A Rendezvous to Die For by Betty McMahon Read Free Book Online Page B

sanity into my life.
    I made notes on my clipboard and
stepped outside the stables, ready to head back home. Suddenly, a
familiar crackling sound caught my attention. Fire? I stepped toward
the noise and my nose immediately registered “smoke.” Within
seconds, I saw flames shooting into the air. I clutched the notes to
my chest and dashed back into the barn, falling into a crumpled heap
on a bale of hay. Frozen in place and with my eyes tightly closed, I
shivered uncontrollably.
    Without warning, I felt someone
shaking me. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Stop screaming! The fire’s
out.” A man pulled me to my feet.
    Still trembling, I pushed the
hair out of my eyes and composed myself. “I-I’m all right. I’m
all right,” I said, sucking in a huge breath of air and expelling
it through pursed lips.
    “ All it needed was a fire
extinguisher,” the stranger said, sitting me down again on the bale
of hay. “Some ignorant cuss tossed a half-burned cigarette into a
pile of loose hay and didn’t stomp it out. I find out who and the
guy’s history. Wait here a sec and I’ll be right back. I want to
make sure there aren’t any embers left to do more damage.” He
strode over to the barn hydrant for a pail of water to throw on the
still smoking mess.
    I stood up again and found my
knees were still wobbling. Frustrated, I shook them one at a time. I
wanted to leave, before I’d have to explain my reaction to the
easily contained fire.
    The cowboy returned, with a
swagger and a grin. “Now that you’re better, we can start over,”
he said. Slimly built, he was attired in jeans, boots, and a
well-worn cowboy hat. His gaze traveled over me briefly, before
meeting mine. “I thought I’d met all the pretty gals around
here.” He looked me up and down again. “Yes, ma’am, you sure do
those jeans justice.”
    The voice, the lame pickup line,
and even the swagger were familiar to me. I tilted my head and
studied him. “Jack?” I squinted and shaded my eyes from the glare
of the setting sun with a cupped hand. “Well, for . . . you’re
Jack Gardner!”
    He pulled off his cowboy hat and
bowed. “The one and only. Am I lucky enough to know this lovely
lady?” He stroked his cheeks while thinking and closed his eyes.
They flew open and his grin widened into a dazzling smile. “Cassandra
Cassidy—all grown up, with short, curly hair?”
    Our responses tumbled out in
stereo. “I thought you were in New York,” he said, at the same
time I said, “I thought you were in Texas.”
    “ You go first.” I waggled my
fingers at him.
    “ I’ve been stable manager and
trainer here for six months,” he said. “Wrangling cows was fun
for a few years, but I was getting busted up down in Laredo.”
    Laredo. That explained the twang
he’d acquired since I knew him, and probably the slight limp, too.
I had noticed it, when he walked toward me. “I take it Texas ranch
horses aren’t like pampered Minnesota Arabians.”
    “ You got that right.” He
sighed and lifted his finger to tip his hat off his forehead. “They
laid injuries on me too numerous to mention. But I didn’t get too busted up, if you know
what I mean.” He winked and rested an arm on one of the barn’s
vertical supports right behind me.
    Still an incorrigible flirt, Jack
couldn’t help himself. The minor-league pitch he’d perfected
years ago was still working for him. At one time, it would have
landed in my strike zone, but, now, it wasn’t even in the ballpark.
I’d eaten up the cowboy lothario line when I was his fling du
jour one forgettable summer in our younger days. But . . . even
though the romantic attraction had worn off, I couldn’t help but
appreciate the figure he cut in his form-fitting Wranglers. “Exactly
what do you do here?” I asked.
    “ I mostly train
Quarter Horses and teach some roping.”
    “ Roping?”
    “ Yeah, roping,” he said, “I
gained a pretty good roping reputation in Texas and have some belt
buckles and even a