Running Blind (19 page)

Spencer was smiling, but then he almost always was. He was one of the sunniest people she’d ever met. He’d be out of his sling in a couple of weeks, and he couldn’t wait; she’d never been so physically bound and restricted herself, but it looked downright miserable. She imagined he was making the best of the situation and it bothered him more than he let on.

She had just finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes;
she was still astonished at the amount of bacon and eggs nine men could eat. One of these days she was going to try the biscuit recipe she’d found, but right now getting eggs, bacon, and toast on the table was still enough of a challenge that she didn’t want to add anything else to the difficulty level. She was out of bed at four-thirty, had food on the table at five-thirty, and the men were usually out the door at six. If the coffeemaker hadn’t had a timer and taken care of itself, she didn’t know that she’d have been able to meet the schedule—and if she couldn’t handle making coffee along with everything else she had going on in the mornings, then she knew for damn sure she couldn’t handle making biscuits. Maybe she’d make them for supper, instead, when she wasn’t as pushed for time.

“Give me a few minutes to finish putting the dishes away and I’ll be good to go,” she told Spencer.

Shopping was her least favorite part of the job, not because she didn’t like to buy groceries, but because it took her out of this safe, controlled element. Going into Battle Ridge on a regular basis was the only drawback to an almost perfect job. Of course, it wasn’t like she was headed into Cheyenne.

She hadn’t had any kind of a scare since that first day she’d gone shopping with Zeke, but she hadn’t forgotten, either. Before the horrifying moment when she thought she’d seen Brad in the grocery store, she’d allowed herself to get comfortable in Battle Ridge. She’d relaxed, she’d felt at ease. The incident—the terror—had made her throw up her guard all over again. She hated that she didn’t feel the same, but she’d hate it a whole lot more if something actually happened and she wasn’t emotionally prepared. So she was always hyperalert whenever they went to town, which meant she was always exhausted from the effort when they got back to the ranch.

Since that day, Zeke had assigned Spencer to ride to
town with her. They often timed the trips so he could go to physical therapy while she ran errands, went to the library, and visited with Kat. Spencer said he could steer one-handed, but Carlin insisted on driving. She didn’t need directions to town and back anymore, but it was nice to have an extra hand to steer one grocery cart while she managed the other. And even with the heavy items Spencer could help, using his one hand to aid Carlin’s two.

Seeing Kat and checking in with Robin and Kin via computer made the trips worthwhile. She hated leaving the safety of the ranch, but that contact was a lifesaver. She missed seeing Kat every day, and sometimes she just needed a woman’s company after being around so many men. Could being exposed to too much testosterone poison her brain? She’d wondered that aloud in front of Kat one day, and had to wait a full five minutes for Kat to stop howling with laughter.

But even with the overload of testosterone, the stinky socks, and the long hours, she was enjoying herself. As long as the ranch hands were well fed and happy and the house was clean, and she stayed out of Zeke’s way, the job was a good one. True, being secluded at the ranch had its trials, but it also had its benefits. She saw the same handful of people day in and day out. Some of them she liked better than others, but that had been true at every job she’d had. There hadn’t been any problems. There were no surprises, no fear that she’d turn around and find Brad standing in a crowd. Here at the ranch there
was
no crowd.

And here at the ranch, she was relaxed, and every day she could feel herself settling in more. Never mind that Zeke was a never-ending irritant, an itch she refused to let herself scratch—she liked the job, she liked most of the men, she liked having her own little suite to herself. There was nothing extra special about the two rooms, but they were downright luxurious compared to some of
the places she’d lived in while she was on the run. And come to think of it, there
was
something a little special about them, because they’d been remodeled out of love. Sure, it was love for the perfect Libby, but Carlin was still benefiting from that care and consideration.

“The list is on the table,” she said as she placed the last stack of clean, white dishes in the cupboard. “Look it over and see if I’ve forgotten anything.”

Carlin immediately headed down the hallway, toward her rooms, and after a couple of beats Spencer called after her. “Broccoli? Do we really have to have
broccoli
?”

She laughed easily, something she could do these days. “Yes!”

Observation—and the recently discovered Food Network, which she’d been watching regularly lately—had taught her that when it came to food and men, keeping it simple was the best strategy. Zeke and his ranch hands would gladly live on meat and potatoes, so she made sure to provide plenty of both. However, she also felt it was her duty as cook—and as the lone woman in the group—to sneak a vegetable onto the menu now and then. If she covered the veggies in cheese or disguised them in some other sort of sauce, she could usually slip something green past the guys a couple of days a week.

In her room she grabbed her jacket, cap, and sunglasses, in preparation for the trip. She’d stop by The Pie Hole while she was in town, say hello to Kat, and pick up the pies she’d ordered. Pie sometimes improved Zeke’s mood … temporarily. There probably wasn’t enough pie in the state of Wyoming to turn him into a bearable human being. He seemed to be in a perpetual state of disgruntlement. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t care. Having him that way was easier on her own state of well-being.

If he spoke to her, it was usually to growl something that she might or might not bother to interpret. He was
pretty much leaving her alone these days, but when he came home at night he was, well, grumpy. Spencer said getting ready for the October market was stressful, and once that was done everyone would be in a better mood. A few of the hands would leave the ranch soon, and come back when calving season arrived. Some would go home; a couple of them rodeoed. Walt, Kenneth, and Micah—the foreman and the two married hands—were year-round employees. Even Spencer went home for a week or two, though he came back before the others, he said. He liked it here. This ranch felt more like home to him than his family home.

Carlin wondered what Spencer’s family was like, if it was an entire enclave of Pollyannas. Spencer was Zeke’s opposite in personality. He smiled, made jokes, and dealt with the handicap of an out-of-commission arm as if it were truly no big deal. Maybe he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was the kind of man who would go out of his way to help a friend, something she deeply appreciated. He had certainly gone out of his way to make her feel welcome here.

They’d spent a lot of time together since she’d arrived here on the ranch. He couldn’t do much in the way of physical labor since his accident, but he’d been great about helping her learn her way around the house and answering the gajillion questions she had about the way things were done. Because he’d cooked for the crowd himself, before his injury, he knew where the spices were stored, what the guys liked to drink, and what foods they hated (vegetable lasagna topped the list). He also shared Zeke’s view that the previous housekeeper—the apparently perfect and angelic Libby—had made the best chocolate cake ever. Damn, sometimes she thought she could really get a hate on for this Libby person. Well, not really, because she didn’t know her. But she could definitely feel jealous of Libby’s prowess in the kitchen.

What with Libby and her chocolate cake, and Kat’s gift with pies, and the disaster with the white cake, Carlin knew it was a waste of time to try anything fancy in the dessert department. She picked up pies from The Pie Hole when she went to town to buy groceries, and she bought lots of ice cream. Who didn’t like ice cream? Brownies made from a mix were also popular, and easy. One of these days she was going to try the white cake again, but she kept finding reasons not to. Failure was never pleasant, and abject failure was humiliating. Kat had told her she’d probably just overmixed the batter, but Carlin didn’t see how that could turn what should’ve been cake into an inedible spongelike substance. She did find a recipe for corn bread cake that—surprise—didn’t have a lick of cornmeal in it, and it had turned out really well, but it was a sheet cake and somehow that didn’t count. Layer cakes, the bastards, were what counted.

Spencer had adapted to the sling that immobilized his left arm well, and probably could’ve continued to work as a ranch hand in some capacity, but Zeke had insisted that he help her until he was healed. She wondered: was it a job meant to make things easy on the young hand, or did Zeke trust her so little that he wanted someone he did trust to keep an eye on her? There had been a time when she would’ve been insulted, but she now understood lack of trust all too well.

As they drove down the long and winding road—no joke—that eventually led to the road that led to the road that led to Battle Ridge, Carlin glanced at Spencer and asked—not for the first time in the past couple of weeks—“When are you going to tell me exactly how you hurt your shoulder?”

His cheeks went red. He was barely twenty-one, all but a baby. “That’s not something a man wants to tell a woman, Miss Carly. It was bad. That’s all you need to know.”

“I know it has something to do with collecting bull semen,” she said. “I just can’t quite get the picture in my head …”

“Ma’am, you don’t want that picture in your head,” he said earnestly. “I don’t either, but since I was there I don’t have a choice. I’m just glad it’s my left shoulder and not the right one. I’d have a heck of a time doing anything if I couldn’t use my right arm.”

She didn’t think the nine-year difference in their ages made her a ma’am, but it was a habit she hadn’t been able to break him of. She was either ma’am or Miss Carly, not just to him but to every man on the ranch … except Zeke.

She’d even done some research on the library computer, and knew there were several ways to collect bull semen. Some of the methods seemed almost cruel to her, but apparently the bull didn’t usually mind being electrically jacked off.

“Usually” being the operative word here, since obviously with Spencer’s last attempt
something
had gone wrong.

“I have a question for you,” Spencer said. He pointed at her hat and sunglasses, which were sitting on the seat between them. “Why is it that every time you go into town you put on a disguise? It’s almost like you’re a movie star or a singer going inflagrante.”

Carlin bit back a laugh. It would be rude, and she didn’t want to make Spencer feel stupid. He did have a habit of using the wrong word, now and then. “Incognito,” she said.

“What?”

“Not inflagrante. Incognito.”

“Well, whatever the right word is, why?”

Kat and Zeke were the only two who knew part of her story; as far as she was concerned, no one else needed to know a single detail, and they knew only because she
had to be paid in cash. The more people who were in on her secret, the less safe she’d feel. For a while she’d let her guard down in Battle Ridge, and not taken the precaution of sunglasses and hat, though she’d always made sure her TEC jacket was with her. But since that heart-stopping moment in the grocery store … damn it, she was going to have to let that go, sooner rather than later. Learn from it, and let it go. But maybe not right now. Maybe the next trip.

But Spencer had asked, and he’d keep asking, so she tried to come up with a girly-girl answer that would throw him off track. “I can never get my hair to behave like I want it to, you know? The ball cap hides all the flyaways.”

“I like your hair,” he said with complete seriousness. “I think it’s real pretty and soft. And blond,” he added, as if that made up for any flaws she saw in her own hair. He seemed to have a weakness for blondes, though she suspected he had a soft spot for all women, period.

“And flyaway, on occasion,” she said.

“What about the sunglasses?”

“My eyes are sensitive.” That made sense.

“But you’re not wearing them now, while you’re driving,” he argued.

“The sun isn’t in my eyes.” It wasn’t, but the excuse was a weak one and she knew it.

He shook his head and said, “All right, all right. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. You know, if you’re a pop singer hiding out, or if you were the star of some reality show, you’re safe from me. I only listen to country music, and I don’t watch much TV. Don’t have time to. You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“I never watch the news. It’s just too depressing.” For someone of his disposition, she could see why the news would be a downer. “You could’ve killed your whole family
and everyone in the country could be looking for you, and I wouldn’t know it.” The thought didn’t seem to bother him much. “You don’t seem like the type, though. And besides, Zeke watches the news and he never would’ve hired you if you were wanted by the cops. Well, if he knew about it.”

“I’m not wanted by the cops,” Carlin assured him.
One
cop, yeah, but as far as she knew Brad hadn’t gone so far as to come up with a fake charge and set the whole country to looking for her.

No, he didn’t want anyone else around when he found her the next time. She shuddered, remembered Jina, and reminded herself of all the reasons why she couldn’t share the details of her life with a nice, simple guy like Spencer.

“I didn’t figure you were,” he said. “But I swear, your hair is just fine.”

Before they hit the grocery store Spencer had a physical therapy session. Carlin took the opportunity to run into the library first, then visited Kat to pick up the pies she’d ordered. The breakfast crowd had left and the lunch crowd hadn’t started arriving yet, and her baking had been done for the day, so Kat wasn’t busy. She smiled when Carlin came through the door, her pleasure evident.