with blue eyes and black hair was standing beside Grandy. He looked up when Merrie walked in, and his eyes twinkled.
“It is she. The witch woman!” he teased.
Merrie’s eyebrows met her hairline. “Excuse me?”
“Your fame has preceded you, my lady,” the man said, making her a sweeping bow. “I expected choirs of cherubs singing praises...”
She felt her forehead. “I don’t think I have a fever,” she murmured.
“He does Shakespeare at our local playhouse,” Delsey said, rolling her eyes. “That’s Rory Tubbs, Merrie, although none of us ever use his first name,” she introduced them. “He’s playing King Lear.”
“Not King Lear,” he muttered. “Macbeth!”
“I always get those two confused,” the older woman conceded. “There you go, Grandy. You’ll live until Tubbs can get you to the doc.”
“Hurricane didn’t kill you, then?” Grandy asked Merrie.
She smiled. “No. He’s a sweet horse.”
“You’d think so,” Grandy muttered. “He didn’t pitch you headfirst into a pile of tin, now, did he?”
She laughed softly. “No, he didn’t. I hope you’ll be all right,” she added gently.
Grandy actually flushed. He got up and grabbed his hat, nodding at her before he put it on. “I’ll be fine. Nothing but a cut,” he murmured.
“A big cut, but he’ll still be fine,” Tubbs added with a flash of white teeth. He tipped his hat. “See you again, fair maiden.”
She smiled.
“Don’t die,” Ren told Grandy. “I can’t afford to lose you.”
Grandy grinned at him. “Hard to kill a weed, boss.” He grimaced. “Next time, I’ll listen.”
“Next time, you’d better,” Ren said. His eyes smiled at the older man, even if his mouth didn’t. It was impossible to miss the very real affection Ren had for his men.
“I always listen, don’t I, boss?” Tubbs asked. “And I can drive in six feet of snow and ice.” He buffed his nails on his coat. “I’m irreplaceable.”
“I can do that myself,” Ren shot back. “Don’t get cocky.”
Tubbs chuckled and herded Grandy out the back door toward the waiting pickup truck.
“Don’t flirt with the men,” Ren said icily.
She gaped at him. “I smiled at him!”
“Don’t smile at them, either,” he added belligerently.
She just stood there, uncertain and undecided.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered. He turned on his heel and went back out the door. He slammed it behind him, rattling the elaborate glass pane at the top of it.
“He’ll break that one day,” Delsey said with a sigh. She shook her head. “No pleasing him today, is there?”
“Is he always like this with women?” she wanted to know.
She fought for the right words. “Well, not with older women,” she qualified.
“Maybe I can age ten years or something,” Merrie said under her breath.
Delsey laughed. “You really do have something special in you, if you could get that wild horse to let the vet treat him.”
“He’s been hurt,” Merrie said. “He’s just scared.”
“Maybe. But if I were a man, I wouldn’t go in the pen with him.”
Merrie laughed. “Neither would I,” she confessed.
“Want a sausage biscuit?” Delsey asked, peering around her toward the door, just in case Mr. Ren was somewhere nearby.
“I’d love one, thanks, and some coffee. I’ll sneak them up to my room while he’s away.”
“I promise you, he isn’t usually this unreasonable,” Delsey began.
“I just rub him the wrong way. Some people are like that. It’s okay.” She smiled reassuringly. “I won’t tell him you fed me,” she added.
Delsey laughed. “Well, not right away,” she replied.
MERRIE FINISHED A preliminary sketch of Ren, one she planned to turn into a portrait of him later. He really was a striking man, she thought, studying it. But there was something more than just looks there. He was strong and independent and deliberate in the way he went about things. It was all there, in her sketch.
She was so glad that Hurricane had received the care he needed. The vet really knew what she was doing. She’d go back out and check on him tomorrow. Meanwhile, she worked on sketching Ren’s portrait. She loved the hard lines of his face, the incredible masculinity that radiated from him. He brimmed with authority, but not like her father had. Her father had been cruel and domineering. Ren tended to dominate, too, but not in a cruel way.
Delsey had told her that Ren almost never had a drink. But she was sure he’d had whiskey on his breath when he came to see her after her nightmare. He’d looked guilty and haunted after he’d snapped the belt and she’d run away from him. So there was kindness there, inside him. He just didn’t let it show. He was like a wolf who’d put his paw in a fire and drew it back at once, resolving never to go near fire again. Some woman had hurt him badly, Delsey had said. She didn’t think he was the kind of man who went through women in droves, like his brother, Randall. She liked Randall very much as a friend, but she’d never have wanted him for a boyfriend. He was flighty and he loved women. He never stuck with one for longer than a few weeks, and she was sure he’d never been in love. One day, she thought with laughter, he’d meet his match.
She put a campfire and a wolf in the background of Ren’s portrait. It seemed to suit. She added lodgepole pines for a backdrop. She drew him in the shepherd’s coat and the wide-brimmed hat he wore around the ranch. He looked very lifelike, as if he could walk off the page of the sketchbook.
She wished she had her paints and canvases, but those were back in Texas. She’d hesitated to use her cell phones, even though Paul had assured her they couldn’t be traced. And it wasn’t as if she could have her painting supplies sent up here, not without the risk of having someone notice where they were going. Paul had worried about the man Timmy Leeds had hired to kill Merrie. He’d sounded very professional, and Paul mentioned that he’d been in the business for many years. Men who weren’t competent got weeded out fast.
Here, in Wyoming, she could forget for hours at a time that she was being hunted. She gave a thought to Ren and Delsey, and prayed that she wasn’t putting them in harm’s way just by living in the house with them. But, then, Randall had assured her that Ren had state-of-the-art surveillance and very capable bodyguards on the place. He’d also assured her that Ren knew exactly why she was here. It relieved her a little.
She remembered that Ren had told her to go shopping for a coat. She’d have to do that. Maybe there was an art supply store in town. Wait, what about Amazon? She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. She had an account, with her brand-new credit card backing it up.
She pulled out her cell phone, loaded the app and started shopping for supplies. It didn’t take long to find everything she needed. Now she just had to find a room to paint in. She’d ask Ren.
But not today, she decided. He was bound to be in a snarly mood when he came in from working around the ranch. It amazed her how much there was to do on a ranch this size. There were buildings that had to be repaired, stalls in both the barn and stable that had to be scrubbed