Sunset at Keyhole Canyon: A Mustang Ridge Novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

herself.
Nothing has changed
.
    That didn’t fit quite right, though. Because as the sun set with a vivid wash of purple and orange and they lingered over brownies and a second glass of wine each, she couldn’t stop thinking that he wasn’t the same as he’d been before. She couldn’t put her finger on it, though. Was it their surroundings, the aftereffects of a long day in the saddle, or something more?
    Catching her staring at him, he paused with his wine glass lifted. “Problem?”
    She shook her head, not so much denying it as not sure how to put it into words. “You seem . . . different, I think.”
    His expression shifted, going serious, but not in a bad way. “I
am
different, I think.”
    “Because you’re on vacation?”
    “It’s more than that.” He paused, then said slowly. “Five months ago, give or take, I was in a car accident.”
    “You . . .” Whatever she might’ve expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “Are you okay?” It was a dumb question—he was sitting right there after a hard day’s ride, looking in perfect health. “What happened?”
    “It was on the way back from a meeting over at Memorial General. I was riding shotgun and my buddy Dean was driving. We were talking about our last fishing trip, making plans for another, when
wham
.” He clapped his hands together, making her jump. “A guy in a box truck ran a light and plowed into us, spun us right into oncoming traffic.”
    “Oh.” She lifted a hand to her mouth.
    “I was mostly just banged and bruised, thanks to the airbags, but Dean was hurt pretty bad. I, ah, did my best but there wasn’t much I could do, I was that shaky. I mostly just kept everyone else from moving him before the paramedics got there.”
    “Did he . . .”
    “He made it. He’s fine. Came back to work a few weeks later, in fact, and I was damn glad to see him.” He paused. “The other driver was okay, too, though he’s going through the wringer with his bosses and the insurance companies, and rightly so. He wasn’t drunk, wasn’t on the phone, wasn’t anything. He just zoned out, and nearly got all three of us killed.”
    She shuddered, trying not to picture it. “Scary.”
    “Very. But for better or worse it put a few things into perspective for me.”
    A new shiver went through her, bringing the sense that things had just shifted into a new gear, one labeled
Pay attention. This is important
. “Like what?”
    He looked up from his wine and met her eyes. “Like how I needed to make the time and room to have someone important in my life.”
    Warmth prickled through her, heating her face with a flush she hoped he couldn’t see in the fading light.
Don’t make this into more than it really is
. “So, ah . . . what have you done about it?”
    His quick grin lit his face. “Well, for starters, I got a dog.”
    Which so wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “Really?”
    “Actually, it’s Reilly. As far as I can tell, he’s part goldie, part Irish Setter and part Brillo pad. He’s about nine months old now, finally got the housebreaking thing down, has feet the size of my hands, and will do just about anything for bacon.” He chuckled. “Adopting him was one of the best things I ever did.”
    “Congratulations,” she said softly, and she wasn’t talking about just the dog. She held out her glass. “To Reilly.”
    He tapped in a toast. “To making changes for the better.”

Chapter Five
    The next day the wannabe rustlers rode from sunrise to sunset, making a wide loop out from Mustang Ridge to the ranch’s upper pastures, where the wranglers coached them in tracking the scattered herds and cutting out a few “slow elk” that looked worth stealing. That was what the long-ago rustlers had called cattle that either weren’t branded or had brands that could be reworked into their own. Granted, the animals in question all belonged to Mustang Ridge, but the make-believe was entertaining and the buffalo-brown