DANCING WITH DANGER
BOOK 8: DANCING MOON RANCH SERIES
Patricia Watters
DANCING MOON RANCH SERIES
Prequel: Justified Deception
LIVING WITH LIES TRILOGY
Book 1: Righteous Lies
Book 2: Pandora's Box
Book 3: False Pretenses
THE LIES UNCOVERED TRILOGY
Book 4: Uncertain Loyalties
Book 5: Becoming Jesse's Father
Book 6: Bittersweet Return
CUTTING THE TIES TRILOGY
Book 7: Cross Purposes
Book 8: Dancing With Danger
Book 9: Bucking the Odds
BOUND BY LOVE TRILOGY
Book 10: Forbidden Spirits
Book 11: Imperfect Magic (late 2014)
Book 12: Sheer Combustion (early 2015)
Sequel: Finding Justice (mid 2015)
Dancing Moon Ranch Family Album
STORY DESCRIPTION: The last person Josh wants to be around is Nurse Ratched, the woman who gave him an ice water bed bath to cool him down when he was under her care after a collision with a bull two years before. And the last person Genie wants to become entangled with romantically or otherwise is a rodeo clown. Odds are he'll get busted up again. She's also legal guardian of her 4-year-old sister, and a man who dances around with bulls for a living will never be a candidate for step-father. The problem is, all logic seems to fail whenever they're around each other.
DANCING WITH DANGER
Copyright 2013 by Patricia Watters
Printed in the United States of America
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or were used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. The reproduction, republication or regeneration of this work in whole or in part in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to xerography, photocopying or recording in any information storage and retrieval system, or other means not known of hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law.
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
EPILOGUE
BOOKS BY PATRICIA WATTERS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"You gotta read the bull, kind of watch him. That's your tango partner." - Ross Hill; Rodeo clown and two-time World Bullfighting Champion.
CHAPTER 1
Kincaid Ranch – Harney County, Southeast Oregon
Genie Matthias turned her Volvo station wagon off the highway and onto the gravel road leading to the ranch where her half-sister, Annie Hansen, lived. Directly ahead rose a gateway with a heavy weathered board displaying the words KINCAID RANCH, but hanging beneath was a new board announcing HANSEN KIGERS AND HINNIES. She knew all about Annie and Ryan's Kiger mustangs, but she had no idea what a hinny was.
As the car rumbled across a cattle guard, the voice of her little sister, Abby, rose from behind, where she sat perched in her car seat. "Are we there yet?"
"Yes, sweetie. We're here," Genie replied.
As they headed up a road bordered on one side by rangeland dotted with cattle and the other by hills that rose into buttes and high plateaus, Abby said in an excited voice, while pointing, "Bwown cows!"
"Those are Annie's daddy's cows," Genie said, "and you're a smart girl to know your colors."
"I have bwown in my cwayon box," Abby said. "Can Daddy find us here?"
"Of course," Genie replied. "Daddy always knows where we are."
"Will he come see us?"
"No, honey. Daddy's busy doing a show right now but he'll see us when we go back home," Genie replied. It would definitely be awkward for Sebastian Matthias to show up where Ruth Kincaid, the woman whose child he'd fathered over two decades ago, was living, along with the daughter he'd never met. Annie would also find it awkward, meeting her biological father for the first time. Two years before, Annie intended to introduce herself when she and Ryan were on their honeymoon in Las Vegas where Sebastian the Illusionist was performing. Annie saw the show, but at the last moment, lost her nerve and left town without introducing herself…
"Can I wide a horse?" Abby asked.
"We'll see," Genie replied. "Horses are big, and you've never been on one before."
Abby said nothing, and for the moment she was quiet, which gave Genie time to mull over what she'd be facing in the next few minutes.
Early on, Annie invited her to come stay as long as she wanted so they could get to know each other better, but even though Ruth and Matt Kincaid had been very hospitable the one time she'd visited, she couldn't help thinking it had been awkward for Ruth to play hostess to the daughter of the man who'd fathered Annie, so she never went back. She and Annie had gotten close enough that one visit for Annie to want her to be her maid of honor when she married Ryan, so she'd seen the family again, although the wedding had been at the Dancing Moon Ranch. She and Annie kept in contact, and a few months back Annie urged her to come see Cody, their baby boy. Genie intended to, but that was about the time her life began to unravel…
"Will Mommy know where we are?" Abby asked.
"Yes, honey," Genie replied. "Mommy will always know where we are because she's in Heaven and Heaven is everywhere, so Mommy is also everywhere."
In the distance, and nestled in a valley bounded by low hillsides with cottonwood and aspen trees, was a grouping of buildings that made up the Kincaid Ranch compound. Beyond that were higher hills and buttes with gnarly trees on their plateaus. It was an isolated place, and she didn't think she'd ever want to live there permanently, but for now it was the only place she wanted to be. Away from cities. Away from hospitals. And away from so many people…
"Look! A gweat big cow!" Abby yelped.
"That's a bull," Genie said, seeing a huge gray Brahma bull in a pasture just behind a big white barn. He looked pretty formidable, and she wondered why he wasn't in a barred enclosure.
"What makes him a bull and not a cow?" Abby asked.
Noting the male apparatus beneath the bull's belly, Genie said, "He has… horns."
"Then cows don't have horns?" Abby asked.
"I suppose some do," Genie replied, "but he also has a hump on his back."
"And cows don't have humps?"
Genie didn't know if Brahma cows had humps, but she wasn't prepared to explain further. "I think he's a bull because he's so big," she said. "Cows don't get that big."
By then they'd passed the bull and were approaching Ruth and Matt Kincaid's two-story log house, the place where she'd stayed two years before. Beyond the house was a lineup of cedar-sided housekeeping cabins and a campground with tents and RVs, and across from that was the ranch office, a bunkhouse, a big red stable and a multi-purpose lodge where guests could congregate. Seeing no guests milling around, she assumed they were on a trail ride.
She pulled the car to a halt in front of the Kincaid's house, but before getting out, she found herself sta
ring at the lodge as a nagging memory began to surface. When she was there before she'd been stunned to walk in and find Josh Hansen bent over the pool table. It was a heated encounter because Josh was still ticked after his hospital stay under her care, and with good reason. She'd definitely been Nurse Ratched…
"Are we getting out?" Abby asked.
Genie cut the engine. "Yes, honey, but I want you to wait here while I see if anyone's home, then we'll go just up the road and see Annie and Ryan and little Cody. I'll unhook your seat belt, but I want you to stay in the car."
That done, Genie stepped out of the car, climbed the steps to the wide front porch and rapped the knocker against the door. After a couple of minutes the door opened and Annie poked her head out and yelped, "Genie!" Annie gave her a hug, then took her by the arm and dragged her into the house while saying, "You never answered my messages, and then your message box was full and I didn't have your address. I hope everything's okay and that you're here for a while. My room is vacant, except when I put Cody down for his nap when I'm over here. He's napping there now but you can meet him when he wakes up. So how long are you here for and how is your mom doing? Last I heard she was going through chemo."
Genie caught her lip between her teeth. Even though her mother's illness had stretched on for months, the reality of her never coming back had only just begun to sink in. "She died last week," she replied. "The funeral was a few days ago. Dad was with us for a while, and Dimitri came home from college for the funeral, but then he had to get back to school for a summer session, and Dad had to get back to Las Vegas. But after taking care of Mom for months, I don't know whether I want to go back to nursing at all so I took a month leave of absence."
"Okay, we need to talk." Annie took Genie by the arm and tugged her over to the couch. After they were settled, she said, "I'm really sorry about your mom."
"I am too," Genie replied, "but she was ready to go."
"And Abby? How is she taking it?" Annie asked.
"She's okay," Genie replied. "I think she's too young to understand the concept of someone being gone permanently. She's satisfied that Mom's in Heaven and no longer sick."
Annie eyed Genie with concern. "You can't be serious about quitting nursing after all your years of training."
"I won't abandon it," Genie said, "just shift to another path. I went into nursing because I feel I'm pretty good with people, but when I got into it, the charting demanded more time than I was able to spend with patients, and now I have Abby to raise, and I won't put her in day care."
"What about your dad?" Annie asked. "Isn't he involved with Abby?"
Genie started to point out that her father was also Annie's father, but since the two had never met it seemed irrelevant, so she replied, "He was involved before Mom got so sick. Abby and Mom traveled with him on their bus and they stayed in hotels during Dad's performance runs, but with Mom gone it's different. Dad offered to hire someone to take along to look after Abby, but before Mom died, she and I talked about it and decided that the world of entertainment was not a place to raise a little girl, and Dad agreed. He loves Abby and she loves him, but Dad's fifty and Abby's just short of turning four. There's a huge age gap between them, which is why Mom made me the beneficiary of her life insurance policy. As soon as I decide what I want to do about my job I'll buy a house. At least that way Abby will have a home and a mother figure, even if she has an absentee father a good part of the time. I'm just sad that Dad won't make it for Abby's forth birthday in a couple of weeks, but his agent booked him solid and he can't get away."
Annie patted Genie's hand. "It won't always be this way," she said. "One day you'll be married and Abby will have a regular family with a mom and an in-house dad."
Genie let out an ironic laugh. "Getting involved in a relationship is the last thing on my mind right now. I still have to decide if I want to return to nursing."
"Then you'll be here until you decide," Annie said.
"That's still three weeks away; it would be an imposition," Genie replied. "I just wanted a break from the apartment where Mom was and give Abby a change of scenery from the in-home hospital ward she's lived in for the past six months."
"Then it's settled," Annie said. "You and Abby will be here for three weeks."
Genie started to argue, then reconsidered. Maybe after three weeks of isolation on a ranch spread across twenty-five-hundred acres of prairie, buttes, canyons and rangeland, she might be ready to return to the city, and nursing, with a new perspective.
"This visit you need to wear western shirts so you don't look like a city dude," Annie said. "There are a half dozen in my old closet that are too tight for me now that I'm nursing."
Genie laughed. "Okay, I'll be a cowgirl for three weeks, never mind that I can't ride a horse."
"You'll learn," Annie said. "Have you thought any more about Josh Hansen?"
Genie looked at Annie, puzzled. "Why would you bring him up?"
"You liked him once, and you two looked good walking up the aisle together for my wedding, even though I was looking at you from behind."
"That was very awkward," Genie said. "I couldn't believe it when he was the one to pull the paper with the star on it out of Ryan's hat and would be best man."
"You still liked him though," Annie pressed on.
"Of course I did. He's a good-looking guy," Genie said. "He's also a rodeo clown who enjoys dancing around with bulls so he'd automatically go to the bottom of my list of prospective husbands and step-father for Abby."
"And speaking of Abby, where is she?" Annie asked. "I want to meet her."
"She's in the car." Genie glanced out of the front door and saw that the car door was open and Abby was gone. "Or at least she was in the car, but she's not there now. I'll be right back."
"About Josh," Annie called after Genie, as Genie stepped onto the porch. "There's something you need to know,"
Genie glanced back. "Tell me later. I need to find Abby."
***
"What's wong wiff his foot?"
The rasp in Josh Hansen's hand paused on the hoof he was filing, and he looked up to find a little girl with golden-brown pony tails sticking out from each side of her head, staring at him. "I'm filing down my horse's hoof so I can put a shoe on it," he explained.
The little girl glanced around, then looked at him, puzzled, and said, "Where are his shoes?"
"I have to make them," Josh replied. "He wears horse shoes."
The little girl stepped a little closer, then raised her leg, and while holding out her foot, said to him, "Then you can make sneakers like mine?"
Josh laughed. "No, honey, he wears special kinds of shoes because his feet have hooves on them." He set the horse's hoof down and stepped over to his anvil where he removed one of four horse shoes hanging over the top of it, and said, "This is the kind of shoe horses wear."
The little girl giggled. "That's a weally funny shoe. My wabbit has funny feet too. His name is Houdini and he popped out of a hat."
Josh looked at the little girl in amusement. "I didn't know rabbits could pop out of hats."
"Houdini did because he's magic," the little girl said. "I have a clown doll who also popped out of a hat. His name is Weggie."
Josh arched a brow. "Umm, maybe you mean Reggie."
The little girl bobbed her head. "Yes, Weggie. He has a big wed nose and when I squeeze it he laughs. He's a weally funny clown with big bwown eyes like mine. Daddy says bwown eyes are the pwettiest eyes there are."
Josh found himself enjoying this little scrap of a girl who'd wandered into the barn, but he also suspected someone would be looking for her. "What's your name, honey?"
"Abbydabby," the little girl replied.
"Well, Miss Abbydabby, maybe we'd better find your folks. They must be looking for you."
From outside the barn, a frantic female voice called out, "Abby! Abby where are you?"
Abby turned and stepped toward the opened double doors to the barn and replied in a loud s
weet voice, "It's okay. I'm wight here."
"Oh, Abby!" The woman dashed into the shadows of the barn and crouched in front of the little girl. "Honey, don't ever go off like that without letting me know where you are. You scared me half to death."
When the woman stood, Josh felt like he'd just been blindsided by a bull. He should have recognized the woman by the long honey-blond hair that fell over her shoulders when she'd crouched in front of the little girl, but looking into a pair of blue eyes fringed in dark lashes, all he could think to say was, "Genie?"
She was silent for a moment, and her eyes were wide, like she was surprised to see him too. Then her mouth tipped with a wry smile, and she said, "That's not what you called me the last time I was here."
Josh laughed. "Yeah, well I hadn't yet warmed up from the ice water bed bath you gave me at the hospital, and at the wedding you weren't exactly friendly. Are you still Nurse Ratched when I'm around?"
Genie gave a kind of ironic laugh. "Actually, right now I'm not Nurse Ratched at all. I've taken a leave from work. What are you doing here? I thought you were back at the Dancing Moon Ranch for good after Annie and Ryan's wedding."
"I was, but Ryan's time got divided between his place and this one, and Matt Kincaid needed a fulltime man, so I'm back," Josh replied, all the while trying to process the fact that a woman he'd obsessed about, from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her three years ago, was standing in front of him looking every bit as stunning as before, except that now she had the hint of dark circles under her eyes, which prompted him to ask, "Is there a reason why you've taken leave from work?" He knew it was none of his business, but when a collision with a bull put him under her care for three days, she burrowed under his skin and he hadn't been able to shake her loose.
"I just need some time to get my life in order," Genie replied.
Josh looked down at the little girl and realized, with a sinking feeling, that Genie had gotten married and had a step-daughter. Maybe the husband was at the ranch. "Then I take it things aren't going well," he said, digging for answers to questions he was fairly certain she'd avoid.
Dancing With Danger: Book 8: Dancing Moon Ranch Series Page 1
