At Close Range. Marilyn Tracy

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СКАЧАТЬ He bent over, a hand on his chest, another on one knee.

      “El hombre stopped the horse for me,” Juan Carlos said, but didn’t let go of Mack’s jeans. Corrie knew how he felt. Her own legs gave way about then and she sat down in the dirt, one hand on Juan Carlos’s shoulder and the other on the toe of Mack Dorsey’s tennis shoe.

      “His name is Mr. Mack Dorsey,” Corrie said faintly. “And you better say a very good thank-you.”

      Juan Carlos looked up. “Thank you, señor. But you made me fall off the horse.”

      Corrie gave a ragged chuckle that was all too close to a sob. “Not quite good enough, Juan Carlos. Try again.”

      “Thank you for getting in the way of my horse, Señor Mack.”

      “J-Juan Carlos!” Jorge sputtered. “You get up right now and say you’re sorry.” After some effort, the older man stood upright and took the reins from Mack’s hands. “I’ll take the horse now, señor. Thank God you were here.”

      The two men clasped hands and Mack withstood a hard backslap from Jorge before leaning over to shake Juan Carlos’s upstretched hand.

      “Take it easy, kid,” Mack said.

      “You, too, Señor Mack.”

      Corrie looked up to find Mack’s eyes on her, a crooked smile on his lips. He held out a scarred hand.

      She put hers in his, felt the smooth skin enveloping hers, let him pull her up, smelled the dust the horse had kicked up, and smelled her own fear and the heady, all-male scent of Mack Dorsey.

      She nodded at him. He nodded back.

      She smiled and he didn’t.

      She drew a deep, tremulous breath. “The sooner you can bring your things, the better,” she said.

      Then he smiled.

      Chapter 2

      If Mack was surprised that everyone shared evening meals together at Rancho Milagro, the others seemed to find it perfectly normal. Within seconds of his entering the hacienda for a second time that day, he was subjected to a rapid-fire introduction to the rest of the household.

      He nodded at the awesomely tall and gorgeous Leeza Nelson, whom he’d spoken to on the phone when he first applied for the job. Leeza was only on the ranch for a short time, Corrie had told him earlier; she had to go back to Washington, D.C., to run her company. He also nodded to Jeannie, another of the partners, and Chance Salazar, her U.S. Marshal husband, and raised a hand to their two kids, Dulce and José. He was reintroduced to Juan Carlos—much improved by soap and water—the ranch hands, Clovis, Jorge and Pablo, and four other children ranging in age from six to eleven whom he didn’t have names for yet.

      Places were set at the enormous table in the dining room. Only a couple of the chairs were without mats, plates and silverware. Three large pitchers of iced tea with lemons and ice bobbing to the surface served as centerpieces and the cloth napkins adorning each plate all held a different shape.

      The housekeeper, Rita—a tiny stick of a woman in her forties—plopped the last dish down on an enormous sideboard before taking a place at the table herself and heaving a huge sigh. “Señors, señoras, and niños…dinner is ready.”

      Mack expected the kids to launch from the table and attack the sideboard, but no one moved. Finally, Jeannie held out her hands on either side, clasping her husband’s in one and her daughter Dulce’s in the other. “Grace,” she said. “Juan Carlos? I believe it’s your turn.”

      Mack couldn’t remember the last time he’d been a party to saying grace before dinner—some long-ago Thanksgiving when he was just a little squirt, he suspected—and felt awkward taking the little girl’s hand seated next to him and Corrie’s on the other. Corrie’s was dry and warm; the little girl’s scrubbed and slightly damp. While Corrie’s fingers pulsed and trembled beneath his, the little girl’s fingers squeezed his hand, as if offering reassurance, or—in his opinion, far worse—trust.

      He bowed his head with the others when Jeannie signaled Juan Carlos to perform the blessing.

      The boy cleared his throat and sang out a version of grace he’d obviously been practicing. “Thanks for the tacos, thanks for the beans, and thank you, God, for my blue jeans!”

      Mack wasn’t the only one who chuckled. And to his combined surprise and relief, no one reprimanded the boy. The little girl, whose hand had rested so trustingly in his, removed it to cover her giggles.

      Jeannie’s husband, Chance, gave a sharp bark of laughter, followed by deep chortles. Leeza muttered something and, shaking her head, hid a grin that threatened to soften her somewhat forbidding features. Jeannie tsked but smiled fondly at the kid whose gift for rhyme might not meet a holier person’s standards.

      But Corrie’s reaction was the best, he thought. She bit her lower lip while giving the boy a slow, deliberate wink, as if they’d cooked up the crazy blessing together. And when the boy gave her a cocky thumbs-up, Mack realized that they had. No wonder miracles happened around this place.

      When she glanced at him, and recognized by his answering look that he’d caught her coaching, she flushed a little, shrugged, and by tilting her head at Juan Carlos, let him understand that she didn’t want him to say anything. Mack remembered her conspiratorial smile earlier that afternoon. Before the bucking horse episode, prior to her offering him the job, when she’d asked him why he wanted to be at Rancho Milagro, and, at his answer of wanting to be a part of the miracles, she had hunched forward, guileless, conspiratorial, and said “Me, too.”

      The little girl next to him leaned against him, still giggling, sharing her laughter in her shaking shoulders. He resisted the urge to place his arm around her. Corrie’s wish of teacher-cum-kindly-uncle might be her dream, but in the real world of lawsuits and traumas, a simple touch could so easily be misconstrued. Still, the little girl pressed against his arm and rested her forehead on his forearm. He couldn’t help but chuckle at her helpless laughter. And for a fleeting moment, wondered how long it had been since he’d laughed.

      “Okay, tonight, even though we have a newcomer, kids get to go first,” Jeannie said. “And Juan Carlos? Keep your fingers away from the alarm.”

      Seven chairs, including the one next to his, scraped across broad, burnt-sienna-colored Saltillo tile and seven giggling children raced to the sideboard.

      “Chance? Would you pour the wine? Thanks, honey. So, Mack, what do you think so far?” Jeannie asked him over the children’s clamor and clanking of serving utensils.

      Mack accepted the glass of wine from an openly smiling Chance, and nodded at the kids. “I’m intrigued,” he said.

      “Good,” Jeannie said, and put her hand over her own empty wineglass and grinned up at her husband. “Can’t, remember?”

      Chance kissed her and lowered a hand to caress her neck. “Worth it?” he asked.

      “Every minute,” she said, taking his hand to kiss it.

      Mack felt riveted by the overt love in their eyes. He’d read one of the tabloid accounts of the undercover marshal and the ranch owner falling in love, the first of the long string СКАЧАТЬ