Last True Cowboy

Readers who liked The Horse Whisperer will love this contemporary boots-and-saddle romance from Eagle (Fire and Rain). K.C. Houston, the best horse trainer in the West, is a fine example of the New Cowboy who's lost his predecessors' man-of-few-words gynophobia for charm, sensitivity and rippling pecs. He's just what Sally Weslin, family matriarch of the High Horse Ranch, needs when her grandson dies unexpectedly, leaving just two trusted but old and ornery hands to manage her 25,000 acres--""the prettiest ranch in Wyoming."" Her two granddaughters want little to do with the family homestead. Julia, a burnt-out social worker from Minneapolis, loves horses but can't see herself as a rancher, while her beautiful, younger sister, Dawn, is terrified of them and wants the $45 million offer from neighbors to buy the ranch. Sally fears a development corporation lies behind all that money, and she's not about to watch the High Horse turned into a golf-course community. As she puts it, ""Wyoming women are bred brassy."" Between the women, the wild mustangs and the kids from the local juvie hall, whom Julia brings to the ranch as part of an alternative sentencing program, even the renowned K.C. has his hands full--and that's not counting the creature who turns his heart ""inside out."" Up until the very end, we hardly know whether this 20th-century cowpoke can (or wants to) pull all those irons out of the fire. Eagle makes it fun to go along for the ride. (June)