She could just imagine.A little tour around Central Park on a Sunday afternoon, perhaps.But she was glad he’d likely done that much.If he’d never ridden at all, she’d have a tougher time instituting her plan.She surveyed his pristine white shirt and gray herringbone slacks and tried to keep the smile from her voice.“Did you bring anything besides that sort of outfit?”
“No.”
Freddy had already anticipated this problem.She dismissed Duane as being too short, but Curtis, who was mending a fence a few yards away, was about T.R.’s height and build.She called him over.“Think you have a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt you could loan our guest?We’re going to take a ride around the ranch.”
“Around the ranch?”Curtis blinked.
“Yes.”
Curtis pushed back his hat and studied T.R.with new interest.“I reckon I have somethin’.What about boots?”
“Listen,” T.R.said, “I don’t think I should inconvenience?—”
“No problem,” Freddy interrupted.“What size shoe do you wear?”
“Eleven.”
Freddy lifted an eyebrow in Curtis’s direction.
He shook his head.“Tens.”
“I wear an eleven,” Duane said, bending down to pull off one scuffed boot.With no apparent reluctance, he put his sock foot — with a large hole in the toe —on the ground and held the boot out toward T.R.“Try this.”
Freddy loved it.She’d bet no one had ever shoved used footwear in T.R.McGuinnes’s face, let alone expected him to put it on.He might not realize what a huge favor Duane was granting him, but he was obviously a polite guy.His natural big-city reticence carved grooves beside his mouth as he seemed to be struggling for a graceful way out of taking off his expensive wing tips and trying on the boot.He must have come up empty, because he accepted the boot, walked over to the fence and propped a foot against the rail to untie his shoe.
Freddy considered suggesting that if the boot fit, T.R.could just trade Duane the boots for the wing tips for a few days, but she decided that might be going a bit far.
Besides, Duane wouldn’t be caught dead in city shoes like that, not even for a joke.
Duane spat a stream of tobacco in the dirt.“My folks always said I woulda been taller if God hadn’t turned up so much for feet,” he said with a tobacco-stained grin.“You know he’s gonna need a hat,” he added in a lower voice.“I’m willin’ to loan out my boots ‘cause I got the others back at the bunkhouse, but I ain’t givin’ up my hat, and I don’t know any of the hands who would.”
“Don’t worry.We’ll find something in that collection we keep for the dudes who don’t remember to bring their own.”
Duane made a face.“A man’s gotta have a decent hat.”
“Only if he decides to stay,” Freddy answered with a wink.
T.R.returned wearing Duane’s boot on one foot, his pant leg tucked inside, and his dusty wing tip.on the other.“They fit fine, but I really think?—”
“Perfect,” Freddy said, motioning for Duane to take off his other boot.
He complied and held the second boot out to T.R.Then he turned back to Freddy.“Curtis and I can go on up to the bunkhouse, pick up Curtis’s clothes for Mr.McGuinnes, here, and meet you at the ranch house in a few minutes.”
“Sounds good.”Freddy glanced back to where Leigh was standing guard over Red Devil until he came out of the anesthesia.“Let me make sure our patient is okay, Duane.Then I’ll bring Mr.McGuinnes up to the house in my truck.”
Duane looked at T.R., who was still holding the second boot.“Might as well put ‘em both on.You look kinda discombobulated like that.”
“All right.”
As Freddy watched him return to the rail to take off his other shoe, she felt another twinge of conscience.But how else was she supposed to save the ranch from this Easterner if she didn’t make him so miserable he would never want to even think about a guest ranch in Arizona?The market was down, so maybe Eb Whitlock could buy the True Love, and life could go on undisturbed.
She walked back toward Leigh, careful not to stir up any dust.In a few days, Red Devil would be ready for use as a saddle horse again, and a much milder-tempered saddle horse he’d be, too.
She squatted next to Leigh, who was stroking Red Devil’s neck and murmuring to him.“How’s he taking it?”Freddy asked.
“He’s still in dreamland.I’m picking up something about a little palomino filly.”
“From now on, dreaming’s all he’ll be doing about that particular activity.”
