Trouble At Lone Spur (7 page)

His eyes glittered angrily. “You presume wrong,” he said, surprising the gelding when he choked up on the reins and wheeled him on a dime. Sod, damp from a recent watering, flew from the gelding’s sharp heels and stuck to the pickup’s windshield as Spencer cantered off. In the field the horses stopped eating and whinnied nervously. Liz sat in her idling pickup. “What in heaven’s name was that all about?” she wondered aloud. Obviously it’d been a mistake to tease him about Ginger—whoever she was. But if Gil Spencer thought his terse remark would end her curiosity, he didn’t know human nature very well. Although not prone to gossip, Liz did like to know what made people tick. She was intrigued by the little mysteries of life; she was also patient and content to bide her time.

Catching up to the children, Liz insisted Melody join her in the fenced-off pasture where three geldings grazed. No matter how cleverly the boys and her daughter cajoled her, Liz had no intention of allowing Melody out of her sight.

“I should be able to shoe two of those horses before lunch. Melody and I will meet you fellows at the crawdad hole. We’ll share our sandwiches if you point out where you’ll be.”

Gil had dismounted to check a fence post nearby. “We don’t expect you to feed us,” he said. “But you’re more than welcome to join us at the river. See that tall weeping birch?” Liz turned the way he pointed. “My grandfather planted two of them as seedlings,” he added. “Grandmother wanted to build a home there when the trees got big enough for shade.”

“What happened to change her mind?” Liz asked, assuming they built the Spencer ranch house.

“First big rain, and the river flooded the valley.”

“Oh. Did it wash out the second tree? I only see one.”

“It died when I was a boy, during the seven-year drought. Granddad packed water all the way out here from the house, and still he lost one. Even though they’d given up the idea of building here, they still planned to be buried at the foot of those old trees.”

“So, are they? Buried under that tree, I mean?”

Gil shook his head and stared down at the solid gold key chain he’d absently pulled from his pocket—a gold spur linked by the arch of a golden horseshoe. Diamonds winked from the spur’s rowels. His grandfather had entrusted Gil, rather than his own son, with the keepsake. He’d made Gil promise to look after the ranch he so loved—as if he knew his only son wouldn’t. To Gil, the key chain symbolized the heart and soul of the Lone
Spur. “It’s almost impossible to bury someone on private property,” he said in a low voice.

“Yes. Corbett’s rodeo buddies wanted him buried beneath that chute. I was relieved when the funeral home refused.” Brushing a sudden tear from her eye, Liz hurriedly pressed a hand to Melody’s shoulder. “Come along,” she urged softly, “I have work to do. Run and tell the boys you’ll see them later.”

Gil watched the woman gather her tools and stride toward the horses to be shod.
Tears? At this late date?
He couldn’t say why it annoyed him to see proof that she grieved for her husband, that she’d loved him.

It more than annoyed him, it made him damned uncomfortable. Because Lizbeth Robbins didn’t seem to fit his image of rodeos and their hangers-on.

And, thanks to his wife, he knew plenty about those.

A
FTER
L
IZ FINISHED
checking the hooves of all three horses, she started with the one that was hardest to fit. Rafe had told her cold-shoeing was the only method the previous farrier used. It was certainly cheaper to use ready-mades, but Liz had been taught by an old-timer who believed that a foot shod properly and at regular intervals would remain sound for the life of a horse. Forming a shoe to fit exactly corrected a multitude of problems and extended the animal’s work life.

Liz slipped a lariat over the first horse and led him to a big oak tree. Its spreading branches provided shade and a relatively clean work space. From the notations Rafe had made on her clipboard—indicating each animal’s identifying features and markings—she determined that this horse was called Sand Digger. Back at her pickup, Liz wrote his name on a three-by-five card, dated it and briefly listed what she intended to do. Then she placed the card in a recipe box, which would eventually include every horse she worked on, with the cards filed in date order. She believed in shoeing at six-week intervals, eight at the most, unless the animal threw a shoe. Good records were something else Hoot had insisted on, and another thing the Lone Spur’s former farrier apparently hadn’t felt was important. She was virtually working blind on these animals.

Gil trotted up just as Liz fired her forge. “Starting lunch?”

She slipped on her apron and gloves. “It’s barely nine-thirty. Don’t tell me your breakfast has worn off already?”

His gaze slid from its inspection of her trim figure to where his sons were energetically throwing a football. “I’d barely poured my coffee when our breakfast conversation turned to bats. Food was forgotten.” He glanced at Melody, who played quietly in the pickup’s cab with a family of plastic dolls. “Is she always so placid?”

Liz looked up from gathering her nippers, blade and rasp. Laughter bubbled spontaneously. “Rarely. She’s trying to impress me so she can go catch crawdads later. Beneath that sweet exterior lies a total tomboy. You’ll see.”

Gil adjusted his hat. “That’s good. Maybe my sons’ll learn some respect. They seem to equate female with inferior.”

“Imagine that,” Liz said dryly. Then before he could take exception, she turned and made her way back to Sand Digger. Thanks to her sixth-sense antennae that were attuned to Spencer, Liz knew the moment he dismounted and followed her. Ignoring him, she arranged her tools carefully, then walked Sand Digger in a circle to check his gait. She reminded herself that a lot of owners preferred to watch their horses being shod. But for some reason it grated on her nerves to have Gil Spencer hunkered down beneath the tree, relaxed as you please. Evidently he hadn’t spied on his other farriers. If he had, his animals might be in better shape. Sand Digger favored his right front foot. On closer inspection, Liz discovered that the last nails had been driven in crookedly.

“Something wrong?” Noticing her frown, Gil stood and removed his hat.

“What? Oh, nothing.” She repeated the procedure with the other hooves and found the same crooked nails in all but one.

“You frown at nothing?” Gil tilted back his hat and sauntered over to take a look. By the third hoof, he whistled through his teeth. “Damn!”

“You swear at nothing?” Liz restrained a smirk.

“That jerk!” he exploded. “I had no idea…” Off came the Stetson again and he began the signature
tap, tap, tap
on his thigh. “I fired him because I smelled liquor on his breath. I don’t tolerate anyone drinking on the job.”

“I guess you didn’t follow him around and check his work.” She shrugged.

He paused in the middle of tapping; an expression of surprise then chagrin furrowed his brow. “Look, ten years ago my pop’s weakness for alcohol nearly lost us the ranch. I sold off all but thirty horses, dropped everyone from the payroll but Rafe, and the two of us put in twenty-hour days, seven days a week, to dig this place out of bankruptcy. There weren’t enough hours in the day. We handled breeding, training, shoeing, built fence, mucked stalls—you name it. Now I have twenty men on my payroll. All experts.”

“Twenty men and one woman,” she said. “And as an expert I recommend you let this horse run barefoot and riderless for about six weeks.” She flipped her rope off Sand Digger’s neck and walked back to change the information on his card. “I don’t drink, and I drive a very straight nail, Mr. Spencer, so you won’t need to check up on me, either. Maybe you can take that extra hour or so a day I’ll be saving you and spend it with your kids.”

Gil stiffened. She’d hit a raw nerve. Ginger complained to anyone who’d listen that he’d neglected her in favor of the ranch. Neglect was a big issue in the custody hearing, even though Gil had hired Ben and cut back to ten-hour days. Little by little, as the boys grew and spent more time with him out on the range, he’d let longer hours in the saddle creep up again. But he didn’t neglect his sons and he didn’t need some woman looking at him with sorrowful calf eyes, suggesting that he did.

“Are you fixin’ to fire me again?” Liz drawled softly, wishing he wasn’t such a hard man to read. She could see he’d worked up a head of steam but honestly didn’t know why. “I only meant you can trust me to do a good job of shoeing.”

Gil stared at her neat array of tools. The card she’d been writing on fluttered to the ground. He picked it up, realizing at a glance that if all her records were this precise, she was definitely telling the truth. “Guess I’m kind of touchy when it comes to my family,” he said gruffly, handing her back the card.

Liz filed it and filled one out for the next gelding, Coppertone’s Pride. Named for his perfect all-over tan, she reasoned—and then her mind flipped back to what Melody had said about her teacher’s pictures of family. Mom, dad, kids. It seemed grandparents were acceptable, as long as there were two. But one parent and child? Apparently not. By Miss Woodson’s definition, she and Melody weren’t a family. But
of course
they were, the same as tens of thousands of other single-parent families in the world. Liz would have to have a talk with Miss W. She needed a new supply of pictures.

“C’mon, boys,” Gil called. “Mount up. Time to check fence.” He squinted at the sun. “We’ll mosey toward the river about noon,” he told Liz.

“Do we hafta go with you?” The boys stopped tossing the football. “Riding fence is boring. Can’t we stay here and play? We brought a Frisbee, too.”

“No. Remember, I said idle hands make mischief.”

“Aw, Dad. We said we were sorry.”

Gil turned back to Liz, giving an apologetic shrug. She wasn’t sure if he was asking her to let them stay or if he was irked at having her witness a little family discord. “I’ll keep an eye on them if you’d like,” she murmured discreetly. She didn’t want to be accused of aiding and abetting dissension.

His sudden grin was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Thanks. I’ll put the fear of the Lord in them so they won’t cause you any trouble. Riding fence
is
boring. Someday they’ll accept that it’s part of the job. Now they’re at the age where anything short of calamity is boring.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I get so sick of hearing that word.”

“You, too?” He laughed. “I always picture girls playing quietly with tea sets and dolls. Like Melody there.” He gestured over his shoulder at the pickup.

Liz pointed out a fact he’d obviously missed. Mel had left the truck to join the twins and had just delivered a punt that sent both boys running back into the dry wash.

Gil was still shaking his head when he mounted up and rode north along the fence row. He’d been right to bring the boys along. Being around Melody and Lizbeth might be the best way for them to learn some genuine respect for women.

Liz appraised the way his soft blue shirt stretched taut across his broad shoulders and narrowed snugly down to lean hips that rocked gently against a tooled leather saddle. Heat struck her like a blast of hot wind. She jerked
sideways, assuming she’d let the forge get too hot. In fact, the fire burned low and steady. Annoyed by her own response, she coiled her lariat and went to separate Coppertone’s Pride from his companions.

His feet were well shaped and symmetrical. Liz finished the easy shoeing just as the three children charged up, begging for water. She poured them each a generous cup from her jug. “Your faces are red as beefsteak tomatoes. Why don’t you go sit in the shade of that old oak to drink these?”

“I’m ready to jump in the river,” one of the twins said. “What do you s’pose is keeping my dad?”

Liz checked her watch. “He hasn’t been gone an hour. He said noon. It’s not quite eleven.”

“We don’t have to wait for him,” the twin with the reddest face declared.

“Oh, ho,” Liz chuckled, thinking he was baiting her. “Guess again, young man.” She’d almost called him Dustin, but caught herself in time as she wasn’t certain.

“We don’t gotta mind you, do we, Rusty?” the boy said, deliberately crushing his plastic glass beneath the heel of his boot.

So, it
was
Dustin. Instinct had served her well, Liz thought smugly. When it came to confrontations, she noticed he most often led. But this time, Rusty ignored his challenge. “You’re absolutely right, Dustin,” Liz said quietly, walking over to pick up his flattened glass. “The rules you have to go by are the ones your dad set down before he left. And only you and Russ know how he’ll react if you break them.” She walked past him to toss the plastic pieces into the box lid. Unfurling her lariat, she deftly roped the third gelding, Little Toot. At this moment Liz felt it described Dustin Spencer. With his
flashing go-to-the-devil eyes and pouting lips, he was a little toot, all right.

“Hey, that was cool,” Rusty exclaimed, running to meet her as she returned with the dun-colored gelding in tow. “Will you teach me how to throw a rope like that?”

Liz cast a surreptitious glance toward his surly twin. Dusty’s head was down and he was digging a furrow in the dirt with a boot heel. She’d bet the contents of her lunch basket that he didn’t want any part of her teaching.

“I’m not sure how long it’ll take to shoe this horse.” She patted the soft nose as Little Toot nibbled her collar. “There are several lariats behind the pickup seat. Melody can explain the basics. If I have time before your dad gets back, I’ll be glad to show you some simple rope tricks.” She pointed. “See that old stump?” It looked as if it’d been sheared off by lightning. “That’s how I learned and how I taught Melody. You practice roping stumps by the hour.”

Rusty let out a whoop that scared the horse. “Sorry,” he muttered, dashing after Melody. “C’mon!” he yelled to his brother.

“I don’t want some dorky girl teachin’ me to rope,” Dustin declared loudly. “Shorty said he’d show us how before the next roundup. Let’s wait.”

Rusty’s steps slowed. He glanced back at his brother, then at the rope Melody offered him. Hunching his shoulders, he turned and raced Melody to the stump.

Good for you, kid,
Liz thought as she bent to her task. Still, she did feel for Dusty. Tough guys took a lot of falls before they learned. Especially the ones who used stubborn pride as a defense mechanism. This child came by the trait honestly; Gil Spencer wore pride like a suit of armor. Rusty was the anomaly here. More open. You
could even call him sweet. Liz hammered the first white-hot piece of metal into the proper curve and cooled it in the bucket of water. She’d have to be careful not to treat Rusty with more affection, she told herself. Who knew better than she that pride was sometimes all that protected a fragile heart? So many times she’d picked up a pen to write her parents. At least four times she’d slipped Melody’s picture into an envelope. She’d thought that maybe if this job panned out…But now, of course, it wasn’t going to last. Yes, she knew all about stubborn pride.

And Dustin Spencer showed no sign of relenting. Liz watched him slam rock after rock, hard as he could, against a rusted coffee can. She stayed silent, knowing there was nothing she could say to him.

She was driving the final nail into Little Toot’s fourth shoe when Gil Spencer galloped toward them from the north, his horse blowing hard. “Hurry,” he called. “You guys saddle up and follow me if you want a treat. The rogue stallion has his herd grazing just up the draw. It’s a sight, I’ll tell you.”

All three children sprang into action. Rusty dropped the rope he was using and raced his brother for their tethered mounts. Melody coiled her rope and his and carefully returned them to the pickup. “Is it all right if I go?” she asked her mother.

“Go ahead. I’ll stay and pack up. The engine noise would probably scare him off before we got within range.” She wanted to go, though. Liz had never seen a true wild horse.

“It’s not far,” Gil said, riding up beside her. “Come on, ride with me.” He leaned from the saddle and stretched out a hand.

Liz felt her eagerness fade in a rush of embarrassment, even though she’d made her living working with men since Corbett died. She’d learned to sidestep advances and had developed a no-nonsense handshake, but it had been more than six years since she’d slid her arms around a man’s waist. And, Lord, when you weren’t intimate with the man, what did you do with your hands? Just now Liz tucked them in her back pockets and gave a little shake of her head.

Gil didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman with more expressive eyes. How could they remind him of rich dark chocolate drops when they were so transparent? It made no sense. But they did. Unfortunately Gil had a big weakness for chocolate. “I’ve gobbled up my quota of women this week. Come.”

He sounded as prickly as the spiked cactus that dotted the terrain, and Liz realized she was acting foolish. The kids waited, their horses huddled together—they all seemed much too interested in her childish display. Before second thoughts could weaken her knees, Liz stepped up, slid her toe into the stirrup Gil had already kicked free and, clasping his hand firmly, heaved herself up behind him.

Startled by the sudden shift in weight, the bay crowhopped a few steps along the side of the hill, nearly unseating Liz.