Cowboy Tough (15 page)

Cat dashed up the stairs and into the lighted bedroom to see Trevor lying on the floor like a broken doll, his face streaked with blood. For a second, she wondered if he was even still alive. Mack was astride the man's body on his knees, pummeling him with one fist, then the other. Both girls hung on his arms, struggling to haul him off the apparently unconscious man.

“Dad.” Viv tugged at his arm, then tugged again. “Dad. Stop.”

Judging from the look in his eyes, Mack was lost in some bloody cloud of homicidal madness. But as he blinked at Viv, Cat felt his power ebb a little. There was still a steady, throbbing energy there, like a powerful engine idling at a stoplight, but the wild light in his eyes started to fade.

“Stop,” Viv said. “It's all right.” She let out something between a laugh and a sob. “Don't kill him, okay?”

“He—I heard him.”

“It's okay, Dad.” Viv put her arm around him and patted his back. Dora let go and backed away, her eyes wide.

Cat knelt beside Trevor and took his hand, fumbling for a pulse. His eyes were staring at the ceiling, and for a moment she thought he was dead. But then he blinked. Cat dropped his hand and he reached up to tentatively touch his face, wincing as he pressed the bruises blooming on his forehead, cheekbone, and chin.

“Trevor, I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm so sorry. Let me get something to clean you up.” She looked up at Mack, suddenly realizing all over again how big the man was, and how strong.

And how angry. He was still staring at Trevor, his chest heaving. It was obvious he could barely hold himself back from attacking the man again.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Cat was almost crying. She had no idea what was going on, but she did know this trip was a disaster. So far she'd slept with their guide and allowed that same guide to beat up a client—twice. The place was a wreck and their host was homicidal.

She was doomed.

“There's nothing wrong with me.” Mack's voice was low and menacing. Viv tightened her grip on his arm. “It's that little pervert. I heard him trying to get the girls to…” He sucked in a deep breath and Cat saw that his eyes were glistening. “I can't even say it.”

Viv shook her head. Incredibly, it looked like she was suppressing a laugh. “Oh, no. Dad, what did you hear?”

Mack looked agonized. “Don't cover for him, Viv. I heard the whole thing.”

“Tell me what you heard.” The teenager sounded like the parent now, coaxing a story out.

“You told him to leave,” Mack said. “You told him ‘you weren't into that stuff.' And he was trying to talk you into it. He said it would be ‘fun.' It makes me sick.”

“Dad, he wanted to have a
pillow
fight
,” Viv said. “I mean, it's kind of weird, but it's not what you thought. And we said
no
. What do you think we are, stupid?”

“Pillow fight?” Mack looked down at the pillow, which was lying on the floor with feathers spewing from the seam.

A little of the stuffing seemed to go out of him, too.

“Yes, a pillow fight,” Viv said. “And we're not helpless. We told him no. If he hadn't left, I'd have kicked his ass.”

That got a near-smile out of Mack. “You would have, wouldn't you?”

Viv nodded sharply. “Definitely.”

Trevor was sitting up now, leaning against the side of the bed. Cat had found a box of Kleenex on the nightstand and was dabbing at the wounds on his face.

“Okay.” Mack nodded reluctantly. “I might have overreacted.”

Trevor shot him a glare. “
Overreacted?
Is that all you have to say?” He struggled to his feet and staggered toward the door. “You can say it to the police, that's who you can say it to.”

“Trevor, wait.” Cat followed him. “We need to get you cleaned up.”

“I can clean up myself,” he said. “At the police station.”

“Just wait. I'm sure Mack will apologize, and…”

“Think again,” Mack grumbled. “Pillow fight, my ass. Guy's a pervert.”

Cat had to admit the whole scene was disturbing. But Trevor apparently hadn't laid a hand on either girl, and she had a feeling Mack was in trouble. Maines wasn't the type to let things go.

“I don't want an apology,” Trevor said. Even with his bloodied face, he was trying to retain some dignity. “I want
you
in jail.” He pointed toward Mack. “And I want
you
fired.” That was for Cat. “You'll be hearing from my lawyer.”

“Just wait,” Cat said, glancing from one man to the other. She could feel the whole venture whirling away like the clouds in Van Gogh's painting, spinning out of control.

“I won't wait,” Trevor said. “And if you think I'm going to spend one more hour at this fleabag redneck ranch, with this arrogant homicidal cowboy, you're wrong. I'll be contacting the police as soon as I get to town.” He turned to Cat. “And I'll be contacting your company as well.”

***

Mack made a valiant effort to calm himself as Trevor stormed down the stairs. Moments later, an engine fired up outside and a vehicle, presumably the Lexus SUV, took off in a spray of gravel.

“Good riddance,” he muttered.

Things were awfully quiet now that the fight was over. He looked up to see Cat shooting him a hard glare. Viv and Dora seemed a little shell-shocked. At some silent adolescent signal, they leaped up in unison and hightailed it out of the room, leaving him alone with Cat.

The silence continued. Obviously, she expected him to say something.

“You wouldn't have wanted him to stay, would you? After he tried to coerce a couple of teenaged girls into a little bedtime
pillow
fight
?”

“I didn't like the guy either,” Cat said. “And the pillow fight thing is kind of creepy. But…”

“
Kind
of
creepy?” He couldn't keep the edge out of his voice. “After the stunt he pulled with that painting? Dora could have seen that.”

“It was just a nude.”

“It was you.”

“It had my face, that's all. It was an imitation of a famous painting, Mack. Just a joke. I was sitting in the same pose as Manet's
Olympia
.”

He couldn't believe she was defending the guy. “Cat, he was picturing you. Thinking of—you. Naked.”

He hoped she couldn't tell he was thinking about the same thing. He'd been thinking about it all day. He hadn't had much to do while the students painted, so he'd fallen into an X-rated reverie while he'd been sitting there watching her.

How could he help it? She'd been wearing a man's shirt again—a white dress shirt. It was splattered with paint and hung loosely on her body. It was hardly a sexually provocative outfit, but when a woman wore a man's shirt, it was usually something she'd scooped off the bed after sex. He'd wished it was
his
shirt, scooped off of
his
bed.

“Okay,” she said. “I know the guy's weird. And I'm even glad he's gone. But that wasn't the way to handle it.”

“He was in here with our daughters, Cat. Well, my daughter. Dora might just be your niece, but it's your job to protect her, just like I protect Viv. You should be glad I took care of it.”

Her expression grew even stormier. “I do protect her. I don't need you to
take
care
of anything.”

“What would you have done?” he asked.

“I'd have asked him to leave.”

“I saved you the trouble.”

“I would have asked him to leave the
room
, not the ranch. And then I would have kept the girls away from him.”

He folded his arms over his chest and the two of them traded glares in an Olympic-level stare-down. “So you care more about your career than the girls' safety.”

“No. I just don't think the girls were in real danger.”

“I think you're wrong. The guy has a problem.”

“Well, where I'm from, we don't solve problems with our fists.” She flushed. Maybe she realized she sounded like a prissy old preschool teacher.

“Where I'm from we don't have many other options. You know how long it's going to take him to find a cop?”

She shook her head.

“We don't have a police station on every corner around here. We solve our own problems. And we protect our own children.”

He put a hand to his head. His fear for his daughter, his rage at Trevor, his worries about the ranch—it was all feeding into one hell of a thumper. And the way Cat was looking at him wasn't helping. She looked utterly repulsed.

He slouched down on the side of the bed. “I'm just telling you how things are around here, that's all.”

“And I'm telling you there was a better way to handle it.” She spun on her toes and stalked out of the room.

A moment later he rose from the bed and looked out the window to see her crossing the yard toward the Heifer House. Her stride was long and her fists were clenched at her sides. This was a very different woman from the one that had melted into him the night before.

Well,
that
would never happen again. He'd felt such a kinship between them, as if they were the same at heart despite their different lives. But he'd been wrong.

Viv was all that mattered to him. Not women, not work, not even the ranch. He'd thought Cat felt the same way about Dora. He'd started to respect her, even admire her for her devotion to her niece. But she had her priorities screwed up. That career of hers mattered more than anything, even the girls' safety.

He'd just turned from the window when there was a tap on his door.

“Dad?” Viv slipped into the room. “I need to talk to you.”

“Uh-oh.”

“No, it's nothing bad.” She laughed, and for a moment he was intensely grateful to have a happy, well-adjusted child.

“It's just… I want to trade places with Dora,” she said.

He looked at her, uncomprehending. She wanted to be a screwed-up child who hated everyone? She wanted her mother dead? What the hell was she talking about?

“She's really unhappy, Dad.”

“I know. But we can't do much about that, honey. She's had a terrible loss, and it's going to take her time to get over it.”

“But we
can
do something about it.” She danced from one foot to the other, clearly excited.

“I take it you have a plan,” he said, smiling. Viv had always been tough on the outside and sweetly tender on the inside.

“She loves horses, right? And you know I hate that stuff.”

He did know. Viv hated to get so much as a finger dirty, and she'd never really been an animal person. That apparently wasn't a genetic trait; it was nature, not nurture. He wished he'd done more nurturing when she'd been little. While he was off riding broncs at rodeos, he should have been in the corral at home teaching Viv to ride a pony.

But it was too late for that now.

“So she'd really love helping you with the horses. And I want to take the workshop.”

“Since when do you care about art?”

“Since, like, over a year.” She rolled her eyes. “Didn't Mom tell you? I joined the art club at school, and Mr. Swanson's been teaching us drawing and stuff like that. Did you see the pictures they painted today?” She tossed her hair back and looked at the ceiling, as if envisioning a fabulous future for herself. “If I could go back knowing how to do that, it would be so cool. I could enter something in the show at the Civic Center. If you get accepted, everybody in town sees it, and there's a big opening, with wine and stuff.”

He scowled. “No wine.”

“They don't give it to the students, Dad. I just mean it's classy and stuff.”

Who was he raising here—Cat Junior?

“So Mom didn't tell you about my pictures?”

“Nope.” A year. She'd been into art for a year, and he'd had no idea. His own daughter was becoming a stranger to him.

“Well, I'd way rather take the workshop than have to mess with the horses.”

“I was hoping you and I could spend some time together,” he said.

“We can. I'll come on all the trips. I just won't be, you know, getting all dirty and stuff. But Dora will. She'd love it. She hates painting, and she's so jealous I get to be a cowgirl.” She made a sour face. “I don't know why. She's pretty cool, but she actually
likes
that cowgirl sh—stuff.”

“Amazing.”

“Hold on.” She dashed out of the room and he heard her thrashing around in her bedroom, obviously hunting for something. She was back in a flash, holding out a coil-bound notebook. “Here. Look.”

He opened the book and turned the pages. It was filled with drawings—good drawings. Kind of silly and fanciful, full of fairies and fashion models and other girlie stuff, but well-drawn. He didn't know much about art, but he thought she was pretty good.

“Wow,” he said.

She flushed with pleasure. Standing there all big-eyed and hopeful, with her hands behind her back and a shy smile lighting her face, she looked like a fairy herself.

He grinned. “Okay. But don't get in Cat's way.”

“Thanks!” She flung her arms around his neck and gave him a resounding smack on the cheek. “I've got to tell Dora.”

It wasn't until after she'd rocketed down the stairs that he realized he'd just okayed Dora's departure from the painting class.

Cat was not going to be happy.

By the time Cat got back to the bunkhouses, someone had lit a fire in the pit. It was puny compared to the one Mack had built the night before, but the flames still flickered a warm invitation in the cold night air. The students were huddled on the log benches, their arms wrapped around themselves for warmth. Summer nights at this altitude could be nippy.

It was strange, Cat thought. It didn't feel like they were on a mountain, but the high plains sat at seven thousand feet. She could feel the thin air sapping her strength on their longer treks and wondered how Ed and Emma managed.

As Cat approached, Ed tottered to the fire and poked it with a stick. “Don't know why this won't burn like it did last night,” he fretted.

“I think it's nice, Mr. Delaney,” Dora said.

Cat peered past the dancing flames to see her niece sitting with Viv on the far side of the fire. Evidently Dora liked Ed. Almost as much as she liked Mack, and Viv, and Maddie.

Actually, she seemed to like everyone except Cat. And Trevor, but nobody liked Trevor.

“So you say Mack beat up that fashionista man?” Emma clasped her hands and rocked backward on her bench. “I'd like to have seen that.” She glanced around as if she was afraid someone had heard. Cat wondered if she should assure her that nobody in her book group or bridge club was liable to be prowling the Wyoming plains.

“Sounds to me like he needed whuppin'.” Ed poked the fire again, sending up a fountain of sparks. “I'd have been happy to help with that.”

“Me too,” said Abby. “A man like that shouldn't be allowed around young people.”

“Well, Cat's really pissed at Mack now,” Dora said.

Cat resisted the urge to scold her for her language and ducked into the shadow of the Heifer House. This would be a good chance to judge the other students' responses, figure out how to handle the situation.

“She ought to thank him,” Abby said. “The man painted a dirty picture of her today, up at the lake.”

“He did?” Dora tilted her sharp chin up and straightened her shoulders. “Well, I'd have let Mack beat him up if I'd known that.”

“Mack took it and tore it up,” Ed said. “Ground it into the dirt. He's a gentleman, I'm telling you.”

“Yeah.” Viv stepped into the circle, looking pleased and flattered at the compliment to her father. “He's an old-fashioned kind of guy. He thinks women ought to be protected.” She preened a little, then frowned. “It's a good thing he's not around when my boyfriends come over, though.”

“I like him,” Dora said. “I think Cat should hook up with him.”

“
Ew
. That's my
dad
you're talking about.”

“Well, get used to it. I think they already did it.” Dora pitched a leaf into the fire and watched it flare up and burn. As the ashes rose and fluttered on the flames, Cat wondered if she was watching her new career go up in smoke. Not only had their outfitter beat up a student, but she'd also been outed for sleeping with him.

“Good for her,” Emma said. “If I was twenty years younger…”

She winked and Ed gave up on the fire and strode over to where she was sitting. “You'd what, Emma Delaney?”

“I'd marry you all over again,” she said. “But I'd get you a pair of those Wrangler jeans first.”

“Well, it doesn't matter.” Dora looked glum. “That little honeymoon's over for good. You should have seen the way Cat looked at him afterwards. I mean, he was protecting us, and she acted like he'd committed a crime or something.”

Evidently assault wasn't a crime in Dora's book. Cat just hoped the police felt the same way.

“She's so
tense
.” Dora sighed. “I wish she'd loosen up a little. I just want her to be happy. She's been so sad since—well, since some stuff happened.” She looked down at her hands, obviously remembering her mother. Cat was touched that even from the depths of her own mourning, she realized Cat was grieving too.

“Well, you're part of the reason, missy.” Ed stabbed his stick into the ground for emphasis. “You ought to treat the people who love you with more respect. Your auntie might not be here for you forever, you know.”

Cat winced as the group fell suddenly silent.

“No kidding. I know—I kind of figured that out when my mom—never mind.” Ducking her head, Dora covered her face with one hand for a moment, then rose and ran off toward the house. Viv jumped to her feet and followed.

“What'd I say?” Ed asked the group. It was clear he wasn't expecting an answer. “Young people today.” He shoved the stick into the fire again, sending up a shower of sparks. “They just don't have any respect.”

“And old people don't have any brains,” Emma said.

“You think we ought to go after her?” Abby asked.

Emma turned and looked straight at Cat. Evidently she wasn't as well-hidden by the darkness as she'd thought. “Nope. Cat's here.” She waved a hand in a shooing motion. “Go. Go on and get her. Maybe she'll talk to you now.”

***

Cat caught up to Dora and Viv on the porch. Dora had slouched down on the top step and was sitting with her head in her hands while Viv patted her back.

“Dora,” Cat said. “Honey, I'm so sorry.”

Viv glanced up at Cat and whisked away into the house, leaving her alone with her niece. Cat was tempted to take her place and put her arm around Dora, but the girl had never been the touchy-feely type—with her, anyway—so she simply sat beside her. They were sitting together, staring off in the same direction, feeling the same pain.

It was a start.

“It's okay. It's just that I'd finally started to feel better.” Dora sniffed. “Viv—she's really nice, and I'd kind of forgotten…”

She looked stricken as she realized what she'd said. “I mean, not forgotten. I'll never forget.”

“Of course you won't.”

“But things were starting to seem brighter, you know? It was like I'd been walking around in a fog, and it lifted a little. And then Ed had to go bring it up. I know he didn't mean to. I'm not mad. I'm just…”

“Sad?”

Dora suddenly slammed the flat of her hand into the newel post. “No. I take it back. I
am
mad.” She kicked it again. “I'm fucking furious.”

Her vehemence was a little scary, but Cat pushed on. “You'll feel better again, hon. You just have to go on as best you can. I don't blame you for being mad.” She edged closer to Dora. They were finally talking—really talking. Maybe she could find out what was going on in Dora's head when she'd torn up the photo the night before and destroyed her painting today.

“Your mom would have loved that painting.”

Dora stared at the newel post as if it was the architect of all her troubles and smacked it again. “Well, I don't care what she would have liked. I really don't give a shit. She didn't give a shit about me, so why should I care what she thought?”

“Dora, that's not true!” Cat was shocked. Edie had loved Dora, and it had shown every day, in everything she did. There was no way Dora could have felt unloved.

So why was she so angry? Sure, anger was one of the stages of grief—but that was anger at the universe for taking your loved one away, not anger at the deceased herself.

“It
is
true. She didn't care. And I am never, ever going to be like her.” Dora stormed off the porch, heading for the bunkhouse. Cat stood and followed her a few steps, then paused in a square of light and looked back at the house.

Viv was standing at her bedroom window, one hand on the pane. She followed Dora a short distance with her gaze, then looked down at Cat. Sadly, she shook her head.

Was she telling Cat not to follow? Casting one last look at the departing Dora, Cat turned resolutely and climbed the steps to the house.

She needed to talk to Viv. Maybe Dora had confided in her.

But when she climbed the stairs, the door to the girl's bedroom was closed. She raised her fist to knock, but she just couldn't do it. This was Mack's daughter. Much as she wanted to know what kind of crazy thoughts were scampering through her niece's brain, she didn't really want to draw the Boyd family into her own personal drama.

There'd been enough drama here for one night.

She leaned against the wall, exhausted. She wished she had someone to talk to. To depend on.

She did, actually. She took a longing look at the closed door at the end of the hallway. Was Mack in there now that Trevor was gone? She took a step toward it, then paused.

She'd told him she could take care of herself, and she'd meant it. Maybe she shouldn't admit to her weakness. Maybe she should just go.

She stood like a statue, her fist raised, her mind racing with indecision. If only Mack was here. Seeing him with Viv had made her respect his advice, and she wished she could ask him what to do now.

She was tired of trying to do this alone. She remembered what he'd said—
I
want
you
to
know
someone's looking after you.
Why had she pushed him away?

For the first time in her life, she wished she was the kind of woman who could let herself depend on a man.

***

Mack was a coward. That was the only explanation he could come up with.

Why else would a grown man be hiding in his childhood bedroom, sitting on the bed with its bucking horse bedspread, while the woman he—loved? No,
cared
about
, that was it, he
cared
about
Cat—was standing in the hallway looking for some sign of life.

He must care about her, because when he'd heard her arguing with Dora on the porch, he'd felt like his heart was going to break. Cat loved her niece, but she didn't have a clue how to handle her.

He knew from experience there was no way to force a teenaged girl to do something she didn't want to do. You had to let them go, let them grow up and make their own decisions. At a certain point, all you could do was watch them make a mess of things and try to protect them from the consequences.

He heard her shuffle her feet outside Viv's bedroom door. Then she heaved a heartbroken sigh.

Maybe Viv had gotten her tender heart from her father's side of the family, because he couldn't hear that without his own heart breaking a little. He pictured her out there, alone in the hallway, her slender shoulders slumped. He pictured the sorrow in those blue eyes, the sad pout of that pretty little mouth.

And he stood up and opened the door.