The Wrangler's Last Chance. Jessica Keller

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СКАЧАТЬ had wanted to have an indoor arena built last summer.” She hooked her thumbs into her pockets and scraped the toe of her boot into the dirt. “That way we could ride in any type of weather and it would shield the horses and riders from the worst of the sun in the summer. It would have opened up the ranch to host more types of events, too.”

      “They’re useful, but they can be expensive.” He had helped build one when he had worked at Dove’s Peak Ranch in Wyoming. But there they were sometimes hit with feet of snow, so the arena had been a much-needed addition to keep the horses exercised during the long winters.

      “It had been on the list, but with the storm—” She met his gaze. “Did you know this place was almost leveled by a tornado a year ago?”

      Carter took his time looking out over the expanse of Red Dog Ranch—large buildings, brand-new cabins and barns, fields of healthy grasses and a huge herd of cattle. “You guys have done an amazing job rebuilding.” He noticed Shannon’s frown. Carter cleared his throat. “But I’m guessing the indoor arena got scrapped from the build list after the storm?” And for some reason that really mattered to her. He wondered why. Maybe she just really loved horses.

      “For a while it was still on, but everything else took priority, you know?” Her mouth twisted to the side. “So it just kept getting moved down the list until there weren’t funds left. I tried to argue for it but I was overruled.” She sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”

      His mind was stuck on overruled.

      “By your brothers?” Rhett had explained to Carter how their father had passed unexpectedly last spring, leaving Rhett with the ranch. Now, from what Carter could tell so far, Rhett and Wade oversaw everything. But if Shannon was a Jarrett, then her opinion should matter, too.

      She gave a quick laugh. “Yeah, all three of them. Even Boone, who doesn’t even live here, outvoted me.” She held up a hand. “But they were right. It was the least important item on the list. It would have been nice on a day like today, though. The girls are freezing.” She rubbed her arms as if she might have been cold, too, despite the fitted jacket she had on. “And it would definitely come in handy in the summer.”

      Carter folded his arms over his chest. He hadn’t known there were three Jarrett brothers. All the more reason to give Shannon a wide berth. Carter didn’t want to get caught in the crosshairs with any of the Jarretts.

      Still, he fought the desire to press her about why the arena had been so important to her, but he swallowed that question. Too personal. Stick to the weather. “It’s what—upper fifties out here?”

      Shannon kept her eyes on the girl she had just been helping. “It’s a little colder than normal. Usually we start hitting the seventies by now.” A couple of the kids even wore winter hats.

      Carter chuckled. “Where I’m from this is called summer weather. We don’t wear coats unless it’s well below freezing.”

      Shannon turned to face him. Even in the diminished sunlight, her brown eyes held unreadable depths of both light and dark hues. “And where is that, where you’re from? You haven’t said.”

      He had walked right into that, hadn’t he? Personal information he didn’t want to give.

      Carter shrugged. “North.”

      She didn’t need to know about his sad upbringing in Montana or the many states he’d meandered through in the last thirteen years, either.

      “That encompasses a lot of places.” She arched an eyebrow. “But you know that, don’t you, Doctor?”

       Doctor.

      The title still felt odd, like a child slipping into his dad’s too-big shoes.

       If you were going to spend all that time and waste so much money, I don’t know why you couldn’t have become a real doctor. That would have been something. But you threw that all away on animals. Too bad. It would have been nice to tell people my son was really a doctor.

      Carter clenched his jaw as he shoved his father’s words away. His dad’s opinion had stopped mattering the day he had walked out on Carter and his mom to run off with his much younger mistress. Had mattered even less when he had turned Carter away when he had showed up at his front door as a homeless teenager.

       I don’t want you near your half siblings. You’ll be a bad influence on them. I haven’t even told them they have a big brother. They have bright futures and I don’t need you ruining their lives.

      Then his father had taken his new family and moved to California. Far enough to make sure Carter would never be a part of his stepbrothers’ lives.

      There was a reason he didn’t dwell on the past.

      He mentally shook his father’s words away like a horse shaking off bothersome flies so he could focus on Shannon, who was smiling warmly, waiting for him to answer her.

      “I’ve been a lot of places.” There. Nonspecific and revealed nothing.

      “How cryptic of you.” Shannon popped her hand on her hip. “Work with me here, cowboy. At least name your favorite one.” She blew a strand of hair away from her face. “Listen, I just want to hear about someplace other than here. I’ve been nowhere. Never left Texas. Pathetic, right?”

      “It’s an awfully big state,” he offered.

      “But I’ve always wanted to see other places. Be adventurous.” She shrugged.

      “Moving around, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

      “Still, what was your favorite place?” she pressed. “I’d love to hear.” Apparently Shannon was an expert at directing the conversation and was used to dealing with difficult men, because she wasn’t about to let up. The fine art of male question avoidance didn’t seem to faze her whatsoever.

      Oh, well. Talking about places he had lived in didn’t have to be personal. “Montana is really something. The sky there,” he said. “It doesn’t compare to anywhere else. But Idaho has something special, too—something different. It’s a sort of hidden gem.” And if she asked Rhett, she would know he had studied at Colorado State University, so it didn’t hurt to mention that state, either. “Then, of course, Colorado and the mountains are pretty inspiring.”

      She gave a low whistle. “Well, cowboy, you really have been everywhere.”

      “Not everywhere,” he said. “The world’s a big place and there’s still a lot more to see. I’d like to mark it all off my list someday if I could.” The last part had slipped out. More than he had wanted to share with her.

      “That’s as good a dream as any, I guess.” Her smile was wistful. It made him want to ask what her dream was. He bit that question down right away.

      She called to a girl named Susan. “Don’t be afraid to grab the mane if you need to stabilize yourself before you jump, okay? It won’t hurt your horse at all.” They watched each of the girls try a few more times before Shannon told them that they could stop practicing their dismounts and ride a few laps to close out the session.

      Carter came up beside her again. “Have you heard from Dr. Spira? About СКАЧАТЬ