Finding her heart, p.1
Finding Her Heart, page 1
part #1 of Wild Hearts Series
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyrighted 2023 by Delta James
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Finding Her Heart
Wild Hearts
Delta James
Contents
Author notes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Bonus scene
Also by Delta James
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Dedicated to My Two Best Friends:
Renee and Chris, without whom none of
what I do would be possible and to the Girls,
who bring joy to my life every single day
Acknowledgements:
Editor: Lori White, Creative Editing Services
Cover Design: Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
Proofreader: Melinda Kaye Brandt
Author notes
Author Note:
When you begin your journey as an author, you don’t realize how much it is you don’t know. Such is the case with the Wild Hearts series. I’ve learned a lot since then. I’ve worked hard to hone my craft and have hooked up with my wonderful editor, Lori.
What follows is the result.
Chapter 1
One Year Ago
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Dusk descended on Harper Logan as she stood vigil at the top of the rise, concealed by a cluster of pine trees. As she watched the small group of men push the last of a herd of mustangs into a temporary corral for transportation to Canada, she felt the familiar surge of anger coursing through her system.
Not on my watch.
The Canadian slaughterhouses were working overtime. The world outside of the United States seemed to now consider horse meat a delicacy. The growing business of slaughtering horses for their meat provided an opportunity for unscrupulous groups to hunt and capture wild horses and sell them off with little cash outlay. Luckily, she had stumbled across the quasi-illegal trapping of the herd as she packed out from her last job as fire camp cook or chef for various smokejumper crews.
The men had no right to trap the herd or sell them for slaughter in Canada, but there were also no real laws to prevent it. If caught removing them from federal land, where they were protected, they could be prosecuted, but they were usually only fined. The job of saving the mustangs was left to folks like Harper and others, who believed protecting the last wild horses was a job worth doing. If her luck held, the rustlers would leave only one or two men behind to guard the mustangs overnight. So, she waited for the men to leave and dusk to fade into darkness.
As darkness fell, Harper wrapped her reins around the saddle horn. Dismounting, she stroked Mattie’s face. “Stand,” she whispered.
The Appaloosa mare was well-trained to stay until Harper either returned to her or whistled for her to come. Mattie acknowledged the affection by nuzzling Harper in return. Harper left Mattie and began to quietly steal her way down the hill, using the natural cover that was available to conceal her movements.
The group of men began to tie up the loose ends of getting the mustangs secured, and it appeared that her luck was holding as they left one man behind while the rest headed into town. The lone man began to put together a campsite of sorts for himself. He built a small fire, constructed a rudimentary lean-to, and then headed to the stream, which was at least a half mile away.
Harper waited until the man was out of sight and then ran to the fire, dousing it so that it was completely out. Working in the fire camps, she’d been witness to one too many supposedly inert campfires that sparked and destroyed hundreds of acres of land, threatening and often taking the lives of both men and animals.
She approached the man’s gelding, pulling off his saddle, untying him, and leading him away from the camp. After removing his halter and bridle combination, she shooed him away. The gelding took off, heading in the same direction taken earlier by the other men. Harper searched the camp, located the man’s cell phone and tossed it into the brush. He’d be able to find it, but it would take him a while.
Whistling softly to Mattie, Harper petted the mare after she trotted down to join her. She fished through her saddlebags until she could find a soft rope with which to make a temporary halter. Having watched the mustangs as they were herded into the corral, she had been able to figure out which was the lead mare. Harper entered the pen and stood quietly. The wild horses were concerned at first, but as she presented them with nothing to fear they settled back down, except for the lead mare, who watched her intently.
Harper held her hands down in front of her with her palms up. She made nonsensical cooing noises to the mare and approached her cautiously. Each time the mare tossed her head or pinned her ears, Harper stopped and waited. Slowly, but surely, she made her way to the lead mare, until she stopped several feet in front of her and waited. It took a moment, but the mare seemed to decide that Harper was no threat and began to advance, dropping her head and losing all the tension in her body.
“Good girl,” she said, stroking the mare’s neck. “I need you to help me get your herd out of here and to safety.”
She knew the mare didn’t understand her words, but she hoped her tone would confirm she meant no harm. The mare accepted Harper stroking her neck, and she was able to get her to drop her nose through part of the makeshift halter, before looping the other part behind her ears. She didn’t tighten it at first, just let the mare see she wasn’t being hurt. When the mare accepted that, she tightened it just enough so that it wouldn’t slip off. Harper positioned herself by the mare’s shoulder, facing in the same direction, put the hand with the lead in it ahead of them both and stepped off. The mare hung back for a moment, but once she felt the slight pull on the halter fell in beside Harper.
Harper continued to talk soothingly to the mare as she quietly opened the gate to the corral. She allowed the mare to sniff noses with Mattie so that neither would see the other as a threat. Harper knew she was taking up valuable time, but if she could control the lead mare and get her to work with her and Mattie, it would make removing the mustangs from danger so much easier.
Harper mounted Mattie and said, “Okay, ladies, time to go.”
Nudging Mattie, she reined her to head out of the camp. Again, the wild mare started to hang back, but then fell in behind Mattie with the rest of the herd following in their wake. As they cleared the camp, Harper clucked to Mattie, signaling her to trot. She glanced over her shoulder and grinned as she saw the small herd keeping pace.
Just as they crested the rise, Harper heard shouting from the man below and knew that by the time he located his cell phone and his horse, she and the herd would be long gone. Once over the hill and onto more level ground, Harper kissed to Mattie, who broke into a lope. Harper guided the horses east towards Yellowstone National Park. Once on federally protected land, the mustangs would be safe. Darkness began to envelop them. Harper slowed their pace to make sure no one was injured. She was grateful that a full moon was rising in the clear, cloudless sky to give them all the light they would need.
They rode through the night. Harper felt fortunate that the lead mare and the herd seemed content to follow Mattie. She knew they’d cross into the park shortly before dawn and once well inside its boundaries, she could release the lead mare and watch them gallop back to freedom. The tricky part would be if she was spotted with the mustangs. Technically, dumping unwanted horses in any of the national parks was illegal, but she didn’t see it as breaking the law. After all, the mustangs were wild, had probably wandered out of the park to begin with, and they didn’t belong to anyone. She was simply returning them to where they’d be safe.
Once she was sure the mustangs were free, she could head back to where she’d left her truck and trailer. Her annual pass could explain her riding in the park to anyone she happened across. Anyone, that was, but one of the park rangers. She and her friends were well known for their efforts to keep the wild horses safe. Some of the rangers turned a blind eye; others didn’t.
Yellowstone had seen an uptick in criminal activity and one of the lead investigators for the National Park’s Criminal Investigation Service was on site. Colton Spencer was a man known for his not so charitable feelings towards mustangs. He owned land adjacent to Yellowstone where he raised bucking bulls, broncos and other livestock used by the Professional Rodeo Association. Like many who raised livestock, Spence was often quoted as saying the mustangs were a drain on the available grasslands and had no re al value. That was a point they would never agree upon. Harper saw the mustangs as a link to the past of the Old West. They symbolized courage, tenacity, and beauty.
As the darkness started to diminish and visibility increased, Harper picked up the pace, transitioning the herd to an easy lope, hoping to make one of the meadows before the sun had fully crested the horizon. They had just entered a large, lovely meadow with a big pond and lush forage when Harper heard someone calling to her from across the field, ordering her to stop.
Damn it! Did it have to be Colton Spencer?
It wasn’t so much his voice she recognized, as the distance was too far to make out specifics. Instead, it was the big leopard Appaloosa he rode on the PRA Circuit. Spence was also the reigning and three-time Appaloosa World Champion in Roping. She knew it to be him by his horse’s distinctive peacock spots and pattern. She would recognize it anywhere.
Removing the temporary halter from the lead mustang mare, Harper maneuvered the herd between herself and Spence, waving her hands and yelling in order to stampede the horses in his direction. She galloped alongside them until they had kicked up enough dust to cover her peeling off and heading down one of the side trails leading out of the meadow and back towards her truck.
Harper hoped that as it wasn’t full light and her exit was obscured by the herd, she could make a clean getaway without Spence being able to identify her. She urged Mattie into a hard gallop. If she could make the fork in the trail before Spence could clear the herd, she’d have a better chance at a clean escape. She was in luck, as not only did the trail fork as she remembered, but it did so in three prongs as opposed to two.
Harper galloped to the left knowing that trail would lead her back to the park’s western boundary. Once she was clear of the park, she could slow down as it would be difficult for Spence to make a case that she had even been in the park, let alone prove what she’d been up to. She had parked her rig along the access road, and once she got back to it, she could load up and head for home.
Spence saw the herd of mustangs moving in the distance but in the hazy dawn light it took him a moment to realize they were moving in an awfully orderly fashion for a group of wild horses and then he saw why.
Riding beside them was a woman with a rope halter on what he suspected was the lead mare. She seemed to be leading them to one of the big meadows within the park. He thought both the Appaloosa and the woman’s silhouette looked familiar. Who was she? Was she leading a group of actual mustangs?
Spence shouted at the woman to stop, but she failed to heed his order. Instead, she released the lead mare and yelled, causing a stampede that kicked up a dust storm on the dry trail. By the time the dust had cleared, and he could get around the herd of horses, the woman and her Appaloosa had vanished.
There were only two trails out of the meadow, both of which forked not far from the edge of the grassy field—one into three directions and the other into two. This woman, whoever she was, knew horses. Based solely on her silhouette and her ability to ride, everything about her screamed experience and he couldn’t shake the feeling he knew her. He’d seen her ride somewhere, he knew it. Deciding there were too many variables to actually give chase, Spence decided to let the woman escape and chose to focus instead on the horses now grazing in the meadow.
There was no band stallion, only a lead mare who’d worn a rope halter and followed alongside the Appaloosa mare. As he closed the distance between himself and the pretty palomino mare, she charged him aggressively, warning him back. Each time he tried to get closer, she repeated her actions, indicating she was wild and had no trust in or liking for humans.
Spence had to wonder how the woman had accomplished getting a halter on the mare to lead her and the rest of the herd into the park. It might be worth buying the mysterious woman, who called to a part of him he’d thought never to see the light of day, a beer. He needed to find out who she was. Smiling to himself, he thought that might be something well-worth investigating.
Chapter 2
Present Day
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Harper stood in the massive arena waiting for the show photographer to snap the official picture of her second World Championship win in Ranch Horse Pleasure. It was a fairly new class to the World Championship show, combining elements of western pleasure, the old-time trail class and western riding.
She’d been a three-time World Champion in the Heritage Class, which was a class judged in part on the quality and integrity of the Native American costume worn by both horse and rider. Harper grinned. Regardless of how many times she won at the Appaloosa World Championship Show, it was always a thrill. The photographer was finally satisfied with the picture and the head judge once again congratulated her on her win.
Thanking both the judge and photographer again, she headed back to the stall to get Mattie settled until she was ready to load up and leave. The next stop would be her trailer with its comfy living quarters, where she would take a few minutes to relax. She planned to let Mattie have some time in her stall to do the same and get something to eat and drink before getting on the road home for the non-stop drive.
Harper was just coming out of Mattie’s stall, lugging a full bucket of water to dump in the drain at the end of the breezeway when she all but ran into Colton Spencer, splashing most of the water all over the man.
She hadn’t realized how big he was. He was well over six-feet-tall and had broad shoulders and a well-muscled physique. Harper had noticed before, as had a lot of other women, how well his jeans hugged his butt. It appeared his muscles had muscles. The rolled-up sleeves of his shirt revealed forearms that practically rippled with the things. He kept his head shaved, not so that he was completely bald, but as if it, like his beard, had a perpetual five o’clock shadow. And his eyes. His eyes were a gorgeous shade of blue, the same shade as Paul Newman’s. If it weren’t for what she knew were their opposing views on mustangs, Harper might have been interested in fighting off all the buckle bunnies who seemed to swirl around him to get to know him better.
She hadn’t seen him ride at all during this World Show but had heard that once again he was the World Champion in Roping. Not running into him hadn’t been by accident. Harper had gone out of her way to avoid running into him. So much for that. They didn’t compete in the same arena but still she’d managed to avoid being anywhere in the same vicinity. There was no way to tell if he had identified her and Mattie a year ago up in Yellowstone; there was also no reason to push her luck.
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”
His lips tugged up into a slight grin. “Not to worry, it’s just water. No harm done.” He had a deep voice, but it was far more melodic and kinder than she had imagined it might be. “I’ve been looking for a chance to meet you, Harper.”
“Why is that? Any special reason?”
The grin split into a wide smile, which softened the harsh angles of his face. “Because I wanted to see if I was right about you.”
“Right about me? What does that mean—right about me?” Harper’s spidey senses were beginning to crawl. She needed to shut this down, take care of Mattie, and get on the road. The last thing she needed was to have Spencer make trouble for her. “I can’t stop to chat right now. I need to get Mattie some water.”
Taking the bucket from her, he walked to the end of the breezeway, giving Harper another chance to admire the view of his tight jean-clad butt. She wondered if he had any idea how many women liked to watch his ass when he walked by. Spencer tossed the dirty water down the drain, rinsed the bucket, filled it and brought it back to her. Harper opened Mattie’s stall door, allowing Spencer to enter and hang it on the wall. Mattie flicked her ears at him, but when she realized the bucket held only water, went back to munching her hay.
