Jackie Merritt - Tough To Tame

Leading Goldie from the corral Carly mounted, and it was a marvelous sensation to be on horseback again. Exhilarated, Carly nudged the mare into a walk and headed for open country.

Jake and three of his men returned to the compound around noon. The others had their lunches with them, as they were moving cattle from one pasture to another in the southernmost portion of the ranch.

Riding up to the main corral near the largest barn, Jake pulled his horse to a halt and frowned. “Did someone move Goldie to another corral?” he asked.

All three men looked blank. One of them finally said, “Not that I know of, Jake,” and the other two agreed.

Jake looked at that empty corral and felt a discomfiting premonition in his gut. But it was a premonition without definition, and he honestly didn’t know what was causing it, except for the fact that he hadn’t asked anyone to move Goldie and someone had. Goldie was a valuable horse and she was in season. Jake had put her in this particular corral so he could keep a close eye on her. He’d been planning to mate her with Caesar, a pale blond thoroughbred stallion, when the time was right.

“Jake, maybe that wild stallion stole her,” one of the men said. “He’s getting bolder all the time. Maybe he came right into the compound this morning and stole Goldie while everyone was gone.”

Startled by that idea, Jake studied the high pole fencing of the corral and tried to visualize Goldie, or any other horse on the place, having enough space in the enclosure to get up enough speed to jump the fence. Mares in season and stallions accomplished remarkable feats to get to each other, but clearing that high fence from a short distance would be more than remarkable. It would be damn near impossible.

“I don’t think so,” Jake finally said. “I’m going to go and talk to Barney. Maybe he knows something.” Hurrying off toward the cookhouse, he heard the three men exchanging ideas about what might have happened to Goldie. None of their theories seemed feasible to Jake, and he closed his ears to them.

Entering the cookhouse kitchen, he got right to the point. “Barney, did you happen to hear anything unusual this morning?”

“Unusual? Like what, Jake?”

“Goldie’s not in her corral. Did any of the men come back and maybe move her? Not that anyone should’ve moved her, but something happened to her.”

Barney shook his head. “No one came back that I know of, Jake, and I didn’t hear anything unusual. Course, I had been playing my radio, you know.”

“Okay, thanks.” Jake started to leave.

“Oh, wait a minute, Jake. Carly Paxton dropped in and chatted a few minutes. Real nice lady, she is, real nice. Just like her pa. Anyway, she asked me if I knew the name of the palomino horse in the corral. I told her, of course.”

Jake felt such a strong sinking sensation that his knees got weak. “Did she say anything about taking Goldie for a ride?”

“Nope, not a thing. Jake…Jake? What about some lunch?” Barney called as Jake ran out.

“We’ll eat later,” Jake yelled over his shoulder. He ran all the way to the house, hit the back door hard and then ran through the rooms like a whirlwind, shouting Carly’s name. When it was obvious she wasn’t on the first floor, he took the stairs to the second floor two and three at a time, rushed down the hall and unceremoniously pushed open her bedroom door.

“Damn you!” he yelled when he saw nothing but a vacant bedroom. If that woman didn’t prove to be the death of him this summer, it would be a miracle!

Retracing his steps at high speed, he ran back outside to the three men, who were still discussing Goldie’s mysterious disappearance. When they saw Jake’s dark and forbidding expression, they fell silent.

“I want the three of you to go and find the other men. Then all of you are to spread out and look for Carly Paxton and Goldie. I’m positive Carly took Goldie for a ride.”

“Hell’s bells,” one of the men muttered. “Don’t she know Goldie’s in heat? If that stallion gets wind of Goldie, no telling what might happen.”

Jake’s expression became even darker. “Let’s get going,” he said gruffly, climbing onto his own horse. He had no idea in which direction to even start looking for Carly and Goldie, but he couldn’t just stand around and worry.

On horseback, the four men tore out of the compound.

Goldie behaves like a lady, Carly thought, extremely pleased with herself over having thought of taking this marvelous ride. The open fields, bright from sunlight, were lovely with wildflowers and birds flying this way and that. The grazing cattle paid her no mind, and Carly felt a wonderful sense of serenity that had been missing from her life for too long a time.

Her dad had been very wise to suggest she come here, she thought with a feeling of love for Stuart Paxton. As she rode, Carly vowed once more to never worry him again and couldn’t help recalling that he had warned her against marrying Burke Stenson. The Stenson family was as financially well-off as the Paxtons, but Burke’s personal reputation had concerned Stuart.

“He’s a gambler, Carly. Please don’t think you can change him,” Stuart had said.

But she’d been madly in love and hadn’t heeded a word said to her about Burke. It was the only time in her life that she had openly defied her father, and she had lived to regret it. Burke hadn’t just been a gambler. In fact, that had been his good side, and she probably could have lived with it. But Burke had also been emotionally and physically abusive, and she had not been able to live with black eyes, a bruised body and a shattered heart for long. Her marriage had lasted three years, and looking back at the misery of it she wondered why she’d stayed that long.

Carly pushed that phase of her life from her mind because she hated thinking about it. Besides, if she was going to attempt some serious thinking, it should be about what she intended to do when she returned to New York. Before her marriage she had worked in advertising, and it was a career she could go back to, she knew. She just hadn’t found her way yet, but she would.

But she didn’t want to be serious today, not about anything, and she rode through grassy fields, moving farther and farther away from the compound, thinking scattered thoughts and even doing some humming, simply because it was a fabulous day and she felt so carefree on that beautiful mare’s back.

Approaching a series of foothills, Goldie suddenly tossed her head and whinnied, startling Carly out of her insouciant mood. She patted the mare’s neck and murmured calming words, but the pretty mare still seemed agitated.

“What is it, girl?” Carly asked quietly, looking around to see what might have alarmed the horse. A snake, maybe? Remembering that her father had said there were rattlesnakes in certain areas of the ranch, Carly anxiously searched the ground. She saw nothing but grass and a tiny field mouse running for its hole. A mouse shouldn’t spook Goldie, but then she really didn’t know the mare that well, did she?

Carly urged Goldie to move on, and the mare obeyed. Carly relaxed again. The foothills looked interesting. She could see pine trees and thought she heard the movement of water, a creek perhaps. Goldie could have a drink, Carly thought as she urged the mare up a hill and into the trees.

Oh, this is lovely. It was much cooler in the trees, and the sound of the creek was louder. Wondering if she, too, could have drink from a creek, if it was safe for a human to drink from a creek, Carly realized that she should have brought some water with her. She would not forget water the next time she took a ride, she told herself.

Well, she would let Goldie have a drink, then start back. In the next breath her heart nearly stopped beating. Not twenty feet away, directly in her path, was the black stallion she’d seen from the helicopter yesterday. He was as physically magnificent as she’d thought then, but he didn’t look very friendly, and Carly’s mouth was suddenly drier than it had been a minute ago.