Aria sat astride Nugget and stared up at the full moon hanging like a big silver gong in the sky. The blanket of stars was incredible. She could not begin to count the number of stars in the night sky. This far out of the city’s lights and hubbub, it was quiet and the brilliance of the night was part of that wonderful state of being.

The mare snorted quietly as a coyote kicked up a lonely howl a few miles away. Aria wasn’t afraid of the animal. They were all over the front range but didn’t generally bother horses or humans unless they were backed into a corner. Aria had been living on the fringe of the wilderness all her life. This land was in her blood. She knew it like the back of her hand. And right now, even at night, she felt more at home here than she ever would in the city.

What was wrong with her? She had kissed Laredo. More than that, she had reminded him of that night at the rodeo all those summers ago. What was she trying to accomplish by doing that? It wasn’t like there was any kind of future for the two of them right now. She was lying to him. His daughter was riding at her farm, and his brother and adopted sister were keeping a little grey mare for Bella right under Laredo’s nose!

Aria covered her face with her hands. Turning Nugget away from the farm nestled at the bottom of the hills, she gave the mare’s sides a squeeze and sent her galloping away. The pounding of hooves drove the doubts and the fear from Aria’s mind. She let the wind rip through her hair and blow the mare’s sparse mane away from her neck. Nugget was quick and nimble. She’d been raised in these pastures. She knew each and every hole and rock on this land and managed to miss them all on Aria’s mad gallop to the top of the mountain.

Mountain. Ha! It was a tiny hill compared to the Rockies silhouetted against the night sky. The rugged peaks called to Aria. She wished she could just lose herself in their wildness and forget that there was a life down there at Clouds End where she was lying to a man she cared about and just hoping that the whole thing did not blow up in her face.

She pulled back on the mare’s reins, and the responsive horse came to a quick halt. Below, Aria she could see a beautiful valley where she often took some of her more advanced classes on a trail ride. Her boarders often rode out here too. It was isolated and yet no more than a few miles from the farm and the safety of the barns and the riding ring.

On the other side of this valley, the Hernandez ranch began. It seemed incredible that it was nearly an hour and a half’s drive from the house at Clouds End to the house at the Hernandez main camp where Cal lived and where all of the Hernandez brothers and Jesse had grown up. Yet their ranch sprawled so far across the foothills of the Rockies that it brushed up against Aria’s tiny footprint less than a half hour’s drive from downtown Denver.

Nugget’s ears pricked. The mare shifted uneasily and snorted. Aria patted her neck, but the mare refused to settle. Aria put her heels down and sat deep in her saddle as Nugget danced sideways with irritation.

“What’s your problem, girl?” Aria murmured.

Of course, that’s about the time she heard the low, throaty growl of a diesel engine. Two headlights cut through the inky black night near the edge of the valley almost two hundred yards away from Aria and Nugget.

Nugget shied hard. The mare practically sat on her butt as she scooted away from the truck. Brush crackled and limbs snapped as the truck burst its way through not only the trees but also six strands of barbed wire fence too.

“What the hell?” Aria said hoarsely. “There’s no road down there!”

She reined Nugget away from the scene, giving the skittish mare a job just to help her calm down. They cantered quickly around the lip of the valley toward the point where Aria could see the truck pausing in its destruction of the fence and surrounding grass.

There was no way this was a regular route or something. No Hernandez cowboy would tear up the grazing ground like this. The truck was absolutely huge. Double back wheels, a scratched up set of fenders, and the thing was hauling an enormous gooseneck stock trailer to boot.

“Rustlers?” Aria was stunned. It seemed utterly ridiculous, and yet what else could it be?

Nugget snorted as Aria slowed her to a trot. She had to get a look at the truck. It should have some kind of identification. Right? Surely she could get a plate or something off of it. Make and model. Something.

Then she heard the lowing of cattle underneath the truck engine’s roar of protest as the driver pushed the vehicle hard up the slope toward the road that led from the Hernandez property lines to her farm. It was nothing more than a dirt access road, but it went right by her house and barns.

Suddenly, Nugget was flying. Aria clenched her teeth and leaned low over the mare’s neck as she urged the swift quarter horse to gallop over the grassland. She was heading at an angle to the truck’s trajectory. The cattle were really bawling now. She could hear them over the engine whine and even over the wind whistling past her ears.

Her farm was coming up fast. Nugget’s ears came forward as she realized they were almost home. The mare’s hooves pounded hard on the ground as it turned from soft grazing turf to the harder verge on the side of the road. The truck and trailer inched ahead of the horse. Aria strained to see the driver or passengers, but it was dark and the glare of the truck’s headlights made it impossible to see through the glass windows.

The truck picked up speed as the road leveled out. Nugget was in a full-out sprint, but she was no diesel engine. Her farm was on her right, and the road veered left toward the highway. The trailer bounced along behind the truck as it carried its load of cattle toward God knew where.

Aria squeezed Nugget one last time and squinted her eyes to try and read just a bit of the trailer tag’s dull surface. There was a single flickering light above the license plate. Aria managed to catch half of it before the rig was too far out of sight.

Sitting back in her saddle, Aria caused Nugget to sit hard on her hocks and skid to a stop on the road. The mare was prancing and snorting as steam rose from her sweat-soaked hide into the cool night air.

T-N-A-3-6-8. That was what Aria had been able to decipher of the trailer’s tag. For now, she needed to get Nugget back to the barn before she started to get chilled. Sweat-soaked horses and cool spring nights were not a good combination. Then it was time to let the Hernandez ranch know that there was some fence repair needed. God knew how many of the cattle remaining on that tract of land would decide to hop the downed fence and disappear onto Clouds End pasture.

“Ms. Aria!”

She turned to see someone riding toward her on a four-wheeler. It was Jorge. Thank God for her staff. At least they were around in case she did something stupid like get herself attacked for interrupting a bunch of cattle rustlers.

“Jorge!” She stood in her stirrups and waved back. “I’m fine! We’re coming back.”

He nodded and waved his hand before circling the four-wheeler and heading back toward the barns where he and her other two grooms shared quarters. Aria let Nugget have her head as the mare set off for the barn at an energetic walk.

Aria pulled her phone out of her pocket. She bit her lip and tried to decide if she could conceivably call Laredo for this problem. He really wasn’t the livestock guy. And if she were honest with herself, she would have to admit that she was actually looking for an excuse to call him more than anything else.

“I’m so silly,” Aria told the mare. “Seriously.”

So, instead of calling Laredo or sending him a text, Aria texted Jesse to let her know what had happened. Jesse would get word to Cal, and Cal was the one who controlled the cowboys in the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company. Yes. This was a much better idea. She was already having too much contact with Laredo. She was making a fool out of herself. It needed to stop. Now.

With that in mind, Aria headed back to the barn. Jorge tried to take Nugget as soon as Aria got into the barnyard. Aria waved him off. “I’ve got this. I’ll never sleep anyway. I might as well give her a good rubdown and calm myself down at the same time.”

Jorge muttered something beneath his breath in Spanish. Aria just laughed. The man was forever telling her she took too many chances. He was practically a father figure. He’d been at Clouds End Farm with his two cousins, Jefe and Pedro, ever since Aria could remember.

The barn was quiet and calm. Aria loved being in here at night. The scent of hay and leather was punctuated by the sound of horses chewing or shifting their feet as they dozed. After Aria pulled the saddle off Nugget’s back, she had plenty of currying to do to get the mare’s yellow coat dry. Soon she lost herself in the rhythm of running the brush in circles over the mare’s broad back. In fact, she was so involved in her task that she did not hear Laredo Hernandez until he stood in front of her and put his hands on his hips like a disapproving father.

“You chased cattle thieves on horseback?” Laredo fumed. “Are you insane? What were you thinking?”

Aria took a step back in surprise. She was both stung and offended. “I was thinking that we needed to at least get a plate on that trailer or the truck or something. And that I was the only one out there to do it!”

“Did it never occur to you that they could be armed? They could have shot at you! Why were you riding out there in the middle of the night anyway?” Laredo flung up his hands and muttered an expletive beneath his breath. “Do you have no sense of self-preservation?”

Now it was Aria’s turn to put a hand on her hip and get snippy. Who the hell did he think he was anyway? “I’m a grown-ass woman! That’s who I am!” she said irritably. “And why the hell are you out here anyway? You’re a father with a daughter at home in bed. Tell me you didn’t drag that baby out of her bed just to come out here and yell at me!”

“No.” He looked momentarily distracted. “I called my housekeeper. She came over to sit with Bella.”

“You dragged Mrs. Naranjo out of bed in the middle of the night for this?” Aria didn’t know whether to be flattered or horrified.

“It’s fine,” Laredo said dismissively. “She’s used to it.” Then he seemed to pause. “Wait just a second. How do you know who my housekeeper is?”

“I’ve known her almost all my life,” Aria retorted. “She’s my head groom’s sister-in-law or something. I don’t know. Sometimes I lose track of the family connections. Jorge has a lot of family in the Denver area.”

“You know my housekeeper.” He sounded as though this either bothered him, or that he felt it was extremely disturbing for some reason. Then he narrowed his gaze and looked at her suspiciously. “What does she say about me?”

“Oh, geez, seriously?” Aria rolled her eyes. “Nothing! Why is it you think the whole world is focused on you and your problems? There are other things going on right now in the universe, you know? Your drinking problems and family issues are not the topic du jour in every single home in America. Not even most of Denver cares!”

“My drinking issues?” His face went hard as stone. “Who said I have a drinking issue?”

“Your truck says you have a drinking issue, Laredo. It looks like you tried to park on a wall or something.” Aria realized she wasn’t being exactly kind to him, but right now, she couldn’t make herself care. “Your attitude says you have a drinking problem. You’ve checked out of your life! Don’t you have any idea how much your daughter wants her father to be a part of her everyday wants and needs? But no! You’re too busy projecting what you want for her onto her to even care what she wants!”

Okay. Whoa! That was going too far, and Laredo’s expression said he thought so too. She hadn’t really meant to say everything that she had. She didn’t want to get involved. In fact, she was more involved than she wanted to be already. She should just go back to being a horse trainer and focus on building her business. All of this relationship crap was for the birds. She didn’t do relationships. Men were like babies. They weren’t even like horses. At least horses learned to be independent and to use their damn brains. Men just repeated the same mistakes over and over again.

Laredo did not say another word. Instead, he turned around and gave her his back. “You’ve made your opinion of me and my concern for your well-being quite clear. Thank you.”

“Oh, don’t be like that!” she snapped. “Do not try to turn this around and make it about how I’m not being grateful for you driving out here in the middle of the night to pretend that you care about me!”

His big shoulders lifted, and then he exhaled a huge breath of air. “I don’t pretend. It’s the one thing I do not do. I don’t lie. And I don’t pretend.”

With those final words, Laredo Hernandez left her barn and did not look back. Aria heard him get in his truck and leave. Gravel flew from his tires and pelted the barn wall as he tore out of there as though he were running from the devil. And who knows, maybe he thought he was.