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“OK, now, Spike Here we go,” she whispered soothingly as she gently elding had been a little skittish about getting saddled, but once they got on the trail, she knew they’d get along fine

It took the better part of half an hour to get up the range to her favorite spot Spike knew it by heart by now, slowing by the high ridge’s edge even before she pulled the reins

“You gethis scruffy head “Now if only you were a man, all my dreams would come true”

She watched in silence as the sun ca, it literally put a chill down her spine All that land All that sky The holy whistling of the cold wind as light split shadow and spilled down the rutted slopes

It was the Aht Any moment non froside a steam locomotive with a little red caboose

As she took out the therht, she wondered what the daft, ever-wisecracking boyos in her hometown back in Ireland would say if they could see their skinny Mary Catherine all grown up and drinking her tea high in the saddle out here in the Wild West

Nothing was the answer to that one, she thought, taking a sip, since every one of those ragamuffins would be struck speechless for once in their miserable lives

Who was she kidding? She could hardly believe it herself, the way her life was turning out

When she’d heard about the nanny job in New York City, she’d originally envisioned taking care of so theh Central Park when she wasn’t taking the she got instead, of course, couldn’t have been further from her expectations Instead of the power couple, her boss was the NYPD’s busiest detective, and he didn’t have two kids but two kids multiplied by five

But she’d done it That was the funny part By hook or by crook, over the last several years, she’d learned to effectively e the rambunctious Bennett clan Not only had she kept them mostly fed (those teens were bottomless pits), cleanly clothed, and educated, but what filled her with thestrides in teaching them to take care of each other and themselves

Though her as at tiing to acco job on the face of the earth—raising a large crop of good hus

And just when she was cruising, just when she had achieved thedown everyone’s schedules and tics in New York City, what happens? A criets them all for assassination, and they’re ripped from their lives and deposited three thousand miles away, on a California cattle farm

It was the most recent events that seemed the most impossible That someone was actually out to kill her and the kids, so to—she just couldn’t understand how any hu could actually be that inhuman

But she kneas true, of course It certainly terrified her Her dreaht in the dark beside her bed It had gotten so bad that she’d taken to loading one of the shotguns and laying it on the floor next to the bed, under a blanket That helped, at least a little

She flung the dregs of her tea on the ground and tightened the cap on the therh as she tucked the ther with one eye open, with a shotgun under the bed, she thought, shaking her head She was out in the Wild West, all right