Montana Red. Genell Dellin

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      PRAISE FOR

      GENELL DELLIN’S

      “MONTANA” SERIES

      “Dellin makes rodeo athletes come alive in this

      modern-day western romance.” —Booklist on Montana Gold

      “Sure to please her innumerable fans.”

      —Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Montana Blue

      “Dellin gives her readers a real taste of the west.”

      —Booklist on Montana Blue

      “A fine contemporary tale…

      Fans of Big Sky romances driven by the characters will want to read Montana Blue.” —The Best Reviews

       Also available by Genell Dellin

      MONTANA GOLD

      MONTANA BLUE

      MONTANA

      Red

      GENELL DELLIN

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      For my sisters, Linda and Bonnie, who share

      my loving memories of the two funniest and best grandpas any girls ever knew.

      Homer Grady Gill and Newton Theodore Smith

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Thank you to all the activists, writers,

      photographers, scientists, filmmakers, organisations and individuals who have contributed to our awareness, understanding and preservation of America’s wild horses.

      Dear Reader,

      The most emotional environmental issue in America is wild horses. Since the late 1800s the question has been whether to love or hate them, slaughter or protect them, and that’s still true today. When, in researching this book, I found that two of my acquaintances, both lifelong horsemen and ranchers, consider them useless, it shouldn’t have shocked me. The prevailing attitude since the late 1800s has been that letting wild horses graze is a waste of grass that should be used for cattle who feed people.

      But wild horses feed our spirits. The sight of a band of wild horses running against a sunset sky with manes and tails flying, or a lone stallion standing on top of a mountain cliff with head up to smell the wind, wary, proud and self-sufficient, stirs the blood. Knowing they survive by growing hard, hard hooves and eating snow for water and instinctively spreading their grazing pressure over what rough terrain they are permitted to keep and by huddling together for warmth and watching for danger together lifts the human heart. Connecting with their primal selves, shaped by the land itself, warms our souls.

      The Plains Indians, when they first saw horses, called them “medicine dogs.” This is even more true of wild horses because their very wildness makes them our healers. I hope you find medicine in Montana Red.

      All best,

       Genell Dellin

      IN WILDNESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF

      THE WORLD. —Henry David Thoreau

       CHAPTER ONE

      STEALING A HORSE scared her wildly, much more than she’d imagined it would—which must’ve been at least a hundred times just today.

      Nothing was happening as she’d expected. Ariel didn’t nicker a greeting and the security lights weren’t shining much farther inside than the doorway and, even if they were, sweat was running into her eyes, stinging them so badly she couldn’t see. Clea squinted into the narrow cone of light emanating from the tiny flashlight she wore around her neck and then took another step.

      She couldn’t breathe. And not just because the humidity was niney-nine percent. It was a bold, hard job, this horse-thieving business.

      What had Brock been thinking, building a barn with no airconditioning? She couldn’t imagine that, either. People would be saying he was cutting corners, in financial trouble. Brock’s image was what drove him.

      Clea wiped her eyes with her bare fingertips and moved deeper into the black of the aisle, straining to see the horses, flashing the torch from side to side to check each one as she passed. If only Ariel were a white! Or a palomino or a gray. Pray God she was still here.

      If she wasn’t, Clea’d probably just break down and cry, after going through all this. She missed Ari like crazy.

      More than that, she had to have her back. Somehow, being partners with Ariel was what had given her the guts to finally get the divorce she should’ve gotten three years ago.

      Scared gave way to mad again, in the endless back-and-forth game of emotions playing with her. Suddenly, she wished Brock would catch her. Come on, Brockie. Look out the window and see my little light. Come on down here and tell me I can’t take my own horse. Let me practice my new self-defense skills. Hey, Brock!

      Something metal fell, clanging like the bells of hell, to the concrete floor.

      Clea hit the off switch on her light and slammed her back against a stall wall. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even pray. She just wished to go right through the wall behind her to hide inside with whatever horse was in there. The one kicking the side of the stall. Twice, and then he quit, thank goodness, or he might have lamed himself and it’d have been her fault.

      Not to mention that he might draw somebody’s attention.

      Or they all would. The whole population of the barn was stirred up now.

      Time—who knew how long?—passed until she heard only a few mutterings and rustlings and a couple of thumping buckets from horses hoping that the excitement meant breakfast. The ringing noise must’ve come from the narrow feed room she’d passed on the way in. Maybe a scoop or a lid. Maybe a rat or a mouse. Or a cat.

      Her breathing slowed and she used every intuition she had but she didn’t sense another person’s presence. Evidently, neither did the horses.

      Oddly enough, the scare sort of calmed her down. In a weird, insane way it was as if the worst were over now.

      She flashed her little light from stall to stall, found the crooked white star in the black face. Finally.

      “Thank God.” Clea barely breathed the words but the mare heard and nickered to her. Quietly, as if she knew this had to be a clandestine operation. Clea crossed the aisle in three long steps, reached for the halter hanging from the wire mesh wall with one hand and slipped the door latch free with the other. Inside, quick as thought, she cupped her hand over the mare’s muzzle, stroking it for a second, whispering in her ear. Ariel had to be…her one true friend.

      The pumping adrenaline was making Clea’s arms shake but her icy fingers managed to get the halter on and the strap pulled through the buckle. Once she’d led her out—Ari quiet and cooperating as if they’d planned this escape together—Clea took the time to close and fasten the stall door so that, at first glance in the morning, everything would look normal. Every minute she could buy herself was another mile down the road.

      Although, now that she had her mare on a lead in her hand, she could kill anybody who tried to take her away. She had another flash of a fleeting fantasy that that somebody might be Brock and…

       Enough foolishness. Get out of here.

      The other horses were mostly quiet as she and Ari paraded past them, the mare’s shoes clinking on the concrete. The smell of fly spray from the automated system burned her lungs and made her want