Although she barely moved, her frantic expression indicated she disagreed.

“Just stay here and don’t move,” he told her, as the frantic leaping, snarling and snapping continued.

He started to move away, but Ally clutched his sleeve in her fist and gave him a beseeching look.

Unfortunately, Hank knew what he had to do or the situation would only get worse.

“Stay here and don’t move,” he repeated, in the same commanding voice he had used on green recruits.

He pried her fingers from his arm and stepped closer to the other hysterical female in the room. He approached confidently but cautiously, hand outstretched.

“Come on, now. Let’s just simmer down.” He regarded the mud-soaked coat studded with thorns, looked into dark, liquid eyes. “I can see you tangled with a mesquite thicket and lost,” he remarked in a low, soothing voice.

He stopped just short of the cornered animal and hunkered down so they were on an equal level.

As he had hoped, the aggressive growling slowed and finally stopped.

Another second passed and then his fat-bellied opponent collapsed in weary submission on the cold, hard cement.

ALLY WATCHED AS HANK slowly stood and, talking gently all the while, closed the distance between himself and the intruder. Confidently, he knelt in front of the beast.

The muddy animal lifted its big square head off the concrete and ever so gingerly leaned over to sniff Hank’s palm. While Ally stood frozen in place, still paralyzed with fear, Hank calmly murmured words of comfort to the wild animal.

The beast answered his kind welcome with a thump of its straggly tail, then dropped its big nose and licked Hank’s palm. A broad smiled creased the cowboy’s handsome face. Chuckling, he lifted his other hand to the back of the filthy animal’s head and began to scratch it consolingly behind the ears, his touch so obviously gentle and tender Ally wished she could experience it.