LITMIR.BIZ

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mind our own business,” Teddy said. “So we ain’t turnin’ you in, Miss Clea, not unless you try to throw your long rope on some of our hosses.”

      “Yore disguise ain’t so bad, though,” Buck said. “Ain’t seen many thieves wear them high-heeled shoes like you got on.”

      She laughed, too, even if it sounded a little forced, then she finished the water fast and stood up. She didn’t want to get involved. She had to be alone to get her head straight and her confidence back.

      “All I need is directions to my cabin and I’m outta here,” she said.

      The old guys nodded. “We’ll show you where it’s at and then we’ll help you with your move,” Buck said. “If you do move.”

      Damn, he was stubborn.

      Jake thought so, too, judging by his irritated tone. He yelled from the bedroom, “She is moving. And remember, Buck, we’ve got work to do.”

      Gallant enough to carry a foal around but not to carry boxes for her.

      Face it, girl. The real cowboys have been gone for a hundred years. “I don’t need any help,” Clea yelled back at him. “I won’t accept any help. I moved myself in here and I’ll move myself out.”

      Jake came out of the bedroom carrying a paper sack with a shirt peeking out of the top and a pair of boots in his other hand.

      Clea said, “What’re you doing? I just told you I’ll move.”

      “This’s only for a few more nights.”

      “So’s he can take his turn feedin’ the baby,” Teddy said. “He brought in a orphan foal that we’re helpin’ him with.”

      She turned to Buck. “Maybe they could go feed the foal and you could ride with me and show me where I’m supposed to be,” she said. “Then I’ll drop you at your place.”

      All three of them just stood and looked at her.

      “What?” she said.

      “Reckon we’ll all have to hitch a ride with you,” Teddy said, “or walk. Our truck ain’t runnin’ right now.”

      Clea’s face went hot. She slapped a hand to her forehead. How could she have forgotten?

      How could she survive—anywhere—when she’d lost her memory and most of her good sense?

      She found her keys and led the way out across the porch, down the steps and past the ruins of the pickup with Natural Bands, whatever that was, written on the door. It was truly a wreck. Also new and top-of-the-line. How much was that going to cost her?

      She’d never had to clean up her own messes before. She couldn’t call Brock to take care of it and she couldn’t call Daddy. There was no one she could call.

      Not even an insurance agent. Nobody sold policies to protect shooters against their own bad marksmanship.

      “First experience,” Jake had said. No kidding.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      CLEA KEPT going, using her longest, most confident strides to make herself feel stronger. She was almost to her truck when she realized no one was behind her anymore. She turned to look and then she leaned against the truck and let her shoulders sag.

      Of course. Once again, she’d failed to use her common sense. She’d forgotten that she couldn’t get her truck out with the wrecked one blocking her driveway.

      Jake was unhooking it from the trailer. Buck was sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open.

      “Put ‘er in neutral,” Teddy yelled at him. “I’ll give you the heads-up when we’re ready to push.”

      The only answer he got was a light nicker from Ariel.

      Clea whirled on her heel to see the mare standing at the fence watching the entire proceedings with ears pricked. Her stomach clutched. She’d prefer that no one ever see Ari, even though she’d dyed her white markings after she fed her this morning.

      That was a useless hope, of course. And the disguise was paper thin. She doubted that there were very few horses around this part of Montana at least who were part-thoroughbred and stood nearly seventeen hands, much less horses who moved the way Ariel did.

      But no sense in worrying. She didn’t even know whether these guys would pay any attention to or remember the mare. Anybody could go around pulling a horse trailer. That didn’t mean they’d know a warmblood from a quarter horse.

      Ignoring Ari in the hope that the mare would wander off, preferably somewhere out-of-sight behind the barn, Clea turned back to the truck and started clearing spaces for passengers in the backseat. She gathered up her barn coat and clogs, piled them on top of the metal train case that held most of her cosmetics and balanced all that on the hump in the middle of the floor. She pushed the sack of snacks and carton of soft drinks left over from the trip to the middle of the seat. The old-timers weren’t very big. They could fit in here just fine.

      She climbed into the driver’s seat and looked in the rear-view mirror at the long piece of driveway stretching from the house to the road and the nose of the Natural Bands trailer hanging over it. Backing out, she’d have to swerve her own trailer and then get it back on track so as not to go off into the ditch when she reached the road.

      Maybe she should unhook it.

      She shook her head at herself in the mirror. No, she had to be able to handle all kinds of situations and she’d backed the trailer before. She needed the practice. And she didn’t need the extra work of unhooking and hooking it up again to move Ariel this afternoon.

      Jake finished unhooking his own trailer and went to help Teddy push the truck. As soon as he got behind it, the truck moved smoothly out into her—no, his yard.

      Buck steered, holding the door open with his foot. Debris scattered everywhere and a large piece of shiny metal fell and bounced away into the grass when Buck put on the brake.

      Dear God. This was going to take every penny she had saved. She might as well drive into Pine Lodge tomorrow and apply for a job at a McDonald’s restaurant. If they even had a McDonald’s. There must a café or two, at least. Could she learn to carry a heavy tray above her head on one hand?

      Buck got out, closed the door and started up the little slope toward her. Jake went back to the trailer, picked up his paper sack of belongings from the ground, and he and Teddy followed Buck. Jake’s face, what she could see of it from under the brim of his hat, struck her as incredible. Heart-stopping.

      Would he let her get some more pictures of him? No. She didn’t know him, but she could not imagine him willingly posing for a photographer.

      She reached down, turned the key and looked at the protruding gooseneck of his trailer again. She’d better keep her mind on her business.

      She looked for Ariel. Thank goodness, now she was nowhere to be seen.

      Clea made herself draw in a deep, calming breath. Her insides were still a little shaky from all the havoc of the morning but now that was over. It had just been a terrible shock when she’d seen the snake and then three men rolling up into her yard with a trailer. Men who could easily have been sent by Brock to take Ariel back.

      They hadn’t come for that at all. Brock still didn’t know where she was. She’d take these men to their cabin, find out where hers was, then come back and load up. She’d be settled again by tonight. Everything would work out all right.

      Buck opened the door behind her. “All right, Miss Clea,” he said. “Yore way is clear. Let’s you and me run off and leave them two sorry so-and-so’s.”

      He kept chattering away as he climbed in, as if they’d known each other for years. Clea had the sudden thought that she might’ve

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