Authors: Joanne Kennedy
An hour later, Charlie ran a brush over Trouble’s damp coat.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe I just rode a wild horse.”
“I can’t believe it either,” Nate said, grinning. “What would your PETA friends think?”
“If they could see it, they’d know it was okay. Trouble’s not scared anymore.” She untangled a knot in the mare’s mane. “She seems calmer.”
“How about you?”
“I’m calmer too. Mostly because I’m exhausted.”
“Ready for dinner?”
Charlie gave Trouble a final pat and a kiss on the muzzle. “I guess.”
She almost groaned when she sat down at the dinner table. Sandi had ignored the eggplants and onions and raided the freezer instead. A huge pot of stew occupied the center of the table. There was no ratatouille—although as far as Charlie was concerned, the chunks of meat floating in the pot might as well be rat. Rat, cow, cat—it made no difference. Meat was meat, and Charlie wouldn’t eat any of it.
She scanned the table for something she could eat. A faint wisp of fragrant steam rose from a napkin-lined basket in the center of the table. Charlie reached over and pushed the cloth aside. Biscuits.
She took one and split it open. It flaked apart in delicate layers, releasing another cloud of delicious fresh-baked scent. Sandi might not know how to cook vegetarian, but she obviously had Charlie beat when it came to baking. When Charlie tried to make biscuits, they came out dense as hockey pucks and hit the plate with an audible thunk.
“Great biscuits,” Taylor said, slathering one with butter. “Good stew too. You sure it’s not rat, though?”
“I’m sure.” Sandi flashed him a flirtatious grin. “Pure Angus beef. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with what you’re used to in L.A.”
“This is fine,” Taylor said.
The two of them spent the rest of the meal discussing Hollywood, with Sandi listening breathlessly as Taylor spun tales of movie sets and stars. Finally, Nate pushed back his chair and set his napkin on the table.
“Got to feed the horses,” he said.
Charlie stood too. “I’ll help.”
Sandi frowned. “No. You’re a paying guest, remember?” She tossed her hair and tilted her annoyingly perfect nose in the air. “I’ll help Nate with the horses.” She gave Nate a significant look. “
Our
horses.”
Charlie would have laughed at the look of horror on Nate’s face if she hadn’t felt so sorry for him—and for the horses.
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about it, Sandi.”
“I’m not worried,” Sandi said. “I want to help with Junior. You said he was vicious, but you let
her
pet him.”
“Charlie knows how to handle him, that’s all,” Nate said. “It’s part of what I’m teaching.”
“Well, if Charlie can do it, I can do it. Teach
me
.” Sandi set off for the barn, slender hips swinging.
Nate turned to Charlie and scowled. “Why’d you have to tell her I’d let you handle the horse?” He waved her away. “Go play cards or something. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Feeling dismissed, Charlie left without a word, the other students trailing behind. Only Sam was unaffected by the tension. Trotting ahead, she stopped on the steps and swept a bottle of polish from her pocket like a magician unveiling a rabbit from his top hat.
“Look, Mr. Barnes,” she said. “Mom had fuchsia! Your favorite!”
“Sam, I don’t think…” Charlie began.
“Do you think Mom should do it?” Sam fingered the bottle, biting her lower lip. “I mean, she’s going to beauty school and he
is
a movie star. But she’s busy with the horses now, helping Dad. I thought maybe I could surprise her.”
Charlie nodded, casting a teasing smile toward Taylor. “Well, I bet she would be awfully surprised if she came in here and found out you’d painted Mr. Barnes’s nails fuchsia.”
Taylor made a mournful face, as if he’d been sentenced to the scaffold, but he sat down on the side of Charlie’s bed and held out his big, square hands. “Go for it, pardner,” he said. “But no cameras, okay? I don’t want to turn up in the
National Enquirer
with my nails painted pink. They’d probably say I was sporting ladies’ panties too.”
Charlie stifled a giggle while Taylor’s face turned a shade of pink that just about matched the nail polish. Sam, who had been shaking the bottle as they talked, knelt in front of Taylor and had just unscrewed the top when a high, panicked scream rent the air outside. Every head turned toward the barn.
“Junior!” Charlie said.
***
Nate dropped the bucket of sweet feed he was dumping into Boy’s feed bin and vaulted the stall door, dashing toward the sound of Junior’s panicked scream. He was about to fling the stall door open and hurl himself onto whatever was hurting the stallion, but the scene inside the barn stopped him dead in the doorway.
Junior was backed into the corner of his stall, eyes rolling like loose marbles, lather coating his neck. A panicked grimace pulled his skin tighter than a Hollywood facelift, highlighting every vein and muscle and drawing his lips back from his teeth. As Nate watched, the horse stretched his neck out in a sinuous snakelike motion, snapping his teeth, then repeated the motion twice more. Something had him riled up way beyond sanity.
And that something was crouched in the center of the stall.
Sandi.
Nate thought he might never breathe again. She was crouched in the straw, her hands covering her face, knees drawn up to her chest. Her shoulders heaved with sobs.
“He kicked me,” she said.
He unlatched the gate, careful not to let it click too loudly, and slid inside the stall. Edging toward her, he dodged away as Junior snapped again, his face a mask of panic.
“Can you walk?” Nate asked.
Sandi shook her head. Nate wanted to run to her and drag her out of harm’s way, but he knew better than to move too fast. Breathing slowly, he calmed himself. Hopefully, the horse wasn’t too far gone to connect and feel the soothing vibrations Nate was sending his way.
A soft voice behind him broke his concentration.
“I could help.”
Charlie had entered the barn so quietly Nate hadn’t heard her. Neither had Junior, but he heard her now and rolled his eyes her way, a shiver rippling his skin from his neck to his heaving ribs. “Tell me what to do,” Charlie said.
Nate remembered Sandi’s argument.
You let
her
pet him.
This whole thing was Charlie’s fault. This was what happened when you let outsiders mess with your animals.
Of course, Charlie wasn’t really an outsider. Or at least, he hadn’t thought she was.
Maybe he’d been wrong. Too quick to trust.
Pulling in a long breath, he struggled to retain his composure. “Just go,” he said. “You’ve done enough.”
He’d tried to keep a mild tone, but something in his voice sent Junior into another round of hysterics. Bunching his hindquarters, he lifted his front hooves and spun toward Sandi. Nate lunged from the side of the stall and slammed into the horse’s shoulder, shoving the stallion sideways so his striking hooves hit the straw a bare six inches from where Sandi crouched in the straw.
“Mom,” squeaked a small voice.
Sam. Nate blanched.
Sam. The horse. Sandi. Sam.
His mind was scrambling, his protective urge dodging from one thing to another. He squeezed his eyes shut and focused hard on the horse under his hands. He was leaning into Junior’s shoulder, his fingers buried in the damp strands of the horse’s mane as he tried through sheer force of will to hold the animal steady. It wasn’t working. He could feel muscles twitching under the animal’s damp coat, threatening to explode into action. If the horse reared, Nate would be tossed off as easily as a rag doll. He didn’t have the physical strength to hold the animal in check. Only his mind could hold the horse steady, and his mind was spinning with panic.
Sandi. Sam. Sam. Sandi. Junior.
He sorted the threats in his head, and one rose to the surface.
“Sam,” he said, through clenched teeth.
“I’ve got her,” Charlie said. “Come on, honey. Daddy’s got the horse. Don’t worry.”
Nate felt some of the tension leach out of his muscles as the barn door closed behind them. He rested his forehead against the horse and willed himself calm while he flicked through his options in his head. He needed to get Sandi out of the stall. But if he focused away from the horse, anything could happen.
“Sandi,” he said. “Hey. Sandi.”
She opened one eye, peering through the fan of hair that almost obscured her face. Her expression was blank and distant. Could she even understand him?
“Where did he kick you?”
She just stared at him.
“You have to get out,” Nate said. “Can you get up?”
Sandi’s face was unreadable. Had she been kicked in the head, or what? She needed his help, but if he left the horse, they were both liable to get hurt.
“You have to get out if you can,” he said. “I can’t leave him.”
Her expression shifted, grogginess giving way to stunned understanding and then outrage.
Nate had never been so glad to see her get mad.
“The damn horse kicked me right in the butt,” she said. “Get away from him. Help me up.”
“I can’t,” Nate said. “You’ll have to get out yourself. I’m sorry.”
“Nate, I practically passed out. I’m still dizzy.” She covered her face with her hands. “I’m not sure I can walk.”
Keeping his grip on the horse, he struggled to speak. Sandi finally tossed her hair back and gave him a look that held more anger than pain.
“Are you
sure
you can’t walk?” he asked.
Glaring at him, Sandi struggled up onto her hands and knees and crawled slowly to the stall door, fumbling with the latch while Nate concentrated all his energy on holding the horse steady, sending surges of stolid concentration from his mind to his hands. Finally, she opened the gate and stumbled out of the stall. Turning, she kicked the gate closed behind her—hard. It slammed shut, the clack of the latch echoing like a gunshot. Junior stumbled backward, dragging Nate with him, one heavy hoof glancing across Nate’s boot.
“Easy,” Nate muttered, wincing and trying not to react to the pain. “Take it easy, boy.”
The horse didn’t want to take it easy. He arched his back and kicked the back of the stall, then reared up. Nate threw himself across the stall like an action hero fleeing a bomb blast, flinging himself at the gate. He fell out of the stall just as Junior’s hooves hit the boards with a force that almost splintered the heavy plank door.
Nate turned and watched the horse, who stood trembling in the stall. He’d come so far with Junior. The horse had been doing so well, getting better every day. He’d even recovered from the setback he’d suffered from Charlie’s foolishness on her first day.
But if Sandi hadn’t done anything to provoke him—if the horse had simply lashed out at her—Nate was going to have to admit he’d failed. Junior would never be stable enough to breed. He might not even be stable enough to keep.
He turned to face Sandi, who was sitting on a hay bale with her head in her hands. Nate bent over her to brush her hair back from her eyes. The gaze he uncovered was almost as murderous as the look the horse had worn—but Junior’s look had been born of fear. Sandi’s was lit by anger, pure and simple.
“I’m surprised you didn’t just let him kill me,” she said. “That would solve all your problems, wouldn’t it?”
“I couldn’t let him go. I had to hold him,” Nate said. He floundered through his mind, searching for the words that would make Sandi understand he’d had no choice. “I had to,” he said.
Even to him, the words sounded weak.
“The damn horse kicked me,” she said. “Knocked me down. I’ve probably got a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my ass.” She shook his hand off her shoulder and grabbed the stall door, pulling herself to her feet. “My back hurts,” she said, pressing one hand to her tailbone. “I told you that horse was vicious. You should have it put down.”
Nate set his hand under her elbow and guided her from the barn. As they staggered down the alley between the stalls, he looked back to see Junior pawing at the straw with one frantic foot while he repeated the snakelike motion of his head and neck over and over. Snapping his teeth again and again, the horse trembled and pawed the straw, his body racked with shivers.
All that work, those long days, the trust Nate had built between himself and the horse—it was gone.
Sandi was already starting to take the ranch away, piece by piece.
Charlie slouched on the side of the bed, listening to the crunch of tires on gravel as the ambulance trundled down the driveway. There were no sirens, no emergency lights. Sandi seemed fine; in fact, she’d managed to light into Nate with a diatribe that almost set the barn on fire once the EMTs arrived. She’d insisted she was gravely injured and would never walk again, but the fact that she was limping theatrically toward the ambulance as she said it made her claim a little suspect. Still, the ambulance workers had insisted on strapping her to a gurney and transporting her to the hospital to be checked out and Nate had gone along, leaving Charlie in charge of a very worried Sam.
And thank God she had Sam to worry about. If she’d been able to think of anything else, she’d have remembered the tone of Nate’s voice, the hard sheen of his eyes when she’d offered to help. Clearly, he blamed her for Sandi’s accident.
She spent the next two hours settling Sam into bed. The attic bedroom was a perfect child-sized aerie under the eaves, decorated with pictures of horses, horse figurines, stuffed horses, and a comforter set decorated with cowboys and bucking broncs. Charlie read her one story after another to distract her from the events of the evening. The fact that every book the kid owned was about horses didn’t help any. Charlie did her best, assuring the child over and over that her mother was fine, pointing out that Robert the Rose Horse would never hurt anyone and Blaze always rescued Billy, even when there was a forest fire. Finally Doris poked her head into the open door.
“Your dad called,” she said. “Your mama’s going to be all right, honey.”
Charlie heaved a phony sigh of relief and left the room. She hadn’t heard the phone ring—not once. Doris was lying, probably trying to make the kid feel better. A kick in the butt might be just what Sandi deserved, but lower back injuries were no joke, and while Sandi’s theatrics hadn’t fooled the adults, Sam had watched anxiously, her forehead wrinkled with concern, as her mother was loaded into the ambulance.
Standing in the hallway, Charlie gave way to the guilt that was nibbling at the edges of her consciousness, telling her the whole incident was her fault.
But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Sandi had insisted on approaching the stallion despite Nate’s advice. Charlie didn’t have anything to do with that.
Right?
In a flash, she relived the past few hours. Sandi’s warning about Junior. Her own flippant response.
It
was
her fault.
Deep down, she knew she’d set Sandi up on purpose. She’d resented the woman from the moment she’d met her. She’d known when she flaunted her own success with Junior that the woman would try to compete. She’d used the horse to hurt Sandi, surely as if she’d picked up a weapon and clubbed her over the head.
Which would have been infinitely more satisfying.
But what if Junior had
killed
Sandi? No matter how much Charlie disliked Nate’s ex, there were people who loved and needed her. And was Sandi really that bad? Or was Charlie just jealous?
And what would happen to Junior if he really
was
a monster killer stallion? She remembered the odd, compulsive way Junior had twisted his neck, the way he’d drawn his lips back and snapped at the air as if he was seeing devils floating in the dusty air of the stable.
What she’d done was selfish, petty, and wrong. She’d never forgive herself—and judging from the look Nate had given her, he wouldn’t forgive her either.
Well, that solved one problem. She could stay now and concentrate on doing her job for Sadie. Maintaining an objective perspective around Nate Shawcross had just become a major survival skill—because even if she wanted him, he wouldn’t have her now.
Of course, it was that certain knowledge that made her realize just how much she really did want him.
***
Charlie woke hours later to Phaedra’s light breathing and Doris’s now-familiar snoring. The first time she’d heard the woman sleep, Charlie thought Bigfoot was on the loose, but she’d gotten used to it. It hardly scared her at all now.
Rubbing her eyes, she found her feet and padded across the floor to the bunkhouse door. Easing it open, she looked toward the ranch house.
No lights.
No pickup.
Nate and Sandi were still gone.
She glanced down at her wrist, squinting to see her watch in the pale light of dawn. Four a.m. Surely they would have been back by now if Sandi was okay. Tugging her T-shirt down and brushing the seat of her jeans, she headed for the house. She needed to call the hospital. Taylor was sleeping in there, probably on the sofa. She wasn’t sure what Nate had planned to do with Sandi as far as sleeping arrangements went, and that was just as well. In any case, she’d try to sneak in and use the phone without waking Taylor.
Yeah, right. Once she reached the front door, she realized sneaking into the house wasn’t a possibility. For one thing, the door stuck, and when it finally burst open it hit the wall with a solid thump. For another thing, Butt heard her coming and jumped off the sofa, hitting the floor with a mighty thud and woofing out a greeting. Taylor stumbled out of the bedroom, rubbing his eyes.
“Something wrong?” He squinted at her, his eyes bleary, his jaw shadowed by the day’s growth of stubble.
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “They’re not back yet. I’m calling the hospital.” She waved him back toward the bedroom. “Go get some sleep.”
Frowning, Taylor shuffled over to the kitchen table and sat down. He obviously wasn’t used to following orders.
Charlie found a phone book and flipped to the emergency numbers. Crooking the old-fashioned wall phone between her shoulder and chin, she punched the Cheyenne hospital’s number into the keypad.
“Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. How can I help you?” said a robotic voice.
“I’m calling about a patient,” Charlie said. “Sandi—um, Sandi Givens.” She’d almost said Shawcross. “She was brought in earlier. In an ambulance.”
“I’m sorry, there’s no one here by that name.” Charlie could hear the clicking of a keyboard over the static of the phone line.
“Was she released? Or did they…” She swallowed. “Did they have to take her to Denver?”
“Are you family?”
Charlie sighed. “No. Just a—a friend.”
Yeah, right,
she thought
. I’m Sandi’s pal. We’re regular BFFs.
“I’m sorry, all medical information is confidential,” the voice informed her. “I’d recommend you call your friend. Or try a family member.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you,” Charlie said.
She sat down at the kitchen table and covered her face with her hands. “They won’t tell me anything,” she said. “It’s confidential. I wonder what’s really going on. I wish Nate would call. I wish…”
She wished so many things—but most of all, she wished she could relive the past six hours. Change the course of her life, and Sandi’s, and Junior’s. Keep Sam from seeing her mother crouched in the stall with the furious stallion looming over her. What if the incident made Sam afraid of horses? She thought of the horse-themed room upstairs. The kid would have nightmares up there.
Taylor shoved his chair back and shuffled to the refrigerator. Hauling out a gallon of milk, he poured two glasses—one for himself, one for her. He sat down across from her and they sipped wordlessly for a while.
It was a little awkward. Charlie felt like she should say something, but she was afraid of what might come out if she opened her mouth. She could feel sobs building up in her chest, and worse yet, a self-pitying wail. She wondered what Taylor would do if she burst into tears and cried like a baby. He’d probably run. Maybe lock himself in the bedroom.
The actor shifted in his seat, fooling with a napkin. His lips were tight, his chin tucked. He glanced at her, then glanced away. Finally, he reached over and patted her hand. It was a fatherly gesture that almost set her sobs free. Sympathy was always her undoing.
“It’ll be okay,” he said.
Charlie shook her head. Swallowing, she struggled to talk, the words squeezing through the ache tightening her throat.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I knew she’d be jealous. I knew she’d try to handle the horse.”
“You didn’t know she’d hit him,” Taylor said.
Charlie stilled, her back going rigid. “She
what
?”
“She hit him. That’s what Nate told me. Junior snapped at her and she smacked him on the nose.” He shrugged. “You couldn’t have known she’d do that.”
“No,” Charlie said, pulling away. “How could she? She has to know he’s fragile. She has to know his history.”
“She didn’t care,” Taylor said. “He made her mad. So, see? It’s not your fault.”
“Thanks.” Charlie said. “That’s a relief.” She leaned back in her chair and groaned. “There you go. What kind of person am I? It’s like I’m glad she abused him, because it gets me off the hook. I’m a freaking monster.”
“No you’re not,” Taylor said. “You’re just a woman.” He gave her a wry smile. “Although sometimes that’s mighty close to the same thing. Besides, that got Junior off the hook too. Nate was about ready to give up on him until he found out Sandi whacked him one.”
They lapsed into silence again, sipping their milk, listening as the clock over the stove ticked the minutes away. They were still sitting there when Nate’s truck pulled in an hour later.
***
Sandi laughed at nothing as she stepped out of the truck. It was a high, tinkling laugh, obviously intended for an audience. Nate looked around the barnyard and groaned inwardly. The only audience was Charlie, standing in the open front door, looking like she hadn’t slept a wink.
Damn. He’d gotten so involved dealing with Sandi, he hadn’t thought to call the ranch. Charlie looked like she’d been up all night worrying.
Maybe she deserved it, though. Well, sort of. There was no doubt she’d played a part in tonight’s events. A big part. But he knew she hadn’t realized how Sandi would respond to her baiting, or how serious the repercussions might be.
“Oh, hi, Charlie,” Sandi said. “We’re back!” She spread her arms and did a quick shuffling dance step, making it obvious there was no real injury to her back. The girl wasn’t just better; she was giddy. You’d have thought getting kicked in the butt by a horse was the next best thing to winning the lottery.
In her mind, it was. She’d read Nate a whole new set of rules and taken his silence for submission when he was just being nice because he felt bad about the accident. She’d misinterpreted everything he said—and even managed to misconstrue what he
didn’t
say. She’d heard what she wanted to hear, and when she didn’t hear anything, she’d figured he agreed with her. She always did that. He could never tell if she did it on purpose, or if she was so focused on herself she couldn’t wrap her mind around the notion that someone might disagree with her.
In any case, she’d made two things clear: she was taking Sam back to Denver, and she was going after the ranch. She said she’d already seen a lawyer and she had a right to half.
He might not like change, but it was coming no matter what he did. When he’d tried to protest, she hit him with a bombshell—a secret she’d been keeping for years.
A secret that changed everything.
Charlie scuffed a foot in the dusty driveway and looked up at Sandi. “You okay?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m fine.” Sandi laughed again, and the sound scraped up Nate’s spine like ragged fingernails. What the hell was so funny, anyway?
Nothing, obviously. The laugh was fake. It was a perfect imitation of some actress on a TV show they used to watch. Sandi’s laugh was about as real as her acrylic fingernails. As real as the hair extensions Nate had caught his hand in while she lay on the gurney at the hospital. One of the extensions had come off in his hand, and he thought for a moment he’d ripped her hair right out of her head. She’d laughed then, too, at the look of horror on his face.
“So you’re really okay?” Charlie asked.
“Oh, yes.” Sandi tossed her golden hair. “I’m better than just okay. We had a good talk, didn’t we, Nate?” She threw him a lash-fluttering look and a saucy smile. “Things are going to change, aren’t they?” She tossed her hair. “Well, I have to go pretty up.”
***
Charlie resisted the urge to make a gagging gesture as Sandi stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. The woman looked fine, but she was probably one of those women who stayed in the bathroom for hours, putting on mascara one eyelash at a time, or whatever it was they did that made their beauty routines take up half their lives. Charlie liked to look nice, but she tried to limit her mirror time to twenty minutes in the morning.
Nate cleared his throat. “I need to feed the horses,” he said, heading for the door. Charlie wondered if she should follow. Judging from the way he avoided her eyes, she should probably stay right where she was.
But then she’d be alone with Sandi—and that was the last place she wanted to be. As the door swung shut behind Nate, she lunged for it—but she was too late. Sandi burst out of the bathroom, letting the door slam back against the wall. She stood in the doorway, the fluorescent light over the sink making her golden hair glow like a shining halo. Her expression was hardly angelic, though. Setting her fists on her hips, she glared at Charlie.
“What are you doing with my husband?”
“Your husband?”
Sandi rolled her eyes in the universal high school language for
I can’t believe how clueless you are.
“Nate,” she said. “You know, the dumbass cowboy you’ve been fooling around with.”
Charlie spun around, her hands on her hips. “He’s not a dumbass, and I don’t fool around. And he’s not your husband either.”
“Yes he is,” Sandi said. “I’ve put up with him for seven years. That makes us married. Common-law husband and wife.”
Charlie felt a stab of sympathy for Nate. What kind of miserable, empty relationship did the two of them have?
“I thought you left,” she said. “I thought you guys broke up.”
“He might have thought so, but he was wrong,” Sandi said. “I’m not done with him yet.”