“That’s a dog kiss. You’ll get used to it,” she said, and she met Mase’s gaze over his son’s head. She winked at him, and saw a faint smile tug at the corner of his mouth. His hand rested protectively on Joey’s head.
Jarod was taking the horse to the barn, a weathered red building that sat across the broad driveway, its double doors gaping open.
“That’s where this horse Kahlua gets her dinner,” Callie was telling Joey. “She’s worked hard today. And that’s the indoor ring.” She pointed to the big enclosure connected to the barn. “We ride in there when it’s not nice out. And those two buildings are where the guests stay, the bunkhouses, we call them.”
Joey was listening to her, which was good. He appeared interested, not so frightened at the moment. Beavis gave him another wet lick, but this time Joey didn’t shrink away.
“Would you like to pet Kahlua?” Callie asked him. Then to Mase she added, “If you don’t mind. I’ve got to check in with Jarod, anyway. Then we’ll go into the house and you can meet everyone else. It’s almost time for dinner.”
“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” Mase began.
“Come on, then,” she replied, heading toward the barn.
Callie breathed in the wonderful rich aroma of the barn with pleasure, as she always did. Stalls lined the wide center aisle, and a dozen horses of every size and shape were peacefully munching their evening grain. Later they’d be turned out to pasture for the night, where they’d graze in the rich, irrigated fields.
Jarod was finishing brushing Kahlua, ready to put her in a stall with her bucket of grain.
“How’d it go today?” Callie asked him.
“Fine.”
“How was Hal?”
“Great. He felt his knees, and his balance was much better. He hardly needs any help getting on now. He’s a strong kid.”
“Kid,” Callie snorted. “He’s your age.”
Jarod ignored her. “So, Mr. LeBow,” he said, “do you ride horses?”
Mase gave a short laugh. “I’ve been on a few, but I just don’t have the right touch.”
“You had to ride when you were at Lost Springs, didn’t you?” Callie asked, surprised.
“Oh, yeah, I did, but after a while the instructor let me run laps instead.”
“What a shame,” Callie said, her head cocked, studying him. “You look so…so competent, too.”
Mase shrugged. “I am also a competent driver, despite my recent run-in with the law.”
“The what?” Jarod asked.
So Callie had to tell the story. Embarrassed, swearing silently she’d never drive over fifty-five again, she told Jarod, who laughed like an idiot.
It was then that she noticed Joey’s severe discomfort. He cringed behind Mase, obviously keeping his father between him and the horse, and his face was white. He was scared to death of the big brown mare who stood there, idly swishing her tail at flies, waiting for her dinner. Poor Joey, and Callie hadn’t even noticed.
Instantly she kneeled down next to the boy. “Joey,” she said, “hey, Joey, this is Kahlua. She’s a female, a mare. She’s big, isn’t she? But she has to be big and strong so people can ride on her back.”
No response.
“Maybe we better go,” Mase began to say, but Callie shook her head.
“Would you like to hear the story of how Kahlua came to the ranch, Joey? She’s a very special mare. Well, she was real sick, almost starving to death. You could feel every one of her ribs. No one wanted her, and if one of my friends hadn’t called me and told me about her, well, I don’t know what would have happened to her.” But Callie did know. Kahlua would have been sold for a few hundred dollars, loaded on a truck and taken to the meat packers. Not that she’d tell Joey that.
The boy’s eyes cut toward the horse. He was listening. Good.
“So I hitched up the horse trailer and went and picked her up, and we took care of her and she got better. Now she’s one of our best therapy horses, and she helps people who have problems. She especially likes boys like you.”
Joey’s eyes switched from Callie’s face up to the tall brown horse then back again. “She was sick?” he asked.
Callie nodded. “She could hardly walk.”
“But she’s better now.” It wasn’t a question.
“All better. Uh-huh.”
Joey studied the mare. His face had lost the pinched look.
“You want your dad to lift you up so you can see her?” Callie asked.
The boy nodded. Mase hoisted Joey up, so that he was face-to-face with the mare. She reached her head out toward him, and he drew back.
“She thinks you have her dinner,” Callie said. “She knows it’s mealtime. Would you like to give her a horse cookie?”
Joey shook his head.
“Okay, I will, then.” Callie went to a bin in the tack room and came back with a handful of nuggets of compressed sweet hay and held one out to the mare in the palm of her hand. Kahlua fluttered her nostrils, whickered deep in her chest and deftly lipped the cookie from Callie’s hand.
“See? She’s hungry,” Callie said.
“Does she like the cookies?” Joey asked.
“She loves them.” Callie held out another, and Kahlua whisked it away. “You sure you don’t want to try?”
“Well…”
“Hold your hand flat, like this. Her whiskers tickle. You can feel her breath. See how her lip moves. Did you know a horse’s lip is almost like an elephant’s trunk? It is, really. She can move it every whichaway.”
Callie held her hand under Joey’s small grubby one, laid a cookie on his palm and reached out toward the mare, who snatched the treat. Joey drew his hand back with a gasp.
“It tickled, didn’t it?” Callie asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Callie stroked Kahlua’s nose. “Do you want to pet her, Joey? She likes that.”
Tentatively, he put his hand out. The mare flicked her ears, looking for another cookie, and Joey touched her velvety nose, first with one finger, then with his hand. As Callie watched, a smile formed on his face, and he lost the tension that had held his small body in its grip.
“Daddy, she’s warm,” Joey said.
“Sure she is,” Mase replied in a tone Callie hadn’t heard from him before.
She watched the little boy and his father, and Joey’s need—their need—cried out to her. Then she wondered if fate had staged the whole bachelor auction simply to get the LeBow men here, right now. Maybe they both needed a little of the ranch’s magic.
The sun was low in the sky when they left Kahlua contentedly munching her grain.
“Everyone’s probably already gathering for dinner,” Callie explained. “You’ll have to meet the whole crew.”
“Maybe Joey and I should take off now,” Mase said. “It was nice of you to show us your place and let Joey pet the horse, but I think—”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re here, and you’ll have to satisfy their curiosity. They’ve probably all been spying on you from the house.”
Mase shot a swift glance toward the ranch house, as if he expected mayhem to erupt from its doors and windows. But it sat serenely in the setting sun, surrounded by cottonwoods, a turreted yellow Victorian farmhouse trimmed with white gingerbread, with a deep porch and a few additions tacked on in unlikely places.
“You’re joking,” he said.
“Nope.”
They walked across the
driveway and along the flower-lined sidewalk, up the stairs and into the shadow of the porch. As Callie reached out to open the door, one of her visions popped into her head.
Her folks and the staff and guests were all waiting for dinner, laughing and chatting, when Callie and Mase and Joey entered. Instant and total silence fell. All heads turned toward them as if on cue, and everyone stared. There they stood, the object of all that attention. Callie looked down and her clothes were melting away. In a panic, she looked at Mase, and his clothes were melting, too, and everybody was pointing and whispering.
The reality wasn’t quite like that, but not far off.
Her tall, lanky father, Tom, approached them right away and was introduced, then her mom, Liz, and Sylvia. Jarod nodded hello, and Callie introduced the four adult guests, Hal, Marianne, James and Linda, and the two children, Rebecca and Peter. Francine popped out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron to look him up and down as if measuring him for a pot on her stove.
Joey hid his face, hanging on to Mase’s leg. Frankly, Callie didn’t blame him.
“I really don’t want to impose…” Mase began, but was immediately interrupted.
“What’s one or two more mouths?” Francine said. “The food’s not fancy, but it’s good.”
“No, really, Joey and I have to get back.”
“Got a date?” Sylvia asked pointedly.
“Well, no, but…”
“You’ll stay then, good,” Liz said, smiling. “Joey looks really hungry.”
“Like Kahlua,” Joey said in a tiny voice.
“You bet, just like Kahlua,” Liz agreed.
“If you don’t mind, it would be great,” Mase said, giving in.
Dinner was a noisy affair, served family-style around a big oak table. Tonight it was beef stew, a fresh green salad, sourdough rolls and cherry pie for dessert.
Tom had placed Mase between himself and Callie. She couldn’t help but notice how well her father got along with Mase. And how pleasant Mase appeared when he spoke to Tom.
“So, you’re a homicide detective,” Tom was saying. “What an interesting job.”
“Oh, it’s interesting, all right,” Mase said flatly.
“It must be tough.”
“It can be, yeah.”
Callie tried to picture Mase at his job, doing the things she saw cops do on TV and in the movies. Yes, she could imagine him being hard and unforgiving, interviewing suspects, unrelenting in his pursuit of criminals. Sure, and she bet that’s why he hardly smiled. He would see evil day in and day out in his job. He must have a hard time believing good of anyone. That must have been why he’d looked so menacing on the auction block. Sure. That explained it.
She sneaked a sidelong glance at him. His profile was handsome, a well-shaped nose, sensual lips, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, the neat mustache. He was listening intently to Tom, asking something once in a while.
At the other end of the table, Joey sat with twelve-year-old Peter, who chatted incessantly, and little Rebecca was on Joey’s other side, but she ate silently, her eyes downcast. Callie wasn’t sure who needed more love and attention, Joey or Rebecca.
Jarod was asking Mase something; Callie tuned in to the conversation. “Do you carry a gun?”
“Well, not now,” Mase said, “but at work I do.”
“Have you ever been shot at?” Jarod wanted to know.
Mase shrugged. “Once. He missed. Mostly my work is investigatory. It’s actually quite boring, following leads, lining up witnesses.”
“Boring,” Jarod said, disbelieving.
“It’s not like in the movies,” Mase replied, “believe me.”
Callie noticed that he had a healthy appetite and seemed to enjoy Francine’s food. She wondered what he cooked at home, and how he managed working and taking care of his son. She wondered if he went out much, had a steady girlfriend, dated casually. Or did he stay home at night like she did? Single, thirty-something, and isolated on a ranch. Busy every waking moment, dedicated to her work, rarely meeting eligible men—that was Callie in a nutshell. Was it the same for Mase?
Of course not. For one thing, Mase had been married and he had a child. Callie was a stranger to those experiences, and she suddenly envied him. What had his wife been like? How much did he miss her?
So many questions.
“You have a great place here,” Mase was saying to Tom. “Peaceful.”
“Well, it can get hectic, but it’s a pretty darn good life.” Tom looked at him. “You’re welcome to stay the night, check the place out. Go for a horseback ride tomorrow.”
“Thanks, but I really do have to get back to Denver tomorrow. I appreciate the invitation. Maybe some other time.”
He had a nice voice, Callie decided. Deep and smooth. She bet it could turn into steel when he questioned criminals, though. Oh, yes.
“Good choice, Callie,” Sylvia called from across the table. “Your taste is improving.”
“Oh, go bid for your own guy,” Callie shot back, and Sylvia laughed.
Callie knew what the housemother meant, though. Callie had had bad luck with men, seeming to go only for losers, the needy ones who invariably let her down. The last guy had been a rodeo circuit rider who’d left Callie for a Boston debutante.
That had been six months ago. Dating was difficult living out here on the ranch. Sometimes Callie felt her biological clock ticking away, but mostly she didn’t think about it—she was too occupied with dispensing her own personal brand of joy and hope.
“Five hundred acres,” Tom said, replying to a question of Mase’s. “Backed by Forest Service land. Heck, I don’t use all of it. Got some acreage in hay, some in oats. Good water rights. It suits us fine.”
Her parents weren’t at all sure ranch life suited Callie, though. They often asked her if she wouldn’t be better off in a city, or a town, at least. They’d offered to help her set up a therapy practice in Casper or Laramie or anywhere else she’d like to consider. They were concerned about her social life—or lack thereof—but they didn’t understand how necessary it was to stay here, that it was the ranch setting that gave a special magic to her work.
Her mother and Sylvia told Callie that staying on the ranch and purposely picking losers was her way of avoiding a commitment, a disease among singles these days. They pestered her with this theory all the time, pecking away at her like hens. They meant well, she knew, but she’d learned to ignore them.
Mase was speaking again, and Callie tuned back in. She wished he’d say something personal, something that would help her understand him better, but he was only talking about crime in the city.
“Yeah, the young kids are vulnerable to that. And the gangs have been filtering in from California for a few years now. Drive-by shootings, the whole thing.”
“Denver’s a big city,” Tom said.
“And growing like crazy. Traffic, crime. It’s hard for me to believe how it’s changed.”
“You can’t turn back the clock,” Tom said. “Things change.”
“True enough.” Mase looked down at his empty plate. “That pie was great. I haven’t eaten this much in months.”
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Tom said.
Well, Mase and her father were certainly hitting it off. He hadn’t said a word to her, though. What was he doing here, anyway? Why had he stayed for dinner? She’d told him he didn’t have to fulfill the date obligation.
Questio
ns and more questions.
She’d like to ask him outright, but that would be rude. And what did she care, anyway? After tonight, she’d probably never see him again.
When dinner was over, everyone helped with the cleanup. Callie and her parents accompanied Mase and Joey out to the car.
“I’ve got to get back to the motel and get Joey to bed,” Mase said. “Thanks so much for the delicious meal. Tell Francine how much I enjoyed it.” He turned to Callie. “Thanks for bringing me to your home. I’ve enjoyed meeting everyone.”
She waved a hand airily. “Oh, no problem. You got off easy. If you’d stuck around, they’d have put you to work.”
“There are worse things to work at,” he said. “Joey, tell everyone thanks.”
“Thank you,” the little boy whispered. Then he added, “Daddy, can we come back?”
For the first time Mase seemed flustered. “Well, I don’t know. We’ll see. It depends.”
“Any time,” Liz offered warmly.
Callie kneeled down in front of Joey. “I hope you can come back and visit. Kahlua will be waiting for you.” Then she gave Joey a hug.
“Look,” Mase said to her, “I’d appreciate it if you don’t give him unrealistic expectations.”
“Those are the best kind,” Callie replied, undaunted.
He frowned. “Come on, Joey.”
Her folks went inside, but Callie stood on the porch in the darkness and watched Mase and his son climb into their car, start it up and back out. The car’s headlights cut a silver swath across fields and barn and house as Mase headed down the driveway.
Phew, Callie thought, immensely glad the day was over. But she’d survived it. You bet she had. It had been a heck of a way to spend a thousand dollars, too, and a heck of a short date. The question was, had she gotten her money’s worth?
“Nah,” she muttered, and she strode on back inside.
CHAPTER THREE
CALLIE GOT OUT OF BED late the next morning and decided it was the excitement of the auction that had worn her out.
Courting Callie Page 3