Read To Tempt a Cowgirl Online
Authors: Jeannie Watt
Great. Just great.
She checked the barn, in case he’d come back from his adventure and sought shelter. No Gus.
And no Lacy.
The other horses had taken advantage of the windbreak between the barn and the field and were huddled together, but not Lacy.
Dani’s temples started to throb. No dog. No horse. Snowstorm.
Squinting against the snow, she could make out a trail leading across the pasture toward the steep part of the creek bank near the road. This couldn’t be good. She called the dog one more time, then pulled her knitted cap down lower over her ears and followed the trail across the rapidly drifting snow.
* * *
G
ABE WAS NO
slouch at driving in the snow, but when he started bucking some serious drifts on the way to the Staley house, he was glad that he’d ponied up the outrageous extra fee for the last four-wheel-drive vehicle on the rental lot. Even with the four-wheel drive, he wondered if he was going to make it to his house, which was going to be seriously cold and dark.
Cold and dark he could deal with. Dani, on the other hand...
A drift caught his front wheel, pulling the SUV sideways and jerking his attention back to the road. The snow had let up, but the wind was still blowing, whipping snow across the hood of the vehicle, making it difficult to see. The wheels bumped hollowly as he crossed the bridge over Lightning Creek and in the distance he could make out the dark shapes of Dani’s barns. Only about a mile to go—
A flash of movement near the creek caught his eye and he slowed. A deer? One of the elusive coyotes?
If so, it was wearing red. He stopped the car and got out, hunching his shoulders against the flurries as he moved around the front of the car. He could no longer see any movement, but he’d definitely seen a flash of red. “Hello?” he shouted into the wind.
There was no response, so he waded through the snow to get closer to the fence, called again as the wind suddenly stopped. The snow settled to the ground in the eerie silence as he strained his ears for a sound, then a blast of wind hit his back, lifting the snow and swirling it around him again with a vengeance. He heard nothing, but during the moment of stillness he’d caught sight of a distinctive black-and-white horse standing near the willows that edged the creek. What was Lacy doing so far from the barn in a blizzard?
He plunged through the snow in the direction of the horse, only to run into the half-buried pasture fence. He struggled through the wire strands, snagging his coat before finally wrenching his way through. Lacy started to move away.
“Lacy!” He wasn’t certain why he’d called out. It wasn’t as if the horse would stop at his command, but she did. And then he heard Dani yell something indistinguishable.
“Dani?” He started toward the horse and the creek bank.
“Mac?” He could just make out the name before the wind blasted into him.
“Where are you?” He burst out of a drift onto a patch of almost barren ground. Once again the wind relented and he saw Dani hunched in the willows near the creek, Lacy standing close by. And then came the plaintive canine whine. Gus, too.
“Here!” she yelled, looking over her shoulder. Her chin lifted as she recognized him, then she turned back to what had to be Gus. Within a few seconds Gabe was beside her, bending down to help her free her dog from the tangle of branches that had him trapped on the steep overgrown bank.
“I just found him,” Dani said through gritted teeth. She held tight to his collar, trying to keep him from sliding farther down the bank and into the water. Gabe threw himself onto his belly at the edge of the six-foot embankment and attempted to wrap his arms around the dog’s middle only to find himself sliding toward the rushing waters of the creek himself. Too late to save himself, so he twisted, crashing through the brush and landing on his knees with an icy splash. Frigid water blasted through his clothing, filling his low boots, making his breath catch in his lungs. But he managed to keep Gus from sliding in after him.
“Gabe!”
“Hang on,” he muttered, adjusting his grip so that he could give a mighty shove. His feet slipped and he went down again, his knees splashing into the freezing water, but he’d managed to push the heavy dog up high enough for Dani to drag him over the edge of the bank. A split second later she reappeared, leaning down to take his hand, but he managed to pull himself up the bank using the broken willow branches. The last thing he was going to do was to pull Dani down into the icy flow.
When he reached the top, she took hold of his arm, steadying as he got his balance on his rapidly numbing feet. And then for a long moment she stared up at him as if trying to make sense of everything—why he was here, how he’d managed to appear out of nowhere.
“Dani...” He reached up to touch her frozen hair but she shook her head, took hold of the arm of his coat and started toward the fence, following the trail he’d broken through the drift, dragging him along behind her.
“Got to get you out of the weather,” she muttered.
Gabe’s teeth were rattling by the time they reached the car. The wind cut through his soaked pants, making it difficult to walk on numbing legs. He didn’t argue when Dani opened the passenger door and pushed him inside. The blast of heat that met him sent an uncontrollable shudder through his body.
A moment later Gus hefted himself into the backseat and Dani got behind the wheel. She put the SUV in gear and slowly eased it forward. Gabe forced himself to keep his mouth shut and not tell Dani how to get them both safely back to the ranch—as if he could with his teeth chattering against his skull.
* * *
T
HE POWER WAS
still off when they got to the house, but there was enough water in the hot-water tank to fill the tub. Dani practically shoved Gabe into the guest bathroom before tossing his small suitcase in after him. She didn’t want to talk. Not yet, but he stopped her before she closed the door.
“Are you going out after Lacy?” He was shivering again, but his expression was serious as he added, “Don’t go out there alone.”
“Lacy’s fine. She’ll get back on her own.” The only reason the mare had been in the field, instead of behind the windbreak with the other horses, was because of Gus, and Dani had seen her heading back across the drifted pasture toward the barn as they’d climbed through the fence. “I’ll check her in a bit.”
“Not without me.”
“Fine.”
Gabe studied her for a moment as if ascertaining whether or not she was humoring him, so she put a hand on his chest and pushed him into the room, pulling the door shut behind him.
And then she paced. Through the living room, over to the window, then back to the hall leading to the bathroom and the staircase. Gus was lying on his rug, damp but not injured, his heavy head on his paws, looking as shaken and exhausted as Dani felt. She closed her eyes, holding back tears of relief, anger, frustration...especially frustration.
Gabe wasn’t supposed to be back.
She didn’t know how to handle him being back.
Once he warmed up, once she was certain he wasn’t going to keel over from hypothermia, he was getting into his rental and bucking drifts to his house. His cold house with no electrical power to run the furnace.
She didn’t care. Once he warmed up, it was not her affair. She owed him for saving Gus, and saving her from a dunk in the icy creek, yes. But she couldn’t have him here. Not now. Not until she got her sense of emotional equilibrium back. Chad had hurt her, but Gabe had crushed her. A knockout punch skillfully delivered after Chad’s quick jab.
Dani shrugged off the thought and stoked the fire. The wood was low so she went out for more, dropping a load into the wrought-iron log rest next to the fire. Gabe was here. In her house. He’d appeared out of nowhere, helped her save Gus.
Too. Much.
She pressed her fingers to her forehead just as the bathroom door opened. She looked up to see him appear at the end of the hall, hair damp, glasses on, carrying his suitcase in one hand, his wet clothing in the other.
“Are you warm?” There was a sharp edge to her voice.
“Warm enough.” His teeth didn’t rattle, so maybe he was telling the truth.
Dani nodded, telling herself that it didn’t matter if his face seemed more gaunt, or that his expression seemed almost haunted.
“I should go.”
She didn’t argue with him, even though part of her wanted to—the part that wanted to lambaste him for not being the man she’d thought he was.
“I see that Gus is okay. Is Lacy back?”
“She is.” She’d checked when she’d gone for wood.
He gave a slow nod, then started toward the door, putting down his suitcase just long enough to shrug into his damp coat that had been spread over Dani’s chair. He had his hand on the doorknob when she blurted out, “Your tactics suck.”
Had she really said that? Had she really just stopped him when he was on the way out her door? Having him there, so close, so damned close...she wanted to rage at him, beat on him, but instead, to her horror, she felt the angry tears coming.
She dropped her gaze, turned away from him, hugging her arms around herself as she fought for control in a way she’d never fought before. Son of a bitch. She would not cry.
“They did.”
Past tense? She jerked her gaze up. “
Why
are you back?”
“Why do you think I’ve come back, Dani? In a snowstorm? To lie to you some more?”
“I thought you didn’t lie to me,” she said, hating the tone of her voice, but needing to say the words.
“I lied through omission. I’m not going to argue that point. I came here on a mission, to help a guy who’d helped me...a guy who helped me stop destroying my life.” He cleared his throat. “As you know, that didn’t work out.”
What didn’t work out? The job or the destroying-his-life part?
Let him go
.
“Destroy your life how?” she asked in a low voice.
“A long story, Dani. One I should have told you long ago.” He exhaled deeply, his hand still on the doorknob. “I need to go.” He meant it. She could see it in the set of his features, the finality in his voice. He needed to get out of there. And she wanted him gone, but...
“You show up out of nowhere, rescue my dog, then disappear into the night.” It was both an accusation and a statement of fact, as if she needed to get a handle on everything that had just happened in too short of a period of time.
“Would you have it any other way?”
“I don’t know.”
His hand fell away from the doorknob, but he stayed where he was, waiting for her to make a final decision.
She swallowed hard, then forced a few more words out. “Did you come back here because of me?”
“Yes.”
She took a few paces away from him, toward the stove, feeling the need for warmth, comfort. “I want to hear your story.” When he didn’t move, she gave him a sharp look over her shoulder. “I think you owe me that. I want to know the motivation behind your actions.”
“Would it matter?”
She looked back at the stove, afraid to answer. Afraid the truth might pop out—yes, it might matter. Her heart gave a few quick, stuttering beats when he started walking slowly toward her, his steps echoing on the old flooring. His hand settled on her shoulder and although she stiffened, she didn’t shake it off as she might have done only a few minutes before. If anything, she savored the contact for a moment, hating that it felt so right. “I want you to have a reason for what you did, Gabe. A good one.”
“I had a reason.” She turned to look at him then, drawn by the intensity in his voice. “I thought it was a good one. I thought I was creating a win-win situation for everyone. Or rather, I was doing my best to convince myself of that.” Dani had no words; they’d been over this ground. “Stewart Widmeyer kind of saved my life,” he said abruptly.
That caught her off guard. “Kind of?” she asked with a frown.
“I’d probably still be alive,” he admitted, “but...my life wouldn’t be anything like it is today.” He let his hand fall away from her shoulder, breaking the connection, making her feel as if he’d just put a couple of miles between them. “I definitely would have spent time in jail.”
Dani just barely kept from gaping at his admission. “Jail?”
“I’d dropped out of school, my foster family had kicked me out and I was supporting myself selling weed. Small-time stuff, but I got caught with enough to get me into some serious trouble. Neal Widmeyer was a friend, so I called him for bail money. Stewart came instead.”
“You were a small-time hood?” Dani could see it. He had a tough edge under the buttoned-up, logical front he put forth to the world. She walked over to her new sofa and slowly sat down, staring across the room.
“I’m not proud of what I did.”
“I’m not judging you.” But she was working over this new information, making sense of it.
He looked less than convinced. “Stewart laid things out clearly. He’d bail me out. Hire a lawyer to plead down the offense and eventually get it expunged from my record.”
“Generous.”
“Yeah.”
“Why did he do that? Because you were friends with his son?”
“I don’t think so... I don’t know.” The look on his face, the intensity of his voice as he spoke, ripped at her. She could see that he honestly didn’t understand the whys of the situation, didn’t know why Widmeyer had helped him. “And there was more to the deal...”
He went on to explain that Stewart had offered to pay tuition for two years of technical school if Gabe managed to finish his GED, and in return, Gabe had to clean up his act. See a counselor. Attend AA. And not associate with Neal until he was clean.
“That part was easy since Neal was starting school at Cornell, but the rest... I had a hell of a time getting myself straight. But I did it because I thought Stewart expected me to fail. Twice I tried to back out of the deal. He called me ball-less. Goaded me into forging on.”
“He was playing you?” Dani asked softly.
Gabe gave a slow nod. “I’d say yes to that. So I finished my two-year degree, went on to get a degree in landscape architecture and then an MBA.”