“But they need to be set,” Tara insisted.
“I don’t need no doctor to do that. Ya just got to pop them back together and wrap them up with some tape.” After thus assuring her of the simpleness of the matter, he turned to the ageless cook. “Ya got some of those ice-cream sticks in there?”
In horrified fascination, Tara watched the pudgy hands of the cook sandwich the broken appendages between a pair of short, narrow splints. Then Ramsey nodded to him. She heard the sickening snap of bones popping into place. Ramsey grunted, beads of sweat popping out all over his suddenly white face. Tara felt nauseated and weak. She swayed a little until the cook gripped her elbow.
“You okay?” The small eyes studied her closely.
“I’m fine.” She stiffened determinedly and turned away, not staying around to watch the splints being taped into position.
The primitiveness of the incident had shaken her. She’d been raised in the conventional world where professional help was sought for the most minor medical problem. It was unthinkable to her that bones would be set without the aid of a doctor. For an instant she was assailed by doubts about being in such uncivilized country.
But she had only to look at Ty to have her decision reinforced. Even though she had been raised in surroundings where she had been kept safe and protected, it didn’t mean she couldn’t be daring when the occasion demanded it. And she had dared to come to the ranch for the sole purpose of persuading Ty to take her back, although she was determined to conceal it behind a lightness of mood.
Her reasons for changing her mind about marrying him were nebulous, and Tara regarded them as immaterial, so she avoided analyzing them to find the truth. The decision was made. All her attention was now focused on making it come to pass. She intended to have him, even if it meant surrendering everything.
A slim, long-haired rider approached the herd alongside Ty. Tara didn’t realize the rider was female until the face turned and she had a clear view of the classically refined cheekbone and jaw, smooth as honey. For the first time, she considered the possibility of local competition.
All morning the crew had worked in mire up to a horse’s hock. By late afternoon, the sun and an incessant wind had dried it to a cementlike hardness, creating ruts and ridges to trip and stumble over. The hard, punishing ground used up a lot of horses; riders changed frequently to keep their mounts from becoming sore-legged.
Taking his saddle and pad from one horse, Ty threw it onto a buckskin and pulled the surcingle through the cinch ring. Saddle leather groaned behind him. He threw a look over his shoulder and noted his father, mounted on an iron-gray gelding only a couple of feet away.
“Want something?” Ty asked and ran the cinch up tight.
“Tara will only be here a couple more days. It’s up to you whether you want to come home tonight or stay here with the crew.”
“Okay.” Reaching under the horse’s belly, he buckled the back cinch.
His father chirruped to the gray and reined it in a half-circle. Metal shoes clanked as the horse wa
s lifted into a canter. Unobserved, Ty paused in his saddling to consider the option his father had given him—to be with Tara or not.
The things he’d told her today were true. The wanting hadn’t stopped, but the bleeding had. For a change, she was doing the pursuing instead of the other way around. Ty took perverse satisfaction in that. Jessy had called him a fool, but how could a man want something for so long and not take it when it was finally offered to him?
The sound of her laughter drifted into the dining room, reminding Ty of the soft tinkle of bells. He wondered what his young sister had said to make Tara laugh. With an effort, he pulled his gaze from the doorway where she had gone, carrying dinner dishes to the kitchen.
All through dinner, the conversation had been lively and animated, his mother and Tara comparing impressions of European countries both had visited and enthralling Cathleen with reminiscences of their adventures. The three had behaved more like sisters. When it came time to clear the table, it seemed perfectly natural that Tara help, although Ty couldn’t recall ever seeing her do domestic chores before.
He rubbed a hand across his mouth in a gesture that was both thoughtful and troubled. The blue smoke of a cigar drifted lazily above the linen-covered table. Glancing to the head of the table, Ty saw his father watching him.
“Don’t make a rash decision, Ty.”
The line of his mouth turned grim. “I think FU go outside and get some air.” He pushed his chair away from the table and rose. The house was too small with Tara in it to hold them both without something rash happening.
On the wide veranda, Ty paused to light a cigarette, then wandered to the edge and leaned against a tall white pillar. The black sky was alive with stars; one fell, making a white scratch. Overhead, a full moon gleamed with the luster of a giant pearl set among the diamond stars.
Dark and vibrant as the sky, soft and tantalizing as a breeze, Tara was a nightsong, full of all its mystery and elusive beauty. She was the essence of a man’s dreams, feminine and alluring, as seductive as the night.
Taking a last drag on his cigarette, Ty flipped it into the air and watched the crimson trail it made arcing into the darkness. The front door opened, but he steeled himself not to turn. Light footsteps approached him from behind.
“May I join you?” Tara took his acceptance for granted as she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and hugged it to her. The warmth of her body was pressed along his length, and Ty was all too aware of the contact his arm made with her breast, its rounded shape imprinted on his muscled flesh.
“You already have.” Raw and tense, he swung his gaze outward.
Tara shrewdly studied his profile. She’d caught that flare of reaction deep in the wells of his brown eyes. His words might be cold to her, but he wasn’t. She noticed the fine lines that had sprung into his face, cutting out the youthfulness. Its ruggedness was purely masculine now, roughly handsome. There was a comfortable certainty in her that eventually she would wear down his resistance as she turned her head to look at what he was seeing.
Lights from windows of the many buildings comprising the headquarters fanned out from the knoll of The Homestead like so many groundstars. The trees along the river made intricate cobweb shapes against the night’s glow. From some barn, a horse whickered.
“It looks like a small city,” Tara murmured. “So many lights. So many buildings.”