Page 5 of Catch Me, Cowboy
“So how is he?” Gramps asked.
“He was moving slow.”
“No surprise there.”
None at all. Shelby hadn’t given in to the temptation of finding Ty’s career-ending wreck on YouTube, but Gramps had, and he’d described it in detail to her, even though she didn’t want to hear those details. The horse had reared over backwards after the gate opened, pinning Ty against the chute, busting up his pelvis, shoulder and femur. If he were younger, he might have come back, but he wasn’t younger and he’d announced his retirement after getting out of the hospital.
“Did he say why he was back in Marietta?” Gramps asked.
Shelby shot a look at him over the back of the horse, but he was bending low, brushing down one leg. This was shaky ground. Break her heart, fine. But she was not going to have Gramps get caught in the crossfire again.
“He didn’t.” He also hadn’t said how long he’d be there.
“Well,” Gramps said as he straightened up again. “I have a lot of prescriptions to refill, so I should have no trouble finding out what he’s up to and whether or not he’s staying for good.”
Shelby brought her forearms up to rest on the mare’s broad back. “Why do you care?”
“Because you do.”
She opened her mouth to say she did not, but that was more of a lie than she could force out. “I do care, but only because I don’t want people getting hurt again.”
“People?” Gramps frowned at her. “You don’t mean me, in addition to you?”
She shrugged. “You were no happier than I was when Ty took off.”
“Different reason.”
Shelby wanted to ask about the reason, but she also wanted to drop the conversation because if her stomach got any tighter, she wasn’t going to be able to eat for the rest of the day.
“Shelby.” She looked up, met her grandfather’s gaze, read his concern.
“I can handle things.”
“I know.”
Of course he knew. She’d proven it a time or two. She’d handled it when her mother had died way too young. She’d handled all the usual teenage heartaches with only her friend, Cassie, and her team roping partner, Wyatt, for support. She’d handled Ty’s abandonment.
“He told me he hadn’t made a mistake in leaving me.” Shelby didn’t want Gramps to have any concerns about her taking up with Ty again. “Was pretty damned adamant about it. And I will not be seconds, Gramps. I don’t think it’s right that he went off and lived the life he loved and now that he’s hurt and can’t continue with that life, he’s back for the next best thing. Believe it or not, being number two on his priority list doesn’t warm my heart.”
Her grandfather said nothing as he continued to brush and Shelby hoped the conversation was now over. She gave the brush one last quick flip on the mare’s neck, then set it in the grooming bucket before once again meeting his shrewd gaze, hoping he couldn’t see, even though she was truly done with Ty, being near him again had been unsettling.
“I’d thought better of him,” her grandfather finally muttered.
He shook his head as if done with the matter, but just to make certain the subject was dropped once and for all, Shelby said, “I heard back from the Barlows.”
“The ritzy ranch people?”
Shelby couldn’t help but smile, despite her mood. A transplanted Texan had built a sweet little hobby ranch ten miles north of Marietta, only to be driven out by the Montana winters after two years. He’d left behind a lovely cedar, glass, and stone house, state-of-the-art fencing, and barns. Gramps had told Shelby the Texan would never get what he was asking for his “ritzy ranch,” but the place had been snapped up in less than a week by Paul Barlow, a tech-boom millionaire anxious to get away from the Seattle rain.
“Yep. They’re bringing the horse by next weekend. I guess he’s a little wild.” Anyway, that was the impression she’d gotten when the proud new owner had described him to her.
“How old is he?”
“Nine.”
Gramps cocked an eyebrow at her. “Kind of old to rehab.”
Shelby just shrugged and untied the paint mare. “I’ll evaluate him.”
