Wild Mustang. Jane Toombs

ask any personal stuff, but I might forget. You won’t get mad, will you?”

      After shaking her head, Laura said, “I think maybe it’s my turn to ask questions.”

      “Cool. I don’t care if they’re personal ones.” Sage looked at her expectantly.

      After discovering who the girl’s favorite actors and singers were, Laura asked about her friends.

      “Maria and Donna are my two best friends,” Sage told her. “They live on the res, too, but not very nearby. Sometimes I mind we can’t get together oftener, but mostly I don’t. I’m sort of used to hanging out with Grandfather.” She hesitated, and then said vehemently, “I don’t ever want to move away from here. Never ever. If they try to make me move to smoggy L.A., I won’t go.”

      “Are Shane and your grandfather planning to move there?”

      Sage shook her head. “It’s my father. He got married again, and now he wants me to come and live with him and her. I don’t even know her.”

      Laura blinked. Up until now, she’d assumed Sage was Shane’s daughter.

      Looking down at the table where she traced spirals with her finger, Sage said, “Me and my mom left him when I was four ’cause he was mean to her. We came here to live with my brother Shane and Grandfather. Then she got sick and died two years ago. Shane told me I could stay at the ranch forever if I wanted. Now my father is trying to make the judge say I have to leave and go live with him.” She blinked back tears.

      Laura scooted her chair over and put an arm around the girl’s shoulders.

      “I’m scared,” Sage confessed. “I don’t remember my father too good. What if he’s still mean? I don’t want to leave Shane and Grandfather, but what if the judge makes me? Why don’t I get to say what I want?”

      Her heart touched, Laura hugged the girl closer. It sickened her to think that Sage might ever become the victim of an abusive father. She wished she could promise the girl that she’d be able to choose where she wanted to live. Impossible, when she knew nothing about the circumstances.

      The kitchen door opened, and Sage pulled away. Laura stood up and faced Shane, feeling a shock at the reality of him. When he wasn’t present, it was easier to categorize him and pretend to herself she’d be able to deal with him. Up close, she found him overwhelming.

      “Good,” he told her, his gaze flicking over her, no doubt assessing how appropriate her clothes were for riding. “We can get an early start. Hope you brought a broad-brimmed hat—at this altitude, you’ll need one to prevent sunburn.”

      Despite telling herself she intended to limit her reply to a curt nod, she found herself saying, “I’ve been in this part of Nevada before. Naturally I brought a hat. And sunscreen.”

      He was the one who gave the curt nod. “Let’s get going then.”

      Sage trailed them to the corral and shook her head over the mare Shane had chosen for Laura. “Rabbit’s for scaredy-cat beginners,” she told her brother. “I bet you never even asked Laura what kind of a rider she was.”

      Laura smiled to herself. Of course he hadn’t, being one of those men who knew best. She waited, determined not to say anything until he spoke.

      “The question isn’t how good you are,” he said to Laura, “but how long a ride you’re accustomed to.”

      “I qualify somewhere above a scaredy-cat beginner,” she said coolly, making herself stare into those dark, fathomless eyes.

      He shrugged and turned to his sister. “I suppose you want to do the picking.”

      “I sure can do better than Rabbit,” Sage told him. “How about Columbine?” She pointed to what looked to Laura like an Arabian mare, a chestnut. “That’s her name but we call her Colly.”

      Shane raised his eyebrows at Laura.

      “Colly’s beautiful,” she said. “I’d like to ride her. Arabian, isn’t she?”

      He smiled. “Some of her ancestry must have been, but she’s of mustang stock. We picked her up as a filly who’d been injured. By the time she was healthy and whole, she was too domesticated to turn loose, so we kept her. On the trail, Colly can outlast any horse we own.” His dubious glance told her he didn’t think she’d come anywhere close to Colly’s ability.

      After Cloud and Colly were saddled, Shane and Laura set off, with Sage waving from the corral.

      “I hope we’ll be able to spot the black stallion’s herd again,” Laura said after they’d ridden some time in silence. “One of his mares—a pregnant pinto—was lame. I need to get a better look at her.”

      “He’s got two pinto mares. Which one?” Shane’s words made her certain he must know every mustang in that herd.

      “If she were a cat I’d call her a calico.”

      He nodded. “I know the one. Must be a recent injury. She wasn’t lame the last time I got a good look at the herd.”

      “It was obvious yesterday.” As soon as the words were out she realized he probably hadn’t noticed the mare, being too busy coming to her rescue. The sooner she came to terms with that the better.

      “Yesterday wasn’t the greatest introduction in the world for us,” she said, facing her mistake squarely. “It was poor judgment for me not to pay closer attention to the stallion.”

      Shane had been wondering if she’d ever admit her mistake. Now that she had, he was forced to revise his estimate of her. She also sat on Colly like a pro and rode well. The question that remained was how long she could last.

      She was quiet for some time before saying, “This morning Sage told me something that keeps troubling me. Is it true her father is trying to gain custody? She seems terrified that he will.”

      The last thing Shane wanted to do was discuss his problems with a stranger, but since his sister had already hung out the family laundry, the least he could do would be to give Laura the straight facts.

      “My mother had me when she was very young. My father died when I was eighteen, and two years later, she remarried off the reservation and went to live with her husband in southern California. Sage was born there. My mother brought her back to the ranch when she was four, and the two of them never left.”

      “Sage said her father was mean,” Laura said.

      “Our mother told us that,” Shane said shortly, a muscle tightening in his jaw. From the moment his mother had come home, he’d hated Bill Jennings, the man who’d become his stepfather.

      Just as quickly, he’d come to love his little sister. The thought of Sage going to live with that man set his teeth on edge.

      “Surely no judge would force a child to live with a man known to be abusive,” Laura said, her indignation clear in her voice.

      “There’s no evidence of any abuse. When she lived with him, my mother never called the authorities, so there’s no record. And now she’s dead. The judge feels since Sage’s father has remarried, she’d benefit by having a woman to mother her.”

      Laura didn’t speak for a while. “Forgive me if I’m getting too personal,” she said at last. “I can’t help but be concerned about Sage’s future. If the judge seems to think Sage needs a woman’s influence, isn’t there someone you know that you could marry? Surely the judge wouldn’t favor moving Sage then.”

      He scowled. “Marriage is out. It’s not for me.”

      To his surprise, she nodded. “I understand because I never intend to marry myself. Still, you might come to some kind of accommodation—I suppose it might be called a marriage in name only—to satisfy the judge. Once he rules in your favor, after a time the marriage could be dissolved.”

      He started to brush off