Six White Horses (9 page)

The grip slackened to allow the blood to pound in her fingers again, but he didn't release her. The mask of politeness vanished with the disappearance of the newspaper people as Morgan turned the harshness of his gaze on Patty.

"I want to clear up this nonsense about you riding any bucking stock!" he snapped.

"Nonsense?" Patty frowned in startled anger.

"Yes, nonsense!" Morgan affirmed, an intimidating hardness to the set of his jaw. "You can get that ridiculous notion out of your head, because you are not climbing aboard any saddle bronc."

"Don't give me orders, Morgan Kincaid," she warned. "You're not my keeper."

"I'll give you any damned order I please and you'll obey it!"

He towered above her, black hair springing from beneath his hat while his brows were drawn together in a solid, threatening black line.

"Don't count on it," she hissed in return. "If I decide that I want to ride a bucking horse, you're not going to be able to stop me from doing it, Morgan!"

"Oh, Annie Oakley, do you have a surprise in store for you!" Morgan breathed in deeply to control his temper, blue eyes glittering with complacent triumph. "That rodeo stock in those pens belongs to the Kincaid Rodeo Company. No amateur is going to get on board any of them. They're restricted to card-carrying professional riders."

"I'm hardly an amateur!" protested Patty vigorously, refusing to give in though his point had been made. "I can ride as well as any man on this circuit!"

"Maybe you can, but you're not going to break your foolish neck while I'm around."

"Maybe?" Her voice squeaked in indignant anger. "Did you say 'maybe I can'?" Her free hand struck a defiant pose on her hip.

"Listen, you pint-sized little witch," Morgan growled. "I'm not going to argue over every word with you! I don't care if you can ride every animal in the string. I am not going to give you permission to try! Have you got that?"

"You've made your point. Now, let me go!" she demanded as she glowered at the unrelenting expression on his face.

"Not until I have your word."

"You can go to—" The rest of her sentence was lost in an outcry of pain as he sharply twisted her wrist behind her back, forcing her against the granite wall of his chest.

"Your word, Patty," he repeated.

"You're a bully and a brute. Do you know that?" She gasped at the shooting pains that were still traveling up her arm.

The nearness of his uncompromising face was unnerving, nearly as disturbing as the firm outline of his body pressed against hers.

His gaze narrowed on her trembling mouth. "I swear there's only one way to stop your insults!" he muttered savagely.

Her head was already tilted back to glare into his face. The fingers that twined punishingly into her hair jerked it back even farther. Patty's brown eyes widened; she knew that masculine mouth was about to capture hers and realized that she had not the strength to prevent it. Her pulse accelerated its pace to pound in her ears as a betraying weakness flowed into her legs.

"Hey, Morgan! Do you need any help?"

The amused laughter from a pair of on looking rodeo hands stopped the slow descent of Morgan's mouth. It also brought a surge of renewed strength to Patty's limbs as she struggled wildly against his hold.

"Your grandfather must be the only one who has the patience to deal with you," he declared, swearing beneath his breath.

Blatantly disregarding her flailing arms and kicking feet, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. The blood rushed with throbbing intensity to her head as she beat at his back with her fists.

"Put me down! Do you hear? Put me down!" Her strident demands were ignored, her face flaming with the combination of blood and furious embarrassment because of the loud laughter from their audience.

His long strides began eating up the distance to the stable area; he was carrying her effortlessly. Patty tried pushing herself upright, but the grip on her thighs merely tightened.

"Put me down!" she echoed her previous demand, this time in a lower voice.

"You'd better shut up," Morgan replied with biting softness. "You're in an excellent position to be spanked, and I can't say that the thought doesn't appeal to me."
 

"You're an insufferable, arrogant cad!" Patty muttered, but her struggles to be free subsided at his threat. "If that blonde Carla Nicholson knew what you were really like, she wouldn't think you were nearly so attractive."

"She doesn't act like an irresponsible child either." There was an underlying thread of dry amusement in his voice.

Meaning I do, Patty thought angrily.

"What in the world—!" came her grandfather's exclamation.

Her somewhat limited view, restricted mainly to the ground beneath Morgan's feet, unless she turned her head to the side, had not told Patty how near they were to the stables where her horses were quartered.

Gasping in outrage, she found herself being unceremoniously dumped onto a bale of hay.

"Here's your granddaughter, Everett," Morgan stated, hands on his hips as he surveyed her attempts to maneuver into a less ignominious position. "Maybe you can attempt to talk some sense into her."

Her grandfather's mouth opened, the question silently written in his curious and confused eyes about to be spoken, but Morgan had abruptly turned and walked away, leaving Patty to supply the answer.

"What was all that about?" Everett King inquired with a confused laugh.

"Oh, Morgan was being his usual obnoxious self, throwing his weight around—or my weight, in this case," Patty answered grimly, brushing the hay stalks from her jeans.

"What set him off this time?"

She let her gaze bounce to her grandfather's face and ricochet back to her clothes. "I told that reporter that I'd thought about riding a bucking horse. I never said I planned to do it—I only thought about it. But he had to play the dictator and tell me I couldn't do it."

"I certainly hope you don't." Everett King shook his head at the dubious wisdom of the thought.

"Don't you start in on me, grandpa!" she warned, and started toward the tack room to soap down the leather.
 

Chapter Five

THE BLACK REIN was not lying very smoothly on Loyalty's neck. Patty slid from his back to adjust it, her trembling fingers nearly competing with her quaking knees. They had given two performances at this particular rodeo and neither had been up to her usual standards of near-flawless execution.

A pair of hands closed over her shoulders and she jumped in surprise. "Hello, Princess, I'm back," Jack Evans greeted her in a soft voice.

The kiss he attempted to brush along her neck was eluded as Patty turned around to face him, striving for a nonchalance that her stomach was far from feeling. Her glance took in the calf roper still working in the arena, the last event before her performance.

"Hi, Jack. How did you do tonight?" she asked, trying to sound lighthearted.

"I'm going to be taking the average," he winked with a boastful gleam in his eyes. "And all because of my good-luck princess. We'll have to go out tonight to celebrate."

"I don't know, Jack," Patty hedged, liking this cocky cowboy without really trusting him.

"Sure you do." He curled a finger under her chin. "We're a team. I'll meet you at the stables when the rodeo is over. In the meantime, let me give you back some of the luck you've given me."

The warmness of his lips was comforting, almost reassuring, and Patty responded in gratitude. She refused consciously to admit it, but there was an inner feeling that she would need all the luck she could get before the night was over.

"Say," Jack sighed, raising his head and studying her through narrowed eyes with a little more interest. "I'm going to have to keep my eye on you. You've been getting in a little more practice on the side, haven't you? I'm the one who's supposed to be teaching you about kissing."

"Don't be silly. Who would I practice with?" Her gaze sought the arena again as the announcer introduced the last contestant in the calf-roping event.

For the first time she noticed Morgan Kincaid leaning against the inside rails of the arena near the gate. He wasn't looking in her direction, but Patty flushed anyway.

"I'm in next," she said, checking the rein again to be sure it was lying straight, and swung herself onto Loyalty's back.

"I'll be rooting for you from the chutes," Jack promised, and patted her knee lightly before sauntering off in that direction.

Her mouth began to get dry as she watched the arena being cleared of horses and riders. She glanced at her grandfather standing at Liberty's head. He gave her a thumbs-up sign and she nodded with a weak smile.

The leader of the small four-piece band looked at her from the announcer's stand, nodding
as he raised his baton. Standing up on Loyalty's back and shifting a foot to Landmark, Patty nodded to Lefty to open the gate. As it swung open, the first rousing note of "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain" was sounded by the band.

The six white horses pranced through the gate, breaking into a spirited, rolling canter while Patty waved to the crowd, who applauded her entrance. Then every sight and every sound was blocked out as she concentrated on the routine.

The weaves, the figure eights, all were executed without error. Patty was breathing easier as she saw her grandfather supervising the erection of the jumps. She paid little attention to the men setting them until she sensed that something wasn't as it was supposed to be. As she circled on the inside of the arena, it took her nearly a full turn to realize that the height of the jumps was less than usual. Her lips tightened
grimly as she guessed that the tall dark man standing near her grandfather was the culprit.

She reined the horses to a stop beside them. "What's going on here?" she demanded. "Those are supposed to be three-foot jumps."

"We thought it would be safer to lower them," Morgan answered.

"We?" Patty mocked harshly. "You mean you thought it would be safer. Well, you can just go and raise them to three feet. I take my horses over three-foot jumps, not kindergarten hurdles!"

"Liberty refused the second jump twice last night," her grandfather reminded her. "Both times you were able to avoid disaster by the skin of your teeth."

"But he took the jump," she added forcefully.

"Patty, you're making a scene," Morgan spoke quietly and patiently. "Take the horses over the jumps and we'll argue about it when the performance is over."

"That's what you'd like me to do, isn't it?" She turned on him, placing both feet on Landmark's back to be closer to the resolute figure. "Why don't you tell me about your plans before the performance instead of now? This is just another one of your attempts to trick me into a position where I have to do what you want. It's not going to work this time."

Morgan sighed and shook his head. "All indications are that Liberty is sound. But he still could be sore. Whatever the cause he seems to have lost his confidence. What does it matter if you have to take smaller jumps for a few nights as long as you don't injure yourself or the horses? He's one of the leaders. He has to have confidence."

Her temper wouldn't allow her to acknowledge the logic of his politely spoken argument. In a trembling rage, she jumped to the ground.

"Either you're going to raise those jumps or I am!" she declared.

She watched her grandfather and Morgan exchange glances. The slender shoulders of her grandfather lifted in a resigned shrug. Tight-lipped, Morgan turned from her and with angry, springing strides walked to the jumps and raised the bars to their customary notches.

As Patty remounted Landmark, she heard the rodeo announcer explain the delay to the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, there seems to have been an error in the height of
the jumps. Miss King is having them raised."

Scattered applause followed his statement, but Patty ignored it, setting the horses at a canter and waiting for that moment when their strides settled to a rhythmic pace. Then she turned them to the jumps. Her soft voice talked to the horses, calming and urging, as the first hurdle was approached.

Liberty's ears swiveled to the jump, his neck arching a fraction in protest. The momentum of the other horses and the guiding rein carried him to it. Patty's heart screamed as she heard the solid whack of Liberty's leg against the bar, but he cleared it without mishap, stumbling only slightly as he landed before regaining his matching stride with Lodestar.

Around the arena curve, the six horses galloped slowly, the double set of jumps coming into their path. Moistening her dry lips, Patty clicked to the rhythmically bobbing heads. The bars suddenly seemed much higher and the stunt more formidable than ever before.

Closer and closer they came to the first of the obstacles until they were directly on it. As Lodestar gathered himself for the jump, Liberty tossed his head in the air and tried to turn away from the rails. His refusal had been left too late. There was no room to swing away from the jump. While Lodestar leaped into the air, Legend crowded the white horse from the rear. Valiantly Liberty tried to take the jump. His front legs cleared it, but his hindquarters caught it squarely, tumbling him to the ground.