“A rider who’s inexperienced can get himself attacked if he backs a horse into a corner and doesn’t give him an escape route,” he explained. “We had a man bitten just last week for trying to box one of the horses up to catch him.” He shook his head. “He decided that cowboying was a lot harder than it looked, and said he was going back to driving a truck.”
She laughed softly. “All our corrals had corners,” she said. “But our trainer was awesome. He was never kicked or bitten, even by the stallions. He had this incredible patience with the animals,” she added softly. “He said you never taught a horse anything by hitting him or whipping him or using spurs on him.”
“He’s right. We use gentle methods on all our horses.” His face hardened. “Except Hurricane. I should have hit that man harder before I fired him.”
“He’s healing, though,” she said. “And now the vet can get in with him and I don’t have to run interference for her.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She flushed. “Well, I did sneak out there a couple of times, just to see how he was doing. Nobody knew,” she added quickly, to protect Grandy, who’d let her in.
He gave her a sardonic look. “Grandy knew, Meredith,” he said in his deep, soft voice.
She grimaced, although her heart jumped to hear him speak her full name in that deep, soft tone.
“It’s all right,” he said with a resigned sigh. “We’ve already agreed that trying to rein in artists is like trying to herd cats. Just be careful,” he added. “Any animal can be dangerous. Especially horses. They can be spooked by the oddest things. A paper rattling. A plastic bag blowing past them. A loud sound.”
“I know,” she replied. “We had a horse get loose from the trainer and come right inside the kitchen because a car backfired on the highway,” she added, laughing. “It was a good thing that he was just a colt. But Mandy had to have the kitchen refloored. We never told Daddy.” She repressed a shiver. “He’d have had the colt killed.”
“What?” he exploded.
She winced. “He had a violent temper. If a horse looked threatening, or if one came too close and he saw it as a threat...” She broke off and wrapped herself closer in her coat, trying to break off the memories.
“Your father had issues,” he said flatly.
“Yes,” she replied sadly. “He was unbalanced, and we never knew. The autopsy revealed a lesion in his brain. The medical examiner said that his drug use was what finally killed him. His heart gave out.” She looked up at him. “Sari and I never even smoked marijuana, but our father was addicted to heroin. They said his habit cost him thousands of dollars a day. That’s one reason why he was doing...illegal things to get more money.”
He drew in a long, irritated breath. “We don’t tolerate drug use here,” he said. “We hired on one cowboy with a habit and caught him in the act. He was offered the choice between rehab and jail. He went to rehab.”
“What happened to him?”
He smiled. “He turned into the best cattle foreman we ever had. Now he keeps an eye on the younger hires.”
“That was nice of you.”
“I’m not a bad man,” he said. He glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. “You remember that.”
“Okay.”
His eyes were twinkling. So were hers. He looked up. “We’d best be getting on if I’m going to show you the line cabins.”
“Okay!”
He laughed at her enthusiasm. “Exciting new things to see and explore?” he teased.
“Everything is new up here,” she said, following alongside him. “It’s so...vast,” she said finally, looking around. “Can you imagine how the mountain men felt when they saw the mountains and the endless valleys? Especially if they saw it in winter, with snow lying on it like a soft blanket.”
“It’s beautiful,” he agreed. “People come out here to live so they can breathe. You can ride for miles and never see another person. Antelope and buffalo and moose come up to the outer pastures. Even bears, occasionally. It’s a hunter’s paradise.”
“I’d hate to shoot anything,” she murmured.
He chuckled. “That’s how I feel about it. We issue a few hunting leases, but only when the deer population outgrows the predators. I don’t mind a nice venison stew myself, but I’ve never killed just to be killing.”
She approved. He had a hard exterior, but a soft center. The more she learned about him, she liked. The cold man of her first few days here had been eclipsed by this kind, interesting man who was working his way into her heart.
*
THE LINE CABINS were spaced out. Each was in an area where cattle were kept, so that someone was always watching, protecting, making sure the herds were healthy and out of danger. She learned that Ren had a livestock foreman and another man who just watched over the purebred bulls. There was a farrier, who shoed horses, another man who tamed horses for the remuda, one who kept all the horse trailers and cattle trailers in repair. The entire operation was a vast responsibility.
“We had a heifer get her foot stuck in a fence once,” he said. “She would have frozen to death if Lucky, who stays in that cabin, hadn’t been around. Another went into labor and had to have her calf pulled. Still another was attacked by a wolf.”