Smoketree - By Jennifer Roberson Page 0,64
its feet after all! That is—if…” He broke off again.
“If?” I prodded. “If what?”
He sighed. “Well, we need an investor. I’ll say it flat out. We need someone with some extra money to come in and buy a piece of Smoketree, so we can turn it into a going concern again. Update it a little: put in a fancy sauna and Jacuzzi, weight room, racketball courts; set it up for winter sports like snowmobiling, cross-country skiing—like that. We can’t depend on the horses to keep us alive anymore. Times have changed.” He glanced at me. “We need someone here fulltime, to help us keep things in line. Hell, Nathan and I are cowboys. What do we know about marketing and all that fancy stuff? We need someone who knows the lingo; someone who can point us in the right direction.”
I did not smile. “I’m a model. Was a model.” I sighed. “Was a model.”
“There are other things in life besides modeling.”
“Just like there are other things besides rodeo?” This time I did smile. “I know. And I guess I need to go out and look for something, don’t I?”
“It would be a full partnership,” he suggested.
I grinned. “I thought you said Nathan would never sell.”
“He sold part of it to me. He knows what’s going on. He asked me to ask you.” His arm tightened. “Would you be willing to trade the East for the West? Southwest, at any rate?”
“I could just give you the money and sit back in New York waiting for my investment to pay off,” I said lightly.
“You could,” he agreed, “but that’s not what either one of us wants, and you know it.”
I nodded. “I know. Drew’s dead. I suppose the career might be revitalized, but not right away. I can use a break. I need the time. Smoketree’s as good a place as any for an escape.” I laughed. “Look what it’s done for me so far.”
He was silent a long moment. I listened to Preacher’s breathing behind us and the crackle of needles and cones beneath our feet. I was warmer with Harper’s vest, but in the corner of my mind I was still a little cold. Still a little afraid.
Only six months since Tucker’s death… surely it was too soon. Wasn’t it?
“I know it’s hard,” he said at last. “I’m not looking to push you where you don’t want to go. I’m not asking for a commitment. Just a chance.”
I laughed. The fear was gone. I hadn’t been afraid he would ask for a commitment; I’d been afraid he wouldn’t ask for anything. “That, I’m quite sure, can be managed.”
We got down from the mountain. Harper carefully wrapped Preacher’s leg and loaded the weary horse in the trailer after blanketing him. I leaned against the wheels and stared blankly at the police cars parked before the lodge. I heard Harper talking to Preacher, soothing him as he had soothed me more than once, making certain he was comfortable. I felt the trailer shift a little as Preacher moved, and then the tailgate door opened and Harper stepped out to lock it.
“He’s okay.” He moved next to me, slipping an arm around my shoulders. “He’s going to be sore for a while, but he’ll be back at the barrels soon enough. And then Cassie can take him to school with her.”
I turned to look at him. “School? But I thought she wanted to go on the circuit.”
“Oh, she will. Just not the pro circuit quite yet.” He smiled. “Cassie, you see, has started to grow up. She told me in the hospital, while we waited to see Nathan, that it was about time she did what was good for her instead of doing what she wanted to do. So she’s going to go to school, get the degree, then turn pro.” He shrugged. “It’ll be best that way. She can ride the college circuit and really get Preacher seasoned. By the time she hits the pros, she’ll be ready for anyone.” He paused a moment. “She said something else, too. She said she never thought she’d see the day when a down-to-earth cowboy would meet his match in a New York model. And then she wished us good luck.”
I smiled. “She’d sooner scratch my eyes out.”
“That’s not Cassie,” he reproved. “She says what she means.”
“I know. I wish more people were like her. I wish more people were like you.” I looked at his face in the shadow of his hat. “Cowboy.”
Harper did not smile. He looked out across the darkness as the rotating lights from the police cars splashed lurid illumination across his face. I looked also and saw the uniformed men and the plainclothes ones. John Oliver sat in the back of a squad car. Rashid had been loaded into a coroner’s wagon. Men had gone up the mountain in search of Brandon. Frenchie was in an ambulance. I wondered if he would live through the night.
I saw Elliot Fitch standing with Francesca and Rafferty. They were dressed for nightwork, subtle and insubstantial in the shadows—none of them anything like what I had thought them to be.
I smiled. “Such clever people.”
“And dangerous ones.”
I looked at his serious face. “Yes, I imagine they are. But where would we be without them?”
He sighed. And then he pulled me close. “Tired?”
“Too tired to know it. But the fear is gone. ” I leaned against his chest. “How is your hand?”
His grunt was mostly laughter. “Sore. Don’t think it’s broken after all. Doesn’t matter, though. It still would have been worth it.”
I shut my eyes. “Do you suppose we could leave now?”
“I think the police will want to talk to you.”
“Can’t they do it at Smoketree?”
“Maybe. But they’d probably rather do it here.”
I thought about it. “Tell them you have an injured horse.”
“They’d just send you down later in a cop car.”
“So we’ll say we didn’t know.” I pushed off the trailer and stood upright, pulling on his arm. “Come on, cowboy. Buy the lady a drink.”
He smiled. “Whiskey?”
I grinned back. “Rot-gut.”
He put out a hand and smoothed back my hair. Gentle fingertips traced the scar. “Let’s go home,” he said.
We went.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Other Titles by Jennifer Roberson
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15