“A rancher with attorneys in L.A.” Ron laughed.
“His wife is the lead writer forWarriors and Warlocks,” Parker replied quietly. “Mr. Denton owns Drayco Properties.”
Even Ron had heard of those. It was one of the biggest conglomerates of oil and gas property in the country.
“He also likes horses,” Parker added. He looked down at Teddie. “You get your mother to sign Bart over to me, and I’ll do the rest.” He glanced at Ron. “I don’t mind a good fight.”
He was insinuating that Ron would run from one. And Ron knew it. His face flushed. “I could win the case if I wanted to,” he said.
“We all need to calm down,” Katy said, glancing from one heated expression to the next. “Let’s sleep on it and talk again tomorrow.”
Parker bent and dropped a kiss on Teddie’s hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll save Bart. One way or another,” he added, with a cool glance at Ron and an even cooler one at Katy. He went out, with Teddie right behind him.
“You need to keep that man away from your daughter,” Ron told Katy firmly. “He’s using her to get to you.”
But it didn’t look that way to Katy. Parker had barely glanced at her on his way out, the sort of impassive expression you might expect from a total stranger. It had hurt. She’d felt guilty about her closeness to Parker and he’d backed off. Asking Ron out here had been the last straw, and she could see it. Parker thought she was serious about Ron, especially after he’d witnessed that impassioned kiss.
Ron approached her, but she backed away.
“I’m not interested in you that way, Ron,” she said firmly. “I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I was. I honestly thought you meant it when you said if I ever needed help, you’d come.”
“Of course, I meant it,” he protested.
“So you talked to the horse’s owner, without telling me, and offered to have Bartholomew put down, knowing that I got you out here because my daughter loves the horse and wants to save him.”
Ron cleared his throat. “I prefer negotiation to a stand-up fight.”
“Oh, I can see that negotiation is certainly more preferable. It would have been a great solution when my great-great-grandfather was fighting off cattle rustlers up in Montana, negotiating with people pointing loaded guns at him.” Her eyes were sparking now.
“Nobody rustles cattle anymore,” he argued.
“Yes, they do. They use transfer trucks instead of horses, but they still use guns.”
“Barbarians,” he muttered.
Her eyes went over his expensive suit, his styled, neat hair, and his expensive jewelry. And she found that she infinitely preferred Parker’s simple denims and long hair.
“Barbarians,” she mused. She smiled. “That’s what you think Parker is.”
He wrinkled his nose.
“You should never judge people by the way they look,” she said.
He made a rough sound in his throat. “I’m going back to my motel. I’ll see you tomorrow. By then, hopefully you and that rude child will have come to your senses. Good evening.”
She held the door open for him and watched him drive away in his expensive rented car.
She walked out to the stable to find Teddie still grooming Bart, tears running down her cheeks. Parker had already gone.
“Teddie,” she began.
Her daughter looked at her with eyes that were red with tears and disappointment and anger. She put Bart back into his stall and put up the grooming tool.
“Daddy would be ashamed of you,” Teddie said simply. She walked out of the stable and left her mother to turn off the lights.
Teddie didn’t come out for supper. Her door stayed locked.
Katy was miserable. She shouldn’t have listened to Ron. He was part of another world, another mindset. And yes, her late husband would have fought Bart’s former owner to the Supreme Court, if he’d needed to. But he would have saved Teddie’s horse. Even Parker fought for her, which was more than Katy had done.