The Renegade Read Online Free Page A

convinced the stock contractor to take a chance on his untrained bulls? She had to know.
    Sam thought of a fancy tea party with china cups and white gloves, and made her voice polite enough to match.
    “Gosh, Mr. Slocum, so how did you ‘sweeten the deal’?”
    “We’re still working out the details, but Miz Starr won’t be disappointed.”
    There it was again. Slocum’s sneaky half-smile hinted he was hiding a dark secret.
    Sam tried to shake off her paranoia, but Slocum was worrying her.
    “So, you’d sell Maniac?” she asked. “I thought he was going to be part of a breeding program.”
    “He was,” Slocum agreed. “But breeding Brahmastakes time. And, shoot, Maniac could be famous now.”
    “But in the future--” Sam began.
    “Samantha, let me tell you a fact of life. When you have money, the future takes care of itself.” Slocum gave her a pitying smile. “I could sell every Brahma I bought for the breeding program, then just get more of ’em before Ryan comes home, so we’d have some cows to play with. It’s simple.”
    Just like buying Rachel off with a sports car so she wouldn’t sneak Champ away. Just like buying Jed Kenworthy’s ranch so Slocum had a place to play cowboy. Just like stripping all the old pine trees off the mountainside so he had a place to put his mansion.
    “Mr. Slocum?” Jake shifted his weight toward Slocum’s Cadillac.
    “That’s right. You’ll be wanting to get back to the River Bend and that colt you’re riding. Must be a lot of fun, showing a banker like Mr. Martinez what you can do.”
    “Most fun work there is,” Jake agreed. “And college won’t come cheap, so it’s lucky I like it.”
    “College? I thought you’d be saving for a fast car,” Slocum said as they climbed into his Cadillac. “When I was your age, that’s all I did--race when the cops weren’t watching.”
    Slocum’s voice implied that Jake was a wimp if he wasn’t longing for a hot car.
    “He wants a car, too,” Sam said, but Jake, sitting in front beside Slocum, stayed quiet.
    As they pulled away from the Gold Dust Ranch, Sam looked back at the bare ridges behind Slocum’s mansion. According to Gram, the pion pines had been there for hundreds of years; they helped slow the snowmelt and kept the ranch from flooding.
    Jen said that since Slocum had built his pretend plantation house, mud puddles and mosquitoes had marred the ranch until May.
    Slocum probably didn’t understand why. He wouldn’t believe that he couldn’t buy off nature.
    As they drove past War Drum Flats, Sam looked for the Phantom.
    A dozen times, near dawn and dusk, she’d seen wild horses watering at the little lake down there. Now, in the heat of the day, nothing moved.
    Suddenly, Slocum’s chuckle interrupted her thoughts.
    “When they caught rodeo stock the old way, those range rats musta put on quite a show.”
    It was probably coincidence, the way Slocum narrowed his eyes toward the water hole she was watching for the Phantom. But his words made Sam uneasy, just the same.

Chapter Three
    T wo noisy horses and a barking dog competed for Sam’s attention as she climbed out of Linc Slocum’s car.
    “Blaze, simmer down,” Dallas called from the bunkhouse porch. The border collie frisked around Sam’s legs a minute, then obeyed, but no one could quiet the horses.
    Dark Sunshine whinnied from the big pasture. While most of the horses crowded into the shade beneath the big cottonwood tree, the tiny buckskin trotted along the fence. Her black mane and tail billowed around her and her eyes watched Sam.
    “She sounds better, doesn’t she?” Sam asked Jake.
    “Lots,” Jake agreed. “That sound she used to make gave me the creeps.”
    Just weeks ago, the mare’s neigh had chilled them all. Mustangs were usually silent, but abuse and neglect had made Dark Sunshine’s neighs sound like screams.
    Although Sunny was the wildest horse on the River Bend Ranch, she’d adopted the herd of saddle horses as her