by Lori Wilde
Mariah Callahan.
Joe paced the kitchen floor, hands clasped behind his back, the thought of Mariah suddenly making him restless, impatient. He didn’t want her here. He hoped Ila was right. That she would win their bet. He wanted Mariah gone because the woman stirred something in him, something more than irritation and inconvenience, something he didn’t want to think about too hard in case he found he liked it. He didn’t want to like her. Didn’t want to have any feelings for her beyond indifference. Because feelings just led to pain.
On his sixth pass in front of the window, Joe caught sight of something from his peripheral vision. Something that stalled him in midstep.
The two top boards on the back side of the corral fence had been knocked down. No Miracle in sight.
The ornery stallion had broken out again, and Joe knew exactly where he was headed.
Memories pummeled Mariah as she climbed up the precarious wooden porch riddled with termite holes. She, Dutch, and Cassie had lived in similar hovels just like this, one after another, quick as the turn of a radio dial. The location changed, but the houses were all the same—dinky, desperate, and dilapidated.
A horseshoe hung over the front door. The ends pointed upward so all the luck wouldn’t run out.
“Didn’t help, did it, Dutch?” she mumbled past the lump clogging her throat.
The only thing that had changed from her childhood was that her father owned the property instead of renting it.
She knew without even entering it that the horse barn would be stocked with the finest equestrian equipment that money could buy. Dutch had been the kind of man who’d buy a new blanket for his horse before buying new shoes for his child. She recalled the vicious fights he and Cassie had over money. Dutch arguing that he had to spend money to make money. Whereas Cassie would point out he cared more about his damn horses than he did his family. Dutch would counter that the horses were what put food on the table.
That had been his delusion. His self-defense. That his constant chasing of a dream would eventually end in success. Clearly it had not.
Mariah sighed, braced herself for what she would find inside, and opened the door.
Her ballet slippers made a shuffling sound against the worn hardwood. Newspapers, horse magazines, and old clothing littered the floor—faded jeans, stained Western shirts, scuffed boots, athletic socks, battered cowboy hats, red bandanas.
A brand new cutting saddle sat on the stained, floral-print, 1970s-era sofa like a crown on the head of a rag doll. It surprised Mariah that she could identify a cutting saddle. More memories flashed through her.
“Look here, Flaxey,” she recalled Dutch saying to her one day when he’d taken her with him to pick out a saddle. He took her little hand in his and ran it over the saddle’s seat. “A good cutting saddle allows you to ‘sit the stop.’ Do you know what that means?”
She’d shaken her head. She didn’t understand, but it seemed to matter to her daddy, so she listened real hard.
“It means the seat should lie close to the horse’s back. You want as close as you can get. The pocket should be in the middle of the seat. See here.” He pointed to another saddle. “This one sits too far back. It’ll force the rider against the cantle and put him up on the swells.”
Mariah hadn’t known what he’d been talking about, but she made note of the lesson and now, twenty years later, it came rushing back. All this time she thought she’d forgotten her father’s early lessons on horse care, but they weren’t gone. They were still there lurking, hiding just below the surface, waiting to be unearthed.
The coffee table lay buried under horse tack—a German martingale, snaffle bits, headstalls, and reins. The smell of leather and horses rose up from the table, a scent that stroked the past and lit a fire in Mariah’s brain.
The kitchen was no different from the living area. It was cramped and cluttered. More horse gear. A small dormitory-sized refrigerator held a six-pack of Coors beer, half a stick of summer sausage, and a block of rattrap cheese. The floor was a quarter-inch deep in sand, and dust covered everything. In the pantry sat a box of saltine crackers, a bag of beef jerky, a can of sardines, and a sack of horse feed. In the tiny laundry room she found an apartment-sized washer/dryer combo and an unusually large number of metal feed buckets.
She paced the kitchen, kicking up sand, trying to shuck off the feelings tightening around her throat. Anxiety bathed her back. She felt sweaty and claustrophobic. The creak of the floorboards echoed in her ears, old and cranky. The melody of “Camptown Races”—as solid as if someone was singing it—riffled through her head. A song Dutch used to whistle while he worked.
The photographs on the wall were all of Dutch and horses and various other cowboys. In one close-up, Dutch and Joe Daniels grinned at the camera, holding a trophy between them, but in Joe’s eyes, beneath the smile, she saw pain. What haunted him?
Joe Daniels.
Everything about the man radiated dark, dangerous energy. Brooding, rugged, cocky. The worst kind of trouble. She should stay far away from him. She couldn’t wait to sell this dump and leave Jubilee in her rearview mirror.
The neglected house was only about eight hundred square feet and covered with years of grime. Any rational person would throw her hands up in despair and have the property condemned.
Another thing that struck her was what was missing. No television set, no computer, no Internet service. The house echoed what she already knew about her father. Dutch cared about one thing and one thing only.
Horses.
The single bedroom had one twin bed with a thin mattress and a chair covered with more horse supplies. The bedside table was laden with books on the care and training of cutting horses and entry forms for upcoming cutting events. The lamp was made from deer horns. The shabby, discolored curtains were adorned with galloping horses.
He was here. Her father. She could feel him. Could almost hear his voice, a deep, rolling bass that sounded like thunder mumbling behind a cloud.
His home. Such as it was. He’d left it to her.
Mariah sank down on the end of her bed, felt an involuntary smile curl her lips. She drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, took a deep breath, and inhaled the stale, horsey scent of the bed linens.
She felt Dutch around her, like a flash of lightning. Hot and close.
A strange fissure of joy cleaved her. Against all common sense, she felt a strange skip of inexplicable homecoming.
And that’s when she saw the rattlesnake.
Joe stopped his Ford F–150 King Ranch, which was pulling a horse trailer, beside Dutch’s battered old Dodge Ram dually.
His friend had been dead only a few days and Joe hadn’t had the heart to step foot into the cabin. He had no idea what kind of mess Mariah had walked into. Actually, he didn’t care. All he wanted was for her to go away.
Right now, he was here to retrieve his horse.
He wasn’t about to let Mariah sidetrack him, no matter how much she reminded him of Becca.
He thought of the way she’d treated Dutch. Never calling him or coming to see him. Thought about how the last thing Dutch had asked of him was not to contact Mariah until after the funeral.
Joe clenched his jaw, hardened his heart against her.
Just go get your horse.
The morning sun was bright now and it had started burning off the dew. His head throbbed as if someone had buzzed a chain saw through it. So much for aspirin. No more tequila. Ever.
He opened the door of his truck and swung to the ground, but just as he did, Mariah came tumbling from the cabin screaming at the top of her lungs.
Immediately, Joe reacted. He ran toward her, grabbed her up in his arms.
The second his hands touched her, he knew it was a mistake. The top of her sweet-smelling head grazed his shoulder and the earth shifted beneath his feet.
“Whoa there,” he said, alarmed to hear his voice come out thready. He was speaking as much to himself as h
e was to her. “Whoa.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, and pulled back as if she just now realized whose arms she ran into. “Oh, it’s you.”
She said “you” like it was a dirty word.
He grinned, tipped his hat back on his head, slammed a firm grip on himself, and drawled, “Joe Daniels at your service, ma’am.”
She pulled herself up to the full extent of her five-foot-nothing and flashed him a haughty expression. “Good to see you finally managed to find your pants.”
“How long are you planning to keep throwing that in my face?”
“Every time I see you.”
“You’re relentless.”
“You don’t like it? Don’t come around.”
“This wasn’t voluntary.”
“And yet, look, here you are.”
Her smart brown eyes peered into him as if she knew every thought that passed through his head. The woman didn’t miss a trick. Smart-mouthed and sassy. Paradoxically, she was cute in the way of baby chicks. Innocent bit of fluff.
He didn’t like baby chicks. They were too cute, fluffy, and you had to make them a pen so things wouldn’t eat them, and, well, they were just a pain in the ass.
Her pink cherubic cheeks gave her an angelic appearance. Like those wide-eyed kids in the Christmas figurines his mother collected. Her complexion was the color of cream, with a slight dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Cinnamon sprinkled on eggnog. Her lush lips were full, but not wide.
Angels and baby chicks. Who needed that kind of hassle? Especially with the daughter of his best friend. A friend she’d treated like dirt.
But what rattled him to the center of his soul was the aura of loneliness radiating off her in waves. She was as isolated as Joe.
Startled by that realization, involuntarily he tightened his arms around her. “What’s wrong, what has you running and screaming from the cabin like demons are on your tail?”
“Sn-sn-snake,” she stammered, and trembled. “There’s a rattlesnake in the cabin. I’m terrified of snakes.”
But of course, snakes and baby chicks were sworn enemies. “In the bedroom?”
“How did you know?”
Joe laughed in relief.
“You’re laughing at me.” She glowered and swatted at his chest, a soft, girlie blow. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“The snake in the bedroom? That’s just Stuffy.”
Mariah narrowed her eyes. “Who’s Stuffy?”
She aroused something in him, something illogical, improbable, impossible; something beyond the sexual attraction that instantly hardened him below the waist. Briefly, he closed his eyes, swallowed hard, struggled to gain self-control.
Frankly, his body’s reaction shocked him. He’d grown accustomed to feeling nothing. Here was living proof that his libido hadn’t died with Becca, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Scratch that. He was sure. He didn’t like it at all and he didn’t like her. He wasn’t going to let some cute little thing unhinge him simply because he hadn’t had sex in two years.
But that was easier said than done when her well-rounded breasts were smashed snugly against his chest. Get away from her. Move now.
Joe stepped back and immediately felt better. “Stuffy is a taxidermied rattlesnake mounted on a shellacked tree stump. Dutch told me he won Stuffy as a trophy at his first amateur cutting exhibition.”
“Oh yeah.” Mariah sounded dumbfounded. “I remember that snake now. Dutch used to keep it on the bureau in the bedroom. He was so proud of Stuffy. My mom hated it and she kept throwing clothes over the atrocious thing to hide it.”
“Ah, sentimental memories.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Never.” He put on a serious face.
“That damn snake really scared me.” Her smart brown eyes flashed with spunk. Her scent—a combination of flowers and cookies—clung to him.
Before he’d married Becca, he’d been something of a scoundrel. He’d be the first to admit it. He’d been one helluva bull rider and that wasn’t all ego talking. Eight solid seconds on the backs of critters named Terminator and Satan’s Son and Buzz Saw earned a man his pick of buckle bunnies. He made enough money on the PRCA to purchase Green Ridge Ranch after a knee injury had knocked him out of the bullpen. But he hadn’t minded. He had his day in the sun. He’d married Becca and he’d been faithful, and once he lost her, he lost all interest in sex.
Until now.
And he hated himself for it. Hated her.
“What are you doing here? Don’t you have a bottle of tequila to kill or something?” she snapped.
“I’m not a drunk,” he said lightly, suddenly wanting her to know that he didn’t make a habit out of getting blitzed and falling into horse troughs. Why did he give a good damn what she thought of him?
Last night had been a rare lapse. He was over it now. Well, except for the pounding headache.
Mariah reached up to touch her neck in a self-conscious gesture. He tracked her movements, and that’s when he saw that a couple of buttons on her sweater were undone, giving him a helluva glimpse at a pink lace bra.
Ah, hell. He did not want to stare but he couldn’t look away.
“Stop ogling my breast.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His gaze stayed glued to her chest.
“Yo, buddy.” Mariah snapped her fingers near her face. “Eyes up here.”
“Kind of hard to do,” he said. “When you’re flaunting it.”
“What?” She glanced down, her mouth formed an alarmed, silent O, then she instantly started buttoning up. “The buttons must have come undone while I tried to take a nap in the backseat.”
Joe shifted his attention toward the white sedan, relieved to have something else to look at. “You slept in your car?”
“It’s a long drive from Chicago.”
“Why didn’t you get a motel room?”
“I couldn’t afford a rental car and a motel room. And since I couldn’t drive a hotel room, the vehicle won out.”
She had a fine sense of the absurd. Unexpected.
“You’re broke?”
“In a word, yes.”
“Dutch told me you were a wedding planner. What happened with that?”
“Dutch talked about me to you?” Her suspicious eyes instantly softened and her voice sounded hopeful. In that moment, she looked so starkly vulnerable it hurt Joe’s head.
“Every day,” he admitted, wanting for some perverse reason to hurt her.
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip and her eyes clouded.
“How come you never came to see him?” Joe murmured, knowing how much it had hurt Dutch to have so little contact with his only child. He never talked about his regret, but it was in his voice every time he spoke Mariah’s name.
She tossed her head, struggled to control the tiny quiver in her chin. “That was his choice, not mine. He’s the one who left me and my mother for horses.”
Joe rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck, ashamed of his cruel impulse. Ila was right. He didn’t know Mariah’s side of the story. “I’m sorry about your father’s passing.”
“I should be giving you condolences since you knew him so much better than I did,” she said.
“You’re jealous?”
“That my own father preferred the company of strangers and horses to mine? Why would you think I’m jealous? ‘Resentful’ just might be the word you’re looking for.”
Ouch. He was strolling in a field strewn with land mines of emotions between Mariah and her father. One wrong move and he’d blow himself up.
She crossed her arms over her chest, knitted her brow in a scowl, tough as the South Side of Chicago, but she couldn’t mask the quick glimmer of sadness in her brown eyes. “Why are you here?”
“Miracle.”
She startled. “What?”
“Some Kind of Miracle.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“It’s a h
orse. A quarter horse stallion to be precise and the best cutting horse I’ve ever had the pleasure to clamp eyes on.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Miracle was Dutch’s horse. When Miracle won several cutting events in a row, we knew we had something special on our hands.”
“If he’s Dutch’s horse, what do you have to do with it?”
“He trained Miracle. I rode him. We knew we stood a good chance at winning the Fort Worth Triple Crown Futurity this season. The purse is four hundred thousand dollars. Dutch told me Miracle was his last chance.”
“Last chance for what?”
“To settle down,” Joe said. “Make amends. Redemption. Hell, I don’t know. We didn’t talk about stuff like that. He just offered me the stallion in exchange for this old cabin he’d been renting, the horse barn, and four hundred acres of land a few weeks before he died. I took him up on it.”
“I see.” She turned to run a scathing gaze over the ramshackle house. “Looks like you got the best end of that deal. Want to trade back?”
“What would you do with a cutting horse?”
“Sell it.”
“You can’t sell Miracle!” What in the hell was wrong with this woman? She had some screwed-up values. “That stallion is the best cutting horse to ever draw breath.”
“Oops, forgive me for blasphemy.” Mariah rolled her eyes. “I had no idea you were one of those.”
“One of what?” he drawled lethally, not liking her tone.
“Pie-in-the-sky dreamers just like my father.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Miracle is going to win the futurity.”
“You sound just like Dutch in the throes of his get-rich-quick schemes.”
“Anyone who thinks you can get rich quick training cutting horses has no idea what they’re talking about. It takes time, hard work, skill, and lots of luck just to make a passing living.”
“And yet you’re certain this horse is going to win.”
“He’s not named Some Kind of Miracle for nothing.”
They fell silent, warily watching each other.
“Does that pickup truck belong to Dutch?” she asked, nodding at the dually.
“It does.”
