“It looks like he’s earned it,” Tory had said, reaching out to tickle the darker gray, ragged ear. Rocky didn’t respond, there was no purring approval from him, but he hadn’t dodged her touch, either. Nor had he made his usual meow of protest at the audacity of this human for daring to touch him without being asked.
Mellowing with the easy life, Cole had thought then. But now he wondered if it just wasn’t being here, because he was starting to feel the same way. And, judging from Tory’s words just now, it showed. He didn’t try to deny it. “Contented is probably a good word for it.” He tugged off his sheepskin-lined denim jacket, much too warm now, and twisted around to tie it behind his saddle. “It’s been a long time. I didn’t realize that I...missed this.”
“I couldn’t live any other way.” Her voice was solemn, and he almost smiled.
“I don’t blame you. Who was it who said that about the outside of a horse being good for the inside of a man?”
She smiled, much too small a thing to cause the little tumble his stomach seemed to take, even after a morning of steadfast silence. “Winston Churchill, I think.”
“Well, he was right.”
She lifted a brow at him. “Even this horse? After this morning?”
Cole couldn’t help grinning. “He was just feeling his oats. Hobie said he hadn’t been ridden in a while. Any horse with some spirit is going to let his feelings be known. And he got over it pretty fast.”
In fact, he’d been expecting the explosion since he’d saddled the stocky buckskin and felt the hump in his back at the feel of the long-absent weight. The spunky horse hadn’t disappointed him—it had been a wild, bucking ride for a minute or two.
“It didn’t take him long to realize you weren’t going anywhere.” The acknowledgment in her tone was quiet, but there. “You settled him down pretty quick, for a guy who hasn’t ridden for a long time.”
“And I’ll be feeling it longer than he will,” Cole said dryly, although he was absurdly pleased by her compliment. He was in decent shape, but he’d been long departed from that kind of furious activity, and he knew he was going to be dealing with the aftereffects.
Her smile widened at his self-deprecating words, and he felt a ridiculous warming from somewhere low and deep. And right now, riding along beside her in the morning sun, he couldn’t dredge up the desire to squash that feeling. He smiled back at her, for no better reason than he thought she looked adorable with that baseball cap on, and her hair tugged through the opening in the back into a jaunty ponytail.
As long as he remembered, he told himself, as long as he knew it was only for today, as long as he never forgot that she was a woman he was trying to help for the sake of a man she loved, which usually meant disaster—and that someone else always paid the price—he could relax, couldn’t he? Just for one day? He felt like he was stealing back one of the golden days of his childhood, and he couldn’t bring himself to reject the unexpected gift, whether he thought he deserved it or not.
“Now that little pony of yours, there,” he said, nodding at Mac, “is a keeper.”
He’d thought her expression lovely before, but the way she lit up at his praise of the liver chestnut made him wonder if she ever had, or would, look at a man that way.
“He’s wonderful,” she agreed fervently. “All heart and give, with talent to spare. He could go to the top. If he were mine, I’d never sell him.”
“If you feel that strongly, why don’t you buy him?”
“Buy him?” She gave him a look that was half amused, half resigned. “Right now I couldn’t afford what John paid for him as a two year old, let alone what he’s worth now.”
“Too bad,” Cole commiserated. “He should belong to someone who really appreciates him.”
“Oh, John does appreciate him. But he... It’s just that he likes to win, and he had his hopes pinned on John’s Prize. And he—”
“On what?”
“His other horse.” She lowered her gaze. “The one who died.”
Cole’s mouth quirked. “Did he name it after himself? Or the goal?”
Her head came up then, and she shrugged ruefully. “Both, I suppose. But he’s not like that, not really. And he’s stuck with us, even after...”
She trailed off, and Cole saw the pain flicker in her eyes. Already he’d come to know Tory Flynn well enough to realize that the death of any animal would hurt her, and the death of one she’d known and worked with would strike her very hard.
He saw her reach down to stroke Mac’s neck, and wondered if she was even aware of what she was doing, or what she was revealing by doing it.
He wanted to tell her not to worry. He wanted to tell her he’d make sure nothing happened to Mac. But he couldn’t. He’d given up making promises. He hadn’t broken many. Just the biggest ones. The ones like “I’ll keep him safe,” or “He’ll be all right,” or “We’ll find him in time.”
He turned away, staring out at the foothills they were beginning to ride into, wishing he could regain that comfortable feeling, that feeling of relaxing in a way he hadn’t been able to for years. They rode on in silence, and after a while he began to feel it creeping back in, slowly, like the growing heat of the sun as it warmed him.
“I saw him up there,” Tory said at last, gesturing upward and slightly to her right. Cole nodded in answer, and they headed that way. There wasn’t any kind of a trail, but Tory seemed certain of where she was going, so he just held the buckskin back and let her lead the way over the rocky ground.
The liver chestnut took to the uneven terrain without hesitation, and Tory let him go, only using an occasional tug on the reins or a nudge with her legs to guide him. She’d told Cole this morning when they’d been saddling up that she’d only recently changed from the gentler hackamore to a bridle on the young horse. Cole never would have guessed he was new to the bit, for the colt handled like a trained reining horse, even out on the trail like this. It was clear Mac had complete faith in Tory, accepting with equanimity even the strange piece of metal in his mouth in place of the hackamore that would have used only pressure on his nose for control.
He’d known she had to be good. Hobie would have taught her, and Hobie was one of the best horsemen he’d ever seen. But until now, when he watched her ride a green horse, new to the bridle, through terrain treacherous enough to trip up even a trained trail horse, he hadn’t realized how good. She anticipated every hazard, and with gentle encouragement guided Mac through, past or over it.
And she talked to him. The gentle, loving words floated back to Cole as if on the breeze, and once again he caught himself wondering what it would be like if she ever turned that soft, crooning, coaxing voice on a man.
He’d ride right off the nearest cliff, if that’s what she wanted, he thought grimly. And if you don’t stop thinking about things like that, you might as well find that cliff yourself.
“Over there,” she said, pulling Mac to a halt and pointing upward to a group of small trees, barely more than shrubs, that seemed clustered around a small level spot between two large rocks, just above his eye level from atop the buckskin.
A good spot, Cole thought, pulling up beside her. For a lot of things. Situated above the sketchy trail, it was hidden unless you knew it was there. Protected from view on three sides by the rocks and the trees. Shady in a place where there wasn’t much shade. And, he thought as he swung down from the saddle, with maybe one advantage more important than all the others.
He pulled the reins over the buckskin’s head. For a second he contemplated asking Tory if the horse would ground tie, but then realized that any horse Hobie rode would be trained to do everything but dance—and maybe that, too, he thought with a stifled grin as he remembered a little pinto Hobie had once danced through a barroom outside Cheyenne on the last night of the Frontier Days Rodeo.
As he’d expected, the stocky horse stood docilely, reins trailing on the ground as he settled in to await his rider’s return. Cole studied the hillside for
a moment, looking for the most logical way up to the spot that, now that he was on the ground, was more than head high even for him. He wasn’t much for rock climbing, especially in slick-soled boots. If he could get a grip somewhere, he could pull himself up, but the edge looked far too rounded and smooth from here.
“I didn’t see a horse,” Tory said, “or any sign of one when I came back later to look around, but I suppose he could have packed all that stuff in.”
“Where’s the nearest road or track that doesn’t cross the ranch?” he asked, moving to his left, where a small boulder lay up against a larger one.
“There’s a county road that comes off the main road just east of us. It winds back in the hills a ways.” A new note came into her voice. “And it goes on past the end of the paved part almost another mile or so, up to the fire break. I hadn’t thought of that.”
He looked back over his shoulder at her. “How far from here, if you came up the back?”
“Less than a half mile, if you had a four-wheel drive that could take you up to the very end of the track. It’d be steep, but short.”
Cole only nodded, then took a step up on top of the smaller boulder. From there he found it easy to wedge one foot in a split in the bigger rock, and after a quick scramble he was up. And when he turned around, he found what he’d guessed at to be true: there was a straight shot, an unbroken view of the ranch buildings in the distance. With a good pair of high-powered binoculars—or a good rifle scope, he thought grimly—you could see everything that went on outside the buildings themselves.
“What?” Tory asked, sounding concerned, and he realized his grim thoughts must have been reflected in his face. He squelched that gut reaction. There had been no indication that anyone other than the horses had been or would be the target of whoever was behind this.
“Somebody’s been here, all right.” He crouched down and ran a finger over a slightly darker spot of dirt, then lifted his hand to his nose. “Kerosene. That would fit with the lantern you saw.”
“City guy.”
“What?”
“Kerosene lanterns are heavy. So’s kerosene. I wouldn’t lug the stuff on foot. But city folk have to have big lights.”
Cole stifled a grin. “Am I supposed to feel insulted?”
She looked startled. “I didn’t mean— I mean, you aren’t...” She shrugged, then added rather sheepishly, “You seem to fit, out here. I forgot you live in L.A.”
“I’m flattered.” He said it jokingly, but he meant it. “And that’s a good point. I wouldn’t lug one of those things up here, either, unless I was going to be here awhile.”
She looked pleased at his agreement, but then her expression turned troubled. “Do you think he’s still around, then? I’ve checked up here a few times, and never saw any sign of him again.”
“Tell me something,” he said casually as he walked back to the edge of the outcropping that formed the floor of the little natural alcove, “do you always go charging off after trespassers by yourself?”
“I didn’t. I told you, he was already gone.”
“But if he hadn’t been, or if you’d found him somewhere else—or he’d found you—what would you have done?”
She flushed. “I know you think I’m—”
“I don’t think you have the slightest idea what I think of you,” he muttered, then jumped down from the outcropping before she could react to the words he hadn’t meant to say. “I want to look around a little more. Do you want to wait, or start back down?”
She looked about to protest his abrupt change of subject, but after a moment merely let out a compressed breath. “I’ll wait. If you’ll tell me what you’re looking for, I’ll help.”
“I don’t know,” he said as he started walking farther up the hill, “but I’ll—”
“Know it when you see it?”
He looked over his shoulder at her, half expecting her to be laughing. She wasn’t, she was just looking at him, quietly, intently. “Yeah, something like that.”
He had turned back around when she spoke again. “Tell me something...Cole. Why did you quit?”
He went very still, his back to her. He’d never experienced a succession of feelings quite like the one that swept through him then—a spurt of that electric warmth when she said his name, then the icy chill brought on by her question.
“Too many people died,” he said flatly, without looking around.
Then he started up the hill again.
Chapter 7
By the time they had rounded up the steers that had congregated around the tiny spring up in the draw between two of the smaller foothills, and had pushed them unhurriedly down to the flat, Cole was seriously wondering if he’d be able to walk tomorrow. He’d gone a long time without using the muscles that staying atop a horse took, and the longer they rode, the more glum his prognosis for mobility tomorrow looked.
They’d managed to return to that pleasant, companionable atmosphere. It was hard not to when they found, as they moved the small herd, that they worked very well together. Some of the younger steers weren’t used to being herded, and more than once Cole, riding the more experienced Buck, had been the one who had to head off an escapee. Meanwhile Tory and Mac—who appeared utterly fascinated with these strange beasts—spent their time chivying along stragglers. Despite the short distance of the move, it took them the better part of the morning to get it done.
“And they’ll only stay here awhile,” Tory said as Cole pulled the buckskin to a halt beside her. “They like that draw, for the springwater and the sense of protection, and eventually they’ll wander back. But we try to bring them down now and then, at least for a few days, so we can check them over.”
He twisted in the saddle to look around. “Is there enough graze here for them?”
“We have to supplement it a little with hay, but not too much. We’re not raising them for beef, so putting weight on them isn’t the goal.”
“You want ‘em lean and quick, hmm?”
“Exactly.” He should be used to it by now, he thought. There was no excuse for this crazy inner free-fall every time she smiled. “That way we learn real fast if a horse has what it takes.”
“Hobie says this one—” he gestured at Mac “—has it.”
It had been true, Hobie had said it, but Cole had only repeated it to watch her eyes light up again. She didn’t disappoint him.
“Yes, he does. Hobie calls it savvy. He says you can’t train a horse to have it, he either does or doesn’t. And if he does, like Mac here, you can always count on him. He’ll do right when things get rough, and save you more often than not.”
Cole nodded, only vaguely listening to the words, so intent was he on the innocent enthusiasm in her voice, and the delighted sparkle in her eyes. The man who could inspire that kind of ardor in this woman would have his hands full, he thought. And his heart.
And he was turning into a soft-headed idiot, he observed in silent self-mockery. First a cat you let move in and take over, and now a woman—a client, yet—you let turn your gut inside out with a smile.
Damn, you’re a slow learner, Bannister.
They rode sedately back to the barn, giving the horses a chance to begin to cool down. Once there, they dismounted, and the minute his feet hit the ground Cole felt the first harbinger of the misery he was in for tomorrow. His legs nearly buckled.
“A little sore?” Tory asked sympathetically.
“Nothing compared to how sore I’m going to be.”
“Maybe I’d better get the liniment now,” she said teasingly. “You may need a rubdown.”
A sudden image assailed him, born of her joking words, an image of Tory’s hands running over him, massaging every aching muscle, sliding over his bare skin. The image was followed almost instantly by a fierce rush of heat and sensation as his mind pushed the vision over the edge into pure eroticism—Tory’s hands caressing his body while he did the same to her, and then their mouths following the trails their hands ha
d traced.
“Cole?”
Her use of his name intensified his gut-level response; only the sudden breathlessness of her voice reminded him that he was treading on very dangerous ground.
“I’ll cool out the horses,” he said, hating the tight, tension-laden sound of his voice.
“But I—”
If she didn’t go in the next second, he wasn’t sure he could stop himself from grabbing her and starting in on making that image a reality.
“Why don’t you go check on Hobie?” he suggested, seizing on the one thing he knew would distract her.
He felt a burst of relief when she at last nodded and started toward the house. But it wasn’t until she was almost there that he remembered to breathe again. And when he did, a long, low groan escaped him. He leaned forward, resting his head against Mac’s muscled shoulder.
It was a long time before, loaded down with both saddles and bridles and his jacket, he made it to the tack room. He hung the bridles up neatly. He placed the saddles on the racks with care. He picked up his jacket, and folded it over his arm. None of his careful actions did anything to relieve the lingering tightness of his body. He flung his jacket into a corner in disgust.
* * *
That afternoon, after working two of the other horses and helping Eric and Kurt—who were acting oddly quiet, and refusing to look at her—finish cleaning stalls, Tory at last returned to the house, knowing she was too weary to accomplish any more today. She was selfishly grateful when she found Hobie had dinner ready to go into the oven. It was a meat loaf she was certain would be liberally laced with her uncle’s special blend of peppers and spices that made it both mouth-watering and eye-watering. She hugged him fiercely.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said.
“Hmm. A bit.” He studied her for a moment, then turned back to the stove.
Tory’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Dinner in an hour.”
Out of the Dark Page 8