The Texas Way. Jan Freed
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to rest. To heal. The fan motor whirred. The pull chain ticked against the swaying brass casing like a metronome. He fingered the nubby chenille bedspread Patricia had bought their first year of marriage and sighed wistfully.
After eighteen years, he still missed her. She’d been too fine and cultured for a simple rancher like him, but he’d accepted the gift of her love and tried to be worthy. They’d had ambitious plans for H & H Cattle Company once. Then cancer had struck, and his dreams had died with her. His body had gone through the motions of ranch chores. He’d loved his children and kept a roof over their heads. Occasionally he’d slaked his physical needs with an equally lonely widow in Gonzales.
But his heart had remained insulated. He simply hadn’t cared about improving the place or making it profitable. And now Scott was paying the price.
Pain that had nothing to do with his operation made Grant wince. For eighteen years, he’d been sleepwalking through life, his memories of Patricia more real to him than the deteriorating ranch. Damned if he’d asked to wake up, but he didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter these days.
A loud ruckus broke out in the barn. Masculine shouts. Twister’s whinny. Grant listened for a tense moment, then relaxed back against his pillow. No point in getting up really. If there was a problem, Scott would handle it.
He always did.
THE DOUBLE CRACK of iron-shod hooves against wood reverberated throughout the barn.
“Dammit, Pete, I told you to stay back! You know he hates the sight of you.” Scott threw an irritated glance over his shoulder.
“Well, he don’t exactly make the sun shine for me, neither,” the peppery old cowhand grumbled, shuffling to a safer distance.
Scott ignored Pete’s injured feelings and concentrated on the greater problem at hand. What the hell was wrong with Twister?
The stallion danced restlessly on the far side of the twelve-by-twenty-foot stall, his bunched muscles rippling beneath a pearl gray coat. Charcoal velvet nostrils fluttered in distress. His silver tail swished up and down, side to side.
“Come on, boy. Don’t you want to get out and stretch your legs?” Scott moved slowly into the stall and clasped a lead rope to the nylon halter. Thank goodness he’d forgotten to remove the halter last night before returning to the house.
Noting the full feed bin, he frowned. “What’s the matter, Twister? You’re usually a pig. Are you getting sick maybe?”
A coil of dread tightened Scott’s belly. Ranch life had hastened his mother’s death, crushed his younger sister Laura’s spirit, weakened the heart of his once-invincible father. He sent up a silent prayer. Please God, not Twister, too.
Backing out the open door, Scott pulled the rope taut.
Twister planted his forelegs and refused to budge. Eyes rolling, sides heaving, sweat lathering his neck and flanks, he nickered low and deep.
Scott turned toward Pete. “Go up to the house and ask Dad to call Doc Chalmers. Something’s wrong with Twister, but hell if I can figure out what.”
“Car’s comin’ down the road,” Pete observed from the barn doorway. “Fancy thing, just like the girlie drivin’ it.”
Scott drew in a hissing breath. Maggie. Damn. He’d thought it would take her at least a day to pack whatever a princess needed to live among the common folk. He didn’t have time for her royal crap now.
“Just do what I ask and get the Doc out here. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’.” Pete pushed off the doorframe and ambled toward the house, his voice drifting back in mumbled snatches. “Too dang mean to be sick…into some loco weed…do this, Pete, do that, Pete…”
Doc Chalmers wouldn’t go into a stall with the fractious stallion for a truckload of money. The veterinarian had made that clear the last time Twister had landed a well-aimed hoof.
Scott dug in his heels and pulled harder on the rope. “Come on out, dammit. You don’t even like being in there.” Sweat trickled into his eyes, stinging like hell. He lifted one arm and rubbed his forehead, knocking his hat off in the process. His T-shirt clung damply, his jeans felt hot and scratchy—and he was playing tug-of-war with a friggin’ elephant!
Twister nickered again, but something about the sound was different this time. And suddenly Scott knew. Knew even before the light, fresh scent filled his lungs with spring flowers and his mind with images of sunlit hair.
“What is he afraid of?” the cultured, feminine voice asked from several feet behind.
Scott slackened the rope and watched his proud, beautiful stallion shiver. “He’s not afraid. He’s sick. Doc Chalmers is on the way.”
“He’s terrified,” Margaret insisted, walking up to stand beside Scott in the stall doorway.
In the dim light, her shoulder-length hair glimmered palely—her translucent gray eyes more palely still. She wore a sleeveless yellow dress sprigged with blue cornflowers. A thin blue satin ribbon threaded the puckered scoop neck, drawing his gaze to delicate collarbones and the hint of creamy breasts. The cotton material hung waistless, beltless, yet skimmed her curves more alluringly than spandex.
He felt like a smelly, hairy Neanderthal next to a magical fairy princess.
“Let me see what I can do.” With ethereal grace, she slipped into the stall and moved toward the wild-eyed stallion.
Scott’s heartbeat stalled, sputtered and roared to piston-pumping life. He was afraid to yell, afraid to do anything that might startle eleven hundred pounds of horseflesh into explosive action.
“Hiya, handsome. Remember me? Of course you do.” She reached up, grabbed the halter cheek straps and pulled Twister’s head down. “You wouldn’t forget your new friend.”
Damned if she wasn’t blowing in his nose!
“Now what is it that’s got you so scared? Why don’t we check it out together, okay?” She took the rope from Scott and shooed him back from the doorway.
Dazed, he stumbled backward as she moved forward, her pink toenails flashing bright next to Twister’s tough, yellowed hooves.
God almighty! Sandals in a horse stall. Twister’s horse stall.
“Ready, handsome?” She did something to his mane with her fingers. Amazingly he seemed to calm down a little. “All right then, let’s go.”
Paralyzed, Scott watched the powerful haunches gather, the pricked ears flatten. In two tremendous leaps Twister catapulted through the door, Margaret trotting close behind. Fifteen feet away he wheeled to face the stall and backed up, snorting all the while.
Pete’s skinny form darkened the barn entrance, but Twister ignored his long-standing enemy. Nothing else could have demonstrated his fear so well.
“You okay, Maggie?” Scott choked out.
Her steady gray eyes were inspecting the stall. “Whatever has him spooked is over there. See anything new or unfamiliar?”
Scott scanned the area and rumpled his hair. Nothing looked different to him. Same frayed leather bridle drooping from a rusty nail. Same packed dirt floor covered with matted straw. Same shovel leaning against—
“The hay,” Pete said, moving toward Margaret with surprising hustle.
With the right incentive, those bowed legs of his could sure get up and go, Scott noted wryly.
At the wrangler’s approach, Twister jerked his head back. Margaret laid her small white hand against his arched neck and murmured soothingly. Once again the stallion marginally settled.
Pete’s light blue eyes widened.
“What about the