“I mean, yeah. Tomorrow.”
“What’s the agenda for the first day?”
“The agenda?” Nate could feel his own forehead wrinkling up. He couldn’t widen his eyes, though. The light hurt too much. Charlie had definitely been right about the concussion.
“I chose Package B,” Doris said.
Nate just stared at her. He had no idea what she was talking about. Sandi had offered packages? Heck, she’d never wanted much to do with his package. Not near enough, anyway.
“The three-week deal,” Doris said.
Three weeks! What was he going to do with a stranger around the place for three weeks? He remembered the brochure on Charlie’s front passenger seat. He should have taken a look at it before the wind took it. Figured out what he was in for. Now it was gone and he was flying blind. He had half a mind to saddle up Honey and set off in search of it. If he couldn’t find it, he could just keep going. Maybe ride off a cliff or something.
“You know,” she went on. “The ‘Green Horse, Green Rider’ program. I spend a lot of time on horseback, but I never got to start from scratch like that.”
“I picked that one too,” Charlie said. Her eyes slid over toward Nate, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She was going to help him out.
“That’s the one where we break a mustang to ride,” she said. She winced. “Not ‘break’ it. Gentle it, right?”
Nate nodded, squelching a sudden rush of excitement. The Bureau of Land Management held mustang sales a couple times a month. He’d been cleared as a registered bidder, but Sandi would never let him buy. Said the wild horses were too dangerous.
Now he’d have to. She must have figured out he’d run the customers off the property before he’d let strangers handle his own horses.
“Right. Package B.” He hitched up his belt and stood a little straighter so they wouldn’t know he’d only just come up with a plan. He was pretty sure there’d be a sale on Saturday, maybe as close as Wheatland or Riverton. He could teach the students about conformation and temperament for the next day or two, then have them put the knowledge to work selecting a mustang at the sale.
It would actually be a great experience for them. For the first time, the clinic idea seemed like it might work.
“So where’s the bunkhouse?” Doris looked right and left, taking in the tipsy shacks behind the house.
Nate felt his throat tighten up.
“There,” he managed to say, gesturing toward the dilapidated disaster that had once been a bunkhouse. “I—I’ll need to do some fixing up, though. It’s not quite ready.” He flailed an arm toward the house, wondering how the hell he was going to make that abandoned shed into living quarters for anything more civilized than a homeless field mouse. “You’re welcome to come into the house while you wait.”
“Well, I’d like to get my luggage unloaded,” Doris said. “Can you get me that one out of the back of the truck, at least? It’s got most of what I need to pretty up.”
He wondered if the bag held a full array of plastic surgeon’s tools and a Hollywood prosthetics kit. It would take all that and more to pretty Doris up.
Ouch. That wasn’t nice. Nate would have smacked himself upside the head for being so mean if he hadn’t been hurting so much already. The woman couldn’t help the body God put her in. And she seemed nice enough. Kind of demanding, a no-nonsense sort of person, but nice.
“I’ll be glad to get that for you, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat. Maybe a dose of cowboy etiquette would help distract her from the condition of the ranch. After all, she was getting an authentic Western experience here. The place Sandi had shown in the brochure was one of those phony dude ranches, but Latigo was the real thing—a working ranch. Falling down all around them, but still working.
Doris popped the pickup’s tailgate, and Nate reached in for the bag. It was pretty far toward the front, so his fingers barely brushed it and he wound up pushing it farther away.
“Sorry.” He grunted and leaned farther into the truck, but he still couldn’t reach the bag. Charlie made a choking sound, and he turned around to see her covering her mouth with her hand. Her face was red as a side of beef.
“You okay?”
“Sure.” Her voice sounded kind of strangled. “Just—just inhaled some dust.”
Now Doris was coughing too. Must have been something in the air. Nate wriggled out of the truck and patted Charlie on the back. He tried not to smack her too hard, but her eyes got all teary and she bent over double.
“Sorry,” he said. He patted her more gently, and she seemed to get over whatever it was that got her going. Doris too.
Man, his head was pounding. He closed his eyes tight and squeezed his temples, trying to force himself back to normal so he could go after the luggage again. When he opened his eyes, Charlie was hopping up on the tailgate and scrambling into the truck, scuttling to the front on all fours. He couldn’t help noticing how lithe and strong she was, and how her jeans stretched tight over her butt as she made her way to the suitcase.
Junior’s dream mare wasn’t the only one with a perky tail.
“Thanks,” he muttered as she handed him the suitcase. He put a hand to his head, wishing the throbbing would go away. He was perfectly capable of unloading the truck himself if he could just get the laser light show in his head to shut down.
“You okay, son?” Doris asked.
He nodded. “Fine. Hit my head earlier. But it’s getting better.”
“Well, I’m sorry to cause so much trouble,” she said. “I’ll just go inside, if that’s okay.”
“Sure,” he said. “Fine.”
Doris trotted up the front steps, toting the heavy suitcase in one hand like it was Charlie’s dinky little purse. She stopped and turned at the door.
“So what’s for dinner?” she asked.
Nate froze, wondering what the heck he was going to do about feeding her. He rummaged through his freezer in his mind, trying to remember what was in there. There was a brisket, he was pretty sure, and a shoulder roast, but he had no idea how to cook either one.
“Turkey dinner,” he finally said. “It’s real good.”
Chapter 12
“Turkey dinner?” Doris made a face. “What, like Stouffer’s or something?”
His mind scrambled. She was on to him. When Charlie put the frozen food on plates the night before, it had looked almost like homemade. He’d thought maybe he could get away with it again, but Doris was too sharp for that.
He did a quick mental inventory of the pantry.
“Spaghetti then,” he said. He could do that. Just boil the pasta, he was pretty sure, and then heat up a can of sauce and dump it on top.
“Oh, yum,” Doris said. “I love spaghetti—’specially when it’s seasoned right.”
Seasoned? You had to season it? With what? He watched Doris stride into the house, slamming the screen door behind her.
“Guess I’d better get to work on that bunkhouse,” he said. He shifted his eyes toward Charlie. “Gee, I’m not sure where to start.”
“Go get a broom and dustpan,” Charlie said. “I’ll dust.”
He could have fallen at her feet and kissed those ridiculous high-fashion cowboy boots in gratitude. She was going to help.
“And get some linens,” she continued. “Sheets, and all the pillows you can find. I’ll try to add some girlie touches, make it pretty. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.”
Pretty? Hell, he was just hoping they could get the bugs out. His head was spinning again. “It’s awful in there,” he said. “Nobody’s slept there in years. The mattresses…”
“Take them out and beat them with a broom,” she said. “And open the windows. Let some air in.” She glanced toward the house and her expression grew crafty. “Maybe you’ve got some stuff up in the attic we could use. You want me to check?”
“No,” Nate said. He wished she’d get her mind off the attic. He didn’t want anybody poking around up there, touching stuff, mo
ving it around. Sometimes he liked to go up there and just sit, remembering. Hoping.
It was none of her business.
“Okay. Just linens then,” Charlie said.
Nate turned toward the bunkhouse, humbled by his helplessness. He and Sandi had gotten together right out of high school, and she’d always said he just got in the way in the kitchen. He could barely cook for himself, let alone a bunch of strangers.
“One more thing,” Charlie said.
She was standing with her fists on her cocked hips, her head tilted to one side. Uh-oh. Nate swallowed. “Sure,” he said.
“I’ll help you for a day or two,” she said. “We can make this work. Make sure Doris is a satisfied customer, along with whoever else shows up. I’m willing to do all I can to get you started.”
“Great,” Nate said, honestly grateful. “Thank you so…”
“But you need to get the rest of her payment right away,” she interrupted. “Then you can refund my deposit, and I can get out of here.”
Nate nodded, but the motion set his head to hurting and his ears started to ring. Next thing he knew, a dizzy spell hit him so hard he almost collapsed in the dirt. Must be the concussion.
That, or the realization that he was on his own, playing host to God-knew-how-many aspiring cowboys and cowgirls. How was he going to feed and clean for a bunch of strangers when he could barely take care of Butt?
He shook his head, and the ringing intensified. Closing his eyes, he pressed the heels of his hands into the sockets, struggling to get the pulsing lights under control. When he opened his eyes again, there were two Charlies staring at him.
He stumbled to the steps and sat down hard. His forearms rested on his knees, and he hung his head low, staring at the toes of his boots.
Charlie sat down beside him and heaved a heavy sigh.
“Oh, geez,” she said. “You’re in bad shape, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“Do you want me to stay?”
A thick, strained silence stretched between them while he struggled to answer. Of course he wanted her to stay. Hell, he wanted her, period. He wanted to reach up right now and pull her close, rerun that kiss on the sofa one more time, just to make sure he got it right. But all he could do was sit there, staring at the ground.
“Dammit,” she said. “Don’t cowboys ever talk?”
Truth was, no, they didn’t—not this one, anyway. That was probably why he was so comfortable with horses. Horses communicated all the important stuff with looks and gestures. Body language.
Touch.
That he could handle. He could show Charlie he wanted her to stay. He could take her in his arms and kiss her with all the desperation he felt when he realized she could just take off down the driveway, head back to New Jersey. Or he could just look her in the eye, communicating his need that way. Twice now that had worked, forging a connection that bound them stronger than words ever could.
Heck, why did she need him to talk, anyway? Couldn’t she see just from the way he was sitting there, shoulders slumped, staring at the ground, that he was beat? That he needed help?
But women liked words.
He looked up at her. Talking was hard enough when it was just about the weather, or crops. Asking a woman to come to his rescue was about as bad as it got. In his world, men were self-sufficient. They didn’t ask for help unless they were desperate.
Nate reviewed his situation in his mind.
Yup. He was desperate.
“Yes,” he said, finally. “Please.” His voice sounded tight and strangled, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Please stay.”
“Okay,” she said, her posture relaxing. “I guess that’s about all I can hope for. Cowboy eloquence, right? But we need to set some ground rules.”
He nodded, swallowing.
“First of all, no kissing,” she said. “No touching either. And no looking at me like you’re thinking about me naked.”
Shoot. She’d noticed that after all.
“You are so not my type,” she said, drawing her brows low over her eyes. “And I’m going back to Jersey when this thing is over. So we might as well stop the shenanigans right now.”
Shenanigans? Was that what they called it in New Jersey?
He’d have to remember that.
“And I’m not staying for you,” she continued. “I’m staying because I want to learn horse training, and I guess I’ll let you teach it to me.”
She took a deep breath, like she was going to make some kind of confession.
“And besides,” she said. Then she muttered something he couldn’t quite hear.
“What?” he asked.
“I think I’m in love,” she mumbled.
Danged if he could figure out how to react to that. A minute ago she’d said he wasn’t her type; now she was saying she loved him. He’d always had a strange effect on the ladies, but this was the weirdest yet. He hadn’t done a thing right with Charlie—well, except maybe that kiss—and here she was already in love with him.
He was going to have to dial down the charm—if he could just figure out what he’d done that was so darned attractive.
She saw his stricken face and laughed.
“Not with you. With Junior.” She shoved his shoulder, joshing him like a kid sister. “I told you, you’re not my type. I mean, you’re a cowboy, for God’s sake. But I liked what happened with that horse. I want to do it again. I think I might like to work with horses more—see if Sadie will let me write this paper, maybe even present it at the conference. I always wanted to work with animals, and I think this might be my ticket.”
She pulled a blade of grass out of the lawn at their feet.
“I think the things you know about horses—about communicating with them—could help people learn to communicate better with each other.”
She looked over at him and gave a little snort of laughter. It sounded a lot like her coughing.
“Not that it’s doing you any good,” she said. “I mean, if you’d paid half as much attention to Sandi’s moods as you do to your horses’, I bet she’d still be here.”
Nate thought about that, then shook his head.
“Sandi didn’t like this life,” he said. “She didn’t like the ranch, the dirt, or the critters. She never would have been happy.”
“I don’t necessarily like those things either,” Charlie said. “But if I had a man who loved me and treated me right, I think I’d be happy most anywhere.”
She stood up and stretched, lifting her arms high above her head, totally unconscious of the way the setting sun outlined her silhouette in amber and peach. With her spiky hair and lithe figure, she looked like a heroine from a Japanese cartoon.
One of the sexy ones.
She looked down and caught him staring. His jaw was hanging open, and he probably looked like a lovesick hound dog.
“Of course, it would have to be the right man,” she said. She spun on her toes and trotted past him up the porch steps. “No cowboys, that’s for sure.”
Chapter 13
The bunkhouse had been unoccupied for decades, unless you counted the dust bunnies that patrolled the floor beneath the iron-framed beds. Charlie was now liberating said bunnies from the confines of the bunkhouse in droves. They leapt to freedom as she wielded the broom like a weapon, creating a wide fan of dust that spread from the open door.
She hummed a line or two of “Born Free,” then set to work on the flimsy blue-ticked mattresses, dragging them out the door and draping them over the split rail hitching post by the door. Clutching the broom handle like a Louisville Slugger, she whacked half a dozen home runs into each one, venting her frustration.
Doris had snagged Nate the minute he returned to the house for supplies, and now he was out there playing host, showing the woman around the ranch like the lord of the manor. Charlie glanced over at the paddock, where the two of them stood side by side, each with one booted foot on the bottom rung, watching two of Nate�
�s mares munch the evening ration of hay.
She cursed under her breath. It was nice to see Doris getting her “cowboy time,” but Charlie had offered to help the guy, not be his slave. Giving the last mattress a final wallop, she dragged it inside and pitched it onto one of the old iron bed frames, then tossed herself on top.
She looked around the room, a cavernous space with rough paneled walls and an open-beam ceiling. Even in the half-light from the grimy windows, she could see silver-white cobwebs festooning the beams, with swaddled fly mummies dangling from them like ghoulish Christmas ornaments. Sighing, she lurched to her feet and grabbed the broom. If she was stuck here, she might as well make it livable.
Two hundred cobwebs and half a bottle of Windex later, the place was starting to look habitable. She set her fists on her hips and looked around.
Not bad.
Now for the girlie touches.
She opened a rickety old cabinet that leaned up against the wall in one corner and found a cache of mason jars—picturesque old blue ones with bubbles in the glass. She gathered up a half-dozen of them and carried them out to the yard.
Halfway between the barn and the house, a rusty spigot arched from a crooked pipe that jutted out of a concrete block. Charlie cranked the knob and water splashed out over the cement onto the grass. Humming to herself, she rinsed the jars, then filled each one with water.
Half an hour later the jars decorated the bunkhouse’s rough wooden windowsills and crude nightstands, each one filled with a bouquet of asters and daisies gathered behind the barn. They added a homey touch, and the flowers coordinated with the faded blue and white coverlets Nate had brought before he’d taken off to play tour guide.
Charlie puttered around a while longer, rearranging, perfecting. She folded the coverlets back in neat triangles, making the beds look uniformly welcoming, and fooled with the flowers, touching up the arrangements. She couldn’t wait for Nate to see what she’d done with the place. She couldn’t wait to…
Uh-oh.
She backed away from the windowsill, lifting her hands in the air like a hold-up victim. Step away from the flowers, she told herself. Step away.
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