Chapter Four
“You get in this house right this minute!” Willie was motioning to Alex from beneath the soft yellow light of the back porch even before he braked the pickup to a complete stop. It was funny, he thought, how over the years her hair had gone gray, she’d picked up a few wrinkles and a few more pounds, but what she yelled was word for word the same, with merely a change in the prime directive. You get in this house right this minute...and eat your dinner! You get in this house right this minute... and clean your room! You get in this house right this minute...and do your chores...finish your homework...put some hot chocolate in your belly! Rain or shine. Trouble or good graces. Willie’s You get in this house right this minute...had called him home a million times.
Home.
Newly capped in faraway white, the Bighorns faded into the gray-blue distance, a view Alex privately believed Mother Nature had sculpted exclusively for him. In every other direction plains rolled into the crescendo of darkness, a muted carpet of autumn color blending into a winter night. Livestock in coats growing shaggy and coarse were dark shapes in the pasture, some still and sleeping, some in search of leftover summer grasses. A crisp breeze heckled the trees and plants in passing, bending close to whisper, “Cold weather coming. Sleep, sleep.”
It mattered not that night had fallen, Alex knew this country like the inside of his skin. He knew it by dawn and dark and every hour in between. He knew it through each season, through sun and rain, storm and snow. Each time he returned, each time he was here in this spot, halfway between the wild, wild west and modern civilization, sitting in whatever vehicle he happened to have parked between the S-J barns and the ranch house, back from wherever it was he’d been, Alex knew with the force of an arrow through the center of his soul that he was home.
“What are you yelling about, Wilhemina?” He grinned at her as he grabbed his duffel and slammed the pickup door. “Can’t you see I’m home?”
“You get in this house right this minute and hug my neck!” She shifted from foot to foot, bobbing with excitement as he strode up the steps two at a time to reach the porch. Then he was being hugged within an inch of his life, surrounded by her welcome and the tea rose fragrance she’d worn since birth. Well, his birth, anyway.
“It’s about time you got here,” she said, smiling with toothy happiness, wiping a trace of a tear from under her blue eyes. “Josie called about six-thirty wantin’ to talk to you, and that’s the first I knew you were coming home.” She gripped his arm with both hands and steered him inside the house. “Where’ve you been, young’un? I put a plate up for you, saved back a hunk of my Sin-Full chocolate cake. You’re hungry, I expect, after that long trip.”
He could hardly break her heart by telling her he hadn’t driven straight through from Texas without a stop. “Are you kidding? I could probably put away that whole cake and still have room for the crumbs.” He hugged her ample waist, untying her apron sash in the process, but when he tried to fix it, she batted him away and simply took the apron off.
“You’re not company,” she said. “But I guess as how I can take off my apron and sit a spell all the same. Now you sit down and I’ll get you that cake.”
Alex sat, taking his usual place at the long, pinewood table, inhaling the scents, absorbing the familiar sights, relaxing into the memories of growing from child to man in this kitchen. The whole S-J Ranch house had been modernized over the years, added on to and made more convenient as the McIntyre legacy grew. But the kitchen was still oversize, the heart of the home, the place for family meetings and meals, the one room where ranch hands and family blended into one entity, the ranch.
He loved the smells of hearty food that had assimilated into the walls for nearly eighty years, the weathered cedar beams stained dark from the heat of cooking so many meals. As a child, he’d spent a lot of time in the corner of this room, doing penance for one boyish misdeed or another. He was convinced that’s why he liked to cook: he’d experienced it through all five senses, just being in the room. Even when under strict orders to keep his nose pressed to the knothole in the wall, he’d listened to the sounds of Willie making dinner, telling him how to peel a potato or make a gravy, doing her level best to keep his mind off his sins, talking because she liked having him there, or more likely, because she thought boys needed as much comfort as penance. He’d heard voices in the walls, made up tall tales, imagined a hundred outlaws busting through the doorway to steal Willie’s good grub before they went out to rob the train. Or hang. He’d always had a certain fascination with crime and punishment.
“Your room’s ready,” Willie announced as she pushed a plate toward him. A plain plate except for what looked like a half pound of chocolate cake weighting it down. “I invited Josie and Justin to come out for dinner Friday night. Jeff, too, if he can get away from that hotel he insists on livin’ in. I’m fixing your favorite meal, too, so don’t you go tellin’ me you can’t stay through the weekend.”
He opened his mouth to tell her he was staying until she got tired of him and kicked him out, but the words hung in his throat. The ranch belonged to Matt No matter that the property deed stated he, Jeff and Josie were partial owners, too. The S-J was a place Alex visited, like Disneyland or New York City. A place he came back to. A place he left from. Not the place he could hang his hat. As good as it felt to be home and have Willie fuss over him, he didn’t really want to be here.
He wanted to be in the run-down house next door to the Thatcher clinic. He wanted to be with Annie. “If you’re making my favorite meal, Willie, I’d be plum loco not to stay, wouldn’t I?”
She hovered near the table, delighted just to watch him. “Don’t go givin’ me your double-talk, bucko. What I want to hear is that you’re flat tired of travelin’ around, sleepin’ in barns, eating food not fit for pig slop, and you’re finally ready to settle down and stay put where you were meant to be all along.”
He gave her the smile he saved just for her. “One day, Wilhemina, I’m gonna make you sorry you made that wish.”
She set her hands on her hips and watched as he made a show of digging into the rich chocolate cake. “I’d sure like to see you try.”
“Would you look what came in with the cat!” Matt McIntyre walked in from outside, tossed his hat onto a hatrack where it swung lazily, perfectly hooked. Just once, Alex would have liked to see that hat hit the floor, but it never did. Not even during the worst times, the years following the accident when Matt’s wife and unborn baby were killed. Scooping more of the Sin-Full cake into his mouth, he watched Matt walk to the table, pull out a chair, turn it around and straddle it, facing in. “How ya doin, Tex?”
Why was it big brothers always had to remind you they were older, tougher, and smarter just in the way they asked a simple question? What was it about Matt that always had Alex feeling like a runny-nosed, cow-licked, scrawny kid? “Doing fine, Wy. Heard the one about the rancher and the dumb blonde?”
Matt grinned. “Can’t say I have.”
“That’s because there isn’t a blonde dumb enough to hook up with a rancher.”
“Ha, ha. I guess it was too much trouble to pick up the phone and let us know you were heading our way?”
“Nah, it wouldn’t have been any trouble at all, but I wanted it to be a surprise. You know how I hate those ‘kill the fatted calf shindigs. Besides, you knew I’d be home sometime this fall.” He licked the fork and faced the moment of truth. “I bought the stallion.”
Matt’s eyes lit up. “Which one? The King line or the Diamond Cut?”
“Bloodline isn’t everything.”
“Maybe not, but it’s a lot” Matt hesitated, went on, “well, Jeff and I trust your judgment on this. You’re the expert.”
“Glad you feel that way. This horse is Texas born and bred, and he doesn’t know his family connections are nothin’ to write home about, so I don’t want you telling him.”
“If he can speak English, his sire must’ve been Mr. Ed.”
“He’s out of Blue’s Symphony by Polar Express and don’t bother poring over your breeding charts ’cause you won’t like what you find. But I promise you, Kodiak Blue speaks the language of cows as if he’s part Hereford. He’s entered in the Midwestern Cutting Horse futurity, and when he wins in December, our breeding program is going to hit the ground running.”
Although there was no discernible shift in posture, Matt tensed. Alex. could practically feel it creep across the table toward him. “Kodiak Blue?” Matt repeated. “Isn’t that Chase Ramsey’s horse? The one he shouldn’t have been able to give away after last year’s Congress?”
That was one way of putting it, Alex supposed. “Ramsey is a fool and he nearly ruined Koby trying to turn him into something he isn’t.”
“But you’re gonna turn him into a champion. Is that what you’re telling me?”
The tension reached Alex, settled in like a dull headache. “Yeah, big brother. That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Well, now...” Willie knew when trouble was brewing and what she could do to defuse it. “You want a piece of cake, Matt? There’s plenty. How ’bout a glass of milk, Alex? Or another piece of cake for you?”
“No, thanks.” Alex was proud of himself for holding his brother’s gaze and not backing down. He was right this time, damn it. Let Matt be the one to look away. But when he finally did, Alex didn’t feel much in the way of relief. “My appetite isn’t all I thought it was, Willie. Must be the excitement of being home.”
Matt shook his head to let Willie know he didn’t want cake—and that there wasn’t going to be a family brawl. “What happened to your Jeep?”
“Sold it. Brought that magnificent vehicle parked outside. Didn’t you see it on your way in?”
The grin returned to Matt’s face, strained but passable. “I saw it. Figured you wrecked the Jeep and were in too big a hurry to get home to replace it with a decent truck.”
“There’s a damn good engine under that rusty hood.” Alex stretched the truth a bit rather than open himself up to more criticism. “And it’s the only thing I could find big enough to haul the horse trailer I bought. Wait’ll you see it.”
“If it goes with the pickup and the horse, I can only imagine.”
Had he made so many bad choices that Matt didn’t believe him capable of making a right one? “Koby didn’t seem to mind it,” he said tightly.
“So you brought the horse with you?”
“It’d be kinda hard to train him long-distance.”
“I realize that, knucklehead.” Matt cuffed him on the shoulder, trying to restore camaraderie. “What I’m trying to figure out is what you did with him.”
“Left the horse and the trailer at Thatcher’s clinic.” Alex pushed the plate away and Willie whisked it out of sight. “Stopped there on my way into town this afternoon.”
A momentary pause criss-crossed the room, boomeranged between Matt and the housekeeper and was gone. “You stopped to see Annie?” Willie asked in a rush of curiosity she obviously couldn’t stop.
“Something wrong with the horse?” Matt asked just as quickly.
“No.” Alex answered both at once, then decided he might as well go ahead and explain. They’d just pester him with questions until he did. “I found an injured dog about fifty miles out and took her in to the clinic. Finding Annie there was a surprise. You’d think somebody would have told me she’d taken over old Dex’s practice.”
“Guess somebody thought you knew,” Matt said. “You’re sure there’s nothing wrong with the horse?”
“Nothing a little faith and a good trainer won’t cure,” he offered pointedly. “Relax, Matthew. I know what I’m doing.”
Matt opened his mouth to argue, but Willie got there first. “Annie’s pregnant,” she announced as if he might not have noticed. “She and Josie started a contest to see which baby’ll be the first one born in the new century. Population around here is getting ready to boom, come January I.”
“That’s what I heard” Alex sat back in the chair, relaxing again, now that he knew Matt wasn’t going to kill him. Not yet, anyway. It’d been stupid to think his brother might actually have gained some faith in him over the past six months. “Josie filled me in this afternoon on the rash of expectant mothers in Bison City. Sounds like an epidemic to me.”
“How many chances did she make you buy on guessing arrival times for all those babies?”
“She said I had to buy a dozen to start, but before she’d polished off Nell’s cherry pie, she made me promise I’d sell a dozen more myself. Plus she said if I should guess right and win, I can’t have my picture in the calendar with the New Millennium mother and baby.”
“She told me the same thing,” Matt agreed. “Something about us having too close a connection with the Bugle. Of course, if she delivers one quarter of a second after midnight December 31, I’d like to see anybody tell her her baby can’t claim the prize.”
Alex smiled, knowing that for the God’s truth. “It’s not like Josie needs to win anything. She already believes she’s hit the happiness jackpot with Justin and the baby.”
“I can’t wait to hold that young’un in my arms,” Willie said on a happy sigh.
Matt pushed up from the chair. “Looks like you better be practicing your baby talk,” he said, giving Alex an affectionate, if aggressive thump on the back. “Ready or not, you’re gonna be an uncle.”
“I’ll let you teach me everything you know about it.” Alex grabbed Matt’s arm as he passed and gave it a brotherly slug.
Rounding, Matt slugged back, and Alex started up out of his chair.
“Don’t you start that in my kitchen,” Willie warned, effectively initiating a standoff. “I swan, I don’t know when you boys are gonna outgrow that roughhousing, but I’m tellin’ you right now, I’m prayin’ every night that this baby’s a sweet little girl. Last thing we need is more McIntyre males around here.”
Matt laughed.
Alex didn’t. There was already another McIntyre male on the way. His son...Annie’s son. Come January, Matt was going to be an uncle twice over. Providing there wasn’t some misguided veterinarian-turned-carpenter over in Africa. “You ever hear of Annie being involved with some guy in the Peace Corps?” he asked with studied indifference.
“Peace Corps?” Matt repeated in much the same tone Alex had used with Annie. “She’s never been in the Peace Corps. Too busy working her way through school.”
“I know she’s never been in the Peace Corps. I just wondered if she might be involved with some guy who is.”
Willie’s brow furrowed as she thought. “I never heard anything about Annie and the Peace Corps.”
“Neither did I,” Matt said. “What made you think that?”
Shrugging, Alex tried to look only casually interested. “She told me the father of her baby is in the Peace Corps. In Africa.”
The pregnant pause returned to the kitchen with the precision of a boomerang, then Willie and Matt spoke at once.
“Could be, I suppose.”
“Possible, I guess.”
Okay, so they didn’t believe her story, either. He nodded as if he, too, found it plausible. “I just wondered.”
“She was away at school these past few years,” Willie added quickly. “She could’ve met him there. Just ’cause I never heard about her having any boyfriends doesn’t mean. she didn’t have some. Well, she must’ve had some. She’s a pretty gal, got a good head on her shoulders. Some smart guy should have snapped her right up.”
Matt raised his eyebrows, obviously concurring with Willie’s opinion that “some guy” hadn’t been as smart as he should’ve been. “Truth is, Alex,” he said with that big-brother-knows-best tone, “rumor has it you’re the father of Annie’s baby.”
“Is that a fact?” Falling into the insouciant mannerisms of his chip-on-the-shoulder adolescence—which seemed to come back all too naturally in this kitchen—he shrugged an indifference he was far from feeling. “Well, you’d think somebody would have mentioned that to me, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe ‘somebody’ didn’t think you’d want to know. Maybe everybody figured you’d prefer ignorance over responsibility.”
Family. The people who had to take you in when you had no place else to go. The people who knew you best and loved you, anyway. The people who could cut straight to your heart in a matter of words and leave you bleeding. Times like this, Alex understood why he reverted to being a smart-ass kid in this room. He squared his shoulders and met his brother’s penetrating gaze. “Then I guess there’s a whole slew of somebodies who just don’t know me very well.”
The moment held, and again Matt was the one to look away.
“Are you sure you don’t want another piece of cake?” Willie asked, her voice almost shrill with the desire to patch up the moment and make it all better again. “There’s plenty here.”
“Thanks, no, Willie.” Matt walked to the doorway. “I’ll be in my office if you need me. See you later, little brother.”
Alex wanted to jump Matt, wanted to wrestle him to the ground and prove that he, too, was a grown-up. But physical force would only prove he was as immature as apparently most everyone believed he was. He always planned to walk in this room and shake hands with his brother, man to man. But somehow it never worked out that way. Somehow it always ended up with Alex on the defensive, feeling like he still had unresolved issues, something still left to prove. Arguments always seemed to end with his dad or Matt or Jeff going to the office, leaving Alex behind in the kitchen to contemplate the high cost of rebellion.
“Maybe I will have another piece of that cake,” he said to Willie, knowing how to please her, at least, even though the last thing he wanted was something else to eat. “And a tall glass of milk.”
She bustled about, delivering all she could in the way of comfort. “Tell me about the horse you bought,” she said. “Tell me what makes him a champion.”
It was more than even Annie had thought to ask.
 
THE FIRST THING ANNIE SAW when she stepped out of the house into the chilly October morning was the battered pickup. Suddenly there was a new spring in her steps. Well, okay, so she was more bouncy than springy these days. Still the little catch in her breath, the slight stumble in heartbeat, the quiet rush of possibility inside her made it perfectly clear she was never going to get over Alex McIntyre. She could tell herself endlessly—as she’d done most of the night—that he would never be the kind of man she needed. She could line up his sins of omission and forgive him all for a smile. She could make a list of cons a mile long and balance it with a single pro: she loved him. Even at his restless, rebellious best, she loved him. If not for the baby, she’d probably have spent last night with him instead of alone. If not for the baby, she would stroll right on out to the barn to find him this morning.
If not for the baby, she would have nothing except a lonely heart when Alex left. As he always did.
With a sigh that was as much acceptance as regret, she put her feet firmly on the path that led to the clinic.
 
“HE’S OUT THERE AGAIN.” Genevieve had an agenda and Alex McIntyre was on it. “That’s three days boarding for the horse. Four when you add in today. Plus, the dog. He was supposed to take that dog home yesterday.” She made checkmarks on a clipboard, apparently keeping track of Alex’s tab, if not his hours on the property. “You have to talk to him about his bill. Today.”
“Okay,” Annie said brightly, with no intention whatsoever of going near Alex. Today, tomorrow or next month. She’d managed to avoid him for three days and she wasn’t going to willingly break that kind of record. He could owe her till Judgment Day, if that’s what it took to maintain a safe distance between his good ol’ cowboy charm and her silly, schoolmarm heart.
Unfortunately Genevieve didn’t quite see it that way. “Don’t give me that cute little ‘okay.’ You go out there and get a week’s board from him right now. Plus what he owes for the dog.” She tore a page from the clipboard and held it out to Annie. “He pays today or I turn that horse over to Sheriff Hitchcock to auction off for nonpayment of debt. Plus if he doesn’t take the dog, I’m moving her out to your house, ’cause she’s taking up too much kennel space in here.”
Annie glanced at Loosey, who wasn’t taking up any more space than Cecilia Boone’s whiny Dalmatian, and was just lying in her cage with her pretty head resting on her front paws. Poor baby. Orphaned, lost, injured and now accused of “taking up space.” “Loosey stays until I say she goes,” Annie informed her assistant with more bravado than true backbone.
Genevieve responded with The Look—the one where she pulled her glasses halfway down her nose and frowned over the top at whoever or whatever was annoying her. Annie was pretty accustomed to it by now, even had worked out an answering smile—lifting the corners of her mouth, lips locked in a rag doll’s parenthetical pleasantness. It was never easy, though, standing up to the steamroller that was Genevieve. “This clinic has always kept its charity work for those what need charity. McIntyres don’t qualify.”
And that, apparently, was that. Genevieve stalked from the room, leaving Annie to ponder how she could dun Alex for the money without having an actual conversation with him. If this was an ordinary clinic, with a normal employee-employer relationship, she would simply direct her employee to talk to Alex and ask him when he planned to take care of the bill. But Genevieve, who knew to the penny how much money the S-J Ranch paid yearly to the Thatcher Clinic for veterinary services rendered, didn’t want to risk upsetting a McIntyre and thus had decided Annie should handle it. There were days when Annie understood why Uncle Dex was thoroughly enjoying his retirement.
When she found Alex waiting for her on her back porch after work, she thought Genevieve might have sent him a note, demanding he talk to Annie before he left, threatening some dire consequence if he didn’t. But one look at the tension in his jaw and the set of his shoulders told her something was wrong. “Can you take a look at Koby?” he asked without preamble. “He’s pulled up lame. I’m afraid it’s something serious.”
Annie turned on her heel and headed for the barn, knowing that if Koby had an injury of any magnitude, Alex’s dream of winning the December futurity was worse than dead. He’d have to start over with another horse. It might take years before the S-J breeding program got off the ground. “Which leg? When did it happen?”
“Front left. Noticed it when I was bringing him in. I’ve been working him with your uncle’s cattle. Dex said it was okay. I’ve been meaning to come by and talk to you about leaving Koby here instead of taking him out to the ranch. Your facilities are better, and frankly there’s a lot less...distraction.”
“For you or the horse?” she asked, knowing the dilemma without even having to think about it. Alex didn’t want Matt supervising Koby’s training, no matter how peripherally, no matter how well intentioned.
“Both.”
“Too many opinions at the ranch, huh?”
“Something like that, yeah.” He was ahead of her then, leading the way to the stall where Koby was calmly crunching hay. “Careful, he’s a little touchy about that leg.”
“I think I know how to handle myself around a horse, Alex.” It was just long-legged cowboys who caused her trouble. Patting Koby’s neck, she soothed him with her voice as she eased in beside him and slid her hands down his leg in a preliminary examination. The fetlock was warm to the touch and she instantly felt the puffiness of some low-grade swelling. When she applied a light pressure, Koby flinched. Lifting his foot, she duplicated her efforts, then watched his response when he again placed his weight on the leg. “Bowed tendon,” she said.
“You sure?”
Straightening slowly—as much because of her own bulky condition than her desire to be thorough—she ran an assessing eye over the horse’s shoulders and back, noted his calm demeanor, the way he went right back to eating without any sign of discomfort, before letting her gaze return to the fetlock. “Positive.”
“That’s good, then,” he said, but she heard the discouragement in his voice, saw it in the taut set of his shoulders. “How long will he be out of commission?”
Annie knew Alex knew the answer to that. He’d spent his life around horses, had probably seen more bowed tendons than she’d treated in her brief career. But knowing the injury was minor didn’t lessen the impact of losing a month’s raining time. Maybe more.
“It could be a lot worse. With a mild strain like this, you may be able to start him on an easy training schedule by the end of the month. He needs stall rest for a few days, then next week we can try him with ten, fifteen minutes of hand walking. The next week, if we’re lucky, he may be able to handle five to ten minutes a day on the lunge line. After that we’ll have to see how it goes.”
He slipped his hands in his hip pockets and nodded, although without much enthusiasm.
“I can get one of the high school boys who help around the clinic to exercise him, if you want,” she offered.
“I think I know how to exercise my own horse, Annie.”
His voice reflected the stress he was under, and she wanted to make him feel better. “I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t. Or that you wouldn’t want to. I’m just saying if you need help, it’s available.”
“Yeah, well, what I need is for this not to have happened.”
“But of all the things that could have gone wrong, Alex, this really isn’t so bad.”
“When anything goes wrong with this horse, it’s bad. I’ve staked everything on him, Annie. Everything.”
She didn’t know what more reassurance she could offer. Or even if she should try. “A few days away from cows and cowboys will probably fix him right up. So stop worrying about it, okay?”
He pushed back his hat, stroked Koby with genuine affection, absolute concern, and told Annie by his silence that he’d invested more than he should have in one contest, one horse. “Listen,” she said impulsively. “Could you maybe come up to the house, give me a hand with that paintbrush tonight? Maybe throw together some kind of supper?”
Way to go, Annie. You avoid the man all week, then invite him in to supper and a paint job because his horse is hurt and he’s upset and you want to make him feel better? What is wrong with you, anyway?
He didn’t answer for a minute. Just gave Koby a final pat and closed up the stall. Not until she turned to leave, feeling shut out and helpless, did he speak. “What happened? You run out of frozen pizza?”
“Forget it,” she said, wishing she hadn’t even made the effort. “I’ll do the painting myself.”
“Annie...” He caught her hand as she turned to go and, in typical Alex style, pulled her into a kiss she had no clue was coming. Without so much as a split second of hesitation, his lips closed over hers, firm, demanding, familiar... oh, so familiar... and knowing. Oh, but he knew her so well. How else could one kiss be all she’d remembered it to be, everything she needed it to be? In an instant of tactile sensation, she forgot the rest of her good intentions, the whole kit and caboodle of reasons to stay away from him. Her skin went warm all over, her heart beat like a frantic bird. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t let go...and then the baby kicked. Hard, and several times in a row, as if in protest.
The baby, she thought.
“The baby,” he said, pulling back abruptly, staring at her rounded belly. “He...did he kick me?”
Annie stepped back, putting some protective space between herself and the father of her son. “I don’t think it was personal,” she said, striving for a light, no-big-deal tone. “He just likes to move around.”
“I know the feeling.” Without shifting his gaze, Alex extended his hand, palm out, hovering a couple of inches from her stomach. He hesitated, raised his eyes to meet hers. “Can I—Do you mind if I—”
Okay, so she had no conviction, no strength of resolve, no willpower where he was concerned. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t mind.” Then, sliding her hand around his, she pressed his palm against the cotton of her smock, settling it where she’d last felt the baby’s kick. Looking at the span of his fingers, feeling the warmth radiating outward from his touch, hearing the uneven and unnaturally quiet sound of his breathing—as if any noise would upset the fragile balance—tenderness flooded her in a fierce rush. Sharing. This was what the word meant, she realized. This was how a family was born. Not the moment of conception. Not the moment the baby took his first, wobbly breath. Moments like this—with three hearts willing, wanting and waiting to share the kick of new life.