Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

“Luke’s getting Ghost ready for you,” Kendra called out.

She’s enjoying this.

But what exactly was she enjoying? Taking control of this afternoon after he’d railroaded her into it? The hope of seeing him make a fool of himself on horseback? Or simply the prospect of riding on the ranch she loved on a bright Indian Summer day?

“Can you ride?” Luke asked as he adjusted the girth straps.

“What I can do is fly. What I’m going to do is ride.”

Luke glanced in Kendra’s direction.

Daniel nodded, seeing no sense in denying the obvious. “That’s right. Riding a horse is today’s hoop to jump through.”

Luke’s expression didn’t change and his capable hands didn’t hesitate. “Don’t know a lot of men who’d like jumping through hoops for a woman.”

“I don’t know any who’d like it,” Daniel amended with enough feeling to draw a flicker of a grin from Luke. “But I figure the least I owe her are a few hoops.”

Luke gave a noncommittal grunt.

The foreman found a plastic pouch to put the chicken and salad containers in, and stowed those in one saddlebag, the sodas in another and strung on a canteen.

“Think you’re going to have trouble staying in the saddle?” Luke’s voice held mild curiosity, no more.

“I’ve been up a few times. Not what you’d count as riding, but unless you’ve given me a bucking bronco, I should be okay.”

“Ghost’s no bucking bronco.” From Luke’s deadpan delivery, Daniel guessed the horse was closer to the opposite.

The foreman held Ghost’s head while Daniel mounted–he wouldn’t get any style points, but he reached the saddle on the first try and that counted for something.

Kendra had brought her sidestepping horse nearby. Daniel couldn’t take his eyes off her. The sun caught strands of loose hair beneath her hat, burnishing them to red. Her eyes sparkled almost pure green and her cheeks glowed with anticipation.

Luke checked the stirrups, slapped Ghost lightly on the butt, and they were on their way.

“This path used to be paved,” Kendra said as they followed a trail away from the barn. “My grandfather’s sister got polio as a child. She loved the ranch so much . . . they paved this path for her wheelchair.” The trail abruptly changed, narrowing from a broad, defined, straight path to a narrow, meandering line through the brush. “This was as far as she could go.”

Daniel thought he heard an ache of sympathy in Kendra’s voice. If so, she regretted letting it show, because she immediately launched into a technical discussion of cattle ranching.

He followed most of it–despite her best efforts to leave him behind by rushing over complicated points–though some of the technical terms went by too fast. At least, he thought, she hadn’t tried to lose him on the trail. So far.

He hadn’t seen buildings for a good half hour. The only clues he had to their direction were the sun, beginning its slide toward the west, and the mountains. Otherwise range land rolled out to all horizons, with dips and creases that never repeated, yet weren’t recognizable enough–at least to him–to form landmarks.

“You know an awful lot about it for only being back a couple years after some summers spent here as a kid.”

“I’m a part owner. Marti runs it, of course, and she owns sixty percent, but my cousin Grif and I each have twenty percent. Grandfather’s will set it up with twenty percent to each of his four daughters–Aunt Nancy, my mother, Marti and Amy–with twenty percent for whoever’s actually running the ranch. Aunt Nancy’s share went to Grif, and mother left hers to me. Marti inherited Amy’s share, plus she has her own and the share for running Far Hills.”

She stopped her horse and scanned the horizon sweeping endlessly to the east. When she spoke again, he had the feeling she was saying aloud something she’d thought many times.

“And my share will go to Matthew some day.”

“Unless . . .” He let it hang there until curiosity drew her eyes around to meet his. “You have more children.”

Awareness flared across her eyes before she dropped her lids to shield them, then rode ahead.

“You about ready for lunch? There’s a spot over the next rise.”

“I’m hungry,” he confirmed, and was rewarded by the sight of a ribbon of red between her collar and the back of her hat.

He allowed himself a grim smile. Maybe he wasn’t suffering entirely alone with this hunger that no amount of fried chicken would fill.

The creek where she halted her horse wasn’t much more than a trickle. Dead leaves skittered away before their passage. Down the creek bed, bare-branched trees mingled with the fading gold of a few aspen, parched brown cottonwoods and the occasional fir, which advertised the others’ tongue-hanging-out thirst by its own vibrant green. She shook her head over it as they dismounted.

“I sure hope we get some rain soon,” she said. “It’s been such a dry season, and with it staying warm so late, it’s getting worse. I’ve never seen this creek so low. Or the brush so dry.”

“You came here often?” He leaned back on one elbow, watching her face.

“Yeah. This was one of the spots where we used to have campfires when I was a kid.”

“It meant so much to you . . .” He remembered her voice in the darkness of their refuge from Aretha, the peace that came into it when she spoke of her ranch. And he’d wondered what it must be like to have a place you loved so much. A place where you fit the way she fit at Far Hills Ranch.

“This was the only stable home I ever knew. From the time I could remember, we were moving from place to place. First, following my father to Air Force bases, though I don’t remember that. Or him. Then, he went missing. It was a year or so before they knew he’d died. Afterward, my mother kept taking us to new places, certain each one would magically solve all her problems as she would surely find the perfect man. A man just like my