Christmas With the Mustang Man

by Stella Bagwell

  “Is that why you keep him?” she asked curiously. “Dad won’t keep an outlaw on the place. He says you can feed a good horse for the same price you can feed a bad one.”

  “Sounds like your father is a wise man.”

  Dallas’s chuckle was full of affection. “He’s raised six kids. He’s practical.”

  A faint semblance of a smile touched his face. “Well, Chester is a good working ranch horse. He just happens to have an attitude. But I’ve learned to deal with that.”

  Apparently dealing with Chester was easier than dealing with a wife with an attitude, Dallas thought. He’d made concessions for the horse, but not his wife? Or had the woman simply been impossible to deal with?

  Forget it, she told herself. Forget what the man might have been like as a husband or what sort of husband he might be now.

  But she couldn’t forget. Not after that kiss he’d given her.

  Pulling her gaze away from him, she turned it toward the corral and the small herd of horses. “I’m glad you have a bit of patience because I should warn you that I’m slow to make up my mind. It may take me a while to choose the mustangs I want to take back to New Mexico with me.”

  “Take all the time you want,” he said. “I have all day. And from the looks of things, so do you.”

  His lazily spoken observation only served to remind Dallas that the two of them were miles and miles from another human being and, even if she wanted, she had no way of getting off this ranch or away from him. Unless he offered her a way.

  Trying to ignore the nervous flutter in her stomach, she said, “Okay, I’ll pick the ones that first catch my eye and then you can tell me about them.”

  “Fine. Let’s get to work.”

  For the next two hours hour they walked among and around the thirty or so horses while Dallas studied each one for confirmation and attitude. Eventually, she chose six from the herd—a coal-black stallion, a sorrel filly with a blaze face, a little bay gelding that was hardly bigger than a pony, a brown mare with white socks, a shy chestnut filly and a buckskin gelding with a long, shaggy mane and forelock that covered his entire neck and most of his face.

  After they haltered and tethered her choices to a hitching post in front of the barn, Dallas stepped back to give the animals another long, thoughtful consideration.

  A few steps away, Boone said, “Considering that kids will eventually be riding them, I think you’ve made good choices. They’re all gentle with no bad habits. But I insist that you handle and ride them yourself before you make a final decision. I want you to be completely satisfied.”

  She pulled her eyes away from the horses to look at him and even though he was standing three or four steps away, the impact of his gaze was still enough to shake her. “You say that like you’re giving me a guarantee.”

  “I am,” he said without hesitation. “If you get them back to your ranch and decide you don’t like them—for any reason—just bring them back here to me and I’ll refund your money.”

  The drive back would be bad enough, she thought, but seeing him again? Oh, no. This one time would be quite enough for her peace of mind.

  She asked, “You do that for all of your buyers?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted and without even realizing it, her breath caught in her throat and stayed there.

  “Most. Not all.”

  She swallowed and forced herself to breathe. “Well, trust me, when I take on a responsibility it stays with me. I don’t give it back or try to give it away just because something turns out to be more difficult than I first thought. As for the horses, I don’t expect them to be perfect. Nothing or no one is.”

  “That’s fair enough,” he replied. “But just remember that my offer will always stand—even years from now.”

  Years? Dallas’s gaze traveled beyond the quiet conviction on his face to the horses standing calmly at the hitching post. And it suddenly dawned on her that Boone wasn’t going out of his way just to make sure she received fair dealings. This was more about him and the horses. He’d invested more than just his time and effort into the animals. His heart was involved.

  The idea both touched and surprised her. He might view himself as mean as Chester, but his heart was most definitely soft.

  “I’ll remember,” she murmured.

  He cleared his throat, then said in a husky voice, “If you don’t mind, we’ll use my tack to saddle them up. It’s right here in this barn and would save digging everything out of your trailer.”

  “Fine,” she agreed.

  Boone chose the stallion and led him into the barn and Dallas followed them into the dim interior of the metal structure. At the end of a wide alleyway, Boone dropped the lead rope and entered a door to his left. Dallas was impressed to see the horse didn’t move an inch, even after he reappeared with a saddle and blanket and tossed it onto the animal’s back.

  Not one to just stand by and watch, Dallas quickly moved up on the right side of the horse and passed the leather cinch beneath its belly and up to Boone’s waiting hand.

  He was pulling the strap tight when the sound of a vehicle sounded just outside of the barn. Surprised by the unexpected noise, Dallas glanced over her shoulder to see a black, older model pickup truck barrel past the open doorway of the barn, then skid to a halt in front of a nearby shed.

  “Were you expecting company?” she asked.

  “That’s Mick, my hired hand.”

  Boone had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth, when a man appeared in the open entrance of the barn and started walking in their direction.

  “Hey, Boone, what happened? Did you win the lottery or did the banker finally cave in and give you that loan? Man, when you decided to buy a new horse trailer, you decided to go whole hog, didn’t you?”

  “It’s not mine, Mick.”

  “Not yours! Who—”

  The remainder of the man’s sentence stopped abruptly as he spotted Dallas stepping from behind the stallion and into the open.

  “Oh. Oooh!” He moved forward, his appreciative gaze glued to Dallas. “Marti told me he’d come out here to collect a horse buyer’s truck that had gone kaput. The old fox didn’t mention a beautiful woman being here. I didn’t know you had company, too, Boone.”

  “Dallas isn’t company. She’s the horse buyer.” Boone curtly corrected the other man.

  Mick didn’t wait for Boone to make introductions; he quickly stepped closer and offered his hand to Dallas.

  “Hello, I’m Mick Tanner. Boone’s sidekick.”

  “Sidekick, hell,” Boone muttered. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Dallas. He’s watched so many old Westerns that he’s stuck in the 1940s and can’t get out. Just look at those boots! A waste of good money if I ever seen it.”

  Dallas glanced down to see the man’s jeans were stuffed into a pair of knee-high cowboy boots with flashy red-and-yellow inlays sewn in the shape of a thunderbird on the front of the shafts. Immediately she thought of Abe Cantrell back home. The old man would definitely smile if he could see Mick’s choice of fancy footwear.

  She smiled at the man with blue, blue eyes and a shock of sandy-blond hair covered by a gray cowboy hat. “It’s nice to meet you, Mick. I’m Dallas Donovan—from New Mexico.”

  Mick gave her hand one last shake, then politely stepped back. “My pleasure,” he said, then cut his eyes toward Boone. “Guess you can tell my boss doesn’t have too much of a sense of humor.”

  “Well, you two just probably aren’t amused by the same things,” she said with as much diplomacy as she could.

  Mick let out a generous laugh. “That’s putting it mildly.”

  Boone glanced pointedly at the watch on his wrist. “Weren’t you supposed to be here an hour ago?” he asked.

  Mick chuckled again and Dallas could see that there was definitely a close understanding between the two men that only formed with longtime friendships.

  “Yeah. But I had to spread hay for my own cattle this morning. And I met Marti on
the way out here and we had to stop on the road and visit for a while. Remember his daughter? The older one with the black hair? Well, he says she’s gotten divorced and is coming back to town. What does that tell ya?”

  Boone let out a heavy sigh. “That you talk too much.”

  Mick shook his head. “Heck, Boone, it means that rich codger she married wasn’t nearly as grand as she thought he was.”

  With a roll of his eyes, Boone turned back to the stallion and finished tucking the end of the cinch into the keeper. “Then she’s probably coming back to town to get hooked up with you, Mick.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said with a grin, then turned a concerned look on Dallas. “So that was your truck Marti was towing. That’s tough luck.”

  Dallas nodded. “Yes. Unfortunately, it’s going to be out of service for a few days.”

  Mick’s brows piqued with interest. “That’s too bad. If you need a ride into town later today I’d be happy to give you a lift. Boone would rather chop off an arm than drive into town, so it would save him a trip.”

  “Forget it, Mick, Dallas doesn’t need a lift.”

  Her mouth fell open as she whipped her head around to stare at Boone. Since when had he become her boss, she wanted to ask. From the moment she’d arrived here on the ranch he’d been trying to tell her what she should and shouldn’t do. And if it weren’t for Mick’s presence, she’d promptly inform Mr. Boone Barnett that she didn’t belong to him or any man. But he wasn’t even bothering to look her way. Instead, he was bridling the black stallion as though the matter was already settled. And maybe it was, but that didn’t give him the right to speak for her as though she was mute.

  Seeing her dagger-filled gaze was lost on Boone, she turned a smile on Mick. “Thank you for the offer,” she told the other man. “It was thoughtful of you, but I’ll be staying here on the ranch until my truck is ready to drive again.”

  Surprise swept across Mick’s face, then as he looked in Boone’s direction, his initial shock was swiftly replaced by somber concern.

  “Oh. Well, that’s…good.” He lifted the gray hat from his head and with his attention directed at the ground, he raked an awkward hand through his hair, then slapped the Stetson back on. “Well, I’m going to drive the old truck out to the windmill in the north pasture,” he said for Boone’s benefit. “I’ll take the tools with me. Just in case it stopped working again.”

  “Fine. I’ll see you later,” Boone replied.

  The other man quickly left the barn and Dallas moved back to the head of the horse. By now Boone had the bits and bridle in place and was adjusting the throat latch.

  “Your friend seemed upset about something,” she ventured to say. “And I think it concerns me staying here on the ranch. I don’t get it.”

  “Forget about Mick,” he said curtly. “He needs to mind his own business.”

  “But you two must be good friends. I don’t—”

  Boone moved around the horse’s head to where she was standing. “Look, Dallas, Mick thinks every pretty girl within a two-hundred-mile radius is his for the taking. He’s just miffed because you won’t be riding into town with him, that’s all.”

  Dallas believed there was much more to the man’s abrupt change in mood than the explanation Boone had given her, but she wasn’t going to push the issue. After all, her host could handle his own affairs, especially if he stayed out of hers.

  “Well, are all the girls his for the taking?” she asked with an impish grin.

  He grimaced. “I’ll put it this way, he’s gone through his share of them. And that’s—” He stopped abruptly and when Dallas continued to wait for him to finish, he said gruffly, “Let’s not talk about Mick. Especially behind his back.”

  Dallas could appreciate the man’s loyalty to his friend and she especially didn’t want to come off looking like a gossiper, so she smiled in agreement.

  “Fine with me. Is the stallion ready to ride?”

  “Yes. I’ll lead him outside and you can mount up there.”

  Taking up the reins, Boone led the horse out of the barn while Dallas followed close behind.

  By now the sun was being covered by a blanket of thin winter clouds. As she paused to tighten the scarf around her neck, she took a moment to scan the distant horizon. The terrain surrounding the ranch and barns was completely open, with nothing to see except a few distant hills and a handful of cattle. Since she was used to mountains covered with green forests and valley meadows thick with lush grass, the dry desolation of the land amazed her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Boone’s question pulled her head around to see that he was standing beside the horse, clearly waiting for her to finish her daydreaming.

  Stepping closer, she shook her head. “Sorry. I was just looking at your land. It’s so different from what I’m used to. Is there anything out there? I mean, other than those distant hills and the far-off mountains? I can’t see anything but desert floor.”

  Faint amusement touched the corners of his mouth and Dallas’s gaze zeroed in on the hard lips that had rocked over hers in a kiss that she still couldn’t push from her mind.

  “You mean is there life out there? Yeah. A thousand head of Angus cattle and half that many more crossbreeds. Not to mention a band of wild mustangs that appear now and then, wild burros and all sorts of smaller creatures, like antelope, deer, coyotes, jackrabbits and even mountain lions. And in the spring migrating birds use this area to rest before they move on north.”

  A pink blush settled across her cheeks. “I feel like a fool for being so ignorant. To me it just looks…desolate. Like nothing could survive out there.”

  “That’s why the wildlife does survive out there, because nothing is out there to disturb it. Like towns and land developers.”

  She studied him thoughtfully. “I think you’re a bit like all that wildlife you just mentioned. You’d rather not have people around you…messing up things and causing you problems.”

  With a negligent shrug, he turned to the stallion and rechecked the tightness of the saddle cinch. “So you’ve decided I’m a loner. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “And you disapprove.”

  Even though he’d made a statement rather than a question, she answered just the same. “I didn’t say that.”

  With his forearm resting against the saddle, he turned slightly toward her and Dallas was suddenly hit hard by the rough, sexy image he projected in his worn jeans, rugged wool jacket and battered black cowboy hat. Mick might be attractive in a smooth, blue-eyed way. But Boone was dark and smoldering and just mysterious enough to keep her looking and wondering.

  He said, “You were thinking it.”

  “Well, I’m basically an outdoor gal, but I also like people. Young and old. The more I have around me, the more I like it. And I like going to town and enjoying all the fun things it has to offer. Maybe that’s just the woman in me. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Diamond D has always been full of people. We employ at least a hundred people and there are always horse racing folks and other friends hanging around to add to the mix. I’ve never been around this much—” she gestured out toward the open, sweeping land “—solitude before. I’d have to have a powerful reason to live out here.”

  His face was emotionless as he looked at her. “And I’d have to have a powerful reason not to,” he said, then made a forward gesture with his thumb. “C’mon and I’ll give you a leg up.”

  Dallas tried not to appear wary as she stepped closer to him and the horse, but he must have read her thoughts, or at least part of them.

  “Don’t worry,” he said gruffly. “I’m not going to grab you and kiss you again.”

  She resisted the urge to swallow. “What makes you think I’m worried?”

  The cynical slant of his lips belied the faint gleam of amusement in his eyes. “Probably the way you’re sidling up to me like I’m a hungry coyote.”
>
  “Nothing wrong with a coyote,” she quipped. “At least he mates for life.”

  His nostrils flared. “Like I said before, I don’t plan on kissing you again.”

  For some reason his cocky promise raked over every womanly particle inside of Dallas and before she realized what she was doing, she’d moved close enough to stick her face right in front of his. “I think you’re the one who’s worried, Boone.”

  She watched his gaze dropped to her lips and anticipation shivered right through her.

  “Me?” he asked softly. “What do I have to be worried about?”

  “That you kissed me—and you liked it.”

  Chapter Five

  Dallas didn’t know what had possessed her to throw such a taunt at Boone. He wasn’t the sort of man who would take a dare lightly, even from a woman.

  And he didn’t.

  The next thing Dallas knew she was crushed tightly against him and her mouth was completely captured beneath his lips.

  In spite of the cold wind whipping through the barnyard and slapping at the side of her face, Dallas was instantly suffused with heat from the top of her head right down to the soles of her feet. The taste of his lips was a dark, mysterious promise that made her want more and more.

  Instinctively, her arms crept up and around his neck and her mouth opened even wider to accept the gentle prod of his tongue. At the same time, his hands slipped beneath the hem of her jacket and latched onto the sides of her waist. When he pulled her hips forward to press against his, she groaned deep in her throat and tightened her fingers against the back of his neck.

  Drawn deeper and deeper into a swirl of sweet sensations, Dallas was stunned when his mouth suddenly ripped from hers and he shoved an arm’s length of distance between them. “Better be careful, Ms. Donovan, this coyote might turn into a wolf,” he warned softly. “Or is that what you’re aiming for—to knock me off balance?”

  Struggling to pull herself from the dreamy fog of his kiss, she sucked in a deep breath and hoped the cold wind would fade the hot color in her cheeks.

  “I’m not the one who started this,” she said in a low, strained voice.