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mare’s guidance.
    The mare’s muscles tightened. Her chest heaved and her eyes opened with a look so white-rimmed and agitated, it could have been madness. The mare knew she was alone. She knew she couldn’t follow. Her legs thrashed briefly, running on air, and then she rested.
    Sam chanced a single glance to make sure Ace had stayed ground-tied. Despite all the commotion, her loyal gelding stood only a few feet from where she’d left him.
    When Sam looked back, the mare’s sad brown eyes were watching her.
    â€œPoor girl,” Sam crooned. “I’ll get you back to them as soon as your leg’s well enough to travel. I promise.”
    When the mare lurched to her feet, Sam instinctively held up her hands for protection. She was standing so close, and a horse not really in control of its body seemed twice as big.
    But the mare didn’t hurt her. She didn’t even try to walk. Her head drooped and the loop around her neck loosened. She held her hoof clear of the ground.
    Without meaning to, Sam offered her hand for the mare to sniff, but the horse squealed and tossed her head up. Before the horse could hurt herself by backing away, Sam let her hand drop back to her side and looked down at the mare’s wound.
    Had Hotspot’s hoof opened that slash from just above the center of the pale hoof, around the pastern and halfway up the fetlock?
    At least she thought it was a slash. Beneath the coagulated blood, she made out a reddish channel. In three days, it should have scabbed over, shouldn’t it? Maybe movement had kept that from happening, or the kick could have nicked a vein.
    Sam gritted her teeth, realizing she didn’t know enough about horse anatomy to take an educated guess.
    â€œI know we need warm water to clean you up,” Sam told the mare.
    As if she realized the impossibility of that at Aspen Creek, the mare lowered her head and let her ears fall to each side.
    â€œWe’ll go where we can get some,” Sam said, and she could only think of one way to do that.
    Sam decided she’d mount Ace. Now, while the wild horse was quiet and melancholy, was her best chance that the mare would follow him.
    But where can I take her to tend that foot, then set her free? Sam wondered.
    Home would be best, or Three Ponies Ranch, but Mrs. Allen’s ranch was not only closest, it was part of the Phantom’s territory.
    Sam bit her lip, wondering if she could convince the old lady not to tell anyone about the injured palomino. After all, she was in the business of rescuing horses,not reporting them to the BLM, like Brynna.
    But that cut…
    Sam considered it, dubiously. The mare needed care, but there was no way Sam could count on Dr. Scott to keep the mare a secret. He was on a monthly salary from BLM to care for the captive mustangs.
    But wait! Jen wanted to be a vet. And if Sam could trust Jen with her life—and she knew she could—she could trust her with this mare’s freedom, too.
    That was the best she could do: get the mare to Deerpath Ranch and call Jen.
    With that decision made and the rope resting in her fingers, Sam hurried. An infection could be spreading up the mare’s leg and into her system while Sam put off her next move. She knew a shortcut to Deerpath Ranch, but it meant crossing the creek here, then back across in about half an hour.
    Sam took a bold step closer. The mare’s eyes opened wider, but she barely flinched when Sam pulled the loop snug. The horse tossed her creamy forelock back from her eyes and yanked against the rope.
    Digging her bare heels into the dirt, Sam braced herself. Any minute, the mare could take off. Sam pictured herself skiing through the mud at the end of her own lariat.
    She tightened her fingers into fists around the rope, but nothing happened. The mare was no moreskittish than Dark Sunshine.
    The mare not only tolerated the rope, she didn’t startle or spook at a human voice.
    What was going