скачать книгу бесплатно
Rancher and Protector
Pamela Britton
The Man In The Black Stetson Amber Brooks took the job at Camp Cowboy to find a way to reach her special-needs nephew—not to go gaga over the best-looking guy she’s ever laid eyes on. True, Colt Sheridan can teach her a thing or two about horses, but Amber knows better than to trust anyone with her secret. And yet…just what is it about cowboys?Going undercover at the camp is Colt’s way of finding out where “Aunt Amber” has hidden his buddy’s little boy. In exchange, his friend’s promised him a prize-winning horse. And what this rodeo rider really wants is a shot at the national championship.Unfortunately, what he’s got is a crush on the softhearted equine intern. But if Amber is such a good person, how can she keep a man from his own son?
Her door was closed
Colt peeked over his shoulder, grateful nobody was around. But when it came time to actually put his fingers on the door handle, he hesitated.
And then his dog must’ve caught his scent from the room down the hall and began to bark.
“Mac!” he called out as softly as he could, immediately quieting the shepherd.
Colt opened Amber’s door and slid inside before he could change his mind. If someone had heard his dog and came out to investigate, they’d see him standing there. Not good.
Forcing himself to open his eyes, he scanned her room. Bed to his left. Table and chairs to his right. There was a purse sitting on top of one of the chairs, wide open.
Go.
But he couldn’t. He wasn’t cut out for this. The idea of rummaging through her things … He just couldn’t do it. He swung around to leave.
And came face-to-face with Amber.
Dear Reader,
It seems hard to believe this is my eighth Harlequin American Romance novel. It seems like yesterday that I made the decision to write about cowboys and the women they love, but I’ll admit, I almost stopped writing them. As many of you know, my life has been chaotic with the recent loss of my parents. Something had to give and I decided my adult horse stories (as I call them) would be it. I can’t tell you how many times I regretted that decision. So when my editor called and asked if I’d be interested in writing one more cowboy story, I jumped at the chance. Not only that, but I asked if I could write two.
It’s good to be back!
I love each and every one of my books, but Rancher and Protector has a special place in my heart. The book is about horses and the power they have over special-needs children. I first heard about this magical bond when asked to review a book for a nationally known horse magazine. The story was about an autistic child who traveled to Mongolia to ride horses. Why? You’ll have to read the story, but it was truly the inspiration for this book.
I hope you enjoy Rancher and Protector. As always, I enjoy hearing from readers. You can reach me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pamelabritton or through my website www.pamelabritton.com.
Best,
Pamela
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With over a million books in print, PAMELA BRITTON likes to call herself the best known author nobody’s ever heard of. Of course, that changed thanks to a certain licensing agreement with that little racing organization known as NASCAR.
But before the glitz and glamour of NASCAR, Pamela wrote books that were frequently voted the best of the best by The Detroit Free Press, Barnes & Noble (two years in a row) and RT Book Reviews. She’s won numerous awards, including the National Reader’s Choice Award and a nomination for the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart.
When not writing books, Pamela is a reporter for a local newspaper. She’s also a columnist for the American Quarter Horse Journal. Rancher and Protector is the author’s twenty-sixth title.
Rancher and
Protector
Pamela Britton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the lawman who saved our homestead.
Chris Ashworth, we couldn’t have done it without you. All the words in this book couldn’t express how grateful we are.
Chapter One
“All right, horse. We can do this the hard way or the easy way.”
Amber Brooks stared at the animal in question, a tiny window placed high in the wall giving her a perfect view of the brown horse as it cocked its head in her direction. The look it gave her clearly indicated disdain.
“Okay, the hard way.” Her hands tightened around the nylon strap someone had told her was a halter—although she had no idea how it worked.
“Just go play with a horse,” she murmured under her breath, mimicking the camp director. “You’ll do fine.”
As if handling an animal as big as a bookcase would be “easy.” What if it bolted out of the stall? Or charged in her direction? Or, God forbid, tried to bite her?
“Nice horsey horsey,” she said. The animal’s black mane seemed more of a dark gray in the stall’s ambient light—like the color of a snake. She shivered. Her feet felt heavy in the thick bed of pine shavings. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She stopped by its head and looked down at the halter. Now what? Obviously, the smaller hole went around the horse’s nose. Or maybe its ear? But there was only one hole and so that didn’t make sense. Nose, she decided.
A soft breath wafted across her crotch.
“Whoa,” she cried, jumping back. “We don’t know each other well enough for you to be doing that.”
Someone coughed.
Amber turned in surprise to see John Wayne standing outside the stall.
Well, okay, it wasn’t really John Wayne, but it sure was a cowboy. Black hat. Checkered beige shirt. Cool blue eyes.
“He’s just trying to get to know you,” the man said, his deep baritone splashed with a Southern accent. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
Easy for the cowboy to say. Amber couldn’t take her eyes off her unexpected visitor. He was gorgeous. A hunk-o-hunk of burning love, as her friend Rachel would say. And just what was it about cowboys? They all looked the same. Five o’clock shadows. Square jaws. The smell of outdoors clinging to them. Was it part of the cowboy genome?
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she said. “But do I know you?”
He shook his head. “Colton Sheridan. I was hired on Thursday.”
Just as she’d been, Amber thought. Well, she didn’t get hired on Thursday, but she was new to Camp Cowboy, too.
“Gil sent me in here to help you out,” he said.
Gil. The camp director. Gil and Buck had been looking for some additional help since the moment they’d realized their enrollment numbers were nearly triple what they’d been the previous year. Buck was off buying more horses, which left Gil in charge. Not many horses in the heart of San Francisco, but that’s where the camp was. Amber once again marveled at their location—smack-dab in the middle of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Step outside the barn and the high-rises were clearly visible in the distance.
“Nice to meet you, Colton, but I’d rather tackle this on my own.”
That’s what she was supposed to be doing: learning about horses. She’d come to Camp Cowboy committed to the idea of becoming a hippotherapist. Therapy was her thing. She specialized in speech therapy now, but she’d heard of some remarkable breakthroughs when children were exposed to horses. She might not like the animals, but she would get over that.
Anything for Dee.
She turned back to the horse. Its name was Flash, or so she’d read outside the stall. She hoped that didn’t mean it’d trample her in a flash.
“It goes the other way,” he told her when she held up the halter.
Oh, yeah. That was right. She’d been told that by Jarrod, the man who was supposed to mentor her through the process. He’d shown her how to halter a horse yesterday. Obviously, she hadn’t been paying attention too well. She flipped the thing around.
“Not that way,” Colton said with a small shake of his handsome head. She hated overly attractive men. They always made her feel so … so uncomfortable.
“The hole goes over the nose,” he added. “The long strap buckles behind the horse’s ears.”
“Right …” she murmured.
“Here.” The stall gate, which was on rollers, whooshed open like supermarket doors. “I’ll do it for you.”
“No, no,” she said quickly, her feet bogged down in wood chips once again. He was tall. That was another thing she didn’t like. Tall men intimidated the hell out of her. Jarrod, the registered hippotherapist she was working with, was short and blond. She could deal with short and blond.
She could deal with this, too. “I can do it.”
She heard the stall door close with a bang just the same, and the sound startled Flash.
What followed was not Amber’s proudest moment.
She shrieked; the horse turned away from her. The back end of the animal bashed into the wall with a boom, sending dust and debris down from the rafters. Her feet became entangled in the wood chips again. She started to fall….
He kept her from going down with a hand against her shoulder.
“Sorry about that,” he told her. “I didn’t think it would close so easily.”
You idiot, she wanted to say. But he wasn’t paying attention to her, anyway. Flash was now dancing around the stall as if Amber was a monster.
“Don’t move,” Colton told her. “Easy there.”
Easy? There was nothing easy about this horse. The iron-shod animal had to be at least six feet tall.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I don’t mean to sound panicked, but shouldn’t we get out of here while the getting’s good?”
He appeared to be sizing her up. “We’ll be fine,” he said, stepping toward the horse.
Over her shoulder, she could see that the brown beast was back to eyeing her nervously. Its swishing tail sounded like a jump rope in motion.
“No offense,” she said, “but are you sure you’re qualified to give direction to nonhorsey people?” After all, it was his fault the animal was acting up.
She saw Colton’s eyebrows rise. They were a little too thick for her taste. “I’ve spent a lot of time on ranches.”
“And I’ve spent a lot of time in a city. Doesn’t mean I know how to teach people to drive.”
One side of his mouth lifted in a cowboy smile—which was more of a smirk. “Point taken. I’ve ridden horses my entire life. I’m comfortable sharing what I know.”
“In that case,” she said. “I’m really glad to meet you, Colton. I’m Amber Brooks.”
“Colt,” he quickly corrected. “And I know. You’re an intern here. You’re learning to become a hippotherapist.”
“I’m actually one of the camp’s speech therapists, too. Hippotherapy is just something I’m hoping to study while I’m here.”
He was giving her that look again. The one that made her want to wiggle like a worm on a hook. “Don’t take this wrong, but you sure you want to work with horses?”
“No.”
“No?”
She turned toward Flash, releasing a sigh. How to explain her life? How to explain about Dee, the nephew she loved so much? How to explain the situation with Dee’s dad? That Sharron was dead, and that Dee’s father was in jail … because he’d killed her sister. Not intentionally, but just about.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
And she shouldn’t explain, anyway. The fact was Dee had been enrolled in Camp Cowboy this season, and the only one who knew that was the camp director, Gil. Amber planned to keep it that way, too.
“Try me,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, seriously, it’s not worth getting into. I just want to learn about horses. Hippotherapy intrigues me.”
And there he went, staring at her again. It was the oddest sort of look. As if he was trying to peel back the rind of a pomegranate, to get to the ruby-red seeds beneath. “You don’t look like any kind of therapist,” he mused.
“That’s because I left my thick-framed glasses in my room.”
He smirked again. “So you mind me asking why someone who doesn’t know a thing about horses, and who doesn’t want to become a hippotherapist, is trying to put a halter on one?”
She had to turn away.
“I’m an equine intern. That means I’ll be lending a hand with the kids throughout the next few weeks. That means working with horses, obviously, so I need to get used to them. The horses, I mean.”
She sneezed before she could stop herself. The horse’s head popped up, and she braced herself for impact.
Nothing happened.
Flash returned to nuzzling the ground, apparently intrigued with something it found there. Ah. Food.
“Should I bother it while it’s eating?”
“Nope. Horses are always looking for something to munch. If you wait for him to stop, you’ll be standing there all day.”
Damn, but his accent was really Southern. “If you say so.” She gave Flash the same look she used when dealing with a petulant child. “Horse, prepare to be haltered.”
COLT ALMOST LAUGHED.
Almost.
