Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries) (2 page)

Glen was movie-star handsome, if you didn't mind an older hero, with square shoulders and a body that remained trim and hard. He had a square jaw to match the shoulders, winter blue eyes, iron gray hair. Above and beyond all that, he had an indefinable charisma, an inner force that attracted women and men, though in different ways. Men followed Glen; women fell in love. I'd idolized him when I was a girl.

Lonny, on the other hand, was big and untidy, with a rough-featured face that most would call homely and a slight roll over his belt. It was the warmth and boyish enthusiasm in his green eyes that made him appealing, that and a certain sense of virile physical power combined with a sharp intelligence.

Damn. Cataloging Lonny's virtues was making me feel even more miserable. Abruptly I turned away from the two men and the dead horse, then turned back and spoke to Lonny. "I'm sorry. I'm backing out of the next pot. You'll have to find another partner."

"That's what I want." Almost stumbling in my efforts to hurry away, I walked around the comer of the bam and toward the hitching rail where I had tied Gunner, tears rapidly blurring my vision. I had to get out of here. Find somewhere I could be alone to cry.

Walking up to Gunner, I patted his shoulder, feeling, even in the state I was in, a little glow of comfort and relief at the sight and the feel of him. Gunner, my big stocking-legged bay gelding with his friendly, clownish expression, was a perpetual comfort in hard times. I climbed on him and pointed him up the hill, away from the arena, toward a solitary oak tree I was familiar with. I knew Glen Bennett's ranch well; I'd spent many hours here as a teenager.

Gunner took the trail in a long, swinging walk, and I let out my pent-up breath. Thank God. At the moment, the one thing in the whole world I wanted was a piece of solitude.

Waves of heat seemed to crackle in the yellow grass around me. Though it was only ten in the morning, I was already sweating. Sweat broke out on Gunner's neck, too, as he climbed the hill. Going to be a hot one.

It was May in Central California, a time when we occasionally got heat waves. This one had been on for a week already, with the temperature hitting a hundred every day up in the hills. The grass had gone from green to bleached gold, and ranchers were bemoaning the early end of the feed.

Gunner lengthened his walk as we neared the oak tree, clearly guessing my destination and as eager for the shade as I was. The heat was already oppressive.

We ducked under the canopy of branches and out of the sun's glare with mutual relief, and I turned the horse so we faced back the way we had come. A small breeze swept up the hill and fanned my face, stirring Gunner's mane. Below us was the roping arena and the crowd of ropers, beyond that the little town of Lone Oak, and beyond that a tapestry of rolling, tumbling coastal hills, thick with wild oats, live oak, and greasewood, falling away to the blue curve of Monterey Bay in the distance.

My God, it's beautiful. I forgot what had brought me here; I forgot the urge to cry. Santa Cruz County must be one of the loveliest spots on earth. I was lucky just to be alive and in this place.

Of course, I'm prejudiced. I was born and raised in Santa Cruz County; to me, it's home. Yet one of my wealthy clients, a woman in her seventies who had been a world traveler, had once raised an arm at the view from her place, similar to this one, and told me, "Take a good look. There's nothing like it anywhere. When I was young, the Riviera looked like this, but it's been overrun. This is special."

I believed her, too. The coast of Central California is special, particularly the gentle half-moon of Monterey Bay and the round-shouldered mountains that frame it. The town of Lone Oak is in the hills just south of Santa Cruz and is as picturesque a place as you could imagine.

To speak of the town of Lone Oak is misleading, really. Lone Oak isn't actually a town, it's more of a place, and there are lots of oak trees. What passes for the town is a store/gas station and a bar/restaurant at the junction of two winding country roads that intersect on the spine of the coastal ridge. The lone oak for which it was named is a huge, ancient tree that sits in solitary splendor next to Glen Bennett's roping arena, which is a stone's throw from the bar and the store.

The Bennett ranch surrounds Lone Oak, and the Bennett family owns the town, what there is of it. It's just far enough away from Watsonville to the west and Morgan Hill to the east and the roads are narrow and winding enough that the place is still relatively isolated. Lone Oak is a tiny slice of Santa Cruz County the way it used to be.

Gunner pricked his ears sharply, and I followed his gaze. A woman was riding up the hill toward us. A blond woman on a bay horse. In a second, I realized who it was. Lisa Bennett, Glen's daughter, my high school friend. A woman I hadn't seen in over fifteen years.

"Shit," I said softly.

Gunner cocked an ear back at me, and I stroked his neck. It wasn't that I didn't want to see Lisa; I didn't want to see anybody. The urge to cry had evaporated, but I still wanted to be alone.

Lisa rode steadily on, coming my way. I had to be her destination; there wasn't anything else up here but trees and rocks. Gunner nickered at her horse, and the bay nickered shrilly back.

Automatically, I sized the horse up as he approached. Solid bay and not too tall, the little gelding had a willowy, deerlike quality to him that was somewhat unusual for a team roping horse. He looked more like a cutting horse. He also had a pretty head, a bold, bright eye, and a graceful, balanced way of moving. Nice horse, I thought.

By now, Lisa was upon us, and I tried to arrange my face in a welcoming smile. "Hi, Lisa, good to see you," I said.

It was a wasted effort. Lisa didn't smile back. Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses, but her mouth and jaw were tense with strain. "Gail, I need help," she said.

TWO

Uh, what with?" I stared at Lisa in consternation, aware that my question was hardly graceful, but too nonplussed to care.

Lisa looked different. In a sense this wasn't surprising; if you haven't seen someone in fifteen years, you expect them to look different. But Lisa didn't just look older, more adult. She looked different in some essential way I could never have imagined. She looked as if she'd been rode hard and put away wet, as the ranchers say. She looked older than the thirty-four we both were, she looked deeply tired, and she looked strung tight, as though the slightest extra strain would be too much. She looked the way I felt, I thought suddenly.

She didn't answer my question, just stared at me from behind her sunglasses with unnerving intensity, or so I imagined. I couldn't really see her eyes.

"The horse you just put down," she said finally, "that wasn't an accident."

I stared back at her, thinking that she'd actually gone over the edge. "Lisa," I said slowly, "I saw that horse break his leg. It was an accident. It wasn't anybody's fault."

Impatiently she whipped the sunglasses off her face, looking for a split second a lot more like the Lisa I'd known in high school. "I can prove it," she said.

We stared at each other in the shade of the tree, no doubt both of us evaluating. What she thought of me I can't say. I'd gained a few pounds since high school, but essentially I look the same-tall, dark-haired, wide-shouldered, with strongly marked brows, a large nose. I still wore jeans and my hair in a ponytail. I must have been recognizably the same Gail McCarthy she'd known.

Lisa was still blond, but her hair, once long and straight, was now short and curly; her figure, once curvy, was leaner and harder; and many fine lines rayed out from the corners of her eyes. These changes were minor, though, compared to the change in her expression. Lisa had been one of the friendliest, happiest people I'd ever known. The only word I could find for the present set of her jaw and the walking wounded look in her eyes was embittered.

Rumor had it Lisa had just left her husband, Sonny Santos, an ex-world champion team roper, which would surely account somewhat for the embittered look. But it was still hard for me to believe that pretty, wealthy Lisa Bennett, the most popular girl in my senior class-head cheerleader, honor student, prom queen, you name it-looked so, well, trashed.

I don't know what she read in my face, but after a minute she said in a softer tone, "It's true, Gail. I can prove it. And I really do need help. Will you stay after the roping and have dinner with me, let me tell you about it?"

I was about to open my mouth to say no, that I was having dinner with Lonny, when I suddenly remembered. I wasn't having dinner with Lonny after all. That's what we'd been fighting about on the way to the roping. Lonny was having dinner with Sara. To try and get everything straightened out, he said. Yeah, right.

No doubt sensing my hesitation, Lisa hurried on. "I've got to go back down there. I'm entered in the roping. Please, Gail, say you'll stay. I'll drive you home later, if you need a ride."

"All right."

Before the words were really out of my mouth, Lisa said, "Thank you," wheeled the little bay, and trotted off down the hill. I stayed where I was, wondering what in the hell I'd gotten myself into.

Not an accident? That was ridiculous. I'd seen it happen. What else could it be but an accident? Still, I'd said I'd stay, so I'd stay.

I'd have to tell Lonny, I thought. Automatically my eyes scanned the crowd below me, looking for his familiar form. When I found it, I was sorry. Lonny sat on his horse, Pistol, in the center of a group of men, all of them talking and laughing while they watched the roping. If Lonny was aware that I was sitting up here under this tree, he gave no sign of it. As far as I could tell, he'd forgotten the dead horse and my distress and was having a perfectly nice day. No doubt relieved at the removal of his currently touchy girlfriend.

He had a point, I thought. I knew I was being a pain in the ass. I knew that, logically, it was neither right nor fair to expect him never to speak to Sara again. I understood that he'd spent his whole life acquiring the assets he currently had and that losing them, or even divvying them up, was going to be torture for him. I sympathized. But I had gone ballistic when I found out he'd accepted her invitation to dinner without telling me.

There was probably right and wrong on both sides. There usually is. But it was too late to take back some of the bitter things Lonny and I had said on the way to the roping, and both of us were smarting.

I hadn't refused to rope because I really thought Gunner was likely to break a leg and die. It could happen, but lightning could strike us, too. I hadn't refused just because I was upset at Lonny. It was a combination of all that and the pain I'd felt at putting the sorrel horse down that convinced me I was too stressed out to rope today. Team roping takes guts and quick reflexes; it happens fast and hard. Ropers need to be focused, or they put themselves, their partner, and their horse in danger. And I certainly didn't feel focused at the moment.

I stared down at the pageant below me, seeing it with the eyes of an outsider. The roping arena full of horses and people, the field next to it crowded with trucks and trailers, the little holding pasture beyond dotted with cattle. As I watched, another team rode into the box to make a run. Glen and Lisa.

Glen was on his blue roan stallion, a horse he called Smoke, the current focus of his breeding program. Lisa rode into the heeler's box on the willowy bay horse I'd seen her on earlier, which didn't surprise me. The bay hadn't looked big or thick enough to be a head horse.

Smoke, on the other hand, was big enough to turn any steer in the pen. "A boxcar that can run," Glen had once called him.

I watched Glen back Smoke into the header's box, a familiar sight. I'd spent many happy days in this arena as a high school kid, riding horseback with Lisa, watching Glen rope. When my parents had finally granted me permission to buy a horse of my own, it had been Glen I turned to for help, and when it became apparent that the $500 I'd saved was inadequate to buy a suitable mount, Glen had sold me one of his own horses, one, I later came to understand, who was worth a good deal more than $500. Lad was a gentle, well-broke, dark brown gelding who taught me whatever I know about horses and their ways and who was my friend. When my parents died in my eighteenth year, rendering me instantly alone and poor, Glen had bought Lad back from me and promised to retire him. I'd visited the old horse several times during the long years of college and veterinary school and always found him grazing peacefully in Glen's back pasture. Lad had died at the age of twenty-six, having had as good a life as any horse could ask for.

That was the thing about Glen. There he sat in the header's box-crisp shirt, pressed jeans, a white straw cowboy hat on his head. In his expensive saddle, on his pretty-headed blue stallion, he looked heroic. And that's just what he'd been to me-a hero.

When I'd taken up team roping several years ago at Lonny's instigation, I'd been delighted to run into Glen again. Unlike so many of my childhood memories, Glen Bennett seemed undiminished. And unlike the small apple farm that had been my family home and was now obliterated by an ugly housing tract, the Bennett Ranch appeared unchanged and secure, safe in Glen's capable hands.

From my spot on the hill I could see Glen's head move up and down slightly as he nodded for the steer. Al Borba, Glen's foreman, flipped the lever that opened the chute gate, and a brown corriente steer burst out, going full tilt. Glen and Lisa thundered after him.

Smoke caught up to the steer easily, and Glen roped the animal around the horns, dallied his rope around the saddle horn, and pulled the steer away. I saw Lisa come in for the heel shot, standing in the stirrups, swinging her rope aggressively. She roped like she meant to catch something. She always had. Even in high school, when Lisa had been a pretty, silky blond that all the boys were in love with, she'd roped as tough as any man in the arena.