The Cowboy's Family (Family Ties Book 2)

by Carolyne Aarsen

  "She has two kids, you know," he said.

  "Is that a warning?" Mason asked.

  "No, just information."

  Mason caught another tone in his voice, more than just an older brother looking out for his sister. What was that about?

  "I'm here to train the horses," Mason assured him.

  "That's good. You don't want to get tangled up in the mess that is Tricia's life."

  Mason wanted to ask a question, but then thought of a line he had heard somewhere. Silence draws out information. So he kept his eyes on Kane, and said nothing.

  "You may as well know, seeing as how you’ll be working here for a while, and seeing as how you'll be working with Tricia. She just came out of a terrible relationship. Abusive."

  Kane stopped there, as if he knew himself he had said too much.

  "I can be professional," Mason said. He assumed the man in the abusive relationship was the Perry that had called yesterday. Last night he had called Roger, passing the name on. Roger said he couldn't do much digging without a last name.

  However, Kane said nothing more, and Mason knew asking more questions would just raise suspicions.

  "So you'll be okay working with Tricia?” Kane asked.

  Mason let the sentence sit awhile, as he tried to find a diplomatic way to state his objections.

  "I know it's not ideal," Kane added. "But the horses are Tricia’s. And she hopes to work more with them after the initial training period."

  "So she told me."

  Kane's quiet sigh spoke volumes to Mason. He had sensed tension between Kane and his sister, and suspected it had much to do with some of Tricia's decisions in the past.

  "How will having kids work with her training the horses?" It was an innocuous question, one he didn't think would raise any red flags.

  Kane shrugged, as if he wasn't crazy about the arrangement either. "My dad will watch them while they're having a nap. So she’ll only be available for a couple hours in the afternoon. Maybe an hour or two in the morning, if Dad is up to taking care of them."

  "Do I have to wait until she's available to work with the horses? I won't get much done if I can only work two hours a day with them."

  "No. You can work as long as you want and as much as you want, just bring Tricia up to speed when she comes and joins you."

  "Well then, I think I’ll get started right away," Mason said, pushing himself away from the fence. "I’ll get a few things from my truck and then I'll get going."

  “If she can get the kids settled, she’ll be right back.”

  Mason simply nodded, then walked down the path they had come, around the house and to his truck.

  Another vehicle pulled up, and Kane blew out a sigh as a tall fellow stepped out of the truck and waved his hat, revealing red hair tied back in a ponytail. He wore an old army-surplus coat, baggy blue jeans, and the biggest grin.

  “And here’s Joe,” Kane said with a sigh as they walked toward him.

  “Hey there,” Joe said as he came near. “This the trainer?”

  “Mason, this is Joe. Our hired hand, when he remembers.”

  “Oh, c’mon. I told you I’d be gone a couple of days,” Joe protested, still grinning. He shook Mason’s hand, looking him up and down as if taking his measure. “Nice to meet you.” Then he turned back to Kane. “So what’s up for the day?”

  “Come to the house. I’ll let you know.” He looked back at Mason. “So you’ll be okay?”

  “Just fine,” Mason said. He walked over to his truck as Joe and Kane headed to the house.

  He grabbed his bag holding the ropes and halters he would need and headed back to the corral.

  The round pen he would be working in was just off the pen holding the horses. It looked fancy. Heavy wooden posts joined by gate panels. The entrance was a large white gate framed by tall posts topped with an arched header on which was engraved Tall Timber Ranch.

  For a moment he wondered how long this place had been around. Clearly there was money here, and it looked like the Tye family wasn't too bashful about spending it.

  He brushed his thoughts aside. It didn't matter to him how much or how little they had, as long as they could pay.

  He looked the horses over, then got them moving, trying to decide which one he would start with. A bay mare caught his eye. With a metal screech he opened the gate from the corral then the one leading to the round pen. It took a lot of finagling to separate the bay from the herd. But he finally got her on her own. She tossed her head, whinnying at the other horses.

  He wanted to get her circling the pen, but she kept stopping and turning toward the rest of the herd. His first problem.

  "She doesn't seem too happy with the setup." Mason looked up to see Tricia standing on one of the metal panels watching him. "We might have to move the other horses to another spot, so she doesn't get distracted."

  "You've been reading my mind," Mason said. "She needs to concentrate on me. If those other horses are too close, she's gonna want to get back with them.”

  "I can never figure that out. From what I've seen, she's on the bottom of the pecking order and often gets bit and kicked by the other horses. Why would she want to go back to that?" Tricia released a light chuckle, and Mason looked over at her again. Her hair glowed golden in the sunlight and her smile softened her features. Roger had no pictures of her, which he had thought rather strange. Apparently Drew and Tricia hadn't dated long, but they’d had children together and had gotten married. Surely his son would've sent his father at least one picture?

  “Get the kids settled down?”

  “Hopefully. They’ve been out of sorts the past couple of weeks.”

  Mason didn’t reply to that, his focus on the horse now. "Does this horse have a name?"

  "I thought I'd call her Abby," Tricia said.

  "Any reason you chose that name?"

  "Childhood friend," Tricia said. "We used to compete together in peewee barrel racing. Spent a lot of time together"

  "Do you still see her?"

  "No. She passed away. I didn’t get a chance to tell her—" “Tricia's voice broke, and Mason guessed there was a story behind that. "Anyhow, that's what I call her."

  "Okay, Abby, time to get you moving." Mason clucked his tongue at the mare and slapped his thigh to get her going. Every time she slowed down he waved his arms at her and clucked again to keep her trotting around the pen.

  Tricia just watched. After about five minutes of constant movement Mason got the sign from Abby that he was looking for. Her head was down, and her tongue was working her lips. He stepped forward to stop her and angled his body forty-five degrees to her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her take one hesitant step toward him and then she stopped. He waited another moment, and turned around and started it all over again.

  "What exactly are you doing?" Tricia finally asked.

  "It's called a join-up." Mason waved his arms again, keeping the horse moving. "I want her to come up to me of her own free will. Once she does that then we are joined up. It's the first step but the most important one."

  He sensed the horse was willing, but she was also stubborn.

  "How long do you keep doing this?" Tricia asked.

  "Until she does what I want." Mason stopped again, and this time Abby took two steps toward him before shaking her head and going away again.

  “It takes a lot of patience," Tricia said.

  "You said you've worked with horses. You've never started from the beginning?"

  "No. By the time they came to me, the basic training had been done. I know a little bit about all of this, but I've never seen anyone actually doing it."

  "If you're helping with the horses, I'd like you to do this too." Mason sent Abby around the pen again.

  An hour later he finally had Abby where he wanted her, and the entire time Tricia just watched him, not saying a word. He was surprised with her patience.

  He'd had a few people who wanted to learn what he did, but many grew bored
and would walk away, leaving him to work alone.

  "That's all we’re doing with her for now," Mason said. "I want to keep her interested in what I'm doing. So we’ll let her go and get another one to work with."

  Tricia climbed off the fence rail and walked around to the corral. She clambered over the fence, opened the gate, and let Abby in. Mason chose another horse and together they separated it from the herd and sent it into the round pen.

  "Does this one have a name?" he asked as he pulled a long rope from his bag.

  "It's a toss-up between Gerald and Howard," Tricia said.

  Mason shot her a puzzled look. "Seriously? Those aren't horse names."

  "I'm starting a new trend," Tricia said with a chuckle. "I think it's time we brought horse names into the twenty-first century."

  "You can call it Franklin for all I care, but this horse looks like a Two-Bits to me."

  "I'm guessing you had a horse named Two-Bits," Tricia said.

  "I sure did. Best horse I ever had."

  "So you grew up around horses?"

  "My dad had a ranch, and we did things old-school. Everything on horseback."

  "Sounds like my dad. I have to confess, I was shocked to see a quad on the place," Tricia said. "I'm sure he got it after his accident."

  Mason caught a curious tone to her voice, and he glanced over to where she sat on the top rail, her heels hooked on the rung below her, her hands clasping the rail behind her. He took a moment to appreciate the sight of her lithe figure in her snug blue jeans and loose shirt. She didn't look like she had two kids. She looked like some carefree teenager.

  “Your dad said the horses came from a dispersal. Was the lady who had them before a horse breeder?”

  “She had pretty good stock. But I’m sure my dad told you, her grandson used to ranch with her and then left. I heard her other grandkids got scattered too.”

  Too? He wondered if she meant the woman’s other grandkids, or if she was thinking of her brothers.

  “Anyhow, she got rid of the horses. She knows she should

  sell the ranch but she seems to be living in hope that at least one of her grandkids will come back.”

  ”Doesn’t seem fair somehow,” Mason said, unable to keep the harsh tone out of his voice. “Some people can’t get their kids to take over, and some can’t keep the ranch for the kids who want to take over.”

  "Sounds like you have firsthand knowledge of that," Tricia said. She was surprisingly astute. "Is that what happened to your father?"

  It would have, if Roger hadn't intervened. The bank was ready to foreclose, and for some reason Roger approached Mason’s father and said he would buy the ranch at a price that would give his family some money after they paid off the mortgage. They would have had nothing otherwise.

  “Sort of,” he said, skirting the question.

  “Is he still ranching?”

  “No. He died a year later.” Mason knew he was being curt but didn’t feel like delving into the mess that was his father’s life. After Roger bought the ranch he kept Mason and his father on as hired hands. His father couldn’t handle the humiliation and left his wife and kids. He died in some cheap hotel.

  Though it ate at Mason that his dad lost the ranch, he was thankful for all Roger had done for him personally. Given him an opportunity to still work with horses and help him get the training he needed to become certified.

  Tricia looked like she was about to ask more, but just then her phone beeped. She pulled it out of her shirt pocket and glanced at the screen. “Shoot. Sorry. I gotta go. My kids are awake already, and I don’t want to push my dad’s patience too far.”

  “Will you be back?”

  “I might bring the kids here, if that’s okay?”

  Mason shrugged. “I’m not crazy about the idea. Kids can be a distraction.”

  “They’re good kids.” Tricia seemed to bristle at his comment. “I’ve raised them right.”

  She spun around, but not soon enough for Mason to miss a look of vulnerability. He watched her go, thinking about some of the things Kane had hinted at.

  You don’t want to get tangled in this drama.

  However, if he did what Roger wanted him to, he needed to know every detail about Tricia’s life.

  Especially, how she was with her kids.

  Chapter 3

  “You have to be quiet around the horses,” Tricia warned her children as she walked with them toward the corrals. Hope pulled on her mother’s hand in a rush to get ahead, while Cash lagged. If they were any older, they would pull her apart.

  “See de horsies,” Hope squealed. “Happy, happy.”

  “You act like you’ve never seen a horse before,” Tricia teased her.

  Cash was rubbing at his eyes, as if still tired. He had woken up crabby. Tricia had cuddled him and played with him but nothing seemed to satisfy him. She thought he would enjoy being outside, but as soon as they stepped out of the house he whined.

  “I go play swings,” Cash said, stomping his feet. “No see horsies.”

  He stopped abruptly, tugging on Tricia’s arm, throwing her off balance.

  She wasn’t sure what to do. She felt she had to spend as much time with the horses as possible, a way to show her father she was responsible and involved.

  And if she were honest with herself, it was also a way to show him that his faith in her wasn’t misplaced. She knew she had a lot of ground to make up for, and she wanted to prove herself worthy.

  But Cash was not in a cooperating mood.

  “We’ll just go for a little while,” she said to him, hoping to placate him. He still dragged his feet. Then he stumbled on a lump of dirt and fell down, which threw Tricia off balance. Pain jolted through her in a searing wave and she lost grip of Hope, who had been pulling at her hands trying to get away.

  “Come back here, honey,” Tricia called out to her daughter.

  But Hope had her freedom and wasn’t listening.

  Tricia scooped Cash up, struggling to catch up to Hope. But Cash was heavy, and Hope was already hustling along, arms swinging, legs pumping, as if on her way to the last day of a close-out sale.

  Tricia tried to hurry her pace, knowing that if Hope saw the horses she would squeal, like she usually did, and the horses would get all fussed and Two-Bits/Howard would get even more upset and Mason would think her kids were out of control.

  Hope was almost at the corrals, laughing her excitement, and Tricia was already out of breath and fighting the pain.

  What to do?

  She made an executive decision, set her son, still crying, down on the ground knowing he was too upset and cranky to go running off. Sure enough, he dropped onto his bottom, wailing in earnest now. Tricia put the pedal to the metal and ran after her daughter.

  Hope was already at the corrals, headed toward the round pen. She squealed just as Tricia thought she would, the horse in the pen reared, and Mason called out a warning as Hope grabbed onto the lower rail of a panel, trying to wiggle through the gap.

  Tricia hooked her arm around Hope’s waist and pulled her back just as the horse went racing past.

  Too close.

  She sucked in a deep breath, her heart pounding with a mixture of fear, relief, and anger.

  “That was too close,” Mason called out, letting the horse run it out. He turned, watching it, but tossed Tricia a warning look. “I thought you said the kids would behave.”

  Not hard to hear the irritation in his voice.

  Tricia clung to Hope, fighting down yet another stab of insecurity at the condemnation she saw in his expression. She wanted to defend herself but realized that she would only make things worse.

  “I’ll take them away for now,” she said, wishing she sounded more confident and in charge. “I’ll come back when they’ve settled down.”

  The horse was on the far side of the round pen, now standing quietly.

  “I don’t think so. I was just getting somewhere when your little girl showed up,” Mason
said, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Maybe stay away for the rest of the day.”

  He sounded annoyed, and Tricia didn’t blame him.

  But it got her back up.

  “Fine. I’ll be back. Without the kids next time.”

  Mason just nodded his assent.

  Tricia fought down her frustration and, hitching Hope on her hip, turned back to Cash, who was making his displeasure with her well known.

  “Want to see horsies,” Hope screamed, pulling away from her, reaching out to the corrals as if the horses would come and rescue her from her evil mother.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow,” Tricia assured her, pulling her back.

  But Hope wouldn’t settle down and started crying, struggling to wiggle loose from her arms.

  Tricia held on, and when they got to Cash, she sat down beside him, pulling Hope onto her lap to keep her down.

  “Honey, we are going back to the house, okay?” she told her son between his bouts of crying.

  “No go house,” Hope cried out.

  But Cash swiped the hands that had been resting on the ground over his face to wipe his tears away, leaving two large streaks of dirt. Then he wiped those damp and dirty hands on his clean shirt.

  Thankfully, he understood and scrambled to his feet, running ahead of her in the opposite direction his sister had just gone.

  Hope cried even louder, which made Tricia wonder what Mason was thinking. Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow they would be better.

  They had to be. Tricia hoped to watch Mason working with the horses as much as she could, and if the kids didn’t behave the only time she’d have with the horses was two hours at naptime.

  “That’s it, girl,” Mason said, stroking Abby’s neck, holding on to her halter rope. He ran his hands over her back, then down her leg. He was tempted to try to lift her feet but knew rushing the process would only cause problems. Abby was skittish, and he had to earn her complete trust.

  She nickered lightly and Mason looked up, wondering if Tricia was back.

  But it was Kane who stood by the fence, watching him.