Robin Owens - Protector of the Flight

www.LUNA-Books.com

To My Critique Group,

a better bunch of writers I’ve never met.

Don’t think you’ll ever get rid of me,

because I can’t do this without you.

“Love is eternal—the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Coming Next Month

Colorado Mountains

Summer, Morning

Since her fall in the National Finals Rodeo, pain had been a daily enemy. Calli Torcher hesitated at the top of the steep stairs from her attic bedroom to the first floor, took a breath, braced a hand against the wall and gritted her teeth at the prospect of pain. No matter how carefully she set her feet, she’d jar herself, then stop and pant through the agony. Or she might fall and end up in the hospital. Again.

Recovering from a broken pelvis took time. The bad dreams that peppered her sleep didn’t help matters. She’d dreamt of people lost in a winter blizzard. Cries for help. Short notes of doom from a clock gong or the ranch’s iron triangle or a siren…

She shook her head to clear her mind and concentrate on navigating the stairs. It happened the third stair from the top, just a tiny misstep and she was leaning against the wall, trying to shut out waves of agony. When she recovered, she went on and made it to the ground floor with no other problems.

As she rested against the wall at the bottom landing, she wondered if she should ask her dad if she could use the downstairs storeroom as a bedroom until she fully healed. But things hadn’t been right between her and her father for months, ever since she’d fallen and lost the barrel-racing championship, ending her career at twenty-five.

That was the past. She could—and would—still train horses, take a more active role in the ranch now that she wasn’t on the road all the time, traveling the rodeo circuit.

Her nose twitched at the smell of strong coffee and frying bacon. Dad was up and fixing his own breakfast. Since he’d started without her, she decided she’d get some air, clear the images and sounds of the dream—the string of bad dreams—from her head and replace them with the beauty of the Rocking Bar T Ranch in their mountain valley.

Calli limped to the corral, breathing deeply, feeling the tingle of the breeze on her face, the softness of worn flannel and denim from her shirt and jeans on her skin. The ball of the sun shot yellow streaks of light into the sky.

She reached the corral fence and leaned against it, breathing fast, still weak from her last surgery. Still, if she continued to work hard, in another few months she’d be able to start training horses.

No whicker of greeting came from her gelding. Calli whistled. Nothing. He always greeted her. A twinge of alarm ruptured her calm. “Spark! Spark, here!” She called as if her horse was a young, heedless colt.

Her dad strode up, a lean tough man with a weathered face and hard lines carved from the rigors of cattle ranching. He leaned on the fence to her right. “The gelding ain’t here.”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Bristly gray whiskers sprouted from his jaw. He could speak well if he wanted, if he respected the person he was talking to.

She wet her lips. “What do you mean, Spark isn’t here?”

His hat shadowed the eyes as blue as her own, but he squinted down at her all the same. Hard as the distant mountains. “He’s a highly trained rodeo horse, worth a lotta money. Couldn’t expect me to keep him ’round when you can’t ride him anymore and a profit can be made. Your last doctor’s appointment made me realize that.”

Calli pivoted so quickly it wrenched her hip. She ignored the pain in her body, so much less than the anguish in her heart. She spoke through the shock. “Spark is my horse. I gave you the money for him.”

Her dad shrugged. “I bought the gelding from the racetrack. The horse was registered in my name. I’m the owner of Rocking Bar T and everything on it.”

“Except for Spark. I paid for him,” Calli said through clenched teeth.

His stance was still casual. “Huh. My name is on the papers. And who paid for that horse’s keep when it was young? I did.”

Money wasn’t the issue. Love was. Giving and receiving love was everything. She’d needed something to love and return that love in her life. “How could you do this? I love him.”

He faced her now, as impassive as always, as if nothing touched him, not even a hint of irritation in his eyes. He looked her up and down as if judging a heifer, not as if he saw his daughter. “You should know better than that. Stupid to love an animal. Stupid to love at all. Love ain’t nothin’ that gets a return. A profit could be made, and Spark wasn’t no use to me. I sold him to Bill Morsey.”

Usefulness had always been Dad’s bottom line.

Her insides clenched, the pressure of hard tears backed behind her eyes. She couldn’t stop the question. “What about me? What about my usefulness?”

He grunted. “You can do your chores and stay. Do the cookin’ and cleanin.’ But I went to the bank. Since the ranch is paid for, I set up a reverse mortgage. The money’ll last long as I do, then you’ll have to find another place.”

Shock and nausea rolled through her. “I’d planned on training horses.”

“This is a cattle ranch.”

“We could build up a fine reputation—”

“No. We run cattle.”

She went to the bottom line. “You aren’t leaving the ranch to me?” Ever since she’d gone on the circuit, she’d always thought of the ranch as her future. Working hard, she’d sent money back for expenses. She’d thought she and her dad were partners.

His gaze fastened on her middle as if he could see her abdominal scars. “No reason to. Ain’t as if you can gimme a grandson, even.” Without another word he sauntered back to the house, leaving Calli’s world broken.

A noise tore from her, some animalistic cry of pain. Blindly she gripped the top fence rail, splinters lanced her hand.

All her life she’d shut out the knowledge of what her father was. Instead, she’d woven illusions that he cared about her. False, lying illusions that had been so comforting and that she’d held so long that she couldn’t see reality.

Her mother had abandoned them, then died. If her father had loved Calli before, he’d shut off his emotions afterward. As long as she proved useful, she was tolerated.