by Lisa Jackson
“So he wasn’t stolen after all?”
“Oh, he was stolen, all right. Whoever took him decided to put him back.”
“That’s crazy!”
Colton tugged thoughtfully on his lower lip. “Maybe they were running scared.”
“You think.”
“I wasn’t here, but Curtis is convinced the same thing happened last year.”
“Curtis could be wrong.”
“I doubt it. Someone ‘borrowed’ the horse—either for free stud fees or just to get under my skin. Anyway, it won’t happen again.”
“Why not?”
One side of his mouth lifted, and he snapped the towel from around his neck. “I’ll show you. Just give me a minute.”
“You don’t have to . . .” But he had turned, disappearing into the house.
Cassie waited, listening to the sound of his retreating steps and feeling like a fool. She’d raced over here fully intent on giving Colton a little of his own back. But seeing him stripped to the waist and beardless, she’d been nearly tongue-tied, and the fire that had propelled her over here had been doused by the water of bittersweet memories.
Fingering the rail surrounding the porch, she told herself she should leave, that being alone with him was doing more damage than good, but she didn’t want to take the coward’s way out. Just as anger had forced her over here, pride kept her from running away.
At the sound of his returning footsteps, she stiffened.
“Okay, let’s go,” Colton said, striding across the porch. He was stuffing his wounded arm through the rolled sleeves of a loose blue work shirt. He winced at the effort while the tails of the shirt flapped in the breeze.
“Go where?”
“I thought you’d like to see what all the fuss was about.” Before she could protest, he took her hand, led her down the porch and around the side of the house.
“Maybe I should just go.”
“I don’t think so. You came over here to bait me, didn’t you?”
“I thought you might apologize.”
“Apologize?” he repeated, then laughed. “For what?”
“Let’s start with accusing my dad of being a horse thief!”
“The jury’s still out on that one.”
She yanked hard on her hand, but his fingers only tightened. “You’re out of your mind!”
“So you keep saying.”
He was walking so fast, she had to half run to keep up with him. Her black denim skirt billowed, the soles of her boots crunched on the gravel. They crossed the yard and headed straight for the stables. Colton shouldered open the door and pulled Cassie into a darkened interior filled with the scent of horses and dust, oil and leather. Stallions snorted and rustled in stalls as they passed, but Colton didn’t stop until they came to an end stall.
She recognized Black Magic instantly. Denver’s prize quarter horse stallion was the most famous horse in the county—possibly the state. Magic’s glossy coat gleamed almost blue beneath the lights, and his only marking, a jagged white blaze, slashed crookedly down his nose.
“This is Black Magic,” Colton said grandly, dropping Cassie’s hand and eyeing the horse as if he didn’t much care for him.
“We’ve met before.” Cassie couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“Well, take a good hard look at him, Cass. Because no one on the ranch has laid a hand on him since he got back.”
“So?”
“So how do you explain that a horse who was supposed to have been wandering around the ranch in the hills for the better part of a week is in such good shape? Shouldn’t he be filthy? It’s been raining and yet he hardly has any mud on his coat. And he’s obviously not starving. In fact,” Colton said, nodding to himself, “I’d say Magic here looks better now than when he was taken.”
“Which proves someone took him to use him as a sire,” she mocked, blowing a loose strand of hair from her eyes.
“Bingo!”
“But that doesn’t wash, Colton. Even if your theory were true—and I’m not saying it is—the thief couldn’t claim that your horse was the sire to any of his foals. They wouldn’t be any more valuable. So what would be the point?”
“Better offspring. And you’re wrong about the value.” Colton slid a knowing glance her way. “What’s the name of your father’s best stud?”
“Devil Dancer.”
“And is he a black horse?”
“Yes, but—”
“Just suppose that Devil Dancer’s foals turn out to be the best horses you’ve ever raised. Better than you expected. Better than both the sire and the dam. Not only would the foals be worth more, but Devil Dancer’s stud fees would go up.”
Cassie almost laughed out loud. The idea was too absurd. “You’re really reaching, McLean,” she challenged, shaking her head. “Why would anyone, especially Dad, go to all the trouble?” She saw his eyes darken, and she knew. The feud. Of course. Always the feud. “I thought I already told you that what happened in the past is over, Colt,” she said, unable to let the subject drop.
“Is it?” His gaze moved from the horse to her, insolently sliding from her crown to her toes. Suddenly the dimly lit barn seemed intimate and sultry, warmer than it had been.
“Of course.”
“Then why’re you here?” He leaned one of his hips against the stall door, waiting.
“Two reasons,” she said, feeling a ridiculous need for honesty. The musty room seemed to close in on her, and she shifted her eyes away from Colton. “First, and I’ll admit it, I wanted to gloat.”
From the corner of her eye she noticed that one of his dark brows was cocked in interest.
Her pulse leaped crazily. Coming here was a mistake, a serious mistake. She knew that now, but she was trapped, and in all honesty she didn’t know if she would run from him if she could. “Believe it or not, Colton, you bring out the worst in me. You came storming over to my house, ranting and raving, parking your backside in the middle of my kitchen, claiming that my father had done you dirt. And I wanted to see how you’d like it if the tables were turned.” She clenched her fingers around the top rail of Black Magic’s stall. Suddenly self-conscious, she thrust her hands into her skirt.
“And the other reason,” he prodded, his voice low.
“The other reason.” She licked her lips and plunged on. “It’s time everyone forgot there ever was a feud and buried the past.” She tilted her face up mutinously and met the questions in his eyes with the cool fury in hers.
“Tell that to your father.”
“My father had nothing to do—” she started before his hard brown hand caught her wrist.
“Drop it, Cass,” he suggested, gray eyes blazing.
“What’s gotten into you?”
He gritted his teeth. He wanted to tell her. Oh, God, how he wanted to tell her that she’d gotten to him again despite all those damned promises to himself. The scent of her hair, the challenge in her eyes, the thrust of her small chin all beckoned him in a primal way he detested. “I don’t want any more foul-ups, Cass,” he said, his teeth clenched, his fingers curling possessively over her small wrist.
“Meaning?”
“That I don’t want to lose Black Magic again!” He cocked his head to the stall next to the black stallion’s box, indicating the cot and sleeping bag. “And I intend to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
A dimple creased her cheek. “Dedicated, aren’t you?” she mocked.
“When I have to be.”
“Is that right?” she baited, thinking back to a time when she’d needed him and he’d abandoned her. “You couldn’t prove it by me!” She yanked her arm free and started out of the barn, away from the intimacy, away from him. She opened the door, but he caught up with her, slammed the door shut with the flat of his hand and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around. “Let go of me, Colton!” she snapped. Her back was pressed hard against the door.
“Not until you hear me out.” His voice had turned softe
r, the angle of his jaw less harsh. His stubborn gray gaze delved deep into hers. “I didn’t mean to insinuate that I didn’t care for you.”
What she read in his gaze made her sick inside. Pity. He actually pitied her! “Don’t worry about it.”
“But I do, Cass.”
“Why?”
“Because we were both young and made mistakes.”
“My only mistake was that I loved you, Colton,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm. His face was so close she could smell the lingering scent of shaving cream on his skin. “But you taught me how foolish that one emotion can be, didn’t you?”
“I never lied to you,” he reminded her.
The ache within stretched wide, hurting all over again. “You lied to me every time you held me,” she whispered, her heart shattering into a thousand pieces. “Every time you kissed me, every time you pretended to care!”
“I never pretended, Cass,” he said, the fingers on her shoulder firm but gentle, the cynicism in his eyes fading in the half light of the barn.
“Liar!” she declared, blinking rapidly, then she stumbled backward, groping for a way to escape. Being here with him, alone in the shadowy barn, was a mistake. Her feelings for him were too deep, the wound of his rejection, though eight years old, still raw and bleeding.
She found the handle and yanked hard, slipping through the narrow opening and taking in deep lungfuls of fresh air.
“This isn’t finished, Cass.” Colton’s voice, barely a whisper, reverberated through her soul.
Forcing herself to walk when her legs wanted to run, she strode to the old truck, climbed inside and turned the key with shaking fingers.
The old engine sparked to life. Cassie cranked the steering wheel and shoved the gears into reverse. She caught a glimpse of Colton standing in the doorway to the barn. Hands planted on his hips, shirttails flapping in the breeze, he glared at her. His face was set once again in a hard, impenetrable mask, his expression cold and distant.
Cassie rammed the truck into first and took off. Gravel sprayed from beneath the tires, and she didn’t dare look back in the rearview mirror—afraid that if she did, she might lose her heart all over again to a man who could change from warm to cold as quickly as the winter wind could change directions.
Chapter Six
Colton’s shoulder throbbed. After several nights of sleeping on the Army cot, his cramped muscles rebelled and he wondered if standing guard over Black Magic was worth the effort. “This is all your fault, you know,” he grumbled to the stallion, throwing wide the outside door.
Black Magic bolted out the door and tore through the rain-sodden fields, kicking and bucking beneath the gray spring skies. His ebony mane caught the wind, his tail unfurled. He seemed more colt than stallion as he raced from one end of the field to the other, whistling sharply to the horses in a nearby pasture.
“Show off,” Colton muttered, feeling a grin tug at the corners of his mouth despite his bad mood as he strode to the house.
In the kitchen Colton put on a pot of coffee, then headed upstairs. Stripping away his grimy clothes, he glanced in the mirror, then massaged his strained muscles. He stood for twenty minutes under the steamy hot spray of the shower, and slowly the ache in his shoulder subsided.
By the time he’d shaved and dressed, he felt almost human again. Almost, he thought with a grimace, his thoughts turning as they had of late, to Cassie. “Forget her,” he ordered the brooding man in the mirror, and knew it was an impossible task.
Growling to himself, he sauntered downstairs and poured himself a cup of strong coffee. Cassie’s accusations hung over him like a pall these past few days. Despite all his arguments with himself, his conscience had begun to bother him. Maybe he had been too hasty in his accusations. Perhaps he’d jumped to the wrong conclusions. Maybe, just maybe, he’d been wrong about Ivan Aldridge.
And maybe he hadn’t.
But it didn’t help to keep the old rift festering, his guilty conscience prodded. He sipped from his mug, ignored the mess that had accumulated since Denver and Tessa had left for L.A., and slapped a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. As he waited for his toast, he actually toyed with the idea of driving over to the Aldridge ranch and squaring things with Ivan. He probably owed the old man that much.
Colton didn’t believe in making excuses or kidding himself. Deep down, he knew the reason he was considering a visit to the Aldridge spread was Cassie. He wanted to see her again. It was that simple ... and that complicated.
The phone rang loudly, interrupting his thoughts. He snatched the receiver.
Denver’s voice boomed over the wires. “So you are still there,” he joked. “Tessa and I had a bet.”
“Who won?” Colton asked.
“Tessa. I thought by now you would’ve gone stir crazy.”
“Not quite,” Colton drawled, grinning to himself and gazing out the kitchen window to see Black Magic grazing near the fence. “About time I heard from you.”
“We’ve been busy.”
“Have you?” Colton couldn’t hide his sarcasm.
“Yep. But it won’t be long now. We’ll be back in less than three weeks.”
It sounded like an eternity. Restlessly Colton scraped the nail of his thumb against the wall. “I’ll try to hold it together till then.”
“Have you had any trouble?”
Colton’s eyes narrowed on Black Magic, and he considered telling his brother the truth. But what would be the point? Worrying Denver wouldn’t bring him home any quicker. In fact, it would only serve to make his brother angry and nervous. And Denver’s temper was as quick to flare as his own. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he said evasively before hanging up.
He finished his coffee, dashed the dregs down the sink, then strode outside. Clouds rumbled across the sky, and the wind had picked up, whistling through the branches of the oak and pine trees near the barns. He glanced at the Jeep, thought about driving over to see Cassie, and fought like hell to avoid that particular temptation.
Ramming his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, he took off across the yard. The rest of the day he threw himself into his work, repairing broken boards and sagging beams. As his hammer slammed nails into the wood, he tried and failed to shove Cassie Aldridge out of his mind.
* * *
“Okay, that’s it—the last of today’s walking wounded,” Sandy said, turning the lock of the front door behind a Border Collie that walked with a pronounced limp from a mending leg.
“Thank goodness!” Cassie quickly cleaned the examination room, then stripped off her lab coat and dropped it into the laundry bin.
In the back room, Craig Fulton the veterinarian she worked with, was closing the final cage on a fat gray tabby. Craig was a short man with thick brown hair, freckles and oversized features in a round face. A bachelor since his divorce three years before, Craig had offered Cassie a job as soon as she’d graduated. His clothes were always a little rumpled, and his thick wire-rimmed glasses tilted slightly to one side.
“It’s been a long one, hasn’t it?” he said with a tired smile. He’d spent most of the day driving from one ranch to another, examining sheep, cattle and horses.
“Maybe things’ll quiet down for the weekend.”
“Sure.” Craig chuckled. “Just remember, you’re on call.”
Cassie laughed. Though they took turns answering emergency calls on Saturday and Sunday, invariably they each worked part of every weekend. “I won’t forget,” she promised as she slung her jacket over her head and shouldered the door open.
Outside, rain poured from a darkening sky. Hunched against the wind, she dashed through the uneven parking lot, skirting the biggest puddles as she hurried to her white pickup. She flung open the door and started to climb inside, then pulled up short. There, slouched insolently against the worn seat on the passenger side, his legs sprawled in front of him, his wet Stetson shoved back on his head, was Colton McLean. “What’re you doing here?” she asked.<
br />
“Waiting for you.”
“Seems you’ve been doing a lot of that lately.”
“Probably too often,” he admitted, his sensual lips curved in a self-deprecating grin. “You’d better get in before you get soaked.”
She didn’t move other than to drop her shoulders. Oblivious to the rain collecting in her hair and sliding down her neck, she glared at him. “Why were you waiting for me?”
“The storm broke and I decided I’d rather be dry than wet.”
“But you can’t just climb into my truck and—”
“You don’t lock your pickup any better than you lock the back door,” he said. “Come on, get in.” He stretched, reaching across with his hand, and his eyes were surprisingly warm. “I won’t bite—I promise.”
She almost laughed. “I’m not afraid of you, Colton. Bite or not.” Ignoring his hand, she climbed into the cab and settled behind the steering wheel. “Don’t you have some horse to protect or something?” she needled. “Why, right this very minute someone could be sneaking off with Black Magic to God-only-knows where.”
His smile widened. “I guess I deserved that.”
“And more.”
“I did come on a little strong.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
Colton shoved his hat further back on his head. A dark swatch of hair fell over his brow. “I didn’t come here to argue.”
“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere,” she mocked. “Why are you here?”
“To invite you to dinner.”
“You expect me to go to dinner with you?” she asked, stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“But—”
“Look, Cass, I know I’ve been a first-class jerk,” he admitted. “But I had my reasons.”
“And now they’ve changed?”
“I thought about what you said, that’s all. The horse is back, there’s no harm done, and I”—his face changed expression and his eyes darkened a bit—“and I’d like to take you to dinner. Think of it as my way of apologizing.”
“I didn’t know you knew how.”
“Maybe I don’t. Seems I’m having one helluva time convincing you.”