Lady Sundown (#1 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  “Looks like she’s got hollow horn,” he said.

  Hollow horn. They always had hollow horn. Why not just say you don’t know what’s wrong with the poor animal? Lexie thought in disgust.

  Harrison, Lexie’s younger brother by less than a year, ran his hand down the drooping neck of the ruddy cow. “So what do you propose we do?”

  “Only one thing you can do. Split the tail and rub it with salt.”

  Pieces of straw, disturbed by Lexie’s movements, slid from the edge of the loft to wisp softly to the ground. None of the men noticed but Harrison, who glanced up, spied her, then gave an imperceptible shake of his wheat-gold head, his gaze shifting anxiously toward Pa.

  Luckily, Joseph Danner was looking solemnly at the Jersey, his silver hair glowing in the light from the lantern. Lexie knew exactly what Harrison was trying to tell her; Pa wouldn’t like her butting in where she didn’t belong.

  But the poor Jersey needed someone to care for it, and Calvin Meechum, whose reputation as a drunk far outstripped his renown as an animal doctor, wasn’t doing his job.

  Climbing down, Lexie jumped to the barn floor, scattering dust motes up in a whirling cloud. Outside rain poured torrentially beyond the open barn door, sending up the tangy scent of wet earth and pine, but inside the dusty smells of hay and grain and dried mud from the swallows’ nests prevailed.

  All four men glanced her way. Lexie’s next younger brother, Jesse, raised his brows, a smile on his lips. Unlike Harrison, who was worried about Pa’s reaction, Jesse looked forward to any kind of confrontation.

  “Matilda’s problem isn’t hollow horn,” she said distinctly. “I think she’s got some kind of infection. Look at the way she hangs her head. And just this morning she started favoring her left hind foot.”

  “She’s not favoring it now,” Joseph pointed out, his mouth tight. Aware of his disapproval, Lexie forged on nevertheless.

  “Is her leg hot?” she asked, knowing that Meechum hadn’t even checked.

  The horse doctor flushed. “Now, little lady, your Matilda has all the symptoms of hollow horn. See the way she holds her head? It’s tilted.”

  To Lexie, Matilda just looked weak and depressed. She turned to Harrison, who shared her wish for better animal care and, like Lexie, hoped one day to be a horse doctor. “Please feel her leg,” Lexie implored. “If it’s swollen it may need to be lanced.”

  “That’s enough, Lexie,” Pa said in a voice that brooked no argument. “We’ll let Doc Meechum give the diagnosis.”

  A crimson tide washed up Lexie’s cheeks. Setting her jaw, she murmured, “Yes, Pa,” knowing it was useless to argue. Her father couldn’t abide disrespect for anyone, and her feelings about Calvin Meechum’s ability were painfully clear.

  “Why don’t you finish feeding the Herefords,” he said in the kinder voice. “We’ll be done here soon.”

  She turned on her heel. She would check Matilda later herself. Whether her father believed her not, Lexie knew how to help the suffering Jersey.

  On the other side of the barn the Herefords waited expectantly, trampling on one another’s hooves when they saw Lexie approach. Grasping the pitchfork, Lexie shoved it into a shock of hay, then scattered the dried straw into the manger above the cattles’ heads. “Slow down,” Lexie said, managing a smile at their antics. “You’ll all get a turn.”

  The rain battering against the weathered barn roof drowned out the sounds of the men’s voices on the other side of the barn. But Matilda’s bawl of pain echoed upward, making Lexie’s teeth clench and the swallows leave their nests to swoop agitatedly around her head.

  “Meechum, you ignorant fool,” she muttered. Splitting Matilda’s tail and rubbing salt into it wasn’t going to do anything but make the poor cow suffer more.

  With a vengeance born of frustration, Lexie forked more hay over the side of the manger. She could smell the scent of scorched hide as Meechum burned the open wound. At least he wasn’t going to let the cow bleed to death.

  Lexie never asked herself why she was so certain his methods were wrong; she just knew they were. More learned people than she trusted in the horse doctor’s wisdom, but Lexie, who’d grown up communing with the animals on the farm, possessed an insight she trusted unthinkingly.

  If only she could become a horse doctor someday…

  The men’s voices drifted away and through the open barn door Lexie saw them walking toward the house, their heads bent against the rain. She dropped the pitchfork and ran to Matilda’s pen.

  “You poor thing,” she whispered, wrapping her Turkish split skirt up in one hand and tossing a leg over the rail. She dropped lightly toward the floor and approached the Jersey whose eyes were white-rimmed with fright. “Relax. It’s okay. Everything’s all right.”

  Lexie touched the cow’s hide, which shivered under her hand. Matilda shifted sideways, let out another plaintive bawl, then nearly gouged Lexie with a horn when she bent to touch her back leg. “Whoa, girl. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  There was just the faintest bit of swelling around the site of expected injury, but Matilda’s hide was hot to Lexie’s touch. The Jersey switched her tail and swung her head around and Lexie jumped backward, out of harm’s way from the lashing horns.

  Moving to the side rail, Lexie bit her lip. She was right. Infection was developing right below the surface. If something wasn’t done for the animals soon her father would send for Meechum again and who knew what horrors that man would perform next.

  What Matilda really needed was to have that hotspot lanced. The infection was painful and potentially lethal.

  Lexie thoughtfully returned to the pile of hay and the hungry Herefords. She would have to help Matilda in secret; her father would never approve of her treating the cow on her own. Tonight, before she met Jace, she could come back to the barn, drain the wound, and stitch it up with the catgut she had stored in the tack room. The whole thing would be over before her handiwork was discovered, and by that time Matilda would be on her way back to good health.

  Lexie slowly let out her breath, uneasy. She was directly defying her father’s wishes, something she almost never did. But Pa just didn’t understand. The first time she’d told him she wanted to become a horse doctor, he’d looked at her as if she were not quite right in the head. He’d explained, kindly but determinedly, that women didn’t treat animals — especially livestock, on whose heads might lay a farm’s entire welfare. It simply wasn’t a job for a lady.

  “The farmers around here want a man to help them,” her father had pointed out, reasonably. “Women just aren’t strong enough, Lexie.”

  Of course she’d argued, long and hard. But in the end she’d only grown frustrated and infuriated. Nobody wanted to listen to her, not her father, her mother, or any of her brothers. Harrison was the most sympathetic, but that was only because he was hankering to be a horse doctor, too. Even Jace Garrett didn’t seem all that keen on the idea, Lexie had to admit. And that was an even a bigger problem.

  She leaned on the pitchfork, listening to the drumming beat of the rain. Jace Garrett. Just thinking about him made her mouth curve in secret smile.

  “I’m in love,” she whispered to the feeding cattle. “But don’t go telling anyone just yet.”

  The wind tossed a peppering of rain through the open barn door, dampening her white cotton waist and the faded blue split-skirt which her mother didn’t approve of. Icy cold, the rain took her breath away, yet it was sharply sensual, reminding her of last night’s meeting with Jace and the feel of his lips pressed against hers. She smiled a little at the memory of Jace’s kiss. She’d kissed him back, too, may be a bit too eagerly. But what did it matter? She and Jace were going to be married. Jace had asked her and she’d accepted.

  Lexie sighed. Pa wasn’t going to be thrilled at the idea of having a Garrett as a son-in-law, but Lexie was confident she could overcome that obstacle. After all, it wasn’t as if the Danners were feuding with the Garretts. The two families ju
st had a difference of opinion about property lines that flared up every time the stream veered onto a new course.

  She scooped up the rest of the hay and tossed it into the manger. Tonight, at dusk, she was going to meet Jace again. Her conscience twinged a little. It wasn’t proper to be having these clandestine meetings; her mother would be shocked. Even the sight of the Garrett buggy on their property was enough to send Pa for his rifle. Not that he would use it, of course, Lexie assured herself hastily; her father was the kindest man she knew. But it certainly wouldn’t help her relationship with Jace any to be looking down the barrel of her father’s Winchester the first time he came calling, so Lexie had taken matters into her own hands.

  Indulging herself, Lexie closed her eyes, imagining Jace’s kiss she felt a twisting in her stomach at the memory, an anxious aching. Had she been too eager? He’d seemed to drawback, as if she were too—

  “So here you are. I should have guessed,” a familiar voice drawled, breaking into her thoughts.

  Startled, Lexie gasped, her eyes flying open. “Tremaine,” she exhaled in a rush of breath. “What are you doing here? You scared me.”

  Her elder brother regarded her through narrowed blue eyes. “You looked like you were dreaming.”

  “I was resting,” she said primly, resenting his lean form in a way she’d never completely understood. Her relationship with him had always been strained. She’d never felt the same closeness with him as she did her younger brothers. Now, as he lounged against the open barn door, rain spattering the shoulders of his worn leather jacket and darkening his breeches, Lexie felt impatient. “We haven’t seen you in a while. Pa said you’ve been busy.”

  “I’ve been pretty tied to the hospital,” he admitted. “It would be better if I had my own practice.”

  “Well, can’t you?”

  “I suppose,” he mused, straightening. “But I don’t know if I want to stay in Portland. I think I’d rather be in a smaller town.”

  Lexie’s shoulders stiffened involuntarily. “You’re not thinking of setting up practice in Rock Springs, are you?”

  “No. Don’t worry. I’ll find somewhere else to go.”

  His bitterness was unwarranted, Lexie thought. Ever since she’d caught him with Mary-Anne Laytham near the stand of cedars by the hot springs, rolling on the ground, Mary-Anne’s drawers a conspicuous ten feet from where they lay, Tremaine had treated Lexie as if she were afflicted with the pox. Was it her fault they’d been so indiscreet? Tremaine was just lucky it hadn’t been Pa who caught them!

  “I’m not worried,” she told him, tossing back her blond hair. “I just wondered, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’m not going to settle here.” Tremaine straightened, shoving his hands in the pockets of his breeches, the soft buckskin stretching around his thighs. “Maybe I will just stay in Portland, it’s better than Rock Springs.”

  Resentment grew from a seed to an all-out blossom inside Lexie’s chest. “What’s wrong with Rock Springs?” she demanded. “Or do you think you’re better than we are? Is that what being a doctor in a big city’s done to you?”

  Tremaine’s brows shot up. “Well, maybe you do want me here after all.”

  “I don’t care what you do.”

  Silence fell around them and Lexie realized resignedly that nothing had changed between herself and her older brother. He had a way of getting under her skin like no one else.

  “Have you had a change of heart about Rock Springs?” he asked. “The last I heard, you wanted to apprentice to become a horse doctor.”

  “I still do,” Lexie said testily. “But I’m not leaving Rock Springs. This place could use a decent animal doctor.”

  “You don’t fancy Doc Meechum’s skills?” Tremaine asked, amused.

  “You know as well as I do that he barely knows one end of an animal from the other.”

  “Careful.” Tremaine’s smile was a gleam of white. “Pa still has some faith in the man.”

  “I don’t know why. Pa was a medical doctor once. Like you,” Lexie offered, a bit self-consciously. “He ought to be able to see what an imposter Meechum is.”

  “And you could do better, I suppose.”

  His needling bothered her. “Yes, I could,” she said boldly, her green eyes defiant. “And that’s why I’m going to stay right here and become the best damn horse doctor in the county!”

  She expected him to revile her for swearing; her mother and Pa sure would. But Tremaine just centered his gaze somewhere past her left ear and said, “You sure your decision to stay doesn’t have something to do with Jace Garrett?”

  Lexie could only stare at him. He knew! How could he know? No one knew, not even Harrison, to whom she told everything but her very dearest of secrets. “I…”

  “Yes?”

  Amusement lifted the corner of Tremaine’s mouth again and to Lexie that was unforgivable. Defensive, she gripped the pitchfork tighter and asked, “Did you come to the barn looking for me?”

  “Your mother wants to see you.” Her stranglehold on the three-pronged fork hadn’t escaped him and his smile deepened. “Oh, come on, Lexie. Let’s not fight. I haven’t seen you in months.” He reached for the pitchfork, but Lexie, goaded by some instinct of self-preservation she didn’t entirely understand, jerked backward. The heel of her shoe caught in a crack and the back of her knee hit the edge of the manger. With a cry she tumbled downward. Tremaine scrambled to catch her but she buckled over the side, landing with a screech in the hay, stampeding the frightened cattle in all directions.

  If Lexie hadn’t had the breath knocked out of her she might’ve laughed, but hearing Tremaine’s roar of amusement, ringing to the rafters, drove the humor right out of the situation. She scrambled upward, straw clinging to her hair, her eyes alight with vengeful fury, and hurled herself over the side of the manger straight at him.

  “Hey,” Tremaine laughed, trying to catch his breath. “I—”

  She hit him in the midsection and was rewarded with a gasping “oof” as she connected with board-hard flesh. The force of the impact made her arms fly around him, and she pummeled his back with her fists as he sought to pull her off. She wanted to kill him!

  “Lexie,” Tremaine said through his teeth, his fingers biting into her arms. “Stop it.”

  “You — you — you’re all the same!” she forced out. She didn’t ask herself what she meant. She just knew that Tremaine was the source of all her problems, and she would be glad to scratch his eyes out.

  But he wouldn’t let her. Steel-strong fingers pushed her back, holding her at arm’s length as she squirmed to do more damage. She was as ineffectual as a kitten and the knowledge made her angrier, but apparently not as angry as he was, for he shook her and bit out furiously, “What the hell’s got into you?”

  “Nothing!” Lexie panted. She twisted and fought and caused him to yowl in pain when she kicked his shin. Then as fast as her rage had surfaced it faded, slipping away like sand through a sieve. But pride wouldn’t let her explain her unwarranted attack. Not that she could have anyway. She was a mass of emotions these days, as mercurial and unpredictable as the inclement spring weather.

  Tremaine stared at her, his dark hair tumbled across his forehead, his blue eyes slits of cerulean in a lean, hard face. Thick lashes obscured his thoughts, but his mouth was an implacable line of anger. “Your mother wants to see you at the house.”

  “She’s your mother, too,” Lexie shot back. “Why do you always say that?”

  “She asked me to come get you.” He spoke distinctly, as if she were hard of hearing. “She wants to talk to you.”

  “She raised you, too,” Lexie went on heedlessly, striking blindly with arrows she instinctively knew would puncture his armor, wounding deeply. “You don’t like being part of this family. You don’t like me, and you don’t like my mother.”

  “Lexie, for God’s sake—”

  She jerked one hand free and pulled his fingers back from her other arm. Her skin was
red beneath his grasp. She was appalled to feel tears burned her eyelids and she turned away from him, pressing her hand to her lips, wondering what terrible demon had possessed her into being so cruel.

  “I’m sorry, Tremaine,” she said suddenly. “I don’t know what got into me.”

  “I do.”

  She glanced back uncertainly, to see him dusting off his jacket with one hand. “You do?”

  “You didn’t like me bringing up Jace Garrett.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The look he sent her sliced through any flimsy attempt at deception. “I saw you with him last night, Lexie. You don’t have to pretend.”

  Her blush spread to the roots of her hair, and she swallowed back a lump of fear. “Don’t tell Pa. Please, please, Tremaine. I’m sorry. He’d be so upset.” As quickly as she’d pulled herself away from him, now she reached for him in entreaty, her fingers burrowing into his sleeves. His muscles tightened, but she was too self-absorbed to notice. “I don’t want him to know — yet. Let me tell him when I’m ready. Please.”

  “Then, you’d better get ready pretty quick, if what I saw’s any indication of what’s going on.” Censure deepened his voice.

  “It wasn’t what you think.”

  “Wasn’t it? How do you know what I think?”

  “Well, it wasn’t like you and Mary-Anne.”

  For a moment he was at a loss for words and Lexie pressed home her advantage. “Jace and I want to break the news to Pa at the right time. You know how unreasonable he is about the Garretts.” Her soft green eyes pleaded with him, begged him to understand.

  She could smell the damp rain on him and the fresh scent of soap. It was warm and intimate, mingling with his own sweat; a pleasant odor that was somehow uniquely Tremaine, making Lexie feel close to him for the first time in memory. Pleased, she held on tighter, though she could sense him drawing away. “Don’t ruin this for me, Tremaine. I’m meeting Jace tonight and we’re—”

  “What? Tonight?”

  “Yes, we want to…” Lexie cut herself off, sensing Tremaine was not the person to tell.