Tall, Dark and Cowboy (18 page)

The thought gave her the shivers.

“She looks good.” He leaned over the calf, oblivious to the fantasies floating through Lacey’s mind. “There’ll be scars, but not bad ones. No redness or swelling.” He tugged a small spray bottle from his back pocket and gave the animal a few well-placed squirts. “Fly spray.” Giving the knot a pull, he set the heifer free. She struggled to her feet and stared at him a moment with a bemused expression in her long-lashed eyes before trotting away.

Lacey tensed and leaned forward to watch her go. As her legs tightened on the horse, she felt his muscles gather beneath her. He’d been restless the moment the rope came out, but now his head came up, his ears tilted forward, and he was suddenly prancing, his front legs dancing in place. She grabbed the saddle horn just as he took off like a stone flung from a slingshot, hurtling toward the herd.

For a moment, Lacey felt like she was suspended in the air, still seated, her hand still poised in front of her like she was holding the horn, but there was no saddle beneath her. No horse, either. With a heavy
whump
she hit the ground, her seat-bones taking the impact and sending pain rocketing up her spine.

Chase was beside her in a heartbeat, his face anxious.

“Sorry. He’s usually so good. Damn.” He punched his fist into his thigh. “You must have cued him somehow.”

She tried to give him a smile, but it was a weak, watery one. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Maybe she’d collapsed a lung. She brought her fist to her chest and sucked in the fresh prairie air, once, twice, three times.

“Oh, lord.” He rolled his eyes. “Now you’ll be even more scared of horses.”

She felt her heartbeat slow and something moved in to replace the fear.
Anger.
A much healthier emotion, and more useful. It fed her lungs and heart, giving her strength to sit up and glare at him. “I
fell
, Chase. Your horse
threw
me.”

“He didn’t throw you. He bolted. You just—you just didn’t bolt with him.”

Dammit, he was suppressing a smile. She could see the telltale twitch at the corner of his lip, the amusement in his eyes.

“Whatever.” She felt the anger rise, swamping the pain and the fear, heating her up inside and threatening to spill out and set the grass on fire.

Chase squinted to watch Captain, who had settled down a few feet away to crop the grass as if nothing had happened. “He’s an old rodeo roping horse. He’s gentle and well-trained, but when he sees action, he goes a little nuts.”

“A little,” she said. “Just a little. How did he do that? It’s like he shot out from under me.” She struggled to her feet, trying to ignore the pain in her tailbone.

Chase grinned. “That’s what it feels like, doesn’t it?” His smile faded as she grabbed her back and winced. “Sorry, Lacey. I guess that wasn’t the greatest introduction to riding.” He looked back the way they’d come. “Do you think you can walk?”

She pictured herself staggering home, defeated, trailing behind Chase and the horses.

L is for loser. Might as well brand it on my forehead.

“No,” she said decisively. “I’ll ride.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Don’t they say you should get right back on the bucking bronco when it throws you off?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do.” She walked over to the horse, trying not to show how much each step hurt, and grabbed the strap of his bridle. “Come on, bud,” she said. “Let’s try that again.”

Chase watched, surprised, as Lacey lifted her foot toward the stirrup. Sucking in a quick breath, she clutched at the saddle, then set her jaw and started to try again.

“Hold on.” He took Captain’s reins and led the horse over to one of the big rocks that littered the hillside. “Can you climb up there? It’ll be easier to get on.”

“Sure.”

He could tell she was gritting her teeth against the pain as she scrambled up onto the rock, but she managed to ease a leg over the saddle as he held the horse steady. He handed her the reins and couldn’t help admiring her courage when she straightened up and turned the horse toward home. It was too bad she was so scared of horses. That kind of determination could make a good ranch wife.

Wife? Now he was getting way ahead of himself. And way ahead of Lacey. After getting dumped in the dirt by the horse he’d promised would never hurt her, she’d probably run as far and fast as she could once she got away from the ranch.

He rode home slowly in deference to Lacey’s sore seat, and they barely spoke the whole way. She didn’t have much to say once they got home, either, but she was hungry enough to follow him into the kitchen and help him slap heaping helpings of turkey and ham onto slabs of wheat bread.

He tilted his head for her to follow and carried his lunch onto the wide front porch, plopping into one of the mismatched side chairs that lined the wall. Lacey stood at the railing.

“You want to sit down?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“How bad are you hurt?”

“Not bad.” She hunched over her tailbone like she didn’t want to put any weight on it. “I’m fine.”

“Fine enough to do a little shooting after lunch?”

“I don’t know, Chase. I hate to tell you this, but I’m kind of scared of guns too.” She stared out at the road, probably wishing she was home. Her house back in Conway was high on a hill, looking out over miles of green grass waving in the warm Tennessee breeze. Actually, now it probably looked out over a checkerboard of cropped green lawns speckled with brand-new double-wides. His, on the other hand, looked out over a long dusty driveway and a corral bordered by twisted, sunbaked fence rails.

A dust cloud kicked up in the distance, growing as it neared the ranch. Not many cars passed the place; you had to turn three times onto dirt roads to find it, and there was no indication to the casual traveler that anyone lived out here. Once in a while a lost tourist passed by, or a hunter, but that was about it. Chase squinted, trying to see what kind of car it was. Or was it a truck?

He glanced over at Lacey. She’d seen it too, and she’d shrunk into the shadow in the corner of the porch.

“You don’t think…”

“I don’t know. People don’t come out here often. It’s not an easy road.”

Lacey was white, her hand shaking as she set down the last bite of her sandwich. As the truck bounced up the drive, she set the plate on the railing and headed inside the house.

“I’m going out back.”

Chase remembered the guns he’d left on the picnic table in preparation for their shooting lesson. “Wait. Don’t touch those.” He looked back at the approaching dust cloud. As he watched, the blurred shape resolved itself into Cody’s Jeep, with its tattered canvas top fluttering from the roll bar. There were two silhouettes behind the windshield.

“It’s Cody,” he said. “Cody and Pam. It’s all right.”

“Good,” Lacey’s voice called from the back porch. “They can help teach me how to shoot.”

“I thought you were afraid of guns.”

“I am, but I just realized I’m more afraid of Wade Simpson.”

***

Lacey hoisted Old Bess to her shoulder, waiting for her heart to speed up, wondering if her chest would tighten with panic, but she felt fine. Strong, even, like Scarlett drawing a bead on a no-good Yankee marauder.

“Step your left foot forward, but put your weight on your back leg,” Chase said, pointing to Lacey’s still-booted foot.

“Just make sure you shove the stock into your shoulder,” Pam said from her perch at the picnic table. “Lessens the kick.”

“You can shoot?” Lacey couldn’t picture her good-natured friend squinting through the sights of a shotgun. Actually, it was weird to see Pam in jeans instead of her ever-present apron. She fit into the warm, homey atmosphere of the café like a native species in its natural habitat. It must be nice to find the place you belonged, Lacey thought. She felt like an imposter everywhere she went, like she was pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

“Of course I can shoot. Don’t sound so surprised,” Pam said. “Cody taught me. I hit a tree once.”

“It wasn’t the one you were aiming for,” Cody said.

She made a face, and Cody slung an arm around her shoulders. “You have other talents. And really, you don’t need accuracy for self-defense. ’Specially with a shotgun. So here, Lacey. Here’s how you stand. This way your body absorbs the kick.”

He demonstrated the stance with a beat-up shotgun he’d dragged from the backseat of the Jeep. It had a short muzzle, way shorter than Bess’s. Lacey wondered if it was what they called a sawed-off shotgun. Weren’t those illegal? The thought gave her a shiver of dread, but at least it was Cody’s gun, and Cody was one of the good guys. Having a guy with a sawed-off shotgun on your side probably wasn’t a bad thing.

Lacey did as she was told, but she had a feeling that if she ever used the gun for real, she wouldn’t be thinking about stances. Hell, she wouldn’t even be standing still. She’d be running away, praying she wouldn’t have to shoot anybody.

“So who’s this guy you’re worried about, Lacey?”

“Wade Simpson.” She shuddered. “He was a friend of my ex-husband’s. I think they did some business together, and now Wade—he wants to stop my ex from testifying.”

“By hurting you.”

“I don’t know what he wants to do,” Lacey said. “I’m not sure
he
does. But he said he’d follow me, and now Chase got a phone call from him looking for me.”

“At work,” Chase said. “He knows she was in Grady.”

“Better get on with the lesson, then.” Cody adjusted Lacey’s hold on the gun.

“Let your breath out, all the way, then squeeze the trigger once you’re steady,” Chase said.

“You don’t hold your breath?”

“Nope. Let it out.”

“Holding your breath makes you shake,” Pam added. “When you let it out, you get steady.”

Lacey let her breath out and felt the world spin to a stop. Focusing on the shotgun’s metal sights, she stared through them at the target the way she’d stared through Captain’s pricked ears while she rode.

At least you couldn’t fall off a gun.

“Squeeze the trigger. Slow.” Chase crooked his index finger to demonstrate. “Don’t pull it. Squeeze.”

She squeezed. Nothing—nothing—nothing—
blam
! The gun roared, the stock slammed into her shoulder, and a gash opened near the center of the target—all in a half-second of stopped time. Pam whooped and hopped up and down, clapping her hands.

“Hey,” Chase said. “That was good.”

Lacey put the gun down and grinned, admiring her first-ever bullet hole. The shotgun had ripped a nasty gash through the red band bordering the bull’s-eye. It was probably beginner’s luck, and her shoulder was killing her, but there was something satisfying about making a good shot.

“Try again.”

She lifted the gun, holding it like he’d shown her.

“Press it hard against your shoulder. That’ll keep the kick from hurting so much.”

She snugged the stock into the soft flesh below the hollow of her shoulder, fitting it right over the bruise from the previous shot and trying not to think about what it would look like when she took her clothes off that night.

It wasn’t like anyone would see it. She was keeping her body to herself.

Yeah, right. Maybe she should take the shotgun to bed—not for Chase, because he seemed to have the self-control necessary to maintain the employer/employee relationship. No, she’d need it for herself, so she could shoot herself in the foot if she was tempted to sneak down the hall to his room.

“You gonna shoot or just look cute?” Cody demanded.

She pulled the trigger again, but this time, she jerked the barrel up and missed the target by a mile.

Damn. That first shot really was beginner’s luck.

“Squeeze, don’t pull,” Chase said, reloading the gun and handing it to her. “That way, the shot’ll surprise you, and you won’t anticipate it. Try again.”

She did, and to her surprise, another gash opened in the target right beside the first one. Pam whooped again.

“Man, she’s good,” Cody said.

“Good job.” Chase grinned. “Want to try the revolver, Annie Oakley?”

She laid Old Bess back on the table, carefully keeping the muzzle pointed toward the bleak, empty fields beyond the house. Beside it was an evil-looking black pistol that seemed square and modern and cruel, and an old-fashioned six-gun, the kind Clint Eastwood carried in those old spaghetti Westerns.

“Revolver?”

He picked up the six-gun and showed her how to tip out the cylinder and load bullets into the chambers.

“Two hands.” He slapped it closed and raised it toward the target to demonstrate. “Pretty much the same deal. Let your breath out, shoot.”

He showed her how to cock it and she shot low and wide, barely hitting the target.

“Keep your wrists stiff,” Cody said. “You’re letting the muzzle drop.”

She tried again and gave a vintage cheerleader hop, kick, and handclap after a bullet tore into the bull’s-eye.

“I feel like Clint Eastwood.”

“You don’t look much like him. But here, this’ll help.” Chase grabbed a leather belt from the bench. It had slots for cartridges along the back and a leather holster. He came up behind her and wrapped it around her hips, trying to clasp the buckle slightly off-center, his hands fumbling at the sensitive spot where her hip bone dipped and swelled into the curve of her belly. She could feel his breath warm on her neck and she tilted her head back to press her cheek to his. He froze, his arms around her, his body pressed against her back.

“Chase doesn’t think you feel like Clint Eastwood at all,” Cody said.

Damn, she’d forgotten they had guests.

Apparently Chase had too. He stepped back so quickly, he would have dropped the belt in the dirt if Lacey hadn’t grabbed it. She slipped the tongue into the buckle, feeling embarrassment heat her face, but Chase recovered quickly, grinning.

“No,” he said. “She doesn’t feel like Clint. He’s kind of bony.”

The four of them laughed, and the air moved again, the tree by the deck rustling in the breeze. She felt like the world had paused, maybe even spun a little bit backward, and then resumed its trip through space again, spinning like always, with no one but herself and Chase knowing it had stopped.

Although Cody seemed to know. He cast a teasing glance her way, and she felt her face flush. She might as well be wearing the handprint of shame again. Looking down, she pretended to adjust the belt. It was a little big and hung low on her hips.

“Now you’re tough,” Chase said.

“Wonder Woman.” Cody grinned. “The Wild West version.”

She laughed. Something about the other couple relaxed her. They got along so well, their camaraderie so easy and real, it was almost contagious. They seemed to help Chase relax too; his lips were tilted into a slight smile, and he didn’t seem so stiff and distant. It made her realize how serious he was, how rarely he smiled.

“Try again.” He gestured toward the target.

She shoved the gun in the holster and stepped forward, savoring the slight swagger the gun belt put in her walk. Having a gun on her hip really did make her feel tough. All she needed was a half-smoked cigar and a serape.

Channeling Clint, she jerked the gun from the holster and shot, and while she would have lost the draw to a genuine high-noon opponent, the tree with the target on it didn’t stand a chance. One more bullet hole joined the tight grouping around the bull’s-eye, and she shot again, and again, and again, emptying the six cylinders and feeling a rush of triumph and power and strength. The target was her old life. Her old habits. Her fear and her neediness and her paralyzing weakness.

“Whoa,” Cody said as the dust cleared. “Don’t mess with Lacey.”

“That’s right.” She shoved the gun back in the holster and wished she had a cowboy hat to tilt down over one eye. “Don’t mess with me.”