Hunting Down the Horseman

She still hadn’t seen him and didn’t seem to notice as he climbed out of his truck and walked over to lean against the jackleg fence to watch her go from one trick to another with both proficiency and confidence.

He’d seen his share of stuntmen and women do the same tricks. But this young woman had a style and grace and determination that mesmerized him.

She reminded him of himself. He’d started on the road to his career as a kid doing every horseback trick he could think of on his family’s ranch in Texas. He’d hit the dirt more times than he wanted to remember and had the healed broken bones to prove it.

The young woman pulled off a difficult trick with effortless efficiency, but as she slowed her horse, he could see that she still wasn’t quite happy with it and intended to try the stunt again.

“Hey,” he called to her as he leaned on the fence.

Her head came up, and, although he couldn’t see her face in the shadow of her Western hat brim, he saw that he’d startled her. She’d thought she was all alone.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, shoving back his hat and smiling over at her. “On that last trick, try staying a little farther forward next time. It will help with your balance. I’m Jud Corbett, by the way.” No reaction. “The stuntman?”

She cocked her head at him and he thought as she spurred her horse that she intended to ride over to the fence to talk to him.

Instead, she turned her horse and took off at a gallop down the fence line. He knew what she planned to do the moment she reined in. She shoved down her Western straw hat and came racing back toward him.

This time the trick was flawless—right up until the end. He saw her shoot him a satisfied look an instant before she lost her balance. She tumbled from the horse, hitting the dirt in a cloud of dust.

Chapter Two

Jud scrambled over the fence and ran to the young woman lying on the ground, wishing he’d just kept his big mouth shut and left her alone.

She lay flat on her back in the dirt, her long, blond hair over her face.

“Are you all right?” he cried as he dropped to his knees next to her. She didn’t answer, but he could see the rise and fall of her chest and knew she was still breathing.

Quickly, he brushed her hair back from her face to reveal a pair of beautiful blue eyes—and drew back in surprise as one of those eyes winked at him and a smile curled the bow-shaped lips.

From a distance, he’d taken her for a teenager. Even up close she had that look: blond, blue-eyed, freckled. Now, though, he saw that she was closer to his own age.

His heart kicked up a beat, but no longer from fear for her safety. “You did that on purpose!”

She chuckled and shoved herself up on her elbows to grin at him. “You think?”

He wanted to throttle her, but her grin was contagious. “Okay, maybe I deserved it.”

“You did,” she said without hesitation.

“I was just trying to help.” He’d seen so much potential in her and had wanted to—What had he wanted to do? Take her under his wing?

That was when he thought she was a teenager. Now he would have preferred taking her in his arms.

Rising, he offered her a hand up from the ground. She stared at his open palm for a moment, then reached up to clasp his hand. Hers was small, lightly callused and warm. He drew her up, feeling strangely awkward around her. The woman was a spitfire.

She drew her hand back from his, scooped up her Western hat from the dirt and began to slap it against her jean-clad long legs, dust rising as she studied him as if she didn’t quite trust him. She didn’t trust him?

“Look, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot,” Jud said as she shoved the cowboy hat down on her blond head again. “How can I make it up to you?”

She grinned. “Oh, you’ve more than made it up to me, Mr. Corbett.” She whistled for her horse and the mare came trotting over. As she swung up into the saddle, she said, “Thanks for the tip.”

He couldn’t help smiling at the sarcasm lacing her tone and wished he wasn’t so damned intrigued by her. She was cocky and self-assured and wasn’t in the least impressed with him. It left him feeling a little off balance since he’d always thought he had a way with women.

She reined her horse around to leave.

“Wait. Would you like to have breakfast?”

She drew her horse up and glanced back at him. “Breakfast?”

He realized belatedly how she’d taken the invitation. Since he was tied up for dinner tonight, his first thought had been breakfast.

“I already have plans for dinner tonight, but I was thinking—”

“I can well imagine what you were thinking.” She spurred her horse and left him standing in the dust.

He watched her ride away, trying to remember the last time he’d been turned down so completely. It wasn’t until she’d dropped over the horizon that he realized he didn’t even know her name.

FAITH FELT LIGHT-HEADED. She couldn’t wipe the grin off her face or banish the excitement that rippled through her as she rode her horse back to her family ranch house.

Jud Corbett. The most notorious stuntman in Hollywood. There wasn’t a stunt he couldn’t do on a horse. And he had seen her ride!

She chuckled to herself at the memory of his expression when she’d winked at him. She hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d wanted to show off. She was lucky she hadn’t broken her fool neck doing it, though.

Her heart had been pounding in her chest when she opened her eyes fully and had seen him in the flesh. The Hollywood movie and stuntman magazines hadn’t done Jud Corbett justice. The man, who’d made a name for himself not only for his stunts, but also as a ladies’ man, was gorgeous.

He’d taken her breath away more than her pratfall. She knew about the film being shot down in the Breaks since her sister McKenna was providing some of the horses.

But Faith had never dreamt she’d get the chance to meet Jud Corbett—let alone be asked to breakfast, even though she knew what that meant, given his reputation.

What had he been doing on that old road, anyway? No one used it. Or at least she’d thought that was true. Wait a minute. That road led to the Trails West Ranch property, and hadn’t she heard that someone named Grayson Corbett had bought it?

Corbett. Of course. She’d just never put two and two together. Jud must be one of Grayson Corbett’s five sons she’d been hearing about. Which meant Jud was on his way to the ranch when he’d seen her.

Her grin spread wider. She still couldn’t believe it. She’d fooled the legendary Jud Corbett with one of her tricks.

As she neared the house, she tried to compose herself. Her older sister Eve’s pickup was parked out front. Faith would have loved to burst into the house and tell Eve all about her afternoon. But this didn’t seem the time to reveal her trick-riding secret. Eve worried about her enough as it was, and Eve had her own concerns right now.

Faith knew not wanting to worry her family wasn’t the only reason she’d kept her secret. It was hers, all hers. Growing up, she was always lumped with her sisters as one of the wild Bailey girls. Eve and McKenna had been stubborn, independent and outspoken.

Faith herself had been all of those and then some, but she’d thought her trick riding as a girl had made her the true daring one.

And now Jud Corbett, of all people, knew.

She tried to assure herself that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Who could he tell? He probably didn’t even know who she was—or care. Faith tried to relax as she took care of her horse, then walked up to the house, only a little sore from her stunts.

“Everything all right?” Eve asked from the front porch.

Faith hadn’t seen her sister sitting on the swing in the shade. Eve lived with her husband, Sheriff Carter Jackson, down the road, but she spent a lot of time in the family ranch house when Faith was home, acting as surrogate mother since their mother had remarried and moved to Florida.