Rancher and Protector - Softcover

Britton, Pamela

3.86

49 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373753772 ISBN 13: 9780373753772

Publisher: Harlequin American Romance, 2011

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Amber Brooks took the job at Camp Cowboy to find a way to reach her special-needs nephew—not to go gaga over the best-looking guy she's ever laid eyes on. True, Colt Sheridan can teach her a thing or two about horses, but Amber knows better than to trust anyone with her secret. And yet...just what is it about cowboys?

Going undercover at the camp is Colt's way of finding out where "Aunt Amber" has hidden his buddy's little boy. In exchange, his friend's promised him a prize-winning horse. And what this rodeo rider really wants is a shot at the national championship. Unfortunately, what he's got is a crush on the softhearted equine intern. But if Amber is such a good person, how can she keep a man from his own son?

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About the Author:

With over a million books in print, Pamela Britton likes to call herself the best known author nobody’s ever heard of. Of course, that’s begun to change thanks to a certain licensing agreement with that little racing organization known as NASCAR. But before the glitz and glamour of NASCAR, Pamela wrote books that were frequently voted the best of the best by The Detroit Free Press, Barnes & Noble (two years in a row) and RT BOOKclub Magazine.

"All right, horse. We can do this the hard way or the easy way."

Amber Brooks stared at the animal in question, a tiny window placed high in the wall giving her a perfect view of the brown horse as it cocked its head in her direction. The look it gave her clearly indicated disdain.

"Okay, the hard way." Her hands tightened around the nylon strap someone had told her was a halter—although she had no idea how it worked.

"Just go play with a horse," she murmured under her breath, mimicking the camp director. "You'll do fine."

As if handling an animal as big as a bookcase would be "easy." What if it bolted out of the stall? Or charged in her direction? Or, God forbid, tried to bite her?

"Nice horsey horsey," she said. The animal's black mane seemed more of a dark gray in the stall's ambient light—like the color of a snake. She shivered.

Her feet felt heavy in the thick bed of pine shavings. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She stopped by its head and looked down at the halter. Now what? Obviously, the smaller hole went around the horse's nose. Or maybe its ear? But there was only one hole and so that didn't make sense. Nose, she decided.

A soft breath wafted across her crotch.

"Whoa," she cried, jumping back. "We don't know each other well enough for you to be doing that."

Someone coughed.

Amber turned in surprise to see John Wayne standing outside the stall.

Well, okay, it wasn't really John Wayne, but it sure was a cowboy. Black hat. Checkered beige shirt. Cool blue eyes.

"He's just trying to get to know you," the man said, his deep baritone splashed with a Southern accent. "He doesn't mean anything by it."

Easy for the cowboy to say. Amber couldn't take her eyes off her unexpected visitor. He was gorgeous. A hunk-o-hunk of burning love, as her friend Rachel would say. And just what was it about cowboys? They all looked the same. Five o'clock shadows. Square jaws. The smell of outdoors clinging to them. Was it part of the cowboy genome?

"I don't mean to be rude," she said. "But do I know you?"

He shook his head. "Colton Sheridan. I was hired on Thursday."

Just as she'd been, Amber thought. Well, she didn't get hired on Thursday, but she was new to Camp Cowboy, too.

"Gil sent me in here to help you out," he said.

Gil. The camp director. Gil and Buck had been looking for some additional help since the moment they'd realized their enrollment numbers were nearly triple what they'd been the previous year. Buck was off buying more horses, which left Gil in charge. Not many horses in the heart of San Francisco, but that's where the camp was. Amber once again marveled at their location—smack-dab in the middle of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Step outside the barn and the high-rises were clearly visible in the distance.

"Nice to meet you, Colton, but I'd rather tackle this on my own."

That's what she was supposed to be doing: learning about horses. She'd come to Camp Cowboy committed to the idea of becoming a hippotherapist. Therapy was her thing. She specialized in speech therapy now, but she'd heard of some remarkable breakthroughs when children were exposed to horses. She might not like the animals, but she would get over that.

Anything for Dee.

She turned back to the horse. Its name was Flash, or so she'd read outside the stall. She hoped that didn't mean it'd trample her in a flash.

"It goes the other way," he told her when she held up the halter.

Oh, yeah. That was right. She'd been told that by Jarrod, the man who was supposed to mentor her through the process. He'd shown her how to halter a horse yesterday. Obviously, she hadn't been paying attention too well. She flipped the thing around.

"Not that way," Colton said with a small shake of his handsome head. She hated overly attractive men. They always made her feel so...so uncomfortable.

"The hole goes over the nose," he added. "The long strap buckles behind the horse's ears."

"Right." she murmured.

"Here." The stall gate, which was on rollers, whooshed open like supermarket doors. "I'll do it for you."

"No, no," she said quickly, her feet bogged down in wood chips once again. He was tall. That was another thing she didn't like. Tall men intimidated the hell out of her. Jarrod, the registered hippotherapist she was working with, was short and blond. She could deal with short and blond.

She could deal with this, too. "I can do it."

She heard the stall door close with a bang just the same, and the sound startled Flash.

What followed was not Amber's proudest moment.

She shrieked; the horse turned away from her. The back end of the animal bashed into the wall with a boom, sending dust and debris down from the rafters. Her feet became entangled in the wood chips again. She started to fall...

He kept her from going down with a hand against her shoulder.

"Sorry about that," he told her. "I didn't think it would close so easily."

You idiot, she wanted to say. But he wasn't paying attention to her, anyway. Flash was now dancing around the stall as if Amber was a monster.

"Don't move," Colton told her. "Easy there."

Easy? There was nothing easy about this horse. The iron-shod animal had to be at least six feet tall.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I don't mean to sound panicked, but shouldn't we get out of here while the getting's good?"

He appeared to be sizing her up. "We'll be fine," he said, stepping toward the horse.

Over her shoulder, she could see that the brown beast was back to eyeing her nervously. Its swishing tail sounded like a jump rope in motion.

"No offense," she said, "but are you sure you're qualified to give direction to nonhorsey people?" After all, it was his fault the animal was acting up.

She saw Colton's eyebrows rise. They were a little too thick for her taste. "I've spent a lot of time on ranches."

"And I've spent a lot of time in a city. Doesn't mean I know how to teach people to drive."

One side of his mouth lifted in a cowboy smile—which was more of a smirk. "Point taken. I've ridden horses my entire life. I'm comfortable sharing what I know."

"In that case," she said. "I'm really glad to meet you, Colton. I'm Amber Brooks."

"Colt," he quickly corrected. "And I know. You're an intern here. You're learning to become a hippo-therapist."

"I'm actually one of the camp's speech therapists, too. Hippotherapy is just something I'm hoping to study while I'm here."

He was giving her that look again. The one that made her want to wiggle like a worm on a hook. "Don't take this wrong, but you sure you want to work with horses?"

"No."

"No?"

She turned toward Flash, releasing a sigh. How to explain her life? How to explain about Dee, the nephew she loved so much? How to explain the situation with Dee's dad? That Sharron was dead, and that Dee's father was in jail...because he'd killed her sister. Not intentionally, but just about.

"It's complicated," she said.

And she shouldn't explain, anyway. The fact was Dee had been enrolled in Camp Cowboy this season, and the only one who knew that was the camp director, Gil. Amber planned to keep it that way, too.

"Try me," he said.

She shook her head. "No, seriously, it's not worth getting into. I just want to learn about horses. Hip-potherapy intrigues me."

And there he went, staring at her again. It was the oddest sort of look. As if he was trying to peel back the rind of a pomegranate, to get to the ruby-red seeds beneath. "You don't look like any kind of therapist," he mused.

"That's because I left my thick-framed glasses in my room."

He smirked again. "So you mind me asking why someone who doesn't know a thing about horses, and who doesn't want to become a hippotherapist, is trying to put a halter on one?"

She had to turn away.

"I'm an equine intern. That means I'll be lending a hand with the kids throughout the next few weeks. That means working with horses, obviously, so I need to get used to them. The horses, I mean."

She sneezed before she could stop herself. The horse's head popped up, and she braced herself for impact.

Nothing happened.

Flash returned to nuzzling the ground, apparently intrigued with something it found there. Ah. Food.

"Should I bother it while it's eating?"

"Nope. Horses are always looking for something to munch. If you wait for him to stop, you'll be standing there all day."

Damn, but his accent was really Southern. "If you say so." She gave Flash the same look she used when dealing with a petulant child. "Horse, prepare to be haltered."

Colt almost laughed. Almost.

He hadn't laughed in years, or so it seemed. Not since.well, a lifetime ago.

"Easy there," said the woman he'd been told was the most dishonest piece of work this side of the Mississippi.

Standing in a beam of sunlight, she looked like an angel. One of those made-in-Taiwan Christmas tree toppers, the kind with masses and masses of fake blond ringlets. Except her hair was real. He took in the bloom of color across her cheeks. Her tipped up nose. Plump lower lip.

Gorgeous.

"Shit."

"What?" she asked, turning toward him. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"No," he said. Get a grip, Colt. You've seen beautiful women before. "Just walk on up to him. Trust me, he knows what you want to do."

She didn't look like a criminal.

But Logan, his best friend, swore up and down t...

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