The Last Cowboy

“A little,” Shorty hedged. “I really didn’t get into much of a discussion with her on that, Boss. I figure you’ll sort it out with her when she arrives here this afternoon.”

“Okay,” Slade said. Tucking the paper with the doctor’s name and phone number into his dark red cotton cowboy shirt pocket, he said, “Let’s get back to work. We need to start separating the calves from their mothers, branding and vaccinating them.” That would be a weeklong activity. And Slade only had one wrangler. He worked from four in the morning to midnight every day. And every hour of daylight was precious.

“Right,” Shorty murmured, following him to where their horses were tied to the corral fence.

As Slade mounted his buckskin quarter horse, Dude, his mind wandered back to Dr. Jordana Lawton for just a second. Slightly curious if she was a good endurance prospect, Slade hoped that it would work out so he had more money flowing in. He’d find out soon enough.

JORDANA LAWTON carefully negotiated the rutted dirt road. She drove her dark blue Ford three-quarterton pickup truck as if she was driving over hens’ eggs. Behind her in a dark blue two-horse trailer was her gray mustang mare, Stormy. One never took a deeply rutted road with a horse trailer at a high speed. It would bounce the horse around so much that it could either cause an injury or send the animal into a frantic emotional state akin to trauma.

And trauma was something Jordana knew inside and out as an emergency-room physician. Glancing at the clock on the dash, she knew she was going to be late. She hadn’t anticipated the dirt road being in such bad shape, but thunderstorms coming over the Tetons last week had made a gooey mire of every ranch road in the valley. And she wasn’t going to hurry in order to get there on time. Slade McPherson, the national-champion endurance rider and trainer, would just have to wait.

The windows were down in the cab, and her shoulder-length black hair flew in wisps across her face. Jordana pulled the errant strands away and then placed both hands back on the steering wheel. In the two years that she had lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, she had come to find that the majority of ranch roads in the valley were not paved. Most of the owners had a tractor, and they would drive out with a blade attached and smooth out the ruts.

Frowning, her focus on her driving, she worried that Stormy might lose her footing on the thick rubber mats. Jordana wanted this experience for the mare to be a good one. It only took one bad ride in a trailer to spook some horses. After that, the horse would refuse to ever enter the trailer again. That couldn’t happen because Jordana had high hopes that this mustang mare would be good enough to start competing at the top endurance level in the United States. And she wanted Stormy always to look forward to entering the trailer, instead of dreading it. Slow but sure…

SLADE GRITTED his teeth as he looked down at the watch on his thick wrist. He’d just rode in from the pastures where he and Shorty had been separating cows from calves. It was hard, sweaty work. And he didn’t want to waste time. Dr. Lawton was already ten minutes late. Slade didn’t like people who weren’t punctual. He had gone in and checked his answering machine to see if she’d called and canceled the appointment. There were no calls. Wasn’t that just like a woman? Isabel, his ex-wife, had always been late.

He hated dealing with women in general. He much preferred working with men who wanted to train for endurance riding. Ever since his divorce from city slicker Isabel Stephens four years ago, Slade had taken on a distinct dislike of the opposite sex. Isabel hailed from New York City, had rich parents and possessed the emotional maturity of a sixteen-year-old girl. She had never been on time for anything except their impromptu wedding. Slade had developed an intense dislike of city dwellers, New York City types, in particular. Isabel had left a bad taste in his mouth. She’d hired a rich New York City attorney and had taken him to the cleaners during their divorce proceedings.

Grimacing, Slade kicked the red dirt with the toe of his scarred cowboy boot. Isabel was the reason his beloved ranch was teetering on the edge of foreclosure. She’d taken him for every penny he’d ever earned. All his savings that had kept the ranch on sound financial footing had gone to her. Now, four years later, Slade continued to wrestle with every penny that came in on a monthly basis. He had nightmares about losing his parents’ ranch. It had been in the family for over a hundred years. There was no way he could lose it. Being a rancher was all he knew. Anger stirred in him as he relived the divorce from petulant, spoiled Isabel.

Pulling in a deep, ragged breath, Slade recalled how he’d fallen in love with the sleek, beautiful Isabel. A dressage rider from the East Coast, she’d come out to Jackson Hole for a two-week vacation with her rich corporate friend who owned a ten-million-dollar home here in the valley. Isabel had met Slade at the Tetons fifty-mile ride, her first endurance contest. Isabel knew her horses. And when Slade had seen her in the crowd as each rider rode up and waited to be released by the judge every five minutes, his heart had pounded. Slade could never remember a woman who had affected him so profoundly as Isabel had.

And it hadn’t hurt that he’d won that race on his flashy medicine-hat mustang stallion, Thor, either. Isabel had had stars in her eyes for him as he’d rode in first among a hundred other contestants. They’d had dinner and gone to bed that night. And Slade, stupid idiot that he was, impulsively married her a week later.

“What a loco decision,” he groused, looking at his watch again. The dirt road to Tetons Ranch curved, so he wouldn’t see a truck and horse trailer until the last moment. He saw no one driving around that corner. “Damn,” he added, now walking angrily back to his ranch house. Where the hell was this woman? If she couldn’t even be on time for this first meeting, what would it be like if he accepted her as a student later? If her horse had the potential? Not good. Not good at all. Damn her. Why couldn’t she call and let him know where she was at?

JORDANA GAVE A GASP of surprise. As she slowly pulled around the last curve, she saw the iconic Marlboro Man cowboy from the cigarette ads. Oh, she’d seen photos of Slade McPherson, but in real life… My God…

Most things didn’t unsettle Jordana one way or another. But the fierce-looking, rugged cowboy did. As she drove her horse trailer between the barn and the ranch house where he stood, Jordana felt her heart unexpectedly begin to pound. This wasn’t adrenaline. She was a physician, and she knew the difference. No, this was her womanly side wildly responding to the man she saw standing there, his hands tense on his narrow hips, watching her approach.

Jordana knew Slade McPherson was a loner. Everyone in Jackson Hole had told her that. A strong, gruff, even antisocial rancher who knew more about breeding endurance horses than anyone else in the nation. She’d done her research. And in her eyes, after learning all she could about this hardened, rugged cowboy, he was the best at what he did: a champion endurance rider and breeder.

Not expecting to have such a powerful physical reaction to seeing him in person made Jordana feel giddy like a teenager. As she put on the brake, she saw his large gray eyes narrowing speculatively upon her. Suddenly vulnerable beneath that incisive, probing gaze, Jordana felt like Jell-O melting out in hot sunlight. Even her lower body was reacting to him! Good grief! What was this all about? Unhinged, Jordana suddenly felt unsure in this man’s towering presence. He wore a set of dusty Levis that perfectly outlined his long, powerful legs and thick thighs. His hands were long and large, draped over his narrow hips. The dark red cotton cowboy shirt did nothing but emphasize his square face that was burned dark by the sun. The slashes at the sides of his full mouth and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes told her this man regularly challenged the weather in any condition—and won.

Her intuitive sense told Jordana he was armored up. The realization hit her in the solar plexus. Unexpectedly, her hands shook as she gathered up items from the seat in preparation to leave the truck. Jordana suddenly was taken back to when she was fifteen years old. It was at that age she had been struck by love for the first time. And how she felt then was how she felt now. Compressing her full lips, she tried to gather her strewn emotions. As hard and implacable as Slade McPherson appeared to be in person, Jordana knew she had to put on her physician’s face: strong, confident and detached. It would hide her present emotions that were a mix of excitement, desire and curiosity.

Climbing out of the truck, Jordana hastily walked around the front of it. As she faced the stony-looking Slade McPherson, she heard him snarl, “You’re late….”

CHAPTER TWO

JORDANA FELT AS IF she’d just been physically slapped by the rugged-looking cowboy who towered over her. She was only five foot six inches tall. He was like a Sequoia compared to her pine-tree height. Compressing her full lips, Jordana weathered his icily spoken words. As a trauma physician, she’d encountered people in all states of anger and irritability. Knowing that a soft, steady voice and appearing unflappable calmed emotional storms, she smiled and said, “I’m sorry. I’m Jordana Lawton. The road to your ranch was a little more rutted than I’d anticipated, and I slowed down so my mare wouldn’t get thrown around in the trailer.” She put her hand forward.

Slade absorbed the apology in her husky voice. The sound flowed over him like melting honey. Jordana’s hand was extended, and he stared down at it. She had long fingers, her hand as delicate-looking as her face. Obliquely he wondered if she had the stamina it took to gut out a fifty-or hundred-mile endurance ride. In appearance, she didn’t look like much more than a pretty black-haired, blue-eyed woman with a curvy body in all the right places. The sunlight danced across her shoulder-length hair, highlighting some of the reddish strands.

“Slade McPherson, Dr. Lawton.” He monitored the amount of strength as his hand engulfed hers. To his surprise, he found her hand strong and firm, just like his. Swallowing that discovery, he instantly released her fingers because red-hot tingles were soaring from his hand up into his lower arm. What the hell was happening? Slade had no idea.

“Call me Jordana,” she insisted. Giving him a bit of a wry smile, she added, “I am a trauma doc, but that’s my job. Out here, I’m just like anyone else. Please call me Jordana?”

Slade felt as if he was being pulled into her dancing, sky-blue eyes. There was warmth and understanding glinting in them like dapples of sunlight across the lakes found in the Tetons range. Her pupils were large and black, eyelashes forming a dark frame around them. Again, he swallowed hard. There was nothing to dislike about Jordana. She appeared to be around his age, although her face appeared to be that of a young twenty-something. Slade knew that doctors didn’t really get out of training until they were twenty-eight to thirty years old.

“I haven’t got much time,” he said abruptly, and he waved his hand toward the horse trailer. “Shorty said you have an endurance prospect you wanted me to evaluate?”

Wincing internally, Jordana had to stop the comparison between her former boss, Dr. Paul Edwin, who’d had the exact same acid, remote and cold personality as McPherson. That made her cringe inside. After a two-year sexual harassment lawsuit, Jordana had won the court case but she’d lost her position at a prestigious New York City hospital. That was why she’d decided to start all over and moved from there to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Now, she was being tested by a man who looked as harsh as the mighty Tetons range itself.

“Yes, I have a mustang mare name Stormy. I’d like you to evaluate her conformation. See if she has what it takes.”

“At what level?” he demanded, stalking around the back of the trailer and opening the latches.

Jordana quickly followed him. He flowed like water over rock. There was a fluidity to Slade that mesmerized her. She realized he was in top athletic shape to be able to move with that kind of boneless grace. “Level one, the Nationals,” she said. Jordana moved forward as the doors swung out and pulled out the ramp. Stormy whinnied.

Reaching up, Jordana patted the sleek gray rump of her mare. “It’s okay, Stormy. I’m going to get you out of there.” She walked to the side of the trailer and opened a smaller door. This allowed her to go inside and unsnap the hook attached to the mare’s red nylon halter. That done, Jordana eased around the end and stood where the mare was tied. She attached a nylon halter lead and placed her hand on the horse’s chest. “Back up,” she told the mare.

Stormy obeyed. In a few moments, Jordana and her mare were standing outside the trailer.

“Bring your mare over here,” Slade ordered. He walked away from the trailer into an area where the horse could be walked and trotted.

Jordana nodded and did as he asked. What a tough hombre he was! There were no articles that said anything about this man’s personality. Maybe that’s why, she thought. Anxious because Jordana wanted Stormy to be given the good seal of approval, she took the horse about a hundred feet away. McPherson stood with his arms across his chest, his face unreadable. The shade created by his tan Stetson emphasized the harsh lines gathered across his brow. What would he say about Stormy?

“Okay,” Slade called, “trot your mare in a straight line toward me.”

Clucking softly to Stormy, Jordana ran alongside her mare. She knew Slade was looking at how the horse’s legs moved. She knew Stormy had a good set of legs. He would be checking out whether her hooves moved straight ahead or winged out or came into a pigeon-toed formation. If the horse’s hooves winged outward, it was a sign of bad conformation. Stormy would never be able to take the hard, constant stress on her legs without breaking down and becoming injured.

Slade had one hell of a time keeping his eyes on the horse’s movement. Jordana wore a bright yellow T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. She moved as fluidly as the mare. Slade cursed—he did not want to be drawn at all to this woman! He’d automatically looked at her left hand and found no wedding ring on it. That didn’t mean much. Slade was sure she was hooked up in a relationship, anyway. Jordana was far too pretty, intelligent and professional to be alone out here in Wyoming. Just as well, he harshly told himself.

As Jordana drew her mustang to a halt about ten feet in front of him, Slade lifted his hand and growled, “Now walk away from me. Go the same distance and then turn around and walk back to me.”

“Right,” Jordana said, breathless. Stormy was feeling her oats, and she pranced as Jordana turned her around. Speaking softly to the mare, Jordana managed to get the mustang settled down and walking obediently at her side.

Slade groaned. He was watching the way Jordana swayed her hips. Her legs were long and firm. He’d been without a woman for some time now. And this one, for whatever reason, was fanning the flames of his monklike life. Forcing himself to watch the mare, he was pleased to see she was four square. That meant that at a walk, her rear hooves would land where her front hooves had previously been. That was a sign of the type of conformation Slade wanted to see in an endurance prospect. As the horse saying went: “No legs, no horse.” And in endurance riding, legs either carried you through the challenging hill and mountain conditions, or they didn’t.

As Jordana brought the steel-gray mare to a halt, he’d seen enough and changed his orders. “Take her over to that corral and put her on a longe line. I want to see you work her both ways at a trot and gallop.” He turned on his heel and walked toward the corral.

What a terse person he was! Jordana patted Stormy’s sleek gray neck, ruffled her thick black mane and said, “Come on, girl. Show-and-tell time.”

Snorting, Stormy danced prettily for a few paces and then sedately walked beside her owner. Jordana saw the gate was open to the huge white painted pipe corral fence. There was a longe line hanging nearby. McPherson was already in the corral, arms across his chest, face expressionless, as if barely tolerating them being on his property. Anxious, Jordana knew, with this kind of person, the best way to defuse his coldness and bring down her armor was to do what he told her to do. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t take this kind of rude behavior from anyone except a patient in shock, but today, she did. More than anything, she wanted to know if her mare had what it took to move to the national level.

Slade watched the mustang mare being worked, first clockwise on a thirty-foot longe line by Jordana, and then the opposite direction. The mare was thirteen and a half hands tall. Mustangs were very small in comparison to other light-breed horses. His own medicine-hat mustang stallion, Thor, was fifteen hands tall. He was the rare exception in the mustang world. Most were between thirteen and fourteen hands tall because of hundreds of years of lean food. Not enough food and the animals never fully developed their height. In the world of endurance riding, a leggy horse meant a long stride. And a long stride meant the horse ate up more ground which was important. Mere seconds could declare a winner and loser in an endurance race. Length of stride meant everything.

For the next ten minutes, Slade critically studied the gray mare. First, he needed to see if the mustang closely listened to her owner. That was a crucial piece of information because if the horse disregarded the owner’s voice, it could put them in grave danger out on the trail.

“All right,” Slade called. “Enough. Get her saddled up and bring her back into the arena.” He needed to see how the horse responded to its rider. Was there teamwork? Or not? In an endurance contest, they would have to work like a well-oiled machine. Climbing rocky hills, jumping over fallen logs, making their way through water hazards or managing muddy trails were all required of them. If the horse didn’t listen or was fighting the rider, it could place them into a dangerous situation where injury would be the outcome.

Jordana quickly took her mare back to the trailer and tied her on an outside metal loop. She wasn’t sure what McPherson thought. He was one of the few people she couldn’t read. Wondering as she saddled Stormy if Slade ever dropped that harsh mask he wore, Jordana was shocked by her sudden interest in this man. The fact he was almost a dead ringer for Dr. Paul Edwin turned her stomach. And yet, Jordana felt a calm come over her every time she looked into Slade’s rugged face. His eyes, those gray shards of ice, never gave away how he really felt about her horse. And she knew as she mounted Stormy and walked her toward the corral, he was going to be judging both of them now. Taking a deep breath, Jordana tried to calm her anxiety. She wanted so badly to have McPherson’s help to go to the top of the endurance world.

Slade watched from the fence as Jordana walked her horse around the large, sandy arena. Then, she urged Stormy to a trot and then a canter. She was an excellent rider. Jordana’s hands were quiet on the hackamore reins as she guided Stormy. A hackamore was a bridle without a bit. It meant Stormy was very capable of wanting to work and listen to her owner. Most horses could not go without a bit in their mouth, so this spoke highly of Stormy’s desire to work with her owner.

Jordana’s long, beautiful legs were quiet and rested firmly against the mare’s barrel. Never once did Slade see her use her heels to ask the horse to move from a walk to a trot or a walk to a canter. He knew then that the doctor was utilizing dressage techniques, the highest art form of riding in the horse world.