CHAPTER 3 When Joey awoke at seven-thirty and made her way to the kitchen for breakfast, Blake Winters was no where to be seen, She ate alone, then wandered outside to look around. He had told her to meet him at the stables, but she had no idea which of the many outbuildings that encircled the main house were the stables. She stood on the veranda and looked out over the courtyard. A person needed a map to get around the place, she thought, as she stepped out into the morning sun. Finally she rounded the corner of one of the buildings and spotted a fenced in corral in the distance. There was a man leaning over the railings and another walking a horse on a long lead inside the corral. Outside, two horses stood, saddled and ready, their reigns tied to the top rail of the fence. With a sigh, she picked up her pace and headed across the grounds toward them. They noticed her when the horse inside the corral side-stepped and tossed its head uneasily. The man at the rail turned her way and then raised a hand to wave at her. As she got closer she could see that it was Harvey. There was no mistaking the figure inside the fence. It was clearly Blake Winters. “Mornin’ Miss Joey.” Harvey smiled as she approached. He stood straight and tipped his hat in greeting, just as Blake strode over to the fence. “Good Morning, Harvey,” she said, smiling back at the kind man, trying to hide her nervousness as Blake stared her down. “Take Footloose around a couple more times, will you Harvey,” Blake was saying, and Harvey nodded and climbed over the fence much easier than Joey thought a man his age would be able to. She swallowed hard when Blake made an even smoother transition from one side of the fence to the other, and ended up standing beside her. “I thought you weren’t coming, it’s well after nine,” he said, his lips in a straight line, as he walked past her without even looking at her. She chewed her lip and glanced at her watch. She was fifteen minutes late, and he was making a big deal over it. “Well, I didn’t have a clue where the stables were. It took me a while to find them. I guess I started off in the wrong direction first.” He stood with his back to her, checking the straps on the saddle of the nearest horse. She was certain she noticed him hesitate ever-so-slightly at his task and his shoulders droop just a little. Then he straightened again and gave a tug on one more strap and ran his hand along the horse’s back. “Sorry about that,” he said, and she wondered how hard it was for him to apologise for anything. He had moved around the horse until he now stood with it between them, and he lifted his eyes to look at her over the saddle. “I’m not used to having people around here who don’t know their way around.” His jaw was tight as he spoke, his voice abrupt and to the point. He doesn’t want me here, Joey reminded herself, and sighed. Quickly she turned her head to watch Harvey walking Footloose in the corral. He was a sleek looking chocolate brown animal with a striking white marking down his face. As he walked, he lifted his nose every few steps and snorted, almost as if the task was a reluctant one. Like Blake putting up with me, she thought. “Footloose is coming back from a tendon injury.” Blake’s words broke through her thoughts, almost as if he had been able to tell what she was thinking, and she blushed at that. “He requires daily walking to get him back into condition.” Joey nodded. “He looks like he’d rather be somewhere else instead,” she said, and when she turned back to her host she almost wished she hadn’t. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t understand. He was also wishing the same thing, she was certain. Or more like it, wishing she were somewhere else. “He’s coming ‘round,” Blake said, and for some reason his words reminded her of Mable’s comment that Blake would come ‘round. She blushed slightly, and turned her attention to the horse that stood calmly between them. It was a beautiful appaloosa, its taffy coloured head and neck pebbling into the white of its hind end. It stood perfectly still, except for turning to look at Joey and nodding its head in a gentle manner. It didn’t even seem to notice as Blake walked around checking the saddle. “This is a beautiful horse,” she said, trying to bring the conversation back to neutral ground. “This is Candita,” he said. “She’s very gentle and easy to ride. As he spoke, the horse turned her head towards Joey and brushed her nose along her shoulder. Joey lifted her hand and gently brushed Candita’s face. The animal did not move. “She’s beautiful.” Joey smiled at her. “Aren’t you, girl.” Without thinking, Joey leaned in and kissed the horse in the centre of her face, as she continued to brush her neck. Candita sniffed slightly, and gave her an ever-so-slight nod. “She likes you,” she heard Blake say, and when she glance his way she almost thought she saw a smile playing on his lips, but then it was gone and she figured she must have been mistaken. “Well, I like her too.” Joey straightened her shoulders and turned her attention back to the horse. “Good then.” Blake’s voice was more controlled this time. “She’ll be your horse while you are here. Ride any time you want.” Then, after a slight hesitation, he asked “You have ridden a horse before, haven’t you?” She thought he sounded a little perturbed, as if it had just occurred to him that he might be having to teach her how to ride. “I have ridden a few times, not very often. I don’t know anything about saddling up though.” “Right. Well, any time you want to ride, just ask someone to get her ready for you. Harvey is usually around, and his grandson Ethan is a stable boy here. Either one of them can help.” He handed her the reigns and turned to check over the horse that was standing beside Candita. It was a dappled grey, larger than Candita, and he informed her his name was Clipper. Though she had ridden before, at a friend’s farm when she was much younger, she didn’t know a lot about horses. She wasn’t afraid of them, but she was silently glad she would be riding Candita instead of the huge grey that Blake mounted with the ease of a seasoned rider. He was dressed in faded blue jeans and a dark shirt, cowboy boots and a black Stetson. He looked like he belonged on that horse, she thought. It was a thought that made her a little nervous about climbing up onto Candita while he sat there looking down at her expectantly. The girl was trying his patience, Blake grumbled under his breath, and he didn’t like it one bit. She had ruffled his feathers the minute he had walked into his study and seen her standing there, and she did it every time he came anywhere near her. Now, she was standing there, in pale jeans and white sneakers and a soft green T-shirt with some kind of picture on the front of it, her long black hair pulled neatly back in a pony tail, looking at Candita with those dark brown eyes... “Where’s your hat?” he asked suddenly, sounding a little frustrated. She blushed and shuffled her feet. “I -- don’t have one,” she said, her eyes unconsciously drawn to the curved black Stetson that looked so at home on his head. He grumbled and dismounted Clipper, tossing the reigns over the rail once again. “Wait there. You can’t go out for half the day in the sun without a hat.” He seemed annoyed, Joey thought, as he strode across the grounds with long, easy strides. She sighed and turned back to Candita. “Do you think I will ever be able to get to know what makes that man tick?” she asked the horse softly as she ran a hand down its nose. The horse nodded a couple of times and sniffed at her, and Joey laughed. “Well girl, maybe you know something I don’t.” Blake was annoyed all right. Annoyed with himself. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to offer to take her around the ranch in the first place, but as he had stood there listening to her little speech as she had talked to Mable and Tilly the night before, the offer had come out before he had even had time to think about it. he hadn’t even considered the fact that she might not even ride -- thank goodness she did -- or that she didn’t wouldn’t know where to find the stables. He swore under his breath as he mounted the veranda, taking the steps in two easy strides. Some impression he’d made so far, he thought, and it was still only just past nine-thirty in the morning! But you’re not trying to make an impression, he reminded himself, and if you are, you wouldn’t have to be if that damn fool Nielson had done his job right and brought you a man to write this damn book. He swore again as he opened the front closet and reached for a hat, frowning at it. No, this one was Cordelia’s. She still insisted it be exactly as it had always been on those extremely rare occasions that she ever set foot on the ranch again. He placed the starched white hat back on the shelf. It wasn’t as if the woman ever wore it, he thought. He reached for a different hat, a soft fawn colour with a sprig of brown feathers tucked into one side of the hat band. It was one he kept on hand for visitors, and he cursed himself for not having thought to get it for Joey before. With a last frowning glance at the white hat, he closed the door again and left the house. When he returned to the corral, Joey was perched on the top rail of the fence with Candita in front of her, talking to the horse. He realised he knew nothing about this girl, other than that she had written a very impressive feature article for her newspaper, about a women’s shelter wherever it was that Clark Nielson had found her. That and the fact that she sat on that fence talking to that horse as if she belonged there. The whole thing threw him off kilter. “Here, this should help,” he said, handing her the hat as she slipped down off the rail. Then, as an afterthought, he added with a frown. “But you’ll probably have to do something different with your hair.” “Oh.” Joey paused before taking the hat from him. He was probably right, she hadn’t planned on a hat when she had brushed her hair into a pony tail that morning. There was no way the hat would fit over it She reached back and pulled out the elastic and shook her hair loose and Blake swallowed hard. Damn Nielson, he thought, as he watched those long black tresses flow freely around her face and shoulders. His fingers betrayed him, itching to run through that hair, but he clenched them into a fist and held back. Thankfully she scooped it back again and replaced the elastic at the nape of her neck, and his heart started beating again. He frowned, and thrust the hat towards her. “Thank you,” she said, with a sweet smile, but when she put the hat on her head his frown deepened. It looked perfect there, like it had been made with her in mind, and when she grabbed the saddle horn, put her foot in the stirrup and swung her leg over the horse she looked like she and Candita had been born for each other. Blake scowled even more, and walked around the horses, throwing himself into Clipper’s saddle. Then he curse himself and dismounted again to untie the reigns from the fence. I should kill that damn Nielson, he thought, as he set his jaw and climbed back onto Clipper’s back. “Ready?” he asked, as he swung Clipper around so his back was turned to Joey, circling behind her. Joey frowned. She had hoped she would be able to get to know the man a little better today, but he seemed decidedly cranky. She had even thought that by trying to fit into his world she might put him at ease, but that certainly wasn’t working! He seemed as if he would rather not be taking the time to show her around the ranch at all. She considered telling him to call the day off, but then it was her job to spend time with him and get to know him, no matter how much she didn’t like the prospect, so she might as well start now. She couldn’t let the fact that he wished she were hundreds of miles away from the Silver Star Ranch stop her. “Ready,” she said, trying to sound cheery, as she eased Candita into step beside the big grey. Blake just nodded, and said nothing, staring straight ahead as if he were deep in thought. They rode in silence for quite some time, and Joey decided she would try to forget that she was there to learn about the man and just enjoy the scenery instead. The ranch stretched out before them for miles around. To the east, she could see cattle grazing in a softly rolling flat area, and to the west and north the land seemed to roll upwards into hills as the trees crept in towards them. Above, the sky was clear blue and empty, except for the occasional bird that swooped overhead with an echoing call that faded into the distance. She had never seen any place to beautiful, she thought. Or so peaceful. She could understand why Blake liked it here so much, why he preferred to stay here instead of socializing in the city. The whole place seemed like a world of its own. “I can’t believe your mother didn’t like it here,” she said dreamily, hardly realising she was speaking out loud. “It is so beautiful.” She heard a sound from him, like a cough or something, and glanced his way. He was sitting on Clipper as they moved along, his jaw clenched tight and his expression as blank as the sky above them, staring straight ahead. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying anything to ease the tension she was sure she had just caused. He shrugged. “Don’t be,” he said, in a flat tone. “My mother -- Cordelia -- didn’t like lots of things.” She sensed a bitterness in his voice, and wondered what it meant, and why he referred to his mother by her name. She considered prodding, for she had a feeling she wouldn’t never really understand the man well enough to write about him is she didn’t know the answers to those questions, but then she thought better of it. That could wait. Right now she just wanted to enjoy the ride, and the scenery, even if the company was a little cold. He led their horses through the trees, along a trail dappled with the sun as it poked through overhanging branches. Joey watched as the scenery continued to take her breath away. There was no place on earth more peaceful than this, the told herself again, even with Blake Winters beside her. Then they emerged from the trees and she found herself next to a glistening river, and she wasn’t so sure anymore. Maybe this was the most serene place on earth? This ranch was always surprising her. Blake watched her as they brought the horses down onto the river bank. He had pulled back on Clipper so Joey could bring Candita alongside, and he could see the expression on her face. She hid nothing, and the awe in her eyes touched something deep inside him he hadn’t known existed. He loved this place, had spent a lot of time down here in his younger days. He would come here just to be alone, and get away from the tension that always filled the air back at the house in those days. he’d even camped out on the flats next to the river when Cordelia had been entertaining back at the ranch house. Anything to get away from shallowness of the people she inevitably invited. Down here, with a tent and a crackling fire, nothing could touch him. The real world was light years away, as if he were on a different planet. Why he had chosen to bring Joey to this particular spot on the river he did not know. He had decided to give her an overview of the land that made up the Silver Star Ranch, the grassland, the hills, the woods, even the river, but he could just as easily have taken her through the eastern gazing range and approached the river from that direction, where the cattle went down to water. why he had brought her here, where he had spent some of the most private moments of his life, baffled him. When she had expressed her surprise that Cordelia had never liked the ranch it had simply been instinct to guide Clipper westward and through the winding trails that he usually took alone. The late morning sun glistened off the calm water of the river like diamonds. The only sound was the faint rippling of the water and the breeze through the leaves across the river. The view was made even more beautiful than it had ever been, by the look on Joey’s face. If she liked this, he thought to himself rather smugly, she would be knocked off her saddle when they rounded the bend. Surprisingly, he found himself grinning as he turned Clipper towards the bend in the river, anticipating her reaction. He had no idea why it mattered to him, but it did. And he wasn’t disappointed. As the horses rounded the bend Joey could hear the sound of rushing water getting louder, and could see the current in the river picking up. Once they passed the last outcrop of trees, the full impact of the scene hit her. The river tumbled over a small waterfall and rolled over a stretch of long rolling rapids before flattening out and flowing towards them. The river bank ended as the trees narrowed in towards the falls, and Blake pulled Clipper to a stand still. “Oh!” Joey gasped, as she drew Candita to a halt beside him. “Oh, Blake! This is beautiful!” “You like it?” he asked, and when she turned astonished eyes toward him she was surprised to see him smiling at her. “Like it? My God, Blake, this is like a little piece of heaven on earth!” He swung his leg over Clipper with ease and dismounted, looping the reigns around a nearby branch, then sent to help her off Candita. For some reason it pleased him that she like it here, though he refused to let himself dwell on it. “Mable packed us some sandwiches,” he said, as he tied her horse next to his own. “This seems like as good a place as any to rest for a while.” “I’d love to!” She wandered down to the river’s edge and sat on a rock looking out over the waterfall. She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, and sighed. Blake dug the food out of his saddle bag and turned to look for her. When he spotted her sitting by the river he stopped in his tracks and stood looking at her for a long time. This was his favourite place on the planet, many times he had sat on those rocks himself and gazed out over the scene before him. Never had he dreamed she would share his views. He had pictured her as a city girl, used to parties and bright city lights. Come to think of it, he had pictured her just like Cordelia. He tended to do that with woman, he realised. Maybe he had been wrong to pre-judge her like that. Maybe he had also been wrong to think she wouldn’t be able to do the job he needed her to do, just because she was a woman? When he sat down beside her she spoke without even taking her eyes off the view, her voice barely sounding like a whisper over the sound of the rushing water. “It really is beautiful here, Blake.” “I’m glad you feel that way,” he said, and she felt like he really meant it. He handed her a sandwich and they ate in silence, watching the moving artwork of the waterfall. It was Blake who finally broke the silence. “What kind of name is Joey for a girl anyway?” he asked her, and she chuckled. “It’s short for Josephine,” she said. “My grandmother named me, and she loved the name. She wanted a good Western name for me. She thought it sounded sophisticated. I always thought it sounded stuffy,” she laughed. He studied her closely. “Where was your grandmother from?” “She was Japanese. She met my grandfather while he was working in Japan. When my mother was just a year old he came back West, and said he would send for my grandmother when he had settled in.” “But he never did,” Blake said, nodding, not having to hear her say it to know. Joey shook her head. “No, he never did. My grandmother raised my mother with her family, and always told her that her father would be coming to get them soon. She made certain my mother learned English so she would be ready when he came, but they never saw him again. When my mother was old enough she came over here to look for him. She never found him, but she met my father, and married him and stayed. They brought my grandmother over after that. After all those years of waiting, she finally got here, but not the way she had originally expected.” “And your grandmother is the only one who calls you Josephine,” he said, and Joey was surprised that he remembered that from their initial meeting. “Yes. My mother liked the oriental sound of the shortened name -- Joey, and I never minded it either. It was easier as a child to be Joey than to be Josephine. I like it better anyway.” She gazed off into the waterfall and sighed. “But we’re supposed to be writing your life story, not mine,” she said, straightening her back and turning to look at him. He frowned. “Yes, I suppose that’s why you are here. I don’t like talking about my past much. I’m a pretty private person.” “Then why agree to do this book at all?” “Because Clark Nielson seemed to think it was a good idea, and I let myself be convinced there were benefits to it.” Joey looked at him thoughtfully. She couldn’t imagine him letting himself be talked into anything if he didn’t have his own reasons for doing it. “I don’t believe you,” she said though there was a softness in her voice and a smile on her face. “And why not?” he asked, challenging her. “Because Blake Winters is accustomed to getting his own way, and somehow I can’t imagine you letting anyone talk you into anything you didn’t want to do.” “You’re very perceptive,” he said with a smirk. “It’s my job,” she reminded him. Her job. he frowned to himself as he remembered what her present job was. To dig up his past and write a book about it for the whole world to read. Hardly what he wanted anyone doing, and not, he thought to himself, what he had thought he wanted her doing. the more he listened to her talk, the more he was beginning to wonder if he had been wise to think that way. Life gives each of us events to deal with and how we handle them depends on what we’re made of inside. He remembered the words he had overheard her saying to Mable and Tilly. How true those words must have been for her mother and grandmother. They had been faced with roads to choose from and the direction of the rest of their lives had been moulded by the choices they had made. Ultimately, so had Joey’s life. For the first time since he had met her he suddenly looked at her with a different perspective. She wasn’t just a pretty face. She was a very wise woman. He sighed, and turned to look at the river. “What do you want to know first?” he asked, without looking at her. “Whatever you want to tell me first. I don’t want to pressure you. I’m not writing anything until I know enough about you to write about. It doesn’t matter what order I learn things in, the pieces will eventually fall into place.” They watched the river in silence before at last he spoke, staring off into the falling water as if he was seeing memories flowing over the falls and into the rapids. “I must have been about twelve when I first found this place. I used to come down here a lot after that. I’d saddle up and ride down here as soon as one of Cordelia’s parties started, and sometimes I wouldn’t even go back to the house until the next day. It drove her crazy at first. Not that she minded me not being around but she liked me to do what she told me to do, and that bothered her the most.” “You didn’t like your mother’s parties very much, did you?” Joey observed. Blake grunted and smirked at her. “Cordelia needed to show off. She needed to boast her husband’s wealth, her staff’s talents, her taste in antiques -- and the fact that she could afford them. There was even a time when she liked to show me off too. I’m not a very showy person, Joey. I especially don’t like other people showing me off.” Like me and my book, Joey thought, with a sigh. But she put a smile on her face as she spoke. “I gathered as much. You would rather stay here on the ranch than go to the city any day too, wouldn’t you?” “I was born and raised on this ranch. I’ve lived my whole life here, except for my University days. I couldn’t wait to get back here.” “You went to University?” she asked, looking at him in surprise. He chuckled. “That surprises you -- that I’m an educated man?” She studied him closely. She could easily picture him at University. He was very smart, but she had imagined him never leaving the ranch, learning the business from his father. “No, not that you’re an educated man, just that you ever left this place. I pictured you always here, where you felt at home.” “A reasonable assumption,” he agreed. “It was during one of Cordelia’s more interested periods. I did want to just stay here and learn the ropes of the ranch. She convinced my father that I needed exposure to the outside world, to be able to make an informed decision on how and where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. It was also important for her that I have an education. It made me more worth bragging about. Personally, I think she just saw it as a way to get me off the ranch, and probably even hoped I might decide not to come back. “ “You and your mother didn’t get along?” Joey asked, although it was more a statement than a question. He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the river. “She liked me when there was a purpose for it, otherwise we tolerated each other. I suited her purpose better away at University than I did here.” Joey listened to the tone in his voice as well as the words he spoke. It was obvious there had been a great deal of tension between mother and son. She picked up a little chunk of rock and tossed it playfully from one hand to another. “But you did come back here,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “This place was in your blood.” “You could say that. “ He straightened and sighed. “When my dad took sick it suited her purpose for me to be here again. She wanted no part of running a ranch, and would have sold off the whole thing, but Dad had made me a partner before I had left. She couldn’t sell a thing without my permission first.” He tossed another pebble in the river. “Needless to say, I didn’t give it to her. After Dad died, she was only too happy to collect her share and high tail it out of here straight to Billings.” “I’m sorry,” Joey said, then quickly turned to look at him. “About your father, I mean. How long ago was that?” “Ten years ago.” He tossed yet another pebble in the river. “Cordelia called me, said your father isn’t well, you must come home. She wanted me to come back so she could work on me about the idea of selling out. I packed up then and there and came home. Never did finish my final year. I have never looked back.” “What were you studying?” Joey asked, absently handing him the rock she had been playing with. He tossed it in the river and listened to the plunk it made, then turned and grinned at her. “Veterinary Medicine.” “Well, that must be very useful around here,” she said, smiling and picking up another rock to hand to him. “My thoughts exactly,” he said, tossing the rock into the river. “Cordelia would have preferred me to be a regular doctor, or a lawyer, or something more impressive.” With that, he stood up and brushed off his hands on his jeans, then held out a hand to help her up. “Ready to move on? There’s still more of this ranch to see yet.” Joey followed him back to the horses. She knew he had talked about as much as he was going to for one day. At least it was a start, she thought, although she was left with more questions than answers.