Sassy Cowgirl Kisses by Kathy Fawcett
Chapter 33
“But, why?”
“No real reason, I’d just prefer it.”
“You’d prefer that Sassy not come to the house again—did she steal an ashtray? Was she rude to you? Tell me why, Kat.” Gunnar was pressing Kat for a more definitive answer than the one she’d given, which was a non-answer.
“If there’s mail at the office that I need, I can come get it. Or you can just bring it home, okay?” Kat was trying to steer the conversation, Gunnar knew. He wasn’t letting her off the hook. They both knew that at the hospital, with her Director of Infectious Diseases hat on, Kat was used to having her orders followed without question.
“When I was growing up, there were cowboys in the house all the time, coming and going,” Gunnar told Kat. “Of course, my mother was more involved in the day-to-day running of the ranch, and the house was still being built and all. It was chaos, I’ll admit. And I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Gunnar smiled over at his wife. They were sitting on the deck overlooking the gorge. The evening had gone cool, and Kat was curled up with a wool throw on her legs. They both held a cup of hot coffee in their chilled hands.
“Did she let just anybody in the house, with small children and all?” Kat wanted to know.
“Well yes, but Daddy never hired just anybody—same as now. There was a time when cowboys were recruited at the blacksmith in town, or at the general store. Just like when my great grandmother Addie recruited Pickford West.”
“Recruited? Picked him up, you mean,” Kat said with a laugh.
“Well, she did marry him pretty fast,” Gunnar said, “made an honest cowboy out of him.”
“Your point being?”
“My point is this—our cowboys may seem like a rag tag bunch, but each and every person working on this ranch has been screened, with a complete background check. We know everybody who comes through our gates, and you have to trust I’d never send anyone to our doors who means any harm. You and Willow are my precious jewels.”
“I know,” Kat said. “But Gunnar, you can’t screen for ulterior motives. And my woman’s intuition is screaming at me to circle the wagons and keep her outside of us. My over-protective radar is going off like a siren, saying Sassy what’s-her-name has a motive. I just don’t know yet what it is.”
Gunnar nodded as he listened.
“By the way,” Kat turned to her husband, “what is Sassy’s last name?”
“I don’t recall,” Gunnar said, “nothing special; nothing that rang a bell when I heard it—if I did hear it, that is. Now you’ve got me questioning everything.”
“Good.”
“I suppose. And this is your home. I won’t send her to the house if you’re uncomfortable. Though my own intuition is perfectly at ease having Sassy on the ranch. She’s smart and funny; nice too. And I think Ash might be smitten with her.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Consider that fear founded.”
Gunnar and Kat turned towards the setting sun over the gorge and took sips of their coffee. In the silence, they could hear the bugling of a bull moose, and the screeching of a hawk as it swooped over the river.
Nighttime was their favorite time together. Willow was fast asleep and the cattle were lowing softly along the wide-open range. Most nights, one of the two would eventually reach for the other in the dark, and they would wordlessly make their way to bed. There, they melted into kisses that tasted like warm moonlight and embraced each other with eager loving arms.
This might have been one of those nights, except Gunnar had to wrap up their conversation about Sassy, and he regretted what he had to say. He suspected it would set Kat in a foul mood.
“There’s one more thing, darlin’, that I have to come clean about.”
Kat looked over, curiously. She didn’t like the tone of his voice, and it put her on edge.
“There’s one thing I haven’t told you about Sassy,” Gunnar continued.
“What’s that?”
“There is something about her… that reminds me… of you.”