"Maybe it was someone who knows you go to the clinic every evening."
Her hand tightened on the syringe. "That's ridiculous. I know everyone in Cameron and on most of the ranches around town. No one would want to hurt me."
"You'd be surprised at what people will do," Grady answered, his voice cynical.
Becca looked at Grady, mourning the hardness in his eyes, knowing she was responsible for at least some of his bitterness. "No, I wouldn't," she said quietly. "But I've lived here for four years and I've never had any problems. I can't believe it was personal."
"And I can't believe that whoever was at the back door didn't see your truck at the front door," he retorted. "But if you're satisfied, Becca, then I'll drop it."
She wasn't satisfied and she hadn't been able to forget it, but she didn't want to reveal her fears to Grady. Without meeting his eyes, she stepped into the next stall and reached for the horse. "There's nothing to worry about," she muttered as she tapped the horse on the neck, then injected the vaccine.
Grady held the horse steady. "Fine." His hand absently caressed the horse's mane, inches from hers, and for a moment she wanted to let her hand slide under his, to feel his strength as his fingers curled around hers.
Clenching her fist around the used syringe, she backed out of the stall and dropped the used syringe into the disposal container. Without looking at Grady, she pulled the list of horses out of her pocket and studied it.
"It looks as though they're all vaccinated," she finally said. As she looked up at Grady, she couldn't squash the flutter of disappointment. There was no excuse to stay any longer. She only wanted to stay for Cassie's sake, she reminded herself firmly. To get to know Grady again. But a part of her knew better. A part of her knew she wanted to stay for herself, and that part was appalled.
"Not quite." Grady eased the stall door shut and nodded his head toward the far end of the stable. "I have a few of my own horses here. You don't have records for them, but they'll need vaccines in a few weeks. You might as well take care of it while you're here."
"Do you have records? Do you know what they need?"
He nodded. "I got copies from their last vet. Hold on and I'll get them."
Grady hurried out of the barn, and Becca wandered down to the other end of the barn. There were three horses in roomy box stalls, and she recognized one almost immediately. It was Duke, Grady's horse from his rodeo days. Duke and Grady Farrell had been on the cover of virtually every rodeo publication several years ago. They had been world-champion calf ropers, their skill almost unprecedented. The fact that Grady had also been a champion bull rider had made him a myth in rodeo circles.
"Hey, Duke," she said softly, and the huge bay horse snuffled at her and wandered over. He stared dreamily at her while she rubbed his head, then nibbled delicately at the pocket of her T-shirt. She pushed his head away with a grin.
"I see that Grady has you good and spoiled. There aren't any treats in there."
Duke snorted and moved away, and Becca looked in the next stall. A compact gray quarter horse stood at the feed box, but Becca didn't recognize him. Like any horse of Grady's, though, he was in good condition and well cared for.
When she stopped in front of the last box, the largest, she saw an older horse, her back slightly swayed and her joints puffy. Becca murmured to her, and when the mare turned around, Becca stilled.
It was one of the horses from Grady's father's ranch. She knew Diane, because Grady had made the horse his special project. The two had developed a bond unlike any she'd ever seen. Diane was the horse that he had rescued from a beating when he was a teen, a rescue that had resulted in him being beaten by his father. The horse he'd been forced to leave behind when he'd left home.
As Becca stood staring at the mare, she heard Grady behind her. "She's almost twenty-three now. Most of her piss and vinegar has disappeared, but watch yourself around her. She can still nip with the best of them."
"I didn't know you had her."
Grady stepped up to the stall door, and the old mare immediately walked over to him. She dipped her head as Grady scratched her ears, and Becca felt a lump swell in her throat. The bond between Grady and Diane was as strong as ever.
"I've had her for almost eight years now. My father wanted to erase any trace of me after I left so he put her up for sale, but his foreman let me know what he was doing. My father didn't realize he was selling her to me."
"Where did you keep her while you traveled the rodeo circuit?"
"I took her with me."
Becca glanced over at him, but he was looking at the horse. "That couldn't have been easy."
He shrugged. "It was what I wanted. Diane was too cranky to get along with most other people. And I didn't want anyone else taking care of her."
"So you trailered her from show to show."
He gave Diane a final pat on the neck and moved away. "I sure as hell didn't ride her from show to show." Grady might not want to discuss Diane and his commitment to her, but Becca was moved by his obvious devotion to the horse. "That had to be expensive, Grady."
He gave her his cocky grin. "When I won, we all ate well. When I didn't, we starved together."
Becca watched Diane amble over to her feed trough and sample it. Before she could ask any more questions, Grady pulled a computer printout out of his back pocket and handed it to her. "Here are the records I got from their last vet."
She scanned the papers and saw that Grady had been right. Their vaccines were indeed due in a few weeks. She nodded at the gray horse in the middle stall. "Is that another of your roping horses?"
"That's Ron's horse," he said. "His records are there, too."
"Does Ron want me to vaccinate him, too?"
Grady looked over at her, puzzled. "Why wouldn't he?"
"Just wondered," she muttered.
She scooped up syringes and vaccines and said, "Who's first?"
"Might as well start with Diane and get it over with. She doesn't like needles," he warned.
"If I remember correctly, Diane doesn't like much of anything," Becca sighed as she stepped into the roomy stall with Grady.
The horse flattened her ears as Becca approached her, but Grady grabbed her halter and spoke to her in a soothing voice. Her ears pricked up, but she turned to look as Becca approached her left side.
Dropping the syringes and vials into the apron she wore, Becca held out her hand for Diane to inspect. The horse snuffled and bared her teeth, but Becca didn't flinch. Finally the horse gave a snort and turned back to Grady.
"Congratulations," he said, a hint of laughter in his voice. "She approves of you."
"I don't know how you can tell," she replied as she reached for the first syringe.
"She didn't bite you." This time he grinned at her, and the creases in his cheeks turned into dimples. Becca's heart sped up. "Consider that a major success."
"I can see that Diane has been a favorite of vets over the years," Becca said dryly.
Deliberately not looking at Grady and ignoring her racing heart, Becca tapped Diane's neck and injected the first vaccine. The horse threw her head back and danced sideways, but Grady calmed her with a few words. She repeated the performance for the second vaccine, and when Grady released her, she stamped her foot and moved sideways into the place Becca had been standing.
Becca was already out of the stall. "That was quite a performance for a twenty-three-year-old."
"You should have seen her back in her wild youth."
"I did see her then, and I feel sorry for old Doc Post. He must have had quite a time with her."
"It was always an adventure." Grady spoke lightly, but his hand lingered on the old mare's back. Then, with a final slap on the rump, he moved out of the stall and latched the door. "The other two will be fine."
It only took a few minutes to vaccinate the other two horses. When they were finished, Grady unhooked the lead rope from Duke's halter and waited while Becca disposed of the vaccine vials and syring
es. As they headed back toward the barn door, he ducked into the tack room to hang up the rope.
"I have to ask you something," he called from the tack room.
She walked into the dimly lit room. The one window high in the wall let in a stream of sunlight that filtered down toward the floor, and Grady hadn't turned on the bare overhead light-bulb. The room smelled of leather and horses, a pleasant, familiar scent. Grady hung the rope neatly next to several others, then turned to her.
"Can you get one of the other vets to go to the clinic at night?" he said abruptly.
"Are you still worried about the prowler? I thought we'd already discussed it."
"You said you weren't worried. I never said I was satisfied."
"There's nothing I can do about it, Grady."
"Maybe you shouldn't go to the clinic alone at night for a while."
All of her fears came rushing back to her, and she straightened her spine. "Taking care of the animals in the clinic at night is my job. I do it because I don't take emergencies. It wouldn't be fair to ask one of my partners to take that on, too."
"Then don't keep animals in the hospital overnight. If there weren't any animals there, you wouldn't have to go and check them."
"I can't do that. If an animal is sick, they have to be cared for. We don't live in a big city that has an after-hours emergency clinic. We're the only clinic for miles."
Grady leaned against the wall. "Then what are you going to do?"
"I told you, Grady, that I'm going to keep doing exactly what I am doing. Some nights there won't be any animals in the clinic, so I won't have to go. But when there's an animal recovering from surgery, or a sick animal, I'll be there."
"And everyone in Cameron knows that."
"Anyone who's had an animal in the clinic does. I don't put a sign in front of the clinic saying 'Dr. Johnson will be in the clinic every evening between nine-thirty and ten o'clock. All muggers and burglars please make a note of these hours'."
"You never used to have such a smart mouth," he said softly.
The intimate tones of his voice echoed in the quiet, dimly lit room. "I never used to be a lot of things, Grady, including your responsibility. Why are you so concerned about what happens at the clinic?"
He slowly met her eyes, and time seemed to stretch out between them like a rubber band, becoming more and more taut. "Maybe I don't like something like this happening in my town," he finally said.
He pushed away from the wall and moved closer. "Maybe I'd be just as concerned about anyone in your position. Maybe it's not personal at all."
She felt an irrational surge of disappointment. "That's very commendable, Grady," she managed to say. "I'm glad to see you're so civic-minded."
Reaching out, he skimmed one hand down her hair. He never touched her scalp, but she still tingled. "Is it so incomprehensible that I don't want you to get hurt?" he murmured.
"I don't know what you want, Grady. I'm not sure I ever did."
"I don't want this," he muttered. He cupped the back of her head and drew her slowly closer. When she could feel the heat of his body, feel the need that pulsed from him, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Heat speared through her, sizzling along her nerves and settling low in her abdomen. In spite of his words, Grady pulled her closer, molding her body to his. She reveled in the differences between them, in the hard maleness of his body. They fit together perfectly, in spite of Grady's height. They always had. As she tried to move closer, she couldn't banish the thought
Becca told herself to stop, to move away, but instead she wrapped her arms around Grady's neck. This wasn't the way to get to know Grady better. But it felt so right. It felt like she had come home. This was what she had craved for so many years; this was what she had dreamed about. One more kiss from Grady couldn't be wrong.
Grady tasted her surrender, felt her softening as she melted into him. With a groan he tightened his hold on her, then slid his hands down her back to cup her hips. He ached to touch her skin, to let his fingers slide down her spine and smooth over the soft roundness of her. When she murmured his name into his mouth, he groaned again.
Pressing her against the wall, he brought shaking hands up between them and slowly tugged her T-shirt out of the waistband of her jeans. Her hands stilled on his chest, but she didn't push him away. Instead, her lips trembled under his, then she tentatively opened her mouth to him.
Every inch of him throbbing with need, he swept his tongue into her mouth and tasted the velvet sweetness of her. When she touched her tongue to his, a spasm of need so intense it was painful swept over him. He had to touch her. Sliding under her shirt, he splayed his hands on her belly, and her skin jumped under his fingers.
He couldn't wait another moment. Moving slowly, savoring every inch of her, he cupped her breasts in his hands. They were heavier than when she was a girl, and they filled his palms. Fumbling with the catch on her bra, he finally managed to open it, and he peeled it away as the satiny weight of her breasts slid into his hands.
Grady wasn't sure if he was trembling, or if Becca was. When he touched her nipples with his thumbs, she cried out and he swallowed the sound into his mouth. He brushed his fingers over her nipples again, and another spasm rippled through her.
Lost in sensation, knowing that if he didn't regain some control over himself he was going to explode, he smoothed his hands down her sides. Her skin was every bit as satiny as he remembered. And as warm. Her skin burned under his touch, heating as he moved from her breasts to her back. He roamed over her back, letting his fingers linger on the bumps of her spine, on the slight dimple low on her back. The waistband of her jeans was too tight, so he reached around and loosened the button with fingers that fumbled. She stood very still while he slowly lowered the zipper, but she didn't move away.
Her buttocks were smooth and firm, and as he caressed her, he pressed his hips into hers. She moaned then, a small sound in the back of her throat that he drank in with his mouth. His hand drifted lower, toward her heat and the dampness he could already feel, and she swayed toward him. She wanted him, he knew, and he needed her with a ferocity and a fever that he'd never felt before. He had to have her, here and now.
When he unbuckled his belt, she reached to fumble with the button on his jeans. Her fingers brushed the rock-hard length of his erection, and he jerked uncontrollably. He wanted to feel her hands on him, feel her stroking his hardness, feel himself sinking into the hot, wet depths of her.
The button on his jeans came loose, and she slowly pulled the zipper down. It was exquisite torture, and he knew he couldn't bear it for much longer. Closing his eyes, he stood before her, trembling, as she freed him from the white briefs he wore.
When her hand closed around him, he felt his knees buckle. Throwing a blanket over the bales of hay that stood in the corner, he pressed her back onto it, then swept her jeans down her legs. He cupped her through her peach silk panties, feeling her shiver, sinking into her heat and moisture. Finding her mouth again, he tasted her longing, her need and her passion, and knew that it matched his own.
His fingers were tangled in the waistband of her delicate panties when he heard his name called, faintly and as though from far away. Becca must have heard it, too, because she froze beneath him, one leg tangled with his. They lay perfectly still, listening to the person come closer to the barn.
It was Ron Perkins, he realized, and he was heading for the horse barn. He and Becca didn't move, but he felt her heart pounding beneath his.
Ron paused at the door to the barn. "Grady?" he called, and Grady heard the puzzlement in his voice. He was supposed to be in the barn, and Becca's truck was still parked in front of the barn. He held his breath, willing his friend to go away. Willing him to disappear off the face of the earth.
After a moment that seemed like eternity, Ron's footsteps retreated and finally faded away. Grady and Becca still lay perfectly still on the bales of hay, a tableau of wanton, illicit behavior. Her shirt was pushed up
to her breasts, and her jeans were shoved down to her knees. And he was just as bad. He lay half on top of her, his jeans and briefs almost discarded.
Her eyes were closed, and her face was pale and tight. The passion that had filled it moments ago was fading, replaced by an appalled realization of what they'd almost done. Slowly he lifted himself off her, then took her hand and pulled her to her feet.
"Damn Ron Perkins to the farthest circle of hell," he said bitterly. "I'm sorry, Becca. Sorry I started this here, and sorry you were in a position to have Ron find us like this."
"We seem to be experts at bad timing, don't we?" she answered, pulling up her jeans and fastening her bra. She didn't look at him. "All the way around."
He buckled his belt and waited for her to finish pulling herself together. Her face was now flushed and her T-shirt was wrinkled, but they wouldn't be embarrassed by anyone stumbling into the tack room.
"Becca, I…"
"Please don't say you're sorry again," she interrupted. "I was as willing a participant as you were, and we both know it." She took a deep, trembling breath and looked him in the eyes. "Grady, we have to talk. Not here, but soon. There's too much between us to just fall into bed together. I don't want to have casual sex with you. I think more of myself than that, and more of you, too."
There wouldn't be anything casual about any lovemaking they did. The thought sneaked into Grady's mind, and he immediately pushed it away. That was all he wanted from Becca, wasn't it? Relief for the need that had filled him since the first time he'd seen her at his ranch. Just a scratch for the itch that had been plaguing him.
"We can talk anytime." He shrugged. "I'm perfectly willing to do a little reminiscing."
Her eyes didn't light up with fury, as he'd hoped. Instead, she watched him with an all too knowing look on her face. "What I really want is to get to know you a little better. To find out who you are now."
"That's easy, Becca. I'm a washed-up rodeo man who somehow ended up on a ranch in Utah. I never planned on being here, never planned on letting myself get tied down this way. But life doesn't always give us a choice."
RODEO MAN Page 9
