ChasetheLightning

Madeline
Baker

Blush Sensuality Level: This is
a suggestive romance (love scenes are not graphic).

Trey knows that the white stallion approaching
him is the one his grandfather told him would always carry him away from harm.
What he doesn’t know is that the horse will carry him away from danger and into
another world.

Amanda doesn’t know what to do with
the wounded, beautiful man on the white horse, but she does know that he evokes
an attraction that her fiancé never has. And though the man may not understand
the ways of the modern world, he knows the way to her heart. And that’s where
she plans to keep him.

A Blush®
historical romance
from Ellora’s Cave

To author Gail Link

For a particular phrase. She knows which one.

To David Valla

At Penske Motor Sales, Inc.,West Covina, CA,

Who made me fall in love with the Jag my heroine is
driving;

To SpiritWalker

For sharing his knowledge of Indians

And the Old West with me

To Glenn H. Welker

For allowing me to use The Origin of Animals story

And

Last but not least

To William R. Burkett

Who gave me the idea in the first place

And made it come alive

Thanks, all

The Apache warrior faced his enemies defiantly. Surrounded
by the bodies of his slain comrades, he lifted his war lance high overhead, his
death cry riding on the wings of the wind.

His enemies laughed and made rude gestures at him. The
warrior would die this day. And tonight they would sing of the Apache’s death
while they danced, his scalp and that of the other Apaches dangling from their
scalp poles.

The Apache warrior watched them impassively as he chanted
softly, his prayer for deliverance wending its way to the Great Spirit even as
he set his face toward death. “Hear me,
Usen
, grant me courage that I
may die well.”

A sudden stillness fell over the land.

The wind moaned through the tall prairie grass.

Curling fingers of thick gray mist rose up from the ground.

The Apache warrior fell silent. Glancing over his shoulder,
his eyes narrowed as he saw a horse emerge from the gathering mist. The
stallion’s hooves echoed like thunder, striking lightning from the earth as it
galloped toward him. Sunlight danced over the stallion’s dazzling white coat,
glinting like liquid silver in its flowing mane and tail. A thin black scar,
shaped like a bolt of lightning, adorned its right flank.

The warrior’s enemies fell back in superstitious awe as the
ghost horse approached. The Apache warrior stood his ground, the eagle feathers
in his hair fluttering in the rising wind.

The stallion slowed as it drew near, stopped to paw the
ground.

Grasping the stallion’s mane, the warrior swung onto its
back, and with a wild cry, he rode through the midst of his enemies, toward
freedom, toward home.

Arizona Territory

1869

“Come on, gents, it’s time to go.” Trey Long Walker watched
the frightened bank clerk as he shoved a handful of currency into a sack. Trey
hated bankers, with their mortgages and interest. Their big words and small, unforgiving
minds. His old man had lost their ranch when he couldn’t pay the mortgage. The
owner of the bank, J. S. Hollinger, had refused to give Trey’s father an
extension, saying it was beyond his control, but at the age of fifteen, Trey
had been old enough to know the truth. Their ranch had been located on a prime
piece of grassland, one that J. S. Hollinger had coveted for as long as Trey
could remember. The bitter memory of his family’s eviction and all that had
happened afterward was forever etched in his mind. He had ridden across their
old homestead before coming into town today. If he had needed fresh fuel for
his smoldering anger, he had found it. The house where he had grown up had been
torn down, replaced by a new one, with leaded glass windows and lots of fancy
trim. The outbuildings around the original barn were all new, freshly painted.
The whole place reeked of prosperity and complacency.

Sight unseen, Trey had hated the new owners. But today he
would have his revenge.

He waved the long barrel of his Colt under the prominent
nose of the man responsible for all he had lost, smiled behind the kerchief
that covered the lower half of his face as J. S. Hollinger’s eyes widened in
fear. Revenge, though it had been a long time coming, was sweet indeed.

Trey backed the portly banker into a corner, confident his
men would keep Hollinger’s nervous employees under control. Turning his back to
the rest of the room, Trey slowly lowered his kerchief so Hollinger could see
who it was who was going to kill him.

The banker’s face paled in recognition. “No.” He dropped
heavily to his knees. “Please, I have a wife…a family.”

“So did my old man.” Trey thumbed back the hammer of his
Colt. It was time to make Hollinger pay.

“Please,” Hollinger whimpered. He covered his face with his
hands, as if that would somehow protect him. “Please, no. Don’t…” Tears ran
down his cheeks, dripped down his neck, wetting his starched white collar.

Another minute, and the man would be crying like a baby.

Feeling nothing but contempt for the man groveling at his
feet, Trey rested the muzzle of his revolver against Hollinger’s forehead, his
finger curling around the trigger.

Time seemed to stop. But he couldn’t do it, couldn’t pull
the trigger.

Grunting an oath of self-disgust, Trey tugged the bandanna
into place and backed toward the door.

Ben Needham and his brother, Chris, each grabbed a bag
bulging with greenbacks and followed him toward the entrance, where Ed Strouse
waited, covering the door.

Strouse opened the door and Trey glanced quickly up and down
the street. All was quiet.

Pulling the kerchief from his face, Trey stepped outside,
his gun hand down at his side. Stores on both sides of the street were just
opening for business. An old woman across the way was sweeping the area in front
of her shop. He could hear the ring of the blacksmith’s hammer from down the
street, the chime of a distant clock.

Moving slowly so as not to attract any attention, he dropped
the loot into his saddlebag and took his horse’s reins from Sonny Clark, who
had stayed outside to keep watch and hold their horses.

He had just swung into the saddle when a pair of gunshots
cut across the still morning air. A moment later, Strouse ran out of the bank,
blood dripping from his left shoulder.

“Dammit,” Trey exclaimed, “there wasn’t supposed to be any
shooting!” He had warned his men about that time and again on the way to
Wickenberg. Only one man was supposed to die, and that man was probably still
shitting his drawers.

“You should have mentioned it to that stupid clerk,” Strouse
retorted. “He pulled a derringer from under the counter. Let’s get the hell out
of here!”

Trey touched his left heel to his mount’s flank. The
stallion reared, turned, and took off at a dead run.

A sporadic hail of gunfire followed them down the dusty
street. Trey risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Ben and Chris were close
on his heels; Strouse followed a few yards behind. Sonny was sprawled face down
in the street in front of the bank.

Trey swore under his breath. Dammit, there wasn’t supposed
to be any shooting!

Trey didn’t slow down until they were well away from the
town. Angling the stallion away from the escarpment that stood above the desert
floor to the south, he didn’t stop riding until they had put a good thirty
miles behind them. It was near dark by then. The other horses were covered with
lather and blowing hard. Only Trey’s stallion seemed unaffected by the long
run. Trey remained mounted, brooding silently, while his men climbed down and
loosened the girths of their saddles.

Chris was the first to speak. “Too bad about Sonny. Do ya
think he’s dead?”

Ben nodded. “Can’t get no deader. He took a bullet clean
through the heart.”

Trey glared at Strouse. “There wasn’t supposed to be any
gunplay.”

“The clerk pulled a gun,” Strouse replied belligerently.
“What was I supposed to do? Let him plug me?”

“I reckon not.” Trey leaned forward to stroke the stallion’s
neck. He had big plans for the stud; foolish plans, perhaps, for a man with a
price on his head.

“We oughta be thinking about a place to bed down,” Strouse
remarked. “Our horses are about played out, and my shoulder hurts like hell.”

Trey grunted softly as he swung out of the saddle. “This
looks like as good a place as any.” There was water and graze for the horses, a
large outcropping of rock to block the rising wind, a patch of flat ground
where they could spread their blankets. “I’ll look after the horses. Ben, see
what you can do for Strouse. Chris, why don’t you rustle up some grub?”

Trey waited for his men to finish off-saddling their mounts,
then took up the reins and led the horses down to the stream. Standing at his
horse’s head, he scratched between the stallion’s ears. “We’re getting shut of
this bunch right quick, ‘Pago,” he muttered, “before Strouse gets us all killed.”

Canyon Creek, AZ

Amanda Burkett looked out her bedroom window, rubbed her
eyes, and looked again. “A horse,�� she murmured. “There’s a horse in the
corral.”

A horse that, even to her untrained eye, looked like it had
been rode hard and put away wet. A big white horse, with a black scar on its
rump.

She slipped on her robe, stepped into her slippers, and went
out the back door. Where on earth had it come from? And what was she going to
do with it?

She glanced at the old barn, with its red paint faded almost
pink, and wondered how long it had been since it had been used. The paint was
peeling, the roof was sagging, one of the big double doors was off its hinges,
but, if she remembered correctly, there had been some lead ropes and halters
hanging along one wall.

The barn door creaked like something out of an old horror
movie when she opened it. Grimacing, she stepped inside. The place was probably
crawling with spiders and mice. Shafts of sunlight danced across the floor;
huge lacey cobwebs hung from the corners. Lifting the hem of her robe, she
picked her way across the floor. A bunch of old gardening tools were piled in
one of the stalls. There was a wheelbarrow, a post hole digger, a couple of old
milk cans.

She found an old halter and lead rope hanging from a nail on
the back wall. The halter, made of leather, was stiff and cracked with age; the
rope was frayed at the end, but it was the best of the bunch. She found a small
wooden box filled with an assortment of brushes, curry combs, and hoof picks on
a shelf. Dropping the halter and lead rope into the box, she tucked it under
one arm and left the barn.

The horse whinnied softly when she appeared, shook its head
as if to ask what had taken her so long.

She hesitated a moment when she reached the corral. She
hadn’t been around horses since she was nine or ten. And this one was a lot
bigger than any she had ever ridden on her grandmother’s farm in Cucamonga.
Still, he looked tame enough.

Taking a deep breath, she ducked between the rails. After
setting the box on the ground, she approached the stallion cautiously, one hand
extended, palm up. “Hey, boy, how’d you get in here?”

The stallion made a soft snuffling sound as it sniffed her
palm and obligingly lowered its head so she could slip the halter in place. She
attached the lead rope, tethered the stallion to the fence rail, patted the
horse on the neck, then rummaged through the box. She found a dandy brush that
was in fairly good shape and spent the next half-hour brushing dirt and grime from
the stallion’s snowy coat. She had forgotten how much she had always enjoyed
grooming horses. It was soothing somehow. She remembered something her
grandfather had always said, something about the outside of a horse being good
for the inside of a man.

When she was finished, she stood back to admire her
handiwork. The stallion’s coat gleamed like white gold, its mane and tail
looked like strands of white silk. The scar on its right flank was shaped like
a bolt of lightning.

“You look just like the horse Hopalong Cassidy rode in all
those old Westerns,” she mused, grinning. “I suppose I could call you Topper,
but somehow it just doesn’t seem to fit a handsome stud like yourself. Or I
could call you Silver, after the Lone Ranger’s horse��� No, I don’t like that,
either.”

She ran her fingertips over the scar on the horse’s flank.
The stallion’s muscles quivered at her touch. “How about Lightning?” She
nodded. “That seems to fit.”

Rummaging in the box again, she found a hoof pick and
scraped the mud caked in the horse’s hooves.

When she finished, she took up the horse’s lead rope and led
it out of the corral toward a patch of grass, then sat down in the early
morning sun, her robe tucked under her legs, while the horse grazed.

She had a new house. She was starting a new job next month.
Of course, it wasn’t really a job. She no longer had to work. And, best of all,
she was engaged. She lifted her left hand, watched the sunlight sparkle on the
diamond ring on her third finger. She was going to be married. The thought
scared her half to death. Her parents were divorced. Most of her girlfriends
had been divorced, at least once. Her cousin had been divorced four times. When
she had introduced Rob to her best friend, Mary, Mary had leaned over and
whispered, “He’ll make a good first husband.”

Amanda sighed. Didn’t anyone stay married anymore? If it
wasn’t going to last, why bother to get married at all? Was she making a
mistake? She loved Rob, she really did, but she felt something was missing in
their relationship. With a sigh of exasperation, she thrust the thought from
her mind. She wouldn’t worry about it now. After all, the wedding was still
almost a year off.

She studied the house. She had bought it with money left to
her by her Uncle Joe. She had always been his favorite niece, the only one who
had kept in touch with him after Aunt Susie ran off with another man. It had
been Amanda who had moved in with him when he got sick, who quit her job to
stay with him because he didn’t want to die in a hospital.

It was a small two-story, three-bedroom house, with a
wraparound porch. Downstairs, there was a fair-sized living room with a brick
fireplace, a sunny kitchen, small dining room, remodeled bathroom, and a small
guest bedroom. There were two large bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. She had
fallen in love with the place at first sight. Best of all, the house itself
didn’t need any work. Someone with a love for old buildings had restored it to
what it must have looked like back in the 1870s. Of course, they had added some
modern touches, too, like a dishwasher, but it still held its Old West charm.
The exterior of the house was painted white, with dark green trim. The chimney
was red brick. Red bricks formed the walkway up to the house. The only thing
she planned to change was the interior paint. At the moment, all the rooms were
Navajo white. It was a color she could live with, but not for long. She had
planned to tear down the old barn and corral, but that hadn’t been high on her
list of priorities and now…she glanced at the horse. If no one came to claim
the stallion, she would keep it. She glanced around. She had fallen in love
with the surrounding countryside as well as the house. The distant mountains.
The huge Saguaro cacti with their waxy white flowers, the Palo Verde with its
pretty yellow blooms. There were no other houses nearby save for an old adobe
shack about five miles away, and a few scattered ruins here and there.

She stood up as a car pulled into the driveway. She waved at
the slim, fair-haired man who emerged. No one, looking at Robert Langley, would
ever guess he was a bounty hunter. She’d had no idea such men still existed in
this day and age. Dressed in a dark brown shirt and cream-colored trousers, he
looked more like a Hollywood movie star than a man who made his living hunting
other men.

“Hi, Mandy.” Rob looked at the horse and shook his head.
“Where’d that come from?”

“I have no idea. It was in the corral this morning when I
got up.”

Rob stroked the stallion’s neck. “What are you going to do
with it?”

She shrugged. “Keep it until the owner comes looking for it,
I guess. If no one shows up in a day or two, I’ll have to buy some hay. So, do
you know anything about horses?”

Rob chuckled. “Only the ones I bet on at the track.”

“A lot of help you are,” she muttered.

“I thought we were going to breakfast?”

“We are.” She thrust the lead rope into Rob’s hand. “Turn
him loose in the corral for me, will you? And see if you can find a bucket or a
barrel for some water. I’ll go get dressed.”

Rob glanced down at his cream-colored slacks and beige
loafers. “I guess I should have worn jeans and boots.”

Amanda made a face at him, then ran up the narrow gravel
path to the house. She took a quick shower, ran a brush through her hair, then
slipped into a pair of navy blue slacks, a short-sleeved white sweater, and a
pair of sandals.

She brushed her teeth, dabbed on some cologne, grabbed her
purse, took a last look in the mirror in the entryway before leaving the house.

Rob was waiting for her on the porch. He whistled softly.
“Nice.”

“Thank you, kind sir. Ready?”

“Well, since we're playing cowboy today, maybe I should
quote the Duke,” Rob drawled. He rolled his shoulders in a passable John Wayne
imitation. “Little lady, I was born ready.”

Laughing softly, Amanda slipped her arm through his. “Let’s
go, big boy.”

Rob was leaving on an assignment that evening, so they had
planned to spend the day together. They ate a late breakfast, took in an early
movie, did a little window shopping, and then went to lunch at her favorite
restaurant where Amanda indulged her passion for chocolate fudge cake.

Rob looked at her and shook his head. “Are you going to eat
all that?” he asked dubiously.

Amanda stuck her tongue out at him. “Eventually.” The slice
of cake on her plate was four layers of chocolate, with fudge frosting between
each layer. She sighed as she took a bite. “Heaven,” she murmured, closing her
eyes. “Pure heaven.”

Rob chuckled. “You look like you’re having a religious
experience.”

“Almost,” she said. “Want a bite?”

“No thanks. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of a single
mouthful.”

They lingered over coffee until Rob declared it was time to
go. “I hate to leave,” he said, “but I’ve got to take you home and get back in
time to catch my plane.”

“All right.”

“You want to take a piece of that heavenly cake for later?”

“No,” Amanda said, laughing. “I don’t think so.”

Rob paid the check and they left the restaurant.

It was after four when they pulled into the driveway.

Rob switched off the engine and slid his arm around Amanda’s
shoulders. “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“Me, too. How long will you be gone this time?”

“As long as it takes. I’ll call you when I get there.”

“You love it, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bet you’d have been a bounty hunter in the Old West,
too.” She grinned at him. “Or maybe Wyatt Earp.”

Rob laughed. “You’d win that bet, missy. Bounty hunting runs
in the family, you know. I was named after my great, great grandfather. He did
some bounty hunting in his time. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Probably finish unpacking.”

“You’re still unpacking?”

“I have a ton of books to put away.” She grinned at him.
“And I have to get busy and write up my ideas for Mr. Hennessy. Our first
meeting is only two weeks away. I should probably buy a new suit. What do you
think?”

“I think you should stop worrying.”

“This is important to me, Rob. I want to make a good
impression.”

“I know, but, honey, you’ll do fine. I know Earl Hennessy,
and he’s not going to be looking at your clothes, believe me.”

Amanda made a face at him.

“It’s true,” Rob said. “The man may be a brilliant lawyer,
but he’s the biggest womanizer I’ve ever known.”

“Bigger than you?” she teased.

“I told you we went to school together. Who do you think
taught me?”

She punched him on the arm. “You just behave yourself,
mister,” she warned with mock ferocity. “Don’t make
me
come looking for
you!
”

“Tough chick,” he muttered, drawing her into his arms.

“Darn right.”

“I don’t know why you want to work. Especially for what he’s
paying you.”

It was true. Her uncle’s will had left her independently
wealthy. She had spent the last two years taking care of Uncle Joe because he
was afraid of doctors and hospitals. She had known her uncle had some money,
but she’d had no idea just how much until the lawyers had settled his estate.

“I’ve got to do something with my time,” she said. “Anyway,
it’s only a couple days a week.” And it wasn’t really a job. Earl Hennessy was
thinking of opening a half-way house for abused women who had no place else to
go, and Amanda had volunteered to help him set it up.

“Well, whatever you decide to wear, you’ll be a knockout.”
Lowering his head, he kissed her. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go.”

Exiting the car, he walked around and opened her door for
her. She took his hand, and he helped her out, then drew her into his arms. He
kissed her again, deeper, longer.

“Hurry back. And be careful.”

“I’ll do my best.” He glanced up at the house, which sat on
a small rise. “I still don’t know why you wanted to move clear out here. It’s a
long drive into town.”

“I just wanted to get away from everything.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Including me?”

“Of course not. I was just tired of the noise and the
traffic, you know? I’ll only have to go into the office a couple times a week,
so the drive’s not that big a deal.”

“Well, you can always stay at my place, if you need to.”

“I know.”

“Okay, hon, I’ve gotta go.”

One last kiss, and he was on his way.

Amanda watched his car until it was out of sight; then, with
a sigh, she went into the house and changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt.
She couldn’t sit around moping over Rob. She had a horse to take care of.

The stallion whinnied softly when she approached the corral.
Sliding between the rails, she attached the lead rope to the halter and led the
horse to a patch of grass near the one where it had grazed earlier that day.

“Looks like it’s you and me,” she muttered as she sat down
on a fallen log. And then she smiled. “Guess I’ll get to spend the evening with
a good-looking stud after all.”