Cowboy in My Pocket (14 page)

A clear picture of expensive luggage popped into her mind. Luggage filled with sophisticated styles and lingerie from Victoria’s Secret. Luggage lost in a swirling river of chocolate.

The image faded almost as quickly as it appeared.

Shaking her head, Lee opened the drawer next to hers and grabbed a handful of Tag’s boxer shorts. She was tough. She was a cowgirl, wasn’t she? She’d make do with flannel boxers. Besides, maybe they’d give her seat a little extra padding.

Lee tugged on a thick pair of Tag’s socks and shoved her tender feet into her pointy-toed cowboy boots. She grabbed her entire wardrobe and rammed everything, along with her makeup kit, back into the tote bag Lenore had given her. There was a heavy coat, probably an old one of Maggie’s, hanging in the closet. Lee grabbed that as well, shoved her crumpled Stetson on her head and closed the bedroom door behind her.

She wouldn’t think about it. Not about her motivation for following Tag, nor her sudden desire to run screaming back into the house in a blind panic. No, she’d take this one step at a time, one hour at a time.

She could do this. She could get up on that horse and ride. She could sleep out in a bedroll, help with the branding, maybe prove once and for all she was exactly who she thought she was.

A barrel racer. A cowgirl. A very confused woman falling head over heels in love with the sexiest cowboy alive.

TAG CHECKED the bedroll tied to the back of Chief’s saddle and tightened the straps on the bulging saddlebags. He really should go tell Lee he was leaving, even though what he really wanted to do was just get on the big gelding and ride out.

Sneaking away from your own ranch isn’t your style, cowboy.

No, as much as he liked the idea of leaving without any further contact with anyone, Tag knew he couldn’t do it. He’d explained his reasons to Lee. She seemed to understand, even though she obviously wasn’t as bothered by the attraction that flashed between them as he was.

He’d almost reconsidered until he’d seen that gleam in her eye when she talked about Annie Anderson and Will. She was just like every other woman out there, a predator. Only in Lee’s instance, she was a predator with a hidden past.

He just wished she wasn’t such a gorgeous predator.

He also wished he didn’t feel so guilty about abandoning Lee to his grandmother, but there was no way he could share a room with her here at the Double Eagle. One night in the shack had been more than enough, thank you.

He’d never spent a longer, more miserable night in his life.

Tag leaned his head against the roan’s warm flank. He had way too much to do to be worrying about a pretend bride in a make-believe marriage. Maybe once Lee’s memory returned, when Gramma Lenore finally gave up and headed back to town . . . maybe then he could establish some safe ground rules, then he and Lee could spend some quality time together.

A loud snort and the jangle of harness startled Tag out of his reverie. He spun around just in time to see a very pale-looking Lee ride out of the barn on Daisy, the sorrel filly Coop had been working with.

Daisy lifted her feet in quick, nervous steps, the whites showed around her deep brown eyes and she snorted and pranced like a horse ready to explode.

Lee tugged ineptly at the split reins attached to the hackamore headstall, sawing away like the greenest tenderfoot at the filly’s soft nose. Thank goodness Coop hadn’t put a bit in her mouth, or there’d be hell to pay!

“Whoa,” Tag said, reaching up and gently patting Daisy’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Lee. You know better than to tear at her like that. You’re gonna undo all Coop’s training.”

Daisy immediately calmed down with Tag’s soft words. Lee, on the other hand, looked ready to shatter. Tag patted her leg. The muscles beneath the worn denim were taut with more than Lee’s grip on the horse. If Tag hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was scared to death.

Then he noticed the bedroll tied to the back of the saddle and the fully loaded saddlebags. Maybe she had a good reason to be scared . . . of him. “Just where the hell do you think you’re going?” he asked. It was an effort not to shout.

Lee looked over his shoulder, down at the ground, then closely studied her fingers clamped around the split leather reins. “Um, Gramma Lenore said I have to go with you.”

“Oh, she did, did she?” Tag gritted his teeth. “And I suppose you put up a terrible fight, said you weren’t going, that no one could make you, right?”

“You don’t have to be so sarcastic,” Lee hissed. She glanced back over her shoulder, as if looking for Coop or Gramma Lenore. “It’s not that I want to go,” she whispered, “but your grandmother insisted if you were headed up to the east valley and then wherever else, I had to go with you. She suggested it didn’t look as if we were very married, you taking off so suddenly after the wedding. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Daisy impatiently shook her head and Lee’s leg muscles under Tag’s hand flinched. “Relax,” he said, stroking the length of her thigh. Her muscles loosened up under his touch, but her leg was naturally firm and well-rounded, the denim stretched tautly across her thighs. Lord, but it felt so good to touch her.

Damn.
He slipped his hand to one side and rested his palm against the smooth leather saddle. Everything about Lee felt good to the touch. Too good. “Why are you so tense?” he asked, directing his thoughts away from the feel of Lee under his hand. “Daisy’s a great little horse. She’s young, but Coop’s been working with her. She’s part Arab, part quarter horse, has a terrific gait. Compared to racing barrels, riding this little gal should feel like sitting in a rocking chair. Just treat her easy, don’t yank back on the reins like you were doing a minute ago. You know better’n that.”

“Tag?” Lee’s voice cracked. For a minute, Tag thought she sounded like she might cry. “I don’t think I do know better.”

“What do mean? Of course you do.” He stared up at her, waiting for the punch line. Her face was pale, her hands white-knuckled where she grasped the reins. It suddenly dawned on him she wasn’t kidding.

“I must have forgotten how to ride. It’s like I’ve never been on a horse in my life. Luckily Coop had her all saddled and I managed to get on without any problem, but none of this feels familiar. I was so sure I’d remember horses,” she wailed.

“Ssshhh!” Tag glanced at the barn, but there was no sign of either Coop or Gramma Lenore. He took a deep breath, knowing full well he was making a very big mistake. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to tell Coop we’re leaving. You just give Daisy her head. She’ll follow Chief. I bet after a few minutes it’ll all come back to you. If not, we’ve got time for a little riding lesson once we get away from the ranch. Okay?”

“Tag?”

“What, Lee?”

“How do I give Daisy her head? Isn’t it already attached?”

Not now, Lord. Please?
This wasn’t happening, not really . . . was it? Tag took a deep breath, let the air out and silently counted to ten in Spanish. “That means you don’t try to control which way she turns her head. You just leave the reins loose along her neck and she’ll follow Chief. Be careful. Coop’s got her trained to neck rein. You remember that, don’t you?”

He should only be so lucky.

“No.” She sounded like a very discouraged twelve-year-old.

“It means when you want her to turn, you gently tug the reins in the direction you want her to go. You want to go left, you increase the pressure on the left rein and rest the right rein alongside her neck. She’ll follow her nose, whichever way you direct it. Can you remember that?”

“You don’t have to sound so condescending,” Lee said. “I’m sure it’ll all come back to me.”

Tag stared at her for a moment, noting the confusion in her troubled green eyes, the slight pout to her full lower lip. Then he shook his head, absentmindedly patted Lee’s leg and quickly turned away to find Coop.

The last thing he wanted to do was feel sorry for her. Not when she was doing everything possible to make his life miserable. He couldn’t believe it, a barrel racer forgetting how to ride a horse.

He’d thought it was something like riding a bike. Once learned, never forgotten. Well, it was obvious Lee had forgotten more than most women ever learned. It was so easy for Tag to imagine her sweeping the length of an arena on a lightning-fast quarter horse, her slim body stretched over the saddle horn along her mount’s muscled neck, the reins clasped in one gloved hand, the other holding her hat down tightly on her flying auburn mane.

Lee moved with the natural grace inherent in most horsewomen, a strength of movement, a precision of motion that had attracted Tag from the beginning. Her lack of familiarity with horses was hard to believe, but her fear appeared to be the genuine thing. Amnesia was certainly funny stuff.

Hard to believe she could remember studying in Spain when she couldn’t recall how to ride a horse. It made no sense at all.

Tag bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning when he caught Lee’s quiet, almost pleading words to the horse. “Good girl, Daisy,” she said. “We’re going to be really good friends, aren’t we? Really, really good friends.”

Tag glanced back at her as he stepped into the barn. Lee gave him a defiant look in return. He flashed her a grin, then called out for Coop.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad up in the east valley. They’d be camping out and the nights were so cold they’d probably have to sleep in their clothes. There wasn’t much trouble they could get into, both of them wrapped in heavy jeans and flannel shirts.

It would be a lot warmer if we shared a bedroll.
No, absolutely not. He wasn’t about to fall into that trap. Tag dusted his hat off against his leg and groaned. If only Lee had agreed to stay behind!

“You ready to go?” Coop ducked out from under the stall he’d been mucking out and wiped his hands on his filthy jeans. “Sorry about the girl,” he said. “I figured you were trying to get away from her, but you know Lenore.”

“Yeah. Well, tell her we’re leaving. By the way, if you run into Will, I told him Lee and I were really married. I let him think it was love at first sight. In fact, I didn’t even mention she was Betsy’s friend. I just let him think I’d suddenly met the girl of my dreams.” Tag snorted in disbelief. “Do you believe he actually swallowed that? Just as well. I figured the fewer people who know this marriage is a scam, the better off we’ll be.”

Tag suddenly realized Coop was looking everywhere but at him. He hadn’t really considered the impact of all this lying on his old friend, even though the whole thing had been Coop’s idea from the beginning. Tag took a deep breath, closed his eyes against the weight of his problems, then shook off the growing sense of unease he’d felt since the first moment Lee walked into his life.

“Relax, Coop. It’ll be fine,” he said. Coop grunted and reached for the pitchfork, so that Tag was talking to his back. “I doubt we’ll be gone more than a couple, maybe three nights this trip out, but I want to check on strays, and if we’ve got time, go over to the summer range in the west valley and see to the placement of the temporary chutes. You got that calf table repaired?”

“It was a busted spring on the gate. It’s fixed.” Coop stuck the pitchfork in a bale of hay and turned around. “I’ll get the equipment loaded up and ready to go. You want to plan on Monday for the summer range? I can have the crew and the rest of the gear up there before ten if the weather holds.”

“Sound’s good. We’ll be back by then. I can help you move the stuff. See ya in two or three days.” Tag turned to leave.

“Take good care of my gal.”

“Excuse me?” Where’d the old goat get off talking about Lee like that? “What gal?”

“Why, Daisy, of course. Treat her gentle. She’s never known a thing but kindness all her life. Some of those racers, well, they’re tough on their animals. Not that I’m sayin’ Lee would . . . I jest don’t . . .”

“You don’t have to worry a thing about Lee or Daisy. I think the two of ’em are going to get along just fine. At least I hope they do,” he muttered under his breath. “Tell Gramma we had to leave. I want to set up camp before sundown.” Tag shoved his hat back on his head. “By the way, Coop. That’s my grandmother you had your arm wrapped around. Don’t forget it, okay?”

Coop blushed a deep scarlet. Tag tried his damnedest not to laugh, but he couldn’t help himself. He was still chuckling when he left the barn.

Served the old coot right, after all the teasing Tag had had to put up with. It’d serve him even better if Coop ended up married to a woman as stubborn as Gramma Lenore, especially after all his years of single superiority.

Coop and Gramma Lenore married? Tag would have to think on that one for a while.

Then he remembered his grandmother’s illness. Remembered she probably wouldn’t be around to irritate and aggravate him for much longer.

Tag decided he didn’t want to think about it after all. He put his left foot in the stirrup on Chief’s saddle and swung easily up on the big roan’s back. With a flick of the reins, Chief headed out the main road from the ranch. Lee’s little filly followed docilely behind.

Tag slowed his mount to a walk and Lee rode up beside him. She still looked scared half to death, but she was copying every move he made, watching how he sat the horse, how he held the reins. Her quiet concentration made him feel terribly self-conscious, but he kind of liked knowing she was studying him.

“Do we need to do this?” Lee asked as the two of them passed through the first gate and headed out the east trail. “I know the whole point of your leaving was to get away from me. I’m sorry I messed up your plans.”

“It’s okay.” Tag smiled at her and Lee seemed to relax a little. “This may work out even better. I really do have to check on things up there and it’ll give us a chance to get a little more comfortable around one another. How’s Daisy feel?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

“Like a horse, I guess. How’s she supposed to feel?”

“I don’t understand it a bit, Lee. You remember studying in Spain, walks in Central Park and eating out in a fancy restaurant, but you can’t remember doing something you’ve probably done most of your life. I can’t believe you’d forget how to ride a horse. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”