“You sure you latched it just like they always do?” Stetson asked Red Cap.
Red Cap turned and snarled. “It’s just a fucking gate. How many ways are there to close a fucking gate?”
Stetson grimaced and looked around nervously. “I know, I know. Keep your shorts on. Let’s go deal with the fence.
The cows were ignoring both the men and their ATVs. They were too busy eating. Red Cap and Stetson chugged over to the fence that ran beside the gravel road. No gate had been built to access this quiet country road. Here and there, tufts of black hair had caught on the barbed wire and been ignored by nest-building birds.
The two men examined the fence, looking for a weak spot. There wasn’t one. The six strands of barbed wire were as taut as the day they had been strung. The posts were sound and didn’t budge when they were shaken. Those cows were safe enough here until they were needed.
Stetson took a plastic bag out of his coat pocket with his gloved hand. He removed a bandanna like the one tied around his own neck. This one was little more than a rag. It had once been bright blue with some sort of design in white and black, but both print and background had faded to dirty gray. It was stiff with sweat and pocked with holes.
Stetson held it out and ran it along the fence until one of the prongs caught the rag and held it fast. He tugged slightly and the fabric gave soundlessly. Stetson dropped the piece left in his hand in the mud and trod heavily on it. Red Cap nodded his approval for this artistic touch.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said uneasily.
Both men remounted their ATVs and left by the north gate of the section. They opened it to go through and closed it carefully. It took a long time, and they crossed a lot of sections and opened and closed a lot of gates, but eventually they came to a gap that opened onto the county road.
An unmarked white delivery truck was parked on the shoulder with its rear door rolled up and its ramp lowered. The vehicles chugged up the ramp behind one another. The drivers pulled up the ramp and lowered the door. The truck pulled off slowly. It moved down the road and out to the highway.
* * *
“Yo, Holden,” yelled Lance from up by the barn rafters. He was standing on the bales of hay preparing to throw another one down Steve. The great round rolls had probably been stacked to the barn ceiling last fall, but now they were only two high and there was plenty of room for a man to stand erect.
The big bundles were nearly as tall as a man and tightly compressed. You had to concentrate when you slit the plastic wrapper to get at the hay, so that you did not go ass over teakettle when the hay was suddenly released. Steve bundled up the wrapper he had just slipped, stepped around the spread out hay, and swarmed up the stacked bundles to stand beside Prescott.
“What is it?” he asked.
Steve had learned a lot about Lance Prescott in the two weeks he’d been working in the stables. Prescott had been given a medical discharge from the Marines after an injury. He was Carlos’ de facto deputy and one of the trainers. Carlos Diego and Laura Bascom relied on him to organize the other hands and make sure things were done right. He and Steve had bonded over their work and become friends of a sort.
Lance waved a hand at the underside of the metal shingling. “You see daylight, Holden?” he asked.
Steve knew Lance was asking this question in all earnestness. The other veteran was legally blind in his left eye. To keep dust out, he wore a black patch over it when he was working in the stable or the barn. Now he squinted at Steve with his good eye. Steve tipped his head back. Several inch-long slits had been punched into the dimpled, dull silver undersides of the shingles. Dust motes floated gently in the daylight shining through.
“Someone’s been busy,” Steve said. “I think the damage will be easier to see from outside.”
“Get up on the roof, will you?” Lance ordered. “Take some photos.”
Without conscious thought, Steve moved into investigator mode. He took some pictures inside the barn, and climbed up onto the red metal roof. The red metal shingles had clearly been punched from below. The slits were jagged at all about the same length. A twenty-foot section of roof had been purposefully damaged and would have to be replaced before rain got in and wet the hay. He took his time taking pictures from several angles. It was pretty obvious that this was criminal mischief.
Lance was waiting for him when he climbed down. The other man looked worried and baffled. “Well?” He demanded.
“Sabotage.” Steve said. “Someone deliberated punctured the roof. Good thing we haven’t had rain lately.”
“Jesus,” said Lance.
“Don’t think he had anything to do with it,” Steve said. “This is the work of somebody with a grievance,” he said carefully. “You got any disgruntled employees?” he asked.
Lance shook his head firmly. “Nope,” he said. “We don’t have disgruntled employees on the Double B. Or in the stud. Miss Laura is a good employer. People tend to hang around for a long time. The closest thing we have to a disgruntled employee is that damn goldbrick Cory Saunders.”
“Saunders is lazy,” Steve agreed. He looked up at the slits in the roof. “Probably too lazy to put himself out doing this. What about that guy I replaced, Duane what’s his name?”
Lance shook his head. “Duane Petersen wasn’t a disgruntled employee. He didn’t so much quit as he left to get a better job. His uncle in Texas bought another truck, and he asked Duane to come drive it for him. Duane took off in a hurry only because his uncle has lots of nephews, and he figured the job wouldn’t stay open long.”
“Huh.”
* * *
Morning turnout was nearly over. The stalls had been mucked out and grooming had begun. Laura noted that Steve Holden was nowhere to be seen. Why was she always watching for him? The last thing she needed was a sexual harassment suit. Carlos intercepted her on her way to say hello to Dakota.
“You might want to see this,” he said handing her his phone.
Laura scrolled through the photographs in disbelief. Her new barn roof was pockmarked with ragged holes.
“When did this happen?” she asked him.
“I don’t know when, Miss Laura,” Carlos said. “Lance Prescott and Steve Holden found them when they were getting the hay this morning. Steve took those photographs. And he and Lance found the tools that were used to make the holes.”
“Oh,” said Laura. “Where?”
“On our very own tool rack,” said Carlos indignantly. “Someone took a mallet and a chisel and stood on the hay bales and punched seventeen holes in the roof.”
For a moment and Laura couldn’t speak. When she caught her breath she asked, “Who?” She didn’t ask why. Why was obvious. The intention had clearly been to get the hay wet. Damp hay got moldy. It could not be fed to horses. And worse than that, it presented a fire hazard. Fermenting hay had started many a fire, in many a hayloft.
Carlos shook his head. “I don’t have any more idea than you do, Miss Laura. But I’m damn well going to find out, if you’ll pardon my French.”
Laura looked at the foreman. Today he looked his age, as if this sabotage had made him feel his years. She gripped his shoulder reassuringly.
“I don’t know who did this,” she said softly. “But we’ll find out. I guess I’d better call the insurance company.”
I took care of that,” Carlos said gruffly. “And I called the Sheriff’s Department. They said they’d send a deputy out when they had one to spare. Frank Golden said that he could send a crew out to fix the roof first thing tomorrow. He is going to take out that entire section and replace it with matching shingles.”
“Okay. Thank you, Carlos. Anything else?” This seemed to be as mysterious as the missing stock. Who could be trying to sabotage both the ranch and the stud?
He hesitated. “I was going to show Holden how to train the horses on the lunge line this morning, but I don’t feel up to it.”
Laura mentally raised her eyebrows. Teaching
new hires to train the horses was one of Carlos’s favorite jobs. And he liked Holden. But Carlos looked frail this morning. This had hit him hard. Rather than risk embarrassing her old friend, she just nodded.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Raking the paddock.” Carlos said.
Raking the paddock was a euphemism for cleaning up the horse apples from the training rings. After the dung had been removed they attached a harrow to the little earthmover and smoothed out the sandy soil. Steve was already circling the paddock on the little bobcat. She signaled and he drove over to meet her.
“Finish up here and come back out,” she told him. “I’m going to show you how to exercise a horse on a lunge line.”
Laura went to fetch Buddha. The yearling was being trained as a cow pony. She preferred to work young horses on a line rather than risk damaging their immature spines with a rider. Buddha knew what the saddle in her arms meant and stamped impatiently when she showed up. On the way to the paddock, she grabbed a long whip from the rack by the door.
Steve had put the bobcat away and was waiting for her. He was standing at ease, bareheaded in the sunshine, stocky and assured. He was erect, alert, with his powerful hands linked behind his back, waiting for orders. Just as the men in her family stood. She forbore to smile. She didn’t know if they knew that they adopted a military bearing in all situations, but she herself found it both endearing and reassuring.
She handed Steve the heavy lunge line. Their fingers brushed. Even through two pairs of leather gloves, she felt a jolt all the way to her heart. But she pretended she didn’t notice the juddering of that organ.
“The most important thing is that this whip isn’t for hitting the horse,” she explained. “We use it to guide. But not to punish. It’s only for telling the horse what direction we want him to go. We never, ever yank on the line, and we absolutely never hit the horse.” She stroked Buddha’s neck. “He loves this work because it’s fun. We use praise. Treats. We don’t raise our voices, and we don’t lose our tempers.”
Steve listened intently. He said, “Yes ma’am,” every time she gave him a new instruction. His voice was respectful but his eyes were warm on her face. He made her feel young and fluttery. And she had no doubt he knew what he was doing. Careful, girl, she warned herself. You’ve been down this road before.
Laura glanced down to make sure her arm wasn’t actually touching Steve’s. There was a good foot between them. Nevertheless, electricity sparked between them. Her whole body was tingling. Underneath her jacket she could feel her nipples peaking. Her reaction to Holden was so tacky that she felt her face flush.
It took a few tries before Steve got the hang of keeping the line loose while maintaining control. But Buddha was an expert at this. The horse trotted smoothly around in a circle, adjusting his weight effortlessly. As he would do when he had a rider on his back. He was enjoying this opportunity to practice and show off.
“Wouldn’t this be easier if you had a jockey?” Steve asked.
“He looks big and strong, doesn’t he?” Laura grinned. “But he’s really just a baby. His bones are still growing and quite soft. He has ten pounds of lead under his saddle, but I worked him up to that bit by bit. Next year we’ll put a rider up on him. Teach him his job as a cow pony. And if we don’t keep him, when he’s three he’ll go to auction as a Bascom-trained cow pony.”
Despite her unwelcome attraction to Steve, Laura tried to keep focused on the exercises. Like the horse, Holden was a natural athlete. His big hands made light work of managing the colt. His body adapted to Buddha’s movements. It was obvious he liked the colt. And that the horse reciprocated.
Laura could see that Holden was learning from Buddha as much as teaching him. He couldn’t be trusted with an untutored horse yet, but he would soon be able to manage those who already knew their paces. It wasn’t long before she was able to move away from the hand’s distracting presence and observe from the top railing of the fence.
* * *
Standing in the sunshine next to Miss Laura, smelling her lovely scent, was about as good as life got these days. Of course, it made it difficult to concentrate, and figuring out how to hold the line so that the horse couldn’t hurt himself was harder than it looked. But, hey, he was standing next to his mate and that felt just fine.
From the moment he had first scented Laura, Steve had known. Her personal fragrance was engraved in his brain. She was his mate. He had never truly believed that it could happen that fast and hard. Older members of his bear shifter clan had told him his destiny would catch him unawares, but he had not truly believed them. But Dad and Granddad had been perfectly right.
It was kind of a bonus to discover that Laura Bascom was one of the most beautiful females he had ever encountered. Scratch that. The most beautiful. Every single thing about her appealed to all that was male in him. From her lovely face to her lush figure, she was gorgeous.
When she smiled, she had two little dimples that winked like the flashers on a lightning bug and drew him just as surely. When she moved, the sway of her round ass and the length of her legs made him hard. He ached to touch her. He ached to taste her. And she acted like he was just another guy, and not a very interesting one. How could fate have dealt him such a hand?
Laura smelled like the world’s most enticing she-bear, but she acted like she was noseblind. And there didn’t seem to be one damned thing he could do about it. He had inveigled himself into doing work that put him in her path. She merely smiled pleasantly at him and moved on unhurriedly. She returned his greetings with cheerful neutrality.
He had been neglecting his original mission since he had gotten his first whiff of Laura. Not that it mattered. Saints or sinners, it didn’t much matter which the Bascoms were now. Laura Bascom was going to be his, and that meant he had better make up his mind to be part of her family. And as far as he could see, there was nothing to be ashamed of in Freddie Bascom and Laura. They were good people.
They must’ve spent a full hour with Buddha on the lunge line. Some of the time Miss Laura went and sat on the fence and called her comments to him. And some of the time she stood beside him, not touching him, but so close that he could feel her presence like arrows in his heart. All too soon, she decided that Buddha had had enough for one day.
Miss Laura went to the office, and he took Buddha back to his stall. He was brushing the yearling down when his pleasant fantasies about Laura were interrupted by loud voices three stalls over. Lance and Cory Saunders were arguing. At least Saunders was. Lance’s voice was cool and level as usual.
Saunders was about Prescott’s age. But there the resemblance ended. Lance was quietly competent and generally popular with the other stable hands, as well as Carlos and the Bascoms. Cory was a swaggering bully with a foul mouth. Steve had no sympathy to waste on a shirker who wound up spending twice as long on his tasks because he was made to redo most of them.
But what he really objected to was Saunders’ mouth. Steve was used to men who swore. Swearing was normal in the military. But he didn’t like it when men used coarse language in front of and around women with the plain intention of embarrassing them. This morning, Saunders was as profane as usual.
“Shit, I just said that I’d like to get me some of that sweet fucking ass,” Cory protested. “Of course she fucking wouldn’t look at you.”
Lance’s calm voice cut through Cory’s derisive bluster. “Teresita Delgado is only seventeen, and she’s Rosa Diego’s niece. If you can’t think of a better reason than that for leaving her alone, I’ll give you one. You say one more word to that young woman, good, bad or indifferent, and I personally will take you apart.”
“I’d fucking like to see you try,” sneered Cory. But Steve noticed he shut up. Smart man. Lance was quiet, and soft-spoken, and not terribly communicative. But if he said a thing he meant it. And he was stronger than he looked. Steve would not have challenged him unless he wanted a brutal fight on his hands. And he suspected that winning wo
uld not be a given.
He made a note, however, to keep an eye on Cory. He knew that Teresita was Carlos and Rosa’s niece, but hadn’t realized that Rosa’s helper was so young. But seventeen or seventy, no woman deserved to have an asshole like Cory Saunders talking dirty about her. But was Saunders just a jerk, or was he something worse?
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was still cool, but this early May morning promised to be a scorcher. Steve didn’t think Colorado was quite done with spring yet, but today was heading for summer. Steve knocked on the back door of the Diego’s ranch house. From inside, Rosa called a welcome. She waved him to the large kitchen table where Carlos was already eating hominy cooked in milk. Steve exchanged greetings with the foreman and sat down. He prepared himself for another excellent meal and another installment of the Bascom family saga.
It seemed he couldn’t sit down to a meal without Rosa starting in on yet another story about the Bascoms. It was natural that she would think her employers people of importance, but he was beginning to think there would be a pop quiz soon. Neither Carlos nor Rosa had ever directly referred to his being Kenneth Bascom’s son. There had to be a reason he had not been spared a detail of his birth father’s glorious career as a quarterback at the local high school, or his twenty seconds of ignominious failure as a barrel rider.
He had heard all about the terrible highway accident that had led to the death of both Laura’s seventeen-year-old twin sister Bethany, and their mom. He had heard Carlos’s opinion of the official explanation for Captain Luther Bascom’s death. “Training exercises,” snorted Diego. “Fellow smart enough and tough enough to earn himself the DSO twice, wasn’t going to crash a helicopter.”
Bear Pause (BBW / Bear Shifter Romance): A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 6) Page 5