B00DVWSNZ8 EBOK (19 page)

She started for the stairs and he accompanied her. "You saw the painting, though?"

She was more grateful than ever that she had asked Brady to take her to Fort Worth—and that he had been willing. "Yes, we did. And it's beautiful, Daddy. You'll have to be sure to go over there to see it. I brought you a flyer. We went out to the Amon Carter, too."

Being able to tell the truth, even if only a half-truth, almost chased away her fatigue.

"You can tell me about the Boren later. It's nearly suppertime. Hurry and get dressed. Clary's gonna eat with us."

That information almost froze her in place, but she managed to breezily say, "Okay."

She showered and shampooed, dressed in a cotton eyelet prairie dress and tan huaraches, then went downstairs to the kitchen. Irene had made enchiladas and Windy had fried tortilla chips and put together a black bean salad to go with them.

“Your daddy is in his office with Clary,” he told he
r. “He wants you to have a drink with them.

Jude
couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less, but she set her jaw and made her way to her father’s office. As soon as she entered, the two men stood.

Clary nodded to her. "How'r
e you this ev'nin', Miss Jude?"

Clary Harper was a middle-aged man who had a deep voice and a
pronounced Texas twang, as did most of the local people. For supper with Daddy and Grandpa, he had slicked his hair back and put on a starched white shirt and a blue silky neckerchief. Familiar surroundings with familiar people. Little by little, Jude was starting to feel comfortable in her own skin again. "Good, Clary. What exciting things are going on with the horses?"

"Just makin' sure our mounts are all in good shape for the weanin'"

Daddy handed her a drink of whiskey diluted with water and she sipped it. "That's good. Wish I could go with you."

"Now, you don't wish that, Miss Jude. It's a man's job. Bein' out in that ol' sun all day would just cook yore pretty skin, and that ol' wind would grind that swirlin' sand clear through you."

"I've told her the same thing, Clary," Daddy said, smiling at her. He held a chair for her.

She sat and he moved to his desk chair. "The new man's starting tomorrow," he said to Clary, and Jude felt a little prick in her intestines. "He's a good-size man, so he'll need a couple of
big mounts. He looks stout and he's no greenhorn. I expect he can handle a strong horse."

Misery settled within Jude along with a memory of Brady throwing himself onto Sweet Sal's back. Indeed he could handle a strong horse and he was anything but a greenhorn.

Clary Harper behaved no differently from how he always had. She became convinced that Jack Durham hadn't rushed home and called him to discuss the woman who sat beside him at the horse sale in Amarillo. As much as she was in no mood for company, Jude was glad for Clary's presence. With company for supper, no one would spend too much time asking about her trip to Fort Worth.

Supper ended early in anticipation of rising early to load the gear and horses for the thirty-five-mile trip to the north pastures and the weaning pens. There, roughly three thousand head of prime Circle C mother cows and their calves lived—close to half the ranch's herd. Even Grandpa would be going. He no longer participated in separating the cows and calves, but he could still sit his old horse and he liked to watch the work.

He made no mention of an evening walk, which suited Jude fine.

Chapter 15

A month passed without Jude seeing Brady. He didn’t attend the Circle C's annual Fourth of July picnic for the ranch hands and their families. Had he not shown up because he hadn’t wanted to run into her? She hoped not.

Jude had
n’t wanted to attend herself, for fear of running into him, but she hadn’t been able to concoct a good excuse not to be there. After all, Daddy and Grandpa expected her to show show respect for the ranch’s employees

But not seeing
Brady did not mean he hadn't been a presence in her life. His face and his incredible intense eyes had loomed like a specter in her restless nights. His pickup, parked in the same spot in the big barn's parking lot every day, sat there like a permanent monument. Nightly at supper, Daddy extolled his praises. Her father thought Brady had hung the moon, said he was the best hand he had ever hired.

Through all of Daddy's acclimation of Brady's worth
to the ranch, Grandpa scarcely commented or even asked questions, which was unusual. He always voiced his opinions. Because the weaning had taken two weeks and he had been too tired in the evenings, Jude hadn't walked with him much. Now he complained of not feeling well.

Still, they had walked
a few times. But no matter how much she tried to tactfully pry, he said nothing about Brady or the 6-0. His restraint was making Jude worry about what he might be up to. She hadn't forgotten the first conversation they'd had about his interest in the 6-0 land. All of it reminded her how alone Brady was in his struggle to keep and rebuild his aunt's old ranch.

And her
unwavering desire to help him took her to the 6-0.

She
had applied extra care to her appearance—bathed in skin-softening body wash, washed her hair with cucumber-scented shampoo, taken extra pains with her eye makeup. Luckily, she didn't have to explain why to anyone because she couldn't really explain it to herself. The most she could ever be to him was a friend.

She had been
at the 6-0 almost an hour, time enough to walk to the barn and the pasture behind it and look at the horses. Now, attempting to escape the afternoon heat while waiting for Brady to come home, she sat in the shade on the Victorian house's rickety front porch overlooking the caliche driveway. She studied the traces of white paint left on the gingerbread trim that spanned the eaves, letting snippets of her last conversation with Brady tumble through her mind.

... I'm not necessarily looking for a, uh... boyfriend....

I wasn't holding up a sign saying I was looking for a girlfriend, either....

A month since they had said those
fateful words in his pickup.

Soon the tan Silverado turned off the highway and started up the driveway. Her heart lifted. The pickup came to a stop in front of the house and Brady
eased out. His languid movement told her that he was worn-out.

She watched without moving as he lifted chaps out of the pickup bed, slung them over his shoulder and came toward her
with his loose, long-legged gait.

With the afternoon sun at his back and his hat set low on his brow, she couldn't clearly see his face, but through shimmering waves of heat and dust, she could see his long, lean body. The late afternoon breeze molded his long-sleeve shirt to clearly defined biceps. A red neckerchief sagged around his neck. Dirty blue denim swathed his slim hips and muscled thighs. His spurs clanked with every step. He was all cowboy, all the time, a man of the West
who more than talked the talk.

The awareness of that fact and his potent masculinity sweetly squeezed her most secret places. She recognized it now for what it was. She had felt it every time she had seen him. She
recalled that day in Stephenville when he had jumped on Sal's back. A place low in her belly involuntarily twitched.

He was almost to the porch before she could see his eyes and when she did, her heart turned over.

"Hey," he said in his soft, deep voice. He sat down beside her on the porch, his shirtsleeve touching her arm. He untied his neckerchief, slid it off and dropped it on the porch. "What's up?"

She detected no antagonism. In fact, she thought he behaved as if they were friends who had seen each other only yesterday. Relief flooded her. She hadn't known what to expect when he came home and found her sitting on his porch. He leaned forward and began unbuckling his spurs, his shirt stretched tight across his wide back, emphasizing the flex of his
muscled shoulders.

His boots and wash-worn Wranglers were covered with a layer of West Texas red dust. A wide swath of brown stained one side of his blue chambray shirtfront. Jude recognized it as dried blood. "What's up with you? You're bloody."

He looked up at her over his shoulder. That mischievous, knee-buckling grin that made creases at the corners of his sky blue eyes and showed his perfect white teeth filled her with warmth. It was even more devastating coming from a dirty face and dark-stubbled jaws. "One of the heifers had a problem. But we fixed it."

She nodded. "Naturally." She looked around. "What's been going on around here? I walked back and looked at the horses. They look to be all settled in."

He lifted his mangled straw hat and ran splayed dirty fingers through sweat-dampened hair. His hair was longer now. It fell over his collar. "I've ridden them a couple of times." He set the hat back on and tugged the brim low. "But I've been working in the barn, mostly. When I've had time. Right now, getting the barn fixed up is more important than anything else."

"We didn't see you at the picnic." A fishing question, probably obvious.

"I went to Fort Worth to see my boy."

"Oh." She nodded. "You got through the weaning okay? None of Grandpa's horned Hereford mothers hooked you or anything?"

He chuckled, a low rumble that made her shiver. She remembered the sound from Stephenville. "Nah. Sure is something to see, though. Horned Herefords. Not too many of those ol’ girls around these days." He dropped the spurs onto the porch deck with a clunk.

"I know. They're all purebreds, too. Grandpa loves them. The only things he loves more are the longhorns he keeps as pets. I suppose you've seen those by now."

He nodded and straightened.

"Those Herefords
might be a mark in time, but they're part of what should be changed,” she said. “The crossbreeds thrive better and have less trouble calving. I’m bringing in some Angus bulls, so little by little black baldies are starting to show up. But it hasn't been easy with Grandpa's attitude."

"I'm glad to see you
," he said.

The words, unexpected, sent a thrill all the way up her spine. He reached up, lifted her sunglasses off her nose and gingerly pushed back strands of her hair that had strayed to one cheek. A proprietary gesture. She didn't even care that his hands were filthy. She smiled. "Me, too."

"But what are you doing here?" The thrill vanished. He set her sunglasses back on.

"I came to offer you my help."

He looked down, scratching one eyebrow with his thumb. "Lord, Jude. Your help gets risky. What is it you're wanting to help me with?"

She yanked off the sunglasses and pushed to her feet, better able to make her case standing. She propped her hands on her hips. "You know, if horses aren't kept in shape, they forget they're horses. Then they can't be depended on. They need to be ridden. I know you don't have time, so"—she lifted her open palms for emphasis—"I'm offering to ride your horses for you."

He looked up at her with an expression impossible to read, but she knew him well enough to know he was skeptical.

She raised one hand like a traffic cop and tilted her head. "Don't worry. I'm not going to lie to Daddy about it. I learned my lesson on that. I'm going to tell him you've got horses I like the looks of. He knows I like horses. And he thinks a lot of you."

"And where you gonna do this riding?"

"Well, I could ride Poncho and Tuffy here in your pasture behind the barn. It wouldn't have to be every day and I'd do it when you're at work so I wouldn't be in your way."

She bent forward and picked up the manila file folder she had laid on the porch deck. "And I want to work with Sal. I did some research on her. Did you know you're her fourth owner?" She handed him the folder with the printed information she had gleaned from researching Sal's history. "Her dam was a racehorse. She’s a great horse. But she’s had some flakey owners."

He opened the folder and began to scan the top page.

"I could haul her over to the Circle C and work with her in our big round corral."

He lifted the page and looked underneath, where she had tucked an eight-by-ten color photograph of Patch. "What's this?"

She hesitated before she answered. "My stud, Patch."

He looked up her with an arched brow. "Your stud?"

"Grandpa gave him to me a long time ago. He's a Tobiano paint."

"What's that?"

"It has to do with his markings. Tobianos have color on one or both flanks and their heads are usually solid. See, look." She sat down beside him again and pointed to Patch's black flanks and face. "And see, he has white legs and a black shield across his chest. Look how muscled he is in the chest. He's built like a tank. Isn't he handsome?"

Brady shook his head and frowned. Definite negative body language. "Jude—"

"Wait. Before you say no, listen.” Okay, so he had figured out why she had put the photograph in the folder. She charged ahead. “He has ancient blood in his veins, Brady. He goes all the way back to a Comanche stallion that was given to my great-great-grandfather by Quanah Parker himself. In the dining room at the ranch house, there’s a portrait of Alister Campbell and Quanah Parker. I know you’ve seen it. The paint horse in the background is the distant grandfather of my Patch."

Brady shook his head again. "I don't know, Jude..." His voice trailed off.

"Sal's grullo color makes her worth breeding, Brady. It's so rare. Some horse breeders strive for nothing but that color. I went into my files and found data I've collected on the genetics of horse color. The subject's been studied extensively at UC Davis. I wrote several papers on it myself when I was in school. If a black-and-white Tobiano paint like Patch bred with a solid grullo mare, the odds are better than thirty-five percent the mare will throw a Tobiano foal. It could be black or grullo Tobiano. Either one would be great."

"We talked about this in Stephenville. Even if I had the money, I'm not willing to spend it on AI."

At his mention of Stephenville, a nerve began to jump in Jude's stomach, but she concentrated on ignoring it and on keeping her voice casual and normal. She had thought of Stephenville daily, but hearing
him
say it set off a wave of anxiety.

"I'm not talking about artificial insemination
,” she said. “Most mares aren't bred with AI. It's too expensive. What if we just penned Sal and Patch in the same pasture for, say, thirty days and let nature take its course?"

"You're talking about live cover. Darlin', I leave here at four thirty every morning. Sometimes I don't get back 'til late afternoon, like today. I don't have time to keep an eye on 'em. Or to help 'em."

Jude sniggered. "They don't really need any help, you know. They know what to do."

He shook his head again. "I don't know the fine points of horse...breeding." A frown furrowed his brow. "Why do you want to do this, Jude?"

For you, Brady. For you. Because you need the money. And because I want you to succeed. And I don't trust my own grandfather.

"Because you could sell the foal almost the minute it hits the ground for several thousand dollars. Paint-horse aficionados would love to have a horse out of a stud with Patch's bloodline. Sal's, too. All I'm talking about is taking her over to the Circle C and letting her spend time with Patch. No big deal. If anything went wrong, we've got a state-of-the-art veterinary facility. Dr. Barrett is there every day and so am I. Of course I'd help. Patch is my stallion and I've got an interest in this, too, you know."

"And that would be what?"

"There aren't any of Patch's babies around the Circle C. Doc doesn't even collect semen from Patch. When we've bred him, it's usually been with live cover. Afterward, the mares get hauled away by their owners and I never get to see the babies. If the baby were a paint, I'd buy it from you myself. I just think it would be so cool to have one of Patch's babies around. I might start from scratch and train it to be a show horse."

"I don't know," Brady said again, but she thought he might be seriously considering it.

"Patch has never hurt a mare," she said.

"The Circle C's got damn near a hundred horses. There must be a grullo mare among them."

She shook her head.

"Why would you buy the foal from me? If your stallion's the sire, you'd already have an interest in it."

"But I'd still buy it."

He shook his head. "I don't know, Jude. A pregnant mare and a foal have special needs. My barn's not good enough." He got to his feet. "Look, I gotta get something to eat. Want a sandwich?"