When the Dust Settles

by Mary Calmes

“But the calves.” I waved a hand toward them.

  “You heard Rand, he’ll have Zach send Pierce and Tom on back here.”

  “All right, then,” I conceded.

  He turned away, and I was faced with his wide back and broad shoulders, saw the muscles rippling under the shirt, hugging his triceps, traps, and delts. The jeans he had on clung to his narrow hips and tight round ass, and they cleaved to his long, powerfully hewn legs. Mac was built nice, but I would take the observation to my grave.

  “You’re so odd,” he said, rounding on me.

  Lost in admiring his solid, carved frame, I almost walked into him, and because I was embarrassed, I bristled. “Don’t insult me any—”

  “Shut up. I didn’t mean nothin’ by that.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “I mean,” he said irritably. “That you whine and complain more’n any two people I know, but without even a word, you jump into that ice-cold river and walk those calves across one by one. What the hell?”

  “I don’t complain.”

  “Watch you don’t turn into a pillar of salt, lyin’ like that.”

  “I—”

  “You didn’t want to ride drag even though you’re one of the only people who can, with all your experience,” he said. “You think Rand is making us all carry too much gear.” I realized he was making a list. “You’re tired and hungry, but when it’s time to rest, you pet the dogs instead of closin’ yer eyes, and when we stop for chow, you don’t eat nothin’. And that’s all just this mornin’, for crissakes! I won’t even get into how much you bitch whenever you’re out at the Red.”

  I felt my face get hot. “Well, don’t worry. I won’t be back after this.”

  He growled, grabbing hold of my arm. “You’re such an idiot.”

  I yanked free and stalked away toward Juju. “I really love being told that all the fuckin’ time!”

  “Get your ass back here!”

  I mounted and looked back at him over my shoulder while riding to catch up with the now-wandering cattle. With the help of the dogs and fast and nimble Juju, I got all the calves and their mothers rounded up and moved my charges farther down the trail. I would keep up if it killed me, because dealing with Mac or Rand or Zach was not something I wanted to do. I just wanted to get the job done and get home.

  After a few hours, between the rub of my jeans, the belt, and the cramp in my side from trying to sit awkwardly, I was in pain. I took off the T-shirt I had on under my flannel, folded it up, and pressed it between the waistband of my underwear and my skin, over the scrape. With the grinding sensation gone, I felt better. I was a little lightheaded, but I figured it was because it was so hot and I’d barely eaten anything. When we crossed the next part of the river, after I got all the calves from one side to the other, I let Juju rest and have some water while I splashed some on my face.

  “Glenn!”

  Jesus. His voice could cut glass.

  Rand brought his horse closer but still stayed well out of touching distance of Juju, and once I was mounted again, I rolled my head to look at him.

  He was silent.

  “What?” I asked curtly.

  “Stop moving the stock and wait on Pierce and Tom.”

  “Why?”

  His jaw clenched. “Goddammit, Glenn! First you’re pissed that you’re back here alone, but when I say to hold up because I’m sending you help, you want to go on and keep moving. You make no bit of sense.”

  I groaned irritably, squeezing Juju with my legs, and when I did, she moved on her own, walking quickly sideways.

  Both horse and rider were looking at us. The stallion was nickering, clearly chafed, and Rand was scowling.

  “What?”

  “What?” Rand repeated, incredulous. “The hell is that? Is she a circus horse or something?”

  “No,” I snapped, because I didn’t like how he said it. It sounded derogatory. “She was just doing her sidestepping thing she does when she knows I’m on edge.”

  He pointed at us. “That’s not normal.”

  “Says you with your beast of a stallion,” I fired back.

  His head shake was full of disgust. “You realize that you’re following so far behind you don’t even know where the goddamn line is.”

  “Lemme get my compass,” I muttered and was going to dismount to get into my saddlebag, but Rand stopped me with the sharp command to stay in the saddle. I bristled. “So you like me being lost or—”

  “Just shut up,” he instructed me. “Christ, it’s a wonder you’ve lived this long.”

  I threw up my hands, waiting on him.

  “Jesus.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Mac said you’re really hurt,” he retorted.

  “Mac worries like an old woman.”

  “There’s blood on your shirt, idiot,” he huffed.

  “It’s dry. I ain’t bleedin’ no more.”

  “Just follow me back to the chuck wagon, lemme give you a shot of penicillin and a pain killer, and we’ll tape it all up.”

  “Too bad we don’t have a stapler.”

  “I do back at the Red,” he told me.

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded. “More importantly, we got us a doctor and a nurse to go with it.”

  I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. “You’re gonna have a whole town on the Red pretty soon, ain’t ya, Rand? You won’t be dependent on no one for nothin’ at all.”

  “That’s the plan,” he said and actually smiled at me. “Now come on.”

  I followed him back because he was being nice to me, and it was really hard to say no to him when he was.

  We dismounted when we got close to the wagon carrying food that now contained medical supplies as well. I noticed tents were being set up, and that surprised me. On a real drive, we stopped for lunch and that was it. But with regular people along and some kids, there had to be a lot more resting.

  “We got us a first aid tent now,” Rand informed me, “and a cot to lie down on.”

  “Well, that’ll be nice not to have to drop trou to get a shot of Penicillin leaning up against your horse.”

  “You’re such a smartass.”

  I shrugged, trailing after him, and once we were in the tent, he shoved me forward. Dropping onto the cot, I lay down on my side.

  “Oh, for crissakes, Glenn, you bled through your T-shirt.”

  I loosened my belt, unfastened the button-fly, and then tried to shove my jeans to my thighs. I was surprised at the feeling of being stabbed when I tried. “Fuck.”

  “Okay,” Rand sighed. “This isn’t gonna work.”

  Groaning, I told him to yank my jeans and underwear off the wound fast.

  “Oh, I’m gonna have to do that too, but you need stitches.”

  “No, I—”

  “It’s too deep and too wide.”

  I really could think of nothing worse at the moment than Rand taking needle and thread to my skin. “Just—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” he ordered. “It needs cleaning and stitches and—if you could see it, you’d agree with me.”

  “I can see it,” I said. I had forgotten this part of driving stock, the part where pain factored in. “Tape’ll do just fine.”

  “It’s too deep for—fuck.”

  “You’re making a big deal outta—”

  “I’m gonna give you a local anesthetic,” he said, ignoring my comment.

  “How do you have that?”

  “I just got through telling you that I have a doctor on my ranch.”

  I was done talking to him.

  He gave me the first shot, the painkiller, in my left hip and then the second, the antibiotic, in the other.

  “Gonna brand me next?” I teased.

  “We don’t brand nothin’ on the Red no more, ain’t ya heard?” He sounded exasperated so I made a point of not answering him. “Glenn?”

  “Stop talking. I’m bleeding here.”

  His noise of disgust was not lost o
n me.

  “I think I need a nap.”

  “Among other things, I would say so,” he agreed. “You need a week at the Red just eatin’ and sleepin’.”

  “Like that’d happen. You’d put me to work in no time.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I wouldn’t, though. You could just be.”

  It was possibly the weirdest conversation I’d ever had with him, and I didn’t realize I was dozing until I was poked with something. “Can you feel that?”

  “I can feel pressure, but it don’t hurt none.”

  “Good ’cause I’m poking you with a needle.”

  I grunted.

  He started grabbing stuff to clean the scrape out with, water and soap, and he was really taking his time and being careful, which surprised me.

  “You can do it faster. You ain’t gonna hurt me.”

  “Just shuddup.”

  I finally closed my eyes and put my head down, and I must have dozed off until I heard Zach mutter, “Oh shit.” I hadn’t realized he was even there. It would have jolted me, but I was really very sleepy, and I had to wonder what exactly was in that first shot Rand gave me. I was a little more drugged up than I should have been.

  Maybe.

  Possibly.

  The fact that I didn’t care should have been a concern. But I could not force myself to bark at either one of them.

  “That’s worse than I thought it was,” Zach said from what sounded like a distance but couldn’t have been.

  “Yeah, he did a good fuckin’ job,” Rand griped.

  “He’s gonna be all right, yeah?” Zach asked Rand, and I was surprised at the fear I heard in his voice.

  “He’ll be fine once I get this cleaned and closed.”

  I felt a warm hand on my bicep, holding gently but firmly, not letting go, and then another between my shoulder blades, rubbing circles like my mother used to do. “God, I don’t worry about no one like I worry about Glenn.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Rand admitted, his voice thick. “I wish he’d just move onto the ranch so I could keep an eye on him.”

  He did?

  After a minute Zach sighed deeply. “I’d love that.”

  He would?

  “So would Stef.”

  Stef too?

  “But he won’t.”

  “No. He’s a stubborn piece of crap.”

  I was most definitely that.

  “I wish he’d stop mixin’ up what he thinks we want him to do—or be—with what we actually give a damn about.”

  “He’s always had that problem,” Zach explained. “And while it was true with Daddy, it weren’t with nobody else.”

  Rand grunted.

  “There’s no pleasing Rayland Holloway exceptin’ if we was you.”

  “Rayland Holloway is not my father.”

  “Your blood says different.”

  “You know what I mean,” Rand muttered irritably. “James raised me. He’s my father. You and Glenn can keep Rayland.”

  “Awful gracious of you, thank you,” Zach replied snidely.

  After a moment Rand exhaled sharply. “If I could, I’d move my mother back into the house and have her bring Tate. I’d build Charlotte and Ben a house on the ranch, as well as one for Glenn, and we could all be there together.”

  “What about Tyler, since you’re dreamin’ and all?”

  “Tyler’s happy living with his daughter and her family for six months and his son and his for the other half of the year. He don’t never get bored, he says, and he gets to spend time with all his grandchildren. I would never mess that up by invitin’ him back to the Red, especially after all the work Stef went to, to bring that family back together.”

  “Sure.”

  “But Tyler knows he’s always got a place with me and Stef.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you. You know that.”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t know Cyrus or his lot well, and Brandon punched Stef that weekend Char got married,” Rand said tightly. “I don’t reckon I’ve ever forgiven him for that.”

  “I ain’t heard that story.”

  “Have Stef tell you. The part where later on Stef has to carry Brandon up out of a ravine is funny when he tells it. I don’t find it quite so amusing.”

  “I’ll have to remember to ask, that sounds like quite the story.”

  He made a noise. “If I could get Glenn on the ranch, though—that’d be good.”

  “It ain’t like he couldn’t be, and he could keep that fool horse of his there too.”

  Rand growled. “Why in the hell that horse ain’t on the Red is beyond me.”

  “He’s proud, you know that.”

  “I do. It’s how we were all raised. To not ask no one for nothin’.”

  “Yep,” Zach said quietly.

  “You’d think family wouldn’t count, though.”

  “Yeah,” Zach scoffed. “You surely were not raised by Rayland Holloway.”

  “Thankfully not.” Rand sounded somber as he said it.

  “Hey!” Mac yelled, but he sounded far away, too, like Zach, so I let the sound wash over me without any fuss.

  “Why’re you shoutin’?”

  “I just—you’ve got a lot of blood on you.”

  “It’s not mine,” Rand informed him. “I’m cleanin’ Glenn up, as you can see.”

  “What’re you doin’?”

  “I’m fixin’ to stitch him up, Maclain,” Rand said sarcastically. “What the hell does it look like?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Mac coughed. “Just be careful.”

  “Be careful?”

  “Please.”

  Momentary silence before Rand spoke again.

  “Mac?” Rand sounded confused.

  “Yeah. What do you—Zach, move, lemme in there.”

  “Mac, I can take care of—”

  “Just slide over.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I heard a throat clearing, and both of Zach’s hands were replaced by a bigger one sinking into my hair, massaging my scalp. Another touched my side, warm and strong and callused, languorously sliding over my skin.

  “Mac?” Rand asked.

  “What?” he answered gruffly.

  “Something you wanna tell me?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Okay,” Rand said, and the cleaning was rougher, faster, but it was fine because it didn’t hurt in the least.

  Lulled by the languid stroking of my hair, I was asleep seconds later.

  “GLENN.”

  I jolted awake, but a gentle hand on my shoulder quieted me, and when I looked up, squinting in the light, found myself staring into a gorgeous set of quicksilver eyes.

  “Maclain?” I said, making a conscious decision to use his full name to keep whatever warm, quiet intimacy we had between us going. He was there, with me, beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat rolling off his big hard body, and because I’d always dreamed of having him in my space, and now he was, I didn’t want to do anything to disturb the delicate peace.

  He cleared his throat. “Since when?”

  “What?” I croaked.

  “Why ‘Maclain’?” he asked, his voice a lazy, sexy rumble.

  I held his gaze. “You’re treating me nice, so I figured I shouldn’t use the name of the guy who hates me.”

  “So Mac hates you?”

  I nodded.

  “No,” he corrected with a sigh. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Okay,” he said, his voice bottoming out as he leaned down closer to me. “From now on you use Maclain so you know the difference.”

  I smiled. “That sounds good.”

  “So.” He sighed, stretching out beside me on his side. “How ya feel?”

  “I’m all right. How long was I out?”

  “Maybe an hour.”

  “I can ride,” I assured him, getting ready to sit up.

  His hand on my shoulder kept
me where I was. “Just lie there for a bit longer. We’re settled in for the night already. We can’t push these folks like we can our own.”

  That made sense, but I would have argued that I needed to get up and help do whatever, but he reached out and pushed my hair out of my face. I had no idea something so simple could make my heart race and my pulse jump, and even though both of those sensations, reactions, were brand new, they also made total sense. While half of me had always been on the lookout for a man just like Stef—small and delicate and beautiful—the idea of Mac throwing me up against the side of the barn and having his wicked way with me had been just as, if not even more, appealing. I was afraid of submitting, but there had never been any doubt to whom I would consider going ass up for. I had thought about Mac’s hands all over me many a time.

  “Is Rand pissed at me?” I managed to get out.

  “Actually he’s madder at himself for leaving you alone. I think we all thought someone else was back there with you.”

  His hand was so warm, and the thought hit me that I wanted it much, much lower. “Maclain?”

  He grunted softly.

  “You know you’re touchin’ me, right?”

  “I do,” he whispered, and his easy grin made me catch my breath.

  This was so dangerous. He was trouble for me and I should have gotten up and run. The smart thing to do was to put a lot of real estate between me and the gorgeous sexy man with the sinful mouth and wicked glint to his eyes, but holy God, he smelled good. How did a man smell like that after a full day in the saddle? Like leather and smoke, a trace of soap and sun on his skin. I wanted to inhale him, press my face to the side of his neck and taste him even as my brain screamed at me that it was a mistake. He didn’t know what he was doing, by allowing this present communion, because he had no clue what was really going on in my head or what I truly wanted from him.

  “Maclain,” I whispered and found that his name sounded good coming out of my mouth.

  He grunted.

  “How come?” I fished, swallowing hard.

  “How come what?”

  “You know.”

  “Why ya think?”

  He really had a great smile. It crinkled the deep laugh lines in the corners of his eyes and curled the corners of his mouth. He was very handsome. Not the breathtaking kind or the movie-star kind, but rugged, like he could have been a sheriff in the Old West. He seemed concrete, strong, and man, did I need some of that. It was really too bad he wasn’t for me.