The Cowboy Read Online Free PDF Page B

ranting. “I’ve got color photos of every damned one of them!”
    Callie had to give Owen credit. He’d remained patient and even-tempered despite Jesse’s abusive harangue. But she was convinced the rippling tension between the two men had less to do with her father’s fury over the stolenhorses, than with the fact that her eldest brother Sam lived in a wheelchair, and Owen Blackthorne had put him there.
    “I understand your frustration,” Owen said. “We can post the photos at slaughterhouses around the state—”
    “Slaughterhouses?” Callie interrupted, appalled at the thought of her beautiful quarter horses being turned into dog food, or worse, being served at some European dinner table, where horse meat was a delicacy. “Those two-year-olds are worth tens of thousands of dollars each at auction.”
    “It’s possible they might be sold at a small auction somewhere,” Owen conceded. “The truth is, horse thieves don’t normally take that risk. It’s a damned shame you didn’t brand them.”
    Callie felt the weight of blame on her shoulders. The four fillies had been born and raised at Three Oaks. She had meant to have them freeze-branded, which allowed the hair to grow back in a lighter color instead of leaving a scar. But over the past hectic year since Nolan had died, so many things that weren’t absolutely necessary had fallen through the cracks. And she had believed, with good reason, that the fillies were safe from thieves.
    Three Oaks was a virtual island, 65,000 acres of rich Creed grassland completely surrounded by 745,000 acres of fenced Blackthorne property. There were plenty of roads crisscrossing Three Oaks, but there was only one way in or out, a single easement that wound across Bitter Creek Ranch, through at least a dozen gates, to the world beyond. Callie had made the terrible mistake of assuming no horse thief would dare to steal livestock from Three Oaks, when he could be so easily apprehended on the way in or out.
    Her father must have had the same idea, because his eyes narrowed as he said, “The only person who could get a horse trailer in or out of here without being detected is someone able to move freely over Blackthorne land. I may not be able to pin this on your father, but I know he’s responsible.”
    “My father doesn’t need four more horses,” Owen said.
    Callie could see her father was incensed by Owen’s implication that what was everything to the Creeds was a pittance to the Blackthornes.
    “Blackjack has been trying to force me into selling Three Oaks ever since I stole the woman he loved from under his nose,” her father snarled. “He can try every dirty trick in the book, but I’ll never let him break me. I’ll give this place to charity before I’ll sign it over to him!”
    “Are you accusing my father of stealing your stock?”
    “It wouldn’t be the first time one of you Blackthornes hit below the belt!”
    Owen’s body visibly tautened at the jibe. He opened his mouth to speak, then clamped his jaw tight without replying. Callie knew there were no words to defend what he’d done. Too many people had seen the cheap shot he’d taken on the football field that had put Sam in a wheelchair.
    She remembered how miserable—and defiant—Owen had looked as he walked down the hall at the hospital and stood before her father, chin up, shoulders squared, to apologize.
    “It was an accident, Mr. Creed,” he’d said. “I’m really sorry.”
    “Sorry won’t bring my boy’s legs back!” her father had shot back.
    “If there’s anything I can do to help—”
    “You can keep your Blackthorne charity!” her father had shouted. “And get the hell out of here!”
    The one time Owen had come to the house after Sam was home from the hospital, her father had met him at the kitchen door with a double-pump shotgun. Now her father was being asked to put his trust in a man he despised.
    “Why the hell did you come here, if you don’t intend to help?”