cuts on his flank really need stitching, I think,” she said softly. “But he’s afraid of men. A man hurt him. Women didn’t.” She looked up at Ren. “Do you have a female vet anywhere within driving distance?”
Ren started. She was right. The horse hated men. “There’s one over in Powell, I think. I could send one of the boys to bring her here.”
“He’ll probably let her stitch him up.”
“You can come out and work your witchcraft on him to get her in the stall, can’t you?” Ren asked sarcastically.
She drew in a breath and turned away. She didn’t bother to answer him as she left.
He stared after her with mixed feelings. He hated women. But this one...she was different. All the same, he wasn’t letting her close enough to bite, even if that wild horse would.
“You shouldn’t be so harsh with her, Mr. Ren,” the older cowboy said quietly. “Looks to me like she’s had some of that at home already.”
He glared at the cowboy, who tipped his hat, turned and lit a shuck out of the stable.
* * *
MERRIE WENT TO her room. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t! That Wyoming bad man wasn’t going to upset her.
She pulled out her drawing pad and her pencils and went to work on a study of Hurricane. He was so beautiful. Black as night. Soft as silk. She was drawn to him, because he was like her. He’d been through the wars, too.
It took a long time to finish the drawing. She colored it with pastel pencils, delicately. When she finished, she had an awesome portrait of Hurricane. She smiled as she put it in the case with her other drawings. She’d have to do one of Ren, she decided. But she’d have to make a decision about whether to put just horns or horns and a forked tail on the subject of the picture.
* * *
WHEN SHE GOT DOWNSTAIRS, she was late again for supper. But this time Ren was there and he wouldn’t let Delsey put anything on the table.
“You know the rules,” Ren said harshly. “If you don’t get to the table on time, you don’t eat!”
She didn’t want to tell him that she’d been drawing his horse and had gotten lost in her work. She didn’t want to fight. She’d had so many years of fighting. It was easier to just conform.
“All right,” she said in her soft, quiet voice.
He glared at her. He hated her beauty. He hated the way she knuckled under. He wanted a fight, and he couldn’t start one.
He turned away from the table and pulled off his belt. It was a new one and he’d cinched it too tight. He doubled it, pulled it together and snapped it.
Merrie gasped and ran into the kitchen, hiding behind Delsey and shaking all over.
“What the hell...?” Ren exclaimed.
He walked into the kitchen with the belt still in his hand, and Merrie screamed.
“Put that thing down!” Delsey said quickly. She pulled Merrie into her arms and held her close, rocking her while she sobbed.
Belatedly, Ren realized that the belt had upset her when he snapped it. Frowning, he took it back into the living room and tossed it into his chair. He went back into the kitchen.
“She thought you were going to hit her with it,” Delsey said.
Merrie was still shaking, sobbing. It brought back horrible memories of her father and his uncontrollable temper. He’d hit her and hit her...
“I’ve never hit a woman in my life,” he said in the softest tone she’d heard from him. “Not even under provocation. I would never raise my hand to you. Never.”
She bit her lower lip. She couldn’t quite look at him. “O-okay,” she stammered.
He looked torn. Her reaction to the belt was unsettling. Someone had used one on her. He began to understand why the damaged horse had responded to her. She was damaged, too.
“Get her something to eat,” he told Delsey gently. “Anything she wants.”
“Yes, Mr. Ren,” she replied. She smiled at him.
Merrie didn’t speak. She was still shaking.
He left the two women alone and went into his study. It had been years since he’d had even a drink of the scotch whiskey he kept in the cabinet. But he poured a small measure and downed it. It troubled him, seeing Merrie’s reaction to the belt. Despite his unwelcoming attitude, he didn’t like seeing her frightened. He liked even less knowing that he’d frightened her.
* * *
“HE’D NEVER STRIKE YOU,” Delsey assured Merrie as she put ham and bread and mayonnaise on the table. “Here. Let me make you a sandwich. You’ll feel better.”
“My father...always snapped the belt like that, just before he used it on us.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “He’s gone, now. My sister and I should feel sorrow, but all we can feel is relief. It was like being freed from prison.” She looked at Delsey. “He wouldn’t even buy us clothes unless he picked them out. We couldn’t date, we couldn’t have friends over, we couldn’t go to anyone else’s home...” She lowered her eyes. “He was so paranoid that he had us followed everywhere we went.”
“You poor child,” Delsey said, touching her hair. “You’re safe here. Mr. Ren may sound like a lion, but he would never hurt you.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
“Now sit down here. Would you like some milk?”
“Oh, yes. Please.”
Delsey made her a sandwich and a glass of milk, and busied herself with the dinner dishes while she ate.
“Thanks,” she said when she finished. She took her plate and glass to the sink.
Delsey hugged her. “Don’t worry. Things work out, even when you don’t think they will.”
She smiled and hugged the older woman back. “I’ll try. Thanks.”
“No problem. You go to bed and sleep. You’ll be fine in the morning.”
“Good night.”
“You, too.”
* * *
BUT IT WASN’T a good night, and she wasn’t fine. She woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Her father was standing over her with his belt. It had blood all over it. He was yelling as he brought it down on her back with all his strength behind it...
“Wake up, damn it!”
She felt hard hands on her arms, pulling her up, felt whiskey-scented breath on her face. But the hands weren’t hurting her. They were warm and they felt good on the bare skin. She opened her eyes.
Ren was sitting on the bed, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and nothing else. His broad chest, hair-roughened, was beautiful. She thought how she’d love to paint him like that. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. But she didn’t dare let it show, how she felt. She lifted her eyes to his and winced.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had a nightmare.”
His big hands smoothed down her arms. “About what?”
“Something in the past,” she said evasively. “Long ago,” she lied.
He drew in a long breath. “It was the belt, wasn’t it?”
She hesitated, but finally she nodded. “I can’t stand to hear a belt snapped like that. Daddy always...” She stopped.
“Your father hit you with a belt?”
She nodded.
“So did mine, when