by Linda Howard
“THAT COUSIN OF yours is …” Carlin searched for the right word, as she and Kat sat on stools in the kitchen and ate fat sandwiches. Their work was done for the day; the shared supper had become a ritual, one Carlin enjoyed.
“Hot?” Kat supplied with a grin. “Having part of the same DNA doesn’t make me blind. Immune, but not blind.”
Carlin waited until she’d swallowed the bite of chicken salad on whole wheat that was in her mouth, then she gave a decided pfft. “I was thinking of a word more like annoying.”
Kat shrugged. “That, too. He’s a lot of things, but the one thing he isn’t, is boring.”
“He’s a cowboy, right?” The worn, scarred boots, the hard hands, the sun-browned skin made that a foregone conclusion.
“Pretty much. He owns a good-sized ranch about an hour away.”
“Are you first cousins?”
“Yep. His dad and my mom were brother and sister. We grew up here together—well, almost together. He’s a few years older than I am.”
“Zeke—is that short for Ezekiel, or something?” It was kind of an unusual name, but somehow very fitting for the area, and for the man himself.
“Zeke’s a nickname. His real name is A.Z. Just the initials, they don’t stand for anything. But on his first day of school the teacher called him A.Z. and some of the other kids thought she was saying ‘Hey, Zeke.’ They called him Zeke and it stuck. He’s been Zeke ever since.” Kat shifted on her stool. “I don’t know what Aunt Helen was thinking when she named him. It was some family name on her side—a great uncle, I think. Maybe her grandfather, or her mother’s first cousin’s godfather. You know how it goes with families.”
“Uh, yeah,” Carlin muttered wryly, thinking of her own name.
Kat slanted a knowing glance at her, a look that carried more impact because of those witchy eyes. “So, you’re interested, huh?”
“What? No!” Except she’d asked too many questions—not a lot, but about two too many. The last thing she needed in her life right now was a man, especially one who asked so many questions. So what did it matter to her if his name was short for anything? It didn’t. It couldn’t. She should keep her mouth shut, starting now.
She shifted on her stool, put on an air of indifference. “Maybe he is a little hot, if you like the type,” Carlin conceded. Tall, hard, good-looking … yeah, that type. Woo hoo! She tamped down her reaction and blithely lied. “But he’s also a cowboy, and since you know the area and the people so well I feel honor-bound to follow your wise advice about avoiding the John Wayne wannabes.” Plus she wasn’t looking for any complications, but that went without saying.
“You are so full of shit,” Kat said, grinning. Then her smile faded. “Okay, to be honest, I was kind of hoping that Zeke might hire you on as his cook and housekeeper. Since Libby left last year he hasn’t had much luck finding a replacement, and he’s getting desperate.”
What? Carlin felt the floor fall out from beneath her. Kat was letting her go? Why else would she be trying to find someone else to hire her? Talk about being blind-sided—one minute she’s relaxed, happy, joking with a friend, and the next she was mentally thumbing through the atlas wondering where she’d be headed next. She’d thought she had more time to grow her savings, plus she really liked Kat and this place, damn it. But life was what it was, and she’d deal. “You don’t have to find me another job. If this isn’t working out for you—”
“No!” Kat said vehemently. “That isn’t it at all. I love having your help, and we get along great. It’s just that I know that business slows down every winter, and when that happens I won’t have the money to pay you. We’re good for a couple more months, but I was just trying to think ahead.”
Crap. Carlin hated to think of leaving, but she’d known all along this was temporary. “When you can’t afford me any more I’ll move on,” she said sensibly. She’d keep an eye out for a decline in business, and if Kat didn’t let her go when that happened, she’d take care of it herself. It wouldn’t be the first job she’d quit since she’d started running. Usually she just left, without a word of warning and especially without any hint where she might be heading, but then the kind of jobs she’d had generally didn’t require notice. She wouldn’t leave Kat in the lurch like that. “I don’t want to be your cousin’s nanny, anyway. He struck me as a hard man to please, and life’s too short.” Besides, he was too curious, asked too many questions, and would probably balk at the idea of paying her under the table.
“Just as well.” Kat’s eyes gleamed. “He wasn’t keen on the idea, either.”
Carlin’s heart thudded hard. “You already asked him?” Her tone was just short of a squeal. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat.
“I was just feeling him out. Don’t worry, he shot the idea down pretty quick, so I didn’t even get to the details about the way you need to be paid. He’s none the wiser.”
Out of all that, what stuck with Carlin the most was that Zeke didn’t want her on his ranch. It was perfectly all right that she didn’t want to go, but the fact that he’d dismissed her out of hand stung a bit.
Then a memory surfaced, and she felt herself turn red with anger. She hadn’t thought anything about it at the time, but—“I came out of the kitchen for a minute while y’all were talking, and I heard him mention something about a stray. I thought maybe he was talking about a dog or a cat, but he wasn’t, was he? He was talking about me.” Brad had called her a lot of things, none of them complimentary, and hadn’t dented her at all because after just two dates she’d known something was way off about him, but knowing Zeke Decker had called her a stray roused every fighting instinct she had.
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Kat soothed, then she paused. “Hell, I’m not going to lie to cover his ass, but he is under a lot of stress, so try to cut him some slack.”
Carlin wasn’t about to argue with Kat about her cousin, but she was boiling inside. Stray! He could kiss her ass.
Jerk.
SPENCER HAD FINALLY gotten the message about oatmeal. This morning’s breakfast had been somewhat better, though a mess of toaster waffles was no one’s idea of a great meal. Zeke had spread peanut butter on two warm, round waffles and slapped them together. The others had done the same, knowing they’d need some protein before lunchtime rolled around. At least they weren’t being served cold cereal, which held them for about two hours before they were all starving again. Thank God there had been a huge pot of hot coffee to wash the sticky mess down.
With the hay baling behind them, the pace of his days on the ranch had eased a little. He’d managed to do some laundry, so he had clean socks and underwear. Would wonders never cease. He’d never thought he’d be so grateful to have a laundry basket full of clean underwear. The hands were at work and Zeke was just about to settle down with another cup of coffee and bank records to compare and reconcile, when he heard the bang of the kitchen door being thrown open and a frantic voice calling, “Boss!”
Sounded like Bo, which was bad news because Bo never panicked. Boots clumped hard and fast on the floor, and Bo appeared in the open doorway to Zeke’s office, his expression urgent. Zeke was already up and on his way to the door. “What’s happened?”
“Spencer,” Bo said simply. “Santos got him.”
Shit! A big bull could do a lot of damage to a man; Santos didn’t have horns, but a swing of that big head could send someone flying, or a well-placed kick could break bones. Had Santos gone for Spencer after he was down? Normally the bull was calm, and like most animals behaved well for Spencer, but a bull was still a bull and not a house pet.
Zeke pushed his way past Bo, running through the house and out the open kitchen door, toward the barn. Fuck! Spencer had been set to collect semen from Santos this morning. He’d never had any trouble before; Spencer was a much better cowboy than he was a cook.
“How bad?” he asked, as they ran.
“His arm’s hurt, but I can’t tell how bad it is until I can get close e
nough to check it out. No blow to the head, he’s conscious and talking, but the bull is between Spencer and the rest of us and won’t move. I suppose if anybody tried to jack me off and sell my sperm I’d get pissy, too.”
Inside the barn, the scene was pretty much as Bo had described. Three hands—Walt, Eli, and Patrick—stood between Santos and the door. Santos was agitated, pawing the ground and swinging that big head, facing the men and looking as if he might charge at any second. Spencer was on the ground, sitting propped against a stall, cradling his left arm. There wasn’t a lick of color in his face.
“You okay?” Zeke asked, his eyes on the bull.
“Yes sir,” Spencer said and swallowed “It’s my fault. I was getting ready to move Santos into the head catch and I got distracted. I think I moved too fast and spooked him. He started bucking and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t blame him, boss, he’s just being a bull.”
Another reason why Spencer would be here for a very long time. The kid was hurt, but his first words had been in defense of the bull. “We’ll worry about that later. Everyone else out.” Too many people standing too close were part of the reason Santos was still spooked. And with all the others out of the way, the number of Santos’s targets had decreased.
When it was just the three of them—Spencer, Santos, and Zeke—Zeke eased toward the bull. Already the animal seemed to be calmer. Zeke made low, soothing sounds as he moved forward. He’d actually petted the bull a few times, and Spencer had more than just a few, so this wasn’t a mean animal. He was just big, and he was a bull. Enough said. His plan was to get Santos into the stall and locked up, and then get Spencer to the doctor—simple enough in thought, more difficult in execution, but not as difficult as it could have been. After some initial contrariness, Santos seemed to get bored, and simply turned and walked into the stall.
Zeke closed the gate and latched it, then called the rest of the men in as he went down on one knee beside Spencer. “Where do you hurt?”
Spencer’s white features showed the stress of pain. “Just the shoulder. Hurts like a son of a bitch.”
Thank God it was nothing more than a shoulder, which was bad enough. A kick to the head, and he and Spencer wouldn’t be having this conversation. “I’m going to get you to town, let the doctor have a look at you.” If they were lucky it was just a strain, and the doc in the local clinic would be able to take care of everything. If the injury was more complicated, they’d be headed to Cheyenne before the end of the day.
“I’m sorry, boss,” Spencer said as Zeke helped him to his feet. “I know this is a bad time for me to be down even for a few hours. Maybe Darby can cook, or Eli. They said they can’t cook a lick, but everybody’s got to eat tonight.”
“Don’t worry about any of that right now,” Zeke said. “We’re grown men; we can take care of ourselves for a while.” Never mind that with Spencer hurt they were now short a hand and they’d been working long hours anyway. How in hell could he spare anyone else to do any cooking? One night they could handle, but if the injury required surgery, if Spencer was going to be one-armed for a long period of time … If worse came to worst, Zeke would figure out how to throw a meal together himself. He’d tried that a time or two, trying to give Spencer a break, and each time it had been a disaster. Not only did he have a tendency to burn everything he cooked, he always managed to use every damn dish in the kitchen in the process.
Kenneth and Micah were married. Maybe one of their wives, or both of them, would agree to prepare a meal or two, since this was a real emergency. They’d refused before, not wanting to be pulled into a full-time job they wouldn’t be able to escape from. They each had small children, so it wasn’t exactly an ideal situation. One way or another, though, everyone would get fed.
Libby had spoiled them all, with three hot meals a day—not just hot meals, but hearty, good food that was filling and provided the fuel they needed to work a long, hard day. Maybe they could get by with sandwiches and cereal for a while, but it wouldn’t be good enough, not when they needed four or five thousand calories a day just to break even. They’d work it out, somehow.
But as he drove toward Battle Ridge, a silent Spencer sitting in the passenger seat beside him cradling his left arm, Zeke wasn’t feeling hopeful about the situation.
Chapter Six
CARLIN HATED THE new nip in the air, the cooler mornings, the shorter days, the undeniable signals that winter was coming. Business at The Pie Hole hadn’t taken a hit yet, but it soon would, if Kat’s previous years were anything to go by. The past couple of days she’d taken out her atlas at night, opened it to Wyoming, and run her finger along the road that would take her away from Battle Ridge, much as she had on that first day here, when she’d thought she was stopping for a bite to eat and not really hoping for anything more.
Things had changed during the past weeks. Now she didn’t want to leave. But what she wanted, and reality, were two different things. It was almost time to move on.
She no longer automatically checked the exits when she walked into a place, maybe because everywhere she went was so familiar that the details were burned into her brain. Her routine took her to a handful of places where she recognized the employees and sometimes the regular customers on sight: the grocery store; the small pharmacy; the library. Those were the only places she went when she ventured out of The Pie Hole. She no longer cringed inside whenever anyone took notice of her. It wasn’t that she recognized every face she saw on the street or in the café, but someone in the vicinity always did. A stranger would stand out like a sore thumb here, the way she’d stood out a few weeks ago.
Leaving would mean starting all over again, not trusting anyone, never sleeping deeply, never laughing, never dancing as she mopped. Kat would be a problem. They’d become friends; she’d want to know where Carlin was headed and how they could stay in touch.
The idea was tempting, so tempting that she didn’t dare. No, Brad had no idea she’d landed in Battle Ridge, but how could she stay in contact when she didn’t know how he’d found her in Dallas? Had it been her cellphone, her utility bill, her social security number—what? There were so many ways it could have been, and she wasn’t an expert at living underground. She was learning, she was smarter now than she’d been, but she wasn’t in the same class with Brad. Not only was he a wizard with the computer, as he’d told her several times during their two dates, but he was a cop and presumably had access to resources she had no idea even existed. She couldn’t tell Kat where she was going; it was too dangerous. The safest course would be if they didn’t stay in touch—safest for her, and definitely safest for Kat. Carlin would never let herself forget what had happened to Jina, never put Kat in that kind of jeopardy.
The best thing for her to do was just pack up her Subaru in the middle of the night and go. Kat would be pissed. Maybe that was for the best.
If she waited until the dead of winter to leave, snow and ice would hamper her. She needed to be settled somewhere before the worst of it arrived. But when her finger traced the road leading from Battle Ridge, it never landed anywhere. It just slid along the page and then drifted up.
She wasn’t ready to leave.
ZEKE OPENED THE Pie Hole door and went in; it was early yet for the lunch crowd, but a couple of tables were occupied. Kat was wiping down the counter. A fresh pot of coffee was working, gurgling and competing with the scent of recently baked pies. He was dog tired, worried, but the comforting smells soothed him.
Kat gave him a sympathetic look. “I heard about Spencer. How’s he doing?”
Zeke slid onto a stool at the counter. She put a coffee cup before him and expertly filled it almost to the brim. Carefully Zeke lifted the cup, took that first sip, sighed at both the taste and the situation. “He’ll be fine. It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“You look frazzled.”
He was frazzled. It had been a week since Spencer had had his run-in with Santos, and Zeke was at the end of his rope. The mo
derate tear of the rotator cuff had required day surgery, which had meant a trip to Cheyenne. Spencer’s physical therapy started next week, but thank goodness a physical therapist visited the clinic in Battle Ridge once a week so weekly trips to Cheyenne would not be necessary. But someone would have to drive Spencer to town for his session, which would mean on those afternoons Zeke would be two men short instead of one. He’d been trying to handle the cooking himself, what little he could do in the time he had to do it in, which wasn’t much. The results had been stomach-turning. “It’s been a long week.” And that was the understatement of the year. Of course, the year wasn’t over yet. There was still a lot of shit that could happen. “Spencer’s going to be in a sling for at least six weeks.”
“Have you found a cook yet?” Kat asked, and if not for the almost imperceptible lilt in her voice he’d think it was a perfectly innocent question.
He scowled at her. “You know damn well I haven’t. A couple of the men tried, but, hell, they aren’t cooks. I even brought in Kenneth’s wife. Once.” Then she’d told him flat out she had too much to do at her own home to take on his mess, too. She’d left the bunkhouse with a promise that she wouldn’t be back. Micah’s wife had turned him down flat. “I’ve been doing it myself, mostly.”
Kat gave him a cheerful smile. “Well, it sounds like you’ve got everything well in hand,” she said. “Do you want lunch or just pie? I have apple today.”
Well in hand, my ass. Zeke sipped at the coffee, ignoring the smugness she wasn’t even trying to disguise. The coffee was great; it was hot and strong, just the way he liked it. “Both,” he said, relieved at the thought of a hot, well-prepared meal, but too damn irritated to work up a smile.
Kat started to turn away, to go into the kitchen where apparently Carly was preparing today’s lunch special. Zeke sighed, faced what he had to do, and bit the bullet. He stopped her with a word. “But …”
