How to Wrangle a Cowboy (17 page)

“And you’re doing okay? You sure?”

“I’m fine,” Ashley said. “Although I’m thinking maybe I should develop some tummy trouble too. It seems like a sure way to get a man’s attention.”

Lindsey laughed, but then her stomach rumbled so audibly she wondered if Ashley could hear it.

Apparently, she was having tummy trouble of her own.

* * *

Lindsey ran a soft cloth over the back, belly, and neck of a bright-blue horse with a pink mane and tail, then turned her attention to his delicate, slender legs. As a child, she’d loved helping her grandmother clean the blown glass horses that were “stabled” in the front parlor’s curio cabinet. As an adult, the task brought back sweet memories.

“They’ve waited a long time for their checkup,” Grace said with a smile. “You used to pretend you were a veterinarian, and the horses were your patients, remember?”

Seated cross-legged on the floor of the parlor, Lindsey set the blue horse down and reached for another. “You’d groom them, and I’d diagnose them with all kinds of terrible things.” She picked up a three-legged Thoroughbred and frowned. “But I was a terrible vet. I broke this one’s leg.”

“And felt so bad about it.” Grace looked down from her chair with a fond smile. “I swear, you had to be the only six-year-old in the world who knew what laminitis was. And look at you now. Bud would be so proud.”

Lindsey continued her work. For once in her life, she didn’t know what to say to her grandmother. She and Grace had never run out of conversation before, but that was because Lindsey had never had secrets to hide.

She didn’t want to talk about Bud. Not now. Maybe not ever. But she couldn’t escape the topic for long. Grace was at the age where a woman lived on memories—sweet, unsullied memories of a love she believed was near legendary.

“Careful, or you’ll cause another fracture,” Grace said.

Lindsey realized she’d been manhandling the delicate figurine and set it down as her grandmother nudged a plate of cookies her way.

“What’s wrong, hon? Take a cookie break and tell me about it.”

Lindsey picked out a cookie and bit into it.
Heaven.

There was so much bothering her besides her grandfather’s affair, it was easy to answer honestly.

“I’m worried.”

“About the ranch?”

“About the ranch.” Lindsey chewed contemplatively, remembering how quickly Ashley had suspected something was amiss with the foreman. “And about you. I know you trust Shane Lockhart, Grandma, but I’m not sure you should.”

Grace gave Lindsey a look filled with pity. “Not every man’s like Rodger, honey. Shane is a fine man.” Her still-lovely face creased in a smile. “And a real catch. You could do a lot worse.”

Lindsey rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking if I should
date
him, Grandma. I don’t even like him.”

Grace’s smile grew mischievous. “You like looking at him.”

“I’m a normal red-blooded American woman.” Lindsey laughed. “He’s just—you know.” She flailed one hand uselessly in the air. The truth was, she
did
like looking at Shane Lockhart. She liked dreaming about him too. In dreams, kissing led to caressing, caressing to a tumble between the sheets. She’d pictured it all—even the morning after, when they’d make love in a shaft of sunlight.

Finished with her cookie, she picked up another figurine, a tiny thing the color of topaz with a carefully applied black mane and tail. It was one of her grandmother’s favorites.

Careful, careful. Be gentle. He’s gentle. Those rough, calloused fingers are careful, so careful…

Fumbling the little horse between her fingers, she nearly dropped it.

“Oops.”

Thank goodness her grandmother couldn’t read her mind. Although the way Grace was looking at her, it seemed she knew exactly what the problem was.

“Maybe I should do this later.” Lindsey set the horse back in his spot and turned to face her grandmother, who lifted her brows. “We need to talk. Really talk.”

“That serious?”

“That serious.” Lindsey picked up another cookie, just to have something to do. “With Grandad gone, Shane has control of everything, including your finances. How do you know he’s not skimming profits or selling cattle behind your back?”

Grace’s smile vanished, replaced by a thin, grim line, and the blue eyes turned to gray steel. Lindsey had seen that expression a couple times before, once when her grandmother had caught a distant cousin at a family barbecue teasing Lindsey and making her cry, and once when she’d caught a cowhand abusing a horse. Grace might seem like a sweet old lady, but she was fierce as a bull with a burr in his britches when it came to cruelty of any kind.

“Really, Lindsey. Nobody could put one over on Bud. He watches those books like a hawk.”

Present tense.

Maybe Shane was right about Grace. She seemed suddenly unaware of her husband’s passing.

“Besides, we’ve known Shane a long time. You remember him from before, don’t you?” Grace asked. “You met him years ago, when you were just a girl. You seemed quite taken with him then.”

“Taken with him?” Lindsey did her best to laugh. “As I remember it, I practically ran away and hid.”

“Like I said, quite taken with him.”

“That was because I knew I shouldn’t be. Bud said he and his brothers weren’t safe. He didn’t want me around them.”

Grace gave her a sharp glance. “He said that to you?”

“No.” Lindsey fidgeted. Even now, all grown up, she was ashamed of her childhood transgressions. “I eavesdropped.”

“That’s all right then.” Grace nodded, satisfied. “Because if Bud said such a thing to you, even now, I’d have to speak with him. It’s not right to be judgmental.”

Lindsey looked up in alarm. Her grandmother was definitely confused if she thought she could speak to Bud anywhere but in her prayers. Maybe Shane Lockhart was right, and her grandmother had a serious problem.

Maybe he was genuinely worried about her grandmother, while she’d missed all the signs of impending dementia.

Maybe the man himself was the least of her problems.

Chapter 21

“Grandma?” Lindsey gazed up into her grandmother’s eyes, wondering what she should say, what she should do. It scared her to see even the smallest cracks forming in her grandmother’s quick mind.

“Oh, I know he’s gone.” Grace picked up a glass horse and frowned at it. “I just don’t always want to admit it.”

Lindsey watched her grandmother’s hands, the knuckles swollen with arthritis but the touch delicate as ever as she polished the horse’s neck. It had just been a small crack, then. A brief exit from reality. Maybe that was to be expected, since Bud’s death had been such a shock.

She didn’t know what to do, so she simply continued her line of thought. “But about Shane. I know he comes from a—a rough background.” Lindsey knew even as she said the words that she was treading on thin ice. “Why should you trust him?”

“Because a man can’t help where he’s from. He can only control who he becomes. And Shane became a good man, and a strong one.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he was raised by Bill and Irene Decker,” Grace said. “And because he overcame such a dreadful past.”

“Dreadful?” Lindsey was a little ashamed of her interest in the seedier aspects of Shane’s past. But it wasn’t just idle curiosity; she had good reason to find out all she could about Shane Lockhart.

“He was a foster child, you know. At Phoenix House.”

Lindsey nodded. “I’ve passed that place a couple times. It looks pretty nice.”

“It’s changed.” Grace’s tone grew dark with drama. “Back then, it was a terrible place for children. They had to shut it down, the abuse was so bad.” Her hand trembled as she picked up a cleaning cloth and went to work on the figurine. “The woman who ran it barely fed those boys. That’s one reason I know Shane would never skim money. Because that’s what she did—pocketed half the food budget for herself.”

“But they weren’t, um”—Lindsey hated to say the word—“abused physically, were they? Or—you know.”

“Depends on your definition,” Grace said. “They were punished for every little thing. Made to stay in the basement, in rooms that had no light. No beds. Not so much as a pot to—you know.”

Lindsey winced again, this time for Shane’s sake. The man might be mostly a mystery to her, but it was obvious he had his pride. “I hope that didn’t happen to Shane.”

“I suspect he spent quite a bit of time in that basement,” Grace said. “You might have noticed he’s not a man who backs down.”

Lindsey had noticed that, all right. “So the place got shut down, and he went to the Deckers.”

“Best thing that ever happened to him, and those two brothers of his. You remember them.”

Lindsey grinned. “They’re hard to forget.”

“All of them did well, but Shane did better than any of them.” Grace fairly glowed with pride. “He worked for Bud all through high school. His brothers went into rodeo, but Bud talked Shane into getting an education, and he went to the University of Wyoming and majored in agriculture. That man knows ranching from experience
and
from book learning.” She reached over and patted Lindsey’s leg, as if to drive home her point. “We’re lucky to have him, and don’t you forget it.”

“And the little boy?”

Grace sighed. “Shane got his girlfriend pregnant in high school.” She lifted a hand in a “halt” gesture. “Now, don’t say that shows he was bad. Most kids experiment with sex in high school these days. He just got caught.”

“Who was the mother?”

“Tara O’Dell. Prettiest girl in Wynott.” Grace sighed. “A lot of folks say she did it on purpose, but I don’t think so. She was one of those queen bee girls. Head cheerleader, homecoming queen, and mean as a snake. You know the type.”

Funny, Shane didn’t seem like the type to attract a woman like that. A foster kid? Working on somebody else’s ranch after school while everybody else was out having fun? That would never suit a queen bee.

“So did he marry her?”

“He would have, but Tara took the baby and left town.”

“Most guys would be relieved.”

“Not Shane. He loved that little boy before he was even born. He and Bud had long talks about being a dad. But she took off and married some other man, so he didn’t know her last name anymore. He spent every break from school traveling around, town to town, looking for Cody.”

Popping the last bite of her cookie into her mouth, Lindsey turned and squirted Windex on a soft cloth so Grace wouldn’t see her eyes tearing up. The thought of Shane as a boy of eighteen searching for his lost son did something to her heart.

“So is Cody just back for the summer?” Lindsey didn’t know why that thought made her heart sink. Maybe it was the thought of that adorable child being turned over to the kind of mother who would hide him from a father who loved him. Or maybe it was just the way Shane loved the boy. Lindsey hated to think the child might be taken away.

“It’s forever, far as we can tell. She turned up in some fancy car and dropped the boy off.”

“You mean she just
left
him?”

“That’s right.” Grace scowled, something so rare it was a little scary. “Cody was asleep when she dropped him off. He woke up in a strange house, with a father he’d never met and his mother gone for good.”

Lindsey’s mind filled with images of Shane with Cody—squatting down to talk to him man-to-man, standing at the funeral with his hands on the boy’s thin shoulders, and watching him ride, his eyes alight with pride. Even as her heart squeezed into a fistful of pain for a little lost boy, it swelled at thought of the father he’d found.

“I guess he’s not such a bad guy.”

Grace laughed. “Not so bad at all.”

“And Bud trusted him?”

“Loved him like a son. Still does.”

“Grandma.” Lindsey bit her lower lip, considering how to say what had to be said. It seemed best to be direct. “Granddad’s gone. You know that, right?”

“Of course.” Grace’s fingers spasmed suddenly and the horse she was cleaning leaped into the air. Fortunately, it landed in her lap. She grasped at it quickly, as if trying to cover her nervousness. “Of course I do. But to me, you know, it seems as if he never left. As if he never—you know.”

She picked up the horse with shaking hands and resumed her work, avoiding Lindsey’s concerned gaze.

Finally, Lindsey sighed and resumed her own work, cleaning the delicate limbs and the glass mane and tail of another fragile figurine. She didn’t know if she had more problems now or fewer. She understood Shane could probably be trusted with the ranch’s finances, but she was also starting to realize he was right about Grace’s mental fragility. And the fact that Bud had loved Shane “like a son” might mean he’d expected a lot more out of the will than he’d gotten, which would explain his hostility to Lindsey.

Well, his initial hostility. You couldn’t call a man hostile when he kissed you silly.

“Let Shane help you, dear.” Grace seemed suddenly sharper, her voice stronger. “He knows this place as well as Bud did. If you have doubts, talk them over with him. He’ll give you good advice, and he’ll teach you how to do everything that needs doing, from mending fences to handling the bulls.”

Setting the newly cleaned horse back in place, Lindsey stood and stretched. She felt stiff as an eighty-year-old woman herself. The sun was low in the sky, and she was starting to regret the number of cookies she’d eaten. She also regretted the number of times she’d been rude to Shane Lockhart. She’d lost count of both rudeness and cookies, but she could feel them both, sodden and heavy in the pit of her stomach.

She had a lot of fences to mend, the kind you couldn’t fix with pliers and barbed wire. It was going to take some bitter pills of swallowed pride and a major attitude adjustment to get the job done.

Chapter 22

Lindsey’s first fence-mending opportunity came that night, at dinner. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to speak. She’d quietly eaten her pot roast and occasionally stared at Lockhart, intending to start some kind of conversation.

But a conversation about what? Bud and Grace had always insisted that everyone at the ranch should eat at one table. There were only two young men working for the ranch right now, high school boys with peach fuzz on their cheeks who blushed every time they looked at Lindsey. She didn’t feel right talking about her personal business in front of them.