LITMIR.BIZ

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guest foisted on her. She hoped she hadn’t made him aware of that, despite her genuine annoyance with Chase.

      “You won’t sleep worth a damn,” she said bluntly. “You can have Mandy’s bed. She can sleep on the floor in our room.”

      Chase’s eyes widened slightly when he realized the obvious consequences of that. It served him right, Samantha thought. That was something he should have thought of before he brought home a guest without giving her any prior notice.

      “In our room?” Chase repeated softly, as if he couldn’t believe she had just said that.

      Samantha smiled at him sweetly before she turned to his friend. “And how long will you be staying, Matt?” she asked.

      “The couch will be fine, Mrs. McCullar,” he said instead of answering her question.

      DEA? she wondered, trying to place him, trying to remember every friend that Chase had ever mentioned. Was this someone Chase knew from back then? He certainly looked the part. He appeared to be as tough as an old boot, despite the patch and whatever was wrong with his hand.

      “If I’m going to call you Matt, I think you might call me Samantha.”

      “You’re Sam Kincaid’s daughter.”

      “Do you know Sam?” Samantha asked, with more genuine warmth in her voice than before, despite her efforts to be hospitable. It was certainly possible that he did. Her father knew almost everyone in south Texas.

      “I’m afraid not. Only by reputation.”

      “Believe only half of what you hear about my father, Matt.”

      “The half about his horses,” he suggested, his mouth lifting again at the corner.

      “No, you can believe anything you hear about Sam’s horses,” Samantha said. The Kincaid ranch was noted worldwide for the incredible horses they produced, both Thoroughbreds and quarter horses. “Do you ride?” she asked.

      She was aware that Chase had moved, some physical reaction to that unthinking question. She had asked it out of habit, never thinking about its possible awkwardness in this situation.

      Guests on the Kincaid ranch were always asked if they’d like to ride. People hesitated to make that request themselves, and yet riding one of the magnificent Kincaid animals was often the highlight of a visitor’s stay. Once Sam had figured that out, it had become ranch policy to invite them to ride.

      Samantha hadn’t had many guests at the small house Chase had built, but the breeding stables she had started here with Kincaid stock almost five years ago produced horses of such excellence that even her father had admitted to being impressed, and it took a lot to impress Sam Kincaid.

      Matt Dawson’s “I’d really like that” fell almost on top of Chase’s “Matt doesn’t ride.” Samantha laughed. She couldn’t help it, not given the looks on their faces.

      “Well, you two can work out which it is between you. I’m going to fix Mandy a pallet in our room. I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Dawson. Matt,” she amended.

      “Good night, ma’am,” he said.

      “’Night, Chase,” Samantha said. Then she added, “Be real quiet when you come to bed so you don’t take any chance of waking Mandy.” The look she gave him with that admonition spoke volumes on its own.

      THERE WAS A LONG SILENCE in the kitchen after Samantha left. When Chase was sure she was far enough away that there was no chance that she might overhear, he said, “You aren’t serious, are you?”

      “About sleeping on the couch?” Matt’s question was as full of innocence as Chase’s introduction had been.

      “About trying to ride.”

      The single, suddenly cold eye held Chase’s. “Are you telling me I’m not welcome to ride one of your fine Kincaid-bred horses?” he asked softly.

      “You can damn well have any horse out there, and you know it. I’m just telling you that it would be a hell of a note if you broke your neck now.”

      Matt Dawson laughed. “I’ll choose one with short, arthritic legs. Will that make you happy?”

      “It’ll make me happy if you let me come with you. There’s a mare Mandy rides that should be perfect for starters.”

      “I rode my starter horse about thirty-five years ago. I don’t think I need Mandy’s,” Matt said. A trace of his amusement lingered at the corner of his mouth.

      “I think you need your head examined,” Chase said, his voice full of frustration.

      “Hell, you’ve thought that for a long time.”

      “You’re damn right, I have, but I’m just now finding out how right I was. Mandy’s room is down the hall, second door on the right.” Chase started across the kitchen, the length and quickness of his stride clearly denoting his anger.

      “Be careful you don’t wake Mandy,” his houseguest reminded, but he controlled himself until Chase was out of the room, and even then his laughter was soft enough that no one else in the small house heard it.

      JENNY TRIED TO THINK how long it had been since she’d saddled her horse and set off by herself for a dawn ride. A month? she wondered, spending a few futile seconds trying to pinpoint the last time she’d done this. Maybe it had been even longer than that. At any rate, she decided, as she rode out of the yard, it had certainly been far too long.

      The air was cool, still touched with the chill of the desert night, although the sun was already pushing yellowed streaks upward across the horizon. Almost anywhere else in the world, she thought, a woman might be afraid to be out alone at this time of day.

      She couldn’t ever remember having been afraid out here, not even as isolated as the ranch had been during the brief period when there had been no one living in the small house Chase had built a couple of miles down the road. And not even lately, when the violence that seemed to be the norm in the outside world had now touched the people of this south Texas county.

      She guided her horse toward the river, savoring how wonderful it was to be outdoors, to breathe deeply of clean air. She had been enclosed, surrounded so much lately by people, that only now did she realize how much she had missed the sprawling, empty vastness of the desert.

      Yet the ranch house had felt empty last night when she had returned from San Antonio. For the first time in memory, it had seemed to her to be too quiet out here. And she had been lonely.

      She had just gotten too accustomed to having company, she supposed. First Anne had come to stay with her. And then Rio, she thought, remembering that time with pleasure. It seemed almost as if she had had a family again during the weeks he’d lived here. Then these past few hectic days had been spent at the Richardsons’ big house in San Antonio helping out with the wedding preparations.

      Last night, when the wedding was all over and she had returned to the isolation of the ranch, it had seemed like a letdown rather than a homecoming. There had been something unsettling about finding herself suddenly alone. She had once been used to that, she thought, had truly enjoyed the silence that surrounded this place. But last night the house hadn’t seemed peaceful. It had just felt empty, way too empty.

      And she knew one reason why. She had not been able to get her encounter with the stranger at the wedding out of her head. Even when she thought she was fully concentrating on something else, the image of his face would suddenly appear in her mind’s eye, effectively interfering with whatever she was doing.

      Determined to escape from the slight depression she seemed to be falling into, Jenny touched Spooner with her heels and the quarter horse obeyed, breaking into a gallop. The resulting rush of air across her cheeks felt invigorating, even though she knew that, despite the chill of late fall in the air, within a few hours, that breeze would become a hot wind. But of course, she wouldn’t be out here then.

      She

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