Mistletoe in Texas, page 9
“I can’t leave you here.” The hand on her shoulder tightened impatiently. “What is wrong with you?”
Nothing. Not one damn thing, except her nerves were jangling like fire bells and her breath was trying to hitch and Hank had seen her flailing like a scared hamster trying to climb a glass cage.
And dammit, she did not panic.
Hank tried softening his voice. “Grace, would you please—”
“I’m fine!” She spun around so fast her elbow connected with his gut, knocking an Oof! out of him as he stumbled back.
“Geezus, woman! I’m trying to help.”
Unaccountably, that made her want to punch him on purpose. She clenched her fists so tight her knuckles creaked. “You could have started by warning me about that…that…thing!”
“I would have if I’d ever run across one here before!” He swiped an arm across his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what they’d seen. “Christ. When I realized you’d fallen off right in front of—”
“I did not fall off. I jumped.”
Hank glared at her. “Do you have any idea how dangerous a feral hog is?”
“I was supposed to let that fat horse squash me instead?”
Her monster was a damn pig? Somehow that was ten times worse, even though she’d seen those tusks and…her heart clutched. Oh God. The horse.
Grace’s anger abruptly fizzled. “You have to go find Tick. If she got hooked…”
“You have to come too. There could be more of them.” Hank gestured toward the thicket, which Ranger continued to eye with flared nostrils as Mabel crouched beside him, their ears swiveling in search of any suspicious sound. Grace considered the narrow ravine, the steep trail, and her short legs. It was a well-known fact that feral hogs would eat anything, including small, slow humans.
Hank flipped his reins over Ranger’s head and stepped aboard, then kicked his foot out of the left stirrup and held a hand out to Grace. “Get on.”
“What?”
Hank gave his hand an impatient shake. “Get on behind me.”
“I…don’t know how.”
“You’ve never ridden double?”
“Hey! Not all of us grew up on horseback.” Grace scowled at Ranger. Why did he have to be so tall? And climbing the horse would require her to practically climb Hank too, since she didn’t see anything else to grab on to. “You ride on the back. I’ll drive.”
“Fine.” Hank kept hold of the reins, but hitched himself back to sit behind the cantle.
Okay. Good. But Grace still had to contend with the unfamiliar bulk of the chaps and bones that wanted to collapse into a shuddering pile. And she couldn’t see any way to swing her leg over the saddle without waving her butt under Hank’s nose. Again.
Ranger, bless his heart, stood stock-still as she grabbed the saddle horn, got her foot hoisted up and into the stirrup, and took a deep breath. So much for fantasies. Not one of her daydreams about Hank and this ranch had included a damn pig.
Chapter 13
He could have gotten her killed.
The tiny part of Hank’s brain still capable of logic argued that there was no way he could have known about the hog—when had those bastards moved this far north, and why hadn’t Cole told him?—but it was drowned by the echoes of that unearthly shriek.
A sound far too reminiscent of the screams of a distant crowd that leaked in from his nightmares, dragging along the vision of a massive hoof slamming down, square in the middle of a fallen cowboy’s back as Hank lunged for the bull’s head. Too far away. Too late. Always, forever too late.
Dakota Red Elk had clawed at the ground too, that night in Toppenish, his eyes wild with terror. My legs. I can’t move my legs.
He would never move them again.
When Hank had seen Grace trying to drag herself up that bank…God, his heart had just disintegrated. Nothing had ever hurt so good as when he’d reached out and she’d kicked him. He’d gotten lucky this time. More precisely, the person who’d been counting on him had gotten lucky.
Distracted, he didn’t lean out of the way when Grace heaved herself into the saddle, and the leg she’d intended to swing over the horse landed a roundhouse kick square to his rib cage.
“Shit!” He clamped his heels to keep from being knocked clean off, digging them into Ranger’s flanks. Startled, the bay gave a single, high kick that threw Grace up onto his neck. Hank caught a fistful of her coat with one hand and the reins with the other before Ranger could bolt. The gelding danced in a circle as they teetered, a tangle of arms, legs, and curses.
“I…can’t…breathe,” Grace gasped.
No wonder. The saddle horn was digging into her belly, and Hank had her pinned in place. He started to slide off, but Grace squeaked when she was dragged with him.
Hank stopped. Damn. The toe of her boot was hooked in the pocket of his coat. He hitched his hips back to the center of Ranger’s rump and took stock. He had a fingernail grip on the reins, his cheek was mashed up against Grace’s butt, and even Ranger wasn’t going to tolerate this much longer.
She had a double-fisted, white-knuckled grip on Ranger’s mane, so Hank let go of her coat and reached down to grab her ankle, prying it out of his pocket and letting it drop so she had a leg on either side of the horse. Better. Now if he could just get himself straightened out…
“’Scuse me,” he said as he planted his palm on her left butt cheek and pushed himself upright. She stiffened but didn’t try to kick him. “Scoot back,” he said.
She wiggled. Grunted. Wiggled some more. Hank got hold of the back strap of her chaps and pulled. She didn’t budge.
Her words came in short puffs. “I’m…stuck. Front of my…chaps. Over…the horn.”
Oh. Shit. That was not good. Hung up like that, if Ranger did bolt, her head would end up between his front feet. Hank slid off the side, thankfully keeping his feet under him. Ranger shied a step, his eyes rolling toward the woman who was draped over his neck, clinging like a monkey. Her coat was rucked up to her armpits, and the brim of her hat had been shoved around so the earflap covered her eyes and tufts of curly hair stuck out every which way.
A wild bubble of laughter swelled in Hank’s throat. He swallowed hard. There was no time for hysterics. He eased the rein over the horse’s head and unclipped one end, then put a calming hand on Ranger’s shoulder while he tried to figure out how to get Grace loose.
Damn. No matter what angle he studied it from, there appeared to be only one option. “I have to lift you up and over the horn, then catch you before you hit the ground.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to have to grab you by the crotch.”
“Oh.” Her hips twitched, as if in protest, but she said, “Well, uh, male cheerleaders do that all the time, right? No big deal.”
Yeah. That sounded convincing. He shucked his gloves, wrapped the end of the rein around his hand, and stepped so close that her face was buried in the curve of his neck. “Hang on to my shoulders.”
She untangled her fingers from Ranger’s mane and latched on to Hank. Her breath was hot against his skin, and he both felt and heard her soft eek! as he slid his hand, palm up, between her thigh and the saddle.
“Ready?” he asked.
Her chin dug into his shoulder as she nodded. Before either of them had time to think about exactly what he was grabbing, he slid his hand to the center, hoisted her hips up, and then pulled forward.
She dropped like a rock, her weight slamming into his chest. He went down hard on his butt, then his back, Grace sprawled on top of him. Ranger shied, but Hank kept his grip on the rein. The horse stopped, snorting and wide-eyed as he stared down at them.
Hank let his head flop back and his arms splay, spread-eagled in the dirt, limp with relief. He’d done it. She was safe.
Then Grace started to shake, tremors that rocked her body as she made a choked, hiccupping sound. Oh shit. She was crying. Was she hurt? Scared half to death? Fixing to slam a knee into the same part of his anatomy as he’d just—
Her laughter burst out, ringing in his ears and echoing off the sides of the ravine. “Oh…my…God!” she gasped. “That was so ridiculous. If anyone had seen—”
She broke off, quaking against him, and the vibration broke something loose inside him.
This wasn’t funny, dammit. Except it was, especially when he lifted his head to see her blindfolded by her cock-eyed hat, hair sticking out every which way and giggling her fool head off.
A deep, uncontrollable belly laugh rocked him. And the harder he laughed, the harder Grace laughed, and then Mabel started jumping and yipping around them, eager to join the fun, and they laughed even harder, helpless to fend her off when her tongue swiped at their faces. The horse stared down at them as if they’d lost their ever-loving minds. Maybe Hank had. Exhilaration burned through him—sudden, irrational—and sent his heart soaring for no reason at all.
Sweet Jesus, it had been a long time since he’d laughed this way—bone-shaking, uncontrollable laughter that left him as drained and limp as mind-blowing sex. The last time Grace had been sprawled across his chest, there had been nothing between them but sweat-damp skin and two hearts hammering against each other as they floated back down to earth.
Slowly, the laughter trailed away and reality, that cold-hearted bitch, elbowed aside the all-too-fleeting sense of joy. Grace lifted her head, and Hank tugged her cap straight, then skimmed his fingers across her forehead to push aside the hair that straggled in her eyes. Her nose was red and her face was smeared with mud…and blood.
He had imagined a thousand ways, a million words to explain what he’d done, why he’d done it, but in the end there were only three that mattered. “I’m sorry, Grace.”
She went still as a rabbit frozen in a spotlight, and her throat moved as she swallowed.
“Not just for this.” His fingertip rested lightly below the thin, red scratch on her cheek. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t.” She clamped a gloved hand over his mouth. “Hearing you say how much you wish you’d never seen me naked will not make me feel better.”
He pushed her hand off his face. “That’s not what—”
“Just stop.” She climbed to her feet, yanking her coat down to her hips. “That ol’ horse was dead on arrival. I do not want to beat it, or perform an autopsy, thank you very much. Like you said before, we should get out of here.”
Mabel stuck a concerned nose in his face. He shoved it away and sat up. She was right. This wasn’t the place to dawdle. He should concentrate on getting Grace home safe. She held out a hand, her expression…well, damned if he could tell what she was feeling.
“Unless you want to lie there until that hog comes back to have you for dinner,” she said, waggling her fingers.
He grabbed hold and let her help him up.
She immediately stepped away. “Show me how to get on the back.”
“Are you sure? I can walk.”
“That would be stupid. Just don’t bounce me off on my head or blab about this to Cole. I do not need to be the butt of Shawnee’s jokes for the rest of my life.”
“She’ll find out,” Hank predicted gloomily. “There are no secrets around here.”
Grace’s smile was sharper than he would have thought possible from a mouth that soft. “You’d be surprised what people don’t know.”
“Especially me?”
An unidentified emotion flickered in her eyes before she tucked her chin to stare down at the ground. “You can’t hog all the blame.” Her mouth twisted into a lopsided smile. “Hah. Hog. I’m such a comedian. Anyway…” Her gaze came up to meet his, clear and steady. “Let’s be honest, okay? We both know I had a crush on you for years. And I knew you were on the rebound when you showed up in Canyon that night, but I finally had a chance to get my hands on you, so I took it. I was selfish. And you were hurting in ways that I didn’t bother to figure out. What were the odds that it was going to end well?”
“At that point in my life? Less than zero.”
“Exactly. But I chose to ignore all the warning signs and grab what I wanted.” She stuck out a gloved hand. “Let’s just call it a draw, okay?”
He hesitated, then accepted the handshake. “So…friends?”
“Friends.” She pumped his hand once, then let it drop. “Now can we go find my horse?”
When they were safely aboard Ranger, with Grace hanging onto the sides of his jacket and her boots bumping his legs every few strides, Hank blew out a long, silent breath.
Friends.
That was good. Better than he’d dreamed possible. So why couldn’t he shake the notion that Grace’s forgiveness had come too easily? Everything she’d said made perfect sense, but it still felt like he’d been given a free pass. Once upon a time he would have grabbed it and run without a second thought. Not anymore.
He had learned the hard and very painful way that anything he hadn’t earned wouldn’t last.
Chapter 14
Bumping along on the back of the horse, Grace had to resist the urge to throw her arms around Hank’s waist and try to squeeze out another laugh. She barely needed to hang on at all, since he took care to make the ride as smooth as possible.
Looking out for her…just like he used to.
Her heart gave a treacherous little skip. The boy she’d adored had been like a puppy: sweet and funny and so clueless sometimes she’d wanted to swat him with a newspaper. This man had gotten lost in the wilderness and been adopted by wolves—honed down, watchful, and likely to bite if cornered. But also gentle and protective. Some of the best of Hank was still there, peeking out around the edges to see if it was safe to show himself.
Even before Maddie, he had been permanently woven into the fabric of her life. To be close to him, Grace had volunteered to be the student manager for first the football team, then the basketball team, persuading her father the experience would look impressive on scholarship applications. She’d handed Hank water bottles at practice, taped his ankles before games, bandaged his scrapes, and strapped ice packs onto his bruises and sprains. Somewhere along the line, sports medicine had turned into her passion and was now her vocation.
Every time she joined the sideline celebration of a touchdown pass, she remembered how Hank would catch her up in his sweaty embrace and swing her off the ground. When her Bluegrass boys took a time-out with the game on the line, she recalled bumping fists for luck before Hank trotted back out onto the court.
Friends.
Did she dare get that close to him? Anger was so much safer than the slippery slope of forgiveness, then friendship, then…well she knew what. But for Maddie’s sake, she had to at least be civil—assuming Hank would want anything to do with his daughter. Or with Grace, when he found out what she’d done and asked the one question she couldn’t answer.
Why, Grace?
“There she is,” he said.
Grace started, then realized he was pointing at Tick, who grazed under a towering cottonwood on the river flat, brought up short by the temptation of green grass. When they found no sign of trauma to the horse, Grace climbed on, surprised when Hank pointed Ranger toward home. “Aren’t we going after the cows?”
He shook his head. “It’s getting late, and I’ve had enough thrills for one day.”
As they rode up to the barn, a semi rumbled into the driveway, JACOBS LIVESTOCK in block letters on the front of the shiny aluminum cattle trailer. Hank stepped off his horse and opened a wooden gate leading into an alley that ran toward the arena.
“Go ahead and unsaddle. Mabel and I can bring the cull cows up to the loading chute.”
“I’ll help…” Grace began, then huffed out a sigh. “Never mind. At the rate I’m going, it’ll be easier without me.”
“You weren’t so bad.”
“Sure. I just threw in a little trick riding for the fun of it.”
“It was pretty damn entertaining.” Hank’s eyes took on a hint of that once-familiar teasing gleam. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone hang upside down from the saddle horn. Look, Ma! No hands!”
She made a sour face. “Gee, I feel so much better now.”
“I thought you felt fine before.” The smile he lobbed at her was so unexpected, she had no chance to duck. “And since we’re being honest…I am really not sorry I let you show me the best time I’ve ever had, and I was lying my ass off when I said I didn’t want to do it again.”
Grace could only stare as he vaulted onto his horse and trotted away without a backward glance. All the times she’d imagined Hank saying those exact words, and now she had no idea what to do with them.
* * *
Well, that was brilliant. They’d just agreed to be friends, and he was already trying to screw it up by dragging sex into the mix. But he couldn’t let her go on believing whatever drunken bullshit he’d spewed that night at the Lone Steer, and even though it was pathetically little and years too late, he’d had to try to undo the damage. Grace deserved that much from him, no matter what she said about bygones.
Ten minutes later, he pushed the last few cows onto the truck Cole had backed up to the chute and rolled the segmented door down with a clatter.
“Good to go?” Cole asked.
“Yep.”
Cole double-checked that the door was fastened securely—a habit so ingrained Hank couldn’t take offense—then said, “Shawnee’s gonna ride along with me. Grace’ll take her pickup home, so she can drop you off on the way.”
Hank’s pulse jumped. He smacked it back down again. Uh-uh, buddy. There had already been enough alone time with Grace for one day.
“I’ll take Dad’s chore pickup instead. That front end is gonna fall apart if it doesn’t get some new U-joints.” He walked down the slanted loading chute, meeting Cole at the bottom. Mabel flopped on the ground, job done. Spider bounced off his thigh with both front feet, narrowly missing his crotch.
