Wyoming Tough - Diana Palmer [28]
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 SERIES of 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.
Morie had heard all about her parents’ romance. King and Shelby had been enemies from their earliest acquaintance. She and his brother, Danny, had been good friends who went out together on a strictly platonic basis. Then Danny had asked Shelby to pretend to be engaged to him, and he’d taken her home to Skylance. King had been eloquent in his antagonism to the match. It had provoked him into truly indefensible treatment of Shelby, for which he was later very sorry. Shelby, remembering, said that King had treated her like a princess from the day they married, trying to make up to her for all his former harsh treatment and rough words. He’d changed so much that Shelby often wondered if he was the same man she’d known in the beginning, she told her daughter.
“I can’t picture Dad being mean to you.” Morie had laughed. “He brings you flowers and chocolates all the time, buys you something every time he goes out of town, lavishes you with beautiful jewelry, takes you to Paris shopping….”
“Yes, he’s the most wonderful husband any woman could ask for, now,” Shelby had replied, smiling. “But you didn’t know him before.” She shook her head. “It was a very difficult courtship. He was hurt by another relationship and he took it out on me.” She sighed, smiling at some secret memory. “I was showing a Western collection in New York during Fashion Week when he turned up in the audience. He picked me up and carried me out of the building. I was kicking and protesting, but he never missed a step.”
Morie burst out laughing. “I can imagine Dad doing something like that,” she remarked.
Shelby sighed, her eyes dreamy. “We had coffee and a misunderstanding. He took me back