Cowboy Crazy

by Joanne Kennedy

  “Because you need to go back to the diner and try again. You should have stuck it out, Sarah. These people won’t respect you if you run away. You’ll never get them to accept the Carrigan project that way.”

  She shrugged and stood up, still gazing around the room in search of her watch. “I’ll never get them to accept it anyway.”

  He squinted at her, trying to figure out where the spunky Sarah he knew had disappeared to. She wore an air of defeat he’d never seen before. Looking at her slumped shoulders and downcast eyes, he felt like a hard fist had grabbed his heart and squeezed it.

  “Look,” he said. “You know I don’t want the drilling here. But I hate to see you just give up like this.”

  “I didn’t give up. Not willingly. Your brother fired me.”

  “My brother…” He swallowed. Shit. Eric must have heard something somehow. It wasn’t too surprising. Once Sarah had left the diner, the conversations around the diner’s scarred tabletops focused on nothing but her and the Carrigan project—and nobody had anything very nice to say about either one. Knowing Eric, there was someone else from Carrigan keeping a finger on the pulse of the town. But man, that was quick. How had news traveled so fast? “My brother fired you? Already?”

  “Yes, already. And don’t act so surprised.”

  She walked over to the mantel, scanning its surface. That watch must be some kind of family heirloom. She was still focused on finding it, even though she’d just lost her job.

  And getting fired had to be devastating for her. He was sure she needed the money, plus she was one of those people who would answer the question “Who are you?” with her job description.

  “You won, okay?” She moved over to a cabinet in the corner and pushed a couple of candles to one side, still searching. “Game over. I’m gone. Maybe you and Trevor should have a beer or something to celebrate.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Actually, he had some idea what she was talking about—part of it, anyway. She’d caught on to the fact that relationships were about winning for him. Despite his efforts to change his thinking last night, she still thought he was tallying points with every word.

  But she only recognized it because she was like that herself. So she ought to like it, or at least find it charming and roguish. But she’d turned to face him now, and she didn’t look charmed. She looked angry. But that was a big improvement over that lost look she’d had a moment before.

  “I’m talking about your little smear campaign. I’m talking about how you got a couple flunkies from town to make anonymous phone calls about me.”

  “Smear campaign? Anonymous phone calls?” He went over her words in his mind. “Hell, Sarah, I’m not that bad.”

  “You might not have realized he’d fire me,” she conceded. “But I know it was you, Lane. Nobody else knew I was in town until this morning.”

  “Nobody knew?” He flipped through the events of the previous day in his mind. “Trevor knew. And Emmy, who cleans the house.” She looked startled for a moment and he knew she genuinely hadn’t remembered that fact. “And if Trevor knew, Gena did too, and she and Emmy both work for Suze.” He reached her in two long steps and took her wrists in his hands, turning her to face him. “Suze has been against the project from the start. Remember how she used to go on about the environment?”

  She nodded, looking doubtful.

  “And anyway, what makes you think I’d sneak around and make anonymous phone calls? You know me better than that. Don’t you?”

  She refused to meet his eyes.

  “Look, Sarah. You’re right. I don’t want the project to succeed. But I don’t want you to fail, either.” She started to tug her hands away, but he held fast. “You know there’s something between us. Something that matters a lot more than your job.”

  He shook her slightly. “We’re just alike. You’re the first woman I ever met who’s as competitive as I am, who can give me a run for my money and everything else I’ve got. I want to see where we’re headed. I think it might be a good place for both of us.” He put his hands on her shoulders and figured he was getting to her when she didn’t shrug him off. “Come on. You feel it too. You’re lying to yourself if you don’t admit we’re great together.”

  She stared down at the floor, her teeth nibbling at that lower lip until he was afraid she’d chew it off. Finally, she looked up into his face, her eyes searching his. Normally that kind of gaze from a woman made him flinch and look away, but for the first time, he wanted a woman to know exactly what he was thinking.

  ***

  Sarah pulled herself out of his arms and turned to the mantel, moving a framed photo of the two brothers with their father to one side, pretending she’d suddenly remembered the watch.

  Lane was right. The phone calls probably came from Suze. Once again, she’d assumed the worst of him. She needed to open up a little, trust people. But there was one thing she needed more than a mental makeover.

  “I can’t stay here,” she said. “I don’t have a job.”

  “Work for me. I need some help around here. You’d earn your keep.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I told you I’m afraid of horses.”

  “That’s what you told me. But I don’t believe you.” He waved toward the window. Far beyond the drive where her car was parked, she could see horses grazing in a faraway field. “And my horses aren’t scary. They’re a pretty mellow bunch, mostly rescues.”

  “Rescues? I didn’t know that. I thought you raised roping horses.”

  “I do. But it seems like every time I go to a sale I see a good horse nobody wants. Sometimes they just need to be fattened up and treated right; sometimes they just need a place to get old and die. Trust me, I’ve got some horses over there that wouldn’t scare a baby.”

  The idea of a horse rescue somehow didn’t jibe with her image of Lane. He was always about being the biggest, the best, the strongest, the bravest. She’d never seen this side of him—although come to think of it, he had taken in Willie. And he was certainly patient with her.

  It didn’t matter. She was leaving. Turning, she scanned a bookcase filled with Western history tomes and old rodeo magazines. There was no way the watch could be there, but she searched it anyway. It gave her time to think.

  The whole thing was hopeless. She needed to leave Two Shot behind—again. More thoroughly this time. Kelsey didn’t seem to want her help anymore, so it would be easy to move on.

  She’d leave Lane behind too. She stepped away from him and scanned the room, spinning in a slow circle. “I have to go. I’m going to have to leave without my watch.” She blinked back hot tears at the thought of losing Roy’s watch. It was the one part of her old life she wanted to take with her, and the one part that seemed utterly and completely lost. “Leave me a message if you find it, okay?”

  “If I find it for you, will you come see the horses?”

  Maybe he’d taken it. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t leave without it.

  “You took it, didn’t you?”

  “No. But I bet I know where it is. Check your purse.”

  “I already did.”

  “Check it again.”

  She walked over to the door where her oversized bag was slouched against her suitcase. Lifting the flap, she rummaged through its contents. Wallet, hairbrush, makeup bag…

  Watch. Damn.

  “You put it in there. You tricked me.”

  “You tricked yourself. I didn’t put it there. It’s just the only place it could be. It was logic.”

  She gave him a disbelieving stare.

  “I’m not that devious, Sarah.”

  She had to admit that was probably true. He liked to win and get what he wanted, but his methods were pretty straightforward. Strength and sex appeal, not scheming.

  “Come on.” He opened the door and gestured toward the sunbaked scenery outside. “The horses are waiting.”

  Chapter 29

  Sarah strode past Lane as he
held open the passenger door to his pickup.

  “I’ll take my own car,” she said. “That way I can just go.”

  He gave her Malibu a scornful once-over. “That car’s not made for the ranch roads. You’re going to get a flat.”

  “That’ll be my problem.” The old car was like her—tougher than it looked. Besides, she doubted the ranch roads were much worse than the lane to the Love Nest.

  She was wrong. The Malibu bottomed out twice on the rutted road. Deep truck tracks were carved into the surface, frozen, then dried to rocklike permanence. She steered to one side so at least two wheels were on a level surface, gritting her teeth as weeds scraped her door.

  There was nowhere to turn around, and stopping would bring Lane to her rescue. He’d take her to the ranch and she’d be stuck there. She didn’t want to spend any more time in the company of horses than she had to. Or in the company of Lane Carrigan.

  He turned onto a weed-choked two-track after about a quarter-mile, passing under a massive log ranch gate decorated with a set of elk horns flanked by two mule deer racks. It was atmospheric but not ostentatious, so it didn’t prepare her for the view as she steered the Malibu around a rutted bend in the road.

  The barn rose up before her, tall, ancient, and weathered. Wide, welcoming doors at the front slid open to either side, offering a glimpse of the shadowed interior. A hay door at the top framed stacks of gleaming straw.

  Generations of ranchers had embellished and added to the basic edifice. On one side, old lean-to additions tilted against its solid mass like chicks round a hen, but on the other a modern new addition stretched out, with wide windows over dutch doors that indicated nearly a dozen individual stalls. A few chickens and something that looked like a pheasant pecked in the driveway, adding a homey barnyard feel.

  Old corrals built of a haphazard assortment of poles and boards created a free-form patchwork that stretched from the barn, undulating over the hills like a roughly stitched quilt. Linked in a complex network by every imaginable type of gate, each square was polka-dotted with horses in colors ranging from black to palomino. The corrals gave way to a pasture surrounded by miles of crooked, weathered fence, with more horses scattered over the yellowing grass that stretched to the horizon.

  The place looked like a picture-book ranch—or a scene from her adolescent fantasies of some future paradise. She felt like a goose-girl again, a barnyard princess, and this was her kind of castle.

  The house, though, was less of a dream and more of a nightmare. Someone had concluded that if big was good, enormous was better. The result was a place so grandiose that it looked absurd. The high stone front was set with massive carved doors that looked large enough to admit a herd of cattle. The stone section was topped by a cathedral-style log edifice that was mostly windows. Two-story log-and-stone wings flanked the center, and a round tower rose from one side. The top story of the tower was even higher than the cathedral roof, and it had windows all around. Sarah could only imagine the view from inside.

  She heard Lane’s truck door slam behind her and the crunch of his boots on the gravel drive.

  “Grandaddy grew up poor.” He gave the house a rueful smile. “He wanted to make sure everybody knew how much money he’d made.”

  She shot him an irritated look. “You thought Trevor had to have this all to himself last night?”

  He looked away, squinting toward the corrals as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “This place must sleep about fifty,” she said.

  “There are only twelve bedrooms. Each one has a different theme, so its fun to switch around.” He shrugged. “I wanted to give him his privacy. I hadn’t warned him I was coming.”

  “You didn’t warn me either, and I had to keep a lot closer quarters with you.”

  “Yeah, that worked out pretty well.”

  “Dog.” She suppressed the urge to smile as he stepped up to the corral fence and rested his elbows on the top. Joining him, she propped one foot on the bottom rail and watched three horses sidle toward them. There was a pretty sorrel with a white blaze, a slightly bony palomino, and a roan that didn’t look to be much more than a yearling. The sorrel stretched her neck as she approached, testing the air.

  “They’re gorgeous,” she said. “Well, except for the palomino.”

  “That’s Tony,” Lane said. “He had a rough time. He’ll be a good-looking boy once he gets some food in him.”

  “Poor thing. But they’re all quarter horses, aren’t they?”

  “I’m partial to ’em.”

  She couldn’t really blame him. The horses all had strong hindquarters, broad chests, and beautiful heads, wide at the forehead and tapering to an almost delicate muzzle. Their eyes were curious and soft, and she felt an urge stirring inside her—an urge she’d managed to suppress for over a decade.

  Lane watched her stroke the sorrel’s nose, the corners of his eyes crinkling as his smile widened. “That’s Sadie,” he said. “She’s my project horse right now. Just turned three and learning fast.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Sarah murmured.

  “Want to ride her?”

  Sarah pulled her hand away and stuck it in her pocket. “Nope. I told you, I’m scared.”

  “You don’t look scared.”

  “It only happens when I try to get on.”

  It was the closest she’d come to telling anyone about what had happened, but Lane’s phone interrupted with a loud beep, startling the animals into jerking their heads back.

  “I have to take this.” He turned toward the house as he flicked the phone open. “Be right back.”

  ***

  Once they figured out she wasn’t bearing food, the horses lost interest in Sarah and went about the usual equine business of standing in the sun, rolling in the dirt, and taking turns nibbling the itchy spots on each others’ withers. She watched them a while, then moved past a couple of empty corrals toward the back of the barn. The sun felt good on the back of her neck, and the scent of green grass, hay, horse manure, and that indefinable mix of sage, dirt, and pine that defined Wyoming brought back memories of her childhood. Some of the horses reminded her of the ones she’d ridden in her childhood—chestnuts and bays, palominos and blacks. Even the path they were walking was familiar, a dirt trail pounded flat by the passage of boots about a foot from the fence line. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she kicked away a few loose stones and followed it for a while.

  She was so lost in her memories that she didn’t notice where she was until she thought of Lane and looked back. He was nowhere to be seen, probably because she’d turned the corner of the barn and made her way past the farthest corral to a high-fenced round pen set off by itself.

  Nostalgia squeezed and softened her heart. She’d spent some of the most meaningful hours of her life in her stepfather’s round pen. It was where you taught horses the basics—where you taught them to trust and work in partnership. Circling the walls, she reached the gate and glanced inside. There was a horse standing in the center of the pen, staring at her. She stared back, sucking in a quick, stunned breath.

  Flash.

  She’d lost her mind. Or maybe she’d really gone back in time. Because this was Coppertone Flash. Once you worked with horses long enough, they became as distinct from each other as humans. No other horse reflected sunlight with that gleaming shade of copper-penny red. No other horse had quite the same breadth between the eyes, the set of the ears, the tapered muzzle.

  This was no flashback, no fond memory. This was the past rising up like a ghost from the grave in the form of a horse, stamping one foot and blowing as if he recognized her. She put a hand to her forehead in a vain effort to combat a dizzy spell and the horse lifted his head, startled.

  “Flash,” she whispered.

  He was just as she remembered him, his coat bright, the color tarnishing gradually to black on the legs and muzzle. His dark skin deepened the shadows that defined his powerful muscles, and the copper glow gave added definition t
o a build that was already incredible. He was a big horse, probably sixteen hands, with the solid presence only quarter horses had. He swung his head toward her and she saw the long-lashed eyes considering her as they always had, making up his mind whether he’d cooperate today. Evidently he decided he would, because he turned and walked slowly toward the gate, taking his time, his black mane fluttering in the breeze.

  She couldn’t breathe. She needed to get her heartbeat under control. Horses sensed your mood, and hers was a mixture of wonder and fear that probably echoed the horse’s feelings as he paused with one hoof raised, poised to flee.

  “Flash,” she whispered. “It’s okay.” She turned her body slightly away from him and looked away, resisting the temptation to make eye contact. Stallions sometimes saw that as a challenge, and Flash had been wild and unpredictable—even ill-tempered at times. But Roy had taught her that no animal had a truly bad nature. Every quirk of character had its roots in something—a past trauma, an ache or pain.

  But they had never found the root of Flash’s problems. He’d been fast to flinch and quick to kick from the day they’d bought him. Roy had been convinced he could figure out what was bothering the horse and turn those hair-trigger reactions into something positive. But though Sarah had been able to ride the horse in several rodeos and rack up a few wins on him, Flash never really changed. No matter how they pampered him, he always seemed to be under some kind of strain, his coat shining with a little too much sweat, his muscles rippling and twitching with nerves. Once in a while he’d explode, seemingly at nothing, but Sarah had always managed to avoid the flailing hooves.

  Her stepfather hadn’t been so lucky. But despite what had happened to Roy, Sarah had never seen Flash as a killer. When he kicked, it was out of fear or pain; they just could never figure out what was scaring him or hurting him.

  Roy would have forgiven him. Roy forgave easily, totally and unreservedly. It was a quality Sarah envied and had never been able to imitate.

  “Take your time. Easy.” She was soothing herself more than the horse. He watched as she got a grip on her nerves, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth. If you thought about your breath, you centered and slowed, and a calm spirit drew horses like magic. If you were genuinely at ease, even the most frightened horse would want to trust you.