Linc was taken completely aback and he stared at Skinny as though the old man had just suffered a stroke. “What’s the matter with you, Skinny? Everyone you ask would tell you that Randolf was not like Tucker. Tucker was a tough, indifferent man. Especially to his wife. He was a philanderer, a womanizer and he liked his Kentucky bourbon. Dad was not like that.”
“He wasn’t? Or was he just careful enough to keep it all hid? He was just as much a Ketchum as Tucker ever was. They were brothers and they shared the same hot blood. Randolf was more easygoing than Tucker. That much is true. But other than that they were two peas in a pod. If your Daddy hadn’t gotten sick with his heart you would have seen for yourself. Before that, you were too young to know what was really going on with your folks.”
Stricken by this revelation, Linc reached over and snatched a hold on Skinny’s sleeve. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“I’ve never lied to you before,” Skinny said flatly. “Ain’t about to start now.”
Linc felt sick as all the air drained out of his lungs. “Then why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Skinny shook his head. “Wasn’t any need to. You always thought highly of your daddy and I didn’t want to make you think any less.”
“Yes, but you let me go on thinking that my mother—that all their troubles were her fault!”
“Linc, I ain’t never been married. But I had a woman once and lost her in an accident. I’m old and maybe you think I don’t know about love or any of that stuff. But I do. And I can tell you that there’s always two sides to everything.”
Linc rose from the table and wiped a weary hand across his face. “She wanted me to go with her. After Dad died, she wanted me to start a new life with her. I didn’t want to go. I thought she was demanding. I thought she’d made Dad so miserable it had ruined his heart. But I didn’t go. I hurt her for sure. And now—” He shook his head and started toward the door. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Skinny,” he said hoarsely. “I’m going back to the barn.”
Hours later, Linc was in the foaling pen, lying on a mound of straw as he watched the new filly toddle after her mother. The baby’s black hair was dry now and her legs were straighter. Her little black mane stuck straight up like a punk rocker’s hair and each time she walked near Linc she gave him a sassy shake of her head.
If he hadn’t felt so rotten, he would have laughed at the filly’s antics. But tonight he felt as if his heart had dropped to the bottom of a rocky canyon. He’d thought all along that getting back to work and being able to use his hands would make him a happy man. But it hadn’t turned out that way. The job he’d always loved wasn’t giving him the same joy he’d felt before the fire and he had to admit to himself, if not to Skinny, that Nevada was the reason.
He would never have believed that he could miss anyone so much. But after she’d packed up and left, the house had felt like a tomb. Only he hadn’t been dead; he’d only felt dead.
Long after she was gone, the sound of her laugh and her sweet voice calling to him had seemed to ricochet off the walls. After the second night, he’d packed up his things and returned to the bunkhouse. At least there Cook had been able to give him a helping hand whenever he needed something. And the conversation of the ranch hands made him feel less lonely.
But nothing felt the same as it had before Nevada came into his life. And now he had to deal with the notion that all the arguments he’d given her for staying apart had been wrong. He’d been wrong. All these years and all the bitterness he’d felt for his mother had painted his image of her as very dark. And he’d transferred that darkness over to Nevada, simply because he’d been afraid of being hurt.
Oh God, how wrong he’d been.
“Linc? You awake?”
At the sound of Skinny’s low voice, Linc lifted his head to see the man entering the horse stall. A pen light illuminated his path as he approached the pile of straw where Linc was trying to rest.
“What the hell are you doing out here, Skinny? It’s three o’clock in the morning! You should be in bed.”
Skinny finally reached Linc’s side. There he squatted on his boot heels and dangled his hands between his knees. “I went to bed,” he said. “But I couldn’t sleep. I felt too ashamed of myself. I—”
“Skinny,” Linc interrupted, only to have the old man barge in.
“No, Linc. Let me say my piece. I’m sorry about all that I said back there in the bunkhouse. I shouldn’t have. I should have kept my mouth shut. You are just like a son to me. The son I always wanted. I just want you to be happy. And I thought—well—I thought you loved that little gal and that you just needed a nudge her way. I didn’t mean to spill all that about your folks.”
Pushing himself to a sitting position, Linc reached over and gripped Skinny’s forearm. “Don’t apologize, Skinny. You did the right thing and I thank you for it. Really thank you for it.”
“You mean that?” Skinny asked, his voice full of worried doubt.
Linc chuckled as his heart came to a certain and sudden decision. “You’re a bold old codger, you know it? One of these days I’m going to have to name my first son after you. And I don’t intend to call him Skinny. So you might as well get ready to cough up your real name and let everybody finally know what it is.”
Skinny cackled and patted Linc on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, boy. When the time comes, I’ll let you know.”
The next morning Nevada had just gotten out of the shower when the telephone rang and she moaned with loud frustration. She only had twenty minutes to get her hair dried, her makeup and clothes on and drive to work. She didn’t have time for small talk.
Wrapping a towel around her wet hair, she snatched up the receiver. “Hello,” she said in a breathless rush.
“Nevada, it’s Neil here. Do you have a minute? I wanted to catch you before you left for work.”
Nevada’s heart began to hammer with anticipation. Two weeks had passed since she’d gone to Neil’s office and asked the lawyer for help in finding Darla Ketchum. Since then she hadn’t heard any news about the search.
“You’ve found Linc’s mother?” she asked quickly.
“No. Not yet. But we have made a little progress. We found out that her husband is dead and has been for many years. We thought we might be able to locate some of his relatives, but so far we haven’t been able to. And as for Darla’s relatives, she must have been a black sheep of the family or something. She doesn’t appear to be related to anyone that we can find in San Antonio.”
Nevada felt deflated, but she told herself that things like this sometimes took months or years. She couldn’t expect instant results. And even if Neil managed to find Darla this very day, she didn’t know if it would help matters with Linc. She could only hope.
So far, Nevada hadn’t heard a word from him. And that really hadn’t surprised her. But she’d been hoping and praying he would have a change of heart and realize the two of them were meant to be together.
“Well, at least that’s a start,” she conceded. “I’ve been talking to Victoria and Marina and from what they say no one in the family has heard from her. Not since Linc had his last contact with her and that was years ago, shortly after she left the ranch.”
Neil said, “Don’t worry, Nevada. We’ll pick up a trace somewhere, somehow. In the meantime, have you talked with Linc?”
Tears suddenly blurred her eyes and she hated herself for being so emotional and weak. But any thought of Linc crushed her with sadness. “No. As far as I know he hasn’t made any effort to contact me.” She sighed. “I suppose most people would tell me I’m crazy and that I should give up and forget about the man. But I can’t, Neil. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Honey, from what I can see, love doesn’t ever make sense. And it’s pretty damn hard to find. Hang on ‘til you can’t hang on any more. That’s what I say.”
She blinked at the tears spilling over her eyelids. “Thank you, Neil. Let me know if you discover
anything at all.”
He promised he would, then hung up the phone. Nevada wiped her eyes and hurried to the bathroom to dry her hair.
She’d tossed the towel from her head and was about to push the button on the blow dryer when she heard the doorbell ring.
The interruption put a weary scowl on her face as she hurried to the front door. Not one of her friends ever stopped by at this hour in the morning. The caller had to be the landlord. He’d been promising to get Nevada new carpet for the past year. Maybe he was finally going to come through, she thought skeptically.
“All right. Just a moment,” she called through the door as another ring sounded.
Knowing that the glass storm door was safely latched behind the main wooden door, she didn’t take the time to peek out the peephole at the caller. Instead, she swung the panel of wood to one side and then stared with an open mouth.
“Linc!” she finally gasped.
In all of her imaginings, she’d never expected him to show up at her apartment like this with his hat in his hands and a humble look on his face. The sight was enough to make her hands fumble helplessly with the latch on the storm door before she finally managed to open it.
“Hello, Nevada. May I come in?”
Her throat was suddenly so thick she could hardly speak. Sweet, deep emotions began to fill her heart and spill over into the rest of her body like the waterfall where they’d hidden from the storm.
“Of course, Linc.”
She pushed the door wider and he stepped past her and into the small apartment.
Nervously, Nevada turned to face him. “I—you’ll have to excuse me,” she said as she touched a hand to her wet, tangled hair. “I just got out of the shower and I’m still a mess.”
He stepped toward her and she noticed his hands wrapped tightly around the brown felt hat. They were free of bandages now and thick scars from the fire were quite evident. Even so, his hands were a beautiful sight to Nevada.
“You look great,” he said quietly. “Really great.”
Her gaze settled on his rugged face. “So do you,” she murmured,
In a nervous gesture, his fingers began to smooth around the brim of his hat. “Uh—I guess you’re getting ready to go to work. I wasn’t thinking, I’m interrupting.”
Nevada’s heart suddenly felt so full of anticipation she thought it was going to burst. “Victoria will understand. That’s the good thing about having a boss like her.”
“She’s a pretty good cousin, too,” Linc said fondly.
Nevada nodded and then she couldn’t stand it any longer. She closed the last few steps between them. “Linc, what are you doing here?”
A groan sounded in his throat as he reached up and raked one hand through his dark hair. “I don’t know how to start, or what to say to you. I feel like a damn idiot and I’m sure I look even worse.”
“You look tired,” she said honestly.
“I’ve been up all night. Miss Lori finally had her baby last night. A little black filly with a white star.”
Nevada had to smile. “That’s good. Congratulations.”
His expression remained sober. “Miss Lori isn’t why I didn’t get any sleep though. I haven’t been able to sleep much at all since you left,” he admitted. “I—”
“Linc,” she interrupted, only to have him toss his hat aside and reach for her shoulders.
“Just wait, Nevada. Wait and hear me out. I know you probably want to curse me up one side and down the other. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated my guts now. But I’m hoping against hope that you’re a forgiving woman.”
Hope surged in her heart and that organ began to beat as though it had wings and was soaring higher and higher.
“Why?” she asked simply.
His features twisted with regret. “Because I’ve been wrong. And stupid. And a few other things that I don’t care to repeat.”
She looked at him with helpless confusion. “I don’t understand, Linc. You said we couldn’t be together. You said—”
“I said too many damn things that didn’t do anything but hurt both of us,” he admitted.
Tentatively, her hands lifted and framed his dear face. “What exactly are you trying to say to me, Linc? I don’t understand this change.”
With a muffled sound, he tugged her into his arms and buried his face in her damp hair. “I’m trying to say I love you, Nevada.”
She shook her head in dazed wonder. “But you were so against that.”
“I’ve learned a lot these past two weeks, Nevada. One is that you can’t dictate what your heart feels. It has a mind of its own. I loved you in spite of myself. Living without you has been horrible. And I’ve come to see that I do want all the things that other men have. A wife and kids, a family that loves me. I was always so afraid of that idea. Afraid that it would turn out like my parents’ marriage and then I would be hurt even worse than I was by them. But I’ve come to realize that I have to move past all that now. I’m different from my dad and you’re not Darla. I think we can be happy. What do you think?”
He pulled back his head to look at her and tears of pure joy slipped down Nevada’s cheeks as she gazed upon the love in his eyes.
“I know we’ll be happy, Linc. We both understand how important family is, how necessary it is for children to have two parents who truly love each other. That’s why we’ll try even harder to do things right.”
His eyes glazed over as his arms tightened around her and his head bent down to hers. “Something tells me we won’t have to try too hard,” he whispered. “I think loving each other is going to come natural.”
Nevada couldn’t have agreed more and she raised on tiptoe to meet the sweet promise of his kiss. And for long moments their lips searched, their hands clung with need.
Linc was the one who finally lifted his head and presented her with a dazzling smile that took Nevada’s breath away. “Go dry your hair and get dressed. We have things to do today. Do you think Victoria will give you the day off?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a happy laugh. “If my usual replacement will come in, then she will.”
“I’ll call her right now,” Linc said as his gaze darted around the room in search of a phone. “You go get ready. We’ve got a date with the county clerk to get our marriage license.”
He pushed her out of his embrace and turned her toward the door leading out of the small living area, but she quickly whirled back to him.
“Marriage license! Linc! You can’t be in that big a hurry. I want us to be married in church with all the beautiful trimmings! You will give me that much, won’t you?” she pleaded.
His expression softened and for the first time in his life he knew what it was like to spoil and love and protect a woman. His woman.
“Of course I will, honey. I want us to have a nice wedding, too. Just so you don’t make me wait too long. We can still get the license today. It’ll keep.”
She started to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him again. But at that moment another thought struck her and she looked at him worriedly.
“Linc, uh—maybe before we make any plans I need to confess something to you.”
Amusement crinkled his green eyes. “What is it? That you have a passion for stabbing people with needles? I already knew that,” he teased.
“No, Linc. I’m serious. I’ve done something that you should know about.” She paused long enough to draw in a bracing breath. “It’s about your mother.”
A frown puckered his brows and Nevada could only wonder if she’d ruined everything.
“My mother? I don’t understand.”
“After I left the ranch I was pretty upset. I decided there wouldn’t be much chance for us unless something changed your mind. I was hoping to find your mother so that the two of you might work out your differences. I asked Neil Rankin to help me search for her.” She reached for his hand and pressed it lovingly between hers. “No matter what you think, Linc, I can’t believe that she simply turne
d her back on you.”
He didn’t say anything, and Nevada’s heart sank as he lowered his head and shook it back and forth.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked after several minutes passed.
Lifting his head, he looked at her with moist eyes. “I’m not angry, darling. I’m floored that you would go to such lengths for me. And I don’t think I deserve a woman like you. But I’m going to try like hell to be deserving. Just give me a chance.”
She let out a relieved breath. “I was afraid. You’ve been so bitter about her. And—”
Linc lifted a forefinger to her lips. “There’s something I need to tell you, honey. I had an enlightening conversation with Skinny. And it seems that things were not what I thought they were between my parents. Apparently my father wasn’t faithful and my mother was very unhappy about it. That’s why she wanted to leave the ranch. She wanted the two of us to start over somewhere else.” His mouth twisted with regret. “I guess my dad couldn’t give up his vices.”
“And your mother loved him too much to leave,” she added. “Oh, Linc, I’m so sorry. But maybe now if we can find her things could be different for the two of you.”
He smiled gently down at her. “My hands are still scarred, but not my heart, my darling. If we’re able to track down Mom’s whereabouts, I’ll be glad. But right now I’ve found the woman I’m going to love for the rest of my life.”
Her eyes were bright with happy tears as she lifted his hand to her lips. “Can we live in your parents’ house, Linc? And turn it into a real home?”
“It’s waiting for us and all the children we’re going to have. And maybe someday, if we do find Mom, we’ll be able to present her with grandchildren.”
Suddenly, dressing and work and marriage license were put on the back burner as Linc’s hands pushed the blue terry robe Nevada was wearing down off her naked body.
“Oh—by the way,” he murmured against the curve of her shoulder. “I think I’d better warn you that I’ve promised Skinny to name our first boy after him.”
Taming a Dark Horse Page 17
