“You know how it is with women, son.”
“No, Coop. I don’t think I do.” Tag laughed and led Coop over to the stall where he’d left Star. The little colt was on his feet, searching for the bottle. “I know horses and I know cows, but there’s a lot about women I guess I need to learn.”
“Well, at least you know ya gotta learn it. That’s a start.” Coop ignored the colt and stared at Tag. Suddenly he grinned and punched Tag lightly on the shoulder. “All this talk about women. Could there be something more than a business deal happenin’ between you and your bride?”
“Don’t go there either, old man,” Tag said, shaking his head in denial. “I’ve got enough to worry about without you confusing the issue any more than it already is. C’mon, I want you to take a look at this little guy and tell me what you think.”
Coop coughed as if to clear his throat, then opened the gate and stepped into the pen. He ran his hands lightly over the colt’s flanks and chest. “He’s a beaut. I think Goldie’ll take to him just fine. Any mare that’ll nurse one o’ them ugly baby mules shouldn’t mind another little horse.”
“Don’t tell Goldie you think her little mule baby was ugly. She’d never forgive you.” Coop laughed and Tag breathed a deep sigh of relief. For now, anyway, some of his world was back to normal.
LENORE, DRESSED and ready for the day as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, waited in the kitchen with a cup of hot tea and a platter of cookies when Lee, wrapped in the faded blue terry-cloth robe, returned from her shower.
Lee took a bite out of one of the cookies, savoring the buttery almond flavor. She wondered if she’d eaten these before, if someone else had ever waited for her with a tray of cookies.
She didn’t think her mother liked to bake, but she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t be sure of anything.
Except the fact that Lenore Martin had finally found true love with Coop. “I wasn’t surprised to see you and Coop together this morning,” she said. “But I think you shocked Tag’s socks off.”
“He’ll come around,” Lenore said. “Taggart is stubborn and hardheaded as they come, but he’s always been a good and loving grandson. Besides, he loves Coop as if that old geezer was his father. He’ll come around,” she said again.
“He loves you both,” Lee said. She covered Lenore’s hand with her own. “He said Coop was more a father to him than his real one and you more a mother.”
“He had a rough start, but he’s a good boy.” Lenore slipped her hand free of Lee’s and grabbed a tissue out of her pocket. “I am so glad he’s found you, Lee. Tag’s lived a lonely life, but with you as his bride . . . well.”
“Do you think he loves me?” Now where did that come from?
“Of course he does, dear. He married you, didn’t he?”
Lee gulped. She’d forgotten again . . . not her past this time, but her present. It was so easy to believe Tag felt something for her, something more than whatever it was they supposedly had!
“He just seems so, well, preoccupied,” she prevaricated. The whole point of this charade was to make Lenore think the marriage was real. She’d have to watch herself.
“It’s that time of year,” Lenore said, as if Lee knew what she meant. When Lee didn’t respond, Lenore explained impatiently. “He should be up in the summer range with his crew right now, rounding up the herd, doctoring whatever needs to be doctored, vaccinating, castrating, dehorning . . .” Lenore’s hands fluttered. “Well, you know, doing everything you do during spring roundup. It’s a busy time of year, Lee. That’s why I was so shocked you two chose now to get married.”
“It was time for us, I guess,” Lee answered inanely.
“Which reminds me,” Lenore said. “Why did you come back so soon? You were supposed to be up there getting everything ready for the crew. You can’t possibly have finished.”
“Go on out to the barn,” Lee said, rising to her feet. “Let Tag show you why we had to come home. And,” she added, “why I’m not going back up with him.”
“You’re not?” Lenore stood as well and patted Lee’s hand. “The air just sizzles when you and that boy are near each other,” she said, winking slyly at Lee. “If you’ve got any doubt about his feelings for you, then maybe you need to take a more active role in this marriage. He can’t make you stay here at the ranch. Don’t waste the sizzle, sweetie. Take it from one who knows.”
Lee watched the door swing shut behind Lenore. She’d felt the sizzle between Lenore and Coop that very first day. Sizzle that had obviously lasted for close to sixty years.
Did she and Tag really have that? How would she know? Lee headed down the hallway to her room, contemplating the power of sizzle. Wondering if she had it with someone else. She and Tag had something, but whatever it was, spending time alone together could only make this whole complicated mess more convoluted and confusing than ever.
The phone in the living room detoured her. She grabbed the receiver on the second ring. “Double Eagle Ranch, Lee speaking,” she said.
The voice on the other end was vaguely familiar. Suddenly she recognized Will Twigg, Tag’s neighbor. They’d never met, but he’d dropped a sizable bombshell on her the day of the wedding.
It felt as if he might be dropping another. She wrote his message for Coop and Tag out on the notepad next to the phone. As Lee wrote, she realized her fingers were shaking. Why should news of the discovery of a partially submerged car in the river unsettle her so?
More important, who was Rhonda?
Maybe it would come to her along with the rest of her memories one of these days. She tucked the message in her pocket, grabbed a magazine off the coffee table and headed for her room. Tag had said he wouldn’t head back up the hill until late this afternoon. With any luck and a good, boring story, Lee figured she could at least get an hour’s nap before she figured out whether she was going to do the sensible thing and stay behind, or pack her bags and go for the sizzle.
“REMINDS ME of the day Coop showed up with Dandy.” Lenore stroked the colt’s velvety black nose with one hand and scratched under the mare’s pale gold chin with the other. “I’m so glad Goldie accepted him . . . there’s no little boy here anymore who needs a 4-H project. ’Course, now that little boy’s got himself a wife, maybe . . .” She grinned at Tag, her blue eyes full of mischief.
“Give us time, Gramma.” Damn if he wasn’t blushing again, but the sudden image of Lee, round with his child . . . Tag caught Coop’s eye. It looked like time for another change in plans. “If it weren’t that Lee’s planning to go with me on the roundup, I’d turn Star’s care over to her,” Tag said. “As it is, I wondered if you and Coop wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on things?”
“Why, I’ll be up the hill with you, boy. Have to get the men going at dawn, what with all we’ve got to do.”
“I was kind of hoping you’d let Ramón handle the job,” Tag said, referring to one of the more responsible but younger cowhands. “I hate to leave Gramma here by herself.”
“Why, Tag, that’s ridiculous,” Lenore sputtered. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Besides, Lee already told me you wanted her to stay here.”
Tag glanced at Coop and caught the grateful look of understanding the older man returned. He hoped Coop realized the reason behind his sudden shift in priorities. “I changed my mind, Gramma. I’m a newlywed, remember. I want my bride with me, not here with you filling her head full of lies about me.”
Coop smiled and wrapped his arms loosely around Lenore. “The boy’s right, woman. He should have his wife at his side. Besides, a sweet, fragile little thing like yourself, why, you need a real man around to keep you safe.” He kissed her on the cheek. She blushed a deep shade of pink.
How could he have ever missed the love between these two? Tag removed his hat and held it loosely in front of him. He studied the brim a moment, then looked directly into his grandmother’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Gramma. I shouldn’t have said what I did this morning. I was out of line and I want to apologize. I can’t think of any two people I’d like to see together more than you and this old bum . . . it’s just . . .” He grinned broadly. “Gramma, I thought you had better taste!”
They were still laughing when Lee entered the barn. Tag felt her presence before he actually saw her, another phenomenon he figured he’d adjust to sooner or later. She wore his father’s faded blue terry-cloth bathrobe again. He’d never thought of that particular piece of clothing as sexy, not in his wildest dreams.
Until Lee Stetson wrapped it around her slender frame. She paused in the doorway, her stance restless and uneasy. “Hi, hon,” he said, as surprised at the ease with which the endearment slipped out as Lee seemed to be to hear it. “Come see how Star’s taking to the real thing.”
He stepped to one side to give Lee a better look at the little colt and dropped his arm comfortably around her shoulders. She tensed, then relaxed against him.
Star suckled greedily from the placid palomino mare, his whisk broom of a tail snapping back and forth like a flag in a brisk breeze.
“They don’t seem to have any problem at all,” Lee said. “Guess we won’t have to worry about him thinking he’s a calf.” Tag felt her arm slip around his waist and squeeze. “I took a call from Will Twigg. He said there’s a car submerged in the river, just above the fork . . .” She looked questioningly at Tag. “I assume you know what fork he means?”
“Yeah,” Tag said. “Whose car?”
“He didn’t say. Just that he wondered if you could bring Rhonda?” There was an obvious question in her voice . . . and maybe a hint of jealousy?
“If Rhonda’s not busy, she’ll be happy to oblige. She’s a real obliging girl, our Rhonda.” He was almost afraid to look at Lee’s face, but he couldn’t help himself.
Yep, she looked jealous. Now, why should that make him feel so good?
“Quit teasin’ your bride, Tag,” Coop said. He turned to Lee. “Rhonda’s the tractor. Tag named her after some dumb song . . . you know, ‘help me Rhonda, help, help me Rhonda’? Never could make sense of it.”
Coop clapped his hat against his leg then stuck it back on his head. “I’ll call Will and tell him I’ll bring her over. Since I’m not going to be needed elsewhere.” He winked at Lenore.
“Oh, you’ll be needed, old man,” she said. Lenore’s wink was aimed at Lee. “I better get in and start packing some grub for you two. I also need to keep an eye on a certain old cowboy.”
Tag watched his grandmother walk to the house. There was a new bounce to her step, a swish to her hips he’d never noticed before, and he wondered,
Is that what love does?
One thing for sure, when Lee said those two had sizzle, she hadn’t been kidding. Tag thought he still sensed the sparks that flew between his grandmother and Coop.
Or was that something happening between himself and the woman leaning against his side? “What’s wrong?” he asked, tipping her chin up so he could see her eyes.
Damn, he could drown in those eyes, those deep green pools that let a man look right into her soul. If they didn’t look so forlorn right now, he’d kiss each one, then her lips, maybe trace that tender skin along the column of her throat, maybe . . .
She stiffened against him, then stepped away. “First of all, it sounds like you’ve changed plans again without telling me. I wish you’d stop doing that. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go on the roundup with you.”
“Now, Lee. We can talk about that . . .”
“Tag, I’ve never been here before. I’ve never seen you before. I know now why you and the Double Eagle looked so familiar to me.”
“What made you come up with all that?” He didn’t want to patronize her, but they’d already figured she didn’t have a clue about barrel racing, though as quick as she took to ranch life, Tag had wondered if she might be involved in the business end of raising cattle.
“What made me come up with all that”—Lee wrapped her arms protectively around her middle—“was the issue of
Western Horseman
I found in a stack of magazines on the coffee table. I must have read that story about you and the Double Eagle. Every memory I have of you and this ranch, every visual image I see, they’re all in that magazine. Even Betsy Mae’s pictures, smiling at the camera, barrel racing on her horse . . . Tag, don’t you understand? The few memories I was certain of, they’re all from some dumb magazine article! Even the first memories I recall, about getting dumped on my butt but getting up to ride again? They’re a direct quote from Betsy Mae!”
“What’s it matter?” Tag gave into the impulse. He pulled Lee back into his arms and kissed her lips. Softly, just a taste right now. He was pleased as punch when she unfolded her arms from around her own waist, encircled his and kissed him back.
“You probably read that magazine right before you got that bump on your noggin and lost your memory. That just reinforces the fact, in my mind, that maybe you’re somehow involved in the cattle industry or ranching. Why else would you have been reading
Western Horseman
? What else would you be doing up here in cattle country? Think about it, Lee. We know your memories are all mixed up, but they’ll come back. And I don’t honestly see you being a different person than you are now. You’ll just know more about your past. Trust me on this.”
“But don’t you understand?” Lee stepped back, once again pulling herself out of his embrace. “Every time I think I know something about myself is true, I find out it isn’t! I thought I was a barrel racer . . . obviously I’m not. I thought I was at least a cowgirl, but we know that’s not true either. The one thing I could hold on to was the fact I knew you from somewhere even if you didn’t remember me, the ranch looked familiar, there was something here I could count on.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. Tag cupped her chin in his palms and brushed the moisture away with his thumbs. “You know you can count on me, Lee. I won’t hurt you.”
“But can you count on me? I don’t know who I am, Tag. I get fragments of knowledge, the stuff of dreams and disjointed musings, but nothing real. Then to find out my memories are the result of photos in a magazine . . . Tag, it’s just too much.”
Tag took her hands in his. She grimaced as if in pain and he turned them over. Torn blisters from the leather reins marred both palms. She’d never complained . . . not a word. He lifted both her hands to his lips and kissed them.