High Country Rebel

Cat sat there, couldn’t bring herself to move. She felt an odd peace sitting here, witnessing Talon in sleep. She was rarely at peace with a man around. Oh, the guys that she worked with at the fire department were all known quantities and, over the years, had finally accepted that a woman could do as good as a man in that vocation. She treated them like the brothers she’d never had. And she was no longer threatened by any of them.

But a new man like this one? Well, she’d usually go into threat-and-defense mode. Her past taught her not to trust a man’s intentions toward her. Ever. She’d blundered in and made some hellacious mistakes with men who’d encouraged her to let down her defenses. Beau Magee had been her last mistake. And now she was paying a heavy emotional price for her poor choice. She couldn’t blame herself for not trusting, but then, why did Talon seem so...unthreatening?

Maybe he was the worst kind of man—the one who seemed kind on the outside but was a predator on the inside. And yet, she saw humor and kindness in Talon’s expression. Plus, he treated his dog with love and respect. There had to be goodness in Talon.

Finally, Cat roused herself and reluctantly got up and left. Quietly closing the door, she walked into the warm, bright yellow kitchen. Val, Griff and Gus were sitting at the table having coffee.

“How’s he doin’?” Gus asked.

“Much better,” Cat murmured, pouring herself coffee and sitting down next to Gus. “Fever’s broken and that’s good. He drank a glass of water.”

Gus nodded, eyeing Cat. “He has you to thank for saving his hide.”

Cat took a sip of the coffee. “Helping people is the reward in itself.”

Val smiled across the table at Cat. “You’re always so humble, Cat.”

Gus moved her hand across Cat’s shoulders. “She’s just built that way, Val.”

“Talon owes his life to you and I’m sure he’ll be grateful,” Griff said.

Cat always felt uncomfortable when people praised her. “Hey, did someone call Sandy Holt?”

“I did,” Val said. “She’s thrilled Talon is here but worried sick about him having pneumonia. I told her that he’d be okay and would call her soon.” Standing, Val went to the counter to start cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

Cat turned and looked out the windows. “That blizzard isn’t letting up, is it?”

“No,” Griff muttered. “It’s not going to stop until late tonight, from what the radio said.”

Val patted her husband’s shoulder. “It’s a stay-in-and-work day.”

“Are you still going to show us how to can today?” Cat flashed Gus a hopeful look.

“Of course,” Gus said, grinning. “You have to stay near if Talon needs you, anyway.”

The suggestion filled Cat with warmth. She wanted to be near Talon. It was more than a patient-paramedic relationship and she knew it. But she wasn’t willing to share that awareness with them. It was embarrassing that she wanted to touch him. How could she be drawn so powerfully to him, out of the blue like this?

“Well,” Griff said, and sighed, “I’m going out to the barn. Got to tinker with the tractor engine. And I’ve got plenty of work to fill this day.” He slowly rose and picked up his empty coffee mug to bring to the dishwasher. “You learn the art of canning today. I’ll brave that weather and work out in the barn. I’ll see you at lunch.”

Cat watched the tender glances between Val and Griff. How many times had she wished she had that kind of intimacy and love with a man? She had to be cursed. That was all there was to it.

Gus slowly rose from her chair and Cat turned toward the elder.

“Are you really up for teaching us today, Gus?” Cat knew she had arthritis in the hip she’d broken a year earlier and was moving a lot slower. Weather affected it, too, and today she was walking stiffly.

“Of course,” Gus said, smoothing down the blue apron across her thighs. “I’m going to show you how to can corn, beans and tomatoes.”

Griff sauntered out of the kitchen, threw on his cowboy hat, shrugged into his sheepskin coat and pulled the gloves out of the pocket. “See you ladies at noon.” He grinned and caught Gus’s attention. “What’s for lunch?”

“I’m gonna make a big pot of chicken soup,” she said. “Talon’s gonna need something good and filling to eat and the rest of us can use a hearty soup on a day like this.”

Griff leaned against the entrance, pulling on the gloves. “Miss Gus? Any chance you’re going to make homemade biscuits to go with that soup?”

Gus grinned. “Just for you, Griff, I’ll make a batch.”

“Thank you,” he called. “See you ladies later....”

Val straightened and turned toward Gus. “He loves your biscuits. I wish I could bake them the way you do.”

Gus patted Val’s arm. “Not to worry. I intend to be around until I’m at least a hundred. Griff will get lots of biscuits between now and then,” she said, and chortled.

Cat laughed, finishing off her coffee. She loved being a part of the Hunter and McPherson families. And she was grateful to be hired as a part-time wrangler on her days off to help out Val and Griff. “Make lots, Miss Gus. I love hot, homemade biscuits with butter and honey on them, too.”

Gus shook her head and gave Val a look. “We got a bunch of biscuit eaters on our hands, don’t we, Val?”

“Yes,” Val said, smiling, “we do. I have a hunch when Talon gets better, he’s going to eat a lot of food. He’s so thin.”

Cat washed out her mug in the sink. “He’s way underweight. I looked in his wallet and all he had was a twenty-dollar bill on him. That’s nothing.”

Gus snorted. “He was makin’ sure Zeke was eating and he cheated himself in the process.”

Cat rested her hips against the counter. “Why doesn’t he have more money?”

Val shut the dishwasher. “Because he’s been sending most of his paychecks home to his mother, Cat. And when he got wounded and then discharged from the Navy, his source of income dried up. He’s out of work. Poor guy was probably trying to make it home before he ran out of whatever savings he had.”

“Twenty dollars,” Gus grumbled. “That’s paltry. And why was he walking out in that consarned blizzard?” She shook her silver head. “Makes no good sense to me.”

Val sighed. “Gus, he probably has post-traumatic stress disorder. Talon was in black ops. Those guys are bound to have it big-time.”

Cat frowned. “And that means he couldn’t ride in a bus? Or fly in a plane?”

Val shrugged. “He’s got a combat assault dog at his side. I’d imagine the plane or bus people wouldn’t want the dog on board. My guess is he’s hitched and walked to get back home.”

Cat said nothing, but felt even more deeply for Talon. “And his mother has no money to loan him to get him from the hospital to here. Rough deal.”

Val grimaced. “Being in the military is always tough, Cat. And Talon’s going to have his hands full once he gets back on his feet. Sandy’s in bad shape and the chemo is really taking her down. I worry....”

Because she was a paramedic, Cat knew what chemo did, understood it took a poison to kill a poison, but the person suffered horrendously during the process. “I wish we could do more for Sandy.”

Val picked up some of the mason jars from a box on the floor and started lining them up on the counter. “Talon is coming home at a terrible time. I’m worried he won’t be able to handle it all.”

Cat bent down and put the last of the canning jars on the counter. She picked up the box and got it out of the way. “No one goes through life alone. Maybe Talon’s going to need support himself.”

Val pulled open a drawer and drew out two aprons, handing one to Cat. “We all need help from time to time. He should go see Jordana. She’s an expert on PTSD and helped a lot of vets in this county.”

Gus pulled out a huge kettle and set it in the sink to fill it with water. “Well, that young man has a job here at the Bar H. He’s a hard worker. And once he gets well, Griff is going to need a full-time wrangler to help him. Talon grew up on the Triple H, which was next to our ranch, and then Curt Downing stole it from under Sandy Holt’s nose for a song.”

Cat remembered that Curt Downing was dead, shot by an escaped convict on a trail up in the Tetons. All his holdings, according to his will, went to a nephew by the name of Chuck Harper, who sold the ranch to an Easterner. And he was an even worse person that Downing had been. “I wonder if he’ll sell the Triple H?”