Her Cowboy Hero. Tanya Michaels

the cover of darkness outside, being beneath the stable’s electric lights made him feel too exposed, as if Hannah would be able to glimpse into his memories. He cleared his throat, shifting focus on the horses that had begun to wander into stalls from the outside paddock.

      “Guess they know it’s dinnertime,” he said. “How many horses are there?” There were a total of eight spacious stalls, and the stable was in better shape than either the main house or his current quarters. Whoever had owned the ranch before, decor hadn’t been his or her top priority.

      “Four. Mavis here is the oldest,” she said, coming forward to stroke the nose of a sorrel mare. “She’s been on the ranch for seventeen years. I take her out for exercise, but when this place is up and running, I don’t plan to let guests ride her. There’s Tilly and Apples, both Tennessee walkers and good with people. Viper’s the black gelding. He’s a little sneaky, but doesn’t challenge confident riders.”

      She showed Colin where the oats and feed buckets were. They hung them over the stall doors and snapped them into place. He noticed that the wood at Viper’s stall had been chewed.

      “That may be an indication that he needs more roughage,” he commented. “Might want to give him more hay before he fills up on the oats.”

      Evan was suitably quiet and restrained around the horses. Hannah had obviously taught him stable manners. Or he was intimidated by the thousand-pound beasts. He eyed them with a combination of adoration and apprehension.

      “We have a donkey, too,” Evan informed Colin. “His name is Ninja.”

      Hannah took her son’s hand and gently led him out of the stall where Colin was running a brush over Apples, getting to know the horse and checking her general condition. “I laughed the first time Michael told me donkeys were used to help protect the cattle against predators.” She bit her lip. “Michael was my husband.”

      “The marine.” He met her gaze, understanding the relief he saw there. She was glad he already knew, sparing her any awkward explanations. “I heard about him in town.”

      According to Colin’s waitress, Michael had been killed before his son was born. Hannah’s late husband had never seen Evan drag his green blanket across the dusty floor or heard his son ask when he would be big enough to ride a horse all by himself. At least I had two years with Danny before he was ripped away. But in some ways, wasn’t that worse? There were still nights Colin woke from dreams of the past with the sound of his toddler’s surprisingly deep belly laugh echoing in his ears.

      “Last month, I watched Ninja circle up the cows with the youngest of the herd in the center,” Hannah continued. “I never got a look at what they were reacting to—”

      “Coyotes, probably.”

      She nodded. “The incident gave me a new appreciation for donkeys as unexpected heroes.”

      There was that word again. She’d called him a hero earlier, and he’d bristled, resenting the implied expectations that came with such lofty praise. But if she was comfortable using the same terminology when describing a donkey, maybe Colin should relax and get over himself.

      It was a radical thought.

      While Hannah and Evan stepped outside to see if they could find the Big Dipper, Colin tried to recall the last time he’d been relaxed. In the weeks following his brother’s engagement Colin had figuratively held his breath, afraid that Justin—notorious for being unable to commit—would somehow screw up the best thing that had ever happened to him. Though Colin didn’t spend much time in Cielo Peak these days, the habit of worrying after his siblings was tough to break. He should have been at ease during his last few ranch jobs, doing work he enjoyed, but circumstances such as Delia McCoy’s unwanted interest had prevented that from happening.

      Well, you won’t find contentment here. Not with Evan looking for opportunities to talk his ear off and the losing battle of trying to help Hannah turn the run-down house into a tourist destination. Yet even as Colin reminded himself of the reasons he wasn’t staying, he had to admit that right now, in this quiet stable, he was experiencing the closest thing to peace he’d felt in longer than he could remember. And he was in no hurry to give that up.