Saddle Up(40)

Be well? Was that all? The end? Their final good-bye? Her chest gave a painful squeeze. She’d never dreamed that in going out into the desert she’d end up leaving a piece of herself behind. But she had—a great big chunk of her heart.

*

He’d almost kissed her. He still wanted to. It was all he could do to hold back, but he’d never have been able to stop kissing her once he started. So he hadn’t. But he still wanted her. He hadn’t stopped wanting her. The scent of her still teased him. He ached to feel himself surrounded in her warmth. There was so much he would like to have said, but what was the point? She’d come only to do a job, just as he had. Now the job was finished. She was driving back to L.A. The good-bye hurt, but a swift, clean break was for the best. This couldn’t go anywhere. She had plans, a future. He had nothing. Absolutely. Nothing. A fact that gnawed at his insides when she’d asked about his plans. So instead of kissing her, he’d watched her drive away, but letting her go still left him with a huge ache in his chest.

Keith left the prison an hour later with the horse on his trailer, bound for Tuscarora, where he’d be joining Mitch’s crew. He still didn’t know what had prompted him to take the horse, or what the hell he was going to do with it. At first he’d thought the medicine hat stallion might make a good peace offering, but it might be interpreted as trying to buy his way back into his grandfather’s good graces. He couldn’t chance the risk and humiliation of a rejection. Keeping the horse for himself was impossible, even if he was inclined to train it—which he absolutely wasn’t.

He was still mulling over his dilemma when he reached the fork in the highway at Winnemucca. But instead of continuing east on Interstate 80, he turned the wheel northward onto Highway 95 with no real destination in mind. Seventy miles later, just inside the tribal lands, he spotted several bands of horses. Pulling onto the shoulder of the deserted highway, Keith cut the engine.

Nostrils flaring blood red, the horse snorted at him through the slats as he rounded the stock trailer, where he unlatched the door and flung it open. Instead of instantly springing out, as he’d expected, the stallion eyed him with suspicion.

“No tricks, ol’ man.” Keith turned his palms up. “Go now. You’re free.”

Throwing his head back and his tail in the air, the stallion lunged out of the trailer and bolted toward the same mountains that were his prior home. Watching the horse disappear in the distance, Keith whispered in warning, “You’d be wise to make yourself very scarce next time.”





Chapter 15


Los Angeles, California

“Good morning, bright eyes,” Lexi greeted Miranda cheerily. “I didn’t hear you come in last night.”

“It was really late,” Miranda replied. “I drove all the way from Reno.”

“Reno?” Lexi looked puzzled. “I thought you went to the mountains to film wild horses? What the hell were you doing in Reno?”

“I stopped there overnight on the way back and then drove home from there.” A drive that was far too long and lonely. As hard as she’d tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about Keith and how it had ended. She understood his aloofness at their parting; he was trying to make it easier, but it wasn’t easier. And like a fresh cut, it still hurt.

“You drove nine hours straight through? No wonder you look like death warmed over.”

“Thanks a bunch, Lex.”

“Here, you need this more than I do.” She handed Miranda a steaming cup of coffee and then poured another, set the cup down, and plopped onto the stool beside her. “So, how was this desert adventure of yours?”

“The whole thing was so surreal. I went there thinking I was just going to film this wild-horse roundup, but then things went awry, and I ended up trekking into the mountains with one of the wranglers.”

Lexi’s jaw dropped. “Oh. My. God. Please tell me he was smoking hot.”

Miranda broke into a reluctant grin. “He was straight out of your wildest fantasies, Lexi.”

Lexi laid a hand on her knee. “So this actually gets good? Or maybe you have no idea just how wild my fantasies are.”

Miranda laughed. “Picture a cross between Romancing the Stone and Tarzan of the Apes, except we were in the desert instead of the jungle. For a while I even felt a bit like Jane must have, but I suppose Tarzan would have wrestled the lion.”

“A lion? What lion?”

“We were attacked by a mountain lion. It attacked one of the horses, but all that happened after Keith killed a rattlesnake with his knife.”

“All right,” Lexi scoffed. “You are totally punking me. You had me going for a while, but I’m not believing a word of this anymore.”

“I swear to God it’s true! All of it,” Miranda insisted. “Do you remember that horse-whisperer guy?”

Lexi rolled her eyes. “As if I could ever forget. Are you saying this wrangler was like him?”

“No, Lexi, it was him.”

“You have got to be shittin’ me.”

“Nope. And I have film to prove it. It’s mostly the horses, but there are several takes with Keith. He even put a sick foal on a helicopter. I can’t wait to get into the editing lab with this.”

“And get your ass canned? You’d better think again. Bad enough you were out alone in the desert with the uber-hot guy Bibi was so desperate to shag. Now you want to use her lab to edit this? Do you not see the problem here if she finds out?”