Denim and Lace (31 page)
Authors: Diana Palmer
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by Diana Palmer
H
ER
FATHER
HAD
taken a whip to one of
the thoroughbreds once, when Merrie was in high school. She'd gone to see the
horse after her father left the ranch on a European business trip with that
Leeds woman. The trainer had talked to the horse softly, but it wouldn't let him
near it. Merrie had braved its nervous prancing and gone right up to it. The
horse had responded to her immediately, to the trainer's delight. After that,
Merrie had been its caretaker. At least, as long as her father wasn't around.
He'd killed a dog she loved. He might have done the same to a horse that she'd
shown attention to. Sari and she had never understood why their father hated
them so. Perhaps it was their mother's unknown legacy. All that money, and he
couldn't touch it. Probably, it was payback. He was getting even with their late
mother, through them, for cutting him out of the bulk of her family wealth.
“Have you had anything to eat, baby?” she asked in a whisper as
she moved her hand closer to the big horse. “Are you hungry? Poor baby. Poor,
poor baby!”
He moved closer to the fence. He shook his mane again.
She went closer and sent her breath toward his nostrils,
something she'd watched their trainer do with horses he was breaking back home.
She blew gently into the big horse's nostrils. Her father's thoroughbreds had
been off-limits to the girls when they were growing up, or she might have
learned more about horses than she did. The injured thoroughbred had been the
only one of her father's horses that she had access to, although there were
saddle mounts that the girls had permission to ride. They were careful not to
pay too much attention to them when their father was around.
“I won't hurt you,” she whispered. Her face was drawn and
still. “I know how you feel. You know that, don't you, baby?”
He moved closer. He looked at her. She held the treat out in
her palm.
“Aren't you hungry?” she asked softly.
He shook his mane and then, suddenly, lowered his head. But it
wasn't to attack her. He took the treat from her palm and wolfed it down. He
looked at her again, quizzically.
“One more,” she said. She pulled the second treat from her
pocket, held it out on her palm. Again, his head lowered and he took the treat
gently from it with his lips. He wolfed that down, too.
“Sweet boy,” she said softly. She held out her hand.
He hesitated only for a minute before he moved closer and
lowered his head toward hers. She pulled him down by his neck and laid her head
against the side of his. “Oh, you poor, poor thing,” she whispered, her voice
breaking. “Poor horse!”
He moved his head against her, almost like a caress. She didn't
see the two returned cowboys in the back of the stable gaping at her. The horse
was so dangerous that none of the cowboys, not even the boss, would risk going
that close to him. And there was Hurricane, laying his head against the woman's.
They were spellbound.
She touched the bridle. He hesitated at first. But then he
stilled. She reached up and unbuckled the halter. Very carefully, she took it
away from his head and slipped it off. She grimaced at the bloody places there
and on his body.
“Sweet boy,” she whispered as she put the bridle aside. She
reached her hand up and stroked him gently. “Sweet, sweet boy.” She laid her
forehead against his with a long, heavy sigh.
After a minute he lifted his head and looked at her and
whinnied.
“You need medicine on those cuts,” she said softly.
“And you need therapy,” Ren Colter said coldly from behind her.
“You were told to stay away from that horse!”
Hurricane jumped and moved back from the gate. He shook his
mane and snorted.
Merrie turned with the halter in her hand. She walked toward
Ren and pushed it toward him.
He stared at it, and her, with utter shock. “How did you get
that off?”
“He let me,” she said simply. “Do you have medicine I can put
on the cuts?”
“He'll kill you if you walk into that stall with him,” Ren
snapped. “He's injured two cowboys already.”
“He won't hurt me,” she said quietly.
He started to speak, to ridicule her. But then he looked at the
horse. Hurricane wasn't stamping and running at the gate as he had before. He
was simply looking at them.
“You're sure of that?” he asked in an undertone.
She looked up at him with quiet, sad, pale blue eyes. “Sort
of,” she said. “Of course, if I'm wrong and he kills me, you can always stand
over my grave and say you told me so.”
That pricked his temper. “You think you know how a horse
feels?” he asked sarcastically.
She shivered a little, even though it wasn't that cold in the
stable. She didn't want to discuss anything personal with this cold, hard man.
“He hasn't attacked me, has he?”
He hesitated, but only briefly. He turned to the two cowboys
who'd been standing there while Merrie worked magic on the dangerous animal. “Do
we have some of that salve the doctor left?”
“Uh, y-yes,” one man stammered. He went to get it and handed it
to Merrie. “Ma'am,” he said, taking off his hat, “I ain't never seen nothing
like that. You sure have got a way with animals.”
She smiled. “Thanks,” she said shyly.
Ren's dark eyes narrowed. “If he starts toward you, you run,”
he said firmly.
“I will. But he won't hurt me.”
They moved back, out of the horse's line of sight. Ren was
concerned. He didn't want his brother's girlfriend killed on his ranch. But she
did seem to have a rapport with the horse. It was uncanny. Witchcraft.
She opened the gate and moved into the stall with firm purpose
in her step and no sign of fear.
“Sweet boy,” she whispered, blowing in his nostrils again.
“Will you let me help you? I won't hurt you. I promise.”
He shifted restlessly, but he made no move to attack her as she
reached up and put some of the salve very delicately on the bad places on his
head. From there she moved to his injured flanks, wincing at the cuts. She put
salve on those, too, but she could tell they needed stitching. It was no wonder
that he was still in this condition. He'd injured anyone who came near him. He
was afraid of men, because a man had hurt him. Women, on the other hand, were
not enemies.
She finished her work, smoothed her hand over his mane and laid
her head against his neck. “Brave, sweet boy,” she whispered. “What a wonderful
horse you are, Hurricane.”
He moved his head against her. She patted him one more time and
left the stall, securing the lock. She smiled at the horse and told him goodbye
before she walked back down the aisle where the men were.
“The cuts on his flank really need stitching, I think,” she
said softly. “But he's afraid of men. A man hurt him. Women didn't.” She looked
up at Ren. “Do you have a female vet anywhere within driving distance?”
Ren started. She was right. The horse hated men. “There's one
over in Powell, I think. I could send one of the boys to bring her here.”
“He'll probably let her stitch him.”
“You can come out and work witchcraft on him to get her in the
stall, can't you?” Ren asked sarcastically.
She drew in a breath and turned away. She didn't bother to
answer him as she left.
He stared after her with mixed feelings. He hated women. But
that one... She was different. All the same, he wasn't letting her close enough
to bite, even if that wild horse would.
“You shouldn't be so harsh with her, Mister Ren,” the older
cowboy said quietly. “Looks to me like she's had some of that at home
already.”
He turned and glared at the cowboy, who tipped his hat, turned
and lit a shuck out of the stable.
* * *
M
ERRIE
WENT
TO
her room. She wouldn't
cry. She wouldn't! That bad Wyoming man wasn't going to upset her.
She pulled out her drawing pad and her pencils and went to work
on a study of the horse she'd treated. He was so beautiful. Black as night. Soft
as silk. She was drawn to him, because he was like her. He'd been through the
wars, too.
It took a long time to finish the drawing. She colored it with
pastel pencils, delicately. When she finished, she had an awesome portrait of
Hurricane. She smiled as she put it in the case with her other drawings. She'd
do one of Ren, she decided. But she'd have to make a decision about whether to
put just horns, or horns and a forked tail on the picture.
Don't miss
WYOMING BRAVE
by
New York Times
bestselling author
Diana
Palmer,
available February 2017 wherever
HQN Books and ebooks are
sold.
Copyright © 2017 by Diana Palmer
ISBN-13: 9781460396780
Denim and Lace
Copyright © 1990 by Diana Palmer
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