Sweet Nothings

by Catherine Anderson

  When White Star had her foal, Jake insisted that Molly attend the birthing. It turned out to be the most amazing event she’d ever witnessed, followed by a bonding ritual called imprinting that she would never forget.

  Over the first hour of the foal’s life, she helped Jake de-sensitize the newborn to a host of stimuli that might otherwise frighten him later in life. They performed a mock shoeing and handled every part of the foal’s body. When he was finally allowed to stand, Molly had the honor of introducing him to his first halter. “Surely he won’t remember all this,” she commented.

  “Precocious newborns are programmed by nature to bond over the first hour of life with their mothers and any creatures hovering nearby, thus the herd instinct. It’s necessary to their survival in the wild. So, yes, on some level, he’ll remember everything he experiences today, and he’ll be far more inclined to trust people.” Jake ran the back of a vibrating clipper over the foal’s hip. “Over the next few weeks, we’ll repeat all this a few times to better imprint the lessons. At three months, this little guy will stand calmly for his first hoof trimming, he won’t be frightened by a halter, rope, or slight weight on his back, and he’ll come when he sees us, anxious for a scratch behind his ears. When he’s old enough to ride, it will be an uneventful transition that he’s been prepared to accept all his life.”

  Taking in Jake’s lean, muscular body, Molly said, “You could break a horse the old-fashioned way. That would take much less time, wouldn’t it? Why imprint?”

  He frowned as he considered his reply. “ ‘Break’ is the key word in your question, and it means just what it implies, that the horse’s spirit or will is broken. Sometimes it’s done gently, sometimes not. I’ve trained horses that way, and I’ve trained them this way. You can end up with a fine horse using old-fashioned methods, but what’s to say that the same horse couldn’t have been extraordinary?” He shrugged. “Have you ever seen a twitch, Molly?”

  She shook her head, prompting him to lead her from the birthing stall to a spot midway up the central aisle of the stable. “That is a twitch,” he said, pointing to an apparatus hanging on the wall that reminded Molly of a huge nutcracker. Indicating the circular end, he explained, “This part is clamped over the horse’s nose. The resultant pain becomes the focus of his attention, enabling his handler to do pretty much whatever he likes to some other part of his body.”

  Molly shivered. “How awful.”

  Jake chuckled. “Not really. Necessary is the word when you’re trying to work with a powerful animal that could make mincemeat out of you.” He took the twitch from the wall. “Sometimes, for the horse’s own good, we have to use a twitch.” He pressed the circular end close to her face. “It’s usually safer than a sedative.” His voice dipped low. “So we pinch the tender flesh midway between upper lip and nose, do what’s necessary, and then release the pressure.”

  “Your point?”

  He smiled slowly. “A question, not a point. Bearing in mind that twitching is extremely uncomfortable, if not downright painful, if you were one of my horses, would you want me to use a twitch routinely when I had to work on you?”

  “Definitely not.”

  He chuckled and hung the twitch back on its hook. “Point made. If imprinting makes a horse easier to handle and doctor, eliminating the use of a twitch in many situations, it’s worth all the time and effort I put into it.”

  “You really love your animals, don’t you?” she said softly.

  “Yeah, I really do. I’d much rather befriend than conquer.”

  Molly had never met anyone like Jake Coulter, and she doubted she ever would again. He was the extraordinary one, in her estimation, a rare individual with such a depth of caring that he amazed her with some new revelation every time she spent time with him.

  “Walk with me,” he said at least once a day. It sounded like such a harmless pastime, a simple matter of placing one foot in front of the other and carrying on a friendly conversation. But Molly soon discovered that nothing about Jake was simple—and while in his company, things that seemed harmlessly mundane could suddenly become treacherously complicated.

  “We’ve discussed what colors you feel you look best in,” he said one evening, “but as I recall, you’ve never said what your favorite color is.”

  As a girl, she’d done her bedroom in varying shades of mauve with all four walls papered in roses. Practically every article of clothing she’d worn back then had been pink or sported touches of the color somewhere. For her eighteenth birthday, her dad had even bought her a pink car, and he’d presented her with the keys on a resin key ring that encased a miniature rosebud.

  “I don’t have a strong preference for any particular color anymore,” she said.

  “Aw, come on.”

  How could she explain that she’d stopped thinking in terms of what she liked years ago? “I used to love pink,” she confessed.

  “Past tense again,” he chided. “Do you still like pink, Molly?”

  “I tend to go overboard with things I like. Pink can be a very gaudy color if you overdo it, and I never had any restraint.”

  He chuckled. “Is that what life is about, restraint? What’s wrong with gaudy if you like gaudy?”

  Her limbs went tense. “Nothing, I suppose. But with a brilliant color like pink, one runs a risk of appearing gauche.”

  “Gauche?” He assumed an expression of mock horror. “God forbid.”

  Molly’s cheeks burned. “Rodney hated me in pink. Now you’re laughing because I’ve learned moderation. Men. Why not just leave me alone?”

  He smiled thoughtfully. “I’m not laughing at you, Molly, and I’ll be happy to see you wear whatever color or style you like. I’m just concerned because it seems to me you’re still hanging back.”

  “Hanging back from what?”

  “Being yourself.” He reached over to ruffle her curls. “I love what you’ve done with your hair. You know what that tells me?”

  “No, what?”

  “That you should go with your instincts. You say you’ve learned moderation, but it seems to me you’re practicing self-denial instead. I don’t want to influence you. I think you need to make your own choices. But you aren’t doing that. Where’s the moderate amount of pink in your life? Even if it were true that you don’t look good in it, what would be wrong with decorating your world in that color?”

  “I’ll paint the cabin pink tomorrow.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Fine. Make jokes. Pink logs might be a bit much. Even I have to concede that point. But you could use pink to dress the place up.”

  “Pink doesn’t lend itself well to quiet dignity.”

  “The world according to Rodney?”

  Molly set her jaw and stared straight ahead. She wished he would just drop the subject. Discussing Rodney made her stomach upset. But Jake never backed off from subjects that disturbed her. He just kept digging and pressing until she forgot herself and said too much.

  This time, he suddenly broke stride to step behind her and grasp her shoulders. “Look at that,” he said in an oddly fierce tone.

  “At what?” Molly asked, her gaze darting to the tree line, her nerves jangling. She half expected to see a bear or cougar lurking in the forest.

  “At the sky,” he whispered near her ear. When she glanced up, he tightened his hold on her shoulders. “Just look at that sunset, Molly. Have you ever seen such incredible shades of pink in all your life?”

  Molly could scarcely believe she hadn’t noticed the sunset on her own. Jake was right; it was absolutely breathtaking. “Oh, how lovely,” she whispered.

  “Is God gauche?”

  The question took her off guard, and she snorted with laughter. “No, of course not.”

  “Would you say He practices restraint?”

  The sky was a veritable pallet of rose shades, so beautiful, so perfect, that she could scarcely believe it was real. “No, He hasn’t practiced restraint,” she replied tautly.

/>   “Would you say He lacks dignity?”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “No.”

  “Well then?” He rested his jaw against her hair to study the sky with her. “It appears to me that Rodney, the pissant, was wrong. Dead wrong. Pink is a beautiful, very dignified color, and the bastard wouldn’t recognize gauche if it ran up and bit him on the ass.” He massaged her shoulders, forcing the last bit of tension from her muscles. “Forget being restrained. Forget moderation. Forget self-denial. Celebrate life and drown yourself in pink if you want. It’s perfectly okay.”

  On another evening, Molly confessed to Jake that she had no fashion sense and had always deferred to her husband’s impeccable taste in clothing.

  “Who said you have no fashion sense?” Jake asked.

  Molly thought back, and as she did, her head started to ache, the pain sharp and centered directly behind her eyes. “Rodney,” she admitted tautly.

  “Ah,” Jake chuckled dryly. “Who elected him fashion guru of the century?”

  “Rodney,” she whispered.

  “Hmm,” was all Jake said, but that one word conveyed such disgust, it was unnecessary for him to say more.

  Two days later, Molly was in town to go grocery shopping and pick up some fluorescent tubes for Jake. As she hurried along the sidewalk toward the electric supply, she passed a ladies’ apparel shop. There in the window was a gorgeous pink top.

  Molly stopped dead in her tracks and stared at it. Never in her recollection had she wanted anything quite so much. She wasn’t sure why, but in that top, she saw freedom. It was her, the Molly she’d lost, exactly the sort of thing she would have loved back in high school.

  Of course, she’d weighed thirty pounds less back then, a spindly girl with an oversized bust. In her twenties, she’d grown thick at the waist and hippy. Something like that probably wouldn’t look good on her anymore.

  Even as she told herself that, Molly entered the shop. A pretty blonde clerk came from behind the register. She wore a navy blue dress with red piping and sassy red sandals. Her shoulder-length hair was salon-conditioned perfect. Molly felt dowdy and plain by comparison.

  “Hello,” she managed to say. Gesturing at the window display, she added, “I noticed that pink top as I was walking by. Now that I’m closer, I can see it’s not my color or style.”

  The blonde smiled. “You think not?” She stepped to a rack and pulled out a pink top like the one in the window. Holding it up against Molly, she grinned mischievously. “Wrong. It’s perfect on you.”

  Molly glimpsed the price tag and nearly fainted. It was almost forty dollars. She’d spent less than two hundred of the thousand dollars she’d brought with her from Portland, but even so, blowing forty bucks on something so frivolous wasn’t wise. Fingering the knit, she thought of a time in the not-so-distant past when she’d have spent three times more without blinking. She had Rodney to thank for her present financial straits.

  Oh, how that burned. And suddenly she wanted that pink top beyond all reason.

  “It’s a little expensive,” she said.

  The clerk laughed. “Not at the prices these days. Live a little. At least try it on.”

  Molly couldn’t resist. She grinned and stripped off her parka. When the other woman saw her clothes, she raised her eyebrows. “Have you lost weight?”

  For a moment, Molly couldn’t think why she asked. Then she glanced down. Her khaki slacks hung from her hips like tent canvas, and her blouse could have served as a maternity smock. “Yeah, I have,” she lied. “Nothing fits right anymore.”

  “We have a huge sale going,” the clerk said with a mischievous wink. Before Molly could protest, she was descending on a rack of jeans. “Aren’t these darling?” she said as she turned to assess Molly’s size. She drew out a pair of pants. “These are half off.”

  A fifty-percent discount was a really great deal if one had the money to take advantage of it. Molly didn’t. She kept telling herself that as the clerk herded her to a dressing room. Leaving the door ajar while Molly changed, the woman kept bringing different outfits for her to try on.

  “This would look marvelous on you,” she said. Or, “This is so you!”

  “I really can’t afford a new wardrobe right now,” Molly kept insisting, not sure who she was trying to convince, the clerk or herself.

  “Any woman who loses that much weight owes herself a whole new look!” was the clerk’s retort.

  Molly knew she should leave, but trying on the clothes was so much fun she couldn’t bring herself to run. The blonde had no idea of Molly’s history. She didn’t rave about how nice Molly looked just to bolster her confidence. Best of all, she had a flair for fashion. Anyone with eyes could see that by the way she was dressed. She might have stepped off the cover of a magazine.

  Before Molly knew quite how it happened, she’d selected tons of clothes. The large discounts aside, she knew the total would be astronomical. She had to be out of her mind to even consider blowing so much money when she had absolutely no way of replacing it. All her wages at the ranch went toward Sunset’s care and training.

  “I really, really can’t afford all this,” she confessed.

  The blonde winked. “Come on up front. Let’s run it up on the calculator and see what we’re looking at.”

  The total was over six hundred dollars, including the large sale discounts. Molly glanced down at the outfit she was wearing, a pair of snug jeans and a snappy red sweater. It was so totally outlandish, something she never would have considered wearing less than an hour ago, but she liked the way it made her look, transforming her in some magical way from dowdy old Molly into someone colorful, daring, and maybe even a little sexy in a plump sort of way.

  “I really shouldn’t.”

  The clerk winked at her. “I don’t offer to do this for just anyone, but for you, I’ll make an exception. I get a twenty-five-percent discount, working here. I’ll take that off the total as well. Does that make the cost a little more manageable?”

  Molly could scarcely believe she’d offered. “Don’t you work on commission?”

  “Yes. But I’ve done well this week with the clearance sale. And, hey, what’s the use in having a job like this if I can’t have fun once in a while? It’s not every day that I can totally make someone over.” She leaned closer and grinned conspiratorially. “I haven’t used my discount all winter. The old battle-ax who owns this place is getting off cheap.” She straightened and ran her gaze over Molly. “You look so great in that outfit. That’s all the commission I need.”

  Molly left the store with so many outfits the bags were difficult to carry, forcing her to return to the truck before she went on to the parts store. She’d changed back into her old clothes, and when she saw herself in the store windows as she hurried along the sidewalk, she cringed. The new Molly was in Jake’s truck, and she couldn’t wait to get home to try her back on.

  When Jake walked into the kitchen that night, his eyes nearly popped from his head. Molly stood at the stove, only she looked nothing like the Molly he knew. She wore a pair of snug jeans and a bright red sweater that clung to her ample breasts. Jake’s blood pressure shot clear off the chart before he knew what hit him.

  When she turned fully toward him, he could only gawk. Holy hell. If he had this much trouble keeping his mouth closed, how were his men going to react? She was mouth-watering. Every delicious curve of her body was showcased.

  He’d known she was sumptuously built, but he’d never in his wildest dreams imagined her to be this curvaceous. Ample didn’t describe her breasts. A little bit of her cleavage was showing, and with breasts as generous as hers, a little bit of cleavage went a hell of a long way.

  His gaze shot from there to her slender waist, which flowed gently into delightfully round hips and full thighs. Until now, he’d never realized the stretching properties of denim.

  “You can’t wear that.”

  The words no sooner popped from Jake’s mouth than he wanted to call
them back. It was just—sweet Lord above, didn’t she realize how she looked? She had a body that made a man think about hot sex on silk sheets. He’d suggested a little more color in her wardrobe, not formfitting brilliance.

  Didn’t she understand that she was a lone female, working on a ranch with a bunch of horny men? Even the older ones still had some fire in their ovens. The younger fellows might get ideas, and if they did, a pass at Molly wouldn’t be long in following. Jake would kill the first man who so much as made an off-color remark to her.

  Jake saw that she’d gone as pale as a moonbeam. For a long moment, she just stood there looking at him with her heart in her eyes. Then, glancing down, she murmured, “I guess it is a little much.” She plucked at the front of the sweater. “You’re right, Jake. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Can you, um, watch dinner while I run over to change?”

  Jake wanted to kick himself. Only he couldn’t until he removed his size twelve boot from his mouth. “Molly, I didn’t mean that you don’t look nice.”

  Her stricken expression remained.

  “You look fantastic,” he rushed to add. Too fantastic. Shit. She didn’t believe him. He could tell that by her pallor and the injured look in her eyes. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. “I was, um, just—startled when I first saw you, is all.”

  “Yes, well.” Her eyes went all shiny, giving him reason to suspect she was about to cry. Instead she laughed and flashed an over-bright smile. “Startling people wasn’t my aim when I got the outfit.” She shrugged. “I never should have listened to that clerk. I told you my taste in clothes is atrocious.”

  Before Jake could collect himself and think of something else to say, she rushed from the room, so upset she didn’t even stop at the coat rack to grab her parka.

  Jake was at the stove, turning the chicken and cursing to turn the air blue, when Hank walked in the back door. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything!” Jake handed his brother the fork. “Watch the chicken, would you? I have some fences to go mend.”