CHAPTER 2
Denise Nicole Jensen was headed for the corral behind the biggest of the Sugarloaf’s barns when she realized she was still stomping her booted feet against the ground like a little kid throwing a tantrum. She halted for a moment and drew in a deep breath, willing herself to calm down. She wasn’t sure why she was so upset. She had expected her mother to react in exactly the way she had.
It wasn’t like being forbidden to do something had ever stopped Denny in the past.
Moving at a more deliberate pace, she approached the corral. In her early twenties, Denny was a very attractive young woman with curly blond hair she wore loose at the moment under her brown Stetson perched atop her head and tilted back slightly. She knew her mother thought she didn’t like to wear dresses, but that wasn’t strictly true. She just preferred to dress appropriately for whatever the situation in which she found herself. On the ranch, that meant jeans and boots, and currently, a man’s red-checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up over her tanned forearms.
Three people stood outside the corral, leaning on the fence watching as one of the Sugarloaf hands worked with a horse inside the enclosure. One of the spectators was Calvin Woods, the ranch’s foreman who had gone to work for Smoke as a young man—little more than a boy, really—many years earlier. He had grown to be a top hand and a more than capable ramrod for the ranch’s large crew.
Next to Cal stood Denny’s twin brother, Louis Arthur Jensen. The resemblance between him and Denny was strong, although Louis’s hair was a sandy shade of brown, darker than Denny’s blond curls. He took more after his mother Sally and lacked the rugged features of many of the Jensen males, although his jaw had a hint of toughness and his eyes were keen, penetrating, and intelligent.
Plagued by ill health growing up—a bad heart and an assortment of other ailments—Louis had spent much of his childhood living with relatives in England while seeking medical treatments from a variety of doctors there and on the continent. Denny had lived with him on the country estate, and it was there she had learned to ride.
In the past year, since the two of them had returned to live on the Sugarloaf, Louis’s health seemed to have benefitted from the sun and the fresh air and the generally more active life he led, although he still had to be careful not to overexert himself. A specialist in San Francisco had warned that his heart could still give more trouble any time. Louis tried not to let that hold him back too much. His stubborn streak might not be as wide as his sister’s, but he was still a Jensen, after all.
Next to Louis stood a dark-haired, nine-year-old boy. Wearing range clothes and a cowboy hat, Bradley Buckner leaned forward and grasped one of the corral rails as he watched what was going on. Inside the corral, the ranch hand had just finished saddling a young horse. The animal was dark brown, with white stockings on the left foreleg and right hind leg and a white blaze on its face.
“When can I ride him?” asked young Brad with excitement in his voice.
Cal chuckled. “Don’t get in a big hurry. We don’t know how he’s going to take to this whole process. He’s still pretty green, you know. But there’s nobody better than Rafael at getting a horse ready to ride.”
The ranch hand, Rafael De Santos, was a middle-aged Mexican in ranch clothes. A small, pointed beard adorned his chin and gave his leathery face a mark of distinction. He ran a hand along the horse’s slightly quivering flank and murmured to the animal in a mixture of soft, liquid Spanish and English. Some men broke horses. Rafael preferred to take his time and build them into being good saddle mounts.
Denny leaned against the fence on Brad’s other side and looked down at the boy. “How you doin’, kid?”
Brad pointed and said, “That’s going to be my horse.”
“I heard. A top hand needs a good mount, more than just about anything else.”
Brad turned his head to look up at her. “You think I’m gonna be a top hand?”
“Of course. Everybody who works on the Sugarloaf is.” Denny grinned. “I think it must be something in the air.”
“I hope so.” Brad added solemnly, “I want to earn my keep.”
“You’ll do that just by being my son,” Louis told him.
“That’s because you’re about to marry my mother. That’s not anything that I did.”
Denny chuckled. “I like that. Kid’s got an independent streak.”
“I wonder who else around here does,” muttered Louis. The comment drew a smile from Cal.
Inside the corral, Rafael continued talking to the horse. He put his left foot in the stirrup and rested a little weight on it. The horse shied, but Rafael stayed with him, hands stroking just like his voice. The horse settled down. Rafael took hold of the saddle horn and swung up.
Instantly, the horse exploded into wild bucking. Sunfishing, switching ends, twisting and writhing, and doing everything in its power to dislodge the unexpected weight on its back. Rafael stayed right where he was, stuck tight as a burr, until the horse slowed its frenzied bucking. Then he slipped smoothly from the saddle and started stroking and talking to the horse again.
Brad’s eyes were wide as he said, “He woulda killed me if he did that while I was trying to ride him.”
“That’s why it’s going to take some time before he’s ready,” Cal explained. “Sorry it won’t be in time for the wedding, but you can keep riding that mare you’ve been riding until Rafe’s got this young fella used to the idea.”
“That’s all right.” Brad paused, then added, “I wish I could ride in the race.”
Still grinning, Denny gave him a friendly push on the shoulder and said, “Even if you did, you wouldn’t beat me.”
Admiration shining in his eyes, Brad looked up at her. “You’re going to ride in the race?”
“I sure am.”
Louis gave her a dubious glance. “Mother and Father agreed to that?”
“I don’t have to ask their permission,” Denny replied with a trace of anger in her voice.
“So in other words, they didn’t agree. Especially Mother.”
“Don’t you worry about that. You just wait and see what happens tomorrow.”
A new voice spoke up from behind them. “I know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Louis and I are getting married.”
Denny looked around to see that Melanie Buckner had come up to the little group at the corral. She was a very pretty, brown-haired young woman, several years older than Louis. That gap in their ages wasn’t enough to make any difference, and it certainly hadn’t stopped them from falling in love during a perilous journey from San Francisco through the Sierra Nevada Mountains the previous December. Nor had the fact that Melanie was a widow and had a young son given Louis any pause when he decided to ask her to marry him.
Denny, for one, was glad that her brother had worked up the gumption to pop the question. She liked Melanie a great deal, and she was looking forward to having Brad as her nephew.
All that was left was the actual wedding, which would take place at the ranch the next day. Of course, the ceremony itself wasn’t all that was going to happen. There was also an honest-to-goodness fandango to be held, the likes of which the Sugarloaf had never seen before. Since Smoke was the most famous resident of the area, scores of folks would come from the nearby town of Big Rock and from all over the valley to help celebrate the union of Smoke’s son Louis to Melanie Buckner. All of Smoke and Sally’s friends would be there to watch the ceremony and then participate in the huge feast and party to follow.
Before that, however, would be a horse race in which the riders would gallop a couple of miles up the valley from the ranch headquarters before making a big turn and heading back to the finish line as fast as possible. That was drawing a lot of interest, too, as well as plenty of wagers. Nothing cowboys liked better than betting on their favorite horses and their own skill as riders. Louis had worried a little that his and Melanie’s wedding was being turned into a rodeo, but she had assured him that she didn’t mind.
Denny happened to know that Melanie’s late husband Tom had been a cowboy and had died as a result of a riding mishap, so she suspected that Melanie might be putting on a brave face, at least to a certain extent, because she didn’t want to kick up a fuss.
Denny admired her for that, but Denny’s main interest in the race was winning it. She knew she could do it if she rode the black stallion called Rocket.
Louis went to Melanie and put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re right. The most important thing is our wedding.” He gave Denny a warning glance. “So we don’t want any big arguments spoiling everything.”
“There won’t be any argument,” she said. “I’ve thought about it, just now, and you’re right, Louis. This is a special day for you and Melanie. I don’t want anything taking away from it. There’ll be other races I can ride in.”
A surprised frown creased Louis’s forehead. “Really?”
Brad said, “You’re not going to ride after all?” He sounded disappointed.
“Not this time,” Denny said.
“Well . . . thank you,” Louis told her. “I know Mother will be relieved.”
“I’m sure she will.” Denny turned away before Louis could see the sly smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. He was always a mite gullible while we were growing up, she thought. It was true that she didn’t want to ruin their wedding day, and honestly, she didn’t want to upset her mother, either.
But what none of them knew . . . until it was all over but the shouting . . . wouldn’t hurt them, now would it?