ran to the fence. Clea sucked in her breath and stepped on the gas a little more.
“Now, you all watch for that trailer,” she said, and kept her eyes on the mirror. The whinny rang out again.
“Whoo-ee, and not a white hair on her,” Teddy said. “Black as the ace of spades and, what is she? At least near seventeen hands.”
“You’ve got a mighty fancy mare there, Clea,” Buck said.
Clea didn’t say thanks for the compliment. She didn’t say a word.
“What d’you use her fer?” Buck asked.
Finally, she said, “I show her some.”
“She one o’ them jumpers?”
“Yeah.”
“Never could stay in one o’ them little postage-stamp saddles,” Teddy said. “But I never did try it but the one time.”
“Then don’t say never,” Buck said. “One time won’t do it. Maybe Clea’d let you try jumping her mare…”
“Which way is it to your place?” Clea interrupted.
“East,” Buck said.
She glanced at him in the mirror to find out which way that was. Jake shook his head. Couldn’t shoot, couldn’t drive and didn’t know east from west.
“Naw, now watch it—you’re gonna hit the nose of our gooseneck,” Teddy shouted, having suddenly looked back instead of at the horse. “Give it some room. Watch it there, Clea.”
She sent the trailer the wrong way again, toward theirs, but brought it back. Almost too quickly. Then she had it off the driveway on the right, the way it had to be, and they were moving past the Natural Bands trailer.
She gave a huge sigh when it was done. Actually, they all did. No crash, no scrapes, no trouble. She maneuvered the trailer back onto the driveway, going for the road.
“You’re good now. Give ‘er some gas,” Buck said.
But she stepped on the brake.
“Hey,” Jake said. Damn. Was this torture gonna last all night?
“I’ve got to get out of this vest,” she said and Jake saw that her upper lip was filmed with sweat.
She slipped her arms free and handed the fur to Jake, who laid it across his paper sack. It wafted her perfume to his nostrils, a light, citrusy scent that smelled as expensive as that luggage of hers had to be.
The mare whinnied again, then took off and began to canter down the rail with a beautiful smooth gait that made her look to be floating just above the ground.
“Look at the way that mare goes, boys,” Buck said. “She’ll reach and get it, won’t she?”
Clea shifted in the seat and sat up straighter, then hit the gas and stayed on it until the trailer rolled straight down the drive and across the tin horn into the road. At the critical moment, she almost turned the wheel the wrong way, but she caught herself in time to make it swivel to the west so they could head east.
Applause from the backseat.
“You got ‘er done,” Buck said.
“Good job,” Teddy said.
Jake said nothing. She threw a triumphant glance at him.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Hawthorne?” she said. “Did I scare you with my reckless speed?”
“No,” he drawled, “I’m scared I’ll be too old to get outta the truck by myself by the time I get home.”
Laughter erupted in the back and Clea realized the old guys had been pulling for her success. Jake should’ve been, too. After all, that was his trailer she’d managed not to hit.
He didn’t like her much. But he didn’t have to show it every second, did he? She stepped down on the accelerator and they roared off down the road with the old guys laughing and whooping and Jake staring out the window again.
Sullen, too. Well, whatever. What did she care?
Buck and Teddy showed her the turnoff to the cabin that was meant to be hers, which was about two miles into what they said was a five-mile distance to their place. She kept thinking about the ordeal she’d just gone through, about all the challenging ordeals that had made up this day so far. Living in Montana couldn’t be quite this rough all the time.
As soon as she dropped these guys off, she’d go back by her new place and check it out. Once she got Ariel hauled over there and her stuff all moved in, surely she’d have some peace so she could get herself organized.
Finally, Buck said, “Next road. There. On your right.”
Their cabin looked to be a little bigger than Jake’s. It had pens and a small barn immediately behind it and beyond that, just a little higher up at the foot of the hill, a large indoor arena. With real metal walls, not the black curtains like in Texas.
“That there’s where your winter stall will be if you want it,” Teddy told her. “You can ride your mare in there when the snow’s ten-foot deep. All you have to do is figger out how to get yourself over here.”
He and Buck laughed at her horrified expression. Jake wasn’t listening.
“I like to ski,” she said dryly.
“Sometimes it’s that or snowshoe in,” Ted said. “There’s a guy hired to feed and clean stalls when you can’t make it, though. Included in the rent for all the cabins.”
Buck said, “Let me and Teddy out here at the house and we’ll mix up the feed fer the foal. You and Jake go on to the barn and see about her.”
Clea stepped on the brake. “I’m just dropping y’all off…”
“Jake oughtta come in and learn to mix the milk,” Teddy said. “If ‘n’ he’s really gonna take his turn at feedin’ tonight, I don’t want him wakin’ me up—”
Buck interrupted the diatribe. “Clea, you have to go down there by the barn anyhow to turn around. Let Jake show you our little wild orphan.”
He opened his door. “Come on, Ted,” he said, in a sardonic tone. “I’ll do the work and you kin put yore feet up.”
Insisting that he was not lazy, he just wanted things even, Teddy got out and he and Buck headed for the house. Jake was entirely silent as Clea drove on. He seemed to be deep in thought, a million miles away.
“I don’t know why Buck thinks I need a place to turn around,” she said, with self-deprecating sarcasm, “I could just back out to the road.”
It didn’t get a rise out of him. He was staring through the windshield at the mountains. Well, of course. Duh, Clea. He’s worried about his truck, no doubt.
She pulled
