Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material Read Online Free

even more. She had watched her sister’s dreams, and her mother’s. Maybe all dreamers weren’t fools, but the dreamers she knew had died too soon, too disillusioned, crying for men who never loved them in return.
    Hope had learned that she couldn’t control other people’s dreams, but she could control her own. She could ask for only what was possible.
    Artesian water, not a dream of love.
    Water would give back to her the one enduring thing in her life—the Valley of the Sun. The land had been here long before drought and men who didn’t love enough. The land would be here long after all men were less than dust lifting on a dry wind.
    “Ask Mason,” Rio said. “Then decide.”
    He turned and walked back into the sagebrush clump. When he emerged a moment later, he was riding a mouse-gray mare that moved as though she had been born in the wild and only recently tamed. Yet the horse was no more an average slab-sided mustang than Rio was an average tongue-tied cowhand. The mare might have been raised wild, but Arab blood ran hot in her veins and intelligence glowed in her wide dark eyes.
    “She’s perfect,” Hope said almost reverently, thinking of Storm Walker and the incredible foals that might come of such a mating. “If you ever want to breed her, bring her to—”
    “Storm Walker,” Rio interrupted. “I know.”
    He reined the mare around Hope, riding as he had walked, with economy and grace and power. A tiny motion of his left hand lifted the mare into a long lope. He merged his body with the animal’s supple movements as though he was part of her.
    “Yes. Storm Walker,” Hope said finally.
    She was talking to herself. Only a faint hint of dust in the air remained, proof that for a time she hadn’t been alone. There was no sound but that of water falling into the rapidly filling barrel of the truck. The windmill turned slowly, bringing up more water. Despite that, the level in the tank kept dropping, liquid wealth transferred into Behemoth’s steel belly, Turner water on its way to thirsty Gardener cattle.
    The thought of using someone else’s water didn’t make Hope feel like a charity case. She would have done the same for any neighbor if she had been the one with abundant water and her neighbor’s animals were bawling with thirst. John Turner had more than enough water for both ranches.
    At one time her father had seen Turner’s interest in her as the salvation of the Valley of the Sun. A marriage would mean money and water piped in from the Turner ranch. Her father had been wrong. Turner had wanted only Hope’s body, not a woman to marry.
    Then he had tried to take by force what she hadn’t wanted to give.
    From old habit her mind shied away from the terrifying night of her eighteenth birthday. Briskly she turned off the generator, uncoupled the hose, stuffed it into place on the truck’s rack, fastened the stubborn clamps down, and swung into the cab. If she hurried, she might catch Mason before he had to drive out to the wells and refuel the generators. Mason would know about Rio. Mason knew about everyone who had ever left a mark in the West.
    And despite her doubts about his honesty, Hope was certain that Rio had.
    The thought of finding out more about him made her impatient with the road, the heavy truck, and her own feminine muscles. Skill, technique, and finesse could only accomplish so much. If she had Rio’s easy strength, she would have gone twice as fast and not worried about losing control of the truck on the tight corners and deep ruts.
    By the time Hope drove into the ranch yard and turned off the overworked engine, she was hot and tired all over again. Even in the late afternoon the sun hadn’t lost any of its intensity. It was hot for the very end of October. Much too hot. Sweat had long since replaced cool well water on her skin.
    She spotted Mason just as he climbed into the pickup truck that was the ranch’s only other transportation.
    “Mason!” she called.
    As he