Page 54 of Knox
Old. Safe. And now Nice.
He didn’t have anything of nice in him at the moment as he thought of her—fourteen years old—beaten…yeah, he needed to get outside and hit something.
She turned to the television screen, draping her legs over the padded arm of the recliner.
They watched the rest of the game in silence, not one moment of his attention on the game.
One minute before the buzzer, the Blue Ox scored. It barely registered, but he tried to cover it up, turning to her for a high-five.
Her eyes were closed, her body rising and falling in the rhythm of deep slumber.
He watched for a moment, a little forbidden pleasure of seeing her pretty lashes on her face, the slightest smattering of freckles on her nose. The pretty mouth. He got up and grabbed the gold knitted afghan from the end of the sofa and draped it over her.
Old. Safe. Nice.
Whatever. He sighed. Then he pumped down the volume, turned off the light, and slowly crept from the room.
But for the first time in a decade, Knox decided that Tate the troublemaker had done something right.
7
Apparently, Kelsey could be healed with a glass of fresh milk, homemade cookies, late-night hockey, and the endless landscape of western Montana. By days filled with nothing but wide-open spaces redolent with the smell of lavender, fescue and even cattle. Massive beasts that looked at her under heavy-lashed eyes.
Who knew? She could have saved thousands in counseling.
Over the past three days, she’d spent more than a little time in the barn, watching Knox bottle-feed the bull calf.
No, watching Knox.
He talked about the ranch and his brothers, his sisters, one actually a foster sister from Russia, named Coco. Introduced her to Gordo, Hot Pete’s sire.
Told her the sad news about Hot Pete.
At night, after the house became quiet, she wandered downstairs to join him for late-night television. Usually hockey, but after last night’s game, he flipped to the Cowboy Channel.
Wouldn’t you know it, Hoss, Little Joe, and Adam walked onto the screen like they’d been expecting her. She fell asleep to Ben Cartwright’s wise voice.
And Knox’s steady presence. He tiptoed out every night, sometime after he covered her with the gold afghan, left the television light on, the sound muted, as if he knew she might be afraid of the dark.
She had never slept so hard as she did in the recliner. After the first night, she tilted it back, found it to be worn in all the right places, the velour cozy and soft and…oh, who was she kidding?
Knox was the reason she dropped off to oblivion without a whimper.
Safe. Nice. Knox.
Although why she’d called him old, she didn’t know. It had stuck out in her mind, despite being a casual remark. Maybe she’d meant…safe. Or responsible. Because he wasn’t old—only four years older than herself, something she discovered when she asked Glo how old Tate was and did the math. According to her calculations, Knox was barely 30 to Tate’s 28.
Which meant he wasn’t old at all, a fact confirmed when she saw him yesterday wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt as he tagged and vaccinated new calves in the yard behind the house.
His muscled chest stretched out his shirt, and he was strong and agile when he chased calves down, separated them from the cows, and pushed the mamas out of the way when they bellowed.
She liked how he knew his way around animals without hurting them.
She’d add noble to her list, probably.
She sat on the rail while he talked about the different aspects of their ranch, from the cow-calf business, to the beef business, to the bucking business. Clearly, he possessed the mind of a man who had breathed ranching his entire life.
But definitely not old.