The Last Cowboy

CHAPTER TWO

JORDANA FELT AS IF she’d just been physically slapped by the rugged-looking cowboy who towered over her. She was only five foot six inches tall. He was like a Sequoia compared to her pine-tree height. Compressing her full lips, Jordana weathered his icily spoken words. As a trauma physician, she’d encountered people in all states of anger and irritability. Knowing that a soft, steady voice and appearing unflappable calmed emotional storms, she smiled and said, “I’m sorry. I’m Jordana Lawton. The road to your ranch was a little more rutted than I’d anticipated, and I slowed down so my mare wouldn’t get thrown around in the trailer.” She put her hand forward.

Slade absorbed the apology in her husky voice. The sound flowed over him like melting honey. Jordana’s hand was extended, and he stared down at it. She had long fingers, her hand as delicate-looking as her face. Obliquely he wondered if she had the stamina it took to gut out a fifty-or hundred-mile endurance ride. In appearance, she didn’t look like much more than a pretty black-haired, blue-eyed woman with a curvy body in all the right places. The sunlight danced across her shoulder-length hair, highlighting some of the reddish strands.

“Slade McPherson, Dr. Lawton.” He monitored the amount of strength as his hand engulfed hers. To his surprise, he found her hand strong and firm, just like his. Swallowing that discovery, he instantly released her fingers because red-hot tingles were soaring from his hand up into his lower arm. What the hell was happening? Slade had no idea.

“Call me Jordana,” she insisted. Giving him a bit of a wry smile, she added, “I am a trauma doc, but that’s my job. Out here, I’m just like anyone else. Please call me Jordana?”

Slade felt as if he was being pulled into her dancing, sky-blue eyes. There was warmth and understanding glinting in them like dapples of sunlight across the lakes found in the Tetons range. Her pupils were large and black, eyelashes forming a dark frame around them. Again, he swallowed hard. There was nothing to dislike about Jordana. She appeared to be around his age, although her face appeared to be that of a young twenty-something. Slade knew that doctors didn’t really get out of training until they were twenty-eight to thirty years old.

“I haven’t got much time,” he said abruptly, and he waved his hand toward the horse trailer. “Shorty said you have an endurance prospect you wanted me to evaluate?”

Wincing internally, Jordana had to stop the comparison between her former boss, Dr. Paul Edwin, who’d had the exact same acid, remote and cold personality as McPherson. That made her cringe inside. After a two-year sexual harassment lawsuit, Jordana had won the court case but she’d lost her position at a prestigious New York City hospital. That was why she’d decided to start all over and moved from there to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Now, she was being tested by a man who looked as harsh as the mighty Tetons range itself.

“Yes, I have a mustang mare name Stormy. I’d like you to evaluate her conformation. See if she has what it takes.”

“At what level?” he demanded, stalking around the back of the trailer and opening the latches.

Jordana quickly followed him. He flowed like water over rock. There was a fluidity to Slade that mesmerized her. She realized he was in top athletic shape to be able to move with that kind of boneless grace. “Level one, the Nationals,” she said. Jordana moved forward as the doors swung out and pulled out the ramp. Stormy whinnied.

Reaching up, Jordana patted the sleek gray rump of her mare. “It’s okay, Stormy. I’m going to get you out of there.” She walked to the side of the trailer and opened a smaller door. This allowed her to go inside and unsnap the hook attached to the mare’s red nylon halter. That done, Jordana eased around the end and stood where the mare was tied. She attached a nylon halter lead and placed her hand on the horse’s chest. “Back up,” she told the mare.

Stormy obeyed. In a few moments, Jordana and her mare were standing outside the trailer.

“Bring your mare over here,” Slade ordered. He walked away from the trailer into an area where the horse could be walked and trotted.

Jordana nodded and did as he asked. What a tough hombre he was! There were no articles that said anything about this man’s personality. Maybe that’s why, she thought. Anxious because Jordana wanted Stormy to be given the good seal of approval, she took the horse about a hundred feet away. McPherson stood with his arms across his chest, his face unreadable. The shade created by his tan Stetson emphasized the harsh lines gathered across his brow. What would he say about Stormy?

“Okay,” Slade called, “trot your mare in a straight line toward me.”

Clucking softly to Stormy, Jordana ran alongside her mare. She knew Slade was looking at how the horse’s legs moved. She knew Stormy had a good set of legs. He would be checking out whether her hooves moved straight ahead or winged out or came into a pigeon-toed formation. If the horse’s hooves winged outward, it was a sign of bad conformation. Stormy would never be able to take the hard, constant stress on her legs without breaking down and becoming injured.

Slade had one hell of a time keeping his eyes on the horse’s movement. Jordana wore a bright yellow T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. She moved as fluidly as the mare. Slade cursed—he did not want to be drawn at all to this woman! He’d automatically looked at her left hand and found no wedding ring on it. That didn’t mean much. Slade was sure she was hooked up in a relationship, anyway. Jordana was far too pretty, intelligent and professional to be alone out here in Wyoming. Just as well, he harshly told himself.

As Jordana drew her mustang to a halt about ten feet in front of him, Slade lifted his hand and growled, “Now walk away from me. Go the same distance and then turn around and walk back to me.”

“Right,” Jordana said, breathless. Stormy was feeling her oats, and she pranced as Jordana turned her around. Speaking softly to the mare, Jordana managed to get the mustang settled down and walking obediently at her side.

Slade groaned. He was watching the way Jordana swayed her hips. Her legs were long and firm. He’d been without a woman for some time now. And this one, for whatever reason, was fanning the flames of his monklike life. Forcing himself to watch the mare, he was pleased to see she was four square. That meant that at a walk, her rear hooves would land where her front hooves had previously been. That was a sign of the type of conformation Slade wanted to see in an endurance prospect. As the horse saying went: “No legs, no horse.” And in endurance riding, legs either carried you through the challenging hill and mountain conditions, or they didn’t.

As Jordana brought the steel-gray mare to a halt, he’d seen enough and changed his orders. “Take her over to that corral and put her on a longe line. I want to see you work her both ways at a trot and gallop.” He turned on his heel and walked toward the corral.

What a terse person he was! Jordana patted Stormy’s sleek gray neck, ruffled her thick black mane and said, “Come on, girl. Show-and-tell time.”

Snorting, Stormy danced prettily for a few paces and then sedately walked beside her owner. Jordana saw the gate was open to the huge white painted pipe corral fence. There was a longe line hanging nearby. McPherson was already in the corral, arms across his chest, face expressionless, as if barely tolerating them being on his property. Anxious, Jordana knew, with this kind of person, the best way to defuse his coldness and bring down her armor was to do what he told her to do. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t take this kind of rude behavior from anyone except a patient in shock, but today, she did. More than anything, she wanted to know if her mare had what it took to move to the national level.

Slade watched the mustang mare being worked, first clockwise on a thirty-foot longe line by Jordana, and then the opposite direction. The mare was thirteen and a half hands tall. Mustangs were very small in comparison to other light-breed horses. His own medicine-hat mustang stallion, Thor, was fifteen hands tall. He was the rare exception in the mustang world. Most were between thirteen and fourteen hands tall because of hundreds of years of lean food. Not enough food and the animals never fully developed their height. In the world of endurance riding, a leggy horse meant a long stride. And a long stride meant the horse ate up more ground which was important. Mere seconds could declare a winner and loser in an endurance race. Length of stride meant everything.

For the next ten minutes, Slade critically studied the gray mare. First, he needed to see if the mustang closely listened to her owner. That was a crucial piece of information because if the horse disregarded the owner’s voice, it could put them in grave danger out on the trail.

“All right,” Slade called. “Enough. Get her saddled up and bring her back into the arena.” He needed to see how the horse responded to its rider. Was there teamwork? Or not? In an endurance contest, they would have to work like a well-oiled machine. Climbing rocky hills, jumping over fallen logs, making their way through water hazards or managing muddy trails were all required of them. If the horse didn’t listen or was fighting the rider, it could place them into a dangerous situation where injury would be the outcome.

Jordana quickly took her mare back to the trailer and tied her on an outside metal loop. She wasn’t sure what McPherson thought. He was one of the few people she couldn’t read. Wondering as she saddled Stormy if Slade ever dropped that harsh mask he wore, Jordana was shocked by her sudden interest in this man. The fact he was almost a dead ringer for Dr. Paul Edwin turned her stomach. And yet, Jordana felt a calm come over her every time she looked into Slade’s rugged face. His eyes, those gray shards of ice, never gave away how he really felt about her horse. And she knew as she mounted Stormy and walked her toward the corral, he was going to be judging both of them now. Taking a deep breath, Jordana tried to calm her anxiety. She wanted so badly to have McPherson’s help to go to the top of the endurance world.

Slade watched from the fence as Jordana walked her horse around the large, sandy arena. Then, she urged Stormy to a trot and then a canter. She was an excellent rider. Jordana’s hands were quiet on the hackamore reins as she guided Stormy. A hackamore was a bridle without a bit. It meant Stormy was very capable of wanting to work and listen to her owner. Most horses could not go without a bit in their mouth, so this spoke highly of Stormy’s desire to work with her owner.

Jordana’s long, beautiful legs were quiet and rested firmly against the mare’s barrel. Never once did Slade see her use her heels to ask the horse to move from a walk to a trot or a walk to a canter. He knew then that the doctor was utilizing dressage techniques, the highest art form of riding in the horse world.

As he watched them move around the arena, Slade scowled. His ex-wife had been a dressage rider, too. It was easy to recognize how quietly Jordana sat, her shoulders back, spine straight, her hands low in front of the saddle. She had the exact same posture. Yet, Slade couldn’t draw a comparison between her and his ex-wife. Isabel had been a petulant child who’d used pouting and throwing temper tantrums in order to get what she wanted out of him. Jordana didn’t seem fazed by his cold, hard manner. She took it in stride, listened to his orders and then seamlessly executed them. That made him curious about her. The last thing he needed, however, was to be drawn to a woman. He’d been successful these last four years of ignoring the opposite sex. His focus was trying to hold his beleaguered ranch together one month at a time.

“That’s good enough,” Slade called to her. “Come on in.”

Jordana slowed Stormy down and guided her mare over to where Slade was standing. His face looked like stone. What did he think? Was Stormy’s conformation good enough? And why was she so drawn to this glacial cowboy? Dismounting, she took the reins over Stormy’s head.

“Unsaddle her.”

Jordana nodded, dropped the reins and went to lift the stirrup to reach the cinch around the horse’s sweaty barrel. She lifted off the saddle and the blanket, settling them across one of the rails of the pipe fence.

“Lead her out to the center of the arena.”

Picking up the reins, Jordana walked, and Stormy followed her like a dog at her heels. Jordana turned and stood beside her mare’s head. She watched as Slade approached. His gray eyes were narrowed, and she knew he was now critically assessing Stormy. Crouching beside her, he spoke softly to the mustang before gently laying his hands on the top of her front right leg.

Stormy’s ears twitched back and forth to the softened male sounds. She stood perfectly still as Slade ran his hands knowingly down the length of her leg. He also examined the health of her hoof.

Shocked at the change in his demeanor, Jordana could only stand there keeping her mouth from dropping open. She watched as Slade’s large, scarred hands moved with knowing skill down Stormy’s sweaty leg. Hands that moved with such ease that Jordana swore she could feel them caressing her at the same time. Shaking herself out of the shock that Slade wasn’t a coldhearted bastard like Paul Edwin had been, she allowed herself to take a deep breath of relief. Slade had a soft side to him after all! Even if he only unveiled and utilized it with horses, that was fine with Jordana. She could take his military-like demeanor if only he treated her horse with loving care. And he was doing just that.

Slade moved quietly around to the other side of the mare. He placed his hands on her other front leg. One never squatted down at the side of a horse’s rear. If something spooked them, they could kick out in a semicircle arc and nail the person. Slade had seen people kicked in the head for doing just that. Straightening up, he walked toward her rear legs. He placed his left hand on the animal’s rump and then, with his right hand, leaned down and stood close to the mare so she couldn’t kick and injure him. In this way, it was safe, and he could continue to perform a thorough examination.

Jordana watched in silence. Slade’s calloused hands were sun-darkened from being outside most of his life. Stormy stood quietly. She trusted the large cowboy. More relief filtered through Jordana. After Slade had examined Stormy’s legs, he then came to her face and gently moved his fingers around her ears and her poll, the top of her head. Jordana knew he was looking for bumps, scars or cuts. Once more she felt his hands flowing across her. It was a crazy sensation! What was it about this hardened cowboy that unstrung her as a woman?

Gulping, Jordana forced herself to remain silent. She knew Slade was tactically memorizing every part of Stormy’s conformation. He was building an anatomical picture of her body in his mind. And once he was done, he would have his decision for her. She saw him slide his fingers across the black dorsal stripe down the center of Stormy’s back. Mustangs often possessed this stripe. Plus, Stormy had horizontal curved black bars on the back of her lower legs. It made her look somewhat like a long-lost relative from the zebra species. But she wasn’t. These were genetic markers mustangs carried strongly throughout the breed.

Slade rounded the mare and then stood about six feet away from Dr. Lawton. She looked concerned and serious. He understood why. Seesawing back and forth inwardly, Slade didn’t know what to do. Lawton was pretty in a natural kind of way. She had an oval face with a stubborn chin that spoke to her ability to finish what she started. There was no extra flesh on her body that he could see. That meant she was riding daily. Endurance riders put in ten to fifteen miles a day on their horse to keep it in shape for the fifty-and hundred-mile contests. She was a woman, and Slade tried to avoid the opposite sex like a plague. His other students were men. And that’s the way he liked it.

“Your mare has a problem,” he stated bluntly, drilling her with a hard look. Instantly, her eyes opened wider, and a stunned expression came to her features. He pointed down at the horse’s front left leg. “There’s scar tissue on her pastern that indicates she’s suffered a serious cut in that area at one time.”

“But,” Jordana said, “that shouldn’t stop her from being an endurance horse.”

Scowling, Slade said, “That cut was deep. What do you know about it?”

“I’ve owned Stormy for two years, Mr. McPherson. She had that cut there long before that.” Watching his expression, Jordana felt frustrated. All she could see was the glittering shards in his gray eyes. It was obvious he was going to turn her down.

Not if she could help it! “Stormy was captured out in Nevada in a government roundup. She was sold to Bud Hutchinson, who lives here in Jackson Hole. He told me when I bought his house that the mare came with the deal. When I had the vet check her, he noted that scar on her pastern. Bud said the mare came to him with it. The vet thought she probably cut her pastern a year earlier, so no one really knows the extent of that injury.”

Grunting, Slade said, “Well, it’s her Achilles’ heel, Dr. Lawton.”

“What about the rest of her conformation?”

“She’s sound and she has good legs. But that scar makes her questionable. If she cut a tendon as a yearling out in the wilds, and it healed, that tendon is always going to be weak and suspect of breaking down.”

“But you don’t know if it was a cut tendon,” Jordana countered strongly. She wasn’t going to let this cowboy run over her.

Shrugging, Slade muttered, “That’s true.”

“And her legs are fine otherwise?”

“Yes, they’re good.”

“What else?” Jordana prodded. She saw him scowl, his thick, dark brown brows moving downward in a slash because of her needling. Maybe he was the type of trainer who wanted to see his students have courage to confront him. Maybe he wasn’t. She wasn’t sure. All Jordana did know is she wanted a chance to train her mare with this man, no matter how sour and antisocial he appeared to be. At least he was gentle with Stormy. Jordana had gone through residency and taken plenty of blows from men who were threatened by her presence as a woman and a doctor. She’d weather Slade McPherson, too.

Surprised at Lawton’s sudden backbone and fearlessness to confront him, Slade growled, “The worst strike against her is your horse is a mare.”

Mouth dropping open, Jordana snapped it shut. Her hand tightened on the rope. Stormy’s ears flicked back and forth as she read her mistress’s reaction. “A mare? Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of those people? Mares compete in endurance against geldings and stallions and win!”

The power and force of her tempered anger hit Slade directly. Eyes narrowing, he saw the blue fire in her eyes. “Mares are fickle, just like women. They’re made up of unstable hormones.”

Real anger fired through Jordana. How dare this man! Mouth tightening, she lowered her husky voice. “That’s an old saw and it doesn’t work anymore, Mr. McPherson. If you’re going to turn me down because my horse is a mare, that’s a lousy excuse.”

Squirming inwardly, Slade realized Dr. Lawton wasn’t going to take no for an answer. If he said, “you’re a woman and I don’t like training women,” then she’d explode into rage for sure. “Mares are just more difficult,” he snarled. “But it’s your choice. I don’t really care.” And he didn’t. His students had gone on to win major endurance rides over the years.

Brows moving up, Jordana said, “Then, you’ll accept us for training?”

“You aren’t going to get far,” Slade warned. “Your mare has a weak pastern due to that old injury. She’ll break down before she ever gets to an endurance contest.”

Angry, Jordana said, “And I disagree with you.”

“Just because you’re a doctor of humans doesn’t mean you know animal anatomy,” Slade reminded her. She really got under his skin, and he recalled Isabel had exhibited that same capability. Grudgingly, Slade admired Jordana because she had fire, passion and wasn’t afraid to fight for what she thought was right. Isabel always sneaked around behind him, manipulated him and then pounced. Lawton wasn’t like that. In fact, he admired her fearlessness because even men didn’t take him on. Slade had one hell of a reputation of winning any argument he chose to defend. And he was losing this one to this banty rooster of a woman with fiery blue eyes and a stubborn chin.

Stormy moved restlessly, and Jordana placed her hand on the mare’s damp neck. Instantly, the mustang quieted. “You’re correct about that, Mr. McPherson. There is no test that can conclusively show that Stormy partially cut a tendon in her pastern or not. I’m willing to go on faith that she didn’t.”

“Okay, it’s your money and time,” he drawled.

“Then, you’ll train us?” Hope rose in Jordana’s voice. She knew McPherson was going to be a hard, demanding trainer, but she’d endured the toughest job in the world as a resident and made it. She’d make this a success, too.

“I’ll take you on, Dr. Lawton. It’ll cost you plenty of money. And I don’t put up with anyone who’s late. You show up on time or I’ll send you packing.”

“I’ll be on time from now on,” Jordana gritted, glaring up at him. His rugged features were shadowed by his tan Stetson. There was nothing forgiving about Slade McPherson. In the back of her mind, Jordana wondered what course in life had molded him into such a hard person.

“We’ll see,” Slade said. “Shorty, my wrangler, will show you to the training barn. You’ll be writing me a check today for two thousand dollars. One thousand a month for the box stall, hay, special feed and one thousand for training you ten times a month out here at the ranch.”

Two thousand dollars. Jordana blanched inwardly. Two years ago she’d settled the lawsuit against Dr. Paul Edwin. The settlement had been four hundred thousand dollars. Part of the agreement had been that she had to leave her position at the New York City hospital. Then, the recession occurred, and she’d lost all her stock savings in the crash of the stock market. Jordana had ended up broke and out of a job when it was all over. The settlement money had bought her a home here in Jackson Hole.

Slade watched her waffle, her eyes downcast. He had doubled the cost of his services in hopes of getting rid of her. If he couldn’t argue her out of it, then he’d raise his price so high she couldn’t afford it. He stood there feeling badly, but he really didn’t want to have to teach a woman. They were nothing but trouble.

Mind whirling, Jordana lifted her head and said, “That’s fine.”

Stunned, Slade kept his face carefully arranged. Two thousand dollars more a month would be a godsend. “Good.” He pointed to Shorty who was walking toward them. “Go with my wrangler. He’ll assign your mare to a box stall.”

Jordana felt dizzy. What had she just done? Two thousand dollars was a lot of money! At what price did she want her dream? And with a man who obviously disliked the fact she was a woman and her horse a mare.

CHAPTER THREE

“THIS WAY, Miss,” Shorty said, coming up and doffing his head respectfully toward Jordana.