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“Then you did right coming here.”
“Have I told you how much I appreciate you coming up here and spending the summer with me?” Abigail said.
“Oh, yeah,” Raj mockingly retorted, “it was a real hardship for me to leave my cubbyhole apartment in Great Falls and spend two months in these gorgeous surroundings.”
“At least in Great Falls you didn’t have to deal with moose on your doorstep.”
“That made our first morning here exciting, didn’t it?” Raj recalled with a grin. “And I have a feeling that Dylan’s presence is going to make the rest of our summer rather exciting, as well.”
“He’s a little less homely than that moose was,” Abigail replied with a saucy grin. “But I’d be surprised if he stays the entire summer. His kind doesn’t tend to stay in one place very long.”
“He might surprise you.”
“You can count on it,” Dylan stated from the doorway.
Abigail swung around, her face turning red as she wondered how much of their conversation he’d overheard.
She found out when he mockingly added, “And I’m deeply honored that you think I’m less homely than a moose.”
To her relief, Abigail was saved from having to make a reply by the noisy entrance of Shem Buskirk and his two grown sons, Hondo and Randy. Shem had worked on her father’s ranch a few summers when she’d been a child. He’d been the only applicant Abigail had gotten in reply to an ad for help at the ranch. Considering the fact that Hoss owned the newspaper in the nearest town, Big Rock, she supposed she was lucky to have gotten her ad run at all. Hoss had told her that no one would answer it. He’d been wrong.
Not that Hoss considered Shem much of a threat. No one knew how old Shem actually was, but he told stories about his mining days in the Crazy Mountains in the early 1930s. He had a shock of white hair almost as wild as Ziggy’s, while his face had more lines on it than a Manhattan road map. He’d turned down her offer of ranch foreman, claiming responsibility like that wasn’t his strong suit, but had agreed to work for her.
His two sons—Hondo and Randy, as ageless as Shem—had just shown up with him. They were willing to work for room and board. The bunkhouse was empty anyway, so Abigail let them stay on. Neither one of them had what it took to be foreman.
The two “offspring,” as Shem called his sons, reminded her of Mutt and Jeff, with Randy as tall and skinny as a rail while Hondo was much shorter and heavyset. Neither one was real bright, but they were adequate workers, although they didn’t do anything without being told first. However, at this point, Abigail couldn’t afford to be real choosy. Her uncle had let things go for the past few years, and there was plenty of work to be done.
Under cover of the noise Shem and his sons made whenever entering a room, Raj sidled up to Abigail to whisper, “I’m not sure how practical it was to hire Dylan when you’ve sworn off cowboys. It’s kind of like putting a box of imported Belgian chocolates in front of a chocoholic who has just gone on a diet.”
As always, Raj was right. It was one of her less endearing traits.
“Where’s your yodeling friend tonight?” Hondo asked Abigail around a mouthful of mashed potatoes a few minutes later.
“Ziggy is working. Sometimes he comes over and takes over cooking duties from Raj,” Abigail explained for Dylan’s benefit. “You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted his fondue.”
The men all wore similar expressions of horror.
Abigail had to laugh. “Don’t worry,” she said mockingly. “I won’t try and force you big, strong men to eat sissy food like fondue. Who knows what it might do to you?”
“You’ve got that right,” Randy declared. “Food like that can affect a man’s performance. Might make him—” he lowered his voice “—you know…competent.”
“There’s little chance of you ever being competent,” Raj assured Randy.
“The word is impotent,” Shem told his son. “You’d know that if you read the dictionary the way I do.”
“I’ve got better things to do with my time than read a book that’s better used as a doorstop,” Randy retorted.
“Indubitably,” Shem replied.
“Hey, are you calling me a name or something?”
“Look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls,” Shem retorted.
“My what?”
“Never mind.”
“Nice crew you’ve got here,” Dylan mockingly murmured from her side. Trust Raj to seat him right next to Abigail.
Seen through his eyes, she didn’t imagine Shem and his sons looked all that promising. Abigail was well aware that Dylan was only sticking around because he didn’t think she was capable of hanging on to the ranch without his help. The damn thing was, he was right. Not because she wasn’t capable enough, but because she did need help. His help. But she didn’t have to be happy about it.
“Here, have some more peas,” she said in a grumbly tone of voice, grabbing the bowl and shoving it in Dylan’s direction.
She also wasn’t happy about this jolt of sexual awareness from something as simple as his fingers brushing hers as he took the bowl from her. But she was a big girl, and she wasn’t about to let something like chemistry control her. She was the one in control now.
Hondo wasn’t as lucky, wrestling as he was with the yellow plastic container of mustard, turning it upside down and squeezing it as if trying to wring the last gasp of life from it. Hondo was the only person Abigail had ever met who put mustard on everything—including tonight’s meal of meat loaf, mashed potatoes and peas.
“Works more expeditiously if you tilt it at an angle,” Shem informed his son.
“Say what?”
“Better,” Raj translated.
Hondo did as his father suggested, and sure enough the mustard finally came spurting out, along with the lid, spattering the tablecloth and poor Shem, who was sitting directly across from Hondo.
Aside from one pricelessly startled look, Shem’s way of handling the situation was to simply keep on eating, as if he didn’t have mustard dripping from his forehead and the bridge of his nose.
For the second time that day, Abigail lost control, laughing so hard tears came to her eyes and Dylan had to pat her on the back.
“I know the Himlicking maneuver if you’re choking,” Randy informed Abigail, which set her off again.
“What’d I say?” Randy asked in bewilderment.
“I need some air,” Abigail gasped in between the tears of mirth.
“Right-oh,” Randy said with a crack of his knuckles. “Step aside there, Dylan, and I’ll give her the Himlicking.”
“No, don’t do that,” Dylan said, somehow managing to keep a straight face. “I’ll take her outside so she can get some air.”
Once they were both outside, the cool night air and the closeness of Dylan by her side brought Abigail to her senses quickly enough.
Although it was nearly seven, the sun was still fairly high in the sky, nowhere near ready to set yet. This far north, sunset didn’t come until after ten in June. Now it was July, and the days continued to be long and lovely. Abigail had always considered it Mother Nature’s way of making up for the often brutal winters.
There was something about this time of year that had always given her a sense of peace, of hope. But that was before Dylan had ridden into her life. Now she felt restless and curious.
So she said, “When you helped me with Wild Thing earlier today, you said something about Gypsy legend-”
“When I saved your life, you mean?” Dylan interrupted her to say.
“Was that just a line?” she asked.
“About saving your life?”
“No, I meant about your having a Gypsy heritage.”
His jaw tightened. “Does that matter?”
She sensed a certain defensiveness in his attitude. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be nosy…”
“Sure you were.”
“Okay, so I was,” she amiably agreed. With a shrug, she added, “I’m a writer. I’m interested in people and their roots. Or aren’t rolling stones like you allowed to have roots?”
“I’ve got roots. Back in Chicago with my family.”
“You’re from Chicago?”
Dylan grinned at the way she said the city’s name, with the same sort of disdain used by most westerners to any city east of Denver. “I left home a long time ago. I’m the wanderer in my family. My dad says it’s due to my Rom blood, Gypsy blood, which I got from him. Both my parents came over from Hungary in the early sixties, before I was born. My dad is Rom, my mom isn’t.”
“Are you an only child?”
“Nope, I’ve got an older brother and sister—Michael and Gaylynn.”
“So you’re the baby in the family. That figures,” she murmured half under her breath.
“What figures?”
“The baby in the family is often spoiled with too much attention.”
“You read that in some book? Or are you speaking from personal experience?”
“I’m an only child.”
“Which means you were definitely spoiled.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Maybe it’s the way you walk around with your nose in the air.”
“I do not!”
“Not that it’s not a cute nose, mind. Just a mite haughty.”
“If this is your awkward attempt to endear yourself to me…”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“It seems to go with the territory,” she muttered darkly.
“And what territory might that be?”
“Cowboy territory.”
“And I suppose you know all about cowboys?”
“I could write the book on them. In fact, I have written several of them. So trust me, I know all about cowboys with itchy feet,” she loftily informed him.
“My feet aren’t what’s itching at the moment,” Dylan lazily assured her. “It’s something much higher up on my…anatomy.”
“I have no wish to discuss your anatomy.”
“You’d rather just look at it.”
“That’s right. I mean, of course not!”
“So you would rather talk about it.”
“I’d rather ignore it.”
“So would I. But that’s hard to do, no pun intended, when I have this fierce ache…”
“I don’t want to hear about it!”
“Right here…” His hand hovered suggestively before landing on his thigh.
“Maybe you should put some horse liniment on it,” she suggested tartly. “I hear it works real well on stubborn mules, as well.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched back inside, leaving Dylan staring after her.
“First I’m cuter than a moose and now I’m a stubborn mule. I think she likes me,” Dylan informed the orange barn cat curled up on the crooked front-porch swing. “I think she likes me a lot!”
Dylan’s first week at the ranch flew by. Working from dawn until dusk when daylight lasted for over fifteen hours would do that to a man, make time fly by. But working for a woman like Abigail Turner did other things to a man, like turning his head. She’d done that, all right—with her wild curls that she constantly battled to keep out of her eyes, eyes as blue as the big Montana sky.
While standing under a spray of cold water from the shower, Dylan sang the opening lines of a George Strait classic. Cold showers had become a daily ritual for him since meeting up with Abbie. After getting dressed, Dylan grabbed a bottle of juice out of the tiny fridge and drank it straight from the bottle, all the white wondering what Abbie was doing this morning.
Dylan always thought of her as Abbie, even during those times when she stuck her adorable nose in the air and went all haughty on him. He’d never really had to chase after a woman before; usually they seemed to swarm around like bees to honey. Dylan was cynical enough to suspect that the buckle bunnies who followed the rodeo trail had found his championship buckle as appealing as he was. He’d noticed there sure as hell hadn’t been any groupies hanging around the hospital when he’d been released.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he replaced the juice bottle and cooked up a mean Mexican omelet.
Dylan had just finished eating when he heard someone banging on his front door. It was Shem.
“Did you hear that strange noise?” the older man demanded. “It’s stopped now, but it sounded kinda like a cross between a hyena and the howl of a mad dog. Randy claims he heard something that sounded like George Strait lyrics, but I told him no human being could sound like that.”
Dylan wasn’t about to admit that he was the culprit. It wasn’t the first time he’d had this kind of reaction to his singing. Grown men had been known to crumple and beg for mercy when he let loose. Instead, he muttered, “I didn’t hear a thing. Was that why you stopped by?”
“That and mail call. Got a package here for you. Thought I’d drop it off before heading on out.” Without further ado, Shem shoved the package at him and took off.
The cardboard was dented and dinged, as if it had been shunted from pillar to post. Looking at the address label, he realized that indeed the package had made the rounds—starting with down in Arizona and following him three states north at his various forwarding addresses until reaching him here. The return address was almost illegible after all the official-looking postal stamps marked on it, but further study told him that it was from his sister, Gaylynn. The postmark was late May, nearly two months ago, and was listed as Lonesome Gap, North Carolina.
When he’d phoned his mother for her birthday a few weeks back, she’d told him that Gaylynn had gone and married Hunter Davis down in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The last time Dylan had seen Gaylynn had been April, at their older brother Michael’s wedding to Brett. And now Gaylynn was married, too.
Dylan shook his head, hoping this matrimony bug wasn’t contagious somehow. Not that marriage had been in his short-term plans before the accident, but now it was even further off. First he had to see how his recovery went this summer. He had orders to return to the doctor in Arizona come September for another evaluation. If the truth be known, Dylan still had this fantasy that he’d be able to return to the rodeo circuit. Reality dictated otherwise, but it was just so damn hard for him to accept that he’d never return to the life he’d loved for more years than he could remember.
Returning his attention to the package, he opened it up, thinking that he really should send Gaylynn and Hunter a wedding gift, even if they had eloped. His sister had looked and acted pretty skittish the last time he’d seen her, unusual for her since she was the fearless one in the family. But maybe that was because he’d seen her at Michael’s wedding and reception, neither one of which had been a quiet affair—not with dozens and dozens of Janos cousins attending. His family was not known for their subdued natures.
Which was why Dylan hadn’t told them about him being in the hospital. They would only have gotten hysterical and flown down to Arizona on the next plane. He’d had enough to cope with.
Despite the battering the package had taken en route, Gaylynn had packed the contents well, with plenty of those irritating plastic peanuts that stuck to your fingers like glue.
He found the note first.
Dear Baby Brother,
Hope this reaches you in good shape. I’ve enclosed the paperwork on this surprise for you, from the original note from our great-aunt Magda in Hungary, to the Post-it note Michael wrote me. I hope the box serves you as well as it has Michael and me. And listen, I think there’s a side effect of this whole thing—I don’t know how to explain it other than saying a new skill is bestowed upon the owner. For me, it was drawing—remember how I could never even draw a straight line before? I’ll have you know that I’ve even sold several of my sketches now! Who’d have thunk it, huh?
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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