She yanked off the sunglasses and pushed to her feet, better able to make her case standing. She propped her hands on her hips. “You know, if horses aren’t kept in shape, they forget they’re horses. Then they can’t be depended on. They need to be ridden. I know you don’t have time, so”—she lifted her open palms for emphasis—“I’m offering to ride your horses for you.”
He looked up at her with an expression impossible to read, but she knew him well enough to know he was skeptical.
She raised one hand like a traffic cop and tilted her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to lie to Daddy about it. I learned my lesson on that. I’m going to tell him you’ve got horses I like the looks of. He knows I like horses. And he thinks a lot of you.”
“And where you gonna do this riding?”
“Well, I could ride Poncho and Tuffy here in your pasture behind the barn. It wouldn’t have to be every day, and I’d do it when you’re at work so I wouldn’t be in your way.” She bent forward and picked up the manila file folder she had laid on the porch deck. “And I want to work with Sal. I did some research on her. Did you know you’re her fourth owner?” She handed him the folder with the printed information she had gleaned from researching Sal’s history. “Her dam was a racehorse.”
He opened the folder and began to scan the top page.
“I could haul her over to the Circle C and work with her in our big round corral.”
He lifted the page and looked underneath, where she had tucked an eight-by-ten color photograph of Patch. “What’s this?”
She hesitated before she answered. “My stud, Patch.”
He looked up her with an arched brow. “Your stud?”
“Grandpa gave him to me a long time ago. He’s a tobiano paint.”
“What’s that?”
“It has to do with his markings. Tobianos have color on one or both flanks, and their heads are usually solid. See, look.” She sat down beside him again and pointed to Patch’s black flanks and face. “And see, he has white legs and a black shield across his chest. Look how muscled he is in the chest. He’s built like a tank. Isn’t he handsome?”
Brady shook his head and frowned. Definite negative body language. “Jude—”
Okay, so he had figured out why she had put the photograph in the folder. She charged ahead. “Wait. Before you say no, listen. He has ancient blood in his veins, Brady. He goes all the way back to a Comanche stallion that was given to my great-great-grandfather by Quanah Parker himself. If you go into the dining room at the ranch house, you’ll see a portrait of Alister Campbell and Quanah Parker. The paint horse in the background is the distant grandfather of my Patch.”
Brady shook his head again. “I don’t know, Jude . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Sal’s grullo color makes her worth breeding, Brady. It’s so rare. Some horse breeders strive for nothing but that color. I went into my files and found data I’ve collected on the genetics of horse color. The subject’s been studied extensively at UC Davis. I wrote several papers on it myself when I was in school. If a black-and-white tobiano paint like Patch bred with a solid grullo mare, the odds are better than thirty-five percent the mare would throw a tobiano foal. It could be black or grullo tobiano. Either one would be great.”
“We talked about this in Stephenville. Even if I had the money, I’m not willing to spend it on AI.”
At his mention of Stephenville, a nerve began to jump in Jude’s stomach, but she concentrated on ignoring it and on keeping her voice casual and normal. She had thought of Stephenville daily, but hearing him say it was different. “I’m not talking about artificial insemination. Most mares aren’t bred with AI. It’s too expensive. What if we just penned Sal and Patch in the same pasture for, say, thirty days and let nature take its course?”
“You’re talking about live cover. Darlin’, I leave here at four thirty every morning. Sometimes I don’t get back ’til late afternoon, like today. I don’t have time to keep an eye on ’em. Or to help ’em.”
Jude sniggered. “They don’t really need any help, you know. They know what to do.”
He shook his head again. “I don’t know the fine points of horse . . . breeding.” A frown furrowed his brow. “Why do you want to do this, Jude?”
For you, Brady. Because you need the money. And because I want you to succeed. And I don’t trust my own grandfather. “Because you could sell the foal almost the minute it hits the ground for several thousand dollars. Paint-horse aficionados would love to have a horse out of a stud with Patch’s bloodline. Sal’s, too. All I’m talking about is taking her over to the Circle C and letting her spend time with Patch. No big deal. If anything went wrong, we’ve got a state-of-the-art veterinary facility. Dr. Barrett is there every day, and so am I. Of course I’d help. Patch is my stallion and I’ve got an interest in this, too, you know.”
“And that would be what?”
“There aren’t any of Patch’s babies around the Circle C. Doc doesn’t even collect semen from Patch. When we’ve bred him, it’s usually been with live cover. Afterward, the mares get hauled away by their owners and I never get to see the babies. If the baby were a paint, I’d buy it from you myself. I just think it would be so cool to have one of Patch’s babies around. I might start from scratch and train it to be a show horse.”
“I don’t know,” Brady said again, but she thought he might be seriously considering it.
“Patch has never hurt a mare,” she said.
“The Circle C’s got damn near a hundred horses. There must be a grullo mare among them.”
She shook her head.
“Why would you buy it from me? If your stallion’s the sire, you’d already have an interest in the foal.”
“But I’d still buy it.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Jude. A pregnant mare and a foal have special needs. My barn’s not good enough.” He got to his feet. “Look, I gotta get something to eat. Want a sandwich?”
Having not breached his resistance very well, she backed off. “Sure. Baloney and cheese?”
“You got it.”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
They went inside. The living room was bright with filtered late-day sunlight, and the room was a sauna. Brady turned on the swamp cooler. “I need to wash up,” he said, and started toward the bathroom.
“I could make the sandwiches.”
He stopped and looked back at her with a grin. “I thought you couldn’t cook.”
“I can’t. But I can fix a sandwich.”
And she did. Making herself at home in the kitchen, she found everything she needed including potato chips and pickles and a roll of paper towels. She also poured two glasses of milk and had all of it on the table when he came into the kitchen.
His face and neck were washed clean, his hair damp and slicked back. He smelled like soap and water. “Looks good. I don’t have a good-looking woman fixing my supper real often.” He straddled a chair at the table and she sat down adjacent to him. They spent the next few minutes eating. “Patch is a stud?” he said. “What are you doing riding a stallion? A stallion’s too much horse for most women to handle. Most don’t even want to.”
“Patch is different. He’s sweet and gentle. He’s been mine since the day he was born. He loves me. And I love him.”
“Sweet and gentle. I’ll bet. When are you wanting to ride my three?”
“The sooner the better.”
He wiped his mouth with a paper towel sheet and sat back in his chair. “Look, I’ll go for the riding. And I appreciate your doing it. But I’ll have to think about the other.”
Jude stopped herself from debating further. “Fine. I’ll start tomorrow morning. Is there a place in the barn for me to leave my gear?”
“I put a new lock on the tack room door.”
They moved on to talk more about the Circle C cattle and her vision for the future of the ranch’s herd. Brady expressed his desire to buy a few head of his own as soon
as he got a little more money together. He talked about the progress he had made on the barn and she told him about her preparations for the coming school year. He complimented her on doing that job when she didn’t need to. And soon they had finished supper. Fearing she might wear out her welcome, Jude said she had to go. He walked with her toward her pickup.
“So you’ll really think about breeding Sal?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She smiled up at him. “Don’t take too long, okay? This is July. Prime breeding season.”
“Yeah, I know. And Sal’s in heat again.” He held the door while she climbed in. When she had buckled herself in, he looked at her, a serious expression on his face. “Jude, you’re okay, right?”
“What do you mean?”
His chest rose and fell with a great breath. “I mean, uh . . . we, uh, that one time . . . when we weren’t so careful. I’ve been worried about it.”
She suppressed a gasp. She knew exactly when he was talking about, but she hadn’t worried about it at all. Her period had started right on schedule three days after her return from Stephenville. That he would worry hadn’t occurred to her. She couldn’t keep from smiling. “Are we still talking about breeding?”
He looked away.
“Yes, Brady. I’m okay.”
“You’d tell me if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would.”
He nodded. “I just wouldn’t want to be shut out of a decision.”
“Not that it even bears discussion, but if such a thing happened, Brady, there wouldn’t be a hair-tearing decision to be made. My daddy and grandpa want me to have kids more than they want anything else for me. ”
He nodded. “You said that.”
“Even if that weren’t true, you think I’d want a little kid to grow up like I did? Missing a parent? With the only female influence in my life coming from an elderly woman and a string of women who couldn’t even speak English? Or how Cable grew up? With no parents at all? Trust me, having financial security doesn’t make up for a missing parent or two. I know as much as I want to about that subject.”
“We both do. I didn’t need a lecture.”
“I know. And that isn’t my intention. I’m just explaining. I know I’m always saying that Daddy and Grandpa did a fine job raising me and having no mother hasn’t mattered to me, but it isn’t true. But what else could I say, circumstances being what they are? You can rest assured that if I could prevent it, I wouldn’t let an innocent little kid grow up like I have.”
He nodded. “I’m just saying, Jude, let’s not be dumb.”
She didn’t know what he meant but she recalled she hadn’t heard him mention a father. It came back to her how hard it was to get him to express his thoughts in the light of day. In the dark, in his bed, he had been different. Another smile crawled across her lips. “Why, Mr. Fallon. Is this some kind of a roundabout, almost-maybe-but-not-entirely hint that we might do it again someday?”
“I’m just making sure everything’s okay.” He patted the windowsill. “You better go on home.”
By the time Jude reached the highway, she was near tears. It had taken all of her will to babble in that casual banter when she wanted to melt against him and let him kiss her silly. She loved so much about him—even his brutal honesty and his closemouthed stoicism. She wondered whether she loved him. She might not know that for sure, but she knew one thing—she couldn’t stand the thought of going home and sitting at the supper table listening to Daddy praising him as if he were a son and watching Grandpa sit there in smug silence, with no telling what kind of shenanigans going through his mind.
She hadn’t seen Suzanne in days and hadn’t been able to reach her by phone. She keyed in her friend’s number and waited to leave yet another voice-mail message, but Suzanne surprised her by answering this time.
“Hey, you’re home. Okay if I drop by?”
“Jude. Come on over. I’ve got something to tell you. I’m in the horse pen.”
When Jude reached Suzanne’s house, she found her just leaving the corral. Jude stepped out of her pickup.
“Hiya, girlfriend,” the blond bombshell said, smiling broadly. She seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood.
“Where in the world have you been?” Jude asked. “I’ve been calling you for days.”
Instead of looking at her, Suzanne busied herself latching the gate. “Um, over at Pat’s.”
Surprised, Jude gave her friend a narrow-eyed assessment. “You’ve been over at Pat Garner’s for days?”
Suzanne looked across her shoulder and grinned. “I finally decided to give him a go.”
“Wow,” Jude said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“Haven’t had a chance. That’s why I’m telling you now.” Suzanne leaned against the gate, tilted her head back and laughed. “Today’s the first day we’ve come up for air. I haven’t even checked phone messages.”
Still surprised by the new development, Jude stuffed her hands into her back pockets and looked at her friend big eyed. “So how was it? If you stayed with him for days, it must have been pretty good.”
Suzanne chuckled in a low, private way. “Well, he isn’t as hot as Mitch.” She shook her head and her eyes took on a faraway look. “Ah, Mitch.” She sighed. “That man knew all the right moves, if you know what I mean.”
Another one of the mysterious statements that often came from Suzanne when she talked about her former husband or lover or whatever he had been. But for the first time, Jude had an inkling of understanding. “The right moves, huh?”
“Let’s just say Pat’s a little more conservative than Mitch. But that’s probably a good thing. Twenty other women aren’t chasing him. And he’s eager to please me. He’ll learn.” She pushed away from the gate. “I was just going up to the house to grab something to eat. Have you had supper?”
“I’ve eaten, but I’ll drive you up there.” They climbed into Jude’s pickup. Jude started the engine and eased toward Suzanne’s house.
“You’ve already eaten? Is the Circle C kitchen serving supper early these days?”
“I ate with a friend.”
A sly look angled from Suzanne. “You’re all fixed up. Makeup and everything. You even smell good. Who’d you eat with?”
Damn. Sometimes it was unnerving how well Suzanne knew her. “I ate at Brady Fallon’s. I was going over some stuff with him. He’s got a beautiful grullo mare. I was trying to talk him into letting Patch breed her.”
“Ah. A conversation about horses fucking. Now, that’s interesting foreplay.”
“Oh, Suzanne. It wasn’t foreplay.”
They reached the house and Jude killed the engine, but neither of them rushed to exit the pickup. “He’s got three horses. I’m going to start riding them for him. He can’t afford to hire someone to do it.”
“Well, aren’t you good. You can’t find anything else to do, so you’re riding other people’s horses?”
“I feel like he’s an old friend. He’s known Jake and Cable, you know, since we were all kids. And I knew him myself when I was a little kid, though I don’t remember him.”
“I see,” Suzanne said, nodding. A reptilian grin spread across her full pink lips. “I need to get a look at this guy. I’ll tell you who’s hot for him, big-time. You know Joyce Harrison?”
Jude knew Joyce Harrison well. Like Suzanne, she worked at Lucky’s Grocery. She had been two grades ahead of Jude and Suzanne in school.
“He’s all”—Suzanne pressed the air with both hands—“and I do mean all she talks about. I’m telling you, her panties are practically on fire.”
An awareness of her own body filtered through Jude. And of something darker. Possessiveness and jealousy. Brady’s words from just a couple of hours earlier came at her: I leave here at four thirty every morning. Sometimes I don’t get back ’til late afternoon, like today. “He works dawn to dark. How does she know him?”
“He buys groceries.”
Bologna, cheese, and bread. “But that doesn’t mean—”
“They’ve gone out. Twice. She says they’ve both got boys the same age. They started talking about their kids one day when he was checking out, and boom. They went out.”
A punch couldn’t have stunned Jude more. Brady was new in Lockett. The very last thing she expected to learn was that he had acquired a girlfriend. A memory of the Stephenville woman named Ginger ballooned in her mind. Of course he would soon have a girlfriend in Lockett, even if he was new in town. He had too much appeal not to have a string of women interested in him.
“You know how she is about men,” Suzanne said. “I don’t know if he asked her or she asked him, but she’s been swooning and talking about body parts in the break room for two weeks.”
The pickup cab began to shrink, and Jude felt as if it might close in on her and crush her. She knew for a fact that cowboying for the Circle C was an exhausting job. Where would Brady, or any man, find the time and energy for much of a social life? “Body parts? Does that mean she’s sleeping with him?”
“Not yet. But it’s not her fault. She’s made herself plenty available. A few days ago she went down to Abilene and spent her whole paycheck on porno underwear. She even bought some of those candy panties out of some catalog. Strawberry flavored. She says it’ll happen the next time they get together if she has to strip naked and spread her legs in his pickup bed.” Suzanne giggled. “I hate to say it, but I can see that happening, can’t you?”
“She’s a slut,” Jude said angrily, remembering how Joyce Harrison had been an issue when she so openly and aggressively pursued Jake during his first campaign for sheriff. “Brady seems like a nice man. I can’t believe he’d take up with a slut.”
“Jude. He’s male. I’m sure he likes to screw as much as the next guy, and how many available women are there around here? Joyce is somebody he can do the nasty with without making an investment.”
Jude believed he’d had exactly that type of relationship with Ginger, but she said, “I can’t believe he’s like that.”
“Why are you defending him, girlfriend? You sound like you’re interested in him yourself.”
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