Читать книгу Wyoming Brave - Diana Palmer - Страница 8
ОглавлениеHER FATHER HAD taken a whip to one of the Thoroughbreds once, when Merrie was in high school. She’d gone to see him after her father left the ranch on a European business trip with that Leeds woman. The trainer had talked to the horse softly, but it wouldn’t let him near it. Merrie had braved its nervous prancing and gone right up to it. The horse had responded to her immediately, to the trainer’s delight. After that, Merrie had been its caretaker. At least, as long as her father wasn’t around. He’d killed a dog she loved. He might have done the same to a horse that she’d shown attention to. Sari and she had never understood why their father hated them so. Probably, it was payback. He was getting even with their late mother, through them, for cutting him out of the bulk of her family wealth.
“Have you had anything to eat, baby?” she asked Hurricane in a whisper as she moved her hand closer to the big horse. “Are you hungry? Poor baby. Poor, poor baby!”
He moved closer to the fence. He shook his mane again.
She went closer and sent her breath toward his nostrils, something she’d watched their trainer do with horses he was breaking back home. She blew gently into the big horse’s nostrils. Her father’s Thoroughbreds had been off-limits to the girls when they were growing up, or she might have learned more about horses. The injured Thoroughbred had been the only one of her father’s horses that she had access to. Although there were saddle mounts that the girls had permission to ride, they were careful not to pay too much attention to them when their father was around.
“I won’t hurt you,” she whispered. Her face was drawn and still. “I know how you feel. You know that, don’t you, baby?”
He moved closer, looking at her. She held the treat out in her palm.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked softly.
He shook his mane and then, suddenly, lowered his head. But it wasn’t to attack her. He took the treat from her palm and wolfed it down. He looked at her again, quizzically.
“One more,” she said. She pulled the second treat from her pocket, held it out on her palm. Again, his head lowered and he took the treat gently from it with his lips. He wolfed that down, too.
“Sweet boy,” she said softly. She held out her hand.
He hesitated only for a minute before he moved closer and lowered his head toward hers. She pulled him down by his neck and laid her head against the side of his. “Oh, you poor, poor thing,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Poor horse!”
He moved his head against her, almost like a caress. She didn’t see the two returned cowboys in the back of the stable, gaping at her. There was Hurricane, laying his head against her. They were spellbound.
She touched the bridle. Hurricane hesitated at first. But then he stilled. She reached up and unbuckled the halter. Very carefully, she took it away from his head and slipped it off. She grimaced at the bloody places there and on his body.
“Sweet boy,” she whispered as she put the bridle aside. She reached her hand up and stroked him gently. “Sweet, sweet boy.” She laid her forehead against his with a long, heavy sigh.
After a minute he lifted his head and looked at her and whinnied.
“You need medicine on those cuts, don’t you,” she said softly.
“And you need therapy,” Ren Colter said coldly from behind her. “You were told to stay away from that horse!”
Hurricane jumped and moved back from the gate. He shook his mane and snorted.
Merrie turned with the halter in her hand. She walked toward Ren and pushed it toward him.
He stared at it, and her, with utter shock. “How did you get that off?”
“He let me,” she said simply. “Do you have medicine I can put on the cuts?”
“He’ll kill you if you walk into that stall with him,” Ren snapped. “He’s injured two cowboys already.”
“He won’t hurt me,” she said quietly.
He started to speak. But then he looked at the horse. Hurricane wasn’t stamping and running at the gate, as he had before. He was simply looking at them.
“You’re sure of that?” he asked in a quiet undertone.
She looked up at him with quiet, sad pale blue eyes. “Sort of,” she said. “Of course, if I’m wrong and he kills me, you can always stand over my grave and say you told me so.”
The sarcasm pricked his temper. “You think you know how a horse feels?” he asked sarcastically.
She shivered a little, even though it wasn’t that cold in the stable. She didn’t want to discuss anything personal with that cold, hard man. “He hasn’t attacked me, has he?”
He hesitated, but only briefly. He turned to the two cowboys who’d been standing there while Merrie worked magic on the dangerous animal. “Do we have some of that salve the doctor left?”
“Uh, yes,” one man stammered. He went to get it and handed it to Merrie. “Ma’am,” he said, taking off his hat, “I ain’t never seen nothing like that. You sure have got a way with animals.”
She smiled. “Thanks,” she said shyly.
Ren’s dark eyes narrowed. “If he starts toward you, you run,” he said firmly.
“I will. But, he won’t hurt me.”
They moved back, out of the horse’s line of sight. Ren was concerned. He didn’t want his brother’s girlfriend killed on his ranch. But she did seem to have a rapport with the horse. It was uncanny.
She opened the gate and moved into the stall, with firm purpose in her step and no sign of fear.
“Sweet boy,” she whispered, blowing in his nostrils again. “Will you let me help you? I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
He shifted restlessly, but he made no move to attack her as she reached up and put some of the salve very delicately on the bad places on his head. From there she moved to his injured flanks, wincing at the cuts. She put salve on those, too, but she could tell they needed stitching. It was no wonder that he was still in this condition. He’d injured anyone who came near him. He was afraid of men, because a man had hurt him. Women, on the other hand, were not his enemies.
She finished her work, smoothed her hand over his mane and laid her head against his neck. “Brave, sweet boy,” she whispered. “What a wonderful horse you are, Hurricane.”
He moved his head against her. She patted him one more time and left the stall, securing the lock. She smiled at the horse and told him goodbye before she walked back down the aisle where the men were.
“The cuts on his flank really need stitching, I think,” she said softly. “But he’s afraid of men. A man hurt him. Women didn’t.” She looked up at Ren. “Do you have a female vet anywhere within driving distance?”
Ren started. She was right. The horse hated men. “There’s one over in Powell, I think. I could send one of the boys to bring her here.”
“He’ll probably let her stitch him up.”
“You can come out and work your witchcraft on him to get her in the stall, can’t you?” Ren asked sarcastically.
She drew in a breath and turned away. She didn’t bother to answer him as she left.
He stared after her with mixed feelings. He hated women. But this one...she was different. All the same, he wasn’t letting her close enough to bite, even if that wild horse would.
“You shouldn’t be so harsh with her, Mr. Ren,” the older cowboy said quietly. “Looks to me like she’s had some of that at home already.”
He glared at the cowboy, who tipped his hat, turned and lit a shuck out of the stable.
* * *
MERRIE WENT TO her room. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t! That Wyoming bad man wasn’t going to upset her.
She pulled out her drawing pad and her pencils and went to work on a study of Hurricane. He was so beautiful. Black as night. Soft as silk. She was drawn to him, because he was like her. He’d been through the wars, too.
It took a long time to finish the drawing. She colored it with pastel pencils, delicately. When she finished, she had an awesome portrait of Hurricane. She smiled as she put it in the case with her other drawings. She’d have to do one of Ren, she decided. But she’d have to make a decision about whether to put just horns or horns and a forked tail on the subject of the picture.
* * *
WHEN SHE GOT DOWNSTAIRS, she was late again for supper. But this time Ren was there and he wouldn’t let Delsey put anything on the table.
“You know the rules,” Ren said harshly. “If you don’t get to the table on time, you don’t eat!”
She didn’t want to tell him that she’d been drawing his horse and had gotten lost in her work. She didn’t want to fight. She’d had so many years of fighting. It was easier to just conform.
“All right,” she said in her soft, quiet voice.
He glared at her. He hated her beauty. He hated the way she knuckled under. He wanted a fight, and he couldn’t start one.
He turned away from the table and pulled off his belt. It was a new one and he’d cinched it too tight. He doubled it, pulled it together and snapped it.
Merrie gasped and ran into the kitchen, hiding behind Delsey and shaking all over.
“What the hell...?” Ren exclaimed.
He walked into the kitchen with the belt still in his hand, and Merrie screamed.
“Put that thing down!” Delsey said quickly. She pulled Merrie into her arms and held her close, rocking her while she sobbed.
Belatedly, Ren realized that the belt had upset her when he snapped it. Frowning, he took it back into the living room and tossed it into his chair. He went back into the kitchen.
“She thought you were going to hit her with it,” Delsey said.
Merrie was still shaking, sobbing. It brought back horrible memories of her father and his uncontrollable temper. He’d hit her and hit her...
“I’ve never hit a woman in my life,” he said in the softest tone she’d heard from him. “Not even under provocation. I would never raise my hand to you. Never.”
She bit her lower lip. She couldn’t quite look at him. “O-okay,” she stammered.
He looked torn. Her reaction to the belt was unsettling. Someone had used one on her. He began to understand why the damaged horse had responded to her. She was damaged, too.
“Get her something to eat,” he told Delsey gently. “Anything she wants.”
“Yes, Mr. Ren,” she replied. She smiled at him.
Merrie didn’t speak. She was still shaking.
He left the two women alone and went into his study. It had been years since he’d had even a drink of the scotch whiskey he kept in the cabinet. But he poured a small measure and downed it. It troubled him, seeing Merrie’s reaction to the belt. Despite his unwelcoming attitude, he didn’t like seeing her frightened. He liked even less knowing that he’d frightened her.
* * *
“HE’D NEVER STRIKE YOU,” Delsey assured Merrie as she put ham and bread and mayonnaise on the table. “Here. Let me make you a sandwich. You’ll feel better.”
“My father...always snapped the belt like that, just before he used it on us.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “He’s gone, now. My sister and I should feel sorrow, but all we can feel is relief. It was like being freed from prison.” She looked at Delsey. “He wouldn’t even buy us clothes unless he picked them out. We couldn’t date, we couldn’t have friends over, we couldn’t go to anyone else’s home...” She lowered her eyes. “He was so paranoid that he had us followed everywhere we went.”
“You poor child,” Delsey said, touching her hair. “You’re safe here. Mr. Ren may sound like a lion, but he would never hurt you.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
“Now sit down here. Would you like some milk?”
“Oh, yes. Please.”
Delsey made her a sandwich and a glass of milk, and busied herself with the dinner dishes while she ate.
“Thanks,” she said when she finished. She took her plate and glass to the sink.
Delsey hugged her. “Don’t worry. Things work out, even when you don’t think they will.”
She smiled and hugged the older woman back. “I’ll try. Thanks.”
“No problem. You go to bed and sleep. You’ll be fine in the morning.”
“Good night.”
“You, too.”
* * *
BUT IT WASN’T a good night, and she wasn’t fine. She woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Her father was standing over her with his belt. It had blood all over it. He was yelling as he brought it down on her back with all his strength behind it...
“Wake up, damn it!”
She felt hard hands on her arms, pulling her up, felt whiskey-scented breath on her face. But the hands weren’t hurting her. They were warm and they felt good on the bare skin. She opened her eyes.
Ren was sitting on the bed, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and nothing else. His broad chest, hair-roughened, was beautiful. She thought how she’d love to paint him like that. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. But she didn’t dare let it show, how she felt. She lifted her eyes to his and winced.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had a nightmare.”
His big hands smoothed down her arms. “About what?”
“Something in the past,” she said evasively. “Long ago,” she lied.
He drew in a long breath. “It was the belt, wasn’t it?”
She hesitated, but finally she nodded. “I can’t stand to hear a belt snapped like that. Daddy always...” She stopped.
“Your father hit you with a belt?”
She nodded.
“So did mine, when I was a kid. I used to have welts on the backs of my legs. I was a reckless boy, always into something I shouldn’t be. Dad got impatient.”
She didn’t want to tell him the truth, about the scars on her poor back. She didn’t want him to see them. She always wore nightgowns with a high neckline, so that no part of her back showed.
He touched her cheek, pushed back the disheveled platinum hair that had come loose from the braid she wore it in. “Don’t you take it down at night?” he asked curiously.
The feel of his hand on her face made her feel odd things. She felt trembly all over when he brushed her cheek like that. Her heart kicked into gear, unsettling her.
“No, I have to put it up when I sleep,” she said. “It gets in my face. I really should cut it. But it’s been long all my life.”
“It would be a crime to cut hair this beautiful,” he said quietly.
She looked up into his eyes and couldn’t look away. Neither could he. His breath came quickly. He brushed his fingers along her cheek, down to the bow shape of her pretty mouth. They lingered there, teasing the soft flesh, making her feel liquid, melting. She wanted to push close to him, feel him hold her. She wanted to tempt his mouth down to hers and see what a kiss felt like. She was hungry for something...
Incredibly, his head started to bend. She felt his whiskey-scented breath in her mouth. She drew in her own breath as she looked at his sensuous lips and wondered how they were going to feel grinding hungrily into hers.
His hand slid to the back of her neck and began to pull, ever so gently. She felt her lips parting, her body throbbing, as his mouth came closer, closer, closer...
“What happened?” Delsey asked from the doorway.
Ren drew back from Merrie, glaring at her as if he was angry. He got to his feet quickly. “She had a nightmare,” he said shortly. He turned away, grateful that his pajamas were loose. “She’s all right. I’m going back to bed.”
“Are you all right, dear?” Delsey asked. She was wearing a cotton nightgown and a long cotton robe. She looked like an angel.
“I’m fine...now,” Merrie said breathlessly. “Just a nightmare. I’m so sorry I woke everybody up.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” Delsey confessed. “I was watching a movie on my iPad.”
“You can do that?” Merrie asked excitedly. “How?” Ren left them talking and went back to his bedroom. As an afterthought, he slammed the door. That woman was really a witch. He was reeling just from touching her mouth. He wasn’t going to be led into that sweet trap a second time. If she was in the market for a rich husband, Randall could have her. She was Randall’s girl, anyway, wasn’t she?
He turned off the lights and climbed into bed, surprised at his own vulnerability.
* * *
MERRIE DELIBERATELY SLEPT LATE so that she wouldn’t have to sit at the table with Ren at breakfast. It was cowardly, but she worried that he’d be out for blood. He’d almost kissed her the night before. But he was going to hate himself for that weakness, and it would be open season on Merrie if she gave him the opportunity.
She poked her head into the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn’t see him.
Delsey was putting away the dishes. She grimaced when she saw Merrie.
“I know. I came late,” Merrie said softly. “It’s okay. I don’t eat much, anyway.”
The older woman looked hunted. Merrie went close and hugged her. “Thanks for saving me last night. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble with the boss.”
Delsey hugged her back. “Not so much. I’ve been around since he was in college. I guess he’s used to me.” She drew away with a sigh. “He was topping cotton this morning,” she added, using an old Southern term for someone being furiously angry.
Merrie laughed softly. “That’s very Southern sounding,” she commented.
“I was born in Eufaula, Alabama,” Delsey said surprisingly. “I married a cowboy who was traveling through town with his boss on a cattle-buying trip. Met him in a café and went back to Wyoming with him three days later. We were married for twenty-five years before he had a heart attack. I stayed on working for Mr. Ren’s father after he died.”
“I’m sorry.”
She smiled. “It was a long time ago. I still miss him. I wish we could have had children, but that wasn’t in the cards.”
“I would like children, I think,” Merrie said sadly. “I’m just not sure about marriage. My poor mother,” she said softly. “I don’t think she had a single happy day with my father. She lived for Sari and me. Until...” She closed up like a flower and smiled. “Did they get the female vet to come over from Powell?” she asked.
“Yes, they did,” she replied. “Mr. Ren was on his way to the stables.”
“He said they might call me to use some witchcraft on Hurricane so he’d let the vet in the stall with him,” Merrie murmured.
“He says a lot of things he doesn’t really mean,” Delsey said softly. “Mr. Ren’s had a hard life. His father mostly ignored him. Then his mother divorced him to run away with Mr. Randall’s father, and she made Ren go along. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t crazy about his dad, but he loved this ranch.”
“How old was he?” Merrie asked.
“He was ten years old. Mr. Ren’s father went crazy after they left. He got drunk and stayed drunk for years. The ranch was falling apart by the time Mr. Ren graduated and came back here. He sobered up his dad, reorganized the ranch and started making improvements. He let the land stand for loans to improve pasture and fencing, to buy seed bulls, to upgrade the equipment and refurbish the stables and the barn...” She laughed as she finished putting up dishes. “He was like a whirlwind. The ranch got out of the red two years after he started. Fifteen years later, he has an empire here. His dad lived long enough to see a prosperous future, but not long enough to enjoy it.”
“That’s sad.”
“It was. Mr. Ren’s mother wanted to come to the funeral, but he refused to let her near the place.”
Merrie caught her breath. “Why?”
“They’ve had some problems,” Desley said. “Mr. Ren overheard her say something that hurt him real bad. I told you about that. He just left. Never even said goodbye. Hitchhiked out here to his dad, moved in and started to work. He’s like that,” she added. “He doesn’t say what he’s going to do. He just does it.”
“He’s scary, in a way,” Merrie said.
“Lots of people are, until you get to know them,” Delsey told her gently. “He’s not a violent man...”
“...told you to get the damned rope on him first!” Ren was raging outside the window. “Now look what you’ve done, you idiot! I ought to lay you out on the ground, Grandy!”
Merrie held her breath as Ren stormed in the back door, half carrying a man with blood all over one arm.
“Oh, dear,” Delsey said. “Grandy, what in the world?”
“Clean him up, would you, Delsey?” Ren asked, putting the man in a chair. “Probably needs stitches. I’ll get Tubbs up here to drive him into town to the doctor.” He glanced at Merrie coldly. “If you faint, don’t do it in here. I’ve got enough problems.”
“How did it happen?” Delsey asked, while Merrie stood just staring at the bleeding man.
“He was trying to rope a horse. Horse reared up and threw him into a sheet of tin.”
“Was it Hurricane?” Merrie asked worriedly.
“Yes, it was Hurricane,” he shot at her angrily.
She moved closer to him. “Couldn’t I help?”
He hesitated. He didn’t want her near the horse. He was furious at her because he’d been weak the night before. He didn’t want her around, didn’t want her near him. She was Randall’s girl...
“You might let her try before anybody else gets hurt, Mr. Ren,” Delsey intervened.
“Hell!” He tilted his hat low over his eyes. “All right. Come on.”
Delsey washed the deep cut on Grandy’s arm. “Cut a vein, I think,” she told Ren.
“Tubbs is on his way. Wrap a towel around it,” Ren told her.
“Sorry, Ren,” Grandy said sheepishly.
Ren just glared at him. He opened the door, let Merrie out and followed her.
She’d grabbed her light jacket. It was freezing cold outside and flurries of snow touched her face. A dusting of it was on the ground from the day before. She hadn’t had time to really enjoy it. She lifted her face to it and smiled, her eyes closed.
Ren glanced at her, and an unfamiliar tenderness tugged at his cold heart. She was like a child, he thought. She took pleasure in the simplest things.
“Your jacket’s too thin for a Wyoming autumn,” he said, fighting down the feelings she provoked in him.
“It rarely gets much below freezing in South Texas,” she replied, almost running to keep up with his long strides. “This is the heaviest coat I own.”
“Tell Delsey to take you to town and get a warmer one. I have an account at Jolpe’s. It’s a chain department store.” He didn’t add that it was one of the real high-end shops. It catered to movie stars who came to Jackson Hole, which wasn’t too far away.
“I’ll do that. Thanks.” She was going to spend her own money, but he could think what he liked.
“Randall would take you himself, if he was here,” he added deliberately. He had to keep reminding himself that she belonged to his stepbrother.
“Of course he would.”
They walked into the stables, down the stone walkway to the stall where Hurricane was kept. The female vet, middle-aged, with blond hair and blue eyes, glanced at them as they approached.
She grimaced. “I can’t get the stupid tranquilizer gun to work. I should have asked Kells with Game and Fish to show me again how to use it...”
While she was talking, Merrie went right up to the gate of the stall and held her hand out. It contained one of two treats she’d taken from a nearby bag.
She opened her hand, the treat on her palm, and offered it to the nervous gelding.
“Hi, sweetheart. Remember me?” she asked softly, smiling.
Apparently he did, because he came right up to the gate and tossed his mane, whinnying softly.
“That’s a sweet boy,” she said, watching him nibble the treat. She smoothed her bare hand over his head, between his eyes. “What a sweet boy!”
The vet, mesmerized, just stared at her. “He just knocked one of the cowboys into that pile of tin in the aisle,” she pointed out, indicating a small refuse pile from some repairs.
“She has a way with horses, apparently,” Ren said curtly. “Can you keep him diverted while Dr. Branch gets in the pen with him?”
“Of course I can,” Merrie said. She smoothed her hand over the horse’s ears, calming him.
The vet took advantage of the lull to go into the stall and examine the cuts. “I can use a local on these,” she said. “If you can just keep him busy...”
“I can do that,” Merrie assured her.
She talked to Hurricane, smoothing her hand over his face, his ears, his cheek, all the while talking to him. When he felt the needle he started to shift, but Merrie drew him back and laid her forehead against his, talking to him again. He calmed. The vet began to put in the stitches, working efficiently. It didn’t take long.
Dr. Branch came out of the stall with a long sigh. “That’s some bedside manner you’ve got there, Miss...?”
“Grayling,” Merrie said. “My name is Meredith, but everybody calls me Merrie,” she added, with a smile.
“Merrie, then. Thanks for the help.”
“I didn’t mind. I love horses.”
“That one certainly seems to like you,” Dr. Branch said. She shook her head. “I couldn’t get the stupid tranquilizer gun to work. I guess I need more training with it,” she said with a laugh.
“Will he be all right now?” Merrie asked, because she was worried. Some of the cuts had been very deep.
“I gave him an antibiotic,” she replied. “If there’s any obvious infection around the cuts, I may need to come back and see him. You know the signs, I’m sure,” she said to Ren.
“I know them all too well. Thanks for coming, Doc.”
“My pleasure.” She picked up her bag, smiled at Merrie and walked back down the aisle.
“I thought he’d have to be put down,” Ren commented.
“He’s not a bad horse. He’s just been exposed to a bad man,” Merrie replied. She was still smoothing the horse’s forehead. “He’s so beautiful. I drew a portrait of him,” she added softly.
“Did you?” He sounded disinterested. “He’ll settle down now. I have work to do.”
“Am I being evicted?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“For the time being, yes.”
She sighed, nuzzled Hurricane’s face with her own and left him. He whinnied when she got halfway down the stall. She turned and smiled at him. “I’ll come back again.”
He tossed his head.
“Don’t tell me you can talk to horses, too,” he scoffed.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Daddy never let us near the stables when he was home.”
He scowled, looking down at her. “What sort of horses did he keep?”
Thoroughbreds, but she wasn’t telling him that. She liked being just plain Merrie. “Quarter horses,” she lied. “He sold them all over the world.”
“But you weren’t allowed to ride them?”
“Not the registered ones, no. He didn’t trust us with them.”
“Why?”
She grimaced. “He thought we might injure one, I guess. He kept a few saddle horses for guests. We got to ride those. They were old and swaybacked, but at least we learned how to ride.”
He raised an eyebrow. There was a big difference between riding a quarter horse and a swayback, he thought privately. He wondered if she was bragging, and her father hadn’t had more than one or two horses. Surely, her clothes were an indication that she and her family didn’t have much money. All her attire seemed to consist of gray sweatpants and sweatshirts, most of which had either writing or logos on them.
Her boots, at least, were proper ones. No designer footwear there, he mused, looking down at her small feet. She had on boots that had seen hard wear. They looked a lot like his own, except that hers hadn’t been subjected to smelly substances and too much water.
“The vet seemed nice,” she commented.
“She was. Nice, and quite smart. Her husband is also a vet. They specialize in large-animal calls.”
“Out here, I guess they’d have to,” she commented, looking around at the long, beautiful pastures that led off to sharp, jagged white peaks in the distance. “Is that the Rocky Mountains?” she asked.
“No. Those are the Teton Mountains. We’re closer to Jackson Hole than we are to Yellowstone.”
“I don’t know much about the territory out here,” she confessed. “I’ve never been out of south Texas in my life.”
He scowled. “Never?”
“Daddy didn’t want us out of his sight,” she said simply.
Daddy sounded like a paranoid schizophrenic. But he wasn’t going to say it out loud.
They walked into the kitchen. Delsey had stopped the bleeding temporarily with a large towel, under which bandages could be seen. A tall, good-looking cowboy with blue eyes and black hair was standing beside Grandy. He looked up when Merrie walked in, and his eyes twinkled.
“It is she. The witch woman!” he teased.
Merrie’s eyebrows met her hairline. “Excuse me?”
“Your fame has preceded you, my lady,” the man said, making her a sweeping bow. “I expected choirs of cherubs singing praises...”
She felt her forehead. “I don’t think I have a fever,” she murmured.
“He does Shakespeare at our local playhouse,” Delsey said, rolling her eyes. “That’s Rory Tubbs, Merrie, although none of us ever use his first name,” she introduced them. “He’s playing King Lear.”
“Not King Lear,” he muttered. “Macbeth!”
“I always get those two confused,” the older woman conceded. “There you go, Grandy. You’ll live until Tubbs can get you to the doc.”
“Hurricane didn’t kill you, then?” Grandy asked Merrie.
She smiled. “No. He’s a sweet horse.”
“You’d think so,” Grandy muttered. “He didn’t pitch you headfirst into a pile of tin, now, did he?”
She laughed softly. “No, he didn’t. I hope you’ll be all right,” she added gently.
Grandy actually flushed. He got up and grabbed his hat, nodding at her before he put it on. “I’ll be fine. Nothing but a cut,” he murmured.
“A big cut, but he’ll still be fine,” Tubbs added with a flash of white teeth. He tipped his hat. “See you again, fair maiden.”
She smiled.
“Don’t die,” Ren told Grandy. “I can’t afford to lose you.”
Grandy grinned at him. “Hard to kill a weed, boss.” He grimaced. “Next time, I’ll listen.”
“Next time, you’d better,” Ren said. His eyes smiled at the older man, even if his mouth didn’t. It was impossible to miss the very real affection Ren had for his men.
“I always listen, don’t I, boss?” Tubbs asked. “And I can drive in six feet of snow and ice.” He buffed his nails on his coat. “I’m irreplaceable.”
“I can do that myself,” Ren shot back. “Don’t get cocky.”
Tubbs chuckled and herded Grandy out the back door toward the waiting pickup truck.
“Don’t flirt with the men,” Ren said icily.
She gaped at him. “I smiled at him!”
“Don’t smile at them, either,” he added belligerently.
She just stood there, uncertain and undecided.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered. He turned on his heel and went back out the door. He slammed it behind him, rattling the elaborate glass pane at the top of it.
“He’ll break that one day,” Delsey said with a sigh. She shook her head. “No pleasing him today, is there?”
“Is he always like this with women?” she wanted to know.
She fought for the right words. “Well, not with older women,” she qualified.
“Maybe I can age ten years or something,” Merrie said under her breath.
Delsey laughed. “You really do have something special in you, if you could get that wild horse to let the vet treat him.”
“He’s been hurt,” Merrie said. “He’s just scared.”
“Maybe. But if I were a man, I wouldn’t go in the pen with him.”
Merrie laughed. “Neither would I,” she confessed.
“Want a sausage biscuit?” Delsey asked, peering around her toward the door, just in case Mr. Ren was somewhere nearby.
“I’d love one, thanks, and some coffee. I’ll sneak them up to my room while he’s away.”
“I promise you, he isn’t usually this unreasonable,” Delsey began.
“I just rub him the wrong way. Some people are like that. It’s okay.” She smiled reassuringly. “I won’t tell him you fed me,” she added.
Delsey laughed. “Well, not right away,” she replied.
