Rancher and Protector

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

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.

Rancher and

Protector

Pamela Britton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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.

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 to 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.

Chapter Two

Ride, Amber thought with a gulp.

She realized in that instant that it was one thing to decide to become a hippotherapist, quite another to actually do it … especially when horses were involved.

“Go on,” Colt said, motioning her ahead of him.

He didn’t look happy. She wondered if men like him found it tedious to teach newbies like her. His expression was as dour as a thundercloud.

“Where should I take her?” She glanced up at Flash.

“It’s a him,” the cowboy said. “There’s a rack out in front of the stable. Tie him out there.”

It was as if a really scary monster was following on her heels; that’s what leading a horse felt like.

Get used to it, Amber. A horse might be just what Dee needs. And if that proved true, well, she’d buy him ten horses.

Colt appeared unfazed by his surroundings. How nice to have been born on a ranch. Maybe if she’d been born on one, too, she wouldn’t feel so dang scared.

“How long have you been in the horse business?”

“Long time,” he said.

They stepped out of the shelter of the barn, and after being inside for so long, Amber had to blink in the glaring sunlight. It was bright outside, but so beautiful. Tall trees framed a parklike setting. She was pretty sure the trees were redwoods, they were so huge. In the distance she could see the empty army barracks. It seemed sad that up until last year the place had been abandoned. Well, now the Golden State Therapeutic Center, aka Camp Cowboy, made good use of it.

“No,” Colt said. “Not like that.”

Amber glanced down at the cord she’d wrapped around a pole.

She’d been so deep in thought she hadn’t given a second thought to how she tied it. “Not like what?”

“You need to use a quick-release knot.”

“Uh … how do I do that?” Jarrod hadn’t taught her that yesterday. The good-looking blond staffer had simply taken the lead from her and done it himself.

“Like this.” Colt stepped toward her. Surely some football team in the South was lamenting the loss of such an athletic looking guy. “See?”

No, Amber hadn’t seen. They stood in front of a hitching post that looked a lot like the ones in Western movies. Apparently, there hadn’t been a lot of technological advances in horse hitching recently. But what he did with that rope might as well have been cat’s cradle. “Can you do that again?”

“Wrap it around once,” he said. “Then cross over, then make a loop, then pull the end through the loop. See?”

“I think I do,” she said. But it quickly became apparent that she didn’t see at all.

“Here,” he said, taking her hands in his. He had a really huge one. Ginormous. She felt like Fay Wray in King Kong’s palm.

“Wrap it around once, cross the two strands, slip the loop through the V here.” He demonstrated, then slid the loose end through the resulting loop.

“Oh!” At last she got it. Though why they needed a special way to tie horses was anybody’s guess.

“It’s so you can release the rope quickly if he pulls back.”

Had she really been that easy to read?

“Got it,” she said. “Although I’m not sure I want to know what ‘pulling back’ means in horseydom.”

“I don’t expect that to happen with any of the animals here. As I understand it, they’ve all been therapy horses for at least a year.”

“That’s a relief. I was thinking I might need to update my life insurance policy.”

There he went, staring at her again. “You’ll be fine,” he stated simply.

“Good to know,” she murmured. “Now what?”

“Well, I assume there are some grooming brushes around here?”

“Oh, yeah. Jarrod showed me where they were. They’re in the tack room.”

Colt nodded, his hat tipping low over his eyes. He reminded her of a cardsharp from an old Western, the kind that sidled up to a bar and growled, “Whiskey. Straight up.” A lot of men wouldn’t be able to carry off such a look. He could.

A moment or two later, he came out with a bucket of brushes and a saddle slung over his shoulder. She felt her jaw drop, because honestly, it was as if he were trying to look like some kind of commercial cowboy. The kind that sold aftershave. All he needed was a pair of chaps.

“Here.” He handed her the dark green tote.

“Thanks,” she said. “I think.” Because once he set that saddle down, something else struck her. This was real. She was about to get on a horse.

Shit.

“Should I wait for Jarrod or something?”

“Why?” Colt asked.

“Well, he’s the … the—” She’d been about to say horse expert, but realized how ludicrous that might sound, given Colt’s background. “He told me he would teach me everything I needed to know.” And he’d said it with such a gleam in his eyes that he seemed to promise other things, too. Things she had no interest in.

“Well, Jarrod isn’t here right now.”

“Yes, I am.”

Amber felt her heart thump. “Jeez,” she said, turning away from the hitching post. “I didn’t even hear you come up.”

“Gil wants to see you,” he said, eyeing Colt curiously.

“Have you two met?” she asked.

Colt shook his head. Jarrod stared at the cowboy for a long moment. The two were like sunshine and darkness. Jarrod, with his light blond hair and loose T-shirt, looked more like an engineer than a horse-handler beside Colt’s tall frame and dark-tanned body.

“Jarrod James,” he said, shaking Colt’s hand.

“Colt Sheridan.”

But Amber could tell Jarrod took an instant dislike to Colt. There was something about the way Jarrod’s shoulders were set. Something about the way his arms hung at his sides. And he didn’t smile.

“Colt’s a rancher.”

She didn’t know why she said it, except maybe she was trying to make conversation.

“Actually, I’m a rodeo cowboy,” Colt said. “I only work on ranches part-time.”

He was a rodeo man? Amber thought. That explained the aloof attitude. Her brother-in-law had ridden in rodeos. Back before he’d been arrested for drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter. She knew the type. Cocky. Arrogant. Womanizers … Too bad.

“Oh, yeah? You ever make it to the NFR?” Jarrod asked.

Frankly, Amber was amazed Jarrod even knew what the National Finals Rodeo was. She did because Logan had almost made it one year. In hindsight things had started to fall apart when he’d failed to make the mark.

“Not yet,” Colt said. “Next year.”

Jarrod huffed, conveying all too clearly, Yeah, that’s what they all say.

“Well, I better head up to Gil’s office,” Amber said.

“I’ll walk with you,” Jarrod announced.

“You coming back?” Colt asked before she could turn away.

“Depends on what Gil wants.”

Colt’s eyes narrowed. Amber knew exactly what he was thinking.

Chicken.

“YOU NEEDED TO SEE ME?” Amber said, entering Gil’s office tentatively. The way he was bent over his massive oak desk, she could see the horseshoe of hair around his shiny pate.

“Amber,” he said, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses back up his nose. “Come on in.”

They were in a centuries-old lodge, one that had been erected to house cavalry offices well over a hundred years ago. Frankly, it amazed Amber that the place was still standing, but it had been crafted in an era when things were made to last. Vaulted ceilings. Crown molding. Wood-paneled walls. The four-story building had been meticulously maintained by the County of San Francisco, and that was a good thing. It would have been a shame to let such a treasure go to waste. That had been Camp Cowboy’s selling point to the county when they’d wanted to lease the building. Apparently. As a newbie, she was still piecing together this business and how it could exist on the Presidio grounds.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Have a seat,” he said.

Gil’s office was on the bottom floor, to the left of the entrance, in a room Amber suspected had been occupied by the base commander years and years ago—or whatever the cavalry equivalent of that was. Wood-framed windows offered a stunning view of the park outside. Off in the distance was a grove of trees, and just above that, barely noticeably unless you knew what you were looking for, the tall spires of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“I received a call today,” Gil said, leaning back and making a steeple out of his fingers.

There was a chair in front of his desk. Amber sank into it. “Oh, yeah?” But she knew.

“It was from Pelican Bay.”

Her shoulders slumped. “He phoned here?”

“Care to tell me what’s going on?”

She hadn’t told Gil about Dee’s father. Hadn’t wanted to tell him. It was her own personal skeleton. All the camp director knew was that she had sole custody of her nephew. That Dee’s father was out of the picture.

“Who is he?” Gil asked.

“My nephew’s father,” Amber admitted.

The edges of Gil’s eyes crinkled as he gave that some thought. “So this is what you meant by out of the picture?”

She nodded. “He was incarcerated for involuntary manslaughter.”

Of her sister. Sharron.

And it made her physically ill to think about it. To be pulled back to that night. The call from the police. The drive to the hospital. The doctor gently breaking the news.

Frankly, jail had been too kind a punishment for her ex-brother-in-law.

“When will he get out?” Gil asked.

“He was given a five year sentence. He has two years left to serve.” But he had a parole hearing in another month. They might actually let the bastard out. And then he would fight her for custody of Dee. He’d already told her that. But she would never let that happen. She would not allow the man who killed her sister to kill her sister’s child, too.

“Okay,” Gil said. “So I should expect calls from him?”

“I told him not to phone me,” she said. “But he’s been demanding to know where Dee is.”

“You mean he doesn’t know?”

She shook her head. “Early on, he would call Dee. When Dee wouldn’t talk to him, he would get belligerent, start yelling.” And her poor nephew didn’t do well with that. Not at all. “It would upset Dee,” she explained. “I told the facility not to take his calls anymore, but when Dee’s father started making threats against the workers there …” Gosh, she hated airing her dirty laundry. “It was just easier to move Dee to a new home, especially once we figured out he was nonverbal. He’s been at Little Voices ever since, and he’s doing well. His father doesn’t need to know anything more than that.”

But one day he would be out of jail.

She closed her eyes, refusing to think of that.

“This is hard on you, isn’t it?” Gil asked.

She shrugged, trying to make light of the situation, but it was a sham. “It kills me some days,” she admitted. “But I have to have Dee’s best interest at heart.”

Gil seemed satisfied with the answer. “Well, I’ll tell the switchboard to put all calls through to you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And if you could please make sure nobody knows Dee is my nephew …”

“Confidentiality is the policy of this facility,” Gil said sternly.

“Yes, of course.” She was counting on that.

“But I do wonder if telling his father that Dee is here with you might be a good thing. Surely he would settle down if you told him the lengths you’ve gone though to help his son.”

“No,” she said. “I tried that route before. Dee’s father doesn’t trust me. He thinks I hate him.”

And she did … didn’t she?

No. She didn’t hate anybody. She just didn’t trust him. He might make claims that he’d changed, but she knew that wasn’t true. A leopard didn’t change its spots.

“Well then,” Gil said, “I’ll respect your need for privacy.”

“Thank you.”

“But if this doesn’t work out, if your nephew doesn’t respond to therapy like you hope, what will you do then?”

She’d thought about that at least a half dozen times since taking a leave of absence from work to train at Camp Cowboy. What if this was a mistake? What if Dee didn’t respond to horse therapy as she hoped?

“Either way, learning a little about hippotherapy is a good thing,” she said. “Who knows where it might take me?” She glanced down at her lap for a moment. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to help my nephew. If this doesn’t work out …” she shrugged again. “Well, I’ll just try something else.”

Gil nodded, smiling. “Good. I’m glad you’re not looking at this like it might be an answer to your prayers. One never knows how an autistic child will respond.”

“I know.”

“Then I wish you luck,” he said, standing.

Luck. Yeah, she would need that.