Montana Red. Genell Dellin

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СКАЧАТЬ bear to think about him anymore.

      Revenge wouldn’t be her biggest satisfaction from this theft. Companionship would be, along with the relief of rescuing the mare. She and Ariel had a five-year history—the same amount of time as she and Brock—and she’d always been much closer to the mare than to her husband, now that she thought about it.

      She and Ariel understood each other. Clea needed this mare. She loved her more than any horse she’d ever owned, even though she was by far the most ornery, four-legged creature alive—when she wanted to be. Well, maybe not more than Prince-the-Pony, but Clea had been a child then and children loved with a purity adults couldn’t match.

      Relief flooded Clea then with such a sudden intensity it made her shiver and clutch harder onto the wheel. As if she’d saved her own life along with Ariel’s.

      On one level, that was true. Right now, clinging to the courage to defy both Daddy and Brock and to try to make a new life alone took every ounce of strength she had.

      This wasn’t a theft. This was refusing to be robbed a second time. But thinking about the past would do nothing but bring her down. She moved her mind to the future and tried to imagine herself and Ariel in their new surroundings.

      The realtor who also managed the rentals at the ranch had described a rustic place with several far-flung cabins, each with its own small barn. The rent included the use of a heated indoor arena—a necessity for anyone who wanted to work with horses in the winter—and a stall in that same building during the winter months. Hundreds of miles of trails. Privacy. Great views, gorgeous natural beauty. Help from him when needed, solitude when she desired.

      That man had better have been telling her the truth. Clea needed to be alone so she could sort out her mind. She was planning to do everything online except buy her groceries. Logging on as a guest on her best friend Sherilyn’s account, of course, so the people Brock would hire to find her couldn’t do it that way.

      She’d be at her cabin alone all winter. What would it be like to be snowed in? She’d have to prepare by bringing in supplies of food and books and camera batteries and photo printer paper and plenty of wood to burn in case she lost electricity. Maybe she should get some snowshoes. She already had skis, which she’d shipped ahead with quite a lot of her other stuff. Maybe just surviving would keep her busy.

      Clea would have to do her own barn chores for Ari and whatever inexpensive horse or horses she could find to keep Ari company. Most of her barn chores in the past had been done by other people, true, but she knew how. She could do it. She’d helped out at a million horse shows, hadn’t she?

      Being the wife and hostess of a successful man had given her some skills, but how many paying jobs existed for a woman who could pretend to be fascinated when she was bored stiff—both in and out of bed? She raised her eyebrows to her reflection in the mirror. Well, it would be an asset in the oldest profession, which, if she hadn’t truly loved Brock—or thought she did at first—she would compare to her position as his wife.

      No more. Never again would she give a man that power. Her days of catering to and obeying a man were gone.

      Firmly, Clea looked at the road and the traffic. She blocked the past out of her mind one more time. That was another skill of hers—compartmentalizing—and she needed to use it now. No memories. No more. Just adventure ahead.

      She concentrated on the sound of the tires on the road and tried to imagine details of her new life while the miles rolled by. A trip to Jackson with Brock to meet some business associates and another to ski at a private lodge near Kalispell were the only times she’d been to Wyoming or Montana. She’d never seen this place she’d leased. There wasn’t even a picture of it on the Internet.

      She tried to imagine the first day, which she intended to sleep away. After so many miles and trying to sleep in the trailer—pray God she could find a fairgrounds or two where she could get Ariel out for some exercise and maybe even park close enough that she could leave her in a stall overnight—she’d sleep for a week.

      Oh, no, she couldn’t! Not even for one day and night. She’d have nobody else to do the chores twice a day.

       Get it down, C. Real life ahead.

      She merged smoothly onto I-35E and, proud of the way she’d handled a crowded tangle of traffic, sped north, headed for Oklahoma. And then Kansas. Then Nebraska. And then Wyoming. All the way, well no, more like halfway west into it and finally north to Montana. Maybe her new home state forever—if she found out that she liked lots of winter.

      Clea had intended to stop at the first convenience store she saw after she crossed Red River to buy a cup of coffee to celebrate but instead she just kept on going. Stopping would break her momentum and she felt compelled to continue moving away.

      Just past Ardmore, though, the trailer started rocking. It shocked her at first and then she hoped she’d imagined it. But no. Ari was weaving and rocking it. Definitely. Clea could feel it swaying behind the truck, pulling the whole rig to one side, then the other.

      Damn. She should’ve known Miss Ari wouldn’t be too good for too long.

      Well, who could blame her? She wasn’t exactly used to being kidnapped from her stall in the middle of the night or to being without other horses for company.

      But that wasn’t the reason. Diva that she was, center of the universe as she felt she was, Ariel felt compelled to try to get any bit of control over this whole operation that she could.

      Finally, after a mile or two of intermittent rocking and swaying, Clea saw a rest area up ahead and pulled off the road. She turned off her lights because this was still the horse country of southern Oklahoma and north Texas where everybody knew everybody in the industry and someone might stop to see who she was and if she needed help.

      Clea got out, walked back the length of the trailer, switched on her little flashlight and turned off the interior lights before she opened the door. She felt like a spy in a movie as she stepped in and shined the light over Ariel, who was still swaying rhythmically.

      When the light reached her head, Ariel turned toward Clea with her eyes flashing, lifted a front hoof and pawed, hard.

      Before Clea could open her mouth to make soothing sounds, Ari did it again and then started to rear, fighting the rope to try to get her head up, tearing at it with a vicious strength.

      A terrible chill bloomed in Clea’s gut as she started moving toward the horse, making soothing noises, trying to get her mind together enough to make words. What if she’d brought Ari out here only to have her break a leg and die?

      She hadn’t tied her tight enough. She’d been too happy to have her—too excited, too scared, too eager for Ariel to eat hay, too much in a hurry and too careless to make sure the tie was short enough.

      Clea looked at it again. No. It wasn’t all that long.

      She started stroking the mare’s muscled rump, over and over, as she started a soothing line of patter and moved toward Ari’s head.

      “It’s just you, isn’t it, Ari? You’re not happy. You’re a problem child, but hey, you’ve made your point. I should’ve asked you first if you wanted to go for a long drive. Next time I’ll consult you. Okay, baby. It’s okay. Calm down now.”

      The real problem was that this mare loved to be difficult and was under the illusion that she СКАЧАТЬ