Carbon Copy Cowboy (Texas Twins Book 3) Page 18

  With that problem in mind, Kendra shrugged into a long-sleeved, Western-style blouse, buttoning it over her T-shirt as she left the house through the patio door.

  “Morning, boy.”

  Nipper rose complacently and fell in beside her as she strode down the courtyard. It had become a daily ritual with them. Though obviously independent, the Australian shepherd seemed to have appointed himself to accompany her as she performed her daily chores in and around the barn. Kendra welcomed the company, especially since Jack had made himself so scarce.

  They met Lupita as she strolled up from the small house that she shared with her husband. The two women exchanged greetings.

  “Buenos dìas, Lupita.”

  “Good morning. Coffee, oatmeal and cinnamon biscuits will be waiting for you when your chores are done.”

  “Yum,” Kendra said, continuing on her way.

  The morning held a faint crispness, a little taste of autumn, that made such a warming breakfast sound particularly delicious. Kendra couldn’t help wishing that Jack would be there to share it. She wondered what he would have to eat with his coffee that morning. Cold cereal? Plain toast? Lupita insisted that he couldn’t so much as scramble an egg. Maybe if she went over early enough, Kenda mused, she could deliver the lamp and fix Jack a bite to eat. The problem was how to get there.

  She heard the knicker of a horse inside the barn. Kendra stopped dead in her tracks. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? She could ride over to Jack’s place. At least, she thought she could.

  Excited, she slid open the barn door and slipped inside, leaving Nipper to curl up in a pile of hay just outside the building. A meow drew her gaze downward. Thomasina, the cat, sat at her feet, a tiny bit of mottled yellow-and-gray fluff in her mouth.

  “Your kittens!” Kendra exclaimed. “You’ve had your kittens.”

  She went down on her haunches to examine the baby cat. Obviously hours, rather than minutes old, it mewled weakly. An attentive mother, Thomasina darted off to safety with her infant. Kendra followed, finding the nest that the cat had made for herself and her four kitties in a wooden box that Kendra had previously filled with bits of straw and several old rags just for this purpose. Laughing, Kendra gingerly examined the babies, noting their markings and weight. It was too early to tell their genders for certain, but in the next few days, she could make a determination. The mama cat dropped what was obviously the runt of the litter beside its mewling, squirming siblings and settled down to nurse. Kendra nudged the still-blind kittens onto teats and watched to make sure that everyone was getting fed before rising to go on her way. She smiled as she went about her business, eager to share the news with Jack.

  She made quick work of her chores, racing through the tasks with efficient speed. As she cleaned the stalls of the various horses, she made observations on each. The stallion, which was kept separate from the other mounts, seemed restive. Unsure of her level of expertise in the saddle, she ruled him out completely. One of the geldings had a runny eye, which could mean a minor injury, and the other belonged to Jack. She wouldn’t ride that horse without his express permission. Since one of the mares had recently given birth and the other belonged to Belle, Kendra decided to ask Violet if she could ride the remaining mare.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You’ll have to take Mouse,” Violet told Kendra across the breakfast table. “The sorrel has to be re-shod. Besides, Mouse can use the exercise.”

  “Mouse,” Kendra repeated uncertainly. “That’s your mother’s grulla, isn’t it?”

  “I think we had this conversation last night,” Violet said pointedly.

  Kendra shifted. “But I don’t think Jack would like for me to ride Mouse.”

  “Someone needs to,” Violet asserted. “The hands have been exercising her, but that horse is used to being ridden regularly. Even Jack realizes that on some level.” Smiling, she got to her feet, her breakfast finished. “You will take the phone with you?”

  Kendra still felt uneasy about riding Jack’s mom’s horse, but in the end, her desire to see him won out. Violet had insisted, after all. “Yes, of course.”

  “All right. If you have any questions or problems with the horse, ring Ty. His number’s in the phone. He’ll send someone to help or come himself.”

  Tamping down her misgivings, Kendra nodded. “Thank you.”

  Violet just shook her head. “One of these days,” she drawled, “you’re going to run out of thank-yous. Then we can just get on with things.” She threw Kendra a grin and went out.

  Kendra finished her own breakfast with unseemly haste then rushed upstairs. She would need to put Uncle James’s boots to use at least one more time.

  The grulla proved to be a bit testy, so Kendra called Ty in hopes of acquiring another mount. Instead, he came and saddled the mare, programmed the GPS on Kendra’s borrowed cell phone, showed her how to use the compass application and tied the lamp to the saddle behind the cantle. After watching her mount and walk the horse around the barn, he advised Kendra to use her knees more, remarking that the grulla had a particularly soft mouth. While striding back to his truck, he advised her to call if she had any problems; then he got in and drove away, leaving a very nervous Kendra behind him.

  Gulping, she leaned forward and patted the grulla’s graceful neck. “It’s you and me now, girl. Let’s try not to mess this up.”

  She gave the horse a nudge and found herself bouncing along at a frisky trot. Within a few moments, she found her seat and the grulla hit an easy lope. Soon, Kendra exulted in the sheer joy of riding, sure that she’d done so many times before this.

  Stopping repeatedly to check the GPS and the compass cost time, she began to fear that Jack would have left the house long before she arrived, so she welcomed with great relief the sight of Jack’s truck parked in the drive. She didn’t realize that Jack was behind the wheel until he opened the door and got out, having caught sight of her on the rise above the house. Smiling, she stood in her stirrups and waved. He reached into the truck for his hat, jamming it onto his head with his usual disregard for its shape. The grulla took advantage of Kendra’s inattention and bolted down the hill. Laughing, Kendra patiently drew the horse back until they came to a stop in front of the house.

  “I brought you a lamp,” she said as Jack stepped forward to grab the cheek piece of the bridle, the brim of his hat obscuring his face. Bailing out of the saddle, she began untying the leather strings that held the lamp in place. “Violet bought it. She didn’t think you’d have one.” Turning with the lamp in her hands, she beamed a smile at Jack and stretched out her arms. “I think she chose well. Don’t you?”

  “That’s why you got on a horse and rode over here by yourself?” he demanded, not even bothering to look at the lamp.

  Dismayed, Kendra looked up into eyes gone from light brown to molten gold flashing with anger. “It was the only way to—”

  “And on the one horse I told you to stay away from!” he shouted, making the horse dance sideways.

  Kendra gaped at him. “I knew you would be concerned, but Violet insisted, and it’s fine. There were no prob—”

  “This horse nearly killed my mother,” Jack roared, “and you expect me to believe that Violet insisted you ride her!”

  “She did!” Kendra shot back. “She said the grulla needed exercise and the sorrel had to be re-shod.”

  “Like those are the only two horses we own. I don’t think so!”

  He let go of the bridle, his arm rising as if to shoo the horse away. Kendra let the lamp fall and reached out, snagging the reins.

  “We did just fine on the way over here,” she told him hotly, ignoring the way the horse yanked its head. “I can ride just as well as you.”

  “No one rides any better than my mother,” he argued. “And because of that horse she’s lyi
ng comatose in a hospital.”

  That reminder of what Belle Colby and her family had suffered made Kendra take a stranglehold on her own temper. “I haven’t forgotten,” she answered softly. “I pray for her every day.”

  Grinding his teeth, Jack parked his hands at his waist. Kendra bent and, keeping a grip on the reins with one hand, swept up the lamp with the other. Relieved to see that it had suffered no harm, she offered it to him again.

  “Your sister sent you this.”

  Jack snatched the gift out of her hand and nodded curtly before plunking it down on the porch behind him. He then turned back to Kendra and held out his hand.

  “Give me the reins.”

  Kendra realized that he intended to confiscate the horse, and the unfairness of that plummeted her. She’d done just fine on the way over here, and Violet had insisted that Kendra take this particular mount. In fact, Violet was behind this whole thing. Kendra had ridden over here at Violet’s behest to give him that lamp he so callously ignored. She drew back.

  “No. You’re not angry because you’re worried about me riding this horse. Your anger is just another way of avoiding the questions that plague you.”

  “I’m not avoiding the questions that plague me,” he bellowed. “I’m avoiding the people who plague me!”

  Kendra gasped, pain slicing through her. He meant that he was avoiding her. He had moved out of his mother’s house just to avoid her. Not his sisters, not his sense of failure or guilt, not the family upheaval, just her.

  She had known it, of course. What she hadn’t realized was how much she’d been hoping for the opposite. Some part of her had held to the hope that she might be collateral damage, that avoiding her was nothing more than a by-product of his attempts to avoid all the rest. She had even thought, God help her, that Jack was coming to feel for her what she felt for him. In truth, though, he felt only irritation and anger.

  And she couldn’t blame him one bit.

  What, after all, had she brought to his life but problems and disappointment? He’d had plenty of those before he’d found her in that wrecked car, but he’d still given her a place to stay, a job and whatever else she’d needed. She’d repaid him with bad advice, all but bullying him into traipsing around Texas in search of answers to questions that Jack didn’t even want to ask. If she was him, she’d avoid her, too.

  Maybe this was why no one had come looking for her. Maybe Jack wasn’t the only one whose life she’d blighted.

  Suddenly, all she could think about was getting away from him. Vaulting into the saddle, she wheeled the horse, flapped her legs and held on as the animal took off like a shot. Behind her, Jack yelled her name.

  “Kendra! Kendra, come back here!”

  She ignored him, urging the grulla up the hill. At the top, she let the horse have its head, instinctively bending low over the saddle horn in order to stabilize her center of gravity. The horse ran for a long time, avoiding pitfalls and outgrowths, none of which amounted to more than blurs in Kendra’s tear-filled eyes. Finally, she brought the animal to a halt then kneed it into a walk until it stopped blowing. Meanwhile, she wiped her eyes and calmed herself.

  The time she had been dreading had come, the time to leave Grasslands.

  She tried to think where she would go and how, but everything seemed to hinge on knowing where she’d come from and why. For some time now, she’d felt that there might be an avenue of information to pursue, but she had been reluctant to suggest it simply because she didn’t want to leave Jack. Staying would only bring more heartache, though. Even knowing that he had done everything he could to avoid her and that the past she could not remember could rule out any future for them, she had foolishly fallen in love with him. After what had happened today, she could no longer take shelter at the ranch. She had to take her own advice and look for answers. Now.

  Pulling out Belle Colby’s little phone, Kendra found that she could, as expected, get on the internet with it. From there, discovering a non-emergency number for the Grasslands Police Department took mere moments. To her surprise, a simple request quickly put her in contact with Sheriff George Cole.

  She wanted to know, first of all, if he’d made any headway in identifying her. His reply consisted of a single word.

  “Nope.”

  When she pressed him, he admitted that because no one had reported her missing, he hadn’t felt it necessary to search beyond the area indicated by the mileage on the odometer of the vehicle, which demonstrated that it had not been driven outside of the state. Kendra suggested that it might be possible for the obviously new vehicle to have been trucked into the state rather than driven. Clearly, George had not thought of that.

  Kendra’s throat felt tight as she told him that no apology was necessary, then asked him to please access the national databases with the Vehicle Identification Number of the car. By the time she’d finished suggesting that he also check with new car dealers within the driving range of the odometer mileage of the wrecked vehicle, she could barely speak. George promised to get right on it and hung up.

  Kendra wiped her eyes again, consulted the GPS and compass of the little phone and turned Mouse toward the barn. Along the way, she poured out her broken heart to God. Knowing that she was a pitiful, red-eyed, runny-nosed sight, she did not go to the house. Instead, after unsaddling, grooming and settling the horse, she climbed the ladder to the hayloft.

  Mounted on rollers set in a track on the lip of the loft floor, the ladder shifted side to side slightly as she climbed, but Kendra ignored that little inconvenience and persevered. She reached the shadowy space beneath the roof to find no piles of straw but, rather, stacks of feed bags. Made of heavy paper, some of the bags had been arranged as “furniture,” stacked in the shapes of an armless chair, bench and coffee table. An empty soda pop can lay on its side atop the makeshift table.

  Given his propensity to escape, Kendra could imagine Jack sitting there, enjoying an hour or two of solitude. One of the ranch hands could have fashioned this little nest, of course, but Kendra couldn’t see anyone but Jack, think of anyone but Jack.

  Jack, who would never be hers.

  She might have seen him for the last time, in fact. Their argument might well be the last conversation they would ever share.

  Grief felled her. Stumbling forward, she collapsed upon the crude “bench.” For the first time, she truly let herself feel all that was in her heart. She cried out to God, but sobs overtook her, and she could not seem to formulate a coherent thought. As she wept, a fragment of Scripture flowed through her mind.

  The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

  That dose of perspective helped calm her somewhat. Eventually, her sobs dwindled to streams of silent tears. Emotionally exhausted, she struggled to gather her memories around her. With her past a blank, she felt as if she had forgotten everything but Jack, lost everything but her faith. Jack had never been hers, of course, whatever her silly heart wanted to believe, but the thought of losing a single memory of him terrified her. Quite deliberately, she began to relive her time with Jack, the better to hold her only memories close.

  She recalled waking to Jack’s handsome face in the clinic. As then, his presence had reassured her many times over these past weeks. Feeling again her gratitude at his invitation to stay at the ranch, she replayed their conversations in her mind, detailed the meals they had shared, cataloging his favorite foods. She’d never forget the way he’d handed over the barn chores to her or his confidence in her concern for the heifer. Laughter surprised her as she thought of her first pay envelope and the shopping trip afterward, Uncle James’s boots, and her first sight of the old rock house Jack had made his own. She’d never see his house finished now, but she could remember touring it with him and imagining how it would look in the
future. Even their disagreements became precious. Closing her eyes, she experienced again the way he’d comforted her, their trips together, that day at his mother’s bedside and especially that one overwhelming kiss....

  So many memories of the man she loved, each one precious beyond words and enough, hopefully, to last her a lifetime.

  * * *

  “She is just fine,” Jack told himself doggedly for perhaps the tenth time since Kendra had ridden madly up the slope outside his house. The words gave him no more comfort spoken aloud than they had before he’d started talking to himself.

  Throwing down the rag he was using to wipe the stain from the newel posts, he held out his soiled hands and tried to calm himself. He knew Kendra to be a competent horsewoman. The way she’d ridden down that hill—and up again—had proved her skill. But he couldn’t forget that his mother was an expert rider, and she had not only fallen, she had fallen from the very same horse that had carried Kendra. Surely, the same thing couldn’t happen twice; yet he could not get the fear of it out of his mind.

  That same fear had driven him to snap at Kendra. He felt lousy about that. Now. At the time, he’d been too livid at the risk she’d taken by riding over there on his comatose mother’s horse to think clearly. Even knowing that Kendra had come to bring him a gift hadn’t cooled his temper. He’d just kept picturing her as he’d seen his mother, and the very possibility of such a thing happening again—to Kendra, of all people—had made him a little crazy.

  He’d charged to the top of the rise and stood there watching her gallop away as competently as any rider he’d ever seen. When she’d finally reined the horse to a safe stop, he’d turned and stomped back to the house, doing what he so often did, burying his worry with work. Unfortunately, his concern kept rising up to smack him in the face.