The Last Cowboy

Slade walked away. If he stayed, he’d be staring at Lawton like a lovesick puppy. Her face was arresting. And what drew him, dammit, was her fire and gutsiness. He wondered if that would translate into her endurance riding or not.

Smiling, Jordana held out her hand. “Hi, Shorty, I’m Jordana Lawton. Nice to meet you.” She saw Slade walk away as soundlessly as a cougar on the prowl. Disappointed he wouldn’t stay around so she could talk more to him about the training, she pulled her attention back to the bowlegged wrangler.

“Howdy, ma’am. Come with me. The Boss has one box stall left in his endurance-training facility and your purty steel-gray mare gets it.” He turned and walked quickly to a pole barn painted the same color of red as the massive barn that sat next to it.

Excited despite the gruff manner of McPherson, Jordana felt a weight lift off from her shoulder. The trainer had tried to get rid of her. Why? Stormy was an excellent endurance prospect, in her opinion. Was it because he disliked mares? Or worse, women? She saw no wedding band on Slade’s hand. Stormy walked at her side and Jordana decided to find out.

“Shorty, is Mr. McPherson married?”

Chortling, Shorty gave her a sly grin. “No ma’am, he’s not. I’m afraid he had a run-in with a filly a while back. He’s divorced four years ago and likes to keep it that way.”

They walked up the slight gravel slope that led up to the pole barn. Both doors had been slid open to allow maximum air circulation throughout the building. Jordana worked to keep up with the fast walking and talking wrangler. “How long have you been working here, Shorty?”

“Too long,” he laughed. Then, getting more serious, he said, “I worked for Mr. McPherson until he was killed by Red Downing, another rancher, in an auto accident. At that time, Slade and Griff, who are fraternal twins, inherited this ranch. But they were too young to take over as six-years-olds. Slade was adopted by his uncle Paul McPherson and Griff went with uncle Robert McPherson, who was a Wall Street broker in New York City. When Slade was ten, his adopted mother died of cancer. Then, Paul drank himself to death and he died when Slade was seventeen.” Shorty halted at the concrete floor opening to the pole barn. His voice lowered. “At seventeen Slade had to take over this ranch. His brother didn’t want anything to do with it. So, he struggled by himself to keep it going.”

“That’s a lot to ask of any seventeen-year-old,” Jordana murmured.

Motioning, Shorty said, “Follow me down the breezeway here. Your mare’s stall is the last one on the right,” and he pointed toward the other end of the long, clean barn.

Digesting the information about Slade, Jordana set it aside for later. Right now, as Stormy clip-clopped down the concrete aisle, horses on either side nickered in a friendly fashion to her. Jordana counted ten box stalls. She was the last student. Feeling lucky and happy, she followed Shorty.

Each roomy box stall had iron bars across the top half of it and sturdy oak below. Shorty slid the door open. Jordana was pleased to see that not only did the floor have thick black rubber matting to make it easy on a horse’s legs, but also fresh cedar shavings were strewn over it. She brought Stormy to the opening and allowed the mare to look around, study and sniff it first. Mustangs were wild, and Jordana knew that Stormy had to check out her new surroundings before she’d ever step into the well-lit box stall. To try and force the mare into it, without giving her time to inspect it, would have been a mistake. Stormy would have balked and fought her instead.

“She’s a mighty alert horse,” Shorty noted, standing and assessing Stormy.

“Pure mustang,” Jordana murmured.

“I can see.” Shorty nodded toward her legs. “Got the zebra stripes on her legs. Good sign she’s got seriously good mustang genes.”

“I agree,” Jordana said with a smile. “And her name is Stormy.” The mustang stepped into the stall on her own. Following her mare, Jordana slid the door shut and unlatched the rope attached to the mare’s red nylon halter. “You want me to leave her halter on, don’t you?” she called to the wrangler.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Stormy moved around sniffing and checking out the shavings. She touched noses with the curious big black horse next door and then went straight for the huge water dispenser located at the front of the stall. The mustang drank deeply and then smacked her wet lips afterward. Laughing, Jordana patted her mare. “You like your new digs, girl.”

Shorty slid the door open for Jordana. “She looks purty happy in there. She a beaver?” He shut the door after the owner stepped into the passageway.

A beaver in horse language was a horse that chewed on wood areas of the stall when it was bored. And that could cause wind colic or worse. Jordana knew that in those cases, they would paint the wood with a foul taste that discouraged such a bad habit. “Nope, she has no stall problems.”

“Well,” Shorty said, “we don’t have bored horses around here. The Boss works them every day, and by the time they’re done, they’re tuckered out and glad for a rest. On the days the students come out to ride their horses, they get a solid workout.” He smiled a little and studied the rows of stalls. “Nope, none of these horses have much time to become bored.”

“That’s good,” Jordana said. “Can you tell me the training schedule, Shorty?”

“The Boss didn’t?” he asked, surprised.

Shaking her head, Jordana pulled out a small notebook from the back pocket of her jeans and opened it up. “No. And I’d like to know.”

“Why, sure you do, ma’am. Let’s amble down to the tack room at the other end of the pole barn. You’ll be putting your saddle, bridle and tack box in there.”

Jordana followed. The wrangler was so different from the owner it was stunning. Shorty was jovial, kind and open. All the things Slade McPherson was not.

“Starting tomorrow, the Boss will have me put Stormy on the hot walker for half an hour.”

Mechanical walkers were a must in training. Jordana saw the machine in another nearby corral. It had four long metal arms sticking upward with a thick rope and snap on the end of each one. She knew four horses at a time would be snapped on to each rope and then the speed would be set by the operator. The circular walker looked more like a space vehicle to anyone who didn’t know what it was used for. The covered motor was located in the center. The operator could make the horses walk or trot.

“He’s not trotting them on it, is he?” Jordana wondered.

“Oh, no, ma’am. It’s a fast walk to warm ’em up before they’re worked. And he also uses it to cool ’em out after their training. Any fool who thinks they can trot a horse in that tight circle is lookin’ for leg problems to develop real fast.”

“Yes,” she murmured, “I just wanted to make sure, was all.”

Shorty slowed and opened the thick oak door. “Endurance horses have the best legs in the world. The Boss isn’t interested in harming those legs, only makin’ them stronger.”

“Good to hear,” Jordana said. The tack room was huge, roomy, spotlessly clean and smelled of leather. She loved the scent and inhaled it deeply. There was one hook for a bridle and an aluminum saddle rack suspended just below it. Shorty gestured to it.

“This will be for Stormy’s gear.” He pointed to a large wooden tack box below it. “Anything your horse needs insofar as brushes, combs, hoof pick and such, goes in here. I’ll be puttin’ Stormy’s name on this box so you can identify it among all the others.”

Jordana was impressed with Slade’s management abilities. The box stalls had fresh shavings and were obviously cleaned daily. The waterers were automatic and filled as the horse drank it down. In the tack room, there were no cobwebs in the corners, no dust on the thick rubber mats across the floor. All the leather gear was clean, the bits shining, the saddles contained no dust anywhere upon them.

“Now,” Shorty said, a bit of warning in his voice, “the Boss don’t like dirt. He’s a real nitpicker about it.” Shorty went over to a specially made endurance saddle that had no horn on it. He lifted up a leather flap on the rear of it. “He expects you to keep your gear in tip-top shape. No dirt, crud or oil between the skirts here. And he’ll be inspecting you every day you come out for training. Equally important is the cinch.” Shorty picked up the white cotton girth that spanned the horse’s belly and kept the saddle in place on its back. “He expects you to not only minutely look at each twisted strand of the girth for dirt or weeds, but also wash it once a week. He hates dirty cinches. That dirt can work into the horse’s belly and create a sore and inflammation. Something this simple can take an endurance horse out of a contest. Don’t disappoint him on this.”

“I’m beginning to like him,” Jordana said, impressed. She knew a dirty cinch was only asking for trouble. A horse had hair, but any sawing motion could pull it out and leave the horse’s tender flesh open to being rubbed raw. And as a doctor, she was always aware of possible infection starting at such a site.

“Oh, he’s a stickler,” Shorty promised with a lopsided grin. “You’ll be spending a lot of time either in here or just outside the door cleaning your gear afterward. He don’t want you leaving the premises until you’ve bathed your horse over at the shower area and then cleaned your leather. Oh, and make sure your horse’s hooves are clean. If he finds any mud, manure or, worse, a stone lodged in the frog area of the hoof, he’ll give you one warning. The second time, he’ll release you as a student.”

“Got it,” Jordana said.

“Crud in the hoof can make a horse lame in a heartbeat.”

“Yes, it can. I’m a stickler on that, too.”

“Good to hear, ma’am.” Shorty scratched his chin. “Okay, let’s go over to the bathing area.”

Just outside the pole barn and to the left stood another enclosed area. It was painted red and made of an aluminum roof and wooden sides. Shorty led her down a thickly graveled path. He slid the door open. “Now, this is where you will bathe your horse after your training is done. It’s got solid rubber matting on the floor so the horse don’t slide or skid. We’ve got panic snaps on the cross ties that will be attached to both sides of your mare’s halter.”

“I like panic snaps,” Jordana agreed, stepping into the shower shed. It, too, was well lit. If a horse ever got scared or bolted while in the cross ties, all the owner had to do was jerk the panic snap open, and it instantly released the horse so it didn’t choke itself to death in the ropes. These hardy steel snaps had saved many a horse from such an awful and completely preventable death. Yes, panic snaps cost a lot more, and some horse people didn’t purchase them because of that. But what was the horse worth to them? For a little more money, they could protect their animal from such a fate. Jordana liked that Slade thought of all the details. It was obvious that he cared for the horse in every way possible. Would he care equally about the rider? That remained to be seen.

“Here’s the showerhead and hose,” Shorty told her, pointing up to the gear hanging on a hook on the right side of the shed. “The Boss doesn’t believe in hitting a hot, sweaty horse with shockingly cold water. You’ll find the water tepid, instead. He don’t want them traumatized with a cold temperature.”

“That’s impressive,” she murmured, deciding that Slade’s earlier demeanor didn’t carry through in his training philosophy. Maybe he just didn’t like her? Jordana frowned and hoped not. Still, he’d been this side of testy and rude to her. Maybe he was having a bad day, she thought.

Shorty gestured for her to follow him out. “The Boss treats his horses like himself.”

Jordana liked the warmth of the early July sun overhead. Having spent two winters in Jackson Hole, she had come to welcome the summer as never before. There was snow on the ground eight months out of the year. That was the part she didn’t like. When spring came, however, there was no place on earth as beautiful as this valley and the dragon’s teeth of the Tetons thrusting up out of the prairie.

“Now,” Shorty said, walking toward the huge rectangular corral, “the Boss will be riding your mare daily in here. It’s got two feet of fine sand as a base. That keeps your horse from pulling a muscle or, worse, a ligament or tendon. He’s going to be seeing what her strengths and weaknesses are this next week.”

“You mean he does all the riding?” Jordana was surprised. That meant ten horses a day were ridden. “I thought he had help.”

“No, ma’am, he does it all himself.”

“No wonder he was upset with me arriving late.”

Shorty grinned. “Time’s money.”

Nodding, Jordana now understood his frosty stance. “How long does he ride the horse?”

“Depends. At first, he’s not going to push your mare. He’s gonna see how she does at a walk, trot and canter. Might be on her for thirty minutes at the most, depending upon how built up she is or not.”

“I’ve been riding Stormy ten to fifteen miles every third day. He will want to know that.”

“Yep, he will. But when you come out the next time, he’ll cover all that with you. The Boss can tell how in shape or not your horse is by merely examining it and watching it work.”

That was true, Jordana decided. And Slade’s gray eyes had missed nothing. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way. She liked his full mouth even though it had been thinned with displeasure talking to her. His nose was strong-looking and had a bump at the root of it, telling her he’d broken it some time earlier in his life. She’d liked his broad, square face, his skin burned brown by being out in the sun so much, the creases at the corners of his eyes deep. Was that from squinting in the bright, white snow or sun? Or were they laughter lines? Jordana highly doubted Slade had any humor in his bones. Not once had he cracked even a slight smile toward her. No, he wasn’t Mr. Social, that was for sure.

“Oh,” Shorty said, “you need to know that the Boss will not allow a rider to wear spurs or carry a whip.”

“Not a problem. I don’t do either.”

“That’s good because the Boss believes that if the horse and rider have a good rapport with one another, you can get all the speed out of the animal because it trusts you. Don’t ever be seen carrying a crop. He’ll kick you out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Laughing, Jordana held up her hands. “Not to worry. Stormy hates crops. In fact, when I bought her from Bud two years ago, he told me she was combative if she even saw a crop. He thinks the BLM cowboys used whips to get her into a corral. No, Stormy hates crops.”

“The Boss will want to know that.”

“Good.”

Shorty walked her back to the truck. “I’ll help you bring in all your gear to the tack room and then you can leave.”

“Thanks for the help,” she said, appreciating the wrangler. Looking around the large operation, Jordana didn’t see McPherson. The robins were singing in the oak and maple trees that surrounded the one-story ranch house in the distance. There was no lawn, and it looked pretty shabby in comparison to the spotless pole barn and showering shed. Maybe being a single male was the reason. Jordana would have put in a small lawn, flower boxes on the front windows and a small white picket fence around it. A woman’s touch. But this hard cowboy wasn’t much for decoration. At least he cared for his endurance horses. And that was all that counted in her book.

“Now, you need to write out a check for the first month’s rent and training,” Shorty reminded her.

“As soon as I get the tack put away, I will,” Jordana promised him, opening up the trailer door to remove the saddle and bridle.

DRIVING AWAY from Tetons Ranch, Jordana felt happier than she had in two years. Hands firmly on the steering wheel of her three-quarter-ton truck that hauled the empty horse trailer, she drove out just as slowly as she had come in. Maybe McPherson had a tractor stowed away somewhere and would get Shorty out here to flatten it once more.

The sky was a bright blue. The sunlight made the Tetons mountain range west of her look tall, rugged and beautiful. By early July, the last of the snow was almost gone until September, when it would once more become a white cloak around each of the sharp, pointed peaks. Her mind ranged over the price of the training. As a physician, she made good money. Her savings was now gone. She’d spent it buying a house at the edge of town. Two thousand dollars a month for training was going to stretch her in a way she hadn’t counted on. Jordana wanted to put money back into savings, but this training fee wouldn’t allow it.

Grimacing, she slowed at the stop sign that would take her to the highway. Turning left, she drove back toward Jackson Hole. If she’d gone right, she’d be heading into Yellowstone National Park about forty miles away.

Between her clinic and working part-time at the hospital, Jordana made ends meet. Now, with two thousand going out a month, she was hamstrung. Yet, all her life she’d loved horses, and endurance riding had always been her outlet. Could she give that up? Was it too expensive to follow her dream of having the best trainer in the United States train her and Stormy? Jordana waffled, unsure.

Slade McPherson was challenging, to say the least to her. But he’d been gentle with Stormy. How would he treat her? A horse trainer didn’t always transition well from animal to human. She’d had some bad experiences with horse trainers before. Yet, if Jordana was honest with herself, she’d been drawn to the iconic cowboy. That made no sense at all to her! Yet, she couldn’t help but look at his mouth and wonder what it would be like to be kissed by this hard man who braved nature without a second thought. And as he’d run his hands lightly and gently down Stormy’s legs, Jordana swore she could feel those rough, callused hands exploring her at the same time.

“Phew!” she muttered. “This is crazy!”

Was it? What adventures waited for her two days from now when she began her first lesson on Stormy with tough Slade McPherson?

CHAPTER FOUR

JORDANA TRIED TO calm her nerves as she rode Stormy out into the huge rectangular arena where Slade McPherson stood. Her heart wouldn’t settle down. It was July 3, the late afternoon sky filled with threatening clouds. As she looked toward the ragged-edge Tetons, she saw a massive thunderstorm over their sharp peaks. It might come their way if it was strong enough. The wind was up, and Stormy was more alert.

Today was the first day of her training with the implacable McPherson. Why had she had two dreams in a row about this hard-looking cowboy? As Jordana pressed her calf into Stormy’s side to make the turn into the sandy arena, she had mixed feelings. Wasn’t it enough she was working twelve hours a day either at her clinic or the hospital? Since the settling of the lawsuit, she had no desire to get entangled with a man. She was still too raw from the experience, the trauma of the move west and trying to get some sanity back into her life.

“Take her at a walk around the arena to the left,” Slade ordered, his voice carrying across the distance.

Nodding, Jordana took in a deep breath and tried to relax. She knew that Slade was going to be damn tough on her. Stormy had already had two daily workouts. The mustang mare seemed completely oblivious to her anxious state, just plodding along on a loose rein.

“Quit slouching,” he called. “Straighten up.”

Instantly, Jordana took the bow out of her back, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin slightly. Quirking her mouth, she wondered if McPherson was going to always yell at what she did wrong, but offer no praise for what she had done right. Many trainers were like that, she’d discovered. If she didn’t have confidence built up over years of being a resident, she might wither away under such an unfair training system. At two thousand dollars a month, Jordana wasn’t going to let his snappish orders scare her away.

Slade eyed the pair as they walked around the arena in a relaxed fashion. He tried to keep his eyes off Jordana, but that was impossible. His job was to see how she rode, how she sat in the saddle and how she handled her horse. He’d been dreading this moment for days. Having a woman among his male students was like a thorn in his side. He didn’t want her or her runt of a mare, but he needed her money. Guilt niggled at him. Jordana was sincere in contrast to his greediness. Slade didn’t like that about himself. She had come to him honestly. So what did that make him?

Not looking at the answer too closely, he enjoyed watching her lower body move in sync with the horse. Wearing jeans, boots and a dark green T-shirt, she was all woman. Curvy in all the right places, Jordana was a fit athlete. “How long you been riding in endurance events?” he asked.

“Two years,” she called.

Grunting, Slade nodded. “Slow trot,” he ordered.

Pressing her calves to Stormy, Jordana felt the mustang mare instantly obey. Although a small horse, Stormy had long legs. Jordana posted, which meant she lifted her butt off the saddle with every other stride of the animal. That resulted in less pounding on her mare’s back. She knew it was the English way of riding a horse. The Western style was to sit the trot and flow with the horse.

“Sit the trot,” he called.

Grimacing, Jordana did. She hated not being able to post. After going halfway around the arena, she called, “I’d rather post. It’s easier on the horse’s back.”

“Sit the trot.”

Growling to herself, Jordana complied. It took a lot of work to keep her legs against Stormy, her thighs strong and clamped solidly to the saddle and horse. If she hadn’t done so, she’d be bouncing and flying all over the place. Was he testing her strength? Was that what this was all about? The wind sang through her hair. Lifting her hand, she pulled the black baseball cap a little lower over her brow. The wind would pull it off if she didn’t.

“Do a series of figure eights at a sitting trot.”

Jordana knew without a doubt he was seeing just how much strength and control she had over Stormy. A figure eight required her to do a circle over one half of the arena and, once they trotted down the center of it, to turn the other way and complete the second circle. This was easy stuff for her. Stormy wasn’t breathing hard at all, her ears flicking back and forth. When her ears moved back, she was listening to Jordana’s silent leg, weight or hand signals.

“Canter the figure eight,” Slade ordered, his deep voice carrying strongly across the wide expanse. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Jordana had a lot of good riding habits. It grated that she was using dressage, but that was only because Isabel had been a dressage rider. A well-trained horse became fine tuned with dressage training, and it wasn’t a bad thing to have in an endurance horse. There would be times that Jordana would have to use her weight or legs in tight places. Why the hell was he aching to kiss this woman? Slade hadn’t liked his dreams of the past two nights. Both involved kissing this doctor, who exuded quiet confidence. No way. Just no way. Keep it impersonal, he ordered himself.

“Go the other direction now,” he called.

By the time he ordered her into the center of the arena to rest, Jordana was feeling the intense workout. She halted Stormy in front of him and dropped the reins to allow her mare to lower her head and rest, too.

Slade studied Jordana’s face. He had a tough time seeing her as a physician. She just didn’t look like the type. Moving to the horse, he thrust two fingers beneath the horse’s cinch. It was tight but not too tight. She was so close. He liked her long legs and the way her firm thighs curved against the horse.

“Why don’t you let me post?” Jordana demanded. “It’s easier on my horse’s back and it also allows me to rest between beats.”

Slade stared up into her narrowed blue eyes. She was tough, but then, in endurance riding, that was a good trait. “I wanted to see how your mare took to it.”