Montana Gold. Genell Dellin

get Shane to the hotel, get some food into him, let him rave on about his mother and Chase and their big lie until he got it all out of his system and then he’d talk him into going back to Andie Lee where he belonged.

      He could put him on a plane to Helena in the morning. He’d have to miss the poker game tonight, and he wouldn’t get a chance to call Elle, but that couldn’t be helped because there was no way he was turning the kid loose in this town. Or any other town.

      If Shane fell off the wagon, Chase sure as hell wasn’t going to let it be on his watch.

      Shane started talking again as soon as they were both in the car. Something about Blue.

      Chase interrupted him. “Does your mother know where you are?”

      Shane shook his head.

      “Got your phone?”

      Shane nodded.

      “Use it.”

      Shane glared, then arched up from his seat and snatched his phone from his front pocket. He dialed fast, as if the keys burned his finger.

      His mother answered instantly.

      “I’m with Dad,” he snarled. “I’m gonna live with him.”

      Chase could hear Andie Lee’s voice, much louder than usual. It held a mix of equal parts fear, relief, frustration and anger.

      “Forget that. You’re too young—”

      Shane snapped the phone closed on the rest of her protest.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      ELLE GRIPPED THE steering wheel with both hands, hard, as if this fresh wind of fear were about to blow her away. She hated feeling scared. She hated it.

      But she was afraid that this dog wouldn’t live and she was afraid she’d make the wrong decision the next time she was with Chase—which she might not have to worry about, since he hadn’t even called her. She hated to admit it, since it was life or death for the dog, but the thing with Chase scared her more.

      In a way, that was life or death for her.

      What she needed was a performance tonight so she could quit thinking and just be there, face-to-face with the bulls. That was when she felt the most alive in every cell of her body and life was so blessedly simple. All she had to do was live in the moment and act on instinct. Nothin’ to think about, no decisions to make. Just let go and feel, because if a bullfighter stopped to think about the right reaction to a bull’s move, it was already too late.

      Every move you made tonight was exactly right.

      She could still hear Chase saying that and see him looking her in the eye while he did. Not every guy would’ve been that generous, especially not after he’d criticized her in Austin.

      And not any guy could make her feel what he’d made her feel.

      At least up to the point when M.J. came in and interrupted them. The scary thing was that now Elle was afraid to find out if that would have been true the whole way.

      If the answer was no, she might as well give up hope. Until last night, she couldn’t imagine that she, Elle Hawthorne, could actually feel pleasure—so much pleasure. No other man had been able to make her feel a thing.

      How could Chase have that kind of power?

      Maybe lots of men had it and she just didn’t know. She hadn’t tried enough of them, maybe. Before Derek, she’d stayed away from sex for a long, long time. And even though her need to see if she could be a whole, normal woman was one of the reasons she’d broken up her marriage to Derek, she actually hadn’t been very courageous about getting out and finding her answer. Her divorce had been final for two years and she’d only dated Tim and Matt. One a year.

      And until Chase came along, she really had almost decided just to let the whole matter slide. She was happy, she had work she loved. Why mess with that?

      Memories picked at the edges of her mind, poked into her thoughts like shards of smoked glass, broken and jagged, lessened by the years but still there. Still there. The relentless sweaty hand covering her mouth until she bit her own lip. The cruel unending pressure of the knees against her hips.

      But Chase wasn’t like that. Somehow, he just wasn’t. She couldn’t put a name to how he was different but being with him had somehow eased her up another notch out of the despair.

      Now the question was, did she really have the guts to sleep with Chase and find out if his magic touch would carry her all the way?

      This had to be something really special between them. Didn’t it? Especially if Missy Jo had sensed the attraction when they came back from the dance floor?

      Poor Missy Jo. She’d been so upset with herself for coming back to the room at the wrong time, when she liked to think she was Cupid’s helper.

      Elle dragged her mind away from the one problem to glance at the other.

      The dog looked so lethargic that a new stab of fear went through her.

      She tried to push it away by remembering what Carlie always told her: You’re only human, so you can’t save them all. Yet with this pitiful, broken animal looking up at her out of mismatched blue and brown eyes, even thinking those words seemed like a death knell instead of a comfort.

      Elle watched the street signs and the traffic and tried to think about something, anything, besides this dog and Chase Lomax. She sat up straight, shook her head to clear it, and rolled the passenger-side window down for more fresh air. This was stupid. Why, even with these two predicaments, should she feel such holes in her defenses?

      It had been months and months—no, probably more like years—since she’d had the dream of being smothered that used to wake her sweating in the night. Long ago. That was in the past and it was going to stay there. She’d whipped the fear for good the first time she’d fought a bull.

      But now, for no good reason, here she was in broad daylight with her chest so tight she could hardly take a breath. No way. No way would she even think about it. Whatever happened to this dog was meant to be.

      And she’d take the same attitude toward Chase. If she saw him around the hotel, or if he called her, she would see what move he made and react on instinct, the way she did with the bulls.

      For half her life, she’d had to fight the fear dragon and she’d killed it. That was where she was right now: still standing with her foot on its neck and her blade through its heart.

      She lifted the switch on the door, rolled up the window again and punched the accelerator when the light turned green. She tried to hum along with some tuneless song on the radio while she gave herself the same lecture she’d used since she’d found some self-help books in the school library at fourteen.

      You’re a positive person, Farrell. That’s your nature. You like to have fun. You like to laugh. So do it. The human mind can only think of one thing at a time and you can decide what that thing is. Don’t let the negative thoughts in. Think about something else.

      But what came to her immediately was another worry, the money worry. She looked at the now-sparkling clean dog with his nose on his front paws. Lying in his new large-sized carrier on the passenger seat of Missy Jo’s truck. The carrier had put more of a burden on her credit card and then the veterinarian’s fee had nearly maxed it out.

      “She ran every test in the book on you, Kodi,” Elle said. “Nothing else is wrong with you. But if you want your leg and your shoulder to heal, you have to eat.”

      Kodi closed his eyes.

      “You’re malnourished,” she said. “You know you’re hungry. Why won’t you eat?”

      Trouble was, he had no reserves. A few more days with no food and he’d be history. At least he was still drinking water.

      She