with the dark shadow of his beard and the heavy slashes of his eyebrows. If not for the broadening of the bridge of a nose that had been broken at least once, he would be devastatingly handsome. Even knowing what she knew about him, she couldn’t deny that he was the type to make hearts flutter.
The sheer size of him told her that he’d continued to use steroids despite having left the fight cage. Even under multiple layers, the hard bulge of toned muscles showed. In fact, he looked even bigger and more muscular now than he had in the tape. No doubt he could break her in two without even trying, but she wouldn’t let that intimidate her. If she could handle a half ton of spirited stud horse, she could handle one good-looking steroid freak for long enough to see him held accountable for what he’d done. After all, it was not like she had much choice in the matter.
Her mother had not known a moment’s peace since Bryan’s death, and Dena Averrett had suffered enough. Her mom had been orphaned at an early age and grown up in foster care. Jeri’s father had fallen off a construction scaffold and died when Jeri was a newborn. Then her stepfather, who had treated Jeri as his very own even after Bryan had arrived, had succumbed suddenly to an undetected heart condition almost six years ago. Bryan had become the man of the family at only seventeen. It simply wasn’t fair that he had died so soon after his twenty-first birthday.
Jeri had relished the role of big sister, and Bryan had always been her number one supporter in all that she did. But while she’d loved and cherished her brother, he had been their mother’s whole world. His death had been a devastating blow, one she feared her mother would never recover from. Unless Jeri could give her some closure by bringing his killer to justice.
As Jeri pulled on her comfortable work boots, she reflected bitterly that the police hadn’t even tried to build a case against Ryder Smith, despite the suspicious circumstances. Jeri and her mother felt certain she’d find evidence of steroid abuse by Ryder Smith to bolster their suspicions. Surely that would be enough to force the police to take action. It was well known, after all, that steroid use was rampant among bodybuilders and mixed martial arts fighters.
The police maintained that she and her mother were not entitled to see the results of toxicology tests Smith had taken right after the incident. If Smith hadn’t tested positive for steroids, though, why had he left the business immediately after the tests? After all, he was being touted as the most skilled challenger to enter the cage since MMA had become popular.
She and Dena had tried to prove their point via the press in Houston by feeding the media monster bits of supposition, suspicion and facts through anonymous sources and lawyers. They’d managed to steer the coverage away from themselves and shine a glaring spotlight on Ryder Smith, but they’d also driven him and his brothers out of town. It had taken months and a good deal of money to find out where they’d gone. Jeri had competed relentlessly to gain the necessary funds.
The effort had paid off in more than one way, however. She’d honed her craft and earned her way, at just twenty-four years of age, to the national rodeo finals this past December, where she’d won enough prize money to put this last, desperate plan into motion. If everything went well, she was going to prove that Ryder Smith had killed her brother in a fit of rage induced by the illegal use of steroids.
Failing that, she’d see him punished for drug use.
As a last resort, if all else failed, she’d provoke him into attacking her and press charges against him. She’d find some way to land Ryder Smith in jail, where he belonged.
No matter how breathtakingly handsome he was.
Then maybe she and her mom could find a modicum of peace.
Stepping over the high threshold in the small door cut into the front of the enormous old barn, Jeri paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She walked down a wide aisle beneath the slanted roof, pausing to poke her head into a well-organized tack room. Everything seemed of good quality but utilitarian. She owned thousands of dollars’ worth of fancy tack, most of which she’d won, but like most serious riders and trainers, Jeri preferred simple, top-quality tack for everyday work. It seemed that someone at Loco Man Ranch thought the same way.
Through a wide-open space straight across from the tack room, she could see into the empty cavern of the center section of the barn. What she could see of a third section on the far side of the mammoth structure seemed to contain rooms and storage bins, with an old-fashioned hayrick above. Two doors, closed against the cold, filled the exterior wall at the front of the center section. A heavy, insulated curtain of cloudy, translucent plastic hung across the aisle just past the tack room, stretching to the nearest interior wall.
She heard a deep, warm, masculine voice speaking from behind the insulating drape.
“Steady on, girl. You wouldn’t be so anxious to get out of this stall if you knew how cold it is out there.”
In reply, a horse snuffled and clopped as it shifted its weight. Jeri thrust her arms through the slit in the drape and parted it just wide enough to slip through. The dirt floor of the stable aisle had been deeply raked and amply sanded with sawdust, but the stalls had been matted with rubber and overlaid with chopped flax. Impressed at the level of care, she looked into the first stall, where a tall, silver gray roan stood saddled and chewing its bit.
She moved on to the next stall, where she found a big red dun with a white blaze on its forehead. It, too, had been saddled. Across the way, she found a fat white pony with brown splotches, then two standard brown bays, both of good conformation but unremarkable, followed by an unusually colored gelding. Its coat, sort of a mousy gray-brown, was too dark for it to be a buckskin but lighter than that of a standard bay—a distinctive animal. Finally, in the next to the last stall, she came upon Ryder Smith tightening the saddle girth of an exquisite copper Perlino. Its pale gold coat seemed to pick up a pinkish glow from the fiery copper mane and tail.
“That’s a beauty,” Jeri said, hanging over the sliding, metal pipe gate.
“Yep.”
Obviously, he’d known she was coming, probably tracking her progress by the subtle shifts, blows and rumbles of the horses. This was a man who knew his animals. She tried not to like that about him.
Without so much as a glance in her direction, Ryder stooped to push a shoulder into the horse’s side, forcing it to release air as he tightened the girth. He had removed his gloves to keep them from getting caught in the straps. They hung from the back pocket of his jeans. Jeri snatched her gaze away, focusing on the mare.
“What’s her name?”
“Pearl.”
“Apt, very apt, given the lustrous quality of that coat. Is she fast?”
“Not particularly. She’s Tina’s horse, but she’s not been getting much exercise lately, so I thought we’d take her out.”
Jeri hated to disparage her hostess, but she wanted, needed, to poke at Ryder, see just how touchy he might be—and remind herself that she wasn’t there to stare at handsome cowboys.
“Hmm. Well, lots of people can’t be bothered to ride in the cold.”
He chuckled, the sound a mere rasp of air. “You might’ve noticed that Tina’s pregnant.”
“Sure. But I’ve
