The Renegade Read Online Free PDF

warm, and though it made for easy walking, it felt wrong.
    Not wrong, she told herself, just bad weather for ranching.
    Even though she couldn’t see the Phantom, she knew he was there. When she reached the bank, Sam stopped and waited.
    She could hear cattle lowing not too far away.
    River Bend’s white-faced Herefords had made their way out of the sage-covered foothills, closer to the main ranch and the river. Beyond the mooing cattle, Sam heard nothing. And there was no sign of the Phantom.
    For a minute, she watched stars sparkle on the river’s rills. Then she closed her eyes. If her sight adjusted to the darkness, she might see him.
    When her eyes opened, Sam saw a flicker on the far riverbank. Like a pure, white wing, the Phantom’s mane flared away from his neck.
    Sam held her breath until it hurt. Tonight, he was magical. The moon emerged just for him, making the stallion’s coat shimmer with silver light.
    Gone was the mischievous horse who’d played hide-and-seek with her on the ridge trail that afternoon. Tonight the Phantom hadn’t uttered a sound, yet he’d pulled her to the river.
    Only one thing puzzled Sam. Why wasn’t he wading toward her?
    She grabbed a handful of nightgown in one hand, held it clear of the water, and started forward.
    Usually, the stallion met her halfway. The first time she’d mounted him, as a colt, she’d done it in this river. She believed that memory made him return here. But tonight, he made her come to him.
    Sam was shocked by the shallow water. Halfway across, it barely reached the middle of her shin, and it was tepid, warmed through by the day’s sun.
    That’s when she knew she could wade all the way across. La Charla was only about a city block wide, and tonight the current was sluggish and slow.
    Now she heard the thud of his hooves, trotting down the bank, wheeling, and trotting back.
    Sam slogged closer. She should feel dumb, wandering so far from home in her white nightgown. What if she fell and broke her leg? But she didn’t feel dumb, just entranced, like a sleepwalker called from bed to do something important.
    Sam didn’t look back. If the porch light was onand Dad or Gram was watching, she was already sunk. Better to have time with her horse than get in trouble and not even get a chance to touch him.
    She didn’t slip on the rocks underfoot. When she reached the other shore, the Phantom stood off and watched her. Sam lowered her eyes, wringing out the hem of her nightgown, even though she’d have to wet it again going home. As she twisted the water out in a splatter on the parched ground, she heard the stallion come closer.
    Warm breath sighed over the nape of her neck. Sam shivered as gooseflesh raced down her arms.
    Veiled by a thick forelock that parted only over his eyes, the stallion settled back as Sam straightened.
    “Hey, boy,” she crooned to him. “C’mere boy.”
    The stallion blinked but didn’t come within reach.
    “Do you think I was ignoring you this afternoon, hmmm? Is that why I’m getting the cold shoulder?”
    The stallion stretched out his nose, then jerked it back, shaking his head.
    “I was trying to keep Rachel from seeing you, that’s all. She’s kind of a nutcase’, boy, and if she knew you were right there on their ranch, who knows what would happen.”
    Sam remembered Linc Slocum’s voice, bragging about his deal with a rodeo stock contractor. For one ugly instant, she imagined the Phantom exploding out of a bucking horse chute into an arena filled with cheers and music.
    That would be illegal, of course. The Phantom was a free-roaming mustang, and it would be against the law for Slocum to capture, sell, or trade him to Karla Starr. But Slocum had proven before that he placed his own desires above the law.
    As the image of a high-spurring cowboy faded from her imagination, Sam noticed that the Phantom stood beside a boulder just the perfect height for a mounting block.
    The Phantom didn’t belong to her, either. But