“It’s our language,” he said as he led their group away from the barn. “Lakota. Tommy Yellow Robe’s an old buddy of mine. You should castrate him last. Definitely do Paul—the redhead—first. He could use the rest.” She thought she saw the corners of his mouth curve up, a definitive crack in his frozen demeanor. “You’re riding Jezebel there.”
“You gave me a horse named Jezebel?” So much for that line in the sand.
The terrain changed and they headed down a steep gully. Bill trailed behind them. If she kept her eyes pointed forward, she could pretend she was alone with the masked cowboy. On a horse named Jezebel. Had he done that on purpose? “Where are we going? And what did Tommy say again?”
She could see Jacob’s shoulders shaking with glee. Not always stone-faced, she thought.
“You’ve got some mouth on you. Do you always threaten to castrate people?”
Mary Beth rolled her eyes at his back. “Only the ones who need it,” she replied. Both men chuckled.
“We’ll be there in a bit. Bill’s convinced me to move to electronic tagging instead of branding,” he called back as they forded a trickle of a stream.
Tagging. Mary Beth felt some tension ebb out of her shoulders. She’d been helping tag cattle for years on her Uncle Hank’s farm. Those summers out on the farm—and away from whatever jerk Mom was dating—had saved her. She shuddered to think of where she’d be if she hadn’t had those months of freedom and safety. “My uncle never had the stomach for branding,” she absent-mindedly said to herself.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Tagging is good. Like accessorizing cows with earrings.”
Jacob twisted in his saddle, shooting her the oddest look. Yeah, she nodded. Probably not a man who accessorizes much.
There was a break in the forest before them, and suddenly Jacob’s paint shot forward.
“Hey!” she called out, but Bill clucked behind her.
“He’s just going to let the hands know we’re here,” he cautioned. “You think you can handle tagging and vaccinating?”
“Been doing it for years, Bill. I told you that on the phone,” she reminded him, a bit irritated that he would question her skills within earshot of the cowboys.
“Oh, that’s right.”
The horses walked into a meadow tall with prairie grass. Ringed with ancient pine forests and a small pond in the center, the meadow probably looked as it had for hundreds of years.
Beautiful. Mary Beth tried to take it all in without looking like a tourist. Just beautiful.
Jacob came racing back towards them, expertly pulling up just before his horse crashed into Jezebel. When the dust settled, he was sitting there almost grinning at her, his horse perfectly parallel to hers.
“Jesus, Jacob!” she hissed even as the girly part of her brain realized he was showing off.
“Come on,” he said with his eyebrow arched in challenge. “We’ve got 400 head to do today.”
Almost three times the number she’d done at home with Uncle Hank. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she could handle knucklehead cowboys, Buck McGillis, a cowboy in a mask and that many cattle, plus random things like ferrets and albinos.
But then she saw the four cowboys standing around waiting for her and Bill to get started. If 400 head was what it took to prove herself, then she’d do 400 head. In one day. And she’d do it with a smile.
Of course, smiling was easier said than done when a girl had cows stepping on her, cows pooping on her, cows head-butting her. And with the cowboys wrangling the next cow before she’d had the chance to catch her breath? The morning passed in an unending swirl of mooing, fur and hooves.
What few moments she did get were filled with an odd silence. Usually, ranchers joked and talked—anything to pass the day a little faster. Not this lot. Aside from the occasional heads-up or shout when a cow broke loose, they worked in near silence. It was such a foreign thing that Mary Beth found herself wondering how much of it was her fault. She’d promised to castrate at least three of those present. She had to stop doing that. Or, at the very least, come up with a better variety of defenses.
Every time she looked up, she saw Jacob. She only caught him watching her a few times—maybe three, total. Half the time, his mask was the only part of his face she could see. But even then, something about the way he moved…it was like every part of his body was keyed onto her movements. No matter where he was, she felt his presence.
Or maybe that was just the lingering sensation of his hands on her thighs. That was always possible too.
Uncharted territory. That’s what Robin had said, and Mary Beth could see what she meant. The hired hands didn’t show many signs of familiarity. In fact, the only thing she’d heard to signal that he even talked with other humans was the conversation he’d had in Lakota with Tommy. Otherwise? It was as if he existed on a separate plane from the rest of the mere mortals. It wasn’t that no one dared to challenge him, although she doubted anyone would. It was that no one dared even look to him.
At one point, a calf broke loose from the redhead cowboy named Paul. She lunged at it and wrestled it to the ground. The next thing she knew, Jacob was next to her, holding onto the calf.
“Can you handle this?” he asked. His voice was quiet, so Mary Beth doubted anyone else could hear him.
Still, she bristled. She was not about to stand for having her abilities questioned, no matter how intimidating Jacob could be. “I’ve got him—or did you miss the part where I caught him all by my little ol’ self?”
He stared at her—actually stared—for a three-count, and in that moment of eye contact, Mary Beth saw the mask slip. Not the physical leather mask, but the front that made him so unknowable. He gave her a look that could have been amused or could have been something else—something interested.
Heat flared between them. This was interest—it had to be. Hell, yes, she was interested.
But then Paul was apologizing for losing the calf and Bill asked Mary Beth to look at something and the calf kicked. The moment was gone.
She couldn’t be sure it’d been there at all.
Jacob let his mind wander as his paint, Mick, followed the familiar route down to the town.
What on earth was he going to do about Dr. Mary Beth Hofstetter?
He’d known from the moment he laid eyes on her she was trouble, and it had taken all of five minutes to prove that suspicion right.
Like he didn’t have enough with Buck McGillis to worry about. Had to go add Dr. Mary Beth Hofstetter to the mix.
Didn’t help that she was beautiful. It would have been so much easier if she’d been the size of an ox and twice as ugly.
But no. Her light-brown hair falling in natural waves around her perfectly curved shoulders, her gray-blue eyes flashing as that mouth of hers—oh, Lord, that mouth the color of barely ripe strawberries—cut a swath of destruction through every man who even looked at her funny.
And to top it all off, she knew what she was doing. Lying awake in bed last night, long after Kip’s even breathing gently filled their tiny, ancient trailer, he’d hoped that maybe she wouldn’t be able to cut it and would bail after a week. Hell, most people would have bailed after Buck threatened them.
Not her. She’d handled those cows like she’d been doing it her whole life, because she probably had. She may be delicate looking, her long fingers awkwardly wrapped around his knife handle, but she was plenty strong. When that calf had broken loose from Paul, she’d grabbed it before Tommy could even move and wrestled it to the ground, bare handed, better than most of the kids did at the rodeos.
He had to give her credit. Her little introduction to Paul had been quite effective. No one had probably ever threatened to castrate him before.
All in all, she was hell on horseback.
Mick paused just outside the first house, and Jacob stripped his shirt off and shoved it into the far saddlebag. Sue, Kip’s retired Mustang, shifted nervously as she waited to finish the trip down and
get her rider.
“Calm down, Sue,” he scolded as he picked up Mick’s reins. “We’ll get her soon enough.”
Finally, after a long breath, he gently squeezed Mick’s side. “Showtime,” he muttered to himself, unable to stop from wondering if she’d be there or not. She wouldn’t have had a lot of time, he thought. Maybe she won’t make it.
He rounded the corner, trying to pinpoint her at the café, but at this distance it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t until he was past the first house that his depth perception kicked in and he could gauge where the café was. After a few moments, everything came into sharp focus and he saw her.
Her hair, still wet from the shower she must have raced to get in, hung in dark damp waves, pulling in the fading light until she practically glowed. As he got closer though, he couldn’t help but notice her face. Her lips were glistening in the evening sun.
She’d put on lipstick.
Jacob sat up a bit straighter in the saddle as Fran caught his eye and shook her head in warning.
Good old Fran. Ugly as a tumbleweed and twice as prickly. Why couldn’t Bill have hired someone like that—someone who he didn’t have to feel like he had to protect, someone who didn’t remind him of what he’d lost so many years ago— someone instead of Dr. Mary Beth Hofstetter?
Tonight, he only undid the top button. He could tell by the way Robin’s eyes were shooting between him and Mary Beth that she’d told the new vet all about the show, and he wasn’t about to set that tongue wagging again.
Besides, it had been idiotic to undo the second one yesterday, even if it had been worth it to see every single jaw drop.
She was tough. She met his gaze as he undid his pants, her eyes never dipping below his face.
Oh, hell, he thought, a moment of unaccustomed panic sweeping through him, is she staring at the mask?
He almost undid the second button just to make her look away.
Thankfully, as he put his hat back on, she finally shifted those eyes that weren’t quite grey and weren’t quite blue back to Robin, breaking his panic. He forced himself to take a deep breath.
“He been by?” he asked as the sexual tension melted from the content women. This was the only time he’d ever seen Fran without a frown, even if it did feel like he was stripping for grandmothers. But the café kept Ronny clean and Robin out of trouble. He’d do anything for the Benge family, after all those years they’d taken pains to make him part of their family. Including show off for little old ladies.
And now, Dr. Mary Beth Hofstetter.
“He drove by about twenty minutes ago,” Robin replied, visibly relieved as her gaze danced down to his pants and back up.
Ignoring the unspoken button question, Jacob somberly nodded to Mary Beth. “He must have found out she threatened to castrate Paul, Benny and Tommy today and decided not to push his luck.”
“Jeez, Jacob, do you have to spread it around?” Jacob had to bite his inner lip to keep from laughing at Mary Beth’s self-induced fluster. Then he noticed the warm blush spreading across her face, giving her a heated glow that melted his amusement into something deeper, and he remembered that he’d actually said delicate and beautiful out loud. In front of her.
In a split second, he resolved to keep his mouth shut from here on out. Shouldn’t be too hard. She was just a white woman.
“Yeah, I heard,” Robin replied with a wink, calling him back to his present reality.
“From who?” Mary Beth demanded, the blush creeping down her neck and towards the ivory tank top with the dangerously scooped neck.
Where the hell was Mrs. Browne?
“Paul called you a ball-buster at the two-beer mark,” Robin giggled.
“Line in the sand,” Jacob said as he actually grinned, immediately forgetting his self-imposed moratorium. It was hard to remember the last time he’d actually grinned at someone, a real, honest-to-God grin, not the fake one he pulled out for Ladies’ Hour.
Had to be at least three years.
“Thanks for the knife, by the way. Made a big impact.” When her gaze met his, something changed about her that took her from embarrassed to smoldering, like she was some sort of angel or something.
He opened his mouth to make a small comment, but before he could form the words, a voice from across the street cut him off.
“Jacob? We’re ready.”
Oh, thank God. Mrs. Browne was finally going to save him from himself. Jacob felt his grin die as he pivoted. Within seconds, he was holding Kip’s hand.
“How was she today?”
Mrs. Browne—unchanged after all these years except for the gray hairs—smiled gently as she shook her head. “The same, Jacob. Always the same.” Mrs. Browne tenderly patted Kip’s head. “Have you thought any more about what I said? If you took her to Rapid City…”
“I can’t just up and move, Mrs. Browne.”
The frown moved the corners of her mouth. “Sooner or later, Jacob, you’ll need to do something about her, or when she gets to high school…”
Jacob fought the urge to roll his eye. They had this same conversation every day. Mrs. Browne had taught every student in this valley for the last thirty-five years, but Kip was something out of her realm of expertise, and she made no secret of it. Almost a year ago, she’d come to Jacob with information on a specialized school for autistic children in Rapid City, convinced that Kip could get the care she needed there.
The only problem with that plan was that Kip wasn’t autistic.
Jacob nodded as she repeated the benefits of the school—again. He appreciated Mrs. Browne’s concern, but there was no way he was leaving the land to McGillis.
No way.
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” he finally said, interrupting the kind old teacher.
Mrs. Browne sighed in frustration as she patted Kip’s head once more. “Tomorrow we’ll start on Stormy, okay, Kip?”
“Thanks again.” Jacob smiled as he turned back to the patiently waiting horses.
And into the questioning gaze of Dr. Mary Beth Hofstetter.
She looked at Kip differently than most people did. Most people just stared at the pair they made, as if they weren’t sure which was weirder—the guy with a mask or the albino kid.
But Mary Beth—she leaned over the table like she was trying to catch Kip’s eye. Like she was looking past the whiteness and trying to see the girl underneath, when Jacob had done everything he could think of to hide that girl underneath.
It was almost as unsettling as knowing she was looking at his mask.
Quickly, he hefted Kip onto Sue and mounted up himself. In his haste to get away from Dr. Mary Beth Hofstetter, he forgot to tip his hat to the ladies as he urged Mick into a fast trot.
“Hold on, Kip,” he muttered back to the girl as she loosely hung onto Sue’s mane. “We’ve got to go.”
Mary Beth carefully studied the masked cowboy and the albino girl as they trotted off down the street. Jacob fascinated her, no doubt, but Kip—Kip was another matter entirely. Aside from the oddity of an albino in the flesh, there was something about her that almost called out to Mary Beth.
Kip reminded Mary Beth of the wounded baby bunny she’d saved from a coyote when she was about nine. The poor thing didn’t make it, but she’d kept it alive in a shoebox Granny had stuffed with a tea towel for a day. It’d been afraid to move.
Kip looked like a wounded bunny, terrified and hurt, and all Mary Beth wanted to do was wrap her up and keep her safe.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that Kip needed her, not after Kip and Jacob disappeared down the street, not after she walked home and not after she turned out the lava lamp that was her nightlight.
Something was going on in Faith Ridge, and she had the feeling she was going to find out what it was, one way or the other.
Chapter Four
The routine was easy to pick up. Fridays were the easy day of office visits with dogs that had gotten into the garbage and cats that had gotten into fights. Mike Nolan s
howed up regularly with an ever-increasing number of ferrets, but Bill gave her several books on ferret care to study. It really wasn’t too hard to pick up. Her first attempt at a ferret neutering was a complete success.
The ranch days were more of a challenge. While Jacob showed flashes of playfulness while he did the show, tentatively flirting with her and Robin at the same time, on the ranch he was all business. And the more of his hired hands that were around, the colder he got towards her. Some days, the most she heard out of any of them was “Ma’am,” from Tommy Yellow Robe, always accompanied by a tip of a cowboy hat. Jacob seemed to scowl when he said it, but he rarely followed up on it with his own.
Line in the sand, Mary Beth had to keep reminding herself. But somehow, that didn’t stop her from slipping on the slinky bras and barely there panties underneath her cowgirl flannels and work jeans on the days she was due at the ranch.
After she’d proven herself with the tagging on the first day, Bill was more and more content to send her out there alone. First it was one day a week, then two, then all three. Bill was only making the trip to the ranch once or twice a month as summer peaked to help when they had a large number of cows to preg-check.
She spent a lot more time working on the horses when she was by herself. A few cowboys apparently didn’t know how to cool an animal down. They nearly lost a stunning quarter horse to colic when a cowboy let the horse eat sand, but Jacob managed to keep the animal on its feet until Mary Beth got the tube threaded up its nose and its gut cleared.
Jacob fired the cowboy who’d let the horse eat sand. “I told you, knuckleheads,” he muttered as Tommy Yellow Robe escorted the cussing ex-cowboy off the ranch.
“Not all of them,” she replied, looking him dead in the eye.
“You’d be surprised,” he responded, his face still.
That’s how it was. When they were on the ranch, around the hands, he was unreadable, the epitome of the strong, silent cowboy. At the café, Mary Beth saw about three minutes where he showed hints of being a regular guy—except for the mask—interested in regular-guy things like the opposite sex and food. But as soon as Mrs. Browne called his name, the regular guy disappeared again, and he got as unreadable as Kip.
Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy) Page 4
