Hunting Down the Horseman
JUD CORBETT BLINKED, telling himself he wasn’t seeing a woman standing on the back of a horse galloping across the landscape.
He’d stopped his pickup and now watched with growing fascination. The young woman seemed oblivious to everything but the stunt, her head high, long blond hair blowing back, the sun firing it to spun gold.
She still hadn’t seen him and didn’t seem to notice as he climbed out of his truck and walked over to lean against the jackleg fence to watch her go from one trick to another with both proficiency and confidence.
He’d seen his share of stuntmen and women do the same tricks. But this young woman had a style and grace and determination that mesmerized him.
She reminded him of himself. He’d started on the road to his career as a kid doing every horseback trick he could think of on his family’s ranch in Texas. He’d hit the dirt more times than he wanted to remember and had the healed broken bones to prove it.
The young woman pulled off a difficult trick with effortless efficiency, but as she slowed her horse, he could see that she still wasn’t quite happy with it and intended to try the stunt again.
“Hey,” he called to her as he leaned on the fence.
Her head came up, and, although he couldn’t see her face in the shadow of her Western hat brim, he saw that he’d startled her. She’d thought she was all alone.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, shoving back his hat and smiling over at her. “On that last trick, try staying a little farther forward next time. It will help with your balance. I’m Jud Corbett, by the way.” No reaction. “The stuntman?”
She cocked her head at him and he thought as she spurred her horse that she intended to ride over to the fence to talk to him.
Instead, she turned her horse and took off at a gallop down the fence line. He knew what she planned to do the moment she reined in. She shoved down her Western straw hat and came racing back toward him.
This time the trick was flawless—right up until the end. He saw her shoot him a satisfied look an instant before she lost her balance. She tumbled from the horse, hitting the dirt in a cloud of dust.
Chapter Two
Jud scrambled over the fence and ran to the young woman lying on the ground, wishing he’d just kept his big mouth shut and left her alone.
She lay flat on her back in the dirt, her long, blond hair over her face.
“Are you all right?” he cried as he dropped to his knees next to her. She didn’t answer, but he could see the rise and fall of her chest and knew she was still breathing.
Quickly, he brushed her hair back from her face to reveal a pair of beautiful blue eyes—and drew back in surprise as one of those eyes winked at him and a smile curled the bow-shaped lips.
From a distance, he’d taken her for a teenager. Even up close she had that look: blond, blue-eyed, freckled. Now, though, he saw that she was closer to his own age.
His heart kicked up a beat, but no longer from fear for her safety. “You did that on purpose!”
She chuckled and shoved herself up on her elbows to grin at him. “You think?”
He wanted to throttle her, but her grin was contagious. “Okay, maybe I deserved it.”
“You did,” she said without hesitation.
“I was just trying to help.” He’d seen so much potential in her and had wanted to—What had he wanted to do? Take her under his wing?
That was when he thought she was a teenager. Now he would have preferred taking her in his arms.
Rising, he offered her a hand up from the ground. She stared at his open palm for a moment, then reached up to clasp his hand. Hers was small, lightly callused and warm. He drew her up, feeling strangely awkward around her. The woman was a spitfire.
She drew her hand back from his, scooped up her Western hat from the dirt and began to slap it against her jean-clad long legs, dust rising as she studied him as if she didn’t quite trust him. She didn’t trust him?
“Look, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot,” Jud said as she shoved the cowboy hat down on her blond head again. “How can I make it up to you?”
She grinned. “Oh, you’ve more than made it up to me, Mr. Corbett.” She whistled for her horse and the mare came trotting over. As she swung up into the saddle, she said, “Thanks for the tip.”
He couldn’t help smiling at the sarcasm lacing her tone and wished he wasn’t so damned intrigued by her. She was cocky and self-assured and wasn’t in the least impressed with him. It left him feeling a little off balance since he’d always thought he had a way with women.
She reined her horse around to leave.
“Wait. Would you like to have breakfast?”
She drew her horse up and glanced back at him. “Breakfast?”
He realized belatedly how she’d taken the invitation. Since he was tied up for dinner tonight, his first thought had been breakfast.
“I already have plans for dinner tonight, but I was thinking—”
“I can well imagine what you were thinking.” She spurred her horse and left him standing in the dust.
He watched her ride away, trying to remember the last time he’d been turned down so completely. It wasn’t until she’d dropped over the horizon that he realized he didn’t even know her name.
FAITH FELT LIGHT-HEADED. She couldn’t wipe the grin off her face or banish the excitement that rippled through her as she rode her horse back to her family ranch house.
Jud Corbett. The most notorious stuntman in Hollywood. There wasn’t a stunt he couldn’t do on a horse. And he had seen her ride!
She chuckled to herself at the memory of his expression when she’d winked at him. She hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d wanted to show off. She was lucky she hadn’t broken her fool neck doing it, though.
Her heart had been pounding in her chest when she opened her eyes fully and had seen him in the flesh. The Hollywood movie and stuntman magazines hadn’t done Jud Corbett justice. The man, who’d made a name for himself not only for his stunts, but also as a ladies’ man, was gorgeous.
He’d taken her breath away more than her pratfall. She knew about the film being shot down in the Breaks since her sister McKenna was providing some of the horses.
But Faith had never dreamt she’d get the chance to meet Jud Corbett—let alone be asked to breakfast, even though she knew what that meant, given his reputation.
What had he been doing on that old road, anyway? No one used it. Or at least she’d thought that was true. Wait a minute. That road led to the Trails West Ranch property, and hadn’t she heard that someone named Grayson Corbett had bought it?
Corbett. Of course. She’d just never put two and two together. Jud must be one of Grayson Corbett’s five sons she’d been hearing about. Which meant Jud was on his way to the ranch when he’d seen her.
Her grin spread wider. She still couldn’t believe it. She’d fooled the legendary Jud Corbett with one of her tricks.
As she neared the house, she tried to compose herself. Her older sister Eve’s pickup was parked out front. Faith would have loved to burst into the house and tell Eve all about her afternoon. But this didn’t seem the time to reveal her trick-riding secret. Eve worried about her enough as it was, and Eve had her own concerns right now.
Faith knew not wanting to worry her family wasn’t the only reason she’d kept her secret. It was hers, all hers. Growing up, she was always lumped with her sisters as one of the wild Bailey girls. Eve and McKenna had been stubborn, independent and outspoken.
Faith herself had been all of those and then some, but she’d thought her trick riding as a girl had made her the true daring one.
And now Jud Corbett, of all people, knew.
She tried to assure herself that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Who could he tell? He probably didn’t even know who she was—or care. Faith tried to relax as she took care of her horse, then walked up to the house, only a little sore from her stunts.
“Everything all right?” Eve asked from the front porch.
Faith hadn’t seen her sister sitting on the swing in the shade. Eve lived with her husband, Sheriff Carter Jackson, down the road, but she spent a lot of time in the family ranch house when Faith was home, acting as surrogate mother since their mother had remarried and moved to Florida.
“I didn’t see you there,” Faith said as she mounted the steps.
Eve was studying her. “You look flushed. Are you feeling all right?”
“Great.” It was true. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about me, though.” Also true, but she hadn’t meant the words to come out so sharply. At twenty-six, she was too old to be mothered by her thirty-three-year-old big sister. But mostly, she didn’t like worrying Eve.
Eve’s silence surprised her—as well as what she saw her sister holding on her lap.
“Is that your baby quilt?” Faith asked, frowning. “Does this mean…?”
Eve shook her head. “I’m not ready to have a baby yet.”
“Well, you’re the only one in the county,” Faith said, dropping onto the swing beside her. “Have you heard if Laci and Laney had their babies yet?”
Eve shook her head, fingering the quilt on her lap. “I was just thinking about my biological mother and the night she gave birth to me and Bridger.”
Faith had hoped that once Eve was married to the only man she’d ever loved, she might not need to keep up her search. Eve and her twin brother, Bridger, had only been reunited a year ago, brought together by the mutual need to find the woman who’d given them up.
“We know her name,” Eve said, surprising Faith. “It’s Constance Small.”
“You found her?” Faith asked, shocked.
“Not yet. All we have so far is a name and a little information. She was seventeen, possibly a runaway. She disappeared right after she gave birth to us.”
“I’m sorry.” Faith, like her sisters, was also adopted, but she had no desire to know her birth mother or the circumstances. She couldn’t understand Eve’s need. Clearly, it could lead to disappointment—if not worse.
Eve put the quilt aside. “Are you sure you’re all right? Stay here in the shade. I’ll get you some lemonade.”
Faith laughed, glad that her sister had something to keep her mind off finding Constance Small. “Thanks, but I just need a shower.”
“You haven’t forgotten the fund-raiser tonight at the community center, have you?”
Faith had. She frantically searched around for a way to get out of it.
“Don’t even think about backing out,” Eve said. “McKenna called a little while ago to make sure we were both going.”
Faith groaned at the thought of going to the dance.
“Faith?” her sister said in a voice that reminded Faith of her mother’s.
“Of course I’m going.” She couldn’t let her sisters down. Even though they weren’t blood related, there was a bond between them that nothing could break.
“Wear your red dress.”
Not even the thought of a county dance could dampen Faith’s mood for long. As she went into the house she hugged her latest secret to her, treasuring what had happened this afternoon.
But minutes later as she stepped into the shower, Faith realized that Jud Corbett had awakened something inside her. A secret impossible desire that she’d put away the same way she’d put away her dolls and her childhood daydreams.
Like a genie freed from its bottle, her secret yearning had emerged now and, even if Faith had wanted to, she knew no matter how dangerous, it wasn’t going back into that bottle.
JUD OPENED the front door of the Trails West Ranch house and breathed in the mouthwatering scents of chile rellenos, homemade refried beans and freshly fried corn tortillas with Juanita’s special spices. He’d bet she’d made flan for dessert.
His favorite meal. He closed his eyes, pausing to hang up his jacket and brace himself for whatever was awaiting him. The only good news about his father’s move to Montana was that he’d somehow talked Juanita into making the move with him and Kate.
The menu alone was a tip-off, even if Jud hadn’t seen his brothers’ vehicles parked out front. It was just as he’d suspected: a family meeting.
Hearing the tinkle of ice in crystal glasses and the hum of voices in the bar area, Jud headed toward it, pocketing the pleasurable thoughts of the young woman horseback rider he’d seen.
“Jud,” his father said as he spotted him. Grayson looked at his watch and frowned. He was a big, handsome, congenial man, as open as the land he lived on.
“Sorry I’m late.” Jud thought about mentioning the woman he’d seen but changed his mind. He got razzed enough about women, his own undoing since he’d made the mistake of sharing some of his exploits, embellishing, of course, to make the stories better—just as the movie magazines did.
“Dinner smells amazing,” he said, hoping to cut short whatever this summit meeting might be about.
Everyone was gathered in the large family room, a bad sign. His oldest brother Russell stood behind the bar nursing a beer; Lantry was propped on a stool talking to their father’s wife, Kate; Shane was sprawled in a chair by the window—no sign of Maddie, his fiancée, another bad sign; and fraternal twin Dalton was whispering with Juanita and stealing tortilla chips from the large bowl in her hands.
“So what’s up?” Jud asked as he helped himself to a beer from the bar fridge, just wanting to get this over with.
He saw a look pass between his father and Kate. Uhoh. He felt his heart dip. For years after their mother, Rebecca, had died, Grayson had been alone. They’d thought he would never remarry.
Then along came Kate. Kate had shown up at their Texas ranch with a box of photographs of their mother. Rebecca had been the ranch manager’s daughter. Kate the daughter of the ranch owner. The two had grown up together on Trails West Ranch outside of Whitehorse, Montana.
Kate had lost touch with Rebecca over the years. When she’d found the photographs, she’d said she’d thought enough time had passed since Rebecca’s death that Grayson might want them.
He had. And it wasn’t long before he’d wanted Kate, as well. All these years Grayson hadn’t been able to go through his deceased wife’s belongings. With Kate’s love and support, he finally had—and found the letters from their mother, triggering this marriage pact among the sons.
Grayson had fallen hard for Kate. So hard that he’d sold his holdings in Texas and bought Kate’s long-lost family ranch in Montana as a present for her, then moved them to Montana.
His father had been so happy with Kate. Jud couldn’t bear it if that was no longer the case.
“Kate and I have something to tell you,” Grayson said now, his expression way too serious for Jud’s tastes.
Jud took a swig of his beer and braced himself for the worst. All five brothers had thought their father’s marriage and the move to Montana was impulsive and worried, since even Jud had noticed that Kate had seemed different here at the ranch.
She should have been happy to have her family ranch back after it had been lost when her father died. But she hadn’t been.
“Kate?” Grayson said, giving his wife’s shoulder a squeeze.
She raised her head, glancing around as if looking for someone. Her gaze settled on Shane sitting by the window, his back to them.
What the hell, Jud thought, feeling the tension in the room crank up several notches.
“I have a daughter.”
They all stared at Kate, knowing she’d never been married and as far as they’d known had never had a child.
“I gave birth to her when I was in my early twenties, right after my father died, right before I left Montana,” Kate said, her voice strong. “I gave her up for adoption when she was only hours old.” She swallowed. “I’ve regretted it ever since.”
What was this? True confessions?
“You weren’t in any shape to raise a child alone,” Grayson said. “You had little choice given your situation.”
She cut her eyes to him and he fell silent again. “The father of my child was married.” Her back stiffened visibly. “He wasn’t going to leave his wife. I was hurt. I told him the baby had died. It wasn’t until recently that I told him the truth.”
You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Everyone was staring at Kate. Except Shane. His back still to them, he appeared to be gazing out the front window as if uninterested. Or had he already heard this?
Jud felt his chest tighten. “What happened to your baby?”
Kate turned toward him. “Adopted by a local family, she grew up in Old Town Whitehorse.”
Jud did the math. “So she would be in her mid-twenties.”
“Twenty-six,” Kate said.
He could see what was coming. “Does she know who you are?”
Kate nodded.
“Of course, she was surprised,” Grayson said. “So it is going to take some time to get to know her and her to know us.”
“So when do we get to meet her?” Dalton asked.
The silence said it all.
“You’ve already met her,” Kate said. “Her name is Maddie Cavanaugh.”
Jud shot a look at Shane.
“Shane’s fiancée?” Lantry demanded, glancing at his older brother, as well. Shane still didn’t say anything or look in their direction.
“I take it Maddie is upset,” Jud said, stating what he knew was the obvious.
“She’ll come around,” Grayson said, always the optimist.
“I wanted you all to know so you understood that it might be tense when Maddie is around. She’s having trouble forgiving me. I’m having trouble forgiving myself.”
For the first time, tears shone in her eyes, but she seemed to hold them back with sheer determination.
“Are you worried about the legal ramifications, Kate?” Lantry asked, always the lawyer.
“No,” Grayson said. “She is Kate’s daughter and will be treated like any other member of this family.”
“But the wedding is still on, right?” Jud asked.
Russell shot him a warning look.
Juanita announced dinner was ready as if on cue, but no one moved.
“This calls for margaritas,” Grayson announced.
Kate touched his arm. “Maybe after dinner,” she suggested.
Everyone except Shane headed in for dinner. Jud hung back. “I wasn’t only thinking of myself just now,” he said to Shane.
“I know.” Shane got to his feet. “We should join the rest of the family.” He looked like hell. Clearly this was taking a toll on him.
“Maddie will come around. You know she will,” Jud said. “She loves you. It would be a damned shame if you let this come between you. You’re made for each other.”
Shane smiled. “Not to mention the pressure it would put on you to tie the knot.”
“Yeah,” Jud said smiling ruefully. “Not to mention that.”
EVE WISHED she didn’t know her two younger sisters so well. The moment she’d seen Faith’s face on her return from her ride, she’d known something had happened.
Whatever it had been, Faith was keeping it to herself. Eve had noticed right away that Faith had been thrown from her horse. There was dirt ground into the seat of her jeans and into the elbows of her Western shirt.
This wasn’t anything new. Over the years Faith had returned many times from rides fighting to hide the fact that she’d been thrown. Often also trying to hide her hurt pride.
This time, however, Faith seemed jubilant, and that had Eve as perplexed as anything. She would have thought a man was involved, but at this point in Faith’s life, she seemed to prefer the company of her horse.
Eve looked up at the knock at her screen door to find her twin brother, Bridger, standing just outside. She couldn’t help thinking about the first time she’d seen him.
Unlike her, he’d known he was adopted. He’d even known he’d had a twin sister. Their shared blood had thrown them together as they’d tried to find out the truth about their illegal adoptions.
“Hey,” he said as he met her gaze through the screen. He was dark haired like her. Eve had always known she was different from her mother, father and two sisters, who all had blond hair and blue eyes. Now she knew why.
“Just the person I wanted to see,” she said as he came into the house, and she gave him a hug.
“Faith must be home,” he said, glancing at the supper she had started. Eve had remodeled her grandma Nina Mae’s home down the road when Nina Mae had to go into the rest home with Alzheimer’s.
The Bailey ranch house sat empty except when Faith was home. Eve didn’t want her sister, who insisted on staying at the ranch house, to come home to an empty house, so she spent time here trying to make it a home for Faith.
Faith had taken their parents divorce the hardest. Now their father lived in town with his girlfriend and their mother in Florida.
“You’re an awfully nice sister,” Bridger said as he sat down at the kitchen table where everyone always congregated.
Eve would have argued how nice she was. She felt she’d let down her family because from the time she was very young, she knew she was different and resented it, always searching for her real self. Her real family, as she thought of them. She’d just wanted someone who looked like her. Now she had Bridger, at least.
“Any luck?” Bridger asked picking up one of the papers spread out on the kitchen table.
“I called all of the Constance Smalls I’ve found so far,” Eve said pouring him a cup of coffee before sitting down at the table with him. Later she would try the C. Small listings.
“You realize she probably married and changed her name. Her name might not even have been Constance Small. She could have lied about that, given she was a runaway.”
“I know.” Eve could hear Bridger’s reservations. Once they’d found out that Constance Small was probably a runaway, he seemed to back off in the search.
She couldn’t blame him. It did feel hopeless. Even if Eve lucked out and found the woman, she’d probably wish she hadn’t.
“So? Did Laci have her baby?” she asked, changing the subject.
Bridger’s expression quickly shifted from a frown to a broad smile. “She sure did. Jack Bridger Duvall.”
“Laci beat her sister and got the name Jack?” Eve laughed. The two sisters had both wanted the name Jack from the time they’d found out they were both carrying boys. They’d agreed that whoever gave birth first got the name.
“Laney went with Jake,” Bridger said with a shake of his head. “Sisters.”
Eve smiled. “I know you brought photographs. Come on, let’s see ‘em.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said pulling his chair closer to her as he dug out his digital camera.
Eve pushed away the papers with the names of the women who could possibly have given birth to her and her brother, wishing she was more like Bridger. He’d moved on. Why couldn’t she?
Chapter Three
“Excuse me, can you tell me who that woman is?” Jud Corbett asked the elderly woman standing next to him. “The one in red.”
The Old Town Whitehorse Community Center was packed tonight, the country-western band made up of oldtimers who cranked out songs that took Jud back to his youth in Texas.
A smile curled the elderly woman’s lips as she glanced across the dance floor, then up at him. “They’re the Bailey girls—Eve, Faith and McKenna. Faith is the one in red. Pretty, isn’t she?”
“Very,” Jud said. “Faith Bailey, huh?” He liked the sound of her name.
The woman beside him cut her eyes to him, her smile knowing. “So why don’t you ask her to dance?”
He chuckled. Dancing with him would be the last thing Faith Bailey wanted to do. “That’s a good idea.”
“Yes, it was in my day, too,” the elderly woman said sagely.
Jud moved across the worn wooden dance floor toward Faith, who was flanked on each side by her sisters. After dinner tonight, he’d opted not to stay at the ranch but drive back to his trailer on location to be ready for an early shoot in the morning. At least that had been his excuse to escape the tension at the ranch.