One Mother Wanted. Jeanne Allan

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СКАЧАТЬ moving in the home pasture caught his eye. The filly would be in the middle. She never let herself get isolated. The other horses were her protection. She didn’t trust men.

      Allie could teach the filly to trust.

      If he didn’t call, Allie couldn’t help the filly. He started to turn toward the phone, then stopped.

      If he didn’t call, Allie couldn’t say no. There was no reason for her to say yes and too many reasons for her to say no. If she said no...

      Zane couldn’t remember when he hadn’t known Allie. At first she was merely one of Worth’s sisters. Then she’d turned sixteen, and he found himself falling in love with her. On Allie’s eighteenth birthday he asked her to marry him.

      Allie’s mom asked them to wait. Mary Lassiter had married young. Beau Lassiter had been a rodeo cowboy, long on looks and charm, short on character. Beau had left Mary on her parents’ ranch when she became pregnant with Worth. After that, Mary stayed on the ranch while Beau rode the rodeo circuit. Whenever a bull stove him up, Beau would head to the ranch where Mary nursed him back to health. Then Beau returned to the bright lights, alone. More often than not, he left Mary pregnant.

      With the help of her widowed father, Yancy Nichols, Mary had raised four kids. Greeley not even hers. No one ever heard a word of complaint from Mary. When Mary asked them to wait, Zane assumed she wanted Allie to be sure. Later he wondered if she’d seen something of Beau in him.

      He was nothing like Beau Lassiter.

      Hearing the lie, Zane felt like smashing his fist through the window.

      He wanted to blame Beau for what happened. Beau, whose irresponsible behavior had rushed his children into adulthood. Six years older than Allie, Zane had often told her she needed to lighten up, to live a little, but she’d been inflexible, and intolerant with youthful high spirits in others. In him.

      No. He wouldn’t make excuses. The sole responsibility for what had happened belonged to one person. Zane Peters.

      He shouldn’t have gone to Cheyenne’s wedding, but the temptation to see Allie, to speak to her, had been overwhelming. Watching her stand tall and slim beside her sister as Cheyenne said her vows, he’d ached to touch her. When he’d seen her smile at Hannah, he’d craved one of her smiles.

      One look at her face told him she hadn’t forgiven him. If not for Hannah, he would have left.

      She’d been kind to Hannah.

      His daughter had rattled on about Allie all the way home. Zane had lost count of the things he regretted, but he’d never regretted Hannah. It wasn’t Hannah’s fault Allie hated him. He knew who to blame.

      So did Allie. Allie would never blame Hannah, because she loved kids and animals.

      She’d help the filly. Allie hated him, but she’d help the filly. And then, maybe... Taking a deep breath, Zane dialed.

      At the sound of her voice, intense longing swept over him. He couldn’t speak.

      

      Allie had polished the kitchen and bathroom, cleaned the cat box and walked Moonie so long the greyhound had practically sighed with relief when they’d returned to the condo. She’d washed windows, done her laundry, baked a loaf of bread and caught up on filing for C & A Enterprises, the small, specialized tour agency she and Cheyenne owned and operated. The night stretched endlessly before her.

      She should have stayed in Hope Valley at the Double Nickel, the family ranch named for her great-great-grandparents. Or persuaded Davy to stay in Aspen with her instead of at the ranch. With Cheyenne gone, the condo had too many empty corners. Too much quiet. She needed a roommate. Someone who’d fill the silence. Silence led to thinking. And remembering. Allie didn’t want to remember.

      As if she’d ever forget.

      By the time she was ten, Allie knew every nuance of Zane Peters’s walk. She’d memorized his low-pitched laugh and his slow and easy way of talking. The way he’d drawled her name and called her honey had sent shivers down her spine. She’d teased him, telling him he was a Southern boy, not a true Westerner.

      The accent came from his Texas-born mother. Dolly Peters had ridden the barrel-racing circuit where she’d become fast friends with Mary Lassiter, and like Mary, had married a rodeo cowboy. The difference was Buck Peters quit the rodeo and came home to his family’s ranch near Aspen. Buck and Dolly had moved to Texas when Dolly’s aged parents needed them, and now they operated the Texas ranch Dolly had inherited while Zane raised and trained horses and ran some cattle on the Colorado ranch.

      Her thoughts always circled back to Zane. If Allie hadn’t agreed to her mother’s request to wait, she and Zane would have been married almost eight years now.

      Or divorced.

      Loving Zane hadn’t blinded her to his flaws. He had a reckless streak and took too many chances. Allie had been away at school, but reports filtered to her about his partying. She’d worried about him drinking too much and driving too fast on the curving mountain roads back to his ranch. Home on a holiday visit, she’d nagged him; he’d accused her of not trusting him and of asking friends to spy on him. The argument had escalated until she’d ripped off her engagement ring and shoved it in his shirt pocket. Told him to go away, that she’d never marry him.

      If he’d apologized, begged her to take back the ring... He hadn’t. Without a word, he’d left her standing in front of the ranch house. She’d watched him tear out the gate and down the dirt road, driving so fast his truck fishtailed on the curves.

      Her throat ached with angry, unshed tears. She didn’t want to think about Zane. The shock of his betrayal. The wrenching pain. The slow, agonizing realization that her life had drastically changed.

      Resentment flared. He didn’t look like a man who’d suffered. He looked... She searched for an acceptable word. He looked well.

      The phone rang sharply, startling her and providing welcome respite from unwanted, bitter memories. When she answered, silence greeted her. “Hello? Hello? I’m hanging up.”

      “Don’t hang up, Allie. I’m calling about a horse.”

      Allie’s brain went blank, rendering her incapable of uttering a word.

      “I have this filly who needs help. She’s a good-looking two-year-old who’s been mistreated. I’ve watched her in the pasture, and she’s quick and smart. She might make a good little cow pony for Hannah in a few years. I don’t think there’s an ounce of vice in her, but she’s terrified of people. I’d like you to work with her. I’m willing to pay whatever you want.”

      The uncharacteristic fast-paced flow of words told her how nervous Zane was. Let him be nervous. She was hanging up.

      “She needs you,” Zane said quickly, as if reading Allie’s mind. “A man goes near her, she gets the shimmering shakes so bad, her hide’s going to fall off. I can’t use her, and even if Hannah would let me, I can’t sell her. It’s not the filly’s fault she learned to distrust men.”

      “No, it takes a man to teach a female that men are the lowest of scum.”

      A stark silence met her bitter retort before Zane asked, “Will you help the filly?”

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