Authors: Patti Berg
“Well, that’s a relief.” Cros swigged down the rest of his drink, his eyes narrowing as a new thought hit him. “What about that Vegas showgirl? Lauren’s sister-in-law?” Cros rubbed his fingers over his grizzled beard. “I caught an eyeful of her when she got here this afternoon. Now there’s a woman who could get a rise out of a man.”
Mike hadn’t thought about Charity Wilde in a year. Well, maybe she had crossed his mind a time or two, especially after he’d heard the woman would be staying at the ranch for a week.
Call it blasphemy, but Mike had a feeling the long-legged beauty could raise the dead.
And he was going to stay far, far away from her. It had taken him six years to accept the fact that— no matter what he wanted or needed—he was going to spend the rest of his life alone. He didn’t need or want to stare temptation in the face.
“I’m not interested in Charity Wilde.”
“Yeah? Well, I seen you ogling her at Lauren’s wedding, and you sure as hell looked interested then.”
“She’s a showgirl and I’m a minister. Ain’t no way the two of us could ever fit together, even if I was interested.”
Crosby
shook his head. “You make too damn many excuses. Plumbing’s plumbing, boy. The way I see it, what you got and what she’s got could fit together right nicely, given half a chance.”
Mike wasn’t about to touch that bit of wisdom and thankfully Crosby didn’t offer any more. Apparently Cros figured his words were wasted on a minister, so he dumped another healthy inch of whiskey into his glass and limped back to his recliner, ending their conversation by turning the sound up extra loud on the wrestling match.
Again Mike concentrated on the window, watching for Satan, but seeing a vision of Charity Wilde instead.
He hadn’t ogled her at Lauren’s wedding, he just hadn’t been able to take his eyes off the woman’s man-killer body. But he hadn’t been alone. Every man and most of the women at the reception had watched her. She must have stood six-foot-two or -three in the spiked heels she’d been wearing, and he’d never seen a dress so tight, not to mention so short, so red, or so low-cut, showing off every delectable attribute of her sleek and shapely body.
Charity Wilde was temptation personified, a woman who could easily beguile a man with her sparkling hazel eyes and luscious lips. Oh, yeah, he remembered her lips and her hips and her legs.
And then there were her breasts. More than a handful. Firm. Round. A whole lot of her firm round breasts had been spilling out of her barely-there dress.
He definitely remembered her breasts.
Charity Wilde made him think erotic thoughts no minister in his right mind should be thinking.
For sanity’s sake, he had to stay away from her. The woman was far too wild for any man, especially for a man who’d sworn off women and relationships and sex.
Besides, he already had his hands full with one creature that needed to be tamed.
Nowhere wasn’t half as bad as Charity
had expected. It was flat, barren, and freeze-your-fanny-off cold, but at night you could see the stars. Millions upon millions of stars. They didn’t exist in Las Vegas, not the celestial kind, anyway. They were obscured by dazzling neon lights and skyscraping hotels.
Until tonight, Charity had almost forgotten what real stars looked like; for the longest time, she’d thought they only appeared on stage—the place she longed to see her own star shine.
Someday.
Wrapping a soft wool scarf tightly about her neck, she buried her chin into its comforting warmth and slipped away from the ranch house, the heavy boots Sam Remington had loaned her crunching through the slush as she made her way toward the barn and one of the corrals.
Her fingers itched to hold a pair of leather reins, to take a midnight ride on the spirited dappled-gray stallion she’d seen earlier in the day. But the corral was empty now.
As she brushed frost off the top rail and sat atop the paddock, the memory of her first midnight ride came back to her.
The weather at summer camp was so darn hot, that she’d snuck out of her cabin in the middle of the night, saddled a lively mare and rode down to the lake for a quick skinny-dip. But she’d gotten caught.
Her father’s face was red with anger when he arrived at the camp the next day. He’d lectured— not for the first time, of course, because Marine Corps Chaplain Jedediah Mattingly loved to lecture—repeatedly telling her that he didn’t appreciate having to leave his work or having to drive seventy-two miles through the desert to pick her up. And then came the lecture about her willfulness and her propensity for getting in trouble.
From the all too familiar look on her dad’s face, she’d known there would never be another trip to camp.
And there hadn’t been.
Chaplain Mattingly had a mission in life. He fully intended to save the sinners of the world. To his dismay, the one sinner he couldn’t save was his adopted daughter, no matter how hard he tried.
It wasn’t his fault. She hadn’t wanted to be saved; she’d just wanted to dance, sing, and exchange her mundane life for a good time in Vegas. In spite of recent events, there had been a lot of good times and there would definitely be more; she refused to dwell on the bad.
The high pitch of a horse’s neigh and the pawing of hooves against the frigid earth interrupted her thoughts. She listened intently, her head jerking toward the barn where she thought the sound had come from. Had a coyote gotten inside? Was something else disturbing the horses? She jumped down from the railing, missing a mud puddle by inches, and cautiously peered inside the dimly lit barn.
A tall, broad buckskin with an uncinched saddle on his back looked up at her for a moment, then went back to his peaceful grazing on a pile of hay. There were soft stirrings from the other stalls, but no sign at all of a frightened horse.
Back outside she again climbed the corral and looked out across the snow-dusted prairie but saw nothing. No horses. No coyote. No antelope. Only sagebrush, outbuildings, and endless miles of flat, moonlit land.
But once more she heard the whinny. Heard the crunch of gravel. And then she saw it. The massive stallion she’d seen earlier peered around the corner of the barn. Its dark brown eyes were wary, and as the horse inched out of its hiding place she got a better look at its sleek, dark gray body mottled with white hair and a shaggy black mane that almost shimmered in the moonlight.
She wondered if the horse had escaped from the barn or from one of the outlying pastures. She wondered if something had spooked the creature, because its eyes were wide and panicky as it stared at her.
“Come here, boy.” She held her hand out, coaxing the beast toward her. “I won’t hurt you.” The animal reared up on his hind legs, a vision of overwhelming strength, and when his front hooves hit the ground, she could feel the vibration through the soles of her boots.
Hmmm, a show of power
. Typical male, wanting her to know he wasn’t afraid of her or any woman, that he was merely out for something he thought she could provide.
“I don’t have any carrots or apples.” She held her gloved palms upright so he could check them out. “Of course, you don’t look like the carrot or apple type. What do you prefer? Sugar? A pretty little filly?”
He pawed the ground with one front hoof.
“So”—she laughed—“you like the ladies.” Definitely a typical male.
With her hands still stretched before her, the horse took a few cautious steps forward. Something was worrying him, in spite of his burst of bravado.
“What are you afraid of?” She kept her voice low. Calm. “Being fenced in? Someone tossing a rope around your neck?”
His nostrils flared as he studied her, guarded, obviously distrustful of human beings.
Charity leaned casually against the corral, thinking the stallion might come closer if she gave him time to realize she wasn’t a threat. Minutes seemed to tick by as she stood silent and still, her only movement the calm rise and fall of her chest. Then, ever so slowly, the animal came within inches of her, his hot breath fogging the air. He was scared, but far too curious to leave.
For the first time, she noticed the scars on his back and sides. Horrendous, jagged scars that slashed every which way across his hide. Had he been beaten by his owner? Were they scars won during battle with other horses?
She wanted to touch him, to show hurt what gentleness could be. “I won’t hurt you,” she said, taking a short step away from the corral, moving her hand toward the animal’s muzzle. Frightened, the horse jerked its head, but Charity didn’t back away. “Easy, boy.”
He stilled and at last allowed her to touch him. His coat was cool, shaggy, and thick to keep him warm in the below-freezing winters that were so much a part of this country. He trembled beneath her fingers, but he didn’t run, didn’t pull away.
“I’ve got the feeling you don’t belong here,” she whispered, curving her palm gently over the animal’s jaw.
“You’re right,” came a man’s voice from the darkness, a deep, velvety voice that made the horse lurch. “Take your hand off Satan and back away slowly. He’s as wild as they come and if you make the wrong move, there’s no telling what he might do.”
The man’s words didn’t frighten her any more than the horse. In spite of his caution, she wasn’t about to back away after spending so much time winning Satan’s confidence.
“Thanks for the warning, but Satan and I are getting along just fine.” She smoothed her hand over Satan’s neck and chest, even when he twisted around to glare at the man stepping into the light shining down from the barn.
Charity glared at the man, too. “He’s not going to cause any trouble unless
you
get too close.”
The cowboy’s face was nearly obscured by a black hat tilted low on his brow and the upturned collar of his sheepskin coat, but she could almost feel the iciness of his glare, chilling her in a way the frigid air couldn’t. It was obvious he didn’t like disobedience; and she was making it clear right off the bat that she didn’t like to take orders, especially from strangers. She refused to be controlled ever again.
The cowboy took a slow step toward her. “He could kill you quite easily if he decided to rear again and accidentally clipped you with his hoof.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
The stranger shook his head, but it wasn’t his frustration that bothered her, it was the way he fingered the knot on the heavy rope he was holding.
“He’s giving you a false sense of security,” the man said. “But don’t let him fool you. He doesn’t like people.”
“What he doesn’t like is the thought of being tied up.”
“You know that after you’ve been here all of what... six hours?”
It was one thing having him keep tabs on the horses, but she didn’t like him keeping tabs on her. “I’ve been here most of the day, not that it’s any of your business.”
“I run this place. Everything that goes on here is my business. If you get killed, it’ll be on my hands not to mention my conscience.”
“There’s no need for you to worry about me. I’ve spent a lot of time around horses.” No need to tell him it had just been those few days at camp. “I’ve been on my own a long time, too, and I know perfectly well how to take care of myself.”
He laughed cynically. “Okay, so you’re tough. Is that supposed to make you an expert on wild horses?”
“He came to me, not you. Obviously there’s something about me that he likes and something about you that rubs him the wrong way. I’m no expert,” she said, aiming her eyes at the man’s gloved hands, “but I’d say it all has to do with that rope you’re holding.”
“He doesn’t like corrals and no he doesn’t like ropes, but he took two mares away from here tonight. Two mares I’ve got to get back, and the only way I’m going to do that is if you move out of the way and let me get this rope around him.”
“Why don’t you just let him go? See if he leads you to the mares?”
“Because I’ve been chasing him for more years than I can count. Because he’d lead me straight to Purgatory if he could.” The man was getting angry and the loop he was building was getting bigger and bigger by the second. “I’ve got a perfect shot at Satan right now, so do me a favor—move out of the way.”
She really didn’t like being ordered around. And she didn’t like the thought of the stallion being roped and penned up, especially when it was wild.
Oh, no. Wild things were meant to be free
.
It was probably one of the most insane things she’d ever done—and she’d done a lot of foolish things—but she twisted her fingers through Satan’s shaggy mane and with all the grace and agility of a born dancer, threw her long leg over the mustang’s back.
The stallion reared, his angry cry ripping through the still night air.
She’d made a mistake. A big one.
The horse started to buck, and she clasped her arms tightly about its neck. Satan twisted and turned and tried like hell to get her off his back, but she wasn’t about to get thrown, not into the steel railings of the corral.
“You trying to kill yourself?” She heard the man’s angered shout, but she couldn’t see his face, couldn’t even yell for help, because Satan tore across the prairie as if the hounds of hell were at his back.
“Damn fool woman!” Mike muttered under his breath as he raced for his horse, a golden brown buckskin with black points—his mane, tail, and legs—grazing on the hay he’d tossed on the barn floor hours before. Tightening the cinch, he swung into the saddle and took off after the woman.
A few hours ago he’d told himself that Charity Wilde would be trouble if he got too close to her, and his reasoning had never been more correct. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sworn, but he had the feeling the showgirl was going to be his ruin.
The frigid air bit at his face as he sped across the prairie, but his anger kept him warm. He had ledgers to go over, a sermon to write, and the last thing he wanted to do at
But if Charity Wilde thought she could outrun him, she was dead wrong.
Buck seemed to have gotten a second wind and was sprinting over the frozen ground, skirting sagebrush, rocks, and prairie dog holes with ease, as if he was on a well-groomed racetrack. They were gaining on Satan and the woman, so close now that Mike could see Charity’s heavy braid and her wool scarf flying behind her, could see her legs clenched against the stallion’s sides, just as her arms wrapped tightly about his neck.
As much as her arrogance and foolhardiness annoyed him, he couldn’t help but appreciate the way she rode. Butt tight against Satan’s back. Not much bounce. She looked fine from behind. Real fine. There weren’t many women who could race a horse bareback, without means of a bridle or even a lead rein. And never in his life had he seen a woman—or a man for that matter—stay on a wild stallion for more than a handful of seconds.
How much longer could she hold on? The woman was maddening—sexy and beautiful, but infuriating just the same. Still, he didn’t want her hurt, and Satan could throw her at any moment.
He’d been right when he’d told Charity the mustang was dangerous. He’d seen Satan in battle, had seen the stallion kick, and bite, and run off other stallions if they got too close to his harem. There was no telling what the devil was capable of doing—and Mike didn’t want the beast doing anything that could hurt the first person who’d ever climbed on his back.
They were working their way to the edge of a butte that dropped abruptly into a dried up riverbed. It could be dangerous getting close to Satan, but Mike had no other choice. He had to get Charity off of the stallion’s back.
He dug his heels into Buck’s flanks and the horse bound forward, moving to Satan’s right side, trying to ward the mustang away from the rocky ravine. He was near enough now that he could see fear in Charity’s eyes, but even through the veil of fright he saw excitement.
The crazy woman was enjoying herself.
Suddenly she disappeared from his line of vision. Buck had raced forward, but Satan had come to a dead stop, trying to outsmart him. Mike spun his mount around just in time to see the stallion rear, its front hooves beating against the air as if he were doing battle with some unseen force.