Joan Marlow Golan

      Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

      Tough To Tame

      Jackie Merritt

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      JACKIE MERRITT

      and her husband have settled once more in the Southwest after traveling around the West and Northwest for a while—Jackie wanted to soak up the atmosphere and find new locales and inspirations for her appealing Western stories.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      One

      The long-distance telephone conversation began as usual; Stuart “Stu” Paxton, calling from his home in New York, asked how things were going at his ranch in Wyoming. What was unusual was the reply of the ranch manager, Jake Banyon. “I’m afraid we have a problem, Stu. A strange stallion has been gathering himself a harem of our mares. He collected one the other night and two more just last night.”

      “A strange stallion, Jake? I’m not following.”

      “Neither am I,” Jake said grimly. “Truth is I have no idea where he came from or who he belongs to. If he belongs to anyone, that is. He appears to be completely on his own.”

      “Surely you’re not thinking he’s a wild horse,” Stuart said, sounding skeptical.

      “It’s not impossible, Stu, though to be perfectly honest he has the conformation lines of good breeding. Course, I’ve only seen him once and that was from a distance.”

      “And he just showed up? A full-grown stallion? Jake, he had to come from somewhere. With the ranch being so isolated and all, I mean, he didn’t just trot over from a neighbor’s field.”

      “Exactly. I’ve put an ad in the Tamarack newspaper describing him. If anyone in this county owns him, they’ll be calling. In the meantime, I’ve got men out every day trying to locate his lair. I’d like to get those mares back.”

      “And if you manage to capture him?”

      “That’s hard to say without getting a closer look at him.” Jake was intimating that if the stallion did belong to someone, the horse might be carrying tattoos or brands identifying his owner.

      Stu grasped the concept at once. “Makes sense. Well, let me know what happens.”

      “Will do.” Jake then started talking about other events on the 4,000-acre Wild Horse Ranch, owned by the Paxton family for almost a century. Stuart hadn’t taken to the isolation and business of raising cattle, as his ancestors had, and he’d left the ranch right out of high school and, to this day, only went back two or three times a year. Since his father’s death ten years before, Stuart had relied entirely on hired help to keep the place going. Even though he didn’t want to live in Wyoming, he couldn’t bring himself to sell his birthright. He’d run into some bad apples posing as ranch managers, however, and now claimed to be extremely fortunate to have a man of Jake Banyon’s knowledge and expertise at the helm. During their four-year working relationship, the two men— even though Stuart was twenty years older than Jake—had formed a durable bond of mutual respect.

      Jake was still talking about current affairs at the ranch when Stuart interrupted. “Jake, sorry to break in like this, but I called tonight for a reason. I need a favor. Uh, it’s a personal favor.”

      Stuart sounded anxious, which startled Jake. If ever he’d met a more confident, self-assured man than Stuart Paxton, he couldn’t remember it. Nor, he realized, could he recall Stuart ever asking for, or even mentioning, a “personal favor.” This was a first, and it made Jake sit up and take notice. He would, after all, do just about anything for Stuart.

      Jake had grown up on a ranch—same as Stuart—but that was the only similarity between the two men’s early years. Stuart went to college and then proceeded to make a name and a fortune for himself in the business world. Jake’s home had been in Montana. He had finished high school but he’d been too far gone on a local girl to consider leaving her to attend college—a disappointment for his father. But he’d worked as a cowhand for his dad and made plans with Gloria to get married in August.

      When August rolled around that summer, however, Gloria gave him back his ring and announced that she’d met someone else. “Sorry,” she’d said calmly.

      Jake went a little crazy. He was nineteen years old and believed his life was over. Everyone had advice for him, none of it meant a damn. He loved a girl who’d met “someone else,” and there was nothing he could do about it. He had never felt so helpless in his life, especially when Gloria moved away and no one would tell him where she’d gone.

      He started going from woman to woman—the wilder the better—until his father gruffly told him to wake up and smell the coffee. “Jake, you’re drinking too much, and I can’t depend on you anymore. Find yourself another job.”

      Years passed. Jake’s downward slide went from bad to worse, and he’d pretty much hit rock bottom when he’d finally gotten a