He grins. “I care about your safety.”
She holds up the rifle she’s been carrying around with her. “I have this, and Louise. But it would be nice to have a key so I could lock up.”
“I can get you that. And I’ll talk to Hank. We could move you up to the house with him and his mom.”
She bobs her head. “Or not.”
Gene doesn’t laugh. “About that.”
“About what?”
“You and Hank.”
Maggie tenses, doesn’t look at him. Stares at the cabin, thinks about bolting.
As if reading her mind, Gene walks to the back door. “Me and Hank have been together longer than most married couples. I knew him before and I knew him after you left him with nothing but a scrap of paper in Cheyenne. When he hurt his head at the next rodeo. When his father took sick and died. When we struggled to get this business off the ground. When his mother slipped away and became a different person. When he saw you had destroyed yourself and it nearly killed him. Honestly, for a long time I thought he was going to follow you off the deep end.”
Maggie can’t help it. She meets his gaze, her eyes searching for any exaggeration in his words.
“He tried to contact you, you know.”
She closes the ground between them and grabs Gene’s elbow, all pretense dropped. “What? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Pride, I guess. He got escorted out of one of your shows in Denver by bouncers when he tried to go backstage. Cussed out by your agent. And turned away from your rehab clinic because he wasn’t family.”
“He would have told me.”
Gene enters the cabin and checks the doorknob. Now he’s the one avoiding eye contact. “Ask him.”
A tear slips down Maggie’s cheek. “I didn’t know.”
Gene walks to the front door and examines that knob, too. “He said he sent letters to the only address he could find back then.”
She mulls that one over until the answer comes to her. “My publicist. But I didn’t get them.”
Gene walks from window to window, making sure they’re locked. “Now, how was he supposed to know that? He just finally gave up. It was a bad time for him, and he had to get it together.”
“Oh God.” Maggie scrubs the tears away. Hank could walk up at any moment. She doesn’t want him to see her like this.
“And when he found you again in Texas? That’s probably the happiest I’ve ever seen him, by the way. Happier than when he met you, even though you were meaner than a snake.” He smiles at her. “But then Hank’s always liked a little mean, in bulls and in women.”
“I—”
He holds up a hand. “And the worst day? When you sent him back to Wyoming without you last spring. Because he knew then exactly what he’d lost.”
Maggie’s voice escalates. “But he hasn’t lost it. I was scared. I’m here now. Ready for a second chance.”
He holds up one finger, then two, then a third. “Higher mathematics tells me this would be a third chance.”
She groans. “If he just hadn’t hooked up with the Sunday school teacher, we’d be together now. She’s a child, Gene. He’s dating a child.”
“What’d you expect—he’d sit around pining for you? Waste the rest of his life turning down women who weren’t you, again? You hurt him. Twice.”
“He hurt me!” Maggie drops her face.
Gene shakes his head. “Well now, holding on to that must make it all better.”
She knows she hasn’t given Hank enough credit, hasn’t believed in him enough, and the realization rocks her. She doesn’t deserve a third chance.
Maggie doesn’t watch Gene walk out, just lies down on the bed and cries softly, until a cold, wet nose pushes against her face.
There’s a rapping sound on the screen doorframe.
She yelps.
“The offer still stands on saddling Lily, although I don’t imagine you feel up to it now.”
“I sure don’t want to hang out here.” She wipes her tears and stands. Riding Lily sounds Zen. Or as close as she can get to it, with her life like a swarm of mosquitos in a bug zapper.
Twenty-One
Gene makes a step out of his hands and flexes his legs. Standing beside the tall mare with the big belly, Maggie stares at him from under a cowboy hat. He’s pretending none of the emotional conversation earlier happened, and she appreciates it.
“Put your foot in my hand. I’m giving you a leg up.”
“Ah. Last time I used a mounting block. That worked pretty well.” She manages a half smile. The Excedrin she took before she left her cabin is starting to work on her headache.
“We’re expanding your capabilities.”
Even with his help she struggles to capture the saddle horn and mount gracefully. “Getting on this creature, I’m like a bear on a balance beam.”
“Bears are pretty graceful. I was thinking more like a fish flopping around in the bottom of a boat.”
She gives him a middle finger salute.
“There’s the Maggie I know and love.”
“Aww. You love me.”
He rolls his eyes. “Stay within sight and shouting distance, in case you have trouble.”
“I’ll be fine, Grandma.”
He pats Lily’s rump. “Take Louise with you.”
Maggie rides out. She plans to follow the route Hank used for her tour, but that is soon foiled by closed gates. There’s no way she’s getting on and off Lily without someone around to help. Plus, closed gates could mean bull encounters on the other side. No, thank you. Even without bulls, she’s nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Lily seems jumpy, too.
Maggie follows fence line until Louise leads them to an open gate half a mile away to the south of ranch headquarters. The land there is rugged, with deep gulches filled with trees and rimmed with rocky ledges. Louise flushes five white-tailed deer from a draw. Lily snorts and hops, then plants her feet.
Maggie grabs the saddle horn. “Easy, girl.” She strokes the glossy black neck.
Lily huffs, then sighs and continues on. The land slopes uphill toward the mountains. As they draw closer to them, the pitch upward dramatically increases.
“Let’s just go to the top of this ridge, then we can turn around.”
Lily’s shoulders roll as she climbs. She stops for a breath and snatches a bite of grass.
“Come on.” Maggie nudges the horse with her heels and gets no response. “Yah, Lily.”
The mare ignores her. She’s stopped in the midst of tall shrubs with sagging branches of deep red berries. Lily shoves them aside to get to the grass underneath.
“Carrying a big foal in there must be hungry business.” Maggie gives in and puts the reins over the saddle horn. She snaps a selfie with her body turned so Lily’s head is in the shot, then takes a few pictures of the scenery. She shoves the phone back in her pocket. Lily is chewing with determination, her mouth stuffed with grass.
Maggie gathers the reins. “Enough. Let’s go.” She squeezes with her legs, nudges with her heels, and gets nowhere. She kicks the horse’s flanks. Lily keeps eating. Finally, she gathers her courage and smacks Lily’s shoulder with her palm. Maggie’s hand burns. Lily doesn’t flinch, but she slow-walks forward up the ridge.
“Phew. I thought we were spending the night there.”
When they crest the ridge, Maggie sees that she’s come upon the neighbor’s shack across the creek that marks the boundary of Piney Bottoms Ranch, by coming in a big circle in the opposite direction from her ride with Hank. Hank’s crazy neighbor’s place. She’s peering into the distance, looking to see if he’s there, when Louise gives a shrill yip. Maggie glances toward the sound. It’s followed by a deep roar, then the sound of something large crashing through bushes and onto the trail behind them. Her heart lodges in her throat. It’s a black bear—at least she hopes it’s a black bear and not a grizzly and wishes she’d asked Hank or Gene about them—that becomes a blur as Lily spins and bolts with far more
agility and speed than Maggie would have expected from a very pregnant draft horse.
Her long-ago camp riding lessons didn’t cover fleeing the scene of a bear. She clings to the saddle horn and tightens her legs. For a split second, she considers reining Lily in, but she wants away from the bear as bad as the horse does. While the horse is moving fast, it’s not smooth. Maggie is coming up onto the saddle horn with every lunge. She pushes down through her feet, fighting for stability. Her legs start to move with Lily’s rhythm, and finally Maggie starts to feel more secure and risks a head turn. The horse trips on a rock and nearly sends Maggie over her head before she gets a look behind them. When Maggie regains her balance, she’s appalled at the rough terrain. How is Lily even upright?
“Easy, girl.” She pulls on the reins and shifts her body position back in the saddle. “Easy now. Whoa, Lily.” Maggie is careful to keep the weight of her heels off the mare’s flanks, not wanting to accidentally encourage any more pell-mell flight over uneven, rocky ground.
The horse begins to slow. She’s blowing so hard Maggie can’t hear if there’s a bear behind them or not. But Lily would still be running if the bear had followed them. Maggie pants, too. She pats Lily. “Good girl. It’s okay.”
Lily clatters to a walk. Maggie lets herself go limp for a moment as the adrenaline spike ends.
Just then, a man steps out of the bushes. He’s carrying a white five-gallon bucket and what looks like a dustpan with teeth.
Lily shies sidewise before Maggie can react. She lists in the saddle and grabs for the saddle horn. She manages to stay on, but only because Lily stops and turns to face the man.
Lily stretches her neck out toward him.
“Maggie?” he says. “Maggie Killian?”
Maggie pushes the hat that’s fallen over her eyes back on her forehead. The man in front of her is wearing faded blue-jean overalls with a long-john top underneath. He’s stocky and short. The man who bought her a drink and asked her to sing a song for him at the Occidental. She’d refused. Performing was her old life. She doesn’t owe anyone an on-demand show like a trained circus monkey. Still, she squirms a little in her saddle. Chet had been pretty rough on him.
“Rudy.”
“You remembered my name this time.” He continues advancing toward them until he is right in front of Lily. He sets his bucket and weird contraption down and reaches up to Lily’s face.
“Um, she doesn’t like you to touch her face.” Maggie expects the horse to pull back from him.
Lily holds her ground. Rudy rubs Lily’s forehead. The mare’s posture is so chill, it’s like she’s napping.
“What about her face?”
“Never mind.” Maggie shrugs. “You scared us. We were running from a bear.”
“I was out picking berries and heard galloping. I expected a horse, but not a rider.”
Louise appears and runs into the little group. She circles Rudy, sniffing his ankles. Then she growls and bares her teeth.
“Louise, stop it.”
The dog’s hackles rise. She chokes off her growling and whines.
Rudy backs up a step. “She’s protective. That’s good.”
“She’s a disaster. She’s the one that chased the bear out after us.”
Louise takes up position between Maggie and Rudy, at Lily’s shoulder.
Rudy clucks to Lily and feeds her something from his pocket. He takes hold of the cheek strap of her bridle with one hand.
Maggie’s heartbeat speeds up again, like it did with the bear. Something about Rudy handling Lily with Maggie on her back feels like a violation. And why is Rudy out here on Piney Bottoms land picking berries anyway? Suddenly, she wants to be back at the ranch with people. Her people.
“Well, nice to see you. I have to go.”
Rudy doesn’t look up at her. She hears the crunching of Lily’s teeth again.
“What are you feeding her?”
“Horse treats. I always carry them out here.”
“By out here, you mean on Hank’s place?”
Now he looks up. “I live just across the fence. On the other side of the creek there.” He points. “And the Piney Bottoms Ranch belongs to Vangie. Mrs. Sibley.”
Rudy is the crazy neighbor, Maggie realizes. “You know what I mean.”
He steps toward Maggie’s knee, still holding Lily by the bridle.
Louise growls again.
“Where are you off to in your big hurry?”
“I have an appointment in town.”
Rudy nods. His face is impassive, but his eyes twinkle. “Does it have anything to do with that douchebag?”
“What?”
“He’s not good enough for you anyway.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You and Sheila have the same taste in men.”
Maggie’s blood boils. She’d thought Rudy was talking about Chet all this time, but obviously he means Hank. Is she that transparent? “And that’s none of your business either. So, if you could let go of Lily’s bridle, please?”
He holds his hands up. “Sorry. I thought I was helping. You don’t look like an experienced rider. In fact, I’m surprised they let you out here by yourself on a valuable broodmare like her.”
“I’m fine. She’s fine.” She neck-reins Lily away from Rudy and gives her a little bit of pressure with her heels. The mare responds slowly, reluctantly, her attention still on Rudy and his cookies.
“You know your way back?”
“Um . . .” Maggie realizes that Lily’s flight has left her a little disoriented on the direction back to the stable yard. She hates admitting it to Rudy, though.
“Follow that fence line.” Rudy points to a few strands of barbed wire off to Maggie’s right. It’s a fairly steep descent to it. “You can stay on this ridge until it meets up with it. The trail’s more gentle up here, which will be good for your horse. It also goes by a pond, so you can get her a drink of water.”
“Thank you.” Maggie’s voice is stiff as she walks Lily off on the ridge. “Louise, come.”
Louise obeys, but she lurks behind them.
Maggie feels Rudy’s eyes on her back. She turns.
“You should let someone know she bolted, so they can make sure she didn’t strain anything,” he says.
“Okay.” Maggie rocks in the saddle, urging Lily to walk faster. The mare picks up the pace by the smallest possible increment of effort.
When they’re almost out of earshot Rudy shouts, “And good luck on your interview with the police.”
Twenty-Two
Back at the barn, Paco examines Lily—who keeps her face turned away from him—and proclaims her no worse for her bear flight. He pats her large posterior. “You’re bigger than he is, Lily. I bet that ole bear ran away from you faster than you did from him.” To Maggie, he says, “Where’d you see it?”
“Out near the crazy neighbor’s—Rudy’s—place. Eating berries.”
“Yeah, that area near Simon’s acreage is a great place for pre-winter forage.”
“Could it have been a grizzly?”
“Not around here. We ain’t got nothing but black bears. Now, the western half of the state, they got grizzlies. A whole lot of grizzlies. They’ve been known to come all the way into town in Cody. But not here.”
“Thank God.”
“Did you keep your seat?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“Let me cool her down for you, since she got a workout. I’ll put her up, too.”
“If you’re sure, that would be great. I’m kind of wrung out.”
“I’m sure. The ornery old girl prefers you to me, but she doesn’t always get what she wants. None of us do.”
“Doesn’t she like you?”
“Not really.” He laughs. “I make her work. And no cookies.”
Lily turns her head and Maggie could swear the horse rolls her eyes at Paco.
“See you at lunch, then. Thanks.”
“No problema, senorita
.”
Maggie and Louise walk to the cabin. There’s an old tan Tahoe with a note under the windshield wiper parked out front. Here are some wheels for the rest of your stay. But you’ll have to come to lunch if you want the keys. Hank.
Oh, Hank. After everything Gene told her, she has a sudden urge to talk to Hank. Not tell him she’s sorry per se, but to—oh hell, fine, whatever, to apologize. It’s like an itch between her shoulder blades, the kind infuriatingly just out of reach. One she needs him to scratch when he forgives her.
Inside the cabin, Maggie checks her phone. It’s eleven forty-five. She has a list as long as her arm of calls to make, but there’s no time before lunch, which is at noon sharp. She promised Hank she’d be there for his surprise. So, she’ll make the calls on the drive to Buffalo. With her headphones, because she’s safety-conscious like that. Now it’s time to step it up.
She washes her hands, glances in the bathroom mirror, wipes a dirt smudge from her nose, and adds neutral lipstick. Her hair is big, windblown, like she’s been riding a horse. She fluffs it some more. When on a ranch, do as the cowboys do. She arrives at the main house with five minutes to spare.
“No,” she tells Louise, when the dog tries to squeeze past her into the house.
Louise flops to the ground and gives her sad eyes.
“Those things won’t work on me. I know you’ll be fine.”
The smell inside is tantalizing. From the doorway to the dining room she sees why, as Trudy sets a platter of fried chicken next to mashed potatoes with a pool of butter on top. There’s also dishes of green beans, creamed corn, and, of course, Trudy’s biscuits. Her stomach growls.
“Excuse me,” a male voice says.
Maggie turns and sees Tom trying to wheel Mrs. Sibley in.
Maggie is blocking the door. “Of course. Sorry.”
Mrs. Sibley grouses, but to no one in particular. “Who’s she? Family only.”
Behind Mrs. Sibley, a familiar face appears. Dark eyes crackling with energy under pixie hair of the same color. Exquisitely feminine elfin features and pink bow mouth. Whipcord thin body muscled and strong enough to control a racehorse, Maggie knows, because it’s Hank’s sister, Laura, and she’s a jockey. Or was a jockey, until she retired not too long ago.
Maggie Box Set Page 15