One Mother Wanted. Jeanne Allan

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER TWO

      INCREDIBLY stupid didn’t begin to describe Allie driving to Zane Peters’s ranch. Ahead of her tourists in a rented vehicle rubbernecked at the palatial homes while the September sunlight sparkled off the creek rushing beside the road. Two deer stood motionless in a mowed field watching a flock of magpies erupt into the sky. The black-and-white birds circled to land on a dead stag high up the ridge. Clumps of aspen trees splashed the hillside with gold.

      Curves of the road and breaks in the trees provided glimpses of the Elk Mountains. Normally the sight of the rugged peaks raised Allie’s spirits and brought her peace. Not today. Not when she couldn’t quit wondering why Zane Peters had telephoned her. Not that his reasons mattered. She’d agreed to see the horse for the horse’s sake. Not to renew any kind of relationship with Zane.

      Allie had dressed to make that point perfectly clear, digging the stained, worn jeans from the dirty clothes hamper. Moonie had slept on her shirt, an ancient one of Worth’s.

      Driving slowly into the ranch yard, Allie parked by the barn. She had no intention of going anywhere near the house.

      The horse in the round pen dashed to the far side where she stood stiffly facing Allie.

      Allie shut the car door and leaned against her sport utility vehicle admiring the paint filly. Large patches of white splashed her black shoulders and flanks and blazed down her face. The filly’s well-muscled shape and compact build showed why Zane thought she’d make a good stock horse. With her beautiful head, the filly was the kind of horse little girls fell in love with.

      And big girls. To Allie, the colorful paint horses symbolized a mythical, magical, romantic Old West.

      The paint maintained her vigilance, never taking her attention from Allie. Allie could read the fear and distrust in the filly’s stance, in her stiff mouth, flared nostrils and wide-open eyes. The horse wanted to flee; the enclosed pen gave her nowhere to go.

      Allie didn’t need the increased flicking of the filly’s ears to tell her Zane had walked up. She’d sensed him standing in the shadows of the barn’s interior. Watching her. Before he spoke, she said, “A beauty like her, you’ll have no trouble selling her. You don’t need me to train her.” Allie wanted to run as badly as the mare. Coming here had been a mistake.

      “Selling her’s not the problem.”

      The silence lengthened while Allie watched the filly. She wouldn’t ask why he’d called. She wouldn’t mention the past, his daughter or his wife. They had nothing to talk about. The only thing she wanted to say was goodbye. “What’s wrong with her?” she blurted out and wanted to kick herself for showing interest.

      “Some fool over near Rifle decided to play cowboy and raise quarterhorses. No one told him if two solid-colored horses each have a recessive overo gene, they could produce a paint foal with an overo-patterned coat. When he found out he couldn’t register the filly as a quarterhorse because of her paint markings, he sold her for chicken-feed to a kid who’d never had a horse and didn’t have a clue how to train one.”

      Allie refused to look at him. “I suppose he mistreated her.” Dumb, dumb, dumb to prolong the conversation when Allie had no intention of helping with the filly.

      “No, but he expected her to act like a ten-year-old trained mare, and when she didn’t, he sold her to a spoiled teenage girl who thought the filly was cute and whipped her when she wasn’t. The girl sold her to a man who bought the filly for his daughter and he turned her over to one of his hands who tried to break the filly through fear and punishment. When the owner told me about the paint, I thought she deserved another chance.”

      To a stranger, their conversation might sound normal, but Allie heard the tension in Zane’s voice.

      The filly watched them apprehensively. Experience had taught her humans couldn’t be trusted. She didn’t know she could trust Allie. Or Zane. No matter what Zane had done to Allie, he’d never abuse an animal. “You could train her,” Allie said.

      “You get her started and I’ll finish her.”

      Her cue to refuse, but the filly’s fear tugged at Allie’s heart. The wrong approach could ruin the horse forever. Allie walked around her SUV to the driver’s side. “She’ll take time.”

      “Then you’ll do it?”

      “I’ll see how it goes.” The setting sun heated the side of her face. “With Cheyenne away, I’m running the agency by myself, so I’ll have to schedule around work.”

      “I heard you resigned your teaching position.” He paused. “Want me to bring in a horse for you tomorrow?”

      “I’ll bring Copper. Nothing spooks her.”

      “Would you like a cup of coffee? Some iced tea or lemonade?”

      “No.” Allie reached for the door handle. All she wanted was to escape.

       СКАЧАТЬ