Winsor, Linda (9 page)

He
jerked the vehicle out of gear to slow down. "Take over," he shouted,
unbuckling his seat belt and reaching for the door handle.

"Get
outta here!"

In
a flash, Shep braked and was out running toward the charging horse.

"No
wait, not really—" she called after him in disbelief.

Waving
like a wild man, he blocked the stallions path where the Jeep couldn't
maneuver.

Deanna
fumbled at her own seat belt for what seemed like an eternity. She climbed into
the driver's seat as the vehicle, left in neutral, began to drift. Frantic, she
stared at the worn sketch of the gears on the shift knob. It had been years
since she'd managed the gearshift on the family's old station wagon. In fact,
she rarely drove in the city at all, having had to store her car in a garage in
Jersey due to the high cost of parking.

Ahead
of her, the stallion moved like an express train toward Shep. Its ears were laid
back, the stretch from its head to tail level. Hooves pounding the earth, the
horse sped closer and closer, but the cowboy just stood there.

"What,
have you got a death wish or something?" Deanna revved the engine the way
her dad did when waiting for the red light to go green.

To
protect the man from being splattered like a bug on a grill of a moving car,
she jammed the shift into first gear. Her mechanical steed roared and jumped
forward, but the front wheels struck a sharp rut, the wheel jerking in her
hands.

"Whoa,
speed bump," she gasped. Easing up on the accelerator, she shifted into
the next gear before cracking down on it again. As the gears found their teeth,
the Jeep surged ahead in sporadic persistence.

Andretti,
eat your heart out.
She
engaged the third gear and the fourth with NASCAR determination. Ahead she saw
the stallion less than a length away from trampling Shep down.

No
way she could intercept it. Deanna gripped the wheel, bracing for the
inevitable when the sorrel pivoted with a sharp right, rolling Shep to the
side. Or had the man jumped? She swerved into the path of the horse to head it
off, wondering if it could jump a Jeep with the same ease it had brushed off
its master.

"Cut
him off!"

A
glance in the side mirror confirmed that Shep was up and cheering her on. Maybe
the animal was afraid of vehicles, she thought, heartened by the encouragement.
After all, Shep wouldn't urge her into the path of those thundering hooves if
it weren't.

"Heeyah!"
Caught up in the excitement, Deanna dared to release her left hand from the
wheel to wave at the oncoming horse. If only Pop could see her now.

The
mustang was coming head on and something was flying from its mouth, as if it
were snorting and blowing puffs of lather like some rabid wild thing. Snatching
her hand back inside, she seized the wheel with the panic that shot straight
from her clenched fingers to the feet she locked on the brakes. The tires dug
into the dirt, throwing the rear end every which way in a whirlwind of dust,
while she struggled to keep it straight.

It
was impossible on the dry, rock-studded terrain. As if a giant had picked up
the back of the Jeep on one side, the vehicle lurched in a precarious tilt.

Deanna's
scream was cut short by the slam of the rear wheels on the dirt. Something
glass shattered in the back. The whole vehicle bounced a couple of times, but
somehow, she regained control. As she shifted down to slow her reckless pace,
the transmission growled and shrieked in bone-chilling protest.

"Not
reverse! You'll drop the transmission!"

She
barely heard Shep's warning. All she knew was that she had to stop and let the
horse go wherever it darn well pleased.

Again
Deanna hit the brakes and closed her eyes. Moving at a slower speed, the
vehicle came to a jerky halt, coughed, sputtered, and died in a surrounding
cloud of dust. She braced for the horse to run it over, for the crash of metal
and foam-snorting muscle. Instead, Shep's voice penetrated her fear-frozen
state. "Hold tight, Slick."

Opening
her eyes, Deanna saw that the stallion had turned once again, and Shep was on
its heels howling like a banshee. Weak-kneed, she stumbled out of the Jeep,
watching the horse head into an offshoot of the valley. Just visible in the
overgrown brush nearby was an old gate made of rusty wire and boards split and
weathered by the elements. The minute Shep reached the gate, he dragged it
across the opening, closing the mustang in.

Her
mouth dry and her heart beating a mile a minute, Deanna stood by the hot
vehicle as Shep approached it. He was smiling at her, not the least perturbed
that she'd almost busted his Jeep's transmission. She stepped out of his way to
avoid his purposeful stride, only to be gathered up in his arms and swung
around.

"We
got him!" Shep whirled her about once more. Suddenly, he gave her big kiss
on the cheek. "Not bad for a city gal. I'll make a wrangler out of you
yet."

City
gal... wrangler—what was wrong with this picture? The answer was lost, swept
away by the rush of his infectious excitement. All she knew was that she wished
she could preserve the moment. Instead, she bobbed her head like one of those
spring-necked toy dogs that rode in a car back window.

Robbed
of breath by the triumphant high—or was it the dancing gaze that dipped into
her own?—Deanna stood in the wiry circle of Shep's embrace. His damp,
work-hardened body pressed her softer one against the warm metal of the
vehicle. Her heart fell over itself with the male essence of dust, sweat, and
soap assailing her nostrils.

The
sun kindled a sobering light in the umber-dark look that slid from her eyes to
her mouth. Deanna's knees quivered like gelatin. She was no femme fatale, but
she knew when a man was going to kiss her. She held her breath, bracing and yet
knowing that she would yield the moment his lips touched hers.

Leaning
ever so close, Shep brushed her cheek to cheek as he reached around her, inside
the Jeep, and retrieved a coil of rope from behind the drivers seat. "I
better secure the gate before he takes a notion to bolt."

Feeling
as intelligent as one of those dippy toy dogs, Deanna tried to pull herself
together as Shep turned away. "Sure," she called after him, unsure of
anything.

What
the devil had just happened? It was one thing to wax nostalgic with her
charming, good-looking host, but somewhere between daydream, reality, and
roundup, her imagination crossed a line she hadn't even seen—one she vowed
she'd never cross again.

While
Shep reinforced the blooming gate with the blooming rope, Deanna focused on
rebagging the scattered groceries, as though that would distract her from the
emotional riot over what had just happened...
or not happened.
It wasn't
as if she'd been waiting all day for Shep Jones to kiss her; she mopped up the
juice from a bottle that had cracked against the spare wheel well. Everything
else had simply scattered, like her wits. But unlike her wits, the groceries
were unscathed... except for the juice.

By
the time she repacked the supplies and slid into the passenger seat, Shep
returned to the Jeep. His mischief had returned along with that toe-curling
boyish grin of his. Behind him, the stallion circled in its makeshift
enclosure, snorting with indignation.

"I
can't believe we got him." He gave Deanna an appreciative look as he
turned the key, oblivious to the flip-flop it instigated in her chest.
"Much obliged, partner."

It
was probably just the adrenaline rush from all the excitement that caused her
irregular heartbeat.

The
vehicle roared to life under its master's acceleration, muting her hapless,
"No problem."

At
least she didn't owe him a new transmission for her inadvertent slip into
reverse while still rolling ahead. Right now, all Deanna wanted was to get away
from the spot where she'd nearly made a fool of herself. When would she ever
learn how to read men, really read them? She thought that he was going for a
kiss, not a stupid rope.

The
Jeep struck a bump, reminding Deanna to fasten her seat belt as she grazed the
headliner with her head. After dropping the visor to see to the condition of
her hair and finding nothing but an old map clipped to it, she used the side
view mirror instead. She was a little pale but didn't look too worse for wear,
at least on the outside.

And
it could be worse, she thought, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. If she
had dropped the transmission, they might—heaven forbid—have had to rely on the
stallion to get them home. With a shiver, she glanced in the side view mirror
where the horse was now reduced to a tiny image in their dusty wake.

Home?
The
word stuck in her mind.
They
weren't going home. Shep was. She had no
home. Deanna swallowed the sudden well of self-pity rising in her throat before
she lost all dignity and cried. She was made of sterner stuff.

"So
how'd you like your first roundup?" Shep fiddled with the tuner on the
radio again.

"Great!"
Deanna answered with forced enthusiasm to cover the fact that her heart still
hadn't settled on a normal beat from the near miss with the horse, not to
mention the near kiss. The man thinks
horse,
so talk
horse.
"Weren't
you afraid that stallion would run you down?"

Shep
pulled his hat down low to protect his eyes from the western sun, but his mouth
was sheepishly tilted. "The thought did cross my mind, though to step on a
man goes against a horses grain. All it usually wants is out."

"But
does the horse know that?" She was going to be just fine. Nearly getting
run down by a wild stallion was enough to make anyone a basket of nerves. And
it certainly was the closest to living on the edge Deanna had ever been.
"Like maybe he never read the training manuals, you know?"

"Those
of my personal acquaintance did. That's all I can tell you for sure."

At
least he put on no pretense. Unlike C. R., this cowboy was what he was and made
no apologies for it. Not that she had seen a thing he needed to apologize for.
The guy sitting next to her was the real McCoy. If only she'd met him first.

It
was another half hour before they reached the main street of the ramshackle
ghost-town-turned-homestead. Smoky ran out to meet them, barking and tail wagging.
Breaking away from a few of the horses grazing in a fenced pasture behind the
old bam, Patch—the one-eyed horse—came trotting up to the front corral. His
nicker split the air as the motor of the Jeep died.

"Looks
like Old MacDonald's welcoming committee," she said, as a yellow tabby cat
leaped up on the hood and stared at them through the windshield. "But, if
I have my nursery song right, you're short a chicken, a cow, and a pig."

"Tick's
got a couple of laying hens down by his trailer, the cows are grazing
elsewhere, but the only pig around here is in the freezer." Shep grabbed
most of the bags in the back of the Jeep and started toward the house, once
again all business. "Do you mind getting the rest? I want to saddle up and
go after that red before he breaks out. He doesn't have enough room to work up
a jump, but he's a wily buzzard."

"Just
leave the bags on the stoop and go on," Deanna assured him. "I'll put
together some supper while you're gone." Salad and...
something.

"Much
obliged, ma'am."

The
real McCoy, Deanna thought, quite taken once again by the simple, sincere
avowal. And that drawled
ma'am
tickled her fancy

"How
about if I wash down the Jeep, too," she called after him as he strode
toward the barn. For some reason she was feeling ambitious. "I can't even
tell what color it is."

Shep
stopped at the livery stable door and tipped his hat. "Keep this up,
Slick, and I just might take a mind to keep you." With that, he
disappeared inside.

Fumbling
for a ready reply, she slipped into the house instead, but not without
stumbling over the threshold. Of course the talk about keeping her was just
teasing, nothing more. She had to keep things in their proper perspective with
Shepard Jones. No more mistakes.

"The
last thing you need, Deanna Rose Manetti, is another complication in your
life." From the kitchen window she watched Shep lead Patch out of the barn
and swing up on the mare's back.

Broken
in by wear, his jeans gloved his body like a second skin.
Calvin Klein, eat
your heart out.
Deanna checked an inadvertent sigh when he glanced toward
the house and waved a sun-bronzed forearm in her direction, as if he sensed she
was looking. Could he be as aware of her as she was of him?

"Oh,
enough already."

Instead
of dropping her fascination with Shep, Deanna opened the cupboard doors above
the kitchen counter. One could tell a lot about a person by what he kept in his
cabinets. Instant coffee, some artificial creamer, a box of sugar cubes, and a
few basic staples rested on yellowed lace-edged shelf paper—the sort Deanna
hadn't seen since her childhood in Brooklyn.

A
simple man with simple tastes, but not quite in the twenty-first century It
would be Manetti and Rubbermaid to the rescue. And a good Starbuck's brew would
put that jarred mess to shame. After all, the way to a man's heart...

"So
who wants a way to his heart, Gram?" she argued with her grandmother's
reminder embedded in her memory. In Deanna's line of work, simple was easier,
cheaper, and usually more effective. "I'll just earn my room and board by
organizing him. It's safer that way."