Duke: Deputy Cowboy. Roz Denny Fox

      Chapter Three

      Duke woke up with sun streaming in his bedroom window, and he felt happily refreshed. Fading from his sleep-logged mind—an appealing picture of Angie Barrington smiling at him as she leaned over a corral feeding her horse treats to the magnificent, now-missing black stallion, Midnight.

      He planted his feet on the floor and almost landed on Zorro, who lay not on his bed but on Duke’s bedside rug, something the dog had done as a pup before Duke bought him his own big, soft bed.

      “Sorry, Zorro,” he muttered, hopping over the yawning animal to rummage in his closet. He gave up and retrieved a wrinkled shirt out of the dryer. Doing laundry was at the top of his hate list. If it wasn’t so expensive he’d drop everything at Jeff Woods’s Dry Cleaners. He knew plenty of single cowboys who did. Their jeans and shirts were always pressed and neat. But his part-time job covered rent, food and gas. Since the ranch fell on harder times, those in the family who finished in the money at rodeos, which was almost all of them, contributed what they could toward the ranch. His aunt juggled expenses. She had leased out some prime grazing land. In this part of the country, land was gold. Unfortunately empty acres didn’t put money in the bank.

      When he wasn’t on duty he always wore jeans and black T-shirts. The family teased him for that quirk, too. But he liked black and it was a matter of convenience. Now he stopped to wonder if Angie would find him dull because he didn’t gravitate to flamboyant Western shirts like most other cowboys wore.

      Still mulling that over in the kitchen, Duke opened the fridge and discovered his milk had gone sour. He spat in the sink a few times, dumped the carton and washed the smelly stuff down the drain. He settled for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, and drank water.

      Suddenly, for no real reason, he remembered telling Angie he’d find a couple of kids for her to vet as possible pony-race partners for Luke. He got out the church directory and ran down the list of members as he ate. None of the families listed who had kids the right age jumped out at him.

      Rethinking yesterday’s conversation with Angie, Duke wasn’t 100 percent certain he wouldn’t be wasting his time. She sure didn’t seem thrilled about the idea of Luke entering. Duke felt slightly guilty at the thought that he’d volunteered so it’d give him a reason to contact Angie again.

      Was that pathetic? He needed an excuse to phone or approach a woman that interested him? If it was Colt—well, Colt before he got married—or Beau, those guys were never shy when it came to chatting up attractive women.

      Polishing off his breakfast, Duke rinsed the dishes and the pan he’d used to scramble eggs, and put them in the dishwasher.

      He tidied up and still found himself replaying comments Angie’s son had made about his dad. Angie had cut the boy off quick enough. But Luke kept pressing. Duke wondered if that might make Angie reconsider getting back together with the guy. How similar was her case to Colt’s having a kid he had no part in raising—a boy now almost a teen? Colt paid support, and just recently decided he’d like a relationship with his son—Evan was his name, who had a stepdad. Man, relationships could get messy.

      Having told Dinah he’d be at the office early, Duke grabbed his hat and whistled to Zorro. He could speculate from now to kingdom come and still have no answers as to the real situation between Angie and her son’s birth daddy. And the truth of the matter was he had more to worry about than the Barringtons’ family situation. He had a string of robberies, the most recent of which left his family missing a very pricey horse. He locked the apartment and drove into town.

      * * *

      MONDAY NIGHT LUKE HAD RATTLED on nonstop—and he started in again this morning—begging Angie to sign him up for the Wild Pony Race. She was glad Dylan Adams had been discreet in volunteering to hunt up an age-appropriate team in case he didn’t find one. The deputy might even forget. He may only have used it as a cover because he’d all but accused her of horse thievery. Someone driving along the road saw her old black horse and told the sheriff, he claimed. But it was embarrassing to think anyone who knew her would even suggest dishonesty in any way, shape or form.

      The sheriff probably had to be tough to get elected to that job. Angie only ever saw Dinah Hart at a distance or driving her patrol vehicle. They were about the same age, Angie knew from something Austin Wright said. Well, it didn’t matter how many townspeople thought she’d steal a horse, she never would.

      And none of that addressed the issue of her allowing Lucas to chase off after some wild pony during a rodeo—which brought up another point. It pained her to think her grandfather had gone counter to her express wishes to not tell Luke anything about his father.

      Angie considered Carter Gray a sperm donor at best, and a reluctant one at that. As if she’d gotten pregnant on purpose to hold on to him—to tie him down. He’d pursued her for a year, not the other way around. Oh, who cared? It was all ancient history. Carter had wanted a cook, a housekeeper and a bedmate was all. He hadn’t wanted a wife and he sure as heck never wanted a child. Gramps knew that. It must have had something to do with how ill he’d been with pneumonia last winter. Sick enough for the fever to let him ramble. So sick, a third round of antibiotics didn’t cure him.

      How could she in good conscience blame a sick man, who in her hour of desperate need had opened his home and his heart to her and her unborn child? The answer was, she couldn’t. She’d have to negotiate Luke’s questions about his dad as best she could. It was just a shame the seed had been planted to make him want something that could never be.

      “Mom!” Luke raced into the kitchen from the living room where he’d asked to eat his breakfast cereal while watching TV. “Guess what. Guess what,” he shouted.

      Angie sighed. “What, Luke?” Of late he never went anywhere at less than a run, and he couldn’t seem to talk without his voice bouncing off the ceiling. The one positive thing she had noticed: when it was the two of them alone, he stuttered less. Angie continued to mix cookies. She had one more batch to bake to fill the last of her orders in town. As well she hoped to make another batch to sell at the roadside stand out at the county road along with her tree-ripened apples, farm-fresh eggs and an excess of summer squash. Every little bit extra she earned helped pay growing food costs for her rescued animals.

      “On TV they have p-p-pictures of last year’s Wild P-pony Race. Come quick and see how fun it’ll be.”

      His eyes glowed with excitement, so she couldn’t ignore his request. She followed him to where, sure enough, kids about his age in jeans, plaid shirts with numbers on their backs, and some wearing hats too big for their heads, were clinging to a long rope hooked to a pony’s hackamore. The children were being dragged through dust and dirt and, heavens, in some cases, mud. Oh, boy, this was not a ringing endorsement for something she wanted her young son to do.

      “And Duke and his dog are there. S-see, Mom? Duke grabbed the pony and s-s-stopped him. The other g-guy said to win, one of the three kids has gotta get on the pony before he crosses that wh-white line.”

      In his excitement, Luke talked too fast, and so began to stutter some.

      “C-can I please sign up? Please, Mom!”

      Angie