She swallowed the knot in her throat and made herself lift her head. Because he’d suffered too many losses already. Because she’d seen him smile once and she was going to make sure he did it again. If only so he wouldn’t forget that even in grief, there were still things in the world to smile about.
Even if it only started and ended with a good cup of coffee.
“That sounds really nice to me,” she said.
Then she quickly turned away and opened her own car door, taking time to blink hard so he wouldn’t see more tears in her eyes.
* * *
On a good day, April could make it up the treacherous, winding road to the Rambling Rad from the big house in just under an hour. Driving one of the Double-C trucks with a horse trailer on the hitch, it took her twice that long, particularly when she had to make a stop at Vivian Templeton’s house to deliver Gage’s check. The woman herself hadn’t been there, but the young woman who was her assistant had been so chatty, April could have wasted another half hour if she hadn’t managed to pull herself away.
But finally she’d made it to the wooden barricade and she set the brakes and slid out of the truck. She tossed the chucks from the truck bed behind the wheels of the trailer for good measure, then opened the gate to back Daisy down the ramp.
The horse was her grandmother’s favorite mount. Reliable. Unfailingly easygoing. She was surefooted and rarely spooked. Which to April felt like the perfect choice to take down a path that was too narrow to accommodate a UTV.
She tied the horse to the trailer while she pulled out the tack. She was just tightening the cinch when Daisy nickered softly and shifted.
A moment later, Samson ran around them both, giving Daisy’s hooves plenty of berth.
“Good-looking horse,” Jed said.
April pulled down the stirrup from where she’d tucked it over the saddle horn and patted the horse’s gleaming brown coat. “She is. This is Daisy.” She finally looked over at Jed. Even prepared, the sight of him caused something in her stomach to flutter around like a caged bird. It was the middle of May and the thermometer had been climbing steadily. He only wore jeans and a white T-shirt that clung to his shoulders. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Sound travels up here. Heard the truck.”
Right. She smiled. “I’ve come for the tour.” They hadn’t actually gotten around to setting a time. Or a date for that matter. After coffee—which had been particularly good, despite everything—at the little lunch counter he’d taken them to, he’d dropped her off at her car.
They hadn’t spoken any more about his wife. Or her grandparents’ argument. They hadn’t discussed the Rad, or what would happen to it after Snead got his hands on it. They had simply sat there, shoulders brushing because of the close confines of the counter stools, in relatively companionable silence.
Drinking coffee.
She looped the reins in her hand and started toward Jed. “Hope it’s not too inconvenient of a time. If it is, say so.” She waved her hand toward the cabin and Otis’s ridge above it. “Daisy and I will just head up to see Otis.”
The sun was already well in the sky, making both his brown hair and brown eyes seem lighter. His gaze was no less piercing, though. It seemed to rove over her like a hound on a scent. “What’s wrong?”
If he ever listened to the gossip in Weaver when he got into town, he’d know soon enough. “My grandmother has left the Double-C.” Left Squire. The unthinkable had actually happened. “She packed up and went to stay with my aunt and uncle at their ranch.” It was hard to get the words out without wanting to bawl.
“Think it’ll blow over?”
It was hard to swallow with the knot in her throat. “I don’t know how. He’s taken himself off to his fishing cabin. She’s at my aunt’s. They’re both refusing to talk, so—” She lifted her hands. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Aren’t we all,” she murmured. Daisy nudged her shoulder and she nearly bumped into Jed. “Sorry.”
He just steadied her. “Horse likes you. Nothing to apologize for.” He called the dog, but Samson was already off chasing something. “Come on.” He shoved aside one of the wood barriers so that there’d be more room to walk Daisy through.
“You sure it’s not a bad time?”
“It’s a perfect time, actually. Any later and I’d have already headed down there. Rufus is already saddled up.” He was walking ahead of her, and the leather gloves he’d shoved in his back pocket kept drawing her attention to that whole region.
She was glad he couldn’t see her face. She didn’t really want to be caught ogling his butt even if it was supremely ogle-worthy.
But if he had caught her, as a pastime it was much preferable to thinking about the state of her grandparents’ marriage.
When they reached the top of the road, he whistled and Jed’s horse trotted into view. “Need a leg up?”
“I got it.” To prove it, she stretched her leg up and tucked the tip of her boot in the stirrup, then swung herself up onto Daisy’s back. “Thank goodness for stretchy jeans,” she said once she was mounted.
“That’s one way of putting it,” he said blandly, and her cheeks went hot. She blamed it on the sun and wished she hadn’t forgotten her sunglasses inside the truck.
He was smiling faintly as he turned to Rufus. His dun was equally as tall as Daisy, and even though she tried to imagine Jed wearing a suit in some investment bank in Chicago, she just couldn’t.
He mounted the horse with ease and she followed him past the cabin, winding around below Otis’s ridge until they reached a narrow path that declined sharply through the rocky terrain. He looked back at her. “Doing okay?”
“Yeah.” Even though she’d been put on horses since before she could walk, she hadn’t been on many trails this rough. “What do you do when it’s time for roundup?”
“Drive them down beyond the lake to a meadow near the highway. There’re pens and chutes and a place where getting a trailer in isn’t a dance with death.”
“When you drive them, is the terrain like this?”
“In places. Needless to say, it takes a while. Even with the help we hire.”
It boggled the mind. “You know, ranching doesn’t have to be this hard.”
“It does if you were Otis Lambert.”
She leaned over Daisy’s neck, trying to avoid the scrape of a low branch. From where they were, she could see neither the creek nor the meadow that had been visible from up on the ridge. Which meant she had no idea, either, how far they had to go.
She didn’t know if Jed was taking Rufus slower than he would have, but she still appreciated the cautious pace he’d set.
April couldn’t tell whether Daisy cared at all, though. The horse plodded along, not seeming bothered by the small rocks skittering out from beneath her hooves or the boulders pressing in on them from both sides.
At one point, April actually had to close her eyes and just trust the man leading them and the horse beneath her.
But at last, they were beyond the path, heading upward again into the clearing that was the grassy meadow. Despite the water rushing in the wide creek nearby, it was measurably warmer than it had been up at the cabin and she pulled the band off her wrist and twisted her hair up off her neck with it before she dismounted. Daisy immediately wanted to head for the water’s edge, where Rufus was already drinking, and she let the horse have her way while she stretched the kinks out.
She shaded her eyes with her hand, watching Jed as he cupped water in his hands to sluice over his head. The water dripped off him, wetting his shoulders, his back. His chest.
She looked away and refastened her hair into a tighter knot. Then she pulled off the thin cotton shirt she was wearing over a tank top and walked to the edge of the stream. The water ran over the toes of her boots as she leaned
over to douse the shirt in the water. “Oh criminy. That water’s like ice!”
“Yep.” He straightened and shoved his hair back from his face.
She quickly wrung the water out from the shirt, shook it out, and pulled it back on. The cooling effect was intense and immediate, making her skin ripple with chills that she knew wouldn’t last for long.
She propped her hands on her hips and glanced around. The hook of the creek was still some distance away, but it was easy enough to see the cattle. Some were standing right in the water. Some were looking their way. “They’re not going to be upset with a stranger in their midst, are they?” She squinted at Jed again.
“Not generally, unless you get between a cow and her new calf. They’re pretty protective.” He pulled two bottles of water from his saddlebags and tossed one to her. “Need to get a count of calves,” he said between gulps of water. “Had three new ones just yesterday.” He gestured toward the brush growing between the edge of the meadow and the thick growth of trees. “Most of them are working their way back in there. Fortunately, we’ve only got a dozen left to drop, but two of them are heifers. God knows why they’ve decided the maternity ward is up here instead of down by the lake like usual.” He’d already emptied the bottle and he crumpled the plastic in his fist and shoved it back in the saddlebag.
Then he snatched the work gloves from his pocket and slapped them against his palm once before he began pulling them on. He released the coil of rope tied to his saddle and slung it over his shoulder. “Find some shade and relax. Shouldn’t take me too long.”
“I can help.”
He gave her a disbelieving look.
She spread her arms. “Come on. Seriously? I’ve done my share of working cattle. Growing up, I spent a lot of summers at both my grandparents’ and my aunt’s ranches. I’ll bet I’m more comfortable with it than you were when you first came here with Otis!”
In answer, he rummaged in his saddlebag again and came out with another pair of gloves. He flipped them toward her. “They’ll be too big, but better than nothing.”
She fit her hands into the gloves, wishing that doing so didn’t feel as intimate as it did.
It was silly, after all. They were merely a pair of leather gloves. Had no doubt started out yellow, but were now as stained and discolored as the ones he wore. Just because they’d likely gotten to that state while being worn by him didn’t mean anything.
Telling herself that was all well and fine. And completely ineffective.
She followed him toward the stand of fir trees and slipped into the shade. Combined with the wet shirt, she immediately felt cooler. She counted off cows. Counted the babies that were so damn cute it was a sharp reminder how she’d always hated leaving at the end of summer and going back to school.
She heard a sudden crashing through the undergrowth, followed by Jed’s curse.
Alarmed, she followed the sounds. “Are you—” She broke off when she finally reached him crouched next to a cow that was lying on her side in the middle of a bristly bush. She was clearly laboring.
“Think she’s breech,” he said, trying to keep the heifer from scrambling to her feet and bolting. He got the rope around her neck. “Can you tie her off if I throw you the rope?”
She motioned for the rope and deftly tied it around a nearby tree
The second he released his weight from the cow, she scrambled to her feet, trying to run away, but the rope around her neck stopped her. Her eyes were wild as she tossed her head. April could see a hoof already protruding from the other end.
“You think the calf’s still alive?”
“Gonna find out.” He had the taut rope in his fist, slowly working his way toward the cow, though she looked like she was not going to have any of it. “Got straps and gloves in the bags.”
“I’ll get ’em.” She ran back to the horses where they were still plodding around in the cool shallows of the creek. She flipped open Jed’s saddlebags and found the pack of OB sleeves. She’d seen calves pulled before, with straps or chains and even mechanical calf pullers. None had ever been breech.
She finally turned up the straps and ran back to him, along with the pack of plastic sleeves.
The cow was off her feet again. He’d shortened the slack in the rope. If she got up again, she wouldn’t be going far.
“Hope you didn’t have to tackle her.” She dropped down onto her knees beside him, forgetting about the plastic sleeves, because he already had his arm stuck up inside the cow’s birth canal. The animal was wheezing.
“Wore herself out. At least she didn’t choose that damn bush again for her manger.” His eyes were nearly closed as he concentrated. “Not all the way turned, but she definitely needs help.” He gestured. “Got the straps?”
She shook them out and fashioned the first loop. It was long. Long enough to loop twice over a hoof, pass behind Jed for leverage, and loop twice again over the other hoof.
“Thought this was a two-person job,” she said breathlessly as she watched him work. The cow was not trying to fight him anymore. Whether she just wanted to get her baby out or she’d realized he was trying to help didn’t really matter when the end result was the same.
“Last time Otis pulled a calf was the second year I was here.” He had his boot heels planted in the earth as he worked. “Dammit. Nearly had it.” He was sweating. His still-wet hair fell over his forehead. “Come on, baby. Give me that other hoof.” He reached farther, then gave a little shout of triumph. “That’s it. That’s it. Little farther.” She could see him feeding the straps. Knew he was looping the second hoof.
Then he was leaning back, using his weight to help ease one hoof forward, then the other, back and forth, slowly, inexorably walking the calf free. When the mama rested, he took up the slack. When she pushed again, he helped, straining as hard as any man could while helping a female bring her child into the world.
Then the calf finally slid free in a rush and he fell back, too, and yanked his T-shirt over his head to rub it over the slick, black little baby. Rubbing its head. Its face.
“Alive?”
“Yeah.”
She hooted and laughed as she sank back on her heels. “Yes!” She grinned at him. “Good job, Dalloway. Hero of the day, here.”
He looked up at her and seemed to go still for a moment.
She was flushed. From the heat, from the birth. At least he’d never know the fixed way he was looking at her was making her blush. “Want me to let her loose?”
He finally looked away. “Give me a second.” He was still cleaning the calf. Checking its sex. “Got ourselves a little boy.” As soon as he said the words, the cow was struggling to her feet. April knew that was a good sign.
“Okay. Let her loose now.”
She untied the rope and flipped the loosened loop off the cow’s neck. As soon as she did, the mama advanced on Jed and he quickly scooted out of the way so she could bond with her newborn.
He scooped up the straps and his soiled T-shirt. “Toss me that bottle of water, would you?”
She tossed him the water. He poured it over his arms, doing the best he could to clean himself up. She figured unless he stretched out flat in that numbingly cold stream, he wouldn’t get much cleaner until he was wedged in the small shower inside his bunkhouse-for-one.
And that was an image she needed to get out of her head, pronto. He was already half-naked right in front of her. She didn’t need to torment herself even more.
“That was pretty impressive work for a city boy.”
He gave her a slanted grin. “If the guys back home only knew just how intimate I’ve been with a cow.” Then he actually gave her a quick wink before he was striding back toward the horses.
She dragged her eyes away from that ogle-worthy sight. A sight only improved because of the stretch of naked male back above his worn leather belt.
“You coming or you just gonna stand there admiring the view?” he called over his shoulder.
She hoped to heaven the view he meant was the one lying beyond the mountain.
But the squiggle inside her said otherwise.
She didn’t know if she’d made a mistake coming on this horse ride with him, but for now, she wasn’t going to worry about it. There’d be plenty of time to worry about it later.
“The view,” she called back to him, unable to stop the laugh that came with it.
Then she jogged after him.
Because, just in case he decided to stretch out flat in that crystal clear stream, she didn’t want to miss it.
Chapter Twelve
“What’s the word on Snead?”
April clutched her cell phone closer to her ear and stepped out of the kitchen, where Jaimie and Matthew and all of his brothers were grousing about Squire’s apparent burst of insanity. “I haven’t made any progress, Gage,” she admitted when she finally reached the heavy front door and went out onto the porch. “I’ve tried to catch him at his motel more than once but the guy’s slippery.”
“Then put on some gloves and catch him.”
“Rumor has it he’s been talking with a mining company. Someplace out of Ohio. Winemeier Mining. Have you heard of them?”
“Not yet. Call me when you’ve caught Snead.”
He hung up in her ear and she sighed, tapping the phone against her lips before dialing again. This time Snead’s motel room. She’d called it so often it was on her frequent numbers.
As usual, he didn’t answer. But this time her message was as direct as it could be. Just her name and the dollar figure that Gage was prepared to pay.
If that didn’t get a response, she didn’t know what would.
From inside the house she could hear her uncles’ voices rising then falling as they argued over what should be done about their father and Gloria.
As if there were anything that they could do.
A Promise to Keep Page 14
