The Ranch Stud

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The Ranch Stud Page 12

by Cathy Gillen Thacker


  “Friends like Max,” Patience assumed slowly.

  Cisco nodded.

  Patience was silent. She knew, although it was one of those things that was never discussed, that Max had done much the same thing for Cisco years and years ago.

  She didn’t know what kind of trouble a teenage Cisco had been in, only that Max had helped extricate him from it. And that the subject had never since been discussed. The problems in Cisco’s past had been sufficiently wiped out to allow him to turn his life around, attend college and law school and join the bar. In return, Max had welcomed Cisco’s deep loyalty to him and made him his attorney. He had also confided in Cisco many things. As a result, Cisco and Max had become very close.

  Was it possible Max had done the same for Josh, Patience wondered, by taking him under his wing and giving him a job? And that this was one of the reasons Josh felt beholden to Max? And was he agreeing to marry her, perhaps even sire a child for her, out of that same sense of indebtedness? Or was something else motivating Josh to go along with this crazy marriage of convenience and baby-making idea? Something neither she nor Cisco was seeing?

  “Do you want me to keep looking?” Cisco asked.

  Patience shook her head adamantly. “No. I have the feeling that whatever Josh is hiding from me is not in any official documents or files.” Her gut feeling was that Max or Josh—or both—would have seen to that.

  “You doing okay otherwise?” Cisco asked.

  Patience nodded. And it was true, if you discounted the fact she was falling hard for a man she wasn’t even quite sure she could trust any more than she had been able to trust Alec Vaughn. But that was not something Cisco or anyone else could help her with. She would just have to figure that out for herself.

  Knowing she had taken up far too much of Cisco’s time, and her thirty minutes apart from Josh were about up, Patience stood. “Thanks for checking Josh out,” she told Cisco. She felt sort of relieved.

  “No problem. I’m always here for you.”

  Patience headed out the same way she had come in, via the back route. She was shocked to see she wasn’t the only one who had selected the alley as a path. Josh was deep in conversation with none other than Holly Diehl.

  Before Patience could figure out what they were doing, or even attempt to decipher what was being said between the two of them in low, urgent whispers, Josh glanced up.

  As their eyes clashed and held, Patience saw his shock. His remorse. His guilt. And knew he had not wanted her to find this out. Stunned with the depth of her hurt, furious at her own naiveté in believing Holly was only a client to Josh, Patience wheeled away. She had to get the heck out of there. Fast. Before she did or said something they would all regret.

  PATIENCE WAS ALREADY behind the wheel of the Silver Spur pickup when Josh caught up with her. Apparently sensing correctly that she not only was prepared to leave without him but had been hoping that would be the case, he swung himself up and into the passenger seat.

  Patience slammed into reverse, backed out of the angled parking space in front of Pearl’s with a screech and slammed right back into drive. Josh’s jaw was tense with anger, too, as she headed toward the ranch in silence, but the fervent explanations she expected from him never came.

  Mile after mile of Montana grassland passed, and still no word, not so much as a sigh from Josh.

  Finally she turned at the ranch road and headed up the drive to the house. Still nothing from Josh. And Patience found she had nothing to say to him, either. Her shoulders stiff with a combination of hurt and resignation, she parked and got out of the truck.

  “I’m going to look in on the foals,” Patience said.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  She was aware of Josh shadowing her as they threaded their way through the horse complex to the foaling barn. She was also aware she hadn’t felt such a flood of emotion since Alec had jilted her years ago. Tears stinging her eyes, Patience wondered if she would ever stop making such a fool of herself over men. She certainly knew how to pick ‘em, as Max would’ve said. The only problem, she thought bitterly, was that Max had picked this one, too.

  To Patience’s relief as they walked down the aisle, checking stall after stall, all the foals were nursing contentedly at their mothers’ sides. Would she ever feel the same joy? she wondered miserably. Or was motherhood destined to elude her, too?

  “At least some of us around here are doing well,” she murmured beneath her breath. Figuring she had seen enough, and been with Josh long enough, she started to step past him.

  Josh stepped with her, blocking her exit out of the barn. Capable hands braced on his hips, long legs planted combatively apart, he looked as if he’d had just about enough of the silent treatment from her. And for one fleeting moment, she wondered if she had erroneously jumped to conclusions. Then she flashed back to the guilt she had seen on his face when he was standing there with Holly Diehl, and she knew she hadn’t misjudged anything. Something was going on there that he did not want her to know anything about.

  “There’s an explanation for what you just saw in town if you want to hear it,” Josh began grimly.

  Patience stiffened. “You don’t owe me any explanation, Josh.” We’re not married yet. The way things were going, they were not even close to it anymore.

  “Yeah, well, I think I do,” he said reluctantly.

  Patience angled her chin up at him, daring him to try to hoodwink her again. “I admit the possibility of you already being close to someone did not cross my mind until today,” she told him coolly, as if this all were nothing to her. As if he were nothing to her. She drew a stabilizing breath. “But in retrospect I realize Max and I both were fools not to anticipate this.” Me especially. I should have known better.

  “Anticipate what?” he demanded tersely.

  “Your involvement with Holly Diehl. Obviously, she is more than a run-of-the-mill horse owner to you.”

  Josh blew out an exasperated breath and shook his head in silent remonstration, which ended in a quick grimace. “Holly Diehl means nothing to me, Patience. Do you hear me? Nothing.”

  How could Holly mean anything when he associated her with one of the worst times of his life? Josh thought. When Holly had been a pivotal force in keeping him from the woman he had still loved with all his heart and soul….

  “STOP IT, JOSH. You’re not getting out of here,” Holly Diehl had said the first time he had tried to leave.

  “The hell I’m not.” Fed up with the hiding and the lying, fed up with feeling like a damn prisoner in his own home, Josh strode for the door. Only to be cut off at the pass by a determined woman with a gun. “You know you can’t leave,” Holly continued. “Not until you finish what you started.”

  Josh slammed his duffel bag onto the floor. “I never agreed to all this.” Revenge, yes. Two long years of hell in hiding, no.

  “You owe us, Josh. You owe him.”

  Josh fell silent. He had never said he did not want justice. He did. He burned for it, every hour and every minute of every night and day.

  “You have to forget the past,” Holly countered with the easy practicality he had come to hate. “You have to move on.”

  Josh felt the muscle in his jaw start up again. “That’s easy for you to say,” he told Holly angrily. “You didn’t have to watch helplessly while those thugs beat the living daylights out of first him and then you. You didn’t see your only family burn to death in that car. You didn’t have to give up—” Josh’s voice caught in his throat at the thought of everything else he had, however inadvertently, lost. He shook his head, unable to go on. Wishing he could relive that time changed nothing. He knew that, and had for months now.

  Holly touched his arm lightly. “I know what you’re thinking, but he put himself in that trap, Josh,” she said gently, doing her best to soothe him with what she perceived was the truth. “There was nothing you could have done to save him.”

  Maybe and maybe not, Josh thought bitterly as he ran his
hands through his hair. “If only I’d paid attention. Noticed something, anything, sooner,” he whispered, noting there was no end, and would never be an end, to his regret.

  “And where would that have gotten you?” Holly challenged without empathy. “You were not equipped to deal with those men. We are. Face it, he did what he did. Just as you must now do what you have to do.”

  Josh turned away, his sense of failure and loss still acute.

  “It’s not as if there’s anything left to go back to,” Holly persuaded softly but firmly, laying a hand on his arm. “Like it or not, it’s all gone, Josh. Everything.”

  “Meaning what?” Josh retorted angrily, shrugging off her touch. “I’m to be a rolling stone from this point forward?”

  Holly shrugged and, predictably, offered not an ounce of sympathy. “It could be worse. You could be dead,” she pointed out sagely.

  In many ways, Josh thought, he already was.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said gruffly at last, knowing Holly was right, that he had no other options. “Maybe this is what I deserve.” The loneliness he would feel the rest of his life would be a punishment for what he’d done. Not just to himself and the family he loved, but to Patience McKendrick. Beautiful, sweet, innocent, fiery Patience McKendrick.

  Holly shook her head. “You’re thinking of her again, aren’t you?”

  Josh refused to pretend otherwise. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and answered gruffly, “Knowing how she must feel about everything that’s happened—what little she knows of it—it’s hard not to think of her.” His mood went from brooding to tortured in an instant. He gritted his teeth against the ache in his heart. “Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but the end result is that I’ve ruined her life and I’ve ruined mine.” And for that, Josh had thought sadly then and now, he would always pay….

  “DOES HOLLY KNOW how you feel about her?” Patience persisted.

  Josh folded his arms in front of him. He regarded her silently, refusing to disclose more. He had given away far too much as it was, just allowing himself to be seen with Holly. Yet with Patience hot on the heels of his past, how could he have done otherwise? he thought resentfully. He had to protect himself and her.

  “1 realize now what a quandary Max has put you in,” Patience continued.

  Josh focused on her hurt and bewilderment and it was all he could do not to take her in his arms. “That quandary being?” He took her rigid hand in his.

  “The fact that you already have another woman in your life. I suppose it’s natural for you to want the opportunity Max has afforded you by offering you half share in the horse-breeding operation. Not to worry. I have no intention of putting myself in a position where I could be jilted again, either before or after the marriage.”

  Sadness filled Josh, along with the frustration that he could never tell her everything. “I wouldn’t jilt you, Patience,” he said quietly.

  Patience shook her head and laughed bitterly.

  Josh’s despair deepened. He tightened his grip on her fingers when she would have swept by him and tugged her back to his side. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  Tears filled her eyes and rolled silently down her cheeks. But they did not alter the proud tilt of her head as she defiantly pried her fingers loose from his. “Alec once promised me he would never leave, either,” she admitted in a low tone laced with bitter amusement. She lifted her eyes to his, every defense neatly back in place. “It was an empty promise.” She drew a shaky breath and added stubbornly, “I am not opening myself up to that kind of hurt again.”

  Josh studied her upturned face and knew she meant it. But try as he might, he couldn’t relive the past for her, fix things or make them right. Nor could he bring Alec back to her. “Is that why you were investigating me?” he inquired, feigning an inner tranquillity he couldn’t begin to feel.

  Patience went completely still. All the color drained from her face. “How did you know about that?” she demanded, trembling visibly.

  “The McKendricks are not the only ones who have friends in high places. I’m capable of discovering things on the sly, too. As for the rest,” he said, trapping her between the stall door and himself, “I am not involved with Holly Diehl, not in the way you think.”

  Josh watched as the blood drained from her face and her lips tightened. “So you said,” Patience acknowledged in a low, jealous voice.

  “She was a friend from my days at veterinarian school,” Josh continued, telling as much of the truth as he could, while at the same time revealing nothing that would get either of them in any more trouble than they were already in. “She heard from mutual friends of ours that I was being checked out by Cisco Kidd on your behalf. That was why she called me this morning, from the guest quarters on the ranch, and why she insisted I meet with her in town, because she was leery of discussing what she had to say to me over the ranch phone system.”

  Patience regarded him warily, as if she still sensed— damn correctly as it happened—that he wasn’t telling her everything. Nor, suddenly, did she seem to care, and without warning, her eyes went all misty and romantic. As if she were as helplessly drawn to remembering the past as he was. And that could only mean even more trouble for them both, Josh knew. “You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” he demanded ruthlessly, wishing she would stop so they could both move on with their lives.

  Though he sensed she knew exactly who he meant, she gave him a deliberately enigmatic look. “Who?”

  Josh did not want to play games. “You know who,” he retorted harshly, wondering what it was going to take to regain her trust again. “Alec Vaughn.”

  “So what if I am thinking of him?” Her temper flared, reflecting in her eyes and her voice and her determined stance. She tossed her head, her pale, wheat blond hair flying like a silken halo about her face. “Why should you be angry about that?”

  “Because I am.”

  “Why?” she demanded in a careful tone that warned of simmering anger.

  Josh braced an arm on the door beside her head and leaned in close, aware of Slim leading a horse just outside the other end of the barn, within earshot. “It bothers me, all right?” he murmured in her ear so only she could hear, then drew back so she could see deeply into his eyes. “I don’t want to see you hanging on to something that is over, especially when you know that Alec is not coming back, not ever.”

  Patience bit her lip and he knew from the lingering sorrow in her eyes that she wasn’t going to apologize for the love she still—and perhaps always would—carry somewhere deep inside her. “Knowing something is true in your head and feeling it in your heart are two different things,” she murmured back, the hurt and loss she still felt thickening her voice.

  Josh wanted to shake her. He wanted to say the hell with Slim and pull her all the way into his arms and comfort her, but he knew she wouldn’t accept it. Fighting for control of his desire and the whims of his heart, he let out a long breath.

  “You resent that, don’t you?” she said softly.

  She’d hurt him, but not the way she had intended, Josh thought. He backed away from her. “I resent the fact that you’re deluding yourself,” he replied with harsh authority, knowing he more than anyone else was an expert on that subject. He straightened and glowered down at her. “Alec is gone,” he announced firmly. “And unless you can accept that, there is no future for us.” Not waiting for her reply, he turned on his heel and stormed out.

  JOSH WAS OUT IN THE YARD before Patience realized he had just initiated their second thirty-minute break apart. She didn’t know if they should be taking it yet, since they still had more than twenty-four hours left before the wedding. She didn’t know if they should try to stay together and save their breaks for later…when they might very well need them even more.

  All she knew for certain was that she didn’t want to use Josh to recapture the magic, mystery and excitement of her romantic past with Alec. And, she admitted to herself, in some stran
ge way she had yet to completely figure out why she linked Josh with her time with Alec. They had the same explosive chemistry, the same quick intimacy. What they didn’t have was trust. Or time. And as she watched him storm away from her furiously, she wasn’t sure they ever would.

  Muttering her frustration with him all the while, she headed out the opposite way, deciding now was as good a time as any to search for her missing cat, Tweedles. Around the paddocks she went. Past the corrals. Through the barn where the stallions were kept to the one containing the mares, past the bunkhouse and down around to the hay barn, where the feed was kept.

  As Patience stepped inside, she became aware of how sunny and quiet it was in the hay barn. She tiptoed back through the various storage areas, then up the wooden stairs to the second floor, where she, Trace and Cody had sometimes played when they were kids.

  There, in the back of the loft, was Tweedles, nestled in the hay. Surrounding her were six tiny Persian kittens, all nursing contentedly at their mama’s side.

  “So here you are,” Patience whispered delightedly, sinking down into the hay beside her. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Don’t you think it’s time we got you and your babies back to the house?”

  JOSH WATCHED PATIENCE dash off, realizing all too late he had just taken their second thirty-minute break apart. He swore heatedly as he continued storming across the yard. Normally he was, part by nature and part by choice, a very guarded man. Around Patience McKendrick, all that seemed to change. He found himself saying and doing things he had sworn he would never do. Worse, he didn’t see that changing anytime soon. She pushed buttons in him that hadn’t been pushed for years, buttons that had never been pushed before.

  “Josh—thank heavens. I need to talk to you!”

  He turned to see Holly Diehl standing just inside the hay barn. His lips thinned unhappily. Wasn’t it enough that Holly and her cohorts had promised him the moon and instead ruined his life? Did they have to shadow his every move, too? He strode toward her, his anger growing by leaps and bounds. All he needed was for Patience to see him talking privately with Holly again and all hell would break loose.

 

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