Kitabı oku: «Midnight Faith»

Chapter One

Something was definitely wrong when a man had to sneak around before daylight to ride a horse on his own place.

It added to his pleasure, though. Clint whistled a tune, very softly, as he led the tall black colt out of the barn toward the indoor arena, its hooves echoing out into the frosty air until they left the asphalt for the gravel. Then the sound lessened to a muted, homey plop.

His guess would be that sitting in the saddle on this lanky rascal would be anything but homey, though. His heartbeat sped up. This colt might be the biggest challenge of all the two-year-olds on the ranch this year.

The black snorted, shook his head and spooked at the kitten that came tumbling out of the tack room ahead of its brother. Then he kicked up behind when Clint tied him.

“Now, now,” Clint said, grinning, “give me a chance to take a seat before you get to bucking, all right?”

He gave the colt a pat on the neck—which bothered him so much he pinned his ears—and went to get the saddle. The tune he kept whistling was “Two-Step around the Christmas Tree,” which he couldn’t get out of his head and which irritated him to no end. If it was left up to him, they’d just skip Christmas this year here on the Rocking M.

Clint slapped that thought right out of his head with his usual skill. Right now would be the best time of his Christmas Eve and he was going to enjoy it without thinking ahead. Or back.

It added a little spice to life, having a secret vice, and it amused him every day. So far, neither of the trainer’s assistants had stepped down off a colt and wondered aloud if somebody else had already ridden him.

Mainly because the idea was inconceivable. The least-skilled horsemen on the trainer’s staff, the assistants to the assistant, started the colts because nobody else wanted that hard, dangerous job. They were young and their bodies could take it.

Clint grinned again. It’d blow everybody’s minds, for sure, to know that the ranch’s owner was doing that work, and he would surely get a kick out of telling them. He couldn’t, though, because it would insult the hands whose duty it was, implying that they weren’t doing their jobs. It would also insult the trainers who supervised those hands, and they’d accuse him of messing up their training programs for these horses.

More to the point, they’d all probably leave the Rocking M and go somewhere else because Clint had not respected their territory. He wouldn’t take that chance—winning trainers who brought attention and celebrity to the ranch were hard to find.

His grin faded. Always, always and forever, he had to do what was good for the ranch.

Sometimes he felt he was the ranch and not a person anymore.

The colt stood, although his ears were still pinned. He let Clint ease the saddle and pad onto him and cinch him up before he kicked out again. Clint’s heart made a triple beat. This one would be the liveliest of the bunch.

He’d sensed that all along, which was why he’d left him for last, he supposed. If the black dumped him and he broke a bone, he would already have had the excitement of riding the others.

He untied the colt and led him into the indoor arena, closed the gate behind them and reached over the fence for a bridle hanging on the rack. The black stood quietly while he exchanged it for the halter, then walked just as quietly as he led him farther into the pen.

After arranging the reins, Clint took hold of the horn and the cantle and lifted his weight onto the saddle, hanging off the side of the horse. No problem. The black didn’t even move—forward, back or sideways.

Clint stepped up into the saddle.

Both feet set in the stirrups, he shifted carefully back and forth. Nothing.

He settled his weight into the depth of the seat. No movement from the young horse. Maybe he’d been entirely wrong about him.

Clint made himself take in a deep breath and then wait, letting it out slowly. The whole, quiet, darkest-before-dawn world waited with him to see what this colt would do.

All he did was look around. Clint followed his gaze. The lighted arena made the patch of night that showed through the top half of the south door as black as the horse.

The glass wall to the customers’ lounge was a dark blank. This morning there were no owners sitting in front of the fireplace talking, getting drinks from the refrigerators, or swiveling in the leather easy chairs to watch the wide-screen TV and their horse being ridden at the same time. No one at all intruding into Clint’s own private world.

The black stared at the glass for so long that Clint realized he was looking at his own reflection. He probably thought it was another horse.

“You’re not gonna spook at your own shadow, are you now, Midnight?”

That was the last coherent thought he had. The colt dropped his head and gave a mighty pitch so fast Clint hadn’t even sensed him thinking about it. His hat flew off, the seat of his pants separated from the saddle, he grabbed for his balance, and from then on, everything he did was on instinct.

His legs clamped the colt’s sides and one hand tangled in the mane as his center of gravity shifted, but he still would have gone over and off if Midnight hadn’t raised his head right then and caught Clint along his neck. The steady, waiting world was long gone as fast as if it had never been, turned upside down and spun sideways.

All he knew was blurs of fence and dirt and the black’s long mane, whipping around. It caught him across the face once, twice, as the jarring landings shook him looser. Finally, by a superhuman effort, using the momentum of the next jump, he fought his way back into the saddle. His balance came back, too. Sort of.

Everything turned to motion and speed, into flying jumps and hard, punishing landings. All he could do was try to keep breath in his body while he tried even harder not to come loose again.

At last, after an eternity of uncertainty, he could feel the rhythm, he could anticipate the force, he could judge how much and which way to respond, and the thrill of staying on began to pound into his blood. He and Midnight traveled across the arena and back to the other side molded together into one plunging, rising, falling animal.

Eventually they stretched out into a run. The wind they created blew the colt’s mane back toward Clint and he glanced toward the glass wall to see the wild picture the black horse made as he flew around the arena.

He had this one now. But only this one ride. It’d be a long time before he’d expect the big black colt not to buck, at least a little.

Maybe he ought to ride him every morning instead of rotating through all the others. This was a horse after his own restless heart.

The truth was that this secret fun was the only reason he was glad to get up in the morning. Everything else seemed to be work. Duty. Responsibility. All his and only his.

They rounded the southwest corner and started down the straightaway.

Clint glimpsed somebody standing at the rail. His gut tensed. He looked again.

But he’d known who it was from that first, fast flash in the corner of his eye. That mass of black curly hair catching the arena lights was unmistakable. That and her bold stance.

He sat back and murmured to the colt.

“Whoa. Whoa, now, Midnight.”

Midnight didn’t whoa, but he did slow down.

By some miracle of Clint’s determination, or maybe because the colt was actually tiring at last, he rode him to a stop in front of her with a tolerable show of control.

Her straight look hadn’t changed a bit. He met it with one of his own.

“Caitlin O’Doyle.”

Her name came off his lips sounding like a challenge.

She challenged him right back, as always.

“It’s McMahan.”

Instead of ignoring her and riding on, as he should’ve done, he fell into fussing with her as naturally as breathing.

“I thought you might’ve changed it back by now.”

“No,” she said, and propped one booted foot on the bottom rail as she folded her long, graceful arms along the top one. “It’s still McMahan…just like yours. Clint.”

Her crisp northern accent might’ve softened a little, but nothing else about her had changed one whit. She still held herself as if she owned Texas for as far as she could see, and all the cattle in it. That high, straight-bridged nose of hers still gave her that haughty look and her tall, voluptuous shape still begged for a man’s hands.

Or maybe it was the other way around. Caitlin O’Doyle McMahan never begged. She never even bent.

If she had bent enough to go to Mexico with John, his brother would be alive today. And he, Clint, would still have one of his brothers, at least, by his side every day.

“Why don’t you get a life, Cait? You ought to be back in Chicago by now.”

Her big dark eyes flashed.

“I’d never presume to tell you to get a life, Clint.”

She glanced around the empty arena.

“But then, maybe that’s because you already have one. Riding colts alone in the middle of the night must be a thrill a minute.”

Hot fury sliced at his gut. Was it because she still attracted him so much, even when she was making fun of him? Even when he knew she hadn’t done right by John?

The black shifted beneath him and tried to drop his head, but Clint wouldn’t let him. He gave Cait a hard stare while the horse stepped to the left, then back to the right.

“You appear to be out alone in the middle of the night, yourself, Cait.”

“I got a late start from Tulsa.”

“They celebrate Christmas in Tulsa, too, last I heard.”

Her eyes, black as her hair, sparked with fire.

“Your mother invited me, Clint. This is her ranch. Bobbie Ann can invite anyone she wants for Christmas.”

“It’s my ranch, too.”

“And that is exactly the reason I’m interrupting your night ride,” she said, looking at his horse instead of him as the black danced sideways. “To ask you, the co-owner and general manager, where I should unload my horses.”

She stared at the colt for a minute, then met Clint’s gaze again. He clenched his jaw so hard he could hardly speak. One reason Cait had always irritated him so was that she had no end of nerve.

“Your horses,” he repeated flatly.

“Yes.”

“How many head?”

“Seven.”

What in the name of good sense was she doing dragging seven head of horses in here?

“I know you don’t want to miss any of the McMahan festivities,” he said sarcastically, “but it’s early yet. So why don’t we do it this way? You take a run on over to Roy’s and unload his horses and we’ll hold up on the eggnog until you get back. How’s that?”

“These aren’t Roy’s horses.”

He stared at her, trying to figure out what she was up to and steady the colt at the same time. All he needed now was to fool around and let the black throw him right in front of her.

“Then whose are they?”

“Mine.”

He stared at her some more. She was so full of life and so full of confidence. Not once did she smile or try to charm him into giving permission, as another woman might have done.

“Did Bobbie Ann invite you for Christmas or for the rest of your life?”

“Roy’s not going to let an assistant trainer keep any personal horses over there, much less seven head,” she said, so reasonably that he wanted to punch something. “You know that.”

His blood ran cold, then hot, with anger.

“Are you telling me that you just drove to Tulsa and bought seven head of horses that you’re fixing to keep here? On the Rocking M?”

He bit his tongue to hold back the rest of the words that leapt to it. He ought to go ahead and tell her to haul them on out of here, but he didn’t. Never had he ever known anyone, man or woman, who had this much sand.

She looked up at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“Yes.”

“How long do you want to leave ’em?”

She shrugged her beautifully square shoulders, tilted her head to the side and he saw once again what every man always saw: Caitlin McMahan wasn’t really what you’d call beautiful, but she was one magnificent woman. Already. And she was barely past being a girl.

“I’ll be straight with you, Clint,” she said, unnecessarily. “I want to leave ’em indefinitely. I told Bobbie Ann not to say anything because I wanted to tell you myself.”

Tell you. Not ask you. That was Cait.

He stood in the stirrup and stepped down off the black. Whatever she was up to, he’d better give it his full attention. This could affect him for a long time to come.

Without another word he led the colt toward the gate. Sure enough, Cait met him there. She walked at the colt’s other shoulder as they headed for the saddling bay.

“I’m starting a riding school,” she said.

That was Cait, again. Not “wanting to” or “planning to,” but doing it. She wasn’t asking permission, either.

“On the Rocking M,” he said.

His tongue was thickening with fury. His blood thundered with it. She’d be hanging around, here in plain sight, all the time.

She read his mind.

“I’ll only be here a couple of hours in the evenings,” she said. “I won’t interfere with your trainers or anybody else using your facilities.”

He tied the colt and began uncinching the saddle. He paused to glare at her.

“They have amateurs that come to ride in the evenings,” he snapped.

Why’d she have to get this insane idea in the first place? Why couldn’t she just stay away from the Rocking M the way she’d been doing?

“I know,” she said. “But I’ll only be here in the late afternoons and I’ll use the old outdoor pen.”

“Give me a break, Cait,” he interrupted. “Ask my permission, at least.”

She flashed those eyes at him again.

“I don’t have to, Clint,” she said. “I have every right to be here.”

“Don’t start telling me you inherited part of this ranch from John,” he said harshly. “It’s bad enough you’re spending his blood money.”

She stiffened.

“You know he’d still be alive if you’d gone with him,” he blurted. “With his wife there to protect, he’d never have taken any chances.”

Cait stepped right up and got in his face.

“Watch your mouth,” she growled, her eyes bright with fury. And hurt. Maybe even with tears. Maybe tears of guilt.

Even if she did feel guilty, shame stabbed through him. He had crossed a grave line here and he wasn’t one to do that.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

He turned his back on her, unwrapped the latigo, took the saddle and pad off, and strode toward the tack room, searching his mind frantically for a way to get rid of her. Bobbie Ann had already heard about this, and, knowing her, she’d approved the idea.

She would welcome Cait’s presence every day. She would say it reminded her of how happy John had been in his marriage to Cait.

And he had been, poor sucker. Nobody had ever been able to figure out why the striking, bold nineteen-year-old girl from up north who’d come to Texas to be Roy Bassett’s assistant trainer had ever agreed to marry quiet, thoughtful, unexciting John McMahan. It had to be the name, the ranch, the money.

Wasn’t that true of 90 percent of the women who chased after any of the McMahan brothers?

Cait O’Doyle could’ve had any man in Texas if she’d so much as crooked her finger. Any one of those men would have been a better match for her than John.

Why, even he would’ve been a better match for a girl with her spirit.

He took as long as he could to put the saddle on the wall and the steaming pad to dry on the rack. That reminded him that the colt had worked up a sweat and he needed to get him back to the stall.

What was he doing, letting Caitlin’s appearance and then her announcement unsettle him? This was ridiculous. He could handle her and her half-baked ideas.

Quickly he crossed the hallway again and went into the open bay. Cait was rubbing the colt down.

“I want to get him back and get him blanketed,” he said.

“Right,” she said in a sensible tone, and stepped away to drop the rubber currycomb into the tray that topped the roll-around cart.

“Thanks,” he said stupidly, before he thought.

Out of guilt? Or in an effort to prove he did have some manners, after all? What was the matter with him, giving her any shred of encouragement to do anything around here?

For answer, she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. His pulse raced.

Maybe she wasn’t beautiful, but her smile certainly was. At every horse show some guy said something about her smile. Or just about her, period.

Well, about her looks or her horsemanship or what a good hand she was. Very few people knew anything about her.

He avoided looking at her again, went to the colt’s head and untied him, started to lead him away. He needed a chance to think. Surely he could figure out a way to keep her from hanging around the Rocking M all the time.

But he could hear her footsteps following him down the gravel incline and across the paved street to the barn.

“I surely do hate to bother you, Clint,” she said dryly, “but I’d like to get unloaded and make it to the house in time for some of Bobbie Ann’s hot biscuits.”

Well, there was no hope for it. Bobbie Ann would have his hide if he caused a big fuss and ruined Christmas Eve, so he might as well find a temporary spot for Cait’s horses.

“The quarantine barn’s empty,” he said, throwing the words at her over his shoulder.

“Fine. Thanks.”

But she didn’t turn and start back to her truck. A quick glance from the corner of his eye told him that.

He moved faster, tried to walk away from her into the long, limestone barn, but she stayed right with him the whole way. He ignored her, led the colt to his stall and took the blanket from the rack on the door.

Cait walked around them and went to the black’s head, grasped the lead right under his chin to hold him. Clint refused to turn loose of the rope.

“You’re in a hurry,” he growled. “Go on.”

“Not that big a hurry,” she said absently, stepping back to look the colt over as if he were the only thing in the barn.

Clint clenched his teeth. Wasn’t that just like a woman? Just like Cait—first she’s in a fit to be gone and the next minute you can’t run her off with a stick.

He gathered the blanket and went to slip it over the colt’s head.

“I’ve got him,” he said sharply.

“So have I,” she said, laughing a little as she helped manage the blanket.

“Very funny,” he said sarcastically.

She was, without a doubt, the stubbornest woman he’d ever met.

Their hands brushed together as they brought the big blanket over the colt’s tossing head. Cait’s bare fingers were surprisingly warm in this frosty weather—warm enough to send a twinge of heat through him.

The black stepped sideways. Cait moved with the colt, keeping parallel with Clint to spread the blanket. He set his jaw. Why didn’t she just go on about her business and get out of his?

Why didn’t she go away, so he couldn’t catch even one faint drift of her citrusy scent?

“I can blanket this horse,” he said sharply.

She glanced up at him, held his gaze.

“You can certainly ride him,” she said sincerely. “You two looked like poetry out there.”

That stunned him. So did the pleasure that ran through him with her words.

“Compliments don’t excuse you sneaking up on me,” he muttered.

She grinned before she leaned over to reach under the colt’s belly to hand him the strap to buckle.

“Don’t worry, Clint,” she said. “I won’t tell your secret.”

“Tell whatever you want,” he snapped.

She chuckled as she handed him the other strap.

“So you’re not vulnerable to blackmail, huh, Clint?”

He snorted. “As if you’d need blackmail, huh, Cait? I’m thinking a bulldozer’s more your style.”

She straightened suddenly, at the very same time he did, and smiled at him across the horse.

“Aw, come on. It’s Christmas. Let’s not fight.”

He couldn’t keep from watching that smile. He couldn’t keep from noticing the sparkle in her dark eyes.

To tell the truth, he couldn’t move a muscle. Suddenly all he wanted was to look at Cait.

“Hey, Clint, Christmas Eve gift,” she said.

The ancient greeting handed down from his Appalachian ancestors startled him once more. The magic phrase that claimed the other person’s first gift filled him with sudden memories of playing this game with his brothers. Then it filled him with anger and regret. She had no business even saying it—it sounded strange in her northern accent.

“Always one for a little family tradition, huh, Cait?”

Quick, deep hurt showed in her big dark eyes. It wiped her smile away.

Guilt tugged at him. He was never one to be deliberately cruel and he’d spoken before he thought. Cait was practically an orphan—she had no family traditions of her own.

She was tough, though, this Irish girl from Chicago. A little hurt would never damage her confidence.

“Yes. Ever since I fell in love with your brother I’ve been into the traditions of this family.”

She gave him that straight look of hers that dared him to contradict her.

“I’m a McMahan, too, Clint, whether you like it or not.”

He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a blessed thing he could do about it.

From the instant she got back into her truck and turned the key in the ignition, Cait wouldn’t let herself think beyond the moment at hand. Not one second beyond it.

The night was beginning to lighten from true black to a hint of gray as she put the gearshift into Reverse and backed away from the indoor arena. While she pulled out into the paved street and drove past the west end of the barn, she watched the sky in her rearview mirror, waiting for the first glow of pink to prove that the day truly was coming.

Her eyes burned with fatigue and so did her heart, but she wasn’t going to think about that now. Not right now. She was unloading her new horses into their new home and after that she’d think about whatever was next.

The security lights scattered over the ranch were still bright against the darkness, and when she’d reached the barn farthest from the other buildings she parked under the light beside its door. Just get them out and comfortably settled, that was all she had to do. Throw them their alfalfa and get them some water.

Suddenly even that seemed like too much to contemplate. Her limbs felt too shaky to do anything.

Cait set her brake and turned on the lights inside the trailer. She’d driven longer trips than this with no more frequent stops than she’d made tonight. She’d hauled Roy’s horses all the way to Ohio to the Quarter Horse Congress, nearly twenty-four hours with no relief driver and no sleep.

Exhaustion wasn’t her problem.

What was the problem?

She snapped her mind away from that next logical thought and got out of the truck. Not allowing so much as a pause to reach back inside for her canvas coat, she headed for the trailer. She’d work fast enough to keep warm in just her fleece jacket.

“You are some fine travelers,” she said as she opened the narrow door and stepped up inside, “with, perhaps, an exception here and there. Which one of you has been kicking the side?”

The sight of the nice horses, not great, but plenty good, sound horses—her horses—strengthened her. For all these years, she’d never legally owned a horse, and now she owned seven. Today or tomorrow, Christmas or not, she’d get all the registration paperwork ready to mail. She couldn’t wait to see her name on those official papers.

She let down the padded strap across the rear of the short, roan horse and untied his head.

“I only hope I’m not making a big mistake unloading you here,” she confided as she backed him out, “but I can’t go somewhere else now. If I find another location for my school, Clint will think he ran me off and he’ll only be harder to deal with next time.”

And there would be a next time, because she was not giving up her rights to be on this ranch. For one thing, the rent money she’d pay somewhere else for facilities could be better spent on more horses for more disadvantaged kids and then for an assistant as their numbers grew.

This school was what the Lord had laid upon her heart and this was what she had to do to the very best of her ability. Her memorial to John would be this school, which would have two purposes: to introduce troubled teenagers to horses and to faith in God.

When Clint knew that, he’d change his attitude. At least, he’d change it a little.

So why hadn’t she told him that at once?

She tried to puzzle out the answer as she led the roan into the barn and into the first stall, slipped his halter off and then left him, to get some bags of shavings from the trailer. Maybe it was because she wanted him to acknowledge her right to use the ranch. Maybe it was because she wanted him to know that Bobbie Ann had every right to make decisions, too.

Maybe it was because she wanted Clint to accept her as a person and not only because of John.

That was close.

It was because she wanted him to see her as a woman, not as his brother’s wife.