Teaching the Cowboy (4 page)

John glanced at Ronnie. She’d returned to her seat and crossed her legs once more. Her forearms draped over the wood arms and she drummed her fingers against the ends, staring at him. Judging him, probably.

He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Did you talk to the vet?”

“Yep.”

“So, what’d he say?”

“Said we should drain the abscess.”

“Okay?” John wasn’t seeing where his attention was required.

“And that we might want to do a round of antibiotics. I know how you feel about that.”

John looked at Ronnie to find one corner of her lips quirked up in not-quite a grin and her eyes narrowed in a dare. What was she saying about him having staff? She’d pushed the right button.

He groaned and started for the door. What choice did he have? “I’m coming, Rufus. Ronnie, I’ll text Landon and make sure he gets you back to the Ericksons’ when he gets home.”

“Don’t bother. I can walk. The property line is, what, a mile from here?”

His gut, which had been feeling like it’d been bound by barbed wire for much of the past fifteen minutes, finally unclenched. When he grinned, she cocked up a brow. Smart lady.

“It’s about four miles birds-eye in the dark from here to the staff housing at the Erickson place. More like eight if you stay on the paths. You want to rethink that plan or shall I draw you a map, honey?”

Rufus looked from one to the other and then repeated the action. He obviously sensed the tension but was wise enough to keep his mouth shut. Hell, he was probably glad he wasn’t the one in the hot seat at the moment.

Ronnie smoothed her face to stillness and crooked her thumb toward the desktop. “I’ll wait here if you don’t mind,” she finally said. “I’ll just study this file.”

“Yeah, maybe you should,” John said, his back already to her. He didn’t know who’d won that round or if there was a winner at all. What he did know was that he wasn’t done.

Ronnie lay face down on her unmade bed and groaned. The mattress edge sank as Phil applied his weight to it.

He tapped her on the back. “It’s hardly a record, even for you, Ron.”

She turned her face toward him and opened one eye. “You sure? Usually I don’t get into it with a parent until the second or third day of classes. Less than twelve hours? I must be getting better.” She cringed. “Or worse.”

“Look at the bright side. At least he didn’t send you packing.”

“Not yet.”

“So why haven’t you started putting your stuff away? You’re going to be pretty busy in the next few days. Might as well get it over with.”

She pushed up onto her forearms and scanned the small white bedroom around her. Besides her trunk of coats, shoes, and toiletries, she had two suitcases of clothes and several boxes of educational materials. Somewhere in all that mess were her laptop and computer peripherals. It was a wonder they’d packed it all into her small car, but still she was glad she’d driven the long drive and
not
flown as Mr. Erickson had suggested. Sure, shipping it all might have been convenient, but what would she do without her own transportation? She’d figured she made the right choice while sitting in John’s office with a heavy folder on her lap, waiting on Landon to drive her home.

“Yeah.” She rubbed her eyes. “What time’s your flight?”

“Cheyenne to Denver at six a.m.”

“Oh, fuck
you
,” she said, eyes widening. That made her sit up all the way.

“Dead serious, honey. Flight out of Denver won’t leave until three, so I guess I’ll get to flit around in the Mile High City for a few hours. Think I’ll see any NBA players? I hear they have those there.”

She dangled her legs over the edge of the bed and then slid her feet to the cool hardwood floor. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you did.”

She found her laptop bag beneath a pile of jackets and walked out of the bedroom and into the open area of the small unit: kitchen, sitting area, workspace in one compact area. She set the case onto the desktop and unzipped it. If she was going to spend the wee hours of the morning driving around, she could at least run some errands in the afternoon while she was out. She needed office supplies, to find a good library and bookstore, and, if possible, someplace to get her hair done. She scoffed even thinking that last bit and stuck a pencil beneath her now-loosened bun to scratch her scalp. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she moaned her pleasure.

Phil walked out and caught her in the act. “Woman, just wash it.”

“I don’t want to spend ninety minutes holding a blow dryer over my head,” she returned while pulling out the desk chair and stabbing the computer’s power button.

“So don’t. Air dry. It’s perfectly acceptable.”

She snorted and bent at the waist, in search of an Ethernet jack. Ah! Storafalt may have been in the middle of nowhere, but the place was wired. She plugged her cord in. When she sat up, she said, “You don’t air dry, and you have about a quarter as much hair as I do.”

He sniffed and flicked a swath of his shiny black hair behind an ear. “I have an image to uphold.”

“We’re in the middle of Wyoming. Nobody knows you here. Nobody here is going to see you again.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suspect I’ll be on the first thing smoking to come rescue your ass in a couple weeks. If I’m going to make an impression on the horde, I’d like it to be a favorable one.”

“Oh, speaking of the blond horde—” Ronnie turned around and stabbed her index finger in Phil’s direction. “Quit flirting with the young’uns.”

“Please.” He rolled his eyes, flopped onto the loveseat facing the desk, and tamped a pack of Marlboro Reds against his thigh.

“I’m dead serious.”

“Whatever, he was legal. More than legal. Unambiguously.”

“Doesn’t matter. You keep doing that and you might as well be picking a fight. Not everyone is going to respond positively to a person of the same sex hitting on them.”

“You never know unless you try, right?”

She shook her head and jammed her hands onto her hips. “Are you kidding me? Are you
trying
to get me in trouble? I can do that on my own.”

“
No
.” He spun the hard-pack around and around between his fingers and gave her a long blink. “I know the limits, Ronnie, but if you don’t want me to poke, I won’t poke.”

“Thank you.” She turned around and opened her email program, only to stare agog at the screen as two hundred seventeen new messages filtered into her mail client. Many were flagged as
Urgent
from her employer. “Jesus,” she mumbled, and scrolled down to the earliest one.

“Well, hate to abandon you, but since I’m here, I’m going to take some of the ranch hands up on their offer of a little Wyoming-style fun.” He stood and walked toward the door.

“What do you mean? And when did you have a chance to rub elbows with the Ericksons’ ranch hands?”

“When you were in a shouting match with John Lundstrom, obviously. They offered to take me out on an ATV to check out some cattle.” He did a dismissive hand flick in the general direction of east. “Out there somewhere.”

She cocked up a brow. “In those shoes?”

He looked down at his polished brogues and shrugged. “Guess I should change them. Wouldn’t do to get cow shit on my Italian leather.”

“No, that wouldn’t do.” She laughed and resumed her computer check-in with the agency.

Minutes later, Phil returned wearing a pair of fancy jeans and designer flip-flops.

Ronnie sighed.

“It’ll have to do,” he said. He walked over to the desk, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and said, “Call your mother before she calls mine and mine calls me.”

“It’s late.”

“I imagine she won’t care, given the circumstances.” Phil swatted her hair bun and walked out without another word.

“Yeah. The circumstances.”

Momma could wait a moment. Ronnie plowed through her messages, cleared out the ones that were obviously unimportant, and left the ones that required attention for later. Once convinced there was nothing pressing in the box, she blew out a breath and wrested her cell phone from her pocket.

A tiny part of her hoped Momma wouldn’t answer, and she thought her wish had come true during her second attempt. She figured,
Hey, at least I tried.
She was roaming, but getting reception in small pockets made possible by leaning
just so
in her desk chair.

She allowed the phone back at the Fayetteville house to ring four more times and was about to give up the pursuit when her mother picked up.

Damn it.

“Took you long enough,” Momma scolded.

Ronnie closed her eyes and rubbed the lids with the heel of her free hand. “Yep. I’m here.”

“How long you been there?”

“Got in after lunch.”

“And you’re just now calling?”

Typical Momma.

“I got busy. Unpacking, and then we had dinner with the families. Then I had a meeting with one of the parents and…”

“I hear a lot of yap-yap-yap and not a single good reason you couldn’t have called, or even sent a text. I hope your children never treat you the way you treat me.”

Ronnie opened her mouth to argue, but closed it just as quickly. It wasn’t worth it. Momma would have her taking in circles for the rest of the evening, and Ronnie was too damned tired. “You’re right. I could have. I’m sorry.” Apologizing was easiest, even if she wasn’t the one in the wrong.

“So, what’s it like?” Momma asked.

Ronnie sighed. As she chose her words she looped a finger into the band of her hair elastic and pulled her bun loose. Ahh, sweet freedom. She scratched her scalp. Generally, she went a week between shampoos—which was about as much stripping as her very curly, dry hair could tolerate—but she was pushing it.

“Desolate. Sparse. I saw tumbleweeds on the highway, Momma. That was seriously trippy.”

“How are the people? Extra-white?”

“Funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be. Gonna miss you at the Miss Lumbee pageant this year. The girl they got to M.C. can hardly read out loud. No charisma whatsoever.”

“I’m sure everyone will cope, Momma. Hey, if push comes to shove, they can call Phil to host. You know that’d be right up his alley.”

Momma laughed. “You’re probably right. I’ll ask.”

“Momma?”

“Yep?”

“Does Daddy know where I am?”

“Nope.”

“You gonna tell him?”

“No. No reason to, right? He’ll be back stateside soon enough. Let him finish up his deployment and then drop the bomb on him that his only daughter is out west playing cowboys and Indians.”

“Half-Indian. Hardly counts.”

“Well, one and a half. Gotta include Phil.”

Ronnie groaned. “Who could forget Phil? He’s out four-wheeling with the staff. I bet you a box of Moon Pies he’ll hook up with someone. I don’t understand how he always manages it.”

“He’s got swagger. You could learn some things from him.”

“Oh, God,” Ronnie mumbled, rubbing her eyes again.

“You’re gonna need God to get you through the year. You found a church yet?”

“Momma, I’ve been here less than twelve hours. Besides, I don’t figure there are too many Southern Baptists around these parts.”

“Maybe you could find a nice Pentecostal church.”

“I doubt it. Even if there were one, I—” Ronnie startled at the sight of a polo shirt and cowboy hat through the front window and clutched her chest.
Curtains. Must get curtains.
“Hey, I gotta go. One of my bosses is on my stoop.”

“Call me tomorrow.”

“Probably not, but I love you. Bye.” Ronnie ended the call without waiting for her mother’s sign-off and quickly balled her hair up into a loose bun.

She pulled the door open for John, who walked in without waiting for a greeting. “Good evening to you, too,” she said.

“Sorry, that was rude of me.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and scanned the room. “I coulda done better,” he said before turning to her. “Saw the light on, so I figured you’d still be up.”

She held her hands up in a
well?
gesture.

“We alone?”

“For the moment.”

He lifted his hat and scratched his head before speaking again. He didn’t look angry, now, or even taunting. Just tired.

“Listen, I wanted to apologize for being short with you earlier. You didn’t deserve it.”

She widened her eyes and tried to contain her shock. Men didn’t typically capitulate like that. “I appreciate the apology, Mr. Lundstrom.”

“John.” He paced in front of the counter. “It’s just that, it’s been a rough few years and as soon as I let myself believe something’s going to be stable, firm, around here, there’s a shake-up.”

Ronnie knew a little bit about shake-ups. She’d spent her early childhood as a military brat. Things didn’t settle down in her life until she was around ten. “I understand. I’d probably be a bit out of sorts myself.”

“No hard feelings, then?” He ran his tongue over that full bottom lip, and she froze in place for a long moment, struggling to squelch her sudden desire to grab it between her teeth and pull.

She swallowed. “No. No hard feelings. John, you didn’t have to drive all the way over here just to apologize.”

“I know that, but since I was out anyway dealing with the steer, I figured I’d tack on a side trip.”

That bit of arousal she’d felt ebbed now that she knew she rated right up there with the cattle. Not sexy.