Cowboy Lullaby (The Boones of Texas 6)

He stopped, looking at her. It took everything he had not to set her straight. Damn her stubbornness. No matter what had happened, she knew him best. How could she doubt that his feelings for her had changed? No, he didn’t want people drilling him for information. But she was

different, always would be. Whether he wished he could change it or not.

“Losing Lynnie’s been...hard.” He broke off. She knew how important Lynnie was to him, how healing the older woman had been to his spirits.

Her eyes shone with sympathy. They’d shared that, too, their love of his great-aunt.

Burdening her with the rest of his situation was wrong. He had no right to do that to her, knowing how big her heart was. This was his problem, his life, one she’d assured him she would never want to be a part of. Somehow the words slipped out anyway, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

Chapter Eight

Click Hale was a rock. She remembered the first time she’d met him. She’d been wandering through Lynnie’s property, hiding from Uncle Woodrow and the constant chaos of the ranch. The barn dog’s puppies had trailed after her, keeping her company. She’d been singing, loudly, when she’d stumbled upon a boy.

A beautiful boy with the biggest, saddest eyes she’d ever seen. The bruises said what he wouldn’t. He’d stood there, defensive, glaring at her. But she understood immediately—he was alone and scared. And she had to fix it.

“I’m Tandy,” she’d said, smiling her best smile.

“Click,” he’d muttered, still braced.

“Click?”

“You know. How you talk to horses?” He’d demonstrated, clicking a few times.

She nodded. “I like it.” She’d stuck her hand out, waiting for him to take it, then shook his with real enthusiasm. She’d offered him a puppy, hoping to chase away whatever monsters he was hiding from. Tandy had watched his wariness and anger slowly melt away. In its place was a smile that stole Tandy’s heart.

Looking at Click Hale now, she saw the same damn thing.

Sure, he was proud, strong and capable. But he was also terrified. And alone. Traces of the wounded boy were all too evident. And the hole where her heart should have been throbbed. It would be best to help him pack Pearl into his truck and drive away. She was barely managing on her own. Why put herself in a position that threatened that? Helping Click and Pearl was a risk. The sort of risk that could inevitably drag their history out into the open and tear her wounds wide.

He cleared his throat. “I’m figuring it out.” But his words were a damn lie.

His attempt to reassure her chipped at the walls she’d built to keep him—hurt—out. It wasn’t in her to turn her back on him. On anyone hurting. “Wanna go for a walk with me?” she managed.

He stared at her, the corners of his mouth turning up slowly. “I’d like that.”

She nodded, glancing back at the ranch. “Maybe not here?” There was no sign of her aunt or uncle, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. While she had a hard time believing they were still patrolling her love life, there was no doubt they were curious about what she and Click were up to. And Click Hale as a whole.

He nodded, glancing back with a shake of his head. “See you in a bit.”

She followed Click’s beat-up truck down the dirt road, bouncing through ruts and dodging a few cows that had wandered onto the roads. A roadrunner darted out into the beam of her headlamps. Tandy slammed on the breaks and Banshee leaned out the truck window, barking frantically. “You can find him tomorrow,” she said, patting the dog’s back.

Banshee sat back, as if he agreed with the idea.

They drove on, turning off on their drive and bouncing along the road. It was overgrown, left too long untended. If her uncle was agreeable, she’d look into borrowing the tractor and the box blade to plane the surface. A bump or dip here or there was one thing, but this was ridiculous. And her truck shocks might last a bit longer.

Once she’d parked, she and Banshee made their way inside. Banshee sniffed around, always on alert. She appreciated that. Banshee was fearless when it came to protecting his herd. Anatolian shepherds were wired that way. What made Banshee such a good companion was his easy nature. Not all Anatolians were so accepting of new places and people.

“Nothing?” she asked when he sat at her feet, staring up at her.

He sniffed.

“Hungry?” she asked, opening the pantry. Banshee was a big dog, weighing in over 120 pounds and tall enough to put his paws on Click’s shoulders when he stood on his back legs. His massive bag of food took up more than half of her small pantry. She balanced his large food bowl with one hand, carrying a pitcher of water in the other, and pushed through the back door. Once Banshee was settled, she paced the creaking wooden porch. Try as she might, she kept glancing at Lynnie’s house.

Tonight would be the exception to the rule. She would not get tangled up in his problems. Or lose her head over Pearl. She had her own life now.

No matter what Woodrow had said, she was going by the clinic tomorrow. She’d rather have time to scope out her place of employment before the patients started arriving. From the few emails they’d exchanged, she knew Dr. Edwards also had a mobile unit he took out to the local ranches. If there was an animal within one hundred miles, Dr. Edwards was responsible for them. Another reason Tandy had been agreeable to the position.

She’d worked at the veterinary teaching hospital in Stonewall Crossing just long enough to discover how diverse the job could be. Her love of animals was ingrained. She’d been ten when she’d set up her own makeshift animal hospital in the deserted turkey shed at home. Her mother and aunts rarely ventured out on their Montana property, so she and her brother had spent most of their waking hours outdoors. Collecting animals, giving them all the love and affection she longed to shower on someone, eased her loneliness.