by Home Fires
Ty drew his hand away from Angel’s face and swallowed his fear. “Not so good.”
Dickenson swore and paced across the barn to look over the stall door. His brows lowered. His eyes narrowed. Evie dropped her head to sniff the floor. “You think it’s founder?”
“Don’t know.”
Colt remained still for a moment, then turned and handed his reins to the guest, who took them with obvious misgivings. One horse was probably more than she’d handled in her lifetime. Two was going to give her fits. “Go find some low buckets,” he ordered, watching Angel again.
“What?” Ty’s voice cracked with strain.
“Hurry up now,” Colt ordered. “Find some buckets or pans or something. Anything that’s waterproof and big enough to fit her feet in.”
Ty shook his head, half obstinate, half hopeful. “Casie said to give her more bedding.”
“Let’s not worry about that just yet.
“Linette,” he said, addressing the lady behind him, “tie our mounts to the hitching rail out back, will you?”
“I’m not sure how to—” she began, but she stopped herself. “Okay,” she said and turned away, carefully jockeying the pair of horses between farm equipment and a dozen other obstacles.
“What’s going on?” Casie glanced toward Linette’s retreating form. Her hands were full of bottles and syringes.
“We’re gonna hose down her feet,” Colt said.
“You think it’s founder.” There was terror in her voice.
“Even if it’s not it won’t hurt her.”
She zipped her gaze to Ty’s. Tears stung his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them fall.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said and heaped a little more guilt on the already teetering pile; it wasn’t right to lie to Casie.
“I told him to fetch something to put her feet in.”
She nodded. “Look in the sheep barn,” she said. “We’ve got a bunch of buckets in there.”
“You got a hose in here?” Colt asked.
Casie shook her head. “Closest one is by Em’s garden.”
“Get that, too, will you?” Colt said.
Ty hurried away. By the time he had returned, Linette was there, too.
“How serious is it?” she was asking. Her tone was smooth and unruffled. But then Angel hadn’t listened to her fears in the deepest part of the night.
Ty shifted his gaze to Casie and felt her worry like a knife in the heart. “It can be pretty bad,” she said.
The woman nodded. “How can I help?”
Casie shook her head and managed a smile. If he lived to be a hundred he would remember that smile every day of his life. How it could shine through in the darkest times. How it lit up his life. How it made the world better. “Don’t worry about it, Linette. You’re on vacation. We can take care of this.”
“I want to do something.”
“Really, there’s no need. You should go to bed. We’ll just—” Casie began, but Colt interrupted without looking up from where he was attaching a hose to the hydrant a few feet from Angel’s stall.
“You get them horses taken care of, Lin?”
“Yes.” She nodded, face solemn, wrinkles highlighted by the uncertain light. “I put the saddles in the tack-up room.”
Tack room, Ty thought, but no one corrected her.
“Explain this scenario to me,” she said and nodded toward Angel.
“Laminitis causes the sensitive structures of the foot to become inflamed,” Casie said.
“And then?”
“If it gets bad enough the swelling can cause the coffin bone to rotate inside the hoof.”
“What causes it?”
“There are a bunch of possibilities, but it could be a result of the colic.”
“We’re going to try to get her to stand in cold water to reduce the swelling,” Colt said.
Linette nodded. “I imagine an animal as opinionated as a horse could resist that.”
“Most do. Getting them to remain still long enough to do any good can be a real pain in the—” Colt began, but Casie interrupted him.
“She’ll do it,” she said and glanced up. “She’ll do it if Ty asks her to.”
And despite everything, his ignorance, his terror, the knowledge that he was not, and would never be, the person Casie thought he was, Ty felt his heart swell a little.
“Then you better ask her nice, son. Get her right foreleg in here,” Colt said. And the struggle began.
By midnight Ty was exhausted and wet and cold, but Angel was finally standing perfectly still, all four feet fetlock deep in icy water. She heaved a sigh, looking more relaxed. Cocking her right hind, she shifted her weight a little. Linette, stationed beside that leg, hurried to steady the bucket she was standing in.
“She seems to be feeling a little better,” Colt said.
Casie nodded. “Yeah.” She glanced toward the cowboy, but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Colt said. “Linny was tired of riding anyway.”
She smiled from her position on the floor. “I wasn’t tired,” she said. “But my derriere was beginning to voice a few complaints.”
“You’re going to have to get some calluses on that thing,” Colt said.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Casie said to the little woman seated in the straw by Angel’s hind legs. “This probably isn’t what you had in mind for your vacation.”
Linette shrugged, a leisurely lift of narrow shoulders. “Your Web site did say all inclusive.”
Dickenson grinned. “Consider this a crash course in equine management.”
“Well, the lesson’s over for tonight,” Casie said. “Sleep in as long as you want. We’ll make breakfast whenever you get up.”
“We?” Colt asked, raising a brow toward Casie.
“I can cook if I have to,” she said.
Ty shifted his gaze toward Colt, whose lips hitched up some at the corners.
“If you don’t wanna get even skinnier than you are, you’re gonna have to get on Em’s good side,” he said and winked slyly at Linette.
“Listen,” Linette said, “you don’t have to worry about me. I can look after myself.”
“Well, you should look after yourself in bed,” Casie said. “You’ve done more than enough here.”
“What about Tyler?” she asked. “Doesn’t he have school tomorrow?”
“She’s right. You have to get home,” Casie said, worry edging her tone, but Ty shook his head.
“I can sleep here. In the stall. One day won’t matter. I’ll just—” he began, but Casie was adamant.
“If your grades slip they might not let you—” She shifted her gaze toward the door, throat constricting. “We’ll take care of her. You don’t have to worry.”
And yet he did. About Angel, about himself, about her. But she was right. He could lose the right to come here, to see her, to breathe. He watched her for a second, then nodded and stepped toward the stall door.
“How about I stay?” Linette said. “I can take the first watch, keep changing the water so it’s good and cold. If there’s a problem I’ll wake you immediately. Otherwise, I’ll let you sleep for a couple hours.”
“No,” Casie said. “Absolutely—”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Colt said.
From his position outside the stall, Ty saw Casie shoot Dickenson a withering glance, but the cowboy didn’t wither easy. Instead, he shrugged. “I’d stay if I could, but I gotta get home. We’re sorting calves tomorrow, and Dad’ll bust my hump if I ain’t bright eyed and bushy tailed come dawn. Hey, hold up, Ty,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride.”
Ty considered refusing, but one glance at Angel’s contented expression changed his mind. She was good for now, but she would need him later. “I got some stuff to get from the house first,” he said and headed out.
Their voices murmured behind him, arguing softly, but when he stepped out of the barn,
another noise distracted him.
A car turned into the driveway. Sleek and dark, it pulled into the turnaround spot fifty feet from the house and went silent. The yard light was distant and far overhead, but it glowed off Sophie’s hair as she turned toward the driver.
Her date was good looking. Even in the poor light, Ty could see that much. His hair was blond and carefully unkempt. He was broad shouldered with well-proportioned features. His lips turned up, showing expensively aligned teeth as he laughed at something she said. One wrist was draped over the steering wheel in a casual sign of passive possessiveness.
Something twisted like a blade in Ty’s gut, but he continued toward the house. He didn’t care what Sophie Jaegar did. Didn’t care if she dated every money-soaked hipster west of the Mississippi. It had nothing to do with him.
He picked up his pace, striding resolutely up the hill. A light remained on in the kitchen. It only took him a moment to gather up the corn muffins Emily had left for him on the kitchen table. Stepping out the door, he refused to glance at the sleek Camaro. Neither would he wait around for Colt. It wasn’t far to walk to the Dickensons’ farm. He’d done so a hundred times and he could sure as—
But a noise interrupted his thoughts, a raised voice coming from the Camaro. He snapped his gaze in that direction, breath held. Even from that distance, he could see arms flailing.
And that was all he knew. One moment he was standing outside the house, the next he was jerking the car door open and dragging the driver out by his suit coat.
CHAPTER 13
“Hey!” The hipster stumbled, trying to get his footing, but Ty slammed him up against the back door of the car, knocking the wind from his lungs.
“Leave her alone!” His voice sounded guttural, barely recognizable to his own ears. Rage flared through him like a torch, burning his gut as he glared up at Sophie’s date.
“What the hell, man!” Hipster began, but Ty knocked his fist up against his chest, rapping his spine back against his slick muscle car.
“Ty!” Sophie’s voice was shrill as she bounded out the passenger door and around the bumper. “What are you doing?”
“What’s he doing?” he snarled, but he didn’t allow himself to glance toward her, didn’t let his gaze stray in that direction because he knew what he would see. Beauty and class and brains, none of which were meant for him. He tightened his grip on the other kid’s coat.
“Ty, for God’s sake!” Sophie hissed. “Let him go.”
“Did he hurt you?” Rage had burned down to glowing embers now, allowing a little more normalcy to his tone, enough lucidness to permit himself to glance her way. She was exactly as he saw her in his dreams, strong and stunning and dismissive.
“What?” Her voice was pitched high and frenetic.
The hipster laughed, spine bent back against his car, body almost relaxed, smirk firmly in place. “Dude, who the hell are you? Her lapdog?”
Rage flared again, causing Ty’s fist to tighten without intent in his shirt, but Sophie spoke before the rage turned to something more deadly.
“Shut up, David!” she snapped but didn’t turn toward him before speaking to Ty. “Let him go,” she ordered, but he couldn’t.
Instead, he clenched his jaw and twisted his fist in David’s coat. “Did you?” he asked.
“Did I what, dude?” His voice was rife with disdain.
Ty’s fist trembled with his emotion, but he held himself in check. It was not a simple task. “Did you touch her?” he snarled, but in that second, David snorted and brought his arms sharply up, knocking free of Ty’s grip. There was a loose-limbed strength to him, an almost unconscious bravado that had been familiar to Ty since the day he was born.
Ty backed carefully away, narrowing his eyes against the rage, steeling his body against the violence that was sure to come. “Have you been drinking?” His voice was little more than a feral whisper, now.
“What? Who the hell is this guy?” David asked, but he didn’t turn toward Sophie as he voiced the question.
“Ty,” she said, addressing him instead. There was something in her voice that drew his gaze, his attention, the weakness in his soul. “Just let it go.”
But he couldn’t. “There’s alcohol on his breath,” he said.
“What the hell is it to you?” His words were scoffed.
A dozen emotions stormed through Ty, but he corralled them all, cordoned them off, reminded himself that some people were social drinkers. Some people could do that without anyone getting hurt. “You okay?” he asked instead.
“Yes,” she said, but her tone was taut. “I’m fine. He just …” She sent David a caustic glare. “Forget it. It’s nothing.”
He swallowed, suddenly shaky, marginally sane. “He didn’t touch you?”
“Touch her! Good God, get a grip, man,” the hipster said. “What do you think she is, the Virgin Mary?”
Ty felt something roil in his stomach. Felt his eyes narrow. He knew he should back off. Knew he should back away.
“What’d you say?” he asked.
“Geez, man …” He snorted and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s a prime little piece just waiting to be stroked. But maybe you already tapped that, huh? Maybe you already—”
That’s when Ty hit him. He had no choice, no will of his own, and no compunction to stop. He just raised his right fist and slammed it into the other man’s face. David spun like a top against his shiny car, but in a moment he had steadied himself. In the next he had turned and was barreling into Ty, bent double. They went down in a tangle of legs and arms. The breath rasped from Ty’s lungs in a hard whoosh of pain. He brought his knee up with all the force he could muster, driving his opponent away from him, but David came back at him, swinging with both fists. Pain snapped against his cheekbone. He rolled in a fury, pinning the other man beneath him, scrabbling to hold him down.
But suddenly he was dragged away, punches landing in thin air, kicks falling on nothing.
“I said stop it!” The voice rumbled through the yard like a freight train. It did nothing, however, to slow David. He leaped to his feet and plowed toward Ty, but suddenly he was stopped, too, pulled to a halt and bound in place. It took Ty a moment to realize Colt Dickenson had his arms wrapped around the bastard’s torso.
Ty struggled for a second, then forced himself to go perfectly still, forced himself to think. His breath was still coming hard, but his mind was settling into some kind of sanity. Colt’s dad, Monty, held him from behind, arms like iron bands around his chest.
“What’s going on here?” His voice was like Colt’s, only more so, deeper, older, craggy as the bluffs overlooking the Chickasaw. Ty didn’t answer.
“He attacked me,” David said. “Came out of nowhere. Pulled me out of my car and started beating on me.”
The night was silent but for the sound of their breathing. Sophie stood flush against the Camaro, watching Ty as if he were a wild animal. Casie watched him, too. He didn’t know when she had arrived, but he could feel her gaze on his face, could feel her disappointment like a knife in his gut.
“Ty …” Her voice was soft, low, heavy with concern. “What’s going on?”
He wanted to speak, to ease the worry in her eyes, but the guilt was too thick to allow his tongue to move. He looked away, but she didn’t give up. Why didn’t she ever give up?
“Ty, talk to me,” she said and moved a step closer. “What’s going on?”
It was almost impossible to open his mouth, to defend himself, but he would do it for her. “I thought they was fighting. Thought he was …” Words failed him. Rage boiled up, curling his fingers into fists again, making his chest ache as if it were about to explode.
“Simmer down,” Monty said. “Just take it easy.”
“Sophie?” Casie said.
He could feel her turn her attention toward the girl, could feel Sophie’s glare sharpen even though he wasn’t looking at her.
“I’m fine,” she
said.
David snorted again. “Of course she’s fine,” he said.
Ty ground his teeth, and perhaps he leaned into Monty’s containing grip again, but the older man tightened his arms.
“She’s okay,” he rumbled. “She ain’t hurt. You hear that, son?”
Ty forced a nod. Monty loosened his grip a little. “You gonna be good now?”
Good! Like a kid who can’t be trusted with the cookie jar. He nodded again, face flaming.
“How about you?” Colt asked.
David straightened. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Colt turned him loose. David shook out his arms.
“He took me by surprise. That’s all. One minute we were sitting in the car talking and the next he was coldcocking me.”
The night went silent again.
“Is that what happened?” Monty Dickenson asked. Even in the darkness, his eyes looked hard as steel as they turned toward Sophie. For one crazy second, Ty was tempted to step between them, tempted to shield her from his glare.
But her glare was just as potent when she turned it on the old man. “I said I was fine,” she repeated.
Mr. Dickenson’s brows rose. Ty had learned fairly early on that most folks didn’t question Monty Dickenson’s authority. “That’s not what I asked,” he rumbled, but Sophie had already turned her attention back to Ty.
“You stay out of my business!” she snarled.
“I’ll do that,” he said, “so long as you don’t go acting like some—”
“Hey!” Colt spoke up as if shot. “That’s enough now.”
Silence echoed in the yard. Ty pursed his lips and gazed off toward the creek.
“We’re all tired,” Colt said. “You, what’s your name?”
“David Pritchard, sir.” He sounded like an ingratiating pup. The words scraped against Ty’s ears like steel against steel. “I’m Jim’s son.”
“Jim and Stephanie Pritchard, the attorneys?” Monty asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Colt exchanged a glance with his father. “Well, I’d suggest you get home,” Colt said. “We’ve had enough trouble here for one night.”