Free Carol Finch by The Ranger's Woman

were rounded up and herded like cattle to Indian Territory.”
    Piper grimaced. This tale just kept getting worse. She felt ashamed of herself for harboring ill feelings toward her domineering father. They seemed trite and insignificant compared to the tragedy Quinn endured. Her trials and struggle for individuality hadn’t been life-altering nightmares like Quinn’s had been.
    She doubted a hard-bitten man who had obviously built walls around his emotions would want her sympathy and compassion, but he had it, all the same.
    “Anything else you think you need to know about me?” he asked flippantly.
    “Yes.” She was thoroughly intrigued with the story of his life, even though it was obvious that he was reluctant to discuss it. Honestly, she wasn’t sure why he had confided in her. But she was glad he had. It helped her understand why he was the way he was. “Did the army take you back to your kinfolk after their attack on the winter encampment?”
    The question earned her a disgruntled snort. “Theytried, but by then it had been seven years since my abduction. I had been thoroughly indoctrinated into the ways of the Kiowa and Comanche. My mother had died from complications of childbirth and I had no family left in Texas. But that didn’t stop the army from taking me to San Antonio with their returning patrol.”
    She glanced up to note that his broad shoulders had stiffened and he sat rigidly on his horse. No doubt, whatever he was about to impart had not been a pleasant experience.
    “When we rode into town, the whites mistook me for a half-breed prisoner. I found myself subjected to their curses and ridicule. Even when the lieutenant in command declared that I had been a captive, my own culture wanted nothing to do with me. According to the sneers and jeers, I had lived with the savages for so long that I was one of them.”
    Piper retracted every derogatory thought and comment she had made about him.
    If he held a grudge against the world she figured he had every right to.
    Her heart went out to Quinn, knowing his life had been one traumatic adjustment after another. Considering the way he had been treated in Indian and white cultures it was a wonder to Piper that he had allowed her to join up with him temporarily.
    She imagined that he preferred to be alone and that he avoided civilization as much as possible. It also astonished her that he was out to save the world from brutal lawlessness when the world treated him like a social pariah.
    “I enlisted with the Rangers after two years of serving as a guide for the army,” he added belatedly. “With the Rangers, my worth and respectability is measured by my ability to handle myself in difficult situations. My past doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I can hold my own in the middle of a firefight…watch your head.”
    The warning was a split second too late. Piper looked up—and rammed her forehead into the low outcropping of rock. The blow sent her reeling backward, startling her horse. When her mount tried to bolt past Quinn’s horse on the one-lane trail she pinwheeled sideways, scraping her hip and shoulder before she landed in a tangled heap.
    Stars exploded in front of her eyes and an instant headache pounded against her skull. The pup bounded up to lick her cheeks, but Piper pushed him away so she could prop herself upright and check herself for serious injury.
    “You okay?” Quinn asked as he dismounted.
    “Not very.” Piper squinted against the pain as he hunkered down in front of her. His somber expression didn’t give much away and she wondered if he even cared if she had very nearly knocked herself senseless and scraped a layer of skin off her hip, elbow and shoulder.
    But at least he didn’t say I told you so. For that she was grateful. He simply appraised the knot that she could feel swelling up on her forehead.
    “My fault for not paying attention to where I was going,” she murmured as she tried to gain her feet. Unfortunately,