Capturing the Cowboy's Heart (16 page)

“Then your grandfather needs you.”

“He passed away two years ago.”

“Damn.”

She pushed away, wiping the tears from her face.  “There’s nothing there to go back to.  No other family.”

Burk handed her his neckerchief.  “What about the funeral?”

“She’s being cremated,” she replied as she dabbed at her eyes.  “My grandmother didn’t want a service.  Not that she’d remember saying so.”  She looked up at him.  “She had Alzheimer’s.  She didn’t even know who I was at the end.”

“If she’s been sick for a while, maybe it was for the best.”

“I know it is.”

“Still, it’s awful hard to lose someone you love.”  Burk gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.  “You gonna be all right?”

She nodded
and then t
urned to hug him.  “
Thank you.”  Then she sat back.  “
Promise me you won’t say anything to Cade about this.”

“It’s not my place to tell him,”
he assured her
.  “You have my word.”

A board creaked and Lacy’s head snapped around to see Cade watching them from the doorway.  She shot to her feet and wiped her eyes.  “This stupid hay dust.”

“Hay dust?” Cade replied in a tone that chilled the room.

“It just drives my eyes crazy.”  She reached for the tray she’d carried down from the house.  “The dog’s fed and I brought you and Burk some coffee.  What now?” 

Cade looked at her, his jaw clenched.  “Well, if you’ve finished what you were doing here,
which doesn’t appear to have been much,
then you can go
fill the bull’s water tank.  Stay
outside
of the fence,” he added with a frown.

She handed Burk the tray
, leaving her own coffee untouched as she walked out, needing to distance herself from Cade’s dark mood.  She couldn’t take it.  Not now
.

Cade stared at the barn door, teeth clenched.  Coming upon Lacy
in Burk’s arms had struck him like a freight train.
  He’d had no idea there was something going on between the two of them. Hell.

Burk slammed the tray
Lacy had handed him
down on
to
the bench,
sending coffee splashing
out over the rims of the cups and onto the barn floor below.  “What the hell was that all about?”

Cade
turned and went after Burk, smashing his fist into his friend’s jaw.  The hit sent Burk stumbling
back several feet before
dropping onto his backside
.
“
That
was about you and Dalton!”

Burk sat up, rubbing his jaw.  Then a slow smile slid across his face.  “Well, I’ll be damn.  You’re jealous.”

“Like hell I am!” Cade growled.  “I just don’t want you giving
Dalton
any reason to stick around when the interview is done.”

“For your information,”
his friend said
as he got to his feet, “Lacy was upset about something and I was just trying to comfort her.”

“I’m the boss here and if Dalton needs any comforting I should be the one to do it!” 

“Yeah,” Burk frowned, “you’d be a hell of a lot of comfort to her with your icy glares and harsh words.  Maybe you ought to make certain what you’re talking about before you go jumping to conclusions.”  He started to walk away.

Cade grabbed him by the arm.  “Burk...”

His friend turned to him with an equally icy glare.

“I’m sorry.”  He let his hand drop away.  “I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately.”  

“Look, I’m sorry I agreed to do that story without talking to you about it first, but I knew you’d turn it down flat.  We need the business a spread on you could draw in for us.”

Cade nodded solemnly.  “I know.”

“And as for Lacy,” Burk added, still scowling, “none of this was her fault.  She’s just here doing her job.  So take it easy on her, will ya?”

He was right.  Cade sighed.  None of this mess was Lacy’s fault.  She had gotten stuck in the middle of all his problems.  Was that why she had been upset when he’d come into the barn?  Had he been the cause of her tears?  The thought ate at him with a vengeance.  He’d give her a little time to herself and then he would find her and set things right. 

*
             
*
             
*

Lacy dragged the heavy hose across the yard to the watering tank.  She was careful not to get too close to the fence as she fed the end of it into it.  When the tip of it disappeared into the remaining few inches of water, she went back to the spigot and turned it on. 

Her clean, white tennis shoes sank into the mud beneath the leaky faucet. 
She let out
a defeated groan.  If she had any sense at all, she would pack up and go home.  There was no reason to do the story now that her grandmother was...gone.  No more doctor’s bills or nursing home charges.  So what was keeping her there?

Or was it who?

She stepped away from the spigot, the mud sucking at her shoes as she went.  They were as good as ruined now.  Fitting for the day.  Kicking them off,
she
lowered herself onto
an area where the grass was dry
to sit and wait.

Suddenly, something big and hairy jumped her from behind, knocking her over.  Then it moved over her, effectively pinning her to the ground.  It all happened so fast.  All she could do was cover her face with her arms and scream.

*
             
*
             
*

Cade’s head snapped in the direction of Lacy’s terrified shriek.  Visions of her in the pasture with
Bluster
charging her flashed through his mind. 

“Oh, hell.”  He raced for the door with Cade right on his heels.  The sight that greeted them when they reached the open barn door brought them both to an immediate stop, though Cade’s heart kept right on racing.

There, lying sprawled in the grass beneath the tail-wagging mutt, was
none other than
his shrieking ranch hand
– Lacy Dalton
. 

“Looks like you got some competition,” Burk said with a jesting elbow to Cade’s side.

Lacy’s panicked screams quickly turned into tortured giggles as
Domino
licked her face like a lollipop. 

“Stop.”  Her laughter filled the air.

Burk laughed as he watched from the
open
barn
door
.  “Looks like
Domino
’s found himself a new friend.”

“Yeah,” Cade nodded, “they seem to have hit it off real well.  She looks a lot happier than she did when I came into the barn earlier.”

“Yeah, she does.  Maybe they’ll keep each other out of trouble.”

“She needs all the help she can get in that department.” 
He
watched Lacy with the overzealous dog.
 
Lucky mutt
.
 
He turned to Burk.  “You have any idea what’s eating at her?”

“Nope,
” he said with a casual shrug
.  “Females,
go figure.”  He turned and started back into the barn.

“If you knew, you’d tell me, right?”

His friend simply raised a hand and waved before disappearing into the barn.  Cade frowned.  Burk knew something he wasn’t telling.

“Please,” Lacy pleaded as she twisted beneath the affectionate mutt, trying her best to avoid the dog’s generous kisses, “I can’t take it anymore.”

Her laughter drawing a grin from Cade, he
stepped forward and snapped his fingers.  “
Domino
, down.”

The dog’s head shot up and on command and it moved off of Lacy to sit on the ground beside her, its tail still wagging.

“Cade,”
she
said between labored breaths as she propped herself up on her elbows to look at him.

“Well, Dalton, looks like you’ve added another male to the list of men whose tongues hang out once they’ve laid eyes on you.”

Her expression changed and there was a long, drawn out moment of silence before she asked, “Are you on that list?”

“What red-blooded male wouldn’t be?” he responded simply, then walked over and extended a hand to help her up.

She stared up at him with those big, beautiful eyes of hers.  Her cheeks were tinted a deep pink, no doubt from her tussle with Burk’s dog.  Her long blonde hair was mussed just enough to give her that sexy just-crawled-out-of-bed look. 

Cade shook the thought from his head.  “You gonna sit there all day?”

She reached for his hand.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” he asked as he helped her to her feet.

She laughed softly.  “No.  He really is a big sweetheart.”

“
Domino
needs to learn some manners.”  Why was it he found himself jealous of a dog of all things?

She
lifted her eyes to his.  “Did you really mean what you said?”

“About
Domino
?”

“No, about men thinking of me that way?”

He
started to laugh, but stopped when he realized she was completely serious.  How could a woman who looked like Lacy Dalton not know how the sight of her affected men?  And especially how she affected him. 

“It’s not like you have to go around wearing a paper bag over your head or anything,” he said, hoping she would let it go at that.  The turn in conversation was making him more than a little uneasy.

“I see.”  

There was no missing the look of hurt in her eyes.  And as if sensing it, too,
Domino
barked and rubbed his nose against the back of Lacy’s hand.

“Looks like he’s your new best friend,” Cade teased, trying to make her smile again.  “He’s likely to be your shadow for the rest of your stay.  You don’t mind do you?  Cause if you do, we could tie him up so he won’t keep bugging you.”

“No, don’t do that.”  Lacy reached out to scratch the dog behind its ears.  “He’s nice.  And he really doesn’t bother me at all.” 

“You sure?” 
His
gaze fell to the slender fingers that stroked
Domino
’s head.  And he suddenly found himself wishing that he had been born a dog...
Domino
to be exact.

Lacy knelt beside the dog and slipped her arms around it
s neck
.  The rhythmic sweeping of
the mutt’s
tail quickened as he responded with several more quick wet kisses to her cheek.  “I’m not going to complain.  It’s nice to be kissed and loved.”

How true
that was
.
  Cade couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be kissed and loved by
her
. 

He pushed the thought away.
 
She worked for him and he didn’t think about kissing his ranch hands...ever!  Then again, none of his hands had ever been a woman with hair the color of summer wheat and
curves
...  

He groaned inwardly
.

The sound of running water drew his
attention to the tank Lacy had been filling, which was now overflowing onto the ground. 

She
saw it too and gasped. 
Jumping up, s
he ran, her bare feet slapping on the wet grass as she hurried back to the barn to shut off the water.

Cade followed, shaking his head.  He looked down at the mud oozing up between her toes and across her bare feet and grinned.  “We might just make a cowgirl out of you yet.”

Gathering up the
hose
, he
carried it back to its hook on the side of the barn. 

“I think I’ll pass if being a cowgirl means standing around barefoot with mud oozing between my toes.”

He
chuckled,
nodding
toward the yard.  “Stand over there in the grass and I’ll spray off your feet.”  He cranked the water back on and then grabbed for her muddied shoes, tossing them into the yard beside her. 

The second
the water stream hit her feet, she
began to dance around.

“How am I supposed to rinse you off with you moving around like that?” 

“
But i
t’s cold,” she yelped as she continued
her efforts to avoid the spray of water
he was sending her direction.  “No more!” 

“Boy, Dalton, I never knew you could move so fast.”  He laughed, harder this time, causing water’s spray to go off its intended course.

“Cade!  You’re getting my clothes all wet!”