He didn’t have much time to wonder, though, because right then he heard a shout, and at the same time Boyd rose up in his stirrups and said, “Oh hell.”

Roan looked where he was looking and saw Susie Grace had gotten impatient, as usual, and taken off across the meadow at full gallop. Right behind her was Mary on the dapple-gray mare, bouncing up and down and holding on for dear life.

“Kid needs a good paddlin’,” Boyd said as he nudged his horse forward.

Loping along beside him, Roan was too busy watching Mary to answer that, though at the moment he pretty much agreed with the sentiment. His heart felt as though it had lodged in his throat, and this time it wasn’t his daughter he was scared breathless for. “Why the hell is she taking off after her like that? What’s she trying to do, race?”

Boyd snorted. “Probably wasn’t her idea. That horse always did like to run.”

“Once a barrel racer, always a barrel racer,” Roan muttered.

“Better go after her, boy. Need to be a better rider than that little gal to stay on a cuttin’ horse if it takes a notion to change direction.”

Roan had already kicked Springer into full gallop.

For Mary the world had become a bouncing, quivering blur that rushed past her at the speed of a runaway train. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, though her mouth was wide open. She could feel air rushing into her lungs but couldn’t seem to push it back out again. Insects smacked against her face, tears welled up in her eyes and were torn away by the wind. Hard leather spanked her backside and bruised her in even more sensitive places, and all she could do was grip the saddlehorn and hang on, too paralyzed with fear even to pray.

The wild ride ended abruptly, in a slow-motion, nightmarish sort of way. There was an extra hard jolt, and Mary felt herself flying through quiet space…turning gracefully, silently, like a windmill, head over heels. Then she slithered along warm, slick horsehide to land in tall, tickly grass with a thump that jarred her teeth and turned the world blank for a second or two.

She was staring up at the pale-blue sky, brain still on lock-down, when she felt something bump gently against the top of her head. Hot moist breath smelling strongly of masticated hay gusted through her hair. She tilted her head, rolled her eyes back and found herself gazing up at the mottled gray underbelly of a whale. A whale with legs. She whimpered feebly, certain she was about to be trampled to death.

Especially when she felt the ground beneath her shake.

Instead, she heard a voice, deep and growly and hoarse, calling her name. She heard heavy, huffing breaths, the slap of reins and creak of saddle leather, thumping footsteps, and then a pale Stetson blotted out the sky.

“Roan?” she croaked, and heard a sharp exhalation and a whispered, “Thank God…”

“Wha’happened?” Was that her voice, so thin and frail? She couldn’t seem to get enough air behind it.

“Shh,” he said gently, “don’t talk. Lie still.” He took off his hat and laid it on the grass, then bent over her and looked into her eyes.

She gazed back at him, sure she’d never seen a face so beautiful, even with the mouth hard and tight and eyes narrowed and burning like fire. No, ice. Fire and ice-that’s what he is. Ice on the outside, fire on the inside.

“I guess I fell off, huh?” she said, answering her own question since he didn’t seem inclined to.

The thumbprints in his cheeks deepened, though it would have been a stretch to call the curve of his lips a smile. His hand gently smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “Yeah, you did-wasn’t your fault, though.”

“I’ll say it wasn’t!” She struggled to sit up, but Roan’s hands kept her from it. “The…stupid horse just…took off. Why’d she do that? I didn’t tell her to.”

“Your horse took off because Susie Grace’s horse did. Herd instinct.” He was frowning as his hands roved quickly over her body…her arms, her legs. “All horses like to race-that one in particular. You hurt anywhere?”

“Everywhere,” she groaned, but it was a lie; nothing hurt now that he was touching her. Nothing had ever felt so good as those hard, gentle hands.

“Good-pain’s good. Means it’s not likely your neck’s broken.” He paused to tilt his head toward the dapple-gray mare, now placidly chomping a mouthful of grass a few feet away. “She used to be a barrel racer.”

“Susie Grace mentioned that.” Mary had lived in rodeo country long enough to know what barrel racing was. She’d just never realized what that meant. “How does something that big, moving that fast, stop so suddenly?”

Roan’s frown relaxed, and his chuckle sounded warm, relieved. “That’s a quarter horse for you.” He sat back on his heels, one hand draped across his knee, and his eyes caressed her with a light that was like sunshine to growing things.

And like those growing things, she felt herself-not physically, but inside, her whole being-yearning toward him, being pulled to him, nourished by him.

What happens to growing things when the sun goes away?

She glared at his hand, angry with herself for wanting it not to be so far away. For wanting it touching her again.

“Nothing seems to be broken,” Roan said, smiling at her finally. “Guess you can get up now.”

“Thanks,” Mary muttered, lifting an arm to pillow her head, “but I’d just as soon stay right here.” The thought of getting back on that horse made her stomach turn over.

As if he’d read her mind, he brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers and said softly, “You’re gonna have to do it sometime, Miss Mary.”

She closed her eyes and stubbornly shook her head. The feel of his fingers on her cheek made her whole face ache. And her heart. How did I do this? How did I let this happen?

The ground under her had begun to shake again. She lifted her head and saw Susie Grace galloping toward them up the gentle slope, her blue cowboy hat bouncing against her back. Boyd was there, too, she saw now, sitting on his spotted Appaloosa horse a little way off, leaning on his saddlehorn, watching.

“Mary! Mary-are you all right?” Susie Grace yelled as she reined Tootsie to a jolting, jarring halt. “What happened? I didn’t see you. Did you fall off?”

“Stay right where you are, Missy.” Roan had risen to his feet, ominous as a thunderhead. He caught the red-gold mare’s bridle, patted her sweat-soaked neck and soothed her as she snorted and tossed her head. “What did you think you were doing? Haven’t Grampa and I both talked to you about running off like that?” His voice was as stern as Mary had ever heard it.

“I’m sorry,” Susie Grace hunched her shoulders, looking small and contrite.

Roan didn’t soften an inch. “Sorry’s too late. Mary’s lucky she didn’t break her neck. What would you do if she had, Susan? Tell me that. Sorry isn’t gonna fix a broken neck.”

Susie Grace, whose face had been crumpling by degrees, opened her mouth and began to wail at the top of her lungs.

“That isn’t gonna help,” Roan said darkly, raising his voice over the noise. “You’re still gonna be grounded a good long while.” He looked over at Boyd and jerked his head toward the howling child. “You mind taking her back? Mary and I’ll be along in a while.”

Boyd clicked to his mare and made a “Come here” gesture with his head. “Come on with me, little bit. Quit bellerin’. This’s what happens when you don’t do what you’re told.”

Roan let go of Tootsie’s bridle and the mare trotted off after Boyd, tail switching, Susie Grace bouncing in the saddle, still wailing.

“She didn’t mean to hurt me,” Mary said as she watched them go, more upset from the child’s distress than her own fall.

“I know she didn’t.” Roan had scooped up the gray mare’s reins and was brushing her down, checking the cinch, adjusting the stirrups. “That’s not the point. She’s been told not to go running off like that, and she did it anyway. Showing off in front of you, I guess, I don’t know. But that’s no excuse for not minding.” He glanced at her, then quickly away, but not before she saw the pain-a parent’s anguish, she realized. She’d never thought before how hard it must be to discipline a beloved child. “Boyd and I are both pretty easy on her-maybe too easy. But when I do make a point to tell her not to do something, there’s generally a damn good reason for it.”

He gave the cinch a final tug, patted it flat, then turned to her and held out his hand. “Come on-up you get.”

He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes held something…a glowing warmth, a kindling promise…that made her inside yearn toward him even as her outside cringed away and her voice, dark and cracking with suspicion said, “Up where?”

He patted the saddle, the smile coming slowly, now, though still a little wry. “Everybody falls off a horse from time to time. Happens. When it does, what you do is get right back on.”

“Uh-uh.” She scrambled to her feet, ignoring his hand and trying not to moan as bruises and abused muscles screamed in outrage. “That’s what you’d do. I, on the other hand, have no intention of getting back on that horse-or any other horse-ever again, thank you very much.” She brushed at her rear and glared at him-which wasn’t easy, when he looked at her like that.

“How’re you gonna get back home?” His face now was serene, and he stood there smiling at her like some kind of cowboy angel, one hand on the back of the saddle, breezes riffling his hair and the sun glancing off it like tiny light-swords.

Her stomach went hollow, then hot. Juices pooled in her throat. “I’ll walk,” she said doggedly, standing her ground.

He chuckled. Mary sucked in a breath and drew herself up, bolstered, now, by both anger and pride. She peeled a wind-blown lock of hair away from her mouth, then shaded her eyes with her hand. “It’s that way, right?”