The Wrangler's Bride

by Justine Davis

  Rita’s bright smile flashed again. “I guess Grant’s on his own with this ham he wanted, then. Maybe between the two of you, you can follow the instructions I wrote out.” She set the large foil-wrapped piece of meat on the counter, then glanced at Mercy again. “Chipper says you’re a police officer.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a hard job. Seems like it would be even harder for a woman. In many different ways.”

  Mercy didn’t see any point in denying it. “It is.”

  “Sort of like ranching in that, then. Harder on women.”

  Mercy blinked. “I…never thought of it that way, but I suppose you’re right.”

  Rita set out the tomato sauce, some mushrooms and an onion, then took a package of pasta out of the last bag; they would be having spaghetti tonight, it seemed.

  “Takes a certain toughness to make it out here,” she said. “Most city folk don’t have it.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Mercy said wryly.

  “Ah. Grant been riding that horse again, has he?”

  “You could say that.”

  “He does have…a certain fixation.” Rita reached beneath the stove for a large pan. When she straightened up again, she gave Mercy another sideways look. “And he has his reasons.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Odd, though. You’d think, feeling that way, he’d make time for some of the local girls who are panting after him.”

  “He…doesn’t?”

  “Chipper says he never goes out with the boys. While they’re out partying, he’s back here doing whatever he does.”

  “You mean doing what it takes to keep a place like this going,” Mercy said, not realizing until the words were out that she sounded a bit defensive.

  Rita smiled, looking rather pleased. “Yes. It’s a difficult job. It’s not for everyone.” She looked at Mercy steadily. “But it would be my guess that anyone tough enough to do your job could adapt to just about anything, if they wanted to.”

  Mercy met her look. “If they wanted to,” she agreed, wondering exactly what Grant’s reasons were.

  Rita smiled again; it was wide and warm. “The cookies,” she said, “are all yours.”

  “How did you get all the way up here?”

  Mercy had heard Joker’s familiar nicker a few moments ago, so she hadn’t been surprised when Grant rode into view on the big Appy.

  “I walked,” she said. She was glad she was where she was, nearly at eye level with Joker; looking up at the tall man on the tall horse would have given her a neckache before long.

  “That’s quite a hike.”

  She couldn’t argue with that; this high, rocky shelf that overlooked the ranch was nearly a mile from the house, most of it uphill. Fortunately, most of Saturday’s snow had melted, so while the ground had been damp, she hadn’t had to deal with that kind of heavy going.

  And once she got here, the outcropping of rock that hung over the shelf had sheltered her from the wind even as it hid her from view, provided a soft place to sit on the bed of leaves and pine needles that had accumulated, and made her feel as if she had a private window out on the snowy world.

  “I suppose. But I like it up here. It’s…peaceful. Serene. Everything looks so clean, so quiet.”

  “I know,” Grant said softly. “I used to come up here a lot. When my dad was sick, I used to…hide out up here, when things got to be too much.”

  “I’m…sure it helped.”

  The quiet admission had made something knot up inside her. And made her remember the gentle tenderness this man had shown her last night. That betraying heat begin to rise in her cheeks at the memory, and she went on hastily, lightly. “Anyway, I’m sure the exercise is good for me.”

  “At this altitude, if you did it without passing out, that’s saying something.” Grant crossed his arms over the saddle horn and leaned on it. He was grinning at her. “Around here, nobody goes more than fifty yards afoot unless they have to.”

  “Well,” Mercy pointed out, “I have to, since I don’t ride.”

  Grant’s grin faded, and his expression became thoughtful. “That’s not necessarily a good thing, exercise or not, out here. If anything happened, like a fall, you’d be in big trouble.”

  “How would riding help that?”

  “Ranch horses don’t fall often. They’re sure-footed—rimrockers, every one of them.”

  “But first you have to stay on them,” Mercy pointed out grimly.

  “True.” That grin that had taken her breath away when she was a child flashed; the effect hadn’t been diluted much over the years. “But even if you don’t, they’ll head for home, and then we’ll know we have a tenderfoot to go rescue. And I’d have to call Rocky out,” he went on, clearly teasing now as he mentioned Jake and Erica Fortune’s daughter Rachel, who, Kristina had told her, had opened an air search-and-rescue operation in Clear Springs before marrying Luke Greywolf, a local doctor. “And then Luke would worry, and—”

  Mercy grimaced, cutting him off. “Thank you so much. But since I don’t ride, this is all a moot point.”

  He seemed to hesitate, but then he said, “Maybe we should do something about that.”

  “About what?”

  “You not riding.”

  Mercy blinked, and barely managed to keep herself from uttering a brilliant “Huh?”

  Grant chuckled, she supposed at her expression. “Don’t look so shocked. You must have thought about it. I know you have. You even said so.”

  “I…did?”

  He nodded. “She did, didn’t she, Joker? Said it right to your face.”

  The horse snorted, and Mercy gaped as the black head bobbed in apparent assent.

  “That horse,” she muttered, “is not normal.”

  “Hey,” Grant said, clearly teasing now, “he remembers quite clearly when you told him he could make even a city girl like you want to learn to ride. That’s not the kind of thing a guy forgets, you know.”

  Mercy eyed Grant warily. “Apparently not.”

  He grinned at her again. “Riding school opens in the morning. Be there.”

  “Grant, really—”

  “I’m not a patient teacher,” he warned, “so don’t be late.”

  “Grant, be serious. I know you don’t have time for this—”

  “What I don’t have time for is worrying about where you are or if you might have gotten hurt. Or riding all over to find out. So you learn to ride, and I stop worrying. Fair trade.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said, trying not to admit that the idea uncharacteristically appealed to her.

  “Sure I do,” he said easily. “Kristina’d slaughter me if anything happened to you.”

  Kristina. Of course. Mercy smothered a sigh, wondering what was wrong with her. She scrambled down from her perch, surprised as she left the shelter of the little alcove, at how much colder it was out here; she hadn’t realized just how sheltered the natural formation was.

  “Or, worse,” Grant added as she landed near the stallion’s feet, “she’d come out here and haunt me for the winter, and by spring I’d be stark raving mad.”

  “I thought you adored her.”

  “I do. But not here. She’s far too citified to be happy here, and when Kristina’s not happy…” He let his words trail away with a shrug.

  “So am I, as you’ve been at great pains to point out,” Mercy said, annoyed by the snap that had come into her voice, but seemingly unable to stop it. She’d been right—the tall man on the tall horse was already making her neck hurt.

  “I don’t know,” Grant said, as if pondering some deep mystery. “I’m beginning to think you might be trainable.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Eight o’clock tomorrow. I’ve got to move some stock in off the high range at dawn.”

  “Grant—”

  “Nod your head up and down, Mercy. Or you can walk back to the ranch.”

  “I was going to walk back anyway
,” she pointed out, rather acerbically.

  “Yeah, but now you can ride. If you agree to be on time for class, that is.”

  What could it hurt? Mercy thought to herself. If you went to a ranch, wasn’t it natural to learn to ride a horse? And it did look…appealing. And the freedom it promised—to be able, for instance, to get to this quiet, peaceful spot in half the time—was even more appealing. But—

  “All right,” she said, before whatever reservation her mind was about to throw at her could stop her.

  “Good.” Grant kicked his left foot free of the stirrup. “He’s only been ridden double a couple of times, but it worked. Climb up.”

  Mercy eyed the stirrup, which on the big Appy was above her waist. Then she gave Grant a wry look. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Oops. Sorry.” He bent over and held out his left hand. “Just get your toe in, and I’ll give you a lift. Come on.”

  She hesitated, finally got her foot up and into the leather-covered stirrup, then reached up to him. His hand locked around her wrist, and instinctively hers did the same. She felt his heat, the strong tendons and muscles beneath his heavy shirt and gloves, and…something else, something she couldn’t name. She looked up at his face. He was staring at their hands, as if he’d felt the same odd sensation.

  “Grant?” she said; it came out as barely a whisper.

  He seemed to suddenly snap out of it. “Up you go,” he said.

  He did more than lift, he made it practically effortless, and almost before she knew it she was atop the horse. Who was much, much taller than she’d realized.

  “Maybe this isn’t the best idea after all,” she said, eyeing the too-distant ground nervously.

  “You’re not afraid, are you? Macho cop that you are?”

  “Macho,” she said dryly, “I save for the misguided males of the species.”

  Grant laughed. “Hold on.”

  “How?” she asked. “You’ve got the stirrups. And the saddle. All I’ve got is…is…” The only word she could think of was one she didn’t want to use.

  “Hindquarters,” Grant said blandly. “So you have to hang on to me. Haven’t you ever ridden double on a motorcycle?”

  “Even then I at least had pegs for my feet,” she muttered.

  “We’ll stay at a walk. Won’t we, Joker?”

  The horse snorted and moved slightly at the sound of his name, and it took every bit of self-control Mercy had not to yelp. No, she thought as they started off, this was not one of her better ideas.

  “This,” Grant said in disgust, “is hopeless.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mercy said meekly.

  “I don’t believe it. I’ve been working with horses all my life, and I have never seen anything like it.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” she protested.

  “Apparently,” Grant said sourly as Joker trumpeted again, loudly, clearly annoyed, “you don’t have to.”

  The gelding Mercy was astride, a horse Grant had said was normally one of the calmest animals on the ranch, danced nervously at the stallion’s angry bellow. Shamelessly Mercy grabbed for the saddle horn; her pride wasn’t about to go before a fall. She knew darned well she wasn’t far enough along in her lessons after only three days to take much more of this.

  “Maybe I should try to calm him down again,” she suggested, rather lamely.

  “Sure. And it’ll last until you get on again. I don’t believe it. The damn horse is jealous.”

  Mercy sighed. If Grant wasn’t so clearly irritated, this whole thing would be rather amusing. Joker’s annoyance with her riding lessons had been obvious from the beginning, and had become gradually more vocal every day. As silly as it seemed, the big Appy clearly didn’t like the idea of her associating with other horses.

  In a strange sort of way it was…flattering, she supposed. At least she had one male’s full admiration on this ranch. Besides Chipper, of course, who continued to blush mightily every time he spoke to her, and who drove her crazy by constantly asking if there was anything he could do for her. But she couldn’t really count Chipper. He was much too young. Younger even than the eighteen-year-olds she knew in the city. Or more likely, she thought with a sigh, the eighteen-year-olds she knew in the city were just older, aged by the too-frequent ugliness of their surroundings. She hoped Chipper knew how lucky he was.

  She knew she was dodging the crux of the matter, that the real reason she wasn’t counting Chipper’s infatuation was the man standing here glaring at Joker. In the past three days, the forced closeness of these lessons—even when disrupted by Joker’s irritation—had been unsettling, to say the least.

  “He’s rattling everybody’s nerves,” Grant muttered. “Even Gambler’s taken off for the high country to get away from him. He’s making every horse on the place nervous, and my hands are getting almighty tired of riding twitchy horses.”

  “Maybe we’d better stop, then,” Mercy said, although she didn’t want to give up; she’d found what riding she was able to do amid Joker’s interruptions unexpectedly enjoyable and exhilarating, even within the confines of the big corral Grant had chosen as a classroom. But she tried to keep the disappointment from showing.

  “I’ll be damned,” Grant muttered, “if I’ll be buffaloed by a horse.”

  Joker neighed again, loudly, and Mercy’s gelding danced skittishly. Grant grabbed the bay’s bridle and held him steady. Mercy took the hint and slid to the ground; that she had learned early on. Joker whinnied once more.

  “If I were the type to give animals human emotions,” she said dryly, “I’d say he sounded rather smug that time.”

  “Believe it,” Grant said. “He’s pleased as all get-out with himself.”

  Mercy walked over to the fence. Joker trotted over and nudged her eagerly, obviously proud that he’d managed to lure her away from that interloper. She couldn’t help laughing, and she patted the horse’s nose. He lowered his head with a gusty snort, and she reached up and tugged at his ear, an indignity the horse allowed with every appearance of pleasure.

  “You’re ruining my chance to learn to ride here, you big lunk,” she told the horse sternly. “Thanks to you, I’m going to be housebound. All this gorgeous scenery, and I’m stuck looking at it from here.”

  “You really think it’s gorgeous?”

  She looked back over her shoulder at Grant, who was leading the little bay gelding. The horse eyed Joker nervously, but now that she was no longer in the saddle, the stallion seemed content to ignore his lesser colleague.

  “Of course it is,” she said. “How could anybody not think so?”

  “Some don’t,” Grant said with a half shrug.

  “Their loss,” she said succinctly. Grant didn’t answer, but she thought she saw something flicker in his eyes, something oddly both pleased and wary.

  “Well, since it’s his fault,” he said, gesturing at the big Appy, “maybe he should pay the price.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think he needs a refresher course in manners.” He gave Joker a warning look. “And school is still in session.”

  “Uh-oh.” Mercy gave the horse a look of mock concern. “I think you’re in trouble.”

  “We’ll see if he’s still feeling so sassy after a few hundred circles around this corral. Come on.”

  Mercy frowned. “Me?”

  “This saddle won’t fit him,” Grant said, nodding at the gear the bay wore. “Forks are too narrow. But the seat on my saddle’s too big for you. We’ll have to put my mother’s old saddle on him, and the stirrups’ll need to be raised. She’s taller than you.”

  “Most people are,” Mercy answered automatically. Then, as his meaning registered, her eyes widened. “Me? You want me to ride him?”

  “I don’t see any other solution. You still want to learn to ride, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do, but I… He…”

  “I know I should probably have my head examined. Normally I’d never trust a stallion of an
y temperament with a novice rider. But Joker’s…different. And he’s obviously protective of you, to say the least.”

  “But, Grant, he’s so valuable to you—”

  “He’s a horse. And I don’t believe in coddling them, no matter what they’re worth. Joker works like any other horse on the ranch. It keeps him in line, keeps him from going soft.”

  “But what if he gets hurt—?”

  Grant grinned suddenly. “You’re too little to hurt him much.”

  “Thanks,” she said, her concern vanishing in a flood of the old irritation that she’d never quite been able to conquer when people assumed because she was small she was in some way inadequate.

  “It’s yourself you should be worried about. He’s a lot more likely to hurt you than the other way around. Maybe you’re right, we shouldn’t do this.”

  “I’ll be just fine, thank you,” she said, her tone as frosty as the snow that lingered in the shade of the trees and the buildings.

  “Good. Then we can get on with this?”

  Mercy opened her mouth to say an abrupt yes, then closed it before the answer came out.

  “You did that on purpose.”

  “Absolutely,” Grant admitted, so blithely she couldn’t help laughing.

  “All right, all right. I suppose I don’t mind being manipulated, as long as it’s in a direction I want to go anyway.”

  Despite Grant’s reservations, in the days that followed Mercy found Joker to be a perfect gentleman, and much easier to ride than the little bay had been. Even his trot seemed less bone-jarring, and if she even felt the slightest bit as if she were losing her balance, the horse seemed to sense it and slowed to a stop.

  “You’ve got him charmed, all right,” Grant said, shaking his head in wonder on the fourth day of her lessons aboard the big stallion. But Mercy noticed he never took his eyes off the horse. Which meant, she thought edgily, that he never took his eyes off her, either.

  She’d quickly realized what that inner warning had been that she quashed when Grant made the offer to teach her. Some part of her had known how difficult this was going to be, this forced proximity. Too frequently Grant halted the lesson and came to stand beside her to elaborate on some point, or to show her the proper position. And that seemed, all too often, to require him to touch her, to place her arms and legs where he wanted them, to make her stretch her heels down until she thought her calf muscles were going to ache for days.