She was going to roll with it.
So as the horses and riders streamed up the road, turning dust-hazed and indistinct, she fished in her foot-well for the soft-sided cooler she’d loaded with leftovers. “Catch,” she said, and tossed Lizzie a biscuit, then offered Gran the bag. “Want one?”
“Don’t mind if I do. There’s no better road food.”
Despite brief nostalgia for McMuffins and Starbucks chai, Shelby held up her biscuit. “To Herman!”
“To Herman!”
They did a three-way biscuit clink and laughed as Gran hit the gas and sent them rumbling off in a different direction from the one the riders had taken. They would go around the hill and strike out cross-country, shortcutting the day’s ride so there would be plenty of time to rustle up dinner before the riders reached camp.
• • •
It took six hours of bumpy driving to reach the first campsite, and by the time Shelby staggered down from the high cab, she felt like her ovaries had been scrambled. She perked up, though, as she filled her lungs with clean, thin air and took a look around at a colorful three-sixty landscape that looked like it’d been painted on a backdrop, like some artist’s rendition of the Wild West.
“Well, this doesn’t stink.” Which was the understatement of the week, because it was flipping gorgeous.
The shallow, grassy bowl had a stream running through its middle that separated the stock pens from the campsite, while a double line of trees on the banks provided a windbreak against the gentle breeze. The stock side was enclosed by slipboard fencing that could be easily switched around to juggle horses and cattle, as needed. Some of the sections were down, giving it a weathered feel that was picked up by the open fire pits on the other side of the stream, with all of it surrounded by a panorama of purple-veined, snowcapped mountains rising to the cloud-scudded blue sky.
Flowers dotted the grassland with splashes of purple and white, and a bird trilled in the middle distance. The noise startled Shelby, as if her city senses were still trying to say, “This is a movie or something—it can’t possibly be real.” But the tick of the chuck truck’s hot engine block was very real, as was the sight of Lizzie reaching for a butterfly, then watching as it fluttered up and away.
“I’ve got a job for you,” Shelby called. When Lizzie looked over, she nodded down the hill. “Splash on over there and put up as many of those boards as you can, please. I bet Krista and the others would love to get here and find the fencing already tightened up. Oh, and while you’re down there, grab some sticks and deadwood. Carefully! Don’t pull anything down on top of you. We’ll use it for the fire.” She glanced at Gran and said in an undertone, “It’s safe for her to run around, right?”
“Compared to playing in traffic or walking through Central Park at night? Definitely.”
“Not helping. And I’ve bet you’ve never set foot in Central Park.”
“No, but I watch Law and Order. All three of them.”
“’Nuff said.” Raising her voice as Lizzie started down the hill, Shelby called, “Keep your eyes peeled, your ears open, and your whistle with you. If you see something you don’t like, freeze and call one of us.”
“Don’t worry.” Gran patted her hand. “I’ve got a rifle and a sawed-off in the truck.”
“Oh, that makes me feel loads better.” Oddly enough, though, it did make her feel better, as did seeing Lizzie looking down at the ground, watching for snakes.
“She’s got good instincts,” Gran said, then glanced at Shelby. “And so do you.”
“When it comes to predators?”
“When it comes to lots of things.” She faced the chuck truck and put her hands on her hips. “Okay, first things first. Let’s get the fires going and the beans on the boil. They’ll take the longest, and if there’s not much better than a perfectly slow-cooked bean, there’s not much worse than a badly done one.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except maybe the aftermath of a bad batch.”
“Oh-kay. Fire and good beans. Let’s get on it!”
After a word from Shelby, Krista had talked to Gran about taking it easier and letting other people do the heavy lifting. Which might’ve been past due, but meant that Shelby got to lug the heavy Dutch ovens from the truck to the fire pits. Gran followed her, tsking, though Shelby couldn’t tell if she was worried about the ovens or her assistant cook. Probably the ovens, because without them, there wouldn’t be any biscuits. And what was a roundup without biscuits?
By the time the sun kissed the mountains and the sky got a little purple around the edges, the beans were well on their way—not good yet, but not bad, either—and she and Gran were pulling biscuits out of the ovens. They weren’t as uniform as the ones that came out of the kitchen on a daily basis, but when Shelby bit in . . . “Mmmm. These are . . . what are they? Something’s different.”
“It’s the ovens. They give it a special roundup flavor.”
“They sure do.” It was tempting, but Shelby held off on a second, hearing the carbs do a ka-ching, ka-ching in the back of her head. Forget the freshman fifteen, she’d put on the sous chef sixty if she didn’t watch herself.
“Let’s get the next batch going, and get the jacket potatoes wrapped up and buried in the coals. Then we should have time to take a breath, as the riders won’t be here for a—”
Fweeet!
Shelby whipped around at the whistle, and found Lizzie down by the stream. There wasn’t a bear or mountain lion in sight, but she pointed off into the distance, where ant-specks were just visible against the green, ribboning in their direction. “Correction,” Shelby said with a laugh, “the riders are already here.”
“So they are.”
Things whipped into high gear then, and they dragooned Lizzie into wrapping the potatoes while Gran seasoned the beans and Shelby turned the steaks in their marinade.
Krista led the way into camp twenty or so minutes later, with a group of very happy riders in tow. Ty, Stace, and the other wranglers brought up the rear. Relaxed chatter filled the campsite as the guests broke off into groups, some to see to the horses, others to set up camp using the tents and the rest of the equipment filling the back of the chuck truck. After passing off her horse to Stace, Krista crossed the stream and came up to the fire pits.
“Any problems on the ride?” Gran asked.
“Zero, zip, zilch, nada.” Krista snagged a cooling biscuit and bit in. “Mmmm. Roundup Hermans rock.”
“There’s an ad campaign in there somewhere,” Shelby said. “Maybe.” She hadn’t forgotten her plan to craft a slogan—and maybe even a campaign—for Mustang Ridge, to thank Krista and Gran for helping her out. She just hadn’t connected with exactly the right idea yet.
It would come, though.
Gran poked a couple of the potatoes, turning them in the coals. “Did you see any cows?”
“A few pockets here and there. We moo-ved them around a little—get it, moo-ved?” Krista paused, but only got eye rolls, and shrugged good-naturedly. “Anyway, we gave the dudes a refresher on working cattle, bunched up a dozen or so of them—cows, I mean, not guests—in a good-looking valley, and left them there, figuring we’d pick them up on the way back. No reason to run the flesh off them.” She paused, then nudged Shelby and pointed downhill. “That’s got to feel good.”
Lizzie was headed from the corral to a growing pile of tack with bridles draped over her shoulder, a saddle cradled in her arms, and a Tigger bounce in her step. She still wouldn’t handle the horses, but she had apparently appointed herself the head tack schlepper.
“So, ranch therapy is working?” Krista asked.
“Seems that way.”
“You’re not sure?”
Darn it. Shelby squeezed her eyes shut, annoyed with herself for letting the cracks show, especially in such a gorgeous spot, with them surrounded by some seriously yummy smells. “No, it’s working. Of course it is. Look at her!”
“Preaching to the choir.” Krista paused. “But you’re worried tha
t she’s still not talking.”
Shelby wanted to say, “No, I’m sure she’ll get there,” but she squelched the fib, hesitated, and said, “I’m trying to hold it together . . . but yeah, I’m worried. It’s been two years, and she was older than most SM kids to begin with. In a few years, she’ll be a teenager, and—” She clamped her lips together. “And I need to stop it. I’m putting too much pressure on both of us, whether I mean to or not. I’m just not very good at taking myself out of the equation.”
Krista gave her a funny look. “Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s my job to stay positive and not add more stress to the mix.” She rolled her eyes. “Sounds easy when you say it that way, doesn’t it?”
“Not so much. That’s basically like saying you need to love your daughter—because of course, you do—but at the same time, be unemotional when dealing with her. Which is pretty much impossible, because you love her.”
“Welcome to my world.” But Shelby felt her smile wobble.
“What else do the ‘experts’”—Krista put the word in finger quotes—“say you should be doing?”
“Encouraging her to interact with me as much as possible. Using positive reinforcement. Setting her up to succeed and then praising the heck out of her. Pretty much the same stuff you and the others do every day, with both the horses and the guests.” She paused, grimacing. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t think I’d make a very good horse trainer. I get impatient waiting for results, and when something isn’t working, I never know whether to keep trying or switch to another theory entirely. I just don’t have the right instincts.”
“Poosh,” Gran said. “Nobody does the first few times around, even with help. That’s the difference between being a horse trainer and being a mother. A trainer gets dozens, maybe hundreds of go-arounds to figure it out and streamline things. A mom has to make it up on the fly.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I’m serious. Foster’s been training mustangs off and on for most of his life, and even he’d tell you that he gets it wrong now and then.”
“Speak of the devil,” Krista said. “Rider ho.”
Shelby’s heartbeat kicked it up several notches as she turned to see a tall, lean cowboy riding toward the camp on a rangy chestnut with a wide blaze. Forcing her voice casual, she said, “I thought it was ‘land ho.’”
Krista shrugged. “When you’re on the ocean, you care about land. Out here, we care about our riders.”
It was that simple, Shelby realized with a smile. And in a way, so was the warm flush of anticipation that washed through her when she saw Foster riding her way. She didn’t know what was going to happen next between them, but she was looking forward to finding out.
Gran nudged her toward the corrals. “Go ahead. You’ll want to tell him how well Lizzie’s been doing.”
“But I should—”
“Take five. We’ll start the steaks when you get back.”
• • •
Foster didn’t remember the last time he’d ridden so hard to catch up. Maybe back when he was a boy and the older cowboys left for the roundup before school got out. Or maybe never, because his father and grandfather had drilled it in early and often: “A true cowboy doesn’t do anything in a hurry, especially when he’s dealing with his stock.” The slower the cattle herded, the more flesh they kept on their bones, and the easier a man went on his horse and dog, the more they’d have left in the tanks when he needed it.
But Vader had kept up without flagging and Brutus clearly hadn’t minded the pace. If anything, the gallop had done the high-spirited chestnut some good, because he was riding smooth, minding his manners, and putting one foot in front of another like a real riding horse. Granted, a good night’s sleep should take care of that, Foster thought as they started down into the shallow bowl that held the camp. But still.
“You made it.” Ty dropped a couple of split rails to let him into the corral. “Made good time, too.”
“Fast horse.”
“Only when he goes straight. How was the gather?”
“Too many machines.” He hated the helicopters and ATVs, would rather have gone pure old school when it came to pulling feral mustangs off the preserves and culling them for sale.
Ty made a disgusted noise, then held out a hand. “Take him for you?”
“You don’t have to.” A man saw to his own horse before himself, always.
“Offered, didn’t I? We got in early, and camp’s in good shape. And I’m betting you’re behind on sleep or food, or both.”
Speaking of food. “Cookie all set up?” Tradition said that the camp’s cook was always Cookie, whether it was a hairy old coot with a schnapps habit—ah, fond memories—or a trio of lovely ladies.
“Yeah, Shelby and her mini-me are here.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“You didn’t have to. A man gives away his horse to a woman, that says it for him.”
“Brutus needed a few come-to-Jesus rides, and Loco is enjoying the break.”
“If you say so.” Ty grinned, then nodded past him. “Anyway, she’s right behind you.”
Giving it fifty-fifty that Ty was yanking his chain, Foster turned around. And saw her.
With her dark hair braided back, wearing a logo’d snap shirt, jeans, and a mysterious smile, Shelby looked like a rodeo queen who’d gotten roped into the cook shack for the day. If he’d never met her before, he might’ve thought she was a local and wondered why he’d never seen her before. As it was, he could see the city polish in the way she’d tied her bandana in a jaunty, off-center knot at her throat, and the wink of a glittery bracelet on her wrist.
All too aware of Ty standing behind him, probably smirking, he caught her hand and led her back up toward the stream, where the double row of trees provided some cover, some privacy. They were surrounded, with people on one side, horses on the other, but once he tugged her through into a thicker stand of brush, it was like they were all alone, standing on the pebbly edge of the stream while the water rushed by, drowning out the other sounds.
He wanted to tell her how he’d ridden hard to see her, how he’d missed her, thought about her, almost borrowed a phone to call her, but didn’t because hearing her voice would’ve made things worse, not better. But the words crammed in his throat, sticking there as she moved into his arms. He didn’t know if he’d pulled her close or if she had made the move; all he knew was that she was up against him, her body warm and curvy, her eyes bright with anticipation. And the only rational thing to do was kiss her.
He reached down as she came up on her toes, and their mouths met seamlessly, perfectly. Her flavor was new and fresh, yet deeply familiar, as if thinking about her all week had reset his neurons to recognize her taste.
The kiss stretched out, wet and warm, and so welcoming that he wasn’t sure where his body left off anymore and hers began, except where he was hard and aching, and wanted more. But this wasn’t about getting more, not right now. It was about having a good time and getting to know her, and it was about letting her know he was glad to see her, and damn glad she felt the same way. So he told his body to cool it down and he eased the kiss, keeping his hands gentle and making himself step back when he wanted to dive in.
Despite all that, it took him a moment to find his voice. And when he finally did manage to unmute, all he could do was grin down at her and say, “Hey there.”
He’d spent the past week looking forward to seeing her again, and that was the best he could come up with? Man, he was lame.
But she smiled back. “Hey, yourself.”
“How’s it going?” He sucked. Seriously. Part of him wished they could’ve just kept on kissing and skipped the other stuff. Except that he liked talking to her, too. Life would just be better if she handled the conversation, especially right now.
“It’s going good. Really, really good.” Her smile lit. “Lucky is up and nursing on his own, and Doc says all systems are go. Lizzie was th
ere the first time he stood up on his own, and called me using her whistle. I’m afraid to jinx myself by saying she seems better, but she does, knock on wood.” Her words came fast, as if she’d been storing up things to tell him. “I’ve ridden Loco every day . . . and the cat’s out of the bag on him being your prize possession. I know gratitude makes you squirm, so I’ll just say thank you for trusting me with him.” She grinned, looking lighter and more carefree than he’d ever seen her before, as if during the week he’d been gone, she had unlocked parts of herself that she’d been keeping hidden away. “Oh, and dinner’s almost ready.”
He couldn’t stop smiling, probably looked like a fool. He didn’t care, though. What mattered was that she was there, she’d had a good week, and he was so dang happy to see her he could burst. Finding his voice and a few of his brain cells, he finally managed to string together more than a couple of words. “You . . . wow. How long was I gone again?”
“It felt like forever.”
“I know what you mean. Looks like I’ve got some major catching up to do. Maybe you could help me out with that?”
Her grin went wicked. “Absolutely, cowboy.” But then she shot a guilty look in the direction of the campsite, which was barely visible through the trees. “I should get back and help Gran put the steaks on, though. She was good about letting me sneak off to say hi, but I don’t want to leave her in the lurch.”
How could he not adore her? “Meet me later, after dinner. We’ll take the horses out.”
“A moonlit ride?” She sighed happily. “That sounds wonderful.”
“Good. Meet me back here once things settle down around the camp.”
“I will.” She stepped in, reached up, and brushed her lips across his. “I need to go.”
He caught her waist, held her close, and turned the kiss real, reawakening all the urges he’d started to tamp down, and welcoming the sharp ache. “I’ll see you later. And, Shelby?”
Summer at Mustang Ridge Page 14
