Free Taking Back Tara (Ranch Lovers Romance) by Eve Paludan Page B

was dressed entirely in black. Fly
bounded to Tara, licking her dirty tear-stained face and
whining with Ty, their tails revolving like fans and pummeling her.
    “Ow, you dogs
are beatin’ me with your tails! Quit it!” she said weakly. His heart soared.
She was alive.
    “Don’t shoot, Tara,”
Zane said as he dismounted from Blue.
    “Shoot?!” Her
voice was scratchy from what must have been hours of crying and being out in
the weather, as she said softly, ““I’ve never been so glad to see an ex-husband
in my entire life.”
    “You’ve only
got the one, haven’t ya?”
    “Just you,
Zane.”
    “Lemme have a
look-see at the damage.”
    “It ain’t
pretty,” she replied.
    Zane folded
black the saddle blanket and she winced as he peeled the wool fabric from where
it was stuck to her bloody, scraped, and torn skin.
    The light in
his piercing hazel eyes met her glistening blue ones in concern. Zane let out a
low whistle. The knees of her black Wranglers were torn and muddy, her knees
bloody, her hands bloody, too, and wrapped in what looked like pieces of a
black bra. His eyebrows went up as he saw her left boot and sock off and her
hugely swelled purpled ankle splinted with willow branches and cut pieces of
leather reins around them.
    “Well, there’s
a new way to ruin tack,” Zane remarked at last as he took in her injuries, his
eyebrows knit in concern. “What the hell happened here?”
    “I went after
wild onions for making beans. Lucky slipped in the mud on the ridge trail on
our way down to the river. We took a bad spill all the way to the bottom of the
ravine, the one with all the aspen in it. He tried not to roll on me as we went
down.”
    “Mercy! Where’s
Lucky?” Zane asked, his hazel eyes intent on her blue ones.
    Tara
sighed heavily. “I had to shoot him, Zane. He broke both knees and screamed
something awful. I tried to kick loose during the spill but my left foot got
caught under him in the stirrup and my ligaments are torn in my ankle, I’m
pretty sure.”
    “Not to
minimize your pain, but dear Lord. Lucky gone. Hell of a thing.”
    “I know. I
haven’t cried so hard since. . . well, when our house burned down with Hugh in
it.”
    Zane nodded
somberly, his lips tight against his rain-beaded, handsome face. “How’d you get
up here from the ravine?”
    “Dug my foot
out from under Lucky with my bare hands and crawled up the slope on my hands
and knees, cussin’ the whole way. Ty and Fly kept me warm for two nights under
this tree.”
    “You could have
died! You’re lucky you had Ty and Fly with you.”
    “I know it,
Zane.” She paused. “They’ve missed you, but they wouldn’t leave my side, no
matter how many times I told ‘em to go on home to you. And after the fire,
forget it, they sleep with me now.”
    “Not just
indoors but you let the dogs sleep in your bed? Well, you’ve ruined my herd
dogs.”
    “Not so much
ruined them as became a member of their pack,” she replied, her voice hoarse.
“I had to hold Ty here with me, while Fly tore out of here to something I
couldn’t see or hear, but I figured it must have been you. I actually laid here
crying like a little girl, hoping that somehow you would know to come for me.”
    His chest
tightened up at her words. “I will always come for you, Tara, but I want to see
your face when I’m talking to you. Take that black kerchief off your face right
now.”
    “No, sir. That I will not do.” She gave a
shuddering sigh, the pain of the past two years coming through to him in that
one trembling exhalation.
    He bent down
and held out his arms. “Let’s get you up on Blue.” Tenderly, he said, “Come on,
Tara-girl. Ain’t gonna hurt you. You know that.”
    As he picked
her up, she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his dark, wet
hair, knocking off his Stetson breaking into wrenching sobs that reverberated
through his body with a terrifying power.
    “God bless,
darlin’, but you’re wrecked. Stop