Her Mistletoe Cowboy. Marie Ferrarella

the side.

      It was a tan compact car.

      Her car, he thought triumphantly. He’d found her, Garrett congratulated himself.

      There was no cloud of dust, big or little, coming from around it. Now that he had finally spotted it, he saw that the vehicle wasn’t moving.

      Why wasn’t it moving? he wondered in the next heartbeat. Had she run out of gas, or had the car just died?

      And then an even worse thought suddenly occurred to Garrett.

      Had the woman passed out for some reason?

      With women like his late mother, Sylvia, Miss Joan, the tart-tongued woman with the heart of gold who owned the diner, and now Debi, the nurse who had married his brother, populating his life, he was accustomed to thinking of women as inherently strong. He was used to women like Debi who rolled up her sleeves, went out and got the job done, not women who fainted at the first sign of trouble.

      From what he’d managed to gather from the editor he’d talked to, this woman from the magazine might very well fall into the latter group, not the former.

      If that was the case, whether she was spooked or had fainted, he had better get down there to her pronto. There was no telling what sort of condition this woman was in—and how that might, ultimately, reflect on the Healing Ranch.

      He knew that was a selfish thought, but when it came to Jackson, he could be as selfish as he had to be.

      The fastest way from where he was to where she was down below was straight down the hillside. It was the fastest way, but definitely not the easiest.

      “You up to this, boy?” he asked, patting his golden palomino’s neck.

      There was no question that the stallion he had raised from a foal was sure-footed, but he had never actually put Wicked to the test, at least not for more than a couple of feet.

      Garrett looked down, undecided. It was a lot more than a couple of feet between where he was and where the woman’s car was.

      “This is going to be tricky,” he said.

      The words were intended for him rather than for the horse he regarded as more than just an animal. Wicked and he had a strong bond, and the horse would push himself to the limit for him. That was just the way things were.

      At the same time, he didn’t want to do anything that just might cause the stallion to injure himself.

      “You’ve got to go nice and slow, a little bit at a time.” He spoke in a steady, firm cadence, encouraging the horse. “But you can do it.”

      Garrett was completely aware that once they started, there was no turning back, no do-overs. They could only continue on the path they were on. But he felt he had no choice, he had to try it. The woman might be hurt, which was probably why she was pulled over like that and if she was hurt, then time was important and going the other roundabout route would take him at least three times as long.

      Mentally crossing his fingers and all but holding his breath, Garrett gave Wicked the command to start down the side of the hill. The horse obeyed.

      He held on to the reins as tightly as he dared, not wanting to pull the horse back too much because he was afraid that it might cause Wicked to either grow skittish or actually rear back, neither of which would end well for them.

      What ultimately resulted was something that, to the casual observer, looked as if the horse was sliding down the hillside in slow motion, his front hooves going first, sending bits and pieces of dirt and a little grass raining down ahead of him. The same, a little less forcefully, was happening with the back hooves.

      Progress was slow and careful, but after what felt like an eternity later to Garrett, he and Wicked were on flat ground at the bottom of the hill several feet away from the parked car.

      The feeling of relief was almost dizzying. He couldn’t help wondering if Wicked felt the same way.

      “Extra lumps of sugar for you today when we get back,” Garrett promised, leaning over slightly in the saddle in order to pat the horse’s neck. Both of them, he noticed, were sweating. He felt more connected to the palomino than ever.

      “Hell, extra lumps of sugar for you for a week,” Garrett amended. “You could have sent me flying right over your head and breaking my fool neck with just one misstep,” he acknowledged with more than a little feeling. “Thanks for not doing that.” He took a breath, steadying what he realized was a ragged case of nerves. “Now let’s see what’s wrong with this tenderfoot,” he proposed to his four-footed companion.

      Still not knowing what to expect, he guided Wicked closer to the car, then dismounted. With the reins held tightly in one hand, he approached the vehicle slowly, then peered into its interior.

      Garrett was still about three feet away from the tan car when the driver’s door swung open and a petite woman in tight jeans and what looked like a suede, fringed jacket jumped out like a jack-in-the-box on a delayed timer.

      Looking at her, he couldn’t decide whether she looked terrified and was attempting to hide it, or if she was braced for a fight but undecided as to how to defend herself.

      Pressing her back against the opened driver’s side door, the woman shouted at him. “I don’t have any money on me!”

      “That’s okay,” he told her, staying put for the moment even as he raised his free hand in a gesture to reassure her. “I wasn’t going to ask you for any—and why are you yelling?”

      Maybe it was his imagination, but the woman—he had no idea that they made writers so sexy—looked a little chagrined, as well as leery. “So you can hear me.”

      “I can hear you just fine even if you lowered your voice. As a matter of fact, maybe even better,” he amended, trying to get her to smile.

      So far, it wasn’t working.

      Because Kim had absolutely no idea how to defend herself in this sort of a situation, she was forced to make it up as she went along. Why hadn’t she thought to pack her can of mace? Did mace even work on a horse if he used the horse to attack her?

      Even as she started to talk, it sounded lame to her ear. Despite the fact that she had lived her entire life in San Francisco, she had never been in a situation where she felt threatened. She’d had to come out here for that, she thought grudgingly. She was going to find a way to get even with Saunders if it was the last thing she ever did.

      “I’m not alone. I’ve got people coming,” she announced, raising her voice again as if the increased volume would bring these “people” faster—either that or scare him away.

      “Are you Kimberly?” he asked, even as he searched his brain for the last name that the editor had told him. The last name that was temporarily eluding him.

      And then he remembered.

      “Kimberly Lee?” he asked.

      The woman’s eyes widened even more. He would have found it hypnotic under any other circumstances.

      “How do you know my name?” she demanded nervously.

      He couldn’t get over how adorable she looked. Spooked, most likely feisty if her stance was any indication, but definitely adorable. He began to relax. He could work with adorable. Adorable women were his specialty.

      “Well, I could try to dazzle you with a few mysterious answers, tell you my ancestors were into reading minds—” and then he cracked a grin “—but the truth of it is, your editor told me.”

      The woman eyed him suspiciously. “Miles?” she asked.

      “No, that’s not the name he gave me. I think he said it was Stan—” Garrett searched his memory again—names were not his long suit. And, just like with her last name, he remembered. Belatedly. “Stan Saunders, that’s it.”

      How could he have forgotten that last name? he