Taming a Dark Horse

by Stella Bagwell

  “Victoria, do you think if Linc’s mother could be found, he might want to see her?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it too much. She’s been gone for so long—since we were all teenagers. And Linc never mentions her at all.”

  “Because it hurts him too much,” Nevada replied. “And frankly, I don’t think he’s ever going to be able to love any woman until he resolves this idea that she deserted him because she didn’t want him.”

  Frowning thoughtfully, Victoria said, “You could be right.”

  “I’ve been thinking, Victoria. And I’ve been rolling around the idea of trying to find her. What do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t know where you might start to track her down. I’ll ask Ross and Seth if they have any idea.” She shoved the cuff of her white lab coat back to glance at her watch. “Right now I’ve got to get back to work. Mrs. Parkins has been waiting nearly fifteen minutes!”

  ***

  That evening after Nevada got off work, she decided to drive by Neil Rankin’s law office. She half expected to find the little log building already closed up for the day, but she found the door still open and Connie still sitting at her desk.

  The large Hispanic woman with graying black hair smiled broadly at Nevada. “Well, hello nurse Goodbody,” she teased. “What are you up to today?”

  “Hi Connie. I need to speak with Neil, if he has a minute to spare,” she told the woman.

  Connie waved her hand toward the closed door behind her. “Go on in,” she told Nevada. “He saw his last client about an hour ago. I think he’s just finishing up some paper work before we close up.”

  “Thanks.” Nevada went to the door and rapped on it lightly with her knuckles.

  “Come in. I’m fully clothed,” Neil called out.

  Smiling, Nevada stepped into the lawyer’s office. The man was sitting behind a wide oak desk with papers scattered out before him. Wire-rimmed glasses were perched on the end of his nose and his blond hair was rumpled across his forehead. He looked as tired as she felt.

  “Hello, Neil. Am I interrupting something important?”

  At the sound of her voice, he glanced up. “Nevada!” he exclaimed. “What a great way to end the day!”

  Smiling, she waited for him to skirt the desk and walk over to her. As he reached for both her hands, she understood why people came to him whenever they needed help. He was the sort of man who made you feel comfortable and hopeful.

  “What a flatterer you are, Neil Rankin. I’m sure you hand a line to every woman who walks through your door.”

  He chuckled as he took her by the elbow and led her over to one of two armchairs positioned in front of his desk. “Not every woman. At least, only the ones who look like you.”

  Nevada settled herself in the armchair as Neil walked around the desk and took his own seat.

  “So I’m hoping you dropped by to say hello to a friend. I’d hate to think you need legal advice.”

  Nevada shook her head. “Not legal advice. But I do need help. And I didn’t know anyone else to turn to.”

  He studied her with interest. “Well, I’m glad you have that much confidence in me. I don’t know if it’s really warranted, but shoot your problem at me anyway and I’ll try.”

  Scooting to the edge of the chair she leaned toward his desk. “I want you to help me find someone. A person who used to live here. On the T Bar K, actually.”

  Instantly, Neil’s brows lifted with curiosity. “On the ranch? But surely Victoria could help you with that problem.”

  “No. She doesn’t have a clue about this woman. She’s going to talk to her brothers, but I seriously doubt that they know any more than she does.”

  Neil reached for a pen and scooted a yellow legal pad to the center of his desk. “Does this woman have a name?”

  “Darla Ketchum. Darla Ketchum Carlton to be exact.”

  Neil reared back in his chair. “That’s Linc’s mother!”

  Nevada’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes. I want to find her—for him.”

  A low whistle passed the lawyer’s lips. “Boy, maybe you need to think this over, Nevada. Darla Ketchum is a touchy subject. Especially where Linc is concerned.”

  Nevada grimaced. “You don’t have to tell me that. We—uh—we already had a discussion about her and the reasons why she left the ranch.”

  Neil shrugged. “Well, from what I understand the woman remarried shortly after Randolf died.”

  “Do you know who the man she married was? Did he live here?”

  Neil rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “If I recall right, he wasn’t from around here. Because I remember Ross saying something about the man coming up from Texas in a big black limousine. He was just so relieved that Linc wasn’t in that car when it left the ranch.” He cast her a wry smile. “Funny how those sorts of things stick with kids. And that’s what we were at the time, just kids. I might have been sixteen or seventeen and Linc a fraction younger.”

  How tragic, Nevada thought, for Linc to lose his father and his mother within a short period of time and the loss had occurred when he’d been at such a young, impressionable age. No wonder loneliness had shaped and molded his life.

  “Such a long time ago,” Nevada said wistfully. “I wonder why he has never been able to ever let go.”

  “Of his mother’s leaving?” Neil asked.

  Nevada nodded. “He believes she deliberately deserted him. That she quit communicating with him just to spite him for not leaving the ranch with her.”

  “Hmm. That’s some heavy stuff there, Nevada. I’m not sure we should even try to intervene.”

  Nevada scooted to the very edge of her seat as her eyes pleaded with the lawyer. “That’s the whole problem. No one has been brave enough to confront Linc about this problem. They’ve allowed him to bottle it all up and try to sweep the whole incident under the rug. The man lost his father and then his mother vanished from his life. Don’t you think he deserves to know the truth of the matter? Don’t you think it would help him come to terms with issues that he refuses to face?”

  Neil held his palms up. “Look, Nevada, I totally agree with you. But I’d like to know why you’ve taken on this task? I wasn’t aware that you were that closely acquainted with Linc.”

  Nevada’s gaze dropped to her folded hands. “I wasn’t acquainted with him until I became his nurse. I guess you weren’t aware that I went out to the ranch to care for him after he was released from the hospital.”

  “I’d heard he was home and doing well. I’d been meaning to drive out for a little visit, but I’ve been tied up with all sorts of clients. And I had to be out of town all of last week.” With a thoughtful look at her, he tapped his pen against the legal pad. “What happened with you and Linc? You got close and he started running backwards?”

  Relieved that he understood without her having to explain any embarrassing details, she nodded. “That’s it, exactly.”

  “You must care for him a lot to go to this much trouble to find his mother.”

  “Very much.”

  Neil leaned forward and gave her an encouraging smile. “Well, give me what information you have and I’ll see what I can do. I’m not a detective, Nevada. So don’t expect miracles. But I do have a few friends around the country who work on missing-persons cases.”

  “I’ll be grateful for any sort of help,” Nevada told him. “But maybe I should ask how much this sort of thing will cost me. I do have some savings put away. If that’s not enough I could take out a loan—”

  He lifted a hand to halt her words. “Nevada, that’s the last thing you need to be worried about. I don’t intend to charge you anything. And as for my contacts, they all enjoy a challenge.”

  Nevada grimaced. “Yes, but I’m sure they like money, too. They can’t make a living giving away their services.”

  “Believe me, honey, none of them are hurting. They have plenty of rich clients to keep them afloat. You know the sort—spoiled kids who run away
from home have to be found.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “All right, if you say so. I won’t worry about the money part.”

  Tossing down his pen, Neil smiled at her with disbelief. “You know, sometimes you women amaze me. I don’t understand why you’re willing to do so much for us nasty men.”

  “I care about Linc,” she reasoned.

  His expression turned to one of wry appreciation. “Yeah. So much so that you’re willing to lose all your savings and go in debt for the man.”

  She drew in a deep breath and blew it out. “I happen to think he’s worth it.”

  Neil chuckled. “You know what, I happen to think he’s worth it, too.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Almost two weeks later, as midnight approached, Miss Lori went into labor. For several nights running Linc had been sitting up with the mare to give Skinny a rest. But tonight Skinny had refused to go to bed. The old wrangler had predicted the full moon would start the mare’s birthing engine, and he’d been right.

  Easing out of the chair he’d propped against the wall, Linc went over to where Skinny was half sitting, half lying in a bed of straw. He gently shook the old man’s shoulder.

  “Skinny, wake up. Miss Lori has started.”

  For a moment the old man looked around in a dazed stupor until he spotted the mare wringing her tail and bending her nose around to her side.

  “Hot damn! Has she laid down yet?”

  “Once. Then she bounced back up.”

  Bones creaked and popped as the old man rose to his feet and rubbed his hands together with excited glee. “It won’t be long now! Bet it’s going to be a black filly with a star on her forehead.”

  Linc smiled wryly at the old wrangler. “That’s a big stretch. Miss Lori is black with a star on her forehead.”

  Chuckling, Skinny hopped along on his one good knee until he reached the mare’s side. Linc watched as his old friend carefully rubbed his hand over the mare’s belly and flank. The man never wanted to miss any of the foals being born. It was a very special time for him, just as it always was for Linc.

  A little more than an hour later, the foal was born and as Skinny had predicted it was a black filly with a star on its face. The birth had gone smoothly and the two men had had little more to do than to stand back and watch the miracle in process.

  In a matter of minutes after the birth, the mare was on her feet cleaning the little filly of lingering after-birth. An hour later, the baby was standing up on her long legs, nudging her mother’s flank in search of sweet, nourishing milk.

  Skinny cackled with pleasure and slapped Linc on the shoulder. “She’s a beauty, Linc. You got a good one on her feet.”

  “It wasn’t just me that got her here, Skinny. You and all the other guys are the reason we have one of the best remudas in six states.” He patted Skinny’s arm. “Now what do you say me and you go have a cup of coffee?”

  The two men slipped into the back of the bunkhouse where the kitchen was located. Linc boiled coffee on the stove and the two men sat at the long table and carefully sipped the steaming brew.

  Skinny rattled on about the new filly until he realized that Linc wasn’t saying much about anything. The old wrangler set his cup on the wooden table and studied Linc with his faded blue eyes.

  “What’s the matter with you, boy? Hell, it’s been nearly twelve months since we bred Miss Lori. And all that time you’ve been watching her like a proud papa. I figured you’d be dancing a jig right about now.”

  Linc rolled his eyes. “Skinny, when have you ever seen me dance? Never. And there isn’t anything wrong with me. I’m happy. The filly is great. She’s going to be beautiful and smart and tough. What more do you want me to say?”

  Skinny shook his head and mumbled into his cup.

  “What was that?” Linc asked.

  Lifting his head, Skinny scowled at him. “Nothin’. I just thought—well, I thought now that you’ve got to come back to work, that things would be different. Like they used to be. I’ve known you since you were a little tot in diapers. But you aren’t that same boy.”

  Sighing with frustration, Linc left his seat and went over to the cabinets. As he searched around for some leftovers to snack on, he said, “Damn it, Skinny, it wasn’t too long ago that these hands of mine were fried. And I was lucky that I hadn’t been killed. That does something to a man.”

  “And whose fault was that?” Skinny shot back at him. “Nobody told you to be a hero and rescue all those mares. The boys in the bunkhouse were coming to help you. If you’d only waited—”

  “None of the mares would still be alive,” Linc finished sharply. “And the bastard who set the fire is still out there, getting away with near murder. But you expect me to be myself?”

  He found half of an apple pie in the refrigerator, whacked out a piece and carried it in his hand over to the table. While he ate, Skinny folded his arms across his chest and looked disgusted.

  “If I was you, I don’t think I’d be tryin’ to blame my behavior on nearly bein’ burned to death. Yeah, the thought of that is enough to curl a man’s toes, but that ain’t your real problem and we both know it.”

  The pie in Linc’s hand stopped midway to his mouth. “What the hell are you talking about now, Skinny? And since when did you become such a psychologist?”

  Skinny pushed back his brown felt hat and scrunched up his wrinkled face. “I don’t know what that fancy word is and I don’t care to know. But a one-eyed man could see you’re missin’ that pretty little nurse something awful.”

  Linc started to yell at the old man that he was going senile, but instead, he crammed the remainder of the pie in his mouth and tried to ignore him.

  It didn’t work. Skinny started again. “She was a nice girl, Linc. Too nice for the likes of you, I guess.”

  “That’s right,” Linc said curtly. “She went on to greener pastures.”

  “Well, I can’t blame her. You didn’t have much to offer her. Look at yourself. What are you anyway, forty years old now? With her being so young and fresh, she probably thought you were just a few years away from the nursing home.”

  “I’m thirty-eight, Skinny. And I’m hardly over the hill.”

  “Well, not like me. Course not. But a young woman like her wants kids of her own. Can’t get ‘em with a man that goes to sleep every night in a rocking chair.”

  Linc didn’t want to think about Nevada having children or having sex or even touching a man. He didn’t want to think of Nevada at all. But for the past two weeks since she’d left, he had not been able to focus his attention on anything. She was always there in his mind, consuming every part of it until he thought he was going crazy.

  “All right, old man. I’ve heard enough of this. You can sit here and keep yapping if you want to. I’m going to bed.”

  As Linc started to rise from the table, Skinny said, “Where you going to sleep tonight? Going back up to your folks’ old house?”

  “What if I am?” Linc asked curtly.

  “How come?” Skinny asked in a goading voice. “Think that little nurse is going to come back and make you feel better?”

  Gritting his teeth, Linc rinsed his cup out and turned it upside down in the sink.

  “No. And I don’t want her to!”

  “You’re a damn liar, Linc Ketchum.”

  No one had ever dared to call him such a thing and it shocked him that Skinny, his best buddy, and a man who had been like an uncle to him all of his life could insult him like this.

  Turning slowly away from the sink, Linc walked back over to where Skinny sat with his hat pushed back on his forehead and his chin thrust stubbornly forward.

  “Look, Skinny, it’s like you said. I don’t have anything to offer the woman. And once she found that out—well, I’d be just like my father. Miserable.”

  Skinny blinked, then swallowed down the last of his coffee. “No, ain’t no way you could be like Randolf. You just ain’t made that way.”

>   Funny that Skinny should say such a thing, Linc thought. Everyone had always told him he had mannerisms and a personality just like his father’s. “What’s that supposed to mean? I can’t read your mind.”

  Skinny wiped a hand across his mouth as though he wished he’d done a bit more thinking before he’d spoken. “Well, it just means that he was different than you. That’s all. And it was your mother that carried the misery around. Not your father.”

  Frowning, Linc sat back down at the table and looked at Skinny. “Don’t you think I know that? She was yelling to Dad every day about this dusty, isolated ranch. She wanted away from here and she made him miserable because he wouldn’t take her.”

  Skinny made a tsking noise with his tongue. “Guess I shouldn’t have said anything, boy. But seems like you’re all messed up about things. And I don’t want to see you lose that pretty little nurse. She looked at you like a woman who’d love you ‘til the day she died. A man can’t find that every day.”

  Linc didn’t have to hear that from Skinny to know it was the truth. He’d been around women all his adult life. He’d shared their company and their beds. But not one of them had touched him the way Nevada had touched him. She’d gilded his heart with sweet honey, she’d lifted away the heavy loneliness inside him and made him wish for little ones sitting around the breakfast table, riding his shoulders and calling him Daddy. Made him dream of nights with Nevada in his arms, making love to him until the end of their days.

  “You’re right, Skinny,” he said finally. “Nevada is one of a kind. But I can’t ask her to live here on the ranch with me. She would eventually get sick of the dust, the isolation, the long hours I’d have to give to the horses and not her. She’d want to leave just like my mother and then where would I be?”

  “Look, boy, if you think—” He stopped, lifted his hat and scratched the top of his head. “Darla didn’t want to leave the ranch because of those things. Oh, she said them enough to your father, I’m sure. But Randolf knew the real reason and he didn’t care. As long as he got what he wanted that’s all that mattered to him. I guess in that way he was just like Tucker.”