LITMIR.BIZ

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attitude annoyed her; the stallion was as much her horse as her father’s, and Ethan had no right to order her around.

      She tossed her hair over one shoulder, intent on telling him what he could do with his demands. He wasn’t her husband yet, she would teasingly inform him. “I’m just—”

      With her hand still on Bandera’s halter, the horse nearly pulled her arm out of its socket as he jerked his head again. With flattened ears and rolling eyes, the stallion suddenly came to life.

      Cassie’s hold was ripped loose as Bandera swung away. Ethan rushed forward to calm the animal, and just as quickly the horse lowered his head and struck out with one back leg, whacking Cassie on the left knee. The pain was immediate, intense. Somehow she kept from going down completely, knowing that to do so would mean the end of her if Bandera couldn’t be quieted.

      Everything seemed to happen so fast. She heard the stallion’s harsh whinny and the click of teeth as he tried to bite Ethan. She stumbled toward the stall door, but the horse was everywhere—a kicking, rearing red demon that couldn’t be avoided.

      She saw Ethan’s hand—strangely bloody—flashing out to yank her to safety, but Bandera backed into her and dragged their stretching fingers apart. As the horse reared, his hooves slipped out from under him on the bare boards. Cassie looked up to see Bandera’s back coming toward her as the animal screamed in fear. She tried to move, but there was nowhere to go, and she found herself being carried down, down. Suddenly she lay crushed against the straw with the panicked horse thrashing on top of her.

      Ethan was shouting, calling her name, but she couldn’t speak. The air had left her lungs. She didn’t know what happened after that. Maybe she blacked out. When she opened her eyes again, she was still on the floor, but Bandera was gone.

      She blinked up to find Ethan hovering over her.

      “Be still.” His voice sounded shaky and more uncertain than she’d ever heard it. He brushed her long hair out of her eyes. “I’m going for help.”

      Too shocked to do more than nod, Cassie was barely aware of his quick kiss. Then he was gone.

      As though from far away, she heard one desperate whinny. She tried to concentrate on taking deep breaths, but every pull of air felt like shards of glass in her lungs. The pain was suddenly unbearable, as if someone had set fire to her chest, hip and left leg. Was she going to die right here? Right now?

      How could she? Today was her wedding day.

      She stared at the bare boards of the barn’s roof, waiting for Ethan to return. Her mind drifted as she lay still. Perfectly, utterly still. Somewhere in that awful silence the truth came to her, spinning away in a mist of pain and fear.

      Mrs. Ethan Rafferty. Cassandra Rafferty.

      Such a lovely, lovely dream…

      But not tonight.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ETHAN SAT SLUMPED in an emergency room chair, watching blood pool slowly into the cupped palm of his left hand.

      Under the ripped mess that had once been his favorite jacket, his biceps burned. He was pretty sure that if he could find the strength to peel off the bloodstained material, he would see a sizable bite mark where Bandera’s teeth had caught him. As it was, he knew his arm was broken.

      God, what was Cassie doing, going into that stall? And why didn’t I think to tell her that Bandera wasn’t sedated?

      His hand fisted around the blood. His muscles turned to fire with that movement, but Ethan almost welcomed the pain. He didn’t care if his damned arm fell off. The only thing that mattered right now was Cassie, who’d disappeared into the chaos and mystery of one of the hospital’s trauma rooms. She’d been so pale, barely conscious, as though her life was slipping away like a frightened ghost.

      Ethan ducked his head, praying for the first time in years. His mother had dragged him to church when he was a kid, but after her death, his father, who had no use for God or anyone else, had never made him go back.

      Please, God. Not Cassie. Anything you want from me. Just not Cassie.

      The doors from the ambulance bay slid open with a whoosh, and Ethan looked up to see Mac McGuire and Josh Wheeler hurrying toward him. McGuire’s lips were tight with anger, his eyes wild and searching.

      It occurred to Ethan that very soon Cassie’s father would hate him. And tonight, he thought, the man had good reason to.

      Ethan rose, waiting. The room started to spin, but he gritted his teeth and refused to give in to it.

      “What happened?” McGuire demanded.

      “Cassie went into Bandera’s stall. The animal spooked. He reared and went over on top of her.”

      “Dear God,” Josh muttered.

      McGuire frowned. “How is that possible? The horse was tranked. He should have been asleep on his feet.”

      “He wasn’t because I…” Ethan lifted his chin. He knew a confession would be the end of the joy he’d found at the Flying M, but he had no choice. “I—I don’t like tranquilizing horses, and I didn’t think he needed the second one.”

      “You didn’t think!” McGuire bellowed. A couple of people in the waiting room glanced at him nervously. “Since when do you know more about horses than I do? And you let Cassandra go into that stall, when I expressly told you that no one was to go near Bandera tonight?”

      “Mr. McGuire,” Ethan began, “I’m sorry—”

      “You don’t know how sorry you’ll be if anything happens to my baby.”

      At eighteen, Cassie was hardly a baby. She’d been sheltered by this man all her life, but now wasn’t the time to argue about how overprotective he was.

      “You’re fired,” her father continued. “Get your stuff and get off my ranch tonight, before I kill you with my bare hands.”

      The older man actually took a step forward. Frankly, Ethan wouldn’t have cared if he got the beating of his life. He figured it was no more than he deserved.

      As though trying to deflect McGuire, Josh Wheeler slid between them. “What does the doctor say? Maybe we should try to get some answers.”

      McGuire nodded vaguely, obviously trying to bring himself back from the brink of violence. He turned away, and almost on some sort of stage cue, one of the emergency room doctors appeared through the double doors. He looked so grim that the bottom dropped out of Ethan’s stomach.

      “Cassandra McGuire’s family?” the physician called to the roomful of minor burns, broken bones and shell-shocked bystanders.

      Mac McGuire crossed the distance between them, and Wheeler followed. Despite the fact that the older man would not want him there, Ethan moved forward as well.

      McGuire introduced himself, and the doctor wasted no time getting to the point. “She’s stabilizing, and we’re taking her to surgery in a few minutes. She’s bleeding internally and she has some broken ribs, a collapsed lung and possibly a ruptured spleen. It’s serious, but I believe we can get her through it. However…”

      McGuire’s face was no more than a crumpled mass of wrinkles. He looked stunned, and something in the doctor’s face sent another chill down Ethan’s spine.

      “What else?” he asked.

      The doctor gave Cassie’s father a grave look. “Her left leg took quite a beating. It’s fractured in three places, and the foot’s badly mangled. We have an excellent orthopedic surgeon here, but I think you should be prepared for the worst.”

      “What’s the worst?”

      “Amputation of the limb.”

      The blood sang in Ethan’s head, and all that was left of his heart, wrapped inside a miserable bundle of flesh,

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