- -
- 100%
- +
She detected a note of displeasure in his manner, but hadn’t a clue to what bothered him. “Uh, who takes care of the campers? And the store?”
He shrugged. “We use the honor system. It seems to work okay most of the time.”
“I can probably handle the herd—”
“You don’t know where it is.”
“I’m good at directions.”
He studied her long enough to start the qualms to churning. He didn’t have a lot of faith in her abilities. She met his gaze dead-on, determined to show him she could hold her own against any male wrangler.
“Do you always argue with the boss?” he demanded.
She’d asked for that one. “Not always.” She kept her tone neutral.
“Just most of the time,” he muttered, then he smiled. “The rooms look nice. It’s time for lunch. We’ll eat, then hit the trail.”
“I’ll need a mount.”
“You’ll need two for the country we’ll be traveling. The horses should be rested enough to leave around one o’clock.”
She nodded as a trill of excitement pinged around inside her like an echo in a box canyon. Actually she’d only herded animals a few times in her youth and at the rodeos where she’d usually helped with the bucking broncos.
No need to tell him that. Cattle were just critters. She could handle critters.
Jonah closed the safe and spun the cylinders. He’d bought the relic at his cousin’s shop last year. Wells Fargo was still visible in faded gold letters on the front. It suited the resort’s needs perfectly.
He liked things that fit in, that made sense in the grand scheme of life as he saw it. He was pretty sure the new wrangler didn’t fit any mold.
As a former orphan, she might not appreciate the intimacy of long winter days snowed in, just the two of them at the lodge when hunting season ended. You could get to know a person extremely well in those circumstances.
However, Keith and his family did come over if the weather got too bad to stay at their place. That added some diversity to the winter nights. After the new year began, the snowmobile and winter hiking crowd would show up.
She might not like that, either, he admitted. He’d already deduced that she preferred being around animals more than people. Interesting. In his experience, women loved any excuse to go to town and gossip with friends.
He wondered if she was running from something…or someone. Zack Dalton was the assistant sheriff. He could ask the lawman to check out her credentials.
A smile tweaked the seriousness of his thoughts. One thing—the lady could cook. On a lot of ranches that would be enough to keep her at all costs.
He headed outside and spotted her at the fence. She had two cowponies saddled and two on leads. The rain gear and food packets he’d prepared after lunch were already tied behind the saddles or on the spare mounts.
“You’re efficient,” he commented.
“One learns to be.”
“In the orphanage?”
“At the rodeo. You have to move things along for the shows. Broncos and bulls aren’t always cooperative.”
Her smile was brief, but intriguing as it hinted at memories of her past. He refrained from questions.
“Your horses are very well trained,” she finished.
“Most of them are retired cutting horses. Our neighbors, the Daltons raise and train some of the best. Keith and I buy the ones that are getting a bit long in the tooth.”
“An old-age home for horses,” she murmured. “I like that.” She patted her mount’s neck.
He noted she had her gloves on, but no chaps. “You’ll need chaps to get through some of the brush. There’re extra pairs in the tack room.”
She nodded and hurried to the stable. The tack room took up a space the size of a stall at one end. She returned in less than two minutes, the leather chaps outlining her body.
Watch it, he warned his libido as she swung up into the saddle, her lithe, slender body moving with sensuous ease. She was the hired hand and way, way off-limits to anything that might come to mind.
He glanced at the lofty mountain peaks surrounding the ranch. At present, there were only a couple of lingering ridges of last year’s snow on the highest peak. The first snow of the current season hadn’t fallen yet, but when it did, they could be snowed in for days at the lodge.
The question on his mind wasn’t whether she could take it, but whether he could.
Startled, he glanced around as he headed across the pasture to a trail bordering a steep hill. She was gazing back at the main house as if memorizing the place.
Her T-shirt fit snugly across her chest, revealing the outlines of her bra and her small, pert breasts.
His blood surged with heat. This, he admitted wryly, wasn’t the first time he’d been around a female wrangler, but it was the first time he’d reacted to one with intense male-to-female interest.
At thirty-four, he was sure of his control. After all, he’d been around beautiful women in abundance in New York, from top models in their fields to self-assured actresses and businesswomen to fresh-faced new talent just off the farm. He’d dealt with all of them as fairly and impartially as possible, looking only at their suitability for the job at hand. Or for a pleasant evening or weekend, no strings attached. He’d made sure his companions agreed with that philosophy. Marriage wasn’t part of the package.
Following the new wrangler’s gaze as she faced west and studied the famous mountains, he wondered if another snowbound winter on the ranch would change his mind. He smiled sardonically at the thought.
Chapter Three
Mary inhaled the balsam-scented air and decided she could stay here in this one place forever.
“Ready?” Jonah asked, rising from the boulder where he’d taken his rest. He tucked the remainder of the trail mix packet into his shirt pocket and took a swig of water from a plastic bottle.
“Yes,” she said, also getting to her feet. She’d gobbled down all her snack as soon as they’d taken a break. She was still hungry, she realized.
“Hold still,” he ordered.
She froze.
He smacked her on the back of her thigh, a glancing blow that startled her.
“What—” she began.
“A tick. You have to watch for them if you’re going to sit on a log. Turn around. Slowly.”
She followed his directions.
“Okay, I don’t see any others.”
Creepy-crawly sensations ran over her skin. She brushed vigorously at the back of her jeans, down her legs, then along her shirtsleeves just to be sure the little buggers hadn’t hitched a ride in a fold of fabric.
“Makes you feel as if you have a thousand of ’em on you, doesn’t it?”
She looked up to find him grinning at her precautions and nodded. With an effort, she refrained from whipping her hat off, releasing her braids and running her fingers all over her scalp, which now felt under attack from unseen little beasties with a thousand legs each.
“You’re okay,” he assured her, then laughed as she felt along her neck.
They mounted and headed out again. She wondered how long they would follow the steep game trail through the silent forest. They’d been riding for more than an hour and had crossed two ridges.
The answer came when the downward path opened into a meadow nearly an hour later. A carpet of white and yellow fall flowers landscaped the area. Cattle dotted the land, munching on the sparse grass and abundant flowers.
“Ah,” her boss said, “there’s Keith.”
She spotted the lone cowboy circling the far side of the herd. He waved his hat to indicate he saw them, too, then urged his mount to a faster pace.
Jonah waved, then reined up in front of a cabin built on a hillock overlooking the five-acre meadow. He dismounted, tied his two cowponies to a tree and indicated she should do the same.
“Are we spending the night here?” she asked, perusing the cabin which couldn’t possibly be more than one room. Would it hold three people?
“You are,” Jonah answered as she dismounted and tied her horse and spare cowpony next to his.
“Hey,” Keith Towbridge called, arriving at the cabin. He dismounted and dropped the reins, leaving his horse ground-hitched a few feet from theirs. “Glad to see you guys,” he added, smiling at Jonah, then surveying her.
Mary held out her hand. “Mary McHale, the wrangler,” she introduced herself.
“Keith Towbridge,” he answered and shook hands. He turned to his partner. “Everything looks good around here. There’s a young bear over near the Dalton line shack. He’s ventured this way a couple of times, but he’s no problem.”
“Cats?” Jonah asked.
Keith shook his head. “No signs of any. One was spotted over at the canyon last week. Scared a couple of vacationers in their camp, but it seemed mostly curious.”
“What’s the count?” Jonah next asked.
“Fifty-two mamas, fifty-eight babies.”
“Better than last year,” her boss said in pleased tones.
Mary listened to the report while she sized up the two men. Keith was about her height and her age, she thought. He looked younger than Jonah, who she judged to be in his early to mid-thirties. A wedding band reminded her that Keith was married and had a son.
“I’m heading home for the night,” the younger man told them. “We have a dozen head of cattle there. Janis and I’ll bring them over tomorrow. You two staying here?”
Jonah shook his head. “I thought I’d head back since we have several campers checking out today and more in the morning. Mary can keep an eye on the herd while you bring in the other cattle tomorrow. I’ll be back in the afternoon or first thing Thursday morning to drive them down the valley.”
Keith gave his partner a sharp glance, then turned to her. “You okay with being here alone?”
Mary nodded. Actually she was relieved.
“There’s food and firewood in the cabin,” Keith told her. “Nothing will bother you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, smiling to show she wasn’t worried about the solitude.
“She prefers her own company,” Jonah informed his partner rather dryly.
“Actually I just like the quiet,” she said to Keith, ignoring Jonah and his conclusions about her.
“You’ll do,” Keith said with an approving grin at her and a speculative glance at Jonah. “See you tomorrow.”
She and Jonah watched him mount and head southwest. In a minute he disappeared into the trees. “Anything in particular I should know about the cattle?” she asked.
“No. Just keep an eye on them. There’s a creek near here. We’ll water the horses, then I’ll lay a fire in the stove and show you where everything is.”
She followed his example in caring for their mounts, leaving her ponies hobbled in the meadow with the herd while he switched his saddle to his spare. He went into the cabin.
Mary observed from the door while he laid pine cones, kindling and wood in the old-fashioned iron stove set on a hearth of field stones at one end of the cabin. “Matches,” he said, holding up the box to show her. After she nodded, he replaced them on the shelf mounted on the wall.
He pointed to one side of the wood stacked in a corner. “Old newspapers, in case you need them to get the fire started. Sometimes it’s hard to get the stovepipe to draw.”
“You have to heat the cold air to get an updraft going,” she said to let him know she understood how to start a blaze in the potbellied stove.
Two double bunks, stacked on opposite walls, offered resting places for four people, she noted.
“Blankets,” Jonah said, removing the top from a barrel. He tossed three of them on one of the bunkbeds. “There’s soup, crackers, a can opener.” He pointed out the items.
She nodded.
He eyed her for a minute, then told her to wait. He went outside, then returned with a pistol. “You won’t need this, but keep it handy anyway. Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?”
He raised one black eyebrow as if impatient with the question. “In case you need to scare off a nosy bear or mountain cat. Or a rustler or two.”
A frisson jolted down her spine. She hoped no one came around while she was there.
Jonah studied her again. “The idea of bears and pumas doesn’t seem to bother you, but having humans around does. Why is that?”
“Well, I’ve never shot anybody before,” she admitted.
“Have you ever fired a gun?”
“No.”
He gave a grunt that said he’d expected as much. Moving close, he showed her the pistol and how it worked. When he was satisfied she understood how to use the weapon, he laid it on the bunk with the blankets. “Keep it close. It won’t go off accidentally,” he added. “It has a heavy pull.”
She had a sudden image of a man holding a gun. Standing in the shadows, she’d watched while the man who might have been her father had jumped into his pickup and driven out of the parking lot, throwing gravel in an arc behind the tires.
The man with the gun had gone back inside the building while she stayed perfectly still so he wouldn’t see her. She’d remained behind the garbage cans when the door had closed behind him and finally fell asleep there, waiting for her father to come back for her.
“What is it?” a voice broke into her thoughts.
“What is what?” she asked.
“Are you scared to stay here?”
She shook her head. “I was just thinking of something. Something that happened a long time ago,” she said when he continued to observe her. She returned his stare, aware of defiance rising in her. “You’re looking at me the way one of my schoolteachers did, with that ‘I don’t know what you did, but I know you’re guilty’ expression.”
His piercing stare eased. “She must have been related to one of my teachers. She thought anybody with Indian blood must be up to no good.”
“You’re Native American?”
“An eighth. My scalping tendencies have been diluted to only a twinge now and then.”
She burst into laughter at the sarcastic remark.
“What?” he demanded.
“I tried to get a scalping party together once, but no one would join in. I wanted to shave off the principal’s hair the same as he did to new kids in the school.”
Mary stopped smiling as a mixture of emotion, too fast to read, swept over Jonah’s features. “That was a mean thing to do to kids,” he said.
“Yes, it was. But I suppose it was a cheap way to solve the problem.”
She stopped the words with an effort, aware of his keen gaze on her, assessing every nuance, every weakness she disclosed. She hated being the least bit vulnerable, but she couldn’t look away…couldn’t move…
He held her glance while he took one step closer. When he reached out and removed her hat, tossing it on one of the bunks without a glance, she remained where she was although everything in her said she should run…run.
With a deft touch, he removed the two long hairpins, then the stretchy band that held her braid securely.
“Don’t,” she said, but the word came out feeble, more like a gasp than a protest.
“It’s okay,” he said as if soothing an animal. “I just want to look. I won’t hurt you.”
She felt her hair fall around her shoulders and to a point at her waist as he loosened the thick strands. Finally he ran his fingers through the long mass from her scalp to the ends.
Like a rabbit too frightened to move, she stood there, heart pounding, while he looked his fill. When he removed her glasses and laid them on the rough wooden table behind him, she didn’t utter a sound.
“Beautiful,” he said, a note of wonder in his voice. He gathered a fistful of her hair in his hand.
Like the child she’d once been, she felt helpless while others scrutinized and talked about her as if she couldn’t hear their hurting, insulting words. Shards of old pain and anger swept through her. She knocked his hand away and took a defensive step backward.
He blinked as if coming out of a trance and muttered a low curse. “I’m sorry,” he at once apologized, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ve never touched an unwilling woman in my life.”
The anger in his eyes was real and directed at himself, she realized. With a stiff nod, she accepted the apology.
His frown smoothed out as he moved back, putting some distance between them. “I must admit I’ve never been mesmerized by a woman, either. That dark hair combined with those blue eyes is a stunning combination.”
She twisted the unkempt locks into a bun and crushed her hat over the lot before it could fall in unruly waves around her face. With her glasses in place, she felt safe once more.
“I can see why you hide behind those,” he said, his manner wise but sardonic at the same time. “Like the sirens calling to the Argonauts, no mere man can long withstand the temptation—”
“I’m not a siren,” she interrupted hotly. “I don’t try to attract anyone’s attention.”
“Honey, you don’t have to try,” he told her softly. With a shake of his head, he walked out the door, leaving it open as he left. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Mary went outside, tense and alert until he rode out of sight. He’d left his earlier mount hobbled with the other two horses. She wondered if he would have stayed the night had she been a cowboy instead of a cowgirl and if that odd episode hadn’t taken place inside the tight quarters of the cabin.
The tension eased out of her shoulders. Some instinct deep inside said that she could trust him. Over the years, she’d learned to rely on her instincts about a person.
Once it had saved her from one of the seedy men who always seemed to hang around the racetracks looking for a sure tip on a winner. He’d trapped her in a stall, but had backed away quick enough when she’d calmly faced him, sharp tines of a pitchfork pointing directly at him, and gave him a cool smile that said she would be delighted to run him through.
Taking a seat on a boulder as she perused the peaceful scene in the meadow, she laid her hat aside and massaged her scalp, her thoughts centered on the cabin and her boss.
His hands had been strong when he’d showed her how to fire the gun, his fingers lean and purposeful as he demonstrated the correct technique on the trigger. But he’d been so very gentle when he’d gathered her hair into his fist and brushed the ends against his chin.
Mixed emotions—longing, caution, old hurts—tangled into a knot in her belly. Leaping to her feet, she saddled her spare mount and rode around the meadow, moving the cattle into a closer bunch as twilight shadowed the landscape.
She wouldn’t be foolish, she vowed. She was never foolish. No one got to her, not now, not ever.
* * *
Jonah finished counting up the receipts and checked the total against the cash and credit card charges. They were the same. Good.
Yawning he closed out the accounting program on the computer, locked the safe, then went into the sun room adjoining the tiny office. After closing the curtains on the bank of windows that lined three walls, he undressed, showered in the tiny bathroom and was in bed by five after eleven.
Usually he fell asleep pretty fast, but tonight his mind stubbornly traveled down a path of its own choosing.
Mary McHale.Wrangler. Orphan. Self-sufficient loner. And one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.
A jolt in his heartbeat coupled with the warmth that poured down his body warned him of Danger with a capital D.
He didn’t want involvement of any kind, emotional or sexual. He’d been there, done that and got the broken heart to prove it.
Five years ago in New York he’d met another beautiful woman, but his dreams of them had been doomed from the start. She’d come from a small Southern town and had loved the bright lights of the city and the excitement to be found at any hour of the day or night. She’d spurned his offer of marriage and a simple life in the suburbs with two kids and a dog.
So much for romantic dreams, love conquers all and the rest of that fantasy. When the chance had come to leave the Big Apple and establish a life here in the back country, he’d done so without a second thought.
So why was he thinking of the past now?
Mary McHale. He’d seen her standing and staring at the western peaks as if her heart was impaled on those sharp points. She might think he ran an old-age home for cowponies, but he sure as hell wasn’t running a refuge for the walking wounded. Whatever her problems, they were her own, not his.
He gave a cynical snort. Life had a way of catching up with a person, though, and having the last laugh. He was attracted to her taut slenderness, the way she moved, going from one task to another with a calm efficiency that got things done.
And there was that unexpected sense of humor peeking impishly through the defensive poise. He liked that best of all. Before he went to sleep, he wondered again if she would stay through the winter.
“Hello-o-o.”
Mary went outside to see who had arrived. Keith Towbridge, a child in a cloth carrier on the saddle in front of him, entered the meadow from the trail through the trees. Another rider followed close behind. A woman. They drove a dozen cattle toward the herd.
“Hi,” Mary called. “You’re just in time for lunch.”
“Good. The monster is hungry,” the woman said with a smile. “I’m Janis. You must be Mary.”
“That’s right. Is this K.J.?”
“Yeah. Can you grab him?” Keith asked.
Before Mary quite grasped what was happening, the toddler had been thrust into her arms. She settled him on her left hip and gave him a smile. “Hey, little man.”
He stuck a finger in his mouth and stared at her with eyes that were starting to change from the universal baby-blue to green and brown shades.
Since the older kids had helped with the younger children at the orphanage, she had experience with the way a baby could level an unblinking stare at a person as if looking into one’s soul. She grinned and clicked her tongue at the child.
He grinned back and tapped her cheek with damp fingers.
Janis laughed as she dismounted and handed the reins to her husband. “The Daltons taught him that. They greet him with a high five all the time so he thinks he’s supposed to smack everyone he meets. My sister is married to Zack, so we see the whole gang frequently.”
Mary nodded politely. The Daltons were neighbors, Jonah had told her.
“You have any trouble with the cattle?” Keith asked after tying their horses in the shade.
“None. It was quiet around here.” She gestured to the cabin. “I’m heating soup. Would you like some?”
Both adults nodded. The baby waved his arms as if he approved the idea of eating, bringing laughter to the adults.
Mary carried him inside, then turned him over to his mom while she added another can of soup to the pan on the stove, set out crackers and opened two cans of Vienna sausage and two of mixed fruit to go with their meager fare.
Keith came inside carrying a diaper bag. Soon they were eating. Janis expertly spooned food into K.J., ate and talked at same time. She told Mary about the ranch house they were renovating and the funny things that happened with the city dudes who didn’t know one end of a horse from the other.
Keith confided to Mary, “Neither did she when I brought her to the ranch a year ago last spring.”
“I learned fast,” she declared. “You did,” he agreed.
His glance at Janis was pure adoration. It caused Mary’s heart to thump hard against her ribs. She didn’t think anyone had ever gazed at her like that.
“Tell her about your background,” he finished with a grin at his pretty wife, who had green eyes and light brown hair with blond streaks that Mary thought had really come from being out in the sun.
Janis wrinkled her nose. “My father’s a senator. He’s running for governor of the state. Since the election is in November, the race is heating up. You’ll see him on the local TV newscasts every night.”
“And his wife and two daughters every chance the reporters get to sneak in and film some footage,” Keith added.