“It does if you’ve never ridden a real horse before.”
He almost missed her whispered comment. He actually kind of wished he had. “What do you mean by that?”
“I’m not sure, Tag. But as much as I want to believe I am who I think I am, I have a feeling I’m not.” She gave him a sickly grin. “This is too new to be something I’ve done before. The way it feels to sit in the saddle, the leather reins in my hands. Haven’t you noticed? I don’t have any calluses on my hands. Annie Anderson has calluses. I’m sure Betsy Mae does, too.”
The image of Lee’s soft, perfectly manicured hands filled Tag’s mind with a growing sense of horror. He stared at her, wanting to deny every word she said.
“I keep thinking Daisy’s nothing like the painted ponies on the carousel.” Lee looked so forlorn, Tag was afraid she might cry. She bit her upper lip and said in a beseeching whisper, “If I can remember a carousel ride in a park when I was a little girl, shouldn’t I remember riding a real horse if I’m a professional barrel racer?”
He didn’t want to think about it. Absolutely, positively did not want to know the answer to that one. He closed his eyes in mute denial, but he had to ask. “Then who are you, Lee? Just who the hell are you?”
The tip of her tongue darted out nervously, wetting lips that already appeared to be chapping in the dry Colorado air. “I don’t know, Tag. The only thing I’m sure of is that I recognized you the first time I saw you and I know I’ve seen the Double Eagle before.” Her brittle laugh was filled with apprehension. “Oh, yeah, and we didn’t really get married yesterday. I know that.”
“That’s it?”
“Sorry.”
“Your name isn’t really Lee?”
“I don’t know. It still sounds familiar. I’m just not certain.”
“You’ve never raced barrels?”
“Don’t think so.”
“But how?”
“How?”
“How come you thought that’s what you did? How come you know Betsy Mae? How come you went along with marrying me? It doesn’t make a lick of sense, Lee . . . if that’s even your real name,” he mumbled.
“We’ve been over this before,” she said, sounding about as exasperated as he felt. “I don’t know. I just figured you’d like to be kept current. You know, as to what I do and don’t recall.” She flashed him an appealing grin like this was the newest game in town.
Tag didn’t quite see the humor in the situation. He thought of something else she’d recalled, earlier. A blond man with pale blue eyes.
He felt like throwing up. The horses maintained their steady pace, climbing now along the trail leading to the east valley. It would be so nice to be a horse, totally oblivious to anything other than the weight on your back, the hard-packed earth under your feet, the fresh grass to munch on at trail’s end. Tag took three deep breaths, counted silently to ten in Spanish, repeated the process in French, then ran through his numbers once more, in Portuguese.
He only went to Portuguese in really tense situations.
This one seemed to qualify.
“It’ll be okay, Tag. Really. I’ll do my best not to blow it, I promise. Besides, even if Gramma Lenore figures out we’re not really married, what’s the worst thing that can happen?” Lee reached over and patted his hand. “She’ll merely go back to looking for a bride for you, right? Look at it this way, it’ll give her something to do. Take her mind off . . . things.”
Tag slowly turned his head to stare at Lee. She didn’t have a clue. To her, this entire operation had begun as a setup to keep his grandmother from matchmaking. He’d forgotten. Forgotten completely that Lee didn’t know about the deed to the ranch, or the Foundation for the Preservation of Wild Horses, or the damned threat his grandmother’d been holding over him most of his life.
No wonder she wasn’t nervous about the mess they were in. He took another deep breath, tried to count. Couldn’t. Not even in English.
Lee rode silently beside him, looking relaxed, not nearly as afraid. She was obviously enjoying the ride. Daisy’s ears pointed forward as she picked her way carefully along the trail, no longer nervous with the new rider on her back.
Lee might never have ridden a horse before, but so far she was taking to it like a duck to water.
Tag forced himself to relax as well. Maybe this would all work out. Maybe his birthday would come and go, his grandmother would transfer the deed and everything would happen as planned.
And maybe cows would fly. Tag glanced at Lee. She smiled back. Her green eyes sparkled with the adventure of the moment. She licked her lips and straightened the disreputable Stetson covering her thick auburn hair. Sunlight turned the thick waves over her shoulders to a cascade of bronze and gold.
Tag could barely breathe for the beauty of her.
Damn, it was going to be another really long night.
Chapter 8
“SHE WENT with him? He didn’t mind?” Lenore stepped around the side of the stall, but remained in the shadows.
Coop had known she was there the whole time he and Tag were talking. Hell, he knew whenever Lenore was close by. He always had. Sometimes it felt like he had radar where Lenore was concerned. “Yep,” he said, wiping his filthy hands along his pants leg. “They’re off, just for a couple three days this trip. They’ll be back before roundup, which’ll give ’em another two weeks together, though I don’t know what good it’s gonna do. He is one confused young man.”
“Well, that’s not surprising.” Suddenly Lenore was right there, standing in front of Coop with both hands on her hips, her chin jutted out like she was ready to take on the world. “Especially with you settin’ an example. I’m convinced all men are confused. It doesn’t seem to matter if they’re young or old.”
“Now what do I do?” He stepped back and almost tripped over the pitchfork.
“It’s what you don’t do, Coop.” Now she merely looked exasperated.
“Huh?” He took off his Stetson and scratched his head. Then he remembered what was all over his hands and wished he hadn’t. It was bad enough to be standing this close to Lenore in a barn that smelled to high heaven from the stalls he’d been mucking out. He shoved his hat back on his head and wiped his hands on the seat of his pants.
“Have you ever thought about kissing me, Coop?”
Only every day of most of my life,
he wanted to say. Maybe he would have if Lenore hadn’t suddenly looked like she wanted to cry. “Yeah,” he said, tripping over even that simple response. “I’ve thought about it.”
Damn, that wasn’t how it sounded in the books he read. When the guy wanted to kiss the girl, he said the most wonderful things, words that would convince any woman she was the most beautiful female on the face of the earth.
Except he couldn’t recall any woman as beautiful as Lenore. Coop took a deep breath, swallowed, wished he could say the things he read, say what was in his heart. Lenore just stood there and watched him, her eyes swimming in tears while it was all he could do to swallow a lump the size of Texas and try to remember to breathe.
She practically looked right through him for what felt like forever, then sighed and lowered her eyes. Before Coop could stop her, Lenore turned around and headed back to the house.
He stood there a moment longer, reeking of manure and sweat, wondering if Lenore had any idea at all how much he loved her. Any idea of how little he had to offer.
He wanted to follow her across the yard, run over to her and tell her she’d been the only woman for him his entire adult life. What stopped him now had always stopped him.
He had nothing to offer. Nothing but a heart that had always loved her. What was that to a woman of means, a woman who owned a huge cattle ranch and a beautiful house in town, a woman who’d been married to one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the county?
An old cowboy’s heart wasn’t much. It wasn’t near enough. Coop heard the door slam. He felt it clear to his toes, broadcasting Lenore’s anger and disappointment loud and clear.
It came to him then, suddenly, that he’d hurt her. She wasn’t asking him if he’d thought about kissing her because she was curious. Hell, she was inviting him to kiss her.
Like the jackass he was, he’d stumbled over his words until she must have thought he didn’t care.
He’d hurt the woman he loved more than life itself, a woman who didn’t have a lot of living left to her. If kissing a worn-out old cowboy would give her even a moment of happiness, the least he could do was get over his pride and follow his heart.
But he wasn’t going to kiss Lenore out here in the barn, smelling of manure and worse. No, Coop decided. He had a couple of days before Tag got home. A couple of days to court the woman of his dreams the way a woman was meant to be courted.
Whistling, Coop shut the gate on the stall and headed for the bunkhouse. It wasn’t even near quittin’ time, but a shower and a clean change of clothes sounded like a good place to start. He might not have a lot to offer, but that danged woman was going to get the best he had. And dammit all, it was gonna be clean.
LEE WAS so caught up in the green, aspen-covered hills and the lush meadows of yellow and gold she almost forgot to be terrified. Almost.
She stroked Daisy’s warm neck and listened to the creak of the leather saddle, the steady tramp of the horses’ hooves on the beaten trail, and knew she’d never done anything like this in her life. It was an experience she’d only read about.
Tag obviously didn’t want to talk about it.
In fact, Tag hadn’t talked about much of anything for the past hour, but the silence hadn’t been uncomfortable. Everything today was new and exciting. Lee wasn’t about to let Tag’s lack of conversation ruin it for her.
She grinned, settled her tender bottom more comfortably on the saddle and studied the broad shoulders of the man on the horse in front of her.
Tag rode as if he were an extension of the big strawberry roan. He’d explained, quite abruptly in Lee’s opinion, what a strawberry roan quarter horse was and why he called Chief a gelding and Daisy a sorrel filly. When she’d asked for those simple explanations, Tag had actually gotten a little wide-eyed. Lee finally decided that was the point where he’d begun to believe her . . . that she’d never ridden a horse before.
That she wasn’t who he wanted her to be.
Until then, he’d proved himself to be a master of denial. So typically male, she thought.
If I don’t discuss it, it didn’t happen or it doesn’t exist.
Tag wanted everything all wrapped up in a nice neat package. It was a much more acceptable package when she’d been a down-on-her-luck barrel racer looking for a job.
Tag obviously had no idea how to handle a woman with muddled memories of New York City and Central Park, a confusing past that might include a European education and a strange man with pale blue eyes. Lee understood his discomfort. She wasn’t all that certain herself what direction her life should take.
The only thing she felt moderately certain of was her attraction to the sexy cowboy astride the big strawberry roan quarter horse. That, and the fact that same cowboy was doing his best to deny the attraction he felt for her.
Suddenly Tag’s hand came up in a signal to halt and he drew back on Chief’s reins. Lee’s mare moved alongside and stopped without any direction from Lee. “What’s the matter?”
“Do you hear that?”
The only thing she heard was the soft sigh of wind through the trees punctuated by the raucous cries of a flock of nearby ravens. Then Lee caught another sound, a soft grunting and the crackling and snapping of disturbed brush.
“It’s not a bear, is it? Please, Tag. Tell me it’s not a bear.” The grunting grew louder, followed by a snort and the sound of heavy breathing. Lee grabbed Tag’s arm. “Tag?”
“No, I don’t think it’s a bear. You stay here. I want to check this out.” He reached down and peeled Lee’s fingers off his wrist, carefully removing them one by one.
She glanced up at his face. His grin spread ear to ear, the buffoon! She yanked her hand out of his and sat stiffly astride Daisy. Tag dismounted and handed Chief’s reins to her.
“Hang on to him,” he said.
I can do this,
she thought. Then she realized Tag was pulling a rifle out of a scabbard attached to his saddle. “What do you need that thing for?”
“Just want to be on the safe side,” he said. “Just in case it is a bear.” He winked, then held his finger to his lips and immediately disappeared into the thick brush alongside the trail.
Daisy’s ears twitched and she snorted, shaking her head impatiently. Chief copied the little filly and almost pulled the reins out of Lee’s hands. She thought about dismounting and giving her sore backside a rest, but the thought of being on foot and alone in the Colorado wilds nixed that idea.
Especially if there was a bear nearby. Lee shuddered and clung more tightly to Daisy’s saddle horn and Chief’s reins.
The ravens’ cries suddenly ceased. The silence was as unnerving as the sense of isolation creeping across Lee’s shoulder blades. Where was Tag? She knew he’d only been gone a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours.
Chief snorted and tugged at the reins. Daisy shifted her stance, cocked her hip and almost unsettled Lee in the process. Lee gripped the horse’s sides with her knees and Daisy took it as a signal to move forward. Lee tugged back on the reins with her free hand and Daisy turned to her right, following the pull on the hackamore.
Lee raised her left hand with Chief’s reins clenched tightly in her fingers, holding them over her head to keep them untangled as Daisy completed a slow spin to the right. Lee felt herself slipping, leaning, sliding gently to one side. Contact with the ground was becoming a distinct possibility.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tag stood at the edge of the trail with a look of utter confusion on his face, the rifle balanced easily across his chest.
“What do you think I’m doing? Dancing a ballet, you idiot! Take your horse. I can’t stop Daisy without using both hands. She keeps going in circles.”
Tag stepped forward and gently grabbed Daisy’s nose, effectively halting her slow spin. The look he gave Lee was priceless. “I think she’s had enough dancing lessons for one day,” he said. “Besides, I need your help. Get down and we’ll tie these two so they won’t go anywhere.”
“What’s the matter?” Lee dismounted carefully, groaning when her legs practically buckled beneath her. They’d only been riding for a couple of hours, but her knees wobbled and the muscles in her thighs and calves quivered with exhaustion.
“There’s a mare down, a wild mustang in labor. She’s old and I don’t know if she’s going to make it. She’s so weak, she let me up close to her. I want to pull the foal, but I’ll need you to hold her head.”
“What? You want me to hang on to a wild horse?”
“She’s in pain, Lee. A lot of pain. We can’t leave her.”
“Oh. Okay.” Lee searched her faulty memory banks. Nowhere did she recall delivering babies of any kind.
Tag pushed his way through the thick scrub, holding the branches back for Lee. In just a few minutes they stepped out into a small meadow, completely surrounded by buck brush and scrub oak. The soft grasses had been torn and ripped to the bare earth by the mare’s labors.
She lay on her side, her once black coat spattered with mud and grass, its sheen dulled from hunger and advancing years. Her hip bones jutted, painfully framing her distended belly. Saliva and foam flecked her neck and chest. White circles surrounded her terror-filled eyes, but she only grunted when Tag knelt beside her.
Lee heard him crooning softly to the old horse. Amazingly, the stricken animal responded. Her eyelids lowered and a shudder passed through the pain-wracked body. Tag stroked her forelock, all the while speaking in a singsong voice, soothing the mare, familiarizing her with his touch.
“Come closer . . . slowly,” he instructed Lee.
She did as he asked and knelt down beside the horse. The animal snorted and tried to raise her head, but Tag took Lee’s hand in his and stroked the mare’s sweaty neck. Within moments the horse had calmed.
“I’m going to check for the foal,” Tag said. “Keep stroking her, sing to her, anything you can think of to calm her down. Can you do that?” He turned Lee’s chin with just the tips of his fingers, until she was looking directly at him, then he smiled. “Yeah, you can do it,” he said, grinning at her. “Remember, do a good job. I’m going to be down by the end that kicks.”
Before Lee realized what he was up to, Tag kissed her on the nose and scooted on his hands and knees to the back end of the mare. The old horse grunted, then groaned, and the big muscles along her side rippled with her efforts.
Tag moved her tail aside then grinned at Lee. “Got two feet,” he said. “Keep her as calm as possible. I’m going to try and get a grip on this little guy.”
Lee focused all her concentration on the mare, on the horse’s labored breathing, her Herculean efforts to deliver her young. The animal’s eyes had closed completely now, her breathing grew shallow, even the painful groans and grunts subsided.
The mare’s suffering was barely visible through Lee’s sudden and uncontrollable tears. How long had this valiant animal suffered? What if she and Tag hadn’t come along at precisely the moment they had? “C’mon, Mama.” She kept her voice low and soothing, mimicking Tag’s gentle tones even as she wept. She had no idea where the words came from, but suddenly Lee knew she could pour her heart out to the laboring mare.
“You can do this,” she crooned. “Such a good, strong mama. We’re gonna help you have your baby, but you’ve got a little bit more to do. Then you can rest. I promise you. Then you can rest.” Sobbing brokenly, whispering words of comfort in a soothing singsong voice, Lee rhythmically stroked the mare’s throat and cheek, praying for an end to the animal’s pain.
Suddenly the mare raised her head and cried out, a long, low whinny that escalated into a scream of agony. “Got it,” Tag yelled, falling back in a rush of fluid, holding a blood-soaked ebony mass in his hands.
The mare’s head dropped, falling heavily into Lee’s lap. She felt the animal shudder and gasp. Lee sensed as much as heard the mare’s final silence.
“Help me, Lee. Quick.”
Weeping uncontrollably, Lee moved the heavy head aside and rushed to Tag. He’d removed his flannel shirt and was massaging the lifeless-looking foal, pressing against the tiny animal’s chest, willing it to live. Lee could barely see through her tears, but she took the shirt from Tag’s hands and copied his actions.
Tag wiped the mucus and blood away from the foal’s mouth, then blew air into its nostrils. He repeated the process once, twice, a third time.
Lee watched silently, her frantic movements along the bony little body slowing as she saw defeat cloud Tag’s eyes.
Then she noticed a tiny bubble form in one shiny black nostril. “Tag,” she whispered. “Look.”
The bubble broke.