Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
A t about six-thirty that night, Freddy nudged Maureen into a trot as she and Ry rode along a trail near the southern boundary of the ranch.
Freddy knew that Ry’s mount, a dark bay named Destiny, would mimic her horse’s pace, and she hoped the jouncing would knock some sense into Ry’s thick skull.
She wondered what he hoped to accomplish by staying on another week.
Surely he recognized the volatile situation between them.
To their right, the sun sat like a bronze paperweight anchoring the horizon.
Then, as if melting from its own heat, it gradually flattened and slipped out of sight.
Above them the sky was clear except for a towering pile of white clouds that looked like a huge serving of vanilla ice cream.
As the sun sank, the vanilla turned to strawberry, then raspberry, and finally orange sherbet.
It was Freddy’s favorite time of day, when the heat had left the desert air yet there was still enough soft light for a rider to see the trail.
A fierce love of this land surged within her as she glanced over at Ry, the interloper.
Did he imagine he could really own the True Love? Money wasn’t enough to claim ownership.
“When does the real estate agent expect an answer on your offer?” she asked.
“Soon.” Despite the trot, he sat on his horse easily, the reins held loosely in one hand, his denim-clad thighs gripping leather as he moved in rhythm with his mount. He pulled his hat brim lower to shade his eyes from the setting sun. “Duane asked me today about reinstating the rodeo.”
“And what did you say?”
“I didn’t give him a direct answer because I decided to settle it with you, first. We can’t take risks like that with the guests, Freddy. No more rodeos.”
So it starts. The greenhorn dictator . “You’ll probably lose business,” she said. “Lots of people come to the ranch just for the rodeo.”
“I don’t care. A lawsuit could bankrupt us.”
Freddy sighed. That was big-city thinking, all right. And to be fair, he had a point. Her father had loved the rodeo and hadn’t worried at all about lawsuits, but her father had been a lousy businessman. Maybe Ry and his partners would be the first to turn a profit from the True Love.
He paused and reined Destiny to the left. “Let’s check out that herd of cattle over there.”
Freddy surveyed the group of about twenty white-faced Herefords, their rusty coats burnished by the orange light of sunset. “That wouldn’t be a good idea, Ry.”
“Why not?”
Ordinarily, she’d have let him find out for himself, but all this talk about lawsuits had made her jittery.
He didn’t own the ranch yet, and she and Westridge would be responsible if he decided to sue.
“Destiny’s been trained as a cutting horse.
Get him around a stray animal and he lays down some funky moves. ”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Look, Ry, I don’t think you understand. He ca?—”
“Let me try, Freddy.” He nudged Destiny into a lope. “How bad can it be?”
“Ry, slow down!” She started after him. “You’ll spook them!” she called, too late to stop the cattle from scattering in several directions. They were used to crazy greenhorns, so they wouldn’t run far, but any minute, she expected Destiny to spring into action.
He did.
Freddy groaned aloud, but still she loved watching the hairpin turns and dramatic spins of a good cutting horse working cattle.
Ry seemed to love it less. First he lost his hat, then his stirrups.
Finally, when Destiny sat back on his haunches and wheeled a hundred and eighty degrees after a bolting calf, Ry lost his seat and landed with a thud on the ground, catching part of a prickly pear on his way down.
Destiny continued rounding up cattle with even more efficiency now that he’d dispensed with his bothersome rider.
Freddy started toward Ry. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t warned him. That should stand up in a courtroom. She leaned from the saddle and snatched his new hat from the branch of a creosote bush.
“Have you noticed that the cactus are in bloom?” she asked. “That beaver-tail prickly pear is especially pretty in yellow, don’t you think?”
Ry looked up at her, his hair tousled, his face a grimace of pain.
She dismounted and dropped Maureen’s reins to the ground before she walked toward him. One of the prickly pear pads had stuck to his left hip, but he’d avoided landing in the middle of the plant.
“Just think, you can tell all your friends you were thrown by one of the finest cutting horses in Arizona.”
He rested his forearms on his bent knees. “I’m going to learn how to stay on that four-legged amusement ride,” he said grimly.
“In a week? I don’t imagine so. Leigh’s a good teacher, but she can’t work miracles.” She crouched in front of him. “Here’s your hat, and you seem to have a piece of prickly pear sticking to you.”
His blue eyes met her gaze as he put on his hat. “I’m aware of that.”
She didn’t dare look into those eyes for very long.
He might be a city slicker, but his calm acceptance of disaster was a very compelling trait, and there was no Dexter around to chaperone them this time.
“You’re lucky you didn’t tangle with that cholla over there.
” She pointed to a jointed cactus with segments the size of hot dogs. “Now that’s a cactus with an attitude.”
“I’m developing one myself.”
“Stay there and I’ll help you get the cactus off.” She pushed to her feet and looked around for a stick.
“What about my horse?”
She walked over to a dead palo verde. “Destiny will wander back once the cattle are rounded up. He’s very well trained.
” She snapped off a dried branch and returned to where he sat.
“Now hold still,” she cautioned, crouching next to him again.
“We might get all the needles to come out when I pry the cactus away.”
“And if we don’t?”
She studied the best point to slide the stick under the saucer-size paddle. “Unless you want to ride home this way, and drive the needles deeper, you’ll have to take off your pants and hope they stay stuck in the denim.”
“Shucking my pants is getting to be a habit around you.”
“Trust me, it’s not on purpose.” She grasped his upper arm for balance as she maneuvered the stick gently between the thorns stuck into Ry’s hip. His biceps tensed as the cactus moved, agitating the needles. “You can swear if you want,” she offered.
“I appreciate that,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I’ll wedge the stick in just a little more, and then I’ll try to knock off the cactus in one movement.”
“Sounds peachy.” He sucked in his breath. “You know, in New York, I’m a capable kind of guy. I can hail cabs and— ouch —choose good restaurants and anticipate a bull market better than most men. You’d be impressed.”
“I’m impressed now.” With a quick jerk, she separated the cactus from his jeans.
“God bless America, but that smarts!”
“I know.” She studied the dirt-stained denim. “Hold still. There are a couple of thorns I can probably pull out with my fingers, and that may be it.”
“Did you mean that?”
“Mean what?” Using her fingernails like tweezers, she gripped one of the two remaining barbs and pulled.
“Sh-sugar! About being impressed.”
Had she said that? She’d been concentrating so hard on getting the cactus out of him, she must have spoken without thinking.
Gradually, she became aware of her fingers closed securely over his arm, her face inches from his, their bodies hunched together.
She glanced at him and found him studying her intently.
Her breathing quickened. “One more thorn.”
“You know, all along I’ve thought we couldn’t become involved because we would be business associates.”
“Exactly,” she said, returning her attention to his hip and the last white needle that had pricked through the denim into his skin.
She kept her gaze focused on that needle as she gripped it with her fingernails.
She must not allow her gaze to wander to his thighs or worse, to the bulge between them.
It was like telling herself not to look over the edge of a precipice.
She couldn’t resist, and a hollow ache began deep within her.
“But thanks to a comment from your sister, I started thinking about how different the rules are out here,” he continued. “For instance, in New York, its manly to swear, even in front of women. But a true cowboy doesn’t swear in front of women, does he?”
Even his voice, so close to her ear, was an aphrodisiac. Freddy prayed her trembling fingers would work well enough to pull out the last barb. “You’re right. Most cowboys don’t swear in front of women.”
“And another thing I’ve noticed. In New York, everybody’s scrambling for status and prestige. Out here, nobody wants to lord it over anybody. With the possible exception of Eb Whitlock.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Eb’s not so bad.”
Ry made a dismissive sound deep in his throat. “He’s probably the only person who would care if we were lovers.”
She pulled too quickly and the needle broke off in the middle, leaving only a stub. “Rats!”
“Now what?”
There was one more thing she could do, and it was better than having him shed his pants right now, after that remark about becoming lovers. “I’ll use my teeth.”
He chuckled. “Oh, Freddy.”
“Be quiet, Ry, before I lose my nerve.”
“The day you lose your nerve, they’ll have to send a national news team to cover it. What do you think of my theory?”
“I think it’s dangerous.” She took off her hat and laid it beside her.
“I want you, Freddy. And don’t pretend you don’t want me. It’s too late for that.”