Hidden in a Heartbeat (A Place Called Home, Book 3) Read online

  “Hey, why’d they put you on the drags?” Daniel asked once when they were within hailing distance. Rebecca had heard the others teasing him about being a much better pilot than a horseman. That had to be true – or he’d have crashed any plane he took up. “You’re good.”

  She laughed. “Chester’s good. I’m just hanging on.”

  “You sure look a lot better doing it than I do,” he said ruefully. “If this thing had a rudder. I’d know what to do.”

  A white-faced cow broke from the pack on Rebecca’s right, heading back toward a creek that ran roughly parallel with their path, and Chester dashed after. They circled around and Rebecca used the end of the rope to flick at the cow to urge it toward the herd.

  Rebecca came to know that white-faced cow well over the next hour. It seemed every time she turned around it had made another dash for the creek. She had shepherded it back to the fold again – a growing herd of cattle as the others brought cows in from the sides – when she noticed Luke watching from the far side of the creek. She hadn’t hindered her horse in getting White-Face back into line. At least he’d have to give her that.

  He was moving toward her when White-Face made yet another break. Chester spun to give chase. Luke shouted, “Hold your horse!”

  She automatically obeyed, fighting both Chester’s instinct and her own.

  Luke and his horse angled slowly toward the creek. White-Face kept a watch on him but didn’t shy away. Instead she made a direct line for a spot about a quarter-mile back down the creek. Mirroring Luke’s moves, Rebecca brought her horse in an easy loop farther back on the creek.

  White-Face let out one bellowing low, then a second. A higher, thinner sound answered. In another second, a calf broke out of the brush on Rebecca’s side of the creek and ran with that funny rocking motion of cows toward White-Face. She nosed the calf once, then immediately began grazing.

  In that second, Luke started his horse across the creek with noisy splashes, calling out and waving his free arm.

  White-Face jolted away, found her old nemesis – Chester and Rebecca – there and took the only direction free of annoyances, toward the main herd. Her calf followed along.

  Mud sprays decorated Luke’s chaps and his horse’s hindquarters, as they trotted parallel to Rebecca and Chester, all of them trailing after White-Face.

  “You’d never have won that battle. She was trying to mother up with her calf.”

  She had questions about that, but decided to take her questions in chronological order, starting with something Daniel said. “What are drags?”

  He angled a look at her, and maybe he suppressed a grin. “Back of a herd, slow-goers.”

  “And who herds the drags?”

  The grin won out. “Greenhorns.”

  “Tell this greenhorn one more thing, how did you know White-Face was looking for her calf?”

  He shrugged. “She was going someplace particular. Her calf had probably been trailing for a while. Mama’s instinct’s strong. She’s not going to leave her calf behind. You weren’t going to win that one.”

  He wheeled his horse and headed off. And she could only be grateful. He might have believed the well of tears in her eyes was from the sting of dust. She knew better.

  Mama’s instinct’s strong. She’s not going to leave her calf behind.

  Mother’s instinct hadn’t been strong enough in Suzanne Dahlgren to offset her weakness. And her father never wanted her at all.

  Rebecca scrubbed her sleeve against her eyes. What was she doing crying – being jealous of a cow, for heaven’s sake. The absurdity almost made her laugh. Chester twitched a shoulder as if he’d sensed her mood. She patted him.

  “C’mon, Chester. Let’s go herd some cows.”

  *****

  The pace slowed as the swollen herd fed uphill through an open double-wide gate. Rebecca didn’t realize that was what was causing the slowdown until she and Daniel, now with Ben and Ellyn close enough to call back and forth as they drew the herd closer and closer, crested another of the higher reaching hills.

  The pickup Fran and Kendra had been driving with Emily and Matthew was parked there with all four in the back, watching the proceedings.

  The cows, like passengers getting on a subway train, became restless with the delay. Some tried to push ahead. Others peeled away like they had run out of all patience. That’s when riders and horses went into action.

  “Don’t crowd ‘em,” Luke called out to Ben at one point. “You just get ‘em mad. And then you can’t do anything with ‘em.”

  They all did some retrieval missions, but without a word being said, the most difficult ones were left to Marti, Ellyn and Grif. The ones that seemed hopeless went to Luke.

  Rebecca watched as he took on a particularly recalcitrant cow that had reached the gate, then refused to go through, clogging the opening. The cow feinted. Luke and his horse cut off its path. The cow tried another way. Cut off again. A third way. Another roadblock courtesy of Luke Chandler.

  An unexpected chord of familiarity sounded in Rebecca.

  The action-reaction dance. The man not overtly trying to force the cow in the direction he wanted, yet methodically, relentlessly cutting off every avenue of escape. Until there was only one. The one the man had wanted the cow to take all along, through that gate. The cow might think it had finally found a route to freedom, away from the interference of man and horse, but it had been outmaneuvered. Herded.

  She knew just how the cow felt, as it rambled off to distant hills and the other riders congratulated Luke on a job well done. Because that’s what Luke had been doing to her.

  Perhaps on a slightly more sophisticated level – but not much.

  He had ignored her, delayed her, distracted her, misled her, goaded her – anything to postpone or prevent her from pulling together the contract proposal. Which she needed in order to have access to the records that might – had to – lead her to her father.

  And she’d let this ranch foreman, this cowboy, this ... this Luke Chandler manipulate her into wasting so much time that at this rate, the contract with Fort Big Horn would be over before she got one look at the Far Hills records.

  “You want to quit?” Her tormentor’s voice came unexpectedly from beside her.

  “Quit! No way.”

  “You’re going to be sore.” A dip of his hat brim indicated her position on the saddle. “Your, uh, legs.”

  Just that fast her body took over. Heat bloomed in the part of her body he’d referred to obliquely, while a deeper heat seemed to feel the imprint of his hand there once more. Her muscles screamed out for her to shift in the saddle – to relieve the tension or drive it deeper?

  Damn the man!

  He was trying to maneuver her – once again – the way he had that cow. Distracting her, goading her until she lost sight of her direction and took whichever one he left open.

  She raised her chin, narrowed her eyes and spoke with cool disdain.

  “I have been riding since I was five years old. I have never had sore legs. Not once. Ever.” She reined Chester away, then stopped, twisting in the saddle to look back at him. “And I don’t quit, Luke Chandler so you might as well get that into your head.”

  Not waiting for an answer, she urged her horse to a fast trot and came up to Marti.

  “Marti, may I talk to you?”

  “Sure. Drive back with me to the home ranch.”

  “That would be perfect. I think it’s time I tell you what I have outlined for Far Hills Ranch.”

  * * * *

  Luke had known Rebecca and Marti together would be trouble. Knew it even before they got into the same pickup. He didn’t need the triumphant look Rebecca shot him as they unloaded at the home ranch to tell him so.

  Hell, it was exactly why he’d been stonewalling her.

  He might not know every twist and turn of the path Marti had in mind, but he saw the general direction. And this computer project had something to do with Marti’s plans to tie hi
m to Far Hills Ranch with a share of ownership. Or was it the computer project?

  He yanked the saddle off Apollo less smoothly than usual, and the buckskin gave him a what-got-into-you? look.

  Luke added an extra handful of oats to his ration, then gave him a quick rub.

  “All set?” he called out to Ben and Meg, who’d helped him finish with the horses. They turned the horses into a big back corral that stretched northeast. Then the three of them headed for the main house, the two kids chattering about their horsemanship.

  A few “uh-huhs” from him satisfied them.

  If Marti had something brewing that had to do with Rebecca directly, it could only be that bee she had in her bonnet about Leaping Star’s legend and the Susland Curse. But he was damned if he could see what it could be.

  “Whose car is that?”

  Luke followed Meg’s pointing finger. A dark blue, U.S. made, middle-of-the-line sedan had joined the pickups and four-wheel-drives parked by the main house.

  The kitchen door swung open in front of them, and Matthew, one hand still stretched up to the doorknob, beamed at them

  “Ben! Meg! Unca Robert here. My unca Robert.”

  They stepped into the kitchen to find a mild looking man with thinning dark hair and thick dark glasses. He’d removed his suit jacket, leaving a vest, crisp white shirt, dark tie and suit pants.

  Robert Delligatti Junior had been in college when his diplomat parents adopted Daniel as a child in South America. That much Luke had gathered. He’d also gathered the adopted brothers hadn’t been particularly close. There must have been a breakthrough, though, because Robert had been showing up more often.

  Having just introduced Rebecca, Marti was saying, “... And you remember Luke, who runs Far Hills, don’t you, Robert.”

  “Foreman,” Luke corrected, shaking the other man’s hand. “Good to see you, Robert.”

  “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Luke.”

  “Robert had an unexpected opportunity to stop over here on the way from Washington to San Francisco,” Marti said.

  No airline Luke had ever heard of made stopovers in Wyoming between Washington and San Francisco. He looked from Marti’s pink cheeks and sparkling eyes to the raised eyebrows, speculative looks and grins from the other Far Hills adults.

  “That was lucky,” Luke said.

  Robert met his gaze, a hint of amusement deep in his dark eyes. “So often a man has to make his own luck, don’t you find?”

  Maybe Marti wasn’t such an unattached Susland after all. Robert Delligatti Junior better treat her right, or he’d find out the boys in Washington weren’t the toughest he’d met.

  “A man who makes his own luck should know to appreciate it.”

  “Indeed.” Robert concurred.

  “Now, c’mon, everybody, I’ve got so many leftovers from lunch you’re all going to stay to supper,” Marti said hurriedly.

  While the others murmured agreement, Rebecca objected, “Thank you, Marti, but really, I should go – ”

  “Nonsense. You can’t leave me here with all this food. And I can’t let you go hungry after putting you to work all afternoon.”

  Marti turned away as if that was all settled, and Luke grinned at Rebecca’s expression. It was nice to see somebody else steamrolled by Marti’s good intentions.

  “Let’s eat outside. It’s going to be a beautiful sunset. Luke and Grif make sure the table’s sitting solid. Ellyn and Kendra, you get plates. Fran and I’ll start unloading the fridge ...”

  They made a bigger dent in the provisions this time. The mood was decidedly mellow as the sun slid behind the Big Horn Mountains, burnishing the clouds to streamers of gold. With seats on the benches limited, Luke had perched on the fence next to the table. Ellyn sat nearest to him, with Rebecca the next one in.

  “After everything I had a lunch, I thought I’d never eat again,” Rebecca was telling Ellyn as they each swung their legs over the bench to face the glowing sunset. “But when we sat down, I was starved. I’ve eaten as much as I did at lunch – maybe more.”

  Her tone sounded divided between horror and awe. Ellyn laughed. “All that work you did and all that fresh air you swallowed this afternoon builds up an appetite.”

  “How about all the dust I swallowed?”

  The two women laughed. Ellyn got up, and Luke found himself looking directly into Rebecca’s eyes, still glowing with amusement.

  She wanted to look away. He saw that. He also saw that she wasn’t going to.

  “You did a good job this afternoon.”

  Her mouth formed a soft “O” with no sound. The gold from the sunset intensified the honey tone of her skin, made her eyes gleam like a precious gem, added glints to the rich darkness of her hair.

  “Thank you.”

  The kitchen screen door slapped closed, and he welcomed the excuse to look away.

  Marti and Robert had just come out together. Marti held papers, and wore a big smile. Robert remained a step behind her, while she came to the end of the table.

  “Listen up, everybody,” Marti said to the adults. The four kids were busy at the swingset in the fenced-in play yard. “I have some wonderful news.”

  Luke stared at the papers as if he might be able to read them from this distance.

  “Robert’s been helping me – ” She turned and beamed at him. “ – and he’s brought me the okay, so I can tell you all.” She drew in a deep breath. “I’ve been hoping to adopt another child almost since Emily came into my life. And now I’m going to have that opportunity – a baby girl from China.”

  Sounds of surprise rose from around the table.

  “China’s made it harder for foreigners to adopt, so Robert’s help has been invaluable. Now I’ve got the okay, and it’s really going to happen. I’ll be going to China soon, and come home with a sister for Emily. Don’t say anything to her yet. I haven’t wanted to tell her until I was sure, but tonight I will.”

  A tide of congratulations and exclamations rose. He wasn’t as surprised as the rest, since Marti had told him a while back that she had a lawyer working on it.

  “Wait, wait, there’s one more piece of good news. Far Hills Ranch is coming into the computer age, and Rebecca is going to pull off that miracle. She’s outlined a proposal for me, and I’ve accepted it. So starting right now she’s officially part of the Far Hills crew. And I know – ” Luke caught the warning look Marti shot at him, “ – everyone will cooperate. Completely.”

  Daniel, sitting on Rebecca’s other side, told her that was great news, adding that maybe once she finished, he’d talk to her about a set-up for the search and rescue program. Then he joined the group around Marti, offering hugs and encouragement.

  As if Rebecca felt Luke’s eyes on her, she turned to him, her gaze questioning and defiant.

  “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  “Yes, they are.” She used that cool tone.

  “It wasn’t you, Rebecca,” he surprised himself by saying.

  His gaze slid to where Marti was hugging Ellyn, happy as could be, thinking she had everybody lined up. He saw Rebecca had followed the direction of his gaze. He had the uncomfortable feeling she had followed his thoughts, too. He turned toward the waning light.

  “Guess a computer can’t hurt,” he offered before he went to offer Marti congratulations on the adoption.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Luke drove her home.

  It only made sense, since Fran was staying overnight at Far Hills, and everyone else had kids to put to bed. It should have been awkward. It wasn’t.

  She was tired, sated. mellow. Her muscles ached, while her spirit hummed with accomplishment and peace.

  For no reason she could think of, a fragment of her conversation with Marti driving back to the home ranch surfaced. She’d been presenting her proposal – off the cuff and informally, marveling that she rather enjoyed it. Determined to be open and fair, she’d also presented the downside.

  “With
out the full cooperation and acceptance of the primary user, in this case the foreman, the system won’t be anywhere near as effective for you as it should be – ”

  “Oh, Luke will accept it. And he’ll use it.”

  She tried again. “Marti, he’s made it clear he doesn’t care to have me – ”

  “Now, that’s where you wrong. Luke does care.” Marti had slanted her a look of mischief that called up Rebecca’s final words to have me, and made Marti’s answer that Luke did care to have Rebecca Dahlgren.

  No, no that was her own misguided response entering into it, Rebecca decided as she reviewed the conversation now. Marti couldn’t have meant that. Although her next words were ambiguous enough.

  “With some folks, it takes reading the signs to know they care and who they care about. Some people leave nice clear roadsigns, like an Interstate. Other folks, you have to learn to read sign like the Indians taught the trappers to do.”

  Before Rebecca could respond. Marti patted her arm, adding, “Don’t fret. It’ll all work out fine. Luke’s a good man.”

  The truck swayed into a turn, and Rebecca blinked back to the present to realize they’d turned into Helen’s driveway.

  Luke pulled behind her car, near the steps leading to her apartment. She gathered energy to perform the monumental task of opening the door.

  He turned off the headlights and switched off the ignition. With his hand still on the key, he glanced at her. Reflected light from somewhere cast harsh shadows under the bones of his face, but didn’t mask his eyes. Or maybe she’d become better at reading him.

  Her heartbeat jumped from an unnoticed background rhythm to something hard and fast and commanding.

  He released the key and turned away from her to get out. With his face no longer visible, he paused, then tossed his hat inside and closed the door.

  The opening of her door seemed like a well-known cue in an oft-performed play. She pivoted in the seat and put her legs out first, the movement so familiar she didn’t even look. What wasn’t familiar was the height of her seat from the ground.