Badge and a Saddle (Heroes in the Saddle Book 2) (6 page)

The sound of a
chair pushing back from the table grated on his nerves. He needed to focus, or
things would start slipping. He needed to be on point.

“Mina.” Clint
helped her with an elbow on her arm. “It’d be my pleasure to give the ol’
jigsaw puzzle a spin with you.”

She laughed
softly. “Rex? Bennet? Would you like to join us?”

Rex shook his
head. “I’m gonna take a look around, check on things.”

“I’ll go with
him.” Bennet stood and balanced on his walker.

“Suit yourselves.”
Clint led Mina to the small room off the far side of the living room, where
Bennet entertained visitors of the female persuasion.

“Leave the
dishes.” Bennet stuck a pistol in the holster on his walker and made tracks out
the screen door, across the porch, and down the long ramp that covered half the
width of the steps.

Rex picked up a
rifle and jogged to catch up. “What’s your hurry?”

“Son, if you like
the pretty doctor, why don’t you do something about it?” Bennet stopped in the
middle of the patchy grass yard and pointed a finger at Rex. “Since you got divorced
from my daughter, you’ve been living like a monk. She’s moved on.” He tipped
his head down for just a second. “Moved on so good, you’d think she’d never had
a father in the first place.”

Rex kicked a clod
of dirt. Even though Bennet was Aletha’s stepfather, he’d been the one who’d
raised her from a baby until her momma moved on to Aletha’s next stepfather
when her daughter was just nine. “That’s mostly my fault, now that she has no
chance of getting her hands on the ranch.” Damn, he hadn’t meant to say it so
bluntly. “Sorry.”

“No, Rex. I know
how calculating and greedy she is.” The old man patted Rex on the shoulder.
“Wish I’d seen it in her before you two got involved.”

Rex slashed a hand
through the air. “Old news. We’ve got more critical worries.” He nodded once
toward the barn. “Should we lock that up?”

“Probably a good
plan.” Bennet wheeled toward the old wood building. “When this is over, though,
I’d encourage you to talk with the young doctor. She likes you, and I can see
that you’ve taken a shine to her, some.”

Rex stopped. “Old
man, why are you playing matchmaker? You don’t know that she likes me any more
than you came up with some kind of magic to discern that I like her.”

“Don’t be so
sure.” Bennet kept walking.

Rex had to jog to
catch up. “What do you mean?”

“I know you, Rex.
Known you since you were just a sprout. I’ve seen you getting’ hot and bothered
by girls, and Doctor Mina? She’s mighty worth you taking the time to get to
know.”

Rex couldn’t argue
with that. Not with any of it. Mina was incredibly witty and had to be
intelligent to hold down the job she had. That didn’t even cover her physical
attributes, which he’d had the pleasure of exploring in his bed earlier that
afternoon. And Bennet thought she liked Rex?

“Presuming for a
minute that you are right, and I do like her a little, what makes you think she
feels the same?”

Bennet stopped and
turned, his big ol’ smile wide across his face. “I oiled the wheels on my
walker after my nap this afternoon.” He laughed. “The girls didn’t hear me
sneak up to listen in on their lady-talk.”

“Jeez.” Rex just
shook his head. The man had no concern for privacy after all his years in the
sheriff’s department. Rex glanced back at the house, then at Bennet. “So you
heard her say she likes me?”

The old man
chuckled as he wheeled to the barn door. “Son, you are in big, big trouble with
that young lady. As big as it gets.”

So much for
keeping his focus sharp. Rex gripped the shotgun tight in his hands to remind
him of what was important as he yanked open the barn door and got back to his
police work.

The next morning,
Mina jerked awake. The sun had reached a sixty degree angle already. She’d
barely slept during the night, listening to Rex and Clint patrolling, talking
quietly with Bennet, and taking turns coming upstairs to sleep.

She sat up and
looked out her window. She could see beautiful green pastures spreading for
acres and acres. A small river flowing in a random path across the land. Off in
the distance, a patch of brown and white moved. She guessed it was the cattle.

She hadn’t been on
a ranch in years, since a department retreat to “get away from the city.” That
night sky had been amazing, but the rest of it—horseback riding and other
cowboy pursuits—had been more comical than restful for the group of academics.

She checked the
other bedrooms, which were empty, then showered quickly and dressed in Delta’s
jeans that were too short and wide. The other woman had sent along a belt,
which helped. Pulling on a soft tank top, she dug through the duffle bag and
found a gray hoodie. Nice lady, that Delta. During the night, Mina had
automatically reached for her smart phone to search for information on the
racecar driver, forgetting that her access to technology now resided at the
bottom of the river.

She stepped
quietly down to the lower level, not hearing voices.

Bennet roused in
his chair. “G’mornin’.”

“Good morning. How
are you?” The man looked a little gray around the edges.

“I’m just fine.
How about you, Doctor?”

“Please, it’s
Mina. And I’m well-rested, which is a surprise. Considering.”

“Yep.” He pointed
to the kitchen. “Coffee’s on.”

She wandered
toward the room. Clint’s truck was gone. “Rex?”

“He’s in the barn,
tending to his horse.”

She stopped
walking, and turned. “He has a horse?”

“Yep.” Bennet
stood, slowly, and with lots of pops and snaps coming from various joints. “I
suggested he take you for a ride, get the both of you away from here for a
while.” He rolled into the kitchen and plucked a cloth bag out of the
refrigerator. “Packed you a lunch, so you can stay gone for a while.”

Mina hadn’t moved.
Why would Bennet suggest they ride out and picnic…? “You overheard my conversation
with Delta yesterday?”

Bennet had the
grace to look a little sheepish. “I did, not on purpose, but it comes naturally
to me.” One side of his mouth curved up, as if the small lie didn’t sit well.
He picked up his walker and set it down firmly. “Rex is a good man. A skilled
detective, honest, and has a big heart that got crushed one too many times by
the woman I’m ashamed to call my daughter.”

Mina’s throat
clogged with emotion.

He stood a little
taller. “You’d do well to find a future with him, even if it’s just a short
one. But Mina, honey, he’s got a lot of pride.”

Her lips curved
up. “I’ve noticed.”

A short bark of
laughter came out of the old sheriff. “Not hard to discern.” He let his head
drop. “Just give him a chance, be honest with him, and let him see you’re not
out to hurt him.”

Her stomach rolled
a little at the “honest” part, but she had good reason for that. Didn’t she?
Picking up the bag, she had to carry the heavy thing in two hands. “How many
meals did you pack in here?” She eased out the screen door.

Bennet grunted.
“Enough for a nice, long afternoon.” He chuckled as he wandered back into the
living room.

The springy grass
under her feet lifted her heart. The warm sun on her back gave her hope. The
sound of Rex’s voice talking to his horse around the side of the barn gave her
happy tingles. This was a man of quality, and Bennet was right. It was worth
the effort to crack open his pride and see if there was more to their mutual
attraction than just…sex.

He stood tall, his
feet planted wide as he brushed down a big, big, really big, brown horse with a
white mane and tail.

The animal spotted
her and nickered.

Rex glanced her
way, frowned when he saw the bag in her hands, then went back to work. “You
decided to come out of hiding.”

“I think I’ve
never slept that well in my life. Thank you for guarding me all night.”

He nodded.

She set down the
bag and walked around the front of the horse, holding out her hand. “Who’s this
lovely lady?”

“Mmmm.” Rex
groaned. “This is my gelding, Merle.”

She laughed,
letting the sound ease even more of her stress. “My apologies, sir.” She petted
the horse’s long nose. “Why Merle?”

Rex shrugged as he
worked. “The guy was…and is…Bennet’s favorite singer. He got the colt for me
when I was eight, and I’d never imagined owning anything this awesome. So I
gave him a name in honor of Bennet.”

“That’s sweet.”
She did the math. “When you were eight?” She waited a few minutes, but he
didn’t say more. She’d seen another small house a ways down the river. “Was
your dad the foreman here?”

“Nope.” He patted
the horse’s side and walked away.

“He’s one of those
quiet types, huh?” She ran her hand along the horse’s silky neck. “You’re a
handsome one.”

“Thanks.” Rex
strolled toward her carrying a small blanket and some leather straps. “Bennet
suggested…” He sighed and shook his head. “Would you like to take a ride? We
only have one horse, but he can carry us both.”

Her mouth opened,
but no thoughts formed in her head. She had not expected to share a horse. But
what fun, being that close to Rex. “Sure, I’d love to.” Gesturing to her
clothes and running shoes, she grimaced. “This okay?”

“Sure is.” He wore
jeans, boots, a flannel shirt, and to make things perfect, he had a cowboy hat
on the fencepost behind him.

In minutes they
were on Merle’s back, Mina behind Rex, wearing an old seed cap and holding the
detective very tightly. He’d snugged a rifle in a holder attached to the
saddle, and barely moved a leg to make the horse walk.

She glanced down. “We’re
way up in the air.” Even though Merle was just walking, the ground seemed to race
by at a dizzying speed. “He’s not going to go for a run, is he?”

Rex laughed, quick
and hard, sounding almost rusty. “No. I tell him what to do.” He made a clicking
sound with his mouth, moved his legs, and the horse did some kind of jarring
trot.

Mina held on
tighter. “Okay, I believe you.” Her voice came out in jerks, thanks to the
horse’s gait.

He shifted again,
and the horse eased back into a walk.

The motion of the ride
rubbed her breasts against Rex’s back as they followed the small river—creek,
he’d called it—and that, combined with the scent of the detective made her
mouth water. Fresh, like soap and musky, like leather, the combination on him
struck her as totally masculine. Her nipples puckered, and she groaned.

Easing away a
little, she gave herself room to breathe without having X-rated thoughts
flashing in her mind. The breeze carried little particles that caught the sun’s
light. Spring pollen? Every so often, a bug buzzed by. Nothing here smelled
like the asphalt and rot of the city. Instead, it was earthy and sweet, like
there was hope and promise in the air.

He cleared his
throat. “You asked about the foreman’s house.” He didn’t sound enthused about
whatever he was about to tell her.

“You didn’t live
there, you said.”

“Well, I did live
there.” Rex set his left hand on his thigh and rubbed up and down a few times.
“With my wife, Bennet’s step-daughter.”

Mina kept silent.
His story would come out at his own pace.

“When I was seven,
my family lived on a reservation outside of Houston. Dad was full-blood, but
Mom was white, and she hated it there. We were like outsiders, mostly, and
Dad…he was a tough man.” Rex used his leg to get Merle to speed up a bit.

Tough man
said a lot. Mina had friends growing up whose parents were not
parents-of-the-year material.

“There was a fight
at a bar, Mom was killed first, and when Dad went after the woman who stabbed
her, he died, too.”

Mina hugged him
tighter. “I’m sorry, Rex.” She could imagine a little boy, scared and alone,
learning his parents had been killed.

He rubbed his palm
over her hands where they sat on his belly. “Thanks. It was rough on me, and
worse when relatives on the res stepped up and offered to take me in. People who
had more or less ignored me my whole life, and were likely just hoping to get
control of any insurance money that came to me.”

“That’s so sad.”
Her chest ached for the young version of this tough man. No wonder he’d chosen a
life of protecting and serving.

 “Then my mother’s
side of the family came for the funeral. The grandparents I’d never met, and
the step-brother my mother had spoken of often.”

“Bennet.”

“Yeah. They hadn’t
known about me. Dad hadn’t let Mom…” Rex hauled in an unsteady breath. “Bennet
offered to take me back to Wild Oak. He showed me pictures of the land, the
herd, but what got me was the barn full of horses.”

“That had to be
amazing for you, coming here after living…” She’d seen pictures of the poverty
on some reservations.

“It was like I’d
won the greatest prize on earth.” He looked around the area. “Still love it
here.”

“Bennet mentioned
you own the ranch?”

“I do. His step-daughter,
Aletha, lived with her mother in Arkansas, and only visited the ranch for a
month in the summer. She was a couple of years older than me, but I fell in
love that first summer.” He stopped and pointed to his right, where two deer
munched on light-green sprouts of grass.

“They’re not
afraid of us?”

“We don’t hunt on
the land. I’m not sure why, but I suspect Bennet is an old softy who likes to
look at wildlife, but not kill it.”

“He’s a nice guy.
You were lucky.”

“I was.” Rex
shifted and Merle started plodding along again. “Not so lucky to fall for
Aletha, though. I’d just come back from a tour of duty overseas, and I was
having trouble…readjusting.”

Mina knew about
the difficult time many veterans had when they came back home.

“She was here, and
I knew better, but I let her into my life because I needed…something.” He rode
silently for a few minutes.

“That’s when you
married her?”

“After a fake
pregnancy. We spent a year trying to make it work before she finally admitted
why she’d married me. Seems she was just interested in getting control of the
ranch, which Bennet had arranged to be split: half to her, half to me, in his
will.”

“She wanted to
sell her half?”

“Yeah.” Rex turned
the horse to head through a stand of trees. “I’d never touched the money I’d
gotten when my parents died, and Bennet had paid me to work the ranch. That,
along with my military pay was sitting in the bank. So I gave her almost
everything I had. Bennet
sold
the ranch to me and changed his will,
making it iron-clad legal by having her sign away all her rights.”

“It seems like a
waste, just to get her out of your lives.” No wonder Rex had such a tough way
about him.

“Money well spent.
I had military benefits for college, so I was able to do what I’d planned, but
I can see it’s hard on Bennet. He has to face the fact that the only reason
she’d come to visit him all those years was for her inheritance.”

They rode through
a small woods and came out in a clearing next to the creek.

“This is
beautiful.”

He stopped the
horse, helped her down, and followed her to the creek bank. “I come here a lot.
To think.” He sat on his heels and tossed a pebble into the clear water. “How
about you? You mentioned your dad.”

Hadn’t he read her
file? He must know everything there was to know about her. Was he just trying
to make conversation? She squatted down next to him. “Mom died when I was born,
and Dad and I lived close to the college where he worked. It was easy for me to
choose academia as a career.”

Rex looked at her,
his dark eyes softer, somehow. “But stars? Why did you choose that field?”

He’d opened up to
her, now she wanted to let him into her life a little. “When I was old enough
to understand that other kids had mommies, and I didn’t, Dad showed me a star
through a huge university telescope. He’d purchased the naming rights through NASA
and gave it the lovely tag, Iris O’Malley Cooper. My mother’s name.”

“That’s a great
story.”

“It shaped the way
I looked at the heavens. I think Dad hoped I’d follow in his footsteps, but the
allure of all that mystery out there wasn’t something I could ignore.” She
looked at the horizon, where sky met earth. How could she count the amazing
things she’d seen, and those she had yet to discover?

“A lot like my
job, but without the weaponry.”

Mina smiled.
“Exactly. Once I talked Dad into getting me my own home telescope, I was a
terror, begging him to bring home more books on astronomy, having him sneak me
into classes that were ten years above my grade level, and even debating with
professors on their theories.”

“Yeah, I can see
you doing that.” He stood and offered her his hand. She took it and he helped
her up. Rex stepped a little closer, running his hand up her arm. “You’re not
the sort of woman who would disagree silently.” One corner of his perfect mouth
curved up.

Everything inside
her went gooey as she stared into his eyes and watched his gaze shift over her
face, down to her chest, and back up. Just that flick of his gaze on her
nipples tingled them into hard pebbles.

He ran his hand
down her arm to her hand, then squeezed it in his. “You’ll have to show me that
planet sometime.”

Warmth radiated
from his touch all the way to her core, where it became a burning desire to kiss
him again. Kiss him all over, hundreds of times. She swallowed. “Technically,
it’s a star because they undergo nuclear reactions that burn hydrogen in their
cores, whereas planets don’t.” Why in heaven had she said that?