Follow Me Home

by Leona Karr

  She sighed and closed her eyes. As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered at the strangeness of life that had brought her into this house and filled her mind and body with reawakened desires she had thought long buried.

  HAL PEEKED IN on her mid-morning and saw that she was still asleep. She was curled up on the far side of the bed, hugging a pillow like a slumbering child. Her hair had come loose from its usual long braid, and her long lashes lay like dark fringes upon her fair cheeks. Her lips were soft and relaxed, her breath even as she sighed deeply.

  His pulse quickened as he looked at her and stilled an absurd impulse to lay a kiss upon her forehead. This surge of protective tenderness and desire took him by surprise. The firm grip he’d always maintained on his emotions wavered. Seeing her in his bed was like a fulfilled promise that he hadn’t even known lay close to his heart. After Carrie, he’d never felt this way about the few women who had briefly entered his life, and he’d watched them move on without any regrets. The feeling he had for this woman curled up in his bed frightened him. He wanted to throw back the covers and climb in beside her. He’d glimpsed the passion in her seductive body when he’d held her close and kissed her. He knew she would be a woman who would hold nothing back from a man she loved. He didn’t know what kind of a man her husband had been, but one thing was for sure, the guy had been damn lucky to have a wife like Jill and a son like Randy. Was she content to live with her memories?

  She stirred. For a moment he was afraid she was going to open her eyes and demand to know what he was doing standing there, staring at her like some lovesick fool. He quickly retreated and quietly closed the door. It’s the damn storm! he silently swore. All ranchers knew that animals reacted to increased atmospheric pressures. Sometimes they acted plain crazy. Like me, he muttered to himself.

  THE DAY HAD DAWNED cold and gray. Even though heavy clouds hung low, there was no sign of fresh snow. Hal knew the drifts must be nearly six feet, because early that morning the barn cat had peered in the top ten inches of a kitchen window. She’d walked around on top of the snowdrift, meowing loudly, wanting her morning ration of milk.

  “Couldn’t wait for me to bring you some breakfast, huh?” He chuckled as he forced the back door open enough to let her in. He picked her up and stroked her cinnamon-colored fur. She’d left a litter of kittens in the barn and he scolded her for venturing out in the storm. “You should be keeping your babies warm.”

  All of the men except Gary straggled into the kitchen for breakfast. Kirby set out his usual breakfast feed, and when they were finished eating and enjoying coffee refills, Hal announced cheerfully, “Time to start digging out.”

  “Now?” Neither Zack, Kirby, Scotty nor Larry looked happy about the pronouncement. Obviously, his ranch hands and house guests would prefer to hole up in the den and indulge in a game of poker, but Hal ignored their lack of enthusiasm.

  “Time to make sure the livestock in the barn and corral have feed and water.”

  “Still looks bad out there to me,” Larry said, and the other men nodded in agreement.

  “No use doing the job twice,” Kirby grumbled.

  “Makes more sense to wait until it clears,” Scotty agreed.

  “I put out plenty of feed,” Zack said. “Stacked up a half dozen bales in the corral under the shed so it wouldn’t get buried in snow. The horses in the barn should be all right for another day.”

  Hal slapped the young man on the back. “There’s only one way to know for sure, isn’t there? We’ll have to take turns with the shovels and follow the rope guide to the barn. Zack, why don’t you and Kirby get started? Scotty and Larry can take the second shift. We might get the garage shoveled out and make it to the bunkhouse if we don’t get any more snow today. We’re lucky to have so much manpower, aren’t we?” he said, grinning.

  “It’s colder than a well-digger’s butt out there,” Kirby muttered as he pulled his coat off the antler rack. Zack’s reply was inaudible, but he flashed Hal a look that clearly expressed his disgust with the boss’s orders.

  BY THE TIME JILL came down to the kitchen later that morning, Kirby was the only one in the kitchen. “Where is everybody?”

  He told her that the others were taking shifts shoveling a narrow path through snow banked as high as their heads. “I just came in to fix lunch.”

  Jill was startled when she looked out the back door and saw that the blizzard winds had swept across the open ground between the house and the barn and piled up snow against both buildings. “It looks like a fairyland,” she said to Kirby.

  He groaned something that she suspected was not meant for a lady’s ears. His face was ruddy from the cold, and his hands seemed stiff as he chopped vegetables and meat for the stew pot. He swore at the tabby cat threading his legs, and Jill quickly picked it up to get it away from his threatening feet.

  “Is she hungry?” Jill asked as she shifted the cat in her arms.

  “She’s always hungry. Especially since she’s got five kittens nursing. I try to keep her bowl full, but it’s always empty. Some mother! Leaving her babies to freeze. Someone needs to take her back to the barn.”

  The cat began to purr as Jill cuddled her close against her chest and stroked her soft fur. “She’s a sweetheart. What’s her name?”

  “I call her cat.”

  “She deserves better than that.”

  Kirby shrugged. “The boss calls her Gypsy. Fancy name for a stray cat, if you ask me. Damned if I’m going to carry her back to the barn.”

  Jill thought for a moment. “I’ll do it. I’d like to get a little fresh air. Besides, I’m a softy when it comes to kittens.”

  “But you don’t have a cat,” he said in an accusing tone. “How come, if you’re so crazy about them? You don’t have any pets.”

  She stared at him. “How do you know that?”

  “Guess.”

  Her throat tightened. “I can’t.”

  The cook gave her a crooked smile as if enjoying a private joke. “Easy. Your son was making a fuss over a lamb when he was here with the 4-H kids one day. I thought the boy was going to talk the boss into letting him have the lamb for a pet, but then he said his mother wouldn’t let him have any.”

  “We’ve always lived in apartments,” she said defensively. She knew well enough how much Randy loved animals, but someone had to be realistic about keeping animals in such small quarters. Had part of Hal’s initial frosty manner toward her been caused by Randy’s longing for a pet? She bristled to think how unfair his judgment about her had been. He’d been prejudiced before he’d even met her. Just like you were about him, a mocking voice reminded her.

  She slipped into her coat and hat, and clutched Gypsy against her breast. The glass in the back door was completely frosted over, and she wasn’t prepared for the blast of razor-sharp wind that tossed snow into her eyes and nose. She swiped at her face with one gloved hand, ducked her head and headed down a shoveled path, which was more like a narrow trench.

  When she reached the barn, she quickly darted through a small door that had been shoveled free of snow. Large double hay doors were still banked high with drifts. After the enveloping whiteness outside, she was momentarily blinded in the dim interior of the long barn.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” Hal’s surprised voice echoed from the depths of the barn.

  “I brought Gypsy back,” she said, walking forward, peering ahead, trying to see where his voice was coming from.

  He stepped out of a stall, a pitchfork in his hand. “You have no business out in weather like this,” he scolded in a rough voice that hid his delight. She hadn’t been out of his thoughts for a moment this morning as he carried out his chores. The memory of her sleeping in his bed mocked his attempt to put her soft, luscious body out of his mind. It was a good thing he had a lot of hard work to keep him occupied.

  “Kirby said Gypsy needed to get back to her kittens,” she said, stroking the cat in her arms. The barn was chilly. Animal heat from the horses
and several tons of hay stacked overhead provided roof insulation, but it was a good thing all the horses had thick coats of hair, she thought.

  “And so you decided she wouldn’t be able to find her way and brought her back. The fact that the drifts are six feet high didn’t bother you?” he teased.

  “I just followed the shoveled path and the rope. Are the kittens all right?”

  With a smile of amusement, he propped the pitchfork against a stall gate and jerked his head toward an open stall where a wooden box was almost buried in straw. When the cat struggled to get out of Jill’s arms, she quickly put her down. A welcoming sound of meowing greeted the mother cat as she bounded into the box and settled down in the midst of five hungry kittens.

  “Oh, they’re darling.” Jill knelt down and watched the tiny bundles of fur work their little paws against their mother’s tummy as they spilled warm milk into their puckered mouths. “I’m glad they’re all right.”

  “Which one do you want?” He hunkered down beside her, and laughed at her surprised expression. “Take your pick. I kind of like this little white and black one, myself.” He picked up one of the tiny soft kittens and placed it in her hands.

  She held it gingerly. “I wouldn’t know how to take care of something so tiny.”

  “By the time she’s weaned, she’ll be a nice size, probably not as big as the others, but the runt is sometimes the best of a litter. They have lots of spunk, and won’t let anyone push them around.” His eyes crinkled in a smile. “Kind of like you.”

  She blushed. “Maybe one hard-headed female in a family is enough.”

  “It’s not polite to refuse a present,” he chided. “Besides, Randy would love a kitten.”

  “I know, but I’ll have to think about it,” she said as she put the kitten back in the box. And about a lot of other things too, she admitted silently. It was impossible to think rationally about anything when he was so close. She couldn’t forget the way his kisses had sent her reeling with unexpected desire. The kitten would be just one more reminder of emotions that had gotten out of hand.

  Several horses hung their heads over the half gate and were snorting and stomping restlessly. “Are the horses okay? They seem agitated,” she said as she stood up and looked down the row of stalls.

  “Just impatient for their bucket of oats. I decided to muck out the stalls before I feed them.” He surveyed her with a quizzical lift of an eyebrow and a teasing glint in his eyes. “Since you’re here, you might as well help.”

  Cleaning out stalls wasn’t exactly her choice of occupations, but she supposed that it was something one could get used to. There was an amused challenge in his eyes that she couldn’t ignore. She’d show him that she wasn’t any shrinking violet. “Sure,” she said, expecting him to hand her the rake.

  He laughed at her stoic expression. “Well, you’re in luck. That’s the last stall.”

  She didn’t try to hide her relief. “Good.”

  “I tell you what, you feed the horses while I get more hay down from the loft.”

  She looked down the row of snorting horses bobbing their heads and turning wild eyes in her direction. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. What’s the matter?”

  She knew he was silently laughing at her. Might as well be honest, she thought. “I’m a city girl, remember, and the only horses I’ve been around were on a carousel. But I’m a fast learner,” she said bravely. “Just point me in the right direction.”

  “All right. You’ll stay warmer if you keep moving. Besides, I never refuse the offer of help. You’ll find the oats in the tack room.”

  “In the what?”

  “Maybe I better lead you in the right direction,” he said, sighing in feigned exasperation. “Come on.”

  They walked down the length of the barn to a square room filled with bridles hanging on the wall, saddles resting on wooden horses, and a variety of currying brushes and horse-shoeing tools laid out on a worktable. “This is called a tack room, where we keep all the horse paraphernalia and feed,” he explained and pointed out gunnysacks filled with grain stacked at one end of the room. A couple of the sacks were already open and he quickly showed her how to fill up a bucket with oats using a bent coffee can.

  “All right, now what do I do with it?” she asked as she stood with the full bucket in her hands.

  “Find a horse, reach over the gate and set the bucket inside the stall. Start with Calico. She’s in the first stall.”

  Jill was well aware of the quirking smile at the corner of his mouth as she carried the pail out of the tack room. A spotted mare hung over the stall gate and stretched out her neck in anticipation of the oats. Pausing in front of the stall, holding on to the pail with both hands, Jill had no idea how to get the bucket past the mare and into the stall.

  As she hesitated, Hal came up and put a firm hand on the mare’s neck and pushed. “Back, girl. Back.”

  Quickly, Jill lifted the bucket and almost had it over the gate, when a beautiful tiny foal that had been resting in a mound of straw rose up on wobbly legs. Jill was so startled that she dropped the bucket, spilling feed all over the stall. “Oh, I’m sorry, I—”

  Hal laughed. “No problem. Calico would just as soon eat off the ground. That’s her brand-new filly. Only a couple of weeks old.”

  Jill marveled at the long-legged foal with its roan coat splattered with black spots on its hindquarters. The same spotted coloring, only in a different pattern, marked Calico’s smooth coat, and her hooves were striped in black and white. “She’s a little princess,” Jill breathed in awe. Her chest tightened with a strange emotion. She had never seen anything more beautiful. It was one of those times when her spirit seemed to expand beyond her mere senses.

  As they stood together in silence, watching the beautiful young foal nurse while its mother buried her mouth in the half-filled bucket of oats, Jill had never felt such completeness, such harmony as she did that moment. Suddenly she wanted to share everything about her life with him. Gazing over at him, she sensed that he felt the same.

  “Beautiful horses, aren’t they?” he said with obvious pride. “I suspect you’ve seen a lot of Appaloosa horses in western pictures. Sometimes they’re called Indian ponies.”

  She nodded, remembering how proudly he’d showed off the horse photographs to the Millers. She smiled inwardly at his burst of enthusiasm as she began to ask him more about them.

  “The Haverly Ranch has a reputation for breeding these western horses,” he told her. “There’s always a market for good riding stock. Appaloosas make excellent pleasure mounts and hold their own in competitions, too. They’re versatile and easy to train. Every year some of our horses take prizes in the more than seven hundred horse shows across fifteen states,” he told her proudly. “There’s nothing like the excitement of seeing a colt you’ve raised beat the competition. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to the Denver Stock Show or Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming?”

  She shook her head.

  “Ever seen a rodeo?”

  “On television.”

  He scoffed. “You have to be one of the crowd. You have to wave your hat, stomp and cheer, and breathe the dust of the arena. There’s no art more beautiful than lariat ropes whirling and spinning, and no sight more breathtaking than beautiful horses conquering an obstacle course.”

  Jill delighted in his sketch of a world she never knew existed, and his enthusiasm grew with every story and description that he shared with her. He told her about his grandfather and father, who had seen the Haverly homestead through both good and hard times. “I’m trying to hold on to the ranch and keep the tradition going, but the land is worth a lot now, and I’m under plenty of pressure to sell. The whole valley is filling up with con-dos and ski resorts. Greedy vultures are everywhere, destroying a way of life that allows a man to follow his own heart.” The lines in his face deepened and the blue of his eyes took on an iced chill. “No one is taking this ranch from me. No one. And anyone who thinks he
can will wish to heaven he’d never tried.”

  Jill didn’t know what to say. Her easy companion of the moment before had disappeared. Obviously something ugly and destructive was eating at him. Any platitudes about progress forcing change seemed hollow. To him, the ranch was almost a living, breathing soul, and she knew from the fierce determination in his eyes that he would never willingly let it slip out of his hands.

  He broke the tense moment with an abrupt wave. “We’ll never get the chores done this way.” He led the way back to the tack room.

  As they worked together to feed the rest of the horses, she asked him about his work with the 4-H kids and thanked him for spending time with Randy. “He really loves coming here.”

  “I’m glad you let him. You should have stuck around some after you dropped him off. You could have seen him in action.”

  “Well,” she began hesitantly, “you have to admit, you weren’t exactly Mr. Congeniality the couple of times I came here with the kids.”

  “Well, I’ve had to fight shy of a few overbearing mothers from time to time. I made a mistake including you with the rest of the mothers. I had blinders on. Or maybe I was afraid.”

  “Afraid? Of what?”

  How could he admit that she’d sent his pulse racing the first time she’d smiled and held out her hand for a shake. Her high spirits, easy laughter, and friendly openness had jolted him, as if he was a maverick hitting a wired fence. Back then he’d thought there was only one thing to do: keep his distance. He’d tried, but fate had taken matters out of his hands. “Let’s just say a pretty woman with gorgeous honey-brown eyes can unsettle a man.” He gave her a quick smile as he took a deep breath and picked up a water bucket. “I’m curious to know how a nice gal like yourself ended up in a place like Rampart,” he said as he carried water to a nearby stall.