by Sylvie Kurtz
To the rhythm of the relentless race of the river, he tried to order his thoughts. Blue gave a hoarse whine. Kevin dismissed the worry with a motion of his hand.
Ellen. She was here.
Kevin stopped and faced the river. Fifteen years of near vegetation. “I didn’t know how badly she was hurt.”
Blue cocked his head.
“I know,” Kevin said, squinting at the sun glimmering off the water. “Ignorance doesn’t make it right.”
He’d understood her desperation that evening. He’d even understood her tactic of trying to incite jealousy. But the jumble of love and fear and anger inside him had known no logic. And when she’d turned her attention to Kent to try to win him back, he’d chosen the wrong way to express the feelings storming inside him.
“I was seventeen,” he tried to rationalize.
Blue batted a paw at Kevin’s jean-clad leg.
“I know. That’s no excuse either.”
His feelings had run too deep, too fast. He’d pushed Kent into the river and everything had gone to hell.
Fifteen years of near-vegetation.
His flash of temper had changed all of their lives. It had altered the course of Kent’s. It had turned Ellen’s into a living nightmare.
“Nina was right,” he told the dog. “I have debts that need paying.”
Blue bumped at Kevin’s hand with his nose.
His brother deserved an apology—and would get one—but if Kent chose to run him out of town, Kevin could never repay Ellen.
He kicked a stone. Blue chased it through the rough grass, but skidded to a halt at the bank. The stone sank hard and fast into the water. Blue boomeranged back to Kevin’s side.
Kevin scraped a hand along his jaw, over his cheek. Time and the river had changed his face. “My own twin probably couldn’t recognize me.”
Blue cocked his head, offered a paw.
“No one else in Gabenburg knows me.”
His main concern was helping Ellen. Someone was trying to steal another dream from her. He couldn’t let that happen. She’d lost too much already. He had to do everything in his power to see her hang on to it—even if it meant he had to hire himself out as her ranch hand.
He’d deal with his debt to Kent later.
“If I show up on her front door and say I’m Kyle Makepeace, do you think she’d even hear me out?” The pain of the imagined rejection squeezed him hard.
Blue licked his hand.
“No,” Kevin said, scratching Blue behind the ear. “She’s better off thinking of me as Kevin Ransom rather than the boy who’s responsible for those fifteen years of near vegetation.”
Hunching his shoulders, he turned away from the river. He motioned to Blue and headed for his truck.
First he needed more information. Then he needed a plan.
The truth could wait until he’d repaired a bit of the damage he’d created.
TESSA BANCROFT PEERED inside the empty trailer, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. The stale stink of horse manure and hay assaulted her nostrils and made her sneeze. Her voice bounced against the metal walls. “Where are the horses?”
“She no let me load them,” the burly Mexican said.
Gilberto Ramirez didn’t even have to nerve to look her in the eye when he told her of his failure. The poor excuse of a man gazed at his well-worn boots and held his battered straw hat in both hands. Deportation, she suddenly realized, held more fear for him than her wrath.
“She could not tell you no. Don’t you understand that?” Tessa could barely control the impatience rattling through her. First the good doctor had failed in his mission. He’d actually sided with the Paxton woman and agreed the horses were too hurt to transport. Now this. She thrust out a hand. “Give me the writ.”
Gilberto’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“The piece of paper,” she said, swallowing back the half-dozen epithets on the tip of her tongue.
“I give to her—like you say.”
She wanted to tear her hair out by the roots. Throwing up her hands, she pounded down the ramp. “I’m surrounded by incompetent fools!”
Her step faltered. Ellen Paxton was a woman alone. How much would it take to prove her incompetent? Tessa swallowed a smile. Incompetence. That was the answer to protecting the project.
“You,” she said to Gilberto, “come with me. Let’s see if you can do something right for a change.”
She marched to the high-tech barn that served as the project’s headquarters. Barging into an office, she startled the mousy technician entering data into the computer. “Get me Judge Dalton on the phone.”
When the girl simply blinked at her, Tessa plunked the Rolodex in front of her. “Now.”
What was the point of influence if you couldn’t exploit it?
ELLEN HAD BARELY started the evening feed when she heard a truck chugging up the road. Instantly wary, she put the grain bucket down in the middle of the concrete aisle and went to the barn door. Few people came this way unless she invited them. Bancroft’s attempt to retrieve the horses was still fresh in her mind. Her body stiffened, ready for another battle. Shading her eyes against the sun, she watched the truck’s approach.
Pudge, the Shetland pony with the foundered feet, had never missed a meal and didn’t plan on making this a first. He made his displeasure at the wait known with a series of snorts and the thumping of his well-padded rump against the stall wall.
“In a minute,” she said, distracted. At least it wasn’t a trailer. The white truck looked too plain to belong to the flashy Double B outfit. But if it wasn’t one of Bancroft’s minions, who was it?
The truck stopped at the electric gate. A man and a dog exited. When he couldn’t find a latch, he crawled through the metal bars and hiked up her driveway.
Despite the sun’s heat, a shiver skated through her. Backlit by the sun, with the wind stirring dirt around his feet, he made her think of an opening scene in a spaghetti western. Hero lighting, Kyle had called it. The man walked over the uneven grade with the power and grace of a sure-footed horse, but something about him also made her want to run for cover. Maybe it was the black T-shirt on such a hot day. Maybe it was the way his black baseball cap shaded his features. Maybe it was the air of menace around his canine companion.
The dog, with its tan-patched throat and legs, and gray-flecked coat, reminded her of a hyena. Even the blue bandanna wrapped around its neck couldn’t soften the feral air of the beast. Its eyes sported a worried and tentative look—almost as if she was the one who needed fearing.
“Ms. Paxton.” The man extended a hand toward her. The tanned fingers and work-roughened palm hung in midair.
How did he know her name? She took a step back, careful to keep plenty of room between them.
“My name’s Kevin Ransom.” He let his hand fall back to his side. “I heard you’re looking to hire a ranch hand.”
With his black hair and his keen dark eyes, he wasn’t the hero of this show. He could easily have played the villain in one of those old-time westerns Kyle had liked to watch. There was something unsettling about the coarse chiseling of his features and the way the scars veined his skin like the wrong side of a crooked seam. From the raspy sound of his drawl, she guessed he’d suffered some sort of damage to his vocal chords.
His appearance was enough to make even the most genial person leery. But it was his penetrating gaze that sent another frisson of warning down her spine.
There was something a little too timely about his arrival. And she’d never liked coincidences. Was Bancroft planting a mole because she’d refused him access to the horses this morning? If so, why had he sent someone who would frighten her? Was this “ranch hand” meant as an intimidation tactic?
A glance to the side showed her a pitchfork leaning against a post. Not much of a weapon, but she could reach it in two steps—if she didn’t trip over her own feet first. Tension still affected her ability to move in spite of the weekly physi
cal therapy sessions.
Why hadn’t she thought to get a rifle? Or a guard dog? Or an alarm system of some sort? But she didn’t have anything worth stealing—not even her ragged band of horses would interest a normal thief. Until today, she’d felt safe in her little corner of the world. “Who told you I was hiring?”
“Ms. Conover down at the Bread and Butter bakery. I’ve got experience with horses.”
Taryn had sent him? Ellen could check that fact easily enough.
He ran a hand over his scarred face. “I know I don’t look like much, but I’m harmless.” He smiled and the gesture added an odd gentleness to his features. “Ask Blue here, he’ll tell you.” As if on cue, the dog licked the tips of his master’s fingers. “I’ve got references. I’d be glad to have you call them.”
He thought she was judging him by his looks. For heaven’s sake, taking care of broken creatures was her business. Horrified at having given him the wrong impression, she fumbled to reassure him. “No, no, it’s not your face.”
No, the reason for her reticence was pure fear. In the past year, she’d worked hard to make every decision her own. Running this ranch had gone a long way to speed her recovery. She didn’t want to hire anyone. She needed to be alone. She had to prove to herself that she could control her own destiny.
“It’s just that I’ve already promised the job to the son of a friend,” she lied, unable to pin down why this man set her nerves so on edge. The narrowing of his eyes told her he didn’t believe her. How many times had people turned him away because of his unfortunate looks? She shrugged, feeling more awkward by the minute. “You know how that goes.”
“Sure.” He nodded once, then jerked his chin in the direction of the grain bucket behind her. “Tell you what, since he isn’t here now, and you’re in the middle of feeding, why don’t I help you out?”
Why the persistence? “That’s not necessary. I can handle it.”
“All I’ll charge is some water for me and my friend.” He patted the dog’s head. The dog looked up at him adoringly.
Talk about feeling lower than a snake. Here she was ready to assign evil motives to him just because Bancroft had wanted his horses back. All Kevin Ransom was doing was trying to earn some food. He looked lean enough to have skipped a few meals, but not totally desperate.
“I can spare you a meal,” she said. Then she’d send him and his dog on their way. She didn’t need the kind of tension this stranger—any stranger—in her home could spark. “But I really don’t need the help.”
Something in the pasture caught the dog’s interest. A low, rusty growl issued from his throat. He shifted. The movement strained the bandanna at his neck, exposing a hairless necklace of shiny red skin. She gasped. Without thinking, she knelt by the animal. The dog promptly hid behind the man’s legs. “What happened to your dog?”
The man shrugged and looked away. “Some drunk yahoo had him tied with a rope in the back of his pickup and turned a corner too sharply. Blue here went over the side, but the jerk didn’t notice. Took me a mile to get his attention. I thought for sure the dog was dead.” He smiled crookedly, but his eyes were cold and hard. The look warned you didn’t want to get on this man’s wrong side. “I convinced his owner he didn’t want him anymore. Other than the fact he can’t bark, Blue’s as healthy as can be.”
When the man reached down to help her up, she realized how close he was…how isolated the ranch was…how vulnerable she was. She shot up too fast. Dizzy, she lost her balance. He caught her elbow. She snatched it out of his grasp and stumbled a few paces back, landing on her butt.
He lifted both his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She was making things worse by the minute. He thought it was his looks that were scaring her, but her action was pure instinct. She couldn’t stand anyone touching her. Not after fifteen years of being poked and prodded against her will. Bancroft and his threats this morning had made her tenser than usual.
This time, she got up slowly and dusted off the seat of her jeans while she rounded up her scattered thoughts.
“I just lost my balance is all. I’m sorry.” She puffed out a long breath. “Look, why don’t I—”
A whinny of terror rent the air.
The dog shot forward to respond. A motion of the man’s hand stopped him cold. Crouched low on his haunches, muscles shaking, Blue waited for permission to herd.
Without thinking, Ellen raced toward the pasture behind the barn. Her leg muscles protested. She ignored their complaint. Her vision couldn’t adjust to the rapid change of focus and began to blur. She shook her head. Not now!
A thunder of hooves stampeded her way from the far end of the main pasture. What had set the horses off? Luci veered right as the fence approached. C.C. swerved left. But head high in the air, Apollo kept running straight.
“No, Apollo, no!” She blinked madly to refocus. “You can’t jump. Not with that leg.”
Trying to stop him, Ellen flagged her arms. But he was wild with panic and paid her no heed. She could do nothing to stop him.
The chestnut horse tried in vain to jump. Somehow, he caught his right front leg between the top and the second rail as he crashed into the fence. Wood cracked as his full weight barreled into the rails, but held. His panic doubled. He fought and lunged and skidded in the mud with his hind feet, but remained stuck.
Ellen stopped in her tracks. “Whoa, Apollo, whoa. It’s okay, boy.” Slowly, knowing that a fast approach could alarm him even more, she talked to him in a soothing voice. “Well, you’ve got yourself in quite a fix. How are we going to get you out of there?”
The mad scrambling to free himself only got worse.
“Back away,” the man behind her said in a low, assertive voice.
“I can’t leave him like this. He’ll hurt himself more.”
“In his mind, he’s in a life-and-death situation. His leg’s caught and he’s got a predator rushing at him.”
“I’m not a predator. He knows I won’t harm him.” But did he? Was a week long enough to trust someone with your life when you’d suffered abuse?
“He’s in a panic. He’s not thinking.” The voice stroked her as surely as a caress. She shivered. “He’s reacting with nature’s programmed response for survival. Flight. To calm him enough to free his leg, you’re going to have to make him think the threat is moving away.”
In a twisted way, what he said made sense. But she couldn’t just leave Apollo like this. He needed help. He needed it now. She took a step forward. Apollo’s head whipped from side to side, looking for escape. He pulled on his trapped leg, scraping skin and jamming the limb in tighter. One back foot skidded from under him and thwacked against a post. She stopped.
“Apollo.” Her heart wrenched with helplessness. “Let me help you.”
“Back away,” the man said. There was something compelling, seductive almost, about the sandy scrape of his voice.
Suddenly, she was back in the nursing home, strapped to a bed, fighting for her life. Just like Apollo. Garth’s drawling voice had tried to control her and she’d had to battle it with every ounce of her will. Now, the need to move away from the danger this man presented made her muscles twitch. What she wanted, what she had to do, dueled inside her.
Reluctantly, she took a step back, moving closer to the stranger with the gritty voice, giving Apollo the relief she herself had not found.
She kept her gaze fixed on the struggling chestnut horse, ready to rush in should the situation change.
Slowly, the panic in his eyes ebbed. His breathing slowed. His ears flicked back and forth. Then he stood still. With a groan and a puff, Apollo pulled his leg free. Unbalanced, he scampered backward, fell on his hip, then rolled onto his side. Almost immediately, he was back on his feet and running with a jagged gait toward the shed. There he stopped. Huffing and puffing, he scanned the area, then bellowed.
Luci, the dappled gray mare covered by a crust of mud, answered, and am
bled toward the frightened horse. Her presence seemed to calm him. He glued himself to her side. C.C., the Appaloosa, grazed his way closer to them, but kept his distance.
“I need to look at his leg,” Ellen said, hitching a foot on the lower rail of the fence.
A hand on her elbow held her back. “Give him a minute to calm down, then I’ll go fetch him for you.”
She twisted, turning away from the touch that shot through her like a firecracker. “That’ll make things worse. Luci’ll freak when you get close and that’ll send Apollo into another panic.”
“What’s her story?”
Ellen glanced at the mare grazing peacefully. “She’s a track reject. She was beaten over the poll by a male trainer because she was afraid of the starting gate.” She snorted. “Like that was going to help. I can’t wear a hat around her. She doesn’t let a man get within ten feet of her.”
The silence beside her was midnight deep. Ellen had to fight the urge to look back at the man with the damaged face and seductive voice. But she felt him—almost as intimately as if he were a lover. His presence pressed against her with a magnetic force that felt oddly familiar and had her holding her breath, waiting for something. What, she wasn’t sure.
“If I can get past her and bring in Apollo, will you reconsider me for the job?”
“Why do you want to work where you’re not wanted?”
“Your friend said you’d had some trouble and could use a hand.”
Taryn had said that? To a stranger? Why? Bancroft had the influence to cause her trouble, but he wouldn’t resort to a physical attack. Would he? “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“This stampede wasn’t natural.”
She shrugged, hating that he echoed her own fear. She’d seen the look of pure panic on all the horses’ faces. How far would Bancroft go to get these horses back? “Anything could have caused them to run. A deer. A skunk. A snake in the grass.”
He nodded.
“I can handle it,” she said.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’m just offering a helping hand.”
