mouth tightened in a grim line. “This lamb was lucky. Most of them we find dead, or so far gone they have to be put out of their misery. The coyotes and eagles usually get to them before we do. I’ve lost more than two dozen animals to these hellish wire snares.”
Rachel gripped the struggling lamb as Luke cleaned its wounds. His big, weathered hands were callused and nicked with a myriad of scars—the kind of hands that had worked, fought, loved, maybe even killed. Where had those hands been, Rachel found herself wondering. What stories would those fingers tell if they could speak?
His knuckle brushed her breast through the damp fabric of her jacket. The accidental touch triggered a freshet of sensation that puckered her nipple and sent a jolt of liquid heat shimmering downward through her body. Rachel stifled a gasp, then forced herself to speak.
“You’re saying someone’s setting these snares just to catch your sheep?” she asked.
Luke had opened a pocket-sized tin of salve. His fingers rubbed the greasy mixture into the deep wire cuts in the lamb’s leg. He did not speak, but his grim silence was enough to answer Rachel’s question.
“But that’s monstrous!” she burst out. “Who would do such a thing?”
His eyes flickered toward her. Rachel felt their cold hatred as if shards of ice had penetrated her flesh. Her lips parted, but no words emerged from her dry mouth. The questions in her mind would remain un-asked. She did not want to hear Luke’s answers.
A frantic longing seized her—to be home, to be safe on the Tolliver Ranch, with this miserable after noon blotted from time as if it had never happened. She wanted to forget the buggy accident. She wanted to forget the helpless pain of the injured lamb. Most of all she wanted to forget this gruff, disturbing man who, through no fault of her own, had chosen to hate her on sight.
The dog that had found the sheep hovered close, brushing against Luke with its tail and looking up at Rachel with intelligent golden eyes. “What’s the matter, boy?” Rachel murmured. “Are you worried about your little lamb? He’ll be all right. We’ll fix him up as good as new.”
Luke’s stormy gaze flickered toward her, then shifted to the dog. “Go, Mick,” he commanded in a soft voice. “Back to the sheep.”
Tail high, the dog wheeled and bounded back down the slope in the direction of the herd. But it had only gone a few yards when, abruptly, it halted in its tracks, ears up, nose to the wind. Rachel saw the hair rise and bristle along the back of its neck. A nervous growl quivered in its throat.
Luke glanced up from doctoring the lamb, his body tense and wary. Rachel held her breath, holding the lamb close as she strained to catch the danger the dog had sensed.
Luke’s expression darkened. “Get out of sight!” he hissed, shoving her up the slope toward an outcrop of boulders. “Stay behind those rocks and don’t make a move until I tell you it’s safe!”
Only then did Rachel hear what had alarmed the dog. Faintly at first, but growing rapidly louder, the ominous cadence of galloping hoofbeats rumbled from the far side of the hill. Whoever the riders were, they were moving fast. Seconds from now they would be in sight.
With the lamb still clasped in her arms, she plunged toward the outcrop. If the mounted men proved to be friends, she could always show herself. But until she knew who they were and what they wanted, it made more sense to stay hidden.
By the time she reached the rocks, Luke was in the saddle. He spurred the horse toward the herd. The dog shot ahead of him, a dark blur of motion against the pale green slope.
Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, Rachel pressed herself into a low spot between two jutting boulders. The lamb squirmed against her. Rachel’s grip tightened around the warm little body as she edged into a spot where she could look down on what was happening.
Four mounted cowboys appeared over the crest of the hill, riding hard. Just below the ridge they halted for a moment, their attention fixed on the broad, open slope and the slowly moving sheep below. Rachel’s breath caught painfully as she realized that, beneath their broad-brimmed Stetsons, their neckerchiefs were pulled up to cover the lower parts of their faces. Everything was masked except their eyes.
One of the men jerked his pistol out of its holster. “Let’s get ’em, boys!” he shouted, firing into the air.
Whooping like savages, the four men charged down the hill toward Luke’s herd. All of them had their pistols drawn now, and for a heart-stopping moment Rachel expected them to start firing at the sheep, or even at Luke. But that was clearly not their intent. As they fanned out, shrieking wildly and shooting into the air, she realized they meant to stampede the sheep and drive them over the ledge, as the Indians had once driven buffalo.
Their plan was working all too well. As panic swept through the herd, the frantically bleating sheep began to mill in circles. A ram wheeled and bolted in dumb terror toward the unseen ledge. Others followed, and suddenly the whole herd was plunging blindly through the scrub, headed for certain destruction.
Rachel had lost sight of Luke. Now, suddenly, she saw him, racing his buckskin horse full out along the rim of the ledge. One of the dogs dashed ahead of him. The other was already tearing along the forefront of the herd, lunging at the leaders, snapping and biting as it dodged their butting heads and flying hooves.
A man, a horse and two small dogs. Could they head off three hundred stampeding sheep and scores of lambs in time to save them? Rachel pressed forward between the rocks, almost forgetting to breathe as she strained to see what was happening.
The four masked men were keeping to the rear of the herd, aiming their shots well above the sheep. Clearly they had no wish to be recognized, nor to do anything that would force the hand of the law against them. In order to file any complaint, Luke would need proof that the stampede had not been an accident. A bullet in a sheep or dog would provide that proof. But the marauders knew better than to give him that advantage. As things stood, Luke would have nothing but his own word. And Rachel knew that would not be enough.
Not unless he could produce another reliable witness to the crime.
Catching the scent of fear, the lamb in Rachel’s arms began to struggle and bleat. Rachel clasped the little creature close, stroking its quivering body and praying that the plaintive racket it made would not give her away. If the riders discovered her presence, any number of things could happen, all of them ugly.
The sheep were no more than a stone’s throw from the precipice and still running full out. Rachel’s heart crept into her throat as she watched Luke’s frantic efforts to turn them aside. He was leaning forward, almost standing in the stirrups as his horse thundered along the top of the ledge. As he rode, he shouted and flailed the air with his hat. The dogs, saved only by their lightning quickness, darted like thrusting rapiers into the herd, snarling, nipping, retreating to attack another charging animal.
Despite her feelings about sheep and their owners, Rachel caught herself praying aloud. “Please, God…don’t let them go over. Let them turn…let them turn…”
On the brink of the ledge, Luke was running out of maneuvering room. With nowhere to go, he was pressing his mount into the forefront of the stampeding herd, risking horse and sheep and man. The terrified buckskin snorted, trying to rear above the milling herd while Luke fought to keep the animal under control. If the horse lost its footing, he would be swept over the precipice with the sheep. Even now, Rachel realized, his only chance of escape lay in plowing straight back through his own herd. But that would mean
