Taming a Dark Horse

by Stella Bagwell

  Struck by Victoria’s comments, Linc’s gaze traveled back and forth between the sight of Nevada frolicking with his niece and nephew to his cousin’s pensive expression.

  “What woman wouldn’t have demons with a laundry list like Nevada probably has,” he remarked. The idea that she’d gone through men the way he did clean shirts left a heavy weight inside him. And he tried to tell himself he was being stupid. He didn’t want to be the next one she put through the wringer then hung out to dry.

  “Oh Linc,” Victoria said with a shake of her head, “you are so—messed up if you think—”

  Linc narrowed his eyes on Victoria’s lovely face. “What? What were you about to say?” he demanded.

  With another shake of her head, Victoria rose to her feet and carried her empty cup to the sink. “Nothing,” she told him. “If you want to know anything personal about Nevada, you’ll have to ask her yourself.”

  And he wasn’t about to do that, Linc thought. He might have slipped that once and kissed her, but since then he’d kept his distance and he had not allowed any family or personal talk to come up between them. The past three days had been lonely and hellish for him, but he could get through it, he thought, much better than he could live with a broken heart.

  The appointment with Dr. Olstead was at eleven in the morning. The two of them left the house early enough to make the drive without having to hurry.

  It was the first time Nevada had been back to town in more than a week and she looked around the place with renewed interest.

  “It’s funny how a little time away from a place makes it all seem new again.”

  “Guess you’ve missed it,” he said.

  Nevada shook her head as she wheeled the car into the parking lot near a block of medical buildings.

  “Actually, I’m surprised how little I have missed it. There’s been a few times I got to craving the noise of a television. But other than that, I’ve enjoyed your parents’ house.”

  His parents’ house. Funny that Linc had never thought of the place in that way. To him it was his father’s house. Darla hadn’t seemed a part of it. Not when she’d hated the place so much.

  “Well, give me the bunkhouse any day,” he said.

  Nevada tried not to feel hurt as she looked over at him. “I guess you miss all your buddies.” She smiled wryly. “Men get tired of hearing a woman’s chatter and I can’t talk horse talk with you. I hope Dr. Olstead will give you some good news and you’ll be able to go back to work soon.”

  She picked up her handbag from the console between them and dropped the key inside. Next to her, Linc unbuckled his seat belt then at the last minute before she opened the door, he reached for her hand.

  Nevada turned her face around to his. “Yes?”

  He grimaced before he cut his eyes away from her. Even so, Nevada could see something was troubling him. His jaw was tight, his lips pressed to a thin line. She hated seeing him like this. Especially when he’d shown her a glimpse of the gentle man he used to be.

  “Uh—a minute ago. That bit I said about the bunkhouse. Don’t take that personally. You’ve done a good job helping me—it’s just that I’m more comfortable there with the men.”

  For some reason his haltingly spoken words saddened her more than anything she could remember and she wound her fingers around his and gently squeezed. “I understand, Linc. Don’t try to explain. It’ll all be over soon anyway. And I’ll be glad for you.”

  But as for herself, she couldn’t imagine what it was going to feel like to go back to her apartment, to live all by herself. There wouldn’t be any more breakfasts together. No more sitting on the patio watching the sunrise together. No more helping him into his clothes or sitting close beside him as she tended his bandages. Soon her time with Linc would all be over and she could go back to her happy life and forget about the man with longing written in his eyes and sadness in his voice.

  Glancing at her watch, she said, “We’d better go inside. It’s almost time for your appointment.”

  The clinic was full of waiting patients, especially pregnant women and little children. Nevada looked at them and wondered if she would ever be sure enough about someone to start a family with him. As for Linc, he grabbed up a magazine and ignored the whole lot. Including Nevada.

  It wasn’t long before the nurse stepped out to call Linc’s name and usher him back to Dr. Olstead’s examining room. Nevada went along with him. Not because he’d asked her to, but because she was his nurse and it would help her care for him better if she heard everything the doctor had to say. She tried to ignore the fact that she wanted to be with him. Just like a wife accompanying her injured or sick husband, she thought with chagrin.

  And when Dr. Olstead’s nurse began to remove Linc’s bandages, Nevada had to fight the urge to push the other woman out of the way and take hold of him herself.

  But of course, she had no right or reason to do that so she sat in a plastic chair shoved in one corner of the tiny room while the nurse and the doctor made a thorough examination of Linc’s arms and hands.

  Thirty minutes later they were back outside the building and as they walked to Nevada’s car, one of Linc’s rare smiles began to appear on his face.

  “Thank God that’s over,” he said with relief. “You got a good report.”

  “Thanks to you,” he said.

  She scoffed at the compliment. “Anybody can smear medication on a burn. It was nothing.”

  She walked on ahead of him to the car and for a moment Linc stared thoughtfully after her. He didn’t know what had caused the change in her, but something had made her distant, almost indifferent with him. He realized he didn’t like it. He wanted her warmth and her smile back. But then he reminded himself that he didn’t really deserve Nevada’s kindness. Not when he’d been going hot one minute and cold the next; behaving like a jackass who didn’t know his head from his tail.

  “Is something wrong, Nevada?” he asked as he climbed into the seat next to hers.

  Tossing him a glance, she turned the key in the ignition and the engine sprang to life. “Nothing is wrong. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. You just seem a little distant.”

  Her hand paused on the gearshift. “So? I can’t imagine that bothering you.”

  She put the car into Reverse and gunned it backwards.

  “Dr. Olstead said I could go down to the ranch yard and look at the horses,” he said.

  “If you keep your distance,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah. Well, it doesn’t look like I’m going to make it there anyway. Maybe Skinny will see that all the mares foal as they should and the weanlings are separated from their mothers.”

  Nevada kept her eyes on the town traffic. “Why aren’t you going to make it? Dr. Olstead just gave you a glowing report, not a death sentence.”

  “I know. But for some reason you’re trying to kill me.” He scowled at her. “What’s the matter with you, anyway?”

  Nevada glanced over at him. What was the matter, she asked herself. Was it because she could see her time with him soon ending? That even though he’d only kissed her once since they’d been together, that one kiss had shattered all her preconceived notions about men?

  “Nothing, I told you. I’m fine. I guess being in the clinic just made me miss working,” she lied.

  With Dr. Martinez, he thought, as he stared glumly out the windshield. “Guess you’ll be happy to get back to working with Victoria. I’m sure she’s a good boss.”

  “The best.”

  If you want to know anything personal about Nevada, you should ask her yourself.

  As Victoria’s words rolled through Linc’s mind, he glanced thoughtfully over at Nevada.

  “Would you like to go to the Wagon Wheel for lunch?”

  She stomped on the brake as the car ahead of them suddenly stopped for a left-hand turn. As they bounced to a halt, Nevada looked over at him.

  “You’re asking me to go out to lunch with yo
u?”

  He surprised her with a low chuckle. “Yes. What’s the deal? We eat lunch together everyday anyway.”

  “True. But this time we’ll be in public and you’ll be buying.” And she couldn’t imagine why he might want to linger in town with her. But she wasn’t going to question his motives. The man needed an outing in the worst kind of way.

  A faint smile touched his rugged face. “I can handle it if you can,” he said.

  At the next intersection Nevada flipped on the blinker and turned down the street that would take them straight to the diner.

  “I think I can survive having lunch with you,” she murmured. It was the coming days without him that Nevada was worried about.

  Chapter Ten

  The Wagon Wheel Café was an eating place that had been in town since the early fifties. Except for a new tile floor and a fresh coat of paint once in a while, it had remained the same simple diner down through the years. The food was good and the eclectic atmosphere was created by the mix of business people dressed in suits and local ranchers in hats and spurs.

  Nevada and Linc found a booth in the back of the room and ordered the blue plate special of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, corn and hot rolls. They’d hardly begun to eat when an older man approached their table and greeted Linc.

  He turned out to be only one of many to come by their booth and strike up a conversation with Linc. For the most part, Nevada sat quietly eating while Linc answered concerned questions about his health.

  She was totally surprised that he seemed to be acquainted with every person in the diner and she said as much to him as they walked out of the building and down the sidewalk to where she’d parked the car.

  “You’ve surprised me, Linc. Here all along I thought you were a stay-at-home kind of guy. Instead, I learn you know half the townspeople.”

  He shook his head. “I am a stay-at-home guy. Each one of those people that came by the table, I met on the ranch,” he explained. “You see, anyone who wants to buy a horse from the T Bar K has to go through me. And down through the years we’ve sold many.”

  Pausing on the sidewalk she looked at him with interest. “I didn’t know you were a trader, too! I’ve often heard you should never trust a horse trader,” she added impishly. “Is that true?”

  Chuckling, he took her by the arm and urged her on down the sidewalk. “Depends on what you’re trusting him to do.”

  The meal at the diner and meeting up with old friends appeared to have had a positive effect on Linc. Throughout their drive back to the ranch, he was more talkative and the stilted awkwardness that had been building between them since their time in the cave seemed to ease.

  Nevada was relieved with the change between them. It was hard enough for her to hide her burgeoning feelings without having to carefully tiptoe around the man, too.

  When they finally reached the main ranch yard, Nevada didn’t bother asking him if he wanted to park and take a look at the horses. She simply pulled the car over to an out-of-the-way spot next to a pole corral and killed the motor.

  “What are you doing?” he asked with surprise.

  “Dr. Olstead said you could look at the horses if you didn’t touch anything or get too close. I thought you might like to show me some of your favorites.”

  Surprise flickered in his eyes and then his whole expression softened. “Only if you’re interested. You don’t have to give me therapy, you know.”

  “Maybe I’m the one who needs therapy,” she teased, then gently touched his arm. “I’m interested, Linc. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stopped.”

  Grinning faintly, he tugged his hat down on his forehead and reached for the door handle “Okay. Let’s go.”

  The men who were working around the ranch yard for the afternoon were all surprised to see Linc. As they rushed to greet him, Nevada was careful to remind each of them that because their hands were dirty they couldn’t touch their boss and risk giving him an infection.

  None of the men seemed to care about that, and they all talked to him at length until Linc finally had to send them on their way.

  “You didn’t have to do that for my sake,” Nevada told him a few minutes later as they walked toward a fenced corral where several mares were chomping at a hay manger filled with dark-green alfalfa. “There’s no hurry.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t worry about the men. They all needed to get back to work anyway.”

  Once they reached the corral, Linc pointed to the mares. There were two blacks, three sorrels and three grays. All of them were in an advanced state of pregnancy.

  “These are just a few of our broodmares that will be foaling soon. About a month before time we put them up in this pen so that we can keep a watch on them.”

  “They’re all so beautiful,” Nevada said softly as she gazed at the graceful creatures with their long manes and tails. “Is it common for a mare giving birth to have trouble?”

  “Not usually. Most have routine births. But sometimes things go wrong. And when they do, you only have a few minutes to try to correct it. Most mares carry their babies for eleven months, so it’s a long wait to get one here. And then sometimes they’re stillborn. When that happens—well, it really hurts,” he murmured.

  The emotion in his voice caused her to glance over at him and in that moment as she watched him gazing out at the mares, she realized his rugged body and gruff demeanor was hiding a huge, soft heart. If he were to ever love a woman he would do so with everything inside him, she decided. There wouldn’t be any halves with Linc Ketchum.

  But Nevada didn’t want to think about him loving a woman. Not unless that woman was her. And since that could never happen, she tried not to think about it at all and focus on the horses.

  With his arm curled loosely against her back, Linc guided her to the end of a long barn where a railed fence held at least twenty geldings. Three of them were saddled and tethered to a wooden hitching post and Linc explained that the cowboys who’d been riding them had probably come into the bunkhouse for lunch and were planning to go back out on the range again after they ate.

  “The rest of this small herd is a portion of our remuda. These are the geldings that the cowboys use every day. They’re worked hard, so they require a lot of care. Plenty of feed and hay, morning and night, liniment rubdowns and doctoring. But they’re all bred strong. You won’t find any fineboned, timid horses on the T Bar K,” he said proudly.

  Nevada pointed to a white horse that was splattered with tiny chocolate-brown spots all over his body. “He’s gorgeous. If you ever do take me for a ride, Linc, I want to ride him,” she told him.

  Smiling at her choice, he said, “That’s Spotted Bird. He can be a handful at times. But if you pet him and give him a few treats he’ll settle right down.”

  “Sort of like you?” she joked, her brown eyes sparkling.

  He chuckled. “Yeah. Sort of like me,” he admitted, then taking her by the arm he led her around to the front of the barn. “Let’s go in. I want you to see Miss Lori.”

  She cast him a concerned look. “I’m not sure you should go inside the barn.”

  Grimacing, he held out his hands and arms. “I know I’m supposed to be careful. But look at this, Nevada. I don’t think anything is going to penetrate all these layers of bandages, do you?”

  As Nevada studied his injured limbs, she understood that agreeing to let him walk into the barn would be far better medicine than worrying about infection.

  “We’re going to act like it won’t,” she said finally. “So let’s go. I want to see this Miss Lori that you’ve been fretting about.”

  A broad smile slowly parted his lips and, while watching the transformation come over his face, it suddenly dawned on Nevada that making this man happy had become far too important to her.

  Two huge doors were opened at the end of the building and Linc guided her inside where they walked down a wide alleyway filled with the pungent scent of pine-wood shavings. On either side of them were rows of stalls mo
st of which appeared to be empty at the moment.

  “At least this barn was saved,” she said as she looked all around her. Everything was exceptionally clean. She could smell the disinfectant which had been used to wash down walls and clean water troughs. “Where was the barn that burned?”

  “I’ll show you when we leave. It was about fifty yards from here. Thank God none of the sparks set any of the other buildings around it on fire.”

  They reached a fence with a latched gate. Linc opened it and ushered her into an area closed-off from the rest of the structure. A black mare with a star on her forehead was inside the large lot. In one corner Skinny was sitting in an old wooden chair tilted onto its back legs and resting against the fence. The old man was softly playing a harmonica and he finished the little tune before he lowered the instrument to greet the two of them.

  “Well, look who’s here.” A big grin spread over his wrinkled old face as he got up from the chair to join them at the opening of the foaling area. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be around the barn.”

  Linc jerked his head toward Nevada. “She gave me permission.”

  Skinny’s eyes twinkled with appreciation as he looked at Nevada. “You must be even smarter than you are pretty, Miss Nevada. You gonna let him hang around a while?”

  Nevada regretfully shook her head. “I’m sorry, Skinny. I can’t let him stay but a few minutes. He wanted to show me Miss Lori.”

  The old wrangler pointed a finger at the black mare. “Well, there she is. She’s a beauty, ain’t she?”

  “Gorgeous,” Nevada agreed. “Is it okay if I pet her?”

  “Of course,” Linc assured her. “Just walk up to her slowly, with your shoulder to her and don’t look her straight in the eye until she smells you.”

  Nevada left the two men and walked over to where the mare was munching on a hay bag filled with alfalfa. Slowly, so as not to startle her, she did as Linc had instructed. After a few moments she was able to reach out and touch the mare’s neck with soft, gentle strokes.