ChapterTwenty
Freddy broke and ran.She and Ry had left the truck parked in front of the ranch house, and the keys were on the floor, where she always put them.She heard a shout as she gunned the engine to life.Slamming her foot to the floor, she peeled out, glancing in the rearview mirror.She’d covered Ry in a shower of dust.She considered backing up and running him over.
The tears didn’t start until she reached the corrals and started saddling Maureen.Fortunately, she could saddle and bridle the mare blindfolded, so it didn’t matter that she was crying so hard she couldn’t see.Duane came over when she was nearly done.
“Freddy, darlin’, what’s the matter?”he asked, more tenderly than she’d remembered Duane ever speaking in his life.
“Sorry,” she said, her voice choked.“Can’t talk about it.”
“Gonna ride it out?”
“Yep.”
“Be careful.Don’t poke Maureen’s leg in no gopher holes ‘cause you’re not lookin’.And hold on.Don’t want to hafta scrape you off of no barrel cactus, neither.”
“I’ll be careful.”Freddy vaulted into the saddle and slapped Maureen’s rump with the reins.As if the little mare understood the need for haste, she took off at a lope.
Freddy sent Maureen down the path leading toward the wash.Branches whipped past, and Freddy ducked under them, anchoring her hat to her head with one hand as she drove her heels into Maureen’s sides, urging her on.Maybe if she rode fast enough, she could outrun her thoughts.Maybe if she cried hard enough, her tears would wash away the pain of betrayal.
Maureen took the descent to the sandy wash in one graceful leap.A less experienced rider might have pitched forward and sent the mare to her knees, throwing the rider headfirst into the wash.Freddy anticipated the weight change and glided with Maureen to the dry bed.She leaned over and whispered into Maureen’s velvet ear, “Run like hell, baby.”
Maureen’s haunches bunched and she bolted as if from a racetrack gate.Freddy kept her body low over the horse’s neck, relishing the snap of the mare’s mane against her wet cheeks.Her hair worked its way loose from the clip, which tumbled to the sand as her tresses rippled like a flag in the wind.Maureen’s hooves pounded the dry creek bed, sending up grainy geysers as she stretched her legs in a dead run.
The hot wind dried Freddy’s tears as soon as they fell, and the fierce joy of riding full speed partly replaced the pain in her heart.But the late-afternoon sun beat down on her shoulders, and she realized that no matter what she needed, she couldn’t expect Maureen to continue at this pace for long.Already the mare’s breathing was labored, her neck dark with sweat.The wash narrowed, and Freddy pulled gently on the reins, slowing the animal to a lope.A hundred yards farther on, she guided Maureen into a trot and finally slowed her to a walk.
“Thanks, girl.”Freddy cleared the residue of emotion from her throat and patted the horse’s lathered neck.“I’ll make it up to you.I promise I will.”Then, with a whimper, she laid her cheek on the wind-whipped mane.“Once a city slicker, always a city slicker, Maureen.Don’t ever forget it.”New tears threatened, and she sniffed them back.“No more tears.No more tears for Mr.T.R.McGuinnes.”
But she had to think what to do.He would buy the ranch, he and his city slicker friends.She couldn’t stop it now.She’d even helped him do it.
She reined Maureen to the right, back up the bank and along a trail that led toward the old homestead.She had always been able to think better there.Still excited by the run, Maureen pranced and blew through her nostrils as they navigated the trail.Her gyrations startled a family of quail — mother, father and six little babies the size and shape of golf balls.As the parents herded their charges to safety in the underbrush, Freddy’s heart wrenched with a new wave of pain.With a cry of anguish, she faced the death of dreams she hadn’t even known she’d had until she saw the quail.Ry had awakened urges for a family of her own, children to teach in the ways of the ranch, to instruct in the legacy of the True Love.
“The place is cursed!”she shouted, causing Maureen to throw back her head in alarm.“And I’m a fool for trying to hold on,” she said, gazing sightlessly at the trail ahead as she quieted her horse.
Maureen picked her way without guidance along the familiar trail she’d taken countless times with her mistress.Eventually, she halted in the clearing across from the ruins of the small adobe homestead.Freddy roused herself and dismounted, letting the reins drop to the ground so Maureen was free to graze.
As Freddy approached the crumbling adobe building, a green-collared lizard scurried across her path.She checked for spiders and scorpions before sitting on a portion of the ruined wall shaded by a large palo verde.
Taking off her hat, she ran the back of her sleeve across her face and sighed.Apparently, Ry and his partners only wanted the land the True Love occupied, not the ranch itself.She’d feared the dangers of a failed love affair, but this was worse, so much worse.She’d vowed to stay on the ranch until she was tossed off, but she couldn’t imagine continuing as foreman knowing that Ry and his co-owners would sell to the first big developer who came along.Leigh might choose to stay on for a while, and Belinda might have no choice, considering Dexter’s needs.
Dexter.Freddy’s hands closed into fists and she longed to punch Ry in the face.Had he considered what destroying the ranch would do to Dexter?The old man would be dead within a year.And Duane.Where would he keep his precious herd now?He’d planned to use what money he earned with that herd to send his kids to college.His life would be in shambles if the ranch disappeared.
How could Ry do this?Yet, to be fair, she had to admit he’d never promised to preserve the ranch, only to buy it.She’d been blinded by lust into believing he had only the best of intentions toward her and the True Love.And he’d taken advantage of that attraction.God, how she hated him for that.
She gazed out at the desert — the prickly pear decorated in yellow, blossoms wide open, drinking in the afternoon sun.She’d opened herself like that for Ry, thinking to sun herself in his warmth.And she’d been burned.
She thought of Clara Singleton, a woman who’d known how to survive, how to give sexual favors without surrendering her heart, until she found a man like Thaddeus, who offered true love.Then Clara had reaped her reward, perhaps sitting near this very spot and admiring the cactus flowers.She must have appreciated the triumph of a cactus flower, beauty thriving amid harsh conditions, like Clara herself.Clara would most likely have pointed a 30-30 at a land grabber like Ry and ordered him off her spread.
Freddy’s jaw clenched.So what was she doing?Meekly handing in her resignation and scuttling away?Giving up?
No, by God!
Freddy leaped to her feet and slapped her hat on her head.This homestead was a proven historical site, and somebody might give Mr.McGuinnes and his partners a really hard time about destroying it.And what about the John Wayne Room?What about the other famous people, some still alive, who had stayed there?There might be enough public sentiment attached to the entire ranch to hold up his development plans for years!
“We’ll fight him all the way, Clara,” she muttered, glancing at the old house.“You and I.”
As she started toward Maureen, a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.She glanced up into the cloudless sky.Probably a squadron of fighter jets from the airbase, she thought, continuing toward her horse.
The rumble grew louder, and Maureen’s head came up.
