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He waited, watching the slight widening of her eyes and the fleeting, very fleeting expression that passed over her face. It had been a gamble, letting her know so quickly in their relationship.What relationship? I don’t have a relationship with her.But he knew in that instant that he meant to change that. There was something about Harper that drew him, made him want to get close, made him want to protect her, but protect her from what?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Spencer.” She stood up, brushing at her clothing and tossing the emptied water bottle into a trash bag she had hanging on her trailer. “I have to go. Like I said, I have a date with the road and my own bed.”
Spencer smiled. Harper was perfect—sassy, intelligent, and not easily led. She was, in short, everything he’d been looking for in a woman, even though he hadn’t admitted to himself that he was even interested in looking. She might not be willing to admit it, but he knew he was right, knew he’d found the woman from Yellowstone. They’d have to come to a meeting of the minds about the mustangs. He knew she and her cohorts were passionate about saving them. Spence found them to be a nuisance, but he was sure they could find a middle ground.
Just as he was about to answer, his cell phone rang. “Spencer.” He recognized the number. “What is it, Pete?”
Pete Jenkins was the Chief Ranger in Yellowstone and an old friend. “We need you, Spence. Two hikers found the body of a woman earlier today. Looks like she was shot execution- style—kneeling, no signs of struggle, one bullet to the back of her head. We’ve got a private plane ready for you at the airport soon as you can get there.”
“On my way. I’ll need to figure out how to get Tank back to my ranch.”
He ended the call, knowing the other rangers would have everything waiting for him and his team.
Looking at Harper, he said, “Sorry, Harper. I have an emergency situation up in Yellowstone. I need to make arrangements to get Tank home.”
Her response shocked him. “I’d be glad to trailer him back to my place. Yellowstone isn’t far from me, and I have plenty of room. You do what you need to do. He can stay as long as you need him to. When you’re done, you can pick him up.”
“Thanks, Harper. Are you sure it’s no trouble?”
“None at all. After all, it’s where I’m going. A second horse won’t be any more trouble. Besides, I’m doing it for Tank, not you. I just have two questions: how much do I feed him, and is he social?”
It took no time at all for Harper to get on the road. She had most of her gear packed before competing and loading Mattie and Tank into her trailer was a breeze. Spence brought the big gelding over to her trailer and planned to leave his own rig at the airport. The trip home normally took twenty-four to twenty-six hours, and she hoped to make that time or better.
The World Championship Show had been the last one of the season, and once she got Mattie, and now Tank, settled back at her ranch, Harper planned to grab a nap before making her own way to Yellowstone.
Normally, she would have crashed from the time she got home until the crack of dawn the next day when her real work began—ranching. But tomorrow, she was planning to have dinner and spend the night at the lodge with her sister Dulcie. They would use the lodge as their base for a week of catching up, hiking and pampering themselves. It wasn’t often they could get together, so they planned on making the most of it.
Harper knew she should have seen Spence’s emergency at Yellowstone as a reprieve from his questioning and made her getaway. But had she done that? Hell, no. She’d offered to give his horse a ride and keep him at her ranch until he was ready to take him home, which meant at least one more meeting with Sexy, Handsome, Agent-in-Charge Spencer, who would now be coming to her ranch to pick up his horse. What had possessed her to do such a thing? The last thing she needed was some nosy, anti-mustang ranger hanging around her ranch.
Once he’d given her instructions on what Tank needed, he’d turned to leave, but then turned back, tipped her face up to his and brought his lips down on hers, kissing her with a brief, fierce, passion before walking away to disappear through the parking lot full of trailer rigs. What the hell had he done that for? Before that, she could have just dismissed this little interlude as him trying to probe for answers. There was no way he could prove it had been her. No way. Then he’d gone and kissed her. What the fuck was up with that?
CHAPTER3
Harper forced her mind away from Spence and what had been an intriguing and arousing kiss that had left her wanting more—so much more. Well, fuck him. She closed up her truck, making sure all the connections and doors were secure, then climbed up into the cab, started the engine, and headed out to the highway and home.
When she found herself touching her lips for the third time, she turned her mind to Dulcie and their time together. They’d grown up in a fairly well-to-do family in Napa Valley. Their father had been an attorney and their mother a vintner. The family had moved to their vineyard before the girls were in elementary school. Both had grown up loving horses, and their family had indulged that love.
Dulcie’s passion for horses had turned to racing. She worked as an investigator for The Jockey Club, the premier registry for all things Thoroughbred. She was based in Kentucky but traveled a lot for her job. Even though they spent a lot of time apart, the sisters were close and stayed in touch by phone and video call, and once a year they got together at one of the national parks to indulge their mutual love of the wild.
Harper had followed a different path: owning her own breeding facility, Hearts Afire, and competing at the highest level. Her first Appaloosa had stoked her love of the breed and competition. Each successive horse had led her to improve her skills and to rise to the highest ranks of competition within the Appaloosa world. At her ranch, Harper raised a nice-sized crop of Appaloosa foals each year. She didn’t make a lot of money on her horses, but they paid for themselves and for the ranch.
Her other passion was her company, Feed the Fire, specializing in supplying food and drink to the various companies of smokejumpers in the western half of the United States. She was highly sought after because she was more than a regular line or grill cook. She had a degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley and provided clean, nutritious food that tasted delicious. In addition, she could make do in very primitive conditions and didn’t rely on a large food truck or other modern conveniences to feed those fighting the fire. She could pack into the most remote areas and have the cook shack set up and food ready to go by the time the smokejumpers got to the site to set up camp.
Harper pulled into her ranch twenty-four hours later, got out of her truck and went to get Mattie and Tank unloaded. Dusty, her live-in foreman and ranch hand, came running out to greet her. “Nice riding, Harper; saw you cinched another two world championships. Way to go. I streamed the Ranch Horse Pleasure. You owned that sucker from the get-go.”
Harper smiled. It was good to be home. When she first bought the property and named it Hearts Afire, she’d fixed up and lived in the small cabin that had been the original homestead on the property.
She’d spent the majority of those first years improving the fencing, barns, and other buildings and facilities she needed. Her own house was something of an afterthought. As both her breeding program and her wildfire cooking service took off and became far more successful than she’d ever dreamed, she’d built a new stone farmhouse.
When she’d reached the point where she needed regular help as well as someone to watch the place when she was gone, Dusty had filled that bill. In his early sixties, he’d loved horses all his life. When his wife, Sophie, had passed, he decided to walk away from corporate America and find work as a cowboy. No one had wanted to take a chance on a greenhorn cowboy in his sixties, a fact for which Harper was eternally grateful. Like Harper herself, Dusty had a natural way with horses. They seemed to sense he meant them no harm. He loved every single one of the animals on the farm, and they all loved him back.
Dusty took Mattie. “I’ll put Mattie up, get things unloaded, and wash the trailer. You drove straight through, didn’t you? And you’re driving over to meet Dulcie later this evening. Go get a nap and check in with me later,” As Dusty looked in the trailer, he stopped short. “Whoa, who is this big guy?”
“He’s Colton Spencer’s horse, Tank. Spencer is the reigning World Champion in Roping and works as some kind of investigator for the National Parks. We were talking when Spence got a call about a case in Yellowstone. He didn’t say what, but they had a plane waiting for him. I offered to give Tank a ride back here and told Spence he could pick him up when he was done. I hope it’s okay, Dusty; I know it’s extra work for you.”
“Just let me get this clear. You were talking to Spencer? I thought you were going to avoid him because you were worried he’d recognize you as the woman who stampeded the mustangs in Yellowstone last year.”
“That was my plan. He was just confronting me about that when he got the call.”
