Authors: Lois Greiman

Finding Home (8 page)

BOOK: Finding Home

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C
HAPTER
9

I
n the three days since Emily's arrival, the last of the snow had melted. The sun felt like magic on Casie's back as she pulled the burs from Tangles's chestnut mane. He seemed calm again, though he'd not been saddled since the last debacle. Casie liked to think she was allowing him time to consider what he'd done wrong.

“Do you have a cocklebur salad recipe or something?” Emily stood far enough away from the gelding to ensure her safety should the animal unexpectedly erupt. Apparently, seeing him launch his rider into the air like a WMD had made a considerable impression on the girl.

“What?” Casie turned toward her. It was not an easy task. Ribs might be expected to mend without assistance but they liked to take their own sweet time about it.

“Cockleburs,” Emily said. She seemed to be staring at the disheveled mess that had once been the birthplace of Kathy Carmichael's prized tomatoes. “Do you want me to can 'em or burn 'em?”

“You know how to can?”

The girl turned toward her, expression wry. “No.”

“Ahh.” Casie nodded. Perhaps she should be getting accustomed to Emily's stellar sense of sarcasm. “Is this your way of telling me the garden's overgrown?”

“This is my way of telling you I'm not even sure there
is
a garden under all thatâ” she began, but at that moment a car turned into the drive, distracting her . . . a candy-apple-red Cadillac.

Casie groaned at the sight of it.

“Who is it?” The girl was scowling. Her grumpy expression made her look like a young curmudgeon.

“A realtor from Rapid City.”

“What does he want?”

“Guess,” Casie said, and sighing, turned to take her medicine.

In a moment, Philip Jaegar had stepped out of his car and shot them his million-dollar smile.

“Holy shorts,” Emily breathed, eyes round and entirely focused on the salesmen. “Did you say Rapid City or Mount Olympus?”

“Geez, Em, he's old enough to be your father.”

“So?” she asked, voice breathless.

Casie gave her a look. “Don't you have weeds to pull?”

“None that have bothered you for the last decade or so.”

“I haven't been here for the lastâ” she began, but Jaegar was already striding forward, hand extended.

“Ms. Carmichael,” he said. “It's good to see you again.”

She removed one duct-taped glove and gave a fleeting thought to the crescent of dirt that lined each nail, but their fingers were already meeting. Too late to hide in the barn. “I didn't expect you back so soon.”

“Well, I know I took you by surprise last time,” he said. His smile had shifted into a self-effacing grin. “So I wanted to give you a few days to think things through but not so much time that you'd forget how charming I am.”

He winked disarmingly at Emily, hand still extended.

“Philip Jaegar,” he said.

“Emily.” Her voice was soft, bereft of the take-no-prisoners tone she often exuded.

He nodded a greeting and turned back toward Casie just as a girl stepped from the passenger side of his car. “I hope you don't mind that I brought my daughter.

“Sophie . . .” He glanced in the girl's direction. “Come here, honey.”

She was in her early teens, riding hard toward thirty. Expertly applied highlights colored her long cornsilk hair. Sable liner emphasized vivid emerald eyes.

“Sophie, this is the lady I told you about, Cassandra Carmichael.”

“It's nice to meet you,” Casie said and gave momentary consideration to wiping her fingers on her dubious sweatshirt before finally extending her hand yet again.

The girl glanced at her palm but only curled her lip slightly as she took it for a fraction of a second in her manicured fingertips. “So . . .” she began, extracting her hand distastefully. “Do you just do the western thing?”

Casie glanced at Philip. “I'm sorry?”

“The dun,” the girl said, nodding toward the animal tied to the fence. “Do you event him or something or just ride stock seat?”

Casie smiled, already nervous. She'd never been the girlie-girl type, but right now she wasn't even sure she could be considered a girl of any sort. Extremely feminine women had always made her uncomfortable. In fact,
most
women made her uncomfortable. Then again, it wasn't as if she was bosom buddies with a whole host of men. “I'm afraid I don't ride him at all,” she admitted.

“Soph loves horses, don't you, honey?” Philip said, but there was a tightness to his voice that even a super salesman like himself couldn't completely hide.

She ignored him. “He's too skinny,” she said, still eyeing Tangles.

“Well”âCasie managed to stifle an inappropriate apology with some difficulty, but she silently admitted she was immensely grateful the even skinnier grullo was well out of sightâ“I'm trying to fatten him up.”

“He needs better feed.” Sophie's tone was sharp with disapproval, light-years from apologetic. “What kind of supplements do you have him on?”

Casie opened her mouth, but Emily was already speaking. “We just adopted him a couple days ago.”

The word
we
struck Casie with a confusing meld of appreciation and surprise as the girl turned toward Emily. Their gazes clashed like lightning, bottle brown on emerald green.

“So are you and Cassandra sisters, Emily?” Jaegar asked.

“No. I'm Ms. Carmichael's apprentice,” Emily said, not missing a beat as she pulled her gaze from Sophie's with languid sophistication. Apparently, the initial awe caused by the sight of Philip Jaegar had disappeared.

“Apprentice?” he asked, glancing from one to the other.

“Yes.” She stood very straight in her weathered army boots, looking comfortable and confident as she lied through her teeth. “She's teaching me organic gardening and animal husbandry.”

He nodded, apparently failing to recognize a sarcasm maestro when he met one.

“Well . . .” he said, turning back toward Casie. “I hope you're not wearing yourself out for no reason. I know you want to get back to Saint Paul, and like I told you before I can find you a buyer with legitimate money.”

“I know you did,” she said and felt that ungodly uncertainty squeeze into her soul again. “I just . . .” She glanced at the horses that dozed in the sunshine, then past them to the pastures where a white-faced calf dashed a mad circle around his sleepy mother. “I've got to get the heifers calved out before I can even think of selling.”

“Well, I can wait a couple weeks,” he said and trimmed his smile.

“Then there's the lambing,” she added.

“How many head do you have?”

“Two hundred, give or take a few.”

He emitted a low whistle. “You're sure you don't just want to sell them now and save yourselfâ”

“What about the horses?” his daughter asked.

They turned toward the girl in tandem.

“They look like crap,” she said. “Don't youâ”

“Sophie!” Jaegar scolded. His face was flushed, his body taut with nerves. “Apologize to Miss Carmichael immediately.”

The girl stood very still, very straight. There was not an ounce of apology in either her stance or her expression. “I'm sorry you don't know how to care for horses,” she said, and turning on her high-priced heel, marched back to the car. In a moment she had sunk back into its dark oblivion.

“I'm sorry.” Jaegar pulled his gaze from the Cadillac with a rare scowl. “The divorce has been hard on all of us. I just can't seem to get through to her. We were so close when she was a little girl. We'd play . . . Well . . .” He inhaled deeply, looking embarrassed. “I'll get out of your hair if you promise to give me a call as soon as you're ready to put the farm on the market.”

“All right,” Casie said.

He nodded. Then with one tortured glance at the girl in the passenger seat, he marched toward his intimidating car. In a minute they were gone.

“My
apprentice?
” Casie said as the Cadillac rolled quietly out of the yard.

Emily scowled as she watched the Jaegars turn onto the gravel road. “I could have told him I was your belt buckle and he wouldn't have noticed.”

“What are you talking about?” Casie glanced at the girl, trying to decipher the expression on her gamine face.

“He's so hot for you he didn't even recognize me as a sentient being.”

Casie snorted. “I think you've been in the sun too long. You look flushed.” She reached out as if to test the temperature of the girl's forehead, though truth to tell, she wouldn't be able to identify a fever until nothing remained but a pile of ashes. “Maybe you'd better go in and lie down until the delusions pass.”

“Oh, please,” Emily scoffed, swatting Casie's hand aside, “don't pretend you didn't notice. He was so gone on you his eyeballs were beginning to melt.”

“You're crazy,” Casie said, but the idea gave her a nice little tingle in her solar plexus. When was the last time she'd felt that?

“I'm also right,” Emily said. Her tone was tinged with humor and maybe . . . maybe just a touch of envy as she turned to face Casie. “He wants to pleasure you until you're flush with passion.”

“What's wrong with you?” Casie asked.

“He wants to take you in a manly fashion.”

“You're disturbed.”

“He wants to make tall, blond babies with you andâ”

“You're crazy. Just . . .” Casie knew she was far more flustered than a woman of twenty-eight had any right to be. “Just shut up and see to your organic garden,” she ordered.

It was well past dark by the time Casie trudged back to the house that evening. She'd hoped to make it an early night, but two of the bulls confined to the bachelor pen had become engaged in a friendly fight and nonchalantly backed through a wooden gate. Casie had found them moaning and drooling over the heifer fence. It had taken her and Jack twenty minutes to urge them back into confinement, much longer to mend the gate. And those had been the easiest jobs of the day. She toed off her boots and headed toward the kitchen, but Emily apprehended her before she'd reached the hallway.

“Holy crap!” Emily said, eyeing her up and down. Her arms were akimbo. Her left fist was wrapped around a wooden mixing spoon. “And I mean that literally. How do you even get that dirty?”

Casie sighed. “Number twenty-six was having trouble calving. Three Horns was stuck in the mud by the stock pond. Neither of those two bovine seemed to care a lot about my hygiene.”

“Three Horns?”

“It's a long story,” Casie said. “I can regale you with it over supper ifâ” she began, made hopeful by the sight of the mixing spoon, but her words were interrupted by the sound of an engine. She sighed and glanced out the window. “What now?”

“Yeah, it's like Grand Central Station around here,” Emily said. “I believe this is the second car I've seen in the past three days and . . . hey. Isn't that the realtor guy?”

Casie looked down at the muck dried on her pants, then sent a panicked glance at her houseguest. “Let's pretend we're not home,” she whispered.

“What are you talking about? The guy's probably loaded and he's definitely got the hots for you. Besides, he can see us through the window,” she said and waved.

“I don't want toâ” Casie began, but the girl was already opening the door.

In fewer than thirty seconds, Philip Jaegar was stepping inside. “I'm sorry to bother you again so soon,” he said.

“No problem.” All evidence of Emily's saucy demeanor had disappeared once again. “Won't you come in?”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Jaegar?” Casie asked.

“Well . . . as a matter of fact, I think there might be something I can do for you.”

Casie refrained from glancing at Emily and tried to ignore the mental images of being taken in a manly fashion. Bradley did just fine in that department . . . when he wasn't too distracted. “Oh?” she said.

“Listen, I don't know your financial situation, and I don't need to,” Jaegar said. “But I got the impression that maybe you're not as flush as you could be.”

Casie felt pretty flushed but ignored the heat in her cheeks. “Times are hard, Mr. Jaegar.”

“Phil, please,” he corrected. “And that's why I came.”

BOOK: Finding Home

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