Woman On the Run (12 page)

“A foal?” Rafael’s face filled with joy, all the tension clearing in an instant. “Yowee!” he screamed, punching the air. Remembering his manners, he murmured a hurried goodbye to Julia, then scrambled out the door.

Bernie Martinez’s head slowly swung over to Cooper. It looked as if it hurt him to do it. “What was it? A filly?”

Cooper stood up and pinned Martinez with a hard look. “Colt.”

“Colt.” Martinez gave a harsh laugh. “Should have known. Not even female horses can stand it here. The Cooper Curse at work again—”

“That’s just about enough, Bernie.” Cooper’s voice was deep and icy. Julia shivered. She wouldn’t like to have him using that tone with her. It would have shut her up for the next century.

But Martinez wasn’t impressed. “I’ll bet if we hadn’t moved here, my Carmelita would still be around. I’ll bet—”

“I said that’s enough!” Cooper’s voice was, if anything deeper and frostier. He stepped towards Martinez with his big hands clenched into fists. Martinez angled his stubbled chin defiantly upwards, daring Cooper to take a crack.

There was a heavy, musky smell in the air. Julia wondered if it was from all those books or from the testosterone the two men were pumping out. Something had to be done and quickly. Martinez looked like he was barely going to survive his hangover, let alone a few rounds with Cooper. Julia looked again at Cooper’s huge hands, now balled into fists. Probably not too many people would survive a few rounds with Cooper.

“Well,” Julia said, and rubbed her hands together. “Well, here we are.” She was getting no reaction from the two males in the room so she tried showing a few teeth in a smile.

Nothing.

They just stood there, glowering at each other as if she didn’t exist.

She gave up. Maybe a few rounds would do them both good.

“Uh, Cooper?” Julia just managed to avoid tugging on his shirt sleeve to get his attention. But that wasn’t necessary. Those fierce dark eyes were instantly focused on her. She shivered again, but not from fear.

“I…” Julia licked dry lips. “I left my briefcase in the Blazer and there’s some of Rafael’s homework I wanted to show Mr. Martinez. No…” she held up her hand as Cooper started forward. “I’ll get it myself, if you’ll just refresh my memory about how to get back to the kitchen. Or draw me a map.”

Cooper’s deep voice was gentle again. “Turn right outside the door then seven doors down turn left and follow the corridor to the end, then through the pantry and into the kitchen.”

Julia was finding it hard to concentrate when he was looking at her so intently. The force field effect was working again. “Seven doors, left, pantry, kitchen,” she said. “Got you.” She turned and walked out the door and looked with dismay down the endless, enormous corridor.

Maybe she should have left a trail of bread crumbs.

* * * * *

When the door closed behind Julia, Bernie collapsed into the chair and scrubbed his face with his hands. He stared into the fire for a long time and Cooper just watched.

“She’s gone, Coop,” he said finally. “Gone for good.”

“Yeah.” Cooper shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t his scene, consoling men who’d been dumped.

Bernie looked like he’d been through hell. Cooper felt a pang of pity for his best friend. Carmelita’s leaving had really punched a hole in Bernie’s life. For a minute, Cooper almost envied Bernie the intensity of his feelings. When Melissa had finally left, all Cooper had felt was weary relief.

Bernie was really hurting. But that still didn’t excuse his behavior with Sally Anderson.

“Listen, Bernie,” Cooper said, “I understand how you feel, but you’ve got to pull yourself together. After all, Miss Anderson…”

“Forget it,” Bernie said. “You don’t stand a chance with her. You’d just lose her, anyway. All the women who come here leave.” He raised red-rimmed eyes to Cooper. “You should have told me about the curse, Coop. How was I supposed to know that no female stays for long on Cooper soil?”

“That’s a stupid legend.” Cooper gritted his teeth. “I’m surprised you even thought twice about it.”

“Thought twice about it? Damn you, I lost my wife because of it!” Bernie shouted, then winced and held his head.

“You didn’t lose your wife become she was on Cooper land,” Cooper said reasonably. “You lost her because—because…” Cooper stopped. He didn’t know why Carmelita had left. Who knew why a woman did anything?

“Because we were on Cooper land,” Bernie finished.

“No, dammit!”

“Well then—how come Melissa left?” Bernie’s voice was hostile. “Answer me that, huh?”

“Because—because…”

“Because the two of you were living here.” Bernie nodded his head sagely, as if he had just proved some difficult mathematical theorem.

“Because she didn’t want to live with me anymore!” Cooper threw up his hands in exasperation. “Now stop this. It has nothing to do with the ranch.”

“How come your momma left?” Bernie asked.

“She didn’t.” Bernie was hurting and Cooper could make allowances. But there were limits. “She died.”

“Same thing.” Bernie set his jaw mulishly. “And your great-grandma? Didn’t she run off with the Singer sewing machine man? And your grandma? One kid and she was off.”

“Bernie…” Cooper growled.

“And the mares they bring to us to be covered. How about them, huh? Huh? You have a 70-30 male female ratio. That’s statistically impossible.”

“A fluke.”

“A fluke? Okay, how about that collie bitch that had six pups and all of them male. What about that? Huh? Was that a fluke too? No wonder Carmelita and Melissa left. This place is poison for women.”

Especially bitches, Cooper thought, but wisely kept silent.

Bernie pushed his hands through his coarse black hair. “I should have got a job at a bank or in a store. Then we’d still be a family and I wouldn’t be in this mess.” He hung his head low. “And neither would Rafael.”

“Bernie,” Cooper said patiently, “you couldn’t get a job in a bank or in a store because you haven’t got any training for it. You’re trained to work in livestock. It’s what you do and it’s what you do well. When you’re not going crazy.”

“Of course I’m going crazy,” Bernie shouted. “I just lost my wife because of your fucking curse!”

“Well, shut the fuck up about it!” Cooper shouted back. Sally Anderson was probably the only woman—certainly the only attractive woman—in a two hundred mile radius who had never heard of the Cooper Curse and Cooper wanted to keep it that way for as long as he could. “Miss Anderson is coming back any minute now. She’s taken time out of her busy schedule to talk to you about your son and you’re damn well going to straighten out and be civil to her.”

Cooper didn’t know if Sally Anderson really had a busy schedule or not—most people in Simpson didn’t have a whole lot to do—but Bernie didn’t have to know that.

Bernie tried to focus on Cooper, head wobbling. He finally got Cooper in his sights. His eyes glittered an unholy red. “Make me,” he growled.

He was spoiling for a fight. The last thing Cooper wanted was for Sally Anderson to walk in on a brawl. “Stop this shit, Bernie.”

“No.” Bernie stood up, swayed, then went into a fighting stance, which was ridiculous. He could barely stand on his feet.

“Fuck this.” Cooper raised his eyes towards the ceiling. “We both know you can’t take me in hand-to-hand. I’m trained and you’re not. I’ve got six inches and forty pounds on you. Now cut this out.”

Bernie was slowly circling him. “Make me.”

“Bernie,” Cooper said through gritted teeth. “You’re hung over. You’re probably seeing double. I’m not going to fight you and that’s that. I’d take you down in a New York minute. It’d be as easy as a mule breaking wind.”

Cooper was expecting Bernie to smile at one of his father’s favorite expressions, but Bernie just set his jaw and swung heavily.

Cooper dodged the blow without moving his feet. This was going to be worse than he thought. Bernie swung again, so slowly Cooper could have finished reading his biography of Eisenhower and still have time to catch Bernie’s fist in his hand. Cooper let Bernie wrench his hand free and said, “Don’t be a fool, Bernie, you can’t take me down and you know it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bernie was breathing heavily. He tried to sweep Cooper’s legs from under him. It didn’t work, but Cooper caught a sharp blow to the shin. “Damn it, Bernie! That fucking hurt.”

Bernie showed his teeth. “It was meant to.” He dropped to a crouch and started circling Cooper. Cooper backed up.

“Bernie, if you don’t stop this shit right this minute—” Bernie lunged. Cooper moved. Bernie banged first his fist and then his head against the fieldstone hearth. Cooper winced at the sound. Bernie turned around, blood flowing from a cut above his eyebrow and lifted his fists. The knuckles of one hand were bleeding. Cooper sighed and lifted his.

The door opened.

Sally Anderson stopped on the threshold, wide-eyed, briefcase in hand. The two men, one bleeding, one seriously annoyed, turned their heads and stared at her with surly expressions.

“I guess this is male bonding, huh?” she asked.

Chapter Five

“Ouch!” Bernaldo Martinez tried to jerk his head away.

“Don’t be a wuss.” Julia caught his bristly chin and dragged his head back to continue cleaning the small raw-looking laceration on his forehead. It had almost stopped bleeding. “I thought cowboys were supposed to be such tough guys.”

“I’m no cowboy,” he complained as Julia finished cleaning the wound. “I’m just a poor
cholo
from the barrio who took courses in animal husbandry ‘cause it meant cheap college credits.” But he was smiling as he sat at the enormous kitchen table, letting Julia fuss over him. Cooper was smiling too…sort of.

Men!
Julia thought in exasperation. A quarter of an hour ago they’d been doing their level best to beat each other’s brains out, looking exactly like two of her more rambunctious seven year olds in a fight and now look at them.

Julia picked up Martinez’s hand and looked at the knuckles. She met Cooper’s dark eyes.

“When was the last time that room was cleaned?”

“It’s clean.” Cooper frowned, affronted. “My men take the cleaning in four-man details on a rota basis. They muck out the stables and then they muck out…er…they clean the house. Bernie’s not going to get an infection from that scratch, believe me. And anyway…he’s immune to everything, including common sense.”

“If you say so.” Julia looked at the cuts dubiously. “Still…I’d feel better if I put some disinfectant on it. Is your first aid kit still in the magic pickup?”

Cooper pursed his lips. “You’d be better off putting an antibiotic ointment we use for the horses on it. It’s in a bowl in the refrigerator.”

Julia stared at Cooper for a minute to find out if he was joking but he looked perfectly serious and she didn’t know if he even could joke, so she walked over to the huge, industrial-size refrigerator, opened the enormous steel door and simply stared inside.

She had girlfriends in Boston with condos smaller than the inside of this refrigerator.

“Who does the cooking around here?” She looked over her shoulder. “Paul Bunyan?”

“The men take it…”

“In turns. Right.” Julia turned back and examined the contents of the refrigerator. “So where is this horse ointment?”

“In a bowl.”

“There are two bowls here, Cooper.”

“The green one.”

Julia checked the other one and her eyes widened. “And what’s in the red one?”

Cooper shrugged. “Lunch?”

“No way,” Julia said firmly. She backed out of the refrigerator with the green bowl in her hands and closed the heavy door with her hip, thinking there should be a biohazard sticker on the door. “No way is that stuff food. A mutant life form, perhaps. An experiment gone bad, maybe—but definitely not lunch.” She drew in a deep breath and coughed. The stuff in the green bowl was either going to cure Rafael’s father or kill him.

“I hope you’re ready for this, Mr. Martinez.”

“Bernie.”

“Okay, Bernie. Time to separate the men from the boys. Ready or not, here it comes.” She applied the smelly ointment to his forehead and knuckles. “I can’t believe you two actually fought. Like seven year olds. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that violence is no way to settle an argument? It’s absolutely reprehensible behavior for two adults.” Julia warmed to her topic. The use of violence was a subject of some poignancy to her at the moment. Her voice rose. “Violence is for barbarians. I mean, really. Engaging in fisticuffs. What on earth did you two hope to accomplish? You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“Yes, ma’am,” both men replied in unison.

Julia laughed when she realized that she’d been shaking her forefinger at them like she did with her second graders when they misbehaved.

“I guess I was sounding an awful lot like a grade school teacher, wasn’t I? Speaking of which…” Julia tried hard not to think about how terribly unqualified she was to say what she was going to say. “Um, speaking of which, Mr…Bernie, I brought along some of Rafael’s homework to show you. He’s really an exceptional pupil and his grades have been very good, but for the past two weeks, his work has just degenerated. He’s not paying attention in class and quite frankly, I’ve caught him crying more times than I can count.”