Every Breath She Takes (12 page)

She wiped damp hands on her jeans. Meeting him here after dark was probably a huge mistake. Not that she’d had much choice about the time. If she were going to keep an eye on Marlena, she had to stay vigilant until after nightfall. The murder
had taken place during the daytime, and no matter what this…
thing
…was between her and Cal, she couldn’t forget someone’s life was at stake.

Marlena was alive to see another day. And Cal…

She should have picked a safer location to meet with him. A more neutral location. Why, oh why, had she chosen her cabin?

You know why
.

A soft tap at the door arrested her pacing. Taking a steadying breath, she crossed to the door and opened it. Right away she was glad she’d taken a big gulp of air because she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. There in the soft glow of the porch light stood Cal, dressed in fresh jeans and a soft blue chambray shirt. As good as he looked in a Stetson, he looked better without it. His blond hair, still dark now with dampness from the shower, was slicked back to his finely shaped head.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

She stepped back, blushing. “Of course.”

He handed her a bottle of wine she hadn’t noticed he was carrying. “I swiped this from Delia, so I guess it’s decent.”

She eyed the label. “An Australian Shiraz. What’s not to like?”

“I’ll take your word for it. I tend to gravitate to the Canadian lagers myself.”

Lauren grinned. “Shall I open it?”

Cal glanced around the small room. “That’s the general idea. I could use a little Dutch courage.”

She was rummaging in the utensil drawer for a corkscrew when those words jerked her head up. “You’re nervous about this?”

“Maybe a little.” He rolled his shoulders. “I don’t much like talking about myself.”

“So I noticed.” Lauren’s own apprehensions abated in the face of his confession. “It’ll be painless, I promise.”

“I doubt it.”

She’d found the corkscrew and he took it from her, along with the bottle, which he opened with an ease that put the lie to his earlier claims of ignorance. She found two wineglasses, which he filled expertly.

Back in the living room, he sat on the couch and she picked a chair. She took a sip of her wine. “Mmm, very nice.”

“Can we do this backwards? Q & A first, niceties later?”

Lord, he was practically vibrating with tension. She thought briefly about letting him off the hook, but decided he wouldn’t thank her for it. A bet had to be honored.

“Sure. We could do that,” she said instead. “Why don’t you pick it up wherever you want?”

“My mother died when I was five.”

Good gracious! Lauren didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that. He was going back some. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t even look up from his contemplation of his wine. “I don’t really remember her, except maybe for her voice. Sometimes I think I can remember that.” He swirled the ruby liquid in his glass, as yet untasted. “But the point is, my dad pretty much raised me. He wasn’t mean, I don’t guess, at least not as a rule, but he didn’t have much softness in him either.”

Lauren had a sudden image of Cal as a motherless child, all solemn gray eyes and aching grief. With effort, she clamped down on the emotions the image evoked. Cal wouldn’t thank her for her pity.

“By the time I was fifteen, we were butting heads pretty regular. I wanted to ride broncs and drive fast cars, and I didn’t much care for the day-to-day grind of ranching.”

“In other words, you were a normal teen.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. Instead he sipped the wine, but it might have been water for all his expression gave away. “The day I turned sixteen, I split.”

“Because you were bored? Fed up with the routine?”

“No, because I had the mother of all fights with my dad. We’d had lots of fights before, about the rodeo stuff and about me not wanting to drag my ass out of bed early enough for him, but this was different. I came home from school that night to find out he’d put my horse down.”

“Oh, God, Cal. I’m so sorry.” Lauren’s brain raced with the possibilities. A broken leg? Or maybe arthritis or neurological disease? There were plenty of reasons why a horse might find itself down and not be able to get up by itself, a potentially fatal situation. Or maybe it had been a quality of life issue. At a certain point, recurring bouts of pneumonia, colic, or laminitis could make euthanasia a kindness. Even dental or digestive issues could leave a horse starving and dehydrated. “What happened to it?”

“Not a damned thing.”

Lauren gasped. “He put a healthy horse down? Why?”

“He said she was too dangerous to keep around.”

Lauren realized she was gripping her wineglass too hard and forced her hand to relax. “And was she?”

“She was a rescue animal,” he continued, “so, yeah, she was a little unpredictable. She’d been neglected—badly—and I brought her home. The bastard I took her from wasn’t too excited about that idea, but he was less excited about the prospect of explaining the mare’s condition to the police if he didn’t surrender her. In the end, he let me trailer her and take her home.”

“But your father wasn’t keen on the idea?”

Cal didn’t look up from his glass of wine. “I kept telling him I could fix her, but he wouldn’t listen. I knew she could be rehabbed, though. She just needed time and patience and a chance to learn to trust someone.”

Oh man, what a situation. Seriously damaged horses could be
extremely
dangerous, and their rehabilitation could take a very, very long time. She knew from experience it took a lot more
than love to fix an abused or neglected animal, especially a horse. They were big enough to kill if they felt threatened.

“We’d had a few knockdown, drag-’em-out arguments about it over the months that we had her, but I never dreamed he’d up and kill her.”

Lauren heard it in his voice, clear as anything. A lonely, motherless boy raised by a hard-nosed rancher, Cal had probably identified with that neglected mare more than his father could have known. “Oh, Cal.”

“Anyway, I came home after school one day to find he’d put her down. Said she was too dangerous to keep around.”

Lauren flinched.

“The long and the short of it is we fought. I was out of my mind with fury. Hard words were exchanged—I don’t even remember what all I said, except,
Fuck you. I’m outta here and I’m never coming back.
I remember that pretty clearly. I also remember his parting words pretty well. He said that I was no good, that I never would be any good, because I couldn’t settle to anything. Said I’d wind up busted up in the rodeo or working for wrangler’s wages.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

“Oh, he meant it all right.”

“Where is he now?”

“Still running the Taggart ranch, far as I know.” He cricked his neck one way, then the other. “I expect the lawyers would have tracked me down if anything had happened to him.”

Oh man, they really were estranged if Cal was counting on some estate lawyer to let him know when his father died. Something told her not to pursue that thread, though. “I see.” She took a sip of her wine. “So, let me guess—you set out to prove your father wrong by starting this ranch?”

“No.” He gave her a crooked grin. “I set out to prove him
right
. Made a name for myself on the bullriding circuit.”

Lauren caught her breath. “Bulls? Those big Brahmans like I see on TV sometimes?”

His grin widened at that. “Brahmans make good bucking bulls all right, but they got all kinds. They just have to be big enough, athletic enough, and rank enough.”

Bullriding! She took another swallow of her wine. “And you did that for how long?”

“Too long. I’ve broken more bones than I can remember, a lot of ’em more than once. But it’s hard to leave. Paycheck’s real good, if you can stick on the bulls long enough to get into the money. But you gotta be young to do it and healthy to win at it. Unless you’re Adriano Moraes.” He shook his head. “That cat musta made a deal with a crossroads demon.”

Lauren smiled. She had no idea who Adriano Moraes was, but presumed he must be the Nolan Ryan of bullriding.

“Anyway, by the time I called it quits at the advanced age of thirty-two, I was neither young enough nor healthy enough to get into the money consistently anymore.”

“So you took your winnings and bought the ranch?”

“Yes, ma’am. My winnings and my endorsement money. Right after I convinced Marlena to be my bride.”

His voice was laced with self-mockery. Again Lauren hurt for him. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Wasn’t her fault.” He shook his head and laughed. “Man, I don’t know what I was thinking about. I really don’t. The poor woman went from running with one of the top ten bullriders in North America to being a struggling rancher’s wife.” He tipped up his glass and drained it. “The mistake was mine. I didn’t even stop to think what the adjustment would be like for her.”

Lauren could certainly empathize with Marlena, but she couldn’t let that pass. “No more of an adjustment for her than for you, surely.”

“I was more than ready to give up the adrenaline rush, but Marlena wasn’t. I should have left her in Calgary. At that point,
she could probably have snagged herself another rising star no problem. Okay, maybe a champion on the cusp of waning.”

Lauren frowned. “If that were true, what’s she doing here now? Why isn’t she on some cowboy’s arm in Calgary?”

“My fault too.” He twisted the stem of his glass. “The rodeo is for young bucks. Young bucks who have their pick of beautiful women. Powerful as Marlena’s appeal is, the truth is there are plenty of dewy-eyed, starstruck eighteen-year-olds out there ready to snap the up-and-coming champs. Marlena was already on what she called the wrong side of thirty when we met. She ran with me for a couple of years, then after we were married, she stuck it out here for another couple. All in all, it was a poor investment for her. She’da done better to have hooked up with some rich guy on the periphery of the sport, a sponsor or a breeder or something. But I had to go and propose to her.” He shook his head. “I still don’t know what possessed either of us to think
that
was a good idea.”

Something inside Lauren lurched precariously. She’d never known a man so ready to accept responsibility for…well, for everything. She took the nearly empty glass from him, afraid he would snap the stem as he toyed with it. She refilled it for him and passed it back, topping up her own at the same time.

“It seems to me you’ve taken all the blame here.”

He shrugged. “It was my fault.”

“All of it?” she asked quietly, meaning Marlena’s betrayal, praying she didn’t have to spell it out. She didn’t.

“Marlena had no trouble staying faithful when I was at the top of my game.” He stared into his wineglass again. “Even most of the time when I was hurt. It wasn’t until I dragged her out here that our real problems started. And that, as I’ve already said, was my fault. She needed more attention than I was prepared to give her, and…” He glanced up sharply. “Oh hell, how’d I get sidetracked? Marlena’s got nothing to do with why I’m running a dude ranch for yuppie cowboys.”

“Then tell me what does.”

He put his wineglass down. Lauren got the distinct impression he wanted to stand, or pace maybe, but there was no room in her tiny cabin. Instead he slouched back on the sofa and stretched his legs out in a semblance of relaxation.

“Well, since I couldn’t rub the old man’s nose in it anymore by keeping my name in the winners’ column, I changed tactics. I decided I’d get myself a bigger ranch and a bigger herd than he ever managed to build. I sank everything I had, plus everything the banks would lend me, into this ranch and the breeding program. But since then the market has gone from bad to worse. Then this summer I had a run of bad luck. Brush fire in May claimed some animals, and a rash of lightning strikes took some more. The economics are brutal. Fact is I’m teetering on the brink. That’s what led me to the idea of giving this guest ranch thing a try.”

“And is it everything you’d hoped?”

“It’s started to turn a profit,” he allowed. “Not enough yet to stabilize the other operations, but it will.” He leaned forward, nabbed his drink, and took a swig. “No matter what I think of this dog and pony show, it’s gonna be my salvation.”

The image of Marlena’s dead body on a rocky outcropping flashed through Lauren’s mind. Cal’s salvation could well evaporate, or stall to the point that he couldn’t hang on to the ranch, if her premonition came to pass.

Cal was still talking. “Then I can concentrate on building the herd. I’ve got land enough to graze twice the cattle, but I’ve got to get through this downswing first.”

Lauren hid a smile. This was a different Cal when he talked about ranching. Gone was the tight look around his mouth. It made her want to keep him talking. “Herefords, right?”

“Nothing but.”

She smiled at his obvious pride. “So why Herefords?”

“They’re about as efficient as you can get.”

“Efficient?”

“They turn grass into pounds faster than any other breed. They’re hardy—they’ll thrive anywhere. They’re gentle-natured and easy to work with. And as a bonus, they make good eating. Nice marbling without excess fat.”

“Gee, why would anyone raise anything else?”

He grinned. “You got me.”

She sucked in a breath. Lord, that smile was deadly. Right up there with Dennis Quaid’s. “Well, cowboy, it sounds like you’ve got it made,” she quipped. “A cattle ranch you love and a sideline to tide you through the market downturns.”

His smile remained, but it no longer reached his eyes. “I wouldn’t quite say I
have it made
just yet. Ask me again when I’ve doubled the herd. When I’ve found some kind of financial stability.” He raked a hand through his now nearly dry hair, which stood up in spikes.

“That’s how you measure success, then? Financial stability?”

He eyed her appraisingly. “Truthfully?”

“Yes, please.”

“Success to me will be when I can best the old man at what he said I could never do. When I can look him in the eye and tell him to goddamn well choke on it. That probably makes me a sonofabitch, but there you have it.”