Lone Tree (7 page)

Andy removed the baseball cap. He looked like he was
fresh out of high school. “Nice to meetcha.”

“Same here.” Lainie nodded, trying not to let the
annoyance she felt with Reed show to the boy.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get some dinner.” Andy
walked away. “I see how it is, too.”

Lainie stared after him, then slowly turned back to
face Reed.

He nudged his hat brim up, gave her a casual nod.
“Guess we all know how it is,” he said, then left her standing there by herself.

When she entered the main house the next morning,
Lainie’s mood was aggravated enough that she felt like stomping. But instead
she walked with extreme care. The boots would take time to get used to; they’d
taken a frustratingly long time to get into.

Reed stepped away from the buffet, spotted her and
headed her way. He must’ve been aware of her footwear, and she looked for
smugness in his expression, but fortunately for him she found none.

“Fill your plate and come join me,” he said. Then,
surprising her, he added, “Please.”

She nodded, and then did as bidden.

He looked at her plate as she set it down across
from him. “You surely don’t eat much.”

She glanced at the mounds of food on his plate.
“Nope. Guess I don’t.”

As they ate silently, she wondered why he’d asked
her to join him if he had nothing to say, then it dawned on her that he might
be trying to make it easier on her to say what was on her mind. The shiny new
boots had already announced her intentions.

“I was hoping to ride this morning,” she said,
hearing and disliking the tentative note in her voice. “Nelly told me you
wanted to go with me the first time I went out.”

“Yes.” His fork paused on its way to his mouth. “But
it doesn’t have to be that way. Someone else can go with you. If you prefer.”

Her expression must’ve held her surprise, because he
shrugged, a sheepish look about him. “I was kind of highhanded with you,” he
said. “And I apologize. I shouldn’t have handled it that way. Randy could go
out with you, or Carter, or anyone else who’s free. You don’t have to ride with
me.”

Well. This was a new Reed, and she liked this one
better. “Thanks...but I think I’d like to ride with you.” The instant she said
it, she wondered at the advisability of it.

“Good.” His face smoothed out, and the forkful of
pancake made it all the way into his mouth. As she got back to her own
breakfast, she told herself she was simply agreeing to a riding lesson, not a
relationship.

Sipping coffee, he eyed her over the cup’s rim. “You
surely do have color in that shirt. Hope it doesn’t scare the horses.”

“Oh, for...” His remark was lighthearted, but she’d
given up a lot of ground to do his bidding, and she was no more in the mood for
teasing than she was for criticism. “Do you have the slightest idea how
difficult you are to get along with? I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt, boots,
and I’ve got a hat. Now what more could you possibly want?”

The suggestive glint that appeared in his eyes told
her she should’ve taken better care with her phrasing. As she wondered if she
should back off, stand up to him, or ignore him, his lips curved and she
guessed he was reading her. The urge to wipe the smugness off his face grew
awfully strong, but her short experience with this guy had taught her he’d be a
tough one to top.

Prudently, she finished her meal in silence. And she
felt like she’d won a concession when he did the same.

Later, as they walked to the stables, the edge of
her right boot heel skimmed a rock and tried to twist under. She stumbled, he
caught her arm to steady her, and she shot him a look. Gone was all thought of
prudence. “You laugh, and I swear I’ll make you sorry.”

He didn’t laugh, but he smiled.

He saddled Irish while Nelly saddled Glory. Lainie
watched, intent upon their actions and their order so she could learn to do
this for herself.

When Nelly stood aside so Lainie could mount, he
looked as proud as a father anticipating his child’s first solo on a bicycle.
“Now you get on up there. You be fine, little missy, don’t you worry. Glory be
good to you.”

Lainie took hold of the saddle horn, hooked her boot
in the stirrup, noticing how conveniently the boot heel caught and gave her
leverage, and swung herself up. It was a long way up, but she felt okay once
seated. She looked down at each boot, marveling at the good fit. “Perfect,” she
murmured. “Almost as if the heel were made to fit the stirrup.”

Reed paused. Reins in one hand, other on the pommel
and one foot in the stirrup, he became perfectly motionless. Lainie glanced
curiously at his back. Then he completed the move and sat astride Irish. He
didn’t look at her, but she caught his profile, and his face appeared strained
with the effort of keeping it straight.

Then she realized what she’d said. Well, of course
the boot was made to fit the stirrup. All right, tenderfoot, just don’t fall
off the horse. Okay?

They stayed at a walk as he showed her how to hold
the reins, maintain her posture, what to do with her knees and heels. Then he
allowed a short trot, which jarred Lainie, and then he led Glory into a rocking
gait that she remembered her mother calling a lope.

“Ahh,” she said. “Let’s stick with this one.”

He grinned, but slowed back to a walk and started
lecturing again on physical and verbal commands to the horse. When he turned to
head back, he said, “Maybe one day next week we’ll ride out to the oasis.”

Although the inside of her legs felt chafed and her
rump was sore, she was looking forward to going out again. “I like the place
already. It sounds pretty.”

He nodded. “It’s fed by an underground stream.
Thought about it today, but it’s too far. We’d have to be out longer or
increase our gait, and I didn’t want to do either.”

When the stables appeared, Glory started prancing.
Reed reached over and patted her neck. “Easy there, girl.”

Lainie watched his hand. She liked it there, and not
only because of his help with the horse. He straightened in the saddle and
pulled his hand back. Good, she thought, relieved, and then noted that she was
full of contradictions today.

“I’m tied up the rest of this week,” he went on.
“But I’ll tell Randy to keep an hour free for you in the mornings. Then by the
time I’m back, you should be ready for the oasis, and we’ll make a day of it.
Take along a couple sandwiches and a bag of chips, thermos of coffee or iced
tea. Or we can change that to a couple cans of beer if you like the stuff.”

“Beer?” she echoed in surprise. “I’ve not seen a can
of beer since I arrived at Lone Tree. I was thinking cowboys didn’t drink it.”

He chuckled. “You thought wrong. On our own time, we
do. You want to knock on my door one evening, I’ll share one with you.”

Lainie gave him a noncommittal smile, suspecting he
had more on his mind than sharing a beer.

Nelly beamed as he took Glory’s reins, allowing
Lainie to take her time alighting from the horse. Once she got both feet on the
ground, she also got an excellent understanding of what bowlegged meant.

“Look like you take good care of my little missy,
Mr. Reed. She back in one piece and got rose in her cheeks.”

Reed dismounted, looking more fresh and limber than
Lainie felt. “Lainie’s a natural,” he said. “Give her time and she’ll be riding
circles around the rest of us. She’ll be going out with Randy the rest of this
week. Unless Miles wants to take her out.”

As doubt crossed Nelly’s face, Reed shrugged. “None
of us knows his mind.”

Lainie listened as they discussed her, as if not
aware of her presence. She noted she was Miles’s little girl, Nelly’s little
missy, but at least Reed called her by name. She needed to assert herself, real
quick like; then she smiled at the phrase. She might still sound like
California, but was learning to think like Texas. Then she mulled over their
reference to Miles. Did he have an aversion to riding? She studied how the two
men stripped saddles and gear and ministered to the horses, trying to commit
their actions to memory, and vowed that the first thing she was going to do
once she got inside her house was drown her aches in a hot tub of water. No.
First she was going to sit inside the refrigerator.

Reed turned toward her, arms full of saddle. His
gaze fell on her, and she thought about how much more comfortable it’d be
leaning against him instead of the wooden stall support she was holding up.
Then as his grin grew, she got the distinct impression he’d read her mind.

*

Muscles Lainie didn’t know she had made themselves
known the next morning and talked her right out of putting her rump atop a
horse today.

When she entered the office with a second cup of
coffee in hand, her gaze strayed to the fireplace and the portraits, then to
the teakwood coffee table fronting the sofa and the fat album that rested on
its bottom shelf. She’d been wanting to open that book since the first time
she’d seen it. She glanced at the sundial clock above the filing cabinet. Miles
wouldn’t show for at least another hour. She walked over, put her coffee mug on
the table, sat on the sofa and lifted the album to her lap.

Sweet sadness gripped her when she opened it. It was
a family album, as she’d hoped. The first page held a single snapshot in dead
center of a newly born infant. The caption read:
Elizabeth Ann. Twenty-two
minutes old.

Lainie’s eyes moistened. She’d never before seen a
baby picture of her mother. She turned the page. A woman with shoulder-length,
wavy brown hair posed with her back to the camera while she held a bald,
round-faced baby high on her shoulder. Personality was emerging. The child’s
hands were on her mother’s shoulders as she stared at the camera. Lainie
smiled. Nothing was going to sneak up on that baby.

Frontal shots of Alice Ann and her child caught the
mother’s pretty features. The camera, or the wielder of it, had also caught the
woman’s love of life. In one shot, where she looked up at the infant as she
held it raised in the air, Lainie fancied she could hear a gurgle of laughter.

Though she still noted the resemblance to herself,
she was relieved it wasn’t as strong as she’d first thought. She glanced up at
the formal portrait, then again at the pictures of the casual Alice Ann. There
was more life in the snapshots than in the portrait.

Family pictures of mother, father, and child
followed. In one, Lainie recognized the house’s front porch. They stood next to
a station wagon with wood paneling. A young Miles, solid-looking but not as
hefty as now, held the baby in his arms, but his eyes were on his wife. She was
petite, not as tall as her daughter had grown to be, nor her granddaughter.
Alice Ann barely reached her husband’s shoulder.

As the baby grew into a toddler, the pictures were
of the child alone, or with her father. The young pretty woman was suddenly and
conspicuously absent. Elizabeth had had no memories of her mother. Alice Ann
had died in an accident before her daughter’s first birthday. The following
pictures of Miles captured a face without expression, a man who’d lost much and
was hurting. The sadness seemed to reach out to Lainie.

Her eye caught something at her side and she jumped.
Her gaze flew upward.

“Oh...Miles. You...you startled me.”

He stared at her, expression wooden.

The album slipped. She got a firmer grip, then
closed it. “Excuse me for taking the liberty of looking through your pictures.
I hope you don’t mind.” She replaced the book where she’d found it, telling
herself there was no reason to feel guilty. Nosy maybe, but not guilty. The book
was right there in plain sight. She picked up her cup of cooled coffee, then
stood and faced him.

“I hope I didn’t overstep myself. Do you mind that I
looked at the book?”

His expression smoothed out. “It’s there to be
looked at. Don’t worry about it.” His gait was stiff as he walked behind the
sofa on the way to his desk. “Bad night. Arthritis wouldn’t let me sleep. Got
some new pills, so finally broke down and took one. Meanwhile I’ve got phone
calls to make. Might as well get that done.”

She went to her own desk, booted up the computer,
and opened financial records software. Miles still signed the checks, but she
prepared them and was responsible for the records. As she worked, she kept an
ear tuned to Miles’s voice. He didn’t sound edgy, but she’d sensed strong
emotion in him when he’d found her engrossed in the album.

After about twenty minutes, he once more replaced
the phone receiver. But instead of again thumbing through the rotary card file,
he got to his feet. Slowly he shrugged, rolled his shoulders, then he stretched
vigorously.

“Ah,” he said. “Good pills.” He cast a defiant look
at the hall door, then at Lainie. “Nothing wrong with going back to bed. If
Rosalie asks about me, you tell her I said so.”

She watched him leave, then shook her head.
Sometimes she thought she had a handle on her grandfather, other times knew she
didn’t, and hoped all the while that he didn’t have a handle on her.