Cowboy Under Cover

by Marilyn Tracy

  If it hadn’t been so painful to watch a fledgling’s attempt at seduction, it might have been humorous, Jeannie thought. Thankfully, Chance remained impervious to the blatant girlish sexuality.

  “I think my stirrup is too long,” Dulce called as Chance started to walk away. “Can you help me, Chance?” She removed her foot from the stirrup and held her leg straight out, a perfect line of sixteen-year-old symmetry.

  Chance grabbed the stiffened limb and pulled it down until it passed the stirrup. He pressed her ankle against the leather and metal. “Looks just right,” he said, and guided the toe of Dulce’s tennis shoe into the saddle’s stirrup. “Now give her some leg pressure and get her moving.”

  “Okay, Chance. If you’ll watch me,” Dulce said.

  “Fine,” Chance said, stepping back. “But sometime today would be good.”

  Dulce nudged Diablo into a trot, holding her back erect, her elbows firmly at her waist, her chest proudly jutting forward, breasts jostling with every jarring bounce of the horse’s gait.

  “Oh, please,” Jeannie muttered and left the corral for the cool interior of the barn. She knew Dulce would soon be leading Diablo in for a rubdown and currying. How to talk to the girl about the differences between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, especially when so much of Dulce’s changed attire and attitude was an improvement?

  The riding lesson was over before Jeannie had found a solution to her conundrum. Dulce led Diablo into his stall.

  “Did you have a good ride?” she asked the girl.

  Dulce shrugged. “Mas ó menos.”

  “More or less? Why is that?”

  “What’s this? Some kind of a quiz?”

  “Not at all,” Jeannie said. She rested her hands on the stall’s open half door, trying to hide the fact that they were shaking. “I just wondered if you’d enjoyed the ride.”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  “I like the outfit you have on,” Jeannie said.

  “So what?”

  “You look great in it.”

  “Yeah? Well, thanks, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jeannie said, feeling as if she were floundering. Some random psychobabble phrase she’d heard once long ago reminded her not to use the word but when trying to modify a behavior. “I love you but” was a definite no-no in the therapy game. Telling Dulce she liked her clothes that morning but there were elements of inappropriateness to them not only sounded stilted and old-fashioned, it had the dreaded caveat.

  “Was there something else you wanted to talk about?” Dulce asked, as if aware of Jeannie’s discomfort.

  “Yes, actually. I think you might want to wear a bra next time you ride. I remember when I was your—”

  Dulce rounded on her, her face flushed with dark red stains, her eyes wild with anger, her lips quivering with rage. “I think you were old even when you were a kid. I don’t think you know what to do with breasts or legs or anything else. No wonder you’re an old maid. Like, duh! You’re just the perfect saint, aren’t you? Have you ever done one little thing wrong in your whole boring life?”

  Chance winced, staying out of sight on the other side of the stall, his fist clenching against the door latch. He was proud of Jeannie for trying to tone the girl down and sorry she’d brought it up. Dulce was just a kid with a crush on an older man. It happened, and if she was treated kindly and set free without scars, her crush would blow itself out within days or as soon as some kid her own age came along and got tongue-tied in her presence.

  “You just throw yourself at Chance every time he walks near you. Leaning on him, hoping he’ll kiss you. I’ll tell you, he’d rather kiss a dried-up old tomato. That’s you. A dried-up old something. You hold yourself off from everybody, like you’re better than the rest of us dirt. You don’t even like kids. You just wanted to do the right thing out here so everybody could see what a perfect person you are. But you’re scared of us. You’re just a scared jackrabbit. If you’d had any kids, they’d have died just because you would have made them feel so stupid all the time, so little and stupid.”

  Chance wanted to intervene, wanted to stop Dulce, wanted to shut the girl up, but he knew if he stepped around the stall door, he would be adding kerosene to an ignited fire. He hoped like hell Jeannie would fight back and the two could clear the air a little.

  He could almost see Jeannie drawing a ragged breath.

  “You’re wrong,” she said in a tight, agonized voice.

  “Oh, yeah? Like what am I wrong about, huh? That you’re a dried-up saint or that you don’t like kids very much? Like I said, good thing you never had any kids—”

  “That’s enough,” Jeannie snapped. “You don’t have the foggiest notion what you’re talking about. I’ve put up with your pouts and your tempers and the ridiculous spectacle you made of yourself this morning, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you get away with this nonsense. You’re mad at me because you know I’m right. You can play sexpot all you want, but when you’re on the back of a horse and your breasts are bouncing all over the place, you’re going to be in some pain, and by the time you’re my age, your breasts will be somewhere around your knees. So next time you want to blow up at me, let me finish my sentence so you’ll have some clue what the subject is.”

  Chance had to bite his tongue to keep from letting loose a victory yell.

  Dulce rounded on Jeannie. “Yeah? And what about you being scared of us kids?”

  “You spend half your time in this house trying to scare people and then you blame them when it works? It worked at the start, all right. You scared me senseless. But those days are over.”

  “Why, are you sending me away?”

  “No, I’m asking you to stay.”

  “What?”

  “That’s it. And for you to wear a bra next time you ride.”

  Chance took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair. Jeannie was good, he thought. Much better than he’d given her credit for, and she’d been one step shy of perfect before.

  “Why? Not the bra—that’s okay because you’re right, it did hurt a little. But why do you want me to stay?”

  Go on, Jeannie, Chance urged silently. Open up to her. Let her see you. Her guard’s almost down now—show her you can drop yours. And he thought of the night before, when he’d been unable to let her in when she told him she couldn’t explain why she’d pulled back from him.

  “Okay, that’s fair.” Jeannie sighed heavily, and Chance wondered what she was doing with her lovely hands. Raising them to Dulce? Tucking them in her pockets? “I want you to stay for so many reasons that I can’t begin to list them all. And none of them sound logical. I like the way you champion José. And I like the way you handled Juanita’s tears. And I like the way you always have a fast quip on your tongue. You’re smart as a whip and more beautiful than you can ever imagine.”

  Chance thought the absolute silence that followed was almost painful to listen to. But if he moved, they’d know he’d been eavesdropping. And a totally selfish part of him wanted to stay, to glean more understanding about the pair on the other side of the heavy stall door.

  “And you were wrong, honey, about me not having any children. I did have a daughter. Her name was Angela.”

  Oh, dear God, Chance thought. Stop right there.

  Diablo whickered, and Dulce shushed him and asked Jeannie with that note of sharp accusation in her voice, “Did she run away or what?”

  “No,” Jeannie said softly. And in the pause, Chance could feel a thousand abandonments, a million pains sharper than anything physical.

  “What happened to her?”

  “She was killed in a car accident, along with my husband, two years ago.”

  Chance closed his eyes, seeing Jeannie’s bleached face the night before, hearing the pain in her voice then. Now so much became clear in this eavesdropped conversation.

  Be kind, Dulce, he willed. Be kinder than I was.

  “I didn’t think that I would be able
to survive their deaths,” Jeannie said, so steadily Chance knew she had to be nearly insane with the harsh control she was imposing on herself. “Until I read about this ranch. And I knew I wanted to populate it with children.”

  “So we’re replacements for the one you lost?” Dulce said.

  Chance winced.

  “Not at all,” Jeannie said, still with that control. “Nothing could ever replace Angela. No one can ever take David’s place.”

  Chance felt as if someone—Jeannie—had run him through with an ice pick. No one could replace David, who couldn’t make things simple.

  “Then why do you want me to stay?” the girl asked, the raw hope in her voice as painful to hear as Jeannie’s steady control.

  “Because I want to know that I can give something again, that there’s still enough love in me to give it to someone else. To you, to José, to people who need it so very, very much. Maybe as much as I do.”

  When Chance heard Jeannie’s voice break, he felt as if she’d broken his heart, as well.

  “Don’t cry, Jeannie,” Dulce murmured. “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

  When Chance heard Jeannie’s soft sob, he had to look at the ceiling. When he heard them crying together, he managed to sneak away from the barn before he gave his presence away. Before he gave in to the need to round the door and pull Jeannie and maybe even not-so-silly little Dulce into his arms.

  The sunshine was too bright outside, and was made surreal by his mental tape of the conversation he’d overheard in the darkened barn.

  He scarcely saw Pablo when his cousin strolled up. “What’s the news, boss?” he asked. “Rudy in the hospital?”

  Chance had to clear his throat before he could answer. “Close enough. Doreen tell you?”

  “Doreen’s told everybody she’s talked to,” Pablo said. “Including Señora Jeannie, I think.”

  Chance frowned. “I don’t think Jeannie understood more than half of what Doreen was babbling about last night. But Doreen did mention El Patron.”

  “Then you got to tell her, Chance. She’s gonna put it together. And she’s gonna be mad or scared. Or both. Better if she knows ahead of time.”

  “She has enough on her plate right now. She and Dulce are making up in the barn.”

  “They finally had a fight? Good. Maybe now they’ll start being friends.”

  Chance wished he could agree. He’d had the same simplistic faith only a few minutes earlier. Before he knew about Jeannie’s David and Angela, before he’d heard her stark admission of needing to know she still had love in her, still could love, he’d thought a spat would clear the air and set things on a more even course.

  Those were the moments before he knew Jeannie had lost her whole family in one fell swoop. Nothing on earth would ever set things right for Jeannie. Least of all one lying federal marshal with itchy feet and an almost pathological aversion to making a commitment to anything beyond his profession.

  “You know that Tomás hasn’t come back.”

  Chance nodded. “You’re thinking he’s the cause of the fires and the fence cutting.”

  “Makes more sense than a ghost,” Pablo said.

  “That means El Patron has something on him. And maybe Juanita, too. I think we better keep a real close eye on her for the next few days.”

  “And what do we do about Tomás in the meantime?”

  “I took that bowl in for analysis. Turns out it wasn’t drugs, but some kind of parchment paper. A kind they don’t make anymore.”

  “A deed?”

  “When you want that college degree, you just say the word, cousin, and someone in the department will pick up the tab.”

  “And when that someone isn’t you, cousin, I’ll think about it.” Pablo fired the words back. He straightened, looking at the barn. “Heads up, boss. Look who’s coming.”

  Chance turned to see Dulce leading Jeannie out of the barn on Diablo. He could tell at a glance that both women had been crying and that the storm, while intense, had passed. But the weather was still uncertain at best.

  He pushed his hat back, the better to see them, to wait for them to approach. Jeannie would never know some part of him wanted to stride over to her and apologize for walking away from her the night before, for not turning and going back.

  Dulce favored him with a small smile, all flirtation stripped from it. Jeannie nodded at him as if she’d known he was worried, had known he’d listened on the other side of the stall door. She lowered her head as if she’d known his heart was stabbed and his need to protect her had been foiled by mere etiquette and sheer, hard forbearance.

  “She’s going to ride Diablo around the ring a couple of times to get used to him, then she’s going to take him outside the corral for a while,” Dulce said with a bit of truculence as though she expected him to contradict her.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” he said softly and gestured for Pablo to climb the fence with him and rest along the top rail while Jeannie tried Diablo’s paces in the relative safety of the corral. Though he rested his forearms on his legs and leaned forward, looking every inch the relaxed cowhand, he was as tense as he’d ever been when ready to fly from the chute on a tightly cinched bronco pony.

  But Jeannie took the reins like a pro and, sweet-mouthed horse that he was, Diablo followed every direction with ease.

  Dulce joined him and Pablo. “She went riding the other day, when you were out getting roughed up—” she shot him an accusatory glance “—and said she found a secret place. I told her she should go back there today. I gave her something to take there.”

  “Good idea,” Chance said. “Did she say what this secret place is?”

  “All she said was that it was magical.”

  “Hijolé,” Pablo said.

  “What?” Dulce asked.

  “Nothing,” Pablo said in Spanish after Chance shot him a quick frown.

  “No, it was something,” Dulce insisted.

  Chance felt a moment of pure, totally undeserved pride. She sounded just like he had the other night when Jeannie had told him nothing was wrong.

  “I just got a splinter,” Pablo said in Spanish, twisting his hand and staring at his palm. He made an elaborate show of getting it out. “Got it.” He held up his pinched fingers and displayed absolutely nothing.

  “Right,” Dulce said.

  “And do you know where this secret place is?” Chance asked.

  “Guess it wouldn’t be a secret if I did, now, would it?” Dulce asked. “But you know what? I don’t think she’s all that hot on a horse yet. Might be a good idea if someone followed her. If you know what I mean.”

  She stepped away from the fence and flagged Jeannie down. The two talked for a moment, Jeannie pointing in the general direction of the Guadalupes and Dulce pointing at the horse’s shod hooves.

  Chance watched as Jeannie guided Diablo out of the corral gate Pablo had jumped down to open. He lifted his hand in a farewell wave she didn’t see as she urged the large black horse into a swift pace just shy of a trot.

  Before she was out of the gate, he was in the barn and saddling Jezebel. And before she was completely out of sight, he was lifting his hand at a grinning Pablo and a thoughtful Dulce.

  He told himself he was going after her because she was a new rider and he needed to make certain she’d be unharmed. He knew it was a lie. He was going after her because he wanted to.

  Because he wanted her.

  It was that simple.

  Chapter 9

  J eannie directed Diablo toward the Guadalupes, searching the rolling, sparse desert for those few salt cedars that had marked her secret pool. It had been Dulce’s idea that she get away from the ranch for a while.

  “When I was young,” Dulce had said, frighteningly unaware of how terribly young she still was, “I used to get as far away from whatever house I was living in as I could. Whenever I was upset about something, you know? Somehow, I’d always feel better afterward.”

  Staggered
by the emotions they’d shared, stung by the thought of how easily Dulce had commented on how many homes she’d lived in, Jeannie had asked her to come with her, that she had a special place she wanted to show the girl.

  Dulce had smiled, and her beautiful black eyes had filled with tears. “Not today,” she said. “Today I’d rather walk around the ranch. Like, if I’m going to be staying here, I guess I’d better learn more about the place.”

  Jeannie’s heart still wanted to break at the odd sense of commingled hope and despair she heard in the girl’s tones and what she felt inside herself, as well. The strange and heartfelt communication with Dulce birthed the hope, even while the admissions she’d made to the girl acknowledged her ever-present loss and despair.

  When she’d seen Chance outside the barn, his face a study of concern and unspoken apology, she’d wished they could clear the air between them as swiftly—however painfully—as she and Dulce had done. But it was one thing to admit feelings for a young girl who needed to hear it and a whole different matter to try to unravel what Jeannie felt for the cowboy who knew just how to make her body sing but wouldn’t open up with her.

  Not knowing how to talk to Chance, let alone how to feel about him, left her even more confused than she was about the children, the ranch and the future.

  She hadn’t been holding back from Chance—she’d been desperately running from him. Wanting him and, just as achingly, fearing every nuance of that want. She hadn’t realized how desperate the fleeing had really been until she’d opened up to Dulce.

  When Dulce had railed at her, all her young fears and pains right on the surface and slapped her guardian directly in the face, something had shifted inside Jeannie. She’d felt anger, certainly, and a dark chagrin, but she’d also been flicked raw by some of the half-truths the girl had flung at her. She had been holding herself aloof from them, hiding behind careful attention and inwardly calling it love but refusing to say so to the children. She hadn’t said the words yet. Didn’t know how to say them.