Rode Hard, Put Up Wet (Rough Riders #2)(19)

Cash swore.


She tried to diffuse the situation. “What happened to you this morning? I woke up and you were gone. Was I snoring or something and chased you off?”


“No. You looked so peaceful I let you sleep in. I woke up early to hang out with my daughter, but she’d already taken off.”


“Where is she?”


His eyes narrowed. “If I tell you, you gonna blab to McKay?”


“No. But if he asks me, I ain’t gonna lie.”


Cash sighed. “I called her cell when I couldn’t find her this morning. Evidently she found work at the Last Chance Diner. She’s cookin’ first shift today.”


“She already found work? I hope I’m not the reason she felt the need to get a job when I told her she’d have to earn her keep if she stayed here.”


“Don’t worry. Though your offer was mighty nice, ranch work ain’t her thing.”


“Glad to hear I didn’t chase her away.”


“Take more than that to scare either of us off.”


Gemma stepped closer. She had an overwhelming compulsion to touch the smooth skin on his cheek, which was still damp from the exertion of early morning chores. She settled for curling her fingers around the window frame. “Is everything all right? You seem…I don’t know…different today.”


“Just tryin’ to get the lay of the land, so to speak. I don’t want to disappoint my new boss lady.”


“Nothin’ you’ve done to me, or for me, has disappointed me so far, Cash.”


He grinned. “Good to hear. What do you say we get the rest of these morning chores done and head over to the diner for lunch? I’d like to see my girl in action.”


“Sounds good. I’ll grab the truck keys, and the salt, and meet you by the gate.”


Something between them still didn’t feel right. Rather than press the issue, she’d see if it resolved itself – or if it was unfounded paranoia on her part.


Carter tried not to fume as his horse cruised across the pasture. Problem was, he suspected he was mostly mad at himself. He should’ve trusted his gut feeling and gone to Macie like he’d planned last night. From the looks of it, Cash and Gemma had been so wrapped up in each other Macie probably spent the night by herself.


How often had that happened to her? Was that the reason for her reserve?


It was a detached attitude, a purposeful distance he recognized. Hell, even his own family considered him aloof. Last night, in the long hours he’d spent alone, he’d attempted to draw Macie from memory. He’d expected that seeing her in the flesh would lift the veil stifling his creativity. It’d worked at first. By the time he’d finished with the half-dozen or so sketches of her, none of them to his liking, it was nearly three in the morning. He crumpled them up and managed to nod off. His dreams weren’t memorable, but on some level they’d disturbed him enough to rouse him from a light slumber.


His sole desire when he awoke was to sculpt her. Dig his hands into clay and immortalize her, then cast her likeness in bronze. But again, rather than give his muse free rein, he literally had to rein in Gemma’s horses.


Normally he loved working outdoors with animals. It gave him a chance to study their movements. The come-hither toss of a filly’s head. The way the stallion’s nostrils flared in response. The gleaming wetness of a horse’s coat after a vigorous ride. How the constant Wyoming wind stirred their long manes as they galloped, so the same horse never looked the same way twice.


He figured Macie had as many different looks and moods. No wonder he was having a hard time capturing her likeness.


Carter checked on her first thing after he’d arrived at the Bar 9 to find her camper empty and her car gone. Taking out his frustration by scooping manure had worked for a while. He knew it was a stupid move to take out the rest of his frustration on Cash. Then again, he suspected nothing he could’ve said or done would’ve convinced Cash to reveal Macie’s whereabouts.


He grabbed a beer, a chunk of wood and his sharpest knife. Sometimes it helped clear his head to just have something in his hands to carve with no specific object in mind. Rather than secrete himself away in the barn, he plugged in his boom box and perched on the front stoop in the sunshine. A mixed CD of country tunes his sister Keely selected lightened his mood. As the wood shavings fell away, he thought of families, his family in particular.


His oldest brother Cord kept himself on the brink of exhaustion since his wife had divorced him and left their son Ky in his care nearly two years ago. Colby, the second of the five McKay boys, gave up his dream of pro rodeo after a life-threatening injury. Last year Colby had settled into married life with Channing, a woman who’d softened his harsher edges. Between buying up every bit of available land around the McKay homestead, and chasing every rodeo queen within one hundred miles, his brother Colt made sure the McKay reputation for wild behavior remained intact. Although he and his older brother Cam were closest in age, since Cam had been stationed in Iraq, his visits to the ranch were infrequent. War had changed him. Cam was silent and serious; his infamous practical jokes non-existent.


How did his family see him? The quiet, laid back one? Young and stubborn? Cord and Colt bantered those words back and forth his entire life. Carter had no idea if anything he’d accomplished put him on equal footing with the brothers he idolized.