Authors: Janet Dailey
Then he was gone. She clutched the towel tightly around her shoulders, hugging it close to her. He was right, she was too sensitive. What a silly thing to get so upset about! It was Tony's fault for teasing them, that was what had embarrassed her so, not the thought that Jase might have been going to kiss her. Heavens, she didn't even know if that was what he was going to do. Suddenly Coley realized that she had wanted him to. Momentarily stunned by her discovery, she stared blankly into the pool.
She had always shied away from any close contact with the opposite sex, especially after that repulsive episode with Carl, but a few minutes ago when Jase had held her, it had seemed almost instinctive. In that one brief moment when his head had begun to bend towards hers, Coley had actually felt that it was natural and right. Was that where her shame came from, from her own bold desire and not from Tony's teasing, but from his catching her in that vulnerable moment?
Visibly subdued, she made her way into the house and up the stairs into her room, her mind conscious of only this confusing revelation.
She spent the rest of the morning trailing after her aunt as Willy made her daily rounds in her rose garden. If she noticed Coley's inattention to her conversation, she made no mention of it. The whole family was present for lunch, a rare occurrence since quite often one or several were out on another section of the ranch. Somehow Coley managed a small smile when she looked at Jase, her round eyes expressing the apology for her morning conduct that she was too shy to put into words. With a barely perceptible nod, Jase accepted it.
Danny's expression was a little grim when he sat down beside her while Tony winked at her from across the table. Coley fought for a calm composure although she was aware that there were two bright dots of colour on her cheeks.
'How are your swimming lessons?’ Tony asked with a malicious twinkle in his eye. Danny stabbed at a pea on his plate.
'Very well,’ Coley replied, accepting a dish from Ben with just the slightest tremor. ‘I'll soon be as good as you and Danny.'
'As soon as you get to the advanced level, why don't you let me take over for Jase?’ Tony gleamed at her, flashing his white teeth at her in a knowing smile. ‘I'm an excellent teacher.
His barely disguised innuendo flooded her cheeks as she concentrated her attention on her plate. She glanced briefly at Jase, meeting the full force of the piercing gaze. He was waiting for her reply too. She mustn't let Tony's teasing to get her. She had to show Jase that her skin was tough and she could take it.
'Really, Tony?’ she replied as coolly as she could. ‘I never would have guessed that you were experienced in the teaching class.'
Tony's head jerked back at her words as he glanced over at Jase, but not quick enough to see the sly smile that Coley saw before it was quickly suppressed by a studied concentration of the steak he was slicing. She could have almost giggled with her delight, but she turned instead to her brother, anxious for a change of subject.
'What have you been doing this morning?’ she asked.
'Taking care of a mare that just foaled,’ Danny answered, a hard glint in his eye as he looked at his sister. ‘It's a late foal and we've been keepin’ a close eye on it.'
Danny couldn't keep the pride from sneaking in his voice.
'A little baby?’ Coley exclaimed, captured by the excitement of birth. Turning excitedly to Ben, she asked, ‘Can I go down and see it?'
'Of course. Danny can take you down after lunch,’ Ben smiled good-humouredly.
'Will you, Danny?’ Her eyes gleamed.
'Sure. But you'll have to change in some jeans. Those shorts aren't exactly the thing for a barn,’ Danny stated.
'Right away,’ Coley cried happily, pushing her chair away from the table. ‘May I be excused, please?'
'You haven't had your dessert yet, Colleen,’ admonished Aunt Willy.
'I'm not hungry. I'll have it later,’ Coley called, already at the doorway. She started to leave the room, then ducked her head back in. ‘You be sure and wait for me, Danny.'
'I will.’ His voice sounded disgruntled, but there was a happy expression on his face as she returned his smile and bounced out of the room.
Coley raced up the steps into her room, creating a small whirlwind when she got there as she rummaged through her drawers for her jeans and a top. She changed in record time, then stopped in front of the mirror to touch up her hair briefly with a comb and add a hint of the peach lipstick. She wrinkled her button nose at her reflection and dashed out of the room. She arrived breathless at the bottom of the stairs and hurried to her brother, who was waiting only slightly impatiently at the door. With a cheery ‘I'm ready’ from Coley they left the house.
Coley managed to slow her anxious feet to the sedate pace her brother was taking. She fleshed a happy smile at his sombre expression, taking his arm with a childlike gesture.
'What are you so serious about?’ she asked, hugging his arm while giving him a saucy smile.
'What happened at the pool this morning?’ His question was so unexpected that Coley couldn't suppress a little gasp. She had no trouble now flowing her previously bouncy steps his.
'You talked to Tony, I suppose,’ Coley replied, astutely recognizing the tale-carrying culprit.
'He said he saw you and Jason in a little clinch.’ His words came out slowly through gritted teeth, but there was concern and speculation in his eyes when he glanced at his sister.
'That's not the way it was,’ Coley replied, going on to explain about her to fright in the deep end of the pool and Jason's rescue. ‘I was just hanging on to him because I was frightened. And that's when Tony came along.'
'So that's all there was to it,’ Danny breathed. The relief etched little curves around his mouth.
'Well—’ Coley drawled, desperately seeking the words that would explain her confused feelings. She had always confided in her brother and she needed again. He was always able to put things in their right order. ‘Not exactly. You see, Danny,’ she rushed, ‘afterwards I got this feeling that I would have liked him to kiss me. I don't really understand it. That's why I got so embarrassed at Tony's teasing, because I wanted it to happen.’ She paused briefly. ‘I've never felt like that, especially after Carl...’ Her words drifted away in silence.
'Coley, there are some things you don't know about Jase.’ Danny spoke hesitantly.
'I overheard Jase and Uncle Ben arguing one day shortly after we came here.’ Coley spoke very low so that Danny had to bend his head to hear. ‘Uncle Ben called him a murderer. That's what you're talking about, isn't it?'
Danny studied her very intently before answering.
'Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I've heard things, stories, I don't know how much of them are true, but either way, he's thirteen years older than you. He's ... I don't know, only I don't want you getting too close to him or you're going get hurt.'
That was the second time she'd been warned off, the first time by Jase himself, Coley thought as they reached the stables. Did she seem so much like a child to everybody that they couldn't trust her to judge the facts?
As they walked down the roofed breezeway and past the stalls, Coley looked around her. She had been so engrossed in her conversation with her brother that she hadn't noticed her surroundings. This was the first time she had ventured in the actual ranch-yard and she studied the various buildings and corrals with interest. Several hundred yards away she noticed a large barn surrounded by heavy reinforced fencing. She could barely make out the distant grey shapes within the fences.
'What's over there?’ She directed Danny's attention the distant corrals.
'In those enclosures? Brahma cattle,’ he answered. ‘They raise them for rodeo stock. I understand Jase had been doing some experimental breeding with them, too. They're a hearty breed, able to stand up under the hot weather and insects better than the Herefords and Angus. They're awful touchy, though, so don't you go hanging around those corrals. They didn't build those fences like that for nothing.'
Coley gave a little shudder, remembering pictures she had seen of rodeo bulls tossing riders and clowns around. No, she wouldn't be going near them.
'Here's the little mother,’ Danny crooned, stopping beside the open foaling pen at the south end of the stable. He reached out and laid a reassuring hand on the shiny brown neck of the mare. He took hold of his shy sister and drew her up beside him see the spindly-legged colt sprawled exhaustedly on the hay. ‘Here's the Johnny-come-lately.'
As if the mare knew that Danny was showing off her son, she turned her head and nickered to the sleeping colt. He raised his too large head in answer and then attempted to get his long legs in the correct position to get him on his feet. After several awkward attempts that brought quiet gasps of laughter from Coley, he made it and stood staring at them, brightly swishing his furry whisk-broom of a tail arrogantly.
'He's all head, ears and legs,’ Coley laughed, delighted with the comic little colt.
'He'll grow in all three,’ Danny promised, scratching the mare's forelock as she nuzzled him for her share of attention.
Coley tried coaxing the little man over to her, but he just shook his blazed face at her and dashed, as best he could, to the protection of his mother's flank.
'Coley, do you like it here?’ Danny asked unexpectedly, turning an anxious face to her. ‘I mean, do you want to stay? I don't really get to be with you very much and if you're unhappy...'
'Oh, no, I like it here,’ she inserted quickly. ‘Aunt Willy is so good me that I feel guilty about not being able to pay my way. But, Danny, I wish you wouldn't work so hard. You're always off in the barns or stables somewhere.'
'You know something, I like it. It's all so interesting that it doesn't seem like work,’ Danny replied earnestly. ‘Can you imagine that, a city boy like me? But there's so much you have to know to be able to operate a ranch successfully, especially one of this size. Do you want to see some of the other horses?’ he asked as if suddenly self-conscious of his enthusiasm.
'Yes,’ Coley replied, following Danny as he walked away from the pen.
When they reached an adjacent corral, Coley climbed on to the top of the fence beside Danny, barely concealing her dismay as the horses within trotted over to them.
'They won't hurt you,’ Danny said as a bold sorrel horse bunted his arm playfully. ‘They just want some attention.'
Hesitantly Coley placed a careful hand on the head of a small bay and made a haphazard job of scratching his head as she had seen Danny do. As another horse moved in making Coley feel like she was being surrounded, she scooted closer to Danny. The new horse, a blaze-faced chestnut, nuzzled her arm.
'His nose is so soft,’ Coley exclaimed, turning her hand palm upwards as the horse investigated it. ‘It feels like velvet.'
She gradually grew more confident, not jumping every time one made a move that she wasn't prepared for, until she was laughing along with Danny at the spats of jealousy that took place between the horses. They were so engrossed in the little byplays that they failed to hear Jase ride up behind them.
'Why don't you take your sister out for a ride?’ he said to Danny, almost startling Coley off her perch.
Danny looked at his sister before issuing a rueful snort that said ‘forget it’ very plainly.
'I'd love too,’ Coley murmured wistfully, ‘but...'
'I know, you don't know how to ride.’ Jase laughed, a warm delicious laugh, that tingled through Coley. ‘Do you want learn?'
'Sure, but...’ said Coley, slipping off the fence, followed by her brother.
'Danny could teach you,’ Jase suggested.
'Oh, no, not me,’ Danny cried, begging off with grim determination. ‘I've been through that before. Her decisions last about as long as it takes to saddle a horse and then she's gone.'
'Do you want learn?’ Jase repeated, the two blue diamond eyes challenging her.
'Of course,’ Coley asserted, indignant and a little put out by her brother's evaluation of her weak determination.
'Grady!’ Jase called, turning in his saddle to hail a ranch hand leading a white-faced roan out of the stables. ‘Bring Misty over here! Miss McGuire needs a gentle mount, so you'll have find another one for this afternoon.'
'I didn't m-mean now exactly,’ Coley stuttered as Jase stepped down off his blood-bay stallion. Jase accepted the reins from the rider and turned Coley.
'What's wrong with now?’ His eyes twinkled wildly although the deadpan expression on his face didn't change.
'He's got you now,’ Danny hooted, overcome with malicious brotherly glee at his sister's predicament.
'Nothing, except I promised Aunt Willy...’ Coley began, searching wildly for some way out of the trap that her big mouth had got her in.
'There isn't anything that Aunt Willy would have for you that couldn't be put off,’ Jase interrupted. Then he turned to the roan and stroked its neck. ‘She just doesn't like you, Misty.'
'Oh, she's fine. I mean, she's ... there's nothing wrong with her. It's just...'
'You'd better tell her yourself, because I don't think she believes me,’ said Jase, shaking his head in mock despair.
Feeling like an utter fool, Coley stepped over towards the horse. Unwillingly she stared into the liquid brown eyes of the roan that blinked so trustingly back at her. As if on cue, the horse stepped forward and nuzzled Coley's shoulder until Coley placed a reluctant hand on its head and began stroking it.