Palomino by Danielle Steel Page A

good night, and walked slowly back to the big house, where Bill King was talking to Caroline. They stopped when she came in.
    “Hello, Bill … Caro.” She smiled at them both. “Am I interrupting something?” She looked embarrassed for a moment, but they were both quick to shake their heads.
    “Of course not, dear.” Caroline kissed her and Bill King picked up his hat and got up.
    “I’ll be seein’ you tomorrow, ladies.” He was quick to leave them and Samantha sprawled out on the couch with a sigh.
    “Hard day?” Caroline looked at her gently as she lay there. She herself hadn’t ridden all week. She and Bill still had a lot of paperwork to do before year’s end, and there were only two weeks left in which to do it. She’d at least have to get out and ride Black Beauty one of these days before he became totally wild, but she didn’t really even have time for that. “Are you very tired, Sam?” Caroline looked sympathetic.
    “Tired? Are you kidding? After sitting at a desk for all these years? I’m not tired. I’m broken. If Josh didn’t drag me off that horse every night, I’d probably have to sleep out there.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    “Worse.” The two women laughed and the Mexican woman who helped Caroline with the cleaning andcooking signaled from the kitchen. Dinner was ready. “Mmm, what is it?” Samantha wrinkled her nose happily on the way into the big handsomely done country kitchen.
    “Enchiladas, chiles rellenos, tamales.… All my favorites, I hope some of them are yours.”
    Samantha smiled at her happily. “After a day like that you could feed me cardboard, as long as there was lots of it, with a bath and a bed at the end of the meal.”
    “I’ll remember that, Samantha. Otherwise how’s it going? Everyone being civil to you, I hope?” She furrowed her brows as she asked the question, and Samantha nodded and smiled.
    “Everyone’s perfectly pleasant.” But there was a tiny catch in her voice and Caroline was quick to hear it.
    “Except?”
    “No
except’s.
I don’t think Tate Jordan and I will ever be best friends, but he’s perfectly civilized. I just don’t think he approves of what he calls ‘sometime riders.’”
    Caroline looked amused. “Probably not. He is an odd sort. In some ways he thinks like a rancher, but he’s perfectly happy to break his back working on the ranch. He is the last of the real thing. Real cowboys, the hard-riding, hardworking, down-to-the-core ranchman who would die for the ranchers he works for and do anything he could to save the ranch. He’s a good man to have here, and one day,” she sighed softly, “he’ll be the right man to step into Bill’s shoes. If he stays.”
    “Why wouldn’t he? He has a hell of a nice life here. You’ve always provided your men with more comforts than anyone else.”
    “Yes.” She nodded slowly. “And I’ve never beenconvinced that that mattered to them as much as I thought it should. They’re a funny breed. Almost everything they do is a matter of pride and honor. They’ll work for one man for nothing because they feel they owe him or because he’s done right by them, and then leave someone else because they feel they should. It’s impossible to predict what any of them will do. Even Bill. I never even fully know with him what he’s going to do.”
    “It must be quite something to try and run a ranch like that.”
    “It’s interesting.” Caroline smiled. “Very interesting.” And then suddenly she noticed Samantha glancing at her watch. “Something wrong, Sam?”
    “No.” Sam looked suddenly strangely quiet. “It’s six o’clock.”
    “Yes?” For a moment Caroline didn’t understand and then she did. “The news broadcast?” Samantha nodded. “Do you watch it every night?”
    “I try not to.” The look of pain was back in Sam’s eyes as she said it. “But in the end I always do.”
    “Do you think you ought to?”
    “No.” Slowly Samantha shook her head.
    “Do you