One Fine Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  “Mine,” Charlie whispered to herself. She got up and rejoined the group.

  “Okay, folks, this is it,” Nate said. “Phaedra, you still want that black from the first pen, right? And Taylor, you’re set on that paint gelding?”

  The two nodded.

  “Doris, you want the buckskin from the Rock Creek herd, right? So the only one who still has to choose is Charlie.”

  “I chose.” Charlie gestured toward the mare who was nipping at another horse that had dared to step into its space. Nate watched as she bucked and set off running again, galloping around the enclosure.

  “Look at her tail carriage,” Charlie said. “And her muscling. She’ll make a great reining prospect, right?”

  “Not with that temperament,” he said. “She’s impossible.”

  “So am I,” Charlie said. “You said so.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a compliment,” he muttered.

  “We’re kindred souls,” Charlie said. “We’ll understand each other. You’ll see.”

  “You’re crazy,” Nate said.

  The horse jerked to a halt ten feet away, breathing hard, then spun and galloped away.

  “See? She’s crazy too. We’re just alike, me and Trouble.”

  Nate groaned. “You named her?”

  “No, you did,” Charlie said. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”

  Nate shook his head. “I don’t want her on the ranch. She’ll be disruptive. Fire up the other horses.”

  “I love her more every minute,” Charlie said.

  Nate stared at her and she stared back, arms folded over her chest, jaw squared. He looked away first.

  “All right,” he said. “You’re here to learn, and I guess she’ll teach you a thing or two.”

  ***

  The BLM required one-horse trailers for each animal, so only Trouble and Phaedra’s black gelding were coming home on the first trip. Both horses braced themselves at the foot of the ramps, refusing to climb into what they probably saw as a Dark Box of Doom—but after much coercing and a little tugging and shoving, the horses seemed to sense their resistance was futile. At some mysterious tipping point, each one suddenly thundered up the ramp and into the trailers to stand shivering in the unaccustomed confinement, facing the wall. Naturally, Trouble took the longest to get to that point.

  “Won’t they freak once we get moving?” Phaedra asked.

  Nate shook his head. “Generally not. Once they make up their mind to accept a situation, they resign themselves to whatever comes.”

  “A pretty good philosophy, really,” Taylor said.

  Charlie tossed him a scornful glare. He’d evidently resigned himself to abandoning his daughter ten years ago. She wasn’t sure what had changed his mind and brought him around, but it surprised her how readily Phaedra forgave him. She’d given up more than the Goth makeup; she’d given up her surliness and sulking as well, and become a model child.

  Charlie thought it was tragic. She missed the old Phaedra. And it made her wonder if she’d have sold her soul for a father at that age.

  Probably. Watching Taylor sling an arm around his daughter’s shoulders, she thought maybe she still would.

  “So horses are kind of like Buddhists,” Phaedra said. “They forgive easy, and they accept their situation and live in the moment.”

  “Pretty good summary,” Nate said.

  “Shoot.” Phaedra kicked at the ground. “I’m, like, the opposite of a horse, then. I carry a grudge, and I never settle for the status quo. And I live for the future. For when I’m done with school and stuff.”

  “Me too,” Charlie said.

  It was true—especially the last part. She’d spent all her life preparing for some unknowable future, when she’d put her education toward some kind of meaningful work. But maybe it wouldn’t be with horses after all. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to truly understand an animal whose philosophy was so different from her own.

  Maybe she should work with kids instead—teenagers, like Phaedra, who thought more like her.

  Or maybe she should just grow up. Grow up, and stop wishing for things she couldn’t have.

  Chapter 27

  Charlie leaned on the paddock gate, watching the mustangs munch their morning hay. Nate and Taylor had picked up the last two horses, and the group seemed to have worked out new family roles already. Phaedra’s black gelding and Doris’s buckskin were the kids, eating greedily, focused entirely on the food. Trouble was more watchful, munching contemplatively, lifting her head occasionally to check out her surroundings, her ears twitching forward and back as she scanned the paddock and the pasture beyond for threats. She was obviously taking on the matriarchal role.

  Meanwhile, Taylor’s big paint gelding stood watchfully by. Suddenly he stiffened, widening his stance and raising his head, then lifted his tail and unleashed a torrent of pee into the dust of the corral.

  “Some nice nonverbal communication for you there,” Nate said, grinning. “That’s how stallions say hello to unwelcome company. Guess he still remembers what it’s like to be a man.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a technique that would transfer well to people,” Charlie said. “Kind of messy.”

  “But so handy when that obnoxious neighbor shows up at dinnertime,” he said. He stepped up beside her and jostled her shoulder. It was a friendly, joking gesture, the kind of thing a guy might do to his kid sister—but it sent a jolt of lust through Charlie that made her clutch the railing and take a deep breath.

  Nate nudged her again, gently this time, and she turned and met his gaze. The look he gave her was anything but brotherly. One more second and they’d be rerunning that kiss—or that scene in the bedroom.

  She looked away and gazed off across the plains. She’d miss Nate when she went back to Jersey. She’d miss all this open space too. Plucking a few leaves from a nearby sagebrush, she crushed them between her fingers and breathed in its sweet, surprisingly strong scent. It permeated the air here, combining with the ranch scents of horse and hay and leather to create a sort of Eau de Latigo that seemed heady and exotic compared to the smoggy scent of New Brunswick.

  A plume of dust in the distance drew her eye. She pointed it out to Nate. “Looks like a Jeep. A red one.”

  Nate peered at the dust cloud, then paled. “Trouble,” he muttered.

  “My horse?”

  “Your horse is a baby lamb compared to what’s coming. I have work to do.” Nate practically ran into the barn. That was evidently how cowboys said hello to unwelcome company—or avoided saying hello.

  At least he hadn’t peed in the dirt.

  She watched the oncoming car bounce up the driveway with a mixture of envy and admiration. It was a red Jeep Cherokee, the perfect mixture of style and sense—every bit as cute as the Celica, and tough enough to take anything the rocky road to Latigo dished out.

  Cute and tough. That was a pretty good description of Charlie herself—or at least, she liked to think so. She was no great beauty—her figure was too bony, her features too bold—but she knew from the reactions of men like Nate and Taylor that she had a certain appeal.

  She squinted into the sun as the jeep pulled to a stop in the wide dusty delta fanning out from the end of the driveway. Shading her eyes with one hand, she watched as the driver’s door opened and a long, denim-clad leg eased out, capped with a pointy-toed black cowboy boot tooled with twining red roses. Charlie could almost hear the wah-wah soundtrack as the long leg was followed by slim hips and a shapely butt.

  Funny. There weren’t supposed to be any more students. Ray said Sandi had four deposits, and all four were accounted for.

  So who was this?

  Backlit by the setting sun, the new arrival swept off an Aussie-style cowboy hat and tossed her head, spinning out a golden halo of glossy blond locks. Charlie was a firm believer in female solidarity, but she couldn’t help feeling an evil stab of envy as the woman propped an elbow on the top of the jeep and struck an artful supermodel pose to con
sider the rickety ranch house. Tall and slim, the woman was a dead ringer for Heidi Klum—only younger, and possibly prettier.

  Unclenching her teeth and smacking down her inner bitch, Charlie pasted a welcoming smile on her face. The newcomer’s svelte figure was encased in slim silver-washed jeans, a crisp white fitted shirt, and a fringed black suede jacket that shimmied with every graceful movement. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a Western wear catalog, or left some exclusive Denver soirée. Not only was she attractive; she had the suave self-possession that always graces women gifted with beauty.

  “You must be a friend of Taylor’s,” Charlie said, proud of her deduction. Women like this didn’t soil themselves with messy stuff like horseback riding. Women like this found themselves a rich guy—preferably a film star or rock singer—and agreed to function as the ultimate decorative accessory, thereby earning him the envy of every man on the planet. In return, said woman was offered a life of languorous ease that consisted mostly of displaying her incredible beauty at poolside, in limos, and at exclusive, high-toned parties.

  She was obviously slumming today.

  “Taylor who?” The woman gave Charlie a blank, empty look that still managed to be a seductive masterpiece—lips slightly parted, eyes wide, head cocked at a quizzical twenty-degree angle.

  Charlie wasn’t fooled. She was sure the woman had followed Taylor here, nose to the ground like a hound dog, following the seductive scent of money.

  “Taylor Barnes,” Charlie said. “You know, Chance Newton.”

  The woman’s perfect lips tipped upward in a faint smile. “Oh, so that’s why that name sounded so familiar.”

  “Familiar?” It was Charlie’s turn to try on the blank look. She did the wide-eyed part okay, but she had a feeling she’d muffed the head-cock.

  “I knew I’d heard that name before when I saw it on the check.”

  The check. Charlie felt as if some demon had wrapped a black hand around her heart and squeezed. This perfect creature, this goddess of the Western plains, had Taylor’s check. Who had the check? Sandi.

  Therefore, this perfect, stunning creature was Sandi.

  Nate’s girlfriend. Sam’s mother.

  No wonder she’d left. Standing in front of the ranch house, she looked like an exotic bird of paradise that had been torn from her exotic emerald jungle and tossed into a dusty, dilapidated henhouse.

  And no wonder Nate looked so mournful all the time. He’d had this goddess for a consort—and now he was reduced to bedding ordinary mortals like Charlie.

  Charlie resisted the impulse to box her own ears. The inner jealous bitch was bad enough. Now her insecure geeky teenager was running wild. She tamped them both down and lifted her chin, looking Sandi straight in the limpid blue pools God had given her for eyes.

  “I’m Charlie Banks. One of Nate’s students.”

  “Oh. I’m Sandi. Sam’s mom.”

  Sam’s mom. Not Nate’s girlfriend.

  Hmm.

  Having dispensed with her psychologically challenged alter egos, Charlie turned her attention to wrestling with the writhing tentacles of the green monster that was wrapping itself around her subconscious. She had no right to be jealous. She and Nate had a fling. Nothing more.

  “So where is he?” Sandi asked.

  “Nate? He’s in the barn,” Charlie said. “He’ll be glad to see you.” It was tough to get the words past her clenched teeth, but she managed it.

  “No, he won’t.” Sandi laughed, a high, melodious tinkle. “And I wasn’t asking about Nate. Where’s Taylor Barnes?”

  She pronounced the name as if it tasted good—as if Taylor was a sweet chocolate truffle waiting to be plucked from the box and popped between those perfect lips. No doubt the truffle himself would go willingly. Charlie felt a stab of sympathy for Nate.

  “Taylor’s in the bunkhouse with the other students,” she said, setting off across the yard. She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you want to know where Sam is?”

  “She’s with her dad, right?” Sandi rolled her eyes with even more drama than Phaedra could muster. “She’s always with her dad when we’re here.”

  Charlie nodded. She’d guessed right. Nate and Sam were a unit, while Sandi, lovely as she was, was the third wheel in the household. She swallowed her jealousy and resolved to be kind.

  “I’ll introduce you to the other students,” she said, giving Sandi a friendly smile.

  Sandi nodded. “Doris Pederson, right? And Paulette Barnes?”

  Charlie glanced back. “Paulette Barnes?” She blinked. “Oh. That must be Phaedra. Our token adolescent.”

  “She’s a teenager, yeah,” Sandi said. “Phaedra?”

  “That’s what she calls herself,” Charlie explained as they mounted the steps to the bunkhouse. “She uses just one name. You know, like Madonna.”

  “Like Cher,” Phaedra—or Paulette—said as they stepped inside. But nobody heard her. Taylor looked like he’d been pole-axed, and even Doris stopped mid-story with her mouth half-open when Sandi sashayed into the room.

  The only person unaffected by the woman’s poise and beauty was Phaedra. Well, not unaffected—just affected differently. The appearance of the Goddess of Blondness seemed to have short-circuited whatever part of the teenager’s brain housed her manners.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  “I’m Sandi. Your hostess.”

  Phaedra scowled. “Charlie’s our hostess,” she said.

  Sandi whirled to face Charlie, her eyes narrowed and hard as a snake’s, but the expression was so fleeting Charlie almost thought she’d imagined it as the woman’s face smoothed into its customary serenity with disconcerting ease. It was like watching a shape-shifter.

  “I’ve been helping out,” Charlie said. “Nate couldn’t take care of everything on his own.”

  Sandi sighed. “Nate can’t take care of anything on his own. Can’t, or won’t.” She shook her head as if she was talking about a fractious two-year-old. “I figured he’d manage to swim if I threw him in the deep end. Looks like he conned some other sucker into bailing him out, though.” She looked around the bunkhouse. Her eyes paused on the wildflowers in their blue glass jars, the neatly made beds. “Looks like he’s doing all right.”

  “Yeah, he’s doing great,” Charlie said. “His ranch got inundated with strangers who expect him to spend all day every day teaching them about horses. They also expect him to feed them and clean up after them. Then he hit his head and practically killed himself, and then his kid showed up out of nowhere with no warning. And now you’re here. Oh, yeah. He’s doing terrific.”

  Sandi shrugged, tossing her head as if to discount Nate’s issues, then turned a radiant smile on Taylor.

  “Well,” she said. That was all she said, but her tone said a lot more. Charlie couldn’t help bristling. She remembered the way Nate had stared down at Honey’s reins when he first mentioned Sandi, the muscle that had flexed in his jaw as he’d wrestled with his inner pain.

  Judging from the way Sandi was looking at Taylor, that pain was going to get a lot worse. And there was nothing Charlie could do about it. There’d been a time when she’d felt like she could make Nate feel better—at least for a while.

  Now that she’d seen Sandi, she realized she’d been wrong.

  This wound was going to leave a scar.

  Chapter 28

  Nate was sweeping the long alleyway that fronted the horse stalls, gathering loose straw and dust into a tidy pile at the doorway. The barn didn’t need sweeping, and all his work would be undone as soon as he led the horses back in from the pasture, but he had to do something. He had to keep his mind busy, and he had to have something in his hands, because they were shaking.

  A hot stew of anger and resentment boiled in his stomach. Sandi had told him she never wanted to see the place again. Why was she back? To see if he was doing the clinic? To gloat over the predicament she’d put him in? To ruin whatever relationship he might build with s
omeone else—someone like Charlie?

  Or had she come to take Sam back?

  She couldn’t. He wouldn’t allow it. Sam needed stability—a home she could count on. Shuttling her back and forth between Denver and the ranch would only confuse her.

  He dragged a few stray strands of hay into the pile. A shadow fell over the floor and he looked up to see his ex standing in the doorway.

  “Hi,” she said.

  She didn’t sound glad to see him, but she didn’t sound upset either. Last time he’d seen her, she’d been screaming at him, stuffing her clothes and cosmetics into a suitcase, and calling him every name she could think of. Now she seemed reasonable. Rational. In control.

  What was that all about?

  “Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here,” she said. “Thanks for the big welcome.”

  “You left. You said you were done with the place. Done with me.”

  “I am. Well, almost.” She leaned in the doorway, crossing her long legs. Backlit by the sun, her hair glowed like a golden crown. She really was beautiful, he thought. On the outside.

  Inside was another matter.

  “So what are you doing here? You hate this place, remember?” He quoted her own parting words. “You hope you never see it again. Or me. So why are you here?”

  “We need to settle some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how we’re going to split things up.”

  Split what up? She’d already taken everything he had. Everything but the ranch—and she sure as hell didn’t want that. She’d always hated it. He went back to sweeping, raising a cloud of dust with short, angry strokes of the broom. “Take whatever you want, Sandi. You know I don’t care about stuff. Just leave me what I need to keep the place going, okay? And if you want any furniture, maybe you could wait until the clinic’s over. It was your idea, after all.”

  She stepped into the barn, brushing the dust off her arm where she’d leaned against the wall. “I don’t want any furniture,” she said. “Place is full of junk.”