on the tractor,” Gary said. He took a step in her direction.

She willed anger to overshadow fear. A predator like Gary would sense fear—it probably turned him on. She crossed to the barn and picked up the hose to wash the mud from her boots, ready to turn it on him if she had to.

Gary watched from a safe distance, his hat cocked back and his thumbs hooked in his belt. “Guess you don’t need no help today,” he said with a smirk. “Maybe later.”

“I don’t think so.” She kept the hose running until he swaggered out of sight toward the shed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

JAKE STOOD KNEE-DEEP in icy runoff, clearing brush clogging the main irrigation ditch. The weather had turned springlike after the late March snowfall; a few more warm days and the snowmelt would begin in earnest. When his cell phone rang, he staggered to the bank and dragged off one soaked glove to dig it from his pocket.

Ross Norquist’s voice, high-pitched in agitation, assaulted his ear before he could even say hello. “Jake, you better get over here quick and pick up this girl before more blood gets shed.”

“Whose blood?” He spoke as he ran to his truck and flung the shovel into the bed with a clang.

“Gary’s. Shelby set her hound on him. Liz and me headed into town, but we had to come back for something she forgot. We found Gary trying to load the shotgun, bleeding like a pig with his arm all tore up. Liz is driving him to the emergency room. She said to call you.”

“What about Shelby?” Rage blurred his vision. “I don’t know. Gary was yelling how he’d blow her dog’s head off. She’s locked herself in the tack room. I been banging on the door, but it’s dead quiet in there. Get her out of here before Liz gets back with Gary.”

“I’m on my way.” Jake leaped into the driver’s seat without waiting for an answer and sent the pickup jouncing across the hayfield, leaving muddy ruts in its wake. Phone, gloves, a pair of pliers, and a half-empty two-liter Coke bounced around on the front seat and shot to the floor as he slewed to a halt beside the barn. Begrudging precious minutes, he backed his truck to his two-horse trailer and dropped the hitch onto the ball. When he picked up Shelby, he’d buy the gray colt and bring him along, too.

The road into Durango seemed endless, and a creeping hay truck dropped Jake’s speed to a foot pace up one long grade. Passing the big rig at last, he roared into town with the empty trailer swaying behind him and turned north. When he arrived at the Norquist ranch, he breathed a sigh of relief to see no sign of Liz’s Jeep Cherokee. He ran toward the barn where Ross waited.

“Man, I thought you’d never get here,” Ross said. “The tack room door’s bolted from the inside, and she won’t answer me. See if she’ll speak up for you.”

Jake took a deep breath to ease his pounding heart. “Shelby,” he said, “it’s Jake. Can I come in?”

Silence.

He tapped on the door. “Shelby?”

No response, no barking.

He turned to Ross. “You sure she’s in there?”

Ross tugged on the door. “Where else could she be?”

Jake sprinted around to the side of the barn. A window stood open; boot and paw prints in the mud led toward the corral.

Ross came up behind him and stopped short. “She’s gone? On foot? Where does she think—?”

Jake followed the tracks at a run. “What horses were in the corral?”

“The three mustangs. No, just the roan mare—the bay’s in the barn. The colt’s in the round pen. Our string is out at pasture.”

They skidded to a halt. The gates to the corral and the round pen stood open.

“Saddle me a horse,” Jake said. “You stay here and try to find out what happened.”

Ten minutes later Jake rode out on a sturdy chestnut gelding. A confusion of hoof prints laced the thawed ground around the corral and barn, but he picked out new tracks made by the dog and two unshod horses.

He cast a worried glance at the sky and swore. The Norquist ranch lay higher than Cameron’s Pride, closer to the Continental Divide. Sunny here in the valley, but leaden clouds were piling up behind the San Juan’s promised snow. He’d seen blizzards swoop down out of the high country as late as May. Shelby had maybe an hour’s start, but she wouldn’t push the pregnant mare. He clapped his heels into the chestnut’s sides.

The soft ground made tracking easy. A path of sorts, blurred by last year’s grass, led toward a draw climbing into the hills. Sure enough, a range gate sagging askew broke the fence line. Either Shelby didn’t know how to fasten the cranky post-and-loop device or hadn’t been able to manage it while hanging on to two horses.

Clouds hid the sun. A single icy drop struck the back of his hand, and he snapped up his fleece-lined jacket. The steep trail crossed and recrossed a narrow creek running bank-high with snowmelt. No need to track, the walls of the draw had grown higher and more rugged. A horse could scramble out, but he doubted Shelby would ask it of the mare. If the draw turned into a box canyon, he would come up on her soon. If it opened into national forest land... He pushed harder, encouraging the gelding with heels and reins.

The trail leveled out in a high meadow. Jake saw no sign of Shelby until the chestnut pricked his ears. A flicker of movement caught his eye: the gray colt disappearing among the aspens at the far edge of the clearing. He picked the gelding up to a fast jog. She couldn’t move quickly through the dense woods. He could stop her even if he had to drop a loop on the roan mare.

“Shelby!” He raised his voice over the rising wind. “Wait up!”

Her shoulders slumped as she reined in. “What are you doing here?”

“Liz told Ross to call me.” He couldn’t see her face, hidden under a shapeless felt hat pulled low against the first snowflakes. “What happened?”

She raised her head, and he drew back on the reins, making the gelding dance in place. A thin line of blood still seeped from her cut lower lip and raw scratches on the side of her neck showed above her collar.

“That...!” He bit back a detailed description of Gary Norquist.

She bowed her head. “I’m not going back—he aims to shoot Stranger and then take out his meanness on the colt.”

“I won’t let him.” Jake caught the mare’s rein as Shelby tried to ride away. “I promise, I won’t let him hurt Stranger or the colt. Or you. Please, believe me.”

He released the mare’s rein. “Can you get the colt into my trailer?” He stretched the truth a little. “I just bought him.”

Her head came up. “I can load him.”

“Good. Look, you can’t keep riding into this weather. You’re headed into the national forest—there’s no shelter for miles.”

She looked into his face for a long moment while he held his breath. He would drag her back by force if he had to, to save her life, but that might do as much harm as Gary’s attack. He guessed she would never ask for help and hated accepting it.

He leaned forward and patted the mare’s neck. “Don’t want this lady dropping her foal in a blizzard, do we?”

Her eyes fell and she sighed. “I guess not.” She reined the mare around and rode back across the whitening meadow with Stranger on one side and the colt on the other.

They made better time downhill with the wind at their backs. Jake stopped at the range gate. “I want you to wait here while I ride in alone,” he said. “You need to tell me what happened. All Ross knows is what Gary said, that you set Stranger on him.”

She looked away; for a second he thought she might turn back into the mountains. “He’s been trying to catch me alone ever since I got here,” she said in a husky voice. “He rode out early to check fence on the far side of the ranch—Liz put up a lunch for him, then she and Ross went into town. I planned to work the bay mare...” She swallowed. “I heard a door slam, and then Stranger started baying, but muffled, like he’d been locked in somewhere.”

“Look, you don’t have to—”

“Gary came into the barn,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “He said he watched his folks leave and then doubled back so we could have some fun with no one around. I told him forget it, but he grabbed me...” Her words came faster, tumbling over each other, her voice rising so the colt snorted in alarm. “I yelled for Stranger, and Gary hit me. And then Stranger was just there—he must have gone through a window. He knocked Gary down and grabbed his arm. I dragged Stranger into the tack room and barred the door.”

Jake wanted to swear, to hit something, to hold her. He was afraid to move.

She wet her lips. “Gary started screaming how he’d get me, soon as he took care of Stranger with a shotgun. He kicked the door a couple times, then I heard him running. I was afraid to come out, so I threw my saddle out the window along with the mare’s bridle and a lead rope. I boosted Stranger through the window and climbed out after him.”

The wind had picked up, the snow thicker, already clinging to the horses’ rough coats and Stranger’s fur. Jake hated leaving Shelby here; he didn’t trust her not to bolt again.

“Look,” he said, “this weather’s blowing in hard.” He offered his watch. “Wait fifteen minutes and then follow me. I’ll talk to Ross and have the trailer ready to load the colt. Okay?”

She hesitated and then took the watch, shivering so hard she almost dropped it. “Okay,” she said. “Fifteen minutes.”

“Sooner if the tracks start to fill in. I’ve known folks to die a hundred yards from shelter, going in circles.” Although the mare would head straight to the barn for shelter.

He forced himself to ride away but then looked over his shoulder. Already the little group was only a dark blur in the swirling whiteness.

“Fifteen minutes,” he yelled, and she raised a hand as if to show him the watch. He turned and kicked the gelding into a run.

* * *

ROSS PACED IN front of the barn with snow building up on his hat and shoulders. “I was about to ride out looking for you.” He peered past Jake. “Did you find her?”

“She’ll be along in a few minutes.” Jake dismounted and led the gelding into the barn. “Is Gary back?”

“They got in while you were looking for Shelby. He said he came back early because his horse threw a shoe. He and Shelby were in the barn, just fooling around, he said, and she set her dog on him.” Ross held up his hand. “You don’t need to tell me that’s a crock—we’ve been cleaning up his messes ever since he got kicked out of high school. Is Shelby okay?”

Jake didn’t bother sparing Ross’s feelings. “Other than a split lip and scratches when he tried to tear her clothes off? Yeah, she’s okay. I’m taking her home with me, and the gray colt, too, if you’ll sell him.” He tried to recall how much he had in his checking account, maybe a couple thousand this time of year and none to spare.

“You can have him for nothing—I didn’t want him in the first place.”

“Say two hundred. He might make a nice ride for Lucy once he’s gelded.” Jake moved out into the snow. “Help me get the ramp down on my trailer. Shelby can load him straight in and we’ll be on our way before the roads get bad.”

They had just gotten the ramp lowered when the chestnut gelding neighed; a whinny from the gloom answered him. Two horses emerged from the falling snow with the dog like a ghost behind them. Shelby reined in by the corral.

Jake took a step forward, but Ross put a hand on his arm. “This is between me and Shelby,” he said. He raised his voice. “Sugar, bring the horses in out of the snow, how about?”

For a moment nobody moved, and then the mare tossed her head, eager to reach shelter. Shelby loosened the reins and rode into the barn with the colt and Stranger following.

Ross took the colt’s lead rope. “Shelby,” he said, “I’ve got a pretty good notion of what happened.”

Shelby dismounted slowly.

“Take your hat off,” Jake said, “and open your coat.”

Still facing the mare’s side, she took off the hat and hung it on the pommel before unzipping her jacket. She turned to face Ross.

His face blanched. “You want to press charges, I’ll back your play.”

A rapidly darkening bruise marked her jaw below the split lip. Most of her shirt buttons had been ripped off, and livid scratches ran from her collarbone to the ruins of her tank top. Even though he’d already seen her face, the full extent of Shelby’s injuries left Jake speechless with rage. Whatever damage Stranger had done wasn’t near enough.

“No.” A husky whisper. “No police.”

“He’s bad news with women,” Jake said. “He needs to be nailed to the wall.”

“Not by me.” She zipped her coat. “Can we leave now?”

The ragged edge in her voice warned Jake not to push. He took the colt’s lead rope from Ross and handed it to Shelby. “The trailer’s ready. Ross, can you get Shelby’s stuff while we load?”

Ross nodded and stalked toward the house, outrage in every step.

Shelby cleared her throat. “If you’ll put a hay net in the trailer...”

The colt loaded easily, following the scent of good alfalfa. Shelby ducked out the front hatch just as Liz arrived carrying a backpack and a sack of dog food.

“I hope everything’s here,” Liz said in a choked voice, her face ashen. “I looked around...”

“I never unpack,” Shelby said, her teeth chattering.

Liz embraced her awkwardly. “I can’t tell you how sorry—”

“Please—it wasn’t your fault.”

“We don’t have enough cash on hand to pay all we owe you, but here’s three hundred on account.” Liz tucked a roll of bills into Shelby’s hand. “I’ll send a check for the rest to Jake’s first thing in the morning.”

“Thanks, Liz,” Jake said. “Like Shelby told you, it’s not your fault.”

“Maybe it is.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “We’ve tried so hard with Gary...”

“All you can do.” He opened the door for Stranger to jump into the backseat and tossed in the dog food and Shelby’s saddle. Shelby stood motionless, her pack clutched to her chest. He climbed behind the wheel and spoke over his shoulder.

“Come on, Shelby—help me get my new horse home.”

She gave a jerky nod and climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“You take her to a doctor, Jake,” Liz said. “Send us the bill.”

Jake touched his hat to Liz and eased his rig forward.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHELBY CLENCHED HER teeth and wrapped her arms tighter around her pack. If she could just stop shivering... Heat blasting from the vents didn’t seem to reach her, as if she still felt the icy wind.

She should have kept riding and taken her chances; now she was trapped in Jake’s truck. She fought down panic. The whole sequence had lasted only minutes but looped endlessly in her brain: Stranger’s roar, footsteps approaching, Gary’s smug leer... Or another man’s face, hands touching her as she lay helpless. She choked back a whimper and reached for the door handle.

“Ain’t that the way!” Jake said. “No more than a dusting here in the canyon, but the high country will get another foot. Take a peek over your shoulder, Shelby—looks like the gates of hell where you were headed.”

His soft drawl steadied her, and she glanced at the mountains behind them. Blue-black clouds hid the peaks, and swaying curtains of snow grayed the lower slopes.

“Warming up?” He reached to adjust the vents in front of her, and she shrank back reflexively.

“Is there...” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Is there a used car lot in town?”

He glanced at her with a puzzled frown. “Sure, Bert Dawson sells pretty decent vehicles.”

She looked down at the roll of bills she still clutched. Another couple hundred in her pack... “Let me off there, okay?”

Jake steered his rig into a small roadside picnic area and then turned to face her. “Shelby, Bert’s brother is a La Plata County deputy. Bert would take one look at you and be on the phone before you could get two words out. For your protection, mind you. You sure you don’t want to file a complaint?”

She shook her head mutely. It would be her word against Gary’s, and his injury was probably worse than hers. Ross Norquist had said he would support charges, but sending his own son to jail... The police might seize Stranger as a vicious dog; for sure they’d put her name through their computer.

“I can’t,” she said. “I just can’t.”

Jake sat silent for a long moment and then sighed. “If you’re bound to leave, I’ll take you wherever you want to go, but how about we get the colt settled first? I want to get off to a good start with him.”

Because of her, he now had a horse he didn’t want. Her sense of fairness overcame the urge to bolt. “I guess I can do that much.”

“Anyway,” he said, “I’ve got a proposition for you.” He groaned. “That came out wrong! What I mean—I’m offering you a job. You know anything about cattle?”

A job? “Not much,” she said. She had watched branding and castration from the safe vantage point of corral fences. “I can’t rope or anything like that.”

“Can you ride?” he asked with a straight face.

A smile started against her will. He was playing her, teasing her back off the ledge. “Yes, I can ride.”

“Ever used a rifle or a shotgun?”

“Grandpa used to take me duck hunting in the fall. I didn’t much care for it, but I can handle a shotgun. What would I have to shoot?”

“Nothing, I hope. My boys come home between weekend events, but I can’t count on them for much work. One or the other is generally banged up. I need someone at a line camp at the far edge of the ranch. It’s isolated and pretty rough, but there’s a good corral for the colt. You’d have to ride the fence line and keep it up. I’ll have cow and calf pairs up there pretty soon—calving is almost done—so you’d need to keep an eye on them and chase off any varmints you see.”

Reluctantly, she considered his offer. She realized with surprise that she trusted him, as much as she trusted anyone, but the thought of owing him or any man made her shy away like a beaten animal.

“Could we go straight out there? Today, I mean?”

He sat in silence—she liked the way he thought things out before speaking.

“I figured you could stay overnight at the home ranch and we’d head out in the morning,” he said. “Plenty of room—Tom and Luke are on the road, so there’s just me and Lucy home.”

“No! I mean...” She didn’t want to meet his daughter, didn’t want anyone to see her face like this. Gary’s attack shamed her. She should have been smarter or quicker—something.

He glanced at his watch. “Another five, six hours of daylight. We’ll pick up supplies and have you settled in before nightfall—that suit you?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

He pulled back onto the road, and they drove in silence. Now with her course set, Shelby relaxed a little. The scratches burned, and her jaw ached, but she’d been scraped and bruised before; it went with the job. She would deal with the ugliness later as she had in the past, alone.

She watched the changing landscape flow by. West of Durango, silver mountain peaks loomed north of gentle valleys. Cottonwoods studded with early lime-green foliage marked the meandering courses of streams.

Just past the little town of Hesperus, Jake turned south again until he drove under a ranch sign with Cameron’s Pride burned into a weathered plank. The house sat half a mile from the road, and she saw with approval that all the buildings stood tight and square, with no machinery left out in the weather. In a short while, they had the colt, who didn’t seem much stressed by the second trailer ride of his life, confined in a small corral by the barn.

“Lucy won’t be home till late,” Jake said, grabbing Shelby’s pack from the backseat. “You can get cleaned up, and we’ll find some ointment for those scratches and ice for your lip.”

Shelby followed him into the ranch house. For a moment her skin crawled at finding herself alone with a man in a confined area, but she made herself step into the kitchen. Stranger followed and flopped in front of the big fireplace.

The cascade of crimson flowers on a huge Christmas cactus drew her, and she caressed a blossom with one finger.

“You like flowers?” Jake asked.

“I love making things grow,” she said. “That’s what I miss most, I guess, always on the road. I helped my mama in her garden—things grow like crazy in Louisiana.”

Jake stood beside her but left a little distance between them. “It’s tougher here, but my wife had the touch. Flowers, vegetables...” He cleared his throat and poked a finger into the pot. “Needs a little water, you think?”

She touched the soil. “No, it’s good—you’re doing fine.”

He turned to the big fridge and handed her an ice pack from the freezer. “How about you sit with that while I get some lunch together?” He peered back into the fridge. “We’ve got chili, or roast beef for sandwiches.”

She unzipped her jacket and remembered her ruined shirt. “Could I change somewhere?”

“Sorry, I should have said... Bathroom’s just down the hall, and there’s a first aid box—”

“That’s okay—I have stuff.”

In the bathroom, she dug through her pack for a cotton turtleneck and another flannel shirt before looking in the mirror. Her lower lip had ballooned to twice normal size, and blood traced a thin line from the left corner of her mouth. She moved her jaw experimentally—nothing broken and no loose teeth—but chewing would hurt for a few days.

She pulled off both shirts and threw them in the wastebasket. She could sew new buttons on the flannel shirt, but she knew she would never wear it again. Gary had ripped the tank top beyond repair.

The scratches would probably scar, no help for it. She found a clean washcloth, worked soap into it and took a deep breath. The sting of the soap on the raw wounds made her suck in her breath audibly and add a colorful description of Gary Norquist.

“You okay in there?” Jake’s voice came from just outside the door. The irony of the situation struck her—she had asked him the same question the morning after he’d run his truck into the ditch.

“Fine,” she said. “Just got a look at my face.” She heard him chuckle.

“I’m heating up the chili,” he said. “Easier for you to eat than a sandwich.”

By the time she came out, Jake had set two places and filled a cardboard box with food.

“We keep the cabin stocked with canned and dried food,” he said as they sat to eat, “but we can haul a few extras with us.” He picked up his spoon. “Hope the chili isn’t too spicy for you. Tom made this batch, and he gets a little crazy with Hatch peppers.”

The thick chili stung her lip, but the glass of milk beside her bowl eased the burn. Jake talked while she ate, an easy flow of words requiring minimal response. He pointed with his spoon at a framed document above the mantel.

“House ever catches fire, that’s the one thing we’d save.” He rose and took it down, dusting the glass with his sleeve before handing it to Shelby.

She tilted it to the light to read the faded script while Jake translated the Spanish: “Joined in holy matrimony Jacob Thomas Cameron and Rosa Monte at the mission church of San Geronimo, this second day of December in the year of our Lord 1867.” A flowing signature followed, with those of two witnesses below it.

She handed it back. “Jacob the grizzly-killer?”

“Yup. Rosa Monte was the best translation they could come up with for my great-great grandmother’s Ute name. They rode all the way down to Taos in winter to find a priest. Old Jacob was bound he’d marry her—his sons weren’t going to get booted off this land because he didn’t claim them all proper. His grandfather lost his holdings in Scotland for backing the wrong cause, and carpetbaggers grabbed Jacob’s land in Virginia. He named this ranch Cameron’s Pride after the plantation he lost. We’ve hung on to it through droughts and wildfires and range wars and renegade Indian raids.”

He laughed self-consciously and hung the certificate back in its place of honor. “Didn’t mean to get started—this ranch is kind of a religion with us. We’d best get moving if you want to sleep at the cabin tonight.” He paused while putting the milk back in the fridge. “You sure you don’t want to talk to the police? Now’s the time if you’re going to.”

“No!” Her throat constricted. “Ross and Liz are good people. They’ve got enough trouble.”

“Might be doing everyone a favor, but it’s your call.” He picked up the box of food. “Let’s saddle up.”

Jake led the way to the barn, stopping to pull her saddle from his truck. “I don’t know how far you’ve gotten with the colt, but I doubt you can work off him yet.” He disappeared into the barn and returned leading a stout chestnut mare easily sixteen hands tall.

“Meet Sadie. She’s got some years on her, but she’s sound and steady, and she won’t take any nonsense from the colt. I use her for hunting, so you can shoot over her if you have to. Which reminds me...”

He handed Sadie’s lead rope to Shelby and jogged back to the house, returning with a shotgun and a box of shells. “You’re sure you won’t blow your foot off?”

She took the shotgun from him, broke it to check that it wasn’t loaded, and handed it back. “I’m sure,” she said.

“Good enough.” He stepped into the tack room and came out with a stock saddle, two bridles and a coiled rope. “Be right back,” he said, and strode through the metal gate beside the barn.

A few minutes later he returned leading a dun gelding. Shelby had already brushed Sadie and cinched her own saddle on the mare.

He stood back to study her rig. “I didn’t take a good look before—what is that, a Buena Vista?”

She nodded. “My granddaddy called it a plantation saddle. It’s lighter than a Western saddle, and I can take the stirrups off when I first put it on a horse.” She stroked the leather, smooth and dark as antique walnut. “I learned to ride on this saddle.”

Jake saddled the gelding and filled his saddlebags with food. He lashed the sack containing Stranger’s food behind his saddle and cocked an eye at the sun. “Get the colt,” he said. “Let’s move out.”

Shelby followed him, leading the colt with Stranger trotting alongside. The attack and her blind flight into the snowstorm faded like a bad dream with the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. Jake hadn’t urged her to talk and hadn’t pushed her to report the attack. The tension that had strung her nerves taut at the Norquist ranch, waking and sleeping, eased. She slouched into the mare’s long stride and lifted her face to the sunlight.

CHAPTER NINE

GOOD THING SHELBY couldn’t see his face. Jake ground his teeth and mouthed savage curses. He wanted to pound Gary into the corral dirt. He should have dragged Shelby straight to the sheriff’s office, but the terror in her eyes had made him back off. What made her fear the police more than her attacker? It didn’t seem likely she was running from the law if she kept an ad in Western Horseman.

His mount caught his mood and shied at nothing. “Sorry, Butch,” he said and patted the horse’s neck. He slapped a grin on his face and looked over his shoulder. “You doing okay back there?”

Shelby nodded, answering with a lopsided smile. “Doing fine—everything looks better from on top of a horse.”

He dropped back to ride beside her on the wagon track, no more than two deep ruts in the red soil. Even in his black mood, he automatically checked out range conditions as he rode. They’d had a good winter, with enough snow to soak deep against drought but not so much they’d had to chop ice or haul hay through head-high drifts. Already new green showed though the brown grass. He’d be able to move his cow-calf pairs out here soon, with Shelby to keep an eye on them.

If she stayed. The possibility she might leave brought him up short; he reined in without thinking atop the long slope they’d just climbed.

Shelby halted her mount. “Something wrong?”

“Just thought we’d breathe the horses while I show you some landmarks.” He pointed westward. “See that long ridge shaped like a ship’s prow? That’s Mesa Verde, where the mustangs were rounded up. The colt wouldn’t have to run far to his old stomping ground. From up there you can see clear down to the Navajo Reservation.”

“Do we have much farther to ride?”

He gave her a sharp glance; she was drooping a little in the saddle. He hated leaving her alone a good hour’s ride from the home ranch, but he was pretty sure she would resist coming back with him.

“Another fifteen minutes at this pace,” he said. “Across the creek below this ridge, around that next bluff, then back across the creek. We can’t drive across yet because the banks are soft and the water’s high, but I brought up a full propane tank last fall and there’s enough hay to last you a while.”

A small log house came into view as they splashed across the creek. “There it is,” he said. “The Cameron’s sacred shrine, Jacob’s first homestead. The old boy picked a good spot—plenty of water, the bluff at his back, and level ground to put in a garden.”

He spurred his horse to a trot, and Sadie followed with no urging. Shelby rode into the corral with the colt while Jake tied his horse outside and closed the gate. A roomy lean-to formed one side of the pen with hay bales stacked under cover; a stock tank with a rusty pump brimmed with water. Shelby dismounted stiffly and unsnapped the lead line from the colt’s halter before unsaddling her horse.

Stranger sniffed ecstatically around the cabin’s foundation and then lifted his leg against a corral post. He continued his personal survey of the clearing, disappearing behind the lean-to.

Jake unsaddled his horse, as well. “You’re going to need this saddle for Sadie,” he said. “The scabbard for the shotgun won’t fit on yours. I’ll ride home bareback.” He carried both saddles to the shed and broke open a bale of hay. “Let me show you around before it gets dark.”

Shotgun in hand, he opened the cabin door and ushered her inside. “I’ll turn on the propane for the stove and light the pilot before I leave. The fireplace draws good, and there’s more wood just out the back door. No fridge, but we have a Coleman chest in the back room.” He carried apples, frozen hamburger, half-and-half, a carton of eggs and a couple freezer packs to a small back room and put them into the big cooler.

“Sorry, no bathroom,” he said, “but the outhouse is clean and limed.” He pointed to a row of empty plastic jugs. “Grab a couple of those, and I’ll show you where to get water.”

He led her to a well-trodden path skirting the bluff behind the cabin. Hidden behind a bold sandstone outcropping lay an almost perfectly circular pool. Tendrils of vapor hung above it in the cooling air. A miniature waterfall leaped from a fissure in the rocks above the pool.

“The water from the rock face is safe to drink, and the pool is great for bathing—it stays an even one hundred degrees year-round.” He climbed up the rocks and began filling the jugs.

Shelby followed, and they each carried two gallons back to the cabin. The sun sat nearly on the western horizon and shadows filled the interior. Jake lit two oil lamps and showed Shelby where to find more oil before lighting the range and kindling a fire on the hearth.

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