She actually recoiled in surprise. It was the man from the wedding reception. "What are you doing here?"
"Losing a race." He nodded toward the gelding.
"That"s some horse." Then he looked at her. "Some rider, too. You lost your hat back there."
"I"m not believing this!" she exclaimed angrily. "How did you get here?"
"Interstate Twenty, then north on the Farm to Market Road."
She gave him a withering look.
"Okay, I nosed around till I found you."
"Nosed around?"
"At the hospital. I can"t believe you were riding that fleet-footed son of a gun bareback. Do you always do that?
Isn"t it dangerous?"
"Not as dangerous as being tracked down by a total
stranger. n.o.body at the hospital would give out personal information."
He unfastened his seat belt, opened his door, and climbed out. "I"m not a total stranger, but you"re right. I lied. I got the information off the Internet. You own this place. There"re records. Property-tax rolls and such. I called the hospital and when they told me you weren"t on duty today, I thought just maybe I"d catch you out here."
He shrugged. "I needed a Sunday drive anyway."
As he talked he had walked to the rear of his pickup to a.s.sess the damage. He hunkered down and inspected the vertical dent on the rear panel. It was about eight inches long and half an inch deep, and the paint was scratched.
The truck seemed to have sustained no more damage than that.
He ran his finger down the dent, then dusted off his hands as he stood up. "They should be able to buff that right out."
"Mr.--"
"Wick."
"I gave you--"
"A s...o...b..ll"s chance in h.e.l.l."
"So why did you come here?"
"I had nothing to lose."
"Time. You"ve got time to lose. So let me save you some, Mr. Threadgill." His eyebrows shot up. He was obviously impressed that she remembered his name, and she wondered why she did. "I"m not in the market for . . ."
When she hesitated he leaned forward expectantly.
"Anything," she said. "A date. A ... Whatever you had in mind, I"m not interested."
"Are you married?"
"No."
"Engaged?"
"I"m nothing and don"t want to be."
"Huh. Is this aversion a general thing, or is it me in particular you don"t like?"
"What I like is my privacy."
"Hey," he said, spreading his arms at his sides. "I can keep a secret. Try me. Tell me a secret and see if I don"t carry it to my grave."
"I don"t have any secrets."
"Then let me tell you some of mine. I"ve got some dillies."
He had a slightly crooked front tooth that added to the mischievousness of his smile, which he probably thought was disarming. "Good-bye, Mr. Threadgill." She turned her back on him and started for the gate. After going through, she slid it closed with a decisive clang of metal.
"Hold up. One more second?"
He was good-looking and charming, and he knew it.
She"d had to deal with his type before. c.o.c.ksure and arrogant, they believed that no one, especially a woman, could resist them.
"Please, Dr. Newton?"
She wasn"t nearly as furious as she pretended to be or should have been. In spite of her determination not to turn around, she did. "What?"
"I wanted to apologize for that parting remark last night."
"I don"t even remember it," she lied.
"About your mouth and the dirty dream? That was out of line."
That wasn"t a c.o.c.ksure and arrogant thing to say, and the disarming grin had disappeared. At least on surface he seemed sincere. Besides, if she made a big deal of the re
mark, he might think it had gotten to her. It had. A little.
But she couldn"t let him know that.
"Apology accepted."
"I was . . . Well, whatever--it was uncalled for."
"Maybe I overreacted to your tipping the valet."
He approached the gate slowly. "Maybe we ought to give it another shot."
"I don"t think so."
"What could it hurt?"
She turned her head away and squinted into the distance.
To anyone else this wouldn"t have been a monumental
decision. To her it was equivalent to leaping off the crest of a mountain in an unreliable hang glider.
When her eyes came back to him, he was staring straight at her. And though there was no longer a teasing glint in his eyes, they were unnerving nonetheless.
What could it hurt? Maybe nothing, or only everything.
In any case it wasn"t worth the risk. Which made it all the more surprising when she heard herself say, "There"s an ice-cream parlor on the square."
"In Weatherford?"
"I was thinking of stopping there once I"ve finished my ch.o.r.es, on my way back. You could meet me there."
"I"ll help you with the ch.o.r.es."
"I"m used to doing things for myself."
"I believe that," he said solemnly. Then he turned and set off at a jog down the road.
"Where are you going?"
He called back, "To get your hat."
Chapter 12.
It took an hour and a half for her to complete her ch.o.r.es.
First she walked the gelding around the paddock to let him cool down, then led him into a barn. The rustic exterior was deceptive. Wick knew little about stables, but this one looked state-of-the-art.
"I"ve got first-cla.s.s horses," she said in response to his compliment. "They deserve a first-cla.s.s home."
He was no expert judge of horseflesh, either, but he didn"t have to know a lot to recognize that these were impressive animals. Rennie rubbed down the gelding, slowly and methodically, talking to him lovingly the whole while.
Wick stood beside her as she combed the horse"s long mane.
"He seems to understand what you"re saying to him."
She took umbrage. "Why wouldn"t he?"
"I didn"t know horses had language skills."
"Mine do." Eyes shining with affection and pride, she
ran her hand over the gelding"s smooth coat. "At least with me."
"Then that"s probably a talent of yours, not the horse"s."
She turned to respond, but apparently felt they were standing too close. Ducking beneath the gelding"s head, she moved to the other side. Undeterred, Wick followed.
"Does this English-speaking wonder have a name?"
"Beade."
"Unusual. Does it have any significance?"
"I like the sound of it."
"You don"t elaborate much, do you?"
"No." Then she looked at him and they laughed. "You ask a lot of questions."
"I have a curious nature. Do you race Beade often?"
"Only when he"s challenged by a pickup truck."
She moved away then, but glanced back at him over her shoulder and it was as close as she"d come to flirting.
Or maybe she was dead serious and it only looked like flirting because of her tight jeans and the long blond braid that hung down her back from beneath the straw cowboy hat that he"d jogged a mile to retrieve. Maybe it looked like flirting to him because he wanted it to.