Page 63 of Runaway Hucow

“You told me part of it. You told me about how you became a minotaur, and you told me about Granny Walker, but there’s something you left out.” She finished wrapping the bandage and sat back in her chair. “When you told me how Spike wanted to make babies with me, you said you’d had the same idea once. You said you weren’t going to let Spike make the same mistakes as you.”

Roscoe grunted. He could feel the wound reopening. Not the one in his leg. The other one. The old one.

For a good long while, he didn’t say anything, but the little hucow stayed in her chair, and she kept right on looking at him, waiting for him to speak. At last, he scooted his butt down to the end of the table and sat with his hooves dangling over the edge.

“There was another hucow,” he said. “A long time ago. She wasn’t a bison hucow, she was domesticated, like you. I stole her from a farm a little ways north of Crooked Valley and brought her back here to live with me. I reckon I didn’t even really care so much about making babies. Truth be told, I was just lonesome. Spike was still a calf back then, and Peyton hadn’t even been born yet. I had Granny Walker and the other members of the Walker clan to keep me company, but I didn’t have a woman. I didn’t have a mate.”

Beside him, the little hucow started to lean forward like she was going to touch him, but then she pulled back. He went on.

“I thought I could give her a good life here in this valley. She had a roof to keep the rain off her head, and all the good green grass she could ever want to eat. And best of all, there was always plenty of work to be done—chopping wood, mending fences, watching over the herd. Work is good. It’s what gives a body a purpose. And without a purpose, well… why even be alive?”

Roscoe sighed and shook his head.

“But my hucow didn’t agree. One morning, I woke up and she was gone. At first, I thought someone had come and taken her away, but kidnappers would have left tracks, and the only tracks I could see were her own. We had a few horses back then, and she had taken one of them and run away during the night. I followed her, but she had a head start on me, and I wasn’t able to catch up with her before she made it back to the hucow farm.”

“She went back to the place you’d stolen her from?” Tess asked. “On purpose?”

Roscoe nodded. “That night I broke in and found her. I was going to take her away again, but she didn’t want to come with me. She said she would rather live on the farm than live with me. She said I was too hard on her. She said life here in the valley was too rough.”

“But she was free!” Tess protested angrily.

“That’s what I said, but I guess she didn’t care for my brand of freedom. The hucow farm where she lived wasn’t as bad as some of the others. The farmers didn’t abuse her, and she never had to work. All she had to do was eat and sleep and get milked every couple of days. I guess that was preferable to being mated to a mean old minotaur like me.”

Tess didn’t say anything, but her expression was troubled. Roscoe wished he hadn’t told her so much, but it was too late now to take it back.

“Anyway,” he said. “That’s my story. I reckon we’re even now.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

He nodded toward his bandaged leg. “Thank you for getting the bullet out and stitching me up. You did a good job.”

“Thank you for saving me from those men.” Her voice was soft, and she was blushing lightly. She looked pretty when she did that. Real pretty. “I suppose we’re even on that account too.”

Roscoe just grunted at that. He remembered the way he had felt a few hours before when he’d seen those riders carrying Tess away from him. The rage that had filled him then had been overwhelming. Roscoe was no stranger to anger, but this anger had burned with a different kind of heat. It had nothing to do with protecting the secrecy of the valley. It had everything to do with protecting the hucow.

His hucow. His and his brothers’.

Roscoe’s eyes locked with Tess’s, and he suddenly had the strangest feeling that he could read her thoughts. She was thinking back to the day before, when he had stood in the meadow and watched her mating with Spike and Peyton beneath the shade of the cottonwood tree. His brothers hadn’t seen him watching, but the hucow had, and she was thinking about it now. Roscoe wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he did.

She blushed harder and darted her eyes away.

“Um, you’ll need to keep your weight off that leg for a while,” she said. “I’ll, uh… I’ll go see if there’s something in Peyton’s workshop you can use for a crutch.”

Roscoe started to tell her that wasn’t necessary, but then he changed his mind.

“I’ll stay here and rest for a spell,” he said.

Once the hucow was outside, he immediately stood up and walked to the window to watch her. His wounded leg still hurt like a bitch, but he barely even felt the pain. All his attention was focused on the little hucow and her swaying backside. His cock went rigid with arousal as he watched her, and it stayed that way, even after she had disappeared inside the barn.

She was lying about going to look for a crutch. Or at least she only telling half the truth. Roscoe was an old hand at sniffing out a lie, and the hucow didn’t have much of a poker face. There was some other reason she had wanted to go out to the barn by herself.

Maybe he should just let it slide. He’d already driven one hucow away with his hard ways, and this time around, his brothers’ hearts were in the mix too.

But he couldn’t let it slide. He just couldn’t. As the man of the house, it was his duty to mete out discipline.

His belt was lying on the floor by the table where he had dropped it after Tess had finished getting the bullet out of him. He picked it up, folded the leather strap in half, and gave it a good hard snap. Then he went outside and started walking toward the barn.

CHAPTER 32