The Rawhide Man

At the sound of the word, Bess’s eyes glittered again with unshed tears. She was going to have to stop this!

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Katy said quickly, after a speaking glare from Aggie. “I’m very sorry, I forgot!”

“It’s all right,” Bess said, brushing away the tears. “It’s just so fresh, you know. I loved her very much.”

“I never knew my mother,” Katy said, “but Dad said she was a first-class bit—”

“No!” Aggie burst out, horrified. “You must not say such things!”

Katy’s lips pouted. “Dad does.”

“Yes, but you shouldn’t speak that way of your mother,” Bess said gently. “Besides, ladies don’t use language like that.”

Katy just stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

“You’ll have to show me around the ranch tomorrow,” Bess said quickly, deciding to let it drop for the time being. “It’s more than a year since I visited. I’m sure there are a lot of changes.”

That brought the smile back to Katy’s young face. “You bet! Unless…you wouldn’t rather Dad showed you around?” she asked with a calculating look, and Bess knew she was thinking about that dreadful lie Jude had told her.

“He can show me around later,” Bess promised the young girl. “Now, how about bed? I’m so sleepy I can hardly stand up.”

“Where are your things, señorita, and I will unpack,” Aggie volunteered.

“I’m wearing them,” Bess said gaily, opening her coat to disclose the dress underneath. “Jude decided that I could do without clothes, makeup and all those other frivolous things.”

Aggie scowled. “I will lend you one of my gowns,” she said. “Men, they never think about these things,” she muttered as she went out the door.

Katy was watching her closely. “Why didn’t you pack a suitcase?” she asked slowly.

“Because your father picked me up in what I have on and carried me bodily out the door, that’s why,” she said.

Katy tried to stifle a laugh, but it burst out anyway. “Good night, Bess!” she said, and beat a hasty retreat back to her own room, closing the door quickly. Behind it, there was hysterical laughter.

* * *

Bess had forgotten just how big Big Mesquite really was until she walked around the grounds with Katy the next day. The house, which she’d always loved, was very old and very Victorian, with a turret and exquisite gingerbread woodwork. Jude had obviously had it painted not too many months ago, because it was blistering white.

“I remember summers long ago when I used to swing in that front porch swing,” Bess recalled dreamily, hanging on to a small mimosa tree in the front yard as she stared toward the house. “And your grandmother would make iced tea and big, thick tomato sandwiches and I’d swing and munch.”

“Did you and Dad used to play together?” Katy asked, all eyes.

“No, darling,” Bess said, laughing. “Your father was already a grown man when I was barely in my teens. I hardly ever saw him in those days. He was away at college, and then in Vietnam.”

“Oh, yes, I know all about the war,” Katy said seriously. “Dad’s got an awful—”

“Katy!” Aggie called out the door. “Deanne wants to talk to you on the telephone!”

“Okay, Aggie!” Katy moved away from the tree. “Deanne’s my best friend,” she explained. “I won’t be long.”

“Don’t hurry on my account,” Bess told her. “I’ll just ramble around and look at the stock.”

“Don’t go close to the corral. Dad’s got Blanket in there,” the young girl cautioned.

“What a name. Does it belong to a bull?”

“No, a horse.” Katy laughed. “They call her that because she likes to fall on people—like a blanket.”

“I’ll watch my step,” Bess promised.

Katy ran into the house and Bess wandered quietly around the yard in the same jersey dress she’d worn the day before. She had one of Jude’s Windbreakers wrapped around herself to keep out the cold, and she hated the pleasure it gave her to wear something of his. She was really going to have to stop feeling that way. If he ever found out how he affected her, it could be a disaster, in more ways than one.

As she was thinking about him, he came out of the barn with a halter in his hand, heading straight for Blanket.

Bess climbed up on the fence and leaned her arms over the top rail. “Going to bounce around a little?” she asked. “Don’t fall off, now.”

“No, I’m not going to bounce around,” he said curtly. “I’m going to put her on a halter so Bandy can work her.”

She watched him approach the horse, talking softly and gently to it in a tone she’d never heard him use except, infrequently, with Katy. He moved closer inch by inch, soothing the horse, until he was near enough to ease the halter over the jet black muzzle and lock it in place. He continued to stroke the silky black mane while the horse trembled in the chill air, not from cold but from nervousness.

Bess didn’t speak. She didn’t dare. Jude would climb all over her if she spooked the horse. But he glanced at her warily when the little bowlegged cowboy named Bandy came out of the barn with a lunging rein to attach to the halter.

Jude said something to the cowboy and then climbed over the fence, perching himself on the top rail near Bess. He was wearing denims and the old battered gray Stetson he used on the rare occasions when he was around the ranch. He looked good in denim. He looked good in anything, that long, muscular body sheer elegance when he moved.

“Don’t trust her too far, Bandy,” Jude said as he lit a cigarette. He glanced at Bess. “She’s a lot like some women. All long legs and nerves.”

Her chin lifted. She’d put up her hair to keep it out of her face, and she looked chic and elegant even in his leather jacket.

“Where did you get that?” he asked, indicating the jacket.

“Aggie got it out for me,” she said defensively. “You wouldn’t let me pack,” she reminded him.

“It doesn’t do much for you,” he remarked derisively. “It keeps me warm,” she returned. “But if you want it back…”

“Oh, hell, stop playing Joan of Arc,” he growled, his green eyes glittering at her over a wisp of cigarette smoke. “It’s an old jacket. I had it when I was in Vietnam.”

And probably it brought back memories he’d rather not dredge up, she thought, feeling guilty. She averted her eyes to the cowboy working the young filly on the leading rein in a long, wide circle.

“You didn’t hit the floor screaming bloody murder this morning,” he remarked. “Does that mean you’ve stopped fighting the idea of marriage?”

She drew one long, polished fingernail across the top rail of the fence and watched it scar the old wood. “Katy was so excited,” she said quietly.

“Yes, I told you that.”

Her dark eyes pinned him. “I don’t like you very much, Judah Barnett Langston,” she said.

He took a long draw from the cigarette and pursed his chiseled lips. “What a disappointment,” he said after a minute, and his eyes were mocking. “I thought you might be harboring a secret passion for me.”

“Sorry to dash your dreams,” she replied. “I’d rather lust after a rattlesnake.”