Maverick

by Irish Winters

  Chapter Three

  By the time Maverick delivered the chicken, charred in all the right places, China looked more like a woman again. Her damp hair was pulled into a ponytail snug against the back of her neck. She exuded maturity in everything she did, from the simple clean jeans she wore to the dusty cowboy boots on her feet.

  “You want a beer?” she asked at the open refrigerator.

  “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  “Water then?” She snagged a tall-necked bottle for herself and twisted the top off. “I’ve got milk, too. Juice?”

  “Water’s fine. I’ll get it myself.”

  He lingered at the kitchen doorway, not sure how much hospitality he dared accept. A woman’s world was dangerous territory, not unlike the minefields he had traversed overseas. One wrong step and he could be in a world of hurt.

  “You’re welcome to have a beer. Don’t be shy. Help yourself.” She nudged the door shut with her hip and turned back to the stove. “Water glasses are in the cupboard to the left of the sink. Could you hand me that hot pad on the table? I tend to leave ’em everywhere but where I need ’em.”

  He brought it to her at the stove and filled himself a glass of water. Still at the sink, he downed the whole thing in a few gulps. He had taken his fill in the bunkhouse shower, too. A man never knew how long a dry spell might last.

  “Thanks.” She grasped the handles on the boiling pan with the hot pads and emptied the steaming contents into a colander in the sink. “Carrots are done. Let’s eat.”

  He held her chair for her. When she finally settled, he took the opposite chair, wishing he were back on the road. Small talk sucked and he had never been good at it.

  China passed a plate of thick-sliced bread. “Like I said before, I don’t get many visitors. Hope you don’t mind simple food. It’s not much, but it’ll stick to your bones.”

  He filled his plate, sampling each entrée. Simple? Grilled chicken that tasted like garlic and crushed pepper with a hint of sage? Baked potatoes slathered in butter, sour cream, and chives? Parsley carrots, still crisp and crunchy? A cucumber salad doused with onions, vinegar, salt, and pepper? Nothing simple about it. More like heaven to a man who’d spent the last two months traipsing across western Nebraska to get to Nowhere, Wyoming.

  He dug in. Life on the road was tough, with good meals few and far between. Something about China’s brand of simple soothed him all the way to his soul. Her house reflected the same. Clean. Orderly. Not decorated for show as much as utility.

  An antlered deer head hung over the stone fireplace in her living room, no doubt killed for the venison it provided instead of sport. Looked like a twelve-point buck from where he sat.

  A lever-action Henry rifle stood in the corner behind the kitchen door, another sign of the practical nature of this woman. She meant to protect herself. Good on her.

  The wooden cabinet in the dining room held fishing poles and a wicker creel. A stack of books covered an end table next to a couch beneath a collection of portraits. The wood floors were polished and clean.

  Even her yard was neat and tidy. A small vegetable garden told him exactly where the carrots he was eating had come from. Red-and-black speckled chickens roamed free. And that black metal birdbath with the prancing black horse statue just off her front porch? Had to be copper. One of a kind. Like China.

  No men’s boots lingered near the back door. He hoped that meant an angry husband or boyfriend wouldn’t show up and challenge him before he had finished eating. She was right. He was hungry, and he didn’t want to be disturbed. Home-cooked beat fast food and spit-roasted rabbit any day.

  Maverick wiped his mouth with his napkin and tried to show an interest in something besides stuffing his face and leaving. “How long have you lived here?”

  “All my life.” She sliced the chicken breast on her plate with a steak knife. Her fingers were delicate—not what he had expected. Her nails were clean and trimmed and—natural. Dainty. “How about you? Where’s home?”

  “Virginia, last year.” He stabbed another drumstick from the platter. Damned if I know where tomorrow.

  “You’re a Marine,” she said with certainty.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He filled his mouth, hoping to forestall the inevitable question. It didn’t.

  “Where?”

  He took a long minute to swallow before he answered, shrugging for nonchalance and hoping for an end to the gentle interview. “Afghanistan. Iraq. South America. The usual.”

  “Kandahar?”

  He nodded with a quick blink. Yeah. Kandahar. Camp Leatherneck. Helmand Province. Lashkar Gah. That rat bastard, Mullah Mamood. Just the thought of the psychotic Taliban commander pitched acid up his throat, spoiling the quiet pleasure of eating at a kind woman’s kitchen table. Maverick took a long drink of water, wishing it washed the last two years away. Every last damned memory.

  They ate the rest of dinner in silence. The food was good, but the lack of a television or radio made China’s house uncomfortably quiet. He shifted his boots beneath the table. Restless. Time to be gone.

  “Thank you.”

  He looked up from his empty plate. Her quiet comment surprised him. He shrugged. “No big deal. Couldn’t let you and the horse just—”

  “No. I meant for your military service, Maverick.” She lifted her bottle in a toast. “I know it wasn’t easy. You’ve seen and done things the rest of us haven’t. Thanks for everything you’ve sacrificed.”

  God, not that. His eyes brimmed as quickly as his heart. She meant well, but she had no idea what he had sacrificed. The loss. The sonofabitchin’ grief.

  He bowed his head, blocking the nausea that always assailed him when good-meaning people thought they needed to say something. His throat clamped shut. Civilians just didn’t get it. The decent ones tried, but not a damned one understood how much his country had asked. How much he had freely given. And how much that other nation took.

  His kid brother’s cocky, know-it-all smirk flashed to mind, and Maverick was done eating. When he didn’t join her in the toast, she lowered her hand as if nothing uncomfortable had happened. As if he hadn’t just dropped off the face of the Earth like he wished he could have. He gripped his fork and breathed slowly.

  China changed the subject. “Star is a Percheron, a draft horse. The British army used horses like him in both World Wars, poor things.”

  Maverick followed her lead, needing to get his head back to Wyoming and out of Hell. “I’ve seen pictures. They pulled artillery.”

  “Yes. They pulled whatever the army needed: artillery, hospital wagons, supplies, just about anything an intelligent, agile animal could handle. Glad those days are done.”

  “He’s a big horse.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “He is. Almost eighteen hands and a tad over a ton. He’s one of my larger geldings on the ranch.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Oh, yes.” Now her eyes really sparkled. “Ebony is the biggest. He’s my pure black stud and comes in at twenty hands. Do you want to meet them after dinner?”

  She had used an interesting choice of words. Meet them instead of look at them, as if they were more than livestock.

  “No, thanks. I really shouldn’t—”

  “Oh, I know. Now you’re going to tell me you need to leave, that you shouldn’t take advantage of me, or some lame excuse like that. Am I right?”

  He clamped his lips tight on his version of that very same, lame excuse. She seemed able to read him like a book. “Just not going to overstay my welcome, ma’am. That’s all.”

  She set her fork down and looked him in the eye. “Good. Then it’s settled. We’ll take a walk around the ranch before you leave. By then the guys will be back, and I can introduce you.”

  He stalled accepting her lengthy agenda for the rest of the day. “I need to be on the road before dark.”

  “And I need you to meet my ranch hands, Zeke and Xavier. Course I just call them Z and X. They’re a little on the eccentr
ic side, but they’ll give you a lift into town if you’re headed west.”

  He pursed his lips. This woman might just be as stubborn as he was. “Okay.”

  She smiled as if they’d just struck a deal. “Great! Besides, I want to show off my kids. You’ll like them.”

  He doubted that, but oh well. If that was what she wanted to do, let it begin and be done. He helped her clear the table and stored the leftover chicken in the refrigerator, while she filled the sink with hot soapy water and left the dishes to soak.

  China escorted him across her yard to the rear of her weathered, gray barn and right out the back door into a metal-railed corral. Split-rail fencing lined the field beyond for miles in either direction. Shadows stretched from the windrow of cottonwoods west of her house, casting columns of shade over the yard.

  Again, peace wound across his shoulders and down his back. This place felt isolated, pleasantly removed from the rest of the world, and once again, he felt at ease.

  She secured the corral gate behind them. The opposite gate stood wide open to the field. “Listen. They’re on their way. Can you hear them?”

  He cocked his head. The distant clomp-clomp of heavy feet and the quiet nickering of different equine voices drifted closer. “They know to come home every night?”

  She climbed to the top rung of the metal fence. “Every once in a while one of them decides to take the long way home, but most times they’re right on schedule. Come on. Hop up here with me. Let’s see what they do when they meet you.”

  There was that word again. Meet. Not see.

  Maverick hooked one boot on the lower rail and joined her while Star whinnied from the barn.

  “Did you hear that? Star wants to be out here with us.” China peered behind her. “Horses like people. Least, mine do.” Another long drawn out nicker coaxed from within the barn. “Ha! He’s so spoiled. Thinks if he keeps chatting me up, I’ll let him come out and play.”

  The big guy did seem to be asking. The more he whinnied, the more she smiled. Maverick averted his gaze, not falling for that again. “Why can’t he come out?”

  “It’s not that he can’t. I just want him to take it easy after what he’s been through. He’s a big boy, but that slide was a big deal. I’m treating it like whiplash. Sometimes a person doesn’t know they’re hurt until a couple days after a car accident. I want to be sure he’s okay before I let him run with the herd.”

  “How many?”

  “Twenty-two at the moment, more on the way.”

  “You keep all of them in the barn?”

  “Only at night. The world’s a mixed up place anymore. Some creeps spray painted filthy words on one of the mares two ranches west of here. Guess they thought it was funny. Another guy’s Arabian stallion had its tail and mane hacked off. So, yeah, my kids come home every night.”

  “The barn’s that large?”

  She nodded at the weathered building. “Could be bigger. It’s crowded right now, but it’ll do.”

  “How are you feeling?” He could’ve bit his tongue off for blurting that question out like he—cared. He didn’t. Not really. If nothing else, China Wolf exuded strength and confidence. Still, the place was big. What’d she do? Work it all by herself?

  China brushed his concern aside. “Me? I’m fine. How about you?”

  “Good.” Wasn’t that what guys were supposed to say? Besides, he had a feeling he and China were both too tough to admit when they were hurt. She still hadn’t admitted to the scuffmark on her forehead, though she had spread some salve on it.

  The sound of hooves on hard-packed dirt drew nearer. In seconds, galloping draft horses, their heads held high with manes tossing in the breeze, zeroed in on the gate. Most were the same reddish-brown with black manes as Star, but one was nearly pearlescent with a white mane, the dappling on its hide nearly imperceptible. A glossy, coal black fellow with a coat that glistened in the early evening light galloped in. It had to be China’s boy, Ebony.

  Once they reached the open livestock gate, they bumped and jockeyed until all entered in a fairly reasonable order. That many large animals milling inside the smaller corral made Maverick nervous, but not China. She dropped over the rail and walked straight into the mass of horseflesh.

  Crossing the corral, she secured the outside gate with a chain. She had no more than turned around when the white horse bumped her shoulders, nickering in greeting and nudging her forward.

  China turned into the animal’s big face with a happy smile. “Hey, you. Come here, Gorgeous. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  The horse followed without China latching onto its halter. The minute it saw Maverick, it planted its feet, tossed its considerably long mane and blew out a loud snort. Its long tail swished over its back. Another unicorn if ever he had seen one. All it needed was a glittery horn. Or wings.

  “Oh, knock it off.” China hooked her fingers through the horse’s halter and pulled it closer to Maverick. She nodded toward another big fellow that could’ve passed for Star’s twin. “You might want to get down from there and join me. Joker likes to butt folks off the fence.”

  Maverick stayed put. Somehow being knocked off a fence didn’t seem as bad as mixing it up with this herd of burly kids that could easily stomp him to death. Every one of these animals was well-muscled with big rumps, thick necks, and broad chests. They reminded him of rowdy Navy SEALs on shore leave. Just needed the dapper shemaghs and Raybans to make ’em look cool.

  An evil smile blossomed on China’s face. “You aren’t scared, are you?”

  He slid off the fence.

  Grinning, she introduced him to the white horse. “This is Gorgeous, my favorite brood mare. Gorgeous, meet Maverick Carson, and no, he’s not related to Kit, so don’t ask.”

  He scowled at this ridiculous conversation, but just as he did, Gorgeous put one hoof forward and lowered her nose to her knee. Her bow complete, she tossed her head and nickered at him.

  China stroked the animal’s powerful neck, nodding at him. “Go on. Be a good girl. Tell him you like him.”

  Gorgeous walked toward Maverick, her head bobbing until she came to a stop directly in front of him. He reached for her halter, thinking it might be a good idea to keep her at arm’s length. She didn’t seem to notice his blocking maneuver. She stepped right up to him and leaned her long horse face into his chest, as if she had a right to be there. Maverick adjusted his stance to accommodate her pushy hug.

  And once again he felt the same link he had felt with Star. Peace flooded him right down to his boots. He scratched behind her ears. She nickered. Maverick swallowed hard at the gentleness of the beast beneath his fingertips. This Percheron mare literally towered over him, outweighed him and could just plain stomp him into the ground without any effort, yet there she stood, meek as a lamb and offering—what? Companionship? Welcome? Sure felt like it.

  “She likes you, too. I can tell.”

  Maverick looked up from his quiet communion with the mare. For once, he actually looked China in the eye. The woman grinned, but there was something in the air. Something golden. The low sunlight made her eyes sparkle.

  Maverick damned the flood of forgotten feelings her smile brought to mind. He dropped his gaze, searching for something to say that didn’t sound too friendly. “Are they all this gentle?”

  “Yes, they are, ah... Excuse me?” Another long face leaned over her shoulder, like a kid who wanted his share of attention. This guy’s snout was darker than Star’s, though, with a thin sliver of white running down the middle of his nose.

  “Maverick, meet Sixes, my friendliest boy.” China stroked the gentle intruder’s nose with both hands. “He aced socialization. That’s part of what I do when I break them. All my kids have to be able to stand John Q. Public before I’ll let them go. You understand.”

  Maverick continued to pat the beautiful white creature beneath his hands. Yeah, he understood John Q, the lowest common denominator in the human equation. Basically self-centere
d. Privileged. Entitled to the freedom he hadn’t spilled one drop of blood to defend.

  “She bothering you?” China watched with that same sappy look on her face.

  “No.” He answered too quickly, but he didn’t want this horse to move yet. Gorgeous was, well, gorgeous. Handling her seemed a good way to end a day. His tension drained away; his breathing eased. She was living proof there was goodness left in the world, even if it was just in the animal world.

  “I’ll keep her in the barn from now on. She’s not usually this big. Come here. Feel this.” Without so much as a by your leave, China grabbed him by the crook of his arm and hauled him back to the horse’s rear quarters. She snagged his right hand and shoved it under the mare’s big belly, all the way to—

  He jerked his hand away. He had just touched the horse’s udder. Teats. Wet teats. Damn it.

  China giggled. “You should see the look on your face.”

  “Ah, yeah.” He wiped the surprise on his pant leg. Not funny. That was damned rude.

  “Oh, c’mon. It’s just horse milk. You’re so uptight. Don’t you ever smile?” Her eyes glowed at her practical joke, and for the first time since he’d caught sight of China this morning, Maverick did just that. He smiled. Least he meant to. It kind of hurt.

  “She’s bagging up. It’s a good sign. A mare won’t leak milk unless her time’s real close. Okay now, let’s give a listen.” China seemed energized around these kids of hers. She laid her head against the mare’s side, her eyes bright, and—damn it. Everything about her pulled Maverick in. She might not be covered with glitter, but she may as well have been.

  He placed both palms to the horse’s ribs, not willing to lay his ear against a creature so large. Gorgeous twisted her neck around to watch him.

  “Here’s a better spot.” China moved his hands to where she had just been listening. She grinned up at him, and then he felt it. Something inside the mare moved. He spread his fingers wider. It bumped him again. Wow. A baby horse. A colt. Okay. That was kind of cool.