Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride: Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride
Wendy Warren
Jeannie Watt
Dare to dream… these sparkling romances will make you laugh, cry and fall in love – again and again!Cowboy Comes BackNow that his rodeo career is over, Kade has nowhere to go but back home. He just wants to keep his head down, fix up his father’s ranch and sell it so he can afford to spend more time with his daughter. Unfortunately, after ten years he can’t avoid Libby Hale…or the way she still owns his heart.The Cowboy’s Convenient BrideClaire needs a job and she needed it yesterday. But when the single mum arrives at Pine Road Ranch, she doesn’t expect to be greeted by churlish former rodeo champ Fletcher. Turns out sexy Fletch isn’t looking for a housekeeper – he’s looking for a wife
COWBOY
COMES BACK
JEANNIE WATT
THE COWBOY’S
CONVENIENT BRIDE
WENDY WARREN
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
COWBOY
COMES BACK
JEANNIE WATT
About the Author
JEANNIE WATT lives with her husband in an isolated area of northern Nevada, and teaches junior-high science in a town forty miles from her home. She lives off the grid in the heart of ranch country and considers the battery-operated laptop to be one of the greatest inventions ever. When she is not writing, Jeannie likes to paint, sew and feed her menagerie of horses, ponies, dogs and cats. She has degrees in geology and education.
I’ve never met an Ellen I haven’t liked. In fact,
one of the Ellens I like very much mentioned that
Ellens in fiction are always nice friends or neighbors.
Never villains. I decided to employ the rule of opposites
and do something about that.
This book is dedicated to all the nice Ellens in
my life—fellow Superromance author Ellen Hartman,
fellow teacher Ellen Too, and my former high-school
classmate and college roommate, with whom I threw
vanilla wafers at the neighbor’s window,
Ellen Swanson.
Dear Reader,
Imagine what it would be like to have the most important person to you, your soul mate, betray you. This is what happened to Libby Hale when her childhood friend and fiancé, Kade Danning, left her to marry another woman. Libby is not the forgiving kind, so she has no intention of renewing any kind of relationship with Kade when he comes back, divorced and in the process of rebuilding his life, ten years later. Unfortunately for her, kade has other plans.
Libby was first featured in The Cowboy’s Redemption as the hero’s best friend. She was an irreverent, straight talking, no-nonsense woman, and so much fun to write that I knew I had to explore her character further. Thus Cowboy Comes Back was born, a story of second chances—for a man, a woman and a horse.
I love to hear from readers. Please e-mail me at jeanniewrites@gmail.com or visit my website at www. jeanniewatt.com.
Happy reading,
Jeannie Watt
CHAPTER ONE
ROUGH OUT JEANS. RIDE with the Best.
Until you screw up, that is.
Kade Danning grimaced as he walked past his own self-assured face smiling from an old advertisement still tacked outside the local feed co-op. Sort of a Kade Danning memorial. Damn, but he’d been cocky back then.
Well, he wasn’t feeling so cocky now. And he wouldn’t be posing for photos or endorsing jeans again anytime in the near future. Nope. He’d screwed up that deal royally.
Only one pickup sat in the parking lot—a fancy, shiny red one with duallies and running lights. So there was a chance the store would be empty soon. Good. He wanted to talk to Zero Benson alone.
Earlier that day, he’d driven the fifty miles from Otto, Nevada, to the larger town of Wesley, where he’d dropped off an application at the personnel office of the Lone Eagle Mine. He’d also put in a general application at the Wesley employment office and then, on the way home, he’d decided to stop at the feed store. Zero would know of any ranch work that might see him through until he was able to find something more permanent.
Zero was standing behind the barn-wood counter when Kade walked into the store, deep in conversation with a man Kade didn’t know—a money guy, from the looks of it. Creased Wranglers, neat white shirt, neat white mustache. His hat alone would pay for the new fridge Kade had a feeling he’d need to buy to replace the monstrosity in his father’s house.
Neither man had noticed his arrival, so Kade hung about at the back of the store, near the racks of halters and bridles, scanning the want ads tacked to the wall while he waited for the conversation to end. Horses for sale. Tractor services. Shoeing. Nothing in the Help Wanted.
“Have you tried his brother?” Zero asked the guy.
“I don’t like his brother,” the man stated adamantly.
“Then I don’t know what—” Kade glanced up when Zero abruptly stopped speaking, and he saw the older man’s mouth gape open. “Well, hell’s bells!” Zero said, lumbering out from behind the counter and sidestepping a pallet of feed bags. “Kade. How are you?”
“Good,” Kade lied. Zero’s face was rounder and more wind-burned than the last time he’d seen him ten years ago, but other than that, his former part-time employer looked the same. He might even have been wearing the same overalls and flannel shirt.
“So are you back or just visiting?” Zero asked, clapping Kade hard on the shoulder.
“I’m working on my dad’s house, getting it ready to sell.”
The man with the white mustache frowned at Kade, obviously trying to place him.
“This is Kade Danning,” Zero explained to the man. “Kade, Joe Barton. Mr. Barton bought the Boggy Flat ranch last year.”
“Zephyr Valley ranch,” Barton corrected him.
Zero made a hoity-toity face. “Like he said. Hey, you want a job?”
Kade’s stomach dropped. Was it that obvious? Had Zero heard things that Kade hoped weren’t common knowledge? The IRS trouble had been much publicized, but he’d tried to keep the fact that he was dead broke to himself. “I, uh …”
“Mr. Barton has some colts to start and he can’t get ‘em in to Will Bishop.”
Joe Barton appeared none too thrilled at Zero’s suggestion. “Zero—”
Kade jumped in to save them both further embarrassment. He’d forgotten Zero’s habit of saying whatever popped into his mind. “Can’t,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m going to be busy working on the place. I want it on the market by the end of June and my daughter’s coming in July, so … sorry.”
And then he beat it out of there. He’d come back later or call to see if Zero had heard of any ranch work—preferably not on the Barton spread, since Barton hadn’t seemed all that impressed with him. But the guy had to be loaded if he’d bought the Boggy Flat. The ranch was huge.
“Don’t you know who that was?” he heard Zero ask as he escaped through the open door.
Was. The word summed up Kade’s life well.
LIBBY HALE CURSED under her breath as she drove by the Danning ranch early Friday morning and saw that the yard lights were on again.
As if she didn’t have enough trouble in her life without Kade showing up.
But she would not let his presence get to her. He wasn’t the reason she was having trouble sleeping.
The road from Otto to Wesley was a straight shot through the desert to the northeast, over one mountain range and then down into the adjoining sage-covered valley. Libby drove it at least four times a week, sometimes five, depending on the length of her workdays. Usually she traveled on autopilot, planning her schedule, but today she focused on the road, refusing to think about anything but her driving.
There was one car in the Bureau of Land Management parking lot when Libby pulled in. Ellen Vargas’s highly polished Lexus SUV. Libby parked at the opposite end of the lot and sat for a moment, staring at her boss’s Lexus and wondering how long it would be before she came to work and the damned thing wouldn’t be there.
It was no secret that Ellen Vargas would move on as soon as she could, following an upwardly mobile career track in government. Libby only hoped Ellen didn’t do too much damage before that happened.
The building was dimly lit when Libby walked in, since Francine, the receptionist, wasn’t at work yet. The only bright light spilled out of Ellen’s open office door. Libby would have loved to tiptoe by, but it wasn’t her style, so she said, “Morning,” as she passed on the way to her office.
“Good morning, Libby. Do you have a minute?”
Wonderful.
Libby reversed course and stepped into Ellen’s office. When Glen had been there, the manager’s office had been pleasantly cluttered. Now it looked like a page out of House Beautiful. A vase with a single exotic flower stood on the corner of the government-issue desk, making Libby wonder where on earth Ellen had managed to find an orchid in Wesley—if it was, indeed, a real orchid and not a silk replica. But if it was a silk replica, it was very realistic…. Libby had an urge to poke at it, to see if it was genuine, but she didn’t think Ellen would appreciate that. Maybe she’d come back later, while her boss was mustering the troops.
“How long have you been a wild horse specialist, Libby?”
Ellen already knew the answer, just as she knew everything about everyone who worked for her. She’d done her homework. But since she asked, Libby answered, thus demonstrating that she was a team player, cooperative, responsive and accountable.
“Three years.”
“And before that you were a range conservationist?”
“Yes.” She’d hired on as a range con, never suspecting that the wild horse position—her dream job—would open up four years later, right when she was poised to slip into the position. Sometimes things did fall into place.
“You seem to enjoy your work.”
“Yes.”
She would also enjoy it if Ellen got to the point. The woman’s highly polished gold-rimmed glasses glinted as she tilted her head slightly. Behind the glasses her eyes were perfectly made-up. Liner, shadow, mascara. How was it that she could apply cosmetics so well, so early in the morning? Libby could barely see when she got up, much less apply eyeliner with precision. And she could only imagine what she’d have to go through to make her long curly hair approach Ellen’s blond lacquered perfection.
“I’ve skimmed the past few years’ records and—” Ellen tapped her pencil on the desk “—I don’t understand the procedure with these animals that people gain title to months after the official adoption period has passed.”
“Those are the leppies.”
The glasses slid down Ellen’s nose a fraction of an inch as she dropped her chin. “The leppies?”
“Orphans.”
“I see.”
But she didn’t see—it was obvious. And she would be looking into the matter—equally obvious. This was what happened when people from Florida were put in charge of operations in the Nevada desert and vice versa—there was a huge learning curve and an enhanced propensity for poor decision making. When Ellen’s ego was factored in … Oh, yes. This was going to be a fine year.
“There are people who will take in orphans caught in the gathers and care for them. In return they get title to the foals once they’re old enough to freeze-brand.”
“And they pay nothing.”
“Do you have any idea what mare-milk replacer costs?”
“Is this common practice?”
“It is here.”
Ellen inhaled in a way that indicated perhaps she’d heard those words too often since she’d come to work in the Wesley field office. “All right. Thank you for explaining. We’ll meet again more formally after I’ve had a chance to go over all the files.”
“Just tell me when.” Libby patted the door frame and then escaped. “Sheesh,” she muttered as she unlocked the office she shared with Stephen, the range con who’d taken her place when she became a wild horse specialist.
She sat at her desk without bothering to turn on the lights and stared at the blank computer screen, surprised to realize that even though she should have been steaming after the conversation with Ellen, she was wondering, instead, just how long Kade would be in Otto. How long it’d be until she ran into him. And why she, who generally welcomed confrontation, didn’t feel quite ready for that day.
KADE STEPPED OUT of the living quarters of his horse trailer, which was parked next to the ancient stone barn, and started across the weed-choked driveway to the house. Three nights on the property and he still couldn’t bring himself to sleep in his old bed. He didn’t know if he ever would.
The sun was barely over the mountains and he had a full day ahead of him in the house he hated. But it was also his daughter’s ninth birthday, so at least he could end the day on a positive note by calling her and seeing how she liked the present he’d mailed a few days ago.
He crossed the weathered porch, which echoed under his boots, and opened the kitchen door. Then he stood for a moment, one hand on the worn doorjamb as he steeled himself for the day ahead, taking in the scarred tile floor and the decrepit kitchen appliances. The big enamel sink, where he’d washed a million dishes while his father yelled at him. The fridge that contained who knew what.
No one had come in to clean after his father had died. There’d been no funeral, no memorial, no will. And since the property had been in legal limbo at the time, Kade had made the final arrangements over the phone. It had seemed cold, but it was what his father had wanted. No funeral. No contact with his son.
Even when Kade had become a world champion bronc rider, his father had wanted nothing to do with him. And now Kade wanted nothing to do with anything that reminded him of his father—including his father’s ranch.
But he had tons of work ahead of him before he could sell. As Marvin the Realtor had pointed out when Kade had first contacted him, ramshackle houses, sagging fences and weedy pastures were not all that easy to market. Marvin might be new in the real-estate business, but he recognized the obvious.
Kade stepped into the kitchen. Number one, the fridge, which he’d avoided for the first few days while he’d concentrated on the other rooms. One look inside and he resigned himself to buying a new one. Not only was the appliance more than twenty years old, it was filled with an assortment of overgrown and dried-up … stuff that definitely qualified as biohazards. He shut the door, considered duct-taping it shut so that whatever was inside wouldn’t come creeping out during the night, and made arrangements over the phone for a new one.
By the time he was done, his gut was at boot level, but Marvin had also said that showing a house without decent appliances was not a smart idea. Trouble was, right now he didn’t have a lot of money. And what he did have was dwindling fast.
Zero had promised to call if he heard of any work, when Kade had finally gotten hold of him the night before, but there was nothing at the moment. It was kind of the way Kade’s luck had been running for the past five or six years, so he shouldn’t have been surprised.
Cleaning went better while he was focused on his lack of finances. The memories didn’t bite at him every time he opened a door or found something that reminded him of his teen years. He still hadn’t ventured into his dad’s room, but he’d pretty well gutted the living room and kitchen. He had his dad’s stock trailer loaded with stuff that he would take to the dump or to Goodwill. He didn’t want any reminders. He just hoped the tires on the trailer held out, because he didn’t want to replace them.
Kade finally left the house, exhausted, at six o’clock for his dump run. But he waited until eight to call his daughter, as per his ex-wife Jillian’s instructions—after Maddie’s birthday party, before bedtime.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said when she came on the phone, and as usual Kade felt a pull deep in his chest at the sound of her voice. “Let me tell you everything that’s been happening….”
Kade smiled and settled back in the lawn chair next to his horse trailer, propping his feet on the fender. “Shoot, kid.”
Maddie prattled on for at least five minutes, ending with, “And then Mike took us to the game, and after that, pizza.”
“Sounds excellent.”
“It was the best birthday ever,” Maddie concluded. “I wish you could have been here,” she added, but it sounded like a polite afterthought.
“Me, too.” Jillian and Mike had been married for two years. They had year-old twins Maddie adored, and they were raising Maddie in a much more stable home than the one he’d provided, being on the road with the rodeo for a good part of the year.
Which was the problem. Jillian was overcompensating for that earlier unpredictability by insisting that every aspect of Maddie’s life had to be stable. Therefore, she didn’t want Maddie visiting Kade for the two months he was supposed to have her during the summer. It hadn’t been such a problem when they’d all lived in Boise, but once Jillian and Mike had moved to Elko a year ago, it had become an issue.
“It’ll upset her routine. She has softball and dance….” Jillian hadn’t come out and said it, but Kade knew she wished he would disappear so that Maddie would have only one father—Mike.
“I’m going to horse camp this summer,” Maddie announced. “It’s my big present from Mike and Mom. Camp lasts for almost a whole month! Three and a half weeks!”
Kade felt his jaw tighten. “What month is that?”
“July.”
Which would make her two-month summer visit with him difficult, if not impossible. He wondered when Jillian had planned to break the news to him. And why it was all right for Maddie to be at a camp with strangers for three and a half weeks, but not with her own father.
“It’s in Boise,” Maddie continued, “so Grandma will be close in case I get homesick. And Shandy may be able to go, too!”
“Sounds cool.” Kade had tried to sound sincere.
“I really like the necklace you sent me.” Maddie happily jumped topics.
“Do you?”
“Yeah. Mom says I have to save it for good.”
“I want you to wear it, Maddie.” He tried not to contradict Jillian, figuring it was important that his daughter not sense hostility between the two of them, but this was getting ridiculous. Oh, yes. He and Jillian would be talking soon. “That’s why I bought it.”
“Okay. I’ll ask Mom if I can have it back. She’s keeping it safe for me.”
Kade decided to change the subject before he exploded. “I’m getting another horse.”
“Really? I hated it when you sold Blaze….”
Kade and Maddie talked about horses for several minutes more, the one love they shared that Jillian didn’t butt into, and then he heard Jillian announce it was bedtime.
“You better go, kiddo.”
“Yeah. Thanks for calling, Dad. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
The line clicked dead before he could say goodbye. Kade hung up feeling depressed. His daughter was growing up fast. So fast he was afraid that before he got his act together she’d be gone. And if Jillian had her way he’d never really get to be part of her life, just the bearer of gifts on her birthday and at Christmas. That wasn’t the role he wanted—or deserved.
The only times he hadn’t been part of Maddie’s life were when he’d been on the road rodeoing and making a living, and during the dark months after Jillian had left him, when he’d started drinking too much and messing up his life. Other than that, he’d been there, trying his best to do things right, to be a decent dad.
Hell, he was a decent dad—stellar by comparison to his own father. He walked over to the door of the trailer and stared out across the field at Libby’s place. He’d given up a lot to be a dad, but it was a sacrifice he’d had to make. He’d screwed up and he’d had to do the right thing.
His only regret was Libby.
CHAPTER TWO
THE MORE TIME KADE spent trying to fix the house, the more things he found wrong with it. Cracked moldings, saggy hinges, leaky plumbing, holes in the walls. Problems he needed to remedy if he wanted to hook a buyer for the property. He was on his second trip to the hardware store that day, trying to find a coupling for repairing the bathroom sink and knowing full well he’d probably discover some other part he needed, just as soon as he got home. Plumbing was like that.
“I heard you were back.” Startled, Kade looked up to see Jason Ross standing a few feet away, next to some big rolls of copper tubing. From his dark expression, it was clear Jason wasn’t there to welcome Kade.
“Hey, Jason. How are you?” Once upon a time they’d been friends, had ridden rodeo together in high school, but Jason didn’t appear to be all that friendly now. His lean face was set in harsh, unfamiliar lines.
“I’m good,” Jason said flatly. “Fixing up your dad’s place?”
“Hoping to get it on the market by the end of next month.” Kade shifted his weight as he spoke and waited for what had to be coming. There was a stretch of uncomfortable silence and then Jason finally got to the point.
“Have you seen Libby?”
“Not yet.”
“Maybe it’d be best if you didn’t.”
Direct. Very Jason-like. And uncalled-for.
“I don’t think you have a lot of say in the matter,” Kade said, twisting the PVC coupling he was holding in his hands.
Jason glanced behind him to see if anyone was within hearing range before he turned back and said, “I’m her friend, so yeah, I do have a say. You don’t need to shove your way back into her life. You did enough damage the last time.”
“If I want to see Libby, I’ll damned well see her.” Kade spoke slowly and deliberately. He wasn’t about to clear what he did or didn’t do with Jason. “And believe it or not, hurting Libby was the last thing I ever wanted to do.”
“You failed,” Jason said shortly. He gave a curt nod, then turned and headed back the way he’d come. Conversation over. Warning delivered.
Kade watched his former friend disappear around the end of the aisle before attempting to turn his thoughts back to plumbing. But it was damned hard to concentrate with adrenaline pumping through him.
He glanced at his watch. He had to drive to Elko to pick up Maddie for their weekend together and if he didn’t get going, he’d be late. Another black mark against him in Jillian’s book. As it was, she would act as if she were sending her baby into a war zone or somewhere equally dangerous when she handed Maddie over, and Kade would try not to react since Maddie was so observant. He didn’t want her picking up more bad parental vibes. The divorce had been hard on her and it wasn’t until Mike had come into the picture that Maddie had settled—possibly because Jillian was finally happy.
Kade’s cell phone rang as he walked to the truck with a bag of plumbing parts that he hoped would cover all eventualities. He waited until he’d unlocked the door to answer, catching the call on the sixth ring, just before it went into voice mail.
“Kade. I think I may have something.” Sheri Mason sounded excited.
Kade frowned. “What do you mean, have something? You aren’t supposed to be looking for anything.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s not definite, but Rough Out is talking about a campaign with an indestructibility theme. You know—no matter what you do to them, how much you beat them up, these jeans can take it. And they want big-name veteran rodeo stars. Guys who have been beat up but keep on going. You fit the bill.”
“I’m unreliable.” Which was why Rough Out had fired him in the first place. Apparently they wanted their spokesman to be sober and show up for work.
“And I’m good. I think we have a shot at this.”
Kade couldn’t handle another yo-yo experience. The old yes, they want you … no, they don’t. He’d had his hopes dashed a few too many times of late.
“Tell you what, Sheri. You do what you think is best here. If you want to pursue this, great, but I’m telling you not to waste your time if you think this is a waste of time.”
“Sweetheart, if I thought you were a waste of time I would have stopped being your agent when I stopped dating you. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Don’t.” Kade spoke before thinking. But it was the truth. “Just tell me if I make the short list, all right?”
“You got it. Bye, love.”
Kade flipped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket.
“AND THEN KADE told Jason he could do as he damned well pleased where Libby was concerned. I was right on the other side of the aisle weighing nails. I heard him.”
“Well, don’t announce it to the world, you fool. That could affect the odds.”
The men’s voices were loud enough to be heard at the door when Libby opened it, but they fell silent as soon as she stepped inside the almost empty bar and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. She found it amazing that anyone was in a bar at 7:00 a.m., but Nevada was a twenty-four-hour state and some people had developed unusual circadian cycles. The only reason she was there at such a ridiculous hour was that she’d picked up a package at the Wesley post office as a favor to the owner and was delivering it on her way to do her Saturday-morning shopping.
Libby set her jaw and went up to the bar. It was dumb to let the dealings of two morons upset her, since nothing happened in Otto without a flurry of betting amongst the local ne’er-do-wells. Marriage, divorce, weight loss. Everything that happened had a few bucks riding on it. Libby was not the betting kind and generally ignored such activity. But she’d never been the subject of it before.
“So, what are the odds?” she asked Julie, the bartender, setting down the box she carried.
“For which bet?” Julie idly pushed the lank brown hair that had escaped her up-do away from her face.
“Which bet?” Libby did her best not to look outraged. She normally didn’t become outraged unless she was dealing with bureaucracy or fuel prices. “How many are there?”
Julie shrugged her thin shoulders, making her tank top slide off to one side, before reciting in a monotone, “Rekindled romance, eight to one. One night of passion, even money.”
Libby’s eyes widened still more.
“And I’m betting against one-night stand, so if you do have one—” Julie made a please-cooperate face as she pulled her top back into place “—don’t tell anyone. Okay?”
Libby slapped her palm on the bar, then headed for the door. She had had enough.
Kade would do as he damned well pleased where she was concerned? She’d see about that.
Libby felt remarkably calm as she got into her truck and drove to Kade’s ranch. They were about to get a few things straight, she and Kade. It was time to meet face-to-face. Get it over with, rather than dying a thousand deaths wondering when she was going to bump into him. Libby wasn’t one to avoid confrontation, but she’d been avoiding this one, which made her feel weak. Time to change that.
Kade’s truck was parked under a scraggly tree at the edge of the yard, but Libby somehow knew the house was empty before her knuckles touched the rough wood of the kitchen door. No one answered, so she peered through the curtainless window in the door. The kitchen was empty—the fridge was gone, the counters were bare and the table and chairs were nowhere in sight.
“Lib—”
She almost had a heart attack when Kade spoke from behind her. She whirled around, angry at her reaction and ready to take it out on him, fair or not. But she hadn’t counted on the impact of seeing him standing there, tall and lean. The same, yet different. And still as sexy as hell, if one went by appearances alone.
He had a bad case of bed head, his wheat-colored hair sticking out in several directions, and a thick growth of stubble on his chin and jaw—which seemed even more chiseled than before. Standing barefoot on the gravel, he rubbed one hand self-consciously over his head as he apparently waited for her to say something.
When she didn’t speak, mainly because she was fighting back memories triggered by his disheveled appearance, he asked, “What are you doing here?”
She looked him up and down, collecting herself, taking refuge in anger once again. Much safer there. “Where’d you come from?”
He pointed at his horse trailer. “I don’t sleep in the house.” He was more muscular than he’d been ten years ago, and there was a new scar on the side of his face, curving close to his left eyebrow. Probably the result of that bronc stomping him just before he’d won his second world title. Libby had read about it in the papers and had been bitter enough at the time to have rooted for the horse.
“Daddy?”
Libby’s eyes jerked toward the trailer in time to see a girl with a mop of tousled blond hair poke her head out the door.
“It’s just a friend, Maddie. I’ll be back in a minute.”
But the girl had already jumped to the ground and was heading toward them, the silvery shapes on her pink pajamas glinting in the early sun.
This is the child. Kade’s child. The reason Libby had discovered that he’d been sleeping with someone else while she’d been hundreds of miles away, working on her degree. The girl came closer and hugged Kade’s waist, staring at Libby as she leaned against her father.
Reality sucked. It really did. Libby liked it better when the kid was just some faceless entity, not a flesh-and-blood little girl with Kade’s hazel eyes.
“This is Madison,” Kade said, and it was easy to see that he did not want Libby to do anything to upset his daughter. As if she would—it wasn’t the kid’s fault that Kade couldn’t keep his fly zipped. Libby forced the corners of her mouth up when all she really wanted to do was escape. “Hi, Madison.”
“Hi,” the girl said, obviously as curious as Libby was uncomfortable. “You can call me Maddie. All Dad’s friends do.”
Libby didn’t know how to deal with this. None of her combative strategies applied here, and this was obviously not the time to do battle.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, brushing past Kade and his daughter, not caring what either of them thought. She needed to regroup.
Libby couldn’t remember the last time she’d turned tail and run. Even when Kade had come to her to confess that he’d gotten a woman pregnant and had to do the right thing, she’d held her ground—mainly out of shock, but she’d held it. Kade had been the one to leave.
She was startled when Kade caught up with her as she reached the bumper of her truck.
“Why’d you come, Lib?”
She glanced over his shoulder to see his daughter mounting the steps to the trailer, shooting one last curious glance their way before disappearing inside.
I came because I wanted to get this reunion over with and move on. I wanted to prove to myself that I’ve been losing sleep over nothing.
But the words wouldn’t come. So she hedged.
“They’re taking bets about us at the bar.”
“Of course they are. You must have known that would happen.”
“Listen, Kade. I live a quiet life now. I don’t like to be stared at or gossiped about.” She managed to hold his gaze as she spoke.
“Since when? You’ve never cared what anyone thought.”
So much for hedging. “I cared what you thought, for all the good it did me.”
“I wanted to get married,” he said in a voice so low it was almost a growl. “You were the one who demanded more time. You were the one who said we should make sure before we took the big step.”
“I didn’t think you’d be sleeping with other women, or raising families with them.”
“It happened. I wasn’t going to walk out on her.”
Her. Libby was surprised that she felt a stab of jealousy. She tilted her head back. “You did the right thing. For her.”
“I had no choice.”
“No,” she admitted, “you didn’t.” He couldn’t have come back to her when he was having a baby with someone else. She wouldn’t have had him back.
“I still don’t know why you’re here,” he said.
“You want to know why I’m here? Because, regardless of what you think, I don’t appreciate being bet on and talked about. I’d prefer not to have people watching us to see what’s going to happen next, like we’re some kind of reality show.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked with a perplexed scowl.
“You told Jason you’d do as you damned well pleased where I’m concerned.”
Kade hooked his thumb in his belt and regarded her for another long moment. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounds.”
“Well, it’s what someone heard and it’s affecting the odds.”
“Libby …”
The way he said her name sent a small tingle through her body. And it pissed her off. “Just keep your distance and I’ll keep mine. I think you owe me that much, Kade.” She opened the truck door, putting a barrier between them. “It was nice to meet your daughter.”
Libby got in and turned the key, throwing the truck into Reverse almost as soon as the engine fired and leaving Kade standing in the driveway.
Talk about plans being derailed. She’d come on the offensive and had left on the retreat. That wasn’t the way she normally did things, but it was the way she’d done them today.
And she didn’t know why.
Libby slowed as she approached a corner. No, she did know why, and it was more than the kid being there. Seeing Kade had thrown her completely off-kilter. No matter how many times she’d told herself that she’d moved on over the past few years, it was obvious now that she’d been wrong.
She was still pissed off at Kade. And she still hated him for what he’d done.
“WHO’S THAT LADY, DAD?” Maddie asked as soon as Kade opened the trailer door.
Try as he might, Kade couldn’t say “no one.”
“We grew up together,” he said as he shut the door behind him. He glanced into the mirror that was visible through the door of the small bathroom and he grimaced. He looked like a derelict. He didn’t usually sleep this late, but Maddie had been wound up the night before and she’d talked well into the small hours before he convinced her to slide her folding door shut and get some sleep.
“Why’s she mad at you?”
“Because I hurt her feelings once.” He headed for the coffeepot.
“A long time ago?”
“Yep.”
“And she’s still mad?” Maddie blinked as she asked the question.
Kade poured coffee into a mug, took a sip. Then another. “Some people stay mad a long time, sweetie.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re lucky. Come on,” he said, jerking his head toward the stove. “I’ll make breakfast. You set the table.”
“Pancakes?”
“You bet.”
Maddie set the tiny fold-out table while Kade whipped up pancakes from a mix and started cooking dollar-size cakes in a cast-iron frying pan. Maddie loved the trailer because everything was small. She thought it was like living in a dollhouse, whereas Kade was getting a bona fide case of cabin fever after only a week. But he wouldn’t sleep in the house. He hated the feel of the place, could still feel his father’s malevolent presence.
“I want to see the blue horse before I go.”
“He’s not really blue, Maddie,” Kade replied as he flipped pancakes. His nerves were still humming from his encounter with Libby. She hadn’t changed much. She was still full of fire. Still beautiful with all that long curly hair and those flashing blue eyes. And she had obviously been unnerved by meeting Maddie.
Not that there was a chance in hell that her feelings toward his child would matter one way or the other. Libby was not, by nature, the trusting kind, and he’d done more than break her trust. He’d decimated it. But she’d also done a number on him, too, when she’d told him she wasn’t sure she wanted to get married.
“I know he’s not really blue,” Maddie replied airily, bringing his attention back to her. “He’s a blue roan. He has black and white and gray hairs mixed, and it looks like he’s blue.”
Maddie had had blue roans on the brain ever since Kade had told her about Blue, the stud his grandfather had given him when he was fifteen. He hadn’t told her about setting the horse free, since that was both illegal and frowned upon, instead letting her think that Blue had escaped on his own and joined a band of mustangs.
“And he’s far away. It’s a long ride.” Kade slapped half a dozen small pancakes onto a red plastic plate, handed it to his daughter, then started pouring more batter into the frying pan.
“I can make it,” Maddie said as she covered her pancakes with syrup.
“Maybe you can, but can Sugar Foot? You’re getting pretty big and riding double might be kind of hard on the old girl.”
“Da-ad.”
Kade smiled in response to her disgusted tone. He hated what his long-ago mistake had done to Libby, but never for one instant had he regretted his child. And he was doing the best he could to be a decent father, even though he didn’t have a lot of experience in that area. At least he’d hung around with his friend Menace’s huge family and Jason Ross’s smaller one enough to have some experiences of what a real family was supposed to be like.
“Maybe when I get my other horse we can ride out and see if we can find Blue.”
“Cool. When are you getting your other horse?” Maddie asked, practically bouncing in her seat. They’d been over this before, but Kade patiently repeated himself.
“As soon as I sell this place.”
“And then you’re moving back up by us, right?”
“Yeah.” I hope. It was also possible he’d have to go wherever he could find a decent job or—and he’d just started playing with this idea—where he could go to school. Get some training.
“And then I can ride the new horse all the time. Whenever I ask Mike for a horse, he says we don’t have room.”
“He has a point there, kiddo. Not many horses like living in a small backyard.”
“We can board him.”
“That’s expensive.”
“Mike’s rich.”
Not really, though compared to Kade he was. Kade refrained from commenting.
“Maybe when you move back, I can keep my horse with you?” Maddie held out her plate for seconds, having inhaled the first batch of pancakes.
“It may be a while before I get my own place.”
“I thought you’d be rich when you sell the house. You know, like you used to be.”
Or had thought he was.
“I wish,” Kade said. But if all went well, he should have enough to invest in a smaller property and pay for some kind of training. It just might not be in the immediate Elko area. “But no matter what, I’ll be close enough that we’ll get our time together, right?”
Kade’s cell phone rang just as he sent Maddie off to shower. She lingered at the door, shamelessly eavesdropping.
“This is Joe Barton of the Zephyr Valley ranch,” the man on the phone said without bothering to include a hello. “We met at the feed store.”
“I remember.”
“I apologize for being brusque then, but …”
“I understand,” Kade said. “Zero tends to be enthusiastic.”
“Yes. Exactly. And I didn’t know you from Adam. Didn’t connect the name until later. Anyway, would you be interested in riding some colts for me? I have three that need some miles.”
“I’m waiting to hear on a job.” Or three. “I’m not sure how much time I’ll have if it pans out.”
“I’m flexible. I’m sure we can work something out.”
“Zephyr Valley—” it almost hurt Kade to call the old Boggy Flat by that name “—is quite a drive from here. I’d want to have the colts here at my ranch while I’m riding them.”
“What are your facilities like? I don’t keep my horses in barbed wire.”
“Then I guess you won’t be keeping them here, unless they all stay in the one corral and you provide hay. My pastures have wire fences.”
“Do you mind if I stop by and see where you’d keep ‘em? Maybe iron out some details?”
“Sure. I’ll be home all day.”
“What do you charge a month?”
“A grand per animal,” Kade said without hesitation. He had a feeling Joe Barton wanted to tell people that world champion cowboy Kade Danning had finished his colts. And he’d discovered over the years that some people didn’t feel as if they were getting quality anything unless they paid through the nose.
“Nine hundred, if I provide the hay.”
“Agreed.”
“Who was that, Dad?” Maddie asked from the bathroom doorway.
“A guy who wants me to ride some colts for him.” And a nice surprise bit of income.
Maddie’s eyes widened. “Then I get Sugar Foot all to myself next time I visit.”
Kade smiled. “If he brings colts, you can ride Sugar Foot.”
“I wish Sugar Foot was all coal black with a white star. That’s what my next horse is going to be. Or maybe a blue roan.” She swung the door back and forth as she talked, then suddenly she stopped moving. “Hey. When you get the colts, then we can go see Blue with the wild horses.” Her eyes got even rounder as the idea began to gel. “We can camp out! And put ropes around our sleeping bags to keep snakes away and hobble the horses, like in my Phantom Stallion book.”
Kade fell back on one of those parental phrases he found he used over and over again. “We’ll see.”
“It’ll be so much fun.”
As much fun as horse camp? Somehow he thought not. A trip to the mustangs would be one or maybe two days at the most. Horse camp was three weeks. Hard to compare the two.
He couldn’t wait until he had this place sold and he could move closer to Maddie—close enough to fight for the time that was legally his.
Libby would probably organize a parade to celebrate his departure.
CHAPTER THREE
JILLIAN AND MIKE PULLED into Kade’s yard around four that afternoon. Mike was an accountant for one of the big mines in Elko. Quiet and unassuming. Kade had to admit that Mike was better for Jillian than he had ever been, but when Maddie ran and gave him a big hug Kade found it a little hard to take. She really did have two dads, and Kade sometimes had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t number one.
But he wasn’t giving up. Maybe he had some stuff to make up for, but for the most part he’d been there for his daughter—and he would continue to be there.
Jillian eyed the house, with its peeling paint and dirty windows, while Mike loaded Maddie’s purple suitcase in the trunk of the car. Her expression was pained.
“We stayed in the trailer,” Kade said.
“Good. I don’t want her exposed to hantavirus.”
Like he would let his kid be anywhere near mice. “Give me some credit, all right?”
Jillian sniffed. “When Maddie comes back here in June, will she be staying in the trailer? Or will the house be ready for habitation?” She smoothed her wind-ruffled hair away from her face as she spoke. It was a lighter brown than it had been when they’d been married. And streaked in a classy kind of way.
“I plan on having the house done by the time she gets here. If not, well, we’ve stayed in the trailer before.”
“But not for weeks, Kade. And when are you going to tell her she won’t be going to horse camp?”
“I’m not, Jillian. You’re the one who set that up—you explain it to her.” Kade was in a lose-lose situation, thanks to his ex-wife, and when they’d finally discussed the matter over the phone she hadn’t been one bit repentant.
“I get Maddie for two months every summer. It’s part of the agreement,” Kade continued.
“It’s not in her best interest. I thought you would understand that. Whatever happened between us, you always put Maddie’s well-being first.”
That’s it, Jillie. Slap down the guilt card.
“I allowed you to reduce child support,” she said with a tilt of her head.
“That was temporary. And I made it up.”
“But I cooperated.”
“Jillian, I want to see my daughter for the summer, as per the agreement. I don’t want to have to get a lawyer.”
He couldn’t afford a lawyer, and unfortunately, due to his having to temporarily lower his child-support payments while he’d fought his way out of the financial bind his crooked ex-accountant had left him in, she knew that.
“Do what’s best for Maddie, Kade. I’ll give you a couple days to think about it and then we’ll talk again. Oh … you really don’t need to send the support checks this summer, if it’s a burden.”
“Are you trying to buy me off?”
“I’m trying to do what’s best for my daughter.”
“Our daughter.”
“Do you have a means of support?”
“I’m doing all right.” Kind of.
“Well, if you’re working, then who’ll take care of Maddie?”
“Damn it, Jill …”
She started walking. “I’ll call in a few days, Kade, and we can discuss this some more.”
She got into the car, where Mike was waiting behind the wheel and Maddie was arranging her nest of blankets and pillows in the backseat beside the twins, leaving Kade seething. He faked a smile and raised a hand to wave to Maddie as they drove away. Mike waved back, too. Jillian didn’t.
Okay, maybe he wouldn’t go to work until after Maddie left. That was the way things would probably pan out, anyway, since he’d checked with every place he’d sent an application to and there were no bites so far. But on the bright side, riding colts for Joe Barton would help immensely, plus it was something he could do while Maddie was there and he’d still have time left to work on the house. Besides that, Maddie would only be there for a matter of a few weeks, unless he got tough with Jillian. But what kind of father kept his daughter from going to horse camp? Even he wasn’t delusional enough to imagine that riding with Dad would be as much fun as spending three weeks with other girls and lots of horses. There’d probably be campfires and marshmallows and girl talk.
Was Maddie old enough for girl talk?
It kind of tore at him to think that even if she wasn’t now, she soon would be. Kids grew up fast—faster than he’d ever dreamed. So why had his childhood seemed to last forever?
Must have been the fear factor.
Kade stared at the evil house in which he’d planned to spend the day, then turned his back on it and walked to his truck. The house would keep. Right now he was going to attend to some other unfinished business. Libby might not want to hear what he had to say, but he needed to say it.
LIBBY HAD JUST finished filling her horses’ water troughs when she heard a vehicle pull into her yard. Buster and Jiggs, her Australian shepherds, shot around the side of the barn at the sound of tires on gravel.
Libby wiped her damp hands down the sides of her jeans and followed the dogs, hoping she was about to come face-to-face with a traveling salesman—anyone other than Kade.
No such luck. Kade was crouched next to his truck, petting her traitorous dogs, who were taking turns licking his face.
“To the porch,” Libby ordered. The Aussies slowly obeyed, slinking away from Kade and casting Libby dark canine glances as they headed for the house.
Kade stood up. A good ten feet separated them. It didn’t feel like enough space. “You fixed the place up nice,” he said.
And she had, pouring all the work into it that her parents never had, due to their addictions. The barn had a proper roof now, and the pastures were well fenced. Her small house wasn’t the greatest, but she’d planted flowers all around it and someday she’d redo the inside. Someday.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Libby shoved her hands into the back pockets of her worn jeans. One of her fingers poked out of a hole that had worn through because of her fencing pliers. “Why are you here?”
“There’re still some things I want to straighten out.”
Libby shook her head. “I believe that everything between us is as straight as it’s going to get.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Differ all you want. And while you’re differing, maybe you could get into your truck and drive away.”
He advanced a couple slow steps forward. Libby held her ground, which wasn’t easy since every nerve in her body seemed to be screaming at her to back up.
“You came to see me,” he said in a reasonable tone once he’d come to a halt.
She pulled her hands out of her pockets, crossed them over her chest. “I came to tell you that I didn’t want you stirring up gossip.”
“Bull. You’ve never been concerned about gossip in your life.”
He had her there.
“All right. I’ll admit it—I wanted to get the damned reunion over with, since we were bound to run into each other sometime. I didn’t want an audience when it happened. Okay? I didn’t come to make friends with you.”
“Libby, a lot of stuff has happened since—” He gestured with one hand, but Libby cut him off before he could start talking again.
“I don’t want to hear about it.” She kicked a pebble with her foot, watched it bounce a couple times and then looked up at him, determined to get things straight once and for all, if that was truly what he wanted. Then maybe he’d leave.
“Here’s the deal, Kade. I trusted you. You were my lover and I trusted you.” She stopped, surprised that the corners of her mouth had started to quiver. It only took a second to regain control, but Kade had noticed. “I never thought you’d let me down.”
“There were circumstances.”
“Circumstances?” She couldn’t believe the force of anger that surged through her. “Circumstances? What circumstances led you to screw another woman—and knock her up?”
“Stop.”
He meant it. His face had turned pale. Libby shoved both hands through her curls, tilting her chin and squeezing her eyes shut, trying to get a grip. He probably didn’t want to think of his daughter as the result of knocking someone up. Even if it was true.
She opened her eyes but didn’t look at him. Instead, she focused momentarily on the gravel at her feet.
“Kade, I can tell you right now we’re not going to talk this through. We’re not going to shake hands and let bygones be bygones. I can’t do it.” She finally met his gaze. “I don’t even want to try.”
And then she turned and headed for the house, reinforcing her words with action, hoping Kade had the good sense to get in that truck and drive away. If he didn’t, things might get ugly.
Fortunately Kade knew trouble when he saw it. She heard the truck door open and shut, then the engine chug to life.
Libby kept walking.
AS SOON AS HE got home, Kade backed up to his dad’s old stock trailer. A few minutes later the trailer was hitched and he was out in the pasture slipping a halter on his horse.
A couple of hours in the mountains and then he’d go to work on the house, when he wasn’t so frustrated and pissed off that he could barely see straight. He’d had it in his mind to do two things when he moved back to Otto—make peace with Libby, or at least attempt to make peace, and find Blue. Obviously he wouldn’t be making peace with Lib, but maybe he could find his old horse and see if he’d managed to do one thing in life that hadn’t later turned to crap.
Kade parked the trailer and unloaded his horse in almost the same spot where he and Libby had parked their “borrowed” horse trailer fourteen years ago. There was a very real possibility that something had happened to Blue since they’d released him, but Kade was hoping that wasn’t the case. He wanted to see the stud running free, with many red and blue roan foals at the sides of his mares.
He smiled at the image, the tension in his muscles easing as he recalled the exhilaration, the sense of empowerment he’d felt when he’d turned Blue loose, slapping him on the butt and sending him off the hill to join the mustang herd.
Take that, Dad.
He and Libby had known enough about herd dynamics to realize Blue wouldn’t be welcome, but would hang about on the periphery until he’d managed to steal a few mares of his own. They’d discussed the possibility that Blue might not survive, but to Kade, young as he was, he thought it would be better for Blue to die in the wild than to be abused by an angry man. Kade’s father.
So they’d borrowed a trailer from Menace’s dad, taking it late at night without permission, and then they’d led Blue through the pasture and out the far gate to load him in the trailer on the county road so there’d be no suspicious tracks. A two-hour drive over to the Manning Valley, with Libby sitting close to him. They’d arrived at dawn, released Blue and been back in town by six o’clock. Menace’s trailer was back behind the barn and Libby had her dad’s truck in the garage before he’d come home from the bar. Kade had climbed in through his bedroom window and sprawled across his bed. Fifteen minutes later his dad had slammed the door open and told him to get his sorry carcass out of bed and go feed. Which Kade had done, coming back in a few minutes later to tell his dad that the blue stud was gone.
Kade had spent the rest of that day hovering between the satisfaction of knowing that the stud was safe and out-and-out fear. He’d been unable to meet up with Libby for several days, due to his old man’s fury. His dad hadn’t let him out of his sight.
Now Kade mounted and started up a road that would soon deteriorate into a rocky trail. A mustang trail. He sucked in a deep breath of mountain air. It had been too long since he’d been out here. He and Maddie had ridden around his rented property in Boise before he’d sold his second horse, but other than that, he hadn’t spent enough time in the saddle. He’d be rectifying that.
When he topped the pass leading into the next valley, he paused to let his horse have a breather. The meadow below was greening up, but the junipers and brush around it were little more than twisted black snags—evidence of a fire. The creek still ran through the meadow, pooling up at one end, but he could see that this was no longer the mustangs’ watering hole. In fact, he hadn’t seen a single sign of the herd.
He made a slight movement with his rein hand and his mount started to pick her way down the rocky trail to the meadow. If the mustangs weren’t watering there, where were they?
He drew his horse up and reversed course. He’d ride the ridge line and check the next drainage. They had to be somewhere close. Mustangs kept to their own range.
Six hours later he dismounted at the trailer. Both he and his horse were exhausted and he was by now certain that the mustang herd no longer resided in this valley.
Had some natural disaster wiped them out? There were fire scars. Disease? Had someone shot them?
Libby was a wild horse specialist. She would know.
And she’d be so happy to see him.
Maybe he’d wait a day or two before he asked.
ALMOST A WEEK had passed and Libby was still stewing over Kade’s recent visit. And it didn’t help that she couldn’t stop forming a mental picture of Kade and his daughter whenever she looked across the field and saw the lights of his trailer. The girl holding on to his belt, Kade putting a protective hand on her thin shoulder. Those little silver hearts and hot-pink kitties on the pjs.
Kade was a dad. He knew about parenting and diapers and midnight feedings. He’d experienced things that Libby was beginning to think she never would experience. Sure, she dated. She liked men. But every time someone got close, she felt the need to send him packing. Togetherness made her freeze. As a consequence, she generally didn’t didn’t date guys who wanted to put down roots.
She wasn’t certain if her commitment phobia was a character flaw or the result of Kade screwing around on her. Or if it went back even further than that, back to the time she’d finally figured out that not all parents were so busy drinking that they didn’t have time for their kid.
But she’d made her own family ties by then, attaching herself to Jason’s and Menace’s families, as had Kade. Since she and Kade had the most in common, however, and lived closest to one another, they’d hung together the most, understood each other the best—which was exactly why she’d never comprehended what had happened between them. She’d decided long ago that she wasn’t going to waste any more of her life trying to figure it out. The past was just that, and she was moving forward—if she could just get that damned father-daughter snapshot out of her head and stop feeling the jabs of pain that came with it.
Libby finally gave up and closed the computer file she’d been working on. She wasn’t accomplishing anything while her thoughts were all over the place, and she needed to concentrate as she tabulated the research results of a two-year range study. Then, as soon as she was done with the tabulations, she would write her section of a report that weighed the effects of animal usage, including cattle, native herds of deer, antelope and elk and mustangs. Which animals had the most impact on the land, which needed to be cut back during certain negative conditions. And most importantly, the optimum numbers that the range could sustain.
Glen, her former boss, had started the project the year before he retired, and she, Stephen and Fred, her coworkers, had spent the past eighteen months gathering data, as well as searching archived reports for information. Now, with no end to the drought in sight, the findings would be used as the basis for making some serious land-usage decisions. Libby wanted to be as careful and accurate as possible with her part of the report—which meant that this was not the time to work on it.
She reached for the phone and dialed the number for Menace’s service station. “This has been one long week,” she said as soon he answered.
“You at work or home?”
“Home.” Such as it was. Libby glanced around her living room, thinking she really had to spend less time in the barn and more time making her house a home. But right now her animals were more important to her than new curtains or furniture.
“Lucky you,” Menace grumbled.
“I did four ten-hour days this week,” she retorted. And thanks to Ellen and a series of “important” yet useless meetings, it felt as if she’d worked six ten-hour days. “So … are we on for this evening?”
“What do you mean, are we on?” Menace asked, sounding shocked. “It’s chorizo night at the bar. Of course we’re on.”
Chorizo night. Great. Libby wasn’t really a fan, but the Basque sausages were a local favorite, and she’d much rather lose herself in a crowd than sit at home and brood about what was. And wasn’t.
“I only asked because I heard you’ve made a new friend and I thought you might have other plans,” she said.
Menace coughed. “Uh, what new friend?”
“Your new female friend.” The one the waitresses at the café had been buzzing about when Libby had stopped to pick up dinner on her way home the night before. The new owner of the hardware store. Ginger someone.
“No plans,” he said stiffly.
“I’d like to meet her.”
“I’m taking it slow. Don’t want to scare her off, you know?”
“Good idea.” And it was about time. Menace had dreadful luck with women, and part of the problem was that his enthusiasm at actually being with a woman often overwhelmed the new girlfriend. “See you around eight?”
“Sure. But what if, you know, Kade shows up, too?”
“We already cleared the air.” Sort of. Enough for him to stay away from her, she hoped.
“Any broken bones?” Menace was only half joking.
“No,” Libby said with a sigh. If only it had been that simple.
“Glad to hear it,” Menace said. “You can’t go living your life being mad at someone.”
“I never said I wasn’t mad,” Libby said softly. “See you tonight.” She hung up and went to the back porch, where she slipped into her barn boots, whistled for the dogs and went out to feed her horses. Four hours to burn. Four hours to think too much. Maybe it was a good time to muck out the stalls.
JOE BARTON SHOWED up with three beautiful colts late Friday afternoon, colts that radiated breeding and money. Joe had come to inspect the premises before allowing his animals to stay with Kade, but since Kade had put in two backbreaking days bringing the corrals up to standard, fixing the sagging gates and rebuilding the mangers and wind shelters, Joe had no problem with what Kade had to offer. He’d stayed while Kade started ground work with the first colt, a black Appaloosa with a splashy blanket.
“I can see this will work out just fine,” Joe said when Kade released the colt and caught the second. “I’d heard good things.” He smoothed his mustache with a forefinger. “You know, I was in the stands the night that bronc beat the snot out of you. I apologize for not recognizing you at the feed store.”
“Not one of my better nights,” Kade said, tying the colt to the hitching rail. “And I don’t really want to be remembered for being beat up.”
“You came back.”
“I did.” He just hoped he could do it again, prove he wasn’t a loser.
“You don’t mind if I stop by to check progress?”
“Anytime you want,” Kade said. “I, uh, want half the payment now. The other half when the thirty days are up.”
Barton reached for his wallet and damned if he didn’t give him cash. “I want a receipt.”
“Sure.” It would have been cool to whip out a regular receipt book, but instead, Kade went into the horse trailer and wrote a receipt on the legal pad he used for his grocery lists. He handed the yellow paper to Barton, who took it and folded it carefully into quarters.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to you?” Barton asked as he put the receipt in his shirt pocket.
Kade tucked his hands into his back pockets. “You mean why aren’t I living the high life?” Why am I wearing boots that need to be resoled while you’re wearing brand-new eelskin?
“Pretty much.”
“Just the way things worked out, Mr. Barton.” He wasn’t going to recite a litany of his life errors for this guy.
Barton patted the colt that Kade had just haltered. “If I’m happy with these, there’ll be more.”
“You’ll be happy,” Kade said. Because if there was one thing Kade understood, it was horses.
“I hope so. I have some friends who wouldn’t mind having a world champion cowboy tune up their horses.”
Kade just smiled. The irony was that riding broncs and starting colts had about as much in common as did competing in a demolition derby and teaching drivers’ ed. Both might involve cars, but there weren’t a whole lot of similarities beyond that. If Barton wanted to pay for Kade’s name, however, Kade wouldn’t dissuade him. He’d do an excellent job on the colts, get paid well and they’d both be happy.
Joe left after Kade had worked the third colt, a skittish chestnut that was more difficult to handle than the other two. Kade put away his tack, then went to sit in his lawn chair and stare at the house as if it was an adversary. Which, in a sense, it was.
He wasn’t going in there tonight. He’d spent enough time alone, working on it. He felt antsy. Edgy. After he’d stopped drinking, he’d also stopped socializing for the most part. It was the surest way to avoid temptation, so he’d spent a lot of time alone. Alone was nothing new.
Maybe that was the problem.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CUPBOARDS WERE almost bare and the propane was getting low in the tanks.
Kade realized he was searching for an excuse to go to town, so why not just go? And while there, maybe he’d stop by the café and grab a bite. He’d avoided public places in Otto because he hated playing Kade Danning, rodeo champion, when that was no longer who he was. And it bothered him that people who’d ignored him back when he’d been just ordinary Kade Danning, a local kid who could have used some support while dealing with his asshole dad, now embraced him. But if he was going to be here for months and months, which seemed a definite possibility considering the condition of his father’s property, then he needed to re-introduce himself to Otto society, such as it was.
As he drove past the bar he noticed there were more vehicles than was normal for eight o’clock, but the hand-lettered Chorizo Night sign explained the full lot.
Libby’s truck was parked next to the building, and yet he pulled in anyway, citing the adage about it being a free country. He no longer drank, but what better night than Chorizo Night to say hello to his neighbors?
He spotted Libby immediately sitting at a table with Dennis Mann—Menace, they’d all called him back in high school. A tall, fair-haired guy carrying a plate filled with beans and salad, chorizo in a bun balanced on top, sat down next to Libby and she smiled at him. A few minutes later Jason Ross and a pretty blonde sat down. He’d heard Jason had gotten married. That had to be the new missus.
Kade automatically started searching for a place to sit on the other side of the room, prior to getting in line. Someone said his name and he turned to see Cal Johnson, one of his old classmates, now wearing a deputy sheriff’s uniform and sporting a shaved head.
“I’ve been planning to stop by and say hello,” Cal said. “You saved me the trouble.”
“Glad to oblige,” Kade said, shaking his hand.
More people gathered around and before long he was in the center of a crowd at the end of the food line, renewing old acquaintances, some of which he wasn’t even aware he’d had. A redhead who introduced herself as Trista attached herself to him, and it became clear that he was no longer destined to be lonely if he didn’t choose to be. He was starting to feel just a bit claustrophobic. And also like a fraud. It’d been three years since he’d won a buckle, and during one of those years he’d actively tried to destroy himself. He wasn’t really hometown-hero material. But the novelty of having a two-bit celebrity around would wear off eventually, and then maybe he could actually hang with some people. Be just plain Kade Danning.
He pulled out his wallet, paid the cashier ten bucks, got a paper plate in return and started loading up. Cal waved him over to his small table and squeezed in chairs for both Kade and Trista, who’d followed.
“I just love a good chorizo,” she said with a half smile. No doubting her meaning. Kade smiled noncommittally, then glanced in Libby’s direction. The blond guy had said something, and she was laughing. Kade took too big a bite of his chorizo and almost choked.
Maybe he should have stayed home.
“KADE’S HERE.” Jason sat down with his plate of food.
“I know,” Libby replied. She’d spotted him almost as soon as he entered the building, as if her Kade radar had been on. It had been just a matter of time until they ended up in the same place at the same time, Otto being as small as it was. She was glad now that she’d gone to see him and that they’d gotten the first big meet-up out of the way. It made things easier. Not great by any means, but easier.
Which made her wonder, did all people feel this much pain over ex-lovers years later? She didn’t have a lot of experience in that particular arena, since she never allowed herself to get serious about anyone. It saved a lot of wear and tear on her emotions.
“Who’s Kade?” Kira, Jason’s wife, asked.
“A blast from the past.” Libby lifted her glass to her lips. No doubt Jason would explain all to his wife later.
Less than an hour after he’d arrived, Kade got to his feet, said his goodbyes to Cal Johnson and the other people at his table and headed for the rear exit. Libby was not at all surprised to see Trista, who’d been cozied up to him since he’d arrived, follow him out the door.
She was, however, surprised to see Trista come back in a few minutes later, her expression bordering on angry. Perhaps Kade had learned to say no, after all. Too bad it was a few years too late.
The jukebox started up, overly loud as always, and Libby accepted a challenge from Menace to play a game of pool. Life went on, and it didn’t really matter if Kade was in Otto or not.
Later, while Kira and Libby’s vet and occasional escort, Stan, were playing one of the worst games of pool Libby had ever witnessed, Jason came to stand next to her. Together they leaned back against the wall, watching the action and occasionally wincing as an easy shot went askew.
“Doing all right?” Jason finally asked in a gruff, man-not-comfortable-talking-about-emotions voice.
“I haven’t been hit by the cue ball yet.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I’m doing fine in every possible way.” She shifted her gaze sideways toward Jason. “I went to see him.” She didn’t have to explain which him she meant.
“Yeah?”
She moistened her lips. “I met his daughter. Cute kid.”
Jason didn’t reply. At least one of them wasn’t playing a game.
“I’m still angry,” she said in a low voice, giving up the act as she brought her attention back to the pool table. “I don’t want to feel a damned thing. Nothing. But I can’t help it. It’s disturbing.” On many levels. She exhaled and went silent for a moment before saying philosophically, “He’ll be gone as soon as the ranch sells.”
“Have you seen what kind of shape that ranch is in? It’ll be a while before he gets it ready.”
She gave Jason a sharp look. “Any more good news?”
“I don’t think he’ll bother you.” Jason smiled a little as Libby’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Couldn’t help myself.”
“Jason, keep your nose out of my business. It’s kind of embarrassing to have a self-appointed big brother taking care of business that I need to handle myself.”
But Libby would have done the same for him in a similar situation. In fact, she’d once made an attempt to protect him from the woman who eventually became his wife. Considering the circumstances, though, she’d been justified.
“I understa—Whoa!” Jason jerked sideways, bumping into her, as a ball flew off the table, barely missing him before bouncing off the wall.
“Sorry,” Stan muttered. He took the ball from Jason, put it back on the table and started lining up his next shot.
LIBBY WAS IN A mood the next day, but fortunately no one came close enough to achieve injured-bystander status. Actually all of the employees of the Wesley BLM field office were maintaining low profiles, and whenever Ellen did a walkabout the staff made an effort to appear busy, even if she’d just cut funding for their current project in her massive rearrangement of the budget and now they had little to do.
Ellen seemed quite happy, though. She’d patrol the offices at least twice a day, her perfectly polished glasses sparkling in the dim fluorescent light. Ellen was forever polishing something—her glasses, her desk, her résumé.
Everyone on staff had taken a hit that week except for Libby, who still was working on her recommendations for the range-usage report. Not much Ellen could do about that, since it was almost completed, but Libby’s office mate Stephen had lost his project. He was now busy planning a totally unnecessary range survey in order to justify his existence. Being the newest person on the staff, he was one of Ellen’s favorite victims, and now he sat with his head down, his lanky body hunched over his desk, his wire-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose as he concentrated and tried to make himself invisible.
Several other people had suffered similar hits. The Wesley office was becoming a bureaucratic nightmare. Ellen’s work here was almost done. And no one would write a negative word on her supervisory evaluation because they all wanted the woman promoted and gone.
“Libby …”
Libby grimaced at the sound of Ellen’s voice, set her pencil down on her desk with extreme care and rose to her feet. She straightened her shirt, then followed Ellen down the hall to Ellen’s office. Her boss indicated a map laid out on the desk.
“I’ve noticed that you seem to be concentrating your herd-management efforts on these two areas.” She pointed. “Why is that?”
“One herd was affected by the recent range fires and the other is the one where we’re studying the effects of the contraceptive program.”
“I’m not so much interested in herds as in areas,” Ellen said.
Areas? “I don’t follow you.”
“The area that needs the most management is here.” Again Ellen pointed at a location on the map, making Libby wonder if they were speaking the same language.
“That herd is in fine shape. Not too big, not too small. The range is holding up well.” Which was why they had relocated the mustangs to that particular region after a devastating fire two years ago. It had turned out to be a wise decision.
“There’s some question about that.”
Libby raised her eyebrows. This was the first she’d heard of a problem with that range. She was about to say so when Ellen clipped out, “Those are all the questions I have. For now.”
“Fine.” Libby headed for the door. She had questions now, but she wasn’t going to ask them of Ellen. She would gather more information and find out what her boss was getting at first.
KADE HAD KNOWN better than to use his dad’s ancient Chevy truck when he made a dump run Friday afternoon, but it carried more trash than his own short-bed truck and he’d felt like driving the old beast again. Besides which, it needed the carbon blown out of the engine, and he was in a mood to do just that.
Unfortunately, on the way back from the dump, he blew more than carbon. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d just blown a rod.
Kade got out of the truck and lifted the heavy hood, propping it open as heat rolled off the engine. Crap. Now he had a walk ahead of him, because his phone was in the pocket of the jeans he’d changed out of prior to loading the trash. Even if he’d had his phone, however, who would he have called? He didn’t have anyone’s number—except for Libby’s landline, which he still knew by heart. Wouldn’t be calling Libby, that was for sure.
A rooster tail of dust appeared down the road where it hooked onto the paved state highway, and Kade felt a small surge of hope. Maybe he could catch a ride, take advantage of his status as a washed-up minor celebrity.
As the vehicle neared, though, he realized he’d have no such luck. It was Jason Ross.
After their exchange in the hardware store Kade fully expected Jason to drive on by, but instead he pulled to a stop on the opposite side of the road and rolled down his window.
“You appear to have a situation,” he said in a flat voice.
“What’s new?” Kade asked, irritated. He didn’t need people stopping by and pointing out the obvious. He was about to say words to that effect when Jason asked, “You want a lift?”
The words came out grudgingly, but Kade figured this was no time to resent the less-than-enthusiastic delivery of an invitation. Not unless he wanted to walk four miles in old cowboy boots. “I’d appreciate it.”
“Hop in.”
Kade got into the passenger side of Jason’s truck, something he’d done a couple of thousand times during high school. His old man had rarely let him drive the very truck he was now leaving by the side of the road, but Jason had always had wheels and been happy to share. Back then Libby was usually sitting between them wherever they went, whether it was to a party, on a hunting trip or to a rodeo. Probably a good thing she wasn’t there now, Kade reflected, since it would put the odds at two against one. When push came to shove, Jason would side with Lib.
“Are you going to call Menace?” Jason asked.
“I don’t think I’ll have it fixed. I may just tow it home, then sell it as is with the ranch.” Which brought another thought to mind. He cast Jason a sideways glance. “Cal Johnson told me your wife’s family is in ranch and farm real estate.”
Jason nodded without taking his eyes off the road. “Yeah, they are.”
“Would it be worth my while to call them? About my place, I mean.” Kade was probably pushing things, but he felt certain Jason would set him straight if he was. “I had Marvin look it over, but … he doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
Jason actually smiled. “Well, Marvin’s only had his shingle out for a few months now, and I don’t think he’s made too many sales.”
“So what about your in-laws?”
“They pretty much stick to big-money deals. And if they did buy your ranch, they’d probably chop it into lots. It’s the way they do business.”
Kade shrugged. “If they can sell the lots, more power to them. I don’t care what happens to the ranch once I’m gone.” No truer words had ever been spoken. Kade couldn’t wait to unload the place, along with the memories, to move on, start over.
“Maybe your neighbors care.”
“I’m not trying to screw my neighbors, but I’ve got to sell and I’ve got to get as much out of it as I can. I had some trouble with the IRS.”
“I heard.” Jason turned the corner into Kade’s driveway, then pulled to a stop next to the barn. He shifted in his seat to face Kade. “You, uh, might talk to Kira. My wife. She and her sister have their own real-estate business. Kira handles small ranch sales in Nevada and her sister takes care of those up in Idaho.”
“After talking to you in the hardware store, I didn’t think you wanted me hanging around your womenfolk.”
“Yeah.” There was a touch of chagrin in Jason’s expression. “I’ve been thinking. What happens between you and Libby isn’t any of my business. It’s just that … well, I don’t want to see her—” he hesitated “—like she was.”
“For that to happen, she’d probably have to stop hating me, and I don’t see that on the horizon.”
“Good point.”
“Yeah,” Kade said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “So, do you think your wife could stop by and take a look at the ranch and give me some advice on how to make it most salable?”
“I’ll have her call you. There’s a pen in the console. Write your number on something.”
Kade wrote his cell number on the back of a receipt. “Thanks,” he said as he handed the paper to Jason.
“No problem.”
And it sounded as if he might actually mean it.
KADE HAD JUST entered the trailer when his cell phone rang. Maddie’s name appeared on the screen and he picked up immediately. School was barely out—Maddie never called this early, before her homework was done.
“Dad, Mom says that if I visit you, I can’t go to horse camp!” She sounded both angry and distressed.
Thanks, Jillian. “Honey—”
“Shandy gets to go, Dad, and we wanted to share a bunk bed and everything.”
“Maddie, we’ll work something out.” Riding horses with Dad wasn’t going to compete with riding horses and sharing a bunk bed with her best friend. “Could I talk to your mom?”
Maddie instantly yelled for Jillian, holding the phone close enough so that Kade winced at the volume.
“Well, I’m the bad guy,” he said as soon as his ex said hello, “which isn’t fair, Jill, because all I want is what I’m supposed to get according to our agreement. Thanks a lot.”
“I thought that you of all people would want Maddie to have this experience,” Jillian said primly.
“I want my time with my daughter.”
“Then why did you move to Otto?”
“You know why.”
Jillian’s voice dropped as she said, “Yes. And if you remember I warned you about Dylan Smith. I told you I thought something about him was off. But no. You said he was a friend and doing a great job handling your money.”
“Damn it, this isn’t about my accountant or my stupidity or anything else. I paid for that mistake.” And several others. “I’m fixing it the quickest way I can. And meanwhile, I want to see my kid.”
“Fine. I’ll tell her.”
Thus making him the bad guy. She’d set him up well on this one. Maddie would come for the summer. And she might even have some fun. But she’d be thinking about what she was missing, and Shandy would have stories to tell. Oh, yeah. Kade couldn’t win here.
“Don’t. But we will work something out. If not, I honestly am seeing a lawyer.”
“Don’t threaten me, Kade.”
“Then follow the agreement. What you did this time. We agreed not to play Maddie as a pawn against each other.”
“I’m not doing that! I’m just trying to keep her life stable.”
“By shutting me out?” Kade asked quietly. There was a long silence.
“I’m her dad, Jill. Her real dad. She has a right to know me and I have a right to know her. And I’m serious about the lawyer.”
“I believe you.”
“Let me talk to Maddie.”
Kade told Maddie she’d be going to horse camp and that she could spend a couple of weeks with him in June and August—which was about all the time she had after school ended and before it started again. Not the best solution, but one that would work. For Maddie, anyway.
By the time Kade hung up, his daughter was happy again, and he was wavering between feeling good that he’d made everything all right with her, and depressed because he’d really wanted them to spend more time together during the summer.
LIBBY GOT HOME from work mentally spent. It was exhausting to hold both her tongue and her temper for ten hours. That woman had to go.
After finishing with Libby, Ellen had browbeaten both Stephen and Fred. Fred didn’t care, but Stephen had come back to the office looking like a whipped pup. The only positive note was that they were about to have a four-day break from the Ellen regime while she attended a state conference.
“I tell you,” Fred had grumbled, rubbing a hand over the gray bristles on top of his head, “one of us needs to go along and keep a rein on her. Who knows what kind of lies she’ll tell or what she’ll promise to do?”
But Ellen wasn’t allowing anyone to go—probably for the same reasons that Fred had suggested.
The more Libby thought about it, the more certain it seemed that Ellen was up to something—and it probably involved accumulating political support. Ellen didn’t so much want to do a competent job as a showy job, one that would get her the promotion she wanted as she climbed government ranks. It ticked Libby off that in order to better her own position, Ellen would probably do things that were actually detrimental to the area but looked great on paper. And there wasn’t much Libby could do about it. But what she could do, she would.
Libby drove up to her house and instantly knew something was wrong when the Aussies came shooting out of the pasture, instead of appearing from the porch. She parked and jumped out of the truck, running toward the pasture. There at the far end she could see that one of her horses was down. Colic? If so, she had to act fast. She felt in her pocket for her phone, then realized it was back in the truck. She didn’t slow down.
It wasn’t colic.
Her best gelding, Cooper, was on his back with his feet in the air, entangled in strands of smooth wire fencing, his sides heaving as he struggled to breathe. It looked as if he’d rolled into the fence while taking a dust bath, got his feet caught in the wire and then panicked. His eyes showed white as Libby approached. She quickly assessed the situation and then raced back to the house, the dogs at her heels. She needed wire cutters and she needed help.
The vet was on speed dial, but when she hit Stan’s number the answering service came on, telling her he was away for the week and to contact his colleague, Sam Hyatt, in Wesley. Libby didn’t have time to wait for Sam to drive down from Wesley.
She hit Jason’s number. He answered immediately and she blurted out her story.
“Lib, I’m in Elko,” he said when she paused to take a breath.
Libby cursed, squeezing her eyes shut against tears of frustration. “I’ll call Menace.” She couldn’t think of anything else to do.
There was no sound on the other end of the line for a few tense seconds, then Jason said, “Call Kade. He’s close and he knows horses.”
Libby’s eyes snapped open. “Are you kidding?”
“He can get there fast and he’ll be way more help than anyone else near your place. Especially Menace.”
“I don’t have Kade’s number.”
“He just gave it to me. Hold on a sec.” When Jason gave her the number, she hung up, repeating the digits over and over until she’d punched them into the keypad. Kade answered on the second ring.
“It’s Libby,” she said without hesitation. “I have a horse down. I need help.”
“Should I bring anything?”
“Wire cutters. Big ones. I’ll be at the far end of the field.”
The phone went dead and Libby grabbed her vet kit and headed out to where Cooper was struggling. She started working on the tautly stretched wire, trying to cut it with the only cutters she had at hand, but they were too small for the job. She needed her fencing pliers, wherever they might be.
Cooper’s breathing was ragged, but Libby couldn’t get the wire loose, much less get him back onto his side so that he could breathe better. She was frantically hacking away when she heard Kade speak behind her.
“Let me.”
Libby backed off, letting him crouch down to use his cutters. He did live nearby, but he must have driven ninety miles an hour to get there that fast.
“Watch it,” he said as he squeezed the handles. After the first wire popped, zinging wildly, he cut the second. The horse heaved, making the ends of a third wire, which was still wrapped around his hind leg, bounce.
“Damn,” Kade murmured as he saw how tightly it was wound, cutting the animal’s flesh.
He snapped the last wire, then started unwrapping it as Libby held the horse’s head steady.
“I did everything I could to make the pastures safe.”
Her parents had never done a damned thing for the small ranch, except let it fall down around them. When Libby had returned to Otto after college, she’d bought the property from them so that they could move to Arizona and continue drinking themselves to death.
The house and barn had been in fairly decent shape, only needing new roofs, which had almost bankrupted her, but the outbuildings were shot and the pastures had lain fallow for years. The fence posts were rotten and barbed wire was strewn everywhere, cropping up out of the ground in unexpected places, where a fence had gone down and had then been overgrown.
Libby had spent most of her free time cleaning wire out of the pastures and refencing them before she turned out her horses to graze. She didn’t want any of her animals injured, and now one of her horses was.
“If you have animals, accidents will happen,” Kade said without looking at her. He glanced up at what was left of the fence. “He must have got caught while rolling.”
“That’s what I thought.” It felt so odd, being there with Kade, agreeing with him, as if there was no bad history between them.
“Do you still ride him?”
“I did.”
“You’ll ride him again.”
Libby swallowed hard as she watched Kade work, stroking the horse’s neck to reassure him that she was there and that they were helping. Kade was probably right, but now Cooper’s hind legs were badly skinned and burned where the wire had cut and rubbed against them. Recovery was going to take time.
“Do you have a clean area where we can treat him?” Kade asked as he carefully unwound the last bit of wire from Cooper’s leg. The other horses were standing a short distance away, edging closer, curious about what was happening to their compadre.
“There’s a stall in the barn,” Libby said. “I’ll have to run the rest of the horses into the next field so they don’t escape.”
“Go do that.”
Libby jogged across the pasture to the gate. The horses, sensing greener grass on the other side of the fence, followed her. Libby opened the gate to let them walk through. By the time she crossed the field again, Kade had Cooper on his feet.
The horse took a tentative step forward and then another. The three of them walked slowly to the barn, Kade on one side of Cooper and Libby on the other, her hand on the gelding’s neck, talking to him in a soothing voice.
“His leg will probably swell like crazy,” Kade said once they had him in the stall. Libby had spread clean straw and then found a big roll of gauze. Together they cleaned and wrapped the damaged areas on Cooper’s hind legs, duct-taping the top and bottom of the bandages to keep them from slipping off.
Kade opened his own first-aid kit and took out a plastic tube of horse analgesic, phenylbutazone, which he shoved into the corner of the horse’s mouth, pushing the plunger all the way down.
“Do you want me to leave it?” he asked, referring to the medication.
She shook her head. “I have bute, too.”
As she walked with Kade to his truck afterward, she felt as if she were waking from a dream, one in which events and actions that had seemed so reasonable at the time became utterly bizarre upon waking. She would never have expected to end the day by having Kade rescue her horse—or by feeling grateful that he’d come to help.
“Do you want me stop by in the morning to check the bandage?” Kade asked as he set his vet kit on the seat of his truck.
“I can handle it.” She shoved her hands into her back pockets and glanced at the barn. “Thank you for coming.”
“I did it for the horse.”
Libby wasn’t sure if he’d intended the comment to comfort or sting. It did both.
CHAPTER FIVE
KADE KNEW THAT LIBBY wanted him to leave now that the emergency was over, knew that she hated owing him. Well, he’d give her a chance to even things out.
“I need a favor, Libby.”
“What?” she asked cautiously.
“Have you ever seen Blue when you’ve been doing your BLM horse stuff?”
He could see relief in her eyes. “A couple of times.”
He forgot himself and smiled. Blue was alive. “I went searching for the herd a few days ago. Couldn’t find it.”
“We relocated it after the fires two years ago.”
That explained a lot.
“How’d he look? How was he doing?”
Libby pressed her lips together. “He was getting a little poor the last time I saw him.” Her expression softened then, the mask dropped, and for a moment she was the old Libby. His friend. His lover. “He is almost twenty, Kade. It’s a rough life out there.”
“I want to find him. See him.”
“Why?”
He didn’t know exactly. Maybe because the horse had been the one positive thing in his youth besides Libby. And he’d messed things up with Lib, so that only left Blue. “I just … need to see him.”
She frowned, but didn’t pursue the matter. “I’ll show you on a topo.”
“Come with me,” Kade said without even knowing why. Maybe it was because of that brief moment of empathy.
Libby actually took a step back. Not a good sign. No more empathy. “I don’t think so.”
He tried a different tack. “It would screw with the odds makers.” A bad attempt at humor.
“As far as I’m concerned, the odds makers can go screw themselves.” She kicked the toe of her boot into the gravel, glanced at the barn again, then met his gaze. “I owe you tonight, Kade. And I’ll be nice to you tonight. I’ll show you where the herd is on a topo map.”
“Never mind,” he said in a clipped tone. “You can show me later.” As if there would be a later. He got into his truck, and after checking to make sure the dogs were close to Libby he shifted into Reverse.
When he glanced in the rearview mirror on the way down the driveway he saw Libby walking back to the barn. Alone. And he was driving home. Alone.
What a waste.
THE NEXT MORNING Menace pulled into Kade’s place with the Chevy on the back of his tow rig. “Where do you want her?” he asked gruffly.
“Behind the barn.” To rot.
“Jason said you may want to sell.”
“Do you know anyone who may want to buy it?” Because Kade knew someone who could use the cash.
“Yeah. But I can’t guarantee you’d get much.”
“I’ll think about it,” Kade said, and then he got to the subject that had been on his mind all morning. “Hey. do you see much of Libby?”
“Yeah, I do.” It almost sounded like a threat.
“One of her horses got hurt last night and I thought maybe you could stop by and see if she needs some help changing the bandage. Apparently the vet is out of town.” And Kade didn’t think he’d be all that welcome now that she wasn’t desperate.
“You know how I am with horses,” Menace said, alarmed. Kade did know. Terrified.
“Oh. I thought maybe after all these years …”
“I’ll stop by and see if she needs a hand. If so I can dig up someone.” The big man had gone a little pale.
“Do that,” Kade said. “And if you can’t find anyone, call me. It’s dangerous doctoring horses alone.”
“Right. I will.” Menace got back in his towtruck and put it in gear. He unloaded the Chevy behind the barn. “You want to pay me now or drop your insurance information by?”
“I’ll pay you now.” While he could. He pulled out his wallet.
“Check on Libby,” he said as he handed over some of Joe Barton’s cash. Menace nodded and got into his truck.
“WHAT THE HELL do you mean, Kade told you to check on me?”
Menace glared, his black beard making him look fierce. “I mean what I said. Kade thinks it’s dangerous to take care of the horse by yourself and he’s damned well right.”
“Well, maybe he is, but I don’t have to like it.” Libby pulled her curls back in a rubber band, then grabbed her gloves off the kitchen table. “Come on, then. Let’s go take care of business.” She was aware that watching her doctor a horse was the last thing Menace wanted to do, but when she’d made a call to the vet in Wesley earlier that morning, he’d told her he had another client in Otto and it would be late afternoon before he could get there.
“Maybe we could call Benny Benson….” Menace ventured.
“Maybe you can just watch while I change the bandage. If the horse knocks me around, you can pick me up.”
Menace’s body stiffened. “If Kade’s so worried about you, maybe he should have come over himself.”
“He’s welcome to do so,” Libby lied as she led the way to the pen, “but apparently he doesn’t want to.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” Menace muttered.
Libby turned, took a long look at her big friend and then let out a sigh. “Sorry. Kade did me a favor last night. I hated asking and I don’t like feeling beholden. Things are kind of … weird between us,” she finished. Which was an understatement.
“Libby,” Menace said, “if you’re gonna live in the same community as him, you’re gonna have to suck it up.”
“I’m trying,” she said as she opened the barn door. But it isn’t that easy. She’d just rolled the door back when a truck pulled into the drive. Libby smiled. “Look, Menace … the cavalry.”
“Hey, yeah.” Menace brightened considerably as he recognized Sam Hyatt’s vet truck. The Wesley vet jumped out and Menace started for his truck. “I really gotta get back to the shop, Libby. Call me if you need some help.”
“I’ll do that,” Libby said with a note of irony. Menace didn’t slow down as he waved in response.
THE HORSE’S LEG was swollen, just as Kade had said it would be, and he was hurting, so Libby was glad that Sam had been able to stop by early. The travel costs from Wesley to Otto were going to kill her, though, since Sam’s other client had canceled and she’d be paying the entire fee herself. She had a feeling that Sam would waive it, since she’d agreed to go to dinner with him next Saturday night, but she wouldn’t let him do that. Libby always kept business and pleasure separate. Life was less complicated that way. It was also less complicated if she kept matters from getting too serious and Sam seemed to understand Libby’s emotional boundaries.
“Stan will be back on Monday,” Sam said, “but I don’t think you’ll have any trouble as long as you leave the wound wrapped and keep pouring bute into him.” Sam gave the horse a final pat and then let himself out of the pen. “He’ll be scarred, though.”
“I figured. I just want him healthy.”
“He’s lucky you found him when you did.”
No doubt. Had Cooper spent much longer on his back, he would have died.
“You should have called me,” Sam continued as they left the barn and walked the short distance to his dusty utility truck.
“I didn’t want to pay an after-hours charge,” Libby said with a crooked smile. Sam smiled back and Libby was struck by just how good-looking he was, with his blond hair and blue eyes. Put him in a mackinaw and he’d be the image of a Swedish lumberjack. Shuck him out of that mackinaw—and everything else—and he’d probably be pretty spectacular, too. Libby wasn’t yet certain whether she’d ever be doing that.
“We could have worked something out.”
“I don’t want special treatment,” Libby replied, the smile still playing on her lips, possibly because of the mackinaw ruminations.
To her surprise, Sam settled his big hand on her shoulder, his fingers strong and warm. “You might get some anyway.”
Her surprise must have shown, because Sam suddenly dropped his hand and busied himself loading his equipment, leaving Libby standing there, feeling … She didn’t know how she felt. She liked Sam. And regardless of his good looks, that was where she would leave things for now. The mackinaw would stay on.
“I HEARD YOU’RE getting this place ready to sell.” Joe Barton stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the property as Kade threw a saddle onto the chestnut colt’s back. It was the second time in a matter of days that Joe had made the forty-mile drive from his ranch to Kade’s in order to ride with him.
“There’s nothing to keep me here,” Kade said. Anything that might have kept him there was far out of reach now.
Joe nodded thoughtfully. “I like the way you handle my colts. I was hoping you’d stay around.”
Kade smiled but said nothing. Joe had brought his own horse to ride, another excellent and obviously expensive animal. Kade finished saddling the young horse, then they both mounted and headed off down the county road to the turnoff leading toward the mountains.
Joe was not a natural horseman, but he faked it successfully. The older man watched Kade as he rode, adjusting his body so that his seat was more like Kade’s. He didn’t ask for advice and Kade never offered any. That was probably why they did so well together.
“We’ve done some trail work since the last time we rode,” Kade said. “Junior’s still learning to carry a load downhill.” A young horse had to learn how to sit back on his haunches when being ridden down a steep slope, and sometimes it took a number of tries to teach the lesson.
Joe gave a grunt of acknowledgment, although Kade didn’t think he really knew what he was talking about. Well, the first time Joe went over the head of a horse who stumbled because he carried all the weight on his front end, he’d know. Kade’s job was to keep that from happening.
“How’s your water?” Kade asked. It was a common question in the area, kind of like, “Hot enough for you?”
“Holding out,” Joe said. “But I can’t sell as much hay this year.”
“Feeding it?”
“The BLM won’t let me put all my cows on the grazing allotments, so I’m feeding part of the herd year round. They’re trying to tell me they’re reducing numbers of all animals using the land, but it’s a lie.”
“How so?”
Joe’s jaw tightened. “Because I found out they moved in a herd of mustangs two years ago. They live in the mountains during the summer, but in the winter they come down onto my allotments and eat my grass. When I bought the ranch, I bought the cattle, too. I’d planned on putting the same number out to graze as the previous owner, but this past spring the BLM cut me back by twenty-five percent. Because of the damned mustangs.”
“Doesn’t seem fair to move a herd in, then cut you back,” Kade said, wondering if the herd eating Joe’s grass was Blue’s herd. It was quite possible. “But you know,” he continued, “that’s always been mustang country. I’m not sure what happened to the herd that was there before they relocated this one, but there were wild horses in your valley before I was born.”
“How do you know?”
Kade smiled. “My grandfather used to ranch in the area. He’d let his horses run with the mustangs when he put them out for the summer. Then he’d gather the whole herd, sort out his horses and let the mustangs go.” Most of them, anyway. A few of his grandfather’s favorite mounts were mustangs he’d “adopted” on his own. The BLM finally made him stop running his horses with the herd in the 1970s, but he’d told Kade the story many times.
“Yeah? How’d he get his horses back?”
“He built a mustang trap. A classic one, with a long funnel of camouflaged fencing that narrowed down into a hidden corral.”
Joe grunted again, and then urged his mount to move faster to keep up with the chestnut. “Prior to buying the Zephyr Valley ranch, I liked wild horses. That was before I was aware of the damage they cause to the range.”
Kade debated. Argue with a man who was paying his salary and was convinced he was correct? Or just keep quiet and ride? He chose the middle ground. Diplomacy. “Any animal, in numbers that are too large, can overgraze a range. Usually, in cases like these, the feds cut back on both mustangs and cattle so that there’s enough grass. But cattle are easier to regulate.”
“The difference between cattle and wild horses is that the government makes a profit from my usage. I’m paying them for the land.”
The chestnut suddenly shied, saving Kade from having to reply. He stopped the animal and turned it back. The horse cautiously approached the scary stick lying on the ground, blowing through his nose. Then eventually got close enough to sniff it.
Joe laughed. “I’m always amazed at what will spook a horse.”
“Sticks are bad,” Kade agreed. Blowing paper was the worst.
The two men headed for home after another twenty minutes, talking about horses as they rode. Joe had always dreamed of breeding horses, and now that he finally had a ranch, he could indulge himself. He was also planning to buy and sell colts, and it sounded as if he was employing the same strategies he’d used to get rich in the stock market. Figure out the bloodlines that should prove most popular in the future. Buy low, sell high. These three colts were his first investments. Kade believed the man had chosen well.
When they got back to the ranch, Joe loaded his horse. Kade went into the trailer and returned with two Cokes.
“Is your house so bad you have to live in your horse trailer?”
Kade said yes with a straight face. And it was that bad, just not in the sense that Barton meant. Kade figured if the man hung around town at all, he’d eventually hear that Kade and his dad had been estranged, even if he might not learn why.
Not many people knew the truth. Parker Danning had been pretty good at hiding the fact that he hated his only son—in public, anyway. And Kade didn’t think anyone knew about that last huge fight, the one where he’d finally fought back for real and proved that he could have taken his father … and then hadn’t.
Walking away had been hard, but Kade refused to be his father. He’d moved out that afternoon, into the bunk-house on Menace’s farm, weeks away from his eighteenth birthday. His dad had never come to find him and drag him home as he’d threatened to do in the past when Kade had tried to leave. In fact, his father had never spoken to him again.
“You should probably put a match to it and bring in a double-wide.” Joe gestured at the house with the Coke can.
“Tempting.” In many ways. “But I can’t afford a double-wide.” Kade spoke without thinking, then wished he hadn’t. His monetary woes were no one else’s business.
“If you train enough colts, that could change,” Joe said, snapping open the can. “And I will have more that need to be trained, if you’re interested.”
“I am—for as long as I’m here, anyway.”
“I may have to do what I can to see that you stay,” Joe said, and Kade had a feeling the guy wasn’t being totally facetious.
After the rancher left, Kade fed the four horses, then went into the house to put in a few hours of work. The place felt better now that he’d cleared it out, slapped some paint on the walls. He planned to spend the colt money on flooring, and if a real job didn’t materialize shortly he hoped that Barton would send more colts his way. Hell, he could make a fairly reasonable living starting colts, if he didn’t mind the uncertainty.
But he did.
He wanted security for once in his life. He’d never had it after his mother had left his abusive dad, effectively abandoning her son when he was twelve. The rodeo life was about as insecure a life as a guy could get, everything hinging on the next big ride. And then, when he finally made it big and thought he had some security, he’d come to find out it was all an illusion because he’d trusted the wrong person. He hadn’t been the only one. Dylan Smith had bilked several people out of funds. That didn’t make Kade feel one bit less stupid.
THE WESLEY BLM personnel enjoyed four days without Ellen Vargas at the helm, while she represented their office at a state conference. She returned on Friday in a bad mood. Obviously something had not gone as she’d planned.
No one cared to ask, and since there had yet to be a staff meeting summarizing the outcome, a few random theories floated around. But for the most part the crew was simply glad she was leaving them alone. It couldn’t last forever, though, and Libby was the one who took the first hit.
“Oh, Libby …”
“Yes, Ellen?” Libby asked politely. She’d been sitting in front of her computer, supposedly working on her report. In actuality she’d been stewing about Kade and her injured horse and what Menace had said about the two of them living in the same community. Again.
“I’d like to see you in my office. Please bring any information you have on the area surrounding the Jessup Creek and Zephyr Valley ranches.”
“Zephyr Valley ranch?” Libby had never heard of it before. It certainly wasn’t on any of the maps.
“It’s the Boggy Flat ranch,” Stephen said quietly. Libby turned to stare at him, but he didn’t look up—rather like a possum playing dead. Maybe if he didn’t move or speak again, Ellen would go away. Fortunately she did, her heels clicking briskly down the hallway.
Stephen straightened up once the coast was clear, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. His brown hair was sticking out at weird angles from where he’d been resting his palm on his head as he worked. He’d managed to find another project and he was pouring all of his energy into it in an effort to keep Ellen at bay.
“The Zephyr Valley?” Libby asked. “For real?”
“For real.”
Libby shook her head in disgust. What next? The Boggy Flat had been acquired by a wealthy Chicagoan a little more than a year ago, but Libby hadn’t known that he’d changed the name of the hundred-year-old ranch.
She opened a file drawer and pulled out the hard copy on the Jessup Valley area before following Ellen into the state’s most perfectly appointed office. There was a new flower in the vase. Another orchid.
Ellen waved Libby to a seat. “You’re the first person I’m meeting with concerning the conference I just attended. The wild-horse issue was thoroughly discussed and the heads of the other regional offices and I have concluded that we should concentrate our energies on managing the mustang herds grazing on the cattle allotments.”
“Manage in what way?” Libby asked. She thought she was managing those herds.
“Reducing numbers to a more reasonable level.”
“Define reasonable.”
“The cattlemen pay for the range, so ‘reasonable’ would mean the number of horses that can be sustained without affecting the number of cattle that normally graze there.”
“What about the deer, elk and antelope?” Libby was fully in support of using the range for cattle, but when the range was in poor condition, everything had to be scaled back.
“Funny you should mention that. According to my research, the mustangs in the Jessup Valley are taking range from native species.”
“I’d sure like to see that research.”
“I’ll see that you get a copy,” Ellen said, tidying the stack of papers on her desk as she spoke. “But in the meantime we’ll focus on areas that affect the economy.”
“And that would be the areas with grazing allotments.”
“Exactly. When you finish writing your section of the land-usage report, I want you to address this issue.”
“I’ll be certain to do that.” Libby couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, probably because she wasn’t trying very hard to do so.
Ellen set her pen on the desk. “Libby.” She folded her hands on the top of her desk and leaned forward. “Let me be blunt, since it’s a manner of speaking with which you are quite familiar. Our budget is in trouble. We need the grazing fees, and in addition to that we may have to adjust staff. At the conference we discussed the possibility of sharing personnel over several areas in a cooperative effort. One of the positions discussed was that of wild horse specialist. You have the least seniority.”
“I see.” Libby refused to let any emotion come into her voice. She had no idea if Ellen was telling her the truth or simply trying to manipulate her, so there was no sense going ballistic over what might well be nothing more than a stretching of the truth.
Ellen adjusted her glasses. “I, of course, fought to keep your position rather than have it absorbed. However, nothing is settled yet.” She paused. “I will continue to fight for you, as long as I feel you are a benefit to this office.” Another pause for effect. Two, three, four … “Are we clear on the situation?”
“Very clear.” Cooperate with Ellen or walk.
“I want you to look closely at the situation in the Jessup Valley. When you finalize your addition to the usage report, I expect to see suggestions that will take the current economic situation into account.”
Libby nodded. She might be hotheaded, but she wasn’t a fool. She’d continue with this game for a while and see how it played out, but damned if she would let this woman force her to include lies in her assessments.
“If that’s all?” she asked, holding the folder she’d brought with her in both hands.
“For now,” Ellen said. “I look forward to your report.”
Libby gave a slight smile and headed for the door.
“Well?” Stephen asked once she returned to their office.
“We have range issues,” Libby said shortly.
“Yeah.” Stephen leaned back in his chair, propping the sole of his boot on the edge of the desk. “Before Ellen went to the state meeting, she wanted to allow more grazing for the three big ranches in the area. I couldn’t recommend increasing time or number of animals on the allotments. Fred agreed with me. She didn’t like that much.”
“Well,” Libby said, thoughtfully twisting a curl around her finger. “She now believes that if she removes the horses from the range, there’ll be plenty of food for cattle.”
“She’s probably right.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. But her thought process makes sense.”
“Her thought process is what worries me. And she came back all out of sorts from that meeting, so I’m thinking she got bad news and now she’s trying to twist things to get what she wants.”
“What does she want, Libby?”
“She wants to make friends with some rich ranchers, near as I can tell.” Libby shook her head and touched her computer mouse, bringing the screen to life. She had a report to write.
And some thinking to do.
“DO YOU HAVE plans for the weekend?” Ellen asked later that afternoon as they left the office for the day.
Libby’s jaw set at the woman’s pretended interest in her staff. The ploy was probably outlined in one of her management books. Take an interest in your staff. Show them that you care, then carefully insert the knife between the fifth and sixth ribs and twist …
“Just a long ride in the mountains,” Libby said. She dug her keys out of her jacket pocket and started for her truck.
She’d spent as much time contemplating the pros and cons of Menace’s advice to suck it up where Kade was concerned as she’d spent debating the mustang situation. She did need to suck it up. It was stupid to think that she could avoid Kade in the tiny community. So why try? Why not just find a middle ground between lovers and enemies? It was the only sane course of action. And it would prove once and for all—to both of them—that there’d never, ever be anything between them again.
And that was why she was going to do more than point out Blue’s herd on the map. She would go with Kade to find his horse.
CHAPTER SIX
JOE BARTON WASN’T exactly the man Kade had first thought he was. He’d lived a privileged life and had only a passing familiarity with the word no, but he also worked hard. He didn’t leave everything for his underlings to take care of. Kade had a feeling that had their positions been reversed, Barton would not have been fleeced out of his fortune by a no-good accountant; he would have been well aware of everything that was happening with his money. Kade had been trusting and oblivious, learning the hard way that people who said they were your friends still had to be watched.
Kade was not only learning to like Joe, he was thankful he had the three colts to train, because the job offers weren’t exactly pouring in. He really hadn’t expected to get hired on at the Lone Eagle Mine, but he’d thought he might have had a shot at a couple of the jobs advertised in Wesley—driving a propane delivery truck or doing day labor at the aggregate plant. He hadn’t even been asked for an interview. Apparently bronc busting—even world-class bronc busting—wasn’t enough of a skill to make the short list for those kinds of positions.
Sheri hadn’t called, either, since that one excited phone exchange a couple of weeks ago, so obviously the Rough Out endorsement deal was down the tubes. Kade felt no surprise. He hadn’t been easy to deal with when he’d been drunk, and he’d been stupid and arrogant enough to think that he could do as he pleased and a major advertiser would still want him to work for them. After all, sales of Rough Out jeans had jumped when he’d been used in their print ads. Difficult was difficult, however, and he’d pulled one too many no-shows on them, due to rotten hangovers.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But drunks weren’t known for making well-thought-out, informed decisions. He’d instinctively stayed away from Maddie during those months, not wanting his kid to see him in that state, and telling himself he’d get sober and make it up to her tomorrow.
Jillian had made no waves about him not seeing Maddie. She’d liked that Kade no longer upset their daughter’s controlled existence. But then he’d had a rude awakening when the IRS contacted him, wanting a whole lot of money because his accountant, the one Jillian had warned him about, hadn’t bothered to pay his taxes. Instead, Dylan Smith had pocketed the money and taken off for Brazil or some such country while Kade was left holding the bag. The big, empty bag. It had taken almost everything he had left to settle that debt, but at least it had sobered him up once and for all.
And then, when he realized he’d missed months of his kid’s life, and had no way to support her, he’d set about becoming the kind of person, the kind of dad, he wanted to be.
“Would you be interested in taking on some more colts?” Barton asked him out of the blue as they rode through the sage toward a trail leading to the mountains.
“Yes,” Kade responded. No sense playing coy.
“There’s just one thing.”
Kade glanced over at Barton, whose tone had changed. “What’s that?”
“I’ll want you under contract. I don’t want to invest in colts and then not have a trainer whose name will help sell them.”
“So I’d be guaranteed employment.” That would be nice. He nudged the colt to keep him from pausing to eat the tall crested wheat growing between the sage bushes.
“And I’d be guaranteed that you won’t sell your ranch and quit the country.”
“How long a contract?” Because he fully intended to sell the ranch and quit the country as soon as he could.
“I want sixty days put on the colts I sell, with an option to re-up for a longer period if we’re both happy with the deal.”
“That sounds reasonable.” It would take longer than sixty days to settle all the issues involved in selling the ranch once he found a buyer. And, if he was able to move to Elko after the sale, he could continue to work for Joe, since the town wasn’t far away by Nevada standards. Yes. A renewable contract was sounding better and better.
“You aren’t drinking anymore, are you.” It was a statement, not a question, and Kade wasn’t surprised that Barton had investigated his background.
“No.”
“And you wouldn’t have a problem coming over to the ranch and meeting some people, maybe show off what you’ve done with the colts you’re breaking in now?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll have my lawyer draw up a contract.”
Kade and Joe talked bloodlines for the rest of the ride, taciturn Joe growing more enthusiastic as he picked Kade’s brain. Kade felt remarkably optimistic himself when Joe finally drove his shiny truck and horse trailer down the driveway—until he went into his own trailer and listened to the voice message from his ex-wife asking him to call.
Sensing the worst, he punched in her number. The news wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t that great, either. Jillian had planned a family trip for the next weekend, his weekend, and Maddie wanted to go.
What could he say?
He had several things he wanted to say, but Jillian jumped in first.
“Mike and I will bring Maddie down next weekend to make up for it. No travel.”
“Are you sure you’re not going to plan another big event that Maddie can’t possibly miss the next weekend?”
“If you want her to come this weekend, she will. It’s up to you.”
Kade took a few paces across the trailer, attempting to keep his temper in check. “You’ve got to stop doing this, Jill.”
“I’m not doing anything except trying to keep Maddie’s life stable.”
“I’m aware,” Kade said. “Gotta go.” He hung up the phone before he could say anything Jillian could use against him and then slammed his palm against the storage cabinet beside the stove.
He needed to sell the ranch and get back up to Elko. He hoped Jason’s wife would call him soon.
KADE’S PHONE KEPT kicking into voice mail, so Libby pulled into his driveway on her way home.
No time like the present to start practicing the new role she’d assigned herself—that of a civil acquaintance. Another name for it would be ex-lover-who-hates-living-in-the-same-community-but-is-determined-to-save-face.
The door to the house hung wide open.
Libby sat in her truck for a moment before getting out, wondering if Kade’s daughter would be there again. But at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon the girl should just be getting out of school in Elko. Or so Libby hoped.
She crossed the weedy gravel to the house, the sound of hammering growing louder as she approached.
“Hello?” she called as she entered the nearly empty kitchen, remembering the many times she’d done so in the past—usually when Kade’s dad was away from the place.
The hammering stopped abruptly and Kade appeared at the end of the hall, wearing a sweaty T-shirt that clung to his chest, outlining his muscles. Libby swallowed and reminded herself of her role. Civil acquaintance.
She cleared her throat. “Uh, hi,” she said, now aware that “civil acquaintance” was going to be a lot more difficult than “angry ex.” Anger felt safe because it kept the emotions high and protected her from having to acknowledge that she still found Kade ridiculously attractive, that she could close her eyes and remember how it felt to smooth her hands over his muscles, feel his lips on her skin.
“Hi,” he echoed. For a moment they stared at one another, his questioning hazel eyes meeting her cautious blue ones.
Libby squared her shoulders then, as if preparing for a fight. “I came to tell you that I changed my mind. I will go with you to find Blue.”
His expression didn’t change. “Why?”
Libby blinked at him. “The polite thing to say is ‘thank you.’ I’m off tomorrow. Does that work for you?”
“Works fine.”
“If I’m intruding on some plans …”
“No.”
“Are you alone this weekend?”
“Alone?”
“Will your daughter be coming with us?” she asked with more of an edge to her voice than she’d intended.
“I won’t get to see her again for a week or so.”
“Oh.” She tried not to sound relieved, but she was. Riding with Kade, like old times, would be hard enough without having a walking, talking reminder of his infidelity along.
“Whose trailer shall we take?”
“We can take the old stock trailer.”
“Good. The road’s bad and I don’t want to beat up mine.”
Kade smiled slightly. “We could borrow Menace’s father’s trailer and get it back before he realizes it’s gone.”
“Maybe next time.” Libby smiled back, then remembered herself. Acquaintance, not coconspirator. “What time do you want me here?”
“I could swing by and pick you up at your place.”
“My trailer’s already hitched. It’s no problem driving over.” And she wanted to stay in control of her comings and goings.
“Why don’t we leave here at about 4:00 a.m.?”
Libby’s lower jaw shifted sideways. “You’re pushing things. You know that.”
There was still a hint of humor in his eyes as he said, “Yeah, Lib. I do.”
“I’ll be here at five. I have a date tomorrow night, so I want to get back early.”
After a slight pause he said, “Fine.”
“All right.” Libby felt oddly self-conscious, which made her tone brusque as she added, “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow. Hey, Lib,” he called, since she was already halfway out the door. She turned back, one had on the door frame. “How’s your horse?”
“Better. The swelling’s going down and there’s no infection.”
He smiled that smile she’d loved so much once upon a time. “I’m glad to hear that. See you tomorrow.”
BOTH THE HOUSE and the horse trailer were dark when Libby pulled into Kade’s driveway. She parked the truck and waited, but there was no sign of life. She no longer needed to be home early, since Sam had called the night before to postpone their date—he had to cover for another vet in Elko—but Libby saw no reason to tell Kade that. She wanted to hold on to that excuse for getting back.
So where was Kade? Libby got out of the truck, zipping her sweatshirt against the crisp morning air. He lived in the trailer, so she’d start there. Was he still in bed? If he was, she hoped he no longer slept in the nude.
Libby shoved the image out of her mind as she approached the side door. Kade’s trailer was top-of-the-line, with fancy living quarters in the front and room for three horses in the rear. It was shiny and well kept up, except for the area on the side where there had once been writing. The words had been painted over, but Libby could make out the outlines of the raised letters. Kade Danning, World Champion Saddle Bronc Rider.
Libby hadn’t been around for his glory days. He’d become a world champion PB—Post Breakup, or Post Betrayal. Either one worked for her. The media had loved him, though, so she still got a healthy dose of Kade, like it or not. Not long after the second world title, the one he’d won after coming back from a serious injury, Libby had been bombarded by his image on billboards and in magazines, selling Dusty Saddle microbrew and Rough Out jeans. Women loved him and men admired him. Libby had hated his guts by then, because he had lied to her in the worst possible way. It had taken her a long time to get to the point where seeing his image didn’t send a sharp stab of pain through her or piss her off. And now she was about to spend the day with him voluntarily.
She was growing. It wasn’t easy, but she was making progress.
Kade came around the barn then, leading a beautiful chestnut colt with a lot of chrome—four high white socks and a wide blaze down his face.
Libby let out a low whistle.
“He’s not mine,” Kade said before loading the horse into the beat-up stock trailer.
“Whose horse is he?”
“Joe Barton’s.”
“The guy who owns the Boggy Flat ranch?” Libby asked.
“Zephyr Valley.”
Libby was glad to hear the note of sarcasm in Kade’s voice.
“Tell me about him,” Libby said before disappearing into her own trailer and unloading her horse, a sturdy gray mare named Mouse. “Barton, I mean. All I know is he’s some rich guy from Chicago.”
“I don’t know much more than that about him. I’m putting miles on some colts for him.”
“No big political connections or anything?”
“I have no idea. Why?”
“Just wondering.” It had occurred to her that Ellen’s drive to rid the range of mustangs might be a maneuver to gain political favor; she could be doing a favor for someone influential in order to advance her career. Not too ethical, but if she was slick enough about it, it would be hard to prove.
Kade studied her, a slight frown creasing his forehead. No, she would not share her concerns with Kade. Once upon a time, yes, but not now.
Kade took Mouse’s lead rope and loaded her into his stock trailer next to the colt. The colt tried to get friendly and the mare flattened her ears.
“She’s as cranky as you are,” Kade said.
“You want company on this trip?”
Kade stepped out of the trailer and shut the door. “You know I do.” His voice was low and intimate. Libby’s belly tightened at the sound. At the memory of that voice in her ear, telling her what he wanted to do before he went ahead and did it.
She walked up to the truck and climbed inside. It smelled of Kade. She felt like leaning her hot forehead against the cool glass of the window.
Civil acquaintance. Civil acquaintance.
ONCE THEY’D REACHED the trailhead and unloaded the already saddled horses, Kade mounted easily, displaying none of the stiffness that bronc riders tended to show as they aged.
“Ready?” He was already looking up the trail, his strong profile sharply contrasted against the pale apricot sky.
“Yeah.”
Technically, she should have been leading the way since she was the guide, but Libby didn’t mind being behind him. It gave her a barrier as she recalled all the times they’d ridden in the mountains as teens—escaping together. She remembered the good times and felt cheated that things had turned out as they had.
You’re here to find a horse, not to whine about the past.
Libby straightened in the saddle, focused on the mission. She’d seen Blue three times since she and Kade had released him, all in an official capacity. The first time Libby had checked on Blue’s herd, almost ten years after his release, she hadn’t expected to find the stud still alive, figuring that a domestic horse probably would have perished due to the harsh conditions in which mustangs lived. But no. He’d not only survived, he’d thrived. His herd was about half roan, blues, reds and even a few lilacs. And thankfully they were remote, rarely monitored or gathered.
It wasn’t until the valley had burned two years ago that she’d dealt with the herd again. There’d been no adoptions, since the herd was small and healthy. Because of Glen and his dislike of bureaucracy, they’d simply moved the herd to another valley. No red tape, no protocol. For all Libby knew, Glen hadn’t even had the authority to make such a move. She’d never asked because she preferred not knowing. The important thing was that the herd was located in a place where they could find adequate range.
Libby followed Kade for more than an hour before urging Mouse ahead to catch up with him.
“They could be in any one of these drainages,” she said. “We released them lower in the valley and they migrated up these drainages for the feed. They go lower in the winter, of course.” Too low, since the herd had intruded on grazing allotments and now a rich man wasn’t happy about that.
Too bad for the rich man.
THEY CRESTED A LOW, sage-covered ridge and rode into yet another drainage when Kade pulled his horse to a stop. Below them they saw a herd, maybe forty-strong. And more than half of them were roans. Blue had done his job. Kade pulled a small pair of binoculars out of his shirt pocket and trained them on the herd, which, having caught sight of them, started to move. The lead mare had a nice new bay baby by her side, and there, traveling beside the strung-out mares, was a stocky red roan, the spitting image of Blue, except for the color.
But no Blue.
Kade frowned as he scanned the horses. Several blue roans, but none large and sturdy enough to be his horse. He gave a start when Libby touched his sleeve.
He followed the direction she was pointing, then lifted the binoculars.
“Oh, damn,” he murmured. There was Blue, a good two or three hundred yards behind the herd, alone. Limping slightly. And skinny. Very skinny.
“I think his son might be taking the herd away from him,” Libby said.
“Yeah.” Kade could think of nothing better to say. He’d been prepared for the possibility that he wouldn’t find Blue with the herd. Accidents happened in the wild. But he hadn’t been prepared to see his horse struggling behind the herd, trying to keep up with the band he had once led.
And then, as if on cue, the younger stud charged back, threatening Blue, who stopped, tried to turn on his haunches and went down due to his bad back leg. The red roan stopped, having made his point, and returned to the flank of the herd. The mares continued on down the canyon as if nothing had happened, the lead mare disappearing around a corner and into the aspens that grew along the creek as Blue hefted himself to his feet again.
Blue followed determinedly along behind them. When he disappeared from sight, Kade lowered the glasses.
“I’m sorry,” Libby said quietly. No other words followed.
Kade swallowed and then gave his head one sad shake before turning his horse around on the trail. When his knee came even with Libby’s, he met her eyes. Yeah, she felt for him.
“He probably had a better life out here than he’d have had with my old man,” Kade said. And it was true. The old man never would have sold Blue, since the stud had impeccable breeding and he could have gotten some healthy stud fees out him, totally ignoring the fact that the stud had been a gift to Kade from his grandfather just before he’d passed away.
“No doubt,” she said impassively.
It would have been better to make this discovery alone, but if someone had to be with him, he was glad it was Libby. “Let’s go,” he said.
They made their way back down the trail, and now that the horses sensed they were heading for the trailer, they picked up their pace.
It’s the way it has to be. It’s the way life ends for a stallion in the wild. Pushed away from his herd by a younger horse. Blue had undoubtedly done the same to the herd’s previous stallion.
But logic and common sense didn’t ease the picture of Blue going down and then limping after the herd. Kade doubted anything would.
LIBBY RECOGNIZED THE effort Kade was putting into keeping his face expressionless. Matter-of-fact. But the sixteen-year-old kid in him, the one who’d loved this horse so much that he’d set him free, had to be dying inside right now.
The ride back took forever, despite the horses’ faster gaits, and Libby was relieved to see the truck and trailer sitting on the road below when they came over the final ridge.
Almost over. Duty almost done. And then she could go back to her place and get on with her life. She had problems of her own to sort out. Kade wasn’t one of them. And except in a professional capacity, neither was Blue. She couldn’t do a thing for either of them.
It was a long drive home. They were both tired and Kade remained quiet. Preoccupied. Neither of them spoke until he pulled into the driveway.
Kade turned off the ignition and then once again Libby said, “Sorry about Blue.”
“I knew what I was getting into when I decided to find him.”
He might have known, but he hadn’t been prepared.
Neither of them made a move to get out of the truck. Kade leaned his elbow against the door, propping his head on his hand as he stared at the sorry old house.
“What now, Kade?” Libby asked softly. She’d thought he’d talk about Blue, but he didn’t.
“I’m selling as soon as I get it into some kind of selling shape.”
Good. She was almost ashamed of the thought. Almost. But it would make her life so much easier if he just left. “Why not sell it as is? There’s a market.”
“I have to get as much out of it as I can.” He continued to stare at the house, his expression troubled, as if he expected his dad to come bursting out of it at any moment.
Libby opened the truck door, but she didn’t climb out. “Because of the IRS?” She’d heard the rumor that he was stone broke because of back taxes. And even though it was none of her business she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done with all his money, why he hadn’t had enough to pay his taxes. Had he gambled his money away? Drunk it away? Did his ex-wife have most of it?
She wasn’t going to ask.
“I settled that debt, but I had to sell almost everything I owned. Now I need enough money to tide me over while I get some job training. Apparently there’s not a lot of call for washed-up rodeo cowboys in today’s job market.”
Divorced, broke and unskilled. Quite a résumé.
“Has anything gone right for you?” Libby asked without thinking.
“Yeah.” He glanced up at her then, his expression surprisingly intense. She’d seen that look before, couldn’t believe she was seeing it now, and tried to convince herself she wasn’t by playing it cool.
“What’s that?”
“You’re not married.”
It took Libby a moment to assure herself she’d heard correctly. She pulled in a deep breath. “There will never be anything between us, Kade. I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“Then you’d better damned well believe me.”
“Oh, trust me, Lib. I do.”
She didn’t believe him. Not when he was wearing his determined face, the one he’d worn whenever he was facing a particularly challenging bronc.
She gave him a long hard stare before saying what was in her heart. “I might feel for you, Kade, but the very last thing I will ever do in this life is trust you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
YOU’RE NOT MARRIED. Kade had no idea why he’d said that, but it was true. He was glad Libby wasn’t married. That didn’t mean he thought he had a chance with her—it had been a flat-ass stupid thing to say and now she had her back up again, just when it had looked as if they might be on the healing road.
But deep down, maybe he wanted her to have her back up. Maybe he preferred that to indifference.
No maybe about it. He did prefer it to indifference.
Well, Libby had been anything but indifferent when she left today. She’d been steamed and had left no illusions to the contrary. It had taken her almost three minutes to unload her horse from his trailer, load the mare into her own and drive away.
And as he thought about it, Kade realized he wasn’t all that unhappy about saying what he’d said. Sometimes a guy had to speak from the heart.
YOU’RE NOT MARRIED.
One whole day had passed and Libby was still pissed off that Kade had said such a thing. She frowned down at the industrial-gray floor tiles in the break room.
“Ahem.” Stephen got up from the long table where he’d been eating his lunch and tossed his wadded-up paper bag in the trash. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You seem, oh, I don’t know, preoccupied?”
Libby frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“You’ve been standing there stirring your coffee for about five minutes, staring at the floor.”
“So?”
He pointed at her cup. “You didn’t put anything in your coffee to stir.”
Libby looked down. Sure enough. No creamer. “Old habits,” she said, gamely sipping the coffee black and somehow managing not to make a face. She hated coffee without cream.
“You gave up creamer?” Stephen asked dubiously.
“Too much palm oil.”
“Right.” Stephen boosted himself onto the counter, the backs of his boots clunking on the cabinet doors.
Libby gave him a narrow-eyed appraisal. “I’ll bet there’s something in the rule book about that. I just can’t believe having your butt on the counter is correct protocol.”
“Yeah? Well, Queenie can—”
A door opened and closed out in the hall and Stephen’s mouth snapped shut. Libby smirked at him as he got off the counter.
“On second thought, it’s not worth crossing her.”
“I hear you,” Libby said, although she believed that crossing Ellen was inevitable. “I’ve got a few more items to finish up on my report.”
When Libby started down the hall, Ellen was coming back down the hall from the copy room.
“Did you enjoy your weekend, Libby?”
“It was great,” Libby said before walking into her office and shutting the door, something she’d rarely done when Glen had been her boss.
She brought up her word-processing screen, put her hands on the keyboard and stared at the computer, her concentration shot because of Ellen’s inquiry.
Oh, yeah. Her weekend had been great—right up until they’d found Blue injured and limping behind his herd. And then Kade had had to top things off by making that comment. She’d give him this—he had balls. To say something like that after what he’d done … She’d never questioned his integrity when they’d been together, and it had ripped her world apart when she found he’d slept with another woman.
And truthfully, she’d been devastated almost as much by her own naiveté and blindness as by his screwing around. She’d felt foolish. So the bottom line was that she couldn’t trust him, and she couldn’t trust her own judgment. What kind of a basis was that for anything?
“ARE THERE ANY KIDS around where you live?” Maddie asked when Kade called to make plans for her next visit, which was coming up soon.
Kade hadn’t thought about that. Of course Maddie would want to play with other kids. Jason and Kira had a year-old baby boy, Matt, but that wasn’t what Maddie had in mind.
“I’m sure there’re some kids here.”
“With horses?”
“I’ll, uh, have to ask around.”
So he did. He didn’t find any kids with horses, but he learned there was a weekend craft class at the public library and a family swim at the community pool. Both good places to meet other kids. He signed Maddie up for the next class, which was lanyard braiding, paying the small fee. He didn’t know who had kids and who didn’t, so he also called the woman who’d run the 4-H program back when he’d been in it and found out she was still in charge. Maddie couldn’t join a club, but she could attend the local horse group as a guest.
Three for three. Kade went home feeling like a real dad. And he actually had the house to the point where they could stay in it if she wanted to, although he had a feeling she’d want to stay in the trailer. If she ever wanted to become a rodeo rider, she was more than prepared for the lifestyle—news that wouldn’t exactly thrill her mother.
The phone rang that afternoon and Kade assumed he’d be passing good news along to Maddie, but instead, he received an invitation to an afternoon soiree Joe Barton was holding, along with a request to bring Joe’s three colts with him—if he wouldn’t mind. Kade didn’t mind. Some time away from the house would be welcome.
“I’d like to have you meet some people and firm up a few things.”
“Sure,” Kade said. “Uh … how dressy is this event?”
“Wear your regular clothes. Jeans. Boots. Hat. It’s very casual. I might have you put that Appaloosa through his paces. I have a potential buyer.”
“No problem. See you tomorrow.”
THE BOGGY FLAT RANCH had a new sign arching over the entryway, announcing it as the Zephyr Valley ranch. Intricate silhouettes of cattle and cowboys on horseback adorned the top of the iron arch. It gave an excellent first impression and Kade had a feeling that first impressions were important to Joe Barton.
As Kade drove to the formerly run-down main ranch, he could see that more changes were in progress. A pivot was irrigating land that had lain fallow for a long, long time, and a nice herd of Angus grazed in the upper pasture. He knew from their last ride together that Barton was champing at the bit, wanting to get more cattle out on the allotments. He was ticked off that some of the other ranches had been allowed more animals than he’d been allowed, and when Kade had explained that it had more to do with the condition of the range than anything else, Barton had made a disparaging remark.
Kade honestly couldn’t decide how he felt about the guy. In some respects, he really liked him, enjoyed riding with him and talking to him about life. Every now and again it made him think about how he and his father should have been.
But then the hard-nosed businessman would appear, stubborn about wanting his way regardless, and Kade would keep his mouth shut rather than argue. He was, after all, an employee, and even today, while visiting the ranch, it was more a command performance than friendship. Joe wanted to show off his new colt trainer. And Kade, wanting food on the table and a new floor in the house, went, telling himself it was just business, letting himself be shown off like a prize stallion.
When he drove up, there were people standing on the lawn, holding drinks and talking. Joe came to greet him and signaled to one of his cowboys to unload the colts. The man immediately hopped to.
“Kade, good to see you.” He glanced down at Kade’s belt to see if he’d worn one of his big buckles. Kade hadn’t. It was one thing to wear them for a photo shoot, another to wear them to impress people. The buckles were damned huge and uncomfortable. Instead, he’d worn one of his favorites from a small rodeo he’d competed in before going pro.
Joe accompanied Kade onto the lawn, where he met a legislator, a doctor, two lawyers, a couple of businessmen and several other people who didn’t announce their occupations or social standing. All were dressed in trendy western clothing, the kind most real ranchers and cowboys couldn’t afford. Joe made certain everyone knew that Kade, the only person there wearing a plain white shirt and jeans, including Joe’s cowboys, was a world champ.
“Kade starts my colts,” he announced. “After lunch he’ll show us the three he’s been working with.” The people nodded politely and Kade hoped that Joe didn’t expect him to put on too much of a show.
The conversation turned to ranch animals, and Kade continued to sip his drink and blend into the scenery. Joe was probably disappointed that he wasn’t taking a more active role in the conversation, but he was there, and Joe would have to make do with that.
“You don’t have as many cows as I thought you’d have,” one of the businessmen noted.
“I’ll be getting more,” Joe said, “just as soon as I get the range I need.” Joe nodded at the woman he’d introduced as a lawyer—Jodie something—as if he expected her to do something about it.
“Federal ground is multiple use,” she said coolly, giving Kade a speculative look over the top of her drink. The woman had money written all over her, from the top of her classy blond head to the bottom of her fancy, handmade, red-leather cowboy boots.
“And I’m all for that,” Joe said. “Hunting, recreation vehicles, whatever. I just don’t understand why those damned horses get to graze my allotments all year long, and I pay the price. Why not limit their usage?”
Several people nodded sagely, but not the lawyer. “Wild horses were here before your cows,” she pointed out with a small smile before once again coolly sipping her drink, waiting for a response.
“They’re not wild. They’re feral,” the doctor responded.
“They’re ‘national treasures,’” Joe added sarcastically. His foreman, a genuine wannabe cowboy if Kade had ever seen one, smirked at the comment. Kade drank his overly sugared iced tea and listened to the conversation, thinking how Libby would have livened it up. She would have set them straight on feral versus wild, and just which animals had what rights and why.
And she probably would have mentioned something about people moving in from out of state and then expecting the rules to be changed for them because they were so darned important. He imagined she’d also be wearing those snug jeans she’d had on at the bar and a shirt that showed her curves. While he was imagining, he figured he might as well aim high.
Kade leaned against a newel post and watched the interplay between the guests, wondering how long he’d be able to keep his mouth shut.
For a while, probably. For Maddie. For his fiscal well-being.
“You were a rodeo rider,” the lawyer said as she moved to stand beside him. He caught the scent of a light floral perfume. The same scent Sheri wore.
“I was,” Kade agreed.
“What do rodeo riders do after they retire?”
“Ache a lot.”
She smiled, showing beautiful while teeth. There wasn’t anything about her that wasn’t polished and perfect.
“How do you know Joe?” Kade asked.
“He’s my father.”
Kade was surprised. Apparently the daughter had no qualms about publicly contradicting her father. Like father, like daughter. “So you know him well.” Kade swirled the ice in his glass.
She smiled again. “He’s happy with what you’re doing with the colts.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“If you go into business with him, I think you’ll be quite happy.” She raised her eyebrows significantly. “I think I might be happy, too.”
He glanced down at her hand. Even though her name was not Barton, she wore no ring.
“Divorced,” she said, following his gaze.
Kade refrained from telling her he was single. All his instincts were advising him to tread lightly.
“How about you?” she asked.
“Involved,” he lied, making it easier on both of them.
“That’s not good news.”
He shrugged.
Lunch was served shortly thereafter and then Kade put the colts through their paces, wishing Joe had planned the dog-and-pony show before lunch so he could have gotten out of there sooner. It hadn’t taken long for Kade to figure out that the other guests, perhaps with the exception of Joe’s daughter, considered him to be a subspecies—interesting, perhaps, but not one of them. And they weren’t stingy with the condescending attitudes. Nope. There were plenty of those to go around. But in the end, Kade decided the afternoon had been worthwhile, since two of the men there were interested in buying Barton’s high-priced colts, which made his future employment that much more secure.
“Thanks for coming,” Joe said as he walked with Kade to his truck and trailer, which looked decidedly shabby next to the assortment of fancy pickups and SUVs parked along the fence. The colts were already loaded and ready to go back.
“Thanks for showing me off,” Kade replied.
“Hey,” Joe said, unfazed, “that’s part of being in this business. I thought you were used to being in the public eye.”
“I got tired of it,” Kade said.
“Then why is that agent of yours pursuing endorsements?”
How do you know that?
But Kade knew how. And why. Guys like Barton didn’t become money guys because they were generous and trusting.
“What else have you dug up?”
“You drank your way out of your endorsements, you’ve been sober for more than a year and your chances at getting another endorsement deal are just about nil. You’ve been out of the limelight for too long.”
“Then I’m not much of an asset to you.”
“You’re wrong. The people I plan to sell to want horse expertise and pizzazz. You can provide both.”
“But will I?”
“Yes. I think you will.” He spoke confidently, but not patronizingly. It was more a simple, matter-of-fact statement. “It’ll be a mutually beneficial partnership, Kade.”
Kade nodded. It would be beneficial, but he had his limits. “I don’t want to do any more things like today. Talk me up all you want and I’ll show off the colts, but I won’t do more of this meet-and-greet stuff.”
Joe looked as if he wanted to argue, but he must have sensed that Kade could only be pushed so far.
“Agreed.”
LIBBY WAS WORRIED about her mustangs. She had the definite feeling that political clout would end up being far more powerful than her recommendation, which was to leave the herd at its current size, gathering only when the numbers increased by thirty percent, and that the number of cattle on the allotment should remain the same. She was not changing that recommendation. It was based on two years of data and dead on, whether it was what Ellen wanted to hear or not.
Her injured horse, Cooper, was becoming antsy from being confined in his pen, and he let his impatience be known by getting pushy with Libby when she tried to doctor him.
“Knock it off,” Libby growled when he knocked her sideways for the third time as she worked to tape the bandage into place.
“Need help?”
Libby jumped at the sound of Kade’s voice, then brushed the curls back off her forehead. “I didn’t hear you drive in.”
“The dogs met me.” And the traitors were indeed glued to his sides right now, their eyes trained on Libby.
“I was concentrating on the horse. He wants out of here.”
She continued to work, cursing when the horse bumped her again and the tape doubled back on itself.
“He’s moving better,” Kade agreed.
“Yes. We’re both looking forward to him getting back out on the pasture,” she said as she fought to unstick the layers of tape, then gave up and started with a new piece. She peeled it off successfully and set to work.
Kade watched without saying a word, making her a zillion times more aware of him than she should have been.
“So,” Libby finally said, shoving her hair back from her forehead again as she straightened and wishing she’d pulled it back with a rubber band, “what brings you here?”
“I have questions. Professional ones.”
Her taut muscles relaxed slightly. “Shoot.”
“I’ve been talking to Joe Barton. He seems to think the BLM will be gathering mustangs near his allotments.”
“I don’t think so,” Libby said in an insulted tone. “If they are, it’s news to me.” Damn it. What was Ellen up to now?
“Okay, then, hypothetically, if you ever did gather Blue’s herd, what are the chances of him being put up for adoption?”
And then she understood. He wanted Blue. She wished she had a more positive answer than the one she was about to give him. “An older stallion? Not good.” She let herself out of the pen, even though she was tempted to keep some metal between the two of them.
“Even though he’s infirm?”
“Even less likely.” Libby slipped the ring of tape over her wrist like a bracelet, then closed up the vet kit and stowed it against the wall. She started out of the barn and Kade followed, closing the door behind him. Libby purposely kept walking toward Kade’s truck. He might be there to get answers, but there was no reason he couldn’t be on his way once he got them.
“Let’s say there’s someone who’ll give him a home, like, say, me.”
Libby let out a sigh. “If I make specific recommendations as to mustang adoption, even if they make sense, the powers that be won’t listen to them. There was a scandal a few years back, with federal employees earmarking the best horses for friends and relatives to adopt. Anything that even hints at that is frowned upon. And let me tell you, my new boss hates me, so anything I suggest that’s out of the ordinary is sure to be shot down.”
“Your outfit doesn’t make things easy, does it?”
“Protocol,” Libby muttered. “New sheriff in town and she ain’t friendly.”
“I see.” Kade shoved his thumbs in his front pockets. “I want Blue back. He won’t make it through next winter, the shape he’s in.” Kade was wearing that stubborn expression again.
Libby gave him a hard look. “You aren’t thinking of doing something dumb, are you?”
“Like?”
“Robbing a government herd.”
He cocked his head. “It’s not robbing if you own the animal.”
“It is if you can’t prove he’s yours.”
“Worried about me?” he asked softly, his gaze sliding to her lips.
“Yeah,” she said sardonically. “Because if they locked you up, I might never see you again.”
“Libby.” he said in that same low voice, not at all deterred by her sarcasm. Her name came out like a caress.
“Damn it, Kade. Stop it.”
He pulled his gaze back to her eyes. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
And she was sorry that he was giving her that look, the one that used to make her insides go liquid. “That’s great, Kade. But it doesn’t make it all better.”
“If I go and get Blue, will you turn me in?”
The quick change of topic threw her off balance. “Maybe.”
He took a step closer. “No, you won’t.”
Libby raised her chin. “How do you know?”
He took her face in his warm, work-roughened hands and, heaven help her, Libby did not take that important step back. The one she had to take if she wanted to keep their relationship the way it was. He lowered his mouth to hers, kissed her. Slowly. Deeply.
It felt so familiar, so welcome, so hot, that it was a few seconds before Libby shoved against his chest, knocking him back against his truck. She spun around and stalked to the house without a word, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth as she went. Erasing the sensation.
The rest of the evening was shot and Libby eventually gave up and went to bed early. To her lonely bed. She was tired of being alone. And Kade was not the answer.
LIBBY MET SAM after work on Friday night for their dinner date. Since he’d just come off an emergency call, his blond hair was rumpled and he wore jeans and a plaid shirt. She wore her field khakis and a black T-shirt. They made a striking couple when they walked into the Supper Club, Wesley’s finest dining facility, because they were the most underdressed couple there.
Over drinks, Sam told her vet stories, which Libby always found entertaining since she understood animals almost as well as, and in some ways better than, he did. The restaurant started to fill up after their main course arrived, and Libby was glad they’d opted to go out early.
“You never told me you were friends with Kade Danning,” Sam said.
Libby stared at him over what had been a fairly decent steak—until then.
“I guess I didn’t see any reason to.” Sam, who was normally quite intelligent, didn’t take the hint.
“I used to love to watch him ride.”
“He was good,” Libby said, picking up her glass of water, sipping.
“I thought it was a shame, what happened to him.”
“You mean when that horse almost did him in?”
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