by Brenda Mott
“I heard you.” Wade frowned. “Macy, we’ve already been over this.” He glanced Tess’s way. “Now’s not the time. We’ll talk some more when we get home.”
“But, Dad…”
“Macy.” Wade gave her a firm look. “You heard me. Come on. Get on your horse and let’s go.”
He focused on Tess, turning the blue roan so that the sun was no longer in Tess’s eyes.
“Sorry if Macy’s been pestering you,” he said. “We’ll be going.”
“Hold up a minute.” She laid her hand on the roan’s muzzle, stilling Wade’s pull on the reins. “Macy isn’t pestering me. She came over here to talk to me about giving Amber a permanent home.”
The sun-bronzed color in his face deepened, along with the scowl creasing his forehead. He was a good-looking man, she’d give him that, but right now his expression did nothing to add appeal to his charmless demeanor.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I told her not to.”
“Why?” Folding her arms, Tess challenged him with the single word.
“What do you mean, why?” He scowled some more. “There’s no reason for asking, that’s why. We’ve got a ranch of our own, and when the horses can no longer serve a purpose, they’ll go to the sale barn.”
Now it was Tess’s turn to scowl. “The sale barn? Wade, you know what happens to horses that go there. At least the ones past their prime.”
He shot her a glare that said she’d overstepped her boundaries, but she didn’t care. Idiots like him made her rescue work necessary.
“I’m not going to argue with you on this, Tess. It’s none of your concern.”
“Is that right?” She frowned at him. “I’d say it is my concern when your daughter comes to me practically in tears because you aim to ship her horse off to the kil—to the auction.”
“I said I wasn’t going to argue with you.” He spoke the words evenly, but his hazel eyes showed irritation at her. “Come on, Macy, we’re burning daylight.”
“Burning daylight?” Tess scoffed. “You’ve been watching too many John Wayne movies, Wade. Maybe you ought to spend less time with your remote control and more time finding out what’s truly important to your daughter.” As soon as the words were out, she knew she’d overstepped. She really didn’t know Wade well enough to speak to him that way, but when people acted as though animals were disposable—useful today, dumped tomorrow—it made her furious.
He clenched his jaw. “What did I say?” he reiterated. “The horse is none of your concern, either. Macy, come on!” Without waiting, he thumped his heels against the roan’s sides, making the gelding jump into a trot.
Tess scowled after him, her heart breaking when she saw the expression on Macy’s face as she followed her father down the driveway. From the back of her palomino, the little girl gave a sad little wave, then faced forward.
Tess wanted to run after the man and yank him from the saddle. Maybe knock some sense into his head or, better yet, start on the other end with a cowboy boot to his butt.
She watched her dogs, who circled her feet, sensing something had upset her. Duke, her German shepherd, growled, and Bruiser, her miniature pinscher, trotted briskly down the driveway, looking right then left. His high-pitched bark warned he just might mean business if something was amiss. Only Sasha, the Australian shepherd, wagged her stubby tail, her red-speckled body wriggling along with it.
“You’re too late, Duke,” Tess addressed the German shepherd. “You should’ve bitten him while you had the chance.”
“MACY, why did you do that?” Exasperated, Wade sat at the table, looking at his daughter. Her eyes filled with tears, making him feel every inch the creep Tess Vega obviously thought he was. “Why did you lie to Tess and tell her I said she could have Amber?”
“Because,” Macy said, swiping angrily at her tears. “I don’t want Amber to go to the sale barn.”
“But, honey.” Wade softened his tone, reaching out to put his hand on Macy’s shoulder. He gave her a gentle squeeze. “If you don’t sell her, then you won’t have any money to put toward a new horse. Amber’s getting too old to do barrels and poles. You know that, don’t you?” The barrel-racing and pole-bending events Macy competed in required a lot of running, coupled with sharp turns around three fifty-five-gallon drums set in a cloverleaf pattern, or six poles placed in a row. To compete on a regular basis took a lot of physical effort for a horse.
Macy sobbed, no longer able to hold back. “I know. But I love her!” She said the word as though it was foreign to him, making him feel ten times worse. He’d never meant to make his daughter so upset.
“Baby, don’t cry. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just trying to be practical. You know, Grandpa Darland was always the same way when I was growing up. Horses get old, Macy. It can’t be helped. Just like we all do. And when they’re too old to use, then you’ve got to be sensible and ship ’em to auction. Replace them with new ones. You’ll find another horse to love.”
“You don’t ship people off to auction just ’cause they’re old,” Macy snapped, some of her spunk returning. She sniffed loudly. “If so, Grandpa Darland would’ve been hauled off long ago.”
Wade let out a chuckle and rumpled Macy’s hair. “Better not let him hear you say that.” He sighed, searching for a way to make her see reason. “Macy, it’s not the same thing at all. Horses aren’t people.”
“Amber’s people to me. And if you won’t let her stay here, then I want her to go live with Tess.” Her lip trembled, but she bit it, fighting for control. She’d always been a tough little cuss, which broke his heart all the more.
“Honey, it’s not that I don’t want Amber to live here. I was only trying to help you see the smart thing in selling her so you can have a new horse. I can’t afford the purchase price of one right now, with my leather business just taking off.” A good 4-H horse could run into the thousands, and Wade’s new business selling tack and leather belts was not yet well established. “You understand, don’t you?”
She frowned at him. “I understand that part of it, but I still don’t want to sell her.”
“Okay,” he said, holding up one hand in surrender. “You don’t have to. Nobody’s trying to force you to sell your horse. I just thought it might be a good idea, that’s all….” He let the words trail away. Had he given Macy the impression he was trying to force her to sell her mare? If so, he hadn’t meant to. He simply didn’t understand her way of thinking, any more than he understood Tess’s.
A horse sanctuary, for God’s sake. Who would ever dream up such a crazy thing? Horses weren’t pets the way dogs were. He could see the sense in an animal shelter, but a horse sanctuary? He’d grown up on a working cattle ranch of over six thousand acres, and all the cowboys on the place, including his own father looked at the horses they rode as working animals…part of the operation, just like the tractors that furrowed the hay fields and the pickup trucks that delivered the bales. When horses broke down, it was time to get rid of them and replace them with something newer, something better.
But his daughter, it seemed, had different ideas, in spite of being raised on a working ranch herself. He blamed people like Tess for that, even Bailey Murdock. Oh, sure, he liked Trent and Bailey both, but they weren’t native to the area. Trent came from California, where things were viewed differently, and Bailey was from the city—Denver. Not that he had anything against folks from California—or from the city, either, for that matter.
It was just…well…take Trent’s fancy horse. Arabians. For the life of him, Wade couldn’t figure why anyone would pay thousands of dollars for a hot-headed horse that wasn’t good for much, as far as he could see, except prancing around, looking pretty.
And Bailey had gotten Macy all fired up about pets and saving stray animals.
More than ever, Wade wished Deidra were still alive. Trying to fill the role of father and mother wasn’t easy. Sometimes he made the wrong choices. Apparently this was one of them.
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Pulling his thoughts back to the immediate situation, Wade wrapped his arm around Macy’s shoulders and drew her into a hug. “You can stop crying,” he said. “Amber can stay.”
“She can?” Her blue eyes wide with hope, Macy looked up at him, wrenching his heart.
“Yeah, she can. But that means no new horse until we get some more money somehow.”
“I don’t care.” A smile lit her face. “As long as we don’t have to send Amber to the sale barn.”
“Fine. Now, finish your chores, then do your homework.” He picked up the milk glass and cookie plate that sat empty in front of Macy. “I’ll get your dishes this time.” He gave her a wink.
Macy slid her chair back, stood and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I love you, Daddy.” Then she raced out the door.
“I love you, too, baby.” Wade spoke softly, the words echoing in the empty kitchen.
He moved to the sink, rinsed the dishes and stuffed them into the already overcrowded dishwasher. Absentmindedly, he added detergent and flipped the switch. The machine whirred to a start, quickly filling the kitchen with the scent of hot water and lemon.
Wade opened the fridge and took out a package of hamburger, ground from their own beef on the Circle D. How on earth was he supposed to make ends meet with what the ranch was bringing in? Yet if he sold the cows and got out, they’d no longer have the luxury of eating as many steaks a week as they wanted. He’d seen the price of beef in town, and it angered him beyond words that the rancher and the farmer weren’t the ones making money off the meat and produce sold in the supermarket. The middleman was, and without the homegrown beef to supplement their food supply, they’d be hard-pressed to eat well.
Wade shaped the burger into patties while his mind raced.
Still, his leather business was gradually picking up, and he did have the new Web site nearly up and running. Cowboy Up could turn out to be a bigger hit than he’d imagined. There was a lot to be said for the World Wide Web, and working in the house rather than out in the barn or elsewhere on the ranch would give him a lot more time to spend with Jason and Macy.
Yet he still couldn’t decide whether to sell the cattle. Maybe he’d just sell part of the herd. Maybe Tess Vega could start up a cow sanctuary, he thought dryly.
The screen door banged open, then shut, interrupting his thoughts as Jason flew into the kitchen like a tornado on the heels of a hurricane. “Hey, Dad! When’s supper? I’m starvin’.” Lanky for his age, Jason was always hungry, and seemed to outgrow his jeans as fast as Wade could buy them. The boy moved to the sink to wash his sun-browned hands using the dishwashing soap, then hastily wiped them on a paper towel.
“Son, don’t waste the paper towels like that.” Wade tossed him the dish towel and Jason gave his hands another swipe. “Dinner will be ready shortly. Why don’t you help me out…peel a few potatoes.”
“All right.” Jason moved to the potato bin, his light-brown hair peeking out from beneath his ball cap.
“Take your hat off.”
Whistling, Jason flipped it at the rack by the back door, missed and scooped it up, then aimed once more. This time the John Deere cap found its mark. Jason grinned at him, then pointed. “What’s that on your head, Dad?”
“What?” Wade reached up to touch his head, and his hand bumped against the brim of his worn, gray Resistol. It was such a part of him he hadn’t even realized he still had it on. He laughed, then hung it on the peg next to Jason’s cap. “Silly of me, huh?”
“Hey, Dad,” Jason said, sitting at the table and running the peeler over a large russet potato. “Did you know that Tess from the feed store moved into Trent Murdock’s place?”
“I heard,” Wade said dryly. “Your sister was up there this afternoon.”
“Wondered where she’d gone off to,” Jason said. “She was supposed to help me with the bucket calves.” Every spring they ended up with a few calves that needed supplemental feeding for one reason or another. A bucket with rubber nipples attached inside served as a surrogate mother.
“I know. I lined her out.” Wade grinned and Jason grinned back. They both realized his idea of firm discipline was little more than a lecture. Most often, he found reasoning with his kids worked just fine, but today there’d been no reasoning with Macy.
His thoughts turned again to Tess. He’d seen her on numerous occasions at the feed store, but he’d never really noticed until today that she was a good-looking woman. At least, she could be, if she’d learn how to wear something other than bib overalls, and if she’d take her flame-red hair out of those silly braids.
Braids like a kid. Hell, she wasn’t much more than a kid. Probably about twenty-four, he thought. Or maybe twenty-five. He wasn’t sure. These days anyone under thirty seemed young to him.
At thirty-three, Wade already felt every one of his years in the aches in his joints and muscles when he lay in bed at night after a hard day putting up fence or pulling calves during calving season or whatever else was required to keep the Circle D running. His days of affording hired help were long past, and trying to keep things up with only Macy and Jason to pitch in had been hell lately.
Deidra had been his right arm as well as his best friend. A strong, hard worker and practical to the bone. Nothing like Tess, with her batty ideas about rescuing old horses.
Horse sanctuary.
“Dad?” Jason waved a hand in front of his face.
Wade blinked. “What?”
“Did Tess work her charms on you, too?” Jason teased.
“Hardly.” Then he frowned. “What do you mean ‘too’?”
“Nothing.” Jason chuckled. “She’s hot, ain’t she?”
Wade knuckled his son’s hair. “You’re not supposed to be noticing things like that yet.”
“Dad! I’m almost thirteen.” He said it as though the age equaled manhood.
Wade grinned. “Yeah, I guess you are. And I guess she is. Hot, that is,” he added. “But she’s sure irritating.”
“Yep.” Jason nodded as though he held the wisdom of the world in his mind. “Women usually are.”
CHAPTER TWO
TESS SHUT the refrigerator door a little too hard, and the magnetic calendar that didn’t seem to stick right anymore slid off and plopped on the floor. She picked it up and noticed her upcoming birthday marked with pink Hi-Liter—Macy’s doing. Six more days and she’d turn twenty-seven. Twenty-seven and still married to her job.
She shrugged off the thought. Only her run-in with Wade was making her think that way. Any other time, she knew she was better off sharing her home with no one but her animals. Heck, she had all the kids she needed in her 4-H group. And Lord knows she’d had enough of being a family caregiver to last a lifetime. Not that she would ever begrudge the time she’d devoted to her mother. Instead, she treasured it.
Raelene Vega had developed familial Alzheimer’s disease—FAD, a rare form of Alzheimer’s—at the age of forty-one. As the years passed, she’d required Tess’s ever-increasing care. It wasn’t her fault, no more than Tess’s dad and two older brothers were to blame for being men—which translated to helpless half the time.
Tess had been the primary caregiver, maker of meals and soother of colds, flu and broken hearts since the age of sixteen. Her father had insisted that Raelene, the woman he’d thought would be his life’s partner, stay at home for as long as possible. With the progress of time came progress of the disease. Tess had quickly grown to hate FAD. Not for what it put her through, but for what her mother suffered.
Once a vibrant, intelligent woman who took pride in the three kids she’d chosen to adopt, she’d taught them how to ride a horse, how to build a barn and what to do when a member of the opposite sex called for the first time on the phone. But in the grip of Alzheimer’s, Rae’s mind had quickly deteriorated. Her condition had worsened to the point that although Lloyd Vega and all three of his children visited Rae regularly at the County Care Facility, she rarely knew who they were anymore.
Tess tried not to think about that part.
And she tried not to be selfish and thank God that, even though she felt like Rae’s flesh and blood, she wasn’t. Tess’s birth mother had abandoned her and her brothers when they were small, fading from their lives without so much as a second thought. Raelene had married Lloyd a short time later, and adopted Tess and the boys. FAD ran in generations, and if Tess, Zach and Seth had been Rae’s biological children, they would have had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting the disease.
Angry at herself not for the first time for letting such a thought come to mind, Tess slapped the calendar back up on the fridge, opened the door and peered inside. An assortment of fresh vegetables and cheese greeted her, and her stomach growled. She’d given up meat ten years ago, when her love for animals dictated she do the right thing. Reaching into the fridge, she chose a cluster of fresh broccoli and a chunk of Monterey Jack, both of which would go nicely with the ziti she’d purchased yesterday. She’d also treat herself to a good, ice-cold beer. Tess rarely drank the stuff, but the day she’d had today warranted one.
First there’d been the call she’d gotten at work…a summons to a boarding stable located ten miles from town. The caller had been a concerned neighbor, and the tale she’d told had been familiar. One that never failed to twist Tess’s stomach into a knot. An abandoned horse, neglected because the owner no longer cared and had found better things to spend money on.
Tess had driven out immediately, to find a bone-thin gray mare standing in a stall full of manure. Mane and tail matted, hooves curled like elf shoes, she had a dull expression in her eyes that said she’d given up hope. Crud caked her once-pretty dappled coat, and flies buzzed around the stall in excess. The entire barnyard looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in a millenium.
Furious beyond words, Tess had offered the idiot stable owner, who now “took care” of the abandoned mare, fifty dollars for the animal, knowing he’d ask for more. He hadn’t disappointed her. Two hundred dollars later, she’d left with the gray safely stowed in the two-horse trailer behind her Dodge Ram. The poor creature had loaded without much fuss, especially once she laid eyes on the flake of grass hay waiting for her in the trailer’s manger.
