The Cowboy and the Princess (12 page)

Jonah fussed and yanked at his mother’s ponytail again.

“What is it, tiny cowboy? Do you have a dirty diaper?” Mariah put her nose to the backside of his elastic-waisted denim pants. “Phew! My stinky boy.”

This motherhood business had an unsavory side. Then again, so did pet ownership. Messiness and love seemed to go hand in hand.

“Tell you what,” Mariah said, “let me get this little guy cleaned up and turned over to Ruby, then I’ll take you with me into Jubilee. My crew and I have got a wedding here on the ranch at six this evening and there’s the usual last-minute rush, but if you want to hang out in the background, you’re more than welcome to see what my Saturdays are like.”

“I would love that,” Annie said. “I just need to check on my dog first. She is locked up in Brady’s trailer.”

“Hey, leave her in the house with Ruby. She loves dogs as much as she loves kids.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. The more the merrier.”

Annie smiled. Even though she did not have any definitive plans, everything seemed to be unfolding organically. In just over twelve hours from the time she had given her handlers the slip, she had hitched a ride with a handsome cowboy, almost lost her virginity, landed a job, and acquired a place to live. It seemed too easy. And that was sort of taking the fun out of it.

If Rosalind were here, she’d say,
Never trust what comes too easily. There is always a catch.

Rosalind.

Oh goodness. She had forgotten to call Rosalind.

Chapter Seven

You might be a princess if . . . you’re from a land far, far away.

“S
o,” Joe said as he and Brady walked to the horse barn after Mariah took Annie to the cabin. “Annie Coste.”

“Gorgeous morning.” Brady took a deep breath of fresh air, inhaled his favorite scent—horses.

“Who is she?”

“It’s good to be back in Jubilee. Didn’t realize how much I missed it.”

“You’ve never brought a woman around to meet us. What’s special about this one?”

“Did I mention how darn good it was to see you again?”

“You’re bordering on keeping a secret, Talmadge.”

Joe knew how to get to him. Apparently, his buddy wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “I gave her a ride last night. End of story.”

“No, oh no. Please don’t tell me that you picked up a hitchhiker.”

Brady shrugged. “Tell me about Miracle. What happened to your prizewinning horse?”

“After what happened to you four years ago, I can’t believe you picked up a hitchhiker.”

“I’m here to help Miracle, not talk about my stupidity.”

“You broke two of your own rules. Never pick up a hitchhiker and avoid damsels in distress. How did this happen?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Brady mumbled, thinking of all the rules he’d broken. Dammit, why had he told Joe about his unbreakable rules?

Um, because you were sharing whiskey shots during Dutch Callahan’s wake. Drunken grief. Common mistake.

“Excuse me?” Joe cupped a hand around his ear.

“I said I’m sorry to hear about Miracle.”

That got Joe away from the topic of Brady’s foolish rule breaking. “Yeah.” His voice cracked and his eyes clouded with pain and remorse. “All my hopes are pinned on you. I’m at the end of my rope. The vets threw up their hands. They’d doctored his wounds. He healed physically, but mentally? Nothing’s worked. If Dutch were alive . . .” He paused, and then went on to tell Brady in specific detail all the techniques they had tried on the horse.

“I’ll do the best I can. Miracle is a special horse. He’s got the spirit to pull through.”

Joe opened the barn door. They walked inside and Joe escorted him to a dark stall at the back. “I keep him out of the light. It calms him.”

The minute Brady touched the stall door, he felt the prizewinning quarter horse’s pain. Miracle was backed in hard against the far wall, trembling like a newborn foal.

“It breaks . . . my heart.” Joe’s words came out cobbled, clotted.

“Tell me again what happened,” Brady murmured, studying the once beautiful animal through the slates in the stall. Miracle’s eyes were wide, fearful. His neck was nicked with scars. Brady’s own heart ached for what the stallion had gone through. He could see trauma in his eyes.

“It’s been almost four months now,” Joe said. “I thought he would get better with time, but he’s more isolated than ever.”

“Tell me about that night.” Brady knew this was tough for his buddy to talk about, but if he was going to help Miracle, he had to know everything.

“We were coming back from a futurity. Cordy and I,” Joe said, referring to his ranch foreman. Joe hauled in an audible breath, rested his arms on the bar of the stall, rested his chin on his arms, and gazed regretfully at Miracle.

The cutting horse had once belonged to their mentor, Dutch Callahan. Before Dutch died, he traded Joe the stallion for the small section of Green Ridge Ranch where the old ranch hand cabin stood. Mariah had inherited Dutch’s land, and that’s how she and Joe had met. That same year Miracle had gone on to win a four-hundred-thousand-dollar purse in the Triple Crown Futurity in Fort Worth.

“This was in February?”

“Valentine’s Day. I was driving too fast, hurrying home to Mariah. I had a special evening all planned—” Joe broke off.

“Best-laid plans.” Brady shook his head.

“It had started to sleet. I hit a patch of black ice and it was all over. The truck skidded and the trailer jackknifed. The next thing I knew we were on our side in the ditch. Cordy and I were trapped. We couldn’t get out of the truck, but we could hear Miracle in the back screaming in pain. It was the most awful, gut-wrenching sound I’ve ever heard.” Joe shuddered.

Brady made sympathetic noises. He knew what a tormented horse sounded like.

“I had a concussion and I kept blacking out. Cordy had a broken arm. Nobody came by on the road. Damn weather had kept everyone indoors. We couldn’t find our cell phones. We were there for hours.” He gritted his teeth. “Finally an old farmer came by. He called 911. The rescue squad showed up pretty quickly after that, but the firemen insisted on getting us out first. By the time we were freed and ran back to the trailer, we couldn’t get the doors open. Miracle was wild, kicking, thrashing, and crying out in pain. It was the most horrible thing I ever witnessed save for when Lee Turpin burned down my barn and Clover died saving the horses.”

That had been a dark day for Jubilee. Brady hadn’t been in town when it had happened, but he’d admired and respected Clover Dempsey, and her loss had been almost as acute as Dutch Callahan’s. Clover had been like a second mother to him.

“The firemen went to work on the trailer but it still took them another half hour to free Miracle.”

“What happened to him physically?” Brady asked, his gaze never leaving the horse, who was pressed as close to the far wall as he could get, keeping his face turned away from them.

“No broken bones, thank God. He had torn ligaments in two knees and he was cut up pretty badly, but he’s been skittish as hell ever since. Whenever we try to saddle him, he goes crazy, bucking and biting, eyes rolling wild. I can’t do anything to reassure him or make him better. I feel like I failed him on the most basic level. I didn’t keep him safe. It—” Joe broke off.

Brady reached over and clasped Joe’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re going to get your horse back for you.”

“I don’t care if he ever competes again. I just want him to be his old self. Miracle was a thing of beauty. I never met a horse with such spirit.”

“I won’t stop until he’s healed.”

“I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

“It’s not about the money,” Brady said. “I just want to see Miracle reborn.”

“Thank God you’re here. I’ve missed the hell out of you, you ol’ reprobate.” Joe gave him a quick hug, patted him on the back.

“Who me?” Brady teased, happy to shift the tone of the conversation.

“So, Annie.”

“Yep.”

“You broke your unbreakable rules.”

“Back to that, are we?” Except he didn’t mind so much this time. If razzing him would take Joe’s mind off Miracle’s plight for a few minutes, Brady would happily put up with it.

“Hey, for what it’s worth, I think Annie’s really nice and she’s pretty darn easy on the eyes.”

“I don’t recall asking your opinion.”

“You know, I wouldn’t hate it if you finally decided to settle down. Make Jubilee your permanent home. You know you can always come work for me.”

“Thanks for the offer, but it’s never going to happen, my friend. Footloose and fancy-free. That’s me.”

“Never say never,” Joe said. “You should add that to your list of unbreakable rules.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Brady tipped his Stetson back on his head. “Why don’t we start work on Miracle?”

“Today?”

“You got more important things to do?”

Joe swallowed, toed the dirt with the tip of his boot. “I’m scared, Brady.”

“I know.”

“What if you can’t fix him?”

“My cure rate is ninety percent.”

“What if he’s in the ten percent you can’t help?”

“Stop borrowing trouble, and get me a rope. I’m cocky enough to know I’m good. He’s going to be healed.”

Joe straightened and nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

He went to the tack room, and Brady turned his attention back to the horse. “Your name’s not Miracle for nothing, right? We’re gonna get you through this, buddy.”

Brady jiggered the metal clasp up and pushed the stall door open.

Miracle chuffed in a heavy breath. The hair along his spine rose. His nostrils twitched. His forelock quivered.

Brady stepped back and waited. From his peripheral vision, he saw Joe standing off to one side, a coiled lariat in his hand. Oftentimes owners acted like idiots, running up, getting in his way, not listening to Brady’s advice, but his friend knew horses. And he knew Brady, so Joe didn’t interfere. Didn’t even speak.

A moment of atypical self-doubt took hold of him. What if he couldn’t fix Miracle? His talent with horses was natural. God-given. He didn’t plan it. He didn’t advertise his skills. All his business came through word of mouth and that’s how he liked to operate. Nothing formal. Nothing set in stone. Just free and easy. He’d done nothing to earn his good fortune, although he learned as much as he could about horses. Brady ran strictly on pure instinct. It was the way he lived his life. Spontaneous. Organic. And everything had always worked out.

But now, with Joe looking on, it occurred to him he had a helluva big ego, claiming he could heal a horse ninety percent of the time. It was true, but maybe he was just the luckiest son of a bitch on earth.

Miracle flattened his ears against his head, and his mouth pulled back to show his teeth in a horsey version of a snarl. The morning sun sloped through the open barn door, casting shadows over the animal.

“Let’s ease off.” Brady took a few steps back and accepted the rope from Joe. “We’ll give him a straight shot toward the corral, then you close the barn door when he’s clear of it.”

Joe nodded and they moved aside, closing the other doors so that only the one leading directly into the corral remained open. Then they stepped outside the barn and waited.

Within seconds Miracle burst from the barn into the corral at a full charge, head tossed high, snorting like a steam engine. Joe ran to shut the door behind the stallion, leaving Brady alone in the ring with him. The sky was fresh and filled with cotton-puff clouds after yesterday’s rain.

Brady stood loose-limbed and relaxed, the rope resting lightly against the fingers of his right hand. He controlled his breathing, keeping it slow and even. Miracle ran nervously around the ring, tossing his head, kicking up mud. Brady stayed stationary in the middle of the corral, calm, passive, waiting.

Miracle kept running, gaining speed, going faster and faster around until Brady felt dizzy just watching him. That was good. Let the horse play himself out. Expend that nervous energy. Joe was sitting on the fence beside the barn, a tense expression on his face. Brady understood how anxious his friend was, but Joe had unwittingly been transferring
his
disquiet onto Miracle.

A vehicle drove up into the yard, tires crunching on gravel. Car doors shut and he heard murmured voices, but Brady did not turn to look to see who had arrived; every bit of his attention was focused on the task at hand.

After a long while, Miracle finally slowed, his flanks heaving. The stallion stopped a few feet away, nervously eyeing Brady and the rope in his hand. He nickered and started backing up.

“It’s okay, boy. We’re not doing anything today except getting to know each other. You run all you want and I’ll just stand here with this rope. Not going to touch you. Not going to rush you.”

As if he understood what Brady had said, Miracle started a fresh round of sprints, while Brady stood like a touchstone in the middle of the ring, releasing all tension from his body, keeping his mind empty of any thoughts except those of quiet healing.

When the horse slowed again, Brady signaled to Joe. “That’s enough for one day.”

Joe opened the door.

Brady eased toward Miracle.

The horse skittered away from him, skirting around Joe, and rushed back to the safety of the barn. Brady trailed after him, following Miracle until he returned to his stall. Once the stall door closed tight after the stallion, he handed the rope back to Joe. “It’s going to take a few days, but your horse is going to be fine. Nothing to worry about.”

“Really?” Joe expelled a long-held breath. “How do you know?”

“That horse knows he’s loved. He’s just lost his way. All we have to do is show him how to get back home.”

They left the barn and as they walked outside, Brady saw that it was Mariah, Jonah, and Annie who had driven up, and they’d been standing outside the corral the whole time, watching him with Miracle.

Mariah looked concerned and she went straight to Joe, but it was Annie who captured Brady’s attention.

She was standing beside the wooden fence, her gaze fixed on his, her face alight with quiet reverence and a soft, encouraging smile.

And Brady had a powerful, perplexing urge to turn tail and run.

I
t was just after nine in the morning as Mariah and Annie drove into Jubilee. Past all the cowboy/cutting horse-related businesses. The feed store, the farrier, the farm and ranch supply, the First Horseman’s Bank of Jubilee, Western Wear Palooza, the Mesquite Spit barbecue restaurant. All foreign—and therefore mesmerizing—establishments to Annie.

Mariah parked Joe’s extended cab King Ranch Ford pickup in a circular lot of one of the four parking areas that formed a cloverleaf pattern around the limestone building of the county courthouse. They got out and made their way to Mariah’s shop on the corner of Main Street and John Wayne Boulevard.

“There is a street in this town named for a cowboy actor?” Annie asked.

“Oh yeah. There’s John Wayne Boulevard and Slim Pickens Parkway and Tom Mix Lane and Rory Calhoun Circle.”

Annie laughed. “I love it!”

“Quaint R Us.”

“Excuse me?”

Mariah waved a hand. “Never mind. That’s me being silly. Don’t worry. You’ll pick up on the lingo around here soon enough. You
are
staying awhile?”

“For a while,” she echoed.

Annie absorbed her surroundings. The town square had been constructed in the late 1800s (which compared to the buildings and landmarks in Monesta were quite young and new) and the town had preserved the old Western façade. The buildings were all limestone and completely square. The flat roofs had wooden awnings stretched out over the sidewalks to shade pedestrians. Crepe myrtle bushes were everywhere—white, lavender, pink, red. There were no parking meters on the square and most of the parking spaces were taken by pickup trucks or SUVs. She was not accustomed to seeing such large vehicles. Most people in Annie’s home country got around on bicycles or motor scooters or in fuel-efficient minicars.