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And as Bree smiled shakily for yet another set of pictures, she noticed two cowboys standing to the side. One tall and somber, the other short and confused-looking. They looked ridiculously out of place, like Abbott and Costello gone bad in one of those old gangster films her Grams so loved.
Then the tall, somber cowboy sidled next to Bree, congratulating her in an east-coast accent, mumbling something about needing to get some stats on the bull. As he took the leather strap from Bree’s hands, she noticed a large diamond ring on his pinkie finger. Had to be one of the owners of Bovine Best, a business worth millions. With that kind of money, maybe even his shirt buttons were diamonds.
But before she could check his buttons, the cowboy was leading Valentine away. Val jerked against the leather harness to look over his shoulder at her. As she stared into those big dark eyes for maybe the last time, waves of pain and loss washed over her. After two and a half years of grooming Val for this moment, it had all happened so fast—the trip, the competition, the win—and now her beloved bull was leaving her life forever.
She dropped her head so no one would see the blobs of tears. Honest to God, she felt her heart breaking.
Then, through her blurry vision, she caught sight of something wrong. She swiped at her eyes.
Mr. Pinkie Ring wore brand new turquoise boots.
Come on, she thought. Okay, so maybe he had money to burn and wore diamonds, but fresh-out-of-the-box boots at a stock show? Turquoise ones? And why was he leading Val toward the west exit, when Carlton had pointed to the south?
She scanned the west, a mass of people, pens, cattle…but no sight of Carlton or any of the Bovine Best crew she’d met earlier.
Panic tore through her. Are they stealing Val?
She’d heard of such scams…criminals who’d kidnap, then sell, a prize bull on the black market to some dealer who’d claim he’d leased the bull and procured its sperm before the theft—and have forged records to prove it. These black-marketers made millions selling prize semen to ranchers eager to mix grand-champion genes with their herds. Unethical as hell, but it would take a small fortune in legal fees for the original owner—in this case, Bree—to prove her stolen bull’s semen wasn’t procured before the theft.
A small fortune. Every single penny of her prize money lost in legal fees.
And then there was the heart-killing image of Val, penned in some desolate location, unloved. No lady bovines around…nothing but a fake hind end to induce him…
No! Not to Val! Just as on the volleyball court when she felt an opponent was ready to strike, Bree had to make a decision, fast.
She darted, clawing her way through the mass of people. To her right, a Navajo blanket lay across a beam. Probably for someone’s horse. Bree snatched a corner of the coarse fabric and pulled it with her.
Crazy ideas slammed through her mind as she picked up her pace. Maybe she’d toss the blanket over Pinkie Ring’s face to distract him? It’d buy her a few moments to wrestle Val’s strap from the man’s grip. And then what? A guy with a pinkie ring, turquoise boots and a bad attitude might do something really crazy.
And sure enough, as soon as she spotted him, his jacket flapped open, exposing a gun holster.
Now she knew what that something crazy and workable might be. He probably won’t pull a gun with all these witnesses.
She paused. Wait a minute—is he talking to that cop?
She shuffled in place. Weird. What did Pinkie and a cop have in common? There’d been a rash of internal police investigation stories in the Denver papers recently. Cops on the take. Black-market deals. Maybe some of those bad cops were in on this, too?
Can’t go to the police. I’m on my own. Through a whirlwind of fear and fury, she fought to think what to do. I could flash Val the signal to act tough, to charge, but that’d be dangerous with all these people and livestock around.
Pinkie began walking again, away from the officer, Valentine firmly in tow.
It took Bree three giant steps to catch up. She slowed to a walk alongside Val, knowing instinctively he knew she was there. Eyeing the neatly creased, spotless Stetson on Pinkie Ring’s head, she held up the blanket, ready to…
“Hey, girlie! Whatta ya doin’ with my blanket?”
A man’s angry voice behind her. Had to move. Fast.
She swung the blanket in an arc over her head.
Pinkie Ring jerked around. “What the—?” As he raised his hands to thwart the blanket attack, the lead shank to Val’s halter fell free.
Behind her, more yelling. Feet pounded the dirt floor.
She swung the blanket in a wide, whooshing arc and flung it at Pinkie. As he stumbled and fell, she crouched and jumped—just as she would for a volleyball spike—using her body’s momentum to hurl herself over the back of Val. They’d done this before, but always in open fields, not in a building!
“Go!” she yelled hoarsely, hoisting her leg over the animal’s back as she grabbed a horn for balance.
Val snorted and lurched forward.
A woman screamed.
Bree held on for dear life as the massive beast broke into a trot.
THE MAMMOTH-SIZE VAN lurched and sputtered. Kirk Dunmore cursed under his breath and stared at the dashboard with its myriad buttons, switches and knobs. It reminded him of the spaceship panel in the sci-fi book he’d been reading lately. It starred a mighty warrior, Tarl Cabot, in the strange counter-Earth planet of Gor.
Only this wasn’t Gor, it was Nederland, the funky counter-Earth mountain community an hour outside Denver, Colorado. And Kirk wasn’t a mighty, solitary warrior trying to save the galaxy. He was a frustrated, soon-to-be-married paleobotanist trying to analyze the problem with this damn van. If he was in his old trustworthy Jeep, he’d know exactly what to do.
But no, his future mother-in-law—with too much time and money on her hands—had had this state-of-the-art van delivered to Kirk on his excavation site yesterday outside Allenspark, Colorado. She called it a wedding gift, but Kirk knew it was really an expensive reminder that he was saying “I do” to her daughter Alicia in forty-eight hours, preceded by a rehearsal dinner in twenty-four hours, and he needed to get his dirt-caked, fossil-loving self home.
He stared at the dashboard and its myriad gadgets and buttons. So many, not even a scientist knew what to poke, prod or punch.
Honk. Honk.
Kirk glanced in the sideview mirror and caught the reflection of a blue pickup. It was early evening, the world glazed gray with winter, but he could discern that the hood ornament was a tarnished peace sign.
Honk. Honk.
“Give peace a chance,” muttered Kirk.
Honk. Honk.
He scanned the dashboard one last time. So what if he had a doctorate and was on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough—right now, he was having one hell of a time figuring out this space-age dashboard. “Best option is to treat this contraption like I do my Jeep when it stalls. Pop it into second and let the good times roll!”
Kirk opened the door and jumped out, the impact of his six-one, two-hundred-pound body spraying January slush on his shoes and pants. Screw it. After countless hikes and digs, his boots and clothes had been caked with everything from Patagonian granite flakes to Arctic ice slivers. A little Colorado snow was nothing.
The chill bit his face. This part of the road was on a decline, so he ran a few steps, one hand against the open door, the other on the steering wheel. His footsteps sloshed. His breath came fast. The white van, covered with dirt and slush, rolled forward. Kirk jumped back into the driver’s seat, popped the clutch and punched the gas. The van lurched, sputtered and stalled.
Rolling silently down a dark curving road, he eased the van onto the road shoulder. He set the brake and cut the engine. He recalled the gas gauge showing there was some fuel, so it couldn’t be out of gas.
In the Rockies, on these mountain roads with no streetlights, night settled quickly. Kirk fumbled along the dashboard and pressed a button with the image of a light. The headlights blazed to life, cutting two tunnels of white through the descending darkness.
“Help!”
He looked up. In the haze of headlights stood a woman.
“Help!” She pumped her hands wildly up and down as though yelling the word wasn’t enough.
He threw open the door and jumped down. “What’s wrong?” he yelled, jogging toward her. She wore tattered jeans, scuffed leather boots, a blue-and-white checkered shirt. She didn’t appear to be physically hurt.
“My—” She gasped a breath. “My friend and I need a ride.”
He halted. “You’re hitchhiking in these mountains at night?” The heat of his breath condensed into frozen particles on his mustache. Damn. It was too cold to be chatting with some hitchhiking cowgirl.
And too cold for her to be dressed in nothing but a shirt and jeans.
He started to take off his jacket to offer her when an instinctual warning shot through him. “Friend?” He looked around.
“Pe-pet,” the street girl said softly, waving her hand dismissively as though she’d simply misspoken. “My pet and I are…lost.”
A strength shone through her big, gray eyes. In his gut, he trusted that look. She wasn’t helpless, but she needed help.
He unzipped his jacket and tossed it to her. “Put this on. Let’s get you and your—” he looked around for a puppy or a dog “—pet into the van before all three of us turn into icicles.”
Her smile was so appreciative as she slid her arms into the jacket that, despite the cold, his insides melted. Alicia had never given him a look of such sweet gratefulness.
Forget sweet looks. You’re almost married.
“Your pet can sit on your lap in the front seat.” There should be enough fuel to get them to a gas station. He’d traveled this stretch of mountain road plenty—around the bend was the Sundance Lodge and Café, a few miles farther was a place to fill up.
“He’s, uh, too big to sit on my lap.”
He? Oh, yeah, the pet. “Okay, option two.” Kirk walked briskly to the van’s rear doors. “Back here.” What did this girl own? A Saint Bernard? Great Dane?
He opened the doors, figuring he’d drop this girl and her dog at the station, where they could call for a ride home and have a warm place to wait. He’d fill up and continue into Denver.
His thoughts were interrupted by the thud-thud-thud of steps punctuated with heavy, beastly snorts.
Kirk’s stomach clenched. His mouth went dry.
Staring him down, heaving breaths of steam, stood a ferocious-looking bull with a hump on its back the size of a small mountain. The moonlight, gilding the beast in a surreal silver, added to the monstrous effect.
“He’s gentle,” the girl said, as though hanging out with ferocious animals was an everyday sort of thing.
Kirk glanced around—where had she hidden this creature? Spying the clusters of trees that hugged the road, he had his answer.
“His name’s Valentine,” she continued.
“I—I don’t care if his name’s Sweetheart,” Kirk said, finding his voice, “that’s one big mother of a—” This was not the time for conversation. This was time to move. Run like hell. Unfortunately, his body had other ideas. Like remaining frozen where he stood. If only he hadn’t tossed her his jacket, part of him would be warm enough to flee, encouraging the rest of his body to follow.
The girl blinked, obviously realizing the terrifying effect of her “pet.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” She grabbed the brass ring in the beast’s nose. “See, he’s under control.”
A street cowgirl holding a ferocious bull by the ring in its nose. Oh yeah, that would definitely stop the animal from charging and pummeling Kirk Dunmore into a grease spot.
“I’ll take him to the back of the van,” the girl continued breezily. “I’m sure Valentine can fit easily inside. He can lower himself onto his knees and scrunch down. He’s special that way.”
He’s special that way? Kirk had to put a stop to this, now. What would Tarl Cabot, the mighty, solitary hero of Gor do at a time like this?
The beast raised one mighty hoof and struck the road, the sharp thud reverberating through the chilly air.
“No ro-room,” Kirk stuttered. “Va-van too small.” He held up his gloved hands, the flattened palms parallel to each other, indicating what “small” meant in case she didn’t know.
But she ignored his visual clue. Pulling on the halter, she led the bull to the back of the van. “What is this—about twelve by six?”
“Probably less,” he said quickly, following at a safe distance.
“No, it’s definitely twelve by six.”
Her confidence was irritating.
She continued talking as though this was nothing more than an evening stroll. “I used to put Val into Mr. Connors’s small cattle trailer and it was twelve by six.”
Three cheers for Mr. Connors’s cattle trailer.
“How are its shocks?”
“Excellent. I cart heavy tools.” Damn. This wasn’t the time to tell the truth. Unfortunately, lying had never been a skill he’d learned.
The cowgirl opened the back doors. “What’s back here?”
“Some pickaxes. Shovels. Box of fossils.”
“Fossils?”
“They’re in a metal crate up front.”
“Metal. They’re safe. Valentine is a pussycat, trust me.”
Damn irritating, that confidence of hers.
“Come on, Hot Stuff, let’s get inside,” the cowgirl said, followed by some kissing sounds.
Before Kirk could suck in another brain-numbing breath, the beast had placed one mighty hoof then another on the van’s carpeted floor. Then, with the grace of a meaty ballerina, the beast disappeared inside as the van creaked and lowered with the added weight.
The girl shut the doors carefully, as though she’d just loaded the back with china, then walked back to Kirk. “You saved our lives.” Her voice was soft with appreciation. It was too dark to see her face, but he imagined her having that same grateful look she’d flashed him earlier when she’d stood in the headlights.
And for a sweet moment, he knew how Tarl Cabot, the mighty warrior of Gor, felt when he’d rescued a damsel.
The cowgirl damsel slapped Kirk on the arm, one of those good-pals gestures that wiped out his Tarl Cabot fantasy.
“Let’s go—or we’ll freeze our you-know-whats out here!” She trotted toward the passenger door.
Stunned with the occurrences of the last few minutes, Kirk walked stiff-kneed toward the driver’s door. As he sloshed through a chilly puddle, he experienced literally the meaning of “cold feet.”
Was the anxiety he felt due to his impending marriage or the adventure he’d stepped into?
2
“NEDERLANDER HIGHLANDER RANCH,” Louie repeated for the umpteenth time, rolling the words in his mouth as though tasting them.
