Page 27 of Wyoming Tough

WHENCANE AND THE BOSScame back, she was riding out to check the fence line.

“You keep that music box in your pocket and those earphones out of your ears while you’re out alone, got that?” Mallory ordered abruptly.

She knew without asking that Tank had told him how he found her moving the broken tree limb. She grimaced. “Okay, boss.”

“What sort of music do you like?” Cane asked conversationally.

“Every sort,” she said with a grin. “Right now my favorite is the soundtrack fromAugust Rush.”

His eyebrows arched. “Nice. Tank loves it, too. He bought the score. He’s still trying to master it.”

“Dalton plays?” she blurted out. She flushed and laughed when Mallory stared at her. “I noticed the grand piano in the living room. I wondered who played it.”

“Tank’s good,” Cane said, smiling. He nodded toward Mallory. “He plays, too. Of course, he’s mostly tone-deaf, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.”

“I can play better than Tank,” Mallory said, insulted.

“Not to hear him tell it,” Cane observed.

“We got the fence fixed,” Mallory told her. His eyes narrowed. “You should never have tried to move that limb by yourself.” He was looking pointedly at the scratch on her cheek.

She touched it self-consciously. “It only grazed me. I heal quickly.”

“Even I would have called somebody to help me,” Mallory persisted.

Her eyebrows arched. “Aren’t you the same man who tried to lift the front end of a parked car to move it when it was blocking the barn?” she asked with a bland smile.

He glared down at her. “I would usually have called somebody to help me. I’m the boss. You don’t question what I do…you just do what I say.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” she replied.

“And stop giggling,” he muttered.

Her eyebrows arched. “I wasn’t!”

“You were, inside, where you thought I couldn’t hear it. But I can hear it.”

She pursed her lips. “Okay.”

He shook his head. “Let’s go,” he told his brother.

But Cane didn’t follow. He was still looking at Morie with eyes that saw more than Mallory’s did. “You know, you look very familiar to me,” he said, frowning slightly. “I think I’ve seen you before, somewhere.”

She’d had that very same feeling when she first met Cane. But she didn’t remember him from any of her father’s gatherings. However, he might have been with one of the cattlemen’s groups that frequently toured Skylance to view King Brannt’s exquisite Santa Gerts. She wasn’t sure. It made her nervous. She didn’t want Cane to remember where he’d seen her, if he had.

“I just have that kind of face, I expect,” she said, assuming an innocent expression. “They say we all have a counterpart somewhere, someone who looks just like us.”

“That might be true.” He paused for a moment. “What you did—getting the horse saddled for me—that was kind. I’m sorry I was so harsh.”

“It was nothing. Besides, I’m used to harsh. I work for him.” She pointed toward Mallory.

“One more word and you’re a memory,” Mallory retorted, but his lips twitched upward at the corners.

She laughed and went back to work.

THAT NIGHT, THEY HAD A SERIESof old movies on one of the classic channels, starring Morie’s grandmother, Maria Kane. It was fascinating to watch her work, to see flashes of Shelby Kane and even herself in that beautiful, elfin face and exquisite posture.

“I wish I’d known you,” she whispered to the television screen. But Maria had died even before Shelby married Kingston Brannt. In fact, her funeral had been the catalyst that convinced King he couldn’t live without Shelby.

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