The Cowboy's Twins

by Deb Kastner

  Just look how fast she’d learned how to handle running the ranch. For someone who’d not grown up with horses, she displayed considerable finesse with them. She had adapted far more gracefully than he had taken to caring for his twins. He still felt awkward sometimes when he was faced with daddy duties.

  As soon as she saw him unfold himself from the Bobcat, she jumped down off the fence and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing him so hard she was choking him. He laughed and grabbed her waist, whirling her around and around.

  He was so happy it took him a second to figure out she wasn’t laughing with him. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering.

  He pulled back to look at her face. He was surprised to see tears pouring down her cheeks. His gaze met hers.

  “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m just so happy to see you.”

  “Well, that’s good to know.” He grinned and shook his head. He’d never understand why women cried when they were happy.

  She touched his shoulder, his face, his ear, gently running her fingers against his scars. In some ways it was the same thing Susie had done, but it was such a different kind of caress that it was like night and day. There wasn’t disgust or pity in her fingertips, nor even kindness or compassion. It was as if she was reassuring herself of his reality by touching those marks that were uniquely his to bear.

  She sighed and brushed her palm down his whiskered cheek. He laid his hand over hers, holding her to him. “The fire is out, Faith. It’s over.”

  He was about to tell her about the damage to her property, but she spoke first.

  “I lost him.”

  What? Lost who? Had one of the horses perished in the fire?

  “I’m sorry, Jax. I don’t know what happened.”

  “To...?”

  “Fuego. And after all you did for him. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced. And then to have it end like this—it just hurts my heart.”

  She took Jax’s hand and threaded her fingers through his, drawing him toward the corral.

  “By the time I found the horses, Fuego had rounded up practically the whole herd and had driven them to the eastern part of the second meadow.”

  “About as far away from the fire as he could get. That’s my smart boy.”

  “I was shocked. He seemed to know what he needed to do to preserve the band.”

  “As I’m sure you’re learning, horses are intelligent.”

  “I’ve always known that.”

  He smiled down at her. Maybe not always, but she certainly knew now.

  “I herded the mares and foals back to the corral just like you told me to do. Fuego helped me, nudging the foals along and rounding up the occasional straggler.”

  She groaned in dismay. “I got them as far as the corral without any problems. I knew I was one horse short when I did a head count in the field. I couldn’t take the time to figure which horse I was missing until I got them all rounded up in the corral. It broke my heart to even think about leaving a horse out there on its own, but I knew I had to put the well-being of the band over that of the one horse.

  “The corral gate isn’t big enough for me to be able to herd all the horses at once, so I rounded up three at a time. Fuego kept the rest of the band together while I did the herding. It was as if we were working as a team.”

  He nodded. “You were.”

  Her smile was tired, and though her tears had slowed, they hadn’t stopped.

  “Near the end I had three horses left—Willow, Pilgrim and Fuego. But when I got ready to herd them in, I discovered Fuego had disappeared. I looked around and he was just—gone.”

  “Hmm. That’s odd.”

  “The horses in the corral were spooking all over the place. My presence seemed to calm them. I just couldn’t justify leaving an entire herd of frightened wild horses cooped up in a corral by themselves to look for Fuego, even though I knew that’s where they’d be safest.”

  “So you stayed with them,” he guessed. “It was the right thing to do.”

  “But Fuego—”

  “Is probably fine,” Jax finished for her. “You said it yourself. He’s a smart horse. He managed to get all the rest of the herd away from the fire. I doubt he’d go charging into it himself.”

  “I just keep thinking about how he got caught up in the lumber. If anything else happened to him, I’m not sure my heart would be able to stand it.”

  “I’ll go look for him,” he assured her. “Or better yet, we can go together. The horses will be fine unsupervised for an hour now that the fire is out and the sun is up. We’ll put them in the first meadow and they can graze. Did you ever determine who else was missing?”

  “A pregnant mare. Prada. She’s close to her time. I’m praying nothing bad happened to her.”

  “We’ll look for her, as well.” He ran his gaze over her mount. “Please don’t tell me you rode Alban bareback last night.” He knew he sounded like a badgering schoolteacher, but he was soaked and exhausted beyond belief from staying up all night, and the thought of Faith galloping around bareback in the dark with slick rain pelting her and her wet mount was more than he could handle.

  Didn’t she know she could have hurt herself, fallen off and hit her head on a rock? His chest tightened at the thought.

  She frowned. “I didn’t want to take the time to tack up. As far as I was concerned, every second counted, and I still stand by that decision.”

  “Except that a horse’s bare back is especially slippery when it’s wet, and it would have taken all of five minutes to put a saddle on him. What would have happened if you’d hurt yourself?” His voice rose. “Did it even occur to you that you might be putting yourself in danger?”

  She scoffed. “Of course it did. And I didn’t have a lot of time to think through all of the implications. But now that I’m looking back on it, I would do exactly the same thing again, so stop bugging me about it.”

  Jax growled in frustration. Stubborn woman.

  “Well, we’re saddling him this time. Did you get your second riding horse in, or are we doubling up on Alban?”

  “Thankfully,” she said, emphasizing the word, “he showed up the day before yesterday. He’s a beautiful quarter horse named Brobie. I’m warning you—he’s only green broke. I’m not sure he’s ready to ride in the open country yet.”

  Jax didn’t care one whit if the horse was green broke or purple broke or if he had ever seen a saddle at all. Grumbling under his breath, he tacked up both horses. The woman was riding with a saddle this time.

  He mounted Brobie and waited for her to mount Alban. “We should check the east fence where you found Fuego and the herd last night,” he decided, knowing he sounded like a dictator but unable to temper his tone.

  She lifted her chin and glared at him. “I agree.”

  Hmmph. Well, at least they agreed on something.

  He led them at an easy lope, just fast enough that talking was difficult. He should probably be telling her all he knew about the fire and the damage to her land, but that news wasn’t going anywhere. He’d let her regroup from one crisis at a time.

  And try, this time, not to be so grumpy about it. He owed her an apology for being so short with her. She was still new to ranches and horses. So she’d made a mistake. Nothing bad had come of it. She was fine. He’d been the one to make a big deal about it.

  He scowled, angry at himself. After today, with his huge display of bad temper, it would be a wonder if she agreed to marry him.

  Marry him?

  Yes. That’s what he’d been dancing around when he’d been thinking of babies and families and offering Faith security and safety. He just hadn’t formulated it in words, so much.

  Now that he had the idea in his head, t
hough, he liked it. What said forever like a diamond engagement ring?

  Aaaand now he was starting to sound like a jewelry shop commercial. He wanted to provide a permanent commitment and express his love, but he hoped he wouldn’t get as sappy as all that.

  Was he getting ahead of himself? Probably. Just the previous night, he’d told her he loved her—and had then walked off without giving her a chance to respond. Maybe she was just waiting for the crisis to pass before letting him down gently. He knew with a bone-deep certainty that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. On the other hand, he had no idea what she wanted.

  He just hoped it was him.

  And he also hoped that she wouldn’t stay mad at him after their little spat this morning. He was glad to know she wasn’t the kind of woman who held grudges.

  But he wasn’t about to propose out in a field on horseback while they were missing horses and they were both soaked to the bone and she was still mad at him for something stupid he’d said. He’d wait until today’s chaos was in the past, and then he’d tell her everything—how much he loved her, how he wanted to build a life with her, how beautifully he thought their hopes and dreams for the future could mesh together. And then he’d ask her to marry him.

  But none of that was going to happen today.

  Faith surged ahead of him and cantered to the fence line, riding a few hundred yards before pulling up and returning to his side. He was struggling with the green-broke colt, who wanted to bolt instead of stand still.

  “This is where they were last night, but I don’t see any sign of Fuego or the mare.”

  “Then we’ve got to keep riding.” Rats. He sounded like a dictator again.

  Way to go, King Jax.

  Thankfully, Faith didn’t recognize his tone, or else she chose to ignore it.

  Faith’s land was fairly flat with only minor hills and ridges and a few random trees in the whole thousand acres. The horses had to be somewhere out of sight. He refused to think of any other outcome for them. Not until he had to.

  “What about the copse of trees over by the stream?” she suggested. “I know some of the mares and foals like to hang out there.”

  That area was fairly close to where the fire had been. Too close, by Jax’s estimation. Fuego wouldn’t have gone that near to the flames. Unfortunately, it was more likely that he’d found a break in the fence and was long gone by now.

  And the pregnant mare? She was anybody’s guess. A crazed mare about to foal might have run straight into the fire.

  Jax didn’t want to suggest either of these possibilities. Not yet. But he didn’t have any better alternatives to offer her, so he agreed with her suggestion and trailed her to the water. They followed along the streambed for about fifteen minutes before they heard distressed whinnying coming from the very copse of trees where Faith had guessed she would be.

  Prada was lying on her side, her body covered with sweat. Her skin shook and she grunted and snorted and threw her head, clearly straining with the effort of pushing out the foal. Jax didn’t know how long she’d been there, but it appeared a new life was about to make its entrance into the big wide world.

  With a little cry of distress, Faith slid out of the saddle and ran toward the mare.

  Jax wanted to call out to her, but before he had a chance, Fuego came out of nowhere, neighing and bucking angrily. The stallion had appointed himself protector of the laboring mare, and he wasn’t happy about humans coming anywhere near her.

  Jax knew his green-broke horse would be useless in this situation, and he had only seconds to spare before the stallion charged Faith.

  He threw himself off the colt as if he were bulldogging, landing halfway across Fuego’s back. He grabbed a handful of mane and struggled to pull himself onto the horse’s back. Fuego turned his head and snorted, then threw his weight to one side and then the other, rearing to the front and then the back, turning in tight circles and trying desperately to dislodge his unwelcome rider.

  “Easy, boy,” he called, but the horse was too wound up to listen to his voice.

  Jax somehow managed to stay on Fuego’s back. He’d never had any inclination to try to ride a wild mustang stallion, bareback or otherwise, and he didn’t want to now, but when the alternative was seeing Faith plowed down by an overprotective band leader, he’d do whatever he had to do. He wanted to yell at Faith to get away from the mare, to go back to Alban where she’d be safer, but Fuego’s bucking kept jolting the breath out of him before he could speak.

  Faith was hunched over by the mare’s side, stroking her neck and speaking to her in soft tones. She seemed entirely unaware of the explosion of silver stallion going on behind her. The stream was rushing loudly beside them, swollen from the previous night’s storm. The sound of the frothing water, on top of the mare’s pained grunts, must have been enough to block out the noise of Fuego’s temper tantrum.

  “Faith!”

  She turned in his direction and her eyes widened, her mouth gaping in fright.

  Jax could feel his grip on Fuego faltering and knew he wouldn’t be able to keep the stallion away from the mare—and Faith—for much longer. He opened his mouth one more time to try to warn her, but his words were lost at the same time he lost his seat.

  He landed hard on his bad shoulder, and the pain of his scar roared to life, but he ignored it, pushing himself to his feet and running full force toward Faith.

  He couldn’t see Fuego but knew the stallion must be right behind him. Faith’s eyes were still glued to his.

  He charged forward and scooped her up by the waist. She screamed in alarm. He twisted hard, just barely missing the angry muzzle of the charging horse.

  “Run,” he said, pushing her in the direction from which they’d come. “Run and don’t look back.”

  She cast a look over her shoulder and apparently saw Fuego and realized what danger she was in, because she actually listened to him. She tucked her head and ran, following the path of the streambed.

  Jax turned back to the stallion, who was stomping and snorting, the whites of his eyes a reflection of his defensive frame of mind.

  Jax slowly raised his hands. “Easy there, boy. Faith didn’t mean to interrupt. She just wanted to see how Prada was doing. No harm, no foul.”

  Fuego snorted again but didn’t charge him.

  Progress. Jax let out his breath and calmed his posture. Fuego would sense any stress or tension Jax carried in his body. They’d already had quite a run-in today. He knew he probably wasn’t on top of the stallion’s friends list right now.

  He backed up until he was even with Alban. If he could somehow manage to get mounted, he’d hopefully be able to handle Fuego and watch the mare for signs of distress, but it was a risk. Fuego could very easily charge him and prevent him from ever mounting Alban.

  “It’s okay, boy. Remember, we’re the good guys,” he said, keeping his voice low and even as he hooked his hand over the saddle horn and put his foot into the stirrup. “We’re glad to see you both are safe, you know. The three of you, I mean. And I totally get why you’d want to keep an eye on one of your mares. You’re a good boy.”

  Jax swung his leg over Alban’s body and shifted his weight in the saddle.

  Fuego hadn’t moved but was still eyeing him warily.

  “Let’s just make sure everything is well with the foal, and then I’m out of here,” he promised, carefully watching Fuego’s body language for any sign of a sudden movement.

  He glanced behind him, but Faith was out of sight. He hoped she’d keep on running and wouldn’t get it in her head to turn back over a mistaken sense of obligation toward him or the horses.

  He watched the mare for a few more minutes until two wet legs appeared. Good. It looked as if the foal was in the right position for an easy birth. It would have been even easier for Prad
a if he was able to get down and offer her a bit of assistance, but there was no way he was going to put Fuego to the test again. That was a battle he knew he would lose, and he respected the stallion for that.

  “Come on, girl,” he cheered quietly. “You can do it.”

  The mare snorted, and with another big push the foal emerged and immediately started wriggling around. Prada whickered and rolled to her feet, nudging for her little chestnut foal to do the same.

  Jax chuckled as the wobbly-legged foal struggled to follow its mama’s lead. Fuego snorted and trotted back and forth around the area, acting like a proud papa even though it wasn’t his foal.

  I know how you feel, buddy. I’ve got a couple of kids myself. And even though I didn’t know them before they were born, I couldn’t be prouder of them.

  Jax watched Fuego for a few more minutes and observed the mare and foal. He probably wouldn’t have kept a stallion in the same meadow with a mare about to foal, but in this case it had turned out fine. Better than fine. All three horses were thriving.

  And his job was done, at least for the time being. He had to find Faith before she managed to jog all the way back up to the house by herself. He nudged Alban’s side and reached for Brobie’s lead, frankly impressed that the green-broke colt hadn’t bolted off somewhere during all the chaos. He’d be a good horse and a fine addition to Faith’s stable. It would be nice for her to have more than one riding horse, if nothing else than for emergencies such as this one.

  He leaned forward and all out galloped, enjoying the wind in his face, which, now that he thought about it, must look smeared and sticky from smoke and sweat. It was a wonder Faith hadn’t said anything about it. She’d looked at him as if he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

  So he was deaf and she was blind.

  He caught up with her less than half a mile from the house. She wasn’t running, but she was...striding. Stomping, maybe, her arms flinging back and forth as if she were punching the air.