Mustang Annie Read online

  The rest of the men scrambled to their feet and crowded around Flap Jack.

  “Are my fillies with them?” Brett asked.

  He nodded vigorously. “Lookin’ a bit ragged and lean, but healthy enough.”

  Brett bounded into immediate action, shoving his feet into his boots and buckling on his gun belt. “Flap Jack, change horses. The rest of you boys mount up—we’re gonna catch us some fillies.”

  They spotted the herd just before sundown the next day, right where Flap Jack said they would be. Horses—two hundred or more in every color combination possible—grazed languidly on grasses and wild rye. Duns, sorrels, greys, pintos, paints, bays, buckskins, blacks. . . .

  Annie gazed in awe, reminded of the first time the sight had filled her eyes. She’d been ten when her mother died, and Granddaddy began leaving the farm shortly after that for work. She hadn’t understood at the time why she couldn’t go with him, but he remained firm that she stay at the farm. Annie hadn’t ever disobeyed her granddad before, yet, weeks would sometimes pass before he returned, and the days got so lonely. . . .

  So she went searching. For what, she couldn’t say. A purpose. Maybe adventure. Quite possibly just someone to talk to.

  She’d found the mustangs.

  She’d also found Sekoda.

  Even at her tender age, she’d been drawn to him. Not a boy, not yet a man, he walked among the herd as if he were one of them, his lean, bronzed body created by sun and grace, his long black hair flowing in the wind. She remembered envying his ability to communicate with the animals, more than fearing his heathen lineage.

  She returned often to the canyon over the years. The bond of their friendship became stronger with each visit, until her sixteenth summer, when Sekoda stopped looking at her as a friend and playmate, and started looking at her like a woman.

  “See that speckled filly grazing on mesquite bark north of the river fork?” Corrigan asked, breaking into the memory.

  He lay beside her on his stomach, close enough that Annie could feel the heat from his body. He was much longer and broader than Koda had been, his hair streaked golden brown instead of solid black, his eyes a silvery green instead of sienna. Yet oddly enough, it felt . . . right . . . sharing this view with him. Almost as if the mustangs were forging her destiny once again.

  Annie pushed the disturbing thought to the back of her mind and took the scope he handed her. She sighted down the metal tube. “I see her.”

  “That’s Liberty Loo. The bay with the blaze down her nose is Sophie’s Star.”

  Sliding the lens to the left, she focused on the second horse. “What did you do, name them after lovers?”

  The remark earned her a sharp glance.

  “I don’t see the stallion,” Dogie said from his spot on the ridge.

  “He’s probably circling the herd, defending it from marauders.”

  Corrigan reclaimed the scope and searched the outer edges of the canyon. A slow grin told her he’d gotten the stallion in his sights. “Ah, there’s my thief.”

  Annie lifted her hand to the brim of her hat, extending the shade. Sure enough, on the fringes of the herd paced the patriarch, his hide so black it appeared blue in the sunlight.

  Collapsing the magnifier, Corrigan started to rise. “Let’s get into position so we can get this show over with.”

  Annie raised her hand to halt him. “Not here—it’s too wide open. Once the horses catch our scent they’ll start running, and we’ll be eating their dust three miles behind. Best just to follow them for a bit and find someplace to head them off.”

  “There’s a split gorge a couple miles north,” Henry suggested. “We could drive them there.”

  Annie knew the place well. The canyon walls reached several hundred feet in the air, forming a natural blockade on all but one side.

  Corrigan made no secret of his disagreement. “I don’t want the whole herd, just my fillies and the stallion.”

  “And you’ll get them,” she said. “But we do it my way. Horses are flight animals. If we charge down there and start swinging our ropes they’ll scatter, and it’ll take us days to track them down again. Is that what you want?”

  He clenched his jaw and peered back down into the canyon. “All right, we do it your way.”

  Annie couldn’t contain a smug smile at the disgruntled reply. The man could use a bit of humbling, and if she were the one to make it happen, all the better.

  After waving the men together, Annie crouched on the ground with a stick in her hand and drew the plans for capture. “The canyon walls are here and here.” She scratched a V in the dirt. “First thing we need to do is build a gate and get it in place. Once we get the herd close to the pen, Emilio and Flap Jack will drive the horses straight into the pen. Dogie and Henry will take position at the open ends and shut the gates as soon as the last horse is in.”

  “What will you and I be doing?”

  Annie glanced at the man beside her. Corrigan looked at her from beneath the brim of his hat, his face at an angle. The sun cast his face in shadow, leaving nothing visible but firm lips surrounded by a week’s growth of whiskers. For a moment, she could only stare at him with her breath lodged in her throat. The words were so simple, the question so innocent. Yet they took her back to a time when there had been a “you and I,” instead of just her. She licked her dry, dusty lips, then swallowed the lump in her windpipe. “We’ll be making sure your thief doesn’t escape.”

  The ground shuddered with the force of pounding hooves against earth. Brett’s pulses throbbed with the tempo as they propelled the horses toward the fork. Clouds of dust stung their eyes and clogged their throats.

  They’d spent the last two days moving camp just close enough for the herd to catch wind of them, then backing off, effectively driving the band toward the natural pen without scaring them into stampeding.

  Annie had taken complete control of the operation: the construction of the fence; supervision of the men; even the examination of each man’s mount and tack.

  There didn’t seem to be an aspect she couldn’t handle and Brett found himself impressed by her competency.

  Now, as they performed the last aspect of Annie’s strategy, organization reigned. Flap Jack and Emilio drove the whinnying herd straight toward the pen. Annie moved into flank position; Brett closed in on the other side. Hooves thundered, pulses hammered, blood pumped hot and heavy.

  Fortune stretched to his full length, spurred on more by his own adrenaline and love of speed than by Brett’s commands. Around him, clipped shouts filled the air.

  The herd drew closer to where Dogie and Wade Henry waited, and like a river with only one path, they began to stream into the quarter-mile enclosure.

  Brett couldn’t contain a triumphant shout. “We got them! Annie, we did it! Your plan worked!”

  Silence met his praise.

  A sudden gut-twisting sensation had Brett searching over the heads of the herd. “Where’s Annie?” he called out to Emilio.

  “Yo no sé.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? She was right next to you!”

  Frantically he scanned his surroundings, and noticed that the herd had begun to split: half streamed into the pen while the other half veered west, running toward the open fork. The slow thunder of his heart picked up speed. He pictured Annie caught in the crush, her tender flesh beaten, her beautiful hair trampled. . . .

  And then, he saw her. In the midst of slick hides and flying manes rode Annie at full gallop, her bottom high off the saddle, her legs bent to hold her weight, her body bowed, her fingers buried in Chance’s mane. The wind had torn off her hat and it slapped against her spine, leaving her long, silky hair to stream behind her like a rippling sunbeam.

  “Mi Dios, ella es asombrosa,” Emilio breathed.

  “Yeah, she is amazing.” As he watched her take control of the mustangs, pride rose inside him, along with a powerful desire, and a possessive need to capture her as she captured the horses.<
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  And it hit him then with the force of a fist that with the horses caught, she’d no longer have any reason to stay.

  The sudden tightening in his chest took Brett by surprise. The thought of a woman leaving had never bothered him before. Maybe because it had never happened before.

  But the thought of never seeing Annie again, of never seeing that spark in her eyes, never smelling the wind in her hair or the sun on her skin, of never again waking up next to her, left a hollowness inside him that he couldn’t explain or understand. He couldn’t trust her. He couldn’t tame her. He couldn’t seduce her. She added nothing to his life but aggravation—

  And he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life.

  A motion at the corner of his vision captured Brett’s notice. Blue Fire, as though understanding the threat to his freedom, reared up on powerful hind legs and pawed the air. A shrill whinny cut through the dust hovering above the pen, just before he plunged forward through his harem.

  “The stallion! Annie, he’s getting away!”

  While Henry and Dogie hastened to stem the flow of escaping horses, Brett spurred Fortune toward the rogue. Annie, also catching sight of the stallion, wheeled Chance around. The realization that Chance could never catch the swift steed must have occurred to Annie at the same time as Brett, for she urged the mare toward Sophie. Once the mare was pressed tight to the filly’s side, Annie reached over and, clutching tight to the filly’s mane, swung onto her bare back. With a few practiced twists, she had a string of rope fashioned into a halter around the filly’s head and nose.

  Seconds later, she was racing after the stallion.

  Brett caught up to the stallion. Wild hysteria glittered in his black eyes and foam speckled his muzzle. Brett pulled Fortune ahead, then cut in front of Blue Fire. Annie’s lasso created a whirlwind above her head, then it fell around the stallion’s neck. Brett followed suit, his own noose settling neatly atop hers. The stallion reared, ears pinned back, front hooves slashing the air.

  “We got him!” Brett shouted.

  “Reel him in—keep that line tight!”

  “Keep clear of his front, Annie, he’s a nipper.” While Annie kept the rope gripped in both hands despite the stallion’s lunging and bucking, Brett twisted the end of his lasso around the saddle horn. Then Emilio and Flap Jack joined them, and between the four of them, they managed to drag the stud into the pen with the rest of the mustangs.

  Brett’s chest heaved from the exertion, sweat poured from his brow like rain, and his whole system felt as though it glittered. Behind him, the men cheered and whistled and slapped each other on the back.

  “We did it, Annie,” Brett laughed.

  Slowly, she lifted her face and their gazes locked.

  Brett’s victory died at the raw emotion in Annie’s eyes. She sat upon Sophie, untouchable, alone. And so damned vulnerable that it nearly brought him to his knees. For endless moments they stared at each other, neither moving, neither blinking, barely even breathing.

  There was something frightening about her sorrow, almost as if in capturing the horses, she’d sacrificed something much more precious. Brett couldn’t begin to guess what she might have lost.

  It chilled him all the same.

  And in that moment, he realized that Mustang Annie Harper wasn’t nearly as tough as she wanted everyone to believe. She was probably more fragile than any of them ever knew.

  Chapter 14

  The men were in high spirits that night. Emilio’s guitar seemed to have caught the fever, for the songs that came from his fingers hopped and whirred with an energy that had the temperature rising several degrees. Henry’s spoons kept up with the blurred tempo, and Dogie and Flap Jack do-si-doed all over the campsite.

  They had every reason to celebrate. They’d gotten the horses, a band of sixty or so head including the stallion, rounded up and penned into a makeshift paddock. Tomorrow they’d cull the herd of lactating mares, old horses and unhealthy nags, choosing those best suited to begin building their own herds. The yearlings, late yearlings and two-year-olds were top choice.

  For the first time in years, Annie wished she could join in their sense of victory. She didn’t think it possible to want that again, but anything was better than this dull ache that now seemed to reach clear to the marrow of her bones.

  From the instant she’d thrown the rope over the stallion’s neck, she felt as if she’d been sucked back in time, then spit out into the present. No thrill. No victory. Only an unbearable emptiness that had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It sat in her, a lead weight dragging her down and making her wish the world would just close over her head.

  Every motion a brittle effort, Annie crushed out her cigarette, then unfolded herself from the ground and wandered to the edge of the paddock, where the horses bunched together tighter than a bushel of apples.

  Memories twisted in her heart: the very first time she’d seen the horses as a young girl, the surprise of seeing Sekoda for the first time, the anticipation of taking that last journey into the canyon for the stallion. . . .

  It should have been him riding with her.

  The flare of a match caught her by surprise. She glanced toward it and found Corrigan standing a short distance away, his arms crossed over the top of the crude fencing, a cheroot clasped between his fingers.

  Annie wasn’t sure if she should leave or stay. If she left, he’d think she was afraid of him; if she didn’t, he’d think she sought him out.

  “Why aren’t you celebrating?” she asked, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Why aren’t you?”

  Leave it to him to answer a question with a question. He took a deep pull of his cheroot. The comforting aroma of tobacco mingled with the scent of sage and heat and horses. “He’s a magnificent animal,” Corrigan remarked.

  Annie folded her arms atop the makeshift corral and watched the stallion pace. He hadn’t changed much in the last four years. He was ten, maybe twelve winters old and at least sixteen hands high, with a massive build that denoted his command. He’d make a valuable stud; his blood ran through half the herd, proof of his virility.

  But Corrigan couldn’t have any idea what he was letting himself in for. The devil was in that boy’s eyes.

  “He’s too proud for his own good.”

  Silence tightened between them, broken only by the nicker of a frightened filly in the next pen.

  “Tell me something, Corrigan—you’ve got over a hundred head on your spread. Why go through all this trouble for a wild stallion?”

  “Because he took something that belonged to me. I don’t begrudge him taking my ladies; that just shows that he has good taste. But I’m not about to let him have them for nothing. If he wants my horses he’s got to give me a return on my investment.”

  “His freedom for your profit.”

  “Nothing comes without a price.”

  Sometimes the price was higher than a person could bear, though.

  “You were amazing out there today,” he said after another quiet moment.

  “You weren’t half bad yourself.”

  His brows lifted. “A compliment? We’re making progress.”

  She forced herself to take a mental step back. No sense in giving him any encouragement. “I just didn’t expect you’d ride so well.”

  “Guess it’s in the blood. My father had me in a saddle before I took my first steps.”

  Was that bitterness in his voice? “Was he a cowboy?”

  “A trader down in Baton Rouge—till the Yankees confiscated all his stock.”

  Baton Rouge. So that’s where the bayou accent hailed from. “And here you are, taking up where he left off. You must be his pride and joy.”

  “On the contrary—I’m his greatest disappointment.”

  There was no missing the pain in his tone. How could this ambitious, enterprising man be a disappointment to anyone?

  As if he’d revealed more than he’d intended, Brett
straightened his spine. “We’ll start herding the horses back to the ranch tomorrow.”

  Her attention snapped to his face. “You aren’t serious! You saw how wild they are when we brought them in.”

  “Once we get them back to the Triple Ace, Tex and his boys will have them broke in a couple of days.”

  “And you’ll spend the next couple of months undoing the damage—if they aren’t completely ruined. Breaking a horse kills its spirit.”

  “Annie, you’ve done the job I hired you to do. How I handle my horses is no longer your concern.”

  Strangely, the words stung. Until this moment she’d forgotten that the tie binding them together had been broken the instant the gates shut, leaving her free to go on with her own life. Not that she had much of a life to go on with, but still. . . . “Fine. Take the horses back now. And when that stallion breaks for freedom first chance he gets, and takes the herd with him—including your precious fillies—don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “Settle them down here first, in the environment they’re familiar with. Let them get used to being around humans. Let them learn to trust you—especially that stallion. Then take them back to the ranch and let him lead the herd.”

  “That will take months, Annie, and I don’t have that kind of time.”

  “It won’t take months—I’ve had mavericks eating out of my hand in a matter of hours.”

  The instant Corrigan gave her that slow, sensuous smile, Annie knew she’d regret her boasting.

  “Why, Annie Harper, that sounds almost like a challenge.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If you can have that stallion tamed and this herd ready to travel in a few days, I’ll double your fee.”

  “Another wager?”

  He inclined his head. “In a matter of speaking.”

  Warning bells went off in her head. Taming them wasn’t part of the deal. “And if you win?”

  His eyes went dark as sin. “Anything I want.”

  Annie’s first impulse was to tell him what he could do with his wager. She’d recovered his fillies and the stallion, and then some. Best just to collect her fee and make for the border while she was ahead.