And pigs can fly.
“Hey, Mom!” Evan called from the rock he was balancing on, waving something minuscule in his hand. “Look what I found!”
“Be right there!” She waved back, looking relieved. “We’d better go see.”
“Carly?”
She turned back. “What?”
He thought better of it. Obviously, she still had deep feelings for Tom. Why else would she have reacted so strongly to the mention of his name? The realization dulled something inside him. Something that made no sense, even to him. What did it matter if her heart still belonged to another man? It had never really belonged to him.
“Nothin’,” he said with a disarming smile. “Let’s go see what he wants.”
They kept a cautious space between them as they made their way to where Evan was scurrying around the creek edge, loading his pockets with rocks like a squirrel in autumn. Carly filled the conversational void by firing questions at Rafe about the names of the mountains and the creek and the trees anchoring it. Rafe answered them all, watching the pleasure in her eyes as she took in the land. She had a mind for details and she stored it all away—like Evan with his rocks—for some future use.
Rafe, too, stored it all away, the memory of this morning—this time with Carly and Evan. Too soon, they’d be gone, and when she left this time, she’d take another chunk of him with her. And somehow, this time, he knew he’d never get it back again.
He didn’t want to think about how close he was to losing it all, about her leaving, about anything. He wanted—just for now—to stand beside her and imagine what could have been.
The next day started out badly, and went downhill from there.
By 9:00 a.m., three Japanese in suits and construction helmets and a miniature imported pickup truck had tracked him down in the south pasture and begun some rapid-fire conversation Rafe couldn’t begin to understand. Their translator, whose command of English was tenuous at best, had considerable difficulty explaining their reason for interrupting Rafe in the middle of pulling a heifer from a mud bog. By the time the translator had pulled the survey scope out of his truck to illustrate their purpose—namely, surveying the land they were about to buy out from under him—Gus had to physically restrain Rafe from delivering the full-body tackles he had in mind.
The astonished businessmen scurried into their truck like rats to a woodpile and disappeared down the road behind a cloud of dust. It was a good bet they’d have a fascinating story to tell their grandchildren about the crazy American cowboy who had come at them like a banshee after their innocent request.
By eleven, the sight of circling vultures had led Rafe to two dead calves and the all-too-distinguishable prints of a mountain lion surrounding them. They were the fourth and fifth in as many weeks. A grim pattern. Cats didn’t normally work this far down, and definitely not in daylight. This time, however, steam was still drifting from one of the partially eaten calves. Rafe cursed his luck.
The print showed that the cat favored a paw from which it had a missing toe. There was a good chance it was wounded.
It had struck like a phantom and disappeared the same way. He’d followed the tracks into the rocky outcrops at the base of the nearby mountains, then, abruptly, lost them. He decided to leave the dead calf as bait, and would assign Pedro night watch over it tonight. He held out little hope that Pedro would catch sight of the renegade cat. It had a full belly, and might not strike again for days.
By four, with his patience stretched thinner than bale wire, he realized that he’d only begun to see how bad this day could get.
Rafe cinched the hold rope tighter around his gloved hand and pounded his knuckles shut against it. His heart knocked against the wall of his chest like an out-of-control jackhammer. Cold sweat dampened his gloves and slid down between his shoulder blades. Beneath him, the stallion stirred restively, shifting his massive frame against the rails of the enclosure like a coiled half-ton spring. Every muscle, every warning, twitched in the beast’s hide.
In the distance, lightning streaked across the darkening afternoon sky like an empty threat. The thin, windswept clouds held no rain. The breeze carried the tang of summer, and the promise of heat.
“I’m ready,” he told Gus, sliding his feet toward the horse’s shoulders.
When Rafe looked up, Gus was simply scowling at him, not moving anywhere closer to unlatching the gate.
“I said, I’m ready,” he repeated.
“Well, I ain’t,” Gus retorted, drawing the back of his hand across his dry mouth.
“Open the gate, Gus,” Rafe said deliberately.
“This is a stupid idea, Rafe.”
“You got a better one?”
Gus’s scowl deepened. “Gimme a minute.”
“I’m running out of those.”
“You can’t trust this devil, Rafe,” Gus said, nodding at Red-Eye. “He’d as soon pound your brains out as look at ya.”
Indeed, the stallion rolled a killing look back at Rafe in retribution for daring to sit on his back. A green bronc, Red-Eye had been purchased along with a half-dozen other horses seven months ago from a spread west of here that was going under. Better men than Rafe had tried gentling him by more conventional methods, but to no avail. He showed real potential as a rodeo bronc, but woefully little as a cow pony. Which was exactly why Rafe had chosen him today.
“My fingers are going numb, Gus. Open the damned gate.”
Still Gus didn’t move.
“Pedro?”
The ranch hand who’d been watching the exchange from atop the nearest rail straightened instantly, shooting a nervous look at Gus. “Sí, boss?”
“Open the gate, or you’re fired.”
Pedro flushed and moved toward the rope holding the gate. “Si, boss.”
“He won’t fire you, and you know it,” Gus told Pedro.
“Wanna risk it?” Rafe asked Pedro, who shook his head with a grim smile.
“Aw, hell. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya,” Gus grumbled.
“Clock it,” Rafe commanded, and Gus reluctantly pulled out his stop watch.
Pedro nodded to Gus as he yanked the jury-rigged rope, which slipped off the post, and swung open the gate with a bang.
Rafe left his stomach behind as Red-Eye exploded into the enclosure with the force of a pipe bomb, took three long strides, then sunfished upward in a torturous twist.
For what seemed like minutes—while Rafe’s body hung suspended somewhere between horseflesh and outer space—he struggled to stay upright, perpendicular to the animal’s back. As with the kid who’d learned to balance on two wheels, it was a knack that returned to him, despite how long it had been.
Then, with body-numbing force, he slammed downward again, colliding with flesh and bone so hard it made his teeth clack together and his neck snap. Distantly he heard the whoops of his ranch hands and the grunting fury of Red-Eye. He felt the protest of every muscle in his body, reminding him that he wasn’t twenty-six anymore. Then everything slowed down, as if a video-camera button had been pushed. The world slid past him—up, down, sideways, in a blur of browns and greens and cerulean blue, in a violent collision of wills—his versus Red-Eye’s.
Hang on, he chanted over and over. Hang on. Hang on.
And then the earth was flying up to meet him like a fist. Rafe threw his hands out to break the fall and rolled. He took the brunt of it on his back. The impact stole his breath and sent him careening like a top toward the corral fence.
From the corner of his vision, he saw Pedro leaping in front of Red-Eye, waving his arms like a madman before the horse could swing back around toward Rafe. His stalled lungs heaved as he instinctively reached for a fence rail to haul himself out of harm’s way. Awkwardly he pitched himself between two rails and landed on the other side, just as Pedro flung himself out of the corral beside him and the stallion’s hooves came down deafeningly in the dirt behind them both.
“Ay, Dios!” Pedro managed in a strangled whisper as
Red-Eye whirled away. The ranch hand panted in panicked, chugging breaths.
Rafe simply closed his eyes and focused on breathing, sprawled in the dirt like a staked out hostage. His ribs burned, and his leg—Hell, his knee felt dislocated. But he knew it wasn’t.
“How long?” he gasped.
“Six point eight,” Gus snarled back.
He suppressed a groan. “Felt longer.” Like an hour.
Dimly he heard Pedro say, “Oh-oh,” and he cracked open one eye. A dozen feet away, standing in openmouthed, outraged horror, was a hundred and fifteen pounds of trouble.
“Ohmygod—”
“Carly,” Rafe croaked, “what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?”
“Ah, jeez—” Rafe edged up on his elbows, ignoring the pain in his side. He was covered with dirt and—he dabbed at the damp trickle on his cheek—bleeding. “It looks worse than it is. Carly—”
She spun around on those crutches faster than nobody’s business and hauled that pretty little behind of hers in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?” he shouted after her. “Hey!”
Anger was carrying her almost effortlessly toward the house, despite the ten pounds of plaster on her leg. Rafe muttered a curse and winced as he struggled to his feet.
Gus folded his arms over his chest with an I-told-you-so attitude. “Well, if you want my advice—”
“Old man,” he snapped, his patience gone, “when I want your advice, I’ll damned well ask for it. That goes for riding and women! Understood?”
Gus grinned and sauntered off toward the barn.
Rafe swore again and reached into the corral for his trampled hat. He hissed in a breath at the pain in his bad leg and the achy heat in his side.
Nobody’d said it wasn’t gonna hurt.
He should have been prepared for Carly’s reaction—but he wasn’t. What the devil was she so mad about? That was just what he needed—one more adversary. Each step he took fueled his own anger. Here he was sneaking around his own place, hiding from her, as if he were doing something wrong. Whose place was it, anyway? And what right did she have getting angry over him riding again? None. That was what. Not a blasted one.
He limped toward the house, passing Evan hooking lassos around the gatepost. Mack, lying next to Evan, whined and thumped his black tail at Rafe, raising a cloud of dust.
“Hey, Rafe, look what I can do!”
“Great, kid. Not now.”
Evan’s face fell. “But—”
Ahead, the door to the house slammed behind Carly. “Later,” he said, too sharply, then pulled himself back to soften the blow. “Hey, why don’t you go see Gus? He could use a hand with feeding.”
“Okay.” He heard Evan’s downtrodden mumble behind him, but decided to deal with that later.
He took the porch stairs two at a time. At the top, he stopped, pressing two hands against his rib cage, waiting for the ache to subside before yanking open the screen door and heading for Carly’s room.
He didn’t get that far.
She was in the living room. It was the chinking sound of crystal against crystal that gave her away. She looked up as she lifted a glass of bourbon to her lips. With an undecipherable look at him, she knocked it back, sending it down her throat in one burning gulp. She gasped and choked, coughing with all the aplomb of a teetotaler.
“What are you doing, Carly? You’re not a drinker.”
“Oh, really!” she squeaked, sending him daggers while she wiped the back of one hand across her mouth. “And you’re not a rodeo rider anymore.”
“I don’t recall being drummed out of the association,” he snapped, heading for the bourbon himself.
“Well, there oughta be a rule against suicidal cowboys competing. That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? Go back to riding? Why else would you let that loco horse throw you around the corral?”
“What if I am?” He slugged down a drink, savoring the burn as it made its way down.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said evenly, her eyes whiskey-darkened and angry. “But do you or do you not have only one remaining kidney after your little dance with that Brahma bull four years ago?”
He was too surprised that she knew that to deny it. “So?”
Her jaw dropped and she slammed the crystal tumbler down on the desk. “So! So? No one in his right mind would risk the other one on some foolish...”
“Call it what you want.”
“...idiotic adrenaline rush!”
“You done?”
His jaw went rigid with the same stubborn pride Carly remembered. She wanted to shake him, stamp her feet, beg. But she wouldn’t. It had never gotten her anywhere before, and she was sure it wouldn’t now. So she braced herself and asked, “Why? Why now?”
“What difference does it make?”
“What dif—?” The evasiveness in his voice only now dawned on her. “Did you really think it wouldn’t matter to me? You obviously didn’t expect me to see you—working out—all the way on the other side of the barn. What’s going on, Rafe?”
“Nothing’s going on,” he hedged, touching the cut on his face and glancing at the red stain on his fingers. “I miss it. That’s all.”
Her chest tightened with apprehension. “You miss bruised ribs and concussions? Getting trampled on by an animal ten times your size?”
“I rode for seven years with hardly a scratch.”
“If you don’t count near-death experiences.”
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” he said, enunciating every word. Beneath the veneer of civility, she sensed a simmering explosion waiting to happen.
Welcoming it, she said quietly, “You and I both know that’s not true.”
He’d been avoiding her eyes. Now he pierced her with a single look. “Drop it, Carly.”
Outside, thunder rumbled warningly, like the distant sound of war.
“Not until you tell me why you’re willing to risk all of this—” She swept her hand around the high-windowed room and toward the acres that stretched below the San Juans. “Everything you’ve worked and sweated for, this house, this ranch—”
“This ranch—” On an oath, he turned and, with one vicious swipe, raked a stack of papers off his desk. “This ranch won’t be worth the deed it’s written on if I don’t ride.”
Carly stared at the papers still fluttering to the floor, then back up at Rafe.
“Is that what you wanted to hear?” He sent an errant few papers airborne beside the others, then braced his flattened palms on the desktop and stared at the mahogany grain. “Satisfied now?”
She ignored the papers and moved beside him. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?” he said, not looking up. “That I’m gonna crash and burn because I was fool enough to count on good weather? Because I never expected a friend to sell me out? Because,” he said, lowering his head between his splayed arms, “I wanted it too much?”
She reached a hand up to touch his back, but stopped herself, afraid of the contact. “I don’t understand.”
The sigh he heaved came from somewhere deep inside him. Reluctantly he told her about the lease with Jed Stivers, about the water—the creek they’d sat beside only yesterday morning, about Sunimoto Corporation and their rush to eat up Colorado grazeland. He told her about the three expensive, failed attempts he’d made at drilling for water, and he told her about the banks.
Carly listened with a lump in her throat as he talked, knowing what it had cost him to admit any of this to her. Yesterday, he’d shown her his ranch, and she’d seen firsthand what the place meant to him. The feeling still vibrated inside her, as well. But to risk his life for it? His future? She couldn’t let this happen.
“So, I’ll ride,” he finished, running both hands through his hair. “And I’ll win. Because I have to.” He walked to the window and stared out.
She found it hard to breathe. She knew what was coming, but felt helpless to
stop it. Like the proverbial elephant in the living room, it crowded her thinking and hurt her ears with its noise.
“Please, Rafe, reconsider. Let me look at the contracts,” she suggested, a little desperately. “I do that for a living. Maybe I can find—”
“There’s nothing. I’ve looked at every angle. I’m out of time, Carly.”
“Then, let me help you. I can—”
His eyes had gone glacial. Cold. If she’d tried to humiliate him more than he already had been, she couldn’t have chosen a better path. Two spots of color appeared in his cheeks. “You want to help me? Don’t stand in my way. This is my problem, not yours, Carly. I’ll manage. I won’t lose it.”
“There’s more at stake here than just your ranch, Rafe.”
He shook his head. “Without this place, I’ll have nothing. I’ll be... nothing.”
Carly’s heart hammered in her ears. She felt faint. Gripping the table behind her, she took a deep breath and dived off that cliff whose edge she’d been teetering on for nine long years.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Rafe,” she said slowly. “You’ll always be Evan’s father.”
Chapter 8
A deafening silence thundered through the room. Outside, the real thing rumbled across the sky, as lightning illuminated the room and flickered across Rafe’s face like an old-time movie. His thought processes had slowed instantly to the speed of cold molasses. “Wh-what did you say?”
She was a deer caught in headlights, looking like she wanted to run, to hide, yet hopelessly frozen to the spot.
“What did you say?” he repeated, louder this time.
She swallowed heavily. “He’s yours, Rafe. He’s your son. Not Tom’s.”
Rafe’s fists curled into tight balls at his sides, whitening his knuckles. Somewhere, deep inside him, since that first phone call from Nevada, he’d been unconsciously anticipating those words. But when they came, he couldn’t take them in. Or believe them.
“You’re lying.” His voice sounded hollow, strangled.
She shook her head, her backside colliding with the desk behind her. “All you have to do is look at him, Rafe. He’s yours.”
To Love A Cowboy Page 11
