To Tame a Cowboy (Colorado Cowboys #3)(4)

Brody loosened his fists and took a steadying breath before he nodded at the wounded mustang. “I’ll take your horse to Healing Springs and finish taming her for you.”

Quick’s lips turned up into a sneer. “This here sorry excuse for a horse ain’t going nowhere but to the closest farm as pig feed.”

“No!” A woman’s cry rose into the deathly silence that had settled over the usually busy thoroughfare. “She just needs a bit of tender care, and she’ll be fine.”

Before Brody could figure out what was happening, a woman dismounted from a fine-boned, well-groomed Morgan and was on her knees in front of the mustang. She slipped a leather satchel off her shoulder, flipped it open, and removed clippers, a glass bottle, a metal tin, and gauze.

Quick took a step away as though he didn’t know what to make of the newcomer any more than Brody did. “What do you think you’re doing there, little lady?”

She expertly wielded the scissors near the wound site, cutting away hair with one hand and stroking the flank with the other.

The horse lifted her head and whinnied.

The woman leaned in and spoke quietly, holding out a hand toward the mustang’s nostrils, giving the creature a chance to sniff her.

Quick cleared his throat. “Listen, miss. I don’t know who you are—”

“I’m Savannah Marshall, South Park’s new veterinarian.” She brushed a hand over the horse’s neck and shoulder, gliding her fingers with such gentleness, the mustang laid her head back down and released a soft snort, the kind that radiated trust.

How had this woman gained this half-wild horse’s trust in a matter of seconds?

Fascination wound through Brody, and he stared at her—Savannah Marshall—dumbstruck like all the other onlookers. She wore a man’s felt hat, black with a wide brim. While it shielded her face from his view, it didn’t conceal her long blond hair that hung down her back and was gathered by a thin leather strip at her neck.

Her clothing was dusty but of fine quality, and her open coat revealed the slender figure of a young woman.

A woman veterinarian? Who’d ever heard of such a thing? Where was she from? And was she qualified?

As a murmuring made its way around the crowd, Brody could hear some of the men voicing his questions aloud.

“Never heard of a woman horse doctor.”

“Woman can’t be a real veterinarian. Just ain’t right.”

“She’s too young to know anything about anything.”

Savannah Marshall kept working on the mustang, talking and stroking, and all the while she continued snipping away the hair near the wound. If she’d heard the comments, she was ignoring them, likely not the first time she’d faced that kind of reaction.

Finally, Quick released an exasperated breath. “Listen, miss. I ain’t got the time for this.”

“It won’t take long. I promise.” Her reply was just as gentle as her touch, likely more for the horse’s sake than for the foreman’s.

The horse snorted again.

She pressed her hand to the creature’s cheek, as though reassuring the horse she meant no harm.

Quick bent and shoved his Colt into the horse’s head. At the click of the hammer, Brody jolted forward and dropped his shoulder into Quick, knocking him aside.

Quick cursed and tried to gain his balance. But with Brody’s thick frame plowing into his, he fell to the ground. Brody was on top of the wiry man in an instant, slugging one fist into Quick’s jaw and using the other to slam the revolver loose.

The gun spun through the dirt until a familiar limping boot stepped on it and halted the momentum.

Flynn.

Brody glanced up in time to see the frustration on his brother’s rugged face. Before he could explain the fight, Quick smashed a fist into his nose, knocking his head back.

Pain shot through his bones, but he settled more heavily upon Quick, throwing one hit into the man’s gut and another into his face. He forced himself to stop and shove his hand into his pocket. With blood dribbling from his nose and over his lips onto Quick’s shirt, Brody pulled out several silver dollars and dropped them onto the man’s chest.

“There. That’s more than any farmer’d give you for the mustang.”

“What if I don’t wanna sell her to you?” Quick tried to buck, but Brody sat down on him hard again, this time on his ribs.

Quick cussed.

“You can take it or leave it, but the horse is mine now.” Brody held Quick’s gaze for several heartbeats, long enough to let the foreman know he intended to get his way, and there wasn’t nothing anyone could do about it.

Brody stood and looped his fingers in his gun belt. Quick climbed to his feet and scooped up the silver dollars that had fallen to the street. It was the last of the money Brody had made from the sale of two mustangs he’d tamed over the spring to freighters who’d come up from Denver. Meant he was broke.

Didn’t matter. Wild horses ran all throughout the high country, and he’d catch and tame more soon enough.

Quick sauntered toward Flynn. His brother nodded at Stirrup Ranch’s foreman and handed him his revolver. “Sorry about the tussle, Quick.” Flynn lowered his voice, but the apology struck Brody hard and loud anyway. “You know Brody don’t mean nothin’ by it.”

Brody turned his back on the two and the rest of the men still looking on, and he knelt beside the veterinarian. He’d embarrassed his brother again, but he sure didn’t need Flynn apologizing for him.