All for a Cowboy

by Jeannie Watt

  They stood on the path directly between the house and the barn—exactly where he wanted to be since he’d yet to work the dun—but there was no way he was running that gauntlet. Not after suffering a sleepless night and then discovering that he had no drugs to get him through the night ahead of him. For one thing, he didn’t know if he could hold his temper, since everything in him wanted to order the two women off his place and tell them not to come back, and for another, he’d had enough stares and double takes for one day.

  He’d trained himself months ago to ignore the looks, although there were times he would have loved to have been his former self—a guy who could walk into a pharmacy and not get startled looks—but today the stares and sidelong looks had become irritating. He was not subjecting himself to more. So instead he stood at the window and watched as Shae gestured and the other woman nodded, hating them both for what they planned to do to his ranch. All he wanted was peace and quiet, to train horses and come to grips with his life as it now was.

  What did he get instead? Shae McArthur doing Miranda’s dirty work. And once she was done, she’d move on, leaving him with a ranch full of staring strangers. He, who’d never liked being the center of attention, would be living in a veritable circus ring if she and Miranda got their way.

  Jordan turned away from the window as the two women started walking toward the red pickup, and rubbed his hand over the scarred flesh at the back of his neck, every nerve in his body feeling as if it were close to exploding.

  She hasn’t won yet.

  He closed his eyes, steadied his breathing. Or tried to, anyway. He was so damned close to losing it.

  Too close.

  Catch a horse. Go to work. Forget that bitch Miranda and what she’s trying to do to you.

  It was the only thing he could do. Jordan opened his eyes, and with a quick intake of breath headed for the front door.

  * * *

  SHAE WENT BACK to the barn after Devon drove away. She still had time to put in a couple hours on the trails before driving back to Missoula. She’d be dealing with her parents later today, and much as she loved them, she was feeling guilty about the amount of money she’d allowed them spend on the wedding. Money she’d convinced herself they’d wanted to spend, until she’d spoken to Brant. They had wanted to spend it, but she shouldn’t have taken so much.

  The barn door wasn’t latched, and as Shae pulled it open, she realized that Jordan was inside, gathering his gear to work one of the horses. He shot her a sideways look when she walked inside, then went back to coiling the rope he held, every line of his body radiating tension.

  “Are you all right?” Shae asked, eyeing the jerky movements of his hands.

  He didn’t answer, but she could see the muscles tighten in his jaw, as if he was holding back the words he wanted to say.

  “I was just asking,” she said as she reached for Belinda’s halter.

  “Don’t,” he snapped.

  Shae propped a hand on her hip, telling herself to let it go.

  She was so bad at letting things go.

  “I get that you don’t want me here, because you don’t want the place to become a guest ranch, but this feels personal,” she pointed out. “What is it about me that you find so heinous? It can’t all stem from our past, which was pretty damned sketchy at best. So what is it? Do I remind you of someone you hate?” One corner of her mouth quirked up. “Like, say, Miranda?” She could see from his face that she’d gotten it in one. “I’m not Miranda, you know. I just work for her.”

  “Well aware,” he said stonily, but still, she wondered. He turned his back, effectively shutting her out, which was his right, but it pissed her off.

  “You’ve got issues, Jordan.”

  He rounded on her, his expression fierce. “No shit. Did you come up with that all by yourself? Yes. I have issues. Big ones. And now you’re here adding to them.” He advanced a couple steps. “You asked why I came back? I don’t know. But it had to do with survival. I was dying back there in Virginia. I had to get out. Get back home where I could—” He stopped abruptly, as if suddenly realizing what he was saying, and to whom.

  “I—”

  “Don’t,” Jordan said roughly, cutting her off. He gathered up the halter and whip and strode out of the barn, leaving Shae staring at the weathered wooden door as it slammed shut.

  She’d planned for a lot of eventualities when they had their next confrontation. She hadn’t planned on this.

  * * *

  JORDAN STALKED OFF, pissed beyond measure. He was so frigging stupid, pouring his gut out to Shae McArthur. Now Miranda would really have something to work with.

  He left the horse in the field and walked into the round pen, heading to the far side, out of view of the barn where Shae was now saddling her horse. His breathing was shallow, uneven. What was happening to him? Yeah, the nightmares always left him shaken and irritable the next day, and not getting the prescription as planned had thrown him, but he’d never blown like this.

  He leaned back against the lodge poles, folded his arms over his midsection, the good one over the bad, tilting his head down to study the ground. He never used to lose it. He’d always held things inside. It’d worked for him. Even the deal with Miranda he’d kept to himself. The only time he’d let go had been during therapy, because he’d come to understand that the therapist had been telling the truth when he’d said some things didn’t go away on their own. The guy’d been right. And after the group therapy had helped a little, he’d gone into special therapy involving eye movements and reliving the trauma. Shortly thereafter he’d weaned himself off the prazosin and discovered that the nightmares had stopped.

  Not keeping it in had worked right up until a few months ago, when everything had gone to hell again. No dreams—not until he’d hit the road back to Montana—but an overwhelming feeling of being trapped, yet not belonging anywhere. Of not being able to hang onto anything. Of emptiness. And he’d hated his useless job, sitting behind a desk, doing things a chimp could do. A made-up job for a guy who wasn’t quite whole. He’d come to resent it with everything in his being and that had exacerbated the emptiness.

  Well, he didn’t feel empty anymore, and maybe in a sick way he had his former stepmother to thank for that. Miranda had given him something to live for. His mouth twisted ironically as he felt the stubs of his left hand digging into his right upper arm.

  So was it better to feel hate than emptiness?

  He’d have to say yes to that. At least he felt somewhat alive now.

  * * *

  AFTER HER TRAIL RIDE, Shae drove to Missoula and spent the rest of the day in her apartment, far away from Jordan but still unable to concentrate. That damned conversation kept playing in her head, drawing her off task. She could understand him transferring his resentment of Miranda to her and had already figured something like that was behind the personal nature of his attacks. But that wasn’t the part she was having trouble with. It was what had followed. His words about why he’d come back.

  It had to do with survival. I was dying back there in Virginia. I had to get out...

  Unguarded, pain-filled words, soon regretted.

  And not even close to the picture Miranda was painting of a vengeful stepson coming back to harass her. Shae couldn’t shake that thought. Something was off.

  Don’t get involved. Make your plan, gather your estimates.

  Make a plan. So much easier said than done when her mind was elsewhere—which was what had gotten her in trouble with Miranda in the first place. Shae spent the rest of the day online researching tents, just in case she found that she wasn’t able to use the existing buildings to the extent she wanted. She looked at wall tents, cook tents, shower tents. Tents with wooden floors and half walls. All very expensive and not at all unique. And the entire time she was researching, she dealt with t
he two conflicting trains of thought. One was that she wanted this project on her résumé, wanted to slip back into her old job and not worry about bills or fending off her parents’ rescue attempts. She wanted to pay back her parents and maybe prove to them—and Brant, and herself—that she’d progressed past the spoiled-princess phase of life.

  The other train of thought was that she wanted to know more about what was going on in Jordan Bryan’s life...and why he and Miranda had it in for each other. As Miranda’s employee, she had no business looking into such matters, but after Jordan’s explosive words that day, she felt as if she had to know more before continuing with the project.

  Shae printed the last of several tent price sheets and set it on top of the stack, then leaned her elbows on the table and stared blindly at the computer screen until it clicked into power-save mode. How was she to proceed?

  * * *

  JORDAN WAS IN the round pen working the five-year-old mare when Shae drove in. The horse had for all intents and purposes been ruined and it was his job to undo the damage Claiborne’s son’s girlfriend had done. A little knowledge was indeed a dangerous thing. Pal, as Jordan had started to call the palomino, was headstrong and had learned that by pushing hard enough, she could get her way. Kind of like Shae, who thankfully had spent the night in town and therefore didn’t hear him when he woke up shouting.

  Jordan stopped the mare and attempted to mount. Although she was saddle-broke, it had taken most of the session for Jordan to mount the animal without her walking away the second his foot left the ground. By the time the session was over, he was exhausted from stepping back onto the ground and sending the horse around the round pen at a canter, then stopping her and attempting to mount again. After half an hour, she had begun to take him seriously, but even then her attitude was less than respectful.

  Jordan eventually quit a winner and was on his way to the house when he noticed that the porch light was on. Shae must have taken his suggestion and paid the electrical deposit. He had not intended for her to do that. In fact, he’d intended to keep the electricity off for as long as possible.

  So much for that inconvenience.

  He’d heard banging noises in the bunkhouse when he’d gone by, but hadn’t bothered to look in and see what she was up to. Because he was tired? Or because he was still self-conscious about their last encounter?

  Or was she wearing him down? Was he ready to accept the inevitable?

  No. He walked into the house, blocking the pig, who’d finally figured out the stairs, with his leg so that Clyde could slip inside, then snapped off the porch light. It occurred to him that he could probably check out the indoor plumbing in the house now that the pump had juice, but he decided a cold swim was a better idea. Nothing like dunking under frigid water to knock aside all thoughts of a frustrating, long-legged intruder to whom he’d said too much.

  * * *

  JORDAN’S TRIP TO town that afternoon went without incident. He picked up the prescription and a few plumbing parts to fix the valve in the toilet he didn’t know leaked until Shae had turned on the power. Did he feel bad about having a real bathroom while she still had to make do with the outhouse? No.

  He got home in plenty of time to put his hours in on the palomino. Patience was the name of the game and Jordan had learned some hard lessons about patience in the hospital, which helped as he wondered just how many times he was going to have to go over the same lesson with the mare. Or if it was even worth it. But whether he thought the horse was worth a rat’s ass was beside the point—he was being paid to do a job. He’d be honest with Claiborne about the horse’s potential—that she couldn’t be trusted and he’d think twice about using her as a broodmare—but he was going to damned well do the best he could during his sixty-day stint.

  The one positive was his sense of satisfaction after each training session—a feeling he’d never gotten with the government job. He was putting his talents to work, accomplishing something and while he was training he almost felt a sense of peace. The instant he left the round pen and saw Shae, or evidence that she was there, working to change his place, the stress came barreling back.

  After twenty minutes of ground work, Jordan mounted and started the tedious process of asking the stubborn horse to give her head, putting pressure on one rein until she moved her nose in the right direction, then letting up. And invariably, the palomino would try to take control, jab her nose up into the air and lean away from the pressure, losing her balance and stepping sideways to catch herself. And then Jordan would start again. A little pressure followed by a release.

  Finally the palomino gave in both directions and Jordan was about to dismount when the horse exploded. The next thing Jordan knew, he was on the ground, lying in the mud created by the previous night’s rain, covering his head as hooves flew by. He scrambled to his feet once he was clear of the horse, then picked up his carrot stick and started the horse moving, ignoring the mud and dirt that covered his side and back. He kept the horse moving until they were both exhausted—him mentally, the horse physically—then he got back on, his heart hammering. He didn’t want to take another fall, didn’t know how his recently healed bones would take it. But he had to follow through. The palomino tightened her muscles, then when Jordan relaxed, she relaxed. Slowly Jordan put pressure on the reins and slowly the mare responded. First right, then left.

  Good enough. Jordan dismounted and unsaddled the horse. He brushed her down and released her. He was still covered with mud. It flaked off his shirt and jeans and was caked onto his arms and face. Jordan slapped his hat on his leg, knocking the dirt off, then started for the spring-fed pasture trough, peeling off his shirt as he went. Even sore and covered with mud, he felt better than he had sitting behind his desk in Virginia.

  * * *

  SHAE HADN’T MEANT TO SPY. She’d heard the commotion in the corrals and Clyde’s distressed yaps on the way back from the meadows, but by the time she’d gotten to a vantage point, Jordan was on his feet, covered with dirt and once again working the horse.

  He’d obviously just been dumped and Shae was certain he planned to get on the horse again before the session was over, so she settled herself in the tall grass, out of sight unless he happened to be looking for her, and waited until he finished. Yes, she could have gone to the corral to see if he was all right, but he obviously was, and she didn’t want to embarrass him—which was strange, because she’d never before thought much about embarrassing people. Maybe because until recently she’d never been easily embarrassed herself—right up until her near-miss wedding. That was when the concept of deep embarrassment had become very, very real.

  Finally, Jordan released the horse and Shae shifted position, intent on slipping away unseen once his back was turned, but she froze when he turned and began to peel off his shirt as he walked to the water trough not that far away from where she was sitting.

  Oh. Man.

  She needed to turn away, sneak back out the way she’d come, but she couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away from the patchwork skin of his back. The burns spread up from his arm, red and ugly, across his back, up the side of his face, puckering and twisting the skin. He leaned over the brimming trough, cupped his hands and brought water up to scrub his face. Once, then twice. Then his arms and chest. When he was done, he dunked his head, then shook the water off his hair before reaching for the shirt he’d hung over the railing. Any moment he was going look up and spot her.

  Then what?

  She’d apologize, that’s what, but it’d be much better if he never knew she was watching, so she kept stone-still.

  A second later, he started patting his injured arm dry with the shirt, then stopped, keeping his eyes down as if listening. Shae held her breath, silently letting it back out again when he continued drying himself. He turned around and pulled his damp shirt on as Shae quietly made her way back to the trail, then disappeared towar
d the meadow.

  * * *

  ONCE SHAE HAD DISAPPEARED, Jordan leaned on the edge of the trough, head down. He hoped she’d enjoyed the show. He’d planned on grossing her out with his burns from day one, so why did he feel so damned unsettled now? As if her judgment mattered?

  How long had she been there, sitting in the tall grass, watching him?

  Why hadn’t she said something?

  Let it go.

  But he couldn’t. He hated being spied on, hated thinking that he wasn’t free to do anything on his own property without being gawked at. It’d be worse once the “guests” came. He could only imagine the spectacular hell his life would be then.

  Miranda was winning. He felt his hold on the place slipping away, so when Shae came back down the trail almost half an hour later, he was waiting for her at the corner of the barn.

  “You should have said something,” he said in a deadly voice, feeling less satisfaction than he’d expected when the skin over her cheekbones colored. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  “In the future, embarrass me, okay? I prefer it to being spied on.”

  “I stayed in case you got dumped again,” she said, tilting her chin at him in a challenging way. “And I didn’t say anything because I figured if I did say something, you’d go all macho and send me on my way, then the horse would stomp you into the ground again and no one would be the wiser, except for Clyde the Wonder Dog.”

  Shae pushed past him then, but Jordan reached out and took hold of her shoulder, stopping her. Her gaze jerked down to where he was touching her and Jordan instantly released his grip. “Did you think it was my bad hand?” he asked.

  “I was thinking you had no right to touch me, period.”

  Jordan felt his expression shift from self-righteous to chagrined as her words sank in and then he stepped back, shaking his head. “You’re right,” he said, shoving his good hand in his back pocket. “You’re right.”