by Regina Duke
Axel glanced at the paper. “Are you planning to keep a scrapbook of my activities?”
Taylor tilted her head to one side. “If it will help us write this biography, I’m willing to try anything. The sooner we finish, the better.”
Axel snorted. He’d been so busy fantasizing about how cute she was, he’d forgotten how annoying she could be. “Buckle up. Have you had breakfast? I picked up coffees and donuts at The Muffin Man.”
Taylor inhaled gratefully. “Are you already trying for Employer of the Year?” She pried the lid off a styrofoam cup and sipped at the contents. “Mmmm. Perfect temperature. Any maple bars?” She opened the white pastry bag and selected a sleek, heavily frosted maple bar.
Axel grinned. Maybe she was just grumpy because she hadn’t had her coffee yet. Traffic was light at this hour, and after his late night pounding the keys, he was just as glad. “Do you mind handing me one of those?”
Taylor wrapped the bottom half of a donut in a napkin and handed it over.
“Thanks,” said Axel. “So how shall we start? Have you got a plan?”
“Once we get to the cabin, I can set up my laptop and we can go from there. I spent time online last night researching a few biographies of famous figures. And frankly, I wasn’t too impressed. They were like reading history books.”
“I seriously doubt that’s what my father has in mind. He told me he wants this to be a gift for the family. Everyone will get a bound volume. And he wants a lot of information in there about my mother, too.”
“What’s her name?”
“Marla. She died almost two years ago.” The painful memory snuck up and stabbed him in the heart, even after all this time.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Taylor frowned. “I thought I heard someone say your father is married. Second wife?”
Axel grunted, not a pleasant sound. “Bambi. Can you believe that? Who names their kid Bambi?”
“A Disney fan?” Taylor sipped coffee. “I take it you don’t approve.”
Axel took a deep breath and let it out. “My father’s a grown man. He can do what he wants. Never mind that all his kids think she’s a money-grubbing gold digger. She hasn’t stopped writing checks since the day they got married.”
Taylor perked up. Maybe this would lead to some dirt on Lester. “You think he’s letting her spend your inheritance?”
Axel shook his head. “I don’t care about that. My mother’s family had money, too. She made sure everything she brought into the marriage was divided amongst us kids. She told me once she never wanted us to do without. She said she’d done enough of that for all of us combined when she was a little girl.”
Taylor licked icing off the last third of her maple bar. “She sounds like a very practical woman. May I ask how she died?”
“Plane crash.”
“Oh no.” Sympathy flowed with the words. “I’m so sorry. Was it one of those awful tragedies in Malaysia?”
“No. Small plane. She was involved in a lot of businesses on her side of the family, mostly located in Florida and Georgia. Big manufacturing plants, set out in the suburbs. She was very hands-on. And she had a plane and a pilot. When she went to board meetings, she flew.” He shuddered. “To this day, I can’t get on a four-seater. Not even on the ground. The pilot was killed instantly, but Mom…she survived the crash, for a while. At least I got to spend her last few weeks with her.” He felt his eyes sting with the buildup of tears and wiped them away furtively. “It was rough. When people ask, we just say she died in the crash. The rest is too painful to relive.”
“That’s so awful,” said Taylor.
“Are you close to your mother?”
Taylor shrugged. “I suppose I was when I was little. But I was mostly a Daddy’s Girl. By the time I went away to college, it was like my mother and I came from different planets. Even now, she looks at me sometimes and gets this expression on her face like she’s wondering, ‘Who took over my daughter’s body?’ She’s the perfect CEO’s wife. She handles all of my father’s entertaining. She goes with him whenever he needs her, and she’s Daddy’s representative at charity events.”
“Is she happy?”
Taylor shrugged. “I guess so. She’s still married to my father. That means she’s happy, right?”
Axel’s brows rose. “You never know. People stay together for lots of reasons.”
“Was your mother happy?”
Axel’s chin trembled for a moment. He cleared his throat. “I think she was. During those last few weeks, we talked a lot when she was lucid. Sometimes she didn’t know what had happened or where she was. Sometimes she thought I was a little boy, and every now and then, she thought I was her high school sweetheart. But mostly she was coherent. When she was conscious. I kept my computer nearby and when she’d ask me to tell my siblings things, I’d write them down so I wouldn’t forget.”
“Gee, that must be powerful stuff.”
Axel felt guilty. “It was. It is.” He glanced at her sideways. “I haven’t had the nerve to go back and read it in a long time.”
“So you haven’t shared it with your family?”
“No.” And there were lots of parts he would take with him to the grave. He just couldn’t bring himself to erase the files.
Taylor gazed out the window as the SUV labored up the hill toward the cabin. “Those files may come in handy before we’re through with this biography,” she said.
“We’ll see,” said Axel, even though he’d already decided there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of him including those conversations with his mother.
Taylor tapped on the side window. “I thought you only had reindeer and alpacas. Where did the horses come from?”
Axel leaned forward to peer beyond her toward the barn, where a dozen horses milled about, pulling hay free from a bale beneath the hay shed. “Oh no,” he groaned. “There must be a hole in the Lazy B’s fence!”
CHAPTER TEN
Axel was out of the vehicle as fast as he could go. “I’ve got to make sure they didn’t get into the grain and pig out,” he said, trotting for the barn.
Taylor was right behind him. She counted twenty reindeer scattered about, pawing through the snow to find grass. A few were sheltering beneath some trees, nibbling on a crust of lichen. They were watching the horses as if they were curiosities sent over for their amusement.
The eight alpacas were a different story. They were in the corral, and they were not pleased. They bleated and complained, probably telling Axel that someone was eating their hay. That thought made Taylor smile. Then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to be enjoying herself.
She followed Axel into the barn, and sure enough, two horses were feasting on a sack of grain they’d knocked over.
“Oh no,” he said. “I’d better call Lucy and get some help over here. I hope these two don’t get colic.” He pulled out his phone and punched up Lucy’s information.
While Axel fussed with his phone, Taylor examined the horses. One was a buckskin mare with a black mane and tail, the other a blue roan gelding. The mare moved away when she approached, but the gelding turned thoughtful eyes in her direction and tossed his head as if to say, “Hi, how’s it going?”
Taylor glanced around. Axel had left the barn. She spotted a coil of soft rope and picked it up. She let her muscle memory imitate what she’d seen the grooms do a hundred times at her Central Park stable. A moment later, she gently laid one end of the rope over the gelding’s neck, made a loop on the other end and slipped it over his nose.
“You are a sweetheart,” she said softly. “Obviously someone’s pet. Let’s see if we can help Axel deal with your buddies out there.” She led the gelding to a bale of hay and used it as a mounting block. A moment later, she was up, riding bareback. The gelding’s ears were alert and his manner was relaxed. She leaned forward and touched his sides with her heels. He moved obediently beneath her. The skittish mare decided she didn't want to stay in the barn alone and loped past them out toward
the reindeer. Once outside the barn, Taylor rode the roan over to an astonished-looking Axel.
“Ask her what the blue roan gelding is called,” she said.
Axel repeated her question, and then relayed the response. “Thunder. His name is Thunder.”
“Is she sending someone over to round up the others?”
“Yes,” said Axel. “And she’s coming herself.” He spoke into the phone again, then ended the call. He leaned against the corral and looked up at her. “I’m impressed. Where did you find the halter?”
“I made it.” Taylor tried not to sound too smug. After all, it was just a little emergency halter. “Don’t you have any tack in that barn?”
Axel shrugged. “I do now, thanks to you.”
“No, I mean real tack. Bridles, saddles, harnesses?”
“Lucy gave me some old harness for the reindeer, but so far, I’m just trying to learn how to keep them alive and healthy. I don’t have a sleigh or anything. She’s got that stuff over at the Lazy B. She helps the Cattleman’s Christmas fundraising for local animals by giving reindeer-drawn sleigh rides to the kids.”
While Axel talked, Taylor indulged herself, using her feet and legs to put Thunder through a few paces.
Axel shook his head. “You’re not even pulling on the halter.”
“No need,” she said. “Someone has spent a lot of time with this big boy. Makes me homesick.”
“I thought you hated the country. After yesterday’s mud fiasco, I figured you for a total city girl.”
“I am a city girl,” said Taylor defensively. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know horses. I ride in Central Park every chance I get.” And she wished she was there right now, with Jackson. “Wait here. I’m going to persuade those two paints to come back and join the group.”
Taylor thoroughly enjoyed herself, showing off her equestrian skills in front of Axel. When Lucy Baxter and two ranch hands showed up, driving a beat-up old gray pickup, Taylor was pleased by the expressions on their faces. It gave her a thrill to have someone appreciate her abilities on a horse. Goodness knew she’d never seen that look of approval on her father’s face.
Axel introduced her to Lucy. “Taylor, this is Lucy Baxter, the lady who sold me the land.”
Taylor slipped effortlessly off Thunder’s back and led him over to Lucy. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “I adore your horse.”
Lucy’s gray frizzled hair and the laugh lines around her eyes made her look pleasant even when faced with wandering equines. She shook Taylor’s hand and took the offered lead rope. “It’s not often we have city folk come out who actually know how to ride,” said Lucy. “Maybe you can talk this fellow into adding a horse or two to his menagerie. It just feels wrong to have a beautiful new barn like his and not put horses in it.”
Taylor nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. I think I like you, Lucy.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” said Lucy. “Jeff, get Thunder saddled up. I’ll collect Ruby and we’ll take this lot back home. Red, you follow us in the truck and repair that fence once we’ve gone through it.”
With Lucy taking charge, things moved quickly. Soon, Taylor and Axel were waving goodbye as Jeff and Lucy herded the rest of the horses toward her property. Red followed along behind, driving the old truck at a snail’s pace to keep from rushing the horses.
Axel turned to Taylor. “I hope you don’t mind, but before we get started, I need to make sure the reindeer are all accounted for and settle the alpacas down a bit.”
“The reindeer look nice,” said Taylor, wishing she’d had more time with Thunder. “Do they like people?”
“I’ve got twenty here, and I’d say ten of them tolerate being handled. A couple are very friendly, almost like pets. The rest are just livestock. They’re all caribou and could care less about people, unless we’re delivering hay. But Lucy told me they’ll make good breeding stock.”
Taylor was beginning to feel more and more comfortable. It wasn’t Central Park, but the barn and corral were new. “I think I like the reindeer,” she said. She climbed up on the fence and perched on top of a post, turning sideways to examine the alpacas. “Are the alpacas friendly?” She reached out to pet one.
“They’re a little upset right now,” said Axel.
And just as he said that, the alpaca nearest Taylor spit all over her. She shrieked in disgust. “He just puked on me!”
Axel patted the air to calm her down. “It’s just rumen. It smells like puke, but it’ll wash off.”
Taylor jumped down and stood staring at the green mess all over her blue hoodie. “What is it with you and my clothes?”
“I’m really sorry,” said Axel, but he couldn’t entirely hide the fact that he was laughing at the sight of her. “Look, just add it to my bill, okay? And maybe you should stick to horses and reindeer. Come on inside. You can get cleaned up. I’ll bring your things in from the car.”
Once inside the cabin, Taylor stripped off the hoodie and dropped it on the floor. She found a kitchen towel, wet the end, and tried to clean the rumen off her designer jeans. Most of it came off, and she was mollified to see that it hadn’t soaked through her hoodie to her silk blouse. The rumen was so nasty, it made the rustic bare-bones cabin almost acceptable.
After a few minutes, Axel came in, set her computer and her purse on the only table in the cabin, and found a plastic trash bag to stuff the hoodie into. He disposed of it outside. “Seriously,” he said, “make a list. I’m going to owe you a complete wardrobe at this rate.”
Taylor busied herself with pulling her computer out of its case and turning it on. “You enjoyed that way too much,” she said tartly.
“Actually, what I enjoyed the most,” said Axel, sounding sincere, “was the sight of you on the back of that horse. Even Lucy was impressed.” Axel opened a cupboard and pulled out coffee and filters for the pot.
“Don’t try to sweet talk me,” Taylor grumped, but inside, she was pleased. “I’m surprised your father wants you to write his biography. You two are nothing alike.”
Axel set the coffee down with a bang. “How on Earth could you possibly know that?!”
Taylor froze. Her eyes darted from side to side, looking for an explanation. At last, she sputtered, “Well, he’s supposed to be a famous businessman, right? And you’re more like a farm boy.” She spread her hands, hoping that would cover her gaffe. She couldn’t remember how much she was supposed to know about Lester Garrison.
Axel relaxed. “Oh, right. He probably told you all about our disagreements when he hired you to be my assistant. Sorry. When it comes to my father, I’m super paranoid. Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” Taylor’s fingers shook as she opened her word processing program. Pembroke hadn’t said anything about pretending that Lester Garrison had hired her. He’d made it sound like he was sending her out as a favor, not that she was being paid by Lester. She would be sure to chew him out later. He’d almost caused her to blow her cover, and that would mean no corner office, no cushy job, and no fat salary. And if he’d sent her all the way out here, to work under these conditions, he’d better be prepared to make good on his promises, or else!
Most of the rest of the day was devoted to setting up an outline for the biography. But Taylor’s heart wasn’t in it. Her introduction to Thunder made her long even more for Jackson’s company. At one, she took a break and walked around outside the cabin just so she could make a private phone call and talk to Jackson.
Axel seemed cooperative enough as they worked, but Taylor felt that his attention was also elsewhere. His conversation rambled from his love for Colorado to his dream of being a writer and how that affected his relationship with his father. She took notes but knew his heart wasn’t in the biography. All he wanted to do was go out and play cowboy. And frankly, she couldn't blame him for that. She enjoyed their time outdoors. She loved the reindeer. She wanted to see their harnesses and hear the bells ring, and she wanted to brush them out and touch their antlers. She didn't care m
uch about the alpacas. They could stay in the corral for all she cared and never show their faces.
At the end of the day when Axel drove her back down the hill to the Cattleman's Inn, Taylor realized that once again she would be spending her evening trying to type up notes from memory, because once the outline was established, they’d taken their conversation outdoors and done very little hands-on work with her computer.
After a quick shower, she ordered room service. Her brain was still humming with the thrill of riding Thunder and inhaling alfalfa and fresh air.
Clean and warm in soft pink sweats, she settled on the big sofa to watch the sunset. Her mind wasn’t ready to concentrate. Her father was expecting her to call later, but she wasn’t sure how long she’d be awake after so many hours in the fresh air and sunshine. She decided she would call Daddy early and surprise him.
She picked up her phone. Eight o’clock in New York. She’d try his office first. His landline wasn’t even digital. Daddy could be such a dinosaur.
A male voice picked up. “Hazen Industries. Donald Hazen, Vice President of Marketing speaking.”
Taylor bristled. Vice President of Marketing?! Was her father handing out titles to everyone? “Don? Why are you in the City? What do you mean, vice president?”
“Oh. Er, hi Taylor. Um, Dad and I were just…talking over a few things.”
Taylor’s mood shifted from suspicion to anger. “Well, put him on the phone,” she snapped. “I’ve got a few things to discuss with him myself!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Axel did his evening chores, doing a headcount of his livestock as he spread hay and filled feeders. This was usually the best part of his day, but this evening, he was consumed by thoughts of Taylor. She’d ridden Thunder like a natural. No, more than that. Like a girl with years of horseback riding behind her. And the memory of her thighs and pert behind becoming one with that horse would not leave him alone. Where had his father found her?