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“Then don’t say never,” Buck said. “One time won’t do it. Maybe Clea’d let you try jumping her mare…”
“Which way is it to your place?” Clea interrupted.
“East,” Buck said.
She glanced at him in the mirror to find out which way that was. Jake shook his head. Couldn’t shoot, couldn’t drive and didn’t know east from west.
“Naw, now watch it—you’re gonna hit the nose of our gooseneck,” Teddy shouted, having suddenly looked back instead of at the horse. “Give it some room. Watch it there, Clea.”
She sent the trailer the wrong way again, toward theirs, but brought it back. Almost too quickly. Then she had it off the driveway on the right, the way it had to be, and they were moving past the Natural Bands trailer.
She gave a huge sigh when it was done. Actually, they all did. No crash, no scrapes, no trouble. She maneuvered the trailer back onto the driveway, going for the road.
“You’re good now. Give ‘er some gas,” Buck said.
But she stepped on the brake.
“Hey,” Jake said. Damn. Was this torture gonna last all night?
“I’ve got to get out of this vest,” she said and Jake saw that her upper lip was filmed with sweat.
She slipped her arms free and handed the fur to Jake, who laid it across his paper sack. It wafted her perfume to his nostrils, a light, citrusy scent that smelled as expensive as that luggage of hers had to be.
The mare whinnied again, then took off and began to canter down the rail with a beautiful smooth gait that made her look to be floating just above the ground.
“Look at the way that mare goes, boys,” Buck said. “She’ll reach and get it, won’t she?”
Clea shifted in the seat and sat up straighter, then hit the gas and stayed on it until the trailer rolled straight down the drive and across the tin horn into the road. At the critical moment, she almost turned the wheel the wrong way, but she caught herself in time to make it swivel to the west so they could head east.
Applause from the backseat.
“You got ‘er done,” Buck said.
“Good job,” Teddy said.
Jake said nothing. She threw a triumphant glance at him.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Hawthorne?” she said. “Did I scare you with my reckless speed?”
“No,” he drawled, “I’m scared I’ll be too old to get outta the truck by myself by the time I get home.”
Laughter erupted in the back and Clea realized the old guys had been pulling for her success. Jake should’ve been, too. After all, that was his trailer she’d managed not to hit.
He didn’t like her much. But he didn’t have to show it every second, did he? She stepped down on the accelerator and they roared off down the road with the old guys laughing and whooping and Jake staring out the window again.
Sullen, too. Well, whatever. What did she care?
Buck and Teddy showed her the turnoff to the cabin that was meant to be hers, which was about two miles into what they said was a five-mile distance to their place. She kept thinking about the ordeal she’d just gone through, about all the challenging ordeals that had made up this day so far. Living in Montana couldn’t be quite this rough all the time.
As soon as she dropped these guys off, she’d go back by her new place and check it out. Once she got Ariel hauled over there and her stuff all moved in, surely she’d have some peace so she could get herself organized.
Finally, Buck said, “Next road. There. On your right.”
Their cabin looked to be a little bigger than Jake’s. It had pens and a small barn immediately behind it and beyond that, just a little higher up at the foot of the hill, a large indoor arena. With real metal walls, not the black curtains like in Texas.
“That there’s where your winter stall will be if you want it,” Teddy told her. “You can ride your mare in there when the snow’s ten-foot deep. All you have to do is figger out how to get yourself over here.”
He and Buck laughed at her horrified expression. Jake wasn’t listening.
“I like to ski,” she said dryly.
“Sometimes it’s that or snowshoe in,” Ted said. “There’s a guy hired to feed and clean stalls when you can’t make it, though. Included in the rent for all the cabins.”
Buck said, “Let me and Teddy out here at the house and we’ll mix up the feed fer the foal. You and Jake go on to the barn and see about her.”
Clea stepped on the brake. “I’m just dropping y’all off…”
“Jake oughtta come in and learn to mix the milk,” Teddy said. “If ‘n’ he’s really gonna take his turn at feedin’ tonight, I don’t want him wakin’ me up—”
Buck interrupted the diatribe. “Clea, you have to go down there by the barn anyhow to turn around. Let Jake show you our little wild orphan.”
He opened his door. “Come on, Ted,” he said, in a sardonic tone. “I’ll do the work and you kin put yore feet up.”
Insisting that he was not lazy, he just wanted things even, Teddy got out and he and Buck headed for the house. Jake was entirely silent as Clea drove on. He seemed to be deep in thought, a million miles away.
“I don’t know why Buck thinks I need a place to turn around,” she said, with self-deprecating sarcasm, “I could just back out to the road.”
It didn’t get a rise out of him. He was staring through the windshield at the mountains. Well, of course. Duh, Clea. He’s worried about his truck, no doubt.
She pulled up and stopped in front of the barn.
“Here you are, safe and sound in spite of all I could do,” she said. “I’m really sorry about your truck. Have your insurance people contact me about the damage and I’ll take care of it.”
She shifted into Park and reached to open the console.
“I’ll write down my cell number.”
He opened the door and stepped out as he waited for her to write the number down on an index card.
“They’ll need your last name,” he said.
“Of course,” she said, but that hadn’t occurred to her. Usually the people she dealt with knew who she was.
Above the number she wrote, Clea Mathison.
Clea Mathison, whom Jake Hawthorne saw as an incompetent idiot—a dumb blonde. Well, she might just let her hair grow out to its natural chestnut.
When she looked up to hand the card to him, she smiled and said, “Again, I’m sorry I shot your truck, Jake.”
He barely glanced at her, just took the card with a muttered thanks, closed the door and walked away.
She watched him go, the sunlight bright across the back of his shirt. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t look back. He no longer knew she was there.
Since she was a teenager, every man anywhere around her always knew she was there. Even Brock. He’d ignored her plenty of times but he’d always been aware of her and so had every other man.
Now, to Jake Hawthorne, she wasn’t even a sex object.
She didn’t want to be one. But to be perfectly honest, at that moment she didn’t know who she was, either. And she didn’t want to be alone.
When she ran away from home to another world, she’d had no clue how alien she would feel.
The old Clea would have driven away and let that feeling get stronger. Especially if that was what she was expected to do.
But the new Clea would do something positive. Whatever her heart wanted her to do.
She reached down and turned off the motor. “Wait up,” she called.
Jake, halfway to the barn, stopped in his tracks to look back.
“I want to see the foal,” she said.
He said nothing, just stood there and waited for her to catch up to him.
“I’ve gotta ride,” he said.
“Just point me in the right direction. I don’t expect you to give me a tour. I’ll see the baby and then I’ll check out the arena and the winter stalls.”
He looked as if he didn’t know what to think of her. He was wary. Like the shy, lonesome cowboy in an old movie who’d be less afraid of a gunslinger than of talking to the new schoolmarm. Except he’d plainly told her she couldn’t shoot and couldn’t drive.
Who was he, anyhow? He was going to be her neighbor. He was her neighbor. Solitude and self-sufficiency were fine but she’d seen just now that she might need her neighbors sometimes. And they’d have to have dealings about his truck repairs, so they might as well be on pleasant terms with each other. “Have you lived here on the Elkhorn for a long time?”
“No,” he said. As if that should put an end to the conversation.
She gave him a nice smile. “So. Where are you from?”
“Never lived anywhere more than a year or two.”
“By yourself?”
He gave her a slanted glance that said it was none of her business.
He turned toward the barn.
“Then we’re opposites,” she said, matching strides with him. “I’ve never lived anywhere new before. You’ll have to teach me about living free and on my own in a brand-new place. I need to enroll in How to Start Over 101.”
They walked across the graveled drive to the broad doors standing open at the end of the barn aisle. Without another word.
That didn’t matter. She didn’t care if he wanted to talk to her or not because this was all about her. She was still jangled over the snake and the truck damage. And the reminder that she wasn’t quite as able to protect herself as she’d thought.
But the main thing was aloneness. She just wasn’t ready yet to drive off and be by herself the rest of the day and all night, moving her stuff and her horse into yet another strange place that she’d try to make look like a home.
She didn’t know another soul for fifteen-hundred miles in any direction.
You don’t know this guy, either, Clea. Or the two old ones, friendly as they may seem. This is real life, remember?
Clea Mathison stayed right beside him like they were joined at the hip while they walked into the barn and down the hard-packed dirt aisle between the two rows of stalls. She strolled along in those three-inch—or more—heels as easily as if she wore boots or sneakers, with that air of hers as if she owned the place, adding a wisp of flowery-lemon scent and a dab of shine to the old barn.
And something in him kept his eyes on her in spite of himself. He could feel the tug of curiosity but there was something else underneath it. Probably just that she reminded him of Tori. Same kind of woman.
Which means you better run, not walk, the other way, Jake ol’ boy.
What was she doing? He damn sure hadn’t invited her in.
He hadn’t invited the old guys, either, and they were still here.
Get a grip, Hawthorne. This ain’t about you. She’s not moving in here, and she’s moving out of your house. She’s not staying all day. She just wants to see the baby. All women like babies.
“The foal’s in there,” he said, pointing out the stall.
“Great,” she said, turning to flash him a smile that nearly blinded him. “Thanks. I don’t want to hinder your work.”
He felt more like he’d been dismissed than like he made an escape as he headed for the tack room to get his saddle. This whole deal gave him a bad feeling. Clea Mathison seemed way too comfortable, whether she was in his house or in his barn. And that was Buck’s and Teddy’s fault, being so helpful offering to move her and all. Those two oughtta get a life.
He went to find the saddle for Sugar, a filly who was anything but sweet. She was one of a string of ten three-year-olds that belonged to a ranch over on the other side of the mountain, young horses he’d been hired to green break for ranch work. Getting some outside colts like that was adding a healthy amount of money to his Natural Bands salary and bringing him closer every month to paying off his place. His own place. He still couldn’t get used to the fact that he had one.
At first when he came out of the tack room, he felt a little shock because he thought she was gone. But then he saw that Clea was in the little orphan’s stall with the door closed behind her as if she knew what she was doing instead of standing outside and looking in, as he’d expected. How irritating could one woman be?
They’d already gone to a lot of trouble to save the foal’s life. It was high-strung at best and nervous from being closed up in a stall, although it was getting used to people. But the last thing he and the old guys needed was for Clea to get the filly all agitated right before feeding time.
“It’s not good to overhandle a motherless young one,” she said.
Like he’d asked her. Who did she think she was, anyhow?
“So what are you doing in there?”
She didn’t answer.
He walked up to the door and looked into the stall. The foal wasn’t running around all over, looking to jump over the wall the way she sometimes did or trying to hide in the corner. She was getting to trust people enough to be curious about them. First thing, Buck and Teddy had put a little halter with a sawed-off rope on it so they could catch her.
“I hope y’all are being as firm with her as her mama would be,” Clea said, holding out her hand to be sniffed as the foal approached her. “It’ll ruin her if you treat her like a puppy dog and let her be disrespectful. Even now. As little as she is.”
“What’re you talking about? Are you a veterinarian or something?”
Of course not. Her type of woman wasn’t tough enough to get through veterinary school.
The baby snuffed up Clea’s scent, then turned away. With the next breath, she slapped her ears flat against her head, whirled like a rocket and kicked out behind. Clea was quick but not quick enough and the filly hit her a glancing blow with both feet.
Clea squealed and lunged like a maniac for that little scrap of rope. She grabbed it in one hand and proceeded to hold the little thing while she spanked the tar out of her with the other hand.
