Page 52 of Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride

“The ground’s uneven. There are loose stones. Smart to slow down. Gives the horses a breather, too,” Maria said. She slowed just enough to allow more space between her and Miguel, so theycould talk in private. “You’ve met my whole family now. Well, exceptin’ the Oklahoma crew. I’m dying to meet yours, too, but this mornin’, my only thought was keepin’ ’em safe. I mean it.”

He rode up beside her when the trail widened. It was still littered with boulders, but he did fine, giving Thelma her head and letting her pick her way through.

“I know that,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just… I want to make sure you know that my family isn’t the only obstacle.

“There’s your career,” she said, nodding slowly. “The one you think can only happen at some ivy league, yankee school.”

“I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“And I don’t want to be hurt. But… Jeeze, Harry, my aunt Taylor heads up the Archeology Department at a university only a half-hour’s drive from here. And Baxter’s doin’ his research at another, even bigger school, same distance, opposite direction. You can have a career anywhere.”

“I don’t know if I have a careerleft.”

“That’s crazy talk. Anyone smart enough to come up with what you did is smart enough to do it again. Heck, you’ll probably do something even bigger and better next time.”

“I can’t even think about next time until I get this time ironed out.”

“You know what I think?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I think, even if you’d sold your solar tile for a gazillion dollars, you’d have gone on to invent something else. It’s your art.”

“My art.” He smiled over at her, and she noticed how good he looked in that hat she’d bought him. “I’ve never thought of it as art before.”

“It’s creative, it’s brilliant, it’s destined to change the world, and it’s what you were born to do. If that’s not art, what is?” She reached toward him, and he reached back. They joined hands as the trail approached an open plain where wild roses grew. “I think you’ll create more no matter where you call home, and Ithink it’ll happen whether you get your tile back or not.” Then she frowned and said, “Did you get hold of your sister? You haven’t told me what she said.”

“She hasn’t replied yet,” he said.

She nodded, looked ahead, where Miguel had already nudged his horse into a canter.

“This is the north pasture,” she said several minutes later. Longhorns grazed, and ranch hands were gathered in a huddle around the fallen cow. She was white with red freckles. The hands’ horses were tethered a few yards away.

“Is that aroad?”Harry sounded surprised as he gazed just beyond the farthest edge of the pasture.

“The Texas Brand is huge,” Maria replied. “This is one of three public roads that run through it. North Brand Lane.” She dismounted, took one of the cases from a saddlebag and then went to kneel beside the cow. The hands dissipated, leaving only her, Harry, and Jake, the leather-faced foreman. “Trevor’s a few minutes back,” Maria said. “Did she collapse, or…?”

“I darted her,” Jake said from beneath a dusty hat. Maria could not remember a time when he hadn’t been foreman.

There was a rag tied around the cow’s hind leg. Maria checked to be sure she was breathing okay, listened to her heart, affixed an elastic tourniquet near the wound, tying it tight, then untied the rag. Blood welled immediately. She tightened the band, and it stopped. Good, good. She turned to fetch the bigger bag, but Harry was behind her, kneeling with it already unzipped. “What do you need, doc?”

“The saline— looks like a bottle of water.”

He handed her a large bottle of saline solution, and she rinsed the cut. As she dabbed blood away, cleaned out every particle, disinfected, and finally stitched each wound together, Harry remained nearby. He was quick to hand her whatever she asked for, providing she used a descriptive term rather than itsofficial name. Their hands touched every time he passed her anything. The first time, accidentally. But after that he did it on purpose, and then she returned like for like. Like a lovers’ game, woven into her work. And yet, they were not lovers. Not yet.

She wanted them to be.

When she finished the stitches, she sprayed the wound in Blu-Kote. “She needs to be isolated and watched, in case the wolf was rabid.”

“What if it was?” Harry asked.

“She’s vaccinated. But it’s not 100%. We just need to wait and see.”

“No bandage?” Harry asked.

“No, that blue stuff protects it. You can’t keep a bandage on a cow.” She turned to Jake. “Get a trailer out here to haul her to the barn. And have the men watch for predators. That was a bite. Something grabbed her from behind.”

“We already found it,” Jake said. He nodded toward a skin-and-bones canine lying dead a few feet away.

“You killed it?” she asked.

“Cow did,” Jake replied with an admiring look at the unconscious animal. “She kicked and stomped it. Crushed the skull.”

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