Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(28)

In the hallway outside his office door, she had to tiptoe around a jutting, creaking floorboard in order not to wake him. The house was a rambling wreck, with only the kitchen updated, modernized beyond her medieval culinary skills. Granted, however, the six ranch hands were doing their best to adapt to her cooking.

The parlor’s fireplace was still alit with embers, illuminating her navigation between the stool she had resorted to using in order to pull on the overhead light’s chain, a spatula she had resorted to in swatting a horse fly, and the empty milk crock she had appropriated as a door stop.

The front door’s hinges squeaked as if they had not been oiled in ages. The front porch’s screen door bellowed in protest, as well. And – shite! – her head collided with the porch’s dinner bell, setting up a clanging that her hands at once stilled. The noise would wake up the dead, including Duke . . . not that she cared.

Her footsteps left imprints in the light frost tipping the scant grass, but, at last, she reached the barn. Sliding aside the barn door, she tugged on the single lightbulb’s chain string.

Here were comforting memories of her youth – Irish cobs and self-sufficient Gypsy men, barbarous, mythical centaurs, who were as much a part of her as were her mum’s ridiculously fabled fortune telling.

Romy meandered from one stall to another, her eyes adjusting to the muted light. A piebald here, a chestnut there, and in another, a roan – all belonging to the ranch hands. And which one was Duke’s?

And there it was – the great bay. It had to be his.

At her approach, the horse stamped and pawed its fragrant hay-strewn stall. “Easy boy,” she murmured, opening the stall gate and slipping inside, just out of reach of its tap-dancing hooves. Tossing its head and snorting, its eyes and nostrils flared.

Using her Gypsy’s sing-song gentling whisper, she step-by-step moved forward. “Ahh, tis a beautiful horse, ye be.”

The thickly muscled stallion quieted somewhat. Watching her warily from those great bark-brown eyes, it stood still, as she laid her cheek up alongside its muzzle. Horses were intrinsically considered sacred animals in Gypsy mind. “Tis all right. I merely want to spend some time with ye.”

The smell of horseflesh, of stable, and hay and manure . . . all was well with the world.

Until, she heard the rumble of Duke McClellan’s voice. “Better your time be spent elsewhere.” Clad only in those low-slung Levi’s and barefooted, he closed the stall gate behind him and sauntered to the bay’s other side. His long hands stroked its mighty barrel chest.

After the ruckus she had raised, she wasn’t surprised to see him, yet she tensed, nevertheless. “Like where?” she asked, waiting to see if he was the kind of bloody bloke to come back with some suggestive remark, when instinct told her he wouldn’t.

“Like pickpocketing the honest in Austin.”

At that, her shoulder muscles relaxed. “Ahh, but tis here I’d rather be, watching ye flounder with yuir courting.”

His eyes fired blue salvos across the bay’s muzzle. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Nay, but me cards do.” Not for this man a self-absorbed, materialistic, and snobby young woman with a nagging voice for a love interest. No,he was different, unique. “The cards whisper that the years of yuir youth stole away yuir heart’s power of speech.” A hunch, granted from what her ear detected, but a good one, if only because of how easily she picked up mannerisms and intonations.

“I could say you’re certifiably crazy, but I’m the one certifiably crazy, agreeing to take you on.”

“Tis only until I save me enough to get to Ireland.”

“Ireland? Not back to Germany?”

“Ye’ve head of the phrase, la querencia?”

He shook his head, and she could almost hear his exasperated sigh. “If it’s not Tex-Mex Spanish, no.”

“It means to desire. La querencia describes a place where ye feel safe, where ye feel at home – a place where yuir strength of character is drawn from.”

“A Gypsy has strength of character?”

She ignored his jibe. “For meself, la querencia would be Ireland.”

“Sounds like a damn fairy tale.”

“Do ye not believe in fairy tales?” she whispered, as if gentling a wild horse. “Believe in True Love, and Soul Mates? Ye know, Duke, me cards can help ye find yuir heart’s desire.”

“And you really do,” he asked, “you really do believe in all this hogwash?”

Avoiding his derisive stare, she caressed the bay’s mane. “Ye desire that happy ending so badly ye’d take on the world, Duke McClellan.”

It was as if she had landed a solid punch in his stomach. “Remember, your days here are numbered,” he said, and swung away, stalking toward the gate.

“Good night,” she called after him. “Sleep tight.”





§ CHAPTER EIGHT §




The next day, a buzzing-ringing sound drew Romy’s attention from parboiled collard greens and garlic she was sautéing to the wall telephone. Not sure what to do, she simply stared transfixed at it.

The kitchen’s back door squeaked open, and sunbaked Skinny Henry entered. He glanced from her to the ringing phone and back to her. She shrugged sheepishly.