Love Song (6 page)

“I’m fine.” That wasn’t exactly an accurate description of the way she felt, but it would have to do. The fact that he had his arm around her shouldn’t have been any big deal. But it was. His nearness, his warmth and strength, and the light, tangy fragrance of his aftershave were playing havoc with her senses. Maybe it had something to do with the way he gently caressed her arm, or the way he looked at her—his eyes filled with tenderness, a tiny frown of concern touching his brow.

“Are you sure you feel up to riding around the ranch?”

“I’m sure. I want to see some of these baby critters you were telling me about.”

“That should be easy.” He smiled and opened the car door for her before jogging around to the other side.

They stopped by the corrals first. The foals were still skittish, so they watched their antics from atop the wooden fence. The colt scampered back and forth in front of the little filly, showing off.

“Will you keep them?”

“Probably, although we have sold some for pleasure riding or cutting. Showing cutting horses is a popular family sport, and we’ve had several talented animals.”

“Don’t you use them here on the ranch?”

“Yes, but we have enough. We haven’t raised any champions, but they’re fine for folks just starting out. My friend, Grant Adams, helps me work with them. He’s not a professional trainer, but he has a real knack with horses.” He jumped off the fence, then turned and lifted her down.

“I met him on the rodeo circuit. He was one of the best bull riders I’ve ever seen. He was two rodeos away from winning the World Championship when he drew a bull named Disaster. And in Grant’s case, it was. The bull came out of the chute, spun around, and fell over sideways on Grant’s leg. Disaster got up, but Grant couldn’t. That monster just about finished him off before anybody could help him.” He paused, sadness lingering in his eyes. “He never went back to the rodeo.”

“How is he now?”

“His knee still bothers him, and he limps sometimes, but he’s not one to complain. Thankfully, he had no lasting problems from the other injuries. He has a place south of here, part of a ranch his family used to own.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“He’s four years older than us, so your paths might not have crossed even in Buckley.”

She nodded. “He would have always been in a different school building.”

“His father lost the ranch about the time Grant started high school, and they moved down near Austin. He saved everything he could when he was in the rodeo and bought back part of the land. He’s determined to get back the rest.”

On the way to his house, they passed the two smaller houses where the ranch hands lived.

“How many cowboys do you have?”

“Three. The two single men share a place. The other man is married and has two kids.” He motioned to the yard containing a swing set. “Easy to figure out which house is theirs.”

Wade’s home, a large, red brick rambler, was about a hundred yards farther down the road around a curve. As they approached it, Andi studied him out of the corner of her eye. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re troubled because Grant is trying to buy back his land?”

“He’s obsessed with it. I’m afraid he will wake up one day and realize he let life pass him by. He might have the land but be all alone, with no one to enjoy it with him.”

“What about you? Do you ever think about getting married?”

Wade glanced at her, but she was gazing out the window, as if only mildly interested in his answer.
All the time since you came home. If things were different...
“I’d like to get married someday and have a couple of kids, but I’m in no rush. How about you?”

She turned, meeting his gaze. For an instant, he saw stark loneliness in her eyes, then her expression changed as she tried to hide her feelings. He heard a trace of wistfulness in her voice when she answered. “I think about it sometimes. I’m not sure I could handle marriage and my career. Some folks do it, but a lot of them don’t. The last thing I want is to make a promise I can’t keep.” She looked back down the road. “The music business is hard on marriages.”

“Any career can be, if it’s all consuming. That’s what happened to my folks.” He pulled the roadster up beside the house, parking next to his mud-splattered pickup.

“Being a doctor must make it difficult to have a normal family life.” She didn’t wait for him to go around and open the door but hopped out and met him at the back of the car.

“Not so much in our case. Dad is an orthopedic surgeon, so most of his time at the office or the hospital was scheduled during the day. There were occasional emergencies in the middle of the night, but it didn’t happen too often.

“Mother is an Assistant District Attorney in Dallas. She is very good at her job, which in itself is fine. Unfortunately, her career means more to her than anything else. Always has.”

“And it still hurts.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. Every time I ask the Lord to help me not feel bitterness toward her, something happens to stir it all up again. I’m working on it, but I don’t seem to get very far. I’ve finally decided to handle our relationship the way she’s wanted all along. I don’t bother her. I don’t call, or write, or visit. If she needs to get in touch with me, she knows where to find me.”

“How long has it been?”

“Close to a year.”

The dark shadow passing over his face told her that she had stirred up a painful memory. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

“Don’t worry about it. You can leave your purse in the house if you want.” He smiled. “It won’t matter out here if your hair gets windblown.”

She smiled back and walked up onto the porch, which ran the width of the house. An inviting, old fashioned, white swing with a green cushion hung from the rafters of the porch. When they stepped inside, Andi glanced around in approval. The whole front of the house was one large open space, containing a country style kitchen, dining area, and living room. It was definitely a man’s home—not a doily or frilly pillow in sight. The soft brown leather sofa and chairs were trimmed in oak, matching the heavy oak coffee table and end tables.

She laid her purse on the coffee table and smiled to herself, remembering her mental image of Wade watching cartoons. More than likely, he had been lying back in his huge leather recliner. The chair sat at an angle so he could see the television or look out the large picture window that framed a spectacular view of the valley and the hills in the distance.

One wall held the television, stereo, and floor to ceiling book shelves, overflowing with reading material of all kinds. A black cast iron wood stove with a glass door sat in one corner of the room. Andi closed her eyes, imagining how nice it would be to sit snuggled up to him on a cold winter night and watch the flames dancing in a crackling fire.

She felt his arm go around her waist and his warm breath on her ear as he asked softly, “Darlin’, are you all right?”

A little thrill spiraled through her.
Don’t get so excited about a simple endearment—one cowboys use all the time.
But it didn’t seem simple. The way he said the word made it seem very important. She rested her temple against his jaw. “I’m fine. I was imagining a warm and cozy fire on a cold winter night.” She leaned back so she could look at him. “That’s a bad habit I have, closing my eyes when I’m trying to picture something, or when I’m searching for the right words to a song.”

He grinned and stepped back. “Hope you don’t do that when you’re driving.”

She snapped her fingers. “That’s why that guy behind me honked when the light turned green.”

“Or maybe he wanted an autograph.” Putting both hands on her upper arms, he steered her out the door toward the truck. “I’ll show you the rest of the house later. The sunshine won’t wait.”

As he slowly drove down the dirt road separating the pasture from the fields, Andi admitted she knew very little about ranching. “I know you raise beef cattle, and that the black ones are Angus and the red ones with the white faces are Herefords, but that’s about it.”

He shook his head and smiled. “How can you claim to be a Texas gal and be so ignorant?”

“Because this Texas gal grew up in town, and my daddy was an oil man. Now, ask me about rigs, wells, or the current price of Texas crude, and I can talk for an hour. I can also spout off about vegetable gardens and thirty different kinds of roses, but I can’t tell you much about the native vegetation. When I was a kid, I wasn’t interested in such things.”

“Didn’t your friend Becky live in the country?”

“Yes, but boys were all we ever talked about.”

He chuckled. “That doesn’t surprise me. You had your pick of the litter.”

“You make it sound as if we were choosing pets.”

“Weren’t you? Half the guys in school had a crush on one or both of you. Let’s see. What was that old song? Something about puppy love...” He grinned at her, mischief twinkling in his eyes. “No wonder you changed boyfriends like most people changed socks. All that panting and drooling and gettin’ licked in the face.”

She playfully smacked him on the shoulder. Laughing, he dodged and almost drove over a stump. “Keep it in the road, Jamison. And nobody licked me in the face.”

Andi pointed to a leafless, rough barked tree with long thorns sprinkled along the branches. “I do know a mesquite when I see one. Grandma said you could tell spring had really arrived when the mesquites started to put out leaves. That’s prickly pear cactus over there.”

“Both of which are good cattle feed.”

She frowned and curled one leg up on the seat, facing him. “They’re both covered with thorns.”

“Pretty observant for a town girl. The cattle eat the mesquite beans when they ripen and drop from the tree. In dry years, we burn the thorns off the prickly pear with a propane flame thrower so the cattle can eat the pads. They think they’re gettin’ a special treat. The wife of one of our hired hands picks the pads when they are young and tender, peals off the skin and thorns, and fries them. He says they’re real tasty, but I haven’t tried them. Aunt Della sometimes makes prickly pear jelly from the fruit. It’s good.

“There are some ranchers who actually plant the cactus as feed for their cattle. Still others are developing spineless varieties. Some folks think the fruit and pads will be a hot produce item. They want to call them cactus pears instead of prickly pears because it sounds a little friendlier,” he said with a smile.

He continued down the dirt road, stopping whenever she spied something of interest, whether it was a flower or a newborn calf or the crop growing in the field.

“That’s winter wheat. We plant it in the fall and let the cattle graze on it during the winter. We have more wheat in other areas of the ranch and rotate the cows between it and the pasture. We also supplement the grain and grass with protein feed from the store. They’re finished in the wheat now. We let it grow, and if it heads out, we harvest it and sell it. If there isn’t enough rain for it to head out, we’ll just plow it under.”

“What will be here?” Andi pointed to the bare, plowed dirt in the second field as they drove by.

“Sudan, a kind of sorghum grass. We’ll plant here and in several other fields next month. If we put the cattle in to graze too soon, they get sick, but once it’s high enough, they can stay until frost. Some of the Sudan is reserved for hay, so the cows don’t dine there—unless they knock down the fence and help themselves. Let’s go over to the water tank. We should be able to see more cattle there.”

He pulled off the road into the pasture, driving around more mesquite trees and prickly pear cactus, bouncing over bumps and across dips and shallow gullies. A few minutes later, he stopped by a large, bowl-shaped, earthen water hole. The tank, which obviously had been dug out with a bulldozer, was about thirty feet in diameter. Two white-faced, red Herefords stood in the edge of the water, about three feet down the sloping bank from the top. The animals raised their heads, staring at them. Another Hereford, accompanied by a shy reddish-brown calf meandered toward the truck. “I’ll see if I can get more to drop by for a visit.”

When Wade honked the horn, Andi jumped. He continued to honk, and cows of varying sizes came toward them from all directions, some walking, some running, a few calling out a noisy welcome. Most of the full grown cows strolled along, many followed by little calves. Some of the younger cows acted like teenagers, racing each other across the pasture. One bumped into another one, shoving it aside, and rushed ahead of the others. “They love you so much, all you have to do is whistle...uh, I mean honk?”

Wade sighed dramatically, but his eyes sparkled. “Sadly, it’s not me they love. They think I’m going to feed them.”

“But you’re not?”

“Not this time. We put out some a couple of days ago. They have plenty of grass now, so that will have to do. Feed is expensive.”

“Tricking them like this seems kind of mean.”

“I suppose it is, but it’s a good way to check the herd, which has to be done even when we aren’t giving them store-bought food.”

“Don’t cowboys roundup anymore?”

“Sure we do. Every spring and fall. Some ranches use helicopters for the brush work. We still like to do it the old fashioned way—on horseback. Roundups are for branding and other stuff that only gets done once or twice a year. A rancher keeps a close eye on his herd, checking them every day if he can, keeping a count to make sure they are all here. The hired hands check on them and take a count, too, whenever they are working in a particular area.”

He pulled a small spiral notebook from his shirt pocket. “This is one of the best record keeping systems ever devised. I don’t know when it started, but ranchers were using it at the beginning of this century. We note the number and type of cattle in each field or pasture, then count them whenever we can. There should be thirty-five head in this pasture, but we might not see them all here at the tank. Some may be resting in the shade or down by the creek.

“A cattleman watches how the little ones are growing, how fat the big ones are getting, whether any of them are sick, or if they’ve knocked down a fence and wandered into the neighbor’s pasture. Sometimes, by calling the cows up like this, we do a good deed. See that little brown calf?”