Gemma was beginning to stir. He crouched next to her and held the chloroform-soaked cloth over her nose and mouth. Her body went limp again. For a moment, he gazed downat her—the stepsister whom he’d known since she was a skinny, bookish kid growing up on the ranch, the daughter of the woman he’d hated since the day she’d married his dad. Technically, Gemma was family. But he’d never felt the slightest brotherly affection toward her. He could strangle her now without a flicker of guilt.
“What about Lila?” he asked. “Could we force this girl to lead us to her?”
“I was working on that when you stepped in,” Simone said. “But it’s too late now. We’re going to need a different plan. Come on, we need to get out of here.”
Frustrated, Darrin followed his wife out of the hotel through the service entrance. Caught up in the plot to eliminate Lila, he’d almost forgotten about the mysterious call from the man claiming to be his brother. Now he remembered. What if the call had been real? What if the man was here, just out of sight, waiting for the right time to make a connection?
It was probably wishful thinking. But Darrin had longed for a better ally than Simone—someone who would have his back and wouldn’t be always judging him, making demands, and putting him down. Someone like a brother.
But what was he thinking? He was stuck with what he had—and what he had was Simone. Nobody, especially a long-lost brother, was going to help him out of the mess he’d made.
Cheyenne sat in the stands of the main arena, sipping a Big Gulp and waiting for the cutting competition to begin. The seat next to her was empty. Roper had bought a ticket and promised to join her, but he had yet to show up. She was concerned about him. At a time when he needed food and rest, he was driving himself too hard, living on coffee and energy drinks, as if nothing mattered except winning the Run for a Million.
Although he refused to talk about it, Cheyenne knew that the pending murder charge weighed heavily on his mind. Maybe he viewed the competition as a final act of glory before the steel cuffs closed around his wrists and the fight to prove his innocence began.
She checked her phone, hoping for a text from him, but there was nothing. Nor was there any message from Hayden. Maybe he was busy with funeral arrangements and ranch business. Maybe he was consumed by grief. Or maybe he just didn’t care enough to keep in touch with her.
Never mind. She was determined to enjoy the evening. Tomorrow her mother would be arriving, and her days of freedom would come to an end.
Her lunch with Buck Tolson, at a tiny Mexican restaurant with delicious food, had been a gold strike of information. Thanks to Buck, who’d done most of the talking, she knew the fine points of the sport, how a run was set up, the rider’s job, the horse’s job, and the reason there were four other cowboys in the arena. She knew how judges scored a two-and-a-half-minute run, the points and penalties. The more she heard, the more eager she was to get her own horse and start learning. She’d cut cattle as a teen on her family’s Colorado ranch, but competitive cutting was a whole different world.
“In cutting, the show is all about the horse,” Buck had told her. “Once the rider picks a cow and cuts it out of the herd, he—”
“Or she,” Cheyenne had teased, drawing a smile from that serious mouth. “Girls can do it, too.”
“He or she,” he’d conceded. “After the rider lowers his—or her—rein hand to the horse’s neck, then it’s up to the horse to keep the cow under control. It’s quite a show. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
“I don’t just want to enjoy it. I want to do it,” Cheyenne had said.
Buck had chuckled at her impatience. “Whoa, there. Something tells me you can do anything you put your mind to. But getting there is going to take more time and work than you can imagine—and the right horse.”
Almost forgetting to eat, Cheyenne had hung on his every word. While he spoke, her eyes studied his face—not a handsome face, but strong, masculine, and trustworthy, with deep-set eyes, prominent cheekbones, a chiseled jaw, and a mouth that was firm but generous. His dark hair was lightly flecked with gray.
She knew next to nothing about the man—not even his age, which she guessed to be a little short of thirty. He wore no wedding ring, but that didn’t rule out a woman in his life, or even children. His hands were callused and scarred—a workingman’s hands. And he wore a workingman’s clothes, without even a fancy buckle to show that he was a champion, maybe the best in the country or even the best in the world.
Watching him across the table, Cheyenne had found herself wondering how it would feel to be kissed by such a man. But she’d forced the thought away. She was here to learn about cutting, and this was a man who could teach her.
Last night, the draw party had been held to determine the order in which riders and horses would compete. Buck had drawn the second-to-last slot. Hayden would have been last if tragedy hadn’t called him away. Now Cheyenne checked her phone again. There were no messages—not from Hayden and not from Roper. And the event was about to start.
She stood for the national anthem. Then the loudspeaker blared, and the four mounted helpers, there to contain the herd of cattle in the arena, took their places. When everythingwas in place, the first competing rider galloped his horse through the gate.
Cheyenne quickly lost herself in the beauty and intricacy of the sport. The cows—steers and heifers—were bunched in the center of the arena. The rider cut his chosen animal out of the herd. Once it was in the open, he lowered his hand to slacken the rein and let his horse take over.
Watching the beautiful bay horse work the cow, keeping it from running to the fence or back to the herd, was mesmerizing. Agile as a dancer, the horse wove, shifted, and dodged, blocking the cow at every turn, controlling the animal physically and mentally. The rider could give subtle cues with his knees but couldn’t use the rein or his hands to guide the horse.
Perched on the edge of her seat, Cheyenne watched in rapt attention as the whistle sent the cow back to the herd and the rider chose a second animal to work. At the end of the run, the judges announced the score—76.2 points out of a possible 80. It was good, but not good enough to win. Other riders were bound to get higher scores as the competition continued.
The next rider was good but unlucky. The second cow he’d chosen broke away from the horse and made a beeline for the herd. The score, a disappointing 67.0.
More horses and riders exercised their skill as the leading score crept upward. At last, with the first place score at 78.2, it was Buck’s turn.
Almost forgetting to breathe, Cheyenne leaned forward to get a better look at him. Dressed simply in a fresh denim shirt, jeans, well-worn leather chaps, and a battered Stetson, he sat his tall buckskin like a king. The horse, Chief, had been brushed until his hide gleamed like liquid bronze. His black mane and tail caught the air, flowinglike silk as he loped into the herd, headed for the cow his master had chosen.
They made a splendid pair, the man and his mount—all the more because Buck was clearly out there to show off his horse, not himself.
The brindle steer was in the open now, expertly separated from the middle of the herd. Keeping it there would be up to Chief. With a grace that was almost dance-like, the big gelding blocked the steer’s every move. The subtle guidance of Buck’s knees was so slight it was almost invisible.
Cheyenne could sense the bond between the horse and the man—something so deep that it couldn’t be acquired through training. It was as if the two of them communicated not just by word and touch but by instinct.