LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Three

      Colt hadn’t looked happy. He’d given her three more exercises to work on and then left. Natalie wasn’t certain he’d ever be back.

      “Damn.”

      She watched his truck make a left out of the boarding stable’s driveway.

      “Did you know he’s performed in front of royalty?”

      Natalie turned to Laney, curious despite her disappointment. Once again she reached to shift her long hair over her shoulder, but it wasn’t there. It was like losing a damn limb, having her hair chopped off. She swore she’d never get used to her short-cropped locks.

      “He has a website.” Laney held up her cellphone as if expecting Natalie to read the screen herself.

      “Really?”

      Laney couldn’t hide her excitement. “I stumbled on it while he was working with you. He has, like, all kinds of pictures and stuff on it. Did you know he’s a regular at the National Finals Rodeo? And that he’s a saddle bronc rider, too? He took over the family business when he left the military. He was twenty-six when he left the Army to help his dad, and four years later it’s more of a success than ever.”

      Saddle broncs? That explained the cowboy swagger. And, yes, she’d known he was something of a big deal in the rodeo world—Wes had made that perfectly clear—but for some reason she’d been under the impression he’d done the rodeo thing for his whole life. Military? She’d had no idea.

      “Next time he comes out here I’m, like, totally going to get his autograph.” The teen continued to peer down at her screen. “He has printable fan cards. I’ll bring some out here for you and me.”

      If he ever came back out again. To be honest, she didn’t have much hope of that, and the admission caused the sick feeling to return. It was the same sickness she’d felt when he’d asked her to run alongside her horse.

      “Come on. You can help me put Playboy away.”

      Laney jumped to the task so quickly it brought a smile to Natalie’s face. She reminded her of Kate, one of the grooms she’d had at Uptown Farms, back when she could afford to pay someone to help her. Rather than fill her with bitterness, though, the memory served to firm her resolve. She wouldn’t let Colt quit on her. She would overcome her physical ailments. She had to.

      It only took a couple of phone calls to find out where Colt lived, although her friend Jillian cautioned against dropping in on him. Natalie ignored her friend and two days later set off on a field trip of sorts. It dawned a perfect day for a drive. Blue sky—the kind of blue that only happened after a recent rain—so crystalline and vivid it seemed Photoshop had lent God a hand.

      She pointed the truck toward a section of town where she’d always wanted to live, only she couldn’t, not even back when she could afford pretty much anything she wanted. Situated at the base of the mountains that separated the town of Via Del Caballo from the ocean, the land along the bowl-shaped valley had been owned for generations by ranchers. Parcels rarely became available in the low-lying foothills covered year-round by grass and majestic valley oaks whose branches brushed the ground. It took a half-hour to get out there, and as she approached she could see the Santa Ynez Mountains looming in the distance, as barren and brown as the valley was soft and green below.

      There were so few driveways out to the east that it was easy to spot Colt’s, but even if she’d been in doubt as to whether or not she had the correct address, the sign above the entrance would have made it clear. An iron oval bearing the words Reynolds’s Ranch were suspended between two telephone poles, and below it stood a pair of ornate black gates, each with an R cut into it.

      Jillian hadn’t warned her about this. Should she climb over? But she had no idea how far the ranch was from the front gate and all she could see from her vantage point were spotted pasture and old barbed-wire fencing.

      She pulled out her phone and texted Jillian.

      You don’t happen to know the pass code, do you?

      What pass code?

      To the electronic gate.

      What gate?

      I’m at Colt’s ranch, sitting outside the front entrance.

      If her phone had been a cricket it would have been chirping into the silence. Clearly, either Jillian didn’t approve, or she didn’t know what to say. Natalie didn’t wait for a response.

      “To heck with it.”

      She hadn’t driven all the way out to Timbuktu, or spent money she could barely afford on fuel, just to turn around and go home. She pulled farther forward, but she hadn’t angled her truck properly. Her power steering had gone out recently, which meant getting her vehicle any closer to the intercom would be like wrangling a hippopotamus next to a mailbox. She opened the truck’s door, the hinges creaking in protest, and stepped out on the asphalt. She tried the obvious first, pressing zero on the keypad, and was surprised at the almost immediate “Hello.”

      “Colt?”

      Silence. She didn’t think he could possibly recognize her voice and so she said, “It’s me, Natalie.”

      “I know who it is.”

      He knew? How? Was there a camera, too? She glanced at the sign hanging overhead and smiled, just in case. “Can I come in?”

      She felt like an idiot. Maybe she should have listened to Jillian. Maybe she should have called ahead first, made an appointment.

      She pressed the button again and spoke into the intercom. “Hello?”

      The gates started to open, a beeping sound emerging from somewhere. Natalie was impressed by the high-tech-ness of it all.

      Well, all righty then.

      She went to shove a hank of hair out of her face, only to realize—yet again—that she had none, so settled instead for running her fingers through the short strands. At least he hadn’t told her to leave. She was about to get back in her truck when she heard, “Veer right at the Y.”

      She didn’t waste any time, gunning it so that her tires chirped on the blacktop, her struts and springs popping and moaning when the asphalt ended beyond the gate and turned into gravel. A glance in her rearview mirror revealed the gates already closing, which made her wonder if there were pressure plates. Somehow she hadn’t figured Colt to be a big fan of new fangled devices. Clearly she’d been wrong.

      The road led toward some low-lying hills. Grass and trees were the only things she could see as she got closer, her truck leaving a rooster tail of dust behind her. But like theater curtains, the hills seemed to part. Up ahead the road split into a Y, the branch on her right ending at a place she couldn’t see. The road to her left,

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