‘I thought you might have hurt yourself,’ he said when she dismounted.

‘Me?’ she asked hilariously. ‘With that little fall? I’ve had worse. I’ve probably got worse to come in the future. It’s no big deal.’

He sighed. ‘Couldn’t you be frail and vulnerable sometimes, like other women?’

She hooted with laughter. ‘Leo, what planet have you been living on? Women aren’t frail and vulnerable these days.’ She slapped him on the shoulder and every bone in his bruised body seemed to clang.

What could you do with a woman like this? he wondered. You couldn’t say consoling things like ‘Let me make it better,’ because she’d think you were nuts and probably step on your toe, by way of bringing you to your senses.

You could only wait and hope, certain that the sweet kernel was in there, however well hidden by the prickly skin, knowing that what happened would be in her own good time, or not at all.

‘Let’s go and rub ourselves down with liniment,’ she said.

‘I’ll do you if you’ll do me,’ he said hopefully.

She chuckled and thumped him again.

Barton was in his study that evening, watching for their return, and at his signal Leo halted Selena with the words, ‘Come back outside, there’s something I want you to see.’

In the yard stood a Mini Motor Home, functional rather than luxurious, but a palace compared to what Selena had originally driven. Attached to it was a horse trailer, plain but of good design.

‘They’re yours,’ Barton said. ‘To replace the ones you lost.’

‘The insurers came through?’ she breathed.

‘The fact is,’ Barton said with a hint of awkwardness, ‘I don’t really want to go to my insurers about this. I haven’t had a claim in years, and if I make one now-well it would be cheaper if I just replace what I wrecked.’

‘But-I don’t get that,’ Selena said. ‘The damage to your car-it can’t be cheaper than-’

‘You just leave that to me,’ Barton interrupted. ‘It’s cheaper because-that’s how it works out.’

‘But Barton-’

‘Women don’t understand these things,’ Barton said desperately.

‘I understand-’

‘No, you don’t, you don’t understand anything. I’ve gone into it and-I don’t want any more argument. You take Jeepers, you take the vehicles, and we call it quits.’

‘You’re-giving me these?’ Selena asked, dazed. ‘But I can’t accept. My things weren’t nearly as good-’

‘But they got you from place to place OK,’ Barton said. ‘Well, this will get you from place to place as well.’

‘I-’

‘It’s no more than your right,’ Barton finished with a hunted look. He was running out of inspiration.

‘But Jeepers-’

‘He likes you. He works well for you. And the trailer will take two horses, so when Elliot’s recovered you can take them both.’

‘That won’t be long now,’ Selena said firmly.

‘Sure it won’t. But until then, Jeepers will keep you going.’

Leo watched them in silence. One thing they all knew, although she wasn’t ready to admit it. Elliot’s rodeo days were over.

He left Selena looking over her new home, and pounced on Barton halfway to the house.

‘I thought you were going to blow everything,’ he muttered.

‘Not my fault. She was bound to be suspicious. I had to improvise.’

“‘Women don’t understand these things,”’ Leo scoffed. ‘No man dares say that these days, not if he wants to live.’

Barton turned on him.

‘All right, you do better. Try telling her the truth. Tell her you’re paying for everything, and see how she takes it.’

‘Sssshh!’ Leo said frantically. ‘She mustn’t know that. She’d skin me alive.’

‘Great! Then we know where we are. Now are you gonna stand here yakking all night, or are you coming in the house for a whisky?’

‘I’m coming in the house for a whisky.’

Everyone was up early on the first day of the rodeo. Delia and her daughters loaded piles of new stock into the truck. Barton checked off a list of contacts he was planning to do business with in a convivial atmosphere. Jeepers was groomed until he shone, and led out into the horse trailer.

Instinct sent Leo into the stables in search of Selena. He found her, as he’d expected, in Elliot’s stall, caressing the horse’s nose, murmuring tenderly.

‘This isn’t for good, you’ve got to understand that. Jeepers is a fine horse, but he’s not you. It’ll never be with him like it was with you and me. We’re going to be together again. That’s a promise.’

She rested her cheek against his nose. ‘I love you, you ramshackle old brute. More than anyone in the world. Do you hear that?’

Leo tried to back out quietly, but he didn’t quite manage it, and Selena looked up.

‘Now who’s being sentimental?’ he asked kindly.

‘I am not. I’m just thinking of his feelings. Have you thought what it must be like for him to see another horse being groomed and led out for me to ride, in his place? Do you think he doesn’t know?’

‘I guess he knows everything you’re thinking.’

‘And I know everything he’s thinking.’

‘Well, what are you going to tell him if you win?’

She whirled on him, an almost painful intensity in her face. ‘Leo, do you think I might win?’

‘Does it really mean that much?’ he asked, studying her face as though hoping to find something there.

‘It means everything. I have to make some money to keep going onto the next rodeo, and the next. It’s my whole life, everything.’

‘Well, if you don’t I could always-’ he stopped because her fingertips were over his mouth.

‘Don’t say it. I don’t take charity and I won’t take money from you.’

He maintained a diplomatic silence. This was no time to tell her how much he’d already given her.

‘After all, why should you take financial risks for me?’ she went on. ‘Suppose I couldn’t pay it back? Where would you be?’

‘Selena, I’m not at my last gasp, like you. What’s wrong with letting a friend help you? There’s no law that says you have to be independent all the time.’

‘Yes there is. I passed one. It’s my law, the one I live by, and I can’t change. I do it myself or no deal.’

‘Selena, it’s not weakness to accept help.’

‘No, but it’s weakness to rely on it. You become weak by believing that someone’ll always be there for you. Because sooner or later, they won’t.’

He frowned. ‘If you really believe that, heaven help you!’

‘Leo, why are we quarrelling? It’s a wonderful day. We’re going to have a great time, and I’m going to win. I can’t lose.’

He regarded her with his head on one side. ‘Why can’t you lose?’

‘Because I got my miracle. You know when we met on the highway?’

‘Met isn’t quite the word I’d have used, but go on.’

‘Before that I’d been with Ben, he’s an old friend and he was fixing my van. He said I needed a miracle or a millionaire, but I said forget millionaires. They’re not good for anything.’

‘So you settled for a miracle?’ Leo asked, feeling the beginnings of a smile somewhere inside him.

‘Right. I said I just knew my miracle was on its way to me.’

The smile grew bigger. ‘And it was?’

‘You know it was. All the time Barton was on the highway, and we were fated to meet.’

The smile faded. ‘Barton?’

‘Well, wasn’t it a miracle that he turned out to be a good man with a conscience, who didn’t duck his obligations, as a lot of them would have?’

‘But a millionaire, don’t forget,’ Leo quibbled.

‘Ah, well, there must be one or two good ones. The point is, he was nice about it, which just proves what a decent man he is.’

‘Right,’ Leo said in a hollow voice.

‘So I got my miracle. And now I’m going to win.’

‘So am I. All right, stop laughing.’ Selena had doubled up. ‘I can do eight seconds on Old Jim, you saw me yesterday.’

‘Sure, and I’ve also seen him accepting tidbits from your hand. Old Jim is a pussy cat. You won’t be riding him in the ring.’ She got out of range and added wickedly, ‘You won’t be riding anything for very long.’

‘Now there’s a thing. I thought we were friends, and you hurt my feelings like that.’

At once she came back into range, putting her hands on either side of his head, full of contrition.

‘Leo, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you after you’ve been good to me. It was just a joke-’

‘Hell, I knew that.’

‘Are you sure? I can be a bitch sometimes. I don’t mean to be, but that doesn’t stop me.’

Leo, who knew a thing or two about doing things he hadn’t meant to do ten seconds earlier, nodded in perfect understanding.

‘Say you’re not really hurt,’ she pleaded. ‘You’re my best friend and if you get mad at me, I’d really hate it.’

Leo let his arms slip around her waist. His feelings weren’t hurt at all, but he managed to regard her sadly, while silencing his conscience. He couldn’t be blamed for making the most of this, could he?

‘I’m not mad,’ he said bravely.

‘You’re not hurt either, are you?’ she demanded, reading him without trouble. But she didn’t move her hands, except to slide them behind his neck. Nor did she resist when he drew her closer.

‘Stricken to the heart, I promise,’ he said.

She didn’t answer, but stood there gazing into his face, while mischief danced over her face, her eyes, her smiling lips.

‘Selena,’ he said unsteadily, ‘you are putting me under a lot of strain here.’

‘You think I ought to do something about that?’

‘Yes, I really do.’

She tilted her head in a way that made his heart do somersaults.

‘Well, I got tired of waiting for you to do something about it,’ she said as she laid her lips on his.

They were just as he’d imagined them, sweet and enticing, yet with a hint of something underneath that wasn’t sweet at all: spicy, challenging, hot as a pepper. Not an ingénue, but a woman of determination, ready to take him on.