The Last Cowboy
Lindsay McKenna
City girl. It was written all over her like a sign warning him to keep off. Sure, Slade McPherson would train her horse…With his ranch one bad day away from foreclosure, he can't afford to turn away a paying customer. But no way is this cowboy getting involved with a woman like Jordana Lawton–no matter how pretty she looks in a saddle.Yet everything can change in an instant. A terrifying run-in with an angry bull tilts Slade's world off its axis, leaving him wounded and unable to compete in a race that could change his future, for good. With Jordana by his side, he just might stand a chance. But what happens when this old-school cowboy finds himself falling for a modern city girl?
Praise for
LINDSAY MCKENNA
“McKenna’s latest is an intriguing tale…a unique twist
on the romance novel, and one that’s sure to please.”
—RT Book Reviews on Dangerous Prey
“Riveting.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Quest
“An absorbing debut for the Nocturne line.”
—RT Book Reviews on Unforgiven
“Gunfire, emotions, suspense, tension, and sexuality
abound in this fast-paced, absorbing novel.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Wild Woman
“Another masterpiece.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Enemy Mine
“Emotionally charged…riveting and deeply touching.”
—RT Book Reviews on Firstborn
“Ms. McKenna brings readers along for a fabulous
odyssey in which complex characters experience the
danger, passion and beauty of the mystical jungle.”
—RT Book Reviews on Man of Passion
“Talented Lindsay McKenna delivers excitement
and romance in equal measure.”
—RT Book Reviews on Protecting His Own
“Lindsay McKenna will have you flying with the daring
and deadly women pilots who risk their lives…
Buckle in for the ride of your life.”
—Writers Unlimited on Morgan’s Mercenaries: Heart of Stone
The Last Cowboy
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
I love stories about the men and women of the West. They aren’t always cowboys, but sometimes they are. The West has a very wild, individual energy unlike the eastern part of the U.S.A. When one considers the hardships, the risks of opening up our huge country from the east to the west, there was a very hardy group of men and women who took on the challenge. They were a group who braved the elements, the danger of Indian attacks and the wild animals. They carved something out of nothing and made it their own through hard, backbreaking daily work. And they were nature-oriented, not wanting big-city life. They craved the quiet of the days, the only music provided by songbirds, coyotes and wolves singing. They wanted wide, open spaces, not to be jammed in with one house attached to another one.
Not everyone is of that temperament or personality or constitution. That is what sets Westerners apart from the rest of the world. And that is what is fascinating about them, at least to me. What drives a person to be a risk-taker? What is the lure? The fascination? You can take the Westerner and put her or him in any environment around the world—not necessarily Jackson Hole, Wyoming—and you get the same gutsy, can-do attitude toward harsh, rugged life. It is a mindset. A way of seeing the world through that particular lens of reality.
Part of my ongoing series about the West and the people who live there, The Last Cowboy is about a rancher named Slade McPherson. He’s had one tough life. From age five onward, he was without parents. He was torn from his fraternal twin, Griff McPherson. They were separated, one going East and one staying at the parents’ ranch to be raised by dutiful uncles. Slade is barely able to make ends meet.
His hardscrabble life is nonstop and he has the bruising personality to survive, regardless of what is thrown at him next.
An endurance-riding champion, Slade enters fifty-and hundred-mile horse endurance contests. He’s made a name for himself on his Medicine Hat stallion, who was once a wild mustang. Together, these two hardy survivors have carved out a stellar career across the U.S.A. and Canada. Slade offers his Medicine Hat stallion to those who want the genes passed on through their mares. He owns the Tetons Ranch, sells endurance horses and trains endurance riders. He’s seen—in that world—as a man of honesty, hard work and integrity.
And it is with this aura that Dr. Jordana Lawton, an emergency physician for the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, hospital, comes to him. She has a feisty mustang mare she feels can not only compete, but win in endurance racing. Slade is desperate for the money, but likes to teach only male students. He’s had a very bad run-in with a socialite from the East Coast, who took him to the cleaners and left him nearly penniless. Slade blames himself for falling for her beauty. And it has left a bad taste in his mouth for women in general. Over time, Jordana, who is from the East Coast, slowly changes his attitude toward females.
As if Slade doesn’t have enough to handle with being lured to Jordana, his fraternal twin brother, Griff, comes home. Griff, a stockbroker and banker on Wall Street, has been wiped out by the recession and the loss of his company. And legally, he owns half of the ranch. The two brothers don’t get along at all. Will Slade trade in his tough, take-no-prisoners attitude to woo Jordana and make peace with Griff?
Lindsay McKenna
THE LAST COWBOY
To Susan Hamilton of High Country Raptors, Flagstaff, AZ, Marchiene Reinstra, Tricia Speed, Patricia Comfort, Monica Amarillis (Milan, Italy), Sunday Larson, Naomi C. Rose and Maureen Wolverton. All strong, intelligent and compassionate women. Our world needs positive, healthy role models for women. It takes a state of mind, a confidence in yourself, to be treated as an equal in today’s society around this world. I’m privileged to be a part of your lives as you are a part of mine. My wish is that someday soon, there will be equality for all women in our world.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER ONE
“BOSS! LOOK OUT!”
Slade McPherson was in a rectangular corral at his Jackson Hole, Wyoming, ranch with the meanest Hereford bull he’d ever dealt with. He heard Shorty, his wrangler, give a cry of warning. There was sudden movement behind him. Diablo, the bull, had been walking toward the chute to receive his yearly set of shots. Slade never allowed any horses in such a confined area with the bull. Diablo hated men. Slade wasn’t about to allow one of his prized horses to be butted and injured by Diablo.
Whirling around, he saw Diablo toss his massive white-and-rust head, drool flinging in all directions out of his mouth. The bull had decided not to go into the chute and, instead, wheeled his one ton body around and charged Slade who was ten feet away. The bull bellowed, lowered his head and attacked.
Slade was five feet away from the steel-pipe fence. There was no way he could stop such a charge. All he could do was run like hell. And that’s exactly what he did. Because he was six-foot-two inches in height and he had a long stride. Adrenaline shot through him as he dug the heels of his cowboy boots into the dusty floor of the corral. In two strides, Slade hit the fence, made a huge leap and landed on the third rung of the five-rung corral. The ground shook from Diablo’s charge. As he jerked his leg up, still climbing to get away from the angry bull, Slade felt the brush of the bull’s head against the heel of his boot.
It took a matter of two seconds before it was all over. Diablo roared and galloped around the small enclosure, tossing his head in frustration. Slade balanced himself on the fifth rung of the fence, watching his prized breeding bull bawl and race around the enclosure. That was close! Slade had lost count of the times Diablo had planned and waited until he’d get near enough to trample him to death. The bull had great genes for putting good meat on his offspring, but his personality sucked.
“Boss,” Shorty panted, running over and looking up at Slade, “you okay? He grazed you.”
Taking off his tan Stetson hat, the crown damp with sweat from the July day, Slade grinned and lifted his forearm. He wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “I’m fine,” he drawled. “Close but no cigar.” The sun was bright as it climbed higher in a deep blue sky. He glanced down at Shorty. The man was only five-foot-six inches tall, lean as a whippet and didn’t look as if he could even make it as a wrangler, but he was one of the best. He came from good Irish stock with sandy-colored short hair and dancing green, elfish eyes.
“Good thing,” Shorty muttered, worry in his tone. He stepped aside as Slade clambered off the pipe fence and landed on the dusty earth. “I’ll tell ya, that bull seems to hate us humans more and more every year.” Shorty’s small face grew pinched as he watched the bull continuing to trot in circles, the drool from the corners of his opened mouth flying out like thin, glittering spider webs around his head and massive shoulders.
“Bad personality genes for sure,” Slade agreed, settling the dusty, sweat-stained Stetson back on his head. He watched Diablo. Once the bull seemed cooled down, the animal walked quietly into the chute. For the Hereford, it was a game, Slade realized as he walked around the outside of the corral. At the chute, he dropped the rear slat that would keep the bull confined. Going to his green Chevy truck, Slade picked up the syringe lying on the seat. Once a year, Diablo got his necessary vaccinations. Shorty followed him to the stout pipe chute that now enclosed the twenty-five-hundred-pound bull.
“Boss, remember you got a new client comin’ out here this afternoon,” Shorty reminded him. The wrangler had been with Slade since he’d taken over the ranch.
Slade grunted. He really didn’t want to hear that. Going to the chute, he said, “Stand by Diablo’s head and distract him for a moment.”
Grinning, Shorty moved to within a foot of the metal chute where the bull stood. “I’ll be the decoy,” he chortled.
Slade nodded and positioned himself at the rear of the bull. Diablo lived to find a human to trample. In the bull’s mind, humans were a threat to his territory. And Diablo would never allow another male on two legs within the pastures he roamed with his herd of cows. If they came near, all bets were off, and he became enraged and would charge them. Good thing he thought four-legged horses were not threatening. Diablo snorted, his ears moving forward and back as Shorty slowly approached.
“Perfect,” Slade murmured as he sank the needle into the thick, muscled area of the bull’s well-padded hip. Diablo’s entire attention was on Shorty’s approach. As Slade withdrew the needle, he glanced forward to get the bull’s reaction. There was none. His angry brown eyes were fixed on Shorty. “We’re done,” he called. Placing the emptied syringe back in the box on his truck seat, Slade said, “Release him back out into the pasture.”
“Right, Boss,” Shorty said with a quick nod. “He ain’t gonna be happy, though. All his ladies are in the pasture across the road from him.”
Pulling his leather gloves back on, Slade nodded. “Too bad. He can look, but not touch.” Slade had a small herd of Herefords, fifty in all, that Diablo bred in early fall. It took nine months for gestation. In the early summer months, the calves were born. At that time, Diablo was separated from his band, a dirt road plus a stout metal-pipe rail fence between them. One never kept a bull with newly born calves. The chances of them being injured or killed by the bull was very real.
And Slade needed every calf that was birthed because after they reached a certain age, they would be sold to the meat market. And that meant money to pay a mortgage that was always a monthly nightmare to him. Above all, Slade never wanted to lose this ranch. He lived on the razor’s edge of doing just that. Being a small-time rancher meant a constant balancing act with the bank mortgage on a monthly basis. Miss one payment and he’d be fore-closed upon. It can’t happen!
Slade watched Shorty open the chute. Instantly, Diablo bellowed and shot out of it at a full gallop. The Tetons Ranch that Slade had inherited from his parents after his uncle died was only fifty acres in size. A very small ranch, all things considered. Diablo thundered out of the opened gate. Ahead of him was lush green pasture. And farther to his left was the stout pipe fence and a dirt road. All his ladies and their babies grazed peacefully on the other side. Diablo would pace for a while, walking up and down the fence line, tossing his head and reestablishing he was boss of his herd. Slade knew that the territorial bull would eventually settle down. Diablo would do his best to follow his herd, but the pipe fence and road always stood between them. Once the bull quieted, he would graze and watch his band from afar.
Shorty came back. He took off his dusty black Stetson and brushed it against his thigh. Dust poofed away from it. “Boss,” he said as he pulled a crinkled piece of notebook paper from his back pocket, “here’s whose comin’ at 1:00 p.m.”
Slade didn’t like new clients, but they were his bread and butter, necessary to meet his financial obligations for the Tetons Ranch. “Okay, thanks,” he grunted, taking the paper. Shorty managed Slade’s endurance-training appointments. Carefully unwrapping the note, he saw Shorty had scribbled a name and phone number. Frowning, he tried to read it. Shorty was thirty-five years old, single and had never been married. He’d worked for Slade’s Uncle Paul shortly before he’d died, and the ranch had been willed to Slade and his fraternal twin brother, Griff. Slade was now thirty-two, and he was grateful for Shorty’s loyalty to the ranch and his family. He glanced up—Shorty’s thin, narrow face was set in a grin.
“I ’spose you can’t read my writin’, Boss?”
“Got that right,” Slade growled. He handed the note back to his wrangler. “Want to translate it for me?”
Chortling, Shorty read it and said, “Dr. Jordana Lawton is bringing her mustang mare named Stormy here this afternoon at 1:00 p.m.” Shorty handed him back the note.
“A doctor?”
“Yes, Boss. She’s an emergency-room physician, and Gwen Garner told me that Dr. Lawton is also a functional-medicine specialist and has her clinic near the hospital.”
Mouth quirking, Slade asked, “What’d you do? Have a cozy chat with Gwen?” Her son, Cade Garner, was a deputy sheriff. She was the town gossip, but she was careful on what she said and made sure her information was correct before she passed it on to anyone else.
Turning red, Shorty shrugged. “Hey, Gwen said Dr. Lawton was a nice lady, Boss. I guess because Dr. Lawton is used to chattin’ with her patients, she’s real easy to talk to.”
“You weren’t her patient.”
“No, but when we talked on the phone, she made me feel special,” Shorty said, challenging him.
Shrugging, Slade muttered, “I don’t care who she is so long as she can pay for the training. What’s this about a mustang mare? Is she wanting endurance training?”
“For both of ’em, Boss. The doctor wants to know if her mare is capable of being an endurance-horse prospect from a conformation standpoint. So, I told her to trailer the mare out here and you’d take a look at her.”
In Slade’s business of endurance riding, of which he was many times a champion, people often brought their horses out for him to check out. “Okay. Anything else she wants?”
Shrugging, Shorty said, “The doc said if her mare’s conformation was okay, she wanted to hire you to train both of them for level one riding.”
Nodding, Slade interpreted this as money coming into his coffers to keep the bank at bay. He had weekly training sessions with nine male students. He knew how to get a horse ready for an endurance ride, whether it was a twenty, fifty or a hundred-mile challenge. And he also knew how to get the rider in shape, as well. “Okay, that sounds good. She got a background in endurance racing?”
“A little,” Shorty hedged. “I really didn’t get into much of a discussion with her on that, Boss. I figure you’ll sort it out with her when she arrives here this afternoon.”
“Okay,” Slade said. Tucking the paper with the doctor’s name and phone number into his dark red cotton cowboy shirt pocket, he said, “Let’s get back to work. We need to start separating the calves from their mothers, branding and vaccinating them.” That would be a weeklong activity. And Slade only had one wrangler. He worked from four in the morning to midnight every day. And every hour of daylight was precious.
“Right,” Shorty murmured, following him to where their horses were tied to the corral fence.
As Slade mounted his buckskin quarter horse, Dude, his mind wandered back to Dr. Jordana Lawton for just a second. Slightly curious if she was a good endurance prospect, Slade hoped that it would work out so he had more money flowing in. He’d find out soon enough.
JORDANA LAWTON carefully negotiated the rutted dirt road. She drove her dark blue Ford three-quarterton pickup truck as if she was driving over hens’ eggs. Behind her in a dark blue two-horse trailer was her gray mustang mare, Stormy. One never took a deeply rutted road with a horse trailer at a high speed. It would bounce the horse around so much that it could either cause an injury or send the animal into a frantic emotional state akin to trauma.
And trauma was something Jordana knew inside and out as an emergency-room physician. Glancing at the clock on the dash, she knew she was going to be late. She hadn’t anticipated the dirt road being in such bad shape, but thunderstorms coming over the Tetons last week had made a gooey mire of every ranch road in the valley. And she wasn’t going to hurry in order to get there on time. Slade McPherson, the national-champion endurance rider and trainer, would just have to wait.
The windows were down in the cab, and her shoulder-length black hair flew in wisps across her face. Jordana pulled the errant strands away and then placed both hands back on the steering wheel. In the two years that she had lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, she had come to find that the majority of ranch roads in the valley were not paved. Most of the owners had a tractor, and they would drive out with a blade attached and smooth out the ruts.
Frowning, her focus on her driving, she worried that Stormy might lose her footing on the thick rubber mats. Jordana wanted this experience for the mare to be a good one. It only took one bad ride in a trailer to spook some horses. After that, the horse would refuse to ever enter the trailer again. That couldn’t happen because Jordana had high hopes that this mustang mare would be good enough to start competing at the top endurance level in the United States. And she wanted Stormy always to look forward to entering the trailer, instead of dreading it. Slow but sure…
SLADE GRITTED his teeth as he looked down at the watch on his thick wrist. He’d just rode in from the pastures where he and Shorty had been separating cows from calves. It was hard, sweaty work. And he didn’t want to waste time. Dr. Lawton was already ten minutes late. Slade didn’t like people who weren’t punctual. He had gone in and checked his answering machine to see if she’d called and canceled the appointment. There were no calls. Wasn’t that just like a woman? Isabel, his ex-wife, had always been late.
He hated dealing with women in general. He much preferred working with men who wanted to train for endurance riding. Ever since his divorce from city slicker Isabel Stephens four years ago, Slade had taken on a distinct dislike of the opposite sex. Isabel hailed from New York City, had rich parents and possessed the emotional maturity of a sixteen-year-old girl. She had never been on time for anything except their impromptu wedding. Slade had developed an intense dislike of city dwellers, New York City types, in particular. Isabel had left a bad taste in his mouth. She’d hired a rich New York City attorney and had taken him to the cleaners during their divorce proceedings.
Grimacing, Slade kicked the red dirt with the toe of his scarred cowboy boot. Isabel was the reason his beloved ranch was teetering on the edge of foreclosure. She’d taken him for every penny he’d ever earned. All his savings that had kept the ranch on sound financial footing had gone to her. Now, four years later, Slade continued to wrestle with every penny that came in on a monthly basis. He had nightmares about losing his parents’ ranch. It had been in the family for over a hundred years. There was no way he could lose it. Being a rancher was all he knew. Anger stirred in him as he relived the divorce from petulant, spoiled Isabel.
Pulling in a deep, ragged breath, Slade recalled how he’d fallen in love with the sleek, beautiful Isabel. A dressage rider from the East Coast, she’d come out to Jackson Hole for a two-week vacation with her rich corporate friend who owned a ten-million-dollar home here in the valley. Isabel had met Slade at the Tetons fifty-mile ride, her first endurance contest. Isabel knew her horses. And when Slade had seen her in the crowd as each rider rode up and waited to be released by the judge every five minutes, his heart had pounded. Slade could never remember a woman who had affected him so profoundly as Isabel had.
And it hadn’t hurt that he’d won that race on his flashy medicine-hat mustang stallion, Thor, either. Isabel had had stars in her eyes for him as he’d rode in first among a hundred other contestants. They’d had dinner and gone to bed that night. And Slade, stupid idiot that he was, impulsively married her a week later.
“What a loco decision,” he groused, looking at his watch again. The dirt road to Tetons Ranch curved, so he wouldn’t see a truck and horse trailer until the last moment. He saw no one driving around that corner. “Damn,” he added, now walking angrily back to his ranch house. Where the hell was this woman? If she couldn’t even be on time for this first meeting, what would it be like if he accepted her as a student later? If her horse had the potential? Not good. Not good at all. Damn her. Why couldn’t she call and let him know where she was at?
JORDANA GAVE A GASP of surprise. As she slowly pulled around the last curve, she saw the iconic Marlboro Man cowboy from the cigarette ads. Oh, she’d seen photos of Slade McPherson, but in real life… My God…
Most things didn’t unsettle Jordana one way or another. But the fierce-looking, rugged cowboy did. As she drove her horse trailer between the barn and the ranch house where he stood, Jordana felt her heart unexpectedly begin to pound. This wasn’t adrenaline. She was a physician, and she knew the difference. No, this was her womanly side wildly responding to the man she saw standing there, his hands tense on his narrow hips, watching her approach.
Jordana knew Slade McPherson was a loner. Everyone in Jackson Hole had told her that. A strong, gruff, even antisocial rancher who knew more about breeding endurance horses than anyone else in the nation. She’d done her research. And in her eyes, after learning all she could about this hardened, rugged cowboy, he was the best at what he did: a champion endurance rider and breeder.
Not expecting to have such a powerful physical reaction to seeing him in person made Jordana feel giddy like a teenager. As she put on the brake, she saw his large gray eyes narrowing speculatively upon her. Suddenly vulnerable beneath that incisive, probing gaze, Jordana felt like Jell-O melting out in hot sunlight. Even her lower body was reacting to him! Good grief! What was this all about? Unhinged, Jordana suddenly felt unsure in this man’s towering presence. He wore a set of dusty Levis that perfectly outlined his long, powerful legs and thick thighs. His hands were long and large, draped over his narrow hips. The dark red cotton cowboy shirt did nothing but emphasize his square face that was burned dark by the sun. The slashes at the sides of his full mouth and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes told her this man regularly challenged the weather in any condition—and won.
Her intuitive sense told Jordana he was armored up. The realization hit her in the solar plexus. Unexpectedly, her hands shook as she gathered up items from the seat in preparation to leave the truck. Jordana suddenly was taken back to when she was fifteen years old. It was at that age she had been struck by love for the first time. And how she felt then was how she felt now. Compressing her full lips, she tried to gather her strewn emotions. As hard and implacable as Slade McPherson appeared to be in person, Jordana knew she had to put on her physician’s face: strong, confident and detached. It would hide her present emotions that were a mix of excitement, desire and curiosity.
Climbing out of the truck, Jordana hastily walked around the front of it. As she faced the stony-looking Slade McPherson, she heard him snarl, “You’re late….”
CHAPTER TWO
JORDANA FELT AS IF she’d just been physically slapped by the rugged-looking cowboy who towered over her. She was only five foot six inches tall. He was like a Sequoia compared to her pine-tree height. Compressing her full lips, Jordana weathered his icily spoken words. As a trauma physician, she’d encountered people in all states of anger and irritability. Knowing that a soft, steady voice and appearing unflappable calmed emotional storms, she smiled and said, “I’m sorry. I’m Jordana Lawton. The road to your ranch was a little more rutted than I’d anticipated, and I slowed down so my mare wouldn’t get thrown around in the trailer.” She put her hand forward.
Slade absorbed the apology in her husky voice. The sound flowed over him like melting honey. Jordana’s hand was extended, and he stared down at it. She had long fingers, her hand as delicate-looking as her face. Obliquely he wondered if she had the stamina it took to gut out a fifty-or hundred-mile endurance ride. In appearance, she didn’t look like much more than a pretty black-haired, blue-eyed woman with a curvy body in all the right places. The sunlight danced across her shoulder-length hair, highlighting some of the reddish strands.
“Slade McPherson, Dr. Lawton.” He monitored the amount of strength as his hand engulfed hers. To his surprise, he found her hand strong and firm, just like his. Swallowing that discovery, he instantly released her fingers because red-hot tingles were soaring from his hand up into his lower arm. What the hell was happening? Slade had no idea.
“Call me Jordana,” she insisted. Giving him a bit of a wry smile, she added, “I am a trauma doc, but that’s my job. Out here, I’m just like anyone else. Please call me Jordana?”
Slade felt as if he was being pulled into her dancing, sky-blue eyes. There was warmth and understanding glinting in them like dapples of sunlight across the lakes found in the Tetons range. Her pupils were large and black, eyelashes forming a dark frame around them. Again, he swallowed hard. There was nothing to dislike about Jordana. She appeared to be around his age, although her face appeared to be that of a young twenty-something. Slade knew that doctors didn’t really get out of training until they were twenty-eight to thirty years old.
“I haven’t got much time,” he said abruptly, and he waved his hand toward the horse trailer. “Shorty said you have an endurance prospect you wanted me to evaluate?”
Wincing internally, Jordana had to stop the comparison between her former boss, Dr. Paul Edwin, who’d had the exact same acid, remote and cold personality as McPherson. That made her cringe inside. After a two-year sexual harassment lawsuit, Jordana had won the court case but she’d lost her position at a prestigious New York City hospital. That was why she’d decided to start all over and moved from there to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Now, she was being tested by a man who looked as harsh as the mighty Tetons range itself.
“Yes, I have a mustang mare name Stormy. I’d like you to evaluate her conformation. See if she has what it takes.”
“At what level?” he demanded, stalking around the back of the trailer and opening the latches.
Jordana quickly followed him. He flowed like water over rock. There was a fluidity to Slade that mesmerized her. She realized he was in top athletic shape to be able to move with that kind of boneless grace. “Level one, the Nationals,” she said. Jordana moved forward as the doors swung out and pulled out the ramp. Stormy whinnied.
Reaching up, Jordana patted the sleek gray rump of her mare. “It’s okay, Stormy. I’m going to get you out of there.” She walked to the side of the trailer and opened a smaller door. This allowed her to go inside and unsnap the hook attached to the mare’s red nylon halter. That done, Jordana eased around the end and stood where the mare was tied. She attached a nylon halter lead and placed her hand on the horse’s chest. “Back up,” she told the mare.
Stormy obeyed. In a few moments, Jordana and her mare were standing outside the trailer.
“Bring your mare over here,” Slade ordered. He walked away from the trailer into an area where the horse could be walked and trotted.
Jordana nodded and did as he asked. What a tough hombre he was! There were no articles that said anything about this man’s personality. Maybe that’s why, she thought. Anxious because Jordana wanted Stormy to be given the good seal of approval, she took the horse about a hundred feet away. McPherson stood with his arms across his chest, his face unreadable. The shade created by his tan Stetson emphasized the harsh lines gathered across his brow. What would he say about Stormy?
“Okay,” Slade called, “trot your mare in a straight line toward me.”
Clucking softly to Stormy, Jordana ran alongside her mare. She knew Slade was looking at how the horse’s legs moved. She knew Stormy had a good set of legs. He would be checking out whether her hooves moved straight ahead or winged out or came into a pigeon-toed formation. If the horse’s hooves winged outward, it was a sign of bad conformation. Stormy would never be able to take the hard, constant stress on her legs without breaking down and becoming injured.
Slade had one hell of a time keeping his eyes on the horse’s movement. Jordana wore a bright yellow T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. She moved as fluidly as the mare. Slade cursed—he did not want to be drawn at all to this woman! He’d automatically looked at her left hand and found no wedding ring on it. That didn’t mean much. Slade was sure she was hooked up in a relationship, anyway. Jordana was far too pretty, intelligent and professional to be alone out here in Wyoming. Just as well, he harshly told himself.
As Jordana drew her mustang to a halt about ten feet in front of him, Slade lifted his hand and growled, “Now walk away from me. Go the same distance and then turn around and walk back to me.”
“Right,” Jordana said, breathless. Stormy was feeling her oats, and she pranced as Jordana turned her around. Speaking softly to the mare, Jordana managed to get the mustang settled down and walking obediently at her side.
Slade groaned. He was watching the way Jordana swayed her hips. Her legs were long and firm. He’d been without a woman for some time now. And this one, for whatever reason, was fanning the flames of his monklike life. Forcing himself to watch the mare, he was pleased to see she was four square. That meant that at a walk, her rear hooves would land where her front hooves had previously been. That was a sign of the type of conformation Slade wanted to see in an endurance prospect. As the horse saying went: “No legs, no horse.” And in endurance riding, legs either carried you through the challenging hill and mountain conditions, or they didn’t.
As Jordana brought the steel-gray mare to a halt, he’d seen enough and changed his orders. “Take her over to that corral and put her on a longe line. I want to see you work her both ways at a trot and gallop.” He turned on his heel and walked toward the corral.
What a terse person he was! Jordana patted Stormy’s sleek gray neck, ruffled her thick black mane and said, “Come on, girl. Show-and-tell time.”
Snorting, Stormy danced prettily for a few paces and then sedately walked beside her owner. Jordana saw the gate was open to the huge white painted pipe corral fence. There was a longe line hanging nearby. McPherson was already in the corral, arms across his chest, face expressionless, as if barely tolerating them being on his property. Anxious, Jordana knew, with this kind of person, the best way to defuse his coldness and bring down her armor was to do what he told her to do. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t take this kind of rude behavior from anyone except a patient in shock, but today, she did. More than anything, she wanted to know if her mare had what it took to move to the national level.
Slade watched the mustang mare being worked, first clockwise on a thirty-foot longe line by Jordana, and then the opposite direction. The mare was thirteen and a half hands tall. Mustangs were very small in comparison to other light-breed horses. His own medicine-hat mustang stallion, Thor, was fifteen hands tall. He was the rare exception in the mustang world. Most were between thirteen and fourteen hands tall because of hundreds of years of lean food. Not enough food and the animals never fully developed their height. In the world of endurance riding, a leggy horse meant a long stride. And a long stride meant the horse ate up more ground which was important. Mere seconds could declare a winner and loser in an endurance race. Length of stride meant everything.
For the next ten minutes, Slade critically studied the gray mare. First, he needed to see if the mustang closely listened to her owner. That was a crucial piece of information because if the horse disregarded the owner’s voice, it could put them in grave danger out on the trail.
“All right,” Slade called. “Enough. Get her saddled up and bring her back into the arena.” He needed to see how the horse responded to its rider. Was there teamwork? Or not? In an endurance contest, they would have to work like a well-oiled machine. Climbing rocky hills, jumping over fallen logs, making their way through water hazards or managing muddy trails were all required of them. If the horse didn’t listen or was fighting the rider, it could place them into a dangerous situation where injury would be the outcome.
Jordana quickly took her mare back to the trailer and tied her on an outside metal loop. She wasn’t sure what McPherson thought. He was one of the few people she couldn’t read. Wondering as she saddled Stormy if Slade ever dropped that harsh mask he wore, Jordana was shocked by her sudden interest in this man. The fact he was almost a dead ringer for Dr. Paul Edwin turned her stomach. And yet, Jordana felt a calm come over her every time she looked into Slade’s rugged face. His eyes, those gray shards of ice, never gave away how he really felt about her horse. And she knew as she mounted Stormy and walked her toward the corral, he was going to be judging both of them now. Taking a deep breath, Jordana tried to calm her anxiety. She wanted so badly to have McPherson’s help to go to the top of the endurance world.
Slade watched from the fence as Jordana walked her horse around the large, sandy arena. Then, she urged Stormy to a trot and then a canter. She was an excellent rider. Jordana’s hands were quiet on the hackamore reins as she guided Stormy. A hackamore was a bridle without a bit. It meant Stormy was very capable of wanting to work and listen to her owner. Most horses could not go without a bit in their mouth, so this spoke highly of Stormy’s desire to work with her owner.
Jordana’s long, beautiful legs were quiet and rested firmly against the mare’s barrel. Never once did Slade see her use her heels to ask the horse to move from a walk to a trot or a walk to a canter. He knew then that the doctor was utilizing dressage techniques, the highest art form of riding in the horse world.
As he watched them move around the arena, Slade scowled. His ex-wife had been a dressage rider, too. It was easy to recognize how quietly Jordana sat, her shoulders back, spine straight, her hands low in front of the saddle. She had the exact same posture. Yet, Slade couldn’t draw a comparison between her and his ex-wife. Isabel had been a petulant child who’d used pouting and throwing temper tantrums in order to get what she wanted out of him. Jordana didn’t seem fazed by his cold, hard manner. She took it in stride, listened to his orders and then seamlessly executed them. That made him curious about her. The last thing he needed, however, was to be drawn to a woman. He’d been successful these last four years of ignoring the opposite sex. His focus was trying to hold his beleaguered ranch together one month at a time.
“That’s good enough,” Slade called to her. “Come on in.”
Jordana slowed Stormy down and guided her mare over to where Slade was standing. His face looked like stone. What did he think? Was Stormy’s conformation good enough? And why was she so drawn to this glacial cowboy? Dismounting, she took the reins over Stormy’s head.
“Unsaddle her.”
Jordana nodded, dropped the reins and went to lift the stirrup to reach the cinch around the horse’s sweaty barrel. She lifted off the saddle and the blanket, settling them across one of the rails of the pipe fence.
“Lead her out to the center of the arena.”
Picking up the reins, Jordana walked, and Stormy followed her like a dog at her heels. Jordana turned and stood beside her mare’s head. She watched as Slade approached. His gray eyes were narrowed, and she knew he was now critically assessing Stormy. Crouching beside her, he spoke softly to the mustang before gently laying his hands on the top of her front right leg.
Stormy’s ears twitched back and forth to the softened male sounds. She stood perfectly still as Slade ran his hands knowingly down the length of her leg. He also examined the health of her hoof.
Shocked at the change in his demeanor, Jordana could only stand there keeping her mouth from dropping open. She watched as Slade’s large, scarred hands moved with knowing skill down Stormy’s sweaty leg. Hands that moved with such ease that Jordana swore she could feel them caressing her at the same time. Shaking herself out of the shock that Slade wasn’t a coldhearted bastard like Paul Edwin had been, she allowed herself to take a deep breath of relief. Slade had a soft side to him after all! Even if he only unveiled and utilized it with horses, that was fine with Jordana. She could take his military-like demeanor if only he treated her horse with loving care. And he was doing just that.
Slade moved quietly around to the other side of the mare. He placed his hands on her other front leg. One never squatted down at the side of a horse’s rear. If something spooked them, they could kick out in a semicircle arc and nail the person. Slade had seen people kicked in the head for doing just that. Straightening up, he walked toward her rear legs. He placed his left hand on the animal’s rump and then, with his right hand, leaned down and stood close to the mare so she couldn’t kick and injure him. In this way, it was safe, and he could continue to perform a thorough examination.
Jordana watched in silence. Slade’s calloused hands were sun-darkened from being outside most of his life. Stormy stood quietly. She trusted the large cowboy. More relief filtered through Jordana. After Slade had examined Stormy’s legs, he then came to her face and gently moved his fingers around her ears and her poll, the top of her head. Jordana knew he was looking for bumps, scars or cuts. Once more she felt his hands flowing across her. It was a crazy sensation! What was it about this hardened cowboy that unstrung her as a woman?
Gulping, Jordana forced herself to remain silent. She knew Slade was tactically memorizing every part of Stormy’s conformation. He was building an anatomical picture of her body in his mind. And once he was done, he would have his decision for her. She saw him slide his fingers across the black dorsal stripe down the center of Stormy’s back. Mustangs often possessed this stripe. Plus, Stormy had horizontal curved black bars on the back of her lower legs. It made her look somewhat like a long-lost relative from the zebra species. But she wasn’t. These were genetic markers mustangs carried strongly throughout the breed.
Slade rounded the mare and then stood about six feet away from Dr. Lawton. She looked concerned and serious. He understood why. Seesawing back and forth inwardly, Slade didn’t know what to do. Lawton was pretty in a natural kind of way. She had an oval face with a stubborn chin that spoke to her ability to finish what she started. There was no extra flesh on her body that he could see. That meant she was riding daily. Endurance riders put in ten to fifteen miles a day on their horse to keep it in shape for the fifty-and hundred-mile contests. She was a woman, and Slade tried to avoid the opposite sex like a plague. His other students were men. And that’s the way he liked it.
“Your mare has a problem,” he stated bluntly, drilling her with a hard look. Instantly, her eyes opened wider, and a stunned expression came to her features. He pointed down at the horse’s front left leg. “There’s scar tissue on her pastern that indicates she’s suffered a serious cut in that area at one time.”
“But,” Jordana said, “that shouldn’t stop her from being an endurance horse.”
Scowling, Slade said, “That cut was deep. What do you know about it?”
“I’ve owned Stormy for two years, Mr. McPherson. She had that cut there long before that.” Watching his expression, Jordana felt frustrated. All she could see was the glittering shards in his gray eyes. It was obvious he was going to turn her down.
Not if she could help it! “Stormy was captured out in Nevada in a government roundup. She was sold to Bud Hutchinson, who lives here in Jackson Hole. He told me when I bought his house that the mare came with the deal. When I had the vet check her, he noted that scar on her pastern. Bud said the mare came to him with it. The vet thought she probably cut her pastern a year earlier, so no one really knows the extent of that injury.”
Grunting, Slade said, “Well, it’s her Achilles’ heel, Dr. Lawton.”
“What about the rest of her conformation?”
“She’s sound and she has good legs. But that scar makes her questionable. If she cut a tendon as a yearling out in the wilds, and it healed, that tendon is always going to be weak and suspect of breaking down.”
“But you don’t know if it was a cut tendon,” Jordana countered strongly. She wasn’t going to let this cowboy run over her.
Shrugging, Slade muttered, “That’s true.”
“And her legs are fine otherwise?”
“Yes, they’re good.”
“What else?” Jordana prodded. She saw him scowl, his thick, dark brown brows moving downward in a slash because of her needling. Maybe he was the type of trainer who wanted to see his students have courage to confront him. Maybe he wasn’t. She wasn’t sure. All Jordana did know is she wanted a chance to train her mare with this man, no matter how sour and antisocial he appeared to be. At least he was gentle with Stormy. Jordana had gone through residency and taken plenty of blows from men who were threatened by her presence as a woman and a doctor. She’d weather Slade McPherson, too.
Surprised at Lawton’s sudden backbone and fearlessness to confront him, Slade growled, “The worst strike against her is your horse is a mare.”
Mouth dropping open, Jordana snapped it shut. Her hand tightened on the rope. Stormy’s ears flicked back and forth as she read her mistress’s reaction. “A mare? Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of those people? Mares compete in endurance against geldings and stallions and win!”
The power and force of her tempered anger hit Slade directly. Eyes narrowing, he saw the blue fire in her eyes. “Mares are fickle, just like women. They’re made up of unstable hormones.”
Real anger fired through Jordana. How dare this man! Mouth tightening, she lowered her husky voice. “That’s an old saw and it doesn’t work anymore, Mr. McPherson. If you’re going to turn me down because my horse is a mare, that’s a lousy excuse.”
Squirming inwardly, Slade realized Dr. Lawton wasn’t going to take no for an answer. If he said, “you’re a woman and I don’t like training women,” then she’d explode into rage for sure. “Mares are just more difficult,” he snarled. “But it’s your choice. I don’t really care.” And he didn’t. His students had gone on to win major endurance rides over the years.
Brows moving up, Jordana said, “Then, you’ll accept us for training?”
“You aren’t going to get far,” Slade warned. “Your mare has a weak pastern due to that old injury. She’ll break down before she ever gets to an endurance contest.”
Angry, Jordana said, “And I disagree with you.”
“Just because you’re a doctor of humans doesn’t mean you know animal anatomy,” Slade reminded her. She really got under his skin, and he recalled Isabel had exhibited that same capability. Grudgingly, Slade admired Jordana because she had fire, passion and wasn’t afraid to fight for what she thought was right. Isabel always sneaked around behind him, manipulated him and then pounced. Lawton wasn’t like that. In fact, he admired her fearlessness because even men didn’t take him on. Slade had one hell of a reputation of winning any argument he chose to defend. And he was losing this one to this banty rooster of a woman with fiery blue eyes and a stubborn chin.
Stormy moved restlessly, and Jordana placed her hand on the mare’s damp neck. Instantly, the mustang quieted. “You’re correct about that, Mr. McPherson. There is no test that can conclusively show that Stormy partially cut a tendon in her pastern or not. I’m willing to go on faith that she didn’t.”
“Okay, it’s your money and time,” he drawled.
“Then, you’ll train us?” Hope rose in Jordana’s voice. She knew McPherson was going to be a hard, demanding trainer, but she’d endured the toughest job in the world as a resident and made it. She’d make this a success, too.
“I’ll take you on, Dr. Lawton. It’ll cost you plenty of money. And I don’t put up with anyone who’s late. You show up on time or I’ll send you packing.”
“I’ll be on time from now on,” Jordana gritted, glaring up at him. His rugged features were shadowed by his tan Stetson. There was nothing forgiving about Slade McPherson. In the back of her mind, Jordana wondered what course in life had molded him into such a hard person.
“We’ll see,” Slade said. “Shorty, my wrangler, will show you to the training barn. You’ll be writing me a check today for two thousand dollars. One thousand a month for the box stall, hay, special feed and one thousand for training you ten times a month out here at the ranch.”
Two thousand dollars. Jordana blanched inwardly. Two years ago she’d settled the lawsuit against Dr. Paul Edwin. The settlement had been four hundred thousand dollars. Part of the agreement had been that she had to leave her position at the New York City hospital. Then, the recession occurred, and she’d lost all her stock savings in the crash of the stock market. Jordana had ended up broke and out of a job when it was all over. The settlement money had bought her a home here in Jackson Hole.
Slade watched her waffle, her eyes downcast. He had doubled the cost of his services in hopes of getting rid of her. If he couldn’t argue her out of it, then he’d raise his price so high she couldn’t afford it. He stood there feeling badly, but he really didn’t want to have to teach a woman. They were nothing but trouble.
Mind whirling, Jordana lifted her head and said, “That’s fine.”
Stunned, Slade kept his face carefully arranged. Two thousand dollars more a month would be a godsend. “Good.” He pointed to Shorty who was walking toward them. “Go with my wrangler. He’ll assign your mare to a box stall.”
Jordana felt dizzy. What had she just done? Two thousand dollars was a lot of money! At what price did she want her dream? And with a man who obviously disliked the fact she was a woman and her horse a mare.
CHAPTER THREE
“THIS WAY, Miss,” Shorty said, coming up and doffing his head respectfully toward Jordana.
Slade walked away. If he stayed, he’d be staring at Lawton like a lovesick puppy. Her face was arresting. And what drew him, dammit, was her fire and gutsiness. He wondered if that would translate into her endurance riding or not.
Smiling, Jordana held out her hand. “Hi, Shorty, I’m Jordana Lawton. Nice to meet you.” She saw Slade walk away as soundlessly as a cougar on the prowl. Disappointed he wouldn’t stay around so she could talk more to him about the training, she pulled her attention back to the bowlegged wrangler.
“Howdy, ma’am. Come with me. The Boss has one box stall left in his endurance-training facility and your purty steel-gray mare gets it.” He turned and walked quickly to a pole barn painted the same color of red as the massive barn that sat next to it.
Excited despite the gruff manner of McPherson, Jordana felt a weight lift off from her shoulder. The trainer had tried to get rid of her. Why? Stormy was an excellent endurance prospect, in her opinion. Was it because he disliked mares? Or worse, women? She saw no wedding band on Slade’s hand. Stormy walked at her side and Jordana decided to find out.
“Shorty, is Mr. McPherson married?”
Chortling, Shorty gave her a sly grin. “No ma’am, he’s not. I’m afraid he had a run-in with a filly a while back. He’s divorced four years ago and likes to keep it that way.”
They walked up the slight gravel slope that led up to the pole barn. Both doors had been slid open to allow maximum air circulation throughout the building. Jordana worked to keep up with the fast walking and talking wrangler. “How long have you been working here, Shorty?”
“Too long,” he laughed. Then, getting more serious, he said, “I worked for Mr. McPherson until he was killed by Red Downing, another rancher, in an auto accident. At that time, Slade and Griff, who are fraternal twins, inherited this ranch. But they were too young to take over as six-years-olds. Slade was adopted by his uncle Paul McPherson and Griff went with uncle Robert McPherson, who was a Wall Street broker in New York City. When Slade was ten, his adopted mother died of cancer. Then, Paul drank himself to death and he died when Slade was seventeen.” Shorty halted at the concrete floor opening to the pole barn. His voice lowered. “At seventeen Slade had to take over this ranch. His brother didn’t want anything to do with it. So, he struggled by himself to keep it going.”
“That’s a lot to ask of any seventeen-year-old,” Jordana murmured.
Motioning, Shorty said, “Follow me down the breezeway here. Your mare’s stall is the last one on the right,” and he pointed toward the other end of the long, clean barn.
Digesting the information about Slade, Jordana set it aside for later. Right now, as Stormy clip-clopped down the concrete aisle, horses on either side nickered in a friendly fashion to her. Jordana counted ten box stalls. She was the last student. Feeling lucky and happy, she followed Shorty.
Each roomy box stall had iron bars across the top half of it and sturdy oak below. Shorty slid the door open. Jordana was pleased to see that not only did the floor have thick black rubber matting to make it easy on a horse’s legs, but also fresh cedar shavings were strewn over it. She brought Stormy to the opening and allowed the mare to look around, study and sniff it first. Mustangs were wild, and Jordana knew that Stormy had to check out her new surroundings before she’d ever step into the well-lit box stall. To try and force the mare into it, without giving her time to inspect it, would have been a mistake. Stormy would have balked and fought her instead.
“She’s a mighty alert horse,” Shorty noted, standing and assessing Stormy.
“Pure mustang,” Jordana murmured.
“I can see.” Shorty nodded toward her legs. “Got the zebra stripes on her legs. Good sign she’s got seriously good mustang genes.”
“I agree,” Jordana said with a smile. “And her name is Stormy.” The mustang stepped into the stall on her own. Following her mare, Jordana slid the door shut and unlatched the rope attached to the mare’s red nylon halter. “You want me to leave her halter on, don’t you?” she called to the wrangler.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Stormy moved around sniffing and checking out the shavings. She touched noses with the curious big black horse next door and then went straight for the huge water dispenser located at the front of the stall. The mustang drank deeply and then smacked her wet lips afterward. Laughing, Jordana patted her mare. “You like your new digs, girl.”
Shorty slid the door open for Jordana. “She looks purty happy in there. She a beaver?” He shut the door after the owner stepped into the passageway.
A beaver in horse language was a horse that chewed on wood areas of the stall when it was bored. And that could cause wind colic or worse. Jordana knew that in those cases, they would paint the wood with a foul taste that discouraged such a bad habit. “Nope, she has no stall problems.”
“Well,” Shorty said, “we don’t have bored horses around here. The Boss works them every day, and by the time they’re done, they’re tuckered out and glad for a rest. On the days the students come out to ride their horses, they get a solid workout.” He smiled a little and studied the rows of stalls. “Nope, none of these horses have much time to become bored.”
“That’s good,” Jordana said. “Can you tell me the training schedule, Shorty?”
“The Boss didn’t?” he asked, surprised.
Shaking her head, Jordana pulled out a small notebook from the back pocket of her jeans and opened it up. “No. And I’d like to know.”
“Why, sure you do, ma’am. Let’s amble down to the tack room at the other end of the pole barn. You’ll be putting your saddle, bridle and tack box in there.”
Jordana followed. The wrangler was so different from the owner it was stunning. Shorty was jovial, kind and open. All the things Slade McPherson was not.
“Starting tomorrow, the Boss will have me put Stormy on the hot walker for half an hour.”
Mechanical walkers were a must in training. Jordana saw the machine in another nearby corral. It had four long metal arms sticking upward with a thick rope and snap on the end of each one. She knew four horses at a time would be snapped on to each rope and then the speed would be set by the operator. The circular walker looked more like a space vehicle to anyone who didn’t know what it was used for. The covered motor was located in the center. The operator could make the horses walk or trot.
“He’s not trotting them on it, is he?” Jordana wondered.
“Oh, no, ma’am. It’s a fast walk to warm ’em up before they’re worked. And he also uses it to cool ’em out after their training. Any fool who thinks they can trot a horse in that tight circle is lookin’ for leg problems to develop real fast.”
“Yes,” she murmured, “I just wanted to make sure, was all.”
Shorty slowed and opened the thick oak door. “Endurance horses have the best legs in the world. The Boss isn’t interested in harming those legs, only makin’ them stronger.”
“Good to hear,” Jordana said. The tack room was huge, roomy, spotlessly clean and smelled of leather. She loved the scent and inhaled it deeply. There was one hook for a bridle and an aluminum saddle rack suspended just below it. Shorty gestured to it.
“This will be for Stormy’s gear.” He pointed to a large wooden tack box below it. “Anything your horse needs insofar as brushes, combs, hoof pick and such, goes in here. I’ll be puttin’ Stormy’s name on this box so you can identify it among all the others.”
Jordana was impressed with Slade’s management abilities. The box stalls had fresh shavings and were obviously cleaned daily. The waterers were automatic and filled as the horse drank it down. In the tack room, there were no cobwebs in the corners, no dust on the thick rubber mats across the floor. All the leather gear was clean, the bits shining, the saddles contained no dust anywhere upon them.
“Now,” Shorty said, a bit of warning in his voice, “the Boss don’t like dirt. He’s a real nitpicker about it.” Shorty went over to a specially made endurance saddle that had no horn on it. He lifted up a leather flap on the rear of it. “He expects you to keep your gear in tip-top shape. No dirt, crud or oil between the skirts here. And he’ll be inspecting you every day you come out for training. Equally important is the cinch.” Shorty picked up the white cotton girth that spanned the horse’s belly and kept the saddle in place on its back. “He expects you to not only minutely look at each twisted strand of the girth for dirt or weeds, but also wash it once a week. He hates dirty cinches. That dirt can work into the horse’s belly and create a sore and inflammation. Something this simple can take an endurance horse out of a contest. Don’t disappoint him on this.”
“I’m beginning to like him,” Jordana said, impressed. She knew a dirty cinch was only asking for trouble. A horse had hair, but any sawing motion could pull it out and leave the horse’s tender flesh open to being rubbed raw. And as a doctor, she was always aware of possible infection starting at such a site.
“Oh, he’s a stickler,” Shorty promised with a lopsided grin. “You’ll be spending a lot of time either in here or just outside the door cleaning your gear afterward. He don’t want you leaving the premises until you’ve bathed your horse over at the shower area and then cleaned your leather. Oh, and make sure your horse’s hooves are clean. If he finds any mud, manure or, worse, a stone lodged in the frog area of the hoof, he’ll give you one warning. The second time, he’ll release you as a student.”
“Got it,” Jordana said.
“Crud in the hoof can make a horse lame in a heartbeat.”
“Yes, it can. I’m a stickler on that, too.”
“Good to hear, ma’am.” Shorty scratched his chin. “Okay, let’s go over to the bathing area.”
Just outside the pole barn and to the left stood another enclosed area. It was painted red and made of an aluminum roof and wooden sides. Shorty led her down a thickly graveled path. He slid the door open. “Now, this is where you will bathe your horse after your training is done. It’s got solid rubber matting on the floor so the horse don’t slide or skid. We’ve got panic snaps on the cross ties that will be attached to both sides of your mare’s halter.”
“I like panic snaps,” Jordana agreed, stepping into the shower shed. It, too, was well lit. If a horse ever got scared or bolted while in the cross ties, all the owner had to do was jerk the panic snap open, and it instantly released the horse so it didn’t choke itself to death in the ropes. These hardy steel snaps had saved many a horse from such an awful and completely preventable death. Yes, panic snaps cost a lot more, and some horse people didn’t purchase them because of that. But what was the horse worth to them? For a little more money, they could protect their animal from such a fate. Jordana liked that Slade thought of all the details. It was obvious that he cared for the horse in every way possible. Would he care equally about the rider? That remained to be seen.
“Here’s the showerhead and hose,” Shorty told her, pointing up to the gear hanging on a hook on the right side of the shed. “The Boss doesn’t believe in hitting a hot, sweaty horse with shockingly cold water. You’ll find the water tepid, instead. He don’t want them traumatized with a cold temperature.”
“That’s impressive,” she murmured, deciding that Slade’s earlier demeanor didn’t carry through in his training philosophy. Maybe he just didn’t like her? Jordana frowned and hoped not. Still, he’d been this side of testy and rude to her. Maybe he was having a bad day, she thought.
Shorty gestured for her to follow him out. “The Boss treats his horses like himself.”
Jordana liked the warmth of the early July sun overhead. Having spent two winters in Jackson Hole, she had come to welcome the summer as never before. There was snow on the ground eight months out of the year. That was the part she didn’t like. When spring came, however, there was no place on earth as beautiful as this valley and the dragon’s teeth of the Tetons thrusting up out of the prairie.
“Now,” Shorty said, walking toward the huge rectangular corral, “the Boss will be riding your mare daily in here. It’s got two feet of fine sand as a base. That keeps your horse from pulling a muscle or, worse, a ligament or tendon. He’s going to be seeing what her strengths and weaknesses are this next week.”
“You mean he does all the riding?” Jordana was surprised. That meant ten horses a day were ridden. “I thought he had help.”
“No, ma’am, he does it all himself.”
“No wonder he was upset with me arriving late.”
Shorty grinned. “Time’s money.”
Nodding, Jordana now understood his frosty stance. “How long does he ride the horse?”
“Depends. At first, he’s not going to push your mare. He’s gonna see how she does at a walk, trot and canter. Might be on her for thirty minutes at the most, depending upon how built up she is or not.”
“I’ve been riding Stormy ten to fifteen miles every third day. He will want to know that.”
“Yep, he will. But when you come out the next time, he’ll cover all that with you. The Boss can tell how in shape or not your horse is by merely examining it and watching it work.”
That was true, Jordana decided. And Slade’s gray eyes had missed nothing. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way. She liked his full mouth even though it had been thinned with displeasure talking to her. His nose was strong-looking and had a bump at the root of it, telling her he’d broken it some time earlier in his life. She’d liked his broad, square face, his skin burned brown by being out in the sun so much, the creases at the corners of his eyes deep. Was that from squinting in the bright, white snow or sun? Or were they laughter lines? Jordana highly doubted Slade had any humor in his bones. Not once had he cracked even a slight smile toward her. No, he wasn’t Mr. Social, that was for sure.
“Oh,” Shorty said, “you need to know that the Boss will not allow a rider to wear spurs or carry a whip.”
“Not a problem. I don’t do either.”
“That’s good because the Boss believes that if the horse and rider have a good rapport with one another, you can get all the speed out of the animal because it trusts you. Don’t ever be seen carrying a crop. He’ll kick you out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
Laughing, Jordana held up her hands. “Not to worry. Stormy hates crops. In fact, when I bought her from Bud two years ago, he told me she was combative if she even saw a crop. He thinks the BLM cowboys used whips to get her into a corral. No, Stormy hates crops.”
“The Boss will want to know that.”
“Good.”
Shorty walked her back to the truck. “I’ll help you bring in all your gear to the tack room and then you can leave.”
“Thanks for the help,” she said, appreciating the wrangler. Looking around the large operation, Jordana didn’t see McPherson. The robins were singing in the oak and maple trees that surrounded the one-story ranch house in the distance. There was no lawn, and it looked pretty shabby in comparison to the spotless pole barn and showering shed. Maybe being a single male was the reason. Jordana would have put in a small lawn, flower boxes on the front windows and a small white picket fence around it. A woman’s touch. But this hard cowboy wasn’t much for decoration. At least he cared for his endurance horses. And that was all that counted in her book.
“Now, you need to write out a check for the first month’s rent and training,” Shorty reminded her.
“As soon as I get the tack put away, I will,” Jordana promised him, opening up the trailer door to remove the saddle and bridle.
DRIVING AWAY from Tetons Ranch, Jordana felt happier than she had in two years. Hands firmly on the steering wheel of her three-quarter-ton truck that hauled the empty horse trailer, she drove out just as slowly as she had come in. Maybe McPherson had a tractor stowed away somewhere and would get Shorty out here to flatten it once more.
The sky was a bright blue. The sunlight made the Tetons mountain range west of her look tall, rugged and beautiful. By early July, the last of the snow was almost gone until September, when it would once more become a white cloak around each of the sharp, pointed peaks. Her mind ranged over the price of the training. As a physician, she made good money. Her savings was now gone. She’d spent it buying a house at the edge of town. Two thousand dollars a month for training was going to stretch her in a way she hadn’t counted on. Jordana wanted to put money back into savings, but this training fee wouldn’t allow it.
Grimacing, she slowed at the stop sign that would take her to the highway. Turning left, she drove back toward Jackson Hole. If she’d gone right, she’d be heading into Yellowstone National Park about forty miles away.
Between her clinic and working part-time at the hospital, Jordana made ends meet. Now, with two thousand going out a month, she was hamstrung. Yet, all her life she’d loved horses, and endurance riding had always been her outlet. Could she give that up? Was it too expensive to follow her dream of having the best trainer in the United States train her and Stormy? Jordana waffled, unsure.
Slade McPherson was challenging, to say the least to her. But he’d been gentle with Stormy. How would he treat her? A horse trainer didn’t always transition well from animal to human. She’d had some bad experiences with horse trainers before. Yet, if Jordana was honest with herself, she’d been drawn to the iconic cowboy. That made no sense at all to her! Yet, she couldn’t help but look at his mouth and wonder what it would be like to be kissed by this hard man who braved nature without a second thought. And as he’d run his hands lightly and gently down Stormy’s legs, Jordana swore she could feel those rough, callused hands exploring her at the same time.
“Phew!” she muttered. “This is crazy!”
Was it? What adventures waited for her two days from now when she began her first lesson on Stormy with tough Slade McPherson?
CHAPTER FOUR
JORDANA TRIED TO calm her nerves as she rode Stormy out into the huge rectangular arena where Slade McPherson stood. Her heart wouldn’t settle down. It was July 3, the late afternoon sky filled with threatening clouds. As she looked toward the ragged-edge Tetons, she saw a massive thunderstorm over their sharp peaks. It might come their way if it was strong enough. The wind was up, and Stormy was more alert.
Today was the first day of her training with the implacable McPherson. Why had she had two dreams in a row about this hard-looking cowboy? As Jordana pressed her calf into Stormy’s side to make the turn into the sandy arena, she had mixed feelings. Wasn’t it enough she was working twelve hours a day either at her clinic or the hospital? Since the settling of the lawsuit, she had no desire to get entangled with a man. She was still too raw from the experience, the trauma of the move west and trying to get some sanity back into her life.
“Take her at a walk around the arena to the left,” Slade ordered, his voice carrying across the distance.
Nodding, Jordana took in a deep breath and tried to relax. She knew that Slade was going to be damn tough on her. Stormy had already had two daily workouts. The mustang mare seemed completely oblivious to her anxious state, just plodding along on a loose rein.
“Quit slouching,” he called. “Straighten up.”
Instantly, Jordana took the bow out of her back, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin slightly. Quirking her mouth, she wondered if McPherson was going to always yell at what she did wrong, but offer no praise for what she had done right. Many trainers were like that, she’d discovered. If she didn’t have confidence built up over years of being a resident, she might wither away under such an unfair training system. At two thousand dollars a month, Jordana wasn’t going to let his snappish orders scare her away.
Slade eyed the pair as they walked around the arena in a relaxed fashion. He tried to keep his eyes off Jordana, but that was impossible. His job was to see how she rode, how she sat in the saddle and how she handled her horse. He’d been dreading this moment for days. Having a woman among his male students was like a thorn in his side. He didn’t want her or her runt of a mare, but he needed her money. Guilt niggled at him. Jordana was sincere in contrast to his greediness. Slade didn’t like that about himself. She had come to him honestly. So what did that make him?
Not looking at the answer too closely, he enjoyed watching her lower body move in sync with the horse. Wearing jeans, boots and a dark green T-shirt, she was all woman. Curvy in all the right places, Jordana was a fit athlete. “How long you been riding in endurance events?” he asked.
“Two years,” she called.
Grunting, Slade nodded. “Slow trot,” he ordered.
Pressing her calves to Stormy, Jordana felt the mustang mare instantly obey. Although a small horse, Stormy had long legs. Jordana posted, which meant she lifted her butt off the saddle with every other stride of the animal. That resulted in less pounding on her mare’s back. She knew it was the English way of riding a horse. The Western style was to sit the trot and flow with the horse.
“Sit the trot,” he called.
Grimacing, Jordana did. She hated not being able to post. After going halfway around the arena, she called, “I’d rather post. It’s easier on the horse’s back.”
“Sit the trot.”
Growling to herself, Jordana complied. It took a lot of work to keep her legs against Stormy, her thighs strong and clamped solidly to the saddle and horse. If she hadn’t done so, she’d be bouncing and flying all over the place. Was he testing her strength? Was that what this was all about? The wind sang through her hair. Lifting her hand, she pulled the black baseball cap a little lower over her brow. The wind would pull it off if she didn’t.
“Do a series of figure eights at a sitting trot.”
Jordana knew without a doubt he was seeing just how much strength and control she had over Stormy. A figure eight required her to do a circle over one half of the arena and, once they trotted down the center of it, to turn the other way and complete the second circle. This was easy stuff for her. Stormy wasn’t breathing hard at all, her ears flicking back and forth. When her ears moved back, she was listening to Jordana’s silent leg, weight or hand signals.
“Canter the figure eight,” Slade ordered, his deep voice carrying strongly across the wide expanse. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Jordana had a lot of good riding habits. It grated that she was using dressage, but that was only because Isabel had been a dressage rider. A well-trained horse became fine tuned with dressage training, and it wasn’t a bad thing to have in an endurance horse. There would be times that Jordana would have to use her weight or legs in tight places. Why the hell was he aching to kiss this woman? Slade hadn’t liked his dreams of the past two nights. Both involved kissing this doctor, who exuded quiet confidence. No way. Just no way. Keep it impersonal, he ordered himself.
“Go the other direction now,” he called.
By the time he ordered her into the center of the arena to rest, Jordana was feeling the intense workout. She halted Stormy in front of him and dropped the reins to allow her mare to lower her head and rest, too.
Slade studied Jordana’s face. He had a tough time seeing her as a physician. She just didn’t look like the type. Moving to the horse, he thrust two fingers beneath the horse’s cinch. It was tight but not too tight. She was so close. He liked her long legs and the way her firm thighs curved against the horse.
“Why don’t you let me post?” Jordana demanded. “It’s easier on my horse’s back and it also allows me to rest between beats.”
Slade stared up into her narrowed blue eyes. She was tough, but then, in endurance riding, that was a good trait. “I wanted to see how your mare took to it.”
Surprised, Jordana said, “Oh…” She hadn’t thought about that.
“You can go back to posting. It’s not a bad thing to do on fifty and hundred milers. It saves your horse’s back and it also allows you to rest a bit between strides, too—like you said.”
“Good,” Jordana whispered, suddenly smiling with relief. She leaned forward and threaded Stormy’s thick black mane through her fingers. The mare’s ears flicked.
Her hands were beautiful, Slade realized as he stood near the shoulder of the horse. Jordana’s rhythmic movements reminded him of water flowing gracefully in and around rocks. There was a slight sheen of perspiration across her brow as she pushed the brim of the black baseball cap upward. And her smile melted him in a way he could never have fathomed. What was it about this woman that made him feel like putty?
“Several things,” he growled. “All mustangs came from Spaniards’ horses who escaped from them when they came up here in the 1500s. The conquistador leaders had part-Arabian mounts bred with local horses in Spain. They were known as Spanish barbs and that’s what your mare is.” Slade studied Stormy’s fine head. “She even has the slightly dished face of an Arabian.”
Jordana nodded. “And she possesses that long, elastic trot of an Arab, too, but I’m sure you already saw that.” After all, he’d ridden Stormy two days in a row.
Nodding, Slade found himself enjoying Jordana’s knowledge. She knew her mustang well. “Yes, and that’s what will make your mare a potential winner. Arabians are the only breed with the extended trot where they naturally float, all four feet off the ground.” He held his hands up to demonstrate. “All other breeds have an extended trot, too, but they don’t float a foot or two farther with each stride when all four hooves are off the ground, like an Arab or mustang can. And it’s that one to two feet of float above the ground that gives Stormy a stride advantage. She can take on horses that are fifteen and sixteen hands high and still match their stride. The taller horses have longer legs, therefore, a longer stride. Mustangs and Arabians, however, compensate with this genetic gift only they have.”
“And that’s why,” Jordana told him, “so many Arabian and part-Arabians win the major endurance contests.”
Nodding, he said, “Right.”
“And Thor, your mustang stud, has the same type of stride. I’ve seen video on the internet of him when you’ve got him in the extended trot. He’s magnificent.”
Pleased by the sudden passion in her husky voice and the enthusiasm burning in her eyes, Slade privately arched a little over her praise. It struck him in that moment that he really had missed the soft warmth of a woman around him. There had been times when Isabel had been like that with him, but not very often. Scowling, Slade said, “Thor has won every major endurance event.”
Relaxing in the saddle, Jordana brought her leg up and over the saddle. “You and Curt Downing, who owns that black Arabian stallion, are always trading for first or second. I can’t tell you how many times you gave us an exciting finish.”
Mouth tightening, Slade snarled, “Downing is a son of a bitch and I don’t want to talk about him.” He held on to his simmering anger. Seeing the shock register on Jordana’s face, he added, “Whether you know it or not, Downing is a cheat and up to no good out on the trail when judges and spectators don’t see him.”
“What do you mean?” Jordana asked, confused. She saw anger come to his narrow eyes. This time, Slade was real easy to read. She was beginning to realize when his full mouth was thinned, he was upset about something. And the way his brown brows slashed downward, it was easy to see he was furious. With her? Jordana hoped not.
“Downing has no honor out on the trail,” Slade gritted out. “We’ve got the fifty mile Tetons Endurance ride coming up on September 1st. He’ll be there and so will I.”
“What do you mean no honor?”
Studying her innocent face, Slade said, “You’ve been in endurance races?”
“Sure, many, but they were fifty milers was all, and I was small stuff compared to the pros who rode their horses.”
“Did you ever see anyone strike a horse and rider with a crop? Crowd them off a narrow trail?”
“Why…no,” she admitted. “Is that what Downing does?”
Giving her a sour look, Slade said, “Oh, yeah, and worse.”
“You know this from personal experience?”
“I do,” he said in a clipped voice. “And so do a lot of the other pros who ride the top endurance circuit.”
“If Downing is as bad as you say he is, how come he’s never been caught doing these things?” she demanded. Jordana knew that the ranch next to Slade’s was owned by the Downing family. Was this a local dust-up? Two arrogant endurance champions who couldn’t stand one another from a competitive sense?
“Believe me, there’s plenty of endurance riders just waiting to catch him in the act. Once it gets beyond the ‘he said-she said’ and we’ve got cell-phone photo proof, he’ll be booted out once and for all. Until that happens, it’s one person’s word against another and the judges can’t move on that. Downing does his dirty work in areas where there are no prying eyes of spectators or judges.”
Jordana felt the anger in Slade. “I never realized that went on. All the contests I’ve ridden on, the riders were respectful and followed the rules.”
Giving her a quirked grin, Slade said, “There’s always a bad apple in every group. Downing is it. And you might as well know it because if you’re going to ride on the national circuit, you’ll be meeting him at every one of those endurance events.”
Shivering, Jordana ran her hand down her arm feeling the goose bumps Slade’s harsh words created. “I just can’t believe it.”
Whipping his gaze upward, Slade met and held her innocent-looking blue eyes. “You won’t have much to worry about. Your mare will never be able to keep up with his black stud or Thor.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jordana said, keeping her voice light. She saw the steel glint in Slade’s eyes. God help her, but she thought he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. He wasn’t pretty-boy handsome. He was a man’s man from the rugged cut of his sunburned features to the way he stood, walked and held himself. Despite his constant grumpiness toward her, Jordana allowed herself to at least appreciate him on purely a woman’s level. The words “eye candy” came to mind. Despite his outer armored toughness, she’d seen him deal gently with her horse. There was good somewhere deep down in this Wyoming cowboy. And inwardly, Jordana promised herself she’d find it. Not sure how, she kept that secret to herself.
“Enough talking,” Slade muttered. “Let’s repeat the gaits and figure eight in the other direction.”
“May I post this time?” she asked, smiling down at him. She saw his face thaw for an instant. And just as quickly become hardened. So, a warm smile got to him? Well, that was good to know. Maybe just being friendly was all she had to do around him. Jordana wanted a less acerbic teaching relationship with Slade. She saw enough irritable and angry people in the emergency room of the hospital. She didn’t need it out here, too.
“Post,” he agreed, gesturing for her to get out in the arena once more.
Later, after an hour’s worth of working Stormy in the arena, Jordana walked at Slade’s side as she led her mare back to the stall area to be unsaddled. The sun’s light was more westerly now, the thunder-clouds approaching the valley beneath the slopes of the Tetons. The wind was picking up, too. “Looks like we’re going to get that thunderstorm,” she said, wanting to see if he would make small talk.
Grunting, Slade gave her a brisk nod.
Ouch. Undaunted, Jordana said, “When I was in residency at a New York City hospital, I always loved the storms that came during the summer. It cooled the city down for a little bit.”
Staring at her, Slade almost stopped. “You’re from New York City?”
She heard the stunned disbelief in his tone. Why was he looking at her suddenly as if she was an alien from another planet? “Yes, I was born and raised there. Why?”
Clamping down on an expletive, Slade said instead, “You’re a city slicker.”
“That sounds like a curse,” Jordana teased lightly, taken aback by his scowl. Slowing up, she dropped Stormy’s reins just outside the tack room. Stormy had been taught to ground tie. When the reins dropped to the ground, she was to stand and not move. Jordana eased the flap of her saddle upward to reach the cinch.
Slade stood uncertainly, his mind whirling. Isabel had been from that same damned city, a spoiled brat pouting all the time when she didn’t get her way. She would throw a temper tantrum like a young horse who was saddled for the first time. And yet, as he watched Jordana release the cinch and unbuckle the breastplate around Stormy’s chest, he couldn’t help but stop the comparison. This woman was confident, mature and had a quick, easy smile that automatically felt as if her hands were smoothing down his irritable nature just as he’d touch a horse to calm it.
“Well?” Jordana prodded, smiling as she walked past him with the saddle in her arms, “am I a damned city clod in your eyes?”
Bristling, Slade opened the tack-room door for her. “It explains why you post. East Coast riders are taught English riding and not Western-style riding.” It wasn’t a lie. He just didn’t want to get into the painful and private parts of his divorce with Jordana. Oddly, as Slade watched her put the saddle over the aluminum rack on the oak wall, he thought Jordana might not only understand, but be sympathetic toward him. Isabel had taken him for everything. He’d lost so much in the divorce.
Jordana would clean her gear later. Right now, Stormy was wet and sweaty and needed to be bathed over at the shower barn. “Guilty on all counts,” she said, walking past him.
“Were you always around horses?” he wondered, walking with her to the shower barn.
“My father is a cardiac surgeon and my mother was an Olympic dressage champion. I feel like I got the best genes from both of them,” she told him, a warm feeling in her heart for her parents.
“They still live in New York City?” Slade liked talking with her a lot more than he thought he would. He saw her smile dissolve and her features become sad.
“They died in an airplane crash five years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Slade muttered, meaning it.
“So am I,” Jordana said quietly. She halted at the showering area. Dropping the halter lead, she slid the door open. Mustering a slight smile, she picked up the lead and asked Slade, “What about your parents? Do they live nearby? I’ve never seen anyone but you and Shorty here at the ranch.”
As Slade watched her lead Stormy into the shower stall and put the cross ties on her mare’s halter, he found himself wanting to tell her the truth. Walking around the horse and staying far enough away from getting splattered with water, he said, “Red Downing, who was Curt Downing’s father, crashed into my parents’ truck. They died instantly. He was drunker than a skunk.”
Jordana froze when she heard his words hesitantly tear out of him. She recalled Shorty telling her about his parents but decided to hear his version of it. Looking over, she saw pain in Slade’s face. For the first time, he’d unveiled his armor and she got to see the human in him. There was such grief in his eyes it tore at her heart.
“I’m so sorry, Slade. I really am. How tragic…”
“Yeah, it was. In more ways than one,” he muttered, crossing his arms. Leaning against the wall as she began to use the shower hose to wet Stormy down, he added, “Me and my fraternal twin brother, Griff, were orphaned at six years old. My parents had left us the ranch in their will, but we were too young to run it. My dad had two older brothers, Paul and Robert. Griff moved back East with Uncle Robert. I stayed out here with Uncle Paul and Aunt Patty. Together, they took over the running of our ranch.”
Jordana took a plastic brush and began gently scrubbing Stormy’s neck. She stood quietly, appreciating the tepid water. Looking over her back, Jordana realized that Slade was this way because of the early loss of his parents. She tried to put herself in his place. Wouldn’t she toughen up, too? Would the world look scary and uncertain to Slade and his brother? Very. Gently, she asked, “Is your brother Griff also an endurance rider?” She had never seen him on the circuit.
Giving her a jaded look, Slade felt helpless to stop from telling her about his painful past. “No. Griff went back to New York City with Uncle Robert and his wife. He’s never cared about the ranch.”
“Ah, this is where city slicker comes in?” she teased softly and added a smile. Slade’s face went dark, and he refused to meet her gaze. Oops. She’d said the wrong thing. Scrubbing Stormy’s withers with a soft rubber brush where the saddle sat, Jordana made sure to get all the grit and dust washed off her because it could cause inflammation and create a saddle sore if she didn’t.
Battling his sudden emotions that rose unexpectedly within him, Slade muttered, “My younger brother is a Wall Street broker. He got sent to Harvard and has an MBA. He followed in my Uncle Robert’s footsteps.”
“I see,” Jordana said, moving the brush and the water down the center of Stormy’s gray back. “Does he visit often?”
Shaking his head, Slade said, “Griff likes New York. He likes the East, the big money he makes, the power he has, the women who like to follow the money trail. He doesn’t have time for our family’s ranch.”
The hurt was so evident that Jordana couldn’t shield herself from his sadness. All of a sudden, she wanted to drop the brush and shower wand, run over to Slade and throw her arms around him. In that split second, he looked like the grief-stricken six-year-old who had had his family suddenly torn away from him. Privileged to see the real man, Jordana stood there unable to say or do anything. She couldn’t run over and embrace him. What Slade needed was to be held, rocked, nurtured and kept safe. Now, she was seeing a little of how he saw life. It was a hard life. It took those he loved away from him. And speaking about his brother tore away a new scab that hadn’t really healed at all. Moistening her lips, Jordana said, “Sometimes, life is harsh.”
He snorted, allowed his arms to fall to his side and glared at her. Scared that he’d opened up to this woman, who was really a stranger to him, had him feeling uneasy. “That’s right. It always is. I’ll see you in three days.”
Watching Slade leave, Jordana saw how quickly he closed up once more. His eyes, however, couldn’t lie. She saw such anguish in them that it made her want to cry. And he would never allow her close to him. Like the hurt animal he was, he’d bite anyone’s hand offering help. Sighing, she continued to scrub Stormy free of sweat and dust. The first clap of thunder rolled across the land. Looking up, she saw the churning gray and black clouds racing down upon the valley. Soon, it would pour rain in buckets. Was the sky already crying for the pain that Slade McPherson carried daily within him? No parents were here to love and guide him. No one to help him grow up safe and nurtured. No wonder he was a loner….
CHAPTER FIVE
AS JORDANA DROVE into the training facility, her heart leaped with surprise. There stood the most famous endurance rider and horse in the country— Slade and Thor. She wasn’t sure who was more masculine, proud and aloof: the stud or the man. Smiling with excitement, she forgot about the stress of hurrying out to Tetons Ranch to arrive on time. As a physician she had unexpected emergencies that she had to attend to before anything else. Jordana lived in continued anxiety that one day, she might be late. Slade wouldn’t tolerate tardiness.
Climbing out of her truck, she grinned. “Hey, seeing Thor in person, instead of in a photo, is astounding!” Thor had a “cap” of chestnut color splotched across his head and ears. That was known as a medicine-hat pattern. Native Americans considered such a horse as powerful, protective and lucky. Thor had sky-blue eyes, and Jordana knew it made him even more rare and beautiful. His white hair covered part of his face along with chestnut markings down to his pink-colored muzzle and wide, flaring nostrils.
Pride flowed through Slade. His stallion snorted, his chestnut-colored ears flicking as Jordana approached. The hot July sun beat down on them. “Get Stormy saddled up,” he ordered. “We’re going on a fifteen-mile run.”
Shocked, Jordana halted. “Really?”
Giving her a sliver of a one-sided smile, Slade said, “You brought your mare to me in top shape. Shorty said you were riding her fifteen miles twice a week. She’s ready for this.”
Swallowing her shock and pleasure, Jordana said, “I’ll be right there!” She trotted up to the training barn, her heart soaring with joy. Stormy greeted her with a friendly nicker as she walked down to the end box stall. As she placed her mare in the cross ties to be brushed and saddled, Jordana felt hopeful. Ever since meeting Slade, her days had taken on a new brightness and hope. Not wanting to look at that aspect too closely, Jordana told herself she was drawn to the cowboy because of his rugged good looks and that was all. Clearly, Slade had no women around here.
As she hurried to the tack room and picked up the thick pad and saddle, Jordana recalled talking to one of her patients who knew Slade. Tracy Border, a thirty-year-old mother of two who was trying to lose weight, had said Slade was called The Loner. That his wreck of a divorce had all but put his ranch into teetering foreclosure with the local bank. Further, Slade had been married to a brat of a woman who had no maturity. With that information, Jordana could understand why Slade was anti-female. He had to have time to get over a divorce.
The sweet smell of alfalfa hay wafted through the barn. Inhaling the scent, Jordana often wished that some perfume company would make the fragrance. She’d wear it for sure!
Releasing Stormy from the ties, she quickly placed the hackamore on her mare, clucked to her to follow and hurried out of the facility. Slade was already mounted on the restive, powerful-looking Thor. Jordana knew that the Native Americans felt the medicine-hat pattern, that was sometimes found on paint or pinto mustangs, was powerful. In fact, war chiefs often coveted such beautifully marked mustangs because they were considered the ultimate, courageous warhorses. Thor was pawing the ground, anxious to get on with the ride. He stood fifteen hands tall, which was rare for a mustang. Most were very small in comparison. His white body was splattered with chestnut markings that made her think of an artist carelessly throwing paint here and there across his athletic body. She liked the mixing of white and chestnut on his long, flowing mane and tail.
“I’m ready,” she called, grinning.
Warmth flowed through Slade as he sat relaxed on his stallion. “Mount up,” he told her. For a stolen moment, Slade watched like a starving wolf as Jordana easily vaulted up into her specially made endurance saddle. Today she wore a bright pink T-shirt, a beat-up black baseball cap and jeans. Her curves called to him, and Slade had to tear his gaze from her small breasts. Jordana’s cheeks were red, and he’d come to realize when she was excited, they colored to mirror her happiness.
Squeezing her calves against Stormy’s sleek gray barrel, she rode up and paralleled Slade. “What now?”
Lifting his hand, he said, “We’ll take the path between the pastures. At the end of it, we’ll go left and then we’ll be on Elkhorn Ranch property. Iris Mason gave me permission years ago to utilize her large ranch land to train my endurance horses. I only have fifty acres, which isn’t enough to toughen up an endurance prospect. On her property, there’s hills, slopes of mountains, as well as flat areas. We need all those to challenge the horse and get him…her…up to speed.”
“What a wonderful gift Iris gave to you!”
He nodded and brought the brim of his Stetson down more securely on his head. “She’s the matriarch of this valley and has a good heart. When I went to her and asked for her permission, she gave it right away. And she didn’t ask for any money. That’s the kind of person she is.” Slade was grateful that Iris hadn’t demanded money for the use of her land. She could have but known, as every other rancher did in this valley, he was nearly penniless. Iris helped out those who had less, and he was thankful for her kindness.
“I hear Iris is marrying Professor Timothy Varden from Harvard,” she said.
Nodding, Slade thought of the invite he’d just received to the event. “Yes, she’s in her eighties but she fell hard for the guy.” And secretly, Slade was happy for Iris. She was one of the stalwart leaders in the valley.
“One of my patients told me about her yesterday. I don’t think anyone dislikes Iris.”
“She’s special.”
“I heard that Senator Peyton was convicted and going to prison. I met Clarissa Peyton the other day over at Gwen Garner’s quilt shop. After Gwen told me what had happened, I felt very sorry for the woman.”
“Yeah, it’s been rough on Clarissa. Matt Sinclaire was his target. This year it’s been a mix of good, sad and bad news.”
“I met Casey Cantrell at a luncheon,” Jordana said with a wispy smile. “She and Matt just got engaged. They’re going to get married at Christmas. Matt felt that his daughter, Megan, would have the terrible memory of her mother killed in that arson fire erased by the happy one.”
“Matt has gone through hell,” Slade agreed, grim. The firefighter had lost Bev, his wife and almost lost his daughter Megan to Senator Peyton’s attempt to kill them. “I like Casey a lot. And Megan is speaking up a storm now. After the fire, she went mute. And it wasn’t until of late she started talking again.”
“I think it was due to Casey,” she confided. Slade’s face had softened and he was reflective. Jordana knew that this valley’s people were very close, and all had connections with one another like a larger family.
“I do, too. Megan calls her Mommy now and I think they’ll have a happy ending. Matt certainly deserves a break after all this hell he’s gone through.”
Nodding, she added, “I suppose you hear most of the town gossip? That Zach Mason, Iris’s grandson, has been caught driving drugs to and from Cheyenne with a gang? I’ll bet Iris is heartbroken.”
“There’s not much I don’t hear,” Slade drawled. “And Zach’s mother, Allison Mason, was just convicted of trying to murder her stepdaughter. Good thing she didn’t succeed, but her son Zach, swore vengeance.”
“I heard from another patient that Zach has been in drugs for a long time.”
“That’s true,” Slade said, running his fingers through Thor’s silky white-and-chestnut mane. “I’m more worried about the sister, Reagan. She had a real career ahead of her in movie directing but she’s sat tight here after the conviction. Word’s out that she’s going to get even with Kam Trayhern, the woman her mother tried to murder.”
Sighing, Jordana said, “That’s what Gwen Garner said. My heart breaks for those two kids. Why didn’t Allison Mason think about them before she tried this harebrained scheme to kill Kam Trayhern?”
Shrugging, Slade said, “People do funny things when they’re threatened.” Hadn’t he? After Isabel had left him, he’d turned into an angry bull, much like Diablo. Human feelings were tough to control sometimes. Slade lifted out of his thoughts and said, “I want you to take off in front of me. Walk Stormy to warm her up until we hit that left turn. Then, I want you to do a slow trot. At all times, I’ll be behind you. I want to size up your mare on the different geological areas and see how she reacts.”
“Okay,” Jordana said, feeling her heart swell with a fierce affection for the taciturn cowboy. “I was doing the same type of riding in the south Jackson Hole area.”
“I’m familiar with where you worked her,” Slade said. “But this has more altitude, is rockier and is far more challenging. If you want Stormy to compete in the top tier, she has to not only take this type of terrain on, but excel at it. Today is a test run. We’ll see how she does.” He didn’t say he’d also be watching how Jordana rode and negotiated the coming demands. As on every endurance ride, the rider never knew what was coming next. He’d get to see how Jordana “talked” to her mare and how the horse responded.
Nodding, Jordana smiled and said, “Okay, we’re off on our first adventure with you!” She walked Stormy past the impatient Thor. The stallion was in magnificent shape. Jordana knew that Thor was the past winner of the Tetons Fifty-mile endurance ride. And he was signed up to run it in early September.
Stormy was hard-pressed to just walk. Like any well-trained athlete, she found walking boring. She pranced and danced sideways as they made their way between the two huge cattle pastures. On her right she saw the massive one-ton bull, Diablo, who was alone and looking forlornly across to the other pasture where his ladies were. In the other pasture, the calves had been separated from their mamas, and they were now fattening up on the lush Wyoming grass.
Slade liked the power of Thor as he rode. The stallion was competitive just like him, and he didn’t like walking behind Stormy. Chomping at the bit, the stallion tossed his head, his long, thick mane flying like a banner in the breeze. At the corner, he watched Jordana give Stormy a leg signal to make the turn. And then, the gray mare broke into a slow trot. Thor lunged, partly reared and fought the bit.
“Easy,” Slade murmured, sliding his gloved hand down the stallion’s tightly arched neck. “You’ll get to run here shortly.”
Snorting violently, Thor pranced as he made the turn. Slade was pleased to see that Jordana was keeping Stormy at a slow trot instead of a fast one. It was so important to warm up an endurance horse the right way. Humans had to do stretches in order to limber up and get more blood into their bodies to face the demanding tasks that would be asked of them. Horses were no different. However, a highly trained and competitive endurance horse hated walking. They would much rather move into a ground eating trot. A horse could pull a muscle, ligament or tendon if not warmed up properly for the coming demanding distances.
Once they rode past the gate and shut it behind them, Slade told her, “See this trail? It leads up to two steep hills about five miles away. I want you to ride at an extended trot. Float her if you can. Tactics in top competition are to get your horse into any flat area where they can hit maximum stride. This is where riders can make up lost time that they’ll encounter in hills or mountainous or steep areas.”
Jordana rode next to the impatient Thor. “And then I’ll be at those twin hills. What then?”
“There’s a path up the first one. Follow it up and down to the second hill. Go up and over the second hill, then, turn left. The trail is flat for two miles. Open her up to a controlled canter. Nothing out of control. I need to see how winded she’s become.”
Patting Stormy’s neck, Jordana said, “I think she’ll sail through these challenges without a problem.”
Grunting, Slade muttered, “We’ll see.”
Taking the gauntlet being thrown down at her, Jordana grinned. “Competition is my middle name.”
Giving her a sour grin in return, Slade liked the blue fire dancing in her eyes. Her shoulder-length black hair was mussed around her face and neck. The urge to reach out and tame some of those reddish strands mixed with black ones nearly overwhelmed him. He couldn’t touch Jordana. He didn’t dare. Her winsome smile, the joy in her expression all served to make Slade happy. For the first time in so many years, he’d forgotten what that emotion felt like. What was it about this feisty upstart of a woman that took him on? Slade realized Jordana had never flirted with him. No, she was all business and professional. Arm’s length. Sadness rolled through him. Maybe it was just as well, Slade acknowledged. He was in no position to think about a relationship. His whole focus was on saving his ranch from foreclosure.
Taking out a stopwatch from the leather vest he wore over his white cowboy shirt, he said, “Okay, take off. I’ll be timing you.”
Jordana gave him an evil grin. “Okay, we’re off! Watch us fly!” and she asked Stormy to move into an immediate trot.
Slade smiled reluctantly as she moved her small mustang down the trail. In moments, Jordana had the horse in that elastic, floating trot that only Arabians could manage for miles on end. Giving his restive stallion a nudge with his heels, Slade let Thor eagerly take off in pursuit. He did not like being second to anyone and fought the bit.
Jordana moved in sync with her mare as she continued for five miles at a floating trot. It was a hard trot to ride well. Lucky for her, her thighs had been molded by fifty-mile rides for the past year, so it wasn’t much of an effort for her. Just knowing Slade was behind her made her smile for no reason. Her focus was on the terrain up in front of them. When they hit the first steep, forested hill, Stormy lunged easily up the dirt path. She moved into a walk to a regular trot when the landscape allowed it. The area was strewn with fallen logs and branches from the surrounding trees. Stormy easily leaped over them. Never once did she balk, skid to a stop and refuse to jump. Jordana knew that the top endurance horses were fearless and would attempt to jump without balking. She patted Stormy’s wet, gleaming neck as they trotted down and across to the next hill.
As she leaned back in the saddle as Stormy skidded down the second steep slope, Jordana laughed out loud. The warmth of the July day, the strong scent of pine in the air, the wind moving past her face all conspired to give her a sense of freedom she loved so much. At the base of the hill, she leaned forward, and Stormy immediately broke into a controlled canter. For the next two miles, they were on flat but uneven ground. Ahead of her, she saw the slope of another mountain. This one would be different. Jordana knew that trees that had been cut down, their stumps thrusting warningly above ground, were a special hazard to a fast-moving horse and rider.
She had expected Slade to stop her at the slope, but he remained behind her. Okay, no problem. She urged Stormy up the steep, twisting trail. Rocks were here and there, and the mustang expertly stepped over and around them. Stumps were always a special danger. Forest rangers or timber companies had come in and cut the pines down and left the stumps sticking up like spears ready to dig into her horse’s fine, thin legs. Stormy was at a trot, lunging upward, always alert, but Jordana had to be, too. She couldn’t just rely on her mare to see these dangerous obstacles coming up.
Giving Stormy her head, laying the reins on the horse’s neck, Jordana leaned forward over the withers to keep her mustang balanced as she negotiated the ever-curving, twisting, uphill trail. Stormy was breathing hard as they moved from sixty-five hundred feet in altitude to nearly nine thousand feet.
The trail was tricky, challenging and dangerous. Jordana forgot that Slade was behind and timing her. She’d traversed this type of terrain in other rides but not often. Stormy was proving more adept at it than she was. Her legs were strong and more than anything else, Jordana wanted to stay in balance as they hit the nine-thousand-foot level. The trail then dipped downward at a precarious angle. Jordana clamped her legs to the horse and leaned back, giving her full head, the reins lying down on her neck.
By the time they had hit the plain once more, Jordana urged Stormy into a canter toward the two hills. This was a rugged trail and as the mustang moved along, she realized the difference between level one and two endurance competition. This was brutal stuff. It asked everything of horse and rider.
At the gate that led to Slade’s ranch, Jordana pulled up. She looked around to see Thor at a gallop not far behind. The stallion was powerful, and he looked rested and as if he were just starting this competition. Slade rode like the master horseman he was. His lower body moved in perfect rhythm with the stallion while his upper body was completely quiet. Thor slowed to a trot and then a walk, snorting and tossing his head. He had beautiful light blue eyes, his forelock of mane long and covering them from time to time.
“Well? How did we do?” she asked, patting Stormy. The mare’s gray hair was wet and sleek.
He held up the time. “Not bad for a first run. You made it in one hour.” Giving Jordana a look of pride, he added, “And you did well, too.”
Glowing beneath his unexpected praise, Jordana dismounted and opened up the gate. “That’s a good time?”
Riding Thor, Slade moved through the opened gate.
“It’s good for a first time.”
Jordana shut and locked the gate. “I’m happy with it, then. That’s quite a test riding range you have,” she said as she remounted Stormy. They rode side by side at a walk.
“Your mare is typical mustang,” Slade said as they rode. “She’s used to negotiating all kinds of obstacles and doesn’t bat an eye at them.”
“I know,” Jordana said, running her fingers through her mare’s thick black mane. “She’s fearless.”
“So is her owner.”
Jordana felt as if Slade had lightly touched her. Praise didn’t come from him very often. “Thanks.”
“Maybe because you’re an emergency-room doc? You’re used to chaos and don’t get rattled?”
“I like your observations, Slade. You’re right, I’m a cool head when things get out of control around me.”
“You took those hills like a champ. Maybe I need to revise my opinion of you and that runt of a mustang you ride.” His mouth barely tipped into a smile.
Jordana laughed fully and reached out. She rested her fingers on his darkly haired arm for just an instant. When her fingers grazed his sunburned flesh, she felt his muscles leap instantly in response beneath her touch. Oh, she hadn’t meant to reach out like that. But she had. Jerking her hand back, she saw surprise and then sudden darkness come to his narrowing gray eyes. Her flesh prickled with a delicious sense that he was stripping her with his intense gaze. Gulping unsteadily, Jordana knew what she’d read in those intense, large eyes of his. What had just happened? There was no room in her life for a man right now. She was working twelve to fourteen hours a day trying to make ends meet.
Slade was surprised at Jordana’s warm, graceful fingers wrapping momentarily around his forearm. It had been completely unexpected. He felt helpless to remain immune to her spontaneity and childlike innocence. And that was how he saw Jordana. Oh, Slade knew she was thirty years old and life had erased the innocence from her, but somehow, she had kept some of it. He hadn’t, he realized. He was so dark and glum in comparison to her light, sunny smiles she shared with him. And every time Jordana’s mouth curved upward, Slade’s heart pumped a little harder. Right now, he felt boiling heat building in his lower body; a sure sign of pleasure and more…
“A horse can trot anywhere from ten to seventeen miles per hour,” he said, becoming taciturn. No way did he want Jordana to touch him again. If she did, Slade wasn’t sure he could control his reaction to her the next time around. “Your mare at her float trot was doing seventeen, which is good.” He picked up his timer and showed it to her. “Your canter was about twenty miles an hour and that’s excellent.”
“Heck,” Jordana said, making sure she kept her hands on the reins, “Stormy has never been timed like this before. I know thoroughbreds can race at forty miles per hour. And quarter horses can run fifty in a quarter of a mile race.”
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