Since neither Mel nor Melda had ever ridden a horse, Gina assigned them the oldest, gentlest beasts in her stable. She apologized mentally to Lily and Viola. Although Gina doubted the mares would be disturbed by cussing as long as the words were uttered in the same matter-of-fact tone as all the others. Since this appeared to be Mel and Melda’s MO, Gina merely patted the mares on their noses and moved on.
Tim Gordon, newly divorced anesthesiologist, had brought his fourteen-year-old son to Colorado from Cleveland for a little bonding time. Unfortunately, all Derek cared about were his video games and that he’d had to leave them at home.
“The new Halo is coming out this week,” the kid whined.
“It’ll still be there next week,” his father said with the absent tone of one who’d already said the same thing two dozen times before.
“By then everyone will have beaten it but me.”
“Whatever,” Tim muttered, earning a glare from his son.
Gina glanced at Derek’s registration form. The kid had listed a fairly wide range of outdoor activities.
“Says here you’re good with a bow and arrow, as well as a rifle. And…” What was that scrawl? “Swords?” He must mean fencing. Derek shrugged. “Great!”
His shoulders straightened at her praise, and Tim cast Gina a grateful glance. Poor guy. It couldn’t be easy to share the kid with his mom. Gina had had plenty of divorced parents who brought their children here for some quality time together. The trip often got off to a rocky start, but once pulled away from cell-phone towers, cable TV, and video games both kids and their parents began to interact—usually for the better.
Gina eyed Derek, sizing him up for the perfect mount. The boy was too skinny, which went against everything she’d read about his generation—allergic to exercise, with a junk-food addiction. Sure, he could use some sun on his pasty white face, but that’s why he was here.
“You’ve ridden before.” She glanced at the paper again. “A lot.”
“I kicked Red Dead Redemption. And I rule Assassin’s Creed.”
Gina paused. Was the kid speaking in tongues?
“I … uh…” She glanced at Tim. “Huh?”
“Games.” Derek’s dad rubbed his eyes. “Those are video games with horses.”
Derek wandered off to stand at the fence, watching Mel and Melda ride Lily and Viola sedately around the paddock.
“He’s never ridden?” Gina asked.
“An actual horse? No.”
“And the archery, the rifle?”
“Turok and…” Tim’s face creased. “SOCOM.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that his experience with a sword wasn’t in fencing club.”
“Gods of War.”
Now Gina rubbed her eyes. “I don’t think our program is the best idea for your son.” Gina glanced at Mel and Melda, wishing she could take at least one of those horses back, though even a gentle mare might not be gentle enough for a kid who’d ridden nothing but a couch his entire life. “He could get hurt.”
Tim’s gaze went to Derek. The boy still stood at the paddock fence, although he appeared to be either texting or playing a game on his phone instead of watching the live action, which, considering that action was old folks on old horses, Gina kind of understood.
“I just wanted him to do something outside this summer.”
“But—” Gina pointed at the form. “He plays soccer.”
“FIFA.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“The International Federation of Association Football.”
Gina went over the acronym in her head. “That doesn’t match.”
“In French it does.”
French. Right. Sometimes Gina felt as if the whole world had moved on while she’d remained right here, frozen in a long-lost decade.
“So all the things he’s said he can do,” Gina tapped a fingernail against the sheet, “he’s only done them on a video game?”
“Why do you think we’re here?”
Gina was beginning to understand the source of Jase’s crankiness. She was even grinding her teeth.
Tim saw the movement and panicked. “Don’t kick us out. I’ll pay extra. Twice as much.”
Gina couldn’t charge the guy more, even if taking his kid into the mountains was probably going to be one of the dumbest things she’d ever done.
Tim interpreted her hesitation as denial and blurted, “Three times.”
“That’s okay,” she began at the same time Jase said, “Will that be cash or charge?”
* * *
“We can’t take his money,” Gina insisted later that day and for the umpteenth time.
Jase, who was watching the guests groom their horses as he’d taught them, ignored her. He’d already taken it, and, as he’d informed her, she couldn’t make him give it back. They needed the money too damn bad.
“If you want to send someone packing,” Jase murmured, “get rid of that guy.” He pointed at Teo.
“He’s the only one who knows what he’s doing!” Gina threw up her hands in exasperation.
“Shh.” Jase put a finger to his lips.
Gina glanced at the guests, but they were occupied with their horses and didn’t appear to have heard. Except for Teo. His gaze met hers, and Gina’s stomach did a little shimmy. Must have been the Southwest burritos they’d had for lunch.
“No one knows what they’re doing,” Jase said. “Or at least not completely. That’s why they call it a dude ranch. You do know the meaning of dude, don’t you?”
“If you listen to Mel and Melda, it’s a generic term for anything from a squirrel to your mother.”
Jase laughed. “Did you see her face when Melda asked if she could have ‘more of this ass-whompingly fine corn bread, dude?’”
Fanny’s expression had been priceless.
Jase’s gaze returned to Teo and his laughter died. “There’s something about that guy I do not like.”
Jase often got it into his head to dislike people. He said his Native American blood gave him a sixth sense. She thought his Native American blood gave her a pain in the ass.
But she now understood the true source of his earlier behavior. He’d taken an instant dislike to Teo. Which was too bad. She thought the two of them might have become friends. They were of an age—or close enough—and Teo knew his way around horses. One of Jase’s favorite subjects.
Laughter erupted, the sound scraping along Gina’s eardrums like the cry of a dying rabbit in the depths of the night, so shrill and disturbing it caused one of the horses to skitter. Jase muttered a word he must have learned earlier that day from the Hurlaheys and aimed his seemingly eternal scowl at the final two members on their guest list.
Amberleigh, or perhaps it was Amber Lee, Gina couldn’t recall, and her BFF, Ashleigh, or maybe that was Ash Lee, had asked for and been given this trip by their obviously doting parents. Or perhaps it was by their nearly deaf parents who wanted to save their last sliver of hearing by sending the girls anywhere but home. If Gina got through the next few days without a horse stampede, it would be a miracle.
“At least no wild animals are going to sneak up on you,” Jase murmured.
They’d be lucky if they saw a spider with those two along. They’d never get a glimpse of a deer or a bighorn sheep or an antelope.
The girls, who attended the University of Texas in Austin, would graduate—or so they said—next spring. This was their last trip together before they got jobs or, as Gina suspected was their true mission, husbands. Why they’d picked a dude ranch for this quest was anyone’s guess, although they did seem to know how to ride.
“We’ve been riding since we were itty-bitty,” Ashleigh had told Jase that afternoon when he’d attempted, at their insistence, even though it wasn’t his job, to help find them mounts. “You put a saddle on any old thang, and we’ll ride it all day.”
That statement had apparently caused Jase to swallow his tongue, because he’d
started choking so badly he’d left the barn, abandoning the girls to Gina’s ministrations until supper time. They hadn’t been amused.
From what Gina could tell, the two could only relate to men and each other. Every other woman in their universe was either a nuisance or competition. Gina had learned quickly which group she belonged to when, earlier, Ashleigh flicked a dismissing hand in Gina’s face, then, at Gina’s blank stare, snapped, “Move!”
As soon as Gina did, the girls had begun to preen and posture like wild turkeys in mating season. When she’d glanced over her shoulder, she’d seen why.
The girls had decided what they really, really wanted to ride was Teo. He hadn’t had a moment’s peace since. Right now they were talking at him as if he were hanging on their every word instead of focusing all his attention on grooming an already well-groomed horse.
“They call us the As,” Amberleigh said.
“Because of our names,” Ashleigh confided.
“Not ’cause of our grades.”
“No shit,” Jase muttered.
Gina cast him a quelling glance. He widened his eyes and lifted his shoulders. “What?”
“They’ll hear you,” she whispered.
Jase snorted. “They aren’t going to hear anyone but themselves, which I think is just how they like it.”
Gina didn’t comment, since she had to agree.
“I’d almost feel sorry for pretty boy there, if he wasn’t going to get his pole shined so sparkly he goes blind from the glare.”
“You could have had your pole shined if you’d played your cards better,” Gina said.
Jase, who’d been grinning in Teo’s direction, stopped. “Why would I want to do that?”
Gina considered the As, whose artificially blond curls bobbed above equally artificial breasts. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Disease, loss of self-respect.” One of the girls laughed again, and he winced. “Hearing damage. Hell, I’d probably shed IQ points just from listening to them breathe.”
“That’s harsh,” Gina said.
“Truth hurts. Besides, what happened to the ‘no bopping the customers’ rule?” Jase’s gaze narrowed on Teo. “Find someone you want to break it with?”
“We were talking about you.”
“Were we?”
Gina sighed. Jase could be so damn … Jase sometimes. And while his supposed Ute sixth sense was mostly BS, he did have a sense about Gina that was often dead-on.
Gina contemplated Teo. Did she want to break the rules with him?
Oh yeah.
Was she going to?
Hell no.
Still, he was nice to look at.
The As couldn’t keep their eyes, or their hands, off him. However, Teo kept his gaze on his horse; he didn’t speak. Gina had to give the As points for being able to hold a conversation without any response, although they were probably used to it.
When confronted with hot women who were obviously interested most men would at least flirt back, even if they had no intention of following through. From what she’d observed, flirting was a game—promise but don’t deliver; tease; entice; deny.
Gina wasn’t any good at flirting. She’d been raised with horses and horsemen. The latter said what they meant and meant what they said. The former had no guile whatsoever. A horse either loved you or hated you, and you knew which pretty damn fast. She liked that about horses.
Teo appeared to have the same issues she did with flirting. She liked that about him, too.
“One of us should probably rescue him,” Gina said. “If he brushes Spike much longer, that horse is gonna go bald.”
Spike was their most challenging mount—a roan gelding that stood sixteen hands and liked to snatch the bit in his teeth if his rider wasn’t paying attention, then do whatever the hell he pleased.
Gina usually rode Spike, because no one else should. But when she’d finished finding horses for Derek and his father, she’d discovered Teo in the paddock getting acquainted with the roan as Jase watched with a smirk.
The smirk disappeared pretty fast as it became evident that Teo could handle the often-troublesome horse with ease. And, as was the way with Spike, when he had a rider who took no crap he fell forever in love.
Gina watched as the big red head bumped Teo’s shoulder and Teo rubbed a palm down the horse’s nose. One of the girls reached out to do the same, and Spike sneezed all over her acid-washed, skintight jeans.
“Doesn’t seem like he needs our help,” Jase observed.
Ashleigh—or maybe Amberleigh; it was going to be a bitch to keep them straight—stared at the mess for at least ten seconds, then started to shriek.
Jase hustled across the barn, grabbing the girl’s arm and dragging her out the door. The other A followed, clucking like an irate hen and waving her arms helplessly.
Spike neighed, lifting his head, stomping his feet. Gina could have sworn the horse was laughing.
* * *
If Matt had realized all it would take to get rid of those girls was a sneeze he’d have faked a bad case of allergies an hour ago.
He rubbed his hand over Spike’s nose again. “Thanks, pal,” he murmured, and got bumped once more by the heavy, bony head.
“How’d you get him to do that?”
Matt glanced up so fast he nearly clocked Spike, who was hovering over him like a lovesick puppy, under the chin. The horse stamped once, narrowly missing Matt’s toe, then reached out and butted Gina with similar affection.
“And here I thought I was your one and only,” Matt said.
Gina scratched between Spike’s eyes. “Until you showed up, I was his one and only. Spike’s … difficult.”
Matt was surprised. The horse seemed fine to him. He’d ridden worse.
“Jase shouldn’t have given him to you.”
“You can have him back,” Matt said, although the thought of riding a different one bummed him out. Right now it seemed as if it were Spike and Matt against the world—or at least the As.
“No, that’s fine,” Gina said. “You’ve obviously bonded.”
As if to illustrate, Spike nibbled on Matt’s T-shirt, leaving a large, wet, grayish splotch at the shoulder. “Lucky me.”
“So how did you get him to do it?” she repeated.
“Do what?”
“Sneeze all over Ashleigh. Or was that Amberleigh?”
“Who cares-leigh,” Matt muttered. “It was his idea. I think they were hurting his ears. They were certainly hurting mine.”
“You’re gonna have to keep a tight rein on Spike.”
The horse swung his head in Gina’s direction when she said his name, and she slipped him something out of her pocket, which he began to crunch and dribble onto Matt’s boots. From the shade, he guessed carrot.
“He tried to grab the bit on me earlier. But I’m wise to that.”
Gina’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ve ridden horses like Spike before?”
“One or two.”
There’d been that Arabian he’d fought with across the Egyptian desert when he’d been working on his master’s. He should have ridden a camel, but he really hated camels. They spit and they bit and they smelled.
The Arabian had thought it hysterical to pretend he didn’t like sand. Every morning he would pick up his hooves and shake them like a cat walking through standing water. He did this for a good forty minutes, which, if done when it was time for the group to leave, meant that either everyone stared at them, sneering, or Matt got left behind with a rifle-wielding, also-sneering babysitter. Matt had learned it was best to get up early and let the horse have his fun; then he would be fine for the rest of the day.
In Belize Matt had been saddled with a donkey that liked to buck without warning, especially when traversing narrow paths along the edges of cliffs. However, when Matt refused to react—he never dismounted, he didn’t cry out, except for the first time, when he’d shrieked like a little girl—the donkey stopped misbehaving. By the time the archaeologist
s had reached the ruins they’d hoped were Aztec but had instead been Mayan, Matt and the donkey were the best of friends. When Matt had left, the poor beast had brayed until Matt was out of hearing range.
“Teo?” Gina’s voice made him realize he’d gone off in his head for longer than was normal. He did that.
Colleagues at the university were used to those little mind trips. Professors were thinkers, and thinking went on in your head. In Matt’s usual circles, he wasn’t the only one who became silent and still in the middle of a conversation. It was only when he ventured into the world that such behavior was considered odd.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his face. “Tired, I guess.”
Gina held out her hand, and Matt nearly put his into it before he realized she wanted the grooming brush. “Better get to bed. We’re leaving early tomorrow.”
“How early?”
“As soon as the sun’s up. Breakfast at six. That a problem for you?”
Matt shook his head. Years of living in a tent had made him a perennially early riser. When the sun shone through the canvas, you got up. When the sun went down, you went to bed. In truth, he much preferred the pace of his life on a dig to the artificiality of his life everywhere else.
“If I were you,” Gina led Spike toward his stall, “I’d check the bed and the closet for the As before I undressed.”
Matt had been confronted with aggressive students before, but the Dr. in front of his name, if not his capacity to get them kicked out of school if they didn’t behave, intimidated most of them. Here he had no such protection.
Matt gulped.
“Don’t look so scared,” Gina said, amusement lightening her voice. “You’re a big boy. I think you can take them.”
“Why on earth are they here?” he wondered. “There isn’t going to be a mirror or a martini for miles.”
Gina came out of Spike’s stall, closing the door behind her. “We get all kinds at Nahua Springs.”
“Yeah, but what kind are they?” Matt muttered.
Gina laughed, and Matt realized he was flirting with her. Usually, when girls batted their eyes or the equivalent, he tossed around big words until they went away.
Crave the Moon Page 3