Rescue Me

by Jaci Burton

  Once Maggie was saddled, Kyle leaned out the door of the barn and whistled. A beautiful Appaloosa trotted over to the gate leading to the barn entrance, and Kyle walked over to the rail. The horse held its head down so he could scratch it.

  Sabrina watched, mesmerized, as Kyle opened the gate and the horse followed him into the barn without having to halter or lead it.

  "That's amazing. How do you get him to do that?"

  Kyle stroked the horse's muzzle. "We have an understanding. I feed him, and he pretty much does whatever I want him to."

  Sabrina knew it was much more than that. Kyle obviously had a close relationship with his horse, but didn't want to appear as if he cared one way or another about the animal.

  "I suppose he has no name either."

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  Jaci Burton

  "You suppose right."

  Sabrina studied the beautiful animal. It had a creamy beige coat and legs, with brown polka dots dappled all over its hindquarters. "Spot."

  "Huh?"

  "I'll call him Spot."

  His incredulous look made Sabrina grin. "You're joking, right?"

  "No, it's a sweet name and he does have spots after all. It's just logical."

  Kyle laid a blanket over his horse's back, followed by a much larger saddle than he had put on Maggie. "Spot's a damn dog's name, not a horse's."

  "So?"

  He actually looked angry, but not in the same sense that her ex-husband would have. More a frustrated angry. Sabrina didn't feel threatened at all, in fact found it very amusing.

  "Spot's not a horse's name."

  "Well you said you don't name them anyway, so what difference does it make?"

  "You're not naming my horse Spot!" He blew out a breath and turned away from Sabrina to continue saddling the gelding. "I don't know why I'm even having this conversation with you," he said, frustration ringing in his voice. "If you don't mind, I'd like to finish saddling Spot...dammit!

  Now you've got me calling him that stupid name."

  Sabrina giggled, not at all upset by Kyle's sharp tone. In fact, she was having a wonderful time watching him finish saddling Spot. When both horses were ready, he grabbed their reins and led them outside the barn, tying them off to the corral post.

  "Okay, get up."

  She looked at Maggie and then at Kyle, who was waiting expectantly for her to mount. All she needed to do was place one foot in the stirrup, slide the other leg over and she'd be on. Of course, in the movies the

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  horses didn't appear to be as big as they really are. And in the movies they hold still. Maggie was skittish.

  "She senses your nervousness," Kyle explained. "Relax. Just hold the side of the saddle, then hook your left boot in the stirrup, stand up and grab the horn. Then when you get your balance, throw your other leg over and slide it into the stirrup. Once you're on I'll adjust them for you.

  It's easy."

  Oh sure, easy for him. He'd been doing this for years.

  Sabrina nodded and took a deep breath. The stirrup was about waist high, so she'd have to lift her foot up a good distance to slide her boot in.

  Now how was one supposed to do that? She looked at Kyle and hesitated until he sighed and walked over toward her.

  "Let me help you." He instructed her to slide her foot in the stirrup and as she did he grabbed her hips and lifted her into a standing position.

  Sabrina balanced precariously with one foot in the stirrup, but fortunately Kyle was still holding on to her legs or she would have surely fallen on her butt.

  "Now grab the saddle horn and swing your other leg over, then settle in on the saddle."

  She'd done it! She looked at Kyle triumphantly, expecting praise for her ability to get it on the first try. Only he didn't appear to be nearly as excited as Sabrina was. In fact, he seemed completely oblivious to the fact she had just mounted her very first horse. Instead, he was bent over, measuring Sabrina's foot in the stirrup.

  "Your knee's bent too much, I need to lengthen the stirrups." He held on to her ankle, instructing her to sit still.

  Kyle ran his hands up her ankles and calves, insuring she was relaxing her foot. His hand was warm as he grasped her calf, and Sabrina looked down to watch. The sight of his hand running up and down her leg unnerved her. Her traitorous body was having the wrong

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  kind of reaction to a non-intimate act. Something about his touch caused her entire respiratory system to go haywire.

  "How does that feel?" he asked as he finished his adjustment and looked up at her with questioning eyes. His hand still rested on her leg, lightly flexing his fingers on her calf muscle.

  "Very nice," she said softly. Their eyes remained locked, his intense gaze compelling and magnetic until she realized that several seconds had passed and neither of them had spoken. Good Lord she was gawking at him like a schoolgirl. She averted her eyes and looked straight ahead.

  "Uh, the fit's fine, thanks."

  He walked around and adjusted the other stirrup. Then he headed over to his horse and grabbed Spot's reins. With quick, agile moves he mounted the horse and walked it over to hers. He was so fluid, the way he slid onto the horse as if he were merely getting on a bike. How she wished she'd be able to do that, to make it look as easy as Kyle did.

  He spent a few minutes instructing her on the basic movement commands, like laying the right rein on the side of Maggie's neck to make her turn left, and vice versa. He taught her to give the physical commands gently, and not to pull or tug on the reins. Although he went through them all, Sabrina wasn't really interested in the commands to gallop or run, figuring she'd be happy enough right now with walking and being able to stay astride the horse without falling.

  "We'll start out slow. Just ride alongside me so I can watch and help you if you need it." Kyle turned Spot and they headed around the corral.

  Sabrina followed with Maggie, pleased when the horse followed her commands.

  They headed out of the barn, passing pens, corrals and multiple buildings. Kyle pointed out each building as they went by and explained what it was used for. Sabrina was surprised at how much went into working a ranch. And she had so many questions, which she asked Kyle as they approached each building or structure.

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  Buildings were needed to store feed as well as house equipment and perform maintenance. She knew when she investigated the ranch it was large, around three thousand acres, but she had no idea how big it really was. And she'd only seen a small portion of the ranch so far.

  After they cleared the buildings they rode in silence for awhile.

  Sabrina marveled at the changes in landscape, from flatlands of small sage and grasses to tall birch and sycamore trees as their elevation increased. In between scanning the scenery and trying to control Maggie, Sabrina watched the way Kyle rode his horse, as if the two were of one mind and body. He sat comfortably on Spot, his body moving in time to his horse, whereas every joint in Sabrina's body jolted with each step Maggie took.

  "How long have you been riding a horse?" Sabrina asked as she pulled alongside Kyle.

  He turned to her, cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes to shield them from the bright sun. She'd never seen anything sexier in her entire life.

  How could a hat make a man look so wickedly desirable?

  "As long as I can remember. Dad put us all on the back of a horse as soon as we were old enough to hang on by ourselves."

  What it must have been like to grow up on a ranch. Sabrina wished she'd have had the same experiences. "You must have had a wonderful childhood."

  Kyle smiled. "Yeah, I did."

  And when he smiled, dimples appeared on either side of his mouth. It should be illegal to look as good as this man did. Sabrina warmed and unfastened the top button of her shirt, hoping the cool morning air would provide relief.

  "You miss them, don't you?"


  "Who?"

  "Your parents."

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  Jaci Burton

  "Yeah, I miss them." His soft tone spoke volumes. She heard the pain in his voice.

  "What about your parents?" he asked, obviously trying to change the subject.

  "Not much to tell really. My dad and mom divorced when I was very little. My father never wanted kids, so when I came along he split."

  "Do you ever see him?"

  Sabrina shook her head. "No. My mother tried to track him down for child support, but he'd quit a job and move every time they found him to garnish his wages. Finally, she just gave up and found another way to make extra money."

  "What way?"

  "Beauty contests."

  Kyle reined in Spot. "Your mom entered beauty contests?"

  Sabrina pulled on Maggie's reins, and the horse stopped immediately.

  "No, she entered me in them. From the time I was a toddler until I was an adult."

  "Why?"

  "Because she thought I was a pretty baby, I guess, and then when I won a couple, she realized prize money and maybe a modeling contract would follow, so she continued to enter me in them."

  "And you kept on winning."

  How would he know that? "Yeah, I kept on winning."

  "That doesn't surprise me."

  Her eyes met his in question. "What do you mean?"

  "You're beautiful now, you must have been equally as beautiful as a child."

  This wasn't the first time someone had told Sabrina she was beautiful. She had heard it for years, but to her it had been empty compliments that she ignored. The matter-of-fact way Kyle said it made it different. He wasn't trying to get anything out of her, or to fuss over her

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  appearance or praise her for some sort of performance. For the first time it meant something.

  "Thank you." She could feel herself blushing. The last time she blushed was when she met Mark, and fell for his lines about what a difference he could make in her life. How naive she had been to believe anything he said. Although he had changed her life, in so many ways.

  None of them good.

  "So you were a beauty queen."

  She nodded. "The reason for my existence my entire childhood."

  Kyle started them riding again, but stayed closer to Sabrina so they could continue talking.

  "You didn't like beauty contests?"

  "No. I hated them."

  "Why?"

  The images returned, contest after contest, month after month, year after year. So many of them she couldn't recall the number of places she'd been, how many contests she had won, or how often she begged her mother to let her quit competing. But her mother told her that her beauty was supporting them, that someday she'd thank her because this was going to be the way for Sabrina to become rich and famous.

  "I didn't want to be on display. I hated dressing up in those stupid frilly dresses, having to strut and sing and dance on stage and have my hair and makeup done."

  "What did you want, then?"

  "A normal childhood. I wanted to go to school like everyone else instead of relying on tutors because we traveled so much. I wanted to have friends. Childhood friends that would be with me to adulthood."

  She laughed then, at the memories of her childhood dreams. "And mostly, I wanted to be a cowgirl. Wear jeans, get dirty, and never wear makeup or have to curl my hair. I wanted to ride horses and live on a ranch."

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  His mouth formed a crooked grin. "Did you ever tell your mother what you wanted?"

  "Yes. All the time. She said I was too young to know what I wanted, and it was up to her to guide me, teach me and make sure I got everything I deserved. That she knew better than I did what was best for me."

  "And beauty contests were the best thing for you, in her opinion."

  "Yes." After all, how was Sabrina going to catch a rich husband if she lived on a ranch? And that, in a nutshell, was what her mother had wanted. A rich husband to take care of her, as well as her mother.

  "Is that how you met your ex-husband?"

  She nodded. "He was a judge at the Miss Dallas competition. Mother arranged an introduction after the contest was over."

  "Did you win?"

  "Yeah, I did. But I never went on to compete any further because Mark and I got married and I relinquished my crown to the runner-up."

  "So love won over career, huh?"

  Her response tasted of the bitterness she felt over Mark's betrayal.

  "He never loved me. And I only thought I was in love with him. I was eighteen, had never been allowed to date, and Mark was the first man who ever showed an interest in me. At least, the first man mother let get near me. One date and I was hooked. Signed, sealed and delivered into the hands of the devil himself."

  Why had she said all that? She finally realized Kyle had stopped, having been so lost in her thoughts she hadn't paid any attention to him riding beside her. Now, she turned around to see him looking at her, gentle compassion in his eyes.

  Embarrassed at having revealed so much, she turned in her saddle and stared straight ahead, hoping Kyle would take up riding again and not mention anything about what she had just told him.

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  Fortunately he started moving, and they rode in silence. Why had she told him about her past? It seemed so easy to talk to him about her childhood, her mother's wishes for her, and how she felt when she met and married Mark. Sabrina never told anyone those stories before. With Kyle they just slipped out as if telling him about her life was as natural as breathing.

  Eventually they reached a pasture. A herd of cattle grazed on the lush green grasses, and Sabrina marveled at the landscape. It was almost noon, and the sun shone brightly over a brilliantly colored meadow of green grasses and tall, shady oak trees. Interspersed throughout the fields were wildflowers, stunning in their purples and yellows.

  abrina inhaled the sweet scent of jasmine, thoroughly enjoying the exhilarating feeling of being outdoors in the warm sunshine, the cool spring breeze caressing her face. She took a deep breath and could actually smell summer approaching.

  "Oh Kyle, it's so beautiful here."

  He dismounted, and Sabrina followed suit. Kyle looked over the pasture as he tethered the horses to a nearby tree. "It's always nicest in the spring. Wait until summer when there's no rain and everything turns brown and dry like the desert. Then it won't be so beautiful."

  "Yes it will." The whole ranch atmosphere was like a living dream to her. Having lived most of her life in hotels, moving from town to town to compete in the next beauty contest, the idea of wide open spaces and owning land as far as the eye could see was overwhelming. She wouldn't care if the land looked like a razed shopping mall after a wicked tornado.

  "Here, hold on to these and follow me." He handed Sabrina two pairs of work gloves. Grabbing what looked like a large spool of wire and a compact tool kit from his saddlebag, he motioned for her to follow him as they headed toward the fences.

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  Jaci Burton

  "Put these gloves on. I'll need you to help me hold these posts together while I string the wire." Sabrina did as she was told, putting on the leather gloves that were way too large for her, and held on to the spool as Kyle unwound a length of wire and snipped it off with the cutters.

  "What are we doing?" she asked.

  "We're rewiring the gate." The gate was in actuality nothing more than two large posts at the tail end of the fence, leaning against each other and obviously meant to be closed by wire loops. Sabrina watched as Kyle expertly wound the wire over the top of the two posts, securing them together.

  "That ought to keep the critters in the pasture now."

  "Critters?"

  Kyle managed a quick grin. "Cows. The gate loops came loose, and sometimes the cows wander off onto a neighboring rancher's land. And sometimes someone comes along and removes the wi
res purposely in order to let the cows loose."

  Sabrina watched his eyes harden like glass as he surveyed the land on the other side of the gate.

  "Who would do that? Vandals?"

  "Yeah, something like that."

  "So the land on the other side belongs to your neighbor?"

  Kyle snorted. "Yeah. Jackson Dent."

  "And you don't like him?"

  "No, I don't like him."

  "Why not?"

  He shot a smoldering glare at her. "You sure ask a lot of questions."

  "I'm just curious why you don't like your neighbor. Aren't neighboring ranchers typically friendly?"

  "Some are."

  "But you and Jackson Dent aren't because..."

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  Rescue Me

  "Just leave it alone, Sabrina."

  Oh sure, he asked all kinds of questions about her life, which she willingly volunteered, but then one simple question and he clammed up on her.

  "I just wanted to know if..."

  "I said I don't want to talk about it!" Kyle all but shouted his response to her.

  She didn't flinch. She'd been yelled at too many times over the years to let a slightly raised voice unnerve her. But this time, it wasn't her husband yelling at her, it was her partner. And this time, she vowed things would be different.

  "I was just asking a simple question. It's not necessary to bite my head off over it. How am I going to learn about ranching if you don't tell me everything?"

  "You don't need to know about this."

  "Why not?"

  "Dammit, Sabrina! I said leave it alone and I meant it!" Kyle stormed off toward the horses.

  She ran after him and grabbed his arm. His eyes were molten green fire, shooting sparks of anger at her. "Stop yelling at me!"

  "Then stop asking stupid questions!"

  "It's your job to teach me, and that means if I have a question then you need to answer it. That's why I invested my money with you, so I could learn something!" She was shouting as loud as he was, a fact that wasn't lost on her. Never had she raised her voice to Mark--not after the first time she'd tried to argue with him. She had known better after that.

  "I agreed to teach you about ranching, and that's what I'm going to do. My relationship with Jackson Dent is none of your business, and has nothing to do with the ranch." He stepped closer, his expression intense and angry. She felt the anger radiating from him, yet refused to step back.