Rancher and Protector Read online

  Her door was closed

  Colt peeked over his shoulder, grateful nobody was around. But when it came time to actually put his fingers on the door handle, he hesitated.

  And then his dog must’ve caught his scent from the room down the hall and began to bark.

  “Mac!” he called out as softly as he could, immediately quieting the shepherd.

  Colt opened Amber’s door and slid inside before he could change his mind. If someone had heard his dog and came out to investigate, they’d see him standing there. Not good.

  Forcing himself to open his eyes, he scanned her room. Bed to his left. Table and chairs to his right. There was a purse sitting on top of one of the chairs, wide open.

  Go.

  But he couldn’t. He wasn’t cut out for this. The idea of rummaging through her things… He just couldn’t do it. He swung around to leave.

  And came face-to-face with Amber.

  Dear Reader,

  It seems hard to believe this is my eighth Harlequin American Romance novel. It seems like yesterday that I made the decision to write about cowboys and the women they love, but I’ll admit, I almost stopped writing them. As many of you know, my life has been chaotic with the recent loss of my parents. Something had to give and I decided my adult horse stories (as I call them) would be it. I can’t tell you how many times I regretted that decision. So when my editor called and asked if I’d be interested in writing one more cowboy story, I jumped at the chance. Not only that, but I asked if I could write two.

  It’s good to be back!

  I love each and every one of my books, but Rancher and Protector has a special place in my heart. The book is about horses and the power they have over special-needs children. I first heard about this magical bond when asked to review a book for a nationally known horse magazine. The story was about an autistic child who traveled to Mongolia to ride horses. Why? You’ll have to read the story, but it was truly the inspiration for this book.

  I hope you enjoy Rancher and Protector. As always, I enjoy hearing from readers. You can reach me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pamelabritton or through my website www.pamelabritton.com.

  Best,

  Pamela

  Rancher and Protector

  PAMELA BRITTON

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  With over a million books in print, Pamela Britton likes to call herself the best known author nobody’s ever heard of. Of course, that changed thanks to a certain licensing agreement with that little racing organization known as NASCAR.

  But before the glitz and glamour of NASCAR, Pamela wrote books that were frequently voted the best of the best by The Detroit Free Press, Barnes & Noble (two years in a row) and RT Book Reviews. She’s won numerous awards, including the National Reader’s Choice Award and a nomination for the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart.

  When not writing books, Pamela is a reporter for a local newspaper. She’s also a columnist for the American Quarter Horse Journal. Rancher and Protector is the author’s twenty-sixth title.

  Books by Pamela Britton

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  985—COWBOY LESSONS

  1040—COWBOY TROUBLE

  1122—COWBOY M.D.

  1143—COWBOY VET

  1166—COWGIRL’S CEO

  1285—THE WRANGLER

  1322—MARK, SECRET COWBOY

  HQN BOOKS

  DANGEROUS CURVES

  IN THE GROOVE

  ON THE EDGE

  TO THE LIMIT

  TOTAL CONTROL

  ON THE MOVE

  To the lawman who saved our homestead.

  Chris Ashworth, we couldn’t have done it without

  you. All the words in this book couldn’t express

  how grateful we are.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter One

  “All right, horse. We can do this the hard way or the easy way.”

  Amber Brooks stared at the animal in question, a tiny window placed high in the wall giving her a perfect view of the brown horse as it cocked its head in her direction. The look it gave her clearly indicated disdain.

  “Okay, the hard way.” Her hands tightened around the nylon strap someone had told her was a halter—although she had no idea how it worked.

  “Just go play with a horse,” she murmured under her breath, mimicking the camp director. “You’ll do fine.”

  As if handling an animal as big as a bookcase would be “easy.” What if it bolted out of the stall? Or charged in her direction? Or, God forbid, tried to bite her?

  “Nice horsey horsey,” she said. The animal’s black mane seemed more of a dark gray in the stall’s ambient light—like the color of a snake. She shivered. Her feet felt heavy in the thick bed of pine shavings. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She stopped by its head and looked down at the halter. Now what? Obviously, the smaller hole went around the horse’s nose. Or maybe its ear? But there was only one hole and so that didn’t make sense. Nose, she decided.

  A soft breath wafted across her crotch.

  “Whoa,” she cried, jumping back. “We don’t know each other well enough for you to be doing that.”

  Someone coughed.

  Amber turned in surprise to see John Wayne standing outside the stall.

  Well, okay, it wasn’t really John Wayne, but it sure was a cowboy. Black hat. Checkered beige shirt. Cool blue eyes.

  “He’s just trying to get to know you,” the man said, his deep baritone splashed with a Southern accent. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  Easy for the cowboy to say. Amber couldn’t take her eyes off her unexpected visitor. He was gorgeous. A hunk-o-hunk of burning love, as her friend Rachel would say. And just what was it about cowboys? They all looked the same. Five o’clock shadows. Square jaws. The smell of outdoors clinging to them. Was it part of the cowboy genome?

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said. “But do I know you?”

  He shook his head. “Colton Sheridan. I was hired on Thursday.”

  Just as she’d been, Amber thought. Well, she didn’t get hired on Thursday, but she was new to Camp Cowboy, too.

  “Gil sent me in here to help you out,” he said.

  Gil. The camp director. Gil and Buck had been looking for some additional help since the moment they’d realized their enrollment numbers were nearly triple what they’d been the previous year. Buck was off buying more horses, which left Gil in charge. Not many horses in the heart of San Francisco, but that’s where the camp was. Amber once again marveled at their location—smack-dab in the middle of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Step outside the barn and the high-rises were clearly visible in the distance.

  “Nice to meet you, Colton, but I’d rather tackle this on my own.”

  That’s what she was supposed to be doing: learning about horses. She’d come to Camp Cowboy committed to the idea of becoming a hippotherapist. Therapy was her thing. She specialized in speech therapy now, but she’d heard of some remarkable breakthroughs when children were exposed to horses. She might not like the animals, but she would get over that.

  Anything for
Dee.

  She turned back to the horse. Its name was Flash, or so she’d read outside the stall. She hoped that didn’t mean it’d trample her in a flash.

  “It goes the other way,” he told her when she held up the halter.

  Oh, yeah. That was right. She’d been told that by Jarrod, the man who was supposed to mentor her through the process. He’d shown her how to halter a horse yesterday. Obviously, she hadn’t been paying attention too well. She flipped the thing around.

  “Not that way,” Colton said with a small shake of his handsome head. She hated overly attractive men. They always made her feel so…so uncomfortable.

  “The hole goes over the nose,” he added. “The long strap buckles behind the horse’s ears.”

  “Right…” she murmured.

  “Here.” The stall gate, which was on rollers, whooshed open like supermarket doors. “I’ll do it for you.”

  “No, no,” she said quickly, her feet bogged down in wood chips once again. He was tall. That was another thing she didn’t like. Tall men intimidated the hell out of her. Jarrod, the registered hippotherapist she was working with, was short and blond. She could deal with short and blond.

  She could deal with this, too. “I can do it.”

  She heard the stall door close with a bang just the same, and the sound startled Flash.

  What followed was not Amber’s proudest moment.

  She shrieked; the horse turned away from her. The back end of the animal bashed into the wall with a boom, sending dust and debris down from the rafters. Her feet became entangled in the wood chips again. She started to fall…?.

  He kept her from going down with a hand against her shoulder.

  “Sorry about that,” he told her. “I didn’t think it would close so easily.”

  You idiot, she wanted to say. But he wasn’t paying attention to her, anyway. Flash was now dancing around the stall as if Amber was a monster.

  “Don’t move,” Colton told her. “Easy there.”

  Easy? There was nothing easy about this horse. The iron-shod animal had to be at least six feet tall.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I don’t mean to sound panicked, but shouldn’t we get out of here while the getting’s good?”

  He appeared to be sizing her up. “We’ll be fine,” he said, stepping toward the horse.

  Over her shoulder, she could see that the brown beast was back to eyeing her nervously. Its swishing tail sounded like a jump rope in motion.

  “No offense,” she said, “but are you sure you’re qualified to give direction to nonhorsey people?” After all, it was his fault the animal was acting up.

  She saw Colton’s eyebrows rise. They were a little too thick for her taste. “I’ve spent a lot of time on ranches.”

  “And I’ve spent a lot of time in a city. Doesn’t mean I know how to teach people to drive.”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a cowboy smile—which was more of a smirk. “Point taken. I’ve ridden horses my entire life. I’m comfortable sharing what I know.”

  “In that case,” she said. “I’m really glad to meet you, Colton. I’m Amber Brooks.”

  “Colt,” he quickly corrected. “And I know. You’re an intern here. You’re learning to become a hippotherapist.”

  “I’m actually one of the camp’s speech therapists, too. Hippotherapy is just something I’m hoping to study while I’m here.”

  He was giving her that look again. The one that made her want to wiggle like a worm on a hook. “Don’t take this wrong, but you sure you want to work with horses?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She turned toward Flash, releasing a sigh. How to explain her life? How to explain about Dee, the nephew she loved so much? How to explain the situation with Dee’s dad? That Sharron was dead, and that Dee’s father was in jail…because he’d killed her sister. Not intentionally, but just about.

  “It’s complicated,” she said.

  And she shouldn’t explain, anyway. The fact was Dee had been enrolled in Camp Cowboy this season, and the only one who knew that was the camp director, Gil. Amber planned to keep it that way, too.

  “Try me,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No, seriously, it’s not worth getting into. I just want to learn about horses. Hippotherapy intrigues me.”

  And there he went, staring at her again. It was the oddest sort of look. As if he was trying to peel back the rind of a pomegranate, to get to the ruby-red seeds beneath. “You don’t look like any kind of therapist,” he mused.

  “That’s because I left my thick-framed glasses in my room.”

  He smirked again. “So you mind me asking why someone who doesn’t know a thing about horses, and who doesn’t want to become a hippotherapist, is trying to put a halter on one?”

  She had to turn away.

  “I’m an equine intern. That means I’ll be lending a hand with the kids throughout the next few weeks. That means working with horses, obviously, so I need to get used to them. The horses, I mean.”

  She sneezed before she could stop herself. The horse’s head popped up, and she braced herself for impact.

  Nothing happened.

  Flash returned to nuzzling the ground, apparently intrigued with something it found there. Ah. Food.

  “Should I bother it while it’s eating?”

  “Nope. Horses are always looking for something to munch. If you wait for him to stop, you’ll be standing there all day.”

  Damn, but his accent was really Southern. “If you say so.” She gave Flash the same look she used when dealing with a petulant child. “Horse, prepare to be haltered.”

  COLT ALMOST LAUGHED.

  Almost.

  He hadn’t laughed in years, or so it seemed. Not since…well, a lifetime ago.

  “Easy there,” said the woman he’d been told was the most dishonest piece of work this side of the Mississippi.

  Standing in a beam of sunlight, she looked like an angel. One of those made-in-Taiwan Christmas tree toppers, the kind with masses and masses of fake blond ringlets. Except her hair was real. He took in the bloom of color across her cheeks. Her tipped up nose. Plump lower lip.

  Gorgeous.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” she asked, turning toward him. “Am I doing something wrong?”

  “No,” he said. Get a grip, Colt. You’ve seen beautiful women before. “Just walk on up to him. Trust me, he knows what you want to do.”

  She didn’t look like a criminal.

  But Logan, his best friend, swore up and down that she’d stolen his son. Hidden the boy—her nephew—away in some kind of boarding school, and she wouldn’t tell Logan where he was. Didn’t have to tell him because she had full custody of the child, thanks to Logan’s brush with the law and her sister’s death. From what Colt knew of her, she was a deceitful city dweller with the morals of a snake. And so Colt had built up an idea of what Amber Brooks would look like—and this wasn’t it.

  She was just about to put the halter on the horse when she sneezed again. The gelding started; Amber darted away. “Okay, that does it,” she said. “I’ll never make it as an intern if this keeps up.”

  “You can’t back off now,” he said. “The horse will think he’s won.”

  It might have been a few years since he’d worked his father’s ranch, and he might have been young back then, but when you were dealing with animals, you wanted to be in control.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted. “Seriously, I think I should wait for Jarrod. He’s the person I’m interning with, and when he helped me out yesterday, I wasn’t half as scared.”

  “That’s because he was standing right behind you,” Colt said, moving up next to her and urging her forward with his hand. “And I can, too.”

  She was short, no more than five-three, with enough curves to fill a road map. But his buddy had warned him that Amber Brooks was a real piece of work. He’d known Logan since high school and was inclined t
o believe his friend. She might look heaven sent, but she was no angel.

  “Here,” he said. Damn it. “It goes like this.” He demonstrated how to hold the halter, how to put the horse’s nose in first, than how to slip the crown piece through the brass buckle. “See?”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” she said. “I remember now. It’s like the harness that people use for bondage.”

  Colt froze.

  “Not that I’m into bondage or anything!” she quickly exclaimed, and if he read her body language right, she couldn’t believe she’d said the words. “I did a paper on fetishes when I was working on my masters.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  So. She was highly educated. Probably thought she was better than everyone else.

  “Thanks,” she said, wry amusement on her face. “Honestly, I feel like an idiot.”

  “You’ll do fine next time,” he found himself saying. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “I was told to help you saddle up the horse. That you were wanting to learn how to ride.”

  “Ride?” she repeated, her blue eyes suddenly huge. “Oh, I—uh…”

  He waited, wondering what the deal was with her. Why was she at this camp if she didn’t know anything about horses? She was the reason he’d taken the job. It was a deal he couldn’t refuse. In exchange for locating Logan’s son, Colt would receive the papers on his buddy’s best roping horse—an animal that’d been sitting around for a few years, sure, but a damn good horse all the same. The gelding was just the ticket Colt needed. A tie-down roper was only as good as the animal he rode, and for the past few years, Colt hadn’t been that good.

  “Well,” he said, “the only way to learn is by working with them. Go get me a lead rope.”

  “Is that the long cord thingy?” she asked.

  He nodded. He needed to get to know her better. To put her at ease. To become her friend.

  She came back into the stall, lead rope in hand.

  He snapped the rope to the horse’s halter.

  She was temptation wrapped in denim, and that presented a hell of a problem. He planned on betraying this pretty little package one day soon.