to curl up somewhere and sleep. It had been a long traveling day.
He pulled up to the corral and several horses came to inspect them. He took a bag of sugar cubes from the glove compartment and handed some to her. “Keep your hand flat. You don’t want to lose any fingers.” He jumped out of the vehicle and led her into the barn.
Lights blazed inside. As Joe walked past the stalls, he called all the horses by name, and she petted them.
“You sure look at home in a barn, Maggie.”
“As it happens, I grew up on a dairy farm in northern New York.”
His eyes grew as wide as his belt buckle. “Well, I’ll be. And here I had you pegged as a bona fide city slicker.”
“Hang on. I am a city slicker. I’ve lived in Manhattan longer than I lived on my parents’ farm. Besides, I didn’t particularly like it. My sister, Liz, was the one who loved it.”
“And Danny is Liz’s son.”
“Yes.” Even though Liz had been gone for two years, Maggie missed her every day. Danny looked a lot like her.
“And you think you’ve failed Liz because Danny is in trouble,” Joe said, pausing with a bucket of water for the next horse in line.
“Was that in the probation report, too?”
He nodded. “It said something to the effect that you felt like you failed Liz because Danny was arrested.”
Maggie felt like she was under a microscope.
He was here to run Cowboy Quest—not to analyze her. She was here to save her nephew. End of story.
They got back into the golf cart. Ominous clouds had darkened the sky, and the breeze had grown rough and cool. “What’s Danny doing now?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Ronnie is giving him a tour like I’m giving you. If the other participants have arrived, they are all touring together.”
“Danny’s probably hungry,” Maggie said, her own stomach giving a little growl. “It’s been a long day, and he didn’t eat much.”
“He’ll be fine.” Joe checked his watch. “Dinner is in an hour.”
Just as they pulled up to the ranch house, the skies opened with a crack of thunder. Rain came down in a noisy torrent. They dashed inside. Joe lit a fire in the living room and they sat to warm themselves.
“You know a lot about me, Joe. Tell me more about yourself,” she said.
“There isn’t much to tell.” He shrugged. “I was a fairly mediocre student in high school. My parents weren’t around much then so I practically moved into Jake Dixon’s house. It was Mr. Dixon who suggested that I could work my ranch, expand my stock contracting business and still do something with my master’s in education. One day, I came up with the idea for Cowboy Quest.”
He paused and diverted his eyes, clearly uncomfortable talking about himself.
“Don’t stop,” Maggie urged.
“Jake Dixon, our pal Clint Scully and I all help out on Jake’s Gold Buckle Ranch. He runs several programs for kids during the summer, so Cowboy Quest fits right in. Mr. and Mrs. Dixon handle most of the administrative duties.”
“And you handle the program part,” Maggie stated.
He nodded. “The three of us go way back to Mountain Springs Grammar School. After high school, we rodeoed together for years. The only one still chasing rodeos is Clint.”
“So what does a stock contractor actually do?”
“I furnish rodeo stock for rodeos—steers, broncs, bulls, calves. I breed them, too—buy, sell, trade.”
“Sounds like hard work, raising all those animals.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work.” He smiled. “And that’s another component of the Cowboy Code. If we can get these boys up and working, they’ll be too tired to think of getting into trouble, and at the end of the day, they can take pride in what they’ve accomplished. I hope that learning the value of hard work will stay with them when they go back home.”
“If you can get them working.”
“Oh, I will. Starting with dinner tonight.” He tipped his hat, excused himself and added, “I’ll see you in a half hour.”
As Maggie walked to the bunkhouse, she caught the scent of horses again, heavy on the breeze.
She did some breathing exercises—she always did when she was nervous. Only a handful of people knew that she suffered from stage fright, but now she was suffering from horse fright. She’d been dreading tomorrow, but the sight of the horses reminded her: riding lessons tomorrow.
She told herself that it’d be okay. She’d seen horses before, pulling carriages around Central Park. The tourists petted, posed and took pictures with them and they were as still as statutes.
But the Silver River Ranch was totally different from New York.
Here there were real horses. Horses that she’d be riding…in a saddle…by herself. And they were tall. It was a long way to the ground if she fell.
Maggie paused to check her way. She’d forgotten how dark it could be at night in the country. There weren’t any streetlights, brightly illuminated office buildings or Broadway marquees to guide the way, and she could barely see the path in front of her. She stopped to let her eyes send a message to her brain, sorting out the shadows and shapes.
Then she made out the tall figure of Joe Watley approaching, carrying a flashlight. Relief washed over her as he called out.
“I thought this would help.” She heard a click, and he handed her a flashlight of her own. “Keep it while you’re here.”
“Thanks.”
The bunkhouse was aglow in the distance, and it looked warm and welcoming. She took another deep breath, and pushed thoughts of tomorrow aside.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked as they walked.
“Cookie’s mystery stew.”
“Shall I ask about the name, or don’t I want to know?”
“He makes it different each time. One of the cowboys called it that, and the name stuck. The meat he uses is a mystery, too.”
“Ouch.”
They both laughed, and Maggie warmed to his sense of humor. Yet being with Joe—the whole situation—made her jumpy. If they walked in together, it would be like admitting that he was spending extra time with her.
Sure enough, when they entered, they were greeted with a moment of hushed silence. Then the talking and frivolity began again in earnest.
She noticed Danny right away, along with the poke in the ribs that the big kid on his
