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tell me if there’s a pack of wild mutts around, wouldn’t you?”
    Yes, she concluded. Misty would be trying to buck her off so she could gallop away from danger.
    Newly alert, Cat straightened. Compared to the hills around her place, Matt’s looked as if they’d been sanded. Instead of sharp angles and rocky spires, these had a muted quality. She’d be surprised if there were any caves.
    Heat attacked the back of her neck, making her regret not having worn a hat.
    Riding was getting to her unrestrained breasts, or rather the unaccustomed freedom stirred her awareness of herself as a woman—that and Matt moving ahead of her. His cell phone chirped, cutting through the music of birds and wind. “We’re almost there,” he said into it. “Me and Cat.” He was silent. Then, “Guess we’ll find out.”
    “What was that about?” she asked when he’d returned the phone to his pocket.
    “Beale asked how you’d react.”
     
    The carcass was a mess. The calf had been dead long enough that its legs were rigid. Despite that, its eyes remained big and black and, to her mind, scared-looking. Beale, a pistol strapped to his side, sat nearby while his mount, minus its bridle, grazed a short distance away. Cat was proud of Ginger’s reaction. Although the mare’s head stayed high and her ears kept moving, she continued walking until Matt reined her in. Misty needed knee pressure against her sides to venture close. Warned by Misty’s shudders, Cat remained alert for sudden panic, something horses—that at the core were prey animals—were known for.
    Matt dismounted and wrapped Ginger’s reins around the closest bush. Instead of reminding him that the mare ground tied and had no need of a restraint, she decided not to distract him. Besides, Ginger had, to her knowledge, never come face-to-face with a violent and bloody death. After dismounting, she did the same with Misty, taking time to tie a secure knot.
    By then Matt was standing over the dead calf with a somber-looking Beale beside him. Beale glanced her way. His attention slid to her breasts. Eyes wider than they’d been a moment ago, he frowned.
    “Even before I found the calf, I had this feeling,” Beale began. “I can’t explain it, just this sense that I didn’t want to come here.”
    “Why did you?” she asked. A look from Matt reminded her, too late, that she was suppose to be a bystander.
    “’Cause I had to,” Beale said. “It’s my job.”
    If Beale was twenty-one, he hadn’t been for long. He had the not-quite-settled look of someone who wasn’t done growing, but his family had been in the ranching business for generations. Obviously Matt had hired him for his upbringing, not for the breadth of his chest.
    Matt squatted next to the calf, pushed back his hat, and ran his hand down the animal’s neck as if looking for a pulse. Now that she’d had time to steel herself, she acknowledged that the calf had been disemboweled. In addition, the wounds in a hind leg left her with no doubt that it had been hamstrung.
    “I’m not much good at reading prints,” Beale told Matt.
    “You are. I was careful not to walk around much and tied my horse”—he pointed at the roan gelding—“where it wouldn’t mess things up.”
    “Good.” Matt stood, walked over to the calf’s rear legs, and crouched again. The first time, his touch had been gentle. Now Cat saw only a clinical approach, a man searching for the facts. Mindless to the gore, he pulled at the ruined skin.
    “What are you looking for?” She kept her voice at a whisper.
    He looked over his shoulder at her. “Figuring out how many attackers there were.”
    By the time she’d assimilated his short explanation, he’d returned to his study of the carcass. Remembering the pain that had lurked in his eyes, she realized that beneath the hard exterior, Matt was a man who loved his animals. Although she wished he would share what he was learning with her, she kept her questions to herself.