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Authors: Kat Murray

Taking the Reins (Roped and Wrangled) (9 page)

BOOK: Taking the Reins (Roped and Wrangled)
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“You’re not so bad to have around, you know,” she told him. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure how you’d fit in at first. But you proved me wrong. Even charmed that big old horse trainer, didn’t you?” She snickered. “When you weren’t busy scaring the piss out of him.” She paused a moment, then added, “Don’t say piss. Your daddy would skin me. I guess we’ll keep you. Yup. You passed your trial run. Long as I don’t have to wear that Bjorn thing. No, Auntie Peyton is not signing up for that one. No way. ’Cause Daddy looks silly wearing it, doesn’t he? Yes, he does.”
Her phone buzzed and she reached in her pocket to grab it.
“It’s a text from your daddy.” She read the text, then called Trace rather than attempting to text back with her arms full.
“Hey,” he answered. “Thought you might be asleep already.”
“Nope. I’m up, and so is little man. Wanna say hi?” She held the phone in front of Seth’s face, who reached for the pretty glowing toy.
“Hey bud, you up again? Don’t give Aunt Peyton any more trouble than you have to, okay?” He paused for a moment and she wondered if they’d been cut off. “Miss you, little man.”
Oh, hell. Tears lodged in the back of her throat, and she had to swallow hard to push them down.
“Peyton? You still there?”
She put the phone back to her ear. “Yeah, sorry. I’m here.”
“You okay? You sound funny. Are you getting what Emma had? Is Seth?”
“No, we’re both fine. So you did well, huh?”
“First in our event,” he said smugly. “Met up with a couple of guys I knew through the circuit, told them about the ranch, let one of them ride Lad a little. They were impressed we’d snagged Red Callahan, though neither thought we’d keep him around long enough to advertise him as our official trainer. But that’ll come.”
“Yes, it will.”
“All in all, a good showing for us.”
“Nicely played, Trace. Drive safe tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Sure thing. I’m hoping to get an early start, so I should be there before lunch.”
They said their good-byes and hung up. Then Peyton looked to see Seth sound asleep in her arms. She stood slowly, walking with even, measured steps to the crib, and settled him down. On the way back to her own room, she did a silent shuffle of happiness that things were falling into place.
 
Red did his quick walk-through of the breeding stalls at the end of the stables. Designed to be converted into single stalls if necessary, the breeders were two stalls with the dividing wall removed. For their own safety, and the safety of the foal, the pregnant mares were separated from the others and kept in wider confines. Made getting in and out of there to help easy, and the larger space was a comfort for the mamas-to-be.
“Everything looking okay, Steve?” he asked the hand working quietly on polishing tack in the corner.
The young hand nodded. “Everything’s fine. Though I think Suzy Q over there is ready to foal soon. Next few days, for sure.” He used the rag in his hand to point toward the end stall.
Red walked over to see, and sure enough, Suzy Q was ready to rock and roll. There was a new alertness in her body, a tension he could read easily. She shifted back and forth, doing the pregnant shuffle across the floor of the stall to the other side, then back again. Her breath snorted in and out in impatient huffs, as if to convey her discomfort.
“I know, sweetheart. I know,” he said in a soothing tone, though that was a bald-faced lie. What the hell did he know about being pregnant? But that’s what all females wanted, to be understood. He pulled out half an apple and offered it, but she only looked at him, as if to say
What, you think that’s going to make it all better?
He chuckled. “I guess it won’t. You’ll be through it soon enough.”
Walking back toward the other side, he stopped by Steve. “You’re the one on duty tonight?”
“Yes, sir.” The young man nodded emphatically, as if excited by the responsibility. Red wanted to warn him there was nothing exciting about sleeping in the barn, but he wouldn’t ruin it for the youth.
“Call if anything starts going on. You know the signs, right?” It never failed; the mares always foaled in the middle of the night.
“I saw last year. I know what to watch for.”
Red nodded, but left the back of the barn with a feeling of disquiet. Something wasn’t completely well, though he couldn’t say if it was the horse herself, or the lack of cameras that he wasn’t used to, or his own mind. He sat by the front of the stables on a bale of hay, watching heads peek out at him curiously, waiting to see if he would bring food, or treats, or affection.
Peyton walked into the barn, nearly passing him by before realizing he was there and skidding to a halt. “Hey, you setting up shop or something?”
“Just thinking for a minute.”
“I see.” She walked to the nearest stall where a gelding poked his head out, butting against her shoulder in an obvious ploy for some TLC. “Easy, sweetheart. I know you aren’t a master in the world of flirting, but that trick doesn’t work on the ladies.”
Red snorted. “Like it matters to him. He’s gelded.”
“Still nice to have gentlemanly manners, isn’t it, bud?” she cooed, rubbing between the horse’s ears. They flickered in what was clearly a sign of pure happiness as he leaned more into her touch.
He wanted those hands sifting through his hair, scratching and scraping his own scalp. And dammit, no, he didn’t. He didn’t want that at all. Acting like a fool, taking that road. Red rolled his eyes at himself and stood. “I checked on the breeding stalls, and Suzy Q is close to dropping foal.”
Peyton nodded absently, her hand sliding down to rub the horse’s nose. “I saw her earlier. Tonight, tomorrow at the latest.”
From what little he knew, females were a complex breed . . . no matter what species. He wasn’t about to bet his money on any one of the fairer sex doing what she was expected to. But he nodded anyway. “The others will be close soon. I’d like to see the schedule of rotation on who stays in the barn overnight.”
Peyton shrugged. “That’s Arby’s thing, so you can ask him.”
He would. Then he shrugged in a mirror gesture of her own. “I know a few guys, if you want to call them in to do an analysis of the area, get quotes on how much it’d cost for the closed circuit cameras in here.”
She watched him from the corner of her eye, and he already knew what she was thinking. So before she could break down her pride to ask—because that could take all damn day, knowing her stubborn ass—he added, “Free consultations. Just quotes.”
She grimaced, as if hating that it even had to be said, but then she sighed. “Yeah. I know. It’s something to think about. I know at Ten Fork they have alarm systems for when the ladies lie down. You probably wish we were more advanced.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s different, that’s all. Sometimes technology gets in the way. It doesn’t—”
“Encourage you to trust your instincts?” Peyton finished, grinning. “I’ve always thought that, too. It’s great and all, and I know we need the cameras, for marketing as well as sheer practicality. But sometimes I feel like we give too much power to the machines and not enough to ourselves.”
Smart woman. At least to his way of thinking. “They all have instructions to call you and me both, right?”
“Yup. In that order.” She gave him a cheeky smile.
As he walked away, he muttered, “Stubborn female.” But he was smiling, in spite of himself.
 
The call at one in the morning shocked him out of a deep sleep.
The barn. Suzy Q.
He grabbed for his cell and answered while standing to grab the nearest pair of jeans he could find.
“Son! What’s going on with you?”
“Da—Dad?” He stopped, one leg in his jeans, and sat down on the bed. Figured. It just figured Mac would wake him up when he needed sleep the most, to stay sharp when the call from the barn came.
“How many people you got calling you, son?” Mac’s gruff voice asked.
“Too many to count,” he replied, because being a smart-ass was easier than reminding his father he didn’t like to be called
son
. It was too ironic a nickname, since his father resented parenthood more often than not.
“You wound me.” The words were slightly slurred and Red rolled his eyes.
“What did you need, Dad?” He pulled the jeans off his leg and shifted to lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
“I wasn’t calling for anything. But now that you mention it, a couple hundred for—”
“No.”
Mac sighed, taking the instant rejection philosophically. “I really called to see if you landed somewhere. Last we talked, you hadn’t found a place yet.”
“Yes, I found a place. And so no, I won’t be taking you up on the offer to come out there with you.” Just like he’d said the last time. Not that being told no ever had any effect whatsoever on Mac Callahan.
“That offer was ages ago. Jackass left me high and dry anyway. I wouldn’t let you near him with a ten-foot pole.”
“Uh huh.” All of which was likely code for
I was drinking on the job and got caught.
Or maybe
I got into it with the law—again—and my employer wouldn’t bail me out.
Or the old standby,
Things started going missing and they can’t prove it was me . . . but I got let go anyway.
Variety was the spice of life, as long as the spices were vaguely familiar.
“So I’m hoping you can point me in the right direction.”
“Right direction for what?” Red turned to watch the clock tick another minute off. Another minute he wouldn’t be sleeping, when being well-rested was integral to his job performance.
What was Peyton doing now? Sleeping? Reading? Thinking of him?
“Where you are, dummy. I need to know how to get there.”
Red sat up again, staring into the dark his eyes hadn’t quite adjusted to yet. “There . . . where?”
“Wherever you landed for work. I figure any place you found is bound to be a classy operation. Wouldn’t kick a man while he’s down, yeah? So the way I see it, they’d likely have another spot open for me, being your old man and all.”
“No.” Jesus Christ, no.
His father laughed, the same rusty sounding laugh he remembered from his childhood. Whether with a hooker in the room next door, conning someone out of their last paycheck, or hanging out with old friends, Mac was usually laughing. For someone who lived on the edge of the law, he had a lot of natural humor.
Maybe that’s why Red found so little humorous.
“Boy, now that’s not friendly. We can be a package deal. They’re bound to trust your dad. Where do they think you got your skills?”
Not from his father, that was for damn sure. Though Mac wasn’t terrible in the saddle, he wasn’t going to win any rodeos. No, Red learned from practical application and dedication to what he loved.
“Not gonna happen, Dad. This isn’t the place for you.”
“Of course it is. My place is with my son.”
He started to feel a moment of worry. Just a tiny little tic in the corner of his brain. And he knew it wasn’t out of self-preservation. Though that was a consideration as well . . .
No, this was from a need to protect Peyton from his con-artist father. She was too far in the hole right now to dig herself out from another disappointment, another setback.
His phone beeped in his ear, and he pulled it away far enough to see the screen.
“Dad, I have to go. The barn is paging me.”
“But what about—”
He disconnected the call without a second thought and switched lines. “Callahan.”
“Suzy Q’s ready,” was all Steve said.
He grabbed his jeans and started pulling them on again, realizing they were backward before trying once more, this time the right way. Stuffing sockless feet into his boots, he grabbed his hat and the first shirt he could find, shoving his arms through the holes while jogging down the stairs.
Chapter Eight
F
oaling, when going right, was a quick process. The whole thing could be over and done with in under thirty minutes. No time for Red to jack around with making sure he looked pretty for the event.
He jogged across the yard, heading straight for the barn. Peyton must have slept in her clothes, because she had beat him there and looked way more put together than he did.
She glanced at him as they headed to the back where the breeding stalls were. Her eyes lowered to his chest and held there. “You forget something?”
He glanced down and realized he’d forgotten to button up his shirt. “Shit. Sorry.”
She smiled, more understanding than amused. “I know. Exciting. No matter how many times I witness it, it’s exciting.” She waited until he finished buttoning the bottom few buttons, then handed him a digital camera. “Keep the flash off, there’s enough light in there. But take pictures.”
He held the small digital camera in his large hand. “And what are you going to be doing?”
She lifted her own hand, wrapped around a small video camera. “Filming. Client will get both video and pictures to document the happy occasion.”
Smart. Not to mention . . . “Helps in case anyone wants to sue for wrongdoing.” With the lack of video surveillance, it was a necessity.
She winked at him. “You got it.” Their tones became more hushed the closer they got to the stall. Steve was already there, standing out of the way while Arby slid the door open just a little.
“She’s on the far left,” Arby said in a hushed, gravelly tone, tilting his head in that direction for emphasis.
“Thanks, Arby.” As she passed by Steve, she gave him an affectionate pat on the arm before stepping in. Red clenched his teeth a little at the obviously lovesick look the young employee shot after her. Being no more than twenty-three, with the maturity to match an eighteen-year-old, Steve didn’t have a shot in hell of making Peyton see him as a potential dating prospect. Red knew that well enough. Not to mention, he worked for her. But that didn’t seem to make it any easier to not shoot daggers at the kid. Instead he followed Peyton into the stall, quickly taking his place as quietly as he could next to her on the floor, as far away from the laboring mare as possible.
They watched in silence, almost as if the world had left them behind and this stall was a little cocoon of life. Snapping pictures as often as possible, hoping some of them turned out well enough to use, he paused to glance at Peyton.
She balanced the small camera on her knee, pointed at the mare, but she watched over the top, not through the viewfinder. And her expression was one of awe. Totally focused on the process, not even registering his own presence.
After fifteen minutes, Suzy Q’s breathing became more labored, and soon enough, he could see two hooves, then a head. Then, the difficult part over, the foal slid into the world. Once more, he glanced over to look at Peyton, and was shocked to see one tear rolling down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away or pretend it didn’t exist. To his surprise, she didn’t seem at all embarrassed by it.
They stood together, by silent agreement, getting a better angle on the action as the new mommy cleaned her baby.
She nodded to the door, and they shuffled out and shut it behind them, Peyton keeping the camera trained on the new family even then. She stepped on a bench and continued to film over the top rung as the little one tried to find its legs, wobbling around before figuring out which foot went where. Then he, or maybe she, snuggled next to mama for a first meal. Red took picture after picture, a little surprised to realize that the process felt much different from behind the camera. Or maybe it was the company.
Finally, she stepped down, closed her camera, and pointed out of the barn. They walked out together, leaving Arby and Steve behind, before she let out a wild whoop and jumped up and down.
Her grin was as wide as it could go, the single drying tear track down her cheek shining silver in the moonlight. “Holy shit, that never gets old!”
She started walking toward the house, and it seemed natural to just follow. “Where was Browning? Don’t you need the vet here?”
She shook her head. “I’ve always felt like both mom and baby do best when there’s as few people present as possible. Morgan lives about ten minutes away. Easy call to make. The guy all but sleeps in his clothes during foaling season. I’ll call him first thing in the morning to come over and give them a good checkup.”
She opened the side door of the main house and waited for him to walk through before following him and locking it behind her. They toed off their boots and headed for the office, like it was something they did every night.
Ha. Right. But she walked behind her desk and held out a hand. He gave her the camera, and she went to work uploading the photos to her computer.
“I’ll make a disc for them, with both the pics and the video. But for now, I know owners like to have a couple pictures as soon as possible, so I’ll send a few of the best shots in an e-mail. Can’t blame them for wanting to see right away.”
Red sat in the chair opposite the desk and watched her work. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she typed out a quick note to the owner explaining the details and uploaded the pictures to attach to the message. Then she hit send, leaned back in the chair, and grinned like a loon.
“Done, done, and done.” She spun in the chair once like a little kid. “Want something to drink? I’m way too jazzed to get back to sleep.” She didn’t wait for his answer before walking past him—no, more like floating—and heading toward the kitchen.
They crossed through the sitting area, with its furniture that looked like it’d never been sat on, past the fireplace that had probably never been used.
“My mother’s taste,” she said over her shoulder as they hit the kitchen. A decidedly homier room than the rest of the first floor.
“What?” He reached in the fridge behind her and grabbed a bottle of beer. Drinking on the job was never okay. But this was after hours. More like after-after hours.
“I noticed the way you were—you were—” She grunted as she worked on the twist top to her own bottle of beer, then sighed and gave up, holding it out to him. When he popped the top easily and handed it back, she rolled her eyes and took a swig. “Figures. Anyway, the decorating on the first floor. It’s all Sylvia’s doing. She thought the place needed to look like money to attract money.”
“Did it work?” he asked mildly.
She raised a brow, then hitched herself up to sit on the countertop. “If it did, it was before I knew how checking accounts worked. But I’m guessing not.” Her head dropped back to the cabinet behind her. “I’ve loved this place since I knew what it was. Since I realized what it meant to work for it, live for it. Breath it. It’s in my blood.” She hitched one shoulder. “Was never in Mama’s. Or Bea’s.”
“Bea?”
“Beatrice. My sister. Our sister. I thought Trace had the fever, that he’d stick around. But he lit off at nineteen. This is the first he’s been back, except for very short, sporadic visits.” She took another sip of beer and let the bottle land back on the counter with a thud. “And why am I going over all this family history with you? Not at all interested, I’m sure.”
He was interested. It involved her, and so he was interested. But as he wouldn’t say that out loud—for risk of her kicking his nuts up into his throat—he stayed silent.
She stared out the window of the kitchen, overlooking the stables. The building they’d just come from. “This is what I want to do—no, what I need to do—for the rest of my life. You know when you find something like that?”
“I do.”
“And you just can’t shake it?”
“Yup.”
“And it’s like, if it doesn’t work out, there’s no plan B. No backup. No contingency plan. So you have to throw everything you’ve got into it. All your cards. No holding back.” Her eyes glowed as she spoke, and he felt himself drifting closer, like a magnet drawn to its home base.
“So you don’t think there’s another option. And then things go to shit, and you suddenly wonder why you haven’t been practical before this. All the practical people have a plan B. Why don’t you?”
He slid another foot forward, moving silently over the tile floor, but it was as if she didn’t even remember he was there anymore.
“And then you find the answer of how to keep your dream alive.” She looked at him then, eyes bright and cutting straight through him with their clear honesty. “You were the answer, and I didn’t even know the question at the time.”
That did it. He broke. The adrenaline of the night, the cozy feel of snuggling up in the kitchen with his partner in crime, her words and the look in her eyes—they all mixed together to break every barrier he’d mentally placed between the two of them. Without thought, without plan, without any consideration to an alternative, he let his beer slide next to hers on the counter, framed her face in his hands, and kissed her like it was the last thing he was about to do before he died.
Zero expectations of how she’d handle it. That’d have required some forethought. But what he never would have expected, even with time to plan, was for her to throw herself into the kiss like a drowning woman grabbing onto a raft. No hesitation, not for Peyton Muldoon. She took everything he gave her, every ounce of his desire, and she shot it right back to him. A thin moan, caught low in her throat, escaped, and he couldn’t take it any longer. He let his hands skim down to her waist, hauling her against him. Letting her feel the thickness growing behind his zipper. Her legs wrapped around him, heels digging into the backs of his thighs, tugging him even closer until he was flush against the counter, nowhere else to go.
Then, as suddenly as the storm gathered, it broke. She pulled back, gasping for breath, her legs unwrapping from around him and sliding to the front, nudging him away from her.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, staring at him.
Yeah. She could say that again. He waited for her to yell at him, slap him, kick him. Something. But she just kept staring with that glazed expression of shock, like she couldn’t get over what had just happened.
Which was his cue to leave. Let her figure it out. And then slap him in the morning.
Trying for nonchalant, he nodded to the bottles sitting side by side next to her hip. “Thanks for the beer.” Then he turned and walked out of the kitchen toward the side door and out into the chilled night air, on the way back to his apartment.
Which would probably not be his much longer. He’d handed Peyton exactly what she needed to fire his ass on a silver platter. Not that he was worried about where he’d go. What he’d do. There was always a job lurking somewhere for him, even if he had to broaden his geographic search a little. No, the next thing wasn’t the issue.
It was that he didn’t want to leave.
 
Peyton woke with the feeling of sand in her eyes. Probably from the fact that she hadn’t had them closed for more than an hour total in the past night. First with the foal being born, which was a perfectly exciting and acceptable reason to miss out on sleep.
Then, well . . .
Damn that man!
She’d said it to herself a thousand times. Rinsing her toothbrush out in the sink, she stared hard at her reflection. Mentally willing it to look less exhausted, less haunted.
No hope there.
She should never have brought him back to the house. That was the first mistake. Peyton walked back to her dresser and started braiding one side of her hair, using a tiny elastic band to hold it in place. But inviting him to the house wasn’t the big problem. No, that was almost logical. It was business, mostly, at that point. Informing the owner the foal was born. Celebrating with a simple drink. People did it all the time. Good relationships with your staff were key to a smoothly running operation.
And then he’d done that Unthinkable Thing. And she’d liked it. Her hand paused while separating the other half of her hair into thirds. Oh God, it’d felt so good. She couldn’t even remember a time when just kissing had been so arousing.
Her own fault, most likely, thanks to the fact that she’d barely dated since college. She just couldn’t justify the time spent away from the ranch, not that the pickings were all that great in town anyway.
So maybe that’s all it was. Geographic proximity and general hormones. For both of them. If he was a typical man, he’d likely skip out to town on his next night off, find some hoochie wearing a too-tight tube top and use her mercilessly.
She should probably feel sorry for the woman, but the quick pang of jealousy was just further indication that she had no business tangling with Redford Callahan.
Skipping down the stairs, she ran into the kitchen. “Morning, Emma.”
“Morning. I knew you were running behind with lots to do, so I made a breakfast sandwich for you.” She pointed to a plate on the counter, and Peyton almost moaned in gratitude at the English muffin stacked with egg and bacon and what looked like little bits of sausage, diced red pepper, and cheese.
BOOK: Taking the Reins (Roped and Wrangled)
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