Tales of Western Romance (5 page)

In the eighteen hundreds, she could have been
a mail-order bride. Or, more likely, an old maid school teacher.
She grinned at her fanciful thoughts.

“
You’ve been watching too many old
westerns,” she muttered. But hey, could she help it if she liked
the romance of the Old West? After all, who could resist a tall,
lanky cowboy wearing a black Stetson? Even homely cowboys looked
sexy in a hat.

Life had been slower back then. There had
been time to appreciate the things that were important, like
friends and family. People had actually talked to each other
instead of sending text messages or email. Families had stayed
together and prayed together. It wasn’t like today, when everything
was hurry, hurry, hurry, and nobody took the time to appreciate the
simple things in life.

“
Geez, Bonnie, how maudlin can you
get?”

But who could blame her? Since her father
retired, she hardly ever saw her parents any more. They were always
on a cruise ship to some exotic location. Her brother had recently
been promoted to CEO of his company and moved to New York. Her
younger sister had been accepted at Harvard Law.

“
And what have you done with your life,
Bonnie Daniels? Nothing. Not one darn thing.”

She was a receptionist in a pediatrician’s
office. She’d had three failed relationships in the last four
years. None of them had been serious. Her love life was currently
in the toilet, and she knew it was all her fault. There had been
nothing wrong with Wade or Will or Luke. Except that they weren’t
cowboys… Of course, real cowboys were hard to find these days.

Unless you spent a lot of time at rodeos. Or
stayed at a dude ranch.

Bonnie smacked her forehead. Of course! Why
hadn’t she thought of it sooner? Her vacation was only a few weeks
away. She would go to a dude ranch and indulge her fantasies.

Filled with a sudden excitement, she sat down
at her computer and did a Google search for dude ranches. She
hadn’t expected there to be so many. She checked those in Colorado,
California, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming, and decided
on the one in South Dakota because the scenery was spectacular.
According to the online brochure, the ranch had been in the Collins
family for over two hundred years, and had once been a working
cattle ranch. They offered hay rides, volleyball, a swimming pool,
bingo, fly fishing, river rafting, square dances, riding lessons,
and trail rides.

It sounded perfect.

Chapter 2

The Collins Dude Ranch was everything Bonnie
hoped it would be. She stared, wide-eyed, at the ranch house, the
barn, the horses in corrals, the cattle grazing along the river
with the mountains in the distance. If it wasn’t for the SUVs
parked in front of the house, she would have sworn she had stepped
back in time.

Excitement fluttered in her stomach as she
checked in at the main house. Mrs. Collins gave her a schedule of
events, advised her that meals were served at seven am, noon, and
six pm, and gave her a key to one of the ten cabins located behind
the main house.

Bonnie thanked Mrs. Collins, picked up her
suitcase and hurried toward the log cabin that would be her home
for the next two weeks.

The cabin was rustic and adorable. The living
room was square, with a stone fireplace, a flowered sofa, and a
wagon-wheel coffee table. White lace curtains fluttered at the open
window. There was a double bed in the bedroom, an antique dresser,
and an old-fashioned rocking chair. The bathroom was tiny, the
kitchen not much bigger, but that didn’t matter, since she would be
taking her meals up at the house.

She quickly unpacked her suitcase, then
changed into the brand new jeans, Western-style shirt, and boots
she had purchased before leaving home. Standing in front of the
mirror on the dresser, she settled her brand new cream-colored
Stetson hat on her head, grimaced at her reflection, and left the
cabin.

Since it was Sunday, there were no events
planned other than a get-together after dinner so the guests could
meet the hosts and get acquainted with each other.

Since she had a few hours to kill, Bonnie
decided to take a look around. A narrow trail looked promising and
she strolled in that direction. The scenery was amazing. Acres of
forest surrounded the ranch. Snow-covered mountains rose beyond the
forest. The trail ran along a narrow winding stream that was
crystal clear.

“
So beautiful,” she murmured. Being
born and raised in the city, she wasn’t used to wide-open spaces,
air that was so clean, or a sky that was such a bright blue, it
almost hurt her eyes to look at it.

Time lost all meaning as she wandered on.
Every turn in the trail revealed another sweeping vista. The trail
ascended gradually until she reached a plateau. She came to an
abrupt halt when she spied a deer. She had seen them in zoos and on
TV, of course, but to see one in the wild was a new experience.

The deer stared at Bonnie.

Bonnie stared back. How beautiful the
creature was, with its big ears and liquid-black eyes.

She took a step forward, gasped in dismay
when her foot broke a twig and the deer bounded away.

Bonnie was thinking it was time to turn back
when the sky overhead suddenly turned dark. She shivered as a brisk
wind sprang up. How had the weather changed so quickly? A flash of
lightning, a rumble of thunder, and the heavens opened.

In seconds, she was soaked to the skin.

Turning, she began to run back the way she
had come. She cried out as she tripped over a root. Arms flailing,
she fell, then let out a shriek as she rolled down the hill.

When she reached the bottom, she lay in a
heap, shivering. When she caught her breath, she checked for broken
bones, then slowly gained her feet.

And realized she had no idea which way to
go.

Cold and lost, she stood there, wondering
what to do, and wishing she had stayed home where she belonged.

“
Heaven, help me,” she murmured, and
jumped when something poked her from behind.

She whirled around, her heart hammering with
fright, her mind filling with visions of bears and other wild
animals.

Only it wasn’t a bear. It was a horse. A big
white horse with beautiful brown eyes and a black zigzag scar on
its rump.

“
Too bad you don’t know the way to the
ranch,” Bonnie muttered, her teeth chattering.

The stallion tossed its head, then sort of
dropped to its knees in front of her.

Bonnie stared at the horse dubiously and
shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t know how to ride.”

The horse whinnied softly, before swinging
its head around, as if inviting her to get on its back.

Maybe it was one of the ranch horses, she
thought, frowning. If so, it would know the way home.

With that thought in mind, she grabbed a
handful of the horse’s long, silky mane and climbed onto its back,
nearly falling off when the horse stood.

“
All right,” Bonnie said, hanging onto
its mane with both hands. “Take me home.”

* * * * *

Jackson Gray Hawk hunched his shoulders
against the rising wind. There was a storm heading his way. He
could feel the coming change in the weather, smell the rain in the
air.

Catching up his big bay mare and her yearling
colt, he led the horses into the shelter of the dilapidated old
barn.

“
I know, you hate being locked up,” he
murmured as he shut the mare and the colt into adjoining stalls.
“But you’ll be more comfortable in here.”

The mare whinnied and shook her head, as if
in protest.

A flash of lightning split the skies,
followed by a deafening rumble of thunder.

“
Hear that?” Gray asked, slipping the
bolt into place on the mare’s stall. “Gonna be a real gully
washer.”

Summer storms were always intense here on the
prairie, he mused as he scratched the mare’s ears. He had lost his
parents and an older brother in a flash flood when he was just a
boy. He had often wondered why he had survived when the others
hadn’t. His mother’s sister had taken him in and raised him with
her own brood, but Gray, with his dark skin and black hair, had
never fit in with his mother’s Danish kinfolk. When he turned
fourteen, he had lit out for the badlands of South Dakota to find
his father’s people. Old Runs With Wolves, the Lakota medicine man,
had welcomed him to the tribe and taught him the ways of the
People.

But the days when the Indians had lived wild
and free were soon gone. It wasn’t the Lakota way to live on a
reservation. The heart had gone out of Runs With Wolves; six months
after being penned up on the reservation, the old man had turned
his face toward death and died in his sleep.

Gray hadn’t liked living on the reservation
any better than Runs With Wolves, but instead of turning his face
toward death, Gray had lit out for Abilene. Looking back, he
admitted that hadn’t been the smartest thing he had ever done. He
had been young, angry at the way his people had been treated,
defensive about his Indian heritage. That, combined with a quick
temper, had led from one fight to another. He supposed it had been
inevitable that, sooner or later, he’d wind up in jail. He had met
Frank Morgan there and thrown in his lot with Morgan and his bunch.
Another bad decision. Morgan had taught him how to cheat at cards
and handle a gun.

Gray had been playing cards in Lead when a
miner started in on him, giving him a bad time about the color of
his skin, calling him a “damn dirty Injun” and a “gut-eating red
stick” and a few other names that couldn’t be said in mixed
company. Gray learned the hard way that whiskey, guns, and a bad
temper weren’t a good combination. When the miner pulled his gun,
Gray shot him dead. His plea of self-defense had fallen on deaf
ears. No jury was going to acquit a half-breed who had killed a
white man, self-defense or not. A judge sentenced Gray to twenty
years in prison.

Thinking of it now, he wondered if he should
have done the time, and then he shook his head. Two years or
twenty, it was out of the question. Determined not to spend one
more day behind bars, he had wounded three deputies when he broke
out of jail, and now he was on the run. If they caught him again,
they’d hang him for sure.

Muttering an oath, Gray shook off his
reverie. After giving the mare a final pat, he left the barn,
securing the heavy door behind him.

He was halfway to the house when the storm
hit. Rain pummeled the ground. Lightning crackled across the skies,
followed by long drum rolls of thunder.

He had reached the porch when something made
him stop and turn around.

Narrowing his eyes, he swore softly. It
couldn’t be. He had to be seeing things. He closed his eyes and
opened them again, but the great white stallion was still there,
trotting toward him.

Gray swore softly. He didn’t know which was
more unbelievable, the appearance of the legendary ghost horse, or
the bedraggled white woman on its back.

Chapter 3

“
Whoa, now, easy boy, easy
now.”

Bonnie’s eyes snapped open at the sound of a
man’s voice. Chilled to the bone, her teeth chattering, she stared
at the man standing by the horse’s head. Her first thought was to
wonder if she was hallucinating. She had never seen a flesh and
blood man so strikingly handsome.

“
You all right?” he asked.

She blinked several times, but he was still
there.

“
Are you all right?” he asked again,
louder this time.

She nodded.

“
Come on,” he said, “let’s get you out
of the rain.”

She would have argued, but the thought of
being warm and dry was too tempting.

When he reached for her, she practically fell
into his arms.
Not a very good first impression,
she thought
as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

He carried her quickly across the sodden
ground and into a small house built of logs. Setting her on her
feet, he pulled a blanket from the back of a worn sofa and draped
it around her shoulders.

“
Just sit tight a minute,” he said,
“while I put some more wood on the fire.”

She nodded. Clutching the blanket, she stood
there, shivering, while he added several logs to the fire. If he
was a figment of her imagination, she had certainly dreamed up a
hunk. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with long black hair and
copper-hued skin. Muscles rippled beneath his flannel shirt. She
wondered if he was an Indian. She had seen one or two on the
ranch.

“
Now, let’s get you out of those wet
clothes.”

She clutched the blanket tighter. “I’m
fine.”

“
You’re shaking like a leaf.” He jerked
his chin toward the doorway to her left. “You’ll find a change of
clothes in there. I reckon they’ll be a little big, but they’ll be
dry.”

When she didn’t move, he shook his head.
“I’ll go out and look after your horse while you change.”

She nodded. She didn’t like to think of
anyone going outside in this storm, but there was no way she was
going to change clothes while he was in the house.

Grunting softly, he opened the door. The rain
was falling harder, faster.

As soon as he left the house, she hurried
into the other room and closed the door, lamenting the fact that
there was no lock. Anxious to get out of her wet things, she
glanced around. The walls were rough wood, bare save for a black
and white picture of a buxom girl holding a bottle of beer. The
picture had obviously been torn out of an old newspaper. A single
bed, a rickety bedside table, and a battered chest were the room’s
only furnishings.