A Touch of the Beast. Linda Winstead Jones
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anybody else steps into the corral? This is a fluke, that’s all. Some kind of trick.”
Hawk had no desire to prove anything to this small-minded man who was still breaking horses the same way it had been done a hundred years ago and more.
In Dr. Eldanis’s eyes he saw something much more interesting than disbelief. She was impressed and intrigued. She was interested in what she’d seen him do. Like it or not, he needed her on his side, he needed her to trust him. Since he’d never been a smooth talker, he wasn’t going to win her over with polished explanations and charisma.
But maybe, just maybe, he could convince her that he was trustworthy simply by doing what he did best.
Hawk took a close look at her. She didn’t wear any makeup that he could tell, but then again she didn’t need it. She had a fresh, clean look and flawless skin that didn’t need to be covered. He wondered how she handled the larger animals she treated, since she was petite. Even her face was delicate. Not for the first time, he had to remind himself that he wasn’t here to hook up with a pretty woman, not even for a few hours.
But dammit, he needed her cooperation. He needed her to be on his side.
“I could ride her myself, but that won’t prove anything,” he told Dermot. Then he looked back at Eldanis. “Dermot has a broken arm. What about you?”
Without hesitation she nodded her head.
This afternoon she’d left Cory in charge of the clinic and ridden to the Dermot ranch with Mort and his eldest son, who’d driven his father to town to have the broken arm set. At that time Donovan had followed in his pickup. Now, just barely past dark, she was headed back to Wyatt with Donovan at the wheel and Baby and Laverne curled up in the small back seat. Both animals were fast asleep.
“I want to know everything,” she said, her eyes on Donovan’s impassive face. She sounded much too interested, much too excited. But she couldn’t help herself. Donovan had put on an amazing display. One she could not explain away. “How do you do that? Can you teach me?”
After he had easily hefted her onto the mare’s back, she’d ridden the horse that Mort Dermot had been so sure no one would ever ride without risk of injury. Hawk had stayed close by, ready and able to sweep her off the mare if necessary. But of course, that had not been necessary. Her ride had been uneventful.
Needless to say, Dermot had decided not to sell the mare to Donovan.
“There are a lot of trainers who don’t break horses in the old way,” Donovan explained. “If you’re interested in the various modern methods of horse training, there are classes available across the country. Take your pick.”
“What about you?” she asked quickly. “Do you teach classes?”
“No.” He sounded a little horrified by the prospect.
She had a feeling Hawk Donovan hadn’t learned his skill in any class given by any other trainer. What he had was a gift.
After Donovan had finished his display, Mort had been full of questions. Questions Donovan had either half answered, ignored or bluffed his way through. He did give Mort a list of instructions on how to deal with the mare in the coming days. She was not to be whipped or sacked, she was not to be bound. Mort had agreed to everything, and more questions had been fired at Donovan. They would have been there all night if Donovan hadn’t insisted that he needed to get back to town.
His affinity for four-legged creatures definitely didn’t extend to the people around him. Donovan had been gruff and impatient with Mort and with her. But when he’d been in the corral with the mare he had become beautiful. Sheryl couldn’t explain it and she didn’t even want to try. The way he moved, the way he looked at the mare, the way they’d moved together… It had been like watching poetry. She couldn’t explain it, except to come to the conclusion that Hawk Donovan was obviously more comfortable with animals than he was with people.
She could empathize.
Donovan’s face was lit by the green glow of the dashboard, since the sun had set more than an hour ago. It was a hard face, unforgiving and without gentleness or humor. But it was also an honest face, unlike that man Carpenter. Was Hawk Donovan truly searching for information about his mother?
One more step, and she would be in too deep. The best thing she could do for herself—for her sanity and her peace of mind and the conservation of her well-ordered life—would be to send Donovan packing. She could even offer to ship him the files, if he’d just get out of her life and stay out.
She’d learned to live without a man, without even the hope of one day having a romantic relationship, even though friends and family tried to tell her that she was too young to give up on the concept of love. One bad experience shouldn’t stop her from living, they said.
One bad experience. More than a year of living hell was more like it. Michael had only hit her one time. One time had been more than enough. She’d left him that night, walked out with her pride and her cheek stinging. Her cheek had healed; her pride was still a little bruised.
As if that hadn’t been enough, Michael, a man she had once loved, had turned into a stalker. He’d fooled her completely, swept her off her feet with his charm and his undivided attention and his apparent love. And then when he had her where he wanted her—boom—he’d shown his true face. Could she pick ’em or what?
Since walking out on Michael, Sheryl hadn’t looked at any man or admired one in any way. Pretty faces were a dime a dozen. Hard bodies were easy to come by.
Until Hawk Donovan had walked into her clinic, she hadn’t given much thought to what she’d given up in the name of security. It wasn’t her fault; the man oozed animal magnetism in a way she had never before encountered. What drew her to Donovan? Chemical attraction? Biological need and bad timing? Whatever this was she really didn’t need it.
But like it or not, she wasn’t ready to turn her back on Donovan and his mysteries.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Sheryl said as the lights of Wyatt, such as they were, loomed closer. “You teach me how to do that, and I’ll let you search through the files.”
His head snapped around, but the truck didn’t swerve. He, and the vehicle, remained steady. “You do have them?”
She nodded gently. “They’re in my attic at home. I moved them there when I set up the clinic. I have to warn you, they’re really a mess. I thought about tossing the old boxes out instead of moving them, but at least some of them are the doctor’s files and may be important to local residents who saw him way back when. So I moved the boxes to the house and planned to go through them when I had a chance. Haven’t thought about them much since, until a few days ago when a man impersonating a building inspector showed up at the clinic and ended up asking about the fertility clinic records.”
“Do you think that’s the same man who broke in last night?” he asked.
“I do.” She was suddenly sure Donovan would never do such a thing. He might bully his way past her and demand to see what he was looking for, but he would never sneak in and nose around. It wasn’t his style.
He braked, for no apparent reason, and slowed the truck to a crawl. They were still miles from town, and there wasn’t another vehicle in sight. Before she could ask why he was stopping, a deer bounded across the road, caught in the beam of the truck’s headlights. If Hawk hadn’t stopped, he surely would have hit the doe.
As he put the truck in motion again, she asked, “How did you—”
“I’m starving,” he interrupted. “Do you eat?”
It was such an inelegant and obviously unplanned invitation, she had to smile. “Just about every day.”
“The hotel where I’m staying has a restaurant and the food is pretty good. Wanna grab a bite?”
She hadn’t had a date since moving to Wyatt. Not that she hadn’t been asked, but with her new business