Deanna Talcott - Her Last Chance

They left the dishes in the sink, and headed out for the corral. Lewt, the oldest, the goofiest, of his hired hands, had saddled a bay filly he’d dubbed Jellybean. Well into his seventies, Lewt spent his time puttering around the horses. Another mount, a chestnut gelding named Lucifer, was tethered to the hitching post.

“Lewt, meet our guest…” Chase stalled, reluctant to introduce her as Mallory Chevalle, heiress of Chevalle Shipping. “She’s interested in some good bloodlines.”

“Ma’am.” Lewt tipped his hat.

Mallory shook his gnarled, arthritic hand. “Hello. You must be happy, Lewt, to spend your days out here, with horses like these.”

Lewt’s eyes crinkled. “I am, ma’am. And I got me a nice piece of horseflesh here, if you will.” He affectionately slapped Jellybean’s neck.

“Ruger’s Rose of Sharon,” Chase explained, “otherwise known as Jellybean.”

“Jellybean?”

Lewt reached over to move her forelock aside. Mallory leaned closer, her gaze riveted on Jellybean’s forehead. Instead of a star, the mare had three small spots, all connected, and reminiscent of jelly beans.

“She’s beautiful,” Mallory said, her shoulders sagging as she allowed the horse to nuzzle her hand.

From the corner of his eye, Chase watched Mallory carefully.

Mallory had inherited the hands of an aristocrat, he allowed. Either that or the Chevalle wealth had shaped them. Her knuckles were slim, the bones of her wrist, delicate. Long, tapered fingers moved in harmony, making each move effortless, engaging.

As Lewt moved aside, Chase watched in fascination while she ran her hands over Jellybean’s head, her neck and down her withers, all the while crooning to her. Soft, lulling endearments that came from the back of her throat, her chest.

The woman was amazing. Maybe she really did know something about horses.

Mallory confidently leaned from the waist and slid her hand down Jellybean’s leg, pausing at her fetlock, then lifting her hoof to examine it.

Jellybean obliged, but Chase was more intent on the way Mallory’s tiny white top pulled from the back of her jeans. It fit her like a second skin, curving at the arch of her lower back, dipping into the depression that accommodated her spine. As she bent, the sleeves pulled against her arms, straining the seams in fine lines across her shoulders. Stretched thin, the knit revealed the two thin straps of her bra and the hook closure in the middle of her back. The suggestion of her intimate apparel made Chase shift uncomfortably. In his mind’s eye, he saw that silky thing draped across the bed. He thought about her offhand comment, about smothering him in lingerie.

Damn, it’d be a helluva way to go.

Mallory dropped the horse’s hoof, and in the back of Chase’s mind, it sounded like a punctuation mark exploding in the soft dirt.

“Hard, firm, well muscled,” Mallory breathlessly approved.

Chase blanched, quickly rearranging his features before Mallory lifted her innocent face to his. “All that, and more,” he muttered under his breath. “Here. Let me take her out for you,” he said, reaching for the reins. “See what you think.”

The fact was he needed to keep his hands, his thoughts, busy. The woman riled him in ways he couldn’t fathom. Sliding the toe of his boot into the stirrup, Chase threw his leg over the saddle, grateful for the ease of movement, the stretch of his jeans. Jellybean nervously sidestepped; Lewt and Mallory both backed away.

He nudged the filly into a wide canter around the arena, taking the edge off her high-strung temperament. He put her through her paces, figure eights, reining her in from a trot to a walk.

Mallory and Lewt had moved outside the corral, and their arms hung over the top rail. Periodically, Chase saw Mallory incline her head nearer Lewt’s in conversation. He wondered, vaguely, what she said.

He pulled up before them, and arched a brow at her.

“She throws her head a little at every command, doesn’t she?” Mallory replied to his unasked question.

Chase stared at her, definitely deflated.

“Yup,” Lewt agreed mildly, propping the sole of his boot on the bottom rail as he spat into the dirt, “reckon she does. Never really noticed it until Mallory here pointed it out.”

Chase felt like the value of his stock had plummeted. Jellybean was the perfect horse for Mallory. He smiled through gritted teeth. “Let’s take a look at Lucifer,” he suggested.

But Lucifer, Mallory decided, had a slight inclination to wring his tail. Barely noticeable, of course. But it was apparent to her discerning eyes. To Chase’s consternation, Lewt agreed.

While Lewt led both animals back to the barns, Chase brought out Topaz. The filly worked beautifully, her agility to turn corners and stop on a dime her finest feature. When Mallory asked to ride her, Chase puffed up a little, figuring he’d made a match. An hour later he was planning a farewell breakfast, content he’d soon be sending the woman back to Narwhal, where she belonged. When she clambered down from the saddle, she offered Chase the reins and declared Topaz was remarkable, truly remarkable, but a little delicate in the withers. Especially for her father.

“Delicate in the withers?” he’d repeated dumbly, as visions of his buttermilk pancakes took flight.

“Perhaps a sturdier horse,” Mallory remarked idly, scratching Topaz behind the ears, then stroking her forehead.

His answer to that was Stretch, three years old, sixteen hands and still growing.

Too big, she declared.

Spinner, a five-year-old mare.

Calf-hocked, she announced.

Derby, a five-year-old stallion.

Bench-kneed, she decreed.

Exasperated, Chase scowled down at the impossibly beautiful woman. She was the pickiest lady he’d ever met in his whole life. His stock was nationally acclaimed, for crying out loud. The imperfections she was tossing out were slight, barely a notch short of perfect.

Chase snagged a deep breath, determined to sell Mallory a pony, or die trying. “You know, I’ve got this stunning black mare—”

Mallory threw up her hands in protest. “Oh! No. Absolutely not. I had a black gelding once, and that horse was the trial of my life. Dark as the devil he was. I vowed I’d never have another in the stable.”

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “You know, ma’am, I can’t quite get a handle on what you’re looking for.”

“Oh, I’ll know it when I see it,” she said, her voice rising with conviction.

“You sure you didn’t get this Bar C stock mixed up with something else you saw out in California?” he said doubtfully.

“Certainly not.”

“But there’s been nothing that’s interested you at all today,” he complained, wearily glancing to the west, to the setting sun.

“I just haven’t found it yet. I’m looking for something special,” she reiterated. “Something unusual and spunky. It can be less than perfect, but the overall qualities have to be so unique that they make this horse an unforgettable animal. A different kind of horse. Something not of this world.”

Chase didn’t hear the last sentence. He was thinking of Peggy Sue, the pariah who had head-butted him against the wall this morning. Now, there was an unforgettable animal for you. The four-year-old was more than unique, she was a minefield of imperfections—and he’d be switched if he’d show Mallory that contrary little mare.

His reputation would go to hell in a handbasket. He’d be a laughingstock from one end of the country to the other. No matter what, he had to keep her away from Peggy Sue. “We’ll find you something special, Mallory. I guarantee it.”

With her hands in six inches of dishwater, Mallory stared dismally out the kitchen window, at the bloodred sunset, and wondered if the animal Bob Llewelyn described to her—the one with “mustang” blood running through its veins—honestly did exist. She couldn’t come right out and ask, for fear her questions would arouse suspicion. Had Bob been toying with her? Had he sent her on what Americans called ‘a wild-goose chase’?