Tall, Dark and Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  She straightened, ignoring the ache in her ribs and the dizziness that made her grab for the stall door behind her.

  “Fine. Sorry. Got wobbly for a minute.” She forced a smile. “Guess I’ve been kind of stressed lately.”

  He was staring at her, his eyes narrowed. “You going to be able to do this?”

  “Of course I am.” She resisted the urge to wipe the clammy sweat from her forehead and hoped she didn’t look as weak and pale as she felt. “I’ll be fine.”

  Chapter 27

  Chase swore to himself. This was a disaster. The woman was afraid of horses. Deathly afraid.

  She was trying to cover it up, but Chase had seen her struggling for breath. She wasn’t just a little hesitant—she was terrified. Didn’t rich girls ride horses? How come her father didn’t buy her a pony? He’d bought her everything else.

  This was hardly the scenario he’d pictured the night before, where he and Lacey had mounted up and galloped into the sunset. He’d thought today might start a new life, a better life for both of them. Instead, it was going to be an ordeal.

  She watched him, wide-eyed, as he clipped a lead to Captain’s halter and led the horse past her to the hitching post outside the barn. Jimbo was already there, tacked up and ready to go.

  He tied Captain with quick, vicious gestures. The rope lashed in his angry hands and almost hit the horse. Damn. This was getting to him. He was never careless with the animals.

  This was more than disappointment; it was anger. He always felt this way when his careful plans were foiled, when the future he’d counted on went astray.

  Maybe Lacey wasn’t the spoiled one. Maybe he was. He took a deep breath, clenching his fists, then unclenching them, calling up his calmer, better self. This wasn’t Lacey’s fault. Her fear of the horses was clearly visceral—not a conscious reaction, but something from deep inside.

  He swore under his breath. He’d treasured the dream of them riding together. He’d expected it to come true today.

  And he wasn’t going to give it up. Lacey wouldn’t want to stay if she couldn’t be useful, and she wouldn’t be useful if she couldn’t handle the horses. It wasn’t like there was anything else for her to do. There wasn’t enough housework to keep a child busy; it was just him in the big house, and he did okay cleaning up after himself. The cattle took care of themselves most days, and yard work wasn’t an option either. He glanced out the barn door at the brown, crumpled grass surrounding the house. Landscaping was hardly a priority in this dry country. You didn’t have to mow grass that wouldn’t grow.

  “I can do it. I can do it.” He didn’t know if she was talking to him or trying to convince herself. She gripped the stall door behind her, her fingers white on the rough wood like she was holding herself up by sheer will. Her face was still pale, with a sheen of nervous sweat glossing her forehead.

  “I’ll be fine.” Her eyes flickered toward Captain, wary and fearful, but her jaw was clenched in a rigid line he’d learned to interpret as her stubborn streak. “He just… surprised me.”

  At least she wasn’t running away. Maybe there was hope—but it wasn’t going to be easy. Having a tense, fearful person around would be hard on the horses. They were sensitive to the mood of their handler, picking up on tension as they could see into your mind. You could fake it all you wanted; horses knew what you were feeling. Lacey wasn’t going to be able to coast through this on courage; she needed to really conquer her fear.

  Captain shifted and whinnied again. Lacey jumped, then shook her head and smoothed her hands down her thighs. Chase suspected her palms were sweating.

  “Okay. Come here.” He took her hand and led her over to a spot just outside the tack room door where he’d lined up a few bales of straw against the wall. “Sit down.”

  She lowered herself onto the straw and tried to pull her hand away, but he tightened his grip and forced her to face him. “Let’s talk about this.”

  “It’s okay.” She tried to pull her hand away again. “I can do it.”

  “You can’t fake this, Lacey. Horses are sensitive. They can feel what you’re thinking. You’re going to make them nervous, and then they really are dangerous. So let’s talk it through.”

  She bit her lip and looked doubtfully over his shoulder toward the horses, who were watching them curiously from their stalls. Captain seemed to sense something was wrong; he’d gone quiet, but his ears were pricked and alert.

  “What is it that scares you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Horses, apparently.”

  “But what is it about them?”

  “They’re so—so big. And they seem—I don’t know—nervous.” She shrugged, her eyes tearing up. “It’s stupid. People deal with them every day. You deal with them every day. I know there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just—it’s in me. I’m afraid of the stupidest things, Chase. Men sometimes, like Wade, and being alone.”

  “That’s not stupid,” he said. “You should be afraid of Wade. He’s a psycho.”

  She shrugged. “I guess. But I’m afraid of everything. Cocktail party crowds. Subway trains. Flashing lights.” She sighed. “Horses are just the latest thing on the list.”

  “What are you afraid is going to happen with the horses?” He edged closer to her. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”

  She looked down at her hands, both of them now held in his. “I guess I’m afraid they’re going to hurt me. Kick me or bite me or something.”

  “Okay. Come on.” He led her over to Captain, but as they neared the hitching post, she stepped back and stumbled, her hand to her throat. Chase could tell she was trying to control her breathing, and he suspected her heart was galloping like the horses she was so afraid of. But she caught herself and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she seemed to have regained some control.

  Chase had never had a panic attack in his life. Maybe he was too dumb to be scared of stuff—he’d had enough close calls to prove that theory. But he could sense how hard Lacey was trying.

  “Look.” He lifted the animal’s upper lip, displaying a yellowed row of square, straight teeth. “He’s not made for biting. Some horses nip, but it’s a vice—something you can train them out of. I can guarantee my horses won’t bite you. That’s a promise.”

  He walked around the horse in a circle, setting his hand on the animal’s rump as he passed his hindquarters. “He won’t kick you either, as long as you don’t surprise him. And if you stand close, he can’t get any power behind a kick anyway. You just have to be careful he knows where you are, that’s all. Just talk to him.”

  “But…” She shook her head.

  “But what? Tell me.”

  “I know it’s stupid, but if you’re that close, he might step on you.”

  Chase leaned into Captain’s shoulder, and the horse stepped aside. “He’s easy to move. They move away from pressure, so all you have to do is give him a push if they’re clumsy enough to step on you. Come on. Get to know him a little. Pet him. Honest, he won’t hurt you.”

  Lacey took a tentative step toward the horse, then another. “Go on,” he urged.

  She lifted a hand to stroke the horse’s long muzzle. She was shaking slightly, and the horse blew out a nervous raspberry, making her jerk her hand away.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay. What you have to remember is that horses are flight animals. Their instinct is to run from what they fear.”

  “Hey, we have a lot in common.” Lacey’s smile trembled at the edges, but at least she was smiling. “I’m a flight animal too.”

  She reached up and stroked the back of one finger over the smooth velvet pelt. Chase had the feeling that she saw herself as a fairy-tale princess taming a fire-breathing dragon, when really old Captain could be trusted with toddlers.

  He stepped up behind her and lifted her arm, smoothing her palm down the length of the horse’s muzzle. Despite the realization that she might never be the cowgirl he wanted and
needed, he couldn’t keep himself from responding to her nearness. Guiding her hand meant he was snugged behind her, her back flush against his chest, and his body was enjoying the experience even as his brain struggled to resist. A surge of arousal threatened to hijack his good sense, and he almost stepped back, but he didn’t want to make a sudden move and scare the horse. Or Lacey.

  She brushed against him as she hiked herself up on tiptoe to reach the crest of Captain’s neck, just behind his ears. She really was a small woman. Maybe it was a little scary when the horse dwarfed you like that. He drew in a slow breath, willing himself to be patient.

  “Good boy,” Lacey said again. She moved her hand slowly down Captain’s neck, her forehead furrowed in concentration, her lower lip trapped between her teeth. She glanced back at Chase. “How am I doing?”

  “Fine.” He thought a moment. The only fear he could remember was fear of water when he was practically a baby. Wading, splashing around in shallow water, and easing his way in hadn’t helped; his fear had remained until his dad tossed him in the deep end. Maybe that’s what he needed to do for Lacey. He stepped into the barn and hefted a saddle from a sawhorse just inside the door. “You ready to go for a ride?”

  Chapter 28

  “A ride?” Lacey blanched. “On a horse?”

  “Well, yeah.” Chase chuckled. “Captain won’t be able to kick you, step on you, or bite you when you’re on his back. Besides, maybe you need to see the fun part first. You like fast cars, right? And when you were a cheerleader, you never minded being thrown up in the air and stuff.”

  She remembered how much she’d loved the high-flying cheer stunts—the feeling of giddy freedom as her teammates tossed her into the air, and the feeling of trust as she crashed down into their waiting arms.

  Then she remembered getting dropped.

  It had hurt, but she’d survived. Spent a few days on the bench nursing a bruise, and then gotten right back on the pyramid. The worst-case scenario was never as bad as your fear made it out to be.

  “It’s not like you’re not brave, Lacey.”

  “No, I guess not. Actually, being so scared of Captain kind of surprised me. I’ve had the opposite surprise so many times since I left home. I like being alone. I like being on the road at night, going fast. I even like Grady. I like making a life for myself, and when I first left, I wasn’t sure I could even do it.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  “But you knew me ‘when.’” She sighed. “I changed later on. I spent so much time playing second fiddle to Trent that I didn’t do anything for myself. I was just there to support him. Heck, I didn’t even support him. I just decorated his life.”

  “That was a shame. A waste,” he said.

  She cocked her head, wondering if he was joking. Clearly, he wasn’t. And he was right. She’d wasted the woman she used to be. She’d given her life to other people—her father, her husband—and failed to use all the advantages of being popular and pretty and lucky and rich. She’d lived a life that didn’t matter—not to herself and not to anyone else.

  She remembered hosting a cocktail party for Trent’s investors, wearing an elegant, expensive new dress. She’d felt every eye upon her, the men covetous, the women envious as she tossed her head back and laughed a perfect, tinkling laugh. She was the ultimate treasure, the shining diamond in the luxurious setting of Trent’s enormous house. They’d all watched her. Envied her.

  But when she’d caught a glimpse of a woman with flawless makeup and perfect hair reflected in the window, she’d wondered who it was for a moment before she realized she was looking at herself.

  That had been her first panic attack. She’d wound up on the back deck, struggling to breathe, praying no one would see her sweating, gasping, being so much less than perfect. She’d wanted to run away, fast and far, and never go back.

  She’d told herself to suck it up, to be brave and stick it out. It wasn’t until total disaster demolished her life that she’d packed up and run.

  As it turned out, she should have done it sooner. She’d managed to overcome her fear that night, but it would have been smarter—and braver—to run.

  “Once I almost ran away from home in the middle of a party,” she said. “I had this crazy urge to rip off my dress and kick off my heels and take off.”

  “I like the dress part.” Chase’s slow Tennessee drawl tasted each word as he probed her eyes with his own. “But you can leave the heels on if you want.”

  “Hey,” she protested. “I’m your employee now. That’s sexual harassment.”

  “You’re the one who started talking about ripping your clothes off.” He grinned unapologetically and hoisted the saddle onto Captain’s back. She watched his shoulders and the muscles in his arms flex as he set it in place and suppressed the urge to tell him she’d rather ride him than the horse.

  But that wasn’t what she was here for. She was here to work, to prove her worth—not only to Chase but to herself. She squeezed her legs together to quell the rush of warmth let loose by the brief lapse into flirtation and did her best to wipe the thought of Chase’s butt from her mind.

  “Don’t you have to go to work?”

  “I don’t know.” He scuffed one booted toe in the dusty barn aisle. “I thought I’d stick around today and make sure you were okay. You need to learn to ride, and I’d feel a lot better if you mastered Old Bess too, so you can defend yourself. I don’t think Wade will find the ranch, but you never know, and then there’s Galt.”

  “Galt?”

  “The guy who shot my cow. But don’t worry—Old Bess’ll send him running for the hills.”

  “Who’s Bess?” She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. It sounded like a cow’s name, and she was having enough trouble dealing with horses. Chase didn’t think she was going to ride out and rope the suckers, did he?

  But he’d said Bess would help her defend herself. Did they have guard cows?

  “Bess is my shotgun. She was my dad’s.”

  Lacey heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t a cow. She’d forgotten how men were always naming things. Cars. Trucks. Guns.

  Wait a minute. Guns?

  “Chase, I don’t want to meet Old Bess. I really don’t. I’m…” She let her voice trail off. She’d been about to say she was scared of guns, but at this rate, he’d think she was scared of mice too.

  Okay, she was. But she wasn’t a scaredy type of person. It was just horses and guns and mice. And maybe cows. She hadn’t had much to do with cows, but judging from her reaction to the horses, she was probably afraid of them.

  “So do you want to shoot first and ride later?”

  She didn’t want to do either one. Maybe he should just shoot her. She struggled to quell the fear building in her chest and wished she was anywhere but there. She should have left town. Stolen a car if she had to.

  Maybe she still could. She scanned the cluster of ranch buildings, her eye lighting on a huge green tractor standing behind the barn, her desperation making her create wild, reckless scenarios in her head. Maybe she could steal the tractor and take off for Colorado. Nobody would expect to find Lacey Bradford on a tractor. She’d stick on a straw hat and poke along the rural roads. Drivers would curse her, shake their fists, beep their horns—but they’d have no idea they were dealing with an escaped trophy wife.

  But taking the tractor would be stealing from Chase, and she wasn’t taking anything from him—not even the things he offered. She was here to earn her keep, so she was going to have to find a way to deal with the horses.

  It shouldn’t be so hard. People rode horses every day, and Chase had assured her they wouldn’t hurt her. She trusted Chase. She always had.

  She’d certainly trusted him back in the motel room. She’d opened herself to him in a way she’d never done before with a man. And despite the occasional hot, hungry look, he hadn’t touched her or mentioned their escapade. He’d proved worthy of her trust.

  She’d have to trust him about t
he horses too.

  She recited her litany of storybook horses as she watched Chase fasten buckles and tug on leather straps until Captain was all decked out like Trigger.

  “Stand beside his shoulder, facing his rear.” Chase handed her the reins and showed her how to bunch them in her left hand and hang onto the saddle horn at the same time. He put one hand on the back of the saddle and turned the stirrup slightly. “Left foot,” he said.

  She tamped down her fear for the umpteenth time and tucked her toe into the stirrup. Chase was right—once she was on top of the horse, he couldn’t kick her or bite her.

  He could throw her, though.

  She shoved that thought out of her mind and launched herself toward the saddle—and slammed into the side of the horse. Fortunately, old Captain stood firm, simply swishing his tail once in annoyance. For a flight animal, he was dealing with scary stuff pretty well.

  Sliding to the ground, she tried to act casual, as if she hadn’t hit her mouth on the saddle and bruised her left boob.

  “You might want to bounce a couple times. It uses muscles that don’t get much exercise in everyday life,” Chase said.

  “No kidding. It feels like my thigh’s on fire, and I’m not even on yet.”

  “You want a leg up?”

  She did, but she wasn’t about to say so. What she wanted and what she needed to do were two different things. She looked up at the saddle, grabbed the horn, and bounced three times on her right foot before she pitched herself upward. She thought she was going to fall again until Chase grabbed the inside of her thigh and more or less tossed her into the saddle.

  “Thanks.” She fished for the opposite stirrup and grabbed the reins, holding them tightly in her fist. Captain stood patiently through the whole ordeal, but once she was on board, he took a couple steps backward.