Dancing With Danger: Book 8: Dancing Moon Ranch Series

by Patricia Watters

  Genie pulled Josh's arms more snugly around her, and said, in a dreamy voice, "I think I'd like to stay here until morning."

  Josh kissed the side of her face. "That can be arranged."

  "Not without a convoluted explanation to my bedroll mates, but I'll stay a while longer since we haven't worked things out."

  "The answer's up there," Josh said, looking skyward. He took Genie by the shoulders and moved her away from him, and said, "Lie down and put your head on my lap and don't try to think. Just look up at the stars and listen."

  Genie scooted around and settled with her head on Josh's lap, and said, "I presume you mean for me to listen to the coyotes. I hear them, but they're a long way off."

  "Not coyotes." Josh leaned toward the edge of his bedroll and pulled something out of his pack. Genie caught the flash of metal and realized it was a harmonica.

  "I didn't know you could play," she said.

  "I've been playing all night," Josh replied. "The square dance music was me and some guys who used to get together and jam."

  "Annie never mentioned it," Genie said.

  Josh let out a little chuckle. "You and Annie do a lot of talking about me."

  "Annie's done most of it," Genie said. "In case you haven't figured it out, she and Ryan are matchmakers."

  "Maybe Annie is, but not Ryan," Josh replied. "He and I aren't getting on so well."

  "I've noticed," Genie said. "He's happily married with his boots planted firmly in Kincaid soil and you're still free to follow your dream and he no longer understands that concept."

  "I'm not so free anymore," Josh replied.

  "Sure you are. You're not tied to this job. You can go and do anything you want."

  Josh said nothing. Instead, he lifted the harmonica to his lips, and with his left hand holding the harmonica, and his right hand cupped around it, started playing the low, doleful strains of Home on the Range, but for the first time in her life, on hearing the tune, Genie actually felt the unsung words of a place where deer and antelope played, and skies were cloudless, and heavens were bright with light from glimmering stars. In fact, it was like the words were all around her and she was surrounded by everything in the song. And as the melody lifted into the night, the image of an iconic cowboy came to mind, a lonely, solitary figure riding the vast plains with only his horse for company. It was a sad sound, like the wailing of the coyotes in the distance. It was also a tune filled with soul. Filled with Josh's soul, like he was telling her something...

  You're still free to wander around while following your dream...

  I'm not so free anymore...

  Maybe he was that wandering cowboy who was feeling like he was losing his freedom, even though she wasn't asking him to give up his dream for her, and never would.

  When the last notes faded off in a quiet vibrato, Genie felt a little overwhelmed, but after her heart settled some, she said, "That was sad, but beautiful. I don't know how you get so much soul out of a simple instrument, or how you can get such a rich sound."

  "Have you ever studied a songbird when it sings?" Josh asked.

  Genie thought about that. Numerous times she'd watched birds at feeders and heard their songs, but she'd never really studied them when they sang. "I suppose not," she admitted.

  "A songbird doesn't sing with a closed beak," Josh said. "It fills its diaphragm and opens its beak as far as it can, and that's how its tiny body produces a big sound. Its voice box is like a single brass reed in a harmonica, but whereas a songbird uses a single reed, with a ten-hole harmonica there are twenty reeds, so the combinations are endless."

  "That still doesn't explain how you put so much soul into what you just played."

  "There's more soul in a harmonica than any other instrument because the player's body is part of the sound, all the way from the diaphragm through the chest and throat and nasal cavity. That's how you get the soulful sound. There's this feel inside your mouth that goes on inside the harmonica. The first time you feel it, it's thrilling, and once it's learned you never forget."

  "I know. It's subconscious competence," Genie said.

  Josh looked askance at her. "Maybe you're right." Lifting the harmonica to his mouth, he started into a lively rendition of Ghost Riders in the Sky, a song she was familiar with because it had once been incorporated into one of her father's acts, with the illusion of red-eyed cows with blackened horns and steely hooves thundering across the stage in a mist, and words in the accompanying ballad almost making the image real. As Josh pumped out the notes, the chords and phrases were so fast and intricate it was as if several people were playing harmonicas at the same time. When he finished, Genie said, "Okay, I'm a little star-struck. That was pretty amazing. You must have started playing when you were very young."

  "Around twelve," Josh replied. "Dad got us all harmonicas one Christmas because he said cowboys needed music out on the range and with harmonicas we could keep our music in our pockets and have it wherever we went. My brothers messed around with it some and gave up, but when I started blowing I knew I was onto something. But it took some time to figure out that it's one of the easiest instruments to learn to play, but one of the toughest to master."

  "To play like you do, you must spend hours practicing. When do you do that?" Genie asked.

  "Pretty much every time I'm off on my own… moving cattle, looking for strays, most nights before I go to bed. Playing connects me to things."

  "Things like what?" Genie asked.

  "I don't know. Just things. I play and I get ideas, like making use of a pile of discarded horseshoes. I was in the bunkhouse playing I Ride an Old Paint one night, and in my head I saw those old horseshoes moving out of the pile and connecting together, and what came was a horse." He tucked the harmonica back into his bag, then moved Genie's head off his lap and turned her around. "Enough about harmonicas. The only reason I played was so you could connect."

  "Connect to what?" Genie asked.

  "Me." Josh pulled her into his arms and kissed her, and she kissed him back, another long, passionate kiss. When it finally came to an end, Josh said, "I think we made some headway tonight."

  "Why would you think that?" Genie asked. "We didn't work anything out."

  "Yeah, we did," Josh said. "You're starting to fall in love with me."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "Are you?"

  "Well, yes."

  "Then the rest will work itself out."

  It came to Genie that Josh was one of those eternal optimists who rolled with the punches and, like rolling out of the way of a charging bull, trusted that Fate had nothing dire in store for him. But she was a realist, and whereas contemplating the glory of the night sky while listening to Josh's beautiful music might have worked its magic by having her fall in love with him, he'd still be going back into the bull pen, and that issue was completely unresolved.

  CHAPTER 11

  The following morning the overnight campers returned to the ranch. As the riders who'd already unsaddled their horse were turning them out, Abby, who was walking toward Genie and Josh while holding Matt's hand, broke loose and rushed up to Josh, and said, in an excited voice, "The baby horse was in a gweat big bubble. Me and Gwampa saw it!"

  Matt laughed, and explained, "It happened while Ryan and Annie were in Burns for Cody's checkup. One of their Kiger mares was due to foal so I took Abby with me to check on her and we got there right after she'd dropped her foal, so now Abby's a real ranch girl who's seen her first foaling."

  Abby raised both hands for Josh to pick her up, and when he did, she sandwiched his face between her hands so she had his full attention, and said, in an even more excited voice, "I got to name the baby horse. I named her Zebwa Girl because she has stripes on her legs like the zebwas in the book Gwampa wed to me."

  "That's a good name," Josh said, while thinking he'd like to have been the one to read the book to Abby and have her cuddle up against him and ask questions and shove the page aside so she could see wh
at was coming next, the way the kids did at home.

  "I'll feed the horses," Matt said. "A reporter from the Pine Grove Gazette just showed up to interview you. She said she's a half hour early because she has to get her questions together. She's in the living room at the house."

  "I totally forgot about that," Josh said. "You sure you're okay finishing things up here?"

  "I'm fine." Matt looked at Abby. "Don't forget, bucko, Grandma's expecting you to go with her to pick flowers. She's waiting at the playground."

  "Yeah!" Abby wiggled out of Josh's arms and ran toward Ruth, who was standing across the way in an area outfitted with swings and a slide.

  Matt left to tend the horses, and Josh and Genie headed for the house. But as they were passing the barn, Josh took Genie's hand and tugged her inside.

  "What are you doing?" Genie asked. "There's a reporter waiting."

  Josh glanced out the wide expanse of the open doors and pulled Genie toward the back of the barn, while saying, "The reporter isn't expecting me for thirty minutes, which I want to spend with my girl." He led her into the room where the horse sculpture stood and pulled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his, and she responded with eagerness, moving her hands up and down Josh's back. As the kiss held, he cupped her breast and she gave out a little moan of pleasure, inviting him to unsnap her shirt, but when he started making his way down her chest, Genie said, in a ragged voice, "I like what you're doing but this is going beyond what we've established."

  "We can reset things later," Josh said.

  "No, we can't." Genie replied. "Not only are there guests roaming around, but we're on the verge of doing something untimely, so we need to reel things in." She moved his face away and re-snapped her shirt and turned away from him, leaving Josh sucking in a long breath and combing his fingers through his hair, and attempting to set aside what was going on below his belt.

  As he tucked the loosened tails of his shirt back into his pants, he looked over to see Genie running her hand over the horse's face and trailing her fingers along the interwoven horseshoe segments of its mane, like she needed to put some distance between them, which worked for him too. He was getting in way deeper with Genie than he'd expected, deeper in the sense that he was beginning to justify things in ways that went against his long-range plan, which frustrated him, like when he was a little kid and tried to shove square blocks through round holes. There was no way to make it work.

  "You have a gift you need to explore," Genie said. "You already have a commission for a bucking bull, and this horse is a wonderful piece, but it's also a form of art whose time has come. Everyone is into recycling. Scrap art is even attracting the notice of galleries and museums, so what you're doing fits right in."

  Josh found his mind divided between a very potent sexual need, and what Genie was saying. Finding it hard to concentrate on the latter, but forcing himself to do so, he said, "I'm not interested in selling to galleries and museums. I only do it because it gets rid of a pile of old horseshoes and I like seeing what comes out."

  "And what comes out is remarkable" Genie replied. "This will be a beautiful piece out on the highway, and it will also attract attention. You've taken something that's common on ranches all over the country, and instead of horseshoes ending up in a rusty pile outside an old barn they're transformed into something that enriches other people's lives. It's also the perfect form of art to add to the curriculum at universities and art schools."

  "I'm a farrier and a bullfighter," Josh reminded her.

  "And a musician and an artist," Genie added. "You told me you got the idea for the horse while you were playing your harmonica, but you still had to be enthusiastic enough to carry it out. I don't believe you just randomly started welding horseshoes together."

  "Not randomly, but not planned either," Josh said. "I started with some hooves and made my way up the legs and the horse started moving around on the way up and that's what came out."

  Genie trailed the pads of her fingers over the horseshoe muzzle, like she was petting the horse, and said, "But you still got a lot of joy out of doing it, didn't you?"

  Josh eyed the horse. Yeah, he'd enjoyed putting the thing together, especially when what he'd initially planned began to take a life of its own, like when he started to make the first welding of a right front hoof to the platform that the horse was standing on and he got the feeling the horse wanted to raise its hoof, and when he welded his way up the front of the horse, he visualized the horse arching it's neck and looking down at the pile of horseshoes and wondering how he'd end up. He even found himself talking to the horse, but he had no intention of telling Genie. She was on a roll with the horseshoe art, and it was taking him away from what he loved most, which, he suspected, was her purpose. Still, putting the piece together had been both challenging and satisfying. "I liked doing it okay," he finally admitted.

  "I think you liked it more than okay," Genie said. "You liked it enough to take on another commission, and if you follow the design you drew on paper it will be a magnificent piece that could well become a landmark at the Sisters rodeo grounds, just like the horse sculpture will become a landmark for Annie and Ryan's ranch."

  Josh laughed. "The whole idea of both pieces is to start paying off the land I'm buying from Ryan."

  "Then you're not looking forward to making the bull sculpture?" Genie asked.

  "Sure, I am," Josh replied, "but I don't intend to make horseshoe sculptures a fulltime career, if that's where this is going."

  Genie walked up to Josh and put her arms around his neck and kissed him, and said, "You told me when we were on top of the hill that, because I was starting to fall in love with you, the rest would work itself out. Maybe it has and you haven't figured it out yet. "

  Josh pulled her to him. "Are you still falling in love with me?" he asked.

  "My feelings haven't changed," Genie replied. "Is this one way?"

  "Not anymore," Josh said.

  "Then you feel the same way?" Genie asked, while holding his gaze.

  "No, you've got it backwards: you feel the same way," Josh clarified. "I fell in love with Nurse Ratched back when she was a pain in my already painful butt because I liked the way she took care of me."

  "That's actually called transference," Genie said. "A patient occasionally falls in love with a nurse because the nurse unknowingly reminds the patient of a significant figure from their past, maybe the patient's mother, although the patient may not be aware of this. When it happens, patient sometimes behaves inappropriately as a defense mechanism."

  Josh knew for a fact that Genie, the nurse, had not reminded him of his mother. He also suspected all her Nurse Ratched behavior had some underlying cause. "What if it happens the other way around and the nurse transfers feelings to the patient?"

  "Then it's called counter-transference," Genie said, "in which case the nurse would need to do some self-exploration and identify and understand herself better in order to find appropriate solutions to her problem or she could behave inappropriately due to defense mechanisms."

  "Like giving the patient an ice water bath?"

  Genie looked up at him wide-eyed and said nothing and Josh knew he'd nailed it. He smiled. "That's why you did it, wasn't it?"

  "No," Genie insisted. "You were the one who was a total pain in the butt."

  "You were flustered and didn't know what to do."

  "That's just not so."

  "Yes, it is so." Josh gave her a peck on the lips. "I was flat on my back and completely at your mercy, and when you bent over me to do the ice packs I got a whiff of something fresh and sweet coming from a place I wanted to explore."

  "No, you didn't," Genie insisted.

  "It was jasmine," Josh said.

  Genie looked at him, clearly surprised that he'd managed to ferret out that information too. It was becoming a game, keeping her wondering about Morkies, and pistachio ice cream, and the book, and now jasmine oil. He'd get an explanation for the thumb trick yet because her
curiosity to know how he'd learned all the random things about her would finally get the best of her. "You're interested in aromatherapy, and jasmine's an aphrodisiac, and you put it on to get my attention, which is why I was having my male problem whenever you were around."

  "That is so not true," Genie said.

  Josh lifted her chin so she was looking directly at him, and said, "You're lying again, babe. Besides, you can admit it now that we've both admitted we love each other. So did you?"

  "Well, maybe to get your attention initially, but not for the other reason."

  "They are one and the same," Josh said. "When you're around me, jasmine oil or not, I have my male problem, but I'm learning to live with it. It's also helping me increase my jump-roping time. So are you ready to tell me the thumb trick yet?"

  "No, and you're getting me off track," Genie said. "So, back to making horse shoe sculptures. If you make a sculpture every two months, between that and being a farrier, you wouldn't need any other job to pay off your ranch, and when your work is being shown at galleries and museums around the country, your tall, muscular, rugged good looks would be a refreshing change for patrons of the arts."

  Josh was mildly amused at her attempt to transform a die-hard bullfighter into what he had no intention of becoming. "Yeah, I imagine if I showed up in ratty jeans, and scuffed boots, and had a bandana to hold my long hair back, and was wearing a leather vest over my bare chest with the tattoo of a genie lantern on it, I'd get some notice."

  "I can see you refuse to take what I'm saying seriously," Genie said, "but can you at least be a little open minded and think about it? I'm being open minded about your bullfighting, and being in a relationship is all about learning to compromise."