by Deb Kastner
“What did I do wrong now?” she asked, thoroughly exasperated with the entire experience.
He frowned down at her. “You let go of the lines.”
“Of course I did. How else could I hand them to you?”
He shrugged. “And what if the horses had bolted? Those lines would be long gone by now. You and I would be eating dust.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that, and certainly her worthless book hadn’t mentioned such a possibility.
This was supposed to be an easy transition from regular riding to team driving.
Easy, ha!
She’d botched it up, just as she’d bungled every other project she’d attempted since coming to South Dakota. Another tent falling on top of her, and this time Erik was here to see it and laugh at her mistakes. Although at the moment, he wasn’t laughing.
“I just thought you’d want to take over,” she retorted sharply.
Like you always do.
His gaze met hers, probing and searching. Or was it teasing? She couldn’t tell, with the brim of his hat shading his eyes.
“You thought wrong.” He offered her the lines, which she accepted after considering his shadowed expression a moment longer.
Erik let her look her fill, knowing she couldn’t read what was really in his heart. He’d turned away from her a hundred times, and a hundred times she’d turned him back, made him face the demons haunting him.
It was better for a man just to come clean with Dixie. She always wriggled the truth out of him anyway. He admired her spirit, just as he admired everything else about the small, plucky woman.
“You’ve got the left-to-right part down,” he explained awkwardly. When she frowned and creased her forehead in that little-girl concentrating look she had, he decided once again that words were useless. At least to him they were.
Clamping his mouth shut, he showed her how to strip the lines shorter in her hands without letting go of either piece of worn leather.
“This will give you more control,” he said after several minutes, when she appeared to have mastered command of the lines.
She nodded, still concentrating furiously.
“Relax,” he coaxed, just as he had when she learned to ride Victory.
Dixie took everything way too seriously, especially horses. “This won’t be much different than riding. Cindy and Suzy have been a team for years now.”
She blew out a breath and visibly relaxed her posture. The movement caused the book on her lap to slide to the side, lodging next to Erik’s thigh.
With a chuckle, he picked up the book, waving it in front of her nose. “How to Drive a Team in Five Easy Lessons?” he teased, though the actual title was something far less innocuous.
“Team Driving for Dummies,” she countered with a laugh.
He slid a finger down the soft, peaches-and-cream skin of her cheek, then chucked her lightly underneath the chin. “You’re no dummy.”
She smiled, though a shadow passed over her face. “Thank you.”
“So, are you gonna drive this team, or are we just going to sit out on this old hay wagon all night?”
“Cindy, Suzy, git up!” This time, the horses sprang forward, causing them both to lurch back in their seats.
“Still have the lines tight?” he asked, adjusting his position and replacing his arm behind her back. For reassurance, he assured himself, and not just because it felt good to put his arm around her.
“Yep,” she said in an exact imitation of his low drawl.
“You sound like a regular cowboy,” he teased.
She smiled hesitantly, and then her eyes grew wide as the horses lumbered toward the pasture, apparently taking it upon themselves to choose a route.
“What trail are we taking?” she squeaked, her voice high and tight.
Erik pointed to the left, where a wagon trail had been etched from the land by the stable hands. “That one there will take us to the steak.”
“I wish.” He heard the rumble of her stomach, offering its own opinion on the many benefits of a thick steak dinner.
“No supper?” he queried lightly.
She shook her head, and he struggled to keep his lips firm when they wanted to slide into a grin. Maybe he’d really surprise her, for once, with something nice, something she wouldn’t take offense to. Maybe he was finally figuring the woman out.
But he wouldn’t bet his paycheck on it.
“If you don’t tell me how to turn this thing, we’re going to be taking another route, right into that tree up there,” she said, her voice teasing, if tight.
“Cindy, Suzy, go haw,” he said, turning his attention to the horses, who immediately followed his command, moving to the left and toward the correct trail.
“How did you do that?” she demanded, glancing curiously at him. “I thought the one with the lines did the driving.”
He just shrugged, afraid he’d ruined the moment with his casual instructions, which came second nature to him.
“You drive them with your voice?” she persisted when he didn’t answer.
He shrugged again. “Mostly.”
“Teach me,” she pleaded, her voice low and earnest. “I want to learn.”
Her insatiable need to learn was one of the things he loved most about Dixie. He was one cowboy who thought he was beyond learning new tricks, but she’d proven him wrong, again and again.
“You know most of it. Use their names. Gee for right, haw for left. Go for forward, come for back.”
“That’s all?”
“Pretty much.” He gestured to the driving whip posted in one corner. “Some people direct their horses with a whip.”
“A whip? Isn’t that rather barbaric?”
She sounded truly affronted, and he chuckled. “Not really. You don’t actually whip the horses. Just touch their flanks to let ’em know where to go.”
“Oh. I see,” she said, sounding like she didn’t see at all.
Erik couldn’t stop smiling. Without realizing it, Dixie was lightly handling the lead lines, guiding the team down the trail.
“I think I’ll just stick to using my voice and not a whip,” she said at last.
He watched as she maneuvered the team over a small creek without so much as a whinny from either horse. She was a natural and she wasn’t even aware of it. If only she knew.
Pride swelled in his chest, though there was no good reason for it. He sure couldn’t take any credit for her natural talent and her unwavering willingness to try and try again until she got it right.
Clearing the frog from his throat, he turned his attention to the book in his hands. “Can’t believe someone wrote a book on how to drive horses.”
She glanced at him, a smile in her eyes, then returned her attention to the team, still a little too stiff in her movements, as if she were afraid of doing the wrong thing. “They have books on just about everything.”
“I suppose they do,” he said, astounded. He flipped through the pages, noting the illustrations. “Hey, look how this guy is holding the lines.”
She leaned her cheek on his shoulder in order to see the picture he was pointing at, and he inhaled a large whiff of peaches from her hair. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the strong, sweet scent.
He was glad he wasn’t driving. He’d probably land the wagon in a gully.
“They explain how to hold the lines correctly,” she said, using her elbow to point to the man’s hands. “But this guy is doing it one-handed, and with four horses instead of just two!”
He leaned his head in toward hers until they were both hunched over the book, laughing as he turned the pages to find other pictures of the one-handed team driver.
“Look at that one,” she said, laughing and pointing to another picture. “He looks like he’s going to go straight through that fence.”
“He probably did,” Erik replied gruffly. “What’s he supposed to do if one of his horses balks?”
“I don’t know. I can’t ev
en see how he could hold all those lines in one hand. I’ve got two hands full with only two horses.” She sniffed in mock disdain. “You’d think a how-to manual like this one would—”
Her words cut off abruptly as she glanced up.
Erik’s gaze followed hers. Their laughter turned into simultaneous gasps of breath as the horses headed straight into a copse of trees.
“Oh, no,” Dixie exclaimed, pulling hard on the lines. “Whoa, Cindy, whoa, Suzy. Good girls.”
Erik had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing, but he knew instinctively that was the last thing he should do right now.
Dixie would laugh about her circumstances later, but not right now, not while they were headed into heavy wood and toward the streambed. Her forehead was already creased with exertion.
“Cindy, Suzy,” he said, hoping Dixie wouldn’t be too angry with him for helping out once again. “Come gee. Easy now. That’s it, darlins.”
The horses, calmed by the tenor of Erik’s voice, backed slowly until they reached the point they’d left the track.
“Git up, girls,” Dixie said, her voice tight, as she directed them back to the trail. “That’s the way.”
Erik sat with his hands in his lap, gripping the book, unsure what to say, but pretty sure she was mad at him again.
At least until she flashed him a grateful smile.
“I’m glad you’re with me,” she admitted, her gaze fixed on the trail ahead of them.
She sounded almost shy, Erik thought, amazed. The same woman who would take on a mountain, and she was being shy around him.
It couldn’t be because…no. He stopped that thought before it formed.
Dixie was off-limits to a rough-and-tumble cowboy like he was. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to see her happy, wanting to know he’d been the one to place the smile on her face.
“This is the spot,” he said suddenly.
Dixie, her mind thoroughly occupied keeping the team on an even keel over the bumpy trail, looked up, startled. “The spot for what?”
He couldn’t be talking about the steak dinner area, because she knew that area had been cleared and settled with picnic tables, a barbecue pit and a large, central campfire.
Given that, they obviously hadn’t yet reached the end of the trail.
She glanced at him with raised eyebrows, but didn’t make the mistake of locking gazes with him this time.
“Just pull over.”
And stop asking questions.
It was usually what he didn’t say that meant so much more than the words that came out of his mouth.
“All right, already,” she said, protesting, as she coaxed the horses to a halt.
Erik rolled off the buckboard and reached his hands up to her. “Come on.”
She gestured to the lines still laced through her hands. “What am I supposed to do with these?”
He tipped his hat off his head and tossed it into the back of the wagon, his eyes gleaming.
What, your book didn’t tell you that?
She narrowed her gaze on him. “I obviously need some help here.”
Obviously.
But he didn’t say it aloud. He never did.
Instead, he reached up and unlaced the lines, then set the wooden brake and looped the lines around it.
“Now will you get down?”
He raised his arms again, but she ignored them, choosing to jump off the buckboard on her own.
She landed hard, but pride kept her from saying ouch when her right ankle turned underneath her. She pulled her mouth into a hard straight line against the pain.
“I’m down. Now will you tell me what we’re doing in the meadow, out in the middle of nowhere?”
Despite her actions to the contrary, he obviously noticed her distress. He leapt to her side and took her arm. “Easy on that leg.”
Before she could protest, he’d swept her into his arms and was tramping across the bright-green meadow, which, she noticed as she laid her cheek against the musky, rough flannel of Erik’s shirt, was in full bloom with a contrast of wildflowers of every size, shape and color.
A lovely place for a picnic. If only she’d remembered she hadn’t eaten dinner and had thought to pack some food along.
Her stomach growled. She felt Erik’s chest move as he chuckled, though she couldn’t hear a sound. He even laughed silently.
Affronted, she tensed. “I told you I didn’t eat dinner,” she said, trying not to sound huffy.
“You shouldn’t treat your stomach that way. It’s protesting.”
“Well, there’s not much I can do about it out here in the middle of nowhere, now is there?”
He looked down at her and grinned. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the same moment her gaze caught his.
Intense. Yearning. Teasing. It was all there, and more.
That brief glimpse into his soul was more than enough to make her try to wriggle from his grasp, twisted ankle or no twisted ankle. Her skin felt warm and tingly, and her heart beat an erratic tempo in her throat, which completely ruled out the possibility of breathing.
She wasn’t ready to confront the emotions she felt.
And neither, it appeared, was Erik, for he didn’t struggle against her, but released her onto the soft grass underneath a thick lodgepole pine. Lucy joined her under the tree, curling up against her side and promptly falling asleep.
“Stay put,” he said, his voice unusually low and husky. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one struggling to be casual when she felt anything but.
Rubbing her right ankle, which she noticed absently was beginning to swell, she watched Erik walk back across the meadow to the hay wagon.
What an incredible man he was, outside as well as inside. He was a Western woman’s wildest fantasy, a combination of every cowboy hero she’d ever seen on television and then some.
Except the real thing was so much better.
She would never have believed such strength and gentleness could reside within the same body, especially in a man. Yet Erik was just that—a rough-edged cowboy with the kindest heart she’d ever known.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. For once, she was able to see the things he did for her through his eyes. Even now, hiking back across the meadow with a picnic basket in one hand and brown woolen blanket folded over his other arm, his expression was a peculiar combination of eagerness and anxiousness.
He probably thought she was going to read him the riot act for doing yet another project without asking her permission first.
And he was probably right, under usual circumstances. What a mother hen she was becoming! She didn’t have a clue why she was so churlish with him.
He certainly didn’t deserve it. She knew deep down in her heart everything he did, he did for her.
Like giving her this much-needed break. He was a man of action, not of words, and no amount of nagging on her part was going to change that. He’d seen what needed to be done, and he did it, no questions asked.
But she saw his jaw tense as he approached. “I brought dinner.”
It was a lovely surprise, and for once Dixie took it at face value. Also for the first time, she was going to surprise him, as well.
“That was very thoughtful, Erik. Thank you.”
While he stood staring and groped for words, she reached for the blanket and unfolded it, allowing him to help her slide into a comfortable position on it before she took the proffered basket.
“Nothing much,” he protested with a shrug.
“Yes, it is.” She smiled up at him and patted the blanket next to her. “Sit down, and let’s see what we can do about taking that growl away from my stomach.”
He dropped to his knees beside her, his dark hair creased where his hat had been. He scrubbed a hand over his scalp when he noticed the direction of her gaze.
“Should have cleaned up first.”
“For a picnic? Nonsense.” She scr
ubbed a hand along her own scalp, knowing she was doing far more damage to her hairstyle than he’d done to his. “Besides, the windblown look is in these days.”
He barked out a laugh and reached for the fried chicken leg she offered him. It was like music to hear him laugh, though she suspected he had more humor inside than he often let show. She was glad he could loosen up some around her.
“Did you go on many picnics as a kid? Church picnics? Family picnics? Extended family picnics?” she asked, thinking he wasn’t really the picnicking type.
His face shadowed with pain. “No.”
She put a hand on his forearm, feeling the tension there. “I’m sorry. I’ve obviously stumbled on a touchy subject. Forget I said anything. I don’t want to ruin our lovely picnic.”
He smiled, but she could tell it was forced. “It’s okay, really. My mother…” He looked away across the meadow for a moment. The silence was broken only by the sound of the birds in their summer glory.
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
His gaze flashed back to her. “Yes I do. My mother used to read the Bible every evening to us, right before bed. She made us go to church and Sunday school. And church picnics.”
“What happened?”
He looked down at the blanket and began picking small specks of grass from it and shaking them away. “She died in childbirth with my youngest brother when I was eight.”
Raw pain pierced her heart as she saw the hurt little boy in his eyes.
“My father didn’t know how to go on without her, so he just pretty much ignored us boys.”
“Boys?”
“There are three of us. I’m the oldest, then Ethan. Everett—Rhett—is the baby. I had to take care of them because Dad wouldn’t.” He lifted her hand from his arm and laced his fingers with hers.
She was glad for the comfort he drew from her. And it certainly explained why he was so angry at God.
Dear Lord, You’re the only one who can help him, she prayed, her heart nearly breaking in two.
Their gazes met, and he smiled softly, genuinely this time. “I’m just glad to be here with you,” he admitted.
“Me, too,” she agreed, choking on the words.
Glad. And scared out of her wits.