Wrangling The Cowboy's Heart

Jodie’s only answer was to take a bite of her pizza. Her sister was right, but she wasn’t about to let someone like Finn into her life again.

He was too much a reminder of all that she had lost. All that her father had taken away. And she couldn’t let herself feel that vulnerable again.

Chapter Three

Jodie stepped into the house, déjà vu washing over her as the faintest scent of onions and bacon, her father’s favorite foods, wafted past her. Vague evidence that he had been here only a week ago.

Pain clenched her heart. Pain and regret, coupled with a wish that Lauren could have come with her to the Rocking M.

Her sister had had to leave early this morning to catch a plane, so last night they’d stayed in Saddlebank’s only motel, then gone their separate ways at dawn.

Jodie toed off her boots and put them on the shelf under the coatrack. She set her suitcase on the old wooden bench, as she and her sisters always did the day they arrived at the ranch. For a fraction of a moment loneliness nudged her at the sight of her lone suitcase. There should be two more.

She paused, listening, but the only sounds in the stillness were the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room and the hum of the refrigerator in the rear.

Hugging herself, she walked through the house to the kitchen. A breakfast bar bisected the space, separating the cooking area from the rest of the room. She and her sisters had spent a lot of time there, laughing as they created unique meals using the minimal ingredients available to them. Their father had never been big on shopping.

A large room took up the far end of the house, the ceiling soaring two stories high. The dining room table with its five mismatched chairs filled one side, while couches and a couple recliners huddled around the stone fireplace on the far wall, flanked by two large bay windows.

A baby grand piano, covered with a flowered sheet, took up the far corner of the room. Jodie was surprised her dad still had it. It was an older one from her aunt Laura, who used to teach piano.

Jodie’s smile faded as she looked toward the closed door of her father’s office.

How many times had he pulled her into that room, ordered her to sit in the chair and listen? How many lectures had she endured, with him pounding his fist on the desk, telling her she was a disgrace to his good name? It didn’t take much to resurrect his angry voice berating her, the sting of his hand on her cheek.

She spun away from the office, striding toward the living room as if outrunning the hurtful memories. She stopped at the window overlooking the yard. From there she saw the wooden fences of the corrals edging the rolling green pastures. Beyond them stood the mountains, snow still clinging to the peaks even in summer.

During the days of stifling heat in Knoxville, she’d definitely missed the mountains and the open spaces of this ranch. She fingered the curtain, leaning her forehead against the cool glass of the window, the usual daydreams assaulting her. Travel, moving, being in charge of where she went instead of working around other people’s plans for her life. She had spent most of her childhood going where others told her to go, being who others told her to be. Now she was stuck here for a couple months, once again, her situation being dictated by her father.

She could leave. She knew that. Forfeit her right to a portion of the ranch. But she also knew the reality of her situation. Any money she got from selling the ranch would be a huge benefit. Touring wouldn’t be the financial hardship it usually was.

And what would Dad think of that?

She pushed aside the guilt and mixed feelings that had been her steady companions since her father died, then walked over to the piano and pulled the sheet off, sneezing at the dust cloud she created. Lifting the lid, she propped it open, raised the fallboard covering the keys and sat down at the bench.

She ran a few scales, the notes echoing in the emptiness. Surprisingly, the piano was still reasonably in tune.

Her fingers unerringly found the notes of “Für Elise,” one of the first pieces she had ever performed, and its haunting melody filled the silence as memories assailed her.

Sitting at this same piano, her pudgy fingers plinking out notes of the scales as her sisters played outside. Often her time at the piano was punishment for one of her many misdeeds. Between the musical aptitude her grandmother tried to nurture and the many times Jodie got into trouble, she’d spent a lot of time at the keyboard.

But while music had, initially, been a burden, it had eventually became a release. She took her skills and applied them to writing music, something that she enjoyed.

And now, as she played in her childhood home once again, the music transported her to better times, better memories.

The light from the window fell across the keys and, as she often did when she was playing, she looked at the scar on the back of her right hand and how it rippled as she played.

Jodie abruptly dropped her hands to her lap, one covering the other, the music generating an ache for the losses in her life. Of her mother, when she was only nine. The loss of her plans and dreams in high school. The death of her grandmother a few years ago, and now her father.

She was here for two months. But once those months were done, she was gone. And after that?

She closed the lid on the piano with a thunk and got up from the bench. She had learned it never helped to plan too far ahead. That way lay only disappointment and pain.

* * *

Finn rode his horse through the corral gate, closed it and then rode up beside Jodie standing by the corral fence. He and Vic had spent a good part of the day gathering Keith’s horses from the far pastures of the Rocking M.

Jodie had her arms hooked over the top rail, looking the herd over. Yesterday, at the funeral and later, at the café, she’d seemed shut off. Distant. He put it down to the funeral.

But today she looked more relaxed.

When they’d had arrived at the ranch, Vic had gone up to the house to let her know they were there. To Finn’s surprise, Jodie had been waiting at the corrals when they returned with the horses. It had taken some time to get them in the old corrals, and Jodie had helped, opening the gates and closing them behind them.

Now Finn found himself unable to tear his gaze away from her and her thick dark hair shining in the afternoon sun. It flowed over the shoulders of the pink tunic she wore, a flash of bright color against her turquoise-and-purple-patterned skirt. It was the kind of outfit Jodie always favored—different and unusual and just a little out there.

“So how many of these horses belong to my father and how many to Vic?” Jodie asked.

“I think about half of the bunch are Vic’s,” Finn said, forcing himself to focus on the job at hand, as he dismounted from his horse and tied it up to the fence with a neat bowline knot. It was early afternoon, but the sun was gathering strength.

He and Vic had spent the morning riding the backcountry of the ranch, rounding up Keith’s and Vic’s horses and herding them into the sketchy corrals. Vic’s horses were well behaved enough, but Finn was disappointed to see how wild Keith’s had gotten.

Once again he fought down his own regret. He had been too busy with his job as a sheriff’s deputy, and working on the side, trying to establish his farrier business, to come regularly. In the past year and a half, the only times he had seen Keith was at the Grill and Chill, where his friend sat at his usual table, drinking coffee and scribbling furiously on pads of paper. Every time Finn joined him, he would shove the pads in an envelope, as if ashamed.

Now Keith’s horses milled in the corral, the close quarters making them reestablish their pecking order. Teeth were bared, heads tossed, ears pinned back, and one or two of the smaller geldings had already been kicked.

“Some of them act pretty wild,” Jodie said, dismay in her voice and expression.

“They’ll all need some work,” Finn stated, pushing his cowboy hat back on his head.

“Work?” Jodie asked.

“Hooves trimmed, for one thing. Could use some grooming. General care. Some round-pen work to settle them down. Some groundwork to retrain them.”

Jodie climbed up on the fence, still watching the horses. She seemed more relaxed today than at the funeral. “I recognize a few of them,” she said, her smile lighting up her previously somber face. “We used to ride that one. Mickey.” She pointed to a bay gelding that was shaking his head and baring his teeth at an appaloosa.

“You might want to be careful on the fence,” Finn warned. “The horses are goofy, penned up like this. They’ve not been worked with for a while.”

The words were barely spoken when one of the animals screeched, followed by a resounding thump as hooves connected with hide. Another bared its teeth, kicking at the rails. Then, close to Jodie, a roan mare and a pinto started fighting.

Finn was about to call out to her to get down when both horses reared, hooves flying. The pinto lost its balance and started falling.

Right toward Jodie.

Finn moved fast, hooking his arm around her waist and pulling her back just as the horses fell against the fence. The posts and rails shuddered and Finn prayed they would hold as he spun Jodie around, out of harm’s way.

Horses squealed as they struggled to regain their footing. The boards creaked and groaned. Finn looked over his shoulder. Thankfully, the roan scrambled free and galloped away, a couple others in pursuit.

Too close, he thought, relief making his knees tremble.

Then he glanced down at Jodie, realizing that he still had one arm wrapped around her midsection, the other bent over her head. Her hands were clutching his shirt.

“You okay?” he asked, still holding her.

She sucked in a shaky breath, her hair falling into her face as she nodded.

“Thanks. That was kind of scary,” she said, her voice wavering.

Finn was lost once again in eyes as blue as the Montana sky above them. As their gazes held, his heart beat faster and his breath became ragged.

Then she blinked and released her grip on him.

As he took a step away from her, he had to force his emotions back to equilibrium, frustrated with his reaction to her. It was as if he had never held a woman in his arms.

He lowered his hands as she pushed her hair away from her face, looking everywhere but at him.

“So, Jodie, you figured out what you want done with your horses?” Vic asked, slapping his dusty hat against his equally dusty blue jeans as he joined them.

Jodie shrugged, looking past Finn to the corrals, where the horses were slowly settling down. “I’m not sure. I was hoping I could ride one or two of them.”

“Today?” Surprise tinged Finn’s voice.

“No. Oh, no. I’m not that optimistic,” she said with a nervous laugh, obviously still shaken up by her close encounter.

With him or the horses?

Don’t flatter yourself, Hicks.

“You did say they were wild,” Jodie said.

“So when were you hoping to ride them?” Finn asked.

“I thought in a week or so?” She gave him a tight smile.

“You’re here that long?” Her sister was gone, and he’d assumed Jodie would be leaving soon, as well.

“Unfortunately, I’m here for a couple of months.”

“If you spend some time with them, you might be able to catch one or two eventually,” Vic jumped in before Finn could quiz her. “Your dad let them run wild.”

“Even if you catch a few, I wouldn’t recommend riding them until you’ve done some groundwork and round-pen work with them,” Finn added. “Settle them down.”

“I thought they were trained?”

“So did Finn when we tried to round them up,” Vic said with a laugh. “Guess it didn’t take.”

“It’s been a few years since I worked with them,” he retorted.

“You trained some of my dad’s horses?” Jodie’s eyes went wide and her eyebrows hit her hairline. “But you’re a deputy.”

“He multitasks,” Vic said, slapping his hat again, grinning. “Catching crooks by day, horses by night.”

“I didn’t know you were a trainer,” Jodie said to Finn.

“It’s something I do on the side.”

She nodded, as if storing that information away.

“Tell me what you want done with these cayuses, Jodie,” Vic stated, plopping his battered, worn hat on his head. “I’m sorting mine out and loading them up on my trailer. Do you want to move these to the pasture just off the corrals or do you want me to let them go again?”

She caught her lip between her teeth, as if thinking. “I’m not sure what to do. Dad’s will said we could offload the moveable assets whenever we wanted. Just not—” She stopped abruptly, waving her hand as if erasing what she’d said.

“Offload as in sell them?” Finn asked in dismay. They were top-notch horses and had some superb bloodlines, though they were a bit wild. It would be a crime to sell them at an auction.

“I can’t keep them if I’m not staying, so I guess I’ll have to. I should get a decent price. They’re good horses. Dad always needed to own the best.”

“If you try to sell them right now, you’ll only get meat prices for them,” Finn said. “The only place you could sell them is at the auction mart.”

“So they would get sold for slaughter?” Jodie sounded as concerned as he was. The horses now stood quietly, a sharp contrast to their behavior a few moments ago. The pinto hung her head over the fence, looking almost apologetic.

“Hey, Spotty,” she said, walking over, her hand held up. To Finn’s surprise, the mare stayed where she was and allowed her to come closer. Jodie rubbed her nose, an expression of such yearning on her face that it caught Finn off guard. The horse nickered softly, as if responding to her.

Jodie stroked her neck and then another mare, the roan, joined them. Spotty stepped to the side, her head down in submission. Obviously the other mare was higher up in the pecking order.

“Do you remember me, Roany?” Jodie murmured, rubbing her nose, as well.

“Some really original names for those horses,” Finn teased. “Roany for a roan, Spotty for a pinto.”

“We were city kids. What did we know about proper horse names?”

“You could have done an internet search,” Finn joked.

Jodie shot him a wry look. “Internet? That complete waste of time? Besides, back then it would have been slow dial-up service.”

“That’s right,” Finn mused. “We just got the wireless towers in the past few years. Now I can waste time even faster.”

Jodie’s light chuckle made him feel better than it should.

“So when you two are done...” Vic waved as if trying to catch Finn’s attention.

“Sorry, Vic,” he said, feeling foolish as he turned away from Jodie. “What do you need?”

“I’ll get my horses sorted out and we can load them up and be out of Jodie’s hair,” his friend said. “You stay here with the riding horses. I want to put them on the trailer last, and these two will get all antsy if I leave them alone.”

Finn wasn’t keen on the idea. He knew he should get going. Jodie had held a dangerous fascination for him once. But she was too much like his mother, not enough like his beloved Denise.

Before he could object, however, Vic was gone, leaving the two of them alone again.

“So, if you behave, I can take you out in the back pasture,” she was saying, still rubbing Roany’s nose. “Just like old times.”

“You enjoyed riding, didn’t you?” Finn asked.

“It was one of the few things I liked about being on the ranch,” she countered, stroking Roany. The horse closed her eyes as if reveling in the attention. “Erin and I rode more than Lauren did. I missed it when...” Her voice trailed off again, as if she had other things to say, but either didn’t want to or didn’t dare.

Which immediately made him curious as to what she’d been planning to say.

“Anyhow, I wouldn’t mind going riding again,” Jodie was saying. “I’ll have nothing but time the next two months.”

Finn knew he should let it go, but she’d raised his curiosity. “So why are you staying a couple of months?”

For a few seconds she said nothing, just kept stroking Roany’s coat. Then a couple other horses came close, and the mare pinned her ears back and charged at the newcomers.

Jodie stepped away, then wiped her hands on her skirt. “I’m between jobs right now.”

“The waitressing one or the playing-piano one?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Your father told me. We did spend a lot of time together at one time.” And Keith had always talked of Jodie’s occupations with a hint of anger. He was much prouder of Lauren, who had gone on to become a civil engineer, and Erin, who was a graphics designer.

“Both. But I have an opportunity with a band that hopes to start touring soon. They need a pianist and I’m on the short list.”

“No plans for settling down?”

Her face grew hard. “No. Not in my destiny.”

“And home is Wichita now?”

She frowned in puzzlement. “How did you know?”

“The plates on your car.”

“Of course.” Jodie sighed, looking back at the house. “For now I’m stuck here, though, thanks to the condition Dad put on the will.”

Finn’s curiosity won out over his desire to keep her at arm’s length. “What condition was that?”

“He wanted each of us girls to stay on the ranch for two months before we could sell it. So I’m doing my duty. Lauren will do hers as soon as possible and we’re hoping Erin will come, as well.”

Two months? At the ranch?

That the idea created such conflicting emotions both surprised and annoyed him.

Finn couldn’t deny that Jodie being around that long held a strong appeal for him. At the same time, she wasn’t the type of person he should allow himself to be attracted to, and he knew it deep in his soul.

“So you’re positive I’ll only get meat prices if I bring these horses to the auction mart in town?” Jodie was asking, turning her attention back to the horses.

Finn nodded, wishing he could detach himself from the thought that these amazing animals would be slaughtered. “I wouldn’t make a decision right away, though,” he said. “Maybe ask around. See if there’s anyone who would be willing to take them.”

Jodie nodded again. “For now, it looks as if they need their hooves trimmed. Do you know anyone who could do that for me?”

“I could, if you wanted,” he said. He owed that much to Keith.

“That’d be good.” Jodie’s smile tugged at his resolve to keep his distance from her.

Then Vic was back to grab his riding horses. Time to go.

“I’ll see you tomorrow when my shift is over,” Finn said to Jodie.

“Stop by the house. I’ll give you a hand,” she replied.

He nodded, then grabbed his horse’s reins and walked over to the horse trailer to load it. But as he did, he couldn’t help sneaking a quick glance back to where Jodie still stood.

To his surprise she was watching him, a curious expression on her face.

Chapter Four

She still played piano.

As Finn knocked on the door, familiar music drifted out the open windows of the McCauley house. He remembered his mother playing the piece, but never as frenetically as it was being pounded out now. Yesterday, when he and Vic had come to round up the horses, Jodie had been outside waiting. Did she forget?

But before he knocked again, he listened a moment, feeling sorrowful at the sound. His mother, a pianist herself, had heard Jodie play a few times and praised the young girl’s talent. Had talked about mentoring her.

But his mom’s reliability was sketchy at best and she’d never followed through on her offer. Just as she’d never followed through on her promises to attend his baseball or basketball games, his school programs or anything requiring her to make a commitment. After his father’s death, it was as if she’d lost all her focus on her family. As a result Finn had ended up neglected and alone. It was thanks to Keith McCauley’s intervention that he’d had someone who was interested in his well-being. Finn owed Keith more than he could ever repay. The man had been a steadying force in his life.

And it was that history that brought him, reluctantly, here today. Keith’s animals needed some basic farrier work. It was the least Finn could do for the man who had been such a huge influence in his life.

He knocked again, more loudly this time.

There was still no answer, so he opened the door and called out, “Anybody home?”

The music stopped abruptly. He heard the screech of a bench being pushed back, then footsteps, and a few seconds later Jodie appeared in the doorway. Today she wore an oversize plaid shirt, a tank top and blue jeans cuffed above bare feet. She had her glossy hair pulled back in a loose braid hanging over one shoulder. She looked more like the country girl he remembered than the retro hippie who’d come to her father’s funeral.

“Hey there,” she said, folding her arms around her waist. “Glad you could come.”

“You got the horses in the corral?” he asked, wanting to get down to business. He had just come off his shift at work and was hungry.

“Sort of,” she said, biting her lip. “I couldn’t round them all up. Mickey and Roany are still out in the pasture.”

“Just as well. I can’t trim all their hooves today, anyhow,” he said.

“Of course.” She slipped on her boots and grabbed a worn straw cowboy hat from a shelf above the empty coatracks.

“I couldn’t help hearing the piano,” he said, still surprised at the beauty of the music. “You ever play anywhere besides bars?”

“Not much opportunity,” she said, dropping the hat on her head and buttoning up her shirt. “And it works for me. Concert pianist was clearly not in the cards.”

He felt a nudge of disappointment at how casually she brushed off something she had talked about with such enthusiasm that one summer.

“How did that happen?” When they were dating, the music scholarship was all she’d talked about. When she’d ditched him for a wild party that night and missed her audition the next day, he had been so utterly disappointed both in her and for her. The rest of the summer she’d avoided him and hung out with a bad group. The next summer she hadn’t shown up at all, and the only time Keith had mentioned her was to tell Finn about the irresponsible life his youngest daughter was leading.

“Life happens,” she said wryly.

Guess that was all he was going to get.

He opened the door for her, but before she walked through, she gave him an enigmatic look. “Still a gentleman, I see.”

“One of the few things my mother taught me,” he said, following her across the porch.

“Where is she now?” Jodie continued.

“Hopefully on her way to Saddlebank.” Finn pushed down the flicker of concern that his mother would flake out on him again. She’d sounded so sincere when she had called him a couple months ago. Maybe things had changed in her life. “She’s accompanying Mandie Parker for our church music festival.”

“Mandie Parker. I’ve heard of her.”

“Really? She sings Christian contemporary music,” Finn said.

Jodie tossed him a wry look. “I’ll have you know I have a variety of musical tastes,” she stated.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“That I only listen to blues in smoky bars or hip-hop in clubs. I get it.”

A smile teased his mouth at her quip. “I stand corrected.”

“As for Mandie, it’s amazing that you managed to get her. She’s very talented.”

“The festival’s in a couple of weeks. If you’re staying here, you could come, if you’re interested.”

“I just might.” Jodie shoved her hands into the back pockets of her blue jeans as she walked alongside him, past the dented and dusty car she had driven here. Clearly waitressing and playing in bars didn’t pay enough to buy decent transportation.