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knowledge of first aid he’d picked up in Boy Scouts.
    “I know CPR,” he remembered Maggie offering quietly, her dark eyes huge and frightened. “I learned it for a babysitting class.”
    For the next fifteen minutes the two of them worked feverishly together, Jake doing chest compressions and Maggie doing mouth-to-mouth. Only later did he have time to wonder about what kind of character strength it must have taken a young girl to work so frantically to save the life of a man she despised.
    Those long moments before the volunteer ambulance crew arrived at the ranch would live forever in his memory. After the paramedics took over, he had stood back, shaky and exhausted.
    He had known somehow, even as the paramedics continued compressions on his father while they loaded him into the ambulance, that Hank wouldn’t make it.
    He remembered standing there feeling numb, drained, as they watched, when he felt a slight touch and looked down to find Maggie had slipped her small, soft hand in his. Despite her own shock, despite her fury at his father and her anger at his family, despite everything, she had reached out to comfort him when he needed it.
    He had found it profoundly moving at the time.
    He still did.
    Maybe that was the moment he lost a little of his heart to her. For all the good it would ever do him. She wanted nothing more to do with him or his family, and he couldn’t really blame her.
    He sighed as he hit the main road and headed down toward town. Near the western boundary of the Luna, he spotted a saddled horse standing out in a field, reins trailing. Maybe because he’d been thinking of his father’s heart attack, the sight left him wary, and he slowed his Durango and pulled over.
    What would a saddled horse be doing out here alone? He wondered, then he looked closer and realized it wasn’t alone—Maggie sat on a fallen log near the creek, her left leg outstretched.
    Even from the road he could see the pain in her posture. It took him half a second to cut his engine, climb out and head out across the field.

Chapter Three
    H e had always considered himself the most even-tempered of men. He didn’t get overly excited at sporting events, he had never struck another creature in anger, he could handle even the most dramatic medical emergencies that walked or were carried through his clinic doors with calm control.
    But as Jake raced across the rutted, uneven ground toward Magdalena Cruz and her horse, he could feel the hot spike of his temper.
    As he neared her, he caught an even better view of her. He ground his teeth with frustration mingled with a deep and poignant sadness for what she had endured.
    She had her prosthesis off and the leg of her jeans rolled up, and even from a dozen feet away he could see her amputation site was a raw, mottled red.
    As he neared, he saw her shoulders go back, her chin lift, as if she were bracing herself for battle. Good. He wasn’t about to disappoint her.
    “Didn’t the Army teach you anything about common sense?” he snapped.
    She glared at him, and he thought for sure his heart would crack apart as he watched her try to quickly yank the leg of her jeans down to cover her injury.
    “You’re trespassing, Dalton. Last I checked this was still Rancho de la Luna land.”
    “And last I checked, someone just a few days out of extensive rehab ought to have the good sense not to overdo things.”
    She grabbed her prosthesis as if she wanted to shove it on again—or at least fling it in his face—but he grabbed hold of it before she could try either of those things.
    “Stop. You’re only going to aggravate the site again.”
    Every instinct itched to reach and take a look at her leg but he knew he had to respect her boundaries, just as he knew she wouldn’t welcome his efforts to look out for her.
    “How long have you had this prosthesis?” he asked.
    She clamped her teeth together as if she wasn’t going to answer him, but she finally looked away and mumbled. “A