Читать книгу The Rancher's Dream - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU KNOW ABOUT this horse, I guess.”

Dusty Barley, the crusty old trainer who had answered Campbell Ranch’s call for help the other day, shot a quick glance at Grant, who was watching the halter training from just outside the paddock fence.

“Know what?” Grant was definitely interested in Barley’s opinion. Cawdor’s Gilded Dawn was the horse he hoped to sell to his deep-pocket buyer Monday night. Grant thought the three-year-old filly was fabulous, but if she had a defect he needed to know about it now.

“Ah, well, yep, of course you know.” Barley always talked softly, as if he were thinking aloud, which maybe he was. He also sounded as if he had a mouth full of gravel, probably the result of his crowded and crisscrossed teeth. “But I still gotta say it. This one’s gonna be special, Campbell.”

Grant held back a sigh, watching as the copper filly flicked her beautifully elevated tail. As Barley prompted her to step to the right, her muscular hips caught the sunlight, gleaming as if she truly were made of gold.

Barley was right, of course. Barley was always right. That’s why Grant couldn’t afford him at Campbell Ranch, not full-time. It had been a small miracle he’d been able to get him on such short notice Wednesday—and hold on to him for three whole days now.

“So...I’m just saying.” Barley kept his voice steady as he moved around the young filly, careful not to spook her. “You sure you don’t want to keep this one?”

“I never said that.” Grant leaned on the post, taking the weight off his bad foot. The grass was soft, but right now it felt harder than concrete. “I just said I’ve got a buyer coming from California to look at her.”

“Yep.” Phlegmatic as ever, the older man put the crop close to the young filly’s nose. She didn’t flinch. “Good girl. Good girl. Still. This one’s got star quality. Look at that neck.”

Grant didn’t answer. Truth was, he was 100 percent sure he did want to keep her. But he was 99.9 percent sure he couldn’t afford to.

She would have been perfect, though. If he was going to maintain a breeding program, and not just a boarding and training stable, he needed a foundation mare. Up to now, Charisma Creek had been his dam, but she was reaching the end of her breeding years.

If Campbell Ranch was going to make a name for itself, Grant needed a champion maker, a consistent producer with a good bloodline. And he needed her soon.

Dawn could be that mare.

Though she was very young, she already had the most extraordinary elegance—a high, airy motion and impeccable conformation. She had a swan-like neck, a flat topline, a perfectly dished head. Her eyes were soulful and intelligent.

Plus, as Barley pointed out, she had that indefinable something that made a star. Everyone fell in love with her. The best Arabians were as pretty in the face as cartoon horses, as powerful in carriage as thunderbolts and as graceful in motion as water. Dawn was all of that...and then some.

Barley finished the lesson, led Dawn to the carrots and then let her loose to romp a bit in the outdoor paddock.

Grant followed the filly with his gaze. She covered so much ground when she ran—and yet she still had amazing elevation. He wished he’d brought a video camera. It was a beautiful morning, the sun sparkling like an enormous gold sequin overhead, and the grass studded with a thousand wildflowers that seemed to have sprung up all at once.

Amid all that picture-postcard color, Dawn looked like a dancing sunbeam.

“Thanks,” Grant said as Barley sauntered over toward him at the fence. “You really brought her along today. If you can stay, the boarders need turnout, too. And I’d love to hear what you think about the horse in stall five. His owner wants to sell, but I’m not so sure. I’d planned to ride him a bit this week, but...”

Damn his useless arm. It was going to cost him a fortune to hire out all this work. And he hated feeling cooped up. Pinned down. Irrelevant. He loved the horses, and he loved this land. He wanted to be doing something active, something that mattered.

Instead, for the past three days, he’d been clumsily typing with one finger and making endless phone calls. And watching while other people did the real work.

“I can stay.” Barley shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Olson said you needed help, and that cast there says he wasn’t kidding. I’m yours as long as you need me.”

Grant was relieved—and a little flattered. Everyone knew Barley operated more on gut instinct than on schedules. No one else could get away with being so elusive, but Barley could.

At first glance, he didn’t look particularly impressive. A scrawny older guy, probably not even ninety pounds dripping wet, with a big black mustache and curly black hair that fell to his shoulders. He walked bowlegged and dressed scruffy.

But he knew horses, and he could work miracles.

That meant he didn’t have to commit to anyone long-term, and he rarely did. He was like rain—you couldn’t summon it, and you couldn’t keep it from floating away to the next guy’s acres, but you were grateful for every drop that fell your way.

“Actually,” Grant corrected ruefully, “you’re only mine as long as I can afford you. Which, if I don’t sell Dawn Monday night, isn’t very long.”

“Monday night, huh?” Barley made a thoughtful sound between his teeth. Soberly, he bent over and plucked a snowdrop from a cluster of wildflowers growing beside the post. He threaded its stem into the top buttonhole of his vest. Then he tipped back his hat and watched Dawn cantering in the sunlight.

“That’s a damned shame, Campbell. Truly.”

“Yes,” Grant said with feeling. “Yes, it is.”

“Okay, then. I guess I’ll look at that horse in number five.” Barley saluted Grant wryly and started to walk away, but stopped after just a few feet and turned back. “Seriously, though. My best advice? Don’t let this one get away.”

Grant raised his brows. For a guy like Barley, who was infamous for his unflappable detachment, this was the equivalent of jumping up and down and screaming.

“Okay,” Grant said. “Message received. I’ll think it over.”

As he watched the little man stride away, the weaving gait of his bowlegs kicking up dirt, Grant tried to stay calm. No point letting wishful thinking run away with him.

The two truths weren’t incompatible. Barley could be quite right about Golden Dawn’s value, and Grant could also be quite right about needing to sell her.

But Grant was the only one who had the big picture. He was the only one who had seen both the horse and the solvency projections. All of his financial planner’s clever graphs and charts showed Campbell Ranch nose-diving straight into bankruptcy if they didn’t make their targeted income every month, rain or shine.

Without this sale, he didn’t even come close to that target. And that was before he factored in all the extra expenses his broken arm would create. Not to mention the medical co-pays and deductibles.

If he tried to hold on to every good horse he encountered, instead of selling it, he might as well shut up the ranch now and head out to Memphis, where his father-in-law so desperately wanted him to be, in the job his father-in-law was dangling like a carrot.

He liked Ben Broadwell. And the job, heading up the foundation to help disadvantaged youths with after-school programs, literacy tutors and various kinds of mentoring, was a worthwhile cause. But...

But Ben Broadwell wasn’t his father-in-law anymore, really. Not since Grant’s wife, Brenda, had died. And if Grant took that offer, it was as good as saying he would never be any more than a dead woman’s grieving widower.

That might be true, in the end. But surely he hadn’t reached the end yet. Surely there was still hope that he could build a meaningful life of his own.

So...he had to sell Dawn. Debate settled.

Or at least it should be. Still, he lingered by the paddock watching the filly romp and play awhile longer, even though his foot ached and a mountain of paperwork called.

“Hey, mister!”

He turned at the sound of Crimson’s voice. To his surprise, she was only ten feet away, walking toward him. She wore soft, faded jeans and a loose shirt as blue as the columbines she waded through.

The sun brought out auburn highlights in her silky brown hair and gilded her cheeks, turning her to a kind of gold, just as it had done with Dawn. He felt his body react to her simple, unfussy beauty and had to throw up his guard in a hurry before it could show on his face.

As she drew closer, with Molly draped over her shoulder, and her classic mischievous smile on her lips, she showed no signs of feeling awkward—or sensing that he did. She held up a closed fist and shook it teasingly, the way a gambler might shake a pair of dice before rolling them.

“Can I interest you in some of the good stuff, mister? I’ve been watching you. You look like you could use some serious acetaminophen.”

He checked his watch. He was at least two hours overdue. No wonder his foot was killing him.

“You’re an angel.” He accepted the pills and the small paper cup of water she’d been balancing in the hand that held Molly. He downed both pills in one swallow, realizing only afterward the cup was oddly soggy and bent around the rim.

He looked at the baby, who had swiveled in Crimson’s arms and was now watching him steadily, a frown on her cherubic face. She held out one fat hand and uttered a demanding syllable.

“Oh, sorry, was this yours?” Smiling as he put two and two together, he handed the crumpled cup back. He scraped his lips between his teeth in exaggerated distaste. “Yum,” he said. “Delicious.”

Crimson grinned as Molly gummed the ball of wet paper. “In some cultures, baby slime is considered a delicacy. And speaking of dinner...”

He laughed.

“Marianne tells me you’ve asked her to cater dinner for you Monday night.”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t aware she and Marianne chatted on a daily basis. “I’ve got a foreign buyer coming by. If he nibbles, it’s a big sale, so a little wining and dining seemed in order.”

And Marianne’s dining was the best. She might call the place a “diner,” but the swankiest place in Colorado could take a few pointers from her food. She’d become the go-to spot for catering lately, weddings and funerals, and everything in between.

A disturbing thought occurred to him. What if Marianne had run into trouble?

“Is there a problem? I know I didn’t give her much notice, but Marianne said she could handle it. If she can’t—”

“She can.” Crimson shifted the baby to her other shoulder. “But the way she’s handling it is to ask me to do most of the cooking. I’ve done that for her a couple of times, when she’s been in a pinch. But this time the arrangement seems unnecessarily complicated, don’t you think? I just thought I’d let you know, in case you’d like to eliminate the middleman.”

“No, damn it.” He frowned. “I deliberately didn’t mention the dinner to you because you’re doing too much work around here already.”

And that was absolutely true. Not only did she take care of Molly, and spend hours driving to and from Montrose to see Kevin at the hospital, she’d taken over the cleaning, as well. And for these three days she’d cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner and sent it out to the stable office, where he often ate his meals while he worked.

Then, in the evening, when he was struggling with feeding the horses, she’d somehow materialized in the stables, with Molly in a backpack carrier, and pitched in there, too.

The extra pair of hands was a relief—a godsend, really—but it also made him uncomfortable. When he’d accepted her offer to stay here, he certainly hadn’t intended to turn her into the full-time housekeeper.

And they hadn’t talked about money yet, either. He hoped she knew he intended to pay her for everything. He hadn’t forgotten she’d just been fired, and if she weren’t stuck tending to Molly she’d probably be out there lining up a new job.

“For me, cooking isn’t work,” she said. “It’s fun. I’m pretty good at it.”

He’d discovered that months ago—everyone had, because her contributions to any get-together were always so delicious no one could believe she concocted them in an efficiency apartment’s kitchen.

And since she’d been staying in his house, he’d learned firsthand just how amazing her skills were. And not just with food. With the whole domestic scene.

Because they’d met outdoors, doing manual labor for their outreach program, and, he had to be honest, partly because she was a straight-shooting, spiky-haired body modification artist, he’d never thought of her as the domestic angel type. But boy, had she surprised him. His half-renovated mess of a ranch house had never felt so much like a home.

Maybe that was partly why he was so wrong-footed around her these days. She was so different here...not at all the woman who deliberately preferred to be called Crimson Slash. In fact, it wasn’t until he saw her in her robe the other morning that he’d noticed that her spiky, red-tipped hair was growing out in soft waves around her chin. And wasn’t even red.

“If we’re trying to impress this buyer, I’ve got a beef Stroganoff that’ll have him on his knees.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “And hey...if you’ve got a spare French maid costume lying around anywhere, I can guarantee a meal he’ll never forget.”

Grant’s imagination served up a quick vision of Crimson in a flouncy black miniskirt and lacy apron. A quick sizzle shot through him—much like the one that had blindsided him that first morning, when he made the mistake of helping her arrange her bathrobe.

He squelched it as quickly as it appeared, as he’d been doing ever since that morning. Indulging even an unspoken attraction to this woman was wrong in so many ways. First and foremost: Kevin.

“Can’t say I’ve got a French maid costume lying around,” he said, laughing easily to show what an innocent joke it all was. “Besides, if you’re going to help with dinner, you’re not going to be masquerading as an employee. You’ll eat with us.”

She was already shaking her head, but he didn’t give her time to protest. “Seriously, Red, you’d be doing me a favor. He’s bringing his girlfriend, and it’ll be more comfortable if I’ve got a date, too.”

She flushed, like a sudden sunburn, and he wished he’d bitten his tongue. Why had he used the word date? That wasn’t how he meant it. He just thought that, in case Stefan was the jealous type, the man might prefer his host not to be conspicuously single.

Crimson wouldn’t be a date. She would be his ally.

So dumb. But to be fair, when had conversation with Crimson become so touchy? Up until three days ago, she’d been the most comfortable female buddy he’d ever had. She was smart, sassy, straightforward and fun. Good-looking, but not hungry for admiration. Actually quite the contrary—with her spiky red hair and no-nonsense clothes, she seemed to be asking for some space.

Around Crimson, Grant could always just be himself. Easy, relaxed, uncomplicated. And then she’d moved into Kevin’s room, and suddenly everything changed.

Well, maybe it was time to change it back.

“What’s that scowl about?” He reached out his good hand and tapped the furrow between her brows. “Since when did the idea of eating dinner with me become a fate worse than death?”

She laughed sheepishly, smoothing Molly’s hair, clearly not wanting to meet his eyes. “It’s not. It’s just that I don’t want you to think—”

“I don’t think anything...except I’m not going to sit there pretending to be the cowboy king while you slave away in the kitchen. You’re not my maid. You’re my friend. Eat with us, or I’m sending out for burgers.”

“Marianne’s too busy even for that.”

“Not Marianne’s burgers.” He tilted his head. “I was thinking maybe the Busted Button.”

“No way!” Crimson’s eyes widened in mock horror. The fast-food joint’s real name was Buster’s Burgers, but their billboard screamed “Fat and Happy—Guaranteed!” above a picture of a cartoon French fry with the top button of his blue jeans popping off, so no one in Silverdell ever called it anything but the Busted Button.

She narrowed her eyes, obviously well aware she was being played. “You’ll never close the deal if you go to Buster’s. Your buyer will be dead of a heart attack before dessert.”

“Exactly.” He grinned. “So. Deal?”

It was her favorite shorthand phrase, one she used when she was sick of debating.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes in that sardonic way he knew so well. He felt his shoulders relax. His good friend Red, who could dandle a baby, cook a gourmet meal and still call baloney when he tried to pull a fast one, was back.

“Deal,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Molly and I have some grocery shopping to do.”

* * *

MONDAY MORNING, CRIMSON went to visit Kevin much earlier than usual. The doctors had moved him to Montrose after the first day, which had been presented as a good sign, and she hoped it really meant there was hope.

Belle Garwood, from over at Bell River Ranch, had offered to keep Molly. Because Belle had a newborn baby herself, Crimson hated to impose often, but today, with the big dinner to prepare, she needed the help.

Though Crimson and Grant had both visited Kevin every day since the accident, they never went at the same time. Crimson had picked up a rental car, which made things easier. Even though going separately involved a tremendous amount of driving, especially now that Kevin was in Montrose, it seemed they both preferred it that way.

The schedule wasn’t something they’d discussed much—beyond casually observing that it made sense to take turns. Tag-teaming covered more ground, they’d said. Alternating visits kept watchful eyes in Kevin’s room more of the time.

Grant went in the daytime, mostly, when one of the hands could drive him to Montrose, piggybacking on some errand for the ranch. Crimson went in the late afternoons or early evenings, because it was easier to get a sitter for Molly. If they accidentally overlapped and ran into each other in the parking lot or in the hospital corridors, they never acknowledged that it was awkward.

It was, though.

At home, at the ranch, they’d been able to move past the geyser of sexual chemistry that had sprung up between them that first morning. They’d managed to settle down, even to recapture most of their old comfortable camaraderie. But at the hospital, with Kevin lying there in the dark loneliness of a coma, the memory of that moment seemed to hang over them like a fog of guilt.

This morning the large Montrose hospital was bustling with the usual flurry of early activity. Crimson had bought a colorful balloon to brighten up Kevin’s room, and it bobbed foolishly beside her as she walked past the nurses’ station.

“Cute.” The RN standing at a cart dispensing medications into small cups grinned as she went by. “He’ll love it.”

Crimson smiled back gratefully. She loved the positive energy these wonderful ladies gave off. All of them talked to Kevin as if he could hear them perfectly, so Crimson did the same—even though she didn’t always know exactly what to say.

So many topics were off-limits. Topics like how, just before the accident, she had been on the verge of “breaking up” with him, or whatever you called it when the relationship hadn’t ever quite gotten off the ground in the first place.

You couldn’t Dear John someone in a coma. The fact that Crimson was caught in a romantic no-man’s land was nothing—less than nothing—compared to the trap that held Kevin prisoner in this helpless half-life.

The door to his room stood halfway open, so she pushed lightly and entered, her smile still in place in case, miraculously, he’d opened his eyes and could see it. But he looked exactly the same as he had yesterday. Immobile and terrifyingly remote, as if some tether had been cut, and with every day he drifted farther away from the rest of them.

“I brought you a Donald Duck balloon,” she said brightly, arranging the little cylindrical weight on the windowsill. She tied a bow in the string so the balloon wafted softly at eye level.

“I know you’ll start doing your oh boy, oh boy, oh boy impersonation as soon as you see it.” She pulled the guest chair closer to the bed, sat down and laid her hand lightly on his arm. “But you know what? I’ll be so glad you’re awake I won’t even complain.”

He didn’t respond, of course. The IV continued to plink, and the monitor kept up its electronic hum and rhythmic beep. From just outside the door, voices and footsteps rolled down the hall like waves of energy. But Kevin was utterly silent.

“I wish you could have seen Molly this morning,” she said, refusing to let herself be discouraged. “That front tooth has finally broken through, and she smiles all the time, as if she’s showing it off.”

More silence. But Molly was the one subject Crimson felt comfortable with. No matter how complicated everything else might be, she was certain Kevin would want to know his little girl was all right.

“She’s sleeping better, too. I got one of those teething rings Grant suggested—” She broke off. Just mentioning Grant’s name made her nervous. She didn’t want Kevin to feel he’d been displaced as Molly’s daddy...that she and Grant were the parents now. Even worse, what if some of her new feelings about Grant came through in her voice?

She imagined, sometimes, that even the way she said the syllable was different now. Huskier, leaden with tension and repressed emotions.

“Anyhow, I think there’s less pain once the tooth cuts through. She seems much more cheerful now. And boy, is she eating! When I bought diapers yesterday, I had to get the next size up.”

She chuckled, but the sound echoed eerily in the quiet room, and it felt out of place, like laughing in a church. She wondered why it didn’t sound that way when the nurses did it. Probably because, when a nurse was in here, she didn’t feel so alone.

She didn’t feel so out of her depth.

“Oh! I took a video this morning.” She pulled out her phone and thumbed through her pictures until she got to the right one. She pulled it up, hit Play and held the phone in front of Kevin’s face, as if that made sense. As if he might just open his eyes and say, “A video! Great!”

On the phone’s small screen, Molly waved her hands, grinned and let loose peals of giggles and hiccupping laughter. Occasionally, Crimson’s thumb had covered the lens as she struggled to hold the phone out and the baby up simultaneously. It didn’t matter, though. Because of course Kevin did not wake, did not open his eyes, did not show any signs of being happy to hear his baby’s voice.

“Say, I love you, Daddy!” Crimson sounded like a cheerleader, urging Molly. “Say, come home soon, Daddy!”

And then...at the very moment Crimson said, “Come home soon, Daddy,” Kevin’s finger twitched. Crimson dropped the phone to her lap, staring at his hand. Her heart beat rapidly.

Do it again, she willed him. Do it again.

The light in the room changed as the door opened. Crimson looked up, her heart still pounding in her throat. It was Kevin’s new doctor, Elaine Schilling.

“He moved his hand!” Crimson didn’t leave Kevin’s side, didn’t let go of his arm, but she leaned toward the doctor eagerly. Her voice was tight and thin. “I was playing a video for him—a video of his daughter—and his finger moved. I’m sure of it!”

Dr. Schilling paused as she reached into her pocket to pull out the little light she used to check pupil response, an important indicator, Crimson had learned.

“Well...” The woman’s hazel eyes were kind, but her thin, austere face didn’t catch any of Crimson’s eager enthusiasm. “It’s certainly possible. But we must remember a person in Mr. Ellison’s condition may exhibit reflex activities that mimic conscious activities. It’s wise not to read too much into it.”

Crimson stared stupidly, as if she couldn’t understand the doctor’s terminology. But she did understand. It was simple enough. Dr. Schilling was saying the twitch was just some involuntary misfiring of a neuron. She was saying it probably didn’t mean anything, and Crimson shouldn’t hope for a miracle.

But Crimson was hoping. She had to hope. Who could survive without hope?

She couldn’t. She remembered how—almost fourteen months ago, just barely more than a year—she’d kept diving down into the cold, black water of the Indigo River, looking for Clover, telling herself it wasn’t too late. If a passing stranger hadn’t seen her there and jumped in to drag her to shore, she’d have drowned alongside her sister.

In many ways, drowning would have been better than giving up. She couldn’t remember the man’s face, but she’d never forget his voice, saying, “You have to stop now. She’s gone.” The words had fallen on her skin like razor blades.

So she had to keep hoping. She wanted to tell the doctor that, but she didn’t know how to begin. She let her hand fall into her lap. She must have bumped the Play arrow, because suddenly Molly began to laugh again as Crimson again implored her to tell her Daddy to come home soon.

The doctor frowned, a stern but compassionate expression. She clearly thought Crimson had restarted the video deliberately, hoping to prove her point. She hadn’t—truly she hadn’t—but she couldn’t help staring at Kevin’s hand all the same. Maybe...

But this time Kevin lay as still as a wax mannequin.

And suddenly, Crimson’s eyes began to burn. They stung fiercely, as if they’d caught fire from the inside. Was it possible he’d never wake up? That he’d never go home to his baby girl?

As she stared at that lifeless hand, scalding tears spilled over. She bent her head, and the tears fell against Kevin’s skin. He showed no awareness of that, either.

Embarrassed, Crimson stood. The doctor needed to tend to her patient. Crimson was in the way here. She was making a fool of herself. She turned, but she could barely see which direction to walk. Everything was fractured by her tears.

As if she’d called for him, Grant was somehow there. He put his arm around her shoulders and murmured her name. She looked up at him, and even though his face was blurred, she felt a powerful magnetic pull, as if his shoulder was the only place in the world she could rest her head safely right now. The only place she could let these tears fall in peace, without feeling ridiculous or weak. Without exposing all the secrets she’d been hiding for so long.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said gently. His arm steered her toward the door. “Let me take you home.”

She followed him out. But as they exited the dim room and emerged into the bright light of the hospital corridor, all she could think was...

If Kevin actually could still hear, how did it make him feel to hear his best friend call Crimson sweetheart?