With her breath held, Clementine willed her body into a slow rotation. At least she should see the face of the man who was going to shoot her, look in his eyes and appear brave. She backed up a step, bumping into the gate behind her.
Then she laughed, mostly with relief and a little hysteria.
“Well, well, well,” Clem said, addressing the beautiful brown horse. “Where did you come from?”
The she looked at the empty saddle on the horse’s back and asked, “And where is your rider?”
SPITTING DUST. The only thing Dexter Scott hated worse than spitting dust was walking, and thanks to his newest horse, he was doing just that. He searched for the gelding. Tall, ornery, milk-chocolate with a white star between his eyes. There was nothing fitting that description within sight. Dex slapped the seat of his jeans, ignoring the billow of fine, red desert dirt, then slowly tested his shoulder. Pain shot through his rotator cuff, but he continued to flex the joint. The stabbing subsided slightly, which meant it wasn’t dislocated again.
Thank God for that.
Spitting dust and walking was bad enough; another dislocation would turn the beautiful morning into a darn right ugly day. Now, where the hell was his hat? His eyes looked for it. And where the hell were Randy and Ryan? They said they’d be right behind him.
More than likely, they’d gone right back to their bunks. It was their off season. The Miller twins had just come off a torturous three-month chase that had taken its toll. Last night, as they sat in the living room of the old Victorian that Dexter’s Uncle Grubb had left him and his sister, Joanna, telling him stories about the job, Dexter couldn’t tell whether or not he missed the life. Ten years of chasing cows had been enough. Still, he’d had to fight down the twinges of envy as Randy and Ryan had embellished their exploits.
Five years ago, he’d have been right in the mix, they’d all been in the mix—Joanna, Randy, Ryan, Ben and Jody Thorton and their son, Mike. But nothing stayed the same. Nothing. Joanna was dead. Ben and Jody had gotten a divorce after Jody’d taken Mike and moved out. Ben had quit the life, just so he could have a shot at joint custody. Randy and Ryan had moved on to other jobs. And Dexter had just stayed put. The days after they’d buried Joanna had somehow slipped into months, months into years. He hadn’t realized what a hermit he’d become until Randy’s flamingo-pink truck had rattled down his deserted road, dust blowing behind the rear tires.
Dexter had spent most of the past three years building up a stable of horses, training them to track and hold wild cows. Part of his success had come from his ability to buy low and sell high. He spent a lot of time scouring the western states, looking for good stock considered “unsalvageable,” ruined by inexperience or plain abuse. To Dexter Scott, no horse was unsalvageable.
Take for example this new horse. He’d driven to Nevada to purchase him after getting a tip off the Internet. Even neglected and underweight, this horse had been magnificent—energetic, alive in ways Dexter would never be again. The horse held promise, perfect for a cowboy who needed a good work horse and who understood the symbiotic relationship between man and beast—if, of course, the horse ever learned to accept a rider for any length of time.
Dexter frowned as he swiveled his arm again, trying to keep it from stiffening up. New Horse, as Randy referred to him, had shown a lot of progress in the past two months. He’d gained weight, and his dull coat was starting to turn glossy. He’d actually nickered in greeting when Dex had arrived this morning, politely accepting the carrot chunk he’d offered. This had prompted Dexter to saddle him up. When the horse carried the saddle in circles around the corral, following Dexter wherever he went, Dexter took this as a good sign. The next step was to get on. And surprise of surprise, New Horse allowed that and even responded properly to the pressure applied to his ribs. Dexter was feeling pretty good about his student as a glorious dawn broke over the desert.
But once out of the safety of the corral, with miles of dry foothills around him, New Horse got a big fat F in deportment. Dex spat out some gravel-like chunks and then ran his tongue over his teeth, hoping that wasn’t actually a filling or worse, part of a tooth. He hated dental work more than he hated walking. His jaw ached, but he supposed that was because New Horse had just sent him tumbling head over ass.
Damn. The desert was still. Dex found himself a rock and sat on it as his tongue continued its exploration around his teeth, carefully probing for any sharp, stabbing pain. So far, his teeth were the only intact parts of his body. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. It’d been broken more times than he could remember. His ribs had been cracked an equal number of times, his leg broken in two places twice. Fractured bones were part of the job description. But this was the first tumble he’d taken since before Joanna’s accid—since before he’d retired.
Dexter shook off the onslaught of feelings that he hadn’t invited and didn’t want to stay. He thought instead of the Miller brothers, who were a party in and of themselves. They radiated fun and irreverence—Randy, the elder brother by four and a half minutes, especially.
Randy’s heart was as big as his voice. Dexter still could hear Ryan’s laughter last night as he defended himself from Randy’s mock attacks with his malletlike fists. How long had it been since they’d all laughed like that? Afterward Randy had brought out his sketches. He suffered—although he would never use that word—from a rare form of color blindness, causing him to see the world in shades of gray. It was that very disability that made him so effective when chasing cows, because he looked for movement and shape, not color.
The color blindness also enabled him to produce the most compelling western art Dexter had ever seen. Randy could bench-press three hundred pounds, but then sketch in pen and ink the most delicate, heartrending portraits of cowboy life. Even though his artwork supported his lifestyle, Randy considered himself a dabbler, not an artist.
The sketches had made Dexter miss the life. They made him think there was much more to living than this desert. He stared in the direction of the main house. It was a heck of a long walk back. Up the small brown hills that obscured his vision of the ranch and down through the pass. Not a bit of water to be found. He flexed his shoulders, trying to ignore the pain that stabbed at his collarbone.
He gazed down at the brown dust on his boots, the heels worn down as were his spurs. They’d been silver at one time, but now had the dull look of well-used stainless steel. Suddenly, familiar hoofbeats made him perk up. New Horse had come to his senses and returned! Dex watched the distant cloud of dust advance. He knew that the horse had it in him. With training New Horse would become one of his best—
Who the hell was riding him?
The fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled as Dex watched the horse that threw him not an hour ago approach, the legs of his rider dangling on either sides. The brown horse remained steady in his trot, his mane glittering in the sunlight, unperturbed by the flapping stirrups.
Dexter swallowed hard.
This rider rode well, the skill apparent as New Horse slid down some crumbling red slate. How many times had he seen Joanna ride and skid only to recover and laugh at what she called a “cheap thrill”? The rider held herself in the same way, had the same tilt of the head. Impossible. He’d watched Randy pull Joanna’s lifeless body out from under her horse. He’d touched her ice-cold hand.
The rider slowed so they wouldn’t spray Dexter with dust and gravel. Dexter squinted up, from his rock unwilling to look into the face of the rider, unwilling to take the chance that it might be Joanna.
“Hey” was the best greeting he could muster.
“Lost your hat?” the rider asked, her voice clear and feminine.
“I THINK THIS IS YOURS.” Clementine Wells offered the cowboy the sweat-stained gray hat she’d picked up along the trail. When she’d seen the empty saddle, she’d known there was either an angry or a dead cowboy out there somewhere. It was okay if he was angry, but it would do her no good if the man she’d