Wild Mustang. Jane Toombs

the wild horses close-up.

      As they neared the road, she counted five mares, the stallion, two yearlings, and one foal, doing its best to keep up. Two mares, one a pinto, one a chestnut, looked to be pregnant and, if she wasn’t mistaken, the spotted mare, now lagging behind the stallion, was lame. The rest of the herd seemed healthy.

      The lead mare crossed directly in front of the parked car, the other mustangs following her. Laura caught her breath in admiration of their grace and beauty.

      Last was the spotted mare who, Laura now saw, definitely limped. The lame mare was almost across the road when a green pickup zoomed into sight, boom box throbbing. Without slowing, the truck roared past. The startled mare lurched ahead, colliding with the foal and knocking it off its feet.

      When Laura saw the baby horse was having trouble getting back up, she flung herself from the car and dashed across the road to try to help. Was the foal injured? She hoped it was nothing serious.

      Her attention fixed on the foal, Laura paid no attention to the other mustangs who’d gone on ahead. She hadn’t quite reached the foal when it managed to struggle to its feet unaided, so she stopped, resisting the impulse to touch the baby. She wasn’t here to interfere.

      A high-pitched angry scream from behind her made her whirl. Horrified, she stared at the charging, black stallion. He must have decided she was a threat to his harem and circled back without her noticing. Fear froze her—he’d cut her off from her car, and there was no other safe place in sight.

      Hooves thrummed from behind her. Before she could move, she found herself grabbed, hoisted into the air, and deposited facedown across a rider’s lap like a sack of potatoes, whooshing the breath from her lungs.

      As he urged his gray gelding away from the mustangs, Shane Bearclaw kicked him into a gallop to get away from the roused stallion as fast as possible.

      “Stupid,” he muttered, meaning it for the blond woman he’d rescued. “Could’ve been killed.”

      When he reached the rise where he’d been when he first noticed her get out of her car, he reined in Cloud and looked to see if the black stallion had calmed down. The herd was moving off, away from the rise. Reaching down, he pulled up the blonde, so she more or less sat on his lap.

      “You figure this was a good day to die?” he growled.

      She stared at him from frightened eyes as blue as Lake Tahoe, holding her body stiffly away from him. Serve her right to be scared. She’d sure as hell scared the devil out of him.

      “The mustangs are wild, and the word means what it says,” he told her. “Wild stallions are dangerous. Anybody with sense doesn’t go near them.”

      “Let me down.” Her voice quavered so badly he had trouble making out her words.

      “Not unless you promise to get up behind me until I get you to your car. I have no intention of trusting you until I see you get in and drive away. My rodeo days are long gone—I’m not up to trying that trick twice in one day.”

      He found himself wishing those spectacular blue eyes didn’t look so fearful. “Hey, it’s over,” he said, in softer tones, suddenly aware that no matter how foolish she might have been, he was holding a very pretty blonde on his lap.

      “I’m Shane Bearclaw,” he said, realizing he wanted to know who she was.

      Laura looked into the dark eyes of this stranger who held her far too close to him. His long black hair was tied back, revealing a strong-featured face. In a way, he reminded her of the stallion who’d threatened her. She found Shane Bearclaw equally threatening.

      “Laura Walker,” she managed to say. “I was coming to meet you at your ranch. And, yes, I’d much prefer to be seated behind you.”

      This was not the greatest of beginnings as far as she was concerned. Her fear of him was beginning to abate, leaving in its place an edgy awareness of him as a man. That, she could do without.

      He offered a one-sided grin as he slid off the gray. “So you’re the semi-Fed in person.”

      “The what?” she asked as she eased back until she was behind the saddle.

      He remounted. “Anyone who arrives on the reservation with the Fed’s blessing.”

      “I have a federal grant, but I’m not otherwise connected in any way with the government.” Indignation threaded through her words.

      A shrug told her that he intended to go on thinking of her as he darn well pleased. Deciding she’d delayed far too long in demanding to be taken back to her car, she remedied that in crisp tones.

      “If you’ll drop me off at my car, I’ll meet you at your ranch, and we can then discuss how I can best meet my objectives with your help.”

      Without a word, he urged his horse into motion, and she found holding onto him was almost as intimate as sitting on his lap. But it was either hang on or fall off.

      What seemed like long minutes later, he halted the gray by her car, slid off, and helped her down. “How good are your directions?” he asked. “The ranch isn’t on a main road.”

      “Sketchy,” she admitted, stepping away from him.

      He rattled off his own version of how to get there.

      She nodded and got into the car. Watching him ride away, she realized he was a superb horseman and belatedly remembered that she’d forgotten to thank him for rescuing her. No wonder. No sooner had she gotten her breath back from being suddenly flung onto a horse, when she’d found herself sitting on a strange man’s lap.

      Laura had thought her uneasiness around men was under control, but she hadn’t anticipated such an intimate confrontation as she’d had with Shane Bear-claw. And this was the man she’d be working with over the next month or so. A take-charge macho-type who wouldn’t equate brains with women.

      Learn to reserve judgment. Laura could almost hear her therapist’s voice. Men are not all the same.

      Maybe not. Maybe that big brute on the horse hadn’t been trying to intimidate her. But it certainly felt that way.

      “Tenderfoot,” Shane muttered to himself as he rode back to the ranch. Laura Walker, slim and fragile-looking, didn’t strike him as a woman who’d be a happy camper out on the range.

      He’d cooperate as promised, but he hoped her mustang studies, whatever they were, wouldn’t take long. He had enough problems without shepherding a greenhorn around—the major one being his fear of losing his custody battle.

      “You know I prefer leaving a child in the home she’s accustomed to,” Judge Rankin had told him last week. “But, face it, Shane, there’s no woman in your household. The child’s father has remarried and he and his wife offer a stable environment for the little girl.”

      “The ranch is a good environment,” Shane had protested, deliberately misunderstanding.

      Judge Rankin had given him a level look. “If you were married, I’d have no problem.”

      Shane pressed the gelding into a lope. Married? Not a hope. Not ever again. He’d sworn off it.

      After driving along several unmarked gravel roads, Laura pulled into the small oasis surrounding the Bearclaw ranch house. Her brother had told her the desert soil was fertile, all it needed was water and anything would grow. The greenery around the house proved him right. Besides the flowering shrubs near the house foundation, massive cottonwoods shaded the long, low building, testifying to how long people had lived in this spot.

      As she left the car, she saw the neat green rows of a fenced-in vegetable garden. Otherwise the yard was left as the desert intended, with no lawn for water to be wasted on. Outbuildings in back included a barn with an attached corral. The house itself was adobe brick with a tile roof.

      Before she reached the front door, it opened and a dark-haired girl of about nine or ten stood framed in the doorway.