on her running shoes she raked a hand through her ponytail then jogged back to the road and headed home.
She’d only just begun her run, but she suddenly wasn’t in the mood for jogging. Nope. She was in the mood to make a phone call and find out why Lacy hadn’t seen fit to let her know she was about to have a neighbor.
If neighbor was what you could call the fierce-looking man she’d just met.
Chapter Two
Pace Gentry placed a few more pieces of wood on the campfire and watched the embers flutter as he settled into his bedroll for the night. Clasping his hands over his chest he relaxed and gazed up at the canopy of stars glittering above him. He could have slept inside the cabin, but tonight he needed to be outdoors.
He needed the connection to what he’d left behind.
He needed to feel the breeze whispering across the pastures to the north of him, hear the lonesome song of the coyotes and the occasional bawling of the cattle that grazed in the dark pastures surrounding him.
The sounds that made him feel at home.
The sounds that made him think for a moment he was back in the Great Basin, lost in the high desert of the Idaho range. Alone, with nothing but himself, God, his herd…
And his horses.
He loved his horses. It was in his blood. Nothing would make him happier than to die an old man as his dad had, atop a good ride. His dad had lived and died on his terms. Like his father, Pace understood bronc breaking was a tough way to make a living. He’d chosen it anyway.
Lived and breathed it.
With his dad’s nomadic way of living, Pace hadn’t ever really known any other life, but it hadn’t mattered. Even if he’d turned out to be the worst cowboy around, he figured he’d have found a way to keep at it.
Pace watched a shooting star travel across the sky—something he’d have missed if he’d been inside. The howl of the coyote rippled into a full-blown serenade. Pace was forever grateful for the life he lived. Or had lived, he reminded himself, his gut shifting momentarily with doubt. He was on a new path. Like a surly bronc, for the first time in his life he felt the bit in his mouth and was fighting hard to get used to the feel of it.
If his earlier encounter was a measuring stick of how his transition was going to go…things weren’t looking so good. Pace was the first to admit that he had some rough edges. Animals he could deal with, but people—he had little patience with interfering people. Meeting his pushy neighbor had proven those edges hadn’t smoothed out on the long haul from Idaho to Texas.
He’d been his usual blunt self, a reaction he was going to be hard put to change.
Pulling his Stetson down over his eyes, he crossed his booted feet and settled in for the night. He figured the Lord had his work cut out for Him when it came to smoothing this rover’s edges. But then, God was God, and if He could create the universe Pace figured, He could whip an ornery two-bit buckaroo into shape, too.
Pace just had a streak of buck left in him, and like the mustangs he was about to tame, that natural wildness was an instinct strong and deep in his soul.
Despite Pace’s new commitment to change, more than likely this transition promised to be a rough ride.
“Rise and shine, Sheri,” Lacy sang. “The mustangs are coming!”
Sheri bolted up from a dead sleep and squinted at the figure of Lacy standing in the stark light she’d flicked on as a wake-up call. Blinking and having murderous thoughts she peered at the red lights of her alarm clock. “Lacy! It’s five o’clock in the morning. Are you insane?”
“Aww, now don’t be that way,” Lacy laughed.
Slamming her eyes shut, Sheri plopped back onto the bed with a thud and covered her face with her pillow. She didn’t do early morning…and predawn—well, that wasn’t even a time frame she acknowledged.
A fact Lacy was well aware of, but obviously ignored.
“C’mon, girlfriend. Up and at ’em. The mustangs are coming, and I want you to be there when they arrive. Here we go—”
Sheri yelped when her pillow and covers were abruptly yanked away, leaving no barrier against the hundred-watt bulb glaring at her from above. She needed to change that light, pronto.
Like a turtle without a shell, Sheri glared accusingly up at Lacy. Her pale blond hair stuck out from beneath her orange ball cap like pie meringue gone bad. A picture Sheri could easily visualize since right then and there she would love nothing more than to splatter a cream pie right smack in the dead center of her beaming face.
Of course, she wouldn’t. “It’s too early,” she groaned instead.
“Get out of that bed, woman!”
Okay, maybe she would like to toss a pie, she thought, popping an eye open, watching Lacy drop the covers to the floor. When Lacy spun and reached for her hand, Sheri scowled at her as the fluffy cream pie sailed across her mind’s eye.
“C’mon, Lacy, give a girl a break,” she groaned again but couldn’t help chuckling at the look Lacy gave her. The I’ve-heard-that-before look.
Nowadays, no one would realize that Sheri had been an extremely shy child until Lacy had befriended her. After being tugged along on Lacy’s escapades, Sheri, the shy girl who’d learned to blend into the wall and not be seen, had slowly come out of her shell. It had totally been an act of survival.
But there were times, like now, that Sheri had to remind herself how grateful she was that Lacy had come along and changed her life for the better. Sheri dug her feet in at the bathroom doorway and stared at Lacy. “You know, I’m going to get you for this,” she yawned.
“Trust me, Sheri. I have a hunch you’re going to thank me once you down some coffee and see exactly what’s waiting at the horse pens. Now get on in there, and I’ll have you some coffee made when you get out. But you have to hurry, hurry, hurry!”
Before Sheri could make a comeback, Lacy gave one last shove and yanked the door closed between them. “Just think, Sheri. Wild mustangs! Real, live American heritage at our ranch. It’s the coolest thing.”
“Yippy yiyay and yada, yada, yada,” Sheri said softly as Lacy’s chattering and the clunk of her boots retreated across the hardwood floor.
Peace and quiet at last. Sheri sighed. Slumping against the door, she raked her fingers through her hair, yawned, and thought about coffee.
Lacy made good coffee….
After a quick shower, she headed toward the kitchen feeling a bit more human. Although she wasn’t sure she looked more human. For the sake of time and the early hour, she’d opted to yank her hair into a ponytail and slap her pink ball cap over it. And forget makeup. She and Lacy would just be a mess together, because no matter what—it was way too early in the morning to worry about appearances.
“Okay, girlfriend,” she said, entering the kitchen. “Why did you drive all the way over here to wake me up and drag me all the way back over to your ranch? Especially when you know how grumpy I am at this hour.”
