Wyoming Brave

“Thanks,” she said when she finished. She took her plate and glass to the sink.

Delsey hugged her. “Don’t worry. Things work out, even when you don’t think they will.”

She smiled and hugged the older woman back. “I’ll try. Thanks.”

“No problem. You go to bed and sleep. You’ll be fine in the morning.”

“Good night.”

“You, too.”

* * *

BUT IT WASN’T a good night, and she wasn’t fine. She woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Her father was standing over her with his belt. It had blood all over it. He was yelling as he brought it down on her back with all his strength behind it...

“Wake up, damn it!”

She felt hard hands on her arms, pulling her up, felt whiskey-scented breath on her face. But the hands weren’t hurting her. They were warm and they felt good on the bare skin. She opened her eyes.

Ren was sitting on the bed, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and nothing else. His broad chest, hair-roughened, was beautiful. She thought how she’d love to paint him like that. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. But she didn’t dare let it show, how she felt. She lifted her eyes to his and winced.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had a nightmare.”

His big hands smoothed down her arms. “About what?”

“Something in the past,” she said evasively. “Long ago,” she lied.

He drew in a long breath. “It was the belt, wasn’t it?”

She hesitated, but finally she nodded. “I can’t stand to hear a belt snapped like that. Daddy always...” She stopped.

“Your father hit you with a belt?”

She nodded.

“So did mine, when I was a kid. I used to have welts on the backs of my legs. I was a reckless boy, always into something I shouldn’t be. Dad got impatient.”

She didn’t want to tell him the truth, about the scars on her poor back. She didn’t want him to see them. She always wore nightgowns with a high neckline, so that no part of her back showed.

He touched her cheek, pushed back the disheveled platinum hair that had come loose from the braid she wore it in. “Don’t you take it down at night?” he asked curiously.

The feel of his hand on her face made her feel odd things. She felt trembly all over when he brushed her cheek like that. Her heart kicked into gear, unsettling her.

“No, I have to put it up when I sleep,” she said. “It gets in my face. I really should cut it. But it’s been long all my life.”

“It would be a crime to cut hair this beautiful,” he said quietly.

She looked up into his eyes and couldn’t look away. Neither could he. His breath came quickly. He brushed his fingers along her cheek, down to the bow shape of her pretty mouth. They lingered there, teasing the soft flesh, making her feel liquid, melting. She wanted to push close to him, feel him hold her. She wanted to tempt his mouth down to hers and see what a kiss felt like. She was hungry for something...

Incredibly, his head started to bend. She felt his whiskey-scented breath in her mouth. She drew in her own breath as she looked at his sensuous lips and wondered how they were going to feel grinding hungrily into hers.

His hand slid to the back of her neck and began to pull, ever so gently. She felt her lips parting, her body throbbing, as his mouth came closer, closer, closer...

“What happened?” Delsey asked from the doorway.

Ren drew back from Merrie, glaring at her as if he was angry. He got to his feet quickly. “She had a nightmare,” he said shortly. He turned away, grateful that his pajamas were loose. “She’s all right. I’m going back to bed.”

“Are you all right, dear?” Delsey asked. She was wearing a cotton nightgown and a long cotton robe. She looked like an angel.

“I’m fine...now,” Merrie said breathlessly. “Just a nightmare. I’m so sorry I woke everybody up.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Delsey confessed. “I was watching a movie on my iPad.”

“You can do that?” Merrie asked excitedly. “How?” Ren left them talking and went back to his bedroom. As an afterthought, he slammed the door. That woman was really a witch. He was reeling just from touching her mouth. He wasn’t going to be led into that sweet trap a second time. If she was in the market for a rich husband, Randall could have her. She was Randall’s girl, anyway, wasn’t she?

He turned off the lights and climbed into bed, surprised at his own vulnerability.

* * *

MERRIE DELIBERATELY SLEPT LATE so that she wouldn’t have to sit at the table with Ren at breakfast. It was cowardly, but she worried that he’d be out for blood. He’d almost kissed her the night before. But he was going to hate himself for that weakness, and it would be open season on Merrie if she gave him the opportunity.

She poked her head into the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn’t see him.

Delsey was putting away the dishes. She grimaced when she saw Merrie.

“I know. I came late,” Merrie said softly. “It’s okay. I don’t eat much, anyway.”

The older woman looked hunted. Merrie went close and hugged her. “Thanks for saving me last night. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble with the boss.”

Delsey hugged her back. “Not so much. I’ve been around since he was in college. I guess he’s used to me.” She drew away with a sigh. “He was topping cotton this morning,” she added, using an old Southern term for someone being furiously angry.

Merrie laughed softly. “That’s very Southern sounding,” she commented.

“I was born in Eufaula, Alabama,” Delsey said surprisingly. “I married a cowboy who was traveling through town with his boss on a cattle-buying trip. Met him in a café and went back to Wyoming with him three days later. We were married for twenty-five years before he had a heart attack. I stayed on working for Mr. Ren’s father after he died.”

“I’m sorry.”

She smiled. “It was a long time ago. I still miss him. I wish we could have had children, but that wasn’t in the cards.”

“I would like children, I think,” Merrie said sadly. “I’m just not sure about marriage. My poor mother,” she said softly. “I don’t think she had a single happy day with my father. She lived for Sari and me. Until...” She closed up like a flower and smiled. “Did they get the female vet to come over from Powell?” she asked.

“Yes, they did,” she replied. “Mr. Ren was on his way to the stables.”

“He said they might call me to use some witchcraft on Hurricane so he’d let the vet in the stall with him,” Merrie murmured.

“He says a lot of things he doesn’t really mean,” Delsey said softly. “Mr. Ren’s had a hard life. His father mostly ignored him. Then his mother divorced him to run away with Mr. Randall’s father, and she made Ren go along. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t crazy about his dad, but he loved this ranch.”

“How old was he?” Merrie asked.

“He was ten years old. Mr. Ren’s father went crazy after they left. He got drunk and stayed drunk for years. The ranch was falling apart by the time Mr. Ren graduated and came back here. He sobered up his dad, reorganized the ranch and started making improvements. He let the land stand for loans to improve pasture and fencing, to buy seed bulls, to upgrade the equipment and refurbish the stables and the barn...” She laughed as she finished putting up dishes. “He was like a whirlwind. The ranch got out of the red two years after he started. Fifteen years later, he has an empire here. His dad lived long enough to see a prosperous future, but not long enough to enjoy it.”

“That’s sad.”

“It was. Mr. Ren’s mother wanted to come to the funeral, but he refused to let her near the place.”

Merrie caught her breath. “Why?”

“They’ve had some problems,” Desley said. “Mr. Ren overheard her say something that hurt him real bad. I told you about that. He just left. Never even said goodbye. Hitchhiked out here to his dad, moved in and started to work. He’s like that,” she added. “He doesn’t say what he’s going to do. He just does it.”

“He’s scary, in a way,” Merrie said.

“Lots of people are, until you get to know them,” Delsey told her gently. “He’s not a violent man...”

“...told you to get the damned rope on him first!” Ren was raging outside the window. “Now look what you’ve done, you idiot! I ought to lay you out on the ground, Grandy!”

Merrie held her breath as Ren stormed in the back door, half carrying a man with blood all over one arm.

“Oh, dear,” Delsey said. “Grandy, what in the world?”

“Clean him up, would you, Delsey?” Ren asked, putting the man in a chair. “Probably needs stitches. I’ll get Tubbs up here to drive him into town to the doctor.” He glanced at Merrie coldly. “If you faint, don’t do it in here. I’ve got enough problems.”

“How did it happen?” Delsey asked, while Merrie stood just staring at the bleeding man.

“He was trying to rope a horse. Horse reared up and threw him into a sheet of tin.”

“Was it Hurricane?” Merrie asked worriedly.

“Yes, it was Hurricane,” he shot at her angrily.

She moved closer to him. “Couldn’t I help?”

He hesitated. He didn’t want her near the horse. He was furious at her because he’d been weak the night before. He didn’t want her around, didn’t want her near him. She was Randall’s girl...

“You might let her try before anybody else gets hurt, Mr. Ren,” Delsey intervened.

“Hell!” He tilted his hat low over his eyes. “All right. Come on.”

Delsey washed the deep cut on Grandy’s arm. “Cut a vein, I think,” she told Ren.

“Tubbs is on his way. Wrap a towel around it,” Ren told her.

“Sorry, Ren,” Grandy said sheepishly.

Ren just glared at him. He opened the door, let Merrie out and followed her.

She’d grabbed her light jacket. It was freezing cold outside and flurries of snow touched her face. A dusting of it was on the ground from the day before. She hadn’t had time to really enjoy it. She lifted her face to it and smiled, her eyes closed.

Ren glanced at her, and an unfamiliar tenderness tugged at his cold heart. She was like a child, he thought. She took pleasure in the simplest things.

“Your jacket’s too thin for a Wyoming autumn,” he said, fighting down the feelings she provoked in him.

“It rarely gets much below freezing in South Texas,” she replied, almost running to keep up with his long strides. “This is the heaviest coat I own.”

“Tell Delsey to take you to town and get a warmer one. I have an account at Jolpe’s. It’s a chain department store.” He didn’t add that it was one of the real high-end shops. It catered to movie stars who came to Jackson Hole, which wasn’t too far away.

“I’ll do that. Thanks.” She was going to spend her own money, but he could think what he liked.

“Randall would take you himself, if he was here,” he added deliberately. He had to keep reminding himself that she belonged to his stepbrother.

“Of course he would.”

They walked into the stables, down the stone walkway to the stall where Hurricane was kept. The female vet, middle-aged, with blond hair and blue eyes, glanced at them as they approached.

She grimaced. “I can’t get the stupid tranquilizer gun to work. I should have asked Kells with Game and Fish to show me again how to use it...”

While she was talking, Merrie went right up to the gate of the stall and held her hand out. It contained one of two treats she’d taken from a nearby bag.

She opened her hand, the treat on her palm, and offered it to the nervous gelding.

“Hi, sweetheart. Remember me?” she asked softly, smiling.

Apparently he did, because he came right up to the gate and tossed his mane, whinnying softly.

“That’s a sweet boy,” she said, watching him nibble the treat. She smoothed her bare hand over his head, between his eyes. “What a sweet boy!”

The vet, mesmerized, just stared at her. “He just knocked one of the cowboys into that pile of tin in the aisle,” she pointed out, indicating a small refuse pile from some repairs.

“She has a way with horses, apparently,” Ren said curtly. “Can you keep him diverted while Dr. Branch gets in the pen with him?”

“Of course I can,” Merrie said. She smoothed her hand over the horse’s ears, calming him.

The vet took advantage of the lull to go into the stall and examine the cuts. “I can use a local on these,” she said. “If you can just keep him busy...”

“I can do that,” Merrie assured her.

She talked to Hurricane, smoothing her hand over his face, his ears, his cheek, all the while talking to him. When he felt the needle he started to shift, but Merrie drew him back and laid her forehead against his, talking to him again. He calmed. The vet began to put in the stitches, working efficiently. It didn’t take long.

Dr. Branch came out of the stall with a long sigh. “That’s some bedside manner you’ve got there, Miss...?”

“Grayling,” Merrie said. “My name is Meredith, but everybody calls me Merrie,” she added, with a smile.

“Merrie, then. Thanks for the help.”

“I didn’t mind. I love horses.”

“That one certainly seems to like you,” Dr. Branch said. She shook her head. “I couldn’t get the stupid tranquilizer gun to work. I guess I need more training with it,” she said with a laugh.

“Will he be all right now?” Merrie asked, because she was worried. Some of the cuts had been very deep.

“I gave him an antibiotic,” she replied. “If there’s any obvious infection around the cuts, I may need to come back and see him. You know the signs, I’m sure,” she said to Ren.

“I know them all too well. Thanks for coming, Doc.”

“My pleasure.” She picked up her bag, smiled at Merrie and walked back down the aisle.

“I thought he’d have to be put down,” Ren commented.

“He’s not a bad horse. He’s just been exposed to a bad man,” Merrie replied. She was still smoothing the horse’s forehead. “He’s so beautiful. I drew a portrait of him,” she added softly.

“Did you?” He sounded disinterested. “He’ll settle down now. I have work to do.”

“Am I being evicted?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“For the time being, yes.”

She sighed, nuzzled Hurricane’s face with her own and left him. He whinnied when she got halfway down the stall. She turned and smiled at him. “I’ll come back again.”

He tossed his head.

“Don’t tell me you can talk to horses, too,” he scoffed.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Daddy never let us near the stables when he was home.”

He scowled, looking down at her. “What sort of horses did he keep?”

Thoroughbreds, but she wasn’t telling him that. She liked being just plain Merrie. “Quarter horses,” she lied. “He sold them all over the world.”

“But you weren’t allowed to ride them?”

“Not the registered ones, no. He didn’t trust us with them.”

“Why?”

She grimaced. “He thought we might injure one, I guess. He kept a few saddle horses for guests. We got to ride those. They were old and swaybacked, but at least we learned how to ride.”

He raised an eyebrow. There was a big difference between riding a quarter horse and a swayback, he thought privately. He wondered if she was bragging, and her father hadn’t had more than one or two horses. Surely, her clothes were an indication that she and her family didn’t have much money. All her attire seemed to consist of gray sweatpants and sweatshirts, most of which had either writing or logos on them.

Her boots, at least, were proper ones. No designer footwear there, he mused, looking down at her small feet. She had on boots that had seen hard wear. They looked a lot like his own, except that hers hadn’t been subjected to smelly substances and too much water.

“The vet seemed nice,” she commented.

“She was. Nice, and quite smart. Her husband is also a vet. They specialize in large-animal calls.”

“Out here, I guess they’d have to,” she commented, looking around at the long, beautiful pastures that led off to sharp, jagged white peaks in the distance. “Is that the Rocky Mountains?” she asked.

“No. Those are the Teton Mountains. We’re closer to Jackson Hole than we are to Yellowstone.”

“I don’t know much about the territory out here,” she confessed. “I’ve never been out of south Texas in my life.”

He scowled. “Never?”

“Daddy didn’t want us out of his sight,” she said simply.

Daddy sounded like a paranoid schizophrenic. But he wasn’t going to say it out loud.

They walked into the kitchen. Delsey had stopped the bleeding temporarily with a large towel, under which bandages could be seen. A tall, good-looking cowboy with blue eyes and black hair was standing beside Grandy. He looked up when Merrie walked in, and his eyes twinkled.

“It is she. The witch woman!” he teased.

Merrie’s eyebrows met her hairline. “Excuse me?”

“Your fame has preceded you, my lady,” the man said, making her a sweeping bow. “I expected choirs of cherubs singing praises...”

She felt her forehead. “I don’t think I have a fever,” she murmured.

“He does Shakespeare at our local playhouse,” Delsey said, rolling her eyes. “That’s Rory Tubbs, Merrie, although none of us ever use his first name,” she introduced them. “He’s playing King Lear.”

“Not King Lear,” he muttered. “Macbeth!”

“I always get those two confused,” the older woman conceded. “There you go, Grandy. You’ll live until Tubbs can get you to the doc.”

“Hurricane didn’t kill you, then?” Grandy asked Merrie.

She smiled. “No. He’s a sweet horse.”

“You’d think so,” Grandy muttered. “He didn’t pitch you headfirst into a pile of tin, now, did he?”

She laughed softly. “No, he didn’t. I hope you’ll be all right,” she added gently.

Grandy actually flushed. He got up and grabbed his hat, nodding at her before he put it on. “I’ll be fine. Nothing but a cut,” he murmured.

“A big cut, but he’ll still be fine,” Tubbs added with a flash of white teeth. He tipped his hat. “See you again, fair maiden.”

She smiled.

“Don’t die,” Ren told Grandy. “I can’t afford to lose you.”

Grandy grinned at him. “Hard to kill a weed, boss.” He grimaced. “Next time, I’ll listen.”

“Next time, you’d better,” Ren said. His eyes smiled at the older man, even if his mouth didn’t. It was impossible to miss the very real affection Ren had for his men.

“I always listen, don’t I, boss?” Tubbs asked. “And I can drive in six feet of snow and ice.” He buffed his nails on his coat. “I’m irreplaceable.”

“I can do that myself,” Ren shot back. “Don’t get cocky.”

Tubbs chuckled and herded Grandy out the back door toward the waiting pickup truck.

“Don’t flirt with the men,” Ren said icily.

She gaped at him. “I smiled at him!”

“Don’t smile at them, either,” he added belligerently.

She just stood there, uncertain and undecided.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered. He turned on his heel and went back out the door. He slammed it behind him, rattling the elaborate glass pane at the top of it.

“He’ll break that one day,” Delsey said with a sigh. She shook her head. “No pleasing him today, is there?”

“Is he always like this with women?” she wanted to know.

She fought for the right words. “Well, not with older women,” she qualified.

“Maybe I can age ten years or something,” Merrie said under her breath.

Delsey laughed. “You really do have something special in you, if you could get that wild horse to let the vet treat him.”

“He’s been hurt,” Merrie said. “He’s just scared.”

“Maybe. But if I were a man, I wouldn’t go in the pen with him.”

Merrie laughed. “Neither would I,” she confessed.

“Want a sausage biscuit?” Delsey asked, peering around her toward the door, just in case Mr. Ren was somewhere nearby.

“I’d love one, thanks, and some coffee. I’ll sneak them up to my room while he’s away.”

“I promise you, he isn’t usually this unreasonable,” Delsey began.

“I just rub him the wrong way. Some people are like that. It’s okay.” She smiled reassuringly. “I won’t tell him you fed me,” she added.

Delsey laughed. “Well, not right away,” she replied.

CHAPTER THREE

MERRIE FINISHED A preliminary sketch of Ren, one she planned to turn into a portrait of him later. He really was a striking man, she thought, studying it. But there was something more than just looks there. He was strong and independent and deliberate in the way he went about things. It was all there, in her sketch.

She was so glad that Hurricane had received the care he needed. The vet really knew what she was doing. She’d go back out and check on him tomorrow. Meanwhile, she worked on sketching Ren’s portrait. She loved the hard lines of his face, the incredible masculinity that radiated from him. He brimmed with authority, but not like her father had. Her father had been cruel and domineering. Ren tended to dominate, too, but not in a cruel way.

Delsey had told her that Ren almost never had a drink. But she was sure he’d had whiskey on his breath when he came to see her after her nightmare. He’d looked guilty and haunted after he’d snapped the belt and she’d run away from him. So there was kindness there, inside him. He just didn’t let it show. He was like a wolf who’d put his paw in a fire and drew it back at once, resolving never to go near fire again. Some woman had hurt him badly, Delsey had said. She didn’t think he was the kind of man who went through women in droves, like his brother, Randall. She liked Randall very much as a friend, but she’d never have wanted him for a boyfriend. He was flighty and he loved women. He never stuck with one for longer than a few weeks, and she was sure he’d never been in love. One day, she thought with laughter, he’d meet his match.

She put a campfire and a wolf in the background of Ren’s portrait. It seemed to suit. She added lodgepole pines for a backdrop. She drew him in the shepherd’s coat and the wide-brimmed hat he wore around the ranch. He looked very lifelike, as if he could walk off the page of the sketchbook.

She wished she had her paints and canvases, but those were back in Texas. She’d hesitated to use her cell phones, even though Paul had assured her they couldn’t be traced. And it wasn’t as if she could have her painting supplies sent up here, not without the risk of having someone notice where they were going. Paul had worried about the man Timmy Leeds had hired to kill Merrie. He’d sounded very professional, and Paul mentioned that he’d been in the business for many years. Men who weren’t competent got weeded out fast.

Here, in Wyoming, she could forget for hours at a time that she was being hunted. She gave a thought to Ren and Delsey, and prayed that she wasn’t putting them in harm’s way just by living in the house with them. But, then, Randall had assured her that Ren had state-of-the-art surveillance and very capable bodyguards on the place. He’d also assured her that Ren knew exactly why she was here. It relieved her a little.

She remembered that Ren had told her to go shopping for a coat. She’d have to do that. Maybe there was an art supply store in town. Wait, what about Amazon? She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. She had an account, with her brand-new credit card backing it up.

She pulled out her cell phone, loaded the app and started shopping for supplies. It didn’t take long to find everything she needed. Now she just had to find a room to paint in. She’d ask Ren.

But not today, she decided. He was bound to be in a snarly mood when he came in from working around the ranch. It amazed her how much there was to do on a ranch this size. There were buildings that had to be repaired, stalls in both the barn and stable that had to be scrubbed and filled with fresh hay, tack that had to be mended, machines that had to be worked on—it was a never-ending process.

Then there were the cattle. In bad weather, cowboys paid even closer attention to them. The herds were checked several times a day by cowboys, who were expected to be out working no matter how bad the weather got.