Her Last Chance. Deanna Talcott

nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “You know, ma’am, I can’t quite get a handle on what you’re looking for.”

      “Oh, I’ll know it when I see it,” she said, her voice rising with conviction.

      “You sure you didn’t get this Bar C stock mixed up with something else you saw out in California?” he said doubtfully.

      “Certainly not.”

      “But there’s been nothing that’s interested you at all today,” he complained, wearily glancing to the west, to the setting sun.

      “I just haven’t found it yet. I’m looking for something special,” she reiterated. “Something unusual and spunky. It can be less than perfect, but the overall qualities have to be so unique that they make this horse an unforgettable animal. A different kind of horse. Something not of this world.”

      Chase didn’t hear the last sentence. He was thinking of Peggy Sue, the pariah who had head-butted him against the wall this morning. Now, there was an unforgettable animal for you. The four-year-old was more than unique, she was a minefield of imperfections—and he’d be switched if he’d show Mallory that contrary little mare.

      His reputation would go to hell in a handbasket. He’d be a laughingstock from one end of the country to the other. No matter what, he had to keep her away from Peggy Sue. “We’ll find you something special, Mallory. I guarantee it.”

      Chapter Three

      With her hands in six inches of dishwater, Mallory stared dismally out the kitchen window, at the bloodred sunset, and wondered if the animal Bob Llewelyn described to her—the one with “mustang” blood running through its veins—honestly did exist. She couldn’t come right out and ask, for fear her questions would arouse suspicion. Had Bob been toying with her? Had he sent her on what Americans called ‘a wild-goose chase’?

      It had been three grueling days, and Chase had shown her more than two dozen Morgans. Not one of those animals was the one she wanted to see. She’d hinted that she might purchase three docile animals for the camp—but that was just to keep Chase pacified.

      As for buying a horse for her father—or returning it to her father’s estate—she was running out of excuses. And Chase was running out of patience.

      Of course, her stay wasn’t all bad, she acknowledged, running the tip of her finger around the rim of Chase’s coffee cup and reminding herself how his sensuous mouth had pressed against the rim only an hour earlier.

      The steam from his coffee softened his rough-carved features and made his gray eyes go misty. For one heart-stopping moment during dinner tonight, she lost herself to that gaze. Chase Wells did have the most fascinating way of looking at her over a coffee cup, of following her every move with his eyes. Eyes that crinkled at the corners, and eased up into companionable crescents when he was relaxed. It was an intimacy unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

      Not even in the most romantic setting, nor over the most expensive bottle of wine.

      She vaguely wondered if that feeling was…desire. If so, she’d have to put a stop to it. She couldn’t afford to become emotionally attached. Not now. Not when she was this close to getting what she wanted.

      She heard the back door slam and looked over her shoulder. Chase’s face was contorted with pain, and he had a handkerchief wadded against the back of his hand. Mallory dropped the coffee cup back into the dishwater and grabbed a tea towel.

      “What did you do?” she asked, moving toward him.

      Chase looked up, apparently surprised she was still in the kitchen. “Oh, I…um—” he grimaced, peeling the bloody handkerchief away from his hand “—got my hand caught in one of the stall doors. Stupid of me.”

      Mallory blinked.

      Again?

      Chase Wells may have been one of the most ruggedly handsome men she’d ever met, but he was also one of the clumsiest. Yesterday, he tripped over a feed bucket and twisted his ankle. The day before he got tangled in a loose cinch strap and caught his shoulder on the tack-room door.

      His house was a virtual potpourri of medical supplies. She was constantly moving gauze bandages, Ace bandages, ice packs, heating pads, iodine and antiseptics out of the way.

      “Let me see,” she said, peering down at the damage. “You did this in a door?” she asked skeptically.

      “Oh…uh…one of the horses got a little feisty, is all. We both went for the door at the same time.”

      “Looks like the horse won,” she said dryly, her fingers carefully circling thick bones in his wrist as she led him over to the double sink. “We better wash it off and get some antiseptic,” she advised, automatically turning on the faucet and putting his hand beneath the running water. The warmth of his flesh and the icy-cold rush of water aroused a strange sensation in her middle.

      “I’m fine. It’s just a little old scrape,” he groused, resisting her ministrations.

      She looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

      “I know. But—”

      “Yes?”

      “I don’t need a nursemaid,” he ground out.

      Mallory paused and imperceptibly pulled back. “Oh, really?” He winced as she went right ahead and examined his four scraped knuckles and the deep, ragged scratches. Without offering one nuance of sympathy, she reached for the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured a generous amount over his wounds. “Then I promise not to,” she said, leaving him to drip dry in the sink as she went to find the gauze bandages.

      When she returned, he was staring thoughtfully at the tepid dishwater in the other side of the sink. “You weren’t washing dishes, were you?”

      “As a matter of fact, yes.” She patted his hand dry with the hand towel before slathering ointment on his scrapes. “I consider it a fair exchange for dinner.”

      “Right. I’ll bet you’ve never had meat loaf in your whole life.”

      Her lips twitched, and she tried not to laugh. She gently wound a length of gauze over his knuckles, but she could feel his eyes on her and it was disconcerting. “No,” she said finally, “I was raised on escargot, lobster with drawn butter and roast duck with orange sauce.”

      “Figures.”

      Sighing, she rolled her eyes, then tied off the bandage and tossed the gauze on the counter. “You don’t like me very much, do you.”

      “Not true. I think you’re the nicest little millionaire—or is that millionairess?—I’ve ever met.”

      She looked at him. “Chase,” she said finally, her hand fluttering to his arm, “is it really the money? Does it make you uncomfortable?”

      Chase’s mouth went dry. He fumbled with a dozen different answers. None of them would do. The fact was Mallory had been nothing but pleasant. She laughed and the world smiled. She touched him and his heart yammered in his chest.

      He looked down at the hand across his forearm.

      He couldn’t tell her that was how she made him feel. This constant yammering, whenever she was near, whenever he heard her voice or her laugh.

      “I suppose I owe you an apology. Maybe I’m a little inexperienced handling someone of your caliber.”

      Mallory’s eyes widened in mock horror. “Handling my…caliber? That does have something to do with guns, doesn’t it? I’m not that explosive, am I?”

      Chase’s mouth curled. “Honey, you are one pistol packin’ mama.”

      “What?”

      “An expression,” he said quickly.