Chapter 6 #2
His hand covered hers, stopping her movement. “That’s enough,” he said, his voice rough.
She glanced up to find his gaze conveying an unmistakable sexual message. She pulled her hand away and sat back on her heels, her heart pounding.
His smile was wry. “It seems I can’t resist you, after all. Maybe you’d better tend the stew while I get myself under control.”
One swift look confirmed that he had become aroused during the treatment. She blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think?—”
“Believe me, neither did I.”
“The… the liniment should be put on your knees and feet.”
“I’ll do it in a minute.”
“Then I’ll get dinner ready.” She jumped to her feet and headed over toward the fire, which seemed cool in contrast to T.R.’s warm gaze. Damn! Her plan to make a fool of this Easterner was in shambles, and in the long run, the fool had turned out to be her.
Two hours later, they’d managed to smooth over the awkwardness between them by ignoring the incident altogether. They sat by the fire drinking coffee laced with the last of the whiskey.
T.R. leaned against the face of the cliff, a bedroll under him and his jacket covering his bare legs. “I suppose I can expect all sorts of poisonous bugs to show up in my bedroll tonight,” he said.
“I think the smell of that horse liniment will keep them away.”
“So that’s why you’re sitting on the other side of the fire.”
“You’ve got that right.” Actually, the smell of horse liniment didn’t bother her all that much. She’d just decided to keep herself as far from temptation as possible during the long night ahead.
T.R. chuckled. “Bag Balm and horse liniment. The funny thing is, I’m having a pretty good time.”
“That’s because you’ve finished off that flask.”
“Partly. But partly because we’re camping out. I’ve never done that before.”
“Not even in Boy Scouts?”
T.R. shook his head. “I got into sports early — Pop Warner Football League, Little League baseball. I didn’t have time for Scouts.”
“What positions did you play?”
“Quarterback on the football team, pitcher in baseball.”
Freddy nodded. “The power positions. They probably called you T.R. when you were nine years old.”
He sipped his coffee. “Tommy.”
“Really?” She decided to be bold and see if she could unravel one of the mysteries about him. “Then I don’t understand why you didn’t make the natural progression to Tom.”
He gazed into the fire for a long moment. “That’s what my wife, Linda, said. She refused to call me by a set of initials. Called it stuffy.”
A wife. Somehow, Freddy hadn’t thought there was a wife. “She’s right.”
“Was right,” he corrected in a monotone. “She’s dead.”
“Oh!” Understanding hit Freddy like a blow. She remembered how he’d looked when he’d said Thaddeus must have loved Clara even after her death. Apparently, T.R. still loved his wife. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. I don’t talk about it much.”
Freddy stared into her coffee mug. Of course he wouldn’t want some cowpoke like Curtis calling him by the name his wife had used.
But he wasn’t the type to broadcast his personal tragedy, either.
Under normal circumstances, she doubted he would have told her, a relative stranger, but there was something about a campfire that encouraged confidences.
And he had consumed most of the flask of whiskey.
She waited without much hope to see if he’d add any details. When he didn’t, she refrained from asking. “If it were my choice, I’d call you Ry,” she said at last.
“Ry?”
“Isn’t your middle name Rycroft?”
“I’m surprised you remembered.”
So was she. The number of things that stuck in her mind concerning him were beginning to disturb her. “It’s an unusual name, that’s all.”
“So’s Freddy. I thought you were a man.”
“Would it have made everything easier if I had been?”
He studied her across the dancing flames. “You tell me. Would a man have trailed me over the ranch until I was so saddle sore I couldn’t stand? Would Thaddeus have done that?”
“If his ranch was at stake, he would have. Duane and Curtis thought it was a terrific idea.”
“So everybody was in on it?”
“Why do you suppose you got a brand-new pair of jeans guaranteed to make your ride even more miserable?”
He snorted and shook his head. “You people are tough.”
“Out here, we have to be.”
“Well, let me tell you something. Wall Street is no baby’s playground, either.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but the stakes aren’t as high.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You don’t consider financial ruin a high-stakes game?”
“Not compared to losing the thing you love most.”
The transformation in his expression was dramatic. All the challenge and good humor left his eyes, to be replaced by a stark sorrow that seemed to have no bottom. “You’re right, of course.”
She felt like hell. What a thing to have said to a man whose wife had died. “Sorry, again. I seem to be putting my foot in my mouth on a regular basis.”
“Never apologize for telling the truth, Freddy.” He finished his coffee and stretched gingerly out on the bedroll. “So you think I should change my name.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who goes by initials.”
“What kind is that?”
She hesitated. “A little on the pompous side.”
To her relief, he glanced over at her and laughed. “It’s not easy being pompous around you. Maybe I’ve been heading in that direction, though. Is Ry a good name for a cowboy?”
“An excellent name.”
“Then maybe I’ll try it for a while.” He turned his head to look up into the sky. “I had no idea there were so many stars.”
“City lights block them out.” Pleased that he’d accepted her nickname for him, she threw another stick on the fire and watched the sparks climb into the cool night air.
Then she slipped off her boots and lay down on her own bedroll.
“But then, I’ve never seen the lights of Times Square.
I guess each place has its own kind of beauty. ”
He was quiet, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep.
A series of sharp yips drifted up from the valley. “Are those ranch dogs?” he asked.
“Coyotes.”
“I thought they were supposed to howl.”
“Most Easterners think that. But they yip. Which makes the dogs go crazy. Can you hear them?”
“Yeah. Noise really travels out here.”
Her eyelids grew heavy. “Yes.”
“I’m glad you brought me up here, even if your motives weren’t pure.”
“You’ve been a good sport.”
“Thanks. Good night, Freddy.” His voice seemed to caress her name, sending unexpected goosebumps over her skin.
“Good night...” She hesitated. “Ry.”
She awoke to an unidentifiable scream. Bolting from her bedroll, she saw the man she’d recently dubbed Ry crouched against the cliff, a glowing stick he’d plucked from the fire brandished in one hand.
“What is it?” she called.
“I don’t know. Get over here.”
She was halfway around the fire before she realized she was obeying his command on her territory.
The scream came again, followed by the sound of wild snorting and stomping hooves.
“It’s the horses!” she cried, hurrying back to her bedroll where she pulled on her boots before locating her flashlight and her Smith & Wesson.
“Most likely a snake or cougar disturbing them.”
“Damn, where are my boots?” he asked.
“Stay put. I’ll handle it.”
He grunted with pain. “The hell you will.”
Ignoring him, she turned on the flashlight and shone it in the direction of the scream.
“It’s okay, Maureen,” she called, setting out through the underbrush.
“I’m coming, Mikey. Hang in there.” She was counting on the sound of a human voice to discourage whatever critter was after the horses.
But if her voice didn’t work, her aim with the Smith & Wesson would.
She hoped she wouldn’t have to use the gun.
By coming up this canyon, she knew that she’d invaded the territory of several desert dwellers who had a right to protect themselves, but she had to safeguard her horses.
She found Mikey and Maureen quivering in the clearing where she’d left them, yet a sweep of the flashlight revealed nothing in the area that might have spooked them.
“See anything?” Ry said from behind her.
Freddy sighed in irritation as she continued searching the bushes and overhead branches with the beam of her flashlight. “No, but go back to camp. I don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”
“No dice.”
“Look, you know nothing about the dangers out here. You— where do you think you’re going?”
Ry pushed past her and limped over to Mikey. “Shine the light on his hind leg.”
She did, and gasped. It was dripping blood. “Oh, my God.” She hurried over and crouched beside the horse, whose flanks were heaving. “Easy, Mikey. Easy, boy. Ry, hold his head so I can check this out.”
While Ry stroked Mikey’s nose and murmured to him, Freddy took a bandanna from her pocket and dabbed at the blood until she could see the wound, a jagged cut just above his fetlock.
A little deeper and Mikey would have been crippled for life.
As it was, he couldn’t be ridden back down the mountain.
“I’m going to look Maureen over,” she said, moving carefully around the quivering Mikey to her own horse.
The whites of Maureen’s eyes showed, and she tossed her head when Freddy reached for her, but after a few moments, the mare settled down. She was unhurt, which meant Ry could ride her down while Freddy led Mikey.
“Let’s take them back to camp and tether them to a tree,” she suggested. “I’ll lead Mikey if you’ll take Maureen.”
“I’ve got Mikey.” Ry coaxed the horse forward and the animal complied with an air of trust that astonished Freddy. Both man and horse limped back to camp.
He just might make a cowboy, at that . He was stubborn enough.
And gutsy. After a few hours of being immobilized in sleep, he must have stiffened up considerably, yet he’d torn himself from his bedroll and snatched a weapon before she was fully awake.
She had a gun. He had nothing but a stick, and he’d assumed the role of protector without thinking.
Definitely the sort of thing a cowboy would do.
After they secured the horses to an oak tree, she cleaned Mikey’s wound with water and applied an antiseptic ointment from her first-aid kit while Ry soothed the horse.
“What do you think happened?” Ry asked after they’d built up the fire and were sitting across from each other on their bedrolls, both too keyed up to sleep.
“I’m not sure. I suppose a snake or a cougar could have spooked them, and Mikey might have ripped his leg open on a jagged rock or broken tree limb lying on the ground.”
“Another rogue cougar, maybe?”
Freddy shook her head. “A rogue would have killed at least one of the horses. We’ll probably never know what happened.”
“Is the injury serious?”
“It could have been. As it is, I’ll have to lead him down and you’ll have to ride Maureen.”
“I’ll lead him down.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You will not.”
“Yes, I will. It can’t be any worse to walk that trail than to ride it again.”
Freddy chuckled. “And here I was beginning to think you were turning into a cowboy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A real cowboy will saddle up to ride from one side of his front yard to the other, rather than walk it.”
“That may be true, but if he has to walk so his woman can ride, I’ll bet he’d do that.”
His woman. She was certain he’d only used the expression to make a point, and it was a chauvinistic thing to say, anyway.
So why did she feel a little glow of pleasure?
Why did she turn the phrase over in her mind, listening to it again as if it were a refrain from a favorite song?
The pressure of the impending sale must be getting to her.
Perhaps, deep in her heart, she longed for a white knight to rescue her and give her back the True Love.
Maybe she longed for a white knight, period.
Being alone all night with an attractive man reminded her of a seldom-acknowledged emptiness in her life.
But if she imagined a commodities trader from New York was the answer to her prayers, she must have accidentally dropped a sprig of locoweed into tonight’s supper.