Hitched to the Horseman. Stella Bagwell
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too.”
He didn’t figure she was giving him the complete reason. But then he hadn’t expected her to spill her life’s story through one slow dance.
“What about you?” she asked. “How did you come to be here on the Sandbur?”
“I met Cordero at a horse seminar over in Louisiana. He liked my work and asked me if I’d be interested in settling here.”
“And you were,” she stated the obvious.
“Here I am.”
She seemed on the verge of asking him more when the song suddenly ended.
“Want to go another round?” he asked.
She smiled. “I really shouldn’t ignore the other guests who’ve come to see me tonight.”
“Then thank you very much for the dance.” He lifted the back of her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss on the soft skin.
Wide-eyed, she asked, “Did you give one of those to Alice, too?”
A faint grin curved the corner of his mouth. “No. She didn’t dance nearly as well as you.”
She studied him for several long, awkward moments and then smiled impishly. “Oh. Well, I won’t wipe it off, then,” she said brightly. Before he could make any sort of reply, she pulled out of his embrace and hurried off the dance floor.
Gabe stared after her and wondered why he felt as though he’d just taken a hard tumble from the saddle.
Chapter Two
Once the party finally ended, Mercedes didn’t get into bed until the wee hours of the morning. Though she was exhausted, her sleep ended abruptly when she woke up long before daylight, her body drenched in sweat, her senses disoriented.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she pressed a hand to her damp face.
You’re okay, Mercedes. You’re in your old bedroom on the Sandbur. The bedroom where you played as a child, had sleepovers with friends.
Dropping her hand from her bleary eyes, she gazed around at the shadows shrouding the walls and furniture while she waited for the axis of her brain to spin in the right direction.
She’d been dreaming, she realized, but not of something pleasant or peaceful. The dream had involved a man and a horse inside a corral. She’d been watching from the fence, calling out to him, trying to warn him that he was about to be hurt. The horse had charged, knocked the man down, then reared and viciously brought his front hoofs down on the man’s back.
Gabe! She’d been dreaming about Gabe Trevino. The realization stunned her almost as much as the vivid dream had shocked her senses. She’d not gone to bed thinking of the man much. Well, maybe that tiny kiss on the back of her hand had fluttered through her thoughts right before she’d gone to sleep, she corrected herself. But her mind certainly hadn’t been consumed by the man.
With a rough sigh, she rose from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom. She might as well shower and start the day, because there was no way she could go back to sleep now.
A few minutes later, Mercedes, dressed in jeans, boots and a cool summer shirt, walked through the quiet house. In the kitchen, she realized that she’d even beaten Cook out of bed. The room was still dark.
For a brief moment, she considered making a pot of coffee, then decided she’d wait until the rest of the family was up to enjoy it with her.
Instead, she let herself out of the house through a back exit and made her way through the dark early morning to the horse barn. Across the way, she could see a faint light glowing in the bunkhouse. The wranglers would be stirring soon, catching their mounts and saddling them up for the day’s work ahead.
Mourning doves were cooing and mockingbirds were beginning to flitter to life among the live oaks. There was a peaceful beauty to the ranch that Mercedes had always loved. Even when the ranch yard bustled with life, it was a poetry of sights and sounds. The hammer of the farrier, the bawl of a calf, the nicker of a horse, the sun coming up and the moon going down.
From generation to generation and year after year, her family had worked and carved this ranch from prickly pear patches and endless stretches of mesquite trees. As for Mercedes, she’d been born here in her parents’ bedroom.
Yes, she’d been rooted here. But eight long years ago, she’d pulled up those roots and run as fast and hard as she could. Now she wondered if she’d made a mistake by coming back, trying to make this her home once again, trying to pretend that she could fall back into the life she’d led before her college life and John’s big deception, before her stint at Peterson AFB and the humiliating mistake she carried from there.
Trying to shake away the nagging questions, she walked on to the barn and climbed up on a board fence that corralled a small herd of yearling horses. From a lofty seat on the top rail, she watched the colts and fillies play in the cool morning air until she heard a footfall behind her.
Glancing over her shoulder, she was more than surprised to see the man of her disturbing dream propping his shoulder against the board fence. He was dressed in a dark blue denim shirt with pearl snaps, the standard fare that cowboys had worn for decades. Funny how the shirt looked tailored just for him. Some men tried to play the part, while others were naturals. She realized that Gabe was one of those naturals, the epitome of all things Western right down to the square toes of his brown cowboy boots.
“You’re up very early,” he remarked.
“So are you. Today is Saturday,” she pointed out. “Don’t tell me that you start your workday this early on a Saturday.”
Even though he had no way of knowing that she’d dreamed about him, the fact that he’d shouldered his way into her subconscious thoughts was enough to put a sting of embarrassment on her cheeks.
He jerked his head toward the pen full of horses. “They don’t know it’s a weekend.”
He was right. Nothing stopped on the ranch. At the least, livestock had to be fed and cared for every day of the week.
She drew in a long breath and let it out as she guided her gaze back to the pen of horses. “Are all of these broken to the halter?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing with them now?”
“Getting them used to blankets and saddles on their backs. When they get closer to two, I’ll put someone lightweight like you on them. Ever ride a green horse?”
Even though he was standing on the ground and a good foot away from her, his presence was a huge thing, crowding toward her, making her completely aware of her femininity.
She answered, “I’ve ridden a few outlaws before. But as for green horses, only once. Daddy forbade us to climb on anything that wasn’t completely broken to ride, but I didn’t always do what I was told.”
“Imagine that.”
Even though she didn’t glance at him, she could hear a smile in his voice, and the sound warmed her, drew her to him.
“Yeah. I got bucked off and broke my arm. I missed the whole softball season at school that year. I learned about green horses the hard way.”
Apparently she’d always been an outdoors person, Gabe thought. The notion surprised him, although it shouldn’t have. She’d been in the military, after all. She’d had to go through rigorous physical preparation to graduate basic training. Still, she seemed so womanly, so soft, that he couldn’t imagine her in camouflaged fatigues or wearing a pair of spurs and chaps.
“Don’t feel badly, we’ve all been dumped,” he told her.
She remained quiet and after a few moments, Gabe glanced up to see her wiping her hands down her thighs as she rose from her seat on the fence. She was