It was the scream from a wild mustang that shattered the evening calm. Eight of them had been brought to the ranch to be trained and cared for with the hope of finding each a good home when the rehabilitation was done. But there was so much public outcry that their population was increasing too fast, doubling every four years and wreaking havoc. Ranchers in the area claimed the damage done to the open government grasslands prevented others from using it for feeding their livestock. There was talk of thinning out the herd by any means available. That meant rifles. That meant innocent horses would die.
The Circle M was one of many ranches to become involved with saving the mustang. It had joined with other ranches in an effort to bring the wild horses back for rehabilitation. For four years crews from the ranch had journeyed to New Mexico and Arizona a couple of times a year. The results so far had been good.
The office door burst open. Amanda’s eyes were wild as though in shock. “Is Emma with you? Do you have her?”
“No,” Holly answered as a bolt of pure fear shot down her spine.
“She was standing just inside the office door. I stopped to talk to Kenneth and apparently Emma ventured back outside. I can’t find her. Anywhere.”
Holly burst into a dead run, heading for the holding pens and calling over her shoulder for Amanda to go to the barn.
Chance stepped out of the chopper, thanking the pilot for the ride. As soon as it was airborne again, he walked to the nearest holding corral, watching while the cowboys separated the mares from the stallions. In this bunch that had just come in, there was only one male. And it appeared he wasn’t going to go quietly. Finally, in a combined effort, he was separated from the rest and placed into another pen by himself. He was not happy. A few days to settle down and he would start the long training process. Chance wished he could be here to help. But he had other battles to fight, namely the war against the terrorists in Afghanistan.
He’d been reinstated. He should be doing backflips. But he was grim. He’d done a lot of thinking over the past few days. For all his SEAL training, he hadn’t come up with a solution to keep Holly in his life. Being back on the ranch, he felt the situation was as hopeless as when he’d left. He hadn’t wanted to tell her over a phone. And he hoped she might have some idea, regardless of how crazy, that would let them stay together. For the first time in his life, Chance was ready to say “I do” and afraid she would say “I don’t.” Slapping his gloves against his leg, he walked toward the house.
He hadn’t gotten very far when he heard a woman calling Emma’s name. As the tension in her voice grew more and more frantic, it immediately made Chance go on full alert. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Holly running toward Amanda like the devil himself was on her tail. Why would Holly’s friend, Amanda, be calling Emma as though she didn’t know where she was? Chance stopped. That sixth sense he’d always relied on had the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up. Something was wrong. He turned around and started jogging back to the barn. Then Holly took off, running toward the other side of the barn where the mustangs were being kept. She was running frantically in circles, now screaming Emma’s name.
He caught up with her, his hands holding her shoulders as he tried to understand what was wrong. She was almost hysterical.
“Holly, talk to me. Where is Emma?”
“Chance? You’re here?” She fell into his arms before pushing back. “We can’t find Emma. I got a call from Jim Dugan, your ranch manager, asking me if I could please come up and take a look at the new batch of mustangs and see if I can spot anything that needed immediate attention. I was in his office and Emma was standing next to me. Amanda had just brought her inside. The door was closed. The next thing we knew she was gone.”
“Okay. Try to calm down. We’ll find her.”
“How could she have gotten out of that room without me seeing her?” Then, as though she realized talking about what happened was wasting time, she once again started screaming for the baby. Her face was red, her eyes swollen and it appeared shock was settling in.
In between the screams Chance heard something. It sounded like an infant’s laughter. Where was she? She couldn’t be far. Apparently Holly had heard it, too. Her frantic calls stopped and she, too, was trying to home in on where the laugh had come from. Chance watched as Holly walked toward the holding pens on the west side of the barn. She paused. Seconds later she was screaming again. This time it was his name.
Chance ran toward her faster than humanly possible. From the direction Holly was looking he knew the only thing she saw were the pens that contained the wild mustangs. As he reached Holly, one glance told him the little kid was in big trouble. Emma was holding up her hand, clinching what looked like some grass. And she was offering it to the mustang stallion.
Like a crazed person, Chance took off for the baby, fear tearing down his spine, closing his throat and shutting down his mind to all but one thought: get to Emma before the mustang did. In his mind he was back in Iraq commanding his body to make up those three seconds. Another tiny life rested in his hands, and that thought turned to pure adrenaline. He would not let another child die needlessly. He would not let Emma be hurt.
He cleared the six-foot-high fence as though it didn’t exist. About the time he landed on the other side, the stallion had seen the baby. She was still walking toward it holding up the grass in her hand. The mustang’s ears were flat against its head as it pawed the ground and bared its teeth, all signs of imminent attack. There was a distance of about ten feet between the mustang and Emma. The horse could lurch that far in one stride. Chance had to run faster, harder. He needed those three seconds.
The situation played out in slow motion with every sinew in his body straining to go faster. Chance caught the baby in his arms, never breaking stride. He jumped up onto the fence on the east side just as the stallion pounced. Knowing it missed its target, it first reared up, then wheeled around and kicked the fence, the strike landing less than a foot away from where Chance held the baby.
By now the cowboys had heard the commotion and were coming out to help. When he jumped down on the outside of the fence, Emma’s head was against his shoulder, her little arms around his neck, and nothing he’d ever experienced in his life had ever felt so great.
He walked toward Holly, who was running to him.
“Hoshee!” Emma exclaimed, giggling.
“Yeah,” Chance answered. “Bad hoshee. Emma stay away from that hoshee. Okay?”
“Bah hoshee.”
He handed her to Holly, who hugged her as though she never wanted to let her go. Tears were flowing down her cheeks.
“Thank you, Chance. Oh, my gosh. Thank you.”
As she hugged him to her, the baby turned in her arms and was patting his chest. “Ta you.” And Chance hugged them both.
Holly paced the floor. The incident with Emma had shaken her up so badly her heart hadn’t slowed down even two hours after it happened. Amanda had offered to take Emma back to her parents, but Holly refused to let Emma out of her sight. She would have nightmares for a very long time after what had happened. She and Amanda had talked and neither could understand how the baby had gotten out the office door, walked all the way across the private road and into the pen with that mustang. Thank God for Chance. Emma could have been dead right now. Holly couldn’t even get her mind around that. She owed Chance more than she could ever repay.
But what was he doing here? She knew his hearing had been scheduled for yesterday afternoon. She’d been waiting for the phone call that never came. Then suddenly he’d shown up in time to save her baby. She didn’t know what to make of it. She thought about going to the big house and asking him. But in addition to the fact she was still trembling over Emma’s close call, she believed if Chance wanted her to know the outcome of his hearing he would tell her. It wouldn’t make the answer different if she went over and beat on his door, although that was exactly what she wanted to do.
Lightning flashed in the distance. Standing at the window, Holly wished this nightmare could be over. Chance would be leaving. She felt it. The doctor here had given him a clean bill of health, saying the wounds were healing nicely. That was a good thing. The medical evaluation board had probably decided in his favor and allowed Chance to go back to his team. She and Emma would continue their lives and maybe, someday, Chance would come back. He still loved the ranch. Maybe if he retired from the military he would come here to live out his life.
As the thunder rolled in, she continued to pace. She hated waiting for something to happen once it was a done deal. She had learned the hard way she was lousy at saying goodbye. Ironically Chance was always the one she was saying goodbye to. While she didn’t want Chance to leave—ever—if he was going to she wanted it over with. Counting down the hours and minutes until he boarded the plane and left her was tying her insides into knots. A tear broke loose and fell down her cheek. Absently she brushed it away. Only to have it replaced by another.
She really needed to stop this. She’d accepted that Chance would never stay. It was so stupid of her to have her own little pity party like this. She walked into the bathroom and grabbed a section of tissue to blow her nose and wipe her eyes.