“Mands? Are you crying? I didn’t mean to ...” Luke reached out for her. Mandy scooted over, flung her arms around him, and held him as tightly as she could. She wasn’t sure whose tears were on her face. Her brother’s body trembled, and she felt a searing pain in her midsection, as if something tight within her was breaking apart.
She had no idea how long it was before they drew apart and began mopping their eyes. She put a wad of tissues in Luke’s hand and gave it a squeeze. He returned the pressure in an answer that touched her more deeply than words. They’d crossed over some invisible barrier, and now they had a better understanding of each other.
“Do you believe me now?” she asked.
Luke kept hold of her fingers. “Yeah. I guess. I’m sorry, Mands. Don’t start trying to analyze me, though, okay? I get enough of that with the shrinks.”
Mandy saw nothing to be gained by reminding Luke that he hadn’t seen a counselor in nearly a year. “I have no intention of making you go away to college. You can go to the university right here in Crystal Falls and continue to live at home.”
“Well ... yeah, I guess I could. Maybe. But Mands ... I mean, okay, I understand now about you wanting me and stuff. But without me as a ball and chain around your neck, you could get married and have a family of your own. That’ll be a huge temptation.”
“Never.”
Luke went silent, his expression bewildered. “Why not? You’re still young enough.”
“After all Mom went through, how can you think I’d ever be dumb enough to marry?”
He was silent for a few moments. Then he said, “Not all men are like Dad.”
“Not all, possibly, but some are. How does a woman know the truth about a man until it’s too late? Dad never showed his true colors before Mom married him. I will never put myself in a situation like that. The day I turned eighteen, I grabbed hold of my independence and never looked back. I like being my own person. I like making my own decisions. I’ll never give up my freedom and let some lunatic run my life.”
“You’re serious.” Luke sank back in the seat. “I never knew you felt like this.” He cleared his throat. “I guess I’m learning today there’s a lot of stuff I never knew.”
Mandy rested her throbbing forehead on the steering wheel. She felt so exhausted, as if her bones had dissolved. “Me, too. That’s what this has been about, all these years. You’ve always been scared that I’d leave you.”
“No big surprise. I’ve told you before.”
“Yes, but ...” Mandy started to choose her words carefully, but she was as tired of doing that as she was of everything else. “You say lots of stuff to get back at me. I didn’t know you believed it. A husband? I don’t even go out on dates.”
“Only because you have me to take care of, and you can’t afford a sitter very often.” Luke’s larynx bobbed. “If I were gone, you could do whatever you want.”
“Oh, Luke,” she said shakily. “Listen to me. No matter how independent you become, I’ll always want you with me. I’d be lost without you. If you go to college and land a great job, my biggest fear will be that you’ll decide you no longer need me.”
Luke’s auburn brows drew together in an incredulous frown. “That’s stupid. Where would I go? Living alone would be ... lonesome.”
Mandy knew it wasn’t funny, but a giggle pushed up the back of her throat.
“What’s so funny?” Luke demanded.
“This,” she said with a limp wave of her hand. “Us. We talk to each other all the time but never hear each other. Without you in the house, I’d go out of my mind.”
“Not if you had a husband and kids.”
“I don’t want a husband. Kids, maybe, but I’m not in a position to support any on my income. Take the cotton out of your ears! I love you. Always have and always will. I prefer to remain in control of my future, and you are always going to be a part of it. You know how I picture that future, Luke?”
“No, how?”
Mandy gazed out the windshield across a winter-yellow field splashed with patches of snow. Lining the drainage ditch, metal fence posts leaned willy-nilly, strands of barbed wire sagging like rusty necklaces between them.
“I see you getting a fabulous education and becoming a respected professional.”
Luke muttered a comment under his breath that she didn’t ask him to repeat.
“You’ll come home at night—maybe with a guide horse—and I’ll have dinner on. We’ll eat and talk about our day. With you contributing financially, maybe I’ll be able to go back to school and get into another line of work.”
”You don’t like your work, do you?”
Mandy bit the inside of her cheek. How could he think she actually enjoyed her job? “Luke, I’m a medical transcriptionist. Maybe some people love it, but for me, it’s drudgery. I’m good at it, but that’s as far as it goes. I’d love to do something different.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll think I’m nuts.” She moistened her lips. “I, um ... Well, remember how Dad made me take over the gardening and all the yard work after Mom ran off?”
“Yes. You hated it. Whenever he wasn’t around you were always complaining.”
Mandy smiled. “I did, but only because I was so loaded down with everything else. Somewhere along the way, I developed a love for plants—not vegetables, but flowers and other ornamentals. I’m never happier than when I’m working out in our yard.”
“You want to be a gardener?” Luke’s tone suggested he equated this career choice with snake charming or fortune-telling.
“No, I want to run a nursery. I’d have to get a degree in horticulture, I suppose, but I think I’d enjoy the coursework. That’s my dream, to raise and sell beautiful plants. Maybe if I got good enough, I could even do some landscape design.”
Luke hung his head for a long moment. “You’d be good at it without a degree. You’re really smart, Mands. You could be anything you want, even a horticulturist.”
She ached to try. She nursed seedlings to life and turned her yard into a showplace every summer. She dreamed of owning a nursery almost every night. But as things stood, it was out of the question. Her present job paid the bills, bought food, and added a monthly trickle of cash to Luke’s college fund. There wasn’t much left over.
Luke sighed. “Swear it,” he whispered gruffly. “Swear to me that you’ll never make me move out if I go to college and get a job.”
Mandy studied her brother’s haunted expression. He’d never even admitted to the possibility before, and now he was trying to put his fear aside and actually consider it. Oh, God, what a number their mother had done on him—and on her as well. Mandy wondered if Sharyn Pajeck was happy in her new life. Then she realized she didn’t care. Any woman who would abandon her kids, leaving them with a violent alcoholic father, didn’t deserve happiness or any semblance of peace. “I swear it, Luke.”
“No, I need you to say it and then swear it.”
“If you go to college and get a job, I’ll never, ever make you move out of the house. I swear it.”
He nodded slightly. “All right. Next time, I’ll pet the horse. That’s all I promise, though. If I don’t like her, I don’t want to hear any more about it. Deal?”
Mandy could barely speak. “Deal,” she whispered.
Zach wasn’t enjoying his evening. He had a new DVD, and he’d had a good dinner chased by a cold beer, but it didn’t matter. Miranda Pajeck kept elbowing her way into his mind, and every time he booted her out, she sneaked back in. He kept remembering things—her graceful movements, the lilt of her voice, the way her face glowed when she smiled. As he unwrapped the DVD and tossed the cellophane in the trash can, he tried to pinpoint what he found so attractive. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, so why had two occasions in her company made such an impression? Hormones, he decided. It had been way too long since he’d dipped the old oil stick. He’d react the same way to any pretty female.
He let o
ut an exasperated sigh. That explanation didn’t work. His thoughts of Miranda weren’t of a sexual nature. He felt physically attracted, of course. Any man probably would. But overall, it was more a sense way deep within him that she was someone special and that he’d been stupid to let her slip through his fingers.
That feeling followed him into his dreams and was still with him the next morning when he got up an hour before daybreak. He tried to wash it away with two cups of strong coffee. When that failed, he went to the stable, convinced that a long day of hard labor might cure what ailed him. If not, he’d go to a honky-tonk tonight and find a cowgirl looking for a ten-minute rodeo.
Cookie often checked on the animals while his morning coffee perked, so Zach wasn’t surprised to find the lights on in the arena. A glow of yellow spilled from the rafter fixtures, creating an impression of daylight even though it was dark outside. Several horses stood at the stall gates, heads high, ears cocked. They greeted Zach with whickers of welcome. Only Tornado, Zach’s nemesis, didn’t appear at his gate.
Zach spoke to the horses that came forth to greet him as he led Rosebud to her daytime stall. After getting her settled, he took time to stroke necks as he retraced his path to the front of the building. Ah, how he loved the smells in here—the scent of hay, the hint of molasses-coated grain, the pungent odor of vitamin powder, and the faint traces of saddle leather, all mixed with the ever-present musk of manure. As he walked, sending up puffs of dirt, he breathed it in. He felt at home here as he did nowhere else.
The door of Cookie’s loft apartment stood open, a signal that breakfast was on and Zach was invited. As he started up the stairs, he caught the scent of bacon frying.
“Hope you’re hungry. I cooked for two,” Cookie said when Zach stepped through the doorway. “Had a hankerin’ for Southern-style this mornin’.”
Built like a tree stump, with a butternut brown complexion and faded blue eyes, Cookie looked more like a gnarly old gnome than a cowboy, but his talent with horses knew no equal.
“You sure you’ve got enough?” Zach asked.
“Don’t I always? Hang your hat and elbow up.”
Cookie’s apartment, tidy as always, exuded inviting warmth. The leather sofa and matching recliners were a dark cream color that struck just the right contrast to the dirt-brown carpet. The kitchen, open to the rest of the flat, was divided off by a curved bar fronted by four stools, upholstered in the same leather as the furniture.
Zach hung his hat on a horseshoe hook just inside the door, swung onto a stool, and accepted the mug of coffee his foreman slid toward him over the hickory counter.
“Why are you so glum?” Cookie asked. “You’re frownin’ like a mule with a burr up his ass.”
Zach took a sip from the mug, ignoring Cookie’s unflattering metaphor. “You ever meet a woman and get the weird feeling that you shouldn’t let her slip away?”
Cookie ran a hand over his flyaway hair, then grabbed a spatula to flip the eggs, which he fried in the bacon drippings. “If they’re purty, I never want ’em to slip away. But I’ve learned over the years that life is better if I pretend it’s a smorgasbord, enjoyin’ a taste of this and then a taste of that.”
Zach laughed and shook his head. “Not like that, Cookie. I mean a special feeling, like you’d been waiting all your life to meet her.” Turning the mug in his hands, Zach added, “You know it’s crazy, but you just can’t shake it off.”
Cookie filled two plates and circled the bar with them to sit beside Zach. Sliding one plate over and claiming the other for himself, he said, “I felt that way once.”
Zach prayed over his food. “When you felt that way, what’d you do?”
“Married her. Worst thirty seconds of my life.”
Zach grinned. “You were married for only thirty seconds?”
“’Bout six months, but I was callin’ myself a dozen kinds of fool in thirty seconds. The woman didn’t like nothin’ about me—the way I walked, dressed, talked. You name it, she hated it. I reckon she thought she’d change me. When she couldn’t, she filed for divorce. When I got them papers, I went on a three-day drunk to celebrate.”
Zach shifted his plate, a chipped beige stoneware thing with a ring of darker brown at the edge. He crunched down on a delicious piece of bacon. Cookie’s talents weren’t limited to working with horses. “It doesn’t always end up that way.”
“Not for everybody.” Cookie bent over his plate, pushing a folded piece of bread around in runny egg yolk. “I just ain’t cut out to ride double, I reckon.”
Could the same be true of Zach? So far, he’d never found that one special person.
“Enjoy the ladies as much as the next fellow,” Cookie went on, “but after a quick dilly and dally, I always make tracks before the sun comes up.” Cheek bulging, he gave Zach a measuring look. “I’m different than you, though. Ran away from home at eleven. Worked on ranches in Montana until my green wore off. Never had a pa like yours to teach me manners, polish my edges, and send me off to college to get book learnin’. Horses love me, but the ladies ain’t never interested in more than one ride.”
“Maybe you just never gave the right lady a chance.”
“Could be.” Cookie shoved another piece of bread in his mouth. “But I ain’t mournin’ the loss. Like my life just the way it is. I got nobody but you to fuss at me.”
Zach resumed eating. Having a conversation with Cookie was like spinning a spur; you never knew where the rowels would land. Even so, the old codger had a way of cutting right to the heart of a matter. Zach’s strange feelings about Miranda were just that, strange feelings. They weren’t something he should act upon or take seriously.
After helping clean up the breakfast mess, Zach began his day with Tornado, whose name should have been “Impossible” and probably would have been if not for Zach’s practice of naming his horses after weather patterns. His sister, Sam, had a theory that every stable needed a theme for the quarter horse registry, and all the Harrigans except Frank had followed her lead. All Sam’s animals were named after kitchen spices, sauces, or flavorings; Clint had gone with a biblical slant; Parker named his horses after cities and states; and Quincy, the health nut, had a stable filled with fruits and vegetables. How could anyone name a gorgeous stallion Rutabaga and expect the poor critter to hold its head up high? Asparagus was even worse.
Tornado had gotten his name by the luck of the draw, before Zach realized how apt it would end up being. He’d already used Hurricane, Whirlwind, Typhoon, Cyclone, and Tempest. Tornado had been the next unused name. Sadly, the five-year-old horse had soon proven to be deserving of the handle, exhibiting violent and unpredictable behavior that Zach had spent nearly two months trying to resolve without a lick of success.
“Easy, boy,” Zach said as he entered the stall, knowing even as he spoke that he was wasting his breath. Nothing with Tornado went easy. Unlike the stable-born Crooked H horses, Tornado had evidently not been imprinted at birth or as a young foal, and he’d apparently received no effective training as an adolescent. Despite all Zach’s efforts, the stallion remained a twelve-hundred-pound bundle of trouble, the equine version of Jekyll and Hyde. Zach allowed no one else to enter Tornado’s stall. When the stallion needed farrier or veterinarian care, three people hazed him into a hydraulic box stall, Tucker sedated him, and only then did the animal receive the attention he needed.
Every time Zach thought about it, he did a slow burn. Live and learn. Tornado’s previous owner had been ill when Zach first went to examine the stallion, named Morpheus at the time, and the ranch foreman, given power of attorney to transact sales, hadn’t seen fit to tell Zach that he was about to purchase a nightmare. During that first viewing, Tornado had exhibited no bad behavior. Zach suspected the stallion had been sedated, but when Tucker had gotten back from a cruise with his wife two weeks later and done a drug test, he’d found no trace of a sedative in Tornado’s system. That had been disappointing, because some drugs remained detectable for as l
ong as ninety days. If Zach could have proved that he’d been ripped off, he might have been able to return the horse and get his money back. But as things stood, Zach was stuck with a crazy horse.
The sad part for Zach wasn’t the financial loss, though. Hell, no. It was the stallion’s probable fate that broke his heart. If Zach couldn’t help Tornado, probably no one could, and on his present course, Tornado would eventually hurt somebody. When a horse was that dangerous, the eleventh hour eventually led to midnight. Ending the stallion’s life would be one of the most difficult things Zach had ever done. He hated to even consider it, which was why he worked with the horse daily, hoping for a breakthrough.
This morning, all Zach had in mind to do was some routine grooming. With Tornado, that was dicey. So dicey, in fact, that the animal’s coat and mane were a mess. One time, the stallion would docilely accept being touched in certain places. The next time, he blew up for no apparent reason. There was just no figuring him out.
The moment Zach closed the stall gate behind him, the sorrel snorted and spun on his hind legs, slashing the ground with his front hooves. Zach had no idea why the horse was in a snit. Knowing Tornado, it could be anything from the way Zach wore his hat to a movement he made that the animal didn’t like.
“Easy, boy. It’s okay.” Zach had learned as a youngster to develop eyes in the back of his head when he was around horses, so he kept the stallion in sight as he moved slowly toward the currycomb that hung high on the right wall. “No worries,” he soothed. “I’m just going to brush you down.”
As Zach closed his fingers over the handle of the sawtoothed grooming tool, Tornado reared on his hind legs, screamed, and came at Zach with a lightning-quick slashing of his front hooves. Zach ducked sideways, but not quickly enough to avoid a blow to his shoulder that sent him reeling. He dove to the right, rammed his arm against the wall, and took another strike to the back before he could roll clear. For an instant, all he could see was a funnel storm of straw and dust. Then he glimpsed the stallion’s front hooves suspended directly above his face. He rolled again, sprang to his feet, and ran for the gate, barely managing to vault over the barrier before Tornado reached him.
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