Kidnapped Colt Read Online Free PDF Page B

They’d spotted an elegant horse van as its driver unloaded the Appaloosa before starting to fix a flat tire. They’d offered to help, and while Sam held the mare, thePhantom had appeared.
    The silver stallion hadn’t been bold enough to gallop down and introduce himself. Instead, he’d played hide-and-seek from the foothills, while the fascinated mare watched.
    â€œYou lead Hotspot and I’ll wrestle this,” Ryan said, interrupting the memory. He hefted the roll of orange plastic fencing over one shoulder and gripped the staple gun in the other. Then he glanced back down the trail, toward the highway, as if he was worried he’d been followed.
    As they trudged uphill, Sam wished she’d been wearing anything but sneakers. They’d been great for working with Tempest this morning, but the smooth soles slipped as she hurried to stay beside Hotspot.
    Even so, she tried to stay alert for signs of wild horses. With luck, Shy Boots’ troubled nickers wouldn’t draw predators.
    â€œWe’ve got to make him stop that,” she told Ryan.
    â€œHe’s just an infant. What do you expect?” Ryan didn’t sound concerned as he shifted the fencing to his other shoulder and kept walking.
    â€œI’m not trying to be mean,” Sam said. “But every animal around here will recognize the sound of a small animal in distress. He won’t be safe.”
    Ryan’s shoe slipped on a patch of skree. He fought for balance, managing not to drop the roll of fencing, but he sounded frustrated as he went on. “Itrust he’ll be weary when we reach our destination and he’ll fall asleep.”
    Sam hoped Ryan was right, but she had no faith in his prediction. She had a bad feeling about this.
    Secret or not, she planned to tell Dad the minute he got home.

Chapter Four
    S weat burned Sam’s eyes. She’d already pushed her shirt sleeves above her elbows and tugged her collar open. She couldn’t do much else to keep cool.
    We were idiots not to bring a canteen, she thought. No, I’m the idiot, she corrected herself.
    Ryan had been living in England, not Nevada. She couldn’t expect him to be prepared, or to realize that even if he saw water, he shouldn’t drink it.
    Last week the box canyon had held a pool of snowmelt water that had been fine for the cattle, and it would probably be all right for the horses, but she knew humans could get all kinds of yucky intestinal sicknesses from water that wasn’t freeflowing. She’d have to be totally desperate to take a drink there.
    Sam was beginning to wonder if the trick she’d read about, holding a pebble in your mouth and sucking on it, really calmed your thirst, when she spotted tan cottonwood leaves standing out against the sky just beyond an outcropping of rock.
    And there was the fallen tree with a black lightning scar on its trunk. She and Jen had seen it last week, just before Linc and the deerhounds exploded onto the trail.
    â€œWe’re almost there,” Sam said, striding out with a spurt of energy.
    Responding to Sam’s voice and the scent of water, Hotspot surged ahead. Sam jogged to keep up.
    The box canyon was perfect for the horses.
    Ryan dropped the roll of plastic fencing and stood watching as Hotspot and Shy Boots sucked in long swallows of water from the pool.
    Sam didn’t join his contemplation. She started building the barrier across the mouth of the canyon. It had been easy when she and Jen worked together, but now she grappled with the fencing. Any minute Ryan should notice she needed help.
    He didn’t.
    â€œThis took two of us last time,” Sam hinted, but Ryan gave no sign that he heard her.
    Sam sniffed and felt a twinge along her cheekbone.
    This’ll look great to meet the HARP girls, she thought as the plastic fence tried to curl out of her grasp. Maybe I’ll even get a black eye .
    Time was slipping away. She had to get back to River