Read Online Canyon Shadows by Harper Vonna - Free Book Online Page A

Studying Jason’s attire, which was a clone of his cowboy hat, western shirt, jeans, and sidearm, he recalled how the governmental engineers had kept switching their attention from one brother to the other. On the surface, the Durants looked as if they were copying each other.
    They weren’t. They simply held true to their upbringing.
    To his way of thinking, the biggest difference between them was that Jason had been a widower for over a year, and the wound caused by the fast-moving cancer that had taken his wife’s life was still raw. If there was one thing Jason didn’t need, it was his older brother rubbing on that wound.
    Once his business with Shari was over, he’d go to his brother and apologize.
    The noise from the machinery made it impossible for Maco to hear anything else, but he saw the dust before he recognized
    Shari’s Bronco. She stopped near the travel trailer with OFFICE written on the door in red paint but didn’t get out until the dust settled. The afternoon sun beat down on the hard-packed ground. Despite the activity below, he felt isolated. It was just him and the land—and Shari Afton.
    She acknowledged him with a short wave, but instead of walking toward him, she headed toward the back of the Bronco. When she opened the rear door, two large, muscle-bound, mostly black Dobermans jumped out. Instead of giving in to the impulse to study Shari, he concentrated on the dogs. They had a dignity about them, a restrained curiosity as if they knew they weren’t here to play. Because his family had always had working dogs, he’d never confuse the Dobermans with spoiled pets. Just the same, the mostly Border collies had the run of the house when they weren’t with the cattle. He wasn’t sure the same held true for the four-legged security force that had just arrived.
    Shari, wearing faded, tight jeans, a T-shirt with a picture of a Doberman plastered on the front, and dusty tennis shoes, headed his way. The dogs, looking regal and alert, kept pace, one on either side of her. Even before the trio reached him, her presence swept over every inch of him.
    Still approaching, she pointed at the darker of the two dogs. “Bruce,” she said. “The other’s Tucker. You want to get to know them?”
    What he wanted was to pull her shirt tight over her breasts and study their contours. What he wanted was to get her out of those jeans so he could run his hands over her bare thighs and memorize the contours. Most of all he wanted to stare. Touch.
    Followed by asking her what the hell she’d done to him.
    “Sure,” he said, wondering if he sounded as distracted and dumb as he felt. “Something I should have brought up before is how they are around horses.”
    “Horses?”
    He pointed toward the small, tree-shaded corral where Jason and he kept their two quarter horses when they weren’t using them to get around the site. “Silver and Broomtail. My brother and I prefer them to dirt bikes.”
    “Oh.” Stopping, she stared at what she could see of the dozing horses. They were saddled and bridled. “Not a problem, once I make the introductions, so to speak.”
    “Good.”
    Instead of checking out their new turf, the two dogs remained near Shari and watched her every move. She waited until only a few feet separated her and her companions from him. Then she swept her right hand, palm down, in his direction. That must have been some kind of signal because the dogs walked over to him, heads high so their gazes met his.
    “Go ahead,” she said. “Let them smell the back of your hands. They’ll understand you’re a friend.”
    “That’s what that movement of yours was about?” he asked. “Giving them the all clear?”
    “Pretty much. Go on. They won’t bite.”
    “I didn’t figure they would.” As the dogs investigated first his hands and then every part of his anatomy their noses could reach, his respect both for them and what Shari had accomplished with them grew. Most dogs lost whatever minds they