Читать книгу The Wrangler - Pamela Britton - Страница 12

One of the horses snorted in the stall behind Sam. He saw her jump. She was on edge. Excellent. So was he.

“What do you do for a living?” he asked, staring into her big, green eyes. “So far all I know is that you ride horses.” He smirked. “English.”

“And that should reassure you,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’m a horse person, and so I can’t be half-bad.” She patted Red.

He moved even closer, smiling when he saw her swallow. Hard.

“Yeah,” he said softly, “but what do you do for a living?” he asked again. The question wasn’t that hard. He must have her rattled.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” he repeated, and he could swear he felt heat emanating from her all of a sudden. Her cheeks grew rosy, and then the color spread to her neck.

“I’m a geologist.”

That caught him off guard. “A geologist?”

She shoved a strand of hair away from her eyes. The wind had mussed it up. “I put myself through school, found myself a high paying job. I used to work for one of the chemical companies.”

“Used to? What happened? You get fired?” He wasn’t thinking right. Under normal circumstances he would never ask such a rude question.

She must have him rattled.

“I had to quit. They gave me three months off to heal, longer if I needed it, but I’m still sort of recovering from my injuries. Plus, I started having issues at work, couldn’t focus…so I quit.”

“Quit and came here.”

She nodded.

“But you said you have a horse. One that you used to show.”

“I do have a horse, but he’s for sale down in Texas.”

“You don’t strike me as the type that would want to sell her horse.”

She shrugged. “My medical bills, the portion that the insurance company didn’t cover. It was expensive. My horse is worth a lot of money. I have to do what I can to pay the bills.”

So she was selling her horse. The only thing she owned, if he didn’t miss his guess.

The whole story kind of made him sick. And what injuries was she still recovering from? She looked fine to him.

“You should probably get going before Gigi comes out here and tans my hide for keeping you too long.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said, hooking the left stirrup over the horn of the saddle so she could undo the girth.

“I thought you didn’t know how to ride western?” he asked, resting a hand on Red’s neck.

“I said I didn’t ride in a western saddle, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how the saddles work.”

Despite himself, his gaze drifted downward to her rear. The memory of how it’d felt to have her be the aggressor, however briefly, made his body react in a way that made him uncomfortable given that he’d just met her.

She glanced at him—and caught him still staring at her behind.

A smile slowly lifted the edges of her mouth. “Do I have dirt on me?” she asked.

He knew she knew exactly what he’d been doing: checking her out. But that didn’t seem to bother her, and for the first time he found himself thinking that it might not be a bad thing that she was staying in the house.

“Your rear looks great to me,” he said, throwing caution to the wind.

“So does yours.”

“You sure you don’t want to bunk down in the room next to me?”

He’d pushed too far. He could tell by the way the back of her neck turned red and she suddenly devoted all her attention to Red. “No thanks,” she said as she pulled the heavy leather saddle toward her.

But a western saddle was not an English saddle and she began to tip backward under the weight of it.

“Careful,” he called, reaching out to help her. He pushed the saddle back on Red’s back just in time, and when he turned to steady her, they were belly-to-belly, Clint’s hands clutching her upper arms.

“Uh…thanks,” she said. “I, uh…I lost my balance.”

Let her go.

“Western saddles are heavy,” he murmured. Her arms were tiny. He could just about wrap his entire hand around one.

“Yeah. I just thought…” He held her gaze.

Let. Her. Go.

“What’d you think?” he asked softly. Just touching her about lit him on fire and he couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to kiss her—

“Gracious! You’re still in here.”

They sprang apart.

Gigi stared at him in silent rebuke. “What the devil’s taking so long, Clint? Her tea’s getting cold.”

“DON’T LET HIM PUSH YOU around,” Gigi told Sam as she led her away from the barn.

“Believe me, I won’t,” the young woman said, her eyes peering down at the ground.

“Do you have a hotel back in town?” Gigi asked. “Do you need to go back there and check out?”

“No, but really, Mrs. Baer, I hate to impose.”

She seemed like such a sweet thing. Gigi had wanted to wrap her up and tell her everything would be all right. Samantha had a world of hurt hiding inside.

“It’s fine,” Gigi said. “But you’ll need to watch that one in there,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. “He’s a real scallywag.”

She glanced back at the barn. “I’ve noticed.”

“He thinks because he’s my grandson he can boss me around.”

“I’ve noticed that, too.”

Gigi studied her. “So I take it that means you knew who he was this whole time. My grandson. Not some kind of ranch hand.”

“I knew,” she said.

Clever girl. “Well, thank God for that. With Clint admitting he lives with me, I was hoping you didn’t think me a cougar or something.”

The young woman stared at her for long seconds, but then threw back her head and laughed. It was so good to see her let loose. She had a feeling that hadn’t happened in a while. And, my, but she was a handsome thing. No wonder Clint was interested in her, although to be honest, Clint had had plenty of beautiful women throwing themselves at him in the past. Not that Sam had thrown herself at him. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was just strange that her grandson was showing an interest in the girl when he’d just met her.

Strange and encouraging. She’d given up all hope of ever having great-grandchildren.

“I wouldn’t have thought that. Well, maybe I might have,” she said. “But only for about one-point-nine seconds.”

“Well,” Gigi said, “as long as it wasn’t for two seconds, I would have forgiven you.”

It’d been too long since Clint had shown interest in any girl, Gigi thought. Oh, there’d been the odd trip into town. He was, after all, a man. But not since Julia had he been so obvious in his pursuit.

Julia. God. Now there was a woman she’d been glad to see the last of.

She can bunk down next to me.

Gigi just bet her grandson would like that.

“It’s a beautiful house,” Sam said, stopping yet again and gazing up at it.

She loved horses. She’d be perfect for Clint.

“It’s been in my family for a long, long time,” Gigi said.

But she was from the city and so that might be a problem. It’d been a problem with Julia. And that made Clint’s interest in Sam all the more strange. Gigi would have thought after Julia he’d give a woman like Sam a wide berth.

“That’s right,” Sam said. “Your family settled this land in the early eighteen-hundreds.”

Maybe he was just flirting with her. Maybe that’s all this was.

“We were one of the first families to live in Montana,” she said. “That’s how we ended up with so much acreage.”

“Twelve thousand acres.”

“No, dear,” Eugenia said. “That’s just this parcel here.” She motioned to the land around them. “We own another hundred thousand to the west there.”

“Really? I only ever read about the twelve thousand acres online.”

She hadn’t known that? Good. At least Gigi wouldn’t have to worry about Sam wanting Clinton for his money…like she had with Julia. It was obvious Sam had been attracted to her grandson before she’d known what he was worth.

“And another fifty-thousand to the east. We have some smaller parcels in between that.”

“I had no idea,” Sam mused.

“We’re one of the largest landowners in Montana.” She watched the woman’s eyes carefully, looking to see if a glint of something entered them. Maybe greed, or delight, or the conniving machination of a woman after her grandson for what he was worth on paper…which was a lot.

“That’s how you’ve kept the horses a secret all these years, isn’t it?” she asked.

So far, so good. The girl didn’t seem the least little bit gleeful.

“We move them around a lot,” Gigi admitted, “which is why they’re not truly wild. We manage them just like we do the cattle.”

“So they don’t run free in the hills?”

Gigi shook her head. “If we let them to do that they’d quickly reproduce in such numbers that they’d become a problem. So we selectively allow them to breed.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed.

“But they run free on a lot of land,” Gigi added.

“I see.”

One of the first questions out of Julia’s mouth was exactly how many acres did they own.

“We run cattle here, too,” Gigi said. “It’s how we keep the place afloat. We might be rich in land, but we have to make ends meet somehow. Some years, it’s not easy what with the cattle market being up and down. We’ve thought about selling some of our land, but then what would we do with the horses?”

That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true at all, but if Sam here was after Clint’s wealth, like Julia had been, Gigi wanted to know about it. So she watched Sam’s face closely for signs.

She just looked sad.

“Have you ever thought about setting up a trust for the horses?” Sam asked. “You know, maybe gather together some private investors. I’ve met a lot of wealthy people—through showing horses—and so I could probably coordinate it all. That way, when money is tight, you wouldn’t have to worry about caring for the horses again.”

“No,” Gigi said honestly. Because in truth the Baers were wealthy. Very wealthy. They’d sold land over the years, invested it. Yes, they lived simply, hadn’t remodeled the house in the past fifty years, or added expensive horse barns or flaunted their wealth. No need for that. They kept to themselves.

“I’d like to help,” Sam said, “if you’ll let me. Horse people are great. If I tell them I need money for wild mustangs, they’ll be onboard. It’ll be a tax write-off for them. That’ll be a plus. And if they donate money we could generate annual income. That income would grow over the years. You guys would never have to worry about taking care of your horses again.”