“Meaning you have to give me some hint that you’re joking.”
“Doesn’t everybody hear voices?”
She stared at him until he couldn’t hold back any longer. He laughed, and she joined in, uncertain just what was tickling her typically very well-protected funny bone.
Raven didn’t seem to find the people in the room terribly amusing, either. He was snooping around the door off the bedroom.
“That’s the bathroom,” Meredith said, settling back into herself. “There are towels on the shelf. The closet and drawers are all empty. If you need any—”
“Mind your manners in there, Raven,” Ryder told the dog, who had disappeared into the dark room.
“He can’t…” She smiled. “I mean, everything’s quite in order in there.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I’ll have a recipe for you to sample tonight if you haven’t made other plans for supper.”
“Raven and I never made a plan we couldn’t change at the drop of a hat.” He reached over to the bureau, flipped his hat over on its crown, and flashed Meredith a charming smile. “Trust me.”
Chapter 2
Ryder couldn’t remember the last time he’d caught a glimpse of himself buck naked in a full-length mirror.
Okay, not quite buck. Parts of him were wrapped as though he’d been mummified. He was still babying a cracked rib along, wearing a tight chest bandage. His bum left knee was back into the Ace knee brace, and he’d managed to get himself hooked in the shoulder by a horned Hereford, worth half a dozen stitches his last time out. He was still hurting, but he’d be good to go by the weekend.
The stock contractor for the big Target Center rodeo had offered him other options, but working the chutes or riding a pickup horse wouldn’t cover the health insurance premium he had due. He could get his stitches free from an Indian Health Service clinic, but ambulance drivers didn’t ask a guy which emergency room he preferred. He had to keep those premiums paid up.
Indian Health Service reminded him of his new landlady’s interest in his Indian heritage, whatever that meant. He took his hat off the dresser and turned it slowly, sliding the straw brim through his dark hands as he studied it in the new light the woman had shed on Old Man Turtle. His old friend might be more than decoration. He might connect him up with somebody, somewhere, some time. The thought that he might be wearing something like that on his head kinda gave him the creeps, but it sure excited the hell out of the lady downstairs.
She’d invited him to call her Meredith.
Well… Meredith.
Was she called something else? Something like Merry? She didn’t seem real merry. She had a natural elegance about her, soft beauty burnished by the good life she had clearly made for herself and her family. He took her for a private woman, but not the kind who ought to be left completely alone. She needed a little companionship. Kenny should have left the dog, he thought. He had the boy, and they could always get another dog. But Meredith couldn’t, not right away. She was that kind of woman. Rather than replace what was missing, she would simply go on without it.
He glanced from the hat to the mirror, then up, up some more until he caught the reflection of his chagrin in his eyes. He quickly lowered the hat a few notches. He was a modest man, after all. Didn’t much like being pointed at, even by his own personal member, which gloried in such rudeness. It struck him as more than a little disrespectful to be standing there naked and thinking about a lady he’d just met.
And in front of a head-to-toe mirror to boot.
He had to laugh as he headed into the bathroom for a shower, which would start out with cold water.
He was fully lathered and enjoying the switch from cold to hot when he heard Raven’s soft whine. “Sorry,” he called out. “This shower’s too small for two.”
More whining.
“Hell, you’ll be shaking all over the place, and we’ll be in trouble right off the bat.”
Above the whining and the running water, he thought he heard something else. He opened the glass door and stuck his head out. Someone was tapping insistently, knocking, finally pounding on the bedroom door.
“Mr. Red Hawk! Ryder! Turn the shower off!”
He did. It sounded like an emergency, so he pulled his jeans over his wet butt, grabbed a towel, and skidded across the wood floor on wet heels until he hit the scatter rug. He jerked the door open.
She didn’t look hurt, and she sure wasn’t merry.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have a flood in the kitchen,” she complained, sidling into the room past him. “I forgot about the shower. I should have gotten that fixed, but it wasn’t being used, so the problem—” she peeked into the bathroom, undoubtedly expecting to see a man’s mess “—sort of went away.”
He thought he detected a gleam of new respect in her eyes when she turned to him with an apologetic smile.
“I forgot to warn you. I’m sorry to interrupt, but the water leaks through the kitchen ceiling for some reason.” She sighed, maybe with a touch of personal regret for what she was about to say. “This is a mistake. I have no business offering you a room without a fully functional private bathroom.”
“You didn’t exactly offer, and you weren’t expecting to be in the business.” He hung the towel around his neck and buttoned the jeans he’d hurriedly zipped. “How bad is the flood?”
“Well, that’s not really the problem. The problem is that there’s only one other bathroom, which we’d have to share.”
“Just you and me?” He conjured an image that made him merry.
“That just doesn’t seem wise.”
“I agree. We’d get in each other’s way.” He rewarded her admonishing glance with a wink and a smile. “How about if we take turns?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant that—”
“I don’t mind going first or last, either way. Just be sure you pick up your underwear. If you leave underwear on the floor, I can’t be held responsible.”
Again she took his bait. “For what?”
“For their whereabouts.”
“What about your underwear? I’ve never met a man who didn’t leave his clothes all over the floor.”
“Sounds like you’ve only known the kind of man who keeps more clothes around than he needs. That wouldn’t be me.”
“I just meant that…” Flapping her arms, slapping her hands to her sides, she was floundering now, but he wasn’t going to regret baiting a woman who was in such desperate need of a little sport. “I mean, if we each had our own space, that would be one thing, but I forgot all about the leaky shower.”
“The sink works?” he asked.
She nodded.
“The john?”
Another affirmative.
“Two out of three ain’t half bad. The important thing is that I won’t be finding the damn toilet seat down all the time.”
Her face brightened beautifully, and she permitted herself a good belly laugh. “I guess we can make do for a week,” she said amid her fading chuckles.
“I’ll have it fixed long before the week is over.”
“I’ll call a plumber,” she promised, waving his offer away. “I should have done it long ago.”
“It’s not a plumbing problem. There’s a hole somewhere. Leave it to me to find it and fix it. You’ve got a cowboy on the place now, which means you’ve got a carpenter, electrician, plumber, animal specialist—generally a caretaker for anything that needs taking care of.”
“I don’t mean to take advantage of…”
“I’m not a guest.” He took an end of the towel in each hand and pulled the terrycloth tight against the anchor of his neck, challenging her with stance and stare. “You know how many times you’ve said you didn’t mean to in the last five minutes?”
She gave a flimsy little shrug. “It’s just a little awkward.”
“What? You barging in when I’m takin’ a shower?”
“Well, yes, but…”
/>
“Truth is, you didn’t mean to let me in your house in the first place. You think I don’t know that?”
“Not at first, but…”
He shifted his weight from one bare foot to the other. “But I’m here now, and so far, nothin’ bad’s happened.”
She lifted her brow, allowing, “Except that my kitchen’s flooded, but that’s my own fault.”
“It’s the fault of that hole in your wall, which I’m gonna fix. But do me one favor.”
She tipped her head, ready and waiting.
“Just say what you mean, straight out. I’m pretty thick-skinned. Comes the time you say something nice to me, I don’t wanna be wondering what you really mean.”
“You think that time will come within a week?”
“I know it will.”
He finished cleaning up, put his purely practical wardrobe and other personal items away—filling a single drawer, a shelf and a foot of closet space—and stood on the landing for a moment with Raven, both of them trying to determine the next move. They heard a few kitchen noises—drawers, cupboards doors, clanging metal, running water. He’d spent his adult life staying out of kitchens, partly because his foster mother had assigned him the disgraceful role of kitchen boy, but mainly because cowboys didn’t cook. They did almost every other job on the place, but no cooking.
But the kitchen noises suddenly appealed to him, and he figured she had the water cleaned up by now. He wanted to catch her in her element, doing what she liked to do. Nobody liked scrubbing floors.
A black-and-white cat crossed the path at the foot of the stairs, and Raven set out to investigate. Ryder followed, but they parted ways at the bottom of the stairs, following their noses in different directions.
Ryder had no idea what kind of food he smelled, but it had some fruit in it. It wasn’t apple; he’d recognize apple. Berries, maybe. Maybe she was making a pie. Whatever it was, he hoped he’d be offered a sample soon. His empty stomach was rumbling. His nose drew him through a cozy living room that felt feminine and a little old-fashioned. He was looking for a granny-style kitchen.
He found a huge, bright, contemporary space, outfitted on the high end for serious cooking. The sleek stainless steel, glass and granite surely added up to a cook’s version of a racecar driver’s Lamborghini or a jockey’s Thoroughbred. The sweet scent of the steam rising from a pot on the stove beckoned him, but the wet gleam on the blue tile floor warned him to walk with care.
Meredith glanced up from the chicken she was dismembering on a butcher block.
“Is it okay if I watch?” Ryder asked.
“No, but if you know how to use a peeler, you can take a peek between carrots.”
He saw only two carrots, but they were long and fat. “Do you have a small knife? I’m hell on horseback with a knife.”
“Do I have a knife?” Using the blade in her hand as a pointer, she drew his attention to three chunky blocks of wood housing at least two dozen matching black handles. “I happen to have a knife for every purpose under heaven.”
He chose his weapon.
“That’s my favorite paring knife,” she warned.
“It’s in good hands,” he promised. He hadn’t scraped a carrot in years, never voluntarily. Given a choice, he’d hawk outgrown kids’ clothes and forgotten toys all day long before he’d spend an hour doing kitchen chores.
Damn. Had it been that long since he’d actually been part of a household?
“You’ve got quite a fancy kitchen here,” he observed, taking the first carrot in hand. They stood side by side, marooned together on a kitchen island in the middle of wet blue tile. Side by side was nice, but he could stand the marooned part for about a day and a night. “How much time do you spend in it?”
“I don’t count the hours, but lately it’s most of my day. Most days. Lately.” Clearly, she didn’t mind. Her smile was shaped by a measure of self-esteem along with a dollop of satisfaction. “I’m one of the lucky people who gets to do what she loves in the place she loves most. Of course, I do a lot of my work on the computer.”
“That one?” He’d noticed the desk among the other built-in centers, each with its purpose and place in her self-contained world.
She nodded. “Besides my cookbooks, I contribute to the newspaper and several magazines. In fact, that’s how I got started.” She slid a couple of handfuls of round, red, new potatoes his way. “No peeling. Just one more wash.”
“Who’s going to eat all this?”
She had a sweet, tinkling laugh that tickled his ears.
“This recipe serves four to six people. I’ve never cooked for a cowboy, but I’ve heard that they have hollow legs.”
“Who told you that?” He slid her his never-fail grin. “How long has it been since the subject of cowboys came up in your conversation?”
“I’ve heard that their legs are bowed because they’re hollow.” Her eyes did his grin one better, dragging the itch he’d meant for her down the length of his own body, as though she was sizing him up for her next recipe.
He shifted his legs and sucked his belly in. He was on the sinewy side, but figured he had enough meat on him to suit her needs.
“My guess is it was about thirty years ago, and you were writing fan letters to some TV cowboy.”
“They say those hollow legs straighten out after a big meal.”
“You were telling him you liked the way he filled out his jeans.”
“And they walk like this.” Stiff-legged, she toddled side to side in place. Charlie Chaplin carrying a raw drumstick and a boning knife.
He surrendered to a fit of laughter.
“How did you get started?” she asked. Then she added, “Being a cowboy.”
“I saw a notice tacked to the wall at a livestock auction house back in South Dakota,” he began as he weighed a trio of potatoes in a cupped hand. “Ranch Hands Wanted in Montana. I saw a chance to get out on my own, and I jumped on it. Jumped on a semi headed in the general direction of Montana. Figured all I had to do was get there and convince Montana that I was a ranch hand. Shouldn’t be too hard, I thought. Next to somebody from Montana, I should look pretty smart. Trouble was, I forgot to take the damn poster with me.” Smiling to himself, he had the potatoes circling each other as he flexed his palm. “Montana’s a big state.”
“How old were you?”
“Eighteen was what I was claimin’. I think I was closer to sixteen. I ended up at another sale barn, lookin’ for another poster. Met up with a rodeo livestock contractor. He gave me a job. Didn’t take him long to figure out my only experience with livestock was in my dreams, but he kept me on anyway. He said my tall tales were a great source of amusement, which is something that’s hard to come by in Montana.”
“You don’t seem to have much affection for Montana.”
“It’s a beautiful place. So much natural beauty there you can hardly stand it sometimes.” He slipped her a quick smile. “It looks especially beautiful in the rearview mirror of a pickup with a full tank of gas.”
“I take it you didn’t stay long.”
“As long as it took me to earn enough money to buy that pickup.” He popped a potato up in the air and caught it just as he popped up another one, showing off one of his real talents. “Which was about ten years.”
“The stock contractor didn’t pay very well,” she surmised.
“He paid a fair wage for on-the-job training. I’d spend it all on a weekend. The rest of the month I was workin’ for bed and board. That’s part of the training—how to keep your pay from burning a hole in your pocket. I started ridin’ rough stock as an amateur, started earning a few extra dollars to put toward that pickup. I wrecked the first one, so I had to start over.”
“No insurance?”
“Oh, I got it now. Like I said, Montana’s a big state. You can do a lot of drivin’ before anybody comes along to remind you of details like insurance. Or a driver’s license. They do get fussy about renewing your plates. They’re
damn proud of those plates.”
“But you’d need your own wheels to go from one rodeo to the next.”
“Cowboys are pretty generous with their transportation. If a guy needs a ride, they’ll find room.” He’d drawn nary ooh nor ahh from her with his juggling, so he thought he’d try a joke. “Three guys in a pickup, which one’s the real cowboy? The driver, the one in the passenger’s seat or the guy in the middle?”
“The driver?”
He shook his head. “Too much work. The driver has to drive. The guy next to the passenger door has to open and close the gates. The guy in the middle is the real cowboy. All he has to do is ride.”
“So, he’s lazy?”
“All he needs to do is ride.” He gave a don’tyou-get-it double take. “He’s ready to do whatever needs doing, but right now, he’s got his driver and his gate man. He’s set to ride.”
“But seriously folks…” she quipped with a look that said she was coming back at him. “Isn’t bull riding a sport for the younger man?”
“Younger than who? Younger than me? They don’t get much younger than me.” He postured, every bit the spreading peacock. “Go on. Take a guess. See what you can tell about this book from its cover.”
“Guessing someone’s age is just so rude.” She gave him a decidedly less appreciative once-over this time. “At least forty.”
“Am I that tattered?”
“Let’s just say you look old enough to have better sense than to try to ride a bull.”
“I am, and I do. You got my number dead-on. I just turned forty.” He braced one arm on the counter and hooked the other at his hip. “You’re pretty good at this game. What else can you tell from my cover?”
“Nothing, really.” Turning her attention to the arranging of chicken parts, she added off-handedly, “Obviously, you’ve spent a lot of time outdoors.”
“I already told you that.”
“Even if you hadn’t, it’s something I could tell from your cover.”
“Leather-bound, am I? That oughta tell you something about what’s inside. Maybe I’m a classic.”
She eyed him critically. “I’d need more evidence before I could make that assumption.”
Lakota Legacy: Wolf DreamerCowboy Days and Indian NightsSeven Days Page 10
