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  As Gil approached, he took Slade’s gloved hand and shook it. “Nice to see you again. This is Kai Tiernan. She’s looking for a nice mare we can purchase and ride over at the Triple H.”

  Slade nodded to Kai. “Miss Tiernan.”

  “Call me Kai,” she said, gently laying her hand on the mare’s sleek white-and-chestnut neck. “She’s beautiful. Does she have a name?”

  “Mariah,” Slade said. He smiled a little. “She’s five years old and my wife Jordana had her eye on her as an endurance horse.” Slade came around, handing the longe line to Kai. Running his hand across her short back and well-muscled rump, he slid it down below the hock, asking the mare to lift her leg, which she did. “You see this scar here? Across her pastern? A year ago she got tangled in some barbed wire and damned if I know where she found it because we use only piping at the ranch. Anyway, she cut herself. The vet came out and stitched it up and said about a quarter inch of the tendon was cut into.”

  Kai leaned down, studying the old scar on the mare’s fine leg. “But she wasn’t favoring it now when you were longing her.”

  Slade gave her a pleased look and released the mare’s leg. He straightened. “No, she’s fine now. It’s just that as an endurance horse, which is much different than what a ranch horse does, it could cause her lameness or other problems down the road.”

  Kai gazed up into the mare’s curious blue eyes as she seemed to be listening to the conversation about her. “So you’ve had her for a year. Has anyone been riding her?”

  “Yes, my wife uses her around here.” He swept his hand toward the fifty acres that had two pastures with about ten Herefords apiece in them. “Mariah is as sound as a dollar.”

  Gil saw the desire in Kai’s eyes. She had completely fallen in love with the pretty little horse. And the mare was nuzzling her cheek, smelling her, like two girls having a chat. “Kai brought her saddle. We’d like to get her saddled up and give her a test ride,” Gil told Slade.

  Slade nodded. “Of course. I have her snaffle bit hanging over there. And a blanket.”

  Kai smiled. “She’s so beautiful, Mr. McPherson.”

  “Call me Slade. And, yes, she’s a delicate little thing.”

  “Does she have any bad habits?”

  “I don’t have horses with bad habits. I train every one of them myself. They’re trained with firmness and love.”

  As if to verify that, Mariah nudged Slade’s left upper arm.

  Kai laughed. “She’s smart.”

  “She’s got Arabian blood in her, that’s why,” Slade said, patting the mare’s neck fondly. “And she’s sharp. Misses nothing. She’s a quiet horse, but has a big heart and will do anything you want. Her sire is Thor, my sunbonnet stallion. She’s got his heart. And she’s got endurance to burn. She’ll outlast every horse you have at your ranch.”

  Kai smiled and clucked to Mariah, leading her over to the bridle and bright red wool blanket. Gil walked on the other side of the mare.

  “I’ll get your saddle,” he told her.

  “Thanks,” she called.

  In no time, Kai had the bridle on the mare, who took it without a fuss. Slade stood back and would occasionally murmur something, giving her some bits of information as Kai took the dandy brush and quickly brushed the mare’s back and withers down. One did not put a blanket on a dirty back of a horse. Brushing was a must because it would keep grit from digging into the horse’s skin and rubbing it raw, thereby causing a saddle sore. She saw Gil give her a pleased look, admiration in his eyes for her knowledge of horses. It made her feel good.

  After Kai placed the red blanket over Mariah’s back, Gil lifted her Western saddle into place and gently placed it on her back. Kai gave him a silent look of thanks and quickly cinched up the saddle, making sure it was not too tight and, therefore, uncomfortable for Mariah.

  “Take her around in the arena,” Slade suggested, leaning against the fence, his arms across his massive chest. “We’ll stay here and watch you two get acquainted.”

  Smiling, Kai nodded. She led the horse to the center of the arena, quietly placed the reins over the mare’s head and mounted.

  Gil had never seen Kai ride. She had swung her leg expertly over the quietly standing horse, and now her long legs wrapped around the barrel of the mare. She sat straight, her shoulders back as she squeezed the horse with her calves and urged it forward into a walk along the pipe fence. He liked the way Kai’s hips moved back and forth in the ancient rhythm between horse and rider. The mare’s ears were constantly moving back to listen and be aware of Kai on her back, and then moving forward, her blue gaze alert for what was out in front of them. The mare was dainty, with slender legs and small feet, much like Kai.

  “They fit each other well,” Slade told him.

  “Yes,” Gil said. For the next fifteen minutes, he watched Kai put the attentive mare through her paces at a walk, trot and canter. Not only that, he was surprised but pleased to see Kai knew how to ask a horse for a flying change of leads. When a horse moved in a circle one way, the inside leg was to take the lead to keep the horse balanced. Many horses wouldn’t do it under saddle and had to be trained. It was obvious that Slade had trained the mare well because as she did figure eights in the arena, the mare would automatically shift front legs and take the correct lead.

  Gil could feel his lower body stirring as he watched Kai take the mare into a canter. Most people didn’t know how to ride a three-beat canter, but she sure as hell did. There was no daylight between her butt and that saddle as the horse kept a nice, rocking canter around the arena. He saw the delight in Kai’s face. She was smiling and her cheeks were blooming with a flush that made him ache. If only he’d been free to do things differently in the past, but he hadn’t been. Just seeing her smile, seeing her fluid body move in concert with the horse, was sensual as hell. Beautiful.

  “They work well together,” Slade noted.

  “Yeah, like they were made for one another,” Gil agreed. He watched Kai bring the mare down to a walk, lean forward and pet her enthusiastically, praising her. The mare liked it, snorting, curving her neck and prancing a little beneath Kai’s low, excited voice.

  “Arabians are sensitive,” Slade said, gesturing toward Mariah, who was now dancing a little, showing her own brand of happiness with Kai. “They pick up on a rider’s emotions in a heartbeat. I think she’ll work well with Mariah because she’s sensitive, too.”

  Gil nodded, his heart and memories in the past. With Kai. In her bed. Loving her, listening to her sweet cries of pleasure, feeling that sinuous body of hers creating a firestorm of need within his. Pulling himself back to the present, he asked, “What are you asking for this mare?”

  “Three thousand. If she didn’t have that tendon issue, I’d get five times that amount for her.”

  Gil nodded. Slade could have sold her as a broodmare for a high price, but he was willing to sell Mariah as a working horse for Kai. Talon had given him a check for fifteen-hundred dollars. He knew the strict budget the Triple H was on. “It’s a fair price.”

  “I was going to ask five thousand,” Slade told him, giving him a glance. “That’s a fine mare. Her legs are damn near perfect, plus, she could be a broodmare someday. She’d throw nice babies. I’ve spent a lot of time training her and she’s push button to ride.”

  Gil wouldn’t argue with Slade. He knew the time it took, the patience, the love, to make a good riding horse. “Three is fair. Can I give you a check for half of it and you take my credit card and run the rest?”

  Slade nodded. “Sure. Let’s go do business in my office.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KAI COULD BARELY contain herself on the way back to the Triple H. “Mariah is beautiful!” she bubbled, as she turned to Gil, who was driving. “She’s so responsive. I love that in a horse!”

  “She’s a nice animal. Moves well,” Gil agreed. He glanced over to see the joy shining in Kai’s gray eyes. He’d only seen her happy like this once before, this kind o
f infectious display. With him. Those five lost days.

  He’d never seen her this happy with Sam, although, to her credit, his best friend was closed up tighter than Fort Knox, unable to show much emotion to anyone at any time. Whatever Sam had been before training, his emotions got trained out of him along the way to becoming a Delta operator. Somehow, Gil had been able to span the bridge at both ends and put on his game face when he needed to but also be able to remove it. Many operators couldn’t do that.

  “I think we are going to get along just fine.” Kai grinned over at him. “Now, I can hardly wait to go ride fence line with her.”

  Gil wished with all his heart that Kai would look at him like she was looking right now. “Well, for the moment, Talon needs you working on equipment, not riding fence line,” he said.

  “I know. And I will.” Kai rubbed her hands together, excitement in her low voice. “But that doesn’t mean that on weekends I have off I can’t ride her around the property and get familiar with it. Maybe do a little fence repair along the way.” And then she added, worried, “I mean, if you’ll let me.” He was, after all, her boss. And Kai didn’t want to be overstepping her bounds with him.

  Shrugging, Gil said, “This coming weekend, I was going to ride the southern leg of the property. Griff McPherson called me the other day to say that there were three thousand acres of grassland going up for sale next to the Triple H. He thought we might be interested in acquiring it. We need it if we’re going to run cattle.”

  Nodding, Kai lost some of her ebullience. “Sure, I’d like to ride out and see it.”

  Gil heard the lack of enthusiasm in her voice, saw her eyes lose that gleam of happiness. Yeah, riding with him would be a real downer. He got it. “It could be a way to introduce you to the ranch,” he said. More than anything, he wanted Kai with him, not against him. Gil knew he didn’t deserve a second chance with her; nor did she look as if she was going to give him one anytime soon.

  “Sure,” Kai mumbled. “I haven’t seen hardly any of it.”

  “No,” Gil said, trying to sound lighter, “you’ve been stuck in the green barn since arriving here.” Today was Thursday. “You think you’ll get that tractor online pretty soon?”

  “Count on it. I’ve got everything on my list to be repaired. I plan to fire it up later today and see how the engine behaves.”

  “Good,” he said. “Damned hard to have a ranch without a working tractor.”

  She smiled a little, looking out the window, appreciating the mighty Tetons that rose out of the floor of the valley, clothed in white snow at the tops of the peaks. “I loved using the tractor on our ranch. Every chance I got from the time I was twelve years old on, I wanted to drive it.”

  Gil heard the sadness in her voice. “What’s the deal with your father? I don’t understand why you didn’t go straight home and work on your family’s spread.” Granted, his question was personal, but it ate at Gil wondering why. Something wasn’t right and he’d felt it all along.

  When he glanced over at Kai, he saw pain banked in her gray eyes, her whole body going still. Whatever her answer, it couldn’t be a good one.

  “I just never got along with my father.”

  “Why?” He held his breath for a moment because Gil knew this was very personal. Kai had never talked about her life before being in the Army. He should have been a helluva lot more sensitive toward Kai when they spent those days together. He was too busy using her as a place to hide, to heal, and it had been completely selfish and one-sided on his part. Regret flowed through him. Kai had been unselfish, giving, loving and she was perfect for him. To this day, she did not know he had coveted her when he first met her with Sam.

  “My dad prefers sons to daughters,” she admitted quietly. “Steve, my older brother, is the apple of his eye, not me.”

  Gil scowled, slowing down as they hit the long hill that sloped down into Jackson Hole. “Why?”

  Shrugging, Kai said, “He thinks all women are helpless. That all they’re good for is being barefoot and pregnant.”

  Brows lifting, Gil muttered, “Yeah, ranchers tend to be ultraconservative about men and women’s roles on a ranch, but not all of them. How did you take it?”

  “I didn’t.” Kai grimaced. “My mom died when I was young. She was a brilliant woman, a high school principal. But she had a weak heart.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gil said, meaning it, giving her a concerned glance. The hurt in Kai’s eyes tore at him. “I didn’t know.” How had it affected Kai? To lose a parent at such a young age? Especially her mother. He wondered if her choice of careers, mechanics, had been molded by her father’s needs at the ranch. Gil knew from his own ranching days with his parents struggling to make ends meet, everyone worked hard, long days. Just because Kai was a girl didn’t mean her father didn’t utilize whatever skills she had.

  “It’s not something I talk too much about,” Kai admitted quietly, stealing a look over at Gil. He looked sad. For her?

  “Did your father get over her death?”

  “No. Not to this day. That was part of the problem. When Mom died, my dad just kind of curled up and died in front of our eyes. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t…well, get out his grief, I guess. Steve was eleven and I was eight. I was hurting so much, so lost, that he became like a parent to me instead of my dad. Steve would hold me when I would cry. I couldn’t cry in front of my father. He threatened to beat me with a belt if I did. I’d run off to the barn, climb up to the haymow area, hide and sob until my throat ached. Steve would always find me… He’d come and hold me, rock me, tell me it was going to be all right.”

  Gil felt anguish stir in his chest. He could picture Kai as a lost little girl of eight, hurting, wanting her mother. “I hope I meet Steve someday. He sounds like a good man.”

  “Oh,” Kai murmured softly, smiling a little, “Steve and I are thicker than thieves. I love him so much. He grew up into such a good person, Gil. He does right by others, but he suffers so much under Dad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dad gave Steve the ranch in the will. Ever since Mom died, he turned angry, impatient, and he took it out on the two of us.”

  “What did your father do?” Gil asked, his voice grim. Some ranchers believed if you spared the rod, you spoiled the child. His gut tightened. He didn’t want to think that Kai had been physically punished. His hands tightened around the steering wheel as they began the slow drive through busy Jackson Hole.

  “Oh,” Kai said wryly, “he picked up his belt to beat me one time because I talked back to him. Steve was there and put himself between me and Dad. He told him to beat him instead, that I was a girl, and it was wrong of him to hit me.”

  “I like your brother even more, now.”

  “Steve took the beating. My dad made me watch.” She closed her eyes. “It was awful. He raised thick, red welts all over Steve’s butt and legs. I cried.”

  “That son of a bitch.”

  Her eyes widened as she regarded Gil’s low snarl. There was such a sense of protection radiating off him right now toward her, it was palpable. Kai swallowed against a tightening throat. “Well, it was the last time dad beat either of us. Steve stood there, bent over, gritting his teeth, his hands braced against his knees. He never cried out once. He just took it.”

  “What happened after that?” Gil demanded darkly, making the wide turn that would lead them into the south end of the town and out of the major traffic congestion.

  “My dad just kind of shrank and went away. He…just went away, Gil. I don’t know how else to say it. Being older now, I can look back on that time and realize what really happened. When I lost Sam, I died inside. I wanted to hide. I now realize that my dad loved my mom so much that it wounded him in a way I couldn’t possibly understand as a child. And Steve couldn’t, either.

  “That first year after Sam was killed was hell on me. I was emotionally numb. I felt like I was caught in some kind of between-the-worlds feeling and I just wasn’t full
y present in either one of them.” She sighed. “My dad had done the same thing. He was grieving. He didn’t have anything else left over to give to us. It was all he could do to struggle day by day, to keep the ranch going.”

  “He did the best he could. At least he stopped taking it out on you and your brother.” Gil’s mouth curved downward. He’d been there when Sam was killed in that firefight. He’d been wounded himself, unable to be there to support Kai as much as he’d wanted to. And he’d been too much of a coward once he’d gotten out of the hospital and back on deployment in Afghanistan to go see her. He knew Kai was based at Bagram. But he was still hurting so much from the loss of Sam that he couldn’t trust himself emotionally to be around her.

  Just glancing over at Kai, the sadness in her expression, his heart wrenched in his chest. Gil knew he should have been there for her. Much later, he did visit her, but by then, she was over the worst of Sam’s death. He had been an emotional coward.

  “Dad ignored us from then on,” Kai said. “I was such a sensitive little thing growing up. All I did was cry after Mom passed away. Poor Steve…” She smiled fondly, picturing her strong, tall, older brother who had gray eyes and black hair. “He never told me to stop crying. He knew intuitively when I was going to bawl my eyes out and he’d take me to the barn. We had a special place by that time, where he’d take me so I could sob and make all the noise I wanted and no one would hear us. He was so good that way…still is to this day.”

  “Is he married?”

  “No. He should be,” Kai said, “but he keeps telling me the right girl hasn’t come along yet. He’s so handsome, so good. He’s the kind of man I’ve never met.”

  Gil flinched inwardly. He should have been more caring, more focused on Kai during those days, not trapped in his own pain, guilt and grief. “You deserve a man who can hold you when you want to cry,” he said gruffly, his focus on the traffic. In truth, Gil didn’t want to look over at Kai. He was afraid of what he’d see in her expression. The revulsion. The disgust.