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can borrow him on one condition.”
    “Name it.” She laughed nervously. What was she getting herself into?
    “Just this. If I ever need it, promise you’ll grant me one request.”
    Apprehension tightened Clara’s throat. Her voice emerged as a whisper. “What sort of request?”
    “I won’t know until the time comes. But trust me, I’d never do anything to put you in harm’s way.”
    “You sound as if you’re asking for my soul.”
    His laugh was quick and harsh. “And you’re looking at me as if I were the devil himself.”
    “For all I know, you could be.”
    He laughed again, flinching at the pain in his shoulder. “Would the devil be lying here bleeding on your grandmother’s porch, Miss Clara? Galahad’s a champion Thoroughbred with a pedigree as old as the Mayflower . I can’t show you his papers but I can promise he’ll sire damned good foals. So what’s it to be, yes or no?”
    “What if it’s no?”
    “Then it’s no loss to either of us—and no gain.”
    Clara hesitated. At the age of six, on a visit to her uncle Quint in San Francisco, she’d survived a frightening ordeal at the hands of kidnappers. And while that story had a happy ending, having brought her uncle Quint and aunt Annie together, the experience had left her with an excess of caution. She tended to seek out familiar situations where she felt safe. That need for security had colored her choices, including the decision to stay on the ranch instead of going away to school.
    Now she quivered on the edge of what she feared most of all—the unknown. Tanner’s stallion could sire a line of superb horses, maybe the finest in Colorado. But to get that line demanded risk—perhaps more risk than she dared take.
    The man intrigued her as well—his air of mystery,the virile energy that drove his body and the secrets that lurked in his eyes, like a flash of darkness in a blue mountain lake.
    How could she trust him?
    How could she walk away?
    Mary’s heavy tread echoed across the kitchen floor. Any second now she’d be coming outside. Tanner lay watching, waiting for his answer. His eyes blazed with challenge, measuring her courage, daring her to step off the precipice.
    Mary’s footsteps were approaching the door. The words trembled on Clara’s lips. She drew a sharp breath.
    “You have my answer,” she said. “It’s yes.”

Chapter Three
    J ace’s breath hissed through clenched teeth as Clara laid the steaming poultice on his wound. The heat of the cudlike herbal mass reminded him of the mustard plasters his mother had used on his chest when he was a boy. But the concoction smelled more like a mixture of swamp mud, skunk cabbage and cow manure.
    “What the devil’s in this stuff, Mary?” he muttered.
    The older woman had taken a seat in the nearby rocking chair. “Nothing that would hurt you. When Soren and I settled this land there were no doctors and none of the medicines you can buy now. An old Indian woman—a Ute, as I recall—showed me the plants her people used. I’ve kept a stock of them on hand ever since.”
    “Grandma’s shown me a few things for doctoring horses. But I’ll never be as good as she is.” Clara smoothed the edge of the poultice and covered it with a folded square of clean muslin. She had cut away thesleeve and shoulder of Jace’s shirt with Mary’s scissors. Through the haze of pain he felt the brush of her fingertips on his bare skin. She had small, almost childlike hands, the nails clipped short and the palms lightly callused. They worked with quiet efficiency. Tender, sensible little hands.
    Her breath warmed his ear as she leaned close to wrap the dressing in place. Her hair smelled of fresh lavender soap.
    “You mean to say your only doctoring experience is with horses?” he teased her.
    “Horses and men are pretty much the same.” Her eyes flashed toward him. In the shade of the porch, their color was like dark maple syrup flecked with glints of sunshine. For a