Wendy Warren – Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride: Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride (страница 15)

It wasn’t until the valley had burned two years ago that she’d dealt with the herd again. There’d been no adoptions, since the herd was small and healthy. Because of Glen and his dislike of bureaucracy, they’d simply moved the herd to another valley. No red tape, no protocol. For all Libby knew, Glen hadn’t even had the authority to make such a move. She’d never asked because she preferred not knowing. The important thing was that the herd was located in a place where they could find adequate range.

Libby followed Kade for more than an hour before urging Mouse ahead to catch up with him.

“They could be in any one of these drainages,” she said. “We released them lower in the valley and they migrated up these drainages for the feed. They go lower in the winter, of course.” Too low, since the herd had intruded on grazing allotments and now a rich man wasn’t happy about that.

Too bad for the rich man.

THEY CRESTED A LOW, sage-covered ridge and rode into yet another drainage when Kade pulled his horse to a stop. Below them they saw a herd, maybe forty-strong. And more than half of them were roans. Blue had done his job. Kade pulled a small pair of binoculars out of his shirt pocket and trained them on the herd, which, having caught sight of them, started to move. The lead mare had a nice new bay baby by her side, and there, traveling beside the strung-out mares, was a stocky red roan, the spitting image of Blue, except for the color.

But no Blue.

Kade frowned as he scanned the horses. Several blue roans, but none large and sturdy enough to be his horse. He gave a start when Libby touched his sleeve.

He followed the direction she was pointing, then lifted the binoculars.

“Oh, damn,” he murmured. There was Blue, a good two or three hundred yards behind the herd, alone. Limping slightly. And skinny. Very skinny.

“I think his son might be taking the herd away from him,” Libby said.

“Yeah.” Kade could think of nothing better to say. He’d been prepared for the possibility that he wouldn’t find Blue with the herd. Accidents happened in the wild. But he hadn’t been prepared to see his horse struggling behind the herd, trying to keep up with the band he had once led.

And then, as if on cue, the younger stud charged back, threatening Blue, who stopped, tried to turn on his haunches and went down due to his bad back leg. The red roan stopped, having made his point, and returned to the flank of the herd. The mares continued on down the canyon as if nothing had happened, the lead mare disappearing around a corner and into the aspens that grew along the creek as Blue hefted himself to his feet again.

Blue followed determinedly along behind them. When he disappeared from sight, Kade lowered the glasses.

“I’m sorry,” Libby said quietly. No other words followed.

Kade swallowed and then gave his head one sad shake before turning his horse around on the trail. When his knee came even with Libby’s, he met her eyes. Yeah, she felt for him.

“He probably had a better life out here than he’d have had with my old man,” Kade said. And it was true. The old man never would have sold Blue, since the stud had impeccable breeding and he could have gotten some healthy stud fees out him, totally ignoring the fact that the stud had been a gift to Kade from his grandfather just before he’d passed away.

“No doubt,” she said impassively.

It would have been better to make this discovery alone, but if someone had to be with him, he was glad it was Libby. “Let’s go,” he said.

They made their way back down the trail, and now that the horses sensed they were heading for the trailer, they picked up their pace.

It’s the way it has to be. It’s the way life ends for a stallion in the wild. Pushed away from his herd by a younger horse. Blue had undoubtedly done the same to the herd’s previous stallion.

But logic and common sense didn’t ease the picture of Blue going down and then limping after the herd. Kade doubted anything would.

LIBBY RECOGNIZED THE effort Kade was putting into keeping his face expressionless. Matter-of-fact. But the sixteen-year-old kid in him, the one who’d loved this horse so much that he’d set him free, had to be dying inside right now.

The ride back took forever, despite the horses’ faster gaits, and Libby was relieved to see the truck and trailer sitting on the road below when they came over the final ridge.

Almost over. Duty almost done. And then she could go back to her place and get on with her life. She had problems of her own to sort out. Kade wasn’t one of them. And except in a professional capacity, neither was Blue. She couldn’t do a thing for either of them.

It was a long drive home. They were both tired and Kade remained quiet. Preoccupied. Neither of them spoke until he pulled into the driveway.

Kade turned off the ignition and then once again Libby said, “Sorry about Blue.”

“I knew what I was getting into when I decided to find him.”

He might have known, but he hadn’t been prepared.

Neither of them made a move to get out of the truck. Kade leaned his elbow against the door, propping his head on his hand as he stared at the sorry old house.

“What now, Kade?” Libby asked softly. She’d thought he’d talk about Blue, but he didn’t.

“I’m selling as soon as I get it into some kind of selling shape.”

Good. She was almost ashamed of the thought. Almost. But it would make her life so much easier if he just left. “Why not sell it as is? There’s a market.”

“I have to get as much out of it as I can.” He continued to stare at the house, his expression troubled, as if he expected his dad to come bursting out of it at any moment.

Libby opened the truck door, but she didn’t climb out. “Because of the IRS?” She’d heard the rumor that he was stone broke because of back taxes. And even though it was none of her business she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done with all his money, why he hadn’t had enough to pay his taxes. Had he gambled his money away? Drunk it away? Did his ex-wife have most of it?

She wasn’t going to ask.

“I settled that debt, but I had to sell almost everything I owned. Now I need enough money to tide me over while I get some job training. Apparently there’s not a lot of call for washed-up rodeo cowboys in today’s job market.”

Divorced, broke and unskilled. Quite a résumé.

“Has anything gone right for you?” Libby asked without thinking.

“Yeah.” He glanced up at her then, his expression surprisingly intense. She’d seen that look before, couldn’t believe she was seeing it now, and tried to convince herself she wasn’t by playing it cool.

“What’s that?”

“You’re not married.”

It took Libby a moment to assure herself she’d heard correctly. She pulled in a deep breath. “There will never be anything between us, Kade. I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

“Then you’d better damned well believe me.”

“Oh, trust me, Lib. I do.”

She didn’t believe him. Not when he was wearing his determined face, the one he’d worn whenever he was facing a particularly challenging bronc.

She gave him a long hard stare before saying what was in her heart. “I might feel for you, Kade, but the very last thing I will ever do in this life is trust you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

YOU’RE NOT MARRIED. Kade had no idea why he’d said that, but it was true. He was glad Libby wasn’t married. That didn’t mean he thought he had a chance with her—it had been a flat-ass stupid thing to say and now she had her back up again, just when it had looked as if they might be on the healing road.

But deep down, maybe he wanted her to have her back up. Maybe he preferred that to indifference.

No maybe about it. He did prefer it to indifference.

Well, Libby had been anything but indifferent when she left today. She’d been steamed and had left no illusions to the contrary. It had taken her almost three minutes to unload her horse from his trailer, load the mare into her own and drive away.

And as he thought about it, Kade realized he wasn’t all that unhappy about saying what he’d said. Sometimes a guy had to speak from the heart.

YOU’RE NOT MARRIED.

One whole day had passed and Libby was still pissed off that Kade had said such a thing. She frowned down at the industrial-gray floor tiles in the break room.

“Ahem.” Stephen got up from the long table where he’d been eating his lunch and tossed his wadded-up paper bag in the trash. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem, oh, I don’t know, preoccupied?”

Libby frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“You’ve been standing there stirring your coffee for about five minutes, staring at the floor.”

“So?”

He pointed at her cup. “You didn’t put anything in your coffee to stir.”

Libby looked down. Sure enough. No creamer. “Old habits,” she said, gamely sipping the coffee black and somehow managing not to make a face. She hated coffee without cream.

“You gave up creamer?” Stephen asked dubiously.

“Too much palm oil.”