Hitched to the Horseman. Stella Bagwell
stared at the ranch hand. Plenty of Texas women knew their way around a horse, but not many he knew could handle a rope, especially a loop that was tossed backward to keep the line from tightening and choking the animal. “She roped Mouse?”
“That’s what I said. She threw one of the prettiest houlihans I’d ever seen before. Surprised the heck out of me. I mean, she’s the boss’s daughter, but she looks so delicate. I figured she’d always had her mounts saddled for her. And I dang sure never seen a girl throw a houlihan before. But she did. Then saddled him herself and took off toward the river. After that, I didn’t worry about Mouse being too much horse for her. She handled him better than I could.”
Gabe’s gaze left the cowboy to settle on Mercedes, who was continuing to carefully cool down the horse. Since the moment he’d met her, she’d surprised him, amazed him, even worried him and now he had to admit that she wasn’t the spoiled princess he’d expected her to be. Yet she was trouble. He could feel it stirring in his gut, whispering in his ear.
“I guess I could have tried to stop her from riding Mouse,” James went on. “But she didn’t look like she was in any mood to take advice from me. I warned her that he was high-strung. That’s about all I could do.”
Gabe dropped an understanding hand on James’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he told the cowboy, then walked over to the fence. After he unloaded the saddle on the top rail, he headed straight to Mercedes.
By the time he reached her, she had tied Mouse to a hitching post and was working loose the back cinch from beneath the animal’s underbelly. As Gabe came to a stop a few feet from where she was standing, she tossed him a stoic glance.
“Good evening,” she greeted.
He inclined his head politely toward her. “Evenin’,” he replied as his eyes slid over the curves hidden behind her white shirt and dark blue jeans. It was hard to believe that he’d had that perfect body crushed against his, that he’d tasted the sweet wine of her lips.
Not bothering to say more, she continued to unsaddle the horse. Gabe studied her for long moments and wondered why he couldn’t stay away from her. He didn’t like to think of himself as weak willed, but she definitely made him feel out of control.
After a bit, he stated the obvious. “I see you’ve been riding Mouse.”
“Is that his name?”
“Nickname.”
“Not a very good one,” she said. “Because he’s not afraid of anything.”
Apparently she wasn’t, either, Gabe thought. Stepping closer, he said, “Did he give you any problems?”
She glanced at him as though she found his question surprising. “None at all. He’s a honey horse. I really like him.”
As though to emphasize her words, she stroked the animal’s sweaty neck. As Gabe’s gaze followed the movement of her small hand, he couldn’t help but remember the way it had touched him, the way it had tasted when he’d kissed the back of it.
“Then Mouse must like you better than he likes the cowboys here on the ranch. He’s usually a devil. A few weeks ago, he tossed one of the hands and broke the guy’s collarbone.”
She hefted the saddle from the horse’s back and lifted it onto the top rail of the fence. It wasn’t like Gabe to stand still and allow a woman to do such manual labor, but he instinctively understood that she didn’t want or require his help. She was just the sort of independent woman that enjoyed showing a man she didn’t need him. The same way Sherleen had taken pleasure in reminding him how easily she could get along without him, he thought sourly.
“Mouse knew that I trusted him,” Mercedes said. “And that’s all he needed to trust me back.”
Gabe would have never expected this woman to understand a horse’s psyche. The fact that she did impressed him, in spite of himself.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Uh, Mercedes, I’m glad I saw you ride up. I think—I want to apologize to you.”
Twisting her head, she peered skeptically at him. “You think you want to apologize? Or you know that you want to apologize?”
He moved closer, until the scent of horse and woman mingled and swirled beneath his nostrils.
With a rueful grimace, he said, “I want to apologize. I was out of line this morning. I had no right or reason to—uh—grab you the way I did in the office. You were only teasing and I should have took it as such.”
He watched her blue eyes widen with surprise. Her whole body turned to face him.
“Do you really mean that?” she asked softly.
Gabe could feel his heart jerk, then take off in a hard gallop. God, but this was crazy. No woman, including his ex-wife, had ever affected him this much. He’d thought about her all day. All day.
“I really mean it,” he said.
She let out a long breath, smiled briefly, then quickly dropped her head. A few moments passed before Gabe realized she was crying. Seeing her in such a vulnerable state stunned him, tore him like the tip of a lashing whip.
“Mercedes?” he asked softly, then carefully placed a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Blinking back her tears, she lifted her eyes to his face. “Forgive me, Gabe. I—I don’t normally behave as though I’m having an emotional breakdown.”
His fingers tightened and unconsciously began kneading her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Forget what I said this morning.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “It’s not you. Although I’m glad we’re not at war with each other. It would be pretty awful for the two of us to circle each other like mad dogs every time we crossed paths.”
“Yeah. Someone might have wanted to shoot the both of us,” he teased.
She tried to smile, but fresh tears spilled from her eyes. The urge to pull her into his arms and kiss those tears away rushed over him like a sudden, unexpected rainstorm. The strange reaction dazed him, making him feel worse than gullible. Hell, he’d never felt the urge to console anybody. Except maybe as a very young boy when he’d found his mother crying over the empty cupboards and unpaid bills. Yeah, he’d hugged his mother tightly and told her how much he loved her. As if love would fix anything, he thought bitterly. He’d tried to comfort Sherleen when she’d been upset, but she’d never been the tearful sort. She’d been a screamer and his attempts to placate her had been shunned.
Shoving that unwanted thought aside, Gabe watched Mercedes dash the tears away with the back of her hand. “I got into a quarrel of sorts with Mother this morning. I’ve been riding out over the range this afternoon thinking about her and the ranch and—a lot of things.”
His gaze touched the sweet lines of her face. “Coming home isn’t as easy as it sounds.”
Mercedes realized his simple statement completely summed up the emotional turmoil inside her, and she looked at him with new regard. “Sometimes I think I’ve been gone too long, Gabe. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to be a part of this ranch.”
“You haven’t forgotten.”
His gaze was piercing, unsettling, forcing her to look away from him and swallow.
“Mother expects me to make my home—my life—here now.”
“And what do you want, Mercedes?”
She could feel his fingers cease their movement on her shoulder, as though every part of him was waiting for her answer. Could it really matter to him whether she stayed on the ranch or left for parts unknown?
“I rode Mouse all the way to the river,” she said quietly. “And by the time I got back here to the ranch yard, I realized how much I still love this place.”