Meg Lennox held out one hand, offering a palmful of sweet
feed to the balky gelding showing her his hindquarters.
Behind her back she clutched the rope attached to the halter
hung off her shoulder. The way the horse had reacted to her
previous attempts to catch him, she might as well have been
throwing a rattlesnake around his neck.
The chestnut lashed his tail. He wasn't easily fooled.
"Quiet now." She chirruped, shaking her palm like a
gambler with hot dice. "Don't you want your dinner?"
Sloop's ears flicked back and forth. His head turned as if
he might be persuaded, but the one visible eye rolled with
suspicion, showing a white rim.
She stood still, even though the temptation to sidle closer
was strong. The horse was almost within touching distance,
the closest she'd come to catching him during their
half-hour battle of wills.
"Hey, Sloop. Good fella. There's nothing to be afraid
of. Don't run away."
Don't run away? The words pinched Meg's conscience.
She'd always been good at running away.
She gazed past the fence and the weather-worn barn
to the rolling pastures of Wild River Ranch. It was early
October in Treetop, Wyoming, and the rich grassy greens of
summer had faded to tan and ochre. The upright stands of
high-country aspen marched up the foothills in golden epaulets.
She'd loved the ranch, but not her life here. Ten years ago,
at barely eighteen, she'd left behind her home and
contentious relationship with her gruff, uncaring father.
Forever, she'd thought.
But in all the years she'd searched, she hadn't been able to
find the good life she'd expected. When times had gotten
really tough, she'd instinctively fled back to Wyoming. To
the ranch. Even though it hadn't been home for a long time,
even in her heart.
Especially in her heart.
Meg turned her sigh into another crooning overture to Sloop.
Some days, her hopes for the ranch—and
herself—seemed as unattainable as the stubborn gelding.
She'd returned too late. Both parents were dead, the land
neglected. Her prospects were as bleak as the metallic-gray sky.
But I'm home at last, even if it's only half a home.
That's something.
She chirruped again. "Sloop. Please let me catch you.
It's gonna rain."
The horse didn't mind being out in the rain, but she hadn't
hammered and nailed the box stalls into shape for her own
amusement. Renny and Caprice were already inside, pulling at
the hay nets, their grain long gone. Only Sloop was being
stubborn. His owner had warned her that the horse could be
hard to catch. Meg had been certain she'd have no trouble.
Once upon a time, she'd had a reputation for being good with
horses.
Sloop swung around, his nostrils fluttering. The delayed
dinnertime was finally getting to him.
She opened her hand. The feed was moist and fragrant in her
palm. "There you go," she soothed him. "One more
step and you're mine, you ornery old rat-tailed nag."
Ears twitching, the horse extended his nose to inhale the
grain. She raised her other hand to his neck, sliding the
halter rope across his flaxen mane.
She was just reaching around to catch it into a loose lasso
when a truck burst around the bend, frame rattling, gears
grinding. The flock of starlings that had been pecking along
the fence line rose suddenly. Sloop flung up his head and
wheeled away with a snort.
Meg threw the halter on the ground. "Dammit!"
She strode to the fence, calling a surly "What do you
want?" at the driver of the pickup truck.
The door opened. A man stepped out. "Is that any way to
greet an old friend?"
Meg stopped with one leg slung over the top railing.
Everything inside her had seized into one tight, hard lump.
Her shock felt an awful lot like pain.
The voice was deeper, rougher. But she recognized it, even
if the face and physique were a stranger's.
Rio Carefoot.
Her first love. The boy whose life she'd carelessly ruined
on the night she ran away.
The man she'd most dreaded facing up to, even ahead of her dad.
Meg dropped back down into the dirt, keeping the fence
between them. As if Rio had any chance of getting close to
her. She'd wrapped barbed wire around her heart.
"Rio," she said flatly. "You're not supposed to
be in Treetop."
"Neither are you."
"I've been back since July."
"Three days for me."
Meg grabbed the fence rail to steady herself. She didn't
want Rio to know how badly she was thrown. "What brings
you here?"
He glanced away. "My mother's still around."
She understood the underlying implication. "Around"
meant living in as a housekeeper for William Walker Stone on
his multimillion-dollar spread east of town. Any Treetopper
asked would have said that Rio returning to the Stone ranch
was about as likely as Meg coming back to her father's place.
Well, look at them now. There must be some fine skating in hell.
"I heard that," she said. He was glowering. Still
holding a grudge? "But I meant here. Wild
River."
"You wrote an ad. Help Wanted."
The classified ad for a stablehand had been running in the
Treetop Weekly for the past month. She'd had two
applicants, a kid who could only work after school, and the
town drunk who had a history of holding odd jobs only long
enough to fund his next bender. She'd taken the kid's number.
Rio rested his hands on his hips, face turned to follow
Sloop, who was prancing at the far end of the pasture. Rio
wore jeans and a chambray shirt beneath a new-looking
leather jacket lined in fleece. The black hair she'd once
braided down his back barely reached his collar. He'd filled
out some during the past decade, but the weight was all
broad shoulders and lean, hard muscle. He'd be twenty-nine
now. One year older than herself. Only one, yet even when
they were kids he'd been the wiser and nobler one. He'd
already known that love could mean sacrifice.
She still hadn't looked into his eyes. Her gaze was fixed
somewhere near his left shoulder.
Rio's Adam's apple bobbed. "Room and board, the ad said,
plus a small salary."
"You're applying for the job?"
"You're shocked."
"What—" She bit the inside of her lip. "My
dad passed away. It's just me here now."
"So I heard."
"Right. Even though I swore I'd never return." With
all the fervor of a hot-blooded teenager who had no idea of
how rough life could really get.
Rio's eyes narrowed. "Why did you?"
"I had nowhere else to go," she said before she
could stop herself. Rio didn't have to know that she'd
retreated here, a failure. If he realized how barren her
life had become, he might get the idea that she was looking
for more than help with the horses.
He nodded perfunctorily. "I know what that's like."
Meg could sympathize. While her dad had been a hard,
emotionless man with no idea how to raise a daughter, Rio's
father had never even acknowledged him. Of course he'd
understand what it felt like to be homeless. Her
estrangement had been her own choice.
She cleared her throat, hoping to keep the shaki-ness out of
her voice. "You've been in the army all this time."
"Yeah. Until five weeks ago."
He'd been deployed to heavy action in Afghanistan several
times, she'd heard around town. There were old acquaintances
eager to fill her in. Stop-lossed the last time, they'd
said, called back to action just when he'd thought he was
out for good. His mother had been devastated.
Meg's eyes squeezed shut. My fault.
She certainly owed him a job, at the least. Why he'd want
work as a stable hand was a mystery she'd have to consider
later. Right now, the prospect of having Rio live on the
ranch with her was almost incomprehensible. Only in a small,
hidden place deep inside had she ever considered seeing him
again. Making it up to him.
She wasn't ready for any of that.
"I don't think it's going to work out," she said.
The part-time kid would have to do.
Rio didn't question her. He moved along the fence. Sloop had
stopped showing off and was watching them with his head hung
low, his ribs bellowing. The bucket of grain she'd been
using to lure him was parked nearby.
"How many horses?" Rio asked.
"Just three." Her training and boarding business
wasn't off to a flying start. "But I've got two more
coming to board for the winter—" maybe
"—and I thought I'd pick up a few green
prospects at the fall auction in Laramie. Work with them
through the winter, sell for a profit in the spring."
Rio shed his jacket. "Make you a bet."
"What?" Once she'd have taken up any challenge, but
she'd lived in Vegas the past six years. Wagering was a
losing game.
"If I can get that horse into the barn within ten
minutes, you'll hire me on a trial basis." He didn't
wait for her assent, just climbed the fence and picked up
the bucket and the halter. He coiled the rope neatly,
watching her out of the corner of his eye. Much like the
stubborn chestnut, except his whites barely showed.
Rio had dark eyes, a deep midnight blue that was nearly
black. Her reflection in them used to make her feel
beautiful, though the girl she'd seen in the mirror had been
anything but.
Meg looked at her grimy hands. She wiped them on her equally
grimy sweatshirt. "His name's Sloop."
Rio didn't play coy. He walked directly to the gelding,
cutting a swath through the fawn-colored field. She heard
him murmuring—a soft, velvety sound that brought back
memories of teenage trysts in the tight, enclosed space of
his pickup truck. Lying together in the cool grass by the
river. Their bodies tangled and wet in the hot golden light
of the haymow.
She closed her eyes. They'd been sixteen and seventeen. Too
young to know that they were playing with fire.
"Sloop," Rio said softly, making her look again. He
might as well have said sweet, the way he used to
when he kissed her.
The horse's ears were on a swivel, flicking back and forth.
He'd thrown up his head. His flanks quivered as Rio
approached. But he didn't move.
Rio held out the bucket. Sloop lunged for it. The halter
went on so fast the feat seemed almost a sleight of hand.
"That was no fair," Meg called. "I wore him down
for you."
Rio's sandpaper chuckle drifted across the pasture. "You
ought to know, Meggie Jo. All's fair in love and war."
She flinched. She hadn't been called Meggie Jo in a very
long time. Only her mom and Rio had been allowed to use the
nickname, though her father had often said Margaret
Jolene Lennox in his most forbidding tone, when he'd
been calling her to his study for another dressing down.
Rio rubbed a hand along the horse's neck, giving Sloop a
moment with the grain before he took the bucket. Meg got her
emotions in check and went to push the corral gate open
wider, then the Dutch door to the box stall, even though
both were already ajar.
Rio, living on her ranch. That couldn't possibly work.
But why not? First she could make it clear that she wasn't
looking for any sort of romantic reunion, and then she could
make amends. If that even mattered anymore, so many years
after she'd made a wreck of both their lives.
Rio led Sloop into the stall. The horse was docile now that
he'd been caught, nickering hello to his sta-blemates, then
nudging his nose at Meg to prod her into fetching his feed.
She ran her hand along the gelding's flank, moving slowly
only because Rio stood on the horse's other side and
suddenly the stall seemed smaller than before.
He looked at her over the chestnut's withers. "Flashy
horse. Registered?"
"AQHA." American Quarter Horse Association.
"Bonny Bar's Windrunner, which somehow got translated
into the stable name Sloop. He belongs to a woman from town.
She's a beginner, but she hopes to show him next summer. I'm
going to work with them till then."
"Look at me, Meg."
Her throat ached. "I can't."
"I'm only me."
"It's been ten years and then some."
"We've both changed. But I still know you. You know me,
too."
She met his eyes. A searing heat sliced through her, the arc
of a flaming arrow. She pictured Rio, bare chested, bronzed
and beautiful as he pulled back the bowstring.
She forced out the words. "That's why it won't work."
"Or why it will."
She was afraid of that, too.
"Why do you want this job? It's nothing. Not challenging
or rewarding. Hardly any pay. And isolated."
"Exactly what I'm looking for. See, it's the room and
board that's valuable to me. I can do the work easily and
still have time for… other things."
"Like what?"
The horse shifted between them, curving his neck around to
nuzzle at Meg.
"That's personal," Rio said.
She eyed him.
"Nothing sinister," he said. "Just a project I'm
working on."
"All right, if that's the way you want it." She
ducked beneath Sloop's neck and took the bucket from Rio.
His fingers brushed against hers, but she jerked away,
trying to make it look as though she'd only been moving
toward the stall door.