Protecting Tricia (10 page)

Horrified, she jerked her gaze away.
What are you doing
looking at the man’s butt and thinking about urging?

Clint returned, this time with a baseball cap. After
adjusting it to the smallest size possible, he stuck in on her head. “Much
better,” he said with approval.

They led the horses outside, and Clint waited until Tricia
had mounted then adjusted the length of her stirrups.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a horse,” she
admitted as she peered down at the ground. It was much further away than she’d
remembered. Then again, this was a big horse.

“Aphrodite’s very gentle. She’ll take good care of you.”

Tricia only hoped she could remember what to do. She hadn’t
ridden much, and her riding skills had barely qualified as adequate.

Clint climbed onto his horse in one quick, smooth move. He
clucked and Dionysus started off in a slow walk. Tricia squeezed her legs
against Aphrodite’s sides, praying the horse would recognize that as the signal
to
go
. She breathed a sigh of relief when Aphrodite moved forward,
following behind Dionysus.

As they rode, she stole a sidelong glance at Clint. He sat
straight and tall in the saddle and looked like he was exactly where he
belonged, exactly where he wanted to be. He rode with an air of arrogance,
cockiness. She considered this and then decided minutes later that it wasn’t
really arrogance. It was confidence. And maybe pride.

She looked out over the pasture and couldn’t help but admit
he did have something to be proud of. More times than she cared to remember,
she had seen the Oklahoma landscape when it had been dry and dusty. But
apparently this year Mother Nature had smiled on them and blessed them with an
ample supply of rain. Lush, green grass, several inches high, covered the
pasture and rippled slightly in the breeze. She took a deep breath. Fresh,
clean air filled her lungs, so unlike the heavy air in Florida which had been
clogged with pollution and the smell of the sea.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Clint asked.

She shifted her eyes to him briefly to find him staring in
the same direction she had been looking at. Returning her gaze to the pasture,
she replied dryly, “Oh, it’s orgasmic.”

Now why on earth had she said that? All the man did was
voice exactly what she had been thinking herself. Would it have been so hard
just to agree with him?

Maybe she’d despised him for so long, it was no longer
possible for her to be civil toward him for more than a few minutes at a time.
Or perhaps it was simply because, for the first time in years, she was free to
disagree, to be testy, without any thought of the consequences. It could be
that she was just enjoying that newfound freedom—at his expense. Then again,
possibly it was her way of trying to put some distance between them. Whatever
the reason, it wasn’t fair to him.

She glanced over at him, uncertain of what she’d find in his
expression. Frustration? Irritation maybe?

What she saw was the corners of his mouth twitching in an
obvious effort to suppress a grin.

“It certainly doesn’t take much to satisfy you these days,
does it?” he asked in an amused tone.

“It must have been all that talk about desire and ecstasy.
Apparently it just got me all excited.”

“Hmm. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” His tone bordered
on seductive, and he said the words almost as if it were a promise.

She pressed a hand to her belly in an effort to calm the
flutter of excitement that he had incited.

They must have ridden for an hour at least. Tricia had about
decided there weren’t any cows anywhere on the ranch, and Clint was just
delusional. As she considered voicing her suspicions, they reached a pasture
with cows. There must have been thousands of them. Well, hundreds at least.
Black cows, each of them with bright red ear tags, grazing happily.

For a while they remained on the horses, riding slowly
through the herd as Clint did nothing more than observe the cattle. When he
stopped and dismounted, she followed his example. While she stretched the kinks
out of her shoulders and back, he walked among the cows, occasionally stopping
to examine one more closely.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Just checking. Making sure everything’s as it should be.”

They looked perfectly fine to her—just like cows should
look. But it took him another half an hour to reach the same conclusion.

At last he mounted his horse and said, “All right, let’s
go.”

“Do you do this every day?” she asked as they headed back
toward the house.

“Yep.”

“What else do you do?”

“Well, this is a lazy month. We just finished breeding
season. Calves will be born in the spring. And in the fall we round them all up
and do branding, vaccinations, dehorning, castration.”

Tricia cringed at the thought of it. She had never witnessed
such an event, but nevertheless she could almost picture the scene and hear the
terrified baby cows bawling in pain.

Clint continued, “At the same time we’ll sort out the ones
that are ready to be sold.”

“Who’s
we
?”

“I have some friends who help me out. Then I help them. It
works out well. Keeps me from having to hire anyone, which I can’t afford to do
right now.”

“How did you learn to do all this? I didn’t know you knew
anything about cattle.”

“There’s just all kinds of things you don’t know about me,
isn’t there?” He lifted a shoulder. “When I was a kid I spent a few summers up
here with my uncle. I learned a little then, but not nearly enough. So I read
books, searched the internet, made friends with the neighbors, asked a lot of
stupid questions, made a lot of stupid mistakes.”

Tricia made a sound of disbelief which stopped just short of
being a very unladylike snort. “You read a book?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “People change,” he
offered in the way of explanation.

“Yes, I know, but
this
from the man who used to tease
me because I’d rather read the book than see the movie. Who couldn’t understand
why on earth I’d want to read a book I’d already read before. After all, I knew
what happened, so what was the point in rereading it?”

His lips curved up. “
The Crucible
.”

Those two words shocked her into silence. Not only had he
remembered the conversation, he’d even remembered the title of the book.

“It’s a good book. I read it myself a few years ago.” He cut
his gaze in her direction. “But I only read it once.”

When they arrived back at the barn, they worked together
silently unsaddling and tending to the horses. Tricia brushed Aphrodite,
smiling when the horse leaned into her as if to say
that feels good, give me
more
. A few feet away, Clint cleaned Dionysus’s hoofs. As soon as he
finished with one, the horse automatically picked up the next leg for him, just
as Aphrodite had done earlier. Clearly, they were very well trained animals.

Once the grooming was complete, the horses were turned out
in a pasture behind the barn, joining two other horses which were already
grazing there.

Tricia and Clint leaned against the fence, their gazes fixed
on the horses.

“I owe you an apology,” Tricia said.

“Excuse me? I must have heard you wrong. Would you mind
repeating that?”

Obviously he wasn’t going to make this easy on her, and she
couldn’t really blame him. She turned her head to face him. “I said I owe you
an apology. I know I’ve been hard-headed and stubborn, not to mention
ungrateful.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“I was being so difficult because I was still angry at you.
But...” She shrugged her shoulders. “Regardless of what happened in the past,
right now you’re acting like a friend. So, thank you for helping me.”

“You’re welcome.” He studied her face for a moment, then
said, “I owe you an apology too…for how things ended between us. There hasn’t
been a single day that I haven’t regretted what happened. It was the biggest
mistake of my life.”

God, he actually sounds sincere.

She looked away, swallowed. Silence hung in the air and
seemed to stretch out endlessly.

“Tricia.” He laid his hand gently on her arm.

She yanked away from his touch. “Please, let’s leave it
alone.”

“Okay,” he finally said. “So, what’s the plan?”

Puzzled, she glanced at him.

“Once Matt’s gone, what are you going to do?”

She shrugged. “Find a job, earn a living.”

“What kind of job?”

“I’m in no position to be picky. I’ll take whatever I can
find.”

“What did you do in Florida?”

“Nothing.”

His brow creased in bewilderment. “You didn’t work? Did you
go to school?”

“No. Tuition and books are expensive. We didn’t have the
money for it.”

At least according to Matt. Of course, she didn’t know how
true his claims were since he handled all the finances. But it did strike her
as odd that he always seemed to have money for beer and poker games.

“I’m no genius, but even to me the solution to that problem
seems pretty clear. Work for a while, save your money, and then go to school.”

“Matt didn’t want me to work.”

Clint stared at her silently for a moment. “I see,” he said
at last. “But I’m still not buying it. There are loans.”

“Matt also pointed out that I’d already tried school, and I
failed. So what was the point in spending more money on it?”

“You failed? I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true. The last semester I went to school I failed
every single class.”

“Hmm. Right after your parents died. Just out of curiosity,
what kind of grades did you make the semester before?”

She sighed. “Look, I know where you’re going with this.”

“I hope you do. I really hope you do.”

* * * *

Tricia set the glasses of tea on the table as Clint entered
the kitchen. Stopping abruptly in the middle of the room, he surveyed the
table. He looked at the two place settings, and then raised his questioning
gaze to Tricia.

She wasn’t surprised by his misgivings since the only time
they had actually eaten together was the night Jenny and Neil had visited. At
all other times, they had each fixed their own meals, eating separately.

She gestured toward one of the chairs. “Sit down.”

When he sat his actions were so cautious, the look on his
face so wary, she had to suppress a grin. Without a word, he picked up his
spoon and they ate in complete silence.

“What made you decide to do this?” he finally asked.

“It’s not much. All I did was open a can of soup and make a
few sandwiches.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m just tired of all the…tension between us. Of course, if
you prefer, we can go back to how we’ve been doing things.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, I like this just fine.”

After dinner, Clint helped her clean the kitchen. She came
close to insisting he didn’t need to help her, but she managed to bite her
tongue before the words could escape.

Matt had considered cleaning to be a woman’s job, and he would
have been appalled at the prospect of washing dishes. Although she had secretly
disagreed with his attitude, she’d never verbally challenged it. It just hadn’t
been worth the argument that would have followed. An argument that she, no
doubt, would have lost anyway.

So why had she automatically started to refuse Clint’s help?
Maybe over the years, a few of Matt’s views had become implanted in her own
mind. The thought repulsed her.

Once the kitchen was clean, they went into the living room
and plopped down on the couch. Clint grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
Watching TV together would be another first for them since her arrival.

“Is there something you want to watch?” he asked as he
flipped through the channels.

She glanced at him in surprise for a moment and then shook
off the feeling. For Christ’s sake, all he’d done was ask what she wanted to
watch. True, it’d been years since a man had asked her that. But the fact that
Clint had managed to impress her with such a small thing was downright pathetic.

“Anything’s fine.”

Don’t be so darn agreeable. Tell him what you want.

“I’d like to watch something funny.”

“Okay.” He flipped to a sitcom then tossed the remote on the
end table and settled back in the couch.

Over the course of the next hour Tricia smiled and even
managed a few chuckles.

When she shifted in her seat for what must have been the
hundredth time, Clint asked, “Sore?”

“A little.”

“You know, the best thing for it would be something to relax
the muscles, get the blood flowing again.”

She glanced over at him. “And that would be?”

“A massage, of course. If you want, I could help you out in
that area.” He winked at her.

“Oh, I just bet you could,” she muttered. She was sure he’d
be able to get her blood flowing with no problem whatsoever. Just the thought
of his big, strong hands stroking and kneading her skin—up her thighs, over her
rear—sent her blood racing through her veins.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word
the phone rang. Tricia picked up the receiver from the end table beside her and
handed it to Clint.

“Hello?” After a moment’s pause, a smile covered his face.
“Well, hello darlin’.”

Tricia tried not to listen, she truly did. But it was hard
to miss the terms
honey
and
sweetheart
, and phrases like
I’m
so glad you called
,
I’ve missed you too
.

Apparently, Candy had forgiven him and was more than ready
to make amends. Or maybe it wasn’t Candy. Maybe it was another one of his
female friends.

The longer she sat there listening to him gush into the
phone, the more foolish she felt. It was more effective than a slap in the
face. Here she had been feeling all friendly toward him. The man had just
offered to massage her butt for Christ’s sake. Then he’d completely dismissed
her when another woman called. It was a stern reminder to her not to forget
that some things never change.