Read Firelight at Mustang Ridge for Free Online

flings and find yourself a real relationship” if it came with chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy thick enough to walk on.
    â€œOff we go, then,” he said, nudging Yosh into a lope that rolled down one hill and up the next. The horse’s hooves beat a syncopated tattoo on the sunbaked earth, kicking up dust that coated the back of Sam’s throat, tasting like—
    Smoke!
    *   *   *
    The flames roared up toward Danny, heating her skin and making her hair crackle around her face as she tossed in another paperback and watched the pages curl and blacken in the firepit. “Good-bye—”
    A sudden clatter of galloping hooves brought her whirling around, her heart leaping into her throat as she pictured Jupiter and the herd stampeding through camp. Then a loaded-down brown-and-white-spotted horse burst through the trees, carrying a big cowboy wearing a mask on the lower half of his face.
    At the sight of her and the fire, the man hauled back on the reins and flung himself out of the saddle, hitting the ground even before his horse had come to a skidding stop. He advanced on her. “What in the blazes—”
    Survival instincts taking over, Danny threw the last paperback at him as hard as she could, nailing him in the face.
    â€œOw!” He reeled back as she fled past him to the four-wheeler.
    Flinging herself aboard, she twisted the key and hit the button to start the engine, but nothing happened. Her breath hitched in her lungs as the strangerreoriented himself and started toward her. She scrambled off the ATV, grabbed her pack from the tent, yanked out her anti-critter revolver, and cocked the hammer. “Freeze!” she shouted, even though he’d already done exactly that, making like a statue when he saw that she was armed.
    â€œWhoa, lady, hang on.” His voice was low and resonant, his granite-gray eyes more focused than scared as he added, “Finger off the trigger. I’m not going to hurt you.”
    She kept her finger right where it was. “Then why are you wearing a mask?”
    Sudden understanding dawned. “Oh, for— Hang on. Don’t shoot. I’m just going to pull down the bandanna.” He did just that. “Sorry. Forgot I was wearing it. Is that better?”
    Not really. Because
dang
. Without the bandanna, his face was a whole lot of stubble, dark skin, and angles put together in exactly the right combination.
    Which didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. Hot guys could be dangerous.
    â€œWho are you?” she demanded, her heart drumming against her ribs. “What do you want?”
    â€œI’m a friend of the people who own that RV,” he said with a nod toward the
Rambling Rose
. “And what I want is for you to point that gun someplace else.”
    She kept it on him, but took her finger off the trigger. “Who?” she pressed. “I want names.”
    â€œRose and Ed Skye own the bus,” he said without hesitation. “Their daughter, Krista, is a month or two away from marrying my college roommate, Wyatt Webb. They’ve got a daughter, Abby, and—”
    â€œOkay.” Pulse slowing, she lowered the hammer. “I believe you.”
    â€œGood.” His eyes sharpened on hers, putting a quiver in the pit of her stomach. “Then do me a favor and kill that fire before you torch the whole damn valley.”
    She glanced past him, to where it was starting to burn down, now that she wasn’t lobbing pictures, books, and men’s XL T-shirts into it anymore. “It’s fine.” And she didn’t want to talk about the fire. The cathartic burn had seemed like a really good idea when she found herself sitting outside the RV with the contents of the duffel strewn around her. Now, though, it seemed silly and overdramatic, like skywriting TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE
from one horizon to the other rather than just saying it out