Triple Exposure (6 page)

The buckskin gelding used his owner’s moment of distraction to snatch free his rear leg and stamp down hard on Zeke’s booted foot. When Zeke swore in pain, Cholla squealed and pulled against the lead rope that tied him to a stout rail. Eyes rolling with terror, the outsized animal threw himself backward until the rail groaned and the halter attached to the rope snapped. Off balance and suddenly free, the horse threw a shoulder against Zeke, flinging him onto his back.

For one terrifying instant, Zeke was sure Cholla would fall on him. But somehow the buckskin recovered his balance, then clattered past the corral and out onto open range.

Behind him, a vehicle’s door opened, and Rachel cried, “Oh, God, Zeke. Don’t move. Let me call the paramedics.”

“Don’t do that. Shit. I’m all right,” he insisted, though he wasn’t quite sure yet. As he pushed his aching body into a seated position, his gaze followed the cloud of dust that marked the buckskin’s flight. The pinto mare and the mule both raced around their enclosure, whinnying, braying, and bucking in excitement.

“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said. “I must’ve startled him when I drove up. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, more certain of his answer this time. At least until he stood and put weight on the foot Cholla had stomped. He winced and shifted, then saw Rachel looking out after his horse.

“Do you think he’ll be all right? Can I help you catch him?”

Zeke’s first impulse was to tell her he’d had enough of her damned help this morning, but her contrition seemed as real as her concern. Besides, his shouting had caused enough trouble already.

Shaking his head, he gestured toward the loose horse. “Look. He’s slowing down. He’ll turn around and trot back this way as soon as I toss some hay in the corral. But let’s give him a few minutes to settle.”

“I really am sorry,” she repeated.

“Was my fault more than yours.” Zeke shrugged. “I yelled when he came down on my foot and it spooked him. Bastard that owned him before I did used to beat him pretty bad—you can still see scars on his neck. So he’s always on edge when I have to tie him. That isn’t the first halter or lead rope Cholla’s broken.”

That look came over her again, the softening of her brown eyes as she imagined him as someone noble, some softhearted animal crusader. He wanted to argue that she had it wrong, that he was simply a man with an eye for decent horse flesh, a man who saved himself a bundle by rehabilitating others’ castoffs. But instead of saying so, he looked down at the small paper bag she was holding, a brown bag dotted with several small grease stains.

With a sheepish look, she held it out in his direction. “Oh, I—uh—I brought you breakfast, a couple of cranberry-walnut muffins from The Roost. They’re pretty good. I was just nibbling one before all hell broke loose here.”

Accepting it, he smiled at the crumbs clinging beneath the curve of her lip. “I can see that.”

An old reflex—a foolish reflex—had him lifting his hand to brush those crumbs free. He stopped himself from
touching her, but not before she stiffened and jerked back, her eyes flaring as if she’d thought he might hit her.

“You know how it is with my animals.” He shrugged and set the bag down on the flat top of a post. “Whatever else you think of me, I’d never hit a woman either.”

His words shimmered in the space between them. Their gazes locked, hers gleaming with moisture.

“Especially the kind that brings me breakfast,” he added quickly, discomfited by the hard tug of attraction.

The spell broken, she turned away and swore.

“I
hate
Kyle Underwood.” She stared toward the faint bruising of distant mountains against the blue horizon. “I hate him for making me afraid of everything from ringing telephones to my damned closet to someone reaching out to—”

“It’s okay, Rachel. A thing like what you went through, it’s bound to take some time to get over.”

When her head swung back in his direction, he saw that the lioness was back. “I’m not one of your damaged horses. I don’t want to be soothed and petted, and I especially don’t need anybody’s pity. I just needed you to know I hate that sorry shit. And no matter what I told reporters, I don’t regret that he’s dead.”

Zeke understood what it was to lose everything of value, to be left with nothing but a battered façade of pride. When Rachel had flinched at his movement, she had undermined that final bulwark, so she’d tried to prop it up with harsh words.

He nodded. “You might not be sorry he got himself killed…but are you sorry you had to be the one to do it?”

She hesitated before nodding and admitting, “That’s what makes me hate him most of all.”

Her expression shifted from defiance to concern. “Um, you’re favoring that left foot. You need to get off it. Can I bring you some ice?”

A plea shadowed the words, a plea to let the discussion of her recent history drop. Zeke had no trouble empathizing,
considering how very far he’d gone to avoid speaking of his own past.

“He’s not breathing.”
The panicked whisper skated across the surface of a memory. An image formed like a phantasm: Willie’s limp, pale body, shaken like a rag doll. Shaken, but completely unresponsive.
“Holy shit. What now?”

Zeke forced it down, as he had forced down so many others.

“Let me drop some hay into the corral first,” he said, “and maybe shake some grain around a bucket. See if Cholla has a change of heart.”

His first pained step shot off starbursts in his vision.

“You’re limping,” Rachel pointed out. “Why don’t you just let me help—”

“I’m fine.” He blinked to clear his head. “Just need to walk it off.”

“You keep telling yourself that—” There was a smile in her voice as she called after him. “—maybe it’ll come true.”

By the time she’d helped him to lure back, console, and corral the prodigal, Zeke was hobbling worse than ever. His left foot throbbed inside the boot.

“Hate to say this,” he admitted, “but you might’ve been right about that ice and elevation. Could probably stand to have a little of your help with that.”

Sleek reddish eyebrows lifted. “Before, I was merely notorious. But today, my name passes into legend.”

“What?”
He couldn’t help grinning at her mock-sincerity.

“You know,” she said with an offhand shrug, “getting you to talk, smile, and accept help,
all in the same day.
”

He laughed at that, then nodded in agreement. “And it’s still early. Hate to think what you could get me doing if you hung around much longer.”

Another of those charged silences descended, with Zeke thinking of what he’d like to do and Rachel flushing as if she’d read his mind. And this time, it was more than physical attraction. It was the realization that the millstone
weighing down his spirit lightened in her presence, evaporated with her smile.

But nothing would come of the attraction. God help him, nothing could. So he cleared his throat and turned away from her, then hobbled through his workshop. When he reached the red door to his private rooms, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder, only to find her hanging back.

“You don’t have to come in if you don’t want—if I make you nervous…”

He hadn’t meant it as a challenge, but something sparked in her eyes, and her chin rose slightly.

“I’m not afraid of you, Zeke Pike.” She strode toward him, past him, and across the threshold, the bag containing his breakfast clutched so tightly that her knuckles were white.

Once inside, she didn’t bother hiding her curiosity but turned and looked over the tiny built-in kitchenette with a pair of folding chairs beside an old card table, where a dog-eared copy of the John Graves ode to solitude,
Goodbye to a
River
, lay open, facedown, its spine strained by the unwarranted abuse. Beyond the pass-through counter, her gaze glanced off an old hospital bed with white paint peeling from its iron frame. Beside it, a warped and faded cupboard held his clothing, and an ancient woodstove claimed a corner.

He kept the place neat, everything except the book precisely where it should be, but for the first time ever, he saw the way it must look through her eyes, with its concrete floor and cast-off furnishings, without a spot of color in the whole place, save for the door.

“All those gorgeous things you make,” she whispered, “and you haven’t kept a single one….”

She shook her head, then set the muffins on the table. “Talk about restraint. I’d hog all the good stuff for myself.”

“Then you’d go hungry.”

“But my avaricious soul would be well fed,” she said with a dismissive gesture before pulling out the chair. “Now, sit yourself down and let me get you some ice.”

Grateful to get off his feet, he did as she asked and
pointed out the drawer where she could find a plastic bag. It was a struggle to pull off the boot, but by gritting his teeth, he managed to do it without shouting.

“Hurt, didn’t it?” she asked him before adding, “Your face is getting red.”

“That’s from holding in about a thousand cuss words.” Cautiously, he peeled off the sock and hissed through his teeth at the violent patch of black, dark brown, and purple discoloring the base of his toes.

“Owww,” Rachel said for him. “That looks like it could be broken.”

“Don’t think so.” No way in hell was he going to the hospital in Alpine, or even the local clinic. “If it was, I couldn’t have walked on it so far.”

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you somewhere for X-rays?”

“I’m sure. And I’m starving. You want one of these muffins?”

“No thanks.” She spoke over the sound of cracking as she pulled the metal handle of his old-fashioned ice-cube tray.

The paper bag rattled as he opened it. Before he stuck a hand inside, he hesitated, then pushed himself back to his feet and staggered to the sink to wash up. Mostly because he worried what she’d think about him if he didn’t.

Once he’d made it back to his chair with a paper towel, a thought occurred to him. “You didn’t drive out here this morning just to feed me.”

She passed him the bag of ice. “True. And I didn’t come to scare your horse off or help you catch him, either. I brought some proofs for you to look at—the pictures I shot when I was here last. I’ll need your signature on a release form before I do anything with them.”

“Thought I already gave you my permission. It’s not like I changed my mind.”

As she turned away to refill the ice tray, he noticed the way her shoulders rose and stiffened. Was she worried about something?

“I need it in writing,” she said.

“So go and get your paper. I’ll sign.”

A nod. A hesitation, then a puff of breath as she exhaled. “I’ll be right back with the proofs and the form.”

By the time she returned, he thought he’d figured out her problem. She was nervous, worried that he wouldn’t like her work. Patsy had once mentioned—with a degree of pride—that Rachel was into art photography, so maybe she had an artist’s insecurity about it. Truth was, she needn’t fret. As far as he was concerned, a picture was a picture, unless somebody’s thumb had covered half the lens.

By the time she came back inside, he was finishing the breakfast she’d brought him.

“Thought you’d taken off or something,” he said by way of greeting.

“Here you go.” She laid the envelope on the table, her eyes avoiding his, her posture radiating tension.

As he wiped his hands, he decided this was more evidence that he was just a simple craftsman, not an artist. If people liked his work, fine. He didn’t give a damn about the ones who didn’t, and when others ran a piece down in an attempt to talk him into lowering his price, he took their criticism as some kind of “let’s haggle with the natives” bullshit and sent them on their way. He’d heard that it had given him a reputation for being temperamental. Suited him just fine and kept the socializing to a minimum.

After putting aside the form on top, he flipped through the first few photos and found himself impressed. Clear and vivid, each showed one of the pieces he’d created to its best advantage.

“These’re good,” he said as he reached for the release form. He’d seen enough to know the photos would be sure to bring in business.

She passed him a pen. “You don’t want to…?”

“Want to what?” He shook his head, taken aback at her sudden pallor, the way she looked as if she might explode out of her skin. Was it just the photos making her so nervous,
or had she noticed the glances he kept sliding her way? Could she be nervous about being in his apartment with his bed in plain view?

Had
“You don’t want to
…?
”
referred to something more than photos? His libido took notice, though he told himself he was being ridiculous. Face heating with his foolishness, he signed the form and passed her back both the photos and the paper.

“Never—never mind,” she said as she shoved the stack and release back into the envelope. “Listen, I’d better get going. I’m flying with my dad today. He’s got a sailplane reserved.”

He wondered at her sudden haste. As if she’d read his thoughts—his foolish fantasies about her.

He tried to stall her with a little conversation. “What’s that like? I’ve watched ’em plenty, but—going up without an engine to rely on…Seems like that could get a little scary.”

Relaxing visibly, she smiled. “I grew up around gliding, so I’ve never thought about it that way. But I’ve always liked the challenge of it, finding lift and riding thermals, soaring like the raptors. If the conditions are right and you’re good at reading them, you can stay aloft for hours on end. Whereas anybody can keep a powered airplane in the sky.”

He shook his head. “Not me.”
I’ve never even been inside a
plane.

“You could learn it, easy. I’ve seen the way you watch those planes.”

He shrugged in an attempt to look indifferent. “Just something to pass the time while I eat my lunch.”

“I’ll take you up sometime, once I’m flying on my own again. Is there anything else you need now? Looks to me like you’ll be off your feet for a few days.”

“I’ll get by,” he said. “Truck’s out there, for one thing, and there’s a pair of crutches handy. Got myself bit by a desert recluse a few years back. Damned leg swelled like a melon.”