Wide Open Spaces (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Fox, Roz Denny

  Marley’s nephew waved, heading toward Colt with a broad smile and the telltale gait of a man more comfortable in the saddle than on foot. Colt gave a wry passing thought to how easily Trace had picked him out of the crowd. And he’d assumed his appearance had improved.

  “Hey, Coltrane.” Tracey caught Colt’s extended hand in a solid crunch. “I hope you didn’t wait long. My flight out of Salt Lake was delayed due to wind sheers.”

  “Not a problem. I was afraid if you landed early, you’d think I stood you up. Out of curiosity, how did you spot me so fast in this crowd? Frankly, I think I look far more human than when we last met.”

  “Yep. And I’ve grown up, too.” Trace’s dark eyes sparkled. “But in case you haven’t noticed, there’s no one else on this concourse dressed like us.”

  Colt swept a glance around and saw Trace was right. Smiling, he slapped the younger man on the back. “You need help collecting your bags? Or shall I fetch my pickup and meet you outside the baggage area?”

  “I have my saddle, a duffel and this carry-on. That’s all.”

  Colt relieved him of the carry-on. “I expect you’ll recognize my wheels, too. Battered red Chevy. Looks like it’s been rode hard and put up wet.”

  “Thank God! Marc drives a black Beemer. If a speck of dust lands on the hood, he’s out there with a polishing cloth.”

  “Don’t I know. Ever since he and I met as raw recruits, Marc’s spent all his dough on cars and clothes. Mossberger and I invested in horses. Gabe’s the real banker of our motley crew. He’s still got the first dollar he ever earned.”

  “Uncle Marley called you guys the ‘fearsome foursome.’ He told some wild stories about you.”

  “They’re probably all true. But I can count on every one of those guys if I get in a jam.”

  “That’s what my uncle says.”

  Colt flushed. “Was he talking about my recklessness? Or did he mean I’m dependable? I’ve changed, too. I hope you didn’t come here hoping for a big adventure, Trace.”

  “I came to work on a ranch,” Trace said, holding Colt’s eyes with an unblinking stare. “Uncle Marley didn’t say much other than there’s a squabble over a ranch he’s raising money to buy. He said I’d be helping you keep the ranch running for a bit. Last summer I cut hay, rode fences and strung wire. Show me once and I’ll do the job, Coltrane. Maybe you can fill me in on the details after I get my things.”

  “I will. And I’ve got a few errands to do in town before we head out. Did they feed you on the flight? I came straight here, so I could use a meal.”

  “I can always eat,” Trace responded before they parted at the escalator.

  Colt felt the knot in his stomach ease. He’d been afraid Trace only talked the cowboy talk. Apparently he also walked the walk. It was the best thing to happen since Colt had accidentally collided with Summer Marsh that day at the vet’s.

  OVER A SPEEDY LUNCH of burgers and fries, Colt outlined the situation facing them on the Forked Lightning. “We’re walking a fine line on this deal, Tracey. The court gave Mrs. Marsh six months to raise half of what Ed Adams is offering. As I understand it, he can’t up the ante if she comes up with the cash. But Marley needs to have the full amount if SOS is going to buy the Marshes out. Neither Frank nor Summer has any idea who I am. And it behooves us to keep quiet. Once your uncle has the necessary funds, Gabe will show up to handle the negotiations. You may have to cover for me occasionally so he and I can meet. He generally arrives a week prior to the actual dickering. That way, he has time to get established at a local bank.”

  “I’m here to assist. Say the word and I’ll cover your tracks. What I hope to get out of this is experience. Marc said what you don’t know about horses isn’t worth knowing. My folks would rather I finished college and took a job on Wall Street. They gave me a year to sign on permanently as a ranch hand. Otherwise, I try their plan. I’m hoping that in whatever time we have on this job, I’ll gain enough knowledge to run a small ranch of my own—eventually. Man, I’d choke if I had to wear a suit and tie every day of my life.”

  “I know what you mean. When we met, I pegged you for a computer hotshot.”

  “I used computers to research raising cattle.” He crumpled his napkin and pushed his plate aside. “That hit the spot. If you’re done, Coltrane, I’m anxious to get started.”

  Colt grinned. “Not so fast. I have to run past my condo and see if it’s still standing. And I thought we’d stop at a mall outside town. Our boss doesn’t often get to the city. It’d be nice if you showed up with a gift for her. Nothing big.”

  “Ah. A hostess gift, you mean? Why me?”

  “I already gave her a little something. It wouldn’t look right to her son or the old couple who takes care of the place if I bought her another present.”

  “Oh.” Trace blinked as Colt rose and picked up the check. Following Colt to his truck, Trace finally shrugged. Obviously, he didn’t quite get it.

  Colt’s condo sat on a tree-shaded street in an older section of town. The area had been renovated to accommodate a growing population of younger city dwellers. Or so it appeared, judging by the number of balconies that sheltered exercise equipment and expensive bicycles hanging from the rafters.

  The apartment was neat and clean. It should be, given what it cost Colt to get a service to come in each week. He quickly riffled through a stack of mail. Mostly junk, which he tossed. One letter stopped him. It was postmarked Brazil. And it didn’t come from the P.I. or the attorney he’d retained to track Monica.

  Trace peered over his shoulder at the feminine writing. “That from a girlfriend?”

  “No,” Colt growled. “My ex-wife.” He promptly tore the envelope into pieces.

  “Wow! Don’t you want to know what she said?”

  “Anything we have to say to each other has already been said through our lawyers. I paid mine a king’s ransom. She lives with hers. I assume he collects his fees in other ways. I’m done here,” Colt announced more calmly as he dumped the shredded letter into a trash can under his kitchen sink. “Are you ready?”

  “Sure.” Trace cast a frown toward the cupboard door Colt had slammed.

  Neither man spoke again until Colt had successfully navigated the city traffic and they were well into the thinning city limits. “There’s the mall.” He switched lanes and drove into the parking lot.

  “What should I buy Mrs. Marsh? I’ve never bought a gift for someone I haven’t met before.”

  “What would you buy for your mother if you were traveling to a city she liked?”

  “So Mrs. Marsh is as old as my mom?”

  Colt yanked on his emergency brake. “She’s probably my age or younger. I’m thirty-six. But she is a mother. Rory, her son, is seven.”

  “Um. My mom’s forty-five. She likes perfume,” Trace said as he unbuckled his seat belt. “And roses. My dad buys her…lacy nightgowns.”

  Colt choked. “No lacy stuff. Or perfume. Those are too…personal,” he said, once again uncomfortable with an image his brain insisted on conjuring up of Summer Marsh—this time in some low-cut, bright red froth. Her perfume already tantalized him, for God’s sake. “Absolutely none of those,” he reiterated forcefully.

  “That leaves roses,” Trace said matter-of-factly, reaching the mall door before Colt.

  “We’ve got a three-to four-hour drive ahead. Roses would wilt.”

  “I suppose. Since you’ve vetoed all my suggestions, Coltrane, you pick something. What does she like? In high school, I bought my girlfriend candy and a tennis bracelet and her favorite CDs. She said she liked them. Hey, what about a book? My mom loves poetry.”

  “Poetry?” Colt skidded to a stop in the center of the mall. “Do you read poetry while you’re out wrangling livestock? I sure as hell don’t.”

  “Nope,” Trace mumbled. “Maybe this isn’t such a hot idea.”

  “It is,” Colt said stubbornly. “Look, there’s a western store. She’s a rancher. We ought to find someth
ing appropriate here,” he said, dragging Trace inside.

  They made their way through piles of blue jeans, work shirts and boots.

  “These don’t look like gifts any woman I know would be happy to get.”

  “Hush,” Colt warned, stopping at a rack filled with women’s western-style blouses.

  “I’m not buying a blouse for a woman I don’t know,” Trace hissed.

  “Oh, but you’d give her lacy nightwear?”

  “No. I said it’s what my dad buys for my mother.”

  “Summer wears T-shirts and neck scarves.” Colt edged between rounders and snatched up a paisley scarf in shades of gold and green. “This is good. Her eyes are like a wild animal’s. In daylight they’re pure gold. At dusk, they turn sort of green.”

  Trace accepted the scarf Colt extended, all the while arching an eyebrow.

  “What? There’s nothing personal about a neckerchief, dammit.”

  “Please remove the price tag and wrap it,” Trace told a clerk who’d stepped over to see if she could assist them. He continued to smirk at Colt.

  And it made Colt feel ill at ease. However, the worst thing he could do would be to protest too much. So, after shelling out the money for the scarf, he stalked out to the pickup and fell into moody silence.

  Trace settled a broad shoulder into the right corner of the truck’s cab, tipped his gray felt cowboy hat over his eyes and promptly fell asleep.

  He woke up several hours later when Colt swung off the highway onto a rutted gravel lane. Hitting his cheek on the window, Trace swore loudly enough to wake the dead as he grabbed for his hat, which had bounced away. “What’s going on? Man, it’s dark. Why did you let me sleep so long? I meant to spell you on the drive.”

  “I like driving, so it’s okay. As for what’s up, we’d better find out. I thought everybody would be in bed. The ranch is lit up inside and out like the Vegas strip. Something’s not right.” Colt swung the wheel and parked next to the barn.

  Virgil Olsen hobbled around the building as Colt and Trace got out. The old man raised a hunting rifle. A multishot Winchester, Colt saw. And Colt knew guns, all right.

  “Oh, Colt, it’s you. Am I glad you showed up,” Virgil said gruffly.

  “This is Tracey Jackson. He’s the friend I told Summer I’d get to help with roundup. Why the rifle, Virgil? Has there been trouble?”

  Virgil shook Tracey’s hand even as he motioned them both to step behind the barn, where he pointed out several flattened sections of what had been the big corral.

  “Everyone here was in bed. I was very nearly asleep when we heard riders whooping and hollering out near the barn. Summer came by our house and asked Audrey to look after Rory. She said she thought somebody was trying to steal Jim Dandy.”

  “Jim Dandy?” Colt strode over and kicked at a downed rail.

  “Summer’s prize bull. Two years ago she forked out a good share of the ranch profits for him. He’s a Belted Galloway. His first calves dropped this spring and they brought top dollar. She’s counting on the next crop. Only now…he’s been run off.”

  “Did you see who took him?” Trace asked.

  “I’m not as fast on my feet as I used to be,” Virgil lamented. “All I saw was how somebody lassoed our fence posts and ripped out half the corral. See there.” He gestured. “One of their ropes is still attached.”

  “Where’s Summer?” Colt spun around in a circle, and ended up staring at the porch where Audrey stood, a hand clamped on Rory, who wore his pajamas.

  “Summer saddled up and took off after those no-account thieves.”

  Colt and Trace exchanged concerned glances. “Grab your saddle,” Colt told Trace. “Damn, I wish we had the horses I asked Mossberger to send. Spirit isn’t up to par. We’ll have to make do with whatever stock Summer has in the barn.”

  “Take the big bay gelding, and the mare with the blaze face,” Virgil advised. “Oh, and here, you take the Winchester.”

  “No weapons.” Colt shook his head. “We aim to get Summer and her bull back in one piece. Any idea how many thieves we’re up against?”

  The old man shrugged. “Two. Three, maybe. Tracks around the corral are all jumbled.”

  “What’s Rory yelling?” Colt asked, grabbing the reins of the saddled bay Trace led out of the barn.

  “He’s crying and asking Audrey to phone his dad. ’Twixt you, me and the gate post,” Virgil muttered with a scowl, “I’m betting Frank already knows. Don’t tell Rory, but Frank showed up at our wheat field today. He tried sweet-talking Summer into cutting her losses now. He started out all charm and smiles like he used to. Then he showed his real colors when she flatly refused. Said she’d be sorry.”

  Feeling his blood boil through his veins, Colt dug his heels into the gelding’s flanks, setting him back on his haunches. “Stick close to the house, Virgil. Watch out for Audrey and the boy.” Then he tore out in front of Trace, headed in the general direction Virgil said Summer had gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE MEN RODE SO FAST, both lost sight of the hoofprints they were tracking. Farther out on the prairie, the moon appeared brighter, allowing them to identify puffs of dust in the distance. Colt pulled up first.

  “There.” He stabbed a finger over his mount’s ears. “Looks like one rider.”

  “Yeah, and he’s riding like a son of a gun. Is it wishful thinking, Coltrane, or are we closing the gap?”

  Colt’s answer was to coax more speed from the rangy bay. He was soon two lengths ahead of Tracey.

  “Yo,” Trace called, sounding worried. “We’ve lost the dust.”

  Standing in his stirrups to see in the grainy distance, Colt called back. “Maybe a dip in the terrain. Let’s stay in line with where we last saw dust.”

  Trace’s reply blew away on a sudden crosswind.

  To make matters worse, fast-moving clouds drifted across the face of the moon. The horses faltered, forcing the men to slow their pace. Suddenly, Colt rode out of a thicket of underbrush and almost over someone walking toward him on foot.

  He yanked back hard on his reins, his heart leaping into his throat. In the space of time it took him to check the bay’s forward motion, the moon disappeared behind clouds. Colt saw that the man on foot was leading a saddled horse. Moonbeams glinted off a rifle stock the guy suddenly tried to wrest from a stubborn scabbard.

  “Take cover,” Colt bellowed, at the same time kicking out of his stirrups. He made a flying leap at the man intent on doing them harm. The two figures went down together, landing beneath the flying hooves of two panicky horses.

  Colt felt the bay’s shod foot strike him hard in the area of his right kidney. The pain paralyzed him, until Trace screamed at him to roll left.

  “Left,” Trace yelled a second time before he, too, waded in to shove aside the heavy horses.

  Colt realized too late that he had rolled in the wrong direction. Now he tried locking his arms around the person whose boots were doing him serious damage. He’d be damned if he’d let the joker escape. Colt curled into a protective ball while doing his level best to hang on. Suddenly, he began rolling down an embankment. He couldn’t stop, and the linked pair rolled too fast and too far.

  Only when Colt had tumbled through sharp-edged wild rye grass and banged against a low-growing thicket of prickly sage was he able to end their wild slide.

  He tried to extricate himself from the prickly shrub. In the dark, he wasn’t doing such a good job of it. His right side from the hip down had gone numb from the blow rendered by the iron horseshoe. The guy he’d tackled gave him no help whatsoever. He grunted and bucked like a mule until Colt connected a jab to his assailant’s stomach. The short, stocky body dropped.

  Huffing and puffing, Trace side-slipped down the incline to help Colt drag a now-subdued quarry out of the bushes. They heard a low moan, so at least they knew Colt hadn’t killed the jerk.

  The moon shifted enough to give him and Trace a clearer look at their prey, who wore standard co
wboy gear—jeans, boots and a thick wool pea jacket.

  “Summer? My God!” Colt’s boot heels slid as he bent and tried to assist her to her feet. “I hit you. I’m sorry! I thought you were one of the thieves…”

  In the moonlight he could see her eyes, confused and disoriented as she attempted to focus first on one man, then the other. Batting Colt’s hand away, she slowly straightened. All at once, she sprang from a crouch and delivered a roundhouse punch to Colt’s jaw. “Where’s my bull?” she demanded, sailing after him as Colt staggered back in surprise, clapping a hand to his face.

  “Hold on now,” he sputtered, warding off her subsequent wild swings. “Trace and I are on your team, remember? Stop this minute, Mrs. Marsh,” Colt ordered roughly, just as Summer’s feet slid out from under her and she went down still swinging, landing solidly on her butt.

  He extended a hand, which she again struck aside. He sighed. “It’s tough to see clearly out here, but I drive into the Forked Lightning after picking Tracey Jackson up at the airport. A long drive, I might add,” he said, sounding testy. “The house and barns were ablaze with light. Virgil met us and told us what’s been going on. Trace and I thought you might need our help. Did I hurt you when I hit you?”

  “No. I’m okay. But darn it, Coltrane.” She tried, again unsuccessfully, to stand.

  Tracey stooped to lift Summer by an elbow. “Is this my new boss?” he asked smoothly. Once she was steady on her feet, the young man whipped off his hat. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. I was just following Coltrane’s orders. I hope you don’t think I make a habit of heaving my bosses down ravines.”

  “Tracey, cool it.” Colt retrieved his Stetson and Summer’s hat, too, before anyone said another word.

  She accepted the hat, seeming to have regained her balance at last. “I could’ve shot you both,” she said. “I would have if my rifle stock hadn’t caught in the scabbard. Next time, announce yourselves.” She extended a shaking hand to Tracey. “Nice meeting you. I hope you don’t assume I make a habit of trying to shoot my employees.”