Montana Blue. Genell Dellin

went back to staring through the windshield, one big brown hand resting easy on the steering wheel of the speeding truck as if he could rule the world with one hand tied behind him. Andie Lee couldn’t stop looking at his chiseled profile.

      The man had no earthly clue of how monumental this problem was. He didn’t know the size of the dragon he was promising to slay. The most aggravating thing about Gordon Campbell was his arrogance.

      “You might,” she said, “if Micah’s new wrangler stays around to catch him for you.”

      He turned, slowly, and gave her a long, straight look that she couldn’t read.

      Then he laughed. Gordon didn’t laugh often and when he did, it was always a shock to her.

      “You sound like Toni,” he said.

      Oh, great. On top of everything else, she was turning into her mother.

      But maybe she always had been like Toni—selfish and driven. Maybe she should never have spent all those endless hours and untold amounts of energy on veterinary school instead of pouring them out on the growing Shane.

      Gordon had a point, though. Gordon always reached his goals and Gordon always got his way. Shane’s recovery was a point of honor with him now. This wasn’t something Gordon could will into being, but he would put more effort than any stranger would into trying to get the right help for Shane. He would hire a proven professional to replace Jason and he would spare no expense.

      It didn’t matter whether his motives were selfish or not. If anyone on earth could do it, Gordon could make things happen so that Shane would recover—if Shane would cooperate.

      Gordon was a busy, busy man. He wouldn’t be around Shane all that much to talk down to him.

      And she had been half-serious in her sarcastic remark. Micah’s new hired hand might be good for Shane—if their paths could ever cross again. She could arrange that, maybe, with Micah’s help.

      What a thought! She didn’t know one thing about the big, blue-eyed Native American with the braid and the muscular shoulders. He could be an axe murderer for all she knew. Truly, she was desperate.

      Micah’s instinct for trustworthiness in human beings was usually faultless. Even though he’d been hiring a horse wrangler, not a friend or counselor for Shane, when he brought Blue to the ranch, he wouldn’t want a bad man living in his house or working with his horses.

      He had a power, Blue did. She’d felt it this morning, sitting beside him, even with her whole concentration on Shane.

      THE ROAN WAS both disrespectful and scared all over again. Whoever said that a horse, like a person, is different every day and therein lies his charm, sure knew what he was talking about. However, at the moment, nothing about Roanie brought the word charm to mind. He was thoroughly pissed after his trip to the fairgrounds.

      When Blue walked up to the fence, the horse gave him that “Go to hell” look of his. Then he turned his hindquarters to him and stood all sulled up, looking out across the valley.

      He’d been hauled way more than he liked, so he’d kicked all the way back to the ranch and fought the leadrope coming out of the trailer. Blue had left him alone in the tree-shaded pasture to relax for a while. But Blue hadn’t been able to relax, either.

      Even while he was riding some of the other horses, all he’d wanted was to get back to the roan. That was a bad sign. It was less dangerous to get attached to a horse than to people, that was for sure, but Blue needed to keep his emotions clear and his mind clear so he could truly be free and focused. An attachment to anything would get in his way.

      Probably, though, it wasn’t attachment that drew him to the colt. It was the fact that he owned him now. And the fact that he was the most challenging horse he’d ever known.

      He couldn’t let himself get attached to Shane, either. He’d only given in to Micah’s pleas about the boy because if, on some off chance he could help him, it’d be doing something positive in memory of Dannah. If. So what if the boy did offer Blue some slight respect as compared to none at all for anyone else? That wasn’t much to build on in a fight with an enemy as strong as addiction.

      He wouldn’t let the boy get him any more tangled up with Micah, or with Andie Lee or Gordon, either. One thing always led to another.

      The aggravating thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone. They were still buzzing in him right now, after they’d stirred him up so much that he skipped lunch and the break and kept working. They’d made him feel just as sour as the colt looked.

      Blue waited a little while to clear his mind and his mood, then he opened the gate and went in. As he closed it again, Roanie kicked out, so Blue took his time. The colt knew him, yes, but he didn’t fully trust him and he might not for a long time. He had a suspicious attitude that was partly natural to him and partly manufactured by the boys over at Little Creek.

      Rhythmically, slowly, Blue moved to approach and then retreat, approach and retreat so the prey animal instincts in the horse wouldn’t signal alarm. From a horse’s point of view, anything that comes at him in a straight line is behaving as a predator would.

      Roanie was making it perfectly clear that he didn’t intend to be touched again. Blue started thinking of something to use as an extension of his arm. He found a thin tree limb about three feet long and, holding it down by his side, started working his way to Roanie again. When he finally got close, he stood back the full length of it so the horse wouldn’t feel crowded.

      “I’ll just scratch your back a little,” he told him as he took hold of the leadrope with his free hand. “Remember how you like that? Remember how you like for me to rub you with the halter? With my rope?”

      He began to scratch him with the limb. Slowly, gently, along his back, over his croup, down to the hock, then up again and along the base of his mane.

      Blue watched the horse carefully and concentrated on the best spots again and again. Soon, Roanie admitted that Blue meant no harm. He let his head drop lower and allowed Blue to touch him everywhere he wanted.

      Blue replaced the stick with his hand. He could feel through his palm and through every one of his fingers that the colt was really beginning to relax, so he rubbed him all over several times.

      Then he concentrated on massaging his legs. He moved the touch on down below the knees and caressed the tendons where the legs were the most sensitive, too sensitive for the stick.

      “All I want to do today is pick up your feet,” he told the horse. “That’s all. Then I’ll let you be.”

      Gradually, finally, Blue closed everything else out of his mind and they both relaxed into the companionship they were beginning to build. He didn’t know how much time passed but, at last, the roan let him pick up all four of his feet.

      Blue whistled as he patted the sleek, warm neck again and again, then he moved to the horse’s head, unfastened the halter he’d left on him all day, and slipped it off.

      The roan rolled his eye at him and moved away at a brisk trot. Blue backed up against the fence, hooked one heel in it and leaned back to watch him as he lifted into a lope. He moved so smoothly through the shade and the sunlight that he reminded Blue of water flowing, turning his speckled hide to one liquid color. Red.

      In Cherokee lore, red was the color of victory, of success.

      The color blue meant failure, disappointment, or unsatisfied desire.

      He’d had ten unsatisfied and lonely years to wonder if his mother knew that he would fail her and disappoint her when she named him Blue.

      What made him think there was even a chance that he would help Shane after he’d failed Rose and Dannah so completely?

      FOR THE SAKE OF positive thinking, Andie Lee went for a long, hard run late that afternoon, trying to clear her head of the negative thoughts that had lived there for so long. While she ran, she reviewed the whole day in her mind, hoping to