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Whoever it was must’ve cost a fortune—like the horse itself. The Arabian’s pure bloodlines were evident in his exceptional conformation; small ears, delicate dip in the nose, beautiful arch to his neck, and fine-boned legs.
“I’ve done a bit of training myself,” Joel told her as they made their way back to the campfire. “But I’ve never seen a horse respond to a command in a situation like he did earlier.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I could’ve done better there. I’ll have to work on adding an attack command.”
Joel gave her a quick glance. “You trained him?”
She scooped up one of her bags and thumped it down closer to the fire. “What’s so hard to believe about that? You don’t even know me. What I do, where I come from—nothing. There’s that saying about making assumptions, except you’re the only one making an ass of yourself.”
Joel saw fire in her eyes, and it definitely wasn’t a reflection of the one crackling in front of her. She was right, he didn’t know a damn thing about her. It was time he found out.
He sat down on the single large log she’d positioned as a seat. “Then, tell me, Ms. Lucas, what do you do? Where do you come from?”
“None of your business.”
He couldn’t stop a chuckle. “It’s going to be a long night if you can’t answer a few questions.”
“Not for me, I brought a book. I hadn’t planned on company.”
“You sure about that?” he baited, casting a pointed glance at her camping gear. “Animals bring a good price on the black market, and you’re certainly not hurting for cash.”
Her gaze swept over her stuff as if seeing it through his eyes and comprehension dawned in her expression. “Oh, wow. If you’re suggesting my expensive gear incriminates me as a poacher, then I can tell you why you haven’t caught them yet.”
“Please, enlighten me.”
She reached into her backpack, then tossed him a square, palm-sized item that he caught with one hand. “You haven’t been looking in the right place.”
Chapter 3
Britt watched Ranger Morgan open her compact and take a look in the mirror. She’d noticed his saddle, the brand on his sleeping bag, and the excellent conformation of his quarter horse gelding. He had absolutely no room to judge with his ass-umptions.
His deep chuckle surprised her. “Touché.”
When those gold-flecked eyes rose to hers and his smile flashed, her pulse skipped, then kept tripping along at a pace that annoyed the hell out of her. Cripes, since realizing he wasn’t some dangerous lunatic, every time she let her gaze rest on his face, he was better looking than before. Especially with the dark stubble shadowing his jaw line.
Except he was also a bossy, arrogant jerk. He could’ve asked her to share the tent instead of just declaring my turf, my rules. Recalling his comment about keeping her hands to herself, she added conceited to her list of descriptive adjectives. His tall, dark and irritatingly good looks shouldn’t have any effect on her—especially after only one smile.
He made a motion with his hand, and she raised hers to catch the mirror as he lobbed it back across the fire. Then he reached over to grab his own pack. “So, are we dining dutch, or do you want to pool our resources?”
Much as he annoyed her, she didn’t relish the thought of verbally sparring with him all night, so she gave a careless shrug. “Whatever.”
“What do you got?”
They settled on the thirteen-inch brook trout she’d caught earlier—for which she did possess a license—and he contributed a packet of wild grain rice. She declined his offer to clean the fish, then felt the weight of his accessing gaze while she scraped off the scales and filleted the meat off the bones. Tension tighten
ed her shoulders, making her slip more than once with the sharp knife.
A few snowflakes had begun to drift down, so she seized on any excuse to distract him. “If you really want to help, Ranger Morgan, you could cover the firewood so we have dry fuel in the morning.”
“My name is Joel,” he stated.
She frowned at the irritation in his voice. “No need to get all testy about it. You’re the one who introduced yourself as Ranger Morgan.”
“You were under suspicion, I had to sound official.”
“Well, you officially sound like a jerk, so maybe you could relax a bit.”
He stood, jaw clenched tight again. When she met his gaze with a challenging tilt of her chin, he surprised her with a brusque nod. “You’re right. Sorry.”
