“Maybe I feel sorry for her,” he told Cherry finally.
“Yes, so do I, but we mustn’t let her know it,” she said firmly. “She’s very proud, did you notice?”
He nodded. “Proud and hot tempered.”
“What familiar traits.”
He glowered at her, but she just grinned.
At the luxurious house Todd had bought in Victoria, they packed up what gear they’d need for a few days, explained their forthcoming absence to their puzzled housekeeper, Rosa, promised to be back soon and drove in the borrowed Ford down to Jacobsville to the Parker ranch.
It wasn’t much to look at from the road. There was a rickety gray wood and barbed-wire fence that had been mended just enough to hold in the mixed-breed steers in the pasture. The barn was still standing, but barely. The dirt road that led past a windmill to the house had potholes with water standing in them from the last rain. It had no gravel on it, and it looked as if it hadn’t been graded in years. The yard was bare except for a few rosebushes and a handful of flowers around the long porch of the white clapboard house. It was two stories high, and needed painting. One of the steps had broken through and hadn’t been replaced. There was a rickety ramp, presumably constructed hastily for the wheelchair, on the end of the porch. There was the motor home and horse trailer in the yard, next to a building that might be used as a garage by an optimist. A small cabin was nestled in high grass that needed cutting; the foreman’s cabin, Todd thought, hoping that it was more than one room. Nearby was a bigger structure, a small one-story house. It was in better condition and it had rocking chairs on the porch. The bunkhouse?
“Welcome!” Tim called, coming out to meet them.
They got out and Todd shook hands with him. “Thanks. If you’ll tell me where to put our stuff…?” He was looking toward the cabin.
“Oh, that’s where old man Hughes lives.” Tim chuckled. “He helps me look after the livestock. He can’t do a lot, but he’s worked here since he was a boy. We can’t pension him off until he’s sixty-five, two more years yet.” He turned. “Here’s where you and the girl will bunk down.” He led them toward the small house and Todd heaved a sigh of relief.
“It needs some work, like everything else, but maybe you can manage. You can have meals with us in the house. There are three other hands who mend fences and look after the tanks and the machinery, do the planting and so forth. They’re mostly part-time these days, but we hire on extra men when we need them, seasonally, you know.”
The house wasn’t bad. It had three big bedrooms and a small living room. There was a kitchen, too, but it didn’t look used. There was a coffeepot and a small stove and refrigerator.
“I could learn to cook,” Cherry began.
“No, you couldn’t,” Todd said shortly. “Time enough for that later.”
“My wife Meg’ll teach you if you want to learn,” Tim said, volunteering his wife with a grin. “She likes young people. Never had any kids of our own, so she takes up with other people’s. When you’ve settled, come on over to the house. We’ll have sandwiches and something to drink.”
“How’s Miss Parker?” Cherry asked.
Tim grimaced. “Lying down. She’s not well. I’ve called the doctor.” He shook his head. “I told her not to get on that horse, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Never could do anything with her, even when she was a youngster. It took her papa to hold her back, but he’s gone now.”
“She had no business on that horse,” Todd said, pointedly.
“That was a bad attack of pride,” Tim told him. “Some newspaperman wrote a column about the rodeo and mentioned that poor Jane Parker would probably come out to accept the plaque for her father in a wheelchair, because she was crippled now.”
Todd’s face hardened. “Which paper was it in?”
“That little weekly they publish in Jacobsville,” he said with a grimace. “She took it to heart. I told her it was probably that Sikes kid who just started doing sports. He’s fresh out of journalism school and fancies himself winning a Pulitzer for covering barrel racing. Huh!” he scoffed.
Todd mentally stored the name for future reference. “Will the doctor come out?”
“Sure!” the wizened little man assured him. “His dad was Jane’s godfather. They’re great friends. He has an assistant now, though—a female doctor named Lou. She might come instead.” He chuckled. “They don’t see eye to eye on anything. Amazing how they manage a practice between them.”
“The doctor isn’t married?”
He shook his head. “He was sweet on Jane, but after the accident, she cut him dead if he so much as smiled at her. That was just before Lou went into practice with him. Jane doesn’t want to get involved, she says.”
“She won’t always be in that chair,” Todd murmured as they walked toward the house.
“No. But she’ll always have pain when she overdoes things, and she won’t ride well enough for competition again.”
“That’s what she told Cherry.”
Tim gave him a wary glance. “You won’t hurt her?” he asked bluntly.
Todd smiled. “She’s very attractive, and I like her spirit, but I’ve had a bad marriage and I don’t want to risk another failure. I don’t get serious about women anymore. And I’m not coldhearted enough to play around with Jane.”
Tim sighed. “Thanks. I needed to hear that. She’s more vulnerable than she realizes right now. I’m not related to her, but in a lot of ways, I’m the only family she’s got—well, Meg and me.”
“She’s a lucky woman,” Todd replied.
He shrugged. “Not so lucky, or she wouldn’t be in that chair, would she?”
They walked up onto the porch, avoiding the broken step. “Meant to fix that, but I never get time,” Tim murmured. “Now that you’re here to tear your hair out over the books, maybe I’ll be able to get a few odds and ends done.”
“I can help, if you need me,” he volunteered. “I do woodwork for a hobby.”
“Do you!” Tim’s face brightened. “There’s a woodworking shop in the back of the barn. We built it years ago for her dad. He made all the furniture in the house. She’ll like having it in use again.”
“Are you sure?” he asked doubtfully.
“You can always ask her.”
They walked into the living room. Jane was lying on the sofa, putting up a brave front even though her face was stark white with the effort. Cherry was curled up in an armchair beside the sofa, her cheek on her folded arms, listening raptly to her idol.
“Doctor should be here soon,” Tim told Jane. He paused to pat her gently on the shoulder. “Hang on, kid.”
She smiled at him, and laid her hand briefly over the one on her shoulder. “Thanks, Tim. What would I do without you?”
“Let’s agree never to find out,” he returned drily.
“Okay.” She glanced toward Todd Burke. The expression on his lean face made her angry. “I’m not a cripple,” she said belligerently.
He knelt by the sofa and pushed back a strand of her hair. It was wet, not with sweat, but with tears she’d shed involuntarily as the pain bit into her. He felt more protective about her than he could understand.
“Don’t you have something to take?”
“Yes,”