he took off again. That’s what he’s good at, isn’t it?”
Cassie, feeling a hot flush climb up her neck, sat at the table and stacked hot cakes onto her plate. “I suppose.”
“You know!” Ivan waved his fork in front of Cassie’s face. “He can’t be tied to anything. He’s been back here six months, and no one in town has seen hide nor hair of him.”
“I guess he’s been recuperating,” Cassie said, wishing it didn’t sound as if she was making excuses for a man she detested.
“Yeah, well, he can do it somewhere else.”
Cassie smiled wryly. “I’m sure the minute he can, he’ll make tracks out of here so fast, all we’ll see is dust.”
“Can’t happen soon enough to suit me!” Ivan declared, spooning two fried eggs onto a short stack of cakes and pouring maple syrup over the whole lot.
“So what do you think happened to Black Magic?”
“Don’t know and don’t care.”
“Dad . . .” Cassie cajoled, probing past the crusty facade of Ivan’s surliness. “What do you really think?”
“How the hell should I know? He probably just ran off. The horse isn’t dumb, you know.” Ivan chuckled. “Maybe Black Magic got tired of Colton McLean and took off for greener pastures.”
“Be serious.”
“Okay, my best guess is that the stallion was randy, saw some mares and jumped the fence.”
“The wires were cut.”
Ivan’s brows inched up. “Cut?”
“Snipped—just on the other side of the Sage. Where our property butts up to the McLeans’.”
“So from that, Colton thinks I had something to do with it?”
“That and the fact that there were tire tracks on the wet ground.”
“Big deal.”
“Colton seems to think it is. He came over here with his guns loaded!”
“Did he now?” Ivan’s old eyes sparkled. “I hope you gave him hell.”
“Well, I tried to throw him off the property, but that didn’t work.” She cocked her thumb toward a worn spot under the table where Erasmus lay hoping for a fallen tidbit. “Our watchdog here barked his head off, then turned over and whined for Colton to rub his belly.”
Ivan chuckled, though the features of his face had tightened. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he said. “I’d have given McLean a piece of my mind and saved you the trouble.”
“I handled it.”
His gaze darkened. “He’s a bastard, Cassie. Always has been. Always will be. I haven’t forgotten what he did to you.”
Cassie’s chest grew tight. “Let’s not talk about it.”
Tenderness crept into the old man’s features. “Okay—it’s over and done with.”
“Right.” But Cassie could feel his gaze searching hers.
“Maybe the fence was just broken.”
“He didn’t seem to think so. I thought I’d go check it out this afternoon when I get back from town.”
Ivan shrugged. “Suit yourself. But if I were you—”
“I know, I know. You’d stay away from Colton McLean.”
“All the McLeans,” Ivan clarified, his expression hardening. “But especially Colton. He’s as bad as his uncle was.” Then, as if he, too, didn’t want to dwell on a past filled with pain and betrayal, he turned his gaze to his plate and tackled his breakfast with renewed vigor.
They finished the meal in silence, Cassie still trying to dispel all thoughts of Colton. “You’re on for the dishes,” she reminded her father as she set her plate in the sink. “I still have to get ready.”
“This is women’s work,” he grunted, but as Cassie cleared the table, Ivan grudgingly started rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the portable dishwasher that Cassie had purchased with her first paycheck from the veterinary clinic.
“You’ll survive,” she predicted. “It’s time you got yourself out of the fifties.”
“I’ve been out of the fifties longer than you’ve been alive.”
She laughed, glad that the subject of Colton McLean had been dropped. “I have to stop by the Lassiter ranch to look at a couple of lambs, then I’ll be at the clinic. I’ll be home around six unless there’s an emergency.”
“I’ll be here or over at Vince Monroe’s. He’s havin’ trouble with his tractor and wants me to take a look at it.”
“You should’ve been a mechanic.”
“I am,” he said, offering her a gentle smile. “I just don’t get paid for it.”
“I don’t know how smart that is,” Cassie called over her shoulder as she dashed upstairs. In her room she changed into a denim skirt and cotton T-shirt, dabbed some makeup on her face and ran a brush through her hair. Yawning, she tried not to think about Colton. He’d already robbed her of a night’s worth of sleep, she thought angrily, remembering how she’d