I might be wrong but there seems to be a couple of cows missing. I wouldn’t usually notice that about Dan’s herd, but he had two black baldies that looked ready to drop their calves any day. And they’re gone. I’ll ask Dan if I need to go look for them. It’s possible they’re off having their calves. But I don’t know who would have been out here with an ATV.”
“Black baldy?” she asked with narrowed eyes and her nose scrunched up.
“A black cow with a white face.”
Her mouth formed an O. “Maybe he sold them?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He tossed the empty sacks and headed for the truck. “We’ll ask him when we get back. And then I’ll head to my place. I’ve got to get some work done before more rain hits.”
“Work? Do you have another job, other than ranching?”
Another question. He motioned her into the truck. “I used to be a bull rider. Now I ranch and I’m starting a tractor-and-equipment-repair business. I also own bucking bulls.” He got in the truck and cranked the engine. “What about you?”
“I teach kindergarten.” She said it with a soft smile but also with a little bit of sadness that he didn’t like. She looked like the type of person who walked on sunshine and never had a bad day. But that’s what he got for judging a book by its pretty cover.
Everyone had bad days. Most people had secrets or a past they didn’t want to talk about. Those were the hard facts of life. He tried to stay out of other people’s business and leave them to their own past, their own secrets.
Marissa Walker caused a man to forget those simple rules for an uninvolved life. Rule 1: don’t ask personal questions.
They were nearing the gate and he slowed. “Why don’t you open that gate for me?”
She climbed out of the truck and pulled on the gate until she had it open. A couple of times she had to stop and tug up on the jeans Lucy had loaned her. He swallowed a grin as she got back in the truck.
“I hope you enjoyed that,” she muttered.
“I did.” He leaned over to brush her cheek. “You had something on your face.”
And just like that the humor died, and he was face-to-face with the greatest temptation of his life, a woman who just last night had sat in his truck and cried. A woman who wouldn’t be around long enough to know left from right when it came to Bluebonnet.
He leaned back in the seat and put his hands on the steering wheel of the old truck. The clutch was sticky and the gears grinded a bit. It was familiar, and right now he needed familiar.
As they pulled up to Dan’s camper, his passenger let out a soft gasp and reached for the door handle before he could get the truck stopped.
“Hey, at least let me stop before you...”
She was already out of the truck, the door wide-open. He hit the emergency brake and jumped out because Dan was leaning against the side of the camper and he didn’t look too good. Alex remembered those praying lessons the pastor had been giving him, because this looked like a moment to pray for some help, to pray for an old man to take another breath.
“Dan, are you okay? Here, let me help you sit down.” Marissa had an arm around him but he was fighting her off.
“I can get myself to the house.” He leaned, wheezing as he tried to draw in a breath. “Lungs don’t work like...”
“Dan, stop talking and let us help you. We’ll go see Doc Parker.” Alex put Dan’s arm over his shoulder. The older man was taller than him by a few inches and he was still solid. He leaned heavily on Alex as they headed across the dusty yard to Alex’s truck.
“I don’t need the doc.” Dan gave one last attempt. “Trouble. I knew when she knocked on my door that she’d be trouble.”
Dan’s granddaughter bristled at that. “Listen to me—”
“You old coot,” Dan said, finishing her sentence, in a somewhat mocking tone.
“I wouldn’t call you that.” She opened the truck door. “We’re taking you to the doctor, and like it or not, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Dad-burn-it.” Dan collapsed as they managed to maneuver him into the truck.
Alex gave her points for courage. She’d shown up on Dan’s doorstep like a rain-soaked kitten tossed to the curb. Today the kitten had claws and she wasn’t walking out on a grandfather who wasn’t going to make her visit easy.
Alex had to admit, if he wasn’t so tangled up in his bucking-bulls business, and in his past, a woman with her kind of spunk would be the woman to have in his life.
But he wasn’t anything close to solvent and she wasn’t the kind of woman who looked twice at a cowboy like him.
The doctor’s office was in an old convenience-store building on the south edge of Bluebonnet Springs. Alex drove them there in less than five minutes, with Marissa’s grandfather arguing the entire time that he was fine and didn’t need that “quack doctor.” Alex had merely grinned during the rant. Marissa had tried to get Dan to calm down because his lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen.
They pulled up to the clinic, and Alex parked next to the front door. Thanks to a brief phone call, the physician waited outside for them. He had an oxygen tank on wheels, and as Dan argued, the doctor placed the tubing in his nose.
“Don’t fight me, Dan Wilson,” Doc Parker said, as they helped Marissa’s grandfather out of the truck. “I told you to keep oxygen at your house. Now you’re going to have to do what I say and maybe you’ll live a few more years.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Dan said, inhaling deeply. “You’ll scare the kids.”
Doc shot them a look, his eyes narrowed. “They’re young but they can handle reality. Where did you get this pretty young lady?”
“I reckon that’s my granddaughter. She showed up on my doorstep like a stray puppy and now I can’t get rid of her.”
Once they were inside, Doc got Dan to sit down.
“Did you feed her?” Doc asked, giving her a swift smile as he examined her grandfather. “If you feed them, they won’t go back where they came from.”
“I reckon I fed her a sandwich last night and she had a cup of coffee this morning. To repay me, she nearly killed my best rooster.”
Doc laughed. “That rooster had it coming, Dan. He tried to flog me when I was out there checking on you last week.”
The physician put a stethoscope to her grandfather’s chest, telling him to breathe, then moved it to the next spot. Dan obeyed, but he shivered from time to time, and Marissa could hear the wheezing even without the stethoscope. A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Alex moved
