Montana Gold. Genell Dellin

Controlling her mind. Then she took a deep, long breath and glanced at the dog again. His eyes were still closed.

      “Don’t you die on me, you scruffy mutt,” she said, in her growly, tough voice. “I’ve got too much money tied up in you now.”

      He didn’t make a move. He was getting weaker.

      She pushed that thought away and tried to decide, instead, what she could do that she hadn’t already done. She’d offered him a half-dozen different dog foods or more and he’d turned his nose up at them all. Same with the cat food. Same with the high-dollar kind of kibble this doctor had tried. Farrell had brought a sample bag of it with her, though, hoping that if she added warm water to make a gravy, he might take a bite. Surely once he ate anything at all, he’d keep on eating.

      Driving as fast as the speed limit allowed, she set her mind on all the rescued animals she’d saved in the past. Most of them had lived and had found good homes, thanks to Carlie.

      “And you will, too,” she told the dog. “You’re going to eat this food as soon as we get to the hotel. I promise, you’re going to love it.”

      He had darn well better love it. Now she had two big veterinary bills on her credit card—one for the battery of tests this veterinarian had given him and one for the splint and the sewing up of the cut in that little Texas town the morning after she found him.

      “I guess I’ll have to learn to ride bulls instead of fight them,” she said to the oblivious dog. “I need to win a bunch of money.”

      She would make a bunch of money one of these days. She’d get more and more of a reputation and a dozen companies would want to sponsor her and she’d get lots of publicity and then she’d open a bullfighting school for all the wannabes out there. She’d be in commercials and put up a fancy Web site selling her DVDs and tapes and books and showing the schedule for the clinics she would give. She wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore.

      That was the way she should be thinking. No way could she afford to let this dog or her dreams of a family in the future distract her from her work or make her feel that old fear and helplessness. No way.

      She was a bullfighter. She fought bulls. She never had to feel helpless again.

      “Okay, so you’re not going to die on me,” she told the white-trimmed gray Husky. “Think about this, mister: I’ve got so much invested in you that if you do, I’ll have to stuff you and put you in the back window of my truck. You’ll be on the road forever and never be offered so much as a stale dog biscuit.”

      He twitched an ear and raised only his eyelids, barely enough to let his eyes meet hers through the wire door of the new carrier. His nose stayed on his paws.

      A horn blared and she stomped on the brake just in time to stop before she ran Missy Jo’s truck through a yellow light rapidly turned to red. Foot firmly on the brake, she gazed at Kodi again, staring as if she could look through his eyes and into his brain.

      “Only a few more minutes ’til dinner,” she said. “You’ll eat like you’re starving. Which you are.”

      Another honking horn. She turned her attention to the road. But Missy Jo’s voice drowned out every other thought that came to her.

      Take him to a shelter, Elle. Don’t let him die on your hands or you’ll mourn for him for weeks and I’ll have to listen to it. I told you he was too far gone.

      Elle used her formidable focusing skills to get back to the positive once more. If M.J.’s words were true, the first veterinarian she’d seen would’ve told her Kodi had to be put down. Even the one she saw today didn’t say that. So there was still time.

      “She’s just jealous,” Elle teased, putting a smile in her voice to see if Kodi would respond to that. “She’s afraid you’re going to be better-looking than Aussie when you’re all healed up, Kodi. That’s the whole deal, right there.”

      Kodi lifted his head a little and she thought she saw the tiniest trace of a smile. There. That was proof. Positive thinking was going to do the trick. It would affect the dog’s attitude, too.

      Elle drove on down the road in her generous friend’s new truck. Anything Missy Jo had was hers, and that was no lie. She was wonderful and Elle would always love her for many reasons, but even more because she was a true friend. She’d lifted Elle’s spirits after Derek divorced her and had given her a whole new lease on life with her generous, steadfast loyalty. No matter what she said, she meant well. She was only trying to keep Elle from being hurt again by this dog’s death.

      Carlie was another true friend. She’d call Carlie for advice as soon as she got Kodiak settled in the room. She absolutely could not turn this dog over to anybody else. She, Farrell Hawthorne, had to save him or let him die with her trying to save him.

      Carlie knew that and Missy Jo did, too. M.J. knew she’d been wasting her breath this morning. Those two women understood Elle, and they were probably the only two human beings in the world who did. They might try to talk her out of this dog because she already had several rescued mutts at Carlie’s place, plus horses and a couple of ponies and a mule and a raccoon, but they didn’t really mean it. The argument was like a ritual that they all had to go through every time Elle took on another stray.

      Elle had gathered up all the animals she could find for years now and she’d decided that that compulsion, like the fear, was the result of her childhood. Most of the pets she’d had as a kid had belonged to whatever ranch her family lived on at the time and had to be left behind when her daddy changed jobs. She could let them go to good homes, yes, she didn’t have trouble with that. Just as long as she’d rescued them first.

      The hotel loomed up sooner than Elle expected, but she managed to maneuver through the traffic to pull into its parking lot before she passed it by. She drove as close to the door as she could, which was not close at all, parked the truck, went around to unload the carrier and the sack of dog food, locked the doors and headed in.

      The carrier was so big it was awkward to manage with one hand, so she tucked the food under one arm and used both hands for the dog. That worked fine until she got to the big glass door, which was not automatic.

      She set the dog down, pulled on the door, and held it open while she scooted the carrier through it with her foot, trying to be gentle so as not to make Kodi’s wounds hurt any more than they already did. The sack of dog food slid away from her and hit the floor.

      “Bummer,” somebody said behind her.

      It was a kid carrying two big duffel bags. He stepped up, held the door open with his foot and his shoulder, threw his bags past Elle into the lobby, and picked up the dog food. Once they were both inside, he stopped and grinned at her over the dog carrier, holding the sack of dog food in one hand and hooking his other thumb in his belt. Very cool.

      “Hey,” he said.

      “Thanks,” she said.

      But he made no move to hand her the dog food. Instead, he said, “Where’s your boyfriend?”

      She stared into his bony, very young face. His smile was crooked and cute. His raised eyebrows flirted with her.

      It startled her so much she grinned back at him. He was a baby.

      He wore a wide-brimmed, battered, black felt hat with a long feather tucked into the band in the style some of the rough-stock riders liked. Some of them were still in their teens. But not this far back in their teens.

      She might’ve been looking for a distraction but she didn’t have time for this.

      “Don’t you know I’m old enough to be your mother?”

      Not quite, since he had to be fourteen or fifteen and she was twenty-four, but still.

      “No prob,” he said. “I like older women.”

      “Persistence won’t help you,” she said, keeping her tone firm. She held the carrier in