Jane Toombs - Wild Mustang

He shrugged and turned to his sister. “I suppose you want to do the picking.”

“I sure can do better than Rabbit,” Sage told him. “How about Columbine?” She pointed to what looked to Laura like an Arabian mare, a chestnut. “That’s her name but we call her Colly.”

Shane raised his eyebrows at Laura.

“Colly’s beautiful,” she said. “I’d like to ride her. Arabian, isn’t she?”

He smiled. “Some of her ancestry must have been, but she’s of mustang stock. We picked her up as a filly who’d been injured. By the time she was healthy and whole, she was too domesticated to turn loose, so we kept her. On the trail, Colly can outlast any horse we own.” His dubious glance told her he didn’t think she’d come anywhere close to Colly’s ability.

After Cloud and Colly were saddled, Shane and Laura set off, with Sage waving from the corral.

“I hope we’ll be able to spot the black stallion’s herd again,” Laura said after they’d ridden some time in silence. “One of his mares—a pregnant pinto—was lame. I need to get a better look at her.”

“He’s got two pinto mares. Which one?” Shane’s words made her certain he must know every mustang in that herd.

“If she were a cat I’d call her a calico.”

He nodded. “I know the one. Must be a recent injury. She wasn’t lame the last time I got a good look at the herd.”

“It was obvious yesterday.” As soon as the words were out she realized he probably hadn’t noticed the mare, being too busy coming to her rescue. The sooner she came to terms with that the better.

“Yesterday wasn’t the greatest introduction in the world for us,” she said, facing her mistake squarely. “It was poor judgment for me not to pay closer attention to the stallion.”

Shane had been wondering if she’d ever admit her mistake. Now that she had, he was forced to revise his estimate of her. She also sat on Colly like a pro and rode well. The question that remained was how long she could last.

She was quiet for some time before saying, “This morning Sage told me something that keeps troubling me. Is it true her father is trying to gain custody? She seems terrified that he will.”

The last thing Shane wanted to do was discuss his problems with a stranger, but since his sister had already hung out the family laundry, the least he could do would be to give Laura the straight facts.

“My mother had me when she was very young. My father died when I was eighteen, and two years later, she remarried off the reservation and went to live with her husband in southern California. Sage was born there. My mother brought her back to the ranch when she was four, and the two of them never left.”

“Sage said her father was mean,” Laura said.

“Our mother told us that,” Shane said shortly, a muscle tightening in his jaw. From the moment his mother had come home, he’d hated Bill Jennings, the man who’d become his stepfather.

Just as quickly, he’d come to love his little sister. The thought of Sage going to live with that man set his teeth on edge.

“Surely no judge would force a child to live with a man known to be abusive,” Laura said, her indignation clear in her voice.

“There’s no evidence of any abuse. When she lived with him, my mother never called the authorities, so there’s no record. And now she’s dead. The judge feels since Sage’s father has remarried, she’d benefit by having a woman to mother her.”

Laura didn’t speak for a while. “Forgive me if I’m getting too personal,” she said at last. “I can’t help but be concerned about Sage’s future. If the judge seems to think Sage needs a woman’s influence, isn’t there someone you know that you could marry? Surely the judge wouldn’t favor moving Sage then.”

He scowled. “Marriage is out. It’s not for me.”

To his surprise, she nodded. “I understand because I never intend to marry myself. Still, you might come to some kind of accommodation—I suppose it might be called a marriage in name only—to satisfy the judge. Once he rules in your favor, after a time the marriage could be dissolved.”

He started to brush off the suggestion with a terse remark, then held, staring at her. What was it Grandfather had said last night? Something about what a nice young lady Laura was, just the person Sage needed to have around.

At the time he’d thought Grandfather meant for temporary company. Ha. What that clever old trickster was trying to do was set him up. That was the reason behind his inviting Laura to stay at the ranch.

Shane snorted in disgust at being taken in. Realizing he’d startled Laura, he turned away. She’d had no part in this, he felt almost sure. Not once had she indicated she so much as liked him. He wondered why.

Most women found him attractive. He’d be a fool if he hadn’t noticed that. But it was clear to him that Laura didn’t. He glanced at her and caught her looking at him apprehensively. Was she afraid of him? Why should she be?

“Is something bothering you?” she said, flinging her words at him like bullets.

He blinked. “What makes you ask?”

“You keep scowling.”

Shane hadn’t realized he was. “It’s not aimed at you.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Why is it you never intend to marry?”

“I—well, I—” she faltered. He watched her take a deep breath and raise her chin. “Due to something that happened in the past, I don’t trust men,” she went on. “I prefer to have nothing but impersonal dealings with them. I absolutely can’t imagine marrying.” She gave him a level look. “Why don’t you intend to marry?”

It wasn’t any of her damn business. But, after a moment, he realized he’d posed the question first, and she’d given him an answer. Fair was fair. He owed her some kind of an explanation.

“The usual,” he said tersely. “We were young and ignorant, she got pregnant, so we got married. A mistake. We didn’t mesh. I took off and joined the rodeo circuit, wasn’t home much. She and my daughter were killed in an accident while I was gone.” He made a slashing motion with his hand. “Never again.”

He had no intention of telling her how Deena had begun running around and that the fatal accident had been when she was coming home from her newest lover’s place, the baby with her. Nor was he going to confess his guilt. If he hadn’t run off, if he’d faced their incompatibility head-on and filed for divorce, asking for custody of his daughter, both she and Deena would be alive today.

Hating to hash over the unchangeable past, he shucked it off by taking a quick look around. Spotting some dust rising, he pointed. “Might be a herd over that way. We’ll head for the nearest rise and see what it is.”

When they paused at the crest of the hill, he saw he was right, but the mustangs were heading away from them and were already so far away they’d never catch up. Any pursuit would simply make them run all the faster and farther.

“To get close to a herd, you really need to camp out near a source of water so they’ll come to you,” he said. “Since they normally range over about twenty acres per day, it’s futile to chase them. That’ll just result in them taking off and likely moving off reservation land.”

“I can see that,” she said. “Shall we plan to camp tomorrow?” Concealing his surprise that she didn’t balk at camping with him, he said, “Up to you. But it’ll have to wait for a couple of days.”

“Whenever you have the time, then.” She hesitated before saying, “I want to tell you I’m sorry about what happened to your wife and child. I realize the tragedy must make it doubly distressing for you now that you have to worry about losing Sage.”