Rio smiled at the picture.
“Keys are in the ignition,” she continued. “Don’t trust the fuel gauge. It always registers half-full. If you’re going more than fifty miles, drop by the ranch house. Diesel is in the blue tank to the left of the barn. Gasoline is in the red tank.”
Rio nodded, started toward the truck, then turned back with an odd expression on his face. “Are you always this trusting with strangers?”
“No,” she said evenly. She looked, but couldn’t see more than a hint of brighter darkness where Rio’s eyes were. “I don’t trust strangers at all.” Then she smiled at her own expense. “And I don’t sleep under trucks with them, either. What about you, Rio? Do you let strangers ride off with your horse?”
“Never.”
The quiet word told Hope more than she had teasingly asked. No one but Rio had ever ridden the hot-blooded mare.
Before she could say anything more, he came to her, laced his hands together to make a stirrup, and lifted her onto Dusk. The mare minced restlessly for a moment before she arched her neck around and sniffed her unexpectedly small rider’s muddy boot.
Hope murmured calm words and stroked the mare’s warm, ghostly-gray neck. At a gentle pressure on the rein, the horse’s ears came up and she stepped eagerly into the gathering darkness.
“See you at home,” Hope said.
The words carried softly back to the man who stood motionless, watching her until she merged with the night.
Six
BY THE TIME Hope rode into the ranch yard, she was wearing the jacket Rio had left tied behind his saddle. Despite being so tired that it was all she could do to stay awake, she almost hated to have the ride end.
Rio had been right about his mare. Dusk was the best night horse Hope had ever ridden. Most horses were balky or nervous to the point of wildness at being ridden alone into darkness. Not Dusk. She moved quietly, confidently, cleanly, like the man who had trained her. Even the sudden whistle of a startled dove’s wings hadn’t made her shy. As for the eerie harmonies of coyotes, Dusk had simply cocked her ears and walked on, unruffled.
Suddenly a rectangle of yellow light spilled out in the yard to meet Hope. Mason stood in the center of the light, silhouetted against the doorway.
“Nice pony,” Mason said, satisfaction ringing in his voice. “Rio’s?”
“Yep,” Hope said, imitating Mason’s laconic speech.
He waited, but she didn’t say any more. “Truck break down?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Mason waited.
Silence.
“You lookin’ for trouble, gal?” he asked in exasperation.
Smiling, she reined the gray mare toward the barn. “Nope. Just dinner.”
The old man mumbled something about serving her fried horse-apple pie and went back inside, banging the screen door behind him.
“Set an extra place,” she called after him.
The door slammed open again.
“Rio’s gonna do it?” Mason demanded. “He’s gonna find water for you?”
“He’s going to try.”
Mason’s whoop of triumph made the mare shy.
Hope was ready, because she had expected Mason’s reaction. Even so, she had to grab the saddle horn or get dumped in the dust. The long-legged mare was very fast.
With a wary appreciation of her mount’s speed, Hope dismounted. Her feet ached the instant they hit the ground. No matter how comfortable her battered cowboy boots might be, her feet were tired at the end of a day. So was she. She had been up since well before dawn. It would be the same tomorrow. And the day after that.
And every day until the rains came.
She led Dusk into a stall and rubbed her down thoroughly despite the fact that her arms cramped every time she lifted them above her shoulders.
“Are you hungry, girl?” she asked.
Dusk watched her with dark, liquid eyes.
“You’re not as big as Storm Walker, but I’ll bet you can eat as much as he can after carrying Rio around. That man is no lightweight.”
The horse nudged her impatiently.
Hope laughed. “All right. You’ve more than earned it.”
Humming quietly, she put several fat flakes of hay in the manger, poured grain in on one side, and hauled water for the stall trough from a spigot on the side of the house. She brushed the mare from forelock to heels, talking to her all the while. The flicking of black-tipped ears followed her words, but otherwise the mare was busy eating.
Only when Hope was certain that Dusk was content in her unfamiliar surroundings did she shut the stall door and walk slowly toward the ranch house. She was so tired that she felt like she was wading through mud. The thought of a long, hot, chin-deep bath made her want to moan.
“Then don’t think about it,” she muttered to herself. “There’s enough water for drinking and for spit baths and not one drop more.”
A basin of warm water waited for Hope in her bedroom. She peeled off her clothes, washed carefully, rinsed, and refused to let herself think about the bathtub across the hall. After a few swipes of the hairbrush through her dark, unquenchably curly hair, she went downstairs. Her stomach growled every inch of the way.
“Dinner?” she asked hopefully, hurrying into the kitchen.
“Light and set,” Mason said, gesturing toward the table.
He hesitated as he reached for the gallon bottle of salad oil. It was heavy as well as slippery, and his hands hadn’t been very cooperative for the past few days. He paused over the ingredients that were lined up on the counter, frowning as he tried to remember the ratio of vinegar to oil and salt to pepper for the salad dressing.
Hope could tell by the careful way Mason used his hands that the arthritis in his knuckles had flared up again. His pride, too, was in full flare. It was hard enough on his self-respect—and temper—when he couldn’t handle the water truck and the hose for her. Not being able to handle kitchen work would be the final insult.
“I’ll do it,” she said easily. Then, as though she hadn’t noticed Mason’s difficulty with his fingers, she added with a wink, “You always use too much oil.”
“Rabbit food,” he said, his voice rich with disgust as he turned his back on the slick, treacherous bottle of oil. “When’s Rio coming?”
“He said not to wait dinner.”
“Then I’ll just busy myself putting the real food on the table.”
She snickered but didn’t say a word.
He got out a heavy cast-iron frying pan and banged it onto an equally heavy iron burner.
“Price of beef went down half-cent a pound,” he said.
Hope’s smile slipped. She concentrated on making salad dressing.
Mason turned the burner up high. Blue and gold propane flames exploded around the black iron.
“Feed’s up in cost,” he said.
She hoped the icy fear in her stomach didn’t show in her voice. “Ouch. Even if it’s a mild winter, we’ll be buying feed before spring.”
“Nope.”
She paused as she stirred the vinaigrette. “Why not?”
“Won’t have no cows to eat it.” Mason’s faded green eyes looked squarely into hers. “Gonna have to sell some more range cows. You know it. I know it. Gotta be done.”
Her face settled into stubborn lines. “Not yet. I can still water them for a while longer. Maybe it will rain soon.”
“Maybe pigs will fly.”
Head bowed, Hope beat the salad dressing until it was mostly froth.
Mason started to push the argument, then shrugged and let it go. As he had said more than once, she was stubborn but no fool.
“Don’t kill yourself, honey.” Butter sizzled in the frying pan. “Nothing’s worth that.” The solid weight of a steak smacked against hot iron. “We both know that the longer you wait to sell, the less them cows is gonna weigh. Natural feed’s about gone and nothing’s coming up to take its place. No rain.”
Mason’s matter-of-fac
t summary made Hope angry. Not because he was wrong, but because he was right.
“Then I’ll haul feed,” she said tightly.
He shook his head and didn’t say a word. He knew that even if the two of them worked around-the-clock, they couldn’t haul water and food to all the cattle.
Too many cattle.
Not enough hours in the day.
Not enough muscle between the two of them.
But Hope was young. She would have to discover her own limits. He had found his long ago, and the older he got the more those limits shrank in on him.
He stared at his swollen knuckles and cursed softly. He wasn’t angry at life on his own account, but on hers. For her he would have endured the agonies of being young again, just to have the strength to help her build her dream. She was the daughter he had never had. He would have moved mountains for her if he could.
He couldn’t. He could only love her.
Silently Mason lifted a corner of the steak, declared it cooked enough, and flipped it over.
After a time Hope quit beating the helpless dressing and put the beans and salad on the table. She heaped some of each on both plates. Then she opened the oven door and sniffed.
The tantalizing aroma of garlic curled up to her nostrils. At one time Mason had insisted that garlic bread was a foreign sacrilege that never should be allowed to mop up good American beef juices. Eventually he had become hooked on the pungent stuff.
“Eat it before the grease sets,” he said, putting the sizzling beef in front of her.
She prodded the steak with her fork. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“It mooed at me.”
Mason started to say something indignant before he saw the laughter lurking in her eyes. He smiled unwillingly, ruffled her just-brushed hair, and went back to the stove.
A low, sweetly rendered mooooo followed him.
He turned back quickly. An angelic-looking Hope was cutting into her bloody steak with every appearance of satisfaction.
“Mmmmmm,” she said, chewing slowly. “Mason, nobody can almost cook a steak like you.”
Smiling, singing off-key, a pleased Mason fried his own beef. It took even less time than hers had.
Soon the only sounds in the kitchen were those made by flatware against crockery plates, the occasional creak of old oak chairs when weight shifted forward or back on the seat, and the rapidly accelerating perk of the coffeepot as the liquid inside deepened in color and fragrance.
When Hope could eat no more, she took pity on the patient Mason and told him about the agreement she and Rio had made.
Mason listened quietly, nodded at the right moments, and smiled like a cat with feathers sticking out of its mouth. When Hope was finished talking, he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and pushed back from the table.
“Well, better open the pipe to the water heater,” he said.
She stared at him as though he had suggested frying one of the oak chairs for dessert. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you want a bath, gal?”
“Well, of course, but—”
“Then don’t keep me here jawing with you when bathwater could be heating up,” he interrupted cheerfully.
“Mason.” She spoke slowly, carefully, as though he was deaf or stupid or slightly crazy. “If I take a bath, there won’t be any drinking water for tomorrow.”
“Sure there will. Whole damn truckload.”
Her mouth dropped open and stayed that way.
He snorted. “Look at you catching flies. What do you think Rio’s doing out there on an empty belly, gal? Pushing that bastard truck around in the dark for the hell of it?”
Hope’s mouth closed a lot more slowly than it had opened. “Do you really think . . .” she began wistfully, longing for a bath with every aching muscle in her body.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
The noise of the old water truck rattling into the ranch yard sounded loud in the sudden silence.
“Fast trip,” Mason said. “Takes strength. Rio has it and then some.”
Hope was too astonished for words. She hurried out into the front yard.
“Where do you want it?” Rio asked.
“I— You didn’t have to do— Around back,” she managed finally.
He looked past her into the night. Around back took in a lot of country, including the Perdidas cutting stars out of the clear night sky.
Laughing, she stepped onto the truck’s running board and reached for the cab door. “I’ll take care of it. You must be starved. Go in and eat.”
Rio simply stared at her. He wasn’t used to that kind of consideration from anyone, much less from a woman as tired as he knew Hope had to be. He smiled gently. “Thanks, but it won’t take long for me to eat. You go on in and rest.”
“After the water is put away.”
He didn’t argue. He knew how important every drop of water was to her. “Hang on.”
She clung to the cab door as he eased the heavy truck around the house and up to a spot that had formerly been a lawn but now was little more than two tire tracks ground through a crust of dead grass. The pipe that had once brought water from the Hope had been cut and the stump threaded to allow the canvas hose to be coupled with it.
One look at the setup told Rio that it would be another wrestling match. He climbed down out of the cab, ready to do battle again with stubborn brass couplings and water-heavy hose.
Hope took a flashlight from the truck, bathing his hands in light while he coaxed the connection between the water truck and the buried cistern that served the ranch house. Soon water fattened the hose and fell into the nearly empty tank. Muted thunder rose from beneath their feet.
“How big is the tank?” he asked.
“It will hold half a truckload. Go in and eat. I’ll watch over things out here.”
He might have argued, but Mason stuck his head out of the back door and yelled, “Come and git it ’fore I feed it to the pigs.”
“Do you have pigs?” Rio whispered to her.
“No, but I haven’t had the heart to tell Mason.”
“Too soft, huh?”
“For some people.” Her smile was quick, but Rio caught its gleam. “Mason is one of them.”
“Is Turner?” Rio asked, not knowing why.
Hope gave him a level glance. “I’m not around Turner long enough for it to matter either way.”
“Sorry. None of my business.”
She shrugged. “Everybody in a hundred miles has made it their business at one time or another. Why should you be different?”
He started to speak, then obviously thought better of it.
“Go ahead,” she said with a sigh. “But please be original. Don’t tell me Turner is an untrustworthy son of a bitch, because I already know it. Don’t tell me that he’s filthy rich, because I don’t care.”
“Is he crowding you?”
Something buried in Rio’s voice, something dangerous, made Hope wish that it was light enough to see his expression clearly. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“If that changes, let me know.”
“You’ll have to get in line after Mason,” she said dryly.
“It would be a pleasure.”
Hope didn’t doubt that Rio meant every word. Obviously he and John Turner weren’t very friendly. It wasn’t surprising. Anyone with an ounce of self-respect had a hard time getting along with Turner.
And Rio, despite his easy manner, had plenty of pride.
“This here dinner of yours ain’t getting any hotter, Rio,” Mason called. “Gal, you git on back in here and set. That damn hose ain’t going nowheres and you know it.”
Hope hesitated, then played the light once more over the coupling. It was tight. Barely any drops escaped. She went to the truck and put the flashlight back in its place.
While Mason stood impatiently, Rio waited for her, then walked by her side toward the yellow light pouring out of the hous
e. He said nothing to her, simply moved quietly, his long-sleeved shirt brushing against hers in a silent companionship that needed no words.
For an instant Hope forgot that she was exhausted and that tomorrow would be worse, not better. An absurd feeling of well-being swept through her, as unexpected as Rio’s gentle smile. She wanted to laugh and hold her arms up to the brilliant stars and feel their billion bright possibilities cascading into her hands.
Instead, she simply watched Rio from beneath her long lashes. Rio, the man who had made her remember all those bright possibilities.
“Mason,” Rio said, holding out his hand, “it’s been a long time.”
“Too long.” He took the younger man’s hand in his own gnarled grasp.
Only Hope noticed the instant of hesitation when Rio saw Mason’s swollen knuckles. Then Rio shook hands firmly but very gently, sparing the older man’s arthritic hand.
The feeling of warmth that had stolen through Hope increased, melting the ice that had come to her stomach when she admitted that her best well was rapidly going dry. Knowing that Rio cared enough about Mason to spare his pride made her certain that she had been right to trust Rio.
“Judy sends her love,” Rio said, “and the kids want to know if you’ll be up for Thanksgiving. From the sound of it, they’re having a three-ring circus for dinner.”
Mason’s glance slid to Hope, then away. “Maybe,” he said, promising nothing.
Rio nodded, understanding that Mason wouldn’t leave Hope alone on the family holiday.
She understood, too, and wanted to protest. Judy was Mason’s sister-in-law, the last connection he had to the dead wife he had loved for forty-two years. But Hope didn’t protest aloud. She and Mason had argued over the subject too many times. He wouldn’t go on a trip without her, and the ranch couldn’t be left untended overnight, much less for several weeks.
“Water’s warm,” Mason said, gesturing toward the basin and towel waiting just inside the service porch.
With the quick, efficient motions Hope had come to expect from Rio, he swept off his hat, rolled up his sleeves, and washed as much skin as he could reach. When he was finished he looked around at the yard. Then he picked up the basin and flipped its contents on the ground where a wilted lilac bush struggled to survive in the lee of the porch.
Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material Page 6