more unpleasant reminder that he wasn’t the man he had once been. During the few minutes he had spent with Jenny this morning, he had almost managed to forget that.
“Where the hell have you been?” Chase asked.
His brother was clearly furious, his big body stiff with rage he was trying hard to control, but his blue eyes were almost glittering with that famous McCullar temper.
“Your horse is fine, little cowpoke,” Mac said calmly. It wasn’t a comment designed to appease Chase’s anger. It was instead a less-than-subtle reminder of exactly who Chase was talking to.
“How many times did he throw you?”
“Me and Harry got along just fine,” Mac said, looking down into Chase’s tight-set face. “You disappointed?”
“With Doc gone, there’s nobody out here to patch you up the next time you decide it might be fun to try to kill yourself.” Chase grabbed Harry’s bridle, and it was only then that Mac realized his brother’s hands were shaking.
Not just anger, Mac realized. Chase had been afraid. A real deep-down fear. His brother had honestly expected him to take a fall.
“If I hadn’t thought I could ride the damn horse, Chase, I’d never have taken him. I’m not really a fool, despite what you’re thinking.”
Chase’s lips closed over whatever rejoinder he wanted to make. His eyes held on his brother’s scarred face. Finally he swallowed, the movement forceful down the tanned column of his throat. At the same time some of the tension melted out of his body, a visible relaxation of his fury.
“Get down, and I’ll unsaddle him for you,” Chase ordered gruffly.
“I did the riding. I’ll do the unsaddling.”
“You don’t have to try to be Superman.”
Mac laughed, the sound of it remarkably free of bitterness, considering. “Not that I’d have much chance of pulling that off,” he agreed.
Mac took a deep breath, dreading making a spectacle of himself after the bravado he’d been spouting. He had been surprised that he’d managed to mount the big bay as easily as he had down by the river. Most of that had been due to adrenaline and sheer determination. And a never-forgotten habit of rising to the bait of Jenny’s challenges. He had never failed to do that through the years, and although he had had no right this morning to expect to succeed, somehow he had.
It ought to be easier getting off than it had been getting on, he thought, steeling himself for the attempt. He swung his right leg over the stallion’s back, but when he put his weight on it to take the left out of the stirrup, his right knee gave way, and he was thrown against Harry’s solid flank as he grabbed at the saddle to get his balance. Luckily, the horse still seemed willing to put up with his unorthodox rider’s shenanigans, and Mac couldn’t imagine why.
“You okay?” Chase asked.
His anger had been replaced by open concern, and Mac found he was far less willing to deal with Chase nursemaiding him than he was with Chase yelling at him.
“I’ll let you know when I’m not,” he snapped.
He began loosening the girth, working one-handed. The task he’d set for himself wasn’t any easier than the awkward dismount had been, but it was easier than the saddling up. At least this time he didn’t have to resort to using his teeth.
“Why don’t you—” Chase began.
“I rode him. I’ll take care of him,” Mac said succinctly. His own voice was the one now filled with anger, but it wasn’t directed at Chase. Of course, his brother could have no way of understanding that.
He had almost fooled himself into thinking none of this mattered, Mac thought. At least he had felt that way for the ten minutes he’d spent with Jenny this morning. But this was reality, the day-to-day frustration of his body’s weakness that he’d dealt with for five years, and as he struggled with the task he’d set for himself, he acknowledged that reality was an unforgiving taskmaster.
He took a breath, thinking now about having to lift the saddle off and carry it into Samantha’s immaculate stable. At least there was no one around but Chase. If he dropped the damn thing, he knew his brother wouldn’t laugh.
Or maybe it would be better if he did, Mac admitted. That would have been more natural in their previous relationship than Chase’s damned hovering concern was.
“Don’t you have something else you ought to be tending to?” Mac asked, his gaze still on the smooth leather of the saddle and Harry’s broad back that he had to lift it over.
“Not a thing,” Chase said. “And if I did, I’d let it wait. I wouldn’t miss seeing you make an idiot of yourself for anything in this world. I always knew you were the most stubborn, muleheaded, ornery—”
In the midst of Chase’s tirade, Mac lifted, with his right hand under the saddle, but his left arm having to do most of the work, of course. The heavy saddle cleared, but barely. The weight of it when it did was far more than he’d expected. More than he had remembered a saddle weighed. But then he hadn’t ridden in over five years.
There were a lot of things you could forget in five years, he thought, carrying the saddle toward the open door of the stable. Suddenly, picturing the laughing commendation in Jenny’s brown eyes when he’d managed to get back on Harry without ending up on his ass in the cactus, Mac McCullar also acknowledged that there were a whole hell of a lot more of them that he had never forgotten. And never would.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN JENNY APPROACHED the old cottonwood that stood in the yard of Chase’s place, she could see her brother-in-law’s familiar figure near the stables. Harry had already been un-saddled, and Chase was running a practiced hand over the stallion’s neck. There was no sign of Matt Dawson.
“Looks like Harry survived his outing,” Jenny said when she had ridden close enough for comfortable conversation.
“It wasn’t Harry I was worried about.”
Chase was angry. Jenny knew him well enough to recognize that from the cold blue steel of his eyes, which had briefly cut up to meet hers. They had already returned to their examination of the stallion before she had time to read whatever else had been in them.
“You surely weren’t worried about him,” Jenny said softly.
Evidently, that comment made perfect sense to Chase, for his eyes lifted again, this time holding hers.
“He looks capable of dealing with just about anything to me,” Jenny continued. “In spite of,” she added, acknowledging and dismissing Matt Dawson’s handicaps at the same time. “A friend of yours?”
“Is that what he told you?”
She was aware that Chase was avoiding giving her any additional information. “That’s what he said,” she agreed.
“Then I guess that’s right.” The blue eyes met hers openly now, almost daring her to probe further.
“Did you really think he was going to fall off?” Jenny asked. She didn’t try to conceal her amusement over the idea of Chase worrying about Matt Dawson.
“I thought it was a distinct possibility.”
“And you were afraid you and Samantha would be held responsible?”
“Hell, it wouldn’t be my fault if he’s too bullheaded for his own good,” Chase said, his anger finally breaking through his control.
“I told him he didn’t look like that big a fool,” Jenny said. “He didn’t seem to be too concerned with hearing my opinion, either.”
“Maybe he had just decided, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’” a deep voice suggested.
Matt Dawson was standing