Wild Horses

Adam hesitated a moment, staring into the room. He wrestled with his conscience. His conscience lost. He stepped inside, not only an intruder, but a spy.

He told himself that he must do it, he had to learn as much about these people as he could. He needed to know their strengths. And even more, their weaknesses.

Once they knew who he really was, they could become his enemies—any or all of them—in a heartbeat.

BRIDGET BLUM, the cook and housekeeper at the Circle T, was one of seven children of an Irish mother and a German father. Her father, Dolph Blum had been the chief wrangler at the Double J, the old Kendell spread.

Dolph was a large man with a square jaw, a pug nose and a ready grin. His wife, Maeve, was tiny, as slender as a wand, but it was she who’d kept those seven children in order. Her voice could crack like a whip.

Bridget took after her father. She was almost six feet tall, and she had big hands, a big smile and a big heart. At forty-five she had never been married, and if she missed having a husband, she never let it show.

She seemed happy and busy with her own family: three married sisters, three married brothers and a whopping total of thirty-one nieces and nephews. Maeve had died four years ago, and Dolph was frail. Bridget, the eldest daughter, had become surrogate mother of the clan.

She had, as well, her adoptive family: Carolyn and Vern and the people of the Circle T. Yes, Bridget had plenty of people to care for and love; she did not know what an empty day felt like.

Because Carolyn and Vern were like kin, her heart filled with empathy for them over the ailing baby. But because, unlike either of them, she came from a large family, she was not as frightened as they were. In Bridget’s sprawling brood, someone was always falling off a bicycle or crashing out of a tree or tumbling down the stairs.

So when a true emergency arose, Bridget did what she always did: she went to church, lit candles and said prayers. That’s what she’d done today.

Just as she drove through the gates of the Circle T, her cell phone rang. This startled her, for she wasn’t yet used to the contraption—it still seemed supernatural to her. She prayed its ringing didn’t signal bad news about the baby.

She pulled over to the side of the drive, parked and rummaged through her purse for the chirping phone. “Hello?” she said breathlessly. “Hello?”

“Bridget, it’s Mick. I called to tell you that the Duran man got here from the Caribbean. I need to get to town before the bank closes, and I’m on my way. I had to leave him alone at the house. Are you close to home?”

Bridget glanced down the lane. The house was just around the curve. “I’m good as there right now. I’m nearly to the gates.”

“Good.” Relief eased Mickey’s voice. “I didn’t like the idea of giving a stranger the run of the place. And I wanted to warn you he was there.”

Bridget’s heart skipped guiltily. “Tarnation! I truly meant to get straight back. I stopped in the parking lot to help Mary Gibson with a flat tire. I swear I forgot about what’s his face—who?”

“Adam Duran. It’s all right. I’d forgotten about him, too. Anyway I’ve only been gone ten minutes.”

“Ah,” said Bridget, relieved, “and I’ll be there in two. What trouble could the man get up to in twelve minutes, I ask you?”

IF A MAN is determined and observant, he can discover a great deal in twelve minutes. Adam was determined, observant and quick to learn.

He was looking over Mickey Nightingale’s office when he heard the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. The housekeeper—she must be back. I need to get out of here.

He turned from the pictures arranged on Mickey’s bookshelf. Her office was neat, almost Spartan, but like Carolyn, she enjoyed having framed snapshots about her while she worked. Adam had studied those snapshots with interest. Mickey’s choice of pictures was revealing—and mystifying.

But he had no time to ponder the significance of the photographs. He slipped out of her office, shut the door and made his way to the den. He sat down in an armchair and snatched up a copy of Western Horseman. He swept his legs up onto the ottoman and opened the magazine just as he heard the front door swing open.

He waited, giving the woman time to enter. Tentative footsteps sounded on the tiles of the foyer. A female voice called out, “Yoo-hoo. Mister Duran? It’s me, Bridget Blum. Mickey just phoned to tell me you were here. Mister Duran?”

Then she appeared, framed in the doorway, a tall woman, sturdy rather than plump. Adam sprang to his feet, holding the magazine in his left hand. He tried to seem friendly, comfortable and confident—as if he had every right to be sitting in the Trents’ family room, as if he himself were like the Trents—someone of note and power.

He approached Bridget, stretching his right hand to her. “Hi. I’m Adam Duran. Miss Nightingale said it was okay to use this room.”

The woman gripped his hand and shook it with surprising strength. But she had the same look of disbelief on her face that Mickey Nightingale had when she’d met him.

For the second time that day, he wished he’d sprung for new jeans, a more respectable shirt. But if his shabbiness caught her off guard, she quickly recovered.

She pumped his hand more vigorously, and friendly words began to spill from her as if she were a very cornucopia of hospitality.

“Welcome, Mr. Duran. I’m sorry you got left here rattling around alone. Everything is at sixes and sevens today. I don’t know if Mickey told you, but we’ve had such sad news, well, I hope it doesn’t stay sad, and that the ending is happy. Mrs. Trent’s grandbaby came early. She’s not well, poor tyke.”

Adam nodded. Her warmth disarmed him in a way Mickey’s chill could not. “She told me,” he said, troubled anew at his mission here. “I’m sorry. I came at a bad time. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

“You’re not in my way at all.” She dropped his hand but gave his shoulder a motherly squeeze. “Are you hungry? Why, I hear they hardly give you any food at all these days on an airplane. You’re lucky if they toss you a pretzel. Did you have lunch?”

“No,” he admitted. “But it’s okay. I—”

The big woman seemed shocked. “Didn’t Mick feed you anything?”

“No,” he repeated, almost shyly. “But it’s okay, really—”

“It’s not okay,” Bridget said firmly. “I made some cheese bread for you special. You come into the kitchen and have a little snack while I start whipping up supper. If Mickey didn’t get some food into you—well, she’s upset, is all. Carolyn Trent is as dear as a mother to her.”

Before Adam could protest, she had him in the kitchen, seated at a round oak table. He watched as she bustled, plugging in the coffeemaker, putting the cheese bread into the oven to warm.

She was an attractive woman in her large-scale way. She had a broad, fair face with pink cheeks, a small nose and a generous jaw. Her dark red hair was so curly it was almost crinkly.

She asked all the polite questions about his flight, and he answered, but he didn’t want to talk about himself. He guided the conversation in a different direction. “Have you worked for Mrs. Trent long?”

She set down a coffee mug, a plate and a fork before him. “Nine years,” she said. “My aunt Consuela used to have this job. But she quit after the tornado, when the barn fell on Mr. Trent. ‘No deseo más de este tiempo de Tejas,’ she said. ‘No more of this Texas weather for me.’ And she made my uncle Emil take a job in British Columbia. Well, maybe she had a point. Because, at least, she missed that accursed flood last fall.”

Adam looked up, his interest piqued. “Tornado?” he said. “Flood?”

“Indeed.” Bridget shook her head with feeling. “It’s never dull around here. Now the tornado was an act of God, but that flood, it was another matter entirely….”

She took the conversational bit between her teeth, and she was off and running.

MICKEY STRETCHED out her trip to town. She went to the library, and Violet, the head librarian, had already heard about Beverly and the baby. News traveled fast in Crystal Creek.

“Bridget’s sister told me,” Violet said with a sad shake of her head. She led Mickey straight to the medical section and handed her the latest book about children with heart conditions. “It’s a good book,” she said. “Last winter, Dr. Purdy recommended it to Betsy Hutchinson when her little boy was diagnosed with a heart murmur. Betsy said it was a great comfort.”

She patted Mickey’s arm, and Mickey thanked her, touched by her concern.

Mickey went to the Long Horn Coffee Shop. Kasey, the manager, came right over and filled her a coffee cup. She nodded at the book on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. “I heard about what happened. Nora Slattery was in here earlier. She was mighty upset.”

Mickey nodded sadly. Nora was the wife of J.T.’s foreman and had lived on J.T.’s ranch for years. She had known Beverly since childhood.

Kasey said, “My cousin’s baby had the same problem, Mick. She came through with flying colors. You’d look at her and never guess. I hope it’s the same for this little gal. But Carolyn’s devastated at this point, I imagine.”

“More than devastated,” Mickey said. “I—don’t think I can talk about it.” She didn’t want to cry again.

“I understand, hon. Tell her hello, and that we’re all pulling for her and the whole family. I’ll leave you be. Read your book. Maybe you’ll feel better.”