Читать книгу Taming Blackhawk - Barbara McCauley - Страница 8

Rand Sloan had a reputation.

In fact, depending on who you asked and their gender, he had several. If you were a man, then bastard, hardheaded and bad tempered were a few of the words used to describe Rand. If you were a woman…

Well, there were so many words. Amazing. Incredible. And certainly the most popular overall—extraordinary.

But if there was one thing that everyone agreed on, men and women alike, it was that Rand Sloan was the best damn horse trainer in the entire state of Texas.

At thirty-two he had an edge to him, as if he’d already done and seen more than any other man his age. On Rand, though, the lines that etched the corners of his coal-black eyes and firm mouth only added to his appeal. His hair, thick, shiny and black, fell untamed down his neck. More often than not, his strong, square jaw bore the same dark stubble. He never hurried—a fact greatly appreciated by the women who knew him—and he always carried his entire six-foot, four-inch, lean, hard body with purpose.

Self-control and discipline were critical to Rand. When a man worked with a wild horse, those attributes could mean the difference between a nasty bruise or a broken leg. Even between life and death. Untamed horses were inconsistent and unpredictable, a few of the animals even teetered on the precipice of insanity. But all they needed was a little coaxing, a little patience, and he could pull them back, give them self-respect. Make them whole again.

Perhaps that was why he’d been drawn to wild horses, Rand thought absently. Why he’d chosen his profession—or why it had chosen him. Because he understood what those animals were feeling.

Because there were days, too many, when he also stood on that precipice.

“Here we go, sweetheart,” he murmured as he led Maggie Mae out of her stall. The mare nuzzled the front pocket of his denim shirt, looking for a treat. He gave the animal a thick slice of crisp apple, rubbed the blaze of white on her forehead, then clipped her bridle to a ring on the redwood post outside her stall. The horse was small, but feisty and smart, a pretty two-year-old sorrel who would be auctioned off with the rest of the livestock and equipment when Rand’s mother put the ranch up for sale next month.

Ignoring the hot, San Antonio breeze that swept through the barn, Rand set about his work. Work always cleared his mind, gave him balance. Today he needed that balance more than he’d ever needed it before.

It wasn’t every day a man found out that his entire life—or at least his life from the time he was nine years old—was a complete lie.

That Seth and Lizzie, his precious little Lizzie, were not dead. They were alive.

Alive.

That one word wrapped around his chest like a steel band and squeezed. Alive. His brother and sister were alive.

Dust swirled around him as he raked numbly at the old straw, then replaced it with new. After he’d read the letter this morning from Beddingham, Barnes and Stephens Law Offices in Wolf River, Texas, he’d shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. He hadn’t looked at it since, but he knew every sentence, every comma, every word by heart.

But only one sentence mattered to him, only one that kept running through his mind, over and over…

Seth Ezekiel Blackhawk and Elizabeth Marie Blackhawk, son and daughter of Jonathan and Norah Blackhawk of Wolf River County, Texas, were not killed in the car accident that claimed the lives of their parents…

There were dates and the usual legal mumbo-jumbo, requests to contact the law firm as soon as possible in order to discuss the estate. But what the hell did he care about an estate? Seth and Lizzie were alive.

Seth would be about thirty now, Rand knew. Lizzie maybe twenty-five or six. Over the years, Rand had never allowed himself to think about his sister and brother or the night of the accident. But there were times, late at night, when even a bottle of whiskey couldn’t chase the persistent demons out of his head.

And then he would remember—the lightning bolt, the sound of screeching wheels and crunching metal. His mother’s scream and Lizzie’s cries.

Then silence. A deafening, sickening quiet that pounded in his ears to this day.

How many nights had he woken in a sweat, the sheets ripped from the mattress, his heart racing and his hands shaking?

Too damn many.

Even now, as he thought about Seth and Lizzie, about the letter in his pocket, his hands shook and his heart raced.

“Rand?”

Startled from his thoughts, he glanced up at Mary Sloan’s soft call. At sixty-one, she was still an attractive woman. Her raven hair was peppered with gray; her skin looked healthy and tanned, with deep lines around her blue eyes. She looked exhausted, he thought. But then, she usually did. Ranching was hard work, long hours and little pay. In her twenty-nine years of marriage, she’d never known any other life.

Mary and Edward Sloan had adopted Rand Blackhawk immediately following the accident. Mary had always been good to him, Rand thought. Raised him like her own, loved him.

Edward Sloan had been another matter entirely.

“Are you all right?” she asked, and took a step closer.

His first reaction was to say that he was fine. That everything was fine. Isn’t that what everyone had always done in the Sloan family, pretended all was well, when in fact, it was anything but?

“I don’t know what the hell I am, Mom,” he said honestly. Or even who I am.

Mary knew about the letter, who it was from, what it said and what it meant to Rand. “It’s one-fifteen,” she said after a long moment. “Are you coming?”

Was he? His hand tightened around the handle of the pitchfork.

“Yeah.” He stabbed at a flake of straw and tossed it into the stall. For her he would. “I’m coming.”

“Rand—” She took another step closer. “I—”

She stopped again, not knowing what to say.

Hell, he didn’t know what to say, either.

“It’s all right, Mom. You go on. Soon as I finish here, I’ll be in.”

She nodded, turned slowly to leave, then stopped at the sound of car tires crunching on the gravel driveway outside. They both looked at each other.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked.

“Not me. You?”

“No.” Her eyes, which had looked so tired just a moment before, now simply looked sad. “I’ll go see who it is. Maybe it’s one of Matthew or Sam’s friends.”

They both knew that was doubtful. His younger brothers, Mary and Edward’s birth sons, had both left the ranch years ago. Like himself, they’d come home only yesterday. No one knew any of the Sloan boys were back in town.

Once again she turned to leave, and once again she turned back. “We’ll talk later. All right?”

Rand nodded. He watched his mother suck in a deep breath, straighten her shoulders, then walk out of the barn.

He stabbed another forkful of straw and tossed it. They’d talk, no doubt about that. He had no idea what they would say to each other, but one thing was certain, they would talk.

Grace Sullivan pulled her rented black Jeep Cherokee in front of the two-story farmhouse and parked. Tipping her sunglasses up, she took in the name carved roughly on a strip of pine over the front porch: Sloan.

Finally.

She closed her eyes on a sigh of relief and cut the engine. She’d been all over Texas looking for the legendary Rand Sloan. Even if he didn’t live here, maybe someone who did could help her.

If anyone lived here.

She stepped out of her car into the blistering August sun and slid her sunglasses back down to shield her eyes as she looked at the house. Its once-white paint had begun to peel, the screens were torn, and the composition roof needed repair. The flower beds had long turned to weeds and dust, and the corrals were empty. On the porch a wooden swing with faded blue cushions swayed slightly in the breeze.

Her gaze swept back toward the mile-long dirt driveway she’d followed off the main road. A cloud of dust still hung in the heavy air from where she’d driven in. The land was flat, dotted with cactus and thornbush, and stretched as far as the eye could see. Grace listened, but the only sounds she heard were a hawk shrieking overhead and the squeak of the wooden sign moving gently in the hot wind. The place looked and felt deserted.

Not that there would be much taking place in this heat at this hour on any ranch, she reasoned. Still, she would have expected some kind of activity. Maybe a ranch hand smoking in the shade of the large oak tree beside the barn, or a horse nuzzling a patch of grass. But she saw no sign of life at all. Not even the customary mangy ranch dog had rushed up to bark at her.

Not your typical ranch, she thought as she closed her car door and headed for the house. But then, from everything she’d heard, Rand Sloan was not your typical man.

“May I help you?”

Grace turned and saw the woman standing at the edge of the house, her expression wary but not unfriendly. She was a tall woman, Grace noted, slender, but not delicate. Her short, dark hair was starting to gray; she wore black slacks, a short-sleeved cotton blouse and black cowboy boots.

“Hello.” Grace smiled at the woman. “My name is Grace Sullivan. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not yet you’re not.” The woman moved closer and offered a firm handshake. “Mary Sloan.”

A wife? Grace wondered. Sister? She knew so little about the man. “I’m looking for Rand Sloan. Does he live here?”

The woman smiled, as if Grace had said something funny. “Rand hasn’t lived here for fifteen years.”

Disappointment stabbed at Grace. Not another dead end, she thought. She didn’t have time for another dead end.

“Would you have any idea where I might reach him?” Grace asked. “It’s important that I speak with him right away.”

“Take a number,” Mary said, then nodded over her shoulder. “He’s in the barn.”

He’s in the barn? Grace swiveled a look at the barn, tried not to let her chin hit her knees. That simple? After dozens of phone calls and three wasted trips, had she actually found the mysterious Rand Sloan?

Excitement skittered up her spine.

“Is it all right if I go on in?” Grace asked.

“Help yourself.” Mary walked past Grace and moved up the porch steps. The woman hesitated at the front door, then said over her shoulder. “But if you’re from that lawyer’s office in Wolf River, you best give him a wide berth.”

Grace frowned. “I’m not from a lawyer’s office.”

Mary nodded. “Good.”

The wooden screen door slammed behind the woman as she disappeared inside the house. Brow furrowed, Grace stared after her. Now that was odd, she thought.

But her excitement over finding Rand Sloan pushed the strange woman out of Grace’s mind. Gravel crunched under the sturdy flat heel of her ecru pumps as she made her way toward the large, weather-beaten barn. She wished she’d had time to change her clothes earlier, but if she’d wanted to catch her flight from Dallas to San Antonio, she’d had no choice but to go directly to the airport from the board meeting this morning. The off-white skirt and jacket might fit in at the glossy, teak, ten-foot-long table at Sullivan Enterprises, but on an isolated, dusty ranch one hundred miles from The Alamo, silk and high heels were definitely out of place.

The story of my life, Grace thought with a shake of her head.

She quickly ran through her proposal in her head as she approached the open barn doors. From the time she was old enough to read and write, if she had wanted something, Patrick Sullivan had insisted his only daughter present her case in an organized written and oral form. When she was eight, she’d gotten Princess Penelope’s Tea Party by demonstrating the usefulness of learning social skills; when she was sixteen and wanted her first car, she’d argued the necessity of independence and self-sufficiency. She’d used visual aids for that presentation. Even now, at twenty-five, she still had fond memories of that sleek, shiny black Porsche.

She pushed all thoughts of tea sets and cars out of her mind, then squared her shoulders and stepped into the barn.

“Hello?” she called out, hesitated when she saw the man bent over a stall in the corner of the barn.

When he glanced over his shoulder at her, her mind simply went blank.

Good Lord.

Grace had no idea what she’d been expecting. Someone older, certainly. Maybe middle-aged, with bowed, skinny legs, slumped shoulders and skin like crushed leather. Maybe a bushy mustache and graying temples. Your typical, well-worn cowboy.

There was nothing typical about Rand Sloan.

He was probably in his early thirties, she guessed, though there was something about his piercing black eyes that made him look older.

He straightened, pitchfork in his hand, and turned those eyes on her. Grace felt as if she’d been speared to the spot.

He was well over six feet, lean, hard-muscled and covered with dust. His jeans were faded, his denim shirt rolled to the elbows. Sweat beaded his forehead and dripped down his neck.

And then there was his face.

She thought of Black Knights and Apache warriors, could almost hear the distant drums of battle. The pitchfork he held in his large, callused hand might have easily been a lance or a sword. A dark stubble of beard shadowed his strong jaw. His eyebrows, the same dark shade as his hair, were drawn together in a frown.

His narrowed gaze swept over her, assessing, moving upward slowly, sucking the breath from her as he touched her with those eyes of his.

Her knees felt weak.

“Something I can do for you?” he asked in a raw, hot-whiskey voice.

Now there was a loaded question, Grace thought, and quickly dismissed all the options that jumped into her brain.

“Rand Sloan?” she asked, annoyed at the surprise in her voice and the breathless quality that accompanied it.

He stabbed the pitchfork into the ground and nodded.

“I…I’m Grace Sullivan. I’ve been trying to contact you for the past two weeks. You’re a hard man to get a hold of.”

Grace blushed at her words. What woman wouldn’t want to get a hold of this man?

“Sometimes I am,” he said simply. “Sometimes I’m not.”

“You don’t have an address or phone number and I tried just about—”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you want, Miss Sullivan?” His eyes dropped to her hand. “Or is it Mrs.?”

“What? Oh—it’s Miss. Grace, I mean.”

He lifted a brow. “Miss Grace?”

“No.” Dammit. There was that blush again. She rarely blushed, and now she couldn’t seem to stop. “Just call me Grace.”

He nodded, his expression telling her that he was waiting for her to answer his question.

And what was the question? Oh, yes. He’d asked her what she wanted. She had to think a minute to pull her thoughts together.

“I’m from the Edgewater Animal Management and Adoption Foundation,” she finally managed. “Maybe you’ve heard of us. We rescue wild horses and care for them until they can be adopted out. We’d like to hire you to round up some stray mustangs in Black River Canyon and bring them out.”

“You went to a lot of trouble, Grace.” He turned his back to her and stabbed another flake of straw. “My answer is no.”

No? Just like that? No?

Grace stared at him, did her best not to notice the firm backside he’d turned toward her.

“We’ll pay you very well, Mr. Sloan, plus all expenses and travel costs.” She stepped closer, and the scent of fresh straw, horse and sweat-covered male assailed her senses. Strangely, the combination was not at all unpleasant.

“You’ll have to find someone else.”

He continued to work, his muscles rippling as he tossed another forkful of straw into the stall.

She’d met some difficult people before, Grace thought in annoyance, but Rand Sloan took the prize.

“I don’t want anyone else.” She moved beside him, refusing to be ignored. “I want you.”

Rand straightened and leveled his gaze on Miss Grace Sullivan. In a different situation, he might have taken the woman’s comment and carried their conversation in a different, more interesting direction. But this was not the day, and—he took in her light-colored silk suit and heels and caught the scent of her expensive perfume—this was not the woman.

Not that she hadn’t caught his attention in the looks department. That thick, tousled, auburn hair of hers was enough to catch any man’s eye. It was the kind of hair a man could fist his hand into, then pull that long, slender neck back and dive in. Her skin looked liked porcelain; her eyes were bottle green, wide and tilted at the corners, with thick, dark lashes.

And that mouth. Lord have mercy. Those lush lips of hers were meant for a man’s mouth.

She had long legs—he guessed her to be around five foot eight—narrow waist, full breasts…

He glanced at the fresh straw, then at the woman.

What a damn shame.

“Why me?” he asked.

“Everyone says you’re the best,” she said. “This is a difficult job. Probably dangerous. I heard that’s your specialty.”

Another time he might have been flattered, and he definitely would have been interested. He’d always enjoyed a challenge, and the danger part made his blood race.

Another time.

He unclipped Maggie Mae’s bridle. “You’re wasting your time, Miss Grace.”

“You’re my last hope,” she said quietly.

Her words, spoken with such intensity, made something catch in his chest. He didn’t want to be anyone’s last hope. Didn’t want anyone to depend on him. He closed Maggie Mae’s stall door.

“That’s too bad.” He tugged his handkerchief from his back pocket and swiped at the sweat on his face. “But my answer is still no.”

“Mr. Sloan,” she said when he started to walk away, then, “Rand, please.”

He stopped when she said his name so softly.

“Could you please just give me a few minutes?” she asked.

“I haven’t got a few minutes, Miss Grace.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to my father’s funeral.”