The Texas Way

by Jan Freed

  It was Margaret’s turn to snort. “He’ll respond.”

  On sure ground at last, she dismissed his skepticism and prowled the room. “I’ll take care of insurance, feed, farrier, veterinary and transportation costs for the first five months. With creative management, five thousand dollars ought to just about cover it. After Twister wins the Armand Hammer Classic in August, we’ll split the bills fifty-fifty.” She slanted him a challenging look. “And, of course, the profits, too.”

  Scott straightened, forcing her to tilt her head back. His thick brows drew together into a daunting V. “What profits are we talking about here? A couple of grand a month in stud fees? That’d be nice, but hardly enough to pay the note due on H & H Cattle Company.” His features hardened. “Frankly, putting up with you isn’t worth it.”

  My life in a nutshell, cowboy. Her throat constricting, she examined one smooth coral fingernail with forced indifference. When she could safely speak again, Margaret met his gaze.

  “The Armand Hammer Classic offers a fifty-thousand-dollar purse. Top racing sires command stud fees of up to five thousand dollars a mare. By conservative estimates, Twister could earn over a half-million dollars a year for the next ten years. Would that be worth putting up with me?”

  His slack-jawed surprise did wonders for her bruised ego. Thankful she’d done her research, she played her ace. “If you won’t do it for yourself, think of your father. With that kind of working capital, you could hire all the hands you need, make a big dent in his medical bills.”

  Muttering a foul word, he spun around to brace both palms on the lip of the rusted sink and stare out the window. She followed his gaze. For once, fate was on her side.

  Blurred by the dirty glass panes, Grant Hayes stood outside the barn wiping his fingers on a faded red cloth. Pausing, he lifted the rag with trembling fingers to his forehead and blotted twice before continuing his listless cleaning. If she hadn’t heard about his triple-bypass surgery, she would have suspected worse. He looked pale and exhausted.

  Watching Scott’s chin drop and his knuckles whiten, Margaret felt her satisfaction slink away in shame. If anyone understood the sickening helplessness of emotional blackmail, she did. She’d had no right to bring his ailing father into their battle.

  Scott slowly raised his head and spoke without turning. “All right, Maggie, you win. But I swear to God, before we’re through you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, Margaret parked just outside H & H Cattle Company’s gate and listened to the powerful engine idle. This was it. Her chance for independence and the fulfillment of a dream she’d cherished since first becoming enchanted with Arabians as a teenager. Scott’s agreement to a joint-venture partnership yesterday could establish her as a top breeder and trainer, a woman to be respected, instead of ridiculed. A woman who didn’t need a man to survive.

  True, she was dependent on Scott now. But then, he was equally dependent on her. With luck, they’d separate in less than six months in a position to pursue their individual goals and change their lives. Money had that power, she’d learned early in life. Her father made sure she never forgot it.

  Morning sunlight winked off the eighteen-karat-gold initial key ring her parents had presented—along with a flashy silver Corvette—for her sixteenth birthday. A reward, she recalled wryly, for winning four blue ribbons in a class “A” horse show.

  After years of disappointing them with poor grades, botched recitals and social faux pas, she’d been pathetically happy at the proud smiles on their faces. Her riding instructor had mentioned that with a finer horse, Margaret had the potential to become a national champion. Donald Winston’s eyes had gleamed at the prospect.

  Margaret dropped her forehead against the steering wheel and succumbed to bittersweet memories of the Arabian horse farm her father had established adjacent to Scott’s ranch. Riverbend. In many ways, her life had begun—and ended—at the prosperous breeding and training facility.

  She’d spent five summers and many holidays there under the tutelage of Liz Howarth, Riverbend’s manager and a former member of the U.S. Olympic equestrian team. Yet Liz’s lessons had been a joy. Her instructions had been easily understood. Wonder of wonders, her teaching hadn’t been hindered by her student’s dyslexia.

  Margaret squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the incalculable frustration and humiliation her impairment had caused throughout her childhood. The exclusive girls’ boarding schools she’d attended had been staffed to train future matrons of society, not detect learning disabilities. She’d often wondered why she advanced to the next grade each year. Later, she’d learned her father was a most generous benefactor of each school she attended.

  Heaven bless Miss Jenkins. The seventh-grade English teacher had possessed the perception and integrity to insist Margaret be tested by a specialist. Donald and Gloria had first denied, then been embarrassed by, their daughter’s problem. But Margaret had received the news with profound gratitude.

  She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t! There was a medical reason for the jumbled mess her mind made of letters and numbers. With specialized tutoring, she could learn to decipher the world in ways she could understand. Her relief had been shattering. Liberating.

  Lifting her forehead from the leather-wrapped wheel, Margaret blinked at the rutted road winding beyond the open gate. She’d almost conquered her debilitating insecurity six years ago, only to be knocked down again with brutal force.

  Matt. Oh, Matt, I’d turn back the clock and start over, if I could.

  But she couldn’t. She could only go forward and live with her guilt as best she could. Funny how life had brought her full circle to the man least likely to help her forget Matt’s death.

  Straightening her shoulders, she shifted gears and drove over the rattling cattle guard, past the sagging aluminum gate propped against a fence post. Scott Hayes was every bit as domineering as her father and ex-husband. Maybe more so. Living with his contempt on a daily basis, striving to earn his respect, would be the toughest challenge she’d ever faced.

  As the Porsche climbed an ungraded road and topped the steep rise, Margaret set her jaw. Scott might call her Maggie, but it wasn’t the first nickname she’d been given. Teachers and schoolmates alike had awarded her another epithet after experiencing her tenacious, dogged…persistence, she preferred to call it.

  Scott would have his own challenge to deal with, Margaret vowed, looking down the hill at a dilapidated barn and house. Her new partner was about to face The Mule.

  IN THE FARMHOUSE BELOW, Grant stared at his bedroom ceiling and watched the fan blades whirl. Pitiful, he thought. There was a time he would’ve already put in four hours of hard labor by ten o’clock, and here he lay weak as a kitten from washing the breakfast dishes. Damn his traitorous heart! Fifty-three wasn’t that old. Yet his ticker had given out when Scott needed him most. And now the medical bills, on top of the bank note…

  He closed his eyes and willed himself to rest. To heal. The fan motor whirred. The pull chain ticked against the swaying brass casing like a metronome. He fingered the nubby chenille bedspread Patricia had bought their first year of marriage and sighed wistfully.

  After eighteen years, he still missed her. She’d been too fine and cultured for a simple rancher like him, but he’d accepted the gift of her love and tried to be worthy. They’d had ambitious plans for H & H Cattle Company once. Then cancer had struck, and his dreams had died with her. His body had gone through the motions of ranch chores. He’d loved his children and kept a roof over their heads. Occasionally he’d slaked his physical needs with an equally lonely widow in Gonzales.

  But his heart had remained insulated. He simply hadn’t cared about improving the place or making it profitable. And now Scott was paying the price.

  Pain that had nothing to do with his operation made Grant wince. For eighteen years, he’d been sleepwalking through life, his memories of Patricia more real to him than the deteriorating ranch. Damned if he’d ask
ed to wake up, but he didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter these days.

  A loud ruckus broke out in the barn. Masculine shouts. Twister’s whinny. Grant listened for a tense moment, then relaxed back against his pillow. No point in getting up really. If there was a problem, Scott would handle it.

  He always did.

  THE DOUBLE CRACK of iron-shod hooves against wood reverberated throughout the barn.

  “Dammit, Pete, I told you to stay back! You know he hates the sight of you.” Scott threw an irritated glance over his shoulder.

  “Well, he don’t exactly make the sun shine for me, neither,” the peppery old cowhand grumbled, shuffling to a safer distance.

  Scott ignored Pete’s injured feelings and concentrated on the greater problem at hand. What the hell was wrong with Twister?

  The stallion danced restlessly on the far side of the twelve-by-twenty-foot stall, his bunched muscles rippling beneath a pearl gray coat. Charcoal velvet nostrils fluttered in distress. His silver tail swished up and down, side to side.

  “Come on, boy. Don’t you want to get out and stretch your legs?” Scott moved slowly into the stall and clasped a lead rope to the nylon halter. Thank goodness he’d forgotten to remove the halter last night before returning to the house.

  Noting the full feed bin, he frowned. “What’s the matter, Twister? You’re usually a pig. Are you getting sick maybe?”

  A coil of dread tightened Scott’s belly. Ranch life had hastened his mother’s death, crushed his younger sister Laura’s spirit, weakened the heart of his once-invincible father. He sent up a silent prayer. Please God, not Twister, too.

  Backing out the open door, Scott pulled the rope taut.

  Twister planted his forelegs and refused to budge. Eyes rolling, sides heaving, sweat lathering his neck and flanks, he nickered low and deep.

  Scott turned toward Pete. “Go up to the house and ask Dad to call Doc Chalmers. Something’s wrong with Twister, but hell if I can figure out what.”

  “Car’s comin’ down the road,” Pete observed from the barn doorway. “Fancy thing, just like the girlie drivin’ it.”

  Scott drew in a hissing breath. Maggie. Damn. He’d thought it would take her at least a day to pack whatever a princess needed to live among the common folk. He didn’t have time for her royal crap now.

  “Just do what I ask and get the Doc out here. Tell him it’s an emergency.”

  “I’m goin’, I’m goin’.” Pete pushed off the doorframe and ambled toward the house, his voice drifting back in mumbled snatches. “Too dang mean to be sick…into some loco weed…do this, Pete, do that, Pete…”

  Doc Chalmers wouldn’t go into a stall with the fractious stallion for a truckload of money. The veterinarian had made that clear the last time Twister had landed a well-aimed hoof.

  Scott dug in his heels and pulled harder on the rope. “Come on out, dammit. You don’t even like being in there.” Sweat trickled into his eyes, stinging like hell. He lifted one arm and rubbed his forehead, knocking his hat off in the process. His T-shirt clung damply, his jeans felt hot and scratchy—and he was playing tug-of-war with a friggin’ elephant!

  Twister nickered again, but something about the sound was different this time. And suddenly Scott knew. Knew even before the light, fresh scent filled his lungs with spring flowers and his mind with images of sunlit hair.

  “What is he afraid of?” the cultured, feminine voice asked from several feet behind.

  Scott slackened the rope and watched his proud, beautiful stallion shiver. “He’s not afraid. He’s sick. Doc Chalmers is on the way.”

  “He’s terrified,” Margaret insisted, walking up to stand beside Scott in the stall doorway.

  In the dim light, her shoulder-length hair glimmered palely—her translucent gray eyes more palely still. She wore a sleeveless yellow dress sprigged with blue cornflowers. A thin blue satin ribbon threaded the puckered scoop neck, drawing his gaze to delicate collarbones and the hint of creamy breasts. The cotton material hung waistless, beltless, yet skimmed her curves more alluringly than spandex.

  He felt like a smelly, hairy Neanderthal next to a magical fairy princess.

  “Let me see what I can do.” With ethereal grace, she slipped into the stall and moved toward the wild-eyed stallion.

  Scott’s heartbeat stalled, sputtered and roared to piston-pumping life. He was afraid to yell, afraid to do anything that might startle eleven hundred pounds of horseflesh into explosive action.

  “Hiya, handsome. Remember me? Of course you do.” She reached up, grabbed the halter cheek straps and pulled Twister’s head down. “You wouldn’t forget your new friend.”

  Damned if she wasn’t blowing in his nose!

  “Now what is it that’s got you so scared? Why don’t we check it out together, okay?” She took the rope from Scott and shooed him back from the doorway.

  Dazed, he stumbled backward as she moved forward, her pink toenails flashing bright next to Twister’s tough, yellowed hooves.

  God almighty! Sandals in a horse stall. Twister’s horse stall.

  “Ready, handsome?” She did something to his mane with her fingers. Amazingly he seemed to calm down a little. “All right then, let’s go.”

  Paralyzed, Scott watched the powerful haunches gather, the pricked ears flatten. In two tremendous leaps Twister catapulted through the door, Margaret trotting close behind. Fifteen feet away he wheeled to face the stall and backed up, snorting all the while.

  Pete’s skinny form darkened the barn entrance, but Twister ignored his long-standing enemy. Nothing else could have demonstrated his fear so well.

  “You okay, Maggie?” Scott choked out.

  Her steady gray eyes were inspecting the stall. “Whatever has him spooked is over there. See anything new or unfamiliar?”

  Scott scanned the area and rumpled his hair. Nothing looked different to him. Same frayed leather bridle drooping from a rusty nail. Same packed dirt floor covered with matted straw. Same shovel leaning against—

  “The hay,” Pete said, moving toward Margaret with surprising hustle.

  With the right incentive, those bowed legs of his could sure get up and go, Scott noted wryly.

  At the wrangler’s approach, Twister jerked his head back. Margaret laid her small white hand against his arched neck and murmured soothingly. Once again the stallion marginally settled.

  Pete’s light blue eyes widened.

  “What about the hay, Mr….?” Margaret paused politely.

  “Pete. Just call me Pete, miss.”

  She flashed a dazzling smile. “Pete, then. And please, call me Margaret.”

  Scott rolled his eyes. He was at a goddamn tea party.

  “Were you talking about that hay over there, Pete?” She indicated two bales stacked next to the stall doorway.

  “That’s right, mi…M-Margaret.” Pete doffed a battered straw hat and ducked his head, revealing a shiny brown bald spot surrounded by crinkled gray hair. “I put it there myself yesterday evenin’.”

  “Would you mind very much moving it away from the wall for me?”

  “Don’t mind a’tall, not a bit, no.” He hurried to the hay and heaved the top bale down with the strength of a much younger man.

  It landed with a heavy thud, missing Scott’s toes by a dust mote. He narrowed his eyes and glared.

  Supremely indifferent, Pete stooped over and lifted the second bale. A long black snake slithered between his boots.

  Twister squealed and rode his haunches. Pete dropped the bale and cursed. Scott grabbed a shovel and swung it edge-side down at the snake.

  The reptile’s body and head separated; the one writhing and flipping, the other yawning pink and grotesque in search of a target.

  Pete shuddered. “Ain’t nothin’ on this earth I hate worse’n a damn snake, even a piddly ol’ bull snake. No wonder Twister went nuts. Want me to get rid of it, boss?” He looked none too thrilled at the prospect

  Scott had the shove
l, after all. Grimacing, he walked toward the motionless form. “Call Doc Chalmers and see if he’s left yet. I’ll—”

  “Wait,” Margaret interrupted. “Don’t move the snake yet.”

  Shovel extended, Scott frowned.

  “Twister’s been scared for hours. His territory’s been threatened. He needs to protect it, to vent his fear. Let him kill the snake.”

  Pete glanced down at the severed, triangular head and scratched his neck. “Uh, Margaret? It’s—”

  “Go on and make that phone call, Pete. She knows what she’s doing.” Scott waited for her smug comment. When she flashed him a look of gratitude, he hid his surprise behind a scowl.

  Twister’s whole manner changed as she led him forward. Head high, eyes flashing, ears pricked toward his enemy in the dirt, he screamed a high challenge and rose on hind legs. Down came his front hooves, again and again, his rage elemental and awesome to watch. When finally he stood still, blowing hard and trembling with exhaustion, the snake lay scattered in pulpy bits. Lowering his head, Twister gave the pieces one last contemptuous sniff before turning toward his stall.

  Margaret scratched beneath Twister’s chin. Grunting in ecstasy, he raised his head and stretched his neck like a contented tabby.

  “Good work, handsome. I’ll bet you’re hungry now. How about some nice breakfast and a nap?”

  Somehow the sight of Twister calmly following her into the stall didn’t surprise Scott. Her confident assurance yesterday that Twister would respond to her training didn’t appear boastful now. The woman seemed able to read the stallion’s mind. She’d bewitched him. And much as Scott hated to admit it, he couldn’t blame the poor animal. Her fairy-princess act was pretty potent.

  He reached down, hoisted the nearest bale to his shoulder and staggered blindly toward the stall.

  “No! Don’t ever stack hay outside his stall again or he’ll think there’s a snake there,” Margaret explained.