The Prodigal Texan

The hay ended at a line of pine trees bordering the yard around the house—a white, two-story farmhouse, nearly a century old by the looks of it, with wide porches on all sides and a red tin roof shaded by pecan trees and live oaks. A branch of the driveway led directly to the house, where Miranda’s blue truck was parked, but Jud followed the curve around the tree line and headed toward the back of the farm.

Behind the house stood a good-sized barn, painted red to match the tin roof, with brown-fenced paddocks and pastures stretching into the distance. He vaguely remembered Miranda doing some barrel racing in the junior rodeos. Jud had hit the pro circuit as soon as they’d let him have his card, so he didn’t remember whether she’d actually won or not. His own winning streak had burned out so quickly, the memory was just a blur.

Beyond the pastures sat a log cabin with a stand of pines behind and a field in front planted with hundreds of silver-leafed shrubs. Cruz Martinez’s truck sat close to the side of the house. This must be the place.

Jud pulled in beside the Z71 and cut his engine. The country night surrounded him—a quiet, wintry darkness, unbroken by streetlights or the growl of machines, textured by the rustle of pine needles and grass blades as the wind passed by. He hadn’t experienced this kind of silence in…how many years?

His heart thudded against his ribs as he recognized the answer. Four. Most of four years had passed since he’d lain in the back of his truck looking up at the stars, listening to the spring sounds of frogs and crickets and whip-poor-wills.

Four years since he’d nearly ravished Miranda Wright in the back of that truck. The memory gripped him like a bad hangover, complete with regret for ever taking that first drink and, even worse, that first kiss. He usually played with women who knew the score, a category which definitely excluded Mayor Miranda.

But at least he’d stopped in time. She might have had her feelings hurt, but he hadn’t done anything unforgivable. He’d just been a stupid jerk.

“Damn.” Shaking his head, Jud got out of the truck and pulled his duffel from behind his seat.

As he reached the porch steps, Cruz Martinez opened the front door of the cabin. “Come in, make yourself at home.” He led the way into warmth and light and a room neater than any bachelor pad Jud had ever seen.

“Take the room at the end of the hall,” Martinez said, pointing down a dark passage. “There’s a bathroom right next door. More important—” he grinned as he heard Jud’s stomach rumble “—the kitchen is at the back of the house and there’s plenty of stuff for sandwiches in the fridge.”

“Sounds great.”

Grabbing a jacket, Martinez went back to the front door. “I’m going to check on the barn. Walk over after you eat and I’ll give you a tour. Or hit the sack, if you want. Just treat the place like your own.”

“Thanks. Hey,” Jud said. “What’s planted in the field out front? All those silver bushes?”

His host grinned. “That’s Miranda’s pet project. She’s been nursing those lavender plants for a couple of years now.”

“Lavender? For perfume?”

“She’s got all sorts of plans for marketing. I don’t understand most of them.” He winked at Jud. “I think it’s a female thing.”

“In other words, clear as mud.”

“Exactly.”

Left alone in the cabin, Jud set his bag down in the assigned bedroom, noting with approval the king-size bed. His four extra inches over six feet didn’t fit well in small spaces. He used the bathroom, washed his hands, then flipped back the shower curtain, wondering if he’d be taking showers on his knees.

What caught his eye, though, was a scrap of lavender lace draped over the towel bar at the opposite end of the tub from the water faucet. Jud reached out and caught the fabric between two fingers, pulling it off the bar. A bra, he realized, lace cups and satin straps with a small bow in the center.

“Well, well,” he said, his jaw tight. “No wonder Ms. Mayor was so upset to hear I was staying with Cruz Martinez.”

Resisting the urge to break something—Miranda Wright’s neck, for a start—Jud carefully put the garment back where he’d found it, flipped off the light and went to make himself something to eat.

AFTER AN AFTERNOON spent in skirts and dress shoes, the Wright women changed clothes as soon as they got home. Wearing jeans and a sweater, Nan came downstairs a few minutes later to find her daughter snuggled into the sofa in the living room, TV remote control in hand.

Miranda looked her over. “You’re planning to go out? Something wrong?” She wore her favorite sleepwear—a faded, stretched-out, long-sleeved T-shirt over flannel pajama pants decorated with penguins on skis. She’d scrunched her hair into a ponytail. Dusty, the golden Labrador retriever, lay in a contented butterscotch curl across Miranda’s feet.

Nan shook her head. “Nope. I thought I’d go and check on the horses, is all, look in on the moms-tobe.”

“I’ll come with you.” To Dusty’s distress, Miranda shifted her feet to the floor and started to get up.

“Don’t bother.” Nan pushed her back onto the couch. “I’ll just walk through. Be back in a few minutes.” She held her breath, expecting an argument.

For once, her daughter didn’t insist. “Call if you need me,” she said, burrowing back between dog and blanket.

“I will.” In case she changed her mind, Nan went straight through the kitchen to the mudroom, where she slipped on barn shoes and her favorite jacket. Outside, the night felt a lot colder than it had earlier, and she buttoned the jacket as she hurried to the barn. When she saw the doors had been rolled back, she slowed to an easy walk, so she wouldn’t be breathless when she arrived.

With her first step into the barn, Bailey, her buckskin stallion, turned in his stall to greet her.

“Hey, big man.” She slid open the top half of his door so she could rub his face and neck. “I came to see your new baby. He’s gonna be a big guy, just like you.” Bailey rubbed his muzzle over her hair. “Uh-huh. I love you, too.” She kissed his cheek before closing the door.

Starlet’s stall was across the aisle. Nan approached and looked through the grate. “Everything okay?”

As she’d expected, Cruz knelt in the straw, running his hands over the soft dun coat of the sleepy foal they’d named Cappucino. “Sure. I woke him up a little, but he’s being a good boy.” Nearby, Starlet, a sweet little bay mare, chewed a mouthful of alfalfa hay and kept close watch on the human touching her baby. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just checking.” She swallowed hard. “I hear you have a houseguest.”

Cruz stretched to his feet with an easy grace. He still wore the white shirt, new jeans and fancy ostrich-skin boots he’d looked so good in at the party, and he looked even better without so many people around.

“That’s right. Jud Ritter is doing some work for Wade, and I said it would be okay if he stayed with me.”

Beside Cruz, Cappucino folded his legs in awkward angles, trying to stand. Starlet nosed her baby to his feet and he immediately began nuzzling the mare’s side, looking for his next meal.

Nan backed away as Cruz left the stall. “So, I guess we won’t…I won’t be seeing much of you for a while.” Her clumsy choice of words only struck her after she said them. How often had she told him she loved just looking at him?

He leaned his shoulders back against the stall door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess not.”

She didn’t hear regret in his voice, and she couldn’t read his face in the shadows of the barn. “Did you do this on purpose?”

“You mean, did I plan it? How could I? I never met Jud Ritter until this afternoon at the party.”

“But…”

Cruz nodded. “But I was willing to accept Wade’s suggestion that he stay with me.”

“Why?”

“I think you and I need some space.”

The width of the aisle between them was too much space, as far as Nan was concerned. “For what?”

“To choose our priorities. To look ahead and figure out where we go from here.”

She’d sensed some unsettledness in him lately, but this seemed to come out of an empty sky. “Why do we have to go anywhere? What’s wrong with where we are?”

He stared at her for a long minute. “You enjoy hiding behind the widows and old ladies at parties, like you did this afternoon? You don’t want to dance with me, have some fun?”

As Nan struggled to frame an answer, he continued. “You think I want to spend my time leaning against the wall, watching everybody else have a good time?”

“Cruz—”

“When I’m with you, what we have together is enough.” His broad shoulders lifted on a deep breath. “But I’m tired of living two lives. Having Jud around will keep me thinking straight, maybe long enough to work this out.”

Her heart cramped. “I don’t mean to force you into living two lives.”

“But if you’re not comfortable with people knowing about us, I’m not going to broadcast the news. And that requires me to be one person with you and someone different with everybody else in town. I can’t even be honest with Miranda—and she’s one of my best friends.”

“Yes, and you’re closer to her in age than to me.” Nan bit her lip as soon as she said the words. She hated sounding like a bitter old woman, jealous of her daughter. But if the shoe fit…

In two strides, Cruz crossed the aisle to close his hands over her shoulders. “Which doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to the way I feel about either of you.”

They were the same height, and now she could see the anger, the pain blazing in his dark brown eyes. What kind of love was hers, that hurt him this much?

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m not being fair—”

“Fair, hell.” His arms came around her, hard. “I’m selfish enough to want to show you off, that’s all.”

He claimed her mouth with the directness that was so much a part of his nature, and her body ignited for him in an instant, as it had from the very first. She’d been married for five years, yet had not known passion could take her this way. When she lay alone in her bed now, she ached for Cruz beside her. When they were together, like this, she couldn’t get enough of him. There were hay bales in the stall behind them. Her knees weakened and she pulled him closer….

Down the aisle, Bailey whickered as he always did when someone approached the barn.

“Miranda,” Nan whispered, and turned her face away, pressing her forehead against Cruz’s shoulder. “I should go back to the house. I told her I wouldn’t be long.”

Smiling slightly, Cruz loosened his hold and stepped back. “See what I mean? I lose my head completely when I’m around you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Nan said, trying for lightness. She turned to walk farther into the barn, checking on the mares who had yet to drop their foals. Regaining control. “Flora was pacing this morning before we went to the wedding—I’m thinking tonight might be her—”

“There you are!”

Nan whipped her head around to see her daughter silhouetted at the barn door, wearing her barn coat and shoes and her pajamas. Dusty trotted down the aisle.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten the way to the barn and wandered out into the night,” she teased. “Or been eaten by wild animals.” Head tilted, she looked at Cruz, then at Nan again.

“So what’s going on?”

MIRANDA DIDN’T REALLY expect her mother or Cruz to answer the question. Any intelligent observer would understand what was going on—especially after two or three occasions like this one. She just couldn’t resist ribbing them a little about their “secret.”

“We got to talking about the mares and foals,” Cruz said, his voice deeper and a little huskier than usual. “And the party, of course.”

“I thought Greer and Noah looked so happy together.” After giving Dusty a head rub, Nan came slowly toward the front of the barn. Cruz backed out of her way, keeping the width of the aisle between them. “And we all had a great time.”

“Of course,” Miranda agreed. “Even Jud Ritter.” She looked at Cruz. “Where is your houseguest?”

“I gave him free run of the fridge and left him to it. He didn’t reach the food tables at the reception.”

“How long is he planning to stay?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Wade said he’d invited Jud here to do some work. Do you know anything about that?”

Footsteps sounded on the floor behind her. “Not much more than you do,” Jud said. “And he doesn’t ask nearly as many questions.”

Miranda stood for a moment with her eyes shut tight, thinking about her messy ponytail and lack of makeup, the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra under the old T-shirt and the way the seat of the baggy, penguin pajama pants hung down below her butt. Then she opened her eyes and turned around to face him like the adult she was supposed to be.

“Cruz says you finally got something to eat.”

“He keeps a well-stocked refrigerator. Not like mine—I don’t know if I’ve ever used more than one shelf at a time.”

“Cruz is a good cook,” Nan said from the doorway. “Get him to make you his chicken molé sometime. Delicious.” She looked at a point somewhere between Miranda and Cruz. “I’m going to take a nap, then come out about ten to keep an eye on Flora during the night. Call me if something happens before then.”

As soon as Nan left the barn, Cruz stirred. “I didn’t have much to eat this afternoon, myself. Think I’ll go get a bite, then come back to the delivery deck. Is that okay with you, Miranda?”

“That’s—” Cruz was gone before she could finish her answer. Disconcerted, she glanced toward Jud, standing his ground at the front of the barn.

“Sorry to intrude,” he said. “Cruz offered a tour if I walked over. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Miranda backed toward Flora’s stall. “No, it’s okay. I think I can tolerate five minutes in your company.

I’ll handle the tour…if you’re still interested.”

Jud hesitated, then nodded. “Sure.” He pursued her down the aisle. “How long has Martinez worked here?”

“A little over two years, since Joe Haynes died.”

“I remember old Joe. I got the rough side of his tongue more times than I could count.”

“He was a good man. And a good foreman for Hayseed Farm, since before I was born. Nan wouldn’t have survived those first years after my dad died without Joe.”

“Martinez measures up to the job?”

“He’s conscientious and works hard. What he doesn’t know, he learns fast.”

“He keeps pretty much to himself?”

She frowned at the question. “We’re friends, the three of us. We usually eat dinner together, catch up on the day. Why all the questions?”

“Nosy, I guess.” He looked down as Dusty sniffed at his boots, then pursued a thorough investigation up both pants legs. When she reached his knees, he held out his hand and let her sniff his palm. “Nice dog.”

Miranda nodded. “The best. She goes everywhere I do.”

“Except weddings?”

She turned away from him to avoid returning his smile. “Weddings and funerals.” And wasn’t that a stupid thing to say? “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He shook his head. “No problem.”

Embarrassed yet again, she peered through the grate in Flora’s stall door. “How ya’ doin’, mama? That baby comin’ tonight?”

Jud stepped up beside her, his presence like a wall of high-wattage lightbulbs on her right side. Her face heated up and her breath got short, but she was damned if she’d creep away from him just for a little oxygen.

“Cute mare,” he said quietly, propping his shoulder against the wall. “Is there a reason to be worried? As I recall, most horses drop their foals without help or complications.”

“She’s eighteen, which is old to be having babies. We lost her foal last time, and almost lost Flora. We don’t want that to happen again.” In the stall, the mare flattened her ears, shook her head violently and kicked a hind leg toward her swollen belly.

“So why’d you breed her?”

Worry had already shortened Miranda’s temper. “So much for letting go of the past. You still think I’m dumb as dirt, don’t you?”

He straightened up from the wall. “What the—”

Miranda jerked her attention back to the horse. She caught her breath as Flora dropped to her knees, then rolled to lie on her side. After a motionless minute, the mare struggled to her feet and started pacing again.

“Another process horses seem to handle without help is mating.” Miranda didn’t bother to look at Jud as she spoke. “We came home one afternoon last winter to find Bailey, our stallion, in the same field with Flora. Somebody had left a gate open, then Bailey tore down a couple of fences…and here we are.”

She turned away and reached for the stall door latch, but in the next instant Jud gripped her shoulder with a strong hand and pulled her back around. Standing at her side, Dusty growled low in her throat.

Jud ignored the dog. “Let’s get this out of the way right now. If I ever said you were dumb—and I might well have because I was full of myself back then—you have my sincere apology.”

He watched as surprise dawned on Miranda’s face. She gazed up at him, and he wondered if she was trying to read his mind. In the years since high school, he’d forgotten how intense she could be. But how could he have forgotten those mysterious topaz eyes?

Or had he just never noticed?

Inside the stall beside them, Flora gave a moaning neigh, lay down in the straw again and groaned.

He loosened his hands and Miranda turned to face the stall. “You can do it, mama. Just relax.” She wrapped her fingers in the grate, clinging with a force that turned her skin white. “Push, mama. Push!”

Jud had never been good at waiting. “I should go….”

She spared him a second of thought. “Before you do, find the phone in the feed room across the aisle, right by the door. Punch two for Mom, three for Cruz. Get them down here.”

In less than five minutes, Nan Wright came running, and Martinez showed up within ten. By then, Jud would have fought anyone who tried to kick him out. The four of them stood in silence outside the stall, watching the mare labor. Miranda’s dog paced in the barn aisle behind them.

Finally, the bluish white amniotic sac appeared beneath Flora’s tail. Martinez swore. “That’s a rear hoof. The foal’s coming out backward.”

“We have to turn the baby. Get Doc Shaw on his cell phone.” Miranda dropped her jacket where she stood and opened the stall door. First, she knelt at Flora’s head, stroking the heavy forelock back from the mare’s eyes, smoothing her hands over the sweat-lathered neck and murmuring encouragement.

Then, carefully, she moved to the horse’s rear end. Cruz went for the phone.

Nan stood in the open doorway. “Miranda was there when Flora was born,” she said when Jud looked at her. “The mare trusts her more than anyone else.”

Carrying the phone, Martinez came to stand beside Jud. “I’ve got Doc Shaw,” he said. “He’s on his way.”

“What do I do?” Miranda looked up, and her gaze caught Jud’s for a second before shifting to Cruz. “He has to coach me.” Face sheened with sweat, eyes wide, she looked desperate. Terrified.

Flora strained, then relaxed. Miranda took hold of the hooves just visible through the amnion and pushed them back into the mare. “It’s tight,” she said through gritted teeth. “Mom…”

Nan knelt beside her and the two of them worked through the next contraction. Then again, and again. Martinez conveyed instructions from the veterinarian in a low, tense tone. Despite the December chill outside, the humid air in the barn made breathing a chore.

Jud watched for what seemed like eternity as Nan and Miranda pressed and pushed against the mare’s belly, trying to manipulate the body within. Though he’d grown up with horses, spent years riding rodeo broncs, he’d never witnessed a breech birth, never seen anyone turn a baby in the womb. He had no idea whether to expect success—or tragedy.

Headlights flashed in the darkness outside the front of the barn. A car door slammed and then an older man with a surprisingly full head of dark brown hair came striding down the barn aisle. “How’s it going?”

Martinez said, “Not good,” just as Flora groaned with palpable force. Nan and Miranda shouted at the same time. When Jud looked into the stall, he saw the two women flattened against the wall…and two horses where before there’d only been one.

“Looks like I’m too late,” the vet said, grinning. “Miranda does seem to make things happen fast, don’t she?” He shot Jud a sideways glance as he brushed by. “Jud Ritter. Never thought I’d see you in this town again. Can’t find anywhere else to cause trouble? Now what’s going on with this baby?”

Miranda was gently rubbing the dark bay foal with towels provided by Martinez. “He’s sluggish,” she said, frowning. “You better come in, Doc.”

The vet moved into the stall as Nan stepped out, rubbing her face with a towel. “Damn, I don’t know why I go through this torture every year.”

“Because you love watching them grow,” Martinez said with a smile. “What would spring be like without a couple of weanlings driving us all crazy?”

“Peaceful? Worry-free? Profitable, without all the medicines to pay for?” She gave a tired grin.

A gasp from Miranda drew Jud back to the stall. Flora was on her feet again, nuzzling the foal as it clumsily, precariously levered itself to stand. With a few nudges from its mom and a guiding hand from Miranda, the baby latched on to a teat and began to suck.

Jud squeezed his eyes shut to clear his suddenly blurred vision.

Once the vet had checked over the colt, Miranda and Dr. Shaw came out of the stall. Miranda turned to slide the door shut and Nan stepped up and put her arms around her daughter’s waist from behind. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

“Bailey makes great babies. What are we going to name him?”

Nan glanced at Martinez again. “Espresso?”

He tilted his head. “Cocoa?”

Miranda looked at Jud. “Bailey is Baileys Irish Cream.”

“Ah. How about Kahlúa?”

They all looked at the dark brown foal, and back at Jud. “Perfect,” Nan said. “I love it. Don’t you, Miranda?”

Miranda had buried her face in a towel. She mumbled words that might have been anything and continued to hide behind the red terry cloth.

The veterinarian left with promises to return in the morning to check up on Kahlúa, and Martinez walked him to his truck before heading back to his place. After a short argument, Miranda agreed to let her mother take the first watch on the new arrival, with Dusty for company.

“I’ll be out at three,” she promised, walking toward the barn door, rubbing a hand over the nape of her neck. Jud studied the sway of her hips, the cling of her thin, damp T-shirt to the smooth curves of her back, and felt a hollow develop under his ribs. This reaction to Miranda Wright was something else he hadn’t remembered. Wasn’t prepared for.

He took a step forward, only to trip over her jacket, still lying on the floor. With his next stride he grabbed the coat and kept walking until he caught up with Miranda outside.

“You forgot this.”

She looked dazed as he handed over the garment. “Oh. Thanks. It’s cold out here.”

A full moon poured light over the winter grass, the white clapboard house and Miranda herself. As she shrugged into the jacket, Jud could see just how chilled she’d been in the pucker of her nipples against the inadequate T-shirt.

That hollow inside threatened to swallow him. He drove his fists deep into the pockets of his jeans.

When he continued to walk beside her toward the house, Miranda stopped and faced him. “What are you doing?”

“Just escorting the lady home.”

“I am home. This whole spread is my home.”

“You never know what might come out of the dark.”

She walked on. “So I’ve learned,” she said in a dry voice.

He deserved the comment, so he didn’t say anything. At the back porch, he opened the door to the house and ushered her in. “Thanks for letting me watch tonight.”