Читать книгу Montana Red - Genell Dellin - Страница 10

SOMETIMES JAKE felt like a man he didn’t know, in some place he’d never expected to be. Like now, driving down the road in a rig so new and fancy that it had a closed-circuit TV system between the truck and trailer, meant for show horses but used for wild ones. How crazy was that? If wild horses could survive on the rough, barren ranges where they’d been confined for generations, they could survive a trip down the highway without a babysitter.

But his employer, Natural Bands, was a horse-rescue organization—from California, which said it all. They aimed to keep the horses in their natural wild state and babysit them at the same time. And here he was, working for them. He had even gone so far as to sign a contract—and for a year, no less. Usually he insisted on the handshake approach to all agreements. Why do business with someone whose word is no good?

He’d made an exception for Natural Bands, though, because they had such deep pockets. Therefore, he felt like a stranger to himself. Every other job he’d ever had was one he’d taken because it offered him some adventure, or a chance to see some new country, or a big challenge, or excitement. Or because it would give him a chance to learn something.

Which, in his opinion, was the only true way to live.

Maybe so, but it’s not the best way you’ve ever tried, Hoss.

His gut tightened. True. The best way was living with Victoria and her two boys, loving all of them and feeling their love in return. But he’d never live that way again because it depended on other people, and that was a risk. A big one.

A woman might love a man temporarily. She might go back to an ex-husband because of money. Money was a poison.

Yet here he was, where he never would’ve thought he’d be, tied down for at least a year bustin’ his butt every day for Natural Bands and riding other people’s colts half the night. For what reason? Money.

Wanting something that cost a lot of money changed a man.

“Listen here, Jake. Don’t tell that woman boss of yours we’ve got that orphan filly. I aim to make a helluva usin’ horse outta her.”

Jake turned in time to see the conspiratorial wink from his uncle Buck, sitting over there in the passenger seat, scheming his schemes.

Buck’s buddy, Teddy, spoke up from the backseat. “Funny thing to me, this our orphan business,” he said loftily. “I might have some claim to that little mustang but, Buck, you shore don’t.”

“How you figger that?”

“I’m the one raisin’ her. I took the night shift last night. So far, you ain’t done nothin’ but try to boss me and Jake.”

“We ain’t had her a week yet,” Buck said. “She’ll still need her milk fer a few more days. I still got time to do more chores than you do.”

“Quit lyin’. You won’t do a damn thing. You never do. You couldn’t make my silly aunt Polly believe that.”

Here was something else as incredible as working on a contract: Jake Hawthorne hanging out all the time with two old men who talked too much and kept nosing into his business. Living with them, in fact—but only for a couple of weeks—so he’d have help feeding the little filly he had so foolishly saved. Every four hours. He’d never get anything else done if he had to do all the feeding himself.

So, for that reason it was good that he had let them stay when they appeared in his yard a couple of months ago to announce that they’d come to help him with his new job. “Seeing as how we know all about wild horses and you don’t know squat,” they’d said.

He still couldn’t believe that he’d let them attach themselves to him like that. He was a natural loner and he couldn’t tolerate constant company. Even if Tori had stayed with him, he would’ve gotten tired of her and the boys. And from the minute they’d gone, with tears pouring down their little faces, he’d sworn he would never again take responsibility for the health and happiness of any creature except himself—and Stoney, of course.

Yet here he was with a helpless foal and these two old men on his hands.

Right this minute he was wishing like crazy that he’d sent them packing the minute they showed up. He hated being cooped up in a truck with them when they argued. Which was what they did for fun.

“That orphan baby is Jake’s,” Teddy declared. “He’s the one who found her.”

Jake spoke up to try to put an end to this new foolishness.

“When she gets a little older I’ll probably take her up to the Great Divide for Elle to raise her. Little sister’s always been good with young animals. She’s the rescuer of the family.”

They ignored him.

“She’s Jake’s all right, but I aim t’ trade for her,” Buck said.

“Trade what? You ain’t got no horses but Topper and you need him.”

“I seen Jake throw a jealous glance or two at my old pickup.”

Teddy chuckled and said, “You’ll play hell gittin’ that trade done. And even if you did, then you wouldn’t have no way to git around.”

“You don’t understand me, Ted,” Buck said. “I’m only tradin’ him the right to drive my truck some.”

That made them laugh. Jake, too.

Sometimes it wasn’t so bad having the old guys around all the time.

“Forget Celeste,” Jake said. “She knows the filly can’t keep up with the wild bands. Even if she could, there’d be no wet mares to feed her—if they would. This is a freak deal, that mare foaling so late in the year.”

“Yeah, but remember it’s Montana Red that’s the sire,” Teddy said wisely. “That old devil breeds as he pleases. He probably stole that mare and bred her at the wrong time just so’s she’d lose the other stud’s baby.”

“Surprises me Celeste knows that much,” Buck said, ignoring Teddy entirely. “Reckon she knows that white devil we just now hauled to her Cal-i-forn-y man will drive them young bachelor studs outta his band pretty soon and the family won’t all be together anymore?”

He and Teddy chuckled over that and shook their heads.

“Them old-time mustangers would laugh their heads off at this whole deal,” Buck said. “Whoever heard of tryin’ to keep wild-horse families together? Can’t even do that for people.”

Teddy nodded. “Plus out there on the range, sometimes the mares switch bands. Them old-timers could tell Celeste that, too.”

Jake smiled to himself. Teddy and Buck themselves were old-time mustangers.

“I don’t care if they put ‘em in houses and buy ‘em a bed,” Buck said. “Long as they keep on payin’ us the big money.”

That’s where you made your mistake, Jake. You shouldn’t have started paying them so much. If they were making less, maybe they’d go away.

No, they wouldn’t. They didn’t care any more about money than he used to. They were helping him for the adventure of it. If he cut off their wages right now, they’d still hang around and help him for nothing until the work was all done. They would finish what they’d started because that was one of the rules of the code they’d lived by for fifty years or more.

“There,” Teddy said. “There’s our turn up ahead, Jake.”

The backseat driving got on Jake’s nerves as much or more than anything else about being with the old boys all day.

“Comin’ right up, too,” Teddy said. “Jake. You just as well to start to shuttin’ ‘er down.”

Sometimes it was so bad having the old guys around all the time.

“I’ve got a handle on it, Ted,” he said.

“Cain’t tell it from how fast you’re drivin’. You gotta slow down now. Ain’t that right, Buck?”

Jake clamped his jaw shut. Complaining had never shut Teddy up, so he might as well save his breath and the hurt feelings that were bound to result if he said what he wanted to say.

“Put a lid on it, Ted,” Buck said. “You talk too much anyhow.”

“You’re runnin’ your mouth right now,” Ted snapped back.

Jake slowed the truck and turned up Firecreek Mountain Road.

“What was I thinking when I let you two hook up with me?” he asked, just to break the cycle of petty sniping. “You sound like a couple of magpies.”

“You mean to say ‘what was you thinking when you killed that cat that was only doing what comes naturally so’s you could pick up that little broomtail scrub for me to raise?’” Theodore’s tone sounded so dignified and righteously offended that Jake and Buck laughed again.

“Just hang in there, Ted,” Jake said. “It won’t be long ‘til she’ll be on grain and grass. Besides, Buck just told you—broomtail or not—she’s gonna make a helluva usin’ horse.”

He made the turn and pulled the full length of the trailer onto the graveled road before he stepped on the accelerator again and started up the hill.

“I’m gonna stop at my house to pick up some more clean clothes,” he said. “Might as well take some of that food in the fridge, too, so it won’t go to waste.”

“Well, don’t think you can stay at yore house,” Teddy said. “You’re gonna take your turn on them foal feedings just like the rest of us.”

“Jake’s got colts to ride,” Buck said.

“And they’re over at the big barn, too, ain’t they?” Teddy said. “You jist as well get all your gear, Jake, and move in with us because you already brought us all your responsibilities.”

Jake tuned them out and looked at the mountains as the rig pulled the grade and wound its way up the hill. This was a pretty area all right, but to his eye not as beautiful as it was up in the Garnet Range where he was buying his place. If….

No. Not if. When. He was in this now and he had the land half paid for. He could finish paying it off in a couple more years if he stayed hitched and worked as hard as he’d been working. He wanted that place like he’d never wanted anything. Well…anything that could be bought with money.

But the thought of settling down in one place scared the hell out of him, too. What else would he do? He’d lost his yearning to roam.

Tori was gone for good and he was not making a landowner out of himself to acquire “something to offer her and her boys.”

He didn’t want her back anyhow, unless he could turn back time to the way things were when she and the boys first moved in with him. He could never take her back now, even if she wanted to come back, because he’d never be able to trust her again. She’d chosen a remarriage with no passion and no love—she’d gone back to the very opposite of Jake—for the sake of security. “He has something to offer me and my boys” was what she’d said when she broke the news.

No, he was not buying his own place so that next time he’d have something to offer a woman. There wasn’t going to be a next time. He would never live with a woman again. The remote, beautiful land he’d bought was going to be a place for himself, a place where he could live alone and raise some horses that would support him so he wouldn’t have to drive all over creation shut up in a truck with two garrulous, bossy old men.

He began slowing for the turn as Teddy was still urging him to do, clamping his jaw shut as he took the road into the ranch and then, soon after, the driveway that led to the little cabin he’d added to the rental deal after the old guys had showed up and moved into the big one with him. He’d had to have a private hideout or lose his mind. He just wasn’t made to live with other people.

His eyes widened as they neared the house. “Hey, what’s this? Looks like I got company.”

“Company pullin’ a trailer,” Buck said. “Reckon it’s thieves? Good thing your horses ain’t here.”

“I’ll block ‘em in, just in case,” Jake said, and pulled up to park so his trailer would be across the driveway.

The front door flew open and a beautiful woman with a shotgun in her hands strode out onto the porch. The surprise of it made all three men draw in an involuntary breath.

Teddy said, “Looks like they’re makin’ thieves a lot prettier these days.” Jake and Buck both started opening their doors. The woman raised the gun.

“Don’t get out,” she yelled.

“If she’s a thief, she’s a damn-sure successful one,” Jake muttered. “That vest she’s got on is real fox fur.”

That and everything else about her screamed money. She was polished and burnished and shiny all over, from the pale hair swinging around her face to the little thread of gold in her turtleneck sweater to the tips of her pointed-toe shoes. Her legs, slim and as long as forever, were wrapped tight in bootcut jeans with flowers embroidered up the side. The shoes were those killer ones with high, skinny heels that would stab desire into a man’s heart with every step they took toward him—and despair with every step away.

He wished she’d take off the fancy sunglasses so he could see her eyes.

Jake hit the button to roll down Buck’s window and leaned across him to talk to her. “This is my…”

“You heard me,” she shouted. “Stay in the truck.”

Then she whirled on one heel and pointed the gun at the ground. Tried to aim it.

Both doors on the passenger side opened and Buck and Teddy stepped down off the running board at the same time as if they were doing some kind of coordinated dance, Buck with his rope, Teddy with a quirt in his hand.

“What the hell?” Jake hollered. “You aim to rope a woman with a shotgun?”

“Snake!” she screamed. “Get away from it.”

Now it was the muzzle of her gun that was dancing, swinging around to point everywhere at once. Holy hell. She could blow them all away.

She took a step forward on the porch, braced her legs apart in a high-heeled fighter’s stance, set the gun into her shoulder and—God help them all—propped her right elbow against her ribs to try to steady her aim. She was a right-handed shooter.

The muzzle passed right over Jake. Unless there was a snake in the truck here with him, it was as safe as a church.

He ducked but after a second he couldn’t not look and when he did, the wavering shotgun had left him to hover around and above and below his uncle. Buck held his doubled-up rope ready in the air and Teddy did the same with the quirt, both trying to gauge the striking distance of the good-size rattler coiled on the ground between them. They ignored the woman and the gun completely.

“Get out of the way! I’ll take care of it,” she yelled and then her voice began to shake. “I don’t want to hit y’all…”

Well, that told him she wasn’t from around here. And everything else about her told him she wasn’t the marksman of the year. The barrel of the gun made a big circle and swung back toward the truck again.

Jake threw his door open and hit the ground. He crouched behind the front wheel and yelled, “They’ve killed snakes before, ma’am. Don’t worry about them. Now, put the gun down…”

He could see Buck’s feet and he saw the rope slice down to hit the snake right behind its weaving head. The gun roared anyway.

The whole front of the truck exploded with a crash, rattled and broke into a million pieces. For a second, Jake thought he was dead. He wasn’t even hit.

The truck gave one last gasp and died. Antifreeze poured out of the radiator, red rivulets ran from the power steering, and bits of metal twinkled on the ground. Everywhere.

He yelled, “You boys okay?”

For a minute nobody answered. The sudden silence was deafening. Then, faintly from Buck, “Depends on what you mean by that.”

Jake yelled again, trying to put a persuasive tone in his voice, “You done shooting, ma’am?”

She didn’t answer, or if she did he couldn’t hear her.

“Hold your fire,” he said, trying for authority instead. “I’m gonna stand up now. Put the gun down.” The recoil had probably knocked her down.

He got up and stood behind the truck. Even in the state she was in, which basically was one of a terrible need to let go and crumple to the floor until her legs could regain their strength, Clea knew him. Her Montana Cowboy.

Well, not hers.

He looked her over as if to judge whether she’d take another shot, then he strode around the front of the truck and came up the steps of the porch like a man here to take charge. Who was he really? But if he’d been carrying a foal around on his saddle, he couldn’t be a bad guy. Could he?

All she could do was lean against the wall where the recoil had thrown her. She still held the gun frozen in both hands but she couldn’t lift it. Her shoulder felt as if she’d been hit by a truck. The instructor had warned the class to hold the stock really tight but she mustn’t have held it tight enough.

The cowboy walked straight up to her and took hold of the gun as if he’d decided that she would shoot again. Up close, he was even more rugged and handsome than she’d thought when she saw him from the road.

However, he certainly wasn’t behaving like the mythical cowboy he’d looked to be.

“Let go,” she said, pulling back on her weapon as hard as she could.

“You’re liable to blast a hole in the floor,” he said. “Turn loose. All I’m gonna do is take this gun and stand it up against the wall.”

Whatever happened to a slow, drawling, gallant “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Don’t talk down to me,” she snapped. “I took lessons.”

A spark of humor flashed in his eyes but his voice stayed grim. “My advice? Ask for your money back.”

It might’ve made her smile if she hadn’t felt so…not scared exactly, but yes, scared. And inadequate. The way Brock had made her feel sometimes. She continued to cling to the gun with both hands. He didn’t take it away but his grip was so strong she could tell she couldn’t stop him if he tried.

So much for self-protection. This was why her instructor always said never let a bad guy get close enough to take your gun away from you. There were scarier things in the world than stealing a horse.

For the first time in her whole life, there was no one in the house she could call on for help.

Could Brock have hired these men to take Ariel away from her? No. He couldn’t possibly know where she was. Not yet.

She took a deep breath and took the offensive. “Who are you? You have a nerve, all of you, coming in here as if you own the place. You’re trespassing. I warned y’all to stay in your truck.”

“I’m Jake Hawthorne,” he said. “I live here.”

It took her a second. “In your dreams. We may be out in the middle of nowhere and you may have your snake-killing buddies with you but no way are you moving in here.”

“I already did.”

That flat sincerity startled her into taking one hand off the gun to remove her sunglasses so she could look into his eyes with no barrier.

“Didn’t you see my boots and jeans in the closet? My groceries in the kitchen? My feed and hay in the barn? My shorts in the underwear drawer?”

It all became clear.

“I…I’m in the wrong house?” She hated that her voice revealed just how deep her embarrassment went.

He smiled. Sort of. With just the slightest lift at the corners of his mouth. At least he wasn’t rude enough to really laugh at her.

“I…I leased a house with a barn for a year…”

He nodded. “But not this one.”

He was remarkably calm about her mistake, standing here in the middle of this mess of ruined trucks and dead rattlesnakes, so unlike the yelling, hysterical idiot that Brock would have been if his new truck had just been shot to pieces. In fact, she didn’t know any other man who’d act like this in such a situation.

But who cared what kind of man he was? He might be calm but there was still an undercurrent of steel resolve in him that didn’t bode well for anybody’s opposing will.

Especially a woman’s. Like most men, he saw her as a sex object. His gaze had drifted to her mouth.

She stared at him until he met her eyes.

“I am going to get a refund,” she said. “I had ten lessons and the best score in the class.”

“That’s the devil of it,” he said. “Most times, lessons can’t put a patch on real life.”

Real life. The words hit her like a blow across the back of the knees.

Clearly, this Jake Hawthorne could handle whatever real life threw at him. While she on the other hand had just proved she had a long way to go to even get started on a real life. She’d shot up his truck, misunderstood his remark about living there, moved into the wrong house. If this was the best she could do, how could she survive out here? This was a place filled with tough men.

Get tough yourself, Clea. Say what you think. Say what you want. Sound like you intend to get it.

“Is this what you do? Pin a person up against the wall where they can’t even move—after you tell them to get out of your house?”

“First experience,” he said.

He took the gun and stepped away to lean it against the wall.

“I declare, miss,” one of the old guys said. “You nearly blowed me and Teddy right out of our boots. How come you’re tryin’ to shoot your own snakes, anyhow?”

It was the one who’d killed the snake who was stomping up the steps. He had keen, very keen blue eyes that seemed to see everything. His buddy was right behind him.

Both of them were grinning at her but she was in no mood to smile back. She felt shaken now that Jake Hawthorne had finally let her go.

“Because I’m not really fond of snakes,” she said. “I thought it might get into the house. I thought it might bite me or my horse. I thought this place wasn’t big enough for both of us.”

Completely immune to her sarcasm, the old guys headed straight for her. She moved away from the wall.

“Well, o’ course that’s right,” the blue-eyed one said. “Ma’am, I’m Buck and this here’s my pardner, Teddy.”

They both tipped their hats to her.

“What I was askin’ by my question was, where is your man? Are you here by your lonesome, Miss…uh, Miss…?”

“I’m Clea.” That was all she intended to tell them.

Teddy spoke to her as if he’d known her all her life. “Well, don’t you worry none, Miss Clea. We done kilt that rattler fer you deader than a rock.” His faded brown eyes were as calm and steady as Buck’s were lively.

“You want us to get Jake out’n’ yore hair, ma’am? He can be a real bother sometimes. Won’t listen to a word nobody says. Cain’t tell him nothin’, you might say.”

Jake snorted derisively.

“This here’s quite a party you’ve throwed, Miss Clea,” Buck said. “I ain’t had me such a rousin’ good time since the Miles City Bucking Horse Contest the last year I rode.”

His twinkle and Teddy’s nod of agreement made her smile in spite of all the aggravation of her insecurities. “Usually I entertain at my own house,” she said wryly.

They laughed, then Buck drawled, “Wal, this can be your house if you want. Jake can live with us. You oughtta stay here so you’ll have a nice mantel board where we can tack up this hide.”

He lifted the dead snake. Clea screamed. She hadn’t even noticed he was carrying it by his side. Held up in the air at the old man’s shoulder, its tail brushed the floor. Its mouth was open with the fangs hanging out. It was a horrible sight.

“He’s a beauty, ain’t he?” Teddy said. “Might be near as long as Buck is tall.”

“Don’t worry none,” Buck said. “I’ll skin him out for you.”

The vision of that activity made her whirl on her heel and run into the house. Her stomach clutched. Partly because the snake repelled her so and partly because it had just occurred to her that she might never want to carry her beautiful snakeskin bag ever again.

She got as far as the worn old sofa and collapsed onto it. “Please go,” she called, through the open doorway. “And take the snake away.”

Nobody answered. Clea let her head fall back onto the top of the cushion. Even with her eyes closed, she saw the snake on the backs of her eyelids. Saw it coiled on the ground beside her truck, waiting for her when she went for the door.

Saw it dead, fangs reaching, hanging from Buck’s hand.

What if it had been a mountain lion…or a bear? At least she could stay away from a snake if she saw it soon enough. It hadn’t chased her when she went to get the gun.

Voices murmured out on the porch.

Here was another example of her mishandling real life. No, two examples. Screaming and running away.

Weariness flooded her jangled nerves. This was the wilds of Montana. She was here for a year. She felt completely exhausted and she hadn’t even found her own house yet.

The scuff of boots against the floor and the squeak of the screened door took the place of the voices. She sat up.

Buck stepped through the door. Holding both hands out to show he was without the snake. “I’m sorry, Miss Clea,” he said. “I never thought you might be scairt of a dead snake. Can I get you a cool drink of water?”

It made her feel like a character in an historical novel, a delicate lady who needed a dose of smelling salts. She opened her mouth to say no, but Buck went on to the kitchen.

When he came back with a tin cup of water he called, “Come on in, boys.”

To her, he said, “We ain’t throwin’ you outta this house ‘til you git over this little upset. Mebbe not ever. Jake can take the house over there by the lake that you’re s’posed to have.” He grinned. “Or he can move in with me and Ted, ‘cause…”

Jake interrupted, “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Buck.” He was headed for the bedroom but he glanced at Clea over his shoulder. “You can move tomorrow.”

“I’m moving today,” she said, shooting the words back at him as briskly as he’d spoken to her.

“Don’t rush her,” Buck called after him.

Teddy said, “No, don’t. But Miss Clea does need to get settled into the right place so’s she can get started on her—”

He interrupted himself to come closer to Clea, his kindly brown eyes questioning her as he finished, “Well, doing whatever you come to Montana to do, ma’am.”

“Whatever it is,” Buck added helpfully.

Hopefully. They both looked at her expectantly and fell silent, giving her a chance to tell them what she was doing here. In Jake’s house. With her bright orange cashmere afghan thrown over the arm of the couch and her burled wood bowl with its meandering turquoise inlay sitting on the mantel.

Not to mention her sheets on his bed.

She couldn’t help but like the two old-timers who were so lively and curious but no way was she going to get into her story with them.

“Runnin’ from the law, more ‘n’ likely,” Buck said with a grin and a wink.

Clea jumped and spilled water on her jeans.

“I’d lay money on it,” Teddy said. “Don’t she look jist like a hoss thief to you?”

She felt her eyes go wide and the blood rush to her cheeks. “I can’t believe you saw through my disguise,” she said.

They laughed, loving that she played along with their joke.

“We mind our own business,” Teddy said. “So we ain’t turnin’ you in, Miss Clea, not unless you try to throw your long rope on some of our hosses.”

“Yore disguise ain’t so bad, though,” Buck said. “Ain’t seen many thieves wear them high-heeled shoes like you got on.”

She laughed, too, even if it sounded a little forced, then she finished the water fast and stood up. She didn’t want to get involved. She had to be alone to get her head straight and her confidence back.

“All I need is directions to my cabin and I’m outta here,” she said.

The old guys nodded. “We’ll show you where it’s at and then we’ll help you with your move,” Buck said. “If you do move.”

Damn, he was stubborn.

Jake thought so, too, judging by his irritated tone. He yelled from the bedroom, “She is moving. And remember, Buck, we’ve got work to do.”

Gallant enough to carry a foal around but not to carry boxes for her.

Face it, girl. The real cowboys have been gone for a hundred years. “I don’t need any help,” Clea yelled back at him. “I won’t accept any help. I moved myself in here and I’ll move myself out.”

Jake came out of the bedroom carrying a paper sack with a shirt peeking out of the top and a pair of boots in his other hand.

Clea said, “What’re you doing? I just told you I’ll move.”

“This’s only for a few more nights.”

“So’s he can take his turn feedin’ the baby,” Teddy said. “He brought in a orphan foal that we’re helpin’ him with.”

She turned to Buck. “Maybe they could go feed the foal and you could ride with me and show me where I’m supposed to be,” she said. “Then I’ll drop you at your place.”

All three of them just stood and looked at her.

“What?” she said.

“Reckon we’ll all have to hitch a ride with you,” Teddy said, “or walk. Our truck ain’t runnin’ right now.”

Clea’s face went hot. She slapped a hand to her forehead. How could she have forgotten?

How could she survive—anywhere—when she’d lost her memory and most of her good sense?

She found her keys and led the way out across the porch, down the steps and past the ruins of the pickup with Natural Bands, whatever that was, written on the door. It was truly a wreck. Also new and top-of-the-line. How much was that going to cost her?

She’d never had to clean up her own messes before. She couldn’t call Brock to take care of it and she couldn’t call Daddy. There was no one she could call.

Not even an insurance agent. Nobody sold policies to protect shooters against their own bad marksmanship.

“First experience,” Jake had said. No kidding.