How to Lasso a Cowboy (45 page)

She grabbed the rifle propped beside the bed and dashed out of the cabin. Pausing on the porch, she searched for Deil in his pen and found him looking toward the trees. The shrill cry sounded again. It came from the mares' corral, the direction Deil faced.

Cait bounded across the moonlit yard, almost colliding with Win when he hopped out of the barn, tugging on a boot.

“What is it?” he demanded.

Cait slowed her pace slightly to answer. “Something's spooked the mares.” She turned and ran, her heart thrumming wildly.

Cait was barely aware of Win following her, his long legs devouring the distance between them. She angled through the trees, not wasting time by going through the wide opening she normally used. Branches slapped her face and arms.

She stumbled to a halt at the edge of the clearing. Before her lay a network of three corrals that Win and his father had helped build. The first pen housed three mares and their foals. The biggest corral held the rest of the wild horses, and the smallest enclosure was where Cait worked with one mustang at a time. The herd milled about nervously, nickering and kicking at one another. Something had obviously frightened them.

“Do you have trouble with cats around here?” Win's close voice startled her.

“Not lately,” she replied. “A few years ago two came down from the mountains, but that had been a bad winter. The Duncans and Crowleys lost a few head of livestock, but the mountain lions never came this far south.”

Win grunted and she glanced at him. He was surveying the area, his eyes narrowed and body tense. She noticed he wore his gunbelt around his trim hips, obviously expecting trouble, too.

“What is it?” she asked quietly.

He took a deep breath and his nostrils flared, as if sniffing the air, searching for something that didn't belong. Instead of answering her, he prowled around the corral, his gaze aimed at the ground.

Cait remained in place, narrowing her eyes as she watched him through the silvery glow of the nearly full moon. He circled the outer perimeter of the pen, his fluid motions and cautious steps giving her an even more powerful impression of a stalking wolf.

He hunkered down, examining something on the ground. “Come here,” he called to Cait.

She hurried over to his side and leaned over him. “What is it?”

Win pointed to a barely discernible indentation in the
loose dirt. “It was a mountain lion. Only one, but enough to get the horses riled up,” he announced grimly.

An icy chill swept through Cait and she glanced around nervously, her mind conjuring wild cats out of fuzzy shadows. “But they never come this close to humans unless they're starving. After the mild winter, they shouldn't have any trouble finding food.”

Win shrugged. “Maybe it's a rogue. I've heard tell of mountain lions coming into ranch yards and taking a dog or foal.”

Cait's grip on the rifle tightened. She couldn't afford to lose a single horse.

“He's long gone,” Win said quietly. “At least he's still afraid of people.”

“What about the horses?”

“They warned you this time. They'll do it again.”

“But what—”

Her question was interrupted by a mare's distressed whinny. With her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, Cait spotted the horse immediately and recognized the mare as one whose milk had dropped into her teats only two days earlier. Usually that meant a foal would be born about six days later, but it appeared this mare was going into labor early.

“She's ready to foal,” she said tersely.

Win nodded. “The scare probably triggered it.”

Cait's gaze remained on the restless mare that pawed at the ground in between pacing a small area of the corral. “I need to get her moved into the smaller pen so the others don't bother her. I'll get my horse.”

“I'll help,” Win offered.

“You can do that by keeping an eye on her, then opening the gates for me.”

For a moment, Cait thought he'd argue, but Win nodded shortly.

She ran back to the barn and caught Pepper, her pinto mare. Pepper snapped at her, obviously not liking to be bothered in the middle of the night. Cait slapped the mare's nose lightly. “Behave yourself.”

Pepper curled back her lips, but didn't try any more tricks.

It took only a few minutes to ready her, and Cait vaulted into the saddle. As she rode out of the yard, Deil neighed piercingly and reared up on his hind legs, probably upset that he was being left behind.

Two minutes later, Cait drew Pepper to a halt by the wild horses' corral.

Win stood by the gate, his hand on the latch. “Ready?”

“Yep.”

Win pressed back the bolt and opened the gate just far enough that Cait and Pepper could ride through. He secured the gate behind them.

Cait picked out the foaling mare and used her knees to guide Pepper closer to her. The expectant mare snorted and pranced nervously. “Easy, girl,” Cait crooned.

The wild horses separated into two groups as Cait drew near, allowing her a path to ride through. The mare tried to follow one of the clusters, but a shift of Pepper's reins and the well-trained pinto cut the mare off from the others. Cait gave Pepper her head and leaned into the sharp turns as the pinto herded the sweating mare toward the gate leading into the smaller pen. Just as Cait was about to yell at Win to open up, the gate swung outward and the foaling mare ran through it. Cait and Pepper followed, then Win latched the gate.

In a corner of the smallest pen, the mare trembled visibly and her flanks were sweat-soaked. Concerned, Cait dismounted, intent on examining her.

“She's all right,” Win called out in a low voice. “Leave her be.”

“I want to see if she'll let me near her in case she has problems,” Cait said impatiently.

“You'll only upset her more. Get out of there.”

Cait wavered between her instincts and Win's order, a rebellious part of her eager to disobey Win, even if he was right. Finally, Cait relented and led Pepper out of the enclosure. With Pepper's reins wrapped around her hand, Cait stopped beside Win.

“We should go back to the house,” Win said, his gaze moving from her face down to her breasts and quickly back up. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Most horses don't like an audience when they foal. Wild ones are even more that way.”

“What if she has trouble? What if the foal is turned? What if she's too tired to push?”

Impatience flickered in his face. “She's more likely to have trouble if she's nervous, and with us around she's going to be twitchier than a spinster on her wedding night.” Again, his attention fell to her chest.

Cait pressed her lips together, irritated that his eyes kept dropping below her neck. She finally glanced down, and saw that her thin gown was pressed against her bosom and the cool air had made her nipples harden. It was obvious she wore nothing beneath the gauzy material. Fighting her instinct to cross her arms over her breasts, she tried not to wonder what Win might be thinking. But the more she tried, the more she couldn't help but imagine what was racing through his mind. Probably the same thing she was thinking when she stared at his bare chest the other day.

Stop thinking!

Shoving the wanton thoughts aside, she forced herself to concentrate on the mare. She didn't like leaving her, but Win had a point. Her father had said the same thing.
Horses been havin' babies a long time afore people was around to get in the way.

“I'll go, but I'm going to come back and check on her every fifteen minutes,” Cait said.

Win shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“I will.”

He chuckled, which only made Cait more annoyed. Maybe she was being overprotective, but she had a big stake in ensuring each and every foal survived. She couldn't let her pa's sacrifice be in vain.

Leading Pepper, Cait walked to the yard beside Win, much too conscious of her unbound breasts and the sensuous
feel of the cool air against them. Delicious shivers streaked through her, and they intensified when she caught Win glancing at her. A devilish imp made her bump into him and her breast nudged his arm. He jerked away, as if a hot coal had burned him.

She should've thought it was funny, but she was reeling from the wonderful sensations of the “accidental” contact. It brought back vivid memories of the night they'd made love, when he'd done sinfully delicious things to her breasts until she was almost out of her mind with pleasure. No man had ever touched her before or since Win Taylor. Cait had thought about such intimacies with another man, but nobody she imagined could come close to her memories of that night's bliss.

“You did a good job, Cait,” Win said as he watched her unsaddle Pepper.

“I learned how to cut out a horse not long after I started walking,” she said with a shrug, then faced him. “You were never impressed before.”

“I never realized how special you were before.”

“Don't!” Her face flaming, Cait stomped into the barn to get some oats for Pepper.

Damn him! Years ago she'd tried everything she could think of to get Win to call her special. The only thing special about her now was being a spinster without her virtue.

She remained in the barn until her emotions were back under lock and key. Returning with her composure intact, she climbed onto the lowest rail and held out the bucket containing a handful of grain for her mare. Pepper crunched noisily.

“You can go back to bed. No need for both of us to lose more sleep,” she said with forced lightness. Win's silent watchfulness increased her awareness of him, making her vibrate like a taut wire.

He didn't move. “I kind of like how the moon makes you all silvery-like. Reminds me of that night.”

Cait's eyes widened as her heart jumped into her throat.
She clamped down on her emotions and kept her voice bland. “You must be thinking of someone else. It was a new moon that night. No silver moonlight.”

“No, it was you, Cait. I'd never seen anything as pretty as you that night.”

“I'm not that young girl anymore, Win, and I'm not going to throw myself at you like I was stupid enough to do back then. I learned my lesson the hard way.”

She scrambled down from the rail with the empty bucket and strode toward the barn. Win caught her arm, swinging her around. Cait trembled, half-hoping he would kiss her again, then hating herself for being so weak.

“No, you're not a girl anymore,” he began softly. He cupped her face in his palms. “You're a beautiful, independent woman who should be married with a passel of kids tugging at her apron strings.”

Cait forced a laugh. “Have you ever seen me in an apron?”

Win dropped his hands to her hips and spanned her waist with his fingers. “I can imagine, just as I can imagine you with beautiful blond, blue-eyed children.”

Cait propped a hand on her hip, then realized she'd only made her nightgown tighten against her breasts. She quickly lowered her arms. “That's funny. When I was younger I used to dream of dark-haired children with hazel eyes.”

Win's hands fell away and he stepped back. “I rode away so that wouldn't happen.”

Cait's smile felt more like a tortured grimace. “Don't worry. It worked.” She spun around, set the pail by the barn, and grabbed her rifle. “I'm going to check on the mare. Good night.”

She was fearful that Win would follow her, but he must've taken her not-so-subtle hint and returned to his bed in the barn. The night was still, broken only by the familiar sounds of the horses, an occasional owl's hoot, and a nighthawk's screel. She shivered from the cool air and wished she had gone to the cabin to put on a heavy shirt before returning to the foaling mare.

Tiptoeing, she neared the pen where the mare lay on her side with a damp puddle behind her. The water bag had already broken. It would be a quick birth.

Cait laid the rifle on the ground and stood motionless, watching as the foal's front feet appeared out of the birth canal. She caught her breath even though she'd lost count of the number of times she'd seen a new foal come into the world.

Over the past years, the significance of each birth had grown for Cait. Ten years ago, she'd felt the beginning of life fluttering within her. Although she'd been ashamed of her condition and terrified of the day her father would learn her secret, the awe of a baby growing within her would make her cry at the oddest times. Sometimes she even imagined herself holding her child as it suckled her breast. There were even moments when she'd remember with joy, instead of regret, the night the child was conceived.

However, four months later she'd lost her baby and the ability to bear more. Now she would give anything, even the ranch, to be able to have a child. Instead, she brought foals into the world, tasting her bitter loss anew every time she did.

The foal's nose peeked out and Cait found herself breathing with the panting mare.

C'mon, girl, you can do it.