C
HAPTER
14
T
he kitchen was warm, the rich smell of coffee almost palpable, but it was the scent of Emily's fresh-baked strudel that tantalized the senses and fired up the imagination. She'd found apples cored and sliced in the freezer a few days prior and had concocted this particular brand of ambrosia on the previous evening. The smell of cinnamon wafted through the ancient kitchen like some sort of white-hot magic. Emily frosted the strudel while Casie refreshed everyone's cups.
Colt leaned back against the wooden rungs of his chair, one stocking foot crossed over his opposite knee. Even Ty looked relaxed, eyes shining above a chipped mug as the conversation meandered from livestock to weather.
“We're lucky it's not any colder,” Colt said. “Or that little heifer would have been a goner. Good job finding her when you did, Em.”
“I should have brought her straight into the house.” Near the cracked and discolored porcelain sink, kitchen tools stuck out of a ceramic pitcher like the quills of a porcupine. Emily snatched a spatula from the mess, hooked out a pair of strudel, and eased them onto two mismatched plates. “I'll know better next time. And maybe you can teach me how to . . .” She winced. A glob of tantalizing frosting dripped onto the Formica. “. . . how you saved that calf. So I can take care of things myself if we have . . . you know . . . more problems in the future.”
Casie stared at her. The girl was talking about skinning a dead calf, about stripping the hide from the corpse and attaching it to another. The girl who didn't squash bugs and couldn't quite seem to get up enough nerve to get within thirty feet of the most docile of horses. Casie retrieved her own coffee mug and watched that girl now, wondering how much she had miscalculated her, but the feel of Colt's gaze made her shift her attention to him. His eyes were dark, deep with thoughts he didn't voice but which she could almost feel. Almost . . . She pulled her gaze away. She needed to know his thoughts like a raccoon needed trifocals.
There was a moment of silence, then, “That doesn't really seem like a job for
you,
Em,” Colt said.
“I could do it.” She was immediately defensive.
“I'm sure you could.” He took a sip of coffee, narrowing his eyes against the steam. “But that calf's about as big as you are. You did great just finding it. Isn't that right, Case?” His tone was filled to the brim with kindly intent.
Something knotted in Casie's gut at the sound of it. It wasn't as if she wanted that sort of sappy emotion directed toward her. She didn't care if he thought she was Wonder Woman or Rin Tin Tin. It was simply that no one ever seemed . . . She paused her traitorous thoughts and scowled. It wasn't as if she needed his approval or anything, but who was he to be worrying about her employee's emotional state? Of course, Em wasn't really an employee, but whatever she was, Colton shouldn't be the one protecting her. He had nothing to do with her. Still, the room was silent, waiting for her response. She staunched her weird flow of thoughts and forced a smile above the rim of her coffee cup. “You did everything right,” she said, but the girl shook her head as she delivered another strudel to a plate.
“I should have gone out earlier.” Her voice caught a little. “I woke up almost half an hour before, but I could hear the windâ”
“It's not your fault,” Colt said, tone a little rougher. “Isn't that right, Case?”
But at the hitch in the girl's voice, Casie forgot all about her own neediness of moments before. “It's not your job to take care of every living being on this ranch, Emily. It's my responsibility. I should have gone outâ”
“Holy hell,” Colt said. “It's no one's fault. These things happen. This place is too much for two gâ” He stopped himself abruptly. Casie stared at him, brows hitched up, waiting.
“Too much for what?” Emily asked.
“Too much for two . . .
gorillas?
” Colt said, tone pitched up at the end.
“You think girls can't do this?” Emily's voice was stretched tight.
Casie remained silent. He was right, of course. It
was
too much for them. So why the hell did she want to crack him over the head with the cast-iron pan that hung above the stove?
“Just because we're female doesn't mean we can't do the work,” Emily said.
“I didn't mean to imply otherwise.”
“Well, that's how it sounded.”
“You done good,” Colt said, face serious. “And I mean that.”
Emily turned back to the strudel, lips pursed as she shook her head. “When I saw that cow lying down like . . .” Her voice broke. Her face scrunched up. She cleared her throat. “Sorry.”
“Hey, don't worry about it,” Colt said. “I know seasoned cowhands who'll cry like babies over a lost calf.”
She glanced up, blinking back tears. “You do not.”
“Swear to God,” he said, making some sort of motion across his chest with his casted right hand. “You can't talk to Dad for a week if a cow goes down.”
“You're lying.”
“I'm not,” he said. “The man's got a hundred seventy-five head and treats every one of them like his firstborn. You'd think he was made of bull thistle until one of his cows is in trouble.”
“Really?” She sounded hopeful and heartened.
He watched her, eyes solemn. “You did good, Em. Another half an hour or so might have been too late.”
“If you hadn't come by, she would have died for sure. We couldn't have done it without you, Mr. Dickenson. Right, Casie?”
Her voice was filled with a reverence that sounded dangerously close to hero worship. The idea was irritating at best.
“Casie?” Emily's tone had gone quizzical.
“Yes,” she said, jerking herself into the conversation. “Yes. Thank you, Dic . . . Mr. Dickenson.” Although she would have liked to avoid eye contact, staring at the refrigerator might seem a little odd, but when she shifted her gaze to his, she saw that something had lit up his eyes. Something that didn't quite reach his lips.
“No problem,” he said, face atypically straight. “It was my pleasure.”
So skinning dead calves was a pleasure now, Casie thought but didn't let that little bit of vitriol reach her lips.
“How long do we have to . . .” Emily made a face. “. . . you know . . . leave that hide on?”
Colt pulled his gaze from Casie's with a seeming effort. “I'd let it be for a few days at least.”
Emily licked some frosting off her fingers. “It's disgusting.”
“Yeah,” Colt said and grinned a little. “That's exactly what it is. Why don't you just leave it be. Give me a call if there's any trouble. Otherwise, I'll stop by in a few days and take it off.”
“I canâ” Casie began, but he ignored her.
“And I'll get rid of the cow's carcass.”
She felt her back stiffen. “You don't need to do that,” she said.
“I don't mind.”
“I can take care of it.” Her voice was maybe a little sharper than she'd intended.
Colt raised a brow. Ty sat a little straighter in his chair, expression tense, but Emily waded evenly in.
“What'll you do with her?”
They all turned toward the girl. Her expression was solemn, her eyes very large.
“The . . . the body,” she said. “What'll you do with it?”
Casie shrugged, uncomfortable with the topic and almost tempted to turn to Colton to get her out of it, but hadn't she just wanted him to back off? “You don't have to worry about that, Em.”
“Yeah, but . . .” She seemed unusually tense. “It's just that . . . she was somebody's mother. You know? And babies need . . .” She paused, cleared her throat, and turned away before lifting two plates from the counter. “Who's ready for breakfast?”
They all remained quiet in the echoing silence for a second. Colton was the first to speak.
“I'd give a kidney to have one of those,” he said. She set the plates wordlessly in front of him and Ty.
The room felt empty in the wake of the warm camaraderie that had come before.
“You didn't make these from scratch, did you, Em?” Colt asked.
“Sure,” she said, but her voice was a little funny, a little off. It was hard to know what to do in the absence of the girl's usual ebullience.
Casie watched her turn her back to them. Her gaze met Colt's. She wondered what he saw in her eyes before he dropped his attention to his breakfast and cut into the strudel. Steam billowed upward, blooming in the air like a cinnamon blossom.
Ty followed suit. They chewed for a second.
“Holy cow, Em,” Colt said, glancing up from his breakfast. “Where'd you learn to cook like this?”
She shrugged, still facing the wall. “Here and there.”
Colt shifted his attention to Casie again. Was there accusation in his gaze? Did he think she wasn't being supportive enough? And if so, who was he to judge? He didn't belong here. He had made no commitment to any of them. Irritated and guilty, she shrugged.
He shifted his attention back to the strudel. “Well, it's damned good,” he said, expression hooded.
“Thanks.” The girl's usual loquaciousness was long gone, but she handed Casie a plate, then grabbed her coffee cup and sat down beside Ty.
“Is your stomach bothering you again?” Casie asked.
Their gazes met before Emily's skittered away. “I'm just not hungry right now.”
“You have to eat somethin',” Ty said, joining the conversation for the first time in a while.
“I'm fine.”
“Oatmeal is good forâ”
“I'm fine!”
The room went silent. It was the only time they'd ever heard Emily raise her voice.
Colton was the first one to resume eating. Casie eased into a chair, keeping an eye on the girl across from her.
“How's that old mare coming along?” Colt asked, glancing at Ty.
The boy shrugged, already looking skittish. Guilt, Casie guessed, rode him like a greenhorn jockey. He'd been unable to protect something he loved. What did that do to a young man trying to figure out his place in the world? “All right, I guess.”
“You get a saddle on her back yet?” Colt asked and raised his cup, narrowing his eyes against the steam and sipping carefully.
“I ain't in no hurry.”
“Well, maybe you should get at it before she gets her full strength back and tosses you and the saddle into the next county.” He grinned as he shifted his gaze to Casie, obviously remembering her traumatic launch from Tangles's heaving back. “I could give you a hand if you want.”
“Like you gave Casie a hand?” There was belligerence in the boy's voice.
“I suspect you'll be a little more cautious than Crazy Casie,” Colt said, but he grinned when he said it and glanced at her, eyes alight.
Casie refrained from sticking out her tongue. She also didn't call him a poopy head. And here she'd thought her return to the Lazy had made her revert to her old ways.
“Yeah, well . . .” Ty said, jutting his jaw a little. “No one can't ride four horses with one behind.”
They stared at him.
“She's got too much to do already,” he explained. His tone was impatient. “Then you come along with them broncs. She coulda busted her head wide open. You shoulda neverâ”
“You want a glass of milk?” Emily asked.
“. . . brought themâ” Ty continued.
“Or more coffee?” Emily rose. The legs of her chair scraped noisily as she pushed away from the table. Her gaze was sharp.
Ty glanced her way, caught the spark in her eye, and retreated. “No. I gotta be gettin' home.” He finished off his strudel in record time and bumbled to his feet. “Thanks for the breakfast. It was real good.” He glanced at the girl, dipped his head, and swung toward the door.
“Hang on a minute,” Colt said, licking the remains of frosting from his fork. “I'll give you a ride.”
But the boy was unforgiving. “Don't need no ride.”
The adults exchanged a glance. “I have to go into town,” Casie said. “Give me a minute and I'll drop youâ”
“Ain't necessary,” Ty said and disappeared into the entry for his boots.
“Wait up,” Emily called. “I never did finish that cattle check.”
“You don't need to do that,” Casie said.
“Yes, I do,” Em argued and nodded silently toward the entry to indicate her real reason for hurrying away.