Counterfeit Cowgirl (Love and Laughter) (8 page)

“So…” he said, reaching for a topic to keep his thoughts in line. He had been better off when she was in the overalls, but now that they were removed and her knee was almost touching his, every fiber in him seemed aware of her presence—how her pink sweater hugged her breasts, how her hands moved slowly and precisely when she ate, as if she measured every bite. “Nate,” he said, realizing suddenly that he had momentarily forgotten his brother’s name. “How’re the twins?”

“I’m eating,” Nate said, still shoveling potatoes into his mouth.

Ty let him do so for several minutes while he concentrated on his own meal. But suddenly he thought he felt Hannah’s knee touch his own. In an instant, she jerked it away.

He refused to look at her. Refused to be drawn into her spider’s web.

“Nate!” he said, almost desperate now. “How’re the twins?”

“All right,” Nate said, devouring a chicken leg. “But the mama can’t handle both of ‘em. Looks like Hannah’ll have herself a new baby to baby—”

Nate’s words stopped as he stared at Hannah. Ty scowled, then, unable to avoid her any longer, glanced sideways and realized her face had slumped to the table.

She was sound asleep, her blue eyes closed, her lashes feather soft against her skin.

Tyrel’s heart did a twist like a sunfisher bronc coming out of the chute.

“Kinda pretty, ain’t she?” Nate said around a mouthful of beans.

Ty glanced at him and his brother smiled, as though even now thinking up a dozen more inane country lyrics to torment him with.

“She’s all right in a citified kind of way.”

Nate laughed. “Yeah. You gonna carry her to bed or what?”

The sunfisher bronc in Ty’s chest stopped cold. “To bed?”

“It’d be the gentlemanly thing to do.”

Ty cleared his throat, wiped his damp palms on his jeans and tried not to cry. God, if he touched her he was going to explode.

“Not scared of her, are ya?” Nate asked.

Ty rose with a start. Nate chuckled. Hannah groaned, but didn’t awaken.

Easing her chair back, Ty bent and lifted her into his arms. She moaned again, and for a moment all he could think of was that her hair felt like the kittens that were sometimes born in the loft. He could imagine her there, her eyes half-closed as she…

Nate began humming. The sound ripped Ty back into reality. With purposeful strides, he ascended the stairs. Pushing her door open, he strode in and deposited her on the bed.

Her eyes opened, her face only inches from his.

“Mr. Fox?” she said. Her tone was surprised but blurred with sleep.

He cleared his throat and straightened. Diffused light slanted across her bed from the hallway, shadowing and illuminating her lovely face.

“Yeah,” he said, wiping his palms on his jeans again. “It’s me.”

“Oh.” Her eyes fluttered shut. “Did I d…”

“What?” he asked, leaning closer.

“Did I do o…”

He sat on the very edge of the bed. “What’d you say?”

“Did I do okay?” she murmured, eyes closed, body lax.

Tyrel’s throat tightened. She was asleep, like a little girl who had slaved to please a father who would never be pleased.

“Yeah, honey,” he said, sweeping a few strands of hair from her forehead. “Yeah. You did perfect.”

H
ANNAH AWOKE
just after 6:00. Her body throbbed like a digital sound system. But she’d managed to feed Daniel twice during the night before falling into oblivion again. Now, despite the aches, the scrapes and her grumbling stomach—probably due to the fact that she’d fallen asleep in her dinner—she felt strangely elated.

Stumbling her way to the bathroom, she took a quick shower. The curtain had been replaced and the toilet cleaned, she noticed. Beneath the warm stream of heavenly water, she lathered her body and sang a few bars of something she’d heard yesterday, then felt embarrassed about the silly lyrics and tried to remember a little Pavarotti.

Twenty minutes later she was dressed in jeans and a blue mohair sweater, and went down the stairs.

Delectable aromas wafted to her. The Fox boys sat at the kitchen table.

“Good morning,” she said.

The brothers looked up.

“Morning,” Nate responded.

Ty made a strangled noise above his coffee cup.

Nate grinned. “Ty’d say good morning too, but he swallowed his tongue. Say good morning, Ty.”

“Shut up, Nate,” he mumbled, and shifted his gaze to his coffee.

“You look especially nice this morning, Hannah,” Nate said, still grinning. “That sweater brings out the color of your eyes. Don’t it bring out the color of her eyes, brother?” he asked, nudging Ty.

Tyrel looked up, and suddenly it didn’t matter that she was a Clifton Vandegard or that her father was one of the most
influential men in LA, because Tyrel’s eyes were dark and entrancing, drawing at something deep in her soul.

There were light crinkles at the corner of his eyes and his mouth was full and sensual, as if it could soothe a spooked horse and croon Shakespeare at the same time.

“Amy’d look good in a sweater like that,” Nate said. “Where’d you get it?”

Reality flashed back in.

Hannah blushed and hurried to take her seat. “Um…Paris,” she said.

Silence filled the room, broken only by the sound of bacon frying. All eyes turned to her.

“I, uh…I had a chance to visit there once.”

“Ahhh,” Nate said, swallowing a half a glass of milk.

Pansy, busy at the stove, began dishing up breakfast and setting plates in front of them.

Hannah stared at hers. Three eggs, a couple strips of bacon, two pieces of buttered toast and a sliced orange. More food than she had consumed in all of 1997. “Wow,” she said.

“Yeah,” sighed Nate.

“Eat up,” ordered Pansy, her spatula held like a whip.

Hannah ate her orange first. True, she was hungry, but no one loved a fat woman. Her mother’s words were still very clear on that.

Despite the slathering of butter, she ate the toast. It tasted comparable, maybe even superior, to Spago’s cream-cheese croissants. The milk was almost yellow with fat and icy cold.

She pushed her plate away.

Pansy turned from the stove like a sergeant at the sound of shelling. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“It was delectable,” Hannah said. “But I couldn’t eat another bite.”

They were all looking at her again as if she were extraterrestrial.

“Really,” she said. Glancing at them all in turn, she laughed nervously. “I have to watch my weight or I won’t fit into my…uniform…thingies.”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “That’s a worry.”

“You gotta eat,” Ty said, watching her solemnly.

She laughed again. The sound of his whiskey-rough voice did strange things to her insides, and the somber concern in his eyes was about to melt the fifty-dollar-an-ounce moisturizer right off her face.

“I’m a big girl now,” she said, laughing again. From the corner of her eye, she noticed that Daniel had wandered into the doorway. “I’ve been deciding what to eat for quite some time.”

“I don’t want you fainting out there. We’ve got a full day ahead of us, you know,” Ty said, “and—”

“And you want to get your money’s worth?” she asked. Daddy had once said her temper could rise faster than a superstar’s ego.

“I sure—”

“Hey!” interrupted Pansy, bristly brows pressed tight over the plastic frames of her bifocals. “I don’t take no arguing over my meals. And anyhow, I got something to say.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

All three of them spoke at once.

“It’s
him!
” Pansy said, pointing her spatula at the little Angus. “He’s gotta go.”

“Daniel Day-Lewis?”

Tyrel watched Hannah’s eyes widen in horror, and wished for the hundredth time that he could keep his head straight when she was around. Never once had he said the right thing.

“I don’t care if he’s Lewis or Errol Flynn or Valentino. He ain’t staying in my house.”

“But…” Hannah stumbled to her feet. “He’ll die outside.”

“He’s a cow,” Pansy said.

“He’s not. He’s just a calf. All alone. A baby. Isn’t he, Ty?”

When she turned toward him, Ty felt as if she’d shredded his heart into a million tiny strips. He could do nothing but nod.

“And he can’t go out,” Hannah murmured.

“It’s him or me,” Pansy said.

Ty rose to his feet. “He
is
a baby, Hannah, but he’s doing real good.”

Their eyes met. Hers were as blue and wide as a summer sky, but they shone with liquid brightness in the harsh overhead light. He wondered frantically if she might cry. His lacerated heart ached.

“He’s doing real good ‘cuz of you, honey,” he said.

“Really?” The single word was soft.

“Sure. But, um…but he’s from my best heifer, you know. I’m hoping to keep him for breeding.”

“So you wouldn’t have to sell him?”

“Hell, no!”

Pansy cleared her throat, but he didn’t notice. God in heaven, Hannah was beautiful.

“Hell, no,” he said again. “He’ll be a show bull like Houdini. We’ll keep him till he’s old as Methuselah and can’t do nothing but gnaw grain with the heifers, but only if he learns that he’s a bull and not a…a house cat.”

Her bottom lip was trembling. Oh, God. He was going to take her in his arms and then heaven help his heart.

Nate hummed.

Ty tightened his fists and remained resolutely where he was. “He’s gotta go out, Hannah,” he said.

“But how’ll I feed him at night?”

“She’s been feeding him at night?” Nate asked.

“Every three hours,” Ty said, then shuffled his feet. “I, uh…I noticed. And I appreciate it, Hannah. But you don’t need to worry. He’ll be fine out there. We got a little pen on the south side of the barn. We’ll bed it down good. When the weather’s nice he can lay in the sun, and when it’s bad he can scamper in under the roof. It’s just like a…just like a spa,” he said.

Her fists were tightened, and for one wild second he wanted nothing more than to kiss her until they fell open and she would relax and unfold like a hothouse flower in his hands.
He would kiss her until she was breathless, love her like she needed to be loved.

“Really?” she whispered.

“Yeah.” He swallowed hard. “Really.”

T
HEY LEFT
D
ANIEL
in the living room while they bedded the little calf pen together. The sun was out today and as she worked, it warmed her face.

She still felt choked up about moving Daniel from the house, but this was a nice spot with the sun slanting past the lean-to to fall on the bright yellow straw that they’d spread twelve inches deep for his bed.

“Looks like spring might finally come after all,” Tyrel said.

She didn’t respond. She’d acted like a fool in the kitchen and felt silly about it now. After all, he was just a calf, not like her next of kin or something. Still, he was all alone with no mother. Not even a dad to love him in that proud, distracted way she could never understand.

“He’s going to be all right, Hannah.”

She turned toward him. Tears filled her eyes.

From the elm by the tack room a robin trilled.

Ty cleared his throat, but his voice was still raspy when he spoke. “Really, Hannah, if you cry I’m going to have to kiss you, and then all hell’s going to break loose, ‘cuz I don’t even know who you are. Or how long you’re stayin’.”

“I just…” She gathered her wits, and stumbled back a step. “I’m sorry,” she said, and fled to the house.

T
Y LOITERED AROUND
the porch for a half an hour, trying to forget the image of her eyes, her face, stricken with some sorrow far deeper than ejecting a bull calf from a living room.

The cows needed feeding, the heifers checking, and for the life of him, he couldn’t force himself to do either.

“What’re you doing?” Nate called from the barn.

Ty glanced up, irritable and fidgety. “None of your damn business.”

Nate laughed out loud, hummed a few notes and ducked back into the barn.

It was then the door opened. Ty turned back, and there on the porch, stood Hannah. The little Angus was in her arms, his broad, wedge-shaped head peeking out from beneath the parka.

“You okay?” Ty asked. It was a stupid question, of course, but it was the best he could do on such short notice. He’d only had thirty minutes or so to think up that line.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

She descended the stairs like a princess carrying the crown jewels.

“I can carry him for you.”

“No…thank you. He’s not heavy.”

Her voice broke on the last word. Dear God, why did he fall for this kind of woman? Why not Mary Ann or Roxanne or Shelly. Shelly loved him. She’d said as much. And she was solid, bred for farm life, and a kindhearted woman.

But this woman…She wasn’t kind. She was snooty. But when he glanced into her eyes, he called himself a liar.

He pushed the barn door open for her. She passed him quickly, and in a minute was bending to set Daniel on his feet. Reluctantly she pulled the parka off him.

Ty raised his brows. A pink cardigan covered his back. The sleeves encased his sturdy, black legs, and along his belly, each little pearl button was fastened.

“That sweater out of fashion?” he asked.

“I got it in London.”

She stared at the calf. He stared at her.

“I never much cared for England,” she said.

Ty knew he should keep quiet. He also knew, somehow,
with that extra sense that men weren’t supposed to have, that her memories had something to do with a man.

“How do you feel about Englishmen?” he asked.

She sighed. “They’re jerks.”

“Yeah?” He couldn’t help the fact that his tone had lost its tension.

She looked at him. His breath stopped.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well.” His pulled his gaze away from her with an effort. “Daniel looks damn fine in that sweater. Pink’s his color.”

She smiled. He couldn’t help but notice. It was like the crack of a rosy dawn and drew his attention like a beacon.

“He’ll really be okay?”

He’d never really seen her smile, not like this—tremulous, real, as if they were buddies, and more…

“Ty?”

“Huh?”

“I said, he’ll be okay?”

“Oh, yeah! Hell.” Geez, he was acting like an idiot. “Come here,” he said, stepping from the pen.

She followed him back into the interior of the barn.

They stood between two rows of open stalls. Each of them contained a cow and a calf. He led her to the last one, opened a gate and motioned her inside.

“Come on in. She won’t hurt you. These Angus, they’re supposed to be spooky, but we all but hand-feed ‘em. After a while they settle down. Good thing, too, ‘cuz we’d lose more than we do if they were as wild as the roping steers. Twins don’t always make it.”

“Twins?” she said, but just then the second calf peeked around its mother’s tail.

The calves were small, identical, adorable, even to Tyrel, and he had seen his share.

“Yeah, twins. But she won’t be able to keep ‘em both.”

“What?” Hannah’s eyes were already wide in horror.

“No! They won’t die!” he hurried to explain. “Not
if…you know, not if the good Lord’s willing. But she’s a first-calf heifer. Not enough milk for them both.”

She scowled slightly, barely drawing a line in her fine brow. “What’ll you do with them?”

“We’ll bottle-feed one. Put him in with Daniel. So he’ll have a friend. In fact, we could do that right now…if it would make you feel better.”

She smiled again, that strange, timid expression that seemed to have seen too little of the light of day. “No,” she said, pulling her gaze away from him and moving nervously back through the gate. “It’s okay, if you’re sure he’ll be all right.”

He meant to close the gate, but her gaze was on him again, muddling his senses. The gate swung toward him, bumping him in the back.

She laughed and reached for it just as he did the same.

Their hands brushed, their breath held. They faced each other like two startled cats, nervous and wary.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Everything’ll be just fine.”

T
HE DAYS PASSED
like water through a sieve. Hannah learned a hundred things she never thought she’d want to know.

Daniel began filling out and was soon accompanied by the smallest of the twins who was given into Hannah’s care and dubbed Roony.

Sean, the cat, chose Hannah’s bed to hide under during the day. Because of that and Pansy’s obvious irritation over a hairy beast in “her” house, Hannah moved his litter box into her room and kept the door closed until night, when she left it open a smidgen so he could prowl the interior like the great white hunter.

Pansy, either because of her frenetic cleaning or the clarity of her conscience, slept like the proverbial dead and didn’t realize his nocturnal adventures.

Nearly a week had passed when the thermometer rose to forty astounding degrees. Snow melted in earnest. It trickled from the huge mounds that had been piled everywhere and
hastened down to the stream that wound its way through the cow pastures.

At noon, Hannah joined the others in the kitchen. The smell of hot chili filled her nostrils, and she smiled as Pansy handed her a bowl.

“So, Nate,” Ty said, “you busy today?”

“Nope,” Nate replied, already crumbling a gargantuan mound of crackers over his chili. “Thought I’d have me a long bubble bath then put my feet up and maybe watch my soaps.”

Ty snorted. “I meant tonight.”

Nate shook his head once as if Ty were daft. “It’s Saturday night, brother.”

“Damn. Again?”

“They come round every seven days or so.”

Hannah hid a grin around her spoon. It was like Ty to neither know nor care what day of the week it was.

“So you’re playing at the Roughhouse?” Ty asked.

“Me and the Restless Cowboys. Have been for the past year and a half.” There was a pause as Nate closed his eyes and dissected every individual flavor of the meal. “Have I asked you to marry me yet, Pansy?”

“Every day since I been here.”

“Have you accepted?”

“Do I look desperate to you?” she asked, turning her dried-apple face to him and brandishing a wooden spoon. “Now you eat up. All of you. You’re like three walking skeletons. Don’t know why I waste my time on you.”

Nate chuckled. Ty grinned.

Hannah felt a strange contentment settle over her.

“What’d you have in mind?” Nate asked.

“’Bout time to get them roping horses fit. If they’re half so out of shape as me, it’s gonna take a good month of Sundays to get the kinks out.”

Out of shape. Hannah allowed herself one quick glance at Ty. He looked about as out of shape as a gymnast primed for
the Olympics. He turned toward her, catching her gaze. She hastened hers back to her meal.

“Rowdy don’t get kinks,” Nate said. “He’s like a da…”

“Hey!” barked Pansy. She had an uncanny way of sensing an impending swearword, like a hound before an earthquake.

“Sorry,” Nate said, already filling his bowl with seconds. “Rowdy’s like a machine.”

“I’m thinking of using Maverick,” Ty said, sipping his coffee.

“Maverick! Geez! Is there some reason you don’t want to make money at this roping gig?”

“Maverick’s got the stuff,” Ty argued, sounding defensive.

“Maverick’s scared of cows.”

Ty scowled. “He ain’t scared.”

“So he just bolted and left you lying there in the mud last spring for kicks and grins.”

“He’s Hazard’s best gelding.”

“Yeah, well, you find some other way to promote your stallion’s genes, ‘cuz old Maverick ain’t gonna cut the mustard.”

Ty glared into his coffee cup. “Lot you know,” he grumbled, but he seemed unable to argue the point.

“Which one is Maverick?” Hannah inquired.

“You telling me old Ty ain’t showed him to you yet?” Nate asked, glancing at his brother. “He’s been extolling that gelding’s virtues for four years. ‘Look at them lines. Look at that headset. See how he travels. Endless potential.’ Ain’t that right, Ty?”

“That’s right,” Ty said, still grumpy, then cleared his throat and glanced at Hannah. “He’s the big brown one out back of the barn.”

“Legs like stilts, brain like rocks. You can’t miss him,” said Nate.

“The blood bay?” Hannah asked.

“Yeah.”

“He must be seventeen hands tall,” she said, remembering
the horse. He stood out like an ostrich among banty hens, all legs and neck and big soft eyes.

“Damn near—Sorry,” Ty said, automatically glancing at Pansy, but not losing his enthusiasm. “Darn near seventeen hands,” he said. “Hazard can throw the size.”

“He’s got a tiny head for a big horse like that,” Hannah said.

“Yeah. If there’s one thing Hazard puts on ‘em it’s a wide brow and those big old eyes.”

Unable to help herself, Hannah smiled. Tyrel Fox was like a boy in a candy shop when it came to his horses.

“I, uh,” he said, seeming embarrassed by his fervor. “Tonight after chores I could show you Hazard’s other babies. You could see how he crosses with the mares we got.” There was a pause. “If you like.”

She felt like a teenager, lost for words and drowning in her own hormones. “Okay,” she said.

“I’m gonna need to go home.” Pansy glanced from Ty to Hannah and back. “Tonight. I need someone to give me a ride.”

“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Nate’s tone was fairly panicked. He stopped the ladle in midair just about to dump another load of chili into his bowl. There were few who loved food more than Nathan Fox, Hannah thought, and wondered now if that appetite would ever catch up to him. So far, he was just as lean and hard as his brother.

Pansy frowned at him. “Course I’m coming back. You think I’d leave you three to fend for yourselves. Wouldn’t be Christian. ‘Fraid you might turn to cannibalism or something.”

“Phew!” Nate put his hand to his heart. “I was afraid I was going to have to move back home. Dad’s heavy-handed as a drill sergeant, but at least Mom can cook up a decent meal.” He stopped suddenly. “No offense, Hannah. When are you coming back, Pansy?”

“I need me some time off, too,” she groused. “Can’t work all the time.”

The room was silent.

“I’ll be back after church.”

Hannah stifled her grin. Everyone needed to be needed. It was a lesson she had just learned. And apparently no one needed to be needed more than Pansy Puttipiece.

In the end, it was decided that the widow would stay home in Valley Green until Monday morning, and then would drive her own car to The Lone Oak.

Hannah returned to work. The sun was warmer still today. On the hillside, the calves were bellowing as they cavorted about. Their mothers chewed their cuds and watched them with big, prideful eyes.

In his corral alone, Hazard, the quarter horse stallion, paced and called to his harem.

The mares, pregnant and round-bellied, looked back with expressions ranging from boredom to disdain.

Hannah laughed as she called the broodmares into their stalls.

“Poor Hazard,” Ty said from behind her.

Hannah caught her breath and turned. He was standing in the doorway. He must be the most hot-blooded creature on earth, she thought, because he’d removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his chambray shirt. His wrists were broad and sprinkled with dark hair, his low-brimmed hat pushed back on his head.

“He doesn’t get much attention,” he continued, nodding toward the stallion as the mares rushed back to their stalls.

“Maybe the girls will show more interest after they drop their foals,” Hannah said, searching for conversation. His proximity did evil things to her blood pressure.

“Let’s hope so.” Ty slid the door shut behind a sorrel mare. “It’s gotta be hard on his ego. Talking dirty to ‘em every day like that and they don’t even prick up an ear.”

She shouldn’t enter this conversation and she knew it, but his voice was low and smoky, reeling her in. “Is that what he’s doing?” she asked. “Talking dirty?”

“Yeah.” There was a pause as the last door closed. “Want to know what he says?”

She turned to face him. Her breath stopped.

The barn was silent, but for horses munching.

“Sorry.” He pulled his gaze quickly away. “Sorry. I didn’t…” He let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know what I’m thinking sometimes.” Silence. “I was just wondering if you might want to go for a ride.”