Lois Greiman - [Hope Springs 02] (11 page)

But a noise interrupted his thoughts, a raised voice coming from the Camaro. He snapped his gaze in that direction, breath held. Even from that distance, he could see arms flailing.

And that was all he knew. One moment he was standing outside the house, the next he was jerking the car door open and dragging the driver out by his suit coat.

“H
ey!” The hipster stumbled, trying to get his footing, but Ty slammed him up against the back door of the car, knocking the wind from his lungs.

“Leave her alone!” His voice sounded guttural, barely recognizable to his own ears. Rage flared through him like a torch, burning his gut as he glared up at Sophie’s date.

“What the hell, man!” Hipster began, but Ty knocked his fist up against his chest, rapping his spine back against his slick muscle car.

“Ty!” Sophie’s voice was shrill as she bounded out the passenger door and around the bumper. “What are you doing?”

“What’s
he
doing?” he snarled, but he didn’t allow himself to glance toward her, didn’t let his gaze stray in that direction because he knew what he would see. Beauty and class and brains, none of which were meant for him. He tightened his grip on the other kid’s coat.

“Ty, for God’s sake!” Sophie hissed. “Let him go.”

“Did he hurt you?” Rage had burned down to glowing embers now, allowing a little more normalcy to his tone, enough lucidness to permit himself to glance her way. She was exactly as he saw her in his dreams, strong and stunning and dismissive.

“What?” Her voice was pitched high and frenetic.

The hipster laughed, spine bent back against his car, body almost relaxed, smirk firmly in place. “Dude, who the hell are you? Her lapdog?”

Rage flared again, causing Ty’s fist to tighten without intent in his shirt, but Sophie spoke before the rage turned to something more deadly.

“Shut up, David!” she snapped but didn’t turn toward him before speaking to Ty. “Let him go,” she ordered, but he couldn’t.

Instead, he clenched his jaw and twisted his fist in David’s coat. “Did you?” he asked.

“Did I what, dude?” His voice was rife with disdain.

Ty’s fist trembled with his emotion, but he held himself in check. It was not a simple task. “Did you touch her?” he snarled, but in that second, David snorted and brought his arms sharply up, knocking free of Ty’s grip. There was a loose-limbed strength to him, an almost unconscious bravado that had been familiar to Ty since the day he was born.

Ty backed carefully away, narrowing his eyes against the rage, steeling his body against the violence that was sure to come. “Have you been drinking?” His voice was little more than a feral whisper, now.

“What? Who the hell is this guy?” David asked, but he didn’t turn toward Sophie as he voiced the question.

“Ty,” she said, addressing him instead. There was something in her voice that drew his gaze, his attention, the weakness in his soul. “Just let it go.”

But he couldn’t. “There’s alcohol on his breath,” he said.

“What the hell is it to you?” His words were scoffed.

A dozen emotions stormed through Ty, but he corralled them all, cordoned them off, reminded himself that some people were social drinkers. Some people could do that without anyone getting hurt. “You okay?” he asked instead.

“Yes,” she said, but her tone was taut. “I’m fine. He just . . .” She sent David a caustic glare. “Forget it. It’s nothing.”

He swallowed, suddenly shaky, marginally sane. “He didn’t touch you?”

“Touch her! Good God, get a grip, man,” the hipster said. “What do you think she is, the Virgin Mary?”

Ty felt something roil in his stomach. Felt his eyes narrow. He knew he should back off. Knew he should back away.

“What’d you say?” he asked.

“Geez, man . . .” He snorted and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s a prime little piece just waiting to be stroked. But maybe you already tapped that, huh? Maybe you already—”

That’s when Ty hit him. He had no choice, no will of his own, and no compunction to stop. He just raised his right fist and slammed it into the other man’s face. David spun like a top against his shiny car, but in a moment he had steadied himself. In the next he had turned and was barreling into Ty, bent double. They went down in a tangle of legs and arms. The breath rasped from Ty’s lungs in a hard whoosh of pain. He brought his knee up with all the force he could muster, driving his opponent away from him, but David came back at him, swinging with both fists. Pain snapped against his cheekbone. He rolled in a fury, pinning the other man beneath him, scrabbling to hold him down.

But suddenly he was dragged away, punches landing in thin air, kicks falling on nothing.

“I said stop it!” The voice rumbled through the yard like a freight train. It did nothing, however, to slow David. He leaped to his feet and plowed toward Ty, but suddenly he was stopped, too, pulled to a halt and bound in place. It took Ty a moment to realize Colt Dickenson had his arms wrapped around the bastard’s torso.

Ty struggled for a second, then forced himself to go perfectly still, forced himself to think. His breath was still coming hard, but his mind was settling into some kind of sanity. Colt’s dad, Monty, held him from behind, arms like iron bands around his chest.

“What’s going on here?” His voice was like Colt’s, only more so, deeper, older, craggy as the bluffs overlooking the Chickasaw. Ty didn’t answer.

“He attacked me,” David said. “Came out of nowhere. Pulled me out of my car and started beating on me.”

The night was silent but for the sound of their breathing. Sophie stood flush against the Camaro, watching Ty as if he were a wild animal. Casie watched him, too. He didn’t know when she had arrived, but he could feel her gaze on his face, could feel her disappointment like a knife in his gut.

“Ty . . .” Her voice was soft, low, heavy with concern. “What’s going on?”

He wanted to speak, to ease the worry in her eyes, but the guilt was too thick to allow his tongue to move. He looked away, but she didn’t give up. Why didn’t she ever give up?

“Ty, talk to me,” she said and moved a step closer. “What’s going on?”

It was almost impossible to open his mouth, to defend himself, but he would do it for her. “I thought they was fighting. Thought he was . . .” Words failed him. Rage boiled up, curling his fingers into fists again, making his chest ache as if it were about to explode.

“Simmer down,” Monty said. “Just take it easy.”

“Sophie?” Casie said.

He could feel her turn her attention toward the girl, could feel Sophie’s glare sharpen even though he wasn’t looking at her.

“I’m fine,” she said.

David snorted again. “Of course she’s fine,” he said.

Ty ground his teeth, and perhaps he leaned into Monty’s containing grip again, but the older man tightened his arms.

“She’s okay,” he rumbled. “She ain’t hurt. You hear that, son?”

Ty forced a nod. Monty loosened his grip a little. “You gonna be good now?”

Good! Like a kid who can’t be trusted with the cookie jar. He nodded again, face flaming.

“How about you?” Colt asked.

David straightened. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Colt turned him loose. David shook out his arms.

“He took me by surprise. That’s all. One minute we were sitting in the car talking and the next he was coldcocking me.”

The night went silent again.

“Is that what happened?” Monty Dickenson asked. Even in the darkness, his eyes looked hard as steel as they turned toward Sophie. For one crazy second, Ty was tempted to step between them, tempted to shield her from his glare.

But
her
glare was just as potent when she turned it on the old man. “I said I was fine,” she repeated.

Mr. Dickenson’s brows rose. Ty had learned fairly early on that most folks didn’t question Monty Dickenson’s authority. “That’s not what I asked,” he rumbled, but Sophie had already turned her attention back to Ty.

“You stay out of my business!” she snarled.

“I’ll do that,” he said, “so long as you don’t go acting like some—”

“Hey!” Colt spoke up as if shot. “That’s enough now.”

Silence echoed in the yard. Ty pursed his lips and gazed off toward the creek.

“We’re all tired,” Colt said. “You, what’s your name?”

“David Pritchard, sir.” He sounded like an ingratiating pup. The words scraped against Ty’s ears like steel against steel. “I’m Jim’s son.”

“Jim and Stephanie Pritchard, the attorneys?” Monty asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Colt exchanged a glance with his father. “Well, I’d suggest you get home,” Colt said. “We’ve had enough trouble here for one night.”

“Yes, sir. You’re right. I’m sorry for any misunderstanding.” He turned toward Sophie. “Good night, Miss Jaegar.”

She didn’t respond. In a minute he was gone, driving sedately out of the yard and turning carefully onto the gravel.

The night went quiet.

“What do you mean you’ve had enough trouble?” Sophie’s voice sounded strident and tight in the soft darkness.

No one answered.

“What happened?” she asked.

“We’re having a little trouble with Angel,” Casie said finally.

“What? What do you mean?” She turned toward Ty, eyes gleaming. “You were supposed to be watching her.”

“Sophie . . .” Casie warned.

“What?” She swung toward their mentor. “Dad made me go out with that stupid . . .” She swung disdainfully toward the departing car, but stifled her next words. Ty scowled, mind churning. She drew a deep breath and narrowed her eyes. “Dad paid a ton of money to keep Angel alive, and you let her colic again?”

“It’s not colic,” Casie said.

“Then what is it?”

“We think it might be laminitis.”

“Lamini—” She paused, swallowed, jerked her gaze to Ty’s. Her eyes shone bright and tragic. “Did you get the vet out?”

“She’s on another call.”

“So what’d you do?”

“Force-fed her Bute, cold water on her hooves.”

“How long ago did you quit hosing?” Her voice was like a jackhammer, demanding, facing off everyone. Like a lioness on the prowl.

“Just simmer down,” Colt said. “She’s standing in buckets right now.”

“Alone?” she asked and turned with a snap toward the barn, but Casie caught her arm.

“Slow down, Soph. Linette’s with her.”

“Linette? Your
guest?
What does she know about horses?”

“Enough to call me if things take a turn for the worse.”

She glared for a second in silence, then turned back toward Ty. “You pulled her shoes at least, right?”

“What?” The single word sounded dumb even to Ty, but her direct attention always deadened his tongue, dulled his mind.

“Her shoes,” she said, enunciating clearly. “Didn’t anyone think to pull her shoes?”

“She was in a considerable amount of pain,” Colt said, his voice smooth and quiet where Ty’s had sounded thick as concrete. “We thought it best to get that under control before we worried about farrier work.”

“But you called somebody in,” she said. Her tone was haughty as hell, pure evil . . . or pure Sophie, whichever you chose.

“I’ll pull them in the morning,” Colt said, “if it’s not too hard for her to stand on three feet for an extended period—”

“You can’t just yank them off,” she said. “She’ll need therapeutic shoeing. Pads, probably bar shoes to keep pressure on her . . .” She sighed heavily as if they were all too dense to tolerate. “Tell me you called a specialist.”

“It’s one o’clock in the morning,” Casie said. “I didn’t really think anyone would appreciate getting a call at this hour of the—”

But Sophie had already dragged her cell from the ridiculously small handbag draped over her left arm. She snapped it to her ear, listened for five seconds, and spoke. “Yes, Darren, this is Sophie Jaegar.”

A murmur sounded from the other end of the line.

“Sophie Jaegar,” she repeated, her voice slower now as if she was speaking to the mentally impaired. “We have a possible founder.”

Another dismal murmur.

“No, it can’t wait,” she said, and suddenly her voice was thick with an emotion Ty couldn’t quite identify. She turned away, and though her tone sounded oddly unsteady, she could still be heard. “The horse is in pain.”

She paused as he spoke.

“What I expect is for you to remember that it was
my
recommendation that got you the Rosemount account.” She paced away and lowered her voice, but her words could still be heard. “Then I expect you to get your ass out here within the hour.” There was a pause. “Good. I’m at the Lazy Windmill.” Another pause. “The Lazy Windmill,” she repeated, then rattled off the address and shoved the phone back into her purse. She was back in view in a second and skimmed her gaze from one to the other. “I’m going to take over for Linette,” she said and turned crisply toward the barn.

“You’ve got to get some sleep, Soph,” Casie said.

The girl raised one haughty brow. “And you don’t?”

“I’m going to rest until Linette wakes me up.”

“I’ll be the one waking you up.”

For a second Ty thought Casie would argue, but she just sighed and let her shoulders sag a little. “Okay. Just . . .” She paused and lowered her voice, picking her way carefully, like a collie through a herd of fractious mustangs. “Just remember that Linette’s a guest.”

Sophie lowered her perfect brows. “I realize that.”

“A
paying
guest. You know what I’m saying?”

Sophie pursed her lips. “I’m not going to offend her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No,” Casie said, and it almost looked as if she was tempted to smile. “Of course not. I don’t know what I was thinking. Well . . . wake me up when you’re tired.”

“I’ll wait till after Darren comes,” Sophie said.

“Okay,” Casie said and watched as Sophie strode toward the barn. “Well.” She exhaled heavily. “Good night, everyone. And Ty . . .” She turned toward him. He made himself face her, though he honestly didn’t know if he could bear to hear her reprimand. Didn’t know if he could stand her disappointment, but her expression was soft, her eyes bright with unbearable forgiveness. “Try not to worry, okay?”