Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle (17 page)

And I joined him. We were both tired and stressed, and we laughed long and hard. Noire looked at us like, well, like we were howling at the moon.
 

Malcolm collected himself first, patted my hand where it still clung to his arm, and said, “Yes, I suppose we do.”

“Stop.”

He wiped a tear from my cheek. “Things were so boring before you arrived.”

“That’s enough.” I shoved him away from me, feeling drained but better, even though I knew death was no laughing matter.

He just smiled and took my hand and held it all the way to the barn. These small intimacies—laughing together, walking hand-in-hand under the blazing moonlight, not to mention literally crying on his shoulder—made my heart swell in an unfamiliar way. As soon as we reached the first stall, I used the excuse of opening the door to pull away from him, and he let me.

We looked in on all the patients, and Malcolm came as far as the tack room.

“I’ll be in town through the weekend,” he said. “I’ll help with the extra work.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ve already done a lot. The place looks great. I just wish…” he trailed off and glanced out the window into the dark, toward the pasture and beyond.
 

I couldn’t see whatever he saw in his mind, but I think that’s when I fell in love with him a little. Because what I could see was the passion he had for the land. His heart was in it. And I didn’t want to let him down. I had no idea what he really expected from me, but somehow I would help him keep this place the way he wanted it.

“Vi, I wish…I’d understand if—”

“Don’t say it.” I almost put my fingertips to his lips, but stopped short of touching him. “It’s okay. It will be okay.”

He looked me very steadily in the eyes for some moments. Whether assessing the truth of those words, or simply trying to believe them, I don’t know. Then he grazed his knuckles over my swollen lip, barely touching, just the fine hairs on his fingers tickling my skin.
 

“Should have put ice on that,” he said.
 

I about melted on the spot. “It’ll be okay.” Maybe, maybe not. I don’t think either of us thought I was talking about my fat lip. Tomorrow, I would get more information from him on the working partnership.
 

“I’m glad you came here,” he said in that velvety voice he’d used with me a couple of times.

I nodded, because if I said anything it would probably sound like,
Please join me upstairs
, and I might drool into the bargain, so I turned to go up, alone, then stopped and faced him.
 

“By the way,” I said, returning to what he’d murmured when we’d been helping the vet. “I have a very good imagination.”

- 16 -

Noire ceased howling when the coyotes quit. I slept deeply, and I wish I’d slept without dreaming, but there was nothing new in Wastrel’s visit. He was back in the manure heap, pawing like he had the first time. It nagged at me come morning, but I shoved it aside in favor of watching Henrietta nurse her kittens and purr while I massaged liniment into my bruises. The kittens still had their eyes closed, but they were starting to wiggle around. Soon, I’d begin picking them up.
 

All was peaceful in my world.
 

Then, just as I finished feeding the horses, Malcolm strolled in. Wearing his kilt.

I watched him approach while I filled Cali’s water bucket. I needed to call Penny and tell her what was going on. She could remind me why I shouldn’t mess with the boss. Right at that moment, as the morning sun caught in his hair and that skirt slapped his thighs, I couldn’t for the life of me think of one reason why I shouldn’t drag him upstairs right then and there. Heck, we wouldn’t even have to worry about getting him out of his trousers.

Damn, I had it bad. Icy water splashed my feet, and I quick kinked the hose to keep from flooding the stall.
 

“Are you going to hang around here all day dressed like that?”

He glanced down at the kilt. “What’s wrong with this? It’s comfortable.”

I moved to the next stall, put the hose in the bucket. “It’s distracting.”

He smiled a too-satisfied smile. “You think that pink skirt you had on yesterday wasn’t distracting? Nice legs, by the way.”

I overflowed the water bucket again. See? I already wasn’t concentrating.

“Why don’t you let me do that.” He took the hose and hummed the chorus of the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as he went to the next stall.

“Not funny,” I said. I brought Cali into the aisle to change her bandages.
 

“
You can try sometimes
…” he sang, not in tune.

Sheesh. I decided to ignore him. Lynette was supposed to call first thing with the results of the x-rays. If Cali’s knee was messed up, I didn’t know what would happen. I couldn’t afford surgery. Would Lynette take monthly payments on the bill? Veterinary care was expensive. I didn’t even have medical coverage for myself.

“
You just might find..
.” drifted from the other end of the barn.

The tune caught in my head, and I found myself humming,
you get what you need
.

“What do you say we get everything done and go for a ride?” Malcolm asked when he finished watering. “You can ride Gaston, or whoever you want.”

“Will you stop singing?”

“Maybe.”

I sat on my haunches and looked at him. He’d change out of the kilt if we went riding, so it was a good idea. Then again, he’d put on breeches that hugged his muscled…body. On the other hand, I could use a long gallop. “Sure.”

“We’ll pack a lunch. I’ll show you the sights.”

“What does that mean, the best corn fields in the county?”

“No, I’ll give you the deluxe tour. Take you to see milo.”

Before I could ask who Milo was, a truck pulled up. An older man waved and got out.

“There’s Fred,” Malcolm said. “He’s bringing me some lumber.” He walked to the front of the barn.

“Got it right here,” Fred said, gesturing toward the back of his truck. He peered down the aisle. “Who you hidin’ in there? That Brooke?”

I brushed off my hands and went out. In the past, I would have ignored him, but that didn’t seem right anymore.

“I’m Vi,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

“You’re the New Yorker. Melba said she saw you in the store the other morning’.” He turned to Malcolm, who looked amused. “Where you want it?”

They walked to the back of the truck, and I followed. As if I cared about a load of lumber, but I was curious what it was for, especially if the work might involve me. There were long pieces that looked like fence rails hanging well beyond the tailgate.
 

“Nice flag, Fred. Those Melba’s?” Malcolm asked. He pointed at something on the back of the load.
 

Fred chuckled. “No. Found them down by the creek. My bull was wearing ‘em.”

The granola I’d had for breakfast threatened to recycle itself.

Fred yanked my red panties off the end of a two by six. “Nice, huh? Can’t imagine how they got there. Kids, I guess.”

Malcolm crooked a skeptical brow. He didn’t look at me, thankfully, and I went back to work before they could see I’d turned as red as my panties.

No sooner had I snapped a lead line on Cali to take her out the back door to stretch her legs, than another truck pulled up. Malcolm and Fred were unloading the lumber near the shed on the other side of the barn. A moment later, I recognized JJ’s voice talking to them, laughing. Shit. There was nowhere to go except the riding arena or the field where the manure spreader still sat. Instead, I led her out the front and up the driveway toward the house. There, I stopped and let her pick at grass along the edge of the lawn. I couldn’t see JJ’s truck, so after a while decided it must be safe to go back to the barn.

Wrong. Malcolm and JJ walked out to meet me. Malcolm looked stiff, unhappy. JJ ambled, all loose-limbed confidence. And there was no escape for me. I should have anticipated this.
 

“I was going to introduce JJ,” Malcolm said, “but it appears you’ve already met.”

Every swear word I knew whipped through my head, but I couldn’t form a coherent thought or statement out of them. I already knew going out with JJ had been a huge mistake, but I hadn’t come close to thinking through the implications.
 

“Yeah,” I said, and kept Cali walking. Not very intelligent, but all I wanted was to get away, to not get caught in the crossfire between the two men. I’d been right to suspect bad blood between them. The tension in the air might have been sparked by my unwise choice, but it clearly had existed long before I showed up.
 

JJ rocked back on his heels. “Oh, yeah,” he said as I walked away. “We’ve met. Mac, you want to have some fun, just get a few drinks into this one. She’ll be slicker’n a hound’s tooth in no time.”

I stopped.

“Ain’t that right,
Slick
?”

I felt my spine straighten and shoulders square as I turned to face him. He lit a cigarette, and I wondered how I’d missed the menace in him before. Noire had known. She came trotting across the cow pasture just then, slathered in creek muck. The moment she became aware of JJ, she stopped, lowered her head, and quit wagging her tail.
 

Malcolm’s face was unreadable. Pissed probably didn’t cover what he felt. I wasn’t sure whether the low growl I heard came from him or my dog.

“Too bad about your horse,” JJ said, flicking ash off to the side. “Nothin’ like that ever happened on my watch. Guess you been distracted.” He took a deep pull from the cigarette and let his gaze fall on Malcolm. “What with Norman, and all.”

“We have nothing to talk about,” I said. Pretty lame, but it was all I could think of—besides screaming—and that wouldn’t help.

“Ain’t interested in talking,” JJ said. “None of us are.” He punched Malcolm in the shoulder. “Us boys all want the same thing from a pretty girl, right Mac? Never had nothin’ to do with talking.” He grinned, but there was no smile on his face.

Malcolm said nothing. He stared at me, hands curled into fists at his sides. I could have sunk into the ground. God, I was stupid. Stupid, dim, brainless.

“Yep, we’re all the same,” JJ rambled. “You give ol’ Mac here half a chance, and he’ll take you for a nice ride, too. That’s a promise. Maybe even down to the river, ‘cept I don’t think that’s his style.”

Could this get any worse?

Malcolm finally forced sound past his clenched jaw. “I think it’s time for you to leave, JJ.”

JJ’s smirk faded. “You kickin’ me off this land?”

Malcolm’s nostrils flared, he took a deep, calming breath, and slowly unclenched his fists. “I’m asking you to leave. We can continue this conversation another time.”

JJ shrugged. “Sure. Whatever you say,
Mr
. Malcolm.”

He fished something out of his back pocket. My stained and torn panties.
 

Okay, it could get worse. Much worse.

He twirled them on his index finger.
 

“You and me got unfinished business, Vi.”

As soon as JJ rounded the corner of the barn, I said, “Nothing happened.”

Malcolm had stayed in the drive with me, watching JJ, hands twitching like he wanted to punch something.
 

When he looked at me, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “That’s none of my business,” he said.

“I want you to know,” I said. “I met him at Mel’s Monday night, and I did have too much to drink, and we went down to the river, but nothing happened.”

Except for my panties going on an extended trip without me. Which was at odds with my assertion nothing had happened, even I could see that. Malcolm would believe what he wanted. JJ’s truck sputtered into view, going up the road past Hank’s. A flash of red flapped on the tip of his broken antenna. We watched until he was gone, then Malcolm’s eyes cut to me.

“You interested in seeing him again?”

“What? No. Definitely not.” Not him or the damn panties. I’d never wear red lace underwear again. “No.” I toed the dirt
 
at my feet. “I made a mistake, okay?”

“It would be in your best interests not to repeat it.”

That made me mad. But since it coincided with my own feelings, I didn’t argue.

“What you do on your own time is none of my business,” he said.

It was obvious he was making a great effort to keep his voice even, but it had that hard edge to it I’d heard the first day when Norman let Smitty get hurt. It sliced into me as surely as a farrier’s blade carves hard hoof wall.

“Your best interests,” he continued, “however, are my business.”

“Maybe,” I said slowly. Where the hell was this going? He wasn’t the boss of me. Well, he was, but not of my personal life. Oh, hell, who was I kidding? Jesus, was I conflicted, or what?

“JJ may be right about him and I being alike,” he said. “But he’s wrong about one thing.” He glanced in the direction JJ had gone. “I’ll want you sober.”