Cowboys Do It Best

“I’d be glad to help.” He couldn’t quite say that without smiling.

She turned the frown on him, then turned away, tucking the phone into her sling next to her arm. “The horses have already been taken care of this morning,” she told him, opening the back door and ignoring his offer. “Usually I do it, but Raul came over early today as a favor.”

And who, he wondered, was Raul, and just what kind of favors did he do for her? Chase liked the idea of doing “favors” for his new boss. He didn’t like the idea that someone else might already be doing for her what he was trying to persuade himself he shouldn’t do. “Raul?” he asked. “Is he a...friend of yours?”

She paused, holding the door open and looking at him suspiciously. “Why?”

He gave her his most innocent smile. “Just wondered why you didn’t offer him the job.”

She continued to frown. “Raul is in the eleventh grade. He can’t put in the kind of hours I’ll need in the next couple of weeks, but he’s a good hand.”

Chase nodded blandly as desire tightened down another notch. It doesn’t matter if another man is in the picture or not, he told himself. Not if he intended to keep his distance.

Was that what he intended? “I guess I’ll meet Raul this afternoon, then.”

“Right,” she muttered, giving him one last, wary look. “Well, come on.”

She’d barely set foot on the painted gray floor of the wooden porch when a black-and-white tornado shaped like a dog ran up to her, yipping and twisting itself in tight, excited circles. For the first time, Chase saw what Summer looked like when she wasn’t suspicious or hurting. When she smiled and meant it.

His breath caught in his chest.

“Hmm?” she said, stroking the head of the frantically happy dog. “Did you say something?”

“Quite a watchdog you have there,” he managed to say. She was beautiful. It came as a shock. Not just pretty or sexy or desirable. When Summer smiled with that soft look in her eyes, she was flat-out beautiful. “I imagine she’d be hell on a burglar, running around in circles until the poor fellow got dizzy from watching her.”

The light in her eyes changed from tenderness to amusement. “Oh, Kelpie here is pretty useless as a watchdog. She loves everybody. But I’d better take you over and introduce you to Hannah.” She walked over to where a large brown lump rested on the edge of the porch. The lump lifted its head and thumped its tail once when Summer lowered herself into a careful squat to pet it. “Hannah knows Rosie, so she didn’t mind when you two came up to the door, but we’d better give you a formal introduction now.”

Did she seriously think that decrepit old hound was a watchdog? Willing to play along, Chase set his bag down and hunkered down beside her. He caught just a whiff of Summer’s scent. Strawberries. It made him smile, because it suited her. “Hi, there, Hannah,” he said to the lump. “My name’s Chase.”

“I had something a bit more basic in mind,” Summer said dryly. “Here, give me your hand.” She reached out. and took it.

Heat lightning. That was all Chase could think of when she took his hand in hers—the hot, unexpected stroke of lightning that can flash unpredictably across a cloudless summer sky. Involuntarily, wanting only to hang on to the sensation a moment longer, his hand closed around hers. Her skin was soft, but her hand wasn’t. It was a strong hand, tough and capable.

That, too, stirred him.

He heard the hitch in her breath. But she didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge what arced between them. Instead, after a second she said, as level and calm as if nothing had happened, “Now we let Hannah smell our hands, so that she remembers your scent and mine mixed together.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” he said huskily, and stretched out their joined hands. The hound lifted her nose and sniffed at them. “Your scent and mine, mixed together...”

She jerked her hand away. She wasn’t quite fast enough, though, to rise to her feet without Chase’s assistance. He got hold of her good arm and steadied her.

Chase didn’t want to see all the color drain out of her face again, the way it had earlier. He’d cracked enough bones himself to know she had to be hurting. She wasn’t about to admit it, though, or go rest. Chase understood the need to keep on going when it made more sense to quit, and he was beginning to get the idea that this woman had an oversize helping of pride.

She pulled away. “Mr. McGuire, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your hands to yourself.”

Would she, now? “Well, I can’t quite promise to do that, ma’am. Not when you’ve been hurt and are maybe a bit too stubborn to admit you need a hand now and again. But I’ll keep what you said in mind.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, “and you know it. A man like you is well aware of—”

“Just a minute,” he said. “That’s the second time you’ve said that—‘a man like me.’ Now, I know we’ve never met. I’d remember. So you must have heard some gossip...or else you’re getting me mixed up with someone else. Like your husband, maybe?”

She looked as startled as if he’d reached out and slapped her. “I didn’t—you—did you know Jimmie?”

“I ran into him a couple times. Look, I know some rodeo wives get a bad feel for the rodeo and everyone connected with it, especially if their husbands stay on the circuit as much of the year as Jimmie did.”

She just gave him a hard, baffled stare and turned and started across the yard. Chase was left to pick up his bag and follow. Had she reacted that way because she’d been so much in love with the good-looking bum she’d been married to? Or did she already know plenty about Jimmie Callaway and just not want to discuss it?

The kennel was a long, cinder block building on the other side of the paddock, about twenty yards from the stable. It was painted white, with trim the same dark green as the little house they’d just left, and typical of what he’d seen so far. Not fancy, but sturdy and well maintained.

Chase automatically slowed when they reached the pole fencing surrounding the paddock so he could look over the four horses inside. Two of them he marked immediately as the sort of plodders she might put a beginner up on for those lessons she’d mentioned. He wouldn’t mind getting a leg over either of the other two, though. “That’s a fine-looking dun,” he said, referring to a mare with a coat a few shades lighter than Summer’s own golden brown hair. “She’s mostly quarter horse, isn’t she?”

Summer paused and glanced back over her shoulder at him, her blue eyes still chilly. “Mostly. She’s unregistered, but her dam had a lot of Thoroughbred in her.”

He nodded. The mare had the dainty ears and face of a Thoroughbred and the muscular hocks of a quarter horse. At that moment she perked up those pretty ears and ambled toward them. “I’ve seen some fine horses with that mix. She’s yours?”

The compliment pleased her, but she didn’t want to be pleased. Not yet. She turned to greet the horse. “Honey-Do and I have been together a long time. I started training her with my father’s help when I was nine. The two of us learned barrel racing together. She’s pushing twenty now, so mostly I use her for Western pleasure these days.”

“Honeydew?” he asked, trying to figure out the reason for the name. “Like the melon?”

“No.” Summer reached out her good hand to the horse, who had her neck stretched out, obviously confident of getting attention. Summer gave the horse a good, brisk rub up the jawbone and along the cheek strap.

Those lovely, capable hands of hers could do a number of things well, Chase felt certain. He could think of one or two in particular he’d like. He could, but he’d better not. Not if he was going to keep his hands off her.

“She started out plain old Honey when I first got her, for her color. I was nine,” she said, and spared him a slight smile, “and not especially original. Pretty soon, though, her name became Honey-Do as in, ‘Honey, do this,’ or ‘Honey, do that.’ Because Honey does just about anything you ask of her—don’t you, sweetheart?” she finished, her voice dropping into a croon.

Everything about her warmed up around animals. He couldn’t help wondering what it would take to get her to heat up for him. “What about the paint with the roan markings?”. he asked, setting down his duffel. “Is he yours?”

The raw-boned gelding he referred to was a big, ugly brute, maybe seventeen hands high. The animal looked up just then from pulling bites of hay off the bale set in the center of the paddock. When he saw that another horse was getting attention, he snorted and trotted over, using his weight to push Honey-Do aside and stretching out his own big, Roman nose.

“For my sins, he is,” Summer said. “He’s a two-year-old, so he’s not much on manners yet.” She turned sideways so the inquisitive horse couldn’t nudge her bad shoulder, then had to push his nose away when he started to lip the sleeve of her shirt. “Some cowboy wannabes out of San Antonio bought him and his mother when he was a colt, then lost interest. They sold the mare easily enough, but the future was looking pretty dim for Horatio here when I heard about him three months ago. I picked him up dirt cheap because they didn’t really want to sell to the knackers. I’d planned on training him fast in the basics and selling him, but I guess that’s not going to happen now.”

“I don’t know why you couldn’t do just that,” Chase said, leaning on the top pole to give the jealous Horatio a good scratch behind the ears. “He’s not exactly a pretty face, and he’s too big for arena work, but his gait looks smooth. I bet he’d make a fine working horse.”

“Timing,” she said succinctly. “In order to make any money on him, I need to get him trained before he eats up my profit. All I can give him is the basics. Like you said, he’s not pretty enough for the arena, and I don’t know how to train him for range roping or cutting, so I couldn’t expect to get any great price for him.”

Chase thought about that. “You’ve had him on the longe line?”

She nodded. “He’s stubborn, but he’s bright and not easily spooked. He walks, trots and lopes on the longe now, and you’re right about his gait. I’d just gotten him used to the bridle and was ready to move on to the saddle when this happened.” With a nod of her chin she indicated her sling. “Now he’ll forget what he knows before I can start working him again.”

“You do much training?”

“Right now it’s just Horatio and Maverick. That’s the Bates’s sorrel gelding—the one that dumped me on my shoulder yesterday. They wanted me to get him over some of his bad habits, so I’m working him as well as boarding him.” She stared out over the paddock, a frown pleating her brow.

“I’ll train them.”

That brought her head around fast—too fast, judging by the way she winced. “I’m not paying you trainer’s wages.”

She was a suspicious one, wasn’t she? He smiled. “You don’t have to. I figure I might find training a couple of ornery horses a nice change of pace after mucking out stalls and shoveling dog poop.”