Cowboy Tough (7 page)

“And that's your job.”

Cat thought she caught a little sarcasm in Mack's voice, but she let it pass.

“That's my job,” she echoed. “To make sure she doesn't get lost like her mother. To help her make a mark on the world.”

Mack set his hand on the edge of the bench behind her. If she sat back, changed her position the slightest bit, he'd have his arm around her. She'd be able to lean against him, just for a minute.

But Dora might come out any moment. She edged away. He didn't seem to mind, picking up a stick and poking at the fire. Maybe she'd only imagined he was making a move.

“Your sister made a mark on you,” he said. “That's about all we can hope for. To matter to the people we love.”

“But she could have made such a difference.” Cat felt her lower lip tremble and sucked in a deep breath. “The world should have seen what she could do. I'm not letting that happen to Dora.”

“Sounds like a big job.”

“Not really.” Cat looked up and watched the stars shimmer as the sky darkened. “She's my second chance.”

Mack watched Cat as she watched the stars. Her head was tilted back, and those dark blue eyes were sparkling with reflected light.

She caught him looking. “What?”

“I'm just thinking—you take a lot of responsibility for other people. Does someone take care of you?”

“Sure. I have a boyfriend.” Even in the dim light, he could see the flush spreading over her face. “That sounds funny at our age, doesn't it? Boyfriend.”

“So how come you don't marry him? You're what—twenty-five?

“Twenty-eight. And that's kind of personal, don't you think?” Her eyes darted from his face to the fire and back again. She was hiding something, he was sure. There was something fishy about her relationship with this boyfriend. Mack wondered if she'd made him up. “It's just—he's—I don't know. I should. He's amazing.”

Yeah, right. Mack was pretty sure she wasn't stuttering from the depth of her feelings. “Amazing, huh?”

She nodded eagerly. “He's a painter. A real artist.”

“You're a real artist.”

She laughed. “How would you know?”

“I looked you up. Online. Your work's terrific.”

She looked flattered, surprised, and uncomfortable all at once. And changed the subject back to the boyfriend as quick as she could.

“Well, his work's hung in museums all over the world. MoMA bought one of his pieces last year.”

“Your momma?”

“No, MoMA.”

Her lips quirked up in a grin and he wondered if she knew he was egging her on. He might not have visited a lot of museums, but he knew what MoMA was.

“The Museum of Modern Art. In New York.”

“Oh. I guess that would be a pretty big deal. So would I have heard of this guy?”

“Maybe. Ames Whitaker?”

“Doesn't ring a bell.”

“Well, it would if you were into art.
TIME
magazine called him ‘America's most promising young abstract expressionist.'”

“So what else about him is amazing?”

She plucked a sprig of blue flax from beside the bench and spun it in her fingers. She'd stuck several of them in her hat, but the petals had dropped off, leaving a few weedy stalks sticking up like antennae.

“You need more than that?” She lifted her chin. “He's a major talent. Unique. And he's—different. It's like he lives on another plane than the rest of us, really. Sometimes I tease him about living in a dream world.”

Mack knew the type. Guys who thought they were special. He'd seen it too often in rodeo—the big stars taking advantage of their status, using a woman until some other pretty face came along.

“Are there ravenous wolves in this dream world of his?”

She laughed. “No.”

“Well, they introduced them to Yellowstone. Maybe we can set some loose on Ames Whosiswhat.”

“It's Whitaker.” She laughed. “Jealous?”

“No. But I'm still wondering who takes care of you.”

She shot him a narrow-eyed glare. “I take care of myself.”

“Hmm.” Mack thought a moment, wondering how far he should go. Cat deserved better than this Ames guy—that was obvious.

He might as well be honest with her. She'd be gone in two weeks. Maybe he could teach her something more than how to ride horseback.

“Sounds like this guy's a total bust in bed.”

“I didn't say that.” She was really blushing now, and picking furiously at the poor flower. Two soft petals fluttered to the ground. “It's just that… well… it's a different kind of relationship. There's more to it than that.”

“I guess. Like name-dropping. Doesn't do you much good when you're around normal people, though. I never heard of him.”

He didn't know why he felt compelled to counsel this woman on her love life. Or why it twisted his heart into a knot to hear her talk about another man. He barely knew her.

Sure, he'd kissed her, but he'd kissed women before. He'd kissed Alex, and look how that had turned out. He'd gotten Viv out of the deal, and he'd never regret that. But he'd also gotten massive credit card debt and a mortgage for a house he didn't live in.

But Cat didn't seem like the money-grubbing type. In fact, he wondered how she could survive in Chicago. He'd always figured living in the city would be like living among that pack of wolves they'd been joking about.

After his divorce, he'd begun to think it was women who were the wolves. Now the pang of jealousy he felt when Cat talked about her boyfriend told him he was falling prey to another one.

She rose and walked away, heading up the path to the house without a word. He ought to feel lucky, like the deer would if a wolf snapping at his heels suddenly veered off in another direction.

But he'd been enjoying the chase, and that pang of jealousy turned into a different kind of pang as he watched her go.

He'd made up his mind when he'd returned to concentrate on the ranch, and on his family. He wasn't looking for a woman, that was for sure.

So why did he feel so lonely watching her leave?

***

By the time Mack finished the evening chores, the fire had dwindled to a flicker he could barely see from the barn. He headed down to the bunkhouse to kick a little dirt over it and caught Cat sitting silently on one of the benches, staring into the flames.

“How'd it go with your niece?”

She shrugged. There was a definite chill in the air, and it wasn't just because the fire was flickering out. He'd probably earned the cold shoulder with his comments about her boyfriend. He didn't know why he'd said that stuff. It had just pissed him off, her going on about how Honey Bumpkiss lived in a different world. She deserved better than that.

He suspected the guy wasn't any more talented than Cat herself. The paintings of hers he'd found online had been amazing. And she'd been swept away by the beauty of the landscape on their brief ride. He'd had to tap her on the shoulder twice, waking her up while she drank in the scenery.

But instead of putting whatever vision she'd absorbed into a painting, she was worrying about Dora, worrying about this Whitaker character, worrying about her students.

Worrying about him and what he was going to say next. Or do.

He needed to get a grip and make up for his previous clumsiness. Guiding a bunch of tenderfoots through the ranch's vast backcountry wasn't going to be an easy task. They needed to be a team.

“I'll do what I can to help with Dora.” He sat down beside her. “It seems like this might be a tough time for her.”

“What's not a tough time when you're fifteen?” Cat said. She seemed to be asking the sky, not him, so he didn't answer. The next question was addressed to him.

“So how old's your daughter? And where is she?”

“She's sixteen. Lives with my ex in Colorado.” He grabbed a stick and leaned forward, poking at the fire. It didn't need poking; he just didn't want to have to look at Cat while he answered.

“Do you see her much?”

He shook his head. “She's supposed to spend most of the summer with me, but Alex—my ex—always has some reason she can't make it.”

“How long have you been divorced?”

“Five years. Alex doesn't like the way I live. ‘The rodeo lifestyle,' she calls it. She doesn't seem to understand it's my job.”

“Doesn't it keep you from having a stable place for your daughter?”

He swallowed an angry retort. “This place is pretty stable.”

She nodded. “But you didn't live here. When you were married, I mean.”

“No. Alex didn't want me to rodeo, but she wasn't cut out to be a ranch wife, either. Soon as we were married, she turned into a freakin' Kardashian. All she wants to do is dress up and go to parties. And shop. Shopping is her life—she'll tell you so. I don't know if you've noticed, but this isn't exactly retail heaven.”

“I don't know.” She surprised him with a smile. “I saw some great sunglasses for sale at the Kum ‘n' Go. And the prairie dog figurines were to die for.” She stretched her legs toward the fire. “Doesn't Viv like to come here? Dora seems to love it.”

He shrugged. “Alex is trying to turn Viv into a little clone of herself.” He sighed again, more heavily this time. “I don't mean to be nasty. I loved Alex once. It's just that we have nothing in common. Money matters so much to her.”

“It doesn't to you?”

“I want to have enough. But I don't need a whole lot of stuff. Just the basics—enough to keep the people I love happy and safe.” He leaned back and looked up at the stars. “She's got Viv convinced that she needs stuff to be happy, though, so it's kind of a catch-22.”

“Can't you insist Viv comes for the summer? It's a crucial time, I think. Girls that age are deciding who they'll be the rest of their lives.”

“Alex says Viv wants to go to modeling camp.”

“I'll bet you're thrilled about that. Can't you say no?”

“That would just feed into Alex's goal of turning Viv against me. She's got her almost all the time. And when I do have Viv, she spends half her time texting on the cell phone Alex made me buy her. What the hell does a sixteen-year-old need with a cell phone?”

Cat smiled. “You don't know much about sixteen-year-olds, do you?”

“I was one.”

“Yeah, in the Dark Ages.” She cocked her head. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirty-five.” There was another reason things couldn't work out between them. He was older than her. Seven years older. Not a lifetime, but enough to make a difference.

Enough about him. He tilted his head toward the bunkhouse, where Dora slept. “So did you notice Trevor and Dora at dinner?”

“What? They didn't even talk to each other.”

“I know. There's something fishy going on there. It just doesn't feel right.”

Cat looked thoughtful. “Same with me. I felt like she was lying about something. Like who instigated the connection at the airport. We need to watch him.”

We.
He was getting somewhere. “You bet.” He rose, brushing off his jeans. “You need to get some rest. Sorry to keep you awake with my sordid past.”

“It's okay.” She stood and staggered a little. “Wow. I'm a little stiff.”

“Saddle soreness takes a while to set in.” He reached out to steady her, gripping her elbow. “Might be a little tough getting out of bed in the morning.”

He looked her in the eye, but he made sure she felt his gaze right down to her toes. “I just want apologize for—for everything.” He still had no idea what he'd done, but that should cover it.

She apparently was at least considering accepting his apology, because she let him keep hanging onto her arm. She'd gone still, like a wary animal testing the air.

“I like the way you care about your niece, the way you look out for people.” He kept his voice low since they were so close to the bunkhouse. “And I want you to know someone's looking out for you.”

He put his other arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She looked up at him, her eyes troubled and maybe a little scared. Something in his heart melted and he bent his head to kiss her, but she put her hands on his chest and pushed him away.

“No, Mack.” She said it gently, but it still hurt. “Not with Dora around.”

“Dora's asleep.”

“I don't know that for sure. And I can't take any chances.” She stepped away.

“Life's all about taking chances,” he said. “You can't play it safe all the time.”

“No, but I can do my best.” She walked away, heading for the Heifer House. “Good night, Mack.”

Morning came way too soon for Cat. She'd stared up at the ceiling half the night, wondering why she'd felt compelled to lie to Mack. Ames wasn't her boyfriend. Sure, she'd dated him—once. They hadn't even made it to the main course before realizing they were better as friends. Ames should have been exactly what she wanted in a man, but for some reason the idea of touching him left her completely cold.

Unlike the cowboy, who heated her up like a spark striking tinder. When he'd boosted her into the saddle, she'd thought she was going to melt right off the mule. The ride, the ranch, the worries about the bunkhouse, and her clients—they'd all receded as a series of images flashed through her brain.

Images of sliding down into his arms. Images of being carried off to the barn. Images of the two of them literally rolling in the hay in various states of undress.

It was ridiculous. She'd just met the man. So she'd brought out Ames in self-defense, figuring there was some kind of Code of the West that forbade poaching another guy's gal.

No such luck. Maybe the Code only counted if the other guy was a cowboy too. And Ames was certainly no cowboy.

She'd finally fallen into a restless sleep, but she'd dreamed all night—dark, flickering dreams where she and Mack made love again and again under a starry Van Gogh sky. She'd woken up exhausted before dawn, and stayed in the rickety bed worrying about her sanity for almost an hour before she got up.

What the hell was she thinking? This man was wrong for her in so many ways. He was as different from her as night from day, the Mutt to her Jeff.

Worse yet, he was a business associate. The one thing they had in common—besides an ill-advised lust for each other—was a burning desire to make this trip a success. Which meant they needed to ignore all the other burning desires that threatened to send the whole project up in flames.

She needed to make the most of this day, not lie around mooning about cowboys. For her, work was always the solution to the problem. That was probably why Ames was the closest thing she'd had to a boyfriend in years. It hadn't taken her long to figure out that city socializing wasn't for her. She went to a few openings and kept up some professional relationships with drinks after work. But she much preferred the company of Alizarin Crimson and Cerulean Blue to most of the men she met.

She loved losing herself in a painting, surrendering to the hypnotic flow of pigment in water. That was one reason the noise and bustle of the city had never bothered her—she'd spent her evenings absorbed in the workings of her brush, the sweep of charcoal on rough paper. Days had belonged to Trainer and Crock, but nights had been filled with glowing, fanciful paintings, always of natural subjects—trees and clouds, water and sky, all painted from photographs and vacation memories.

Here, she had nature all around her. And time was wasting while she worried about a man she'd be leaving in two weeks—a man she'd never see again after this trip.

She bounced out of bed and took the world's shortest shower, smoothing her hair with her fingers and dabbing sunscreen on her nose, chin, and cheekbones. She edged open the door to Dora's room, summoning up the courage to suggest they go out and look for subjects together. The rest of the students would be arriving later, so they'd have some of that girl time Dora was so scornful about. Maybe she'd be a little easier to get along with this morning.

But the girl mumbled something, scowled in her sleep, and turned toward the wall. It might be best to let sleeping Doras lie.

Grabbing her collapsible easel and a portable plastic palette, Cat headed outside. She'd just do a few quick watercolor sketches, demos for her students. The ranch might not be the height of dude luxury, but it was certainly picturesque. The house glowed in the pink sheen of sunrise, one lighted window marking the kitchen. Maddie was probably already toiling over breakfast. The barn glowed too; Mack was already at work. As she watched, he passed the barn doors with a pitchfork slung over his shoulder. Maybe she should talk to him about posing for a portrait. That would certainly break the ice.

Yeah, right. She'd gone over every hard curve and solid plane of his body last night in her dreams. The last thing she needed to do was trace the same lines this morning with a pencil. They'd be stamped on her mind's eye indelibly and she'd never get focused on the trip.

She reminded herself of her rules. This trip was about Dora. Not cowboys. And certainly not sex.

So why couldn't she stop thinking about cowboys and sex?

The sky was turning from pink to pewter, but the sun still lit the face of the barn. It warmed the red paint and sharpened the shadows that defined the rough wood. Behind and above, clouds blended and blurred. Cat doubted she could improve on it any, but she could preserve it. She had just set up in front of the barbed wire fence when Mack strode out of the barn.

“Sorry it's not better weather.” He stood behind her as she stroked the top third of her paper with a water-soaked hake brush, edging around the barn's roofline. Dipping first into blue, then just touching a dab of burnt umber, she laid in the darkest part of the sky, doing her best to ignore him. She hated it when people watched her work, but she'd better get used to it if she was going to teach.

“How do you know what colors to use?”

She shrugged. “Four years of art school. Lots of mistakes.”

He apparently figured out from her terse answer that she didn't want to talk, and as she dabbed color on the paper and watched her painting emerge, she finally forgot he was there. Eventually he gave up and returned to the barn. The loose, devil-may-care grace of his walk was a distraction, and the sight of his backside was even worse, but once he was out of sight she managed to get back in the zone.

She was adding finishing touches when he spoke from behind her.

“Lunchtime.”

He was close, too close, and she jumped and spun to face him. Paint flew from the brush and slashed a stripe of alizarin crimson across the front of his pale blue shirt.

He pulled the shirt from his body so he could see the damage and shook his head ruefully. The paint looked like blood spatter from some grisly crime. “Another one bites the dust. I go through clothes like a horse goes through hay.”

She grabbed a sponge from her supplies, dipped it in her water bottle, and dabbed at his chest, but that only spread the rich pigment, staining a wider area. She dabbed harder, biting her lip.

She was so intent on getting the stains out that it took her a second to notice how close they were standing, how warm his chest was under her hands, and how his eyes sparkled over a bemused smile. Once she did notice, she probably looked like an idiot, staring up at him with her mouth half-open.

Apparently she looked like an idiot who wanted to be kissed, because he ducked his head and next thing she knew she was being thoroughly and profoundly seduced under the shady brim of his cowboy hat.

She splayed one hand over his chest to push him away, but her body seemed to be caught in some inexorable flow of energy moving from his lips to hers. It was like the river she'd seen storming through the bottom of the canyon the day before. Even from high above they'd heard it, rushing forward, pounding over rocks. The same water that fell in gentle rain and nourished the prairie flowers had carved that canyon, working its will with a steady strength that found a way through every obstacle.

She felt all her own hard edges being worn away just as steadily. Tension hummed in her veins, but she was tumbling like a round rock in strong current. Mack had her sealed to his body with one hand around her shoulders and the other cupping her seat. He shifted, hoisting her up on tiptoe, and she couldn't help clinging to him as he made a low noise in his throat and deepened the kiss.

She was going to faint. She was going to fall. Yesterday's kiss had been casual, a chance encounter. This was very, very deliberate. It was the kind of kiss that made you forget your name. Forget your promises. Forget what you were here for…

Dora.
She was here for Dora. And Dora could be watching right now.

She moved her hand back to his chest and braced herself, summoning the will to shove him away. He tightened his grip for a second, then let her go and staggered backward.

She stumbled a little herself, then caught her balance. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt, as if the kiss had surprised him too. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, mostly to hide the fact that they were swollen and trembling with—lust? Emotion? What the hell
was
that? And what was she going to do about it?

She opened her mouth to speak and nothing came out. She stood there, gasping like a fish, for what seemed like an eternity before she could eke out one word.

“Stop.”

“I did.” He was breathing hard, his chest heaving like he'd just run a marathon.

She cleared her throat and stroked a lock of hair out of her face. What did you say to a man like this? How did you stop a river's flow when all you wanted to do was ride it, floating like a leaf on the surface, twirling in the eddies and shooting down the falls?

“This is a professional relationship.” Her own voice sounded foreign to her, breathless and a little shrill.

“Professional?” His eyes glinted with their usual humor, but his voice was husky. “Well, that explains a lot.”

He seemed to realize he'd crossed a line before he'd even finished the joke. Raising both hands like a holdup victim, he started backing away. “Wait. Sorry. I didn't mean…”

“It doesn't matter.” Cat grabbed her hat from the top of the easel and clamped it on her head, fooling with the brim as though the world depended on a rakish angle. She cocked it right, then left. Then right again.

“I told you—no touching. What if Dora had seen that? What if Trevor did?” To her own horror, she felt tears heating her eyes. Turning away, she stalked off, all stiffness and dignity.

The trouble with dignity was that it demanded you tilt your nose in the air, and then you couldn't see where you were going. Her toe hit a hillock and she stumbled, flailing her arms and losing what little poise she had left. Glancing back, she expected to see him grinning over her misstep, but he was standing just as she'd first seen him, his arms loose in that gunfighter stance.

Only this time his hands were empty, and he looked a little lost as he watched her go.

***

“Darn it; they stopped.” Madeleine turned from the window and beckoned to Hank Slay, who'd been watching her from the doorway like a sad and silent watchdog. “Mack was kissing the daylights out of that woman.”

The hired man shoved his lanky body off the wall and came over to the window. He'd been a hand on the ranch most of his life, working for two generations of Boyds. He was the only one who'd stuck by her throughout Ollie's tenure, patiently fending off her second husband's inexpert orders with stubborn silence. But despite the fact that he'd lived on the place for twenty years, Madeleine felt like she barely knew him. He wasn't much for fraternizing with the womenfolk.

The womenfolk. She'd heard him refer to her that way. Despite the fact that she was just one woman, Hank seemed to regard her as an entire alien race. She didn't know what had happened in his past to make him so spooked about females, but it must have been one of those traumatic experiences that stayed with you all your life, like the wounds soldiers suffered in war. Whenever he had to face her, he'd clutch his hat in front of his chest in both hands, as if it was the steering wheel of a race car going a million miles an hour. His knuckles would go white as he spun it right and left, left and right as if he could steer himself right out of the room.

But since the Ollie incident, he seemed to have transferred his loyalty to her. She'd assumed he'd take to following Mack around, but he shadowed her instead, lurking in corners and hovering outside the back door, scaring the daylights out of her whenever she turned and saw him standing there with his hat in his hands. She'd taken to talking to him in a running monologue, though she wasn't sure if he understood a word she was saying. He never responded. It was like talking to a dog or a cat—one-sided, but somehow still satisfying.

“I hope to hell he knows what he's doing,” she said.

Hank spun the hat to the left.

“Everything depends on this first bunch of customers,” she said. “Our reputation's at stake. Plus I need to make back the money that son-of-a-bitch husband of mine stole.”

He didn't respond, but she just kept talking—partly to see if she could get a rise out of him. “Oh, I know you think a woman can't do it. But you mark my words, I'll make this dude ranch thing pay. Make it pay enough to make up for my stupid mistake.”

She blinked fast, keeping her eyes fixed on Mack and the painter lady so Hank wouldn't see that she was tearing up. She wasn't a crier. She was a ranch wife, tough and resilient.

And Ollie Kress was hardly worth crying over. It was obvious her ex wasn't the man she'd believed him to be. He didn't love her like she'd thought, either. She'd just been a means to an end, a foolish woman willing to hand over all her assets, and her body too. That was the part she regretted most. Thinking of Ollie's hands on her, of the way he'd used her, made her want to crawl out to the barn and die. It shamed her just to think of how foolish she'd been.

It was easy enough to make excuses for herself. Her grief for Mack's father had been deep and wide, a cold, dark river she couldn't seem to cross. Life without him on the ranch had been unbearably lonely, and Ollie had offered her a distraction.

But in the end, she'd just heaped a heavy dollop of shame on top of her sorrow.

She twisted her hands in her apron, pretending she needed to wipe them clean. She wouldn't let anyone catch her wringing her hands over Ollie. Not even Hank. It was just anger that made her do it, anyway. Not hurt. Not heartbreak. Anger.