Grace be a Lady (Love & War in Johnson County Book 1) (17 page)

He
grinned, the dimple appeared again, and, somehow, Grace couldn’t hold on to her
anger.

But
she absolutely was going to hang on to her long johns. After a few attempts to
talk her out of them, Thad gave up. He disappeared with her wet clothes into
the fog.

“Don’t
take it too hard,” Adam said from somewhere behind her, and she spun. “It
happens to us all. Just a joke.” Adam swam closer, appearing out of the fog
like an apparition. “You should’ve given him your long johns.”

The
boy was bare above the water, shoulders and most of his chest slick with
moisture, and she assumed he was bare below. Beside herself over this mess,
Grace averted her eyes, following the swirls in the mist. This whole situation
made her want to slither under a rock.

“It’s
pretty nice to climb into dry underwear,” he continued. “It won’t chafe so bad
if the rest of your things aren’t dry.”     

Grace
nodded stiffly and moved away from him, hugging the bank. Through the steam,
she saw a foot appear, test the water, then sink down, a bare leg slowly
following. Afraid of what else she might see, she spun in the opposite
direction.

“Sweeney,”
Thad hollered, sinking into the water, “You’re usually out first. Be sure to
build a fire.”

“Yes,
sir,” a disembodied voice answered. “You can count on it.”

Thad
sighed, a content sound that made Grace envious, and leaned back, his bare arms
spread on the bank. After a moment, he ran a dripping hand through his gold
locks and winked at her. “Well, Buttercup, what do you think now?”

Grace
hunkered down a little lower in the water and didn’t answer. Instead, she
listened quietly to Thad and Adam talking ranch business. Without any warning,
Nick appeared out of the mist and climbed down into the water with them, barely
giving Grace time to avert her eyes. He glistened, and his dark hair dripped
with water. Apparently he’d been relaxing in a different pool, but moved when
the talk circled around to cattle.

Grace
splashed her face for a distraction, wishing she could block all that she had
seen in the last half hour. More than
any
woman should
ever
see
in a lifetime. If so much hadn’t been riding on this ruse, the absurdity of her
predicament would have been laughable.

“Well,
I think we’d better get started home.” Thad’s observation brought Grace back to
the conversation.

Nick
took a quick dip beneath the steaming water. Adam splashed his face and nodded.
“All right, big brother.”

The
young boy crossed the pool and climbed out. Grace stared intently into the
water and steam as, one by one, the cowboys hauled out of the warm, caressing
waters and retrieved their clothes from bushes and saddle horns.

“You
comin’, Thad?” Adam asked, holding his clothes in a bunch at his waist.

Thad
waved lazily at Grace. “I thought I’d make sure Buttercup got on his way
without any hypothermia.”

Adam
nodded, gave Grace a quick adios salute, and then disappeared into the mist. As
the noise and activity faded, she finally started to relax. But her face was
flushed and the water was beginning to drive her body temperature up. She couldn’t
stay much longer, either.

The
steam shifted and she caught Thad staring at her.

“You
can leave any time, Buttercup. They’re all gone.”

He’d
gotten her in.

He
was getting her out.

“Yes.
Yeah, I’ll go . . . one more minute.”

Though
it was hot, the water was relaxing, and this was the warmest she’d been since arriving
in Wyoming.

A
few minutes of companionable silence slipped by before he said, “Mind if I ask
about this terrible, ugly scar you’ve got?”

Grace
wanted to sink below the water. She should’ve known he’d ask at some point. She
didn’t have to go far, though, to come up with a story. It just wasn’t
her
story.
“A log rolled out of the fireplace when I was two. Burned my side pretty
badly.”

Thad
sucked in a breath. “Ouch. Burns are the worst. Take forever to heal.”

“It
took months,” she said softly, remembering the agony a neighbor’s daughter had
suffered one winter in Pennsylvania.

As
if sensing she truly did need her privacy, Thad pushed off the side of the
pool. “Well, this is always the hardest part. Getting out and putting on cold
clothes, or in your case,
very
cold clothes.”

Grace
spoke just as the white of his waistline broke the surface, and he halted.
“Thanks, Thad. I appreciate what you did.” She took an instant to appreciate
the chiseled muscles of his back and the white line at his waist, but then spun
away before she saw more, surprised at herself for even thinking about peeking.

He
splashed her playfully as he climbed out. “Your secret is safe with me, little
man.”

“Well,
how was the party?” Raney paused in mopping the kitchen floor, and straightened.
“Did you see your sister?”

Grace
shuffled to the table and sat down. The feeling that everything had spiraled
out of control with Thad both crushed her spirits and filled her with wonder.
She hated lying to him, loved being with him. She couldn’t feel like this. Not
now. Not, well . . . ever.

She
met Raney’s puzzled, expectant gaze. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, ma’am. I had a grand
time. It was . . .” What had Adam called it?
“. . . a real hoedown. Thank you for letting me use your room.”

Raney
shrugged and commenced mopping again. “Well, my hip was bothering me too bad.
Didn’t want it to go to waste. My dues to the WSGA paid for it. ’Sides, you don’t
need to be bunkin’ with those rough-talking cowboys. Speaking of which, your
sister . . .?”

“My
sister. Yes, she’s fine,” Grace finished the woman’s thought for her. “She’s
working at Dolly’s Café.”

“Dolly’s
Café?” Raney dropped the mop in a bucket and stepped over to the stove. She
dried her hands on her apron, slapped a piece of cold ham onto a biscuit and
handed it to Grace. “That place burned down last month.”

“Oh,
well, I—I must have the name wrong then. Some café.”

“Only
other place to eat in Sheridan—” Raney stopped mid-sentence.

Grace
steeled herself against the challenge she could see on the woman’s face.
Instead, surprisingly, Raney abruptly changed the subject. “Otis is about to
throw a shoe and we need to clean Dandy’s hooves. You up for it?” Raney cocked
her head to one side, a hopeful, cautious lift to one brow. “You have cleaned a
horse’s hooves before?”

“Yes
ma’am.”

“Well,
that’s somethin’.”

Finally,
a task on Raney’s ranch that Grace had experience with. She pulled Dandy’s back
hoof up between her knees and commenced to scraping out the muck. A few feet
away, Raney worked on removing Otis’s damaged shoe, one stubborn nail at a
time.

“So . . .
Greg . . . I have surely appreciated your help around here.”

Grace
didn’t slow down in her work, but she heard the regret lacing Raney’s voice.
Bracing herself for the worst, she scraped a little harder.

“And
you’re showin’ yourself to be a right fine hand,” the woman continued. “Oh, you’re
a little rough around the edges yet, but you work hard and you don’t complain.
Eventually, you’re going to be a right skilled cowboy.”

Grace
dropped the hoof and stood up. “Raney, are you firing me?”

Raney
muttered a curse under her breath and released her pony’s hoof, standing up
with the old shoe in her hand. She tossed it into a pile of iron and dropped
the nail-puller into her apron.

“No . . .
but you may wanna quit after you hear this.” She huffed a breath. “I need to
cut your wages.

“Cut?”

Raney
wiped her hands on her pants and ambled over to Grace, resting her elbows on
Dandy’s rump. Ranch life and all its worries showed on her face, in the gray
hair at her temples and the lines running deeper around her features. “I haven’t
wanted to ’fess up, but I’ve had trouble making my mortgage payments, and I
haven’t wanted to sell any more land. Martin Riley, down at the bank, he was
carrying the note, giving me time to sell the herd in the spring.” Raney chewed
on her bottom lip and patted Dandy’s back nervously. “Martin died last week.
The bank’s replaced him with a fella from Denver. He’s calling my note.”

Grace
and Raney didn’t talk much the rest of the afternoon. The woman had told her to
take a week to think things over. Dinner was quiet as well, as both of them
dealt with their burdens. Though Grace sensed there was something else, another
shoe to drop.

Raney
shooed Grace out of the kitchen so she could clean up. Feeling as lost as an
orphan, Grace wandered out to the front porch and tried to lose herself in the
night sky. She hoped the Aurora Borealis would reappear and assure her that not
everything had collapsed into hopelessness and chaos.

There
were no wavering, shimmering lights, but the stars twinkled and glimmered as
they had for thousands of years. She found some peace in that.

Raney
wandered out after a few minutes and drew up beside her, a cigarette smoking in
her left hand. “This mess sure is a helluva note.”

“My
hu—uhm, brother-in-law, Bull, is always saying ‘play the hand you’re
dealt.’ ” That seemed a trite and pointless comment now. As if they had a
choice.

“Yep,”
Raney nodded, “I guess the trick is figuring which cards to keep and which ones
to toss.” She took a drag from the cigarette and slowly released the smoke.

“What
about the Walkers? I know they think the world of you, Raney. Could you borrow
the money till the spring?”

“Thought
about selling Earl the whole herd, but . . .”

Grace
inhaled, a deep, bracing breath, knowing this was the other shoe. “But . ..?”

Raney
took another puff, a clear delay tactic. “We’re missing twenty, twenty-five
head. Maybe more. I don’t have enough cattle to sell to cover the note.”

Grace’s
mouth fell open. “What do you mean, they’re missing?”

Raney
tossed the cigarette to the ground like she was batting away a wasp, and
crushed it beneath her toes. “Rustlers.”