Heart of Stone

He held up a hand. “Spare me the minute details,” he said, sounding bored.

“We can’t all go to Harvard, you know,” she muttered.

“And some of us can’t even face community college,” he shot back. “You had a scholarship and you threw it away.”

She felt sick. “A scholarship that paid just for textbooks,” she corrected. “And only half of that. How in the world do you think I could afford to pay tuition and go to classes and hold down a full-time job, all at once?”

“You could give up the job.”

She laughed hollowly. “My mother would love that. Then she wouldn’t even have groceries.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “Do you pay rent?”

Her big, soft green eyes met his. “I do all the housework and all the cooking and cleaning and shopping. That’s my rent.”

“Who buys her liquor?” he asked with a cold smile. “And her see-through negligees?”

Keely’s face went scarlet. He was insinuating something. Her stare asked the question without words.

He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pulling the thick fabric taut over the hard, powerful muscles of his legs. “I dropped by your house to thank you, belatedly, for getting Bailey to the vet in time to save him,” he said curtly. “You weren’t home, but she was. She answered the door in a see-through negligee and invited me inside.”

The shame was overpowering. She averted her face.

“Embarrassed?” he scoffed. “Why? Like mother, like daughter. I’m sure you wear similar things for Bentley,” he added with honey-dripping sarcasm.

She couldn’t manage a reply. His opinion of her was painful. She’d loved him secretly for years, and he could treat her like this. He wouldn’t even give her the benefit of the doubt.

Her lack of response made him angry. Why it should also make him feel guilty was a question he couldn’t answer. “You keep away from Clark,” he said shortly. “I don’t want you going out with him. Do you hear me, Keely?”

“It’s just for a ride….”

“I don’t give a damn what it’s for!” he snapped, watching her body tense, her eyes grow frightened. That made him even angrier. He stepped toward her and was infuriated when she backed up. “Get out of Clark’s life. Today!” he told her in a goaded undertone.

She felt her knees go weak. He was intimidating. She couldn’t even force her eyes back up to his. She was so tired of being afraid of everybody; especially of Boone.

Before he could say anything else, Clark came up with a blanket. He was grinning. “Billy’s got the horses saddled. He’s bringing them right up!”

Boone glared down at Keely. “I think Keely wants to go home,” he said.

“You do?” Clark exclaimed, surprised.

Keely drew in a quick breath and stepped close to Clark. “I’d like to go riding,” she replied.

Clark glanced at Boone, whose eyes were black as jet. “What’s going on?” he asked his brother. He frowned. “Do you really mind if I just take Keely riding?”

Boone glared at Keely as if he’d like to roast her on a spit. He glared at his brother, too. His lips made a thin line. “Oh, hell!” Boone bit off. “Do what you damned well please!”

He turned and strode out of the barn, apparently oblivious to the blanket Clark was holding out and the saddle he’d left sitting at the stall gate. His long, quick strides were audible on the paved floor, echoing down the aisle.

Clark ground his teeth together as he watched Boone’s departure. “I hope he doesn’t run into any of his men on the way to wherever he’s going,” he said with visible misgivings.

“Why?” Keely asked, relieved that Boone hadn’t said anything more.

Suddenly there was a distant voice, a sharp curse and the sound of water being splashed.

“Oh, boy,” Clark said heavily.

Keely stared down the aisle. A tall, dripping wet cowboy came into the barn, sloshing water as he walked. He was wringing out his felt hat, muttering. He looked up and saw Keely and Clark and grimaced.

“What happened to you, Riley?” Clark exclaimed.

The cowboy glowered at him. “I just made a comment about how good you and Miss Keely looked together,” he said defensively. “Boone picked me up and tossed me into the watering trough!”

Clark exchanged a glance with Keely. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as the cowboy passed on down the aisle, muttering about his freshly laundered clothing having to go right back into the washing machine. He headed out the back door of the barn toward the bunkhouse beyond.

“Poor guy,” Keely said. She looked up. “Your brother has a very nasty temper.”

“Yes.” He drew in a breath. “Well, it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be,” he added, smiling. “Let’s go for a nice ride and pretend that my brother likes you and can’t wait to welcome you into our family!”

“Optimist,” Keely said and grinned.

Boone was gone when they came back from the lazy ride around the ranch, but Winnie was just putting her car into the garage. She drove a cute little red Volkswagen Beetle, her pride and joy because she was paying for it herself.

She came out of the garage frowning. She didn’t even notice Clark and Keely at first, not until she’d passed right by the barn.

“What’s wrong with you?” Clark called to her.

She stopped, glanced at them and looked blank. “What?”

“I said, what’s wrong with you?” Clark repeated as he and Keely joined his sister near the corral.

“Bad day at work?” Keely asked sympathetically.

Winnie was tight-mouthed. “I had a little upset with Kilraven,” she muttered.

Keely’s eyebrows arched. “What sort of upset?”

Winnie grimaced. “I didn’t mention the ten-thirty-two involved in a ten-sixteen physical,” she said, describing a possible weapon involved in a domestic dispute. “The caller said her husband was drunk, had beaten her up in front of the kids and was holding a pistol to her head. The phone went dead and I dispatched Kilraven. I’d just managed to get the caller back on the phone and I was listening to her while I gave him the information, and the caller was hysterical, so I got rattled and didn’t tell him about the gun. When he got to the address I gave him, he had a .45 caliber Colt automatic shoved into his face.”

Keely gasped. “Was he shot?”

“No thanks to me, he wasn’t,” Winnie said miserably. “I was also supposed to put out a ten-three, ten-thirty-three, calling for radio silence while he went into the house. I messed up everything. It was my first shift working all alone without my instructor, and I just blew it! My supervisor said I could have gotten someone killed, and she was right.” She burst into tears. “Kilraven called for backup and talked the man out of the gun, God knows how. After the man was in custody on the way to the detention center, Kilraven called me on his cell phone and said that if I ever sent him on a call again and left out vital details of the disturbance, he’d have me fired.”