Dallas turned and started walking, his shoulders hunched forward, his hat pulled low. Patience watched him disappear into the darkness and wished that she could go with him.

CHAPTER 13.

Patience and Shari got an early start in the morning, leaving the rodeo grounds in the wake of the stock trucks, following Dallas and Stormy in Dallas's fancy black rig. Patience drove the pickup and trailer as they headed down I-25, making the short, hundred-eighty-mile haul to Cheyenne, a weeklong rodeo with more than six hundred thousand dollars in prize money that attracted the top cowboys in the nation.

"I've read a lot about Frontier Days," Patience said to Shari. "The first one was held way back in 1897. People came by train from a hundred miles away. You could sit in the bleachers for free but it cost thirty-five cents to sit in the grandstands. The papers called it 'The Great Cowboy Carnival at Cheyenne.'"

Shari laughed. "I love all that stuff you know about the West. You're really going to make a great professor."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, don't you?"

"My dad is a really great teacher. The students love him."

"He teach history, too?"

"American history. One of his courses is called Outlaws, Renegades, and Lawmen. It's completely filled every semester."

"Sounds like something I'd like to take."

"Are you looking forward to going back to school?"

Shari fiddled with a curl of red hair. "Actually, it's amazing how much I am. I love rodeos. I guess I always will. But I'm tired of the travel, of staying in cheap motels and eating in crummy cafes. I want a real life, you know? With a husband and kids and a house of my own. You're going to be a professor. I was thinking, once I got through college, I might try teaching, myself. I'd rather work with little kids, though. Kindergarten or first graders."

Patience had noticed Shari with the kids who came up to look at Button. Shari encouraged them to pet him, but she was always careful to make sure they didn't get hurt. "I think you'd be a terrific teacher."

They talked for a while about their future plans then both of them fell silent. Patience was thinking of her return to Boston at the end of the summer and she figured Shari was thinking of having to leave Stormy. They stopped for a fresh cup of coffee at a little cafe in the Best Western motel in Douglas, parting ways with Dallas's rig and the livestock trucks, then pulled back onto the highway stretching across the vast Wyoming prairie that went all the way to Cheyenne.

"What's that up ahead?" Shari asked, sitting forward, pointing toward a collection of flashing lights that appeared on the horizon.

"I don't know. Looks like an accident or something." Patience slowed the pickup as they drew closer, falling in behind the line of slow-moving cars in front of them.

"Oh, my God!" Her fingers tightened on the wheel as she recognized one of the Circle C livestock trucks lying on its side, flipped over in a dry, shallow ditch along the edge of the road. The trailer had been ripped open as if it were tinfoil and she could see several big bucking horses lying in the back.

"Oh, God, what could have happened?" Shari stared at the accident ahead. The pickup seemed to crawl forward, each moment an hour as the cars rolled in single file toward the wreckage.

Patience frantically searched for any other vehicles that might have been involved in the incident, but no other damaged autos appeared anywhere in sight. As soon as they reached the overturned trailer, she pulled the pickup off the road, out of the lane of traffic, and turned off the engine, her hands shaking as she reached down to pull on the emergency brake. Dallas's Dodge sat on the shoulder ahead of them, and several other cars and trucks had also pulled off the road.

The chaos around them was a scene from a nightmare. Patience's chest tightened as she cracked open the door and jumped down from the cab, started toward the terrible sight in front of her.

On both sides of the road, injured horses roamed aimlessly, their eyes glazed with fear and pain, some of them limping, others cut and bleeding. Horses shrieked and whinnied, others thrashed on the ground, digging up the earth with their hooves. The police had slowed traffic to a crawl and some of the officers were trying to help the Circle C cowboys corral the terrified animals that remained on their feet.

A big buckskin mare wandered along the interstate, the side of her neck torn and bloody. A rawboned sorrel dragged his back leg, while a tall pinto gelding bled from a gash on its forehead.

A lump swelled in Patience's throat. She couldn't stand to see the animals suffering. If only there were something she could do. Then she spotted the blue roan Dallas had ridden in Sheridan-Hellfire, she remembered-thrashing on its side at the edge of the road. Tears blurred her vision and her throat ached so hard she couldn't swallow.

Dallas knelt beside the horse, his shirt spattered with blood, trying to calm the animal and stop the blood flowing out of a wound in its chest. Speaking softly to the horse, Patience knelt beside him and gently stroked his neck.

"Easy, boy. You're gonna be all right."

The horse neighed softly, its head jerking up, then falling back to the ground.

"Easy," she said.

Charlie walked up just then, looking more haggard than she had ever seen him. "He gonna make it?"

Dallas slowly shook his head.

"Go ahead, then. No use lettin' him suffer."

Patience turned away as Stormy handed Dallas a needle and he slid the long thin, stainless shaft into the animal's neck. The blue roan thrashed a couple more times, then went still, its eyes staring sightlessly ahead.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked away from the horse and felt a tug on her arm.

"Come on," Shari said softly. "Let's go see what we can do to help."

Patience swallowed and nodded. Steeling herself, she fell into step beside her friend. As Dallas moved from horse to horse, sewing them up, administering shots to ease their pain, she and Shari joined some of the men who were driving the loose horses into a circle in a wide spot on the side of the road.

An hour went by before a tan veterinarian's van pulled up and two white-coated doctors climbed out. Charlie led them toward the circle of horses. The worst of the lot had already been singled out and the two men set to work. Dallas continued to help, doing his best with the limited medical supplies the Circle C crew kept on hand.

It was nearly noon when another stock truck arrived to carry the injured horses into the large animal veterinary hospital in Cheyenne, even later that the remaining horses were coaxed into another trailer and hauled off to the rodeo grounds.

Patience spotted Dallas and Stormy, their clothes covered with blood, walking toward the big diesel truck that had been hauling the livestock trailer. Dallas's face was lined with fatigue and Stormy's features looked eerily grim.

"Are you okay?" Shari said to Stormy.

Stormy shook his head. When he turned, Shari put her arms around him and he just stood there holding on to her.

"I'm so sorry," Patience said to Dallas. "I've never seen anything so terrible."

A knot formed in his jaw. Dallas just kept walking. She knew he must be hurting as badly as she, probably worse. She wished there was something she could say, something she could do. Silently, she fell into step beside him, wondering where he was going, keeping pace with his long strides until he stopped at the rear of the diesel truck and began to examine the hitch.

"Poor Charlie," she said. "It doesn't seem fair. He's just had so much trouble lately."

"Too much trouble," Dallas said darkly. "Way more trouble than he should have." He studied the bent, twisted piece of metal that had torn free of the fifth wheel hitch, causing the tractor to disconnect from the trailer, and she wondered what he saw.

Salty Marvin walked up just then, the lines of his weathered face etched even more deeply. "Charlie wants me to drive the rig on into town. We'll be needin' to get this hitch fixed."

Dallas looked down at the hitch. "When you get to town, I want you to take this truck straight to the sheriff's office. I'll meet you there. I want those guys to go over this rig from top to bottom."

"You think they're gonna find somethin'?" Salty asked. "You think somebody done somethin' to cause this?"

"Yeah, I do. I'm beginning to think these accidents Charlie's been having aren't accidents at all."

Patience's eyes widened. "Surely you don't think someone would do a terrible thing like this on purpose!"

Dallas's features looked carved in stone. "That's exactly what I think-and I'm going to find out who it is."

Dallas pulled up in front of the Laramie County Sheriff's Office on Pioneer Avenue. It was his second trip in two days. Yesterday, he had spoken to Sheriff Auggie Harden about the accident on the interstate and his suspicion that it wasn't an accident at all. Dallas had told the sheriff about the problems the Circle C had been having over the past several months, a string of bad luck that led him to believe someone was out to make trouble for Charlie Carson.

Big trouble, it seemed.

Sheriff Harden had called the next day. He had asked Dallas to bring his uncle down to the office. Charlie had grudgingly agreed.

"I still think you're crazy," Charlie said to Dallas as he turned off the engine of his truck in front of the big brick building. "I may have pissed off a few people over the years, but not enough to do something so bad as what happened out there on the road. The hitch was faulty, is all. It's the kind of thing that happens."

"I hope you're right. Let's see what the sheriff has to say."

They pushed through the doors of the three-story brick and glass building that housed both the sheriff's department and jail. Dallas led the way down the corridor to the reception area, and a few minutes later, they were shown into Sheriff Harden's private office.

It was neat and orderly, partially wood-paneled, his L-shaped desk organized, a computer handy on his left. Dallas introduced Charlie, who shook the sheriff's hand.

"Why don't you both have a seat?" Harden said. He was a little taller than average, dark-haired, with a thick mustache and glasses. He had the kind of face a politician needed, the kind that said he was a man you could trust.

"Have your people had a chance to go over the tractor hitch?" Dallas asked the minute the three men were seated, the sheriff once more behind his desk.

"I'm afraid they have."

"And?" Charlie asked.

"The mechanic didn't see it at first. According to him, a lot of trucking companies have the damned things removed so something like this can't happen."

"I'm afraid I'm not following you," Dallas said.

"According to Joe-he's the mechanic-most of the new trucks are equipped with a switch inside the cab that can release the fifth wheel to unhitch the trailer. It's a cylinder, activated by air pressure. This one's been tampered with."

Dallas's jaw knotted. "Sonofabitch."

"How was it done?" Charlie asked, leaning forward in his seat.

"Like I said, Joe didn't see it at first. But he kept on looking. Found a little hole drilled in the valve. It caused the mechanism to leak a small amount of air. The hitch worked fine until the truck was driven a while, but the leak caused the pressure to slowly build. Finally, it released the hitch. Joe figures when the truck was going down that grade, the pressure was off the movable side of the hitch and it came open. When the truck started back up the hill, the trailer came loose and drifted away. It could have hit another car or jumped into the oncoming traffic. It's lucky no one was killed."

No one besides three of Charlie's prized bucking horses. Dallas closed his eyes against a flash of blood and dying horses, the screams of injured animals lying on the road.

"Do you have any enemies, Mr. Carson?"

"A few. Most men do who've lived as long as I have."

The sheriff shoved a yellow pad across the desk in Charlie's direction. "Write down their names and where they can be found. We'll start running a check, see what we can find out."

Charlie wrote a couple of names and addresses, then the pen stilled. Dallas read the names and tapped on the page.

"Write down Junior Reese," he said.

"He only just come aboard the last couple weeks. We was havin' problems way before that."

"He doesn't like you. Write down his name."

Charlie complied.

"And put down Wes McCauley."

Charlie's head came up. "Wes may have his faults, but he ain't the kind to do something like this."

"I think you're probably right, but I didn't believe he was the kind who'd try to take advantage of a woman half his size, either."

Charlie wrote down Wes's name, along with those of a couple of other cowboys he'd had run-ins with over the years, including a few he'd helped to blacklist from professional rodeo, either for writing bad checks, not paying entry fees, or not having paid a fine. Abusing animals could also get a cowboy blacklisted, but Charlie couldn't think of anyone he'd clashed with in that regard.

"I gotta tell ya, sheriff. Ain't a soul I can think of would kill a bunch of poor defenseless horses."

The sheriff removed his glasses, set them down on the top of his desk. "Someone damaged that hitch, Mr. Carson. According to your nephew, you've had other problems as well. An unusual amount of breakdowns and delays, bulls getting loose on the midway, an expensive lawsuit. He says you've even had some cattle rustled at your ranch back in Texas."

"Now wait a minute. Even if something is going on, all those problems happened while we've been on the road. Texas is a long way from Wyoming, and in the ranching business, every once in a while, cattle get stolen. There's no way the two are connected."

"Odds are you're right. For now, we'll concentrate on the problems your rodeo company has been facing. Can you think of anyone who might profit from causing you this kind of trouble?"

"Not really."

"Lem Wilkins," Dallas said. "He and his partner, Jack Stiles, are Charlie's biggest competitors in the rodeo business. They've been trying to get him to sell out to them for years. Recently, they bought three of Charlie's best bucking horses. After yesterday, with Charlie's bucking stock out of commission, the Flying S will be the company supplying the horses for the show."

The rest of Charlie's stock was headed back to the ranch. Even the horses that had come out of the wreck unscathed were skittish and hard to handle. They balked at going back in the trailer and Dallas didn't blame them. Charlie had a second string of animals in Texas. If he spent the money for a couple more good buckers, he'd be able to make it through the rest of the year. Barely.

"We'll check the two of them out." The sheriff stood up behind his desk. "In the meantime, I'd suggest you both keep your eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary. It seems to me these attacks might be escalating. So far no one's been hurt, but that could change in a heartbeat."

Dallas flicked a glance at Charlie, whose features looked drawn and grim. Charlie didn't want to believe any of this. He was a man whose handshake was his bond. He'd never do anything so underhanded and it was hard for him to believe that someone else would.

They said little on the way back to the arena, Charlie riding in the passenger seat in silence, looking like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.

Dallas clenched his jaw. If Charlie had trouble, then so did he. Dallas was determined to do whatever it took to protect the man who was more of a father to him than his real dad ever would be.

It was early the following morning. Patience couldn't sleep so she rolled out of bed just a few minutes after Shari, pulled on jeans and a tank top and left the trailer. She'd been thinking of Dallas and Charlie. Dallas believed the hitch on the truck had been tampered with, that the wreck was intentional. He and Charlie had spoken to the sheriff.

She found herself wandering toward Dallas's trailer, wondering what the sheriff had said, hurting for him and Charlie. She came to a stop when she saw him standing outside the door of his RV. He was looking into a mirror hanging above the fender of the trailer, shaving from a metal bowl filled with water. He wore boots and jeans, no shirt, the jeans unsnapped, his silver buckle hanging open. The jeans rode low, beneath a ridged, six-pack belly. Curly brown hair dusted a chest that was every bit as solid as it looked.

Desire filtered through her, a warm sticky heat that made her skin feel flushed and damp. She had never thought of herself as a particularly sensual woman. In fact, just the opposite. But looking at Dallas stirred images of raw, uninhibited sex and it was all she could do not to walk over and drag him off to bed.

She didn't, of course.

Dallas wanted to continue their affair through the end of summer. Part of her wanted to agree, to enjoy more of those hot, wicked nights she had sampled in Houston. The other part warned she would be putting her heart in danger. She was attracted to Dallas Kingman in a way she had never been to a man before. That attraction could grow into something even deeper, something that would wind up breaking her heart.

Accepting his proposition was far too risky. Still, the idea was tempting. More than tempting. It slithered through her mind like the snake in the garden of Eden, taunting her every minute of the day.