Winter at Mustang Ridge Read Online Free PDF Page A

on her hands, like it wanted those brats, bad.
    Jenny’s pulse kicked up a notch.
There you are!
    She didn’t let herself react, though—she might’ve been out of the ranch loop for a while, but she knew enough not to rush a spooky critter or make too much eye contact. Instead, aiming the flashlight off to the side, she broke off a piece of sausage and tossed it to land a few feet away from the dog, up on the snowbank.
    The animal flinched when the brat landed, but it didn’t run off. Instead, it hesitated and then crept onto the plowed-up berm to gulp the food, watching her with worried eyes.
    “You’re okay,” she said softly. “Everything’s okay.” But the dog’s matted fur hung in ropes and it was favoring one front leg. Drop-off or stray, it’d been a while since this guy had been loved on.
    Heart twisting, she tossed the rest of the brat so it landed at the base of the embankment.
    The dog hesitated, but hunger overrode caution and he scrambled down and snapped up the tidbit. Then he crouched, shaking all over and whining low at the back of his throat. And, with the flashlight full on the dog and the gleam of snow behind it, Jenny could see why Krista had sounded so emotional on the phone.
    He looked like their old golden retriever, Rusty.
    Not just a little. A lot.
    Dark, honey-colored hair shone through the dirty, ice-crusted mats, and if the dog wasn’t pure golden, it was darn close, with the heavy bone structure and wide-browed head of the breed. And more than just the basics of color and shape, there was something about the dog’s expression that tugged at Jenny’s childhood memories, taking her back to thousands of games of fetch, hundreds of rides with Rusty tagging at her horse’s heels, and countless hours spent sitting down by the lake, with him curled up next to her as she looked out over the water and tried to work out a future that didn’t look anything like Mustang Ridge.
    It was his eyes, she thought, and the shape of his muzzle. The way he tilted his head like he was really listening.
    “Handsome boy,” she said automatically, like she used to do with Rusty. “Good man.”
    The end of his tail twitched, but when she took a step forward, the dog emitted a low growl.
    This isn’t Rusty
, she reminded herself.
Don’t assume anything
. The last thing she wanted was to start her stint at the ranch with a course of rabies shots.
    Crouching, she broke off another piece of sausage—keeping it small so the dog wouldn’t fill up if this took a while—and tossed it very near his nose. It disappeared with a
slurp-gulp
and the growl diminished.
    “That’s a fine fellow. Want another?” This one fell shorter than she intended, landing well onto the road. Grateful that there was almost zero through traffic, especially this time of year, she crooned, “Come on, buddy. You know you want it. Brave boy.”
    It took her a solid ten minutes to get the dog over the center line, and another five to get him to the point that he would dart within a few feet of her to snatch up the thrown food before retreating out of reach. By that time, however, she was running low on bribes and he was backing off farther each time, no doubt because he had nearly a pound of sausage in his belly. And she was freezing, her hands and face most of the way to numb.
    She had options. She could leave now and come back in the morning with more food, or have Foster set a live trap. But there was no guarantee the dog would still be around by then. He could wander off, get run over, be attacked . . . She didn’t like any of the alternatives, and she didn’t want to have to answer Krista’s inevitable “Well, did you get him?” call with “Not yet.”
    Mostly, though, she didn’t want to leave him behind when his growl said
I can take care of myself,
but his eyes telegraphed
Please help me
.
    So, with the lead rope clipped onto itself in a crude lasso and held casually at her side, she tossed the last bratwurst a