The Rancher's Wedding - Diana Palmer Page 0,23
long time ago?”
“Six years,” he said. “My older brother’s unit had been called up three years before all that and he died over in the Middle East.”
“I’m truly sorry. At least I still have my father.”
“I miss my grandfather,” he confessed. He’d missed his mother, but he and his father weren’t close. They had very little in common until after JL went to college and then his father found him interesting. His dad missed teaching. It was the only thing he ever talked about.
They rode along in a peaceful silence for a few minutes, with only the creaking of saddle leather and the pleasant rhythm of the horses’ hooves on hard ground making a noise.
Snow was just starting to fall. She lifted her face to it and smiled. The wind picked up and she shivered slightly.
“Cold?” he asked, reining in.
“Just a little chill,” she lied. “I love snow.”
“Nobody who ranches out here loves it, I can promise you,” he chuckled. He glanced out over the landscape. The mountains were topped with snow. The ground was getting lightly covered with white.
“I hope we get enough to make a snowman,” she said, laughing.
He glanced at her, fascinated with the way she looked when she laughed. She was pretty, in her way. He liked her all too well.
“We’d better get moving before we turn into snowmen,” he teased.
“I guess so.”
They rode on down the trail when a sudden blur of movement stopped them in their tracks. Wolves!
There were several of them. Cassie’s heart almost stopped as one of them halted just a few yards away and growled. Her horse neighed and reared.
“Don’t jerk on the reins,” JL said suddenly. “Just sit still. They aren’t after us.”
She shivered, and not from the cold. She’d never really seen a wolf up close. They were huge! She hadn’t realized how big they were, or how dangerous they could look when they snarled.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw JL pull a long rifle out of a scabbard on his saddle. He shouldered it and looked down the sights, controlling the uneasy motion of his horse with his legs.
The wolf obviously thought he meant business, because it turned its head toward the others and loped away without a backward glance.
Cassie let out the breath she’d been holding. Or she tried to. She couldn’t get the air out, which was the major problem with people who had asthma. Getting air in was easy. Getting it back out could be an issue.
She needed her rescue inhaler, but it was under her buttoned coat, in her purse. She swung down out of the saddle, a little unsteadily, and moved away from the horse, fighting to breathe.
“Here, now, it was just a wolf or two,” he said, faintly irritated by her reaction. He put the rifle back in its scabbard. “Nothing to get so upset about.”
She couldn’t talk to tell him what was wrong. She was fumbling with her jacket, trying to get to her inhaler. She panted like a winded runner.
JL’s dark eyes narrowed as he swung down out of his saddle gracefully and moved toward her. His ex-fiancée had overreacted like that anytime she was upset. It was a painful reminder of what he’d lost, and it made him irritable. “Hell,” he said with a scowl. “Don’t be so melodramatic. You were in no danger!”
When she felt better, she thought dimly, she was going to kick him in the knee. Meanwhile, it was an ordeal just to get half a breath of air.
She finally worked her way into the purse under her light jacket and dragged out the rescue inhaler. She sat down on the ground, shivering, and held it up to her mouth. She took a puff and waited for the soothing spray to ease down into her tortured lungs and reduce the spasms.
He suddenly seemed to realize what had happened. He went down on one knee. “Here, are you all right?” he asked with belated concern.
She didn’t answer him. She couldn’t. One puff wasn’t enough, and she had to wait a minute or two before she took another. It was frightening to smother like this. The cold air, the chill, the unexpected wolf sighting, all had combined to bring on an attack. She hadn’t been using the preventative her doctor had prescribed. It was hard enough to afford the rescue inhaler. The other medicine was expensive, and she’d tried to do without it. Not a good idea, apparently.
He watched while she took a second puff