Desert Heat by Kat Martin Page A

hand into his. “Friends.”
    Across the way, Charlie was returning to where she sat on the blanket. “How’s she doing?”
    “Seems to be okay,” Dallas said. “Got a pretty good knot on her head. I don’t think she’s got a concussion.”
    “I’m fine. I should have been more careful.”
    Charlie smiled. “Don’t fret about it. Next time you will be.” For a big, rough man he could be surprisingly gentle.
    Blue Cody strode up just then, lean and dark, one of the best-looking cowboys on the circuit. “Charlie, we got trouble. Someone must not have closed the gate on those bulls real good. All five of ’em are running loose on the carnival grounds.”
    “Son of a bitch!” Charlie and Dallas and half a dozen cowboys started running. Patience got up from the blanket, relieved to find her head had stopped spinning. For the first time it occurred to her that it was her fault the bulls were loose.
    “Oh, my God!” Patience took off running.

CHAPTER 7
    By the time Dallas, Charlie, and the rest of the crew reached the carnival grounds, havoc reigned. People were screaming and running. One of the bulls prowled the midway game alley and had already knocked over several of the booths. The coin toss, filled with shiny glass dishes, was a mass of splintered glass. The police were moving people toward the exits, trying to keep them calm. More black-and-whites pulled in, sirens shrieking.
    Charlie motioned for Dallas and the rest of the cowboys to circle around behind the bulls.
    “We’ll run ’em back this way, in through the gate next to the grandstand. Once we get them into the arena, we can move them into the pen.”
    It was a good plan and it began to work as the cowboys herded them closer and closer together. More men had come to help, some of them on horseback, using their ropes and whistling. Four of the bulls were moving toward the gate at the side of the arena, but a big, tough, long-horned brindle bull had cornered half a dozen people in front of the Ferris wheel.
    Both clowns appeared on the scene, their makeup only half finished and still wearing their regular jeans. Cy used his hat to turn the brindle bull, while Dallas and Ritchie Madden moved around behind him. Things were looking good until someone in the crowd made a sound and the bull whirled back in that direction. A little girl screamed and started to run and the bull lowered its head and charged after her.
    Everything happened at once. The little girl tripped over one of the heavy cables on the ground in front of the ticket booth and went sprawling in the grass. Ritchie stepped in front of the bull, which caught him on the horns and tossed him a couple of feet into the air. Dallas swept the child into his arms and dodged out of the path of the rampaging bull, and Cy tossed his hat in the animal’s face. The bull charged Cy, who leapt deftly out of the way, and one of the pickup men got a loop over the brindle’s head. Another guy’s loop settled over the first.
    Amazingly, the bull began to calm. Maybe it was seeing the horses, something familiar in a world that seemed to have gone mad. Whatever it was, the animal didn’t resist when the cowboys gave their ropes a little slack and whistled, urging the bull back toward the arena.
    One of the guys ran over to check on Ritchie, while Dallas still held the child, a little towhead with huge blue eyes who was sobbing and clutching his neck.
    “It’s all right, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”
    “Is he gone?” she asked tearfully.
    He held her small body a little closer, trying to reassure her. “I promise he won’t bother you again.”
    “My leg hurts so bad.”
    Dallas silently cursed. Laying the child down on the grass, he knelt to take a look at the leg, oddly angled beneath her ruffled pink pinafore. A crowd had gathered around them and a man shoved through, desperate to reach them.
    “Where is she? What have you done with her? What have you done to my little girl?” Her father, a