Gena Dalton - Midnight Faith

She looked up at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“Yes.”

“How long do you want to leave ’em?”

She shrugged her beautifully square shoulders, tilted her head to the side and he saw once again what every man always saw: Caitlin McMahan wasn’t really what you’d call beautiful, but she was one magnificent woman. Already. And she was barely past being a girl.

“I’ll be straight with you, Clint,” she said, unnecessarily. “I want to leave ’em indefinitely. I told Bobbie Ann not to say anything because I wanted to tell you myself.”

Tell you. Not ask you. That was Cait.

He stood in the stirrup and stepped down off the black. Whatever she was up to, he’d better give it his full attention. This could affect him for a long time to come.

Without another word he led the colt toward the gate. Sure enough, Cait met him there. She walked at the colt’s other shoulder as they headed for the saddling bay.

“I’m starting a riding school,” she said.

That was Cait, again. Not “wanting to” or “planning to,” but doing it. She wasn’t asking permission, either.

“On the Rocking M,” he said.

His tongue was thickening with fury. His blood thundered with it. She’d be hanging around, here in plain sight, all the time.

She read his mind.

“I’ll only be here a couple of hours in the evenings,” she said. “I won’t interfere with your trainers or anybody else using your facilities.”

He tied the colt and began uncinching the saddle. He paused to glare at her.

“They have amateurs that come to ride in the evenings,” he snapped.

Why’d she have to get this insane idea in the first place? Why couldn’t she just stay away from the Rocking M the way she’d been doing?

“I know,” she said. “But I’ll only be here in the late afternoons and I’ll use the old outdoor pen.”

“Give me a break, Cait,” he interrupted. “Ask my permission, at least.”

She flashed those eyes at him again.

“I don’t have to, Clint,” she said. “I have every right to be here.”

“Don’t start telling me you inherited part of this ranch from John,” he said harshly. “It’s bad enough you’re spending his blood money.”

She stiffened.

“You know he’d still be alive if you’d gone with him,” he blurted. “With his wife there to protect, he’d never have taken any chances.”

Cait stepped right up and got in his face.

“Watch your mouth,” she growled, her eyes bright with fury. And hurt. Maybe even with tears. Maybe tears of guilt.

Even if she did feel guilty, shame stabbed through him. He had crossed a grave line here and he wasn’t one to do that.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

He turned his back on her, unwrapped the latigo, took the saddle and pad off, and strode toward the tack room, searching his mind frantically for a way to get rid of her. Bobbie Ann had already heard about this, and, knowing her, she’d approved the idea.

She would welcome Cait’s presence every day. She would say it reminded her of how happy John had been in his marriage to Cait.

And he had been, poor sucker. Nobody had ever been able to figure out why the striking, bold nineteen-year-old girl from up north who’d come to Texas to be Roy Bassett’s assistant trainer had ever agreed to marry quiet, thoughtful, unexciting John McMahan. It had to be the name, the ranch, the money.

Wasn’t that true of 90 percent of the women who chased after any of the McMahan brothers?

Cait O’Doyle could’ve had any man in Texas if she’d so much as crooked her finger. Any one of those men would have been a better match for her than John.

Why, even he would’ve been a better match for a girl with her spirit.

He took as long as he could to put the saddle on the wall and the steaming pad to dry on the rack. That reminded him that the colt had worked up a sweat and he needed to get him back to the stall.

What was he doing, letting Caitlin’s appearance and then her announcement unsettle him? This was ridiculous. He could handle her and her half-baked ideas.

Quickly he crossed the hallway again and went into the open bay. Cait was rubbing the colt down.

“I want to get him back and get him blanketed,” he said.

“Right,” she said in a sensible tone, and stepped away to drop the rubber currycomb into the tray that topped the roll-around cart.

“Thanks,” he said stupidly, before he thought.

Out of guilt? Or in an effort to prove he did have some manners, after all? What was the matter with him, giving her any shred of encouragement to do anything around here?

For answer, she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. His pulse raced.

Maybe she wasn’t beautiful, but her smile certainly was. At every horse show some guy said something about her smile. Or just about her, period.

Well, about her looks or her horsemanship or what a good hand she was. Very few people knew anything about her.

He avoided looking at her again, went to the colt’s head and untied him, started to lead him away. He needed a chance to think. Surely he could figure out a way to keep her from hanging around the Rocking M all the time.

But he could hear her footsteps following him down the gravel incline and across the paved street to the barn.

“I surely do hate to bother you, Clint,” she said dryly, “but I’d like to get unloaded and make it to the house in time for some of Bobbie Ann’s hot biscuits.”

Well, there was no hope for it. Bobbie Ann would have his hide if he caused a big fuss and ruined Christmas Eve, so he might as well find a temporary spot for Cait’s horses.

“The quarantine barn’s empty,” he said, throwing the words at her over his shoulder.

“Fine. Thanks.”

But she didn’t turn and start back to her truck. A quick glance from the corner of his eye told him that.

He moved faster, tried to walk away from her into the long, limestone barn, but she stayed right with him the whole way. He ignored her, led the colt to his stall and took the blanket from the rack on the door.

Cait walked around them and went to the black’s head, grasped the lead right under his chin to hold him. Clint refused to turn loose of the rope.

“You’re in a hurry,” he growled. “Go on.”

“Not that big a hurry,” she said absently, stepping back to look the colt over as if he were the only thing in the barn.

Clint clenched his teeth. Wasn’t that just like a woman? Just like Cait—first she’s in a fit to be gone and the next minute you can’t run her off with a stick.

He gathered the blanket and went to slip it over the colt’s head.

“I’ve got him,” he said sharply.

“So have I,” she said, laughing a little as she helped manage the blanket.

“Very funny,” he said sarcastically.

She was, without a doubt, the stubbornest woman he’d ever met.

Their hands brushed together as they brought the big blanket over the colt’s tossing head. Cait’s bare fingers were surprisingly warm in this frosty weather—warm enough to send a twinge of heat through him.

The black stepped sideways. Cait moved with the colt, keeping parallel with Clint to spread the blanket. He set his jaw. Why didn’t she just go on about her business and get out of his?

Why didn’t she go away, so he couldn’t catch even one faint drift of her citrusy scent?

“I can blanket this horse,” he said sharply.

She glanced up at him, held his gaze.

“You can certainly ride him,” she said sincerely. “You two looked like poetry out there.”

That stunned him. So did the pleasure that ran through him with her words.

“Compliments don’t excuse you sneaking up on me,” he muttered.