LOVE OF A RODEO MAN (MODERN DAY COWBOYS) (8 page)

Mitch
studied the huge piece of meat, the generous servings of potatoes and carrots and peas. He remembered the ten or twelve pancakes and the three eggs he’d consumed at breakfast that morning and wondered if he could do justice to the mound of food in front of him. Ordering a full-scale meal had seemed one certain way to keep Sara from dashing back to the clinic quickly, but for some reason, being around her curbed his usually ravenous appetite.

He raised his head and found Sara studying her plate as well, but there was pure, unadulterated hunger in the look she was giving the steaming food. She glanced up and met his eyes a bit sheepishly.

“I’m absolutely starving,” she confided. “I had a piece of toast at six-thirty and then just coffee. This looks fantastic.”

She began to eat with unself
conscious appetite, and Mitch suddenly felt elated.

There was something wo
nderful about feeding your hungry woman.

It was after eight that eve
ning when Sara got home to Bitterroot.

She parked the vet truck among the other vehicle
s in the gravel lot and climbed out, weary to the bone, wondering if she even had the energy to make it as far as her tiny log cabin under the pines. What she wanted more than anything in the world was a steaming hot shower, followed by a leisurely swim in the large pool of naturally warm mineral water that formed the central core of the resort.

The muscles in her arms and legs ached with the aftermath of wrestling with animal patients, but as always, it was the strain of dealing with humans that had exhausted her most .

The pool was deserted tonight, and Sara felt grateful. Loud voices and bursts of laughter came from the direction of the bar, however, and she stayed away from the lighted windows. She wasn’t up to bantering with anyone, and the rowdy cowboys who sometimes filled the pool as well as the saloon with their raucous shouts and horseplay simply wouldn’t understand her reticence.

“Sara?” The commanding tone came from an open window on the second floor of the rambling main building, and Sara tilted her head back and smiled up at the figure braced against the sill.

“Hi, Gram.” Adeline Jeffers took careful stock of her granddaughter, noting the weary slump of the young shoulders and the less than buoyant way Sara moved across the cedar planking that surrounded the pool.

“You eaten any supper yet, girl?” she demanded. Sara shook her head. “Nope, but I had a huge steak for lunch
.”

Gram snorted dismissively. “That’s history by now. It’s going on nine at night. A body needs good wholesome food every five hours in order to keep going properly, especially when you work so hard. You go wash up, I’ll be down in the kitchen.”

The curtain fell back over the window, and Sara didn’t bother making any protest. There wasn’t the least bit of use arguing with Gram, and besides, it was wonderful to have someone fussing over her. Still, she cast a wistful eye at the bubbling water of the pool and decided her swim would have to wait until late tonight, or even early tomorrow morning.

Well, no matter. Tomorrow was Sunday, and with any luck there’d be time for things like swimming and lying around.

Maybe. Sick animals were no respecters of Sundays, Sara reminded herself.

Gram had a hot bowl of homemade vegetable soup and a thick chicken salad sandwich ready when Sara appeared in the lodge kitchen half an hour later, clean and damp and feeling marginally better after a good long scrubbing in her tiny shower.

There was a cheery yellow place mat set for her at the old round kitchen table, and a tall glass of milk accompanied the food.

“Sit yourself down, girl, and eat.” Gram folded her own long, spare frame into a chair across from Sara and poured herself a large mugful of the strong tea she loved. She watched with hawk
-like attention as Sara dutifully attacked the food, discovering how hungry she was with the first bite.

“Mmm, this tastes so good, Gram.” Adeline’s changeable gray
-green eyes twinkled with spirited humor, and she nodded with satisfaction and waited until the food was gone before demanding, “What kept you out so long on a Saturday, Sara? I thought that old fraud you work for was supposed to take over Saturday afternoons.”

Adeline loved hearing about the varied crises in her granddaughter’s work, and sh
e was certain that just by listening, she’d learned enough to do a little animal doctoring herself if the need should arise. She refilled her mug and sat avidly forward in her chair, wrinkled cheeks glowing pink, snowy white hair screwed back tight in a bun, knees spread wide as if she might have to leap up at any moment.

“Doc Stone didn’t turn up, and I had to go out on an emergency call to a farmer
I’ve met once before and thoroughly detest.” Sara shuddered at the recollection. “Apparently one of his cows spent three days calving. He didn’t bother calling us, whined something about knowing it would all turn out okay. Well, the calf was born two days ago, and then the poor cow came down with milk fever. She was already paralyzed by the time her owner called the office this afternoon.”

“Did you ever.” Gram was a wonderful listener. She fixed Sara with her attentive, green-eyed stare and shook her head in commiseration. “Do a
man like that good to be pregnant himself and in labor for three days.” She made a disgusted clucking noise with her tongue and waited for Sara to continue.

Sara deliberately included lots of detail when she was telling Gram about these episodes, and she was careful to include technical stuff, wh
ich she knew fascinated her inquisitive relation.

“Parturient paresis—that’s the technical name for milk fever—isn’t hard to treat,
you just return the serum calcium level to normal with an injection in the jugular vein, and the results are really spectacular.”

Gram nodded as if she knew that all along.

“This poor animal looked nearly dead when I started, and within half an hour she was up on her feet again. But Gram, the awful part was the mess that cow was lying in. You wouldn’t believe the stench and filth in the barn. This farmer, Myron Schulty is his name, is too lazy to keep his barns clean, and the poor animals are up to their fetlocks in manure.”

Gram grimaced at the vivid image and shook her head with disgust. “What’s wrong with people like that? Dead lazy, and probably thinks t
he world owes him a living, besides. To let a cow suffer for three days and then finally call you on a Saturday afternoon? This Myron Schulty needs a good dressin’ down, I’d say.” Gram’s narrowed eyes and grim expression silently said that she’d be delighted to get her hands on Mr. Schulty and give him what for.

“I’m just glad he didn’t wait till three in the morning, as he usually does.” Sara shuddered. “People should have to pass some kind of test bef
ore they’re allowed to own animals. The poor things are totally at the mercy of their owners.”

Gram nodded in understanding. “I’ve always thought the same thing exactly about having children. Some people just aren’t fit to raise young uns, and they ought to have to take out a license afore they’re allowed to get pregnant.” Gram’s theories made perfect sense, even though most of them would cause rioting in the streets if they were put into effect.

“I met a couple who are going to make great parents,” Sara confided on a more cheerful note, going on to tell Gram all the details about the Forgies and their beautiful ranch, realizing only when she was well into the story of the birth of the Forgies’ foal that she was going to have to mention Mitch.

“... So just when I figured for sure it was dead, the foal came popping out like a stuck cork, right into... umm.., actually,
into Mitch Carter’s arms, he’d stopped by, and he was helping me, and right away, I started trying to get the little thing to breathe ” Sara should have known better.

Gram had an uncanny built-in detector that sig
naled when either of her granddaughters was trying to lead her away from what she sensed was a key issue.

“That was the same Cart
er boy who invited you for supper with his family the other night, wasn’t it?”

Sara had to smile at Mitch being called a boy. “Yes, Gram. And I had lunch with him in town today, as well.” Might as well get all the facts out up front, because Gram would discover them anyway. J. Edgar Hoover had missed out on a good thing, not hiring Gram.

“He the one ordered you the steak?”

Sara nodded, hoping her cheeks weren’t really as
warm looking as they felt.

“Must be a good sensible boy, this Mitch, getting some nourishment down you for a change. Ask him home for a meal, why don’t you. It'd be a treat to have a hungry young man to cook for besides Dave. Goodness knows you and your mam don’t eat enough to make it worth dirtying pots.”

In another minute, Gram would be phoning Mitch herself and inviting him over so she could put him through a major inspection, Sara suspected.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Mrs. Carter, Gram. Ruth, her name is, and...”

Sara quickly related the tragic story of Bob Carter’s death, and of how it had affected Mitch’s mother. “I wondered if maybe you and Mom would come along some afternoon and we’ll go out and visit her. She needs people around. I think she’s alone out there too much.”

Gram’s eyes were soft with compassion, but her voice was full of firm conviction. “I always said, best thing for a sore heart is busy hands. See if that old tyrant of a boss of yours will condescend to working Thursday afternoon and letting you off. He owes you for today anyhow, and we’ll take a drive out. Poor woman, nothing worse than losing a child. I never had to go through that, thank the Lord.”

Gram got up in one dynamic motion, poured herself fresh hot tea and plunked a plate of sugar cookies in front of Sara. “Eat, girl, get some meat on those bones of yours. And,” she went on without missing a beat, “now tell me more about this Mitch Carter you’re sweet on. He ever been married?”

An hour later, feeling full of food and dazedly empty of secrets, Sara walked toward
her cabin, a rueful smile playing across her features. Being away at school had obviously dulled her wits. She and Frankie had perfected a few methods over the years for steering Gram on detours around their romances, but Sara hadn’t managed at all well tonight.

Gram now knew just about as much about Mitch as Sara did, with the exception of how it felt to be kissed by him.

And Gram probably could reconstruct even that without any problems at all.

The sound of a jay scolding woke Sara the next morning. It was half past eight, and the sun was filling her window with golden warmth. Pulling on jogging shorts, a top and her well worn runners, she ran through the summer woods for half an hour, loving the feeling of leisure and freedom, the good sensation that loping along brought to her muscles.

After a shower, she slid into her bikini and dove into the bubbling mineral pool for the swim she’d promised herself the night before, and she’d just climbed out when her mother’s voice called from the lodge.

“Morning, dear.” The sun glinted off of Jennie’s golden-brown hair. Sara had inherited that hair, but her mother was much smaller and more rounded than Sara, dainty and full-figured, feminine and youthful this morning in her violet cotton sundress.

How many times during her growing-up years had Sara wished fervently that she’d inherited Jennie’s full-breasted, curvaceous figure instead of the tall, muscular shape she’d gotten instead? Sara toweled off that r
angy body, realizing that somewhere along the way she’d come to terms with herself, learned to appreciate her own personal build. Certainly Mitch seemed to like the way she was put together.

The thought came automatically, the way thoughts of Mitch had a habit of doing.

“Breakfast in fifteen minutes, Sara. Gram’s made sourdough pancakes,” Jennie announced, and Sara waved an arm at her mother and sprinted to her cabin for still another shower and a vigorous shampoo to rinse the mineral water from her hair.

Gram was at her creative best this morning. When Sara hurried in a few moments later, there was a golden stack of fluffy cakes waiting on the table in the dining room, with pots of butter, pure maple syrup and sizzling platters of eggs, sausage and bacon, plus plenty of juice and coffee.

Sara looked at the smiling faces seated around the table and felt a thrill of pure pleasure at being with her family after years of living in school dorms or sharing tiny cramped rooms with strangers.

“Come sit here,” her stepfather boomed, indicating a chair beside him, and Sara slid into it, thinking with a pang that the only thing that could possibly make the scene even better would be having her sister Frankie here, occupying a chair across from her and sharing a delighted wink now and then over one of Gram’s more outrageous statements.

As if her mother had read her mind, Jennie said at that very moment, “I really wish Frankie would come home for a visit, I’m lonesome for her. She hasn’t seen Bitterroot yet or had a chance to really get to know you, Dave.”

Jennie’s gaze went fondly to her husband, and Dave met it with open adoration in his eyes. He was a big man, well over six foot three, powerfully muscular. Hard work had kept him from gaining excess weight. His thick black hair was threaded generously with silver, and there were deeply grooved smile lines around his sparkling brown eyes.

How great it was for her mother to have found love and companionship with this man after so many years of being alone and struggling to raise her daughters, Sara mused.

And Dave was one of the k
indest, most generous stepfathers a woman could have. Her final year at school had been easier than all the rest, simply because Dave had insisted on sending her a generous check every month. That had allowed her to put all her energies into studying, instead of exhausting herself juggling the numerous part-time jobs she’d taken before to support herself.

“I tried to phone Frankie the other night, but I had to leave a m
essage. I hope she calls back today while I’m home,” Sara remarked to her mother.

She’d wanted to touch base with her sister, but mostly she’d wanted to hear what Fran
kie had to say about Mitch Carter, Sara admitted to herself with a trace of guilt.