Canyon Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page A

done.
    “Come on, baby,” she whispered. This effect Maco was having on her libido was manageable, damn it. Nothing to lose focus over. “Take it easy. One step at a time.”
    After a moment, Ona stretched her front legs to the carpet. The dog started to support her weight, then suddenly her knees buckled. Before Shari could come to her rescue, however, Ona recovered. Standing with her legs spread, she lowered her head and slowly shook it. “I know it hurts,” Shari crooned. “At least the bleeding’s stopped.”
    “My guess, she has a headache,” Maco observed. “Hopefully that’s the only thing bothering her.”
    Not rushing her response, she took the better part of a minute to observe Ona, who seemed to be steadily gaining strength. No doubt about it, it was going to take a while to convince herself that Ona hadn’t died. “I’m still taking her to the vet.”
    “I understand that, but not until we’re sure it’s safe to go outside.”
    Although she agreed, she hated waiting. Besides, with Maco so close she could touch him, she was determined to match his self-confidence and not let him suspect she was responding to the male in him.
    Unless he’d already figured it out.
    “I appreciate everything you’ve done,” she said. “I could have never gotten Ona inside on my own.”
    “It was a joint effort. I felt better knowing you had my back.”
    A memory of what they’d gone through together surfaced, and she remembered the weight of his revolver in her hand, something she’d never thought she’d feel. “You’re armed. Do you always carry—?”
    “These days, most of the time.” He touched the handle sticking up from the holster.
    “Why?”
    “My family runs thousands of cattle on our Wyoming ranch. I grew up being expected to do what I needed to protect them. I got out of the habit when my brother and I started our business because it wasn’t the kind of image we wanted to project. We started packing heat again shortly after getting our latest contract. Let’s call it insurance.”
    “You mean you never before needed that kind of insurance?”
    He studied her for so long she dropped her gaze from him to Ona, who was heading for the kitchen and, she suspected, the water bowl. Just like that, Maco became a gunslinger in her mind.
    He’d storm into her world and order her to climb behind him on his great black stallion so they could gallop over the land with stars and a full moon lighting their way. Head up to catch the wind, she’d wrap her arms around his six-pack. Horsepower between her legs and manpower against her breasts would make her crazy, wild, wonderful crazy.
    And once they’d reached their destination?
    Knock it off! Just because you haven’t been laid in forever is no—
    “I didn’t want to have to get into this yet,” he said. His tone pulled her gaze back to him and immediately made a lie of her vow to stop thinking of him as a male in a hot package. “Not until I had a better sense of what side of the fence you’re on.”
    “Side? Of what?”
    A sigh, coming from deep in that solid chest. The sound spiraling into her. “You’ve heard about the Graves River Dam, haven’t you?”
    “The dam?” Concentrate! “That’s why you’re here, to work on it?”
    He shook his head. “Not just work. Mustang Construction—that’s our business—has been awarded the contract to finish what was proposed more than ten years ago. Our bid trumped the competition, not that there was much.”
    With everything that had happened today, she had to work at changing mental gears. The dam project had been in the news off and on for years. Even before she’d moved back here, Aunt Robynn and Uncle Dan had kept her informed about it. Most recently the articles and news reports had focused on how the legal objections to what a number of vocal people called a rape of the land had finally all been struck down. State and federal courts had ruled that the water needs of the vast farming and