Not anymore.”
“The rattlesnake episode is noteworthy, as well,” came the amused reply.
“That cook was so shocked!” Winnie blurted out. “He was a really rotten cook, but he threatened to sue Boone if he fired him, so it looked as if we were stuck with him. He’d threatened to cook Boone a rattler if he made any more remarks about the food. He added a few spicy comments about why Boone’s fiancée took a powder. Then one morning he looks in his Dutch oven to see if it’s clean enough to cook in, and a rattlesnake jumps up right into his face!”
“Lucky for the cook it didn’t have any fangs.”
“The cook didn’t know that!” Winnie laughed. “He didn’t know who did it, either. He resigned on the spot. The men actually cheered as he drove off. The next cook was talented, and the soul of politeness to my brother.”
“I am not surprised.”
She shook her head. “Boone does have these little quirks,” his sister murmured. “Like never turning on the heat in his bedroom, even in icy weather, and always going around with his shirts buttoned to the neck.”
“I’ve never seen him with his shirt off,” Keely remarked. It was unusual, because most of the cowboys worked topless in summer heat when they were branding or doctoring cattle. But Boone never did.
“He used to be less prudish,” Winnie said.
“Boone, prudish?” Keely sounded shocked.
Winnie glanced at her and chuckled. “Well, I guess that really doesn’t fit at all.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Winnie pursed her lips. “Come to think of it, he’s not the only prude around here. I’ve never even seen you in a T-shirt, Keely. You always wear long sleeves and high necklines.”
Keely had a good reason for that, one she’d never shared with anyone. It was the reason she didn’t date. It was a terrible secret. She would have died rather than tell Winnie, who might tell Boone….
“I was raised very strictly,” Keely said quietly. And she had been; for all their odd tendencies, both her parents had insisted that Keely go to Sunday School and church every single Sunday. “My father didn’t approve of clothing that was too flashy or revealing.”
Probably because Keely’s mother propositioned any man she fancied when she drank. She’d even tried to seduce Boone. Keely didn’t know that, and Winnie didn’t know how to tell her. It was one reason for Boone’s antagonism toward Keely.
Things would have been better if Keely knew where her father was. She’d told people she thought he was dead, because it was easier than admitting that he was an alcoholic, just like her mother, and linked up with a bunch of dangerous men. She’d missed her father at first. But she’d have been in more danger if she’d stayed with him.
She still loved him, in her way, despite what had happened to her.
“Come to think of it, Keely, you don’t even date.”
Keely shrugged. “I’m a vet tech. I have a busy life. I work on call, you know. If there’s an emergency at midnight on a weekend, I still go to the office.”
“That’s a lot of hogwash,” Winnie said gently as they paused to let the horses drink from one of the crystal-clear streams on the wooded property where they were riding. “I’ve even tried to set you up with nice men I know from work. You freeze when a man comes near you.”
“That’s because you work with the police, Winnie, and you bring cops home as prospective dates for me,” Keely said mischievously. It was true. Winnie worked as a clerk in the Jacobsville Police Department’s office during the day, and now she was doing a stint two nights a week as a dispatcher for the 911 center. In fact, she was hoping that job would work into something permanent, because being around Officer Kilraven all day when he was on the day shift was killing her.
“Policemen make me nervous,” Keely was saying. “For all you know, I might have a criminal past.”
Winnie wasn’t smiling. She shook her head. “You’re hiding something.”
“Nothing major. Honest.” What she suspected about her father, if true, would have shamed her. If Boone ever found out, she’d really die of shame. But she hadn’t heard from her father since she was thirteen, so it wasn’t likely that he’d just turn up someday with his new outlaw friends. She prayed that he wouldn’t. Her mother’s behavior was hard enough to live down as it was.
“There’s this really handsome policeman who’s been working with us for a few weeks. He’s just your type.”
“Kilraven,” Keely guessed.
“Yes! How did you know?”
“Because you talk about him all the time,” Keely returned. She pursed her lips. “Are you sure you aren’t interested in him? I mean, you’re single and eligible yourself.”
Winnie flushed. “He’s not my type.”
“Why not?”
Winnie shifted in the saddle uneasily. “He told me he wasn’t my type. He said I was too young to be mooning over a used-up lobo wolf like him and not to do it anymore.”
Keely gasped out loud. “He didn’t!”
The older girl nodded sadly. “He did. I didn’t realize that I was so obvious with it. I mean, he’s drop-dead gorgeous, most women look at him. He just noticed more when I did it. Because I’m who I am, I guess,” she added darkly. “Boone might have said something to him. He’s very protective of me. He thinks I’m too naive to be let loose on the world.”
“In his defense, you have led a sheltered life,” Keely said gently. “Kilraven is street smart. And he’s dangerous.”
“I know,” Winnie muttered. “There have been times that he’s been in situations where I sweat blood until he walks back into the station. He’s noticed that, too. He didn’t like it and he said so.” She took a long, sad breath and looked at Keely. “So you can know all about my private agony, but you won’t share yours? It’s no use, Keely. I know.”
Keely laughed nervously. “Know what? I don’t keep secrets.”
“Your whole life is a secret. But your biggest one is that you’re in love with my brother.”
Keely looked as if she’d been slapped.
“I would never tell him,” Winnie said quietly. “That’s the truth. I’m sorry for the way he treats you. I know how much it hurts.”
Keely shifted her eyes, embarrassed.
“Don’t be like that,” Winnie said, her voice gentle. “I won’t tell. Ever. Honest.”
Keely relaxed. She drew in a breath, watching the creek bubble over rocks. “It doesn’t hurt anything, what I feel. He’ll never know. And it helps me to understand what it might be like to love a man—even if that love is never returned. It’s a taste of something I can never have, that’s all.”
Winnie frowned. “What do you mean? Of course you’ll be loved one day! Keely, you’re only nineteen. Your whole life is ahead of you!”
Keely looked at her friend, and her dark eyes were soft and sad. “Not that way, it isn’t. I won’t ever marry.”
“But one day…”
She shook her head. “No.”
Winnie bit her lower lip. “When you’re a little older, it might be different,” she began. “Keely, you’re nineteen. Boone is thirty. That’s a big age difference, and he thinks about things like that. His fiancée was only a year younger than he was. He said that people should never marry unless they’re the same age.”
“Why?”
Winnie