Remember Me, Cowboy

by Caroline Burnes

  For some reason, the scene struck Cassidy as inappropriate. She walked in. Nita was sitting in her favorite corner under a bright lamp, working on the needlepoint that she insisted soothed her nerves. “What’s going on, Lucky?” Cassidy asked.

  His smile was slow, and he seemed to look her up and down, as if he somehow knew what she’d been doing. But of course that was ridiculous. She sat down on the arm of the sofa. “Well? What was so urgent?”

  “I just got back from that gulch where the wild horses are.”

  Cassidy felt her temper ignite. Lucky had no business anywhere near the wild horses. Nor should he have known about them. But she held her tongue and waited for him to finish.

  “When Danny left here with the truck and provisions, he told me what was going on. I decided I’d check and see if Slate needed any help.”

  “And did he?” she prodded.

  “Naw, it seems that everything’s under control. But we’ve got a problem.”

  “What might that be?” Her gaze never left his, and she wondered if Slate could be right. Was Lucky setting up an alibi for being out around the wild horses when the shots were fired—in case someone had spotted him?

  “That dun mare, you remember her?”

  Cassidy nodded. There had been an exceptional buckskin mare in Joker’s herd.

  “That’s Cole Benson’s prize filly. He bought her two weeks ago, and I daresay he’s going to be pretty upset when he finds out she’s hemmed up in a makeshift corral with that range stud.”

  “We’ll cut her out tomorrow and take her back to him.” Cassidy was troubled by the information, but it wasn’t what she considered urgent. Certainly not urgent enough to interrupt what had been going on between her and Slate. “Is that it?”

  “I went down to look at that stallion, and he tried to kill me. He came at me with front hooves and teeth. I had to beat him back with a cedar limb.” Lucky rose to his feet. “I think the best thing we could do would be to put a bullet between his eyes and be done with it. I know you got your heart set on taming him, but I think it’s foolish.”

  Cassidy rose slowly to her feet, too angry to speak. It was only the worried look on Lindsey’s face that held her in check. Lindsey was only four, but she was smart enough to follow this conversation, and her heart and imagination were heavily invested in the wild stallion.

  “Come on out on the porch,” she said to Lucky, the softness of her voice completely hiding her fury.

  She didn’t give him a chance to reply. She went outside and closed the door after him. In the darkness she rounded on him. “You listen up and you listen good, Lucky. You have no business with that stallion. None. Slate is the horse trainer. I don’t want you within a mile of him. Your job is to keep the hands working and to make sure my livestock is well cared for. If that arrangement isn’t to your liking, pack your things and come by in the morning for a check. And if you ever lift a club to Joker or any other animal on this place, you’ll be out of here so fast…” She took a breath to calm herself. If she fired him, she wouldn’t have any way to keep track of him. Keeping him employed was the smartest move she could make, for the moment. “You’ve been a good foreman, Lucky, but you don’t know beans about my training methods for horses. You stay away from that gulch.”

  She went into the house and closed the door behind her. When it was firmly locked, she leaned back against it and gave her legs a minute to steady.

  It had been one helluva day. She’d been shot at, frightened nearly to death, worried sick, taken to the edge of insanity by desire, startled into guilt, and now infuriated to the point that she was afraid a blood vessel was going to burst in her brain.

  “Mama?” Lindsey’s voice came from the hall.

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “Mr. Lucky’s not going to hurt Joker, is he?”

  “No, he isn’t.” She went to her little girl and gathered her in her arms. Lindsey smelled of vanilla wafers and baby shampoo, and she kissed her neck and made the little girl giggle.

  “Mama, is Mr. Lucky mean like the witch?”

  Lindsey’s question startled her. “Why do you ask that?”

  “He wants to hurt Joker. He said Joker tried to hurt him, but that’s not right.” Her blue eyes caught Cassidy’s and held them with an understanding of right and wrong that was so simple, and so sincere, that Cassidy only nodded.

  “Mr. Lucky was wrong. But doing something wrong doesn’t make a person mean. Not all the time. That’s the hardest thing about growing up, Lindsey, deciding when something is wrong and when it’s mean. It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.”

  “But you won’t let him hurt Joker, will you?”

  Cassidy gave her daughter her bravest smile. “Of course not. Now, if I decide to ride out and check on the horses, will you be okay with Nita?”

  Lindsey’s face pulled into a frown. “Couldn’t I go?”

  Had it not been for someone shooting at them, Cassidy would have bundled her into a truck and taken her. The sight of the wild horses in the gulch was a vanishing part of the West. She wanted Lindsey to have a knowledge of the past. “Not tonight, darling. How about tomorrow?”

  “Promise?”

  “If you mind Nita and go to bed without a fuss.”

  “First thing in the morning?”

  “We’ll take Slate some breakfast.”

  “Okay.” Lindsey threw her arms around Cassidy’s neck and hugged with all of her strength. “I love you, Mama.”

  “I love you, too.” Cassidy felt the pressure of unexpected tears, but she quickly blinked them back. “See you in the morning.” She tweaked Lindsey’s nose and hurried to the back door. This trip, she’d take the Chevy instead of a horse.

  She was surprised at the chill in the air, and when she looked up, she saw the sky was streaked with silver-gray clouds. Even as she watched, one drifted across the moon. There would likely be rain the next day, and Cassidy knew they needed it. But it would make camping a little unpleasant. She threw a tarp in the bed of the truck and headed out toward the gulch.

  The four hundred acres that she’d managed to buy had small meadows nestled among the hills, and even though there were no roads, as such, she knew she could make it to the gulch without any difficulty.

  She drove slowly, her headlights picking out the fleeing shapes of deer and the stolid cows that lifted their heads at her approach. She didn’t raise beef, but there were cattle grazing on the Double O. She needed a few head to practice cutting, and she enjoyed the idea of them grazing. There were also coyotes, foxes, bobcats and mountain lions, but they kept their distance from man as much as possible.

  More deadly than the predators were the snakes. If the saying that everything was bigger in Texas had any truth, she was certain it had been first applied to rattlers. She’d seen snakes as thick as her arm sliding off into the rocks, their tails giving the warning that they did not like being interrupted.

  In the truck, she was safe, but she’d heard too many campfire tales of men who curled up in their bedrolls only to awaken with a rattler cozied up to them for warmth. It was a picture that made her flinch.

  She thought of anything to keep her mind off the coming discussion with Slate, and the grim suspicions she had of Lucky.

  When she finally saw the gulch in the beams of her lights, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or more anxious. Since the other ranch truck was gone, she determined that Slate had sent Danny back to the bunkhouse. She got out of the truck, gathered the tarp and walked to the high point where she knew he would be waiting.

  The moon broke through the clouds, and she saw him leaning against a rock, a rifle across his knees.

  “Have you seen anyone else?” she asked.

  “Just me and the horses.” Even as he spoke there was an alert snort from the gulch. Joker was keeping watch over his herd.

  “Did Danny tell you about Lucky?”

  Slate hesitated, then patted the ground beside him. “Sit down and I’ll share
my rock.” When she was beside him, he said, “Lucky provoked the horse. Danny saw it. Joker was acting like a range stallion, that’s all. Lucky was out there trying to get a rope on the buckskin.” Slate’s voice was tense. “I’m telling you now, if he comes back up here and messes with these horses, I’m going to make him wish he’d never been born.”

  Cassidy knew he meant it. “He won’t be back. But consider something, Slate. You’re just out of prison. You don’t need Lucky going into town and showing everyone that you beat him up.”

  “I don’t need a lot of things, but if he pushes it in my face, he’s going to get the beating of his life. If that bothers you, then you’d better fire me now.”

  Cassidy smiled to herself. “I was mad enough to clobber him myself.”

  Slate’s chuckle was easy, surprised. “I’ll bet you were.”

  “About earlier this evening…” Cassidy didn’t know how to begin, but she knew she had to. “I wasn’t feeling guilty for being with you. It’s just that—” she felt the blush creep up her face “—it’s been a long time. I’m so used to being the ranch owner and Lindsey’s mom and the boss that it was uncomfortable being…you know what I’m trying to say. It didn’t have anything to do with you or the fact that you’ve been in prison.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Cassidy gave it some thought before she answered. “I meant it when I said I always believed you were innocent I still do.”

  “You were at the trial every day.”

  It was a statement, not a question, so she didn’t respond.

  “Why were you there?” he pressed.

  “I tried to see you in prison and you would never even talk to me. Why wouldn’t you talk to me?” she countered.

  Slate picked up a piece of rock and flung it into the night “You first.”

  “There were a lot of people interested in the trial,” Cassidy said, keeping her gaze on the distant stars.

  Slate gave her a long stare. “That’s not exactly an answer. That’s an evasion.”

  Cassidy felt like the cow cut from the herd. Slate had sighted her, and he was maneuvering her right to where he wanted her. If he gave it a little thought, he’d be able to figure out why she’d been at the trial.

  He reached out and put his hand on her cheek, turning her face to his. “I knew you before the bank robbery, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t have the heart to fake or dodge. So, he’d come to the truth. Along with the worry came an unexpected relief. “We were lovers.”

  Her answer seemed to stun him. Then she felt his arm move around her shoulders and he pulled her gently into an embrace. “That’s why you were in the courtroom, why you tried to see me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think at some level I must have known.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t see you because I was…afraid. That you would tell me something like this. That you would make me remember what I was leaving behind. And I guess I didn’t want to know, because I couldn’t have stood it. Maybe the reason my memory didn’t come back while I was in prison was because I didn’t want it to.”

  “Maybe so,” Cassidy agreed. At the time of the trial, Slate had lost his bride-to-be, his unborn child and his dying mother. While he was locked away for a crime he had no memory of committing, he’d lost everything. Amnesia would have been preferable.

  His arm tightened around her. “I don’t know what to say,” he answered. “I don’t know what to ask.”

  Cassidy hesitated. “I don’t, either. Maybe you should just leave it alone and see how it feels.” Her heart pounded. Now was the time to tell him the truth about Lindsey. But she couldn’t There was simply too much at risk. She wouldn’t put her daughter on the line.

  A low whinny came from the herd, and Slate instantly tensed. “That’s the lead mare, I recognize her voice.”

  She was answered by Joker’s deep, throaty challenge. There was the sound of hooves running in the dry bed of the gulch, and Slate rose slowly to his feet. “I’d better check on them.”

  “Do you think someone is out here?” Cassidy tuned her hearing to listen for the sound of someone approaching.

  “I think they’re not used to being confined. I’ll take a look.” He shook out the blanket and covered her legs. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  The horses had already settled down, but she realized Slate needed some time to think. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to forget who she was—and then constantly have people toss her tidbits of her past. But there had been no point denying that they knew each other. Their bodies had betrayed them with the first touch, the first kiss.

  She caught Slate’s voice, soft and soothing, as he talked to the horses, and she smiled. He had a way with them. And with her. She felt sleep tugging at her eyelids, and she pulled the blanket higher. Slate would wake her when he came back.

  HE WALKED THE CONFINES of the gulch and made sure that everything was in order. Joker followed him, about ten paces behind, looking over his shoulder at everything he did. The stallion amused him. Joker had spent his life as a wild creature, but he was more than intrigued by humans. It was the first ingredient for a truly magnificent horse, from a cowboy’s point of view. He didn’t know if the rest of the world was interested in performance horses, but Slate had learned long ago that bloodlines meant nothing on the range. Performance was everything. And he knew that Cassidy was right about Joker—he would throw some fine babies.

  When his thoughts shifted to Cassidy, he didn’t know what to think, or feel. He’d known that somewhere in his past they’d been intimately involved. He knew her too well. She evoked too much intense emotion in him. In some ways, he had come to regard her as the key to his past. And perhaps his future.

  And Lindsey! She had to be his. He’d been afraid to ask Cassidy immediately—the idea was wonderful and terrifying at the same time. He wouldn’t pressure her for answers. Cassidy would tell him when she was ready.

  He walked up the steep incline to the hilltop, where he caught sight of her, fast asleep, against the rock.

  He settled down beside her and eased her body onto his shoulder. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and let his body relax.

  The events of the night played themselves out in his mind, and he felt his desire for Cassidy anew as he remembered her touch, her lips. But the time for passion was past. He needed to be sure of what he wanted. He’d made enough mistakes. He didn’t have time for any more.

  He heard the low snorts of Joker as the stallion tended his herd, and he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

  AT FIRST, CASSIDY DIDN’T know where she was. The night air was cool and crisp, and the rock poking into her back was sharper than a stick. She rolled slightly and felt Slate’s warm side against her. She quit trying to think and let her own body curve around his. Even on the hard ground, it was wonderful to be beside Slate.

  She was about to drift off again when she felt him stir. The hand she was holding tightened into a fist.

  “The money,” he said clearly into the night. “In the bag?”

  It was a question, and Cassidy hardly dared to breathe for fear of interrupting whatever he was saying in his sleep.

  “The bank is empty, and Mr. Barlow is busy.” Slate was narrating his dream as if it were happening all over again. “Amanda watching…” There was a pause. “Getting married. Money…for Mother…doctors.” Slate struggled, as if he were fighting someone.

  Cassidy considered waking him, but she decided against it. “Slate, what happened in the bank?” she asked softly. If he could hear her, he might answer. Or he might wake up.

  “Money for the doctors.” Slate sounded more anxious. “Mr. Barlow is busy…waiting.” He swallowed. “Father’s gun.” He lifted a hand as if the gun were in it. “The gun.” His voice grew angry. “Gone!”

  Cassidy shook his shoulder. “Slate, wake up.” She shook him harder. “Slate?”

  He lifted his eyebrows and then his eyes opened. “Cass? What is it?” h
e asked lazily.

  She was startled by his use of her pet name. “You were talking in your sleep.”

  “Sorry,” he said, still on the verge of sleep. “Johnny Vance used to complain about it all the time. Since a prisoner who talked in his sleep was a lot less dangerous than one who might try to kill him, he didn’t bother trying to find a less talkative cell mate.”

  CASSIDY AND SLATE were up at first light. They stood for a moment, her back against him as he circled his arms around her, and watched the herd below them greet the new day.

  “We need to get that buckskin to Cole,” she reminded him.

  “Will do. Send Danny back out if you can spare him. He’s got a nice way with the animals.”

  “I promised Lindsey I’d bring her out for breakfast.”

  Slate’s chuckle was right at her neck. Her body reacted with a surge of desire for him.

  “She loves Joker, doesn’t she?” he asked.

  “All of the hands have made up stories and told her about him. I hope she won’t be disappointed to discover that he’s simply a flesh-and-blood horse.”

  “She won’t be disappointed,” Slate assured her.

  Cassidy turned her head and lightly kissed his cheek. It was so natural, so easy. Sleeping beside him, she’d had her own share of sweet memories return. “I’ll be back,” she promised.

  He released her. “We’ll try to return the mares where they belong, and if you don’t mind, I’ll bring one or two of yours out here to keep him company.”

  “Good idea.” Cassidy reluctantly walked to the truck. She had a plan—one she didn’t want to share with Slate. It was a long shot and probably an action that wasn’t hers to take. But during the night she’d hit upon an idea that would involve going into a part of Slate’s life where he might not welcome her intrusion. She wanted to follow through before she lost her nerve—right after she brought Lindsey out for breakfast with the wild horses, and Slate.

  THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY was in her rearview mirror, and the flatter vistas of the Lone Star State spread in front of her as Cassidy headed east toward Huntsville Prison.