Riding a horse was like riding a bicycle. If you fell off,
you had to get right back on again.
Backhanding the dirt from her eyes, Shannon Wyoming stuck
one booted foot into the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn
and vaulted onto one of the few horses that did not
understand that she could — and would — break him to ride.
Never mind that her backside would be black and blue,
Shannon never allowed anything to get the best of her.
For one glorious moment Shannon thought she had finally
succeeded, that Domino's stubborn spirit had broken. He
crow-hopped across the sunlit arena, all four legs stiff,
back arched higher than a Halloween cat as he bounced.
Crow-hopping was a piece of cake to an experienced trainer
like Shannon. No problem. He'd settle down in a minute.
Fifteen seconds into the ride, Domino changed tactics. His
hind legs shot out behind him and the bronc went into a
wild bucking exposition that would have unseated a rodeo
champ. When Shannon leaned back to compensate, he yanked
his head down hard, unbalancing her. One more wild
gyration and she flew off with all the projection of a
human cannonball, but with considerably less grace.
She landed facedown, the hard-packed dirt of the arena
knocking the breath from her. No belly buster from a rope
swing at Coyote Creek ever hurt this bad.
She lay there in the Texas sun with not a desire in the
world to get up, hoping breath would return before her
heart stopped. Domino, as she well knew, wouldn't come
anywhere near for a while. He was likely in the corner of
the lot, sulking.
Gnats buzzed around her ears and one pesky horsefly
threatened to add insult to injury, so she had to get up.
She sucked in a mouthful of arena dirt, then opened her
eyes. The first thing she saw was a pair of dusty, well-
worn boots — snakeskin boots — crossed at the ankle in a
posture of total relaxation. Equally worn blue jeans, made
long the way cowboys like them, bunched softly atop the
brown boots.
Great. She'd not only been thrown like a greenhorn, but
she had a witness to verify her humiliation.
Stifling an inward groan that had as much to do with her
unwanted visitor as with her state of breathlessness,
Shannon pushed up from the ground. She slapped at her
jeans and shirt, loosing a dust storm that obscured her
vision and threatened her already tortured air passages.
She wiped a dirty sleeve across her face and squinted
toward the fence rail where a cowboy leaned, indolently
watching her.
Every nerve in Shannon's body sprang to full alert. A
lightning strike would not have shocked her more.
Jackson Kane. When had he come back to Rattlesnake? And
what was he doing here, on her ranch, where he was not a
welcome guest?
He didn't look much different than he had the last time
she'd seen him, though her carefully preserved pride would
not let her go there again, even in memory. Tall and wide-
shouldered, his dark and sexy looks still did funny things
to her insides and infuriated her to the point of
rudeness. She didn't want to talk to him, even now, didn't
want to notice the way his incredibly sexy mouth wallowed
a narrow piece of straw, didn't want to notice the new age
lines around his Cajun black eyes.
But she noticed. Darn it. She noticed. "What do you want?"
She slammed her hands on her hips in a fit of annoyance.
He grinned then, slow and lazy and insolent, as if he knew
how much he affected her by showing up out of the blue
after all this time.
Taking the straw from between his teeth, he studied her
long enough to set her heart to racing and to send the
heat of a blush creeping up her neck.
He aimed the piece of straw at her, and she saw then that
what she'd thought was straw was actually a tiny lollipop.
She burst out laughing. "A Dum-Dum sucker. How
appropriate."
He pushed off the fence and strutted toward her in that
loose-hipped, rolling gait of a man who'd spent plenty of
time on a horse and was comfortable in his own skin.
Digging in his shirt pocket, he extracted another candy
and thrust it toward her. "Want one?"
She eyed the treat with suspicion. "Your idea of a peace
offering?"
"Do I need a peace offering?"
She snatched the sucker from his outstretched hand.
"It'll take more than this."
One side of his mouth kicked up and a dimple deep enough
to swim in winked at her. "Then give it back."
Like the kid she'd been when Jackson Kane had broken her
heart and left her with enough guilty regrets to last a
lifetime, Shannon ripped off the paper and shoved the
sucker into her mouth. A burst of syrupy cherry didn't do
a thing to sweeten her mood.
"Some things, once taken, can't ever be given back,
Jackson, or had you forgotten?"
Her jibe wiped the grin off his face. Good. She didn't
want him having fun at her expense. Not anymore. Because
the things she'd given him — and lost because of him —
were far too painful to joke about.
Spinning away from his disturbing presence, Shannon
searched for her hat. Domino stood in the corner near the
barn entrance, eyeing her with caution. The Texas morning
was heating up and a bead of sweat tickled the back of her
neck. She slapped at a gnat that found the sweat enticing.
"Looking for that?"
Jackson aimed the Dum-Dum at what had once been a nice
white, rather pricey Resistol, lying crumpled in the dirt
not three yards from him. A gentleman would have picked it
up for her, but not Jackson. He stood there with
that 'possum-eatin' grin on his face and mischief in his
eyes while she stormed across the paddock. Domino, that
worthless piece of horseflesh, had taken his frustrations
out on her new hat.
With the crumbled straw in hand, she turned her attention
to the horse. Mad as he made her, Domino wasn't really
worthless. Doc Everts was paying a nice price to have his
new mount trained at the CircleW Ranch. Moving quietly,
she went to the animal, took the dragging reins and led
him out of the paddock and away from Jackson Kane, taking
the memories of their past along with her.
"Hey, Shan!"
Shannon's shoulders slumped. The thud of boots against
hard ground warned her of his approach. She should have
known he wouldn't be that easy to get rid of. After ten
years, he was bound to have a reason for showing up this
way.
"Don't let the gate hit you in the backside on your way
out," she called over one shoulder.
He caught up to her. "I take it you're still mad."
Incredulous, she stopped in the entrance of the shadowy
barn. Standing right next to her this way, he looked
gigantic. She'd forgotten how tall he was, how he dwarfed
her completely. As a love-struck teenager she'd felt so
protected by his size. As an adult she was unnerved.
"You are amazing, you know that?" She gave him her
frostiest glare.
Eyes brightening, he pumped his eyebrows. "That's what
they tell me."
"That was not a compliment." She swung around to face him,
caught a whiff of grape sucker and a certain manly
something that was Jackson Kane and no one else. "Why are
you here, Jackson?"
Without a word, he took the reins from her and led the
paint into a stall where he began the task of unsaddling.
Dumbfounded, Shannon followed, taking refuge in the
familiar scents of alfalfa hay and sweet-feed and leather
tack.
"I asked you a fair question."
"All right then." He looked up from loosening the cinch
and wallowed the sucker to one corner of his mouth.
Shannon struggled not to follow the action, but lost that
battle. His talented mouth had always fascinated her.
"Your granddad thought you could use some help out here. I
was available so he hired me."
"You? Available? What happened to the rodeo circuit?" She
refused to acknowledge the part about him being hired. Not
to work for her, he wasn't. And she'd tell Granddad that
herself.
"All my rowdy friends have settled down." He grimaced as
if the admission pained him no end, then dragged the
saddle off the prancing horse and tossed it over a
saddletree. "So I've retired."
"Why don't you go back to Louisiana?"
"Nobody there I know anymore. Most of my kin are gone,
except for Aunt Bonnie. And she's here in Rattlesnake."
Shannon knew Jackson's great-aunt Bonnie, a feisty twig of
a lady, whose husband had died a couple of years ago. She
worked at the grocery store in Rattlesnake, though she
must be up in her seventies by now.
"I thought," Jackson went on, "my aunt could use a
relative close by, and Jett and Colt figured work wouldn't
be hard to find."
Opening the stall door, he led the horse forward and
waited for the animal to head, bucking and kicking up
dust, into the open corral. Sunshine gleamed on the black
and white hide.
"Then go to work for them." Colt and Jett were the Garret
brothers, two former rodeo cowboys who owned the largest
ranch in the panhandle. Jackson and Jett had been
traveling partners until an injury had forced Jett to
retire from the circuit. "I don't need you or want you on
the Circle W."
"Look, Shannon, can't we let bygones be bygones?
We were kids back then. Kids," he added again with
emphasis. "I didn't realize I'd hurt you."
She stiffened. "You didn't hurt me. You made me mad. No
one had ever jilted me before."
"Who said I jilted you?"
"What other term do you use when a guy calls a girl and
says, "I'll catch you later, darlin'," and then never
does?"
"Shannon." His voice fell to that honeyed baritone that
had talked her into too many things. To her total
amazement and eternal discomfort, he stroked one finger
down her cheek. "Don't be mad."
How was it that she hadn't seen this man in nearly ten
years and yet, he could stroll back into her life, and she
felt as though he'd never left?