“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he said at length. But instead of the understanding she had hoped for, skepticism tightened the lines around his brown eyes and wariness filmed the gaze he drilled into her before she looked away.
Reese Catlin was one pigheaded man! If he wanted to believe she was so desperate for a husband she would put herself through the rigors of a trail drive to catch one, that was his problem. She didn’t need his approval, only the three hundred dollars he would owe her in Wichita—or Fort Worth.
Andie had two objectives for the afternoon, which she intended to tackle with heart and soul—and mind. If she concentrated on her work, surely she could keep Reese Catlin off her mind. Away from him, her brain cleared and she recognized the perfidious nature of her problem—physical attraction, which she had no intention of allowing to get out of hand. She was, after all, a widow and a mother with an obligation to honor her dead husband and to rear her son accordingly.
But let Reese come within shouting distance and reason deserted her, leaving her with a tingling in her stomach and breathless anticipation in her chest. Neither was appropriate; both she vowed to conquer with an afternoon of hard work.
Her first objective, to fix bear sign, the cowboy’s term for doughnuts, required that she set the dough to rise early. That done, she undertook her second mission—freshening the chuck wagon. The cowboys’ wagon sheets and blankets, which they wrapped around their extra—make that dirty—clothes smelled to high heaven.
Everything wouldn’t get dry by nightfall, so she decided to tackle the clothing first. Climbing into the wagon, she began tossing bedrolls down to the boys.
“You can’t do that, ma’am,” Night Hawk objected.
“You didn’t learn as much as I would have thought in three years up the trail,” she observed with a smile.
“What’d you mean?”
She pitched him another bedroll. “The cook can do whatever she deems necessary for the welfare of her charges.”
Night Hawk eyed the bedrolls. “Charges or not, them boys ain’t gonna take kindly to you messin’ with their clothes.”
She pitched a bedroll down to Jordan. “They have mothers, don’t they?”
“Far’s I know, ma’am.”
She tossed him another set of bedding. “Their mothers must have washed their clothing.”
“I reckon.” By this time Night Hawk staggered beneath the weight. Andie jumped to the ground, picked up a wooden box filled with bar soap, and headed for the river, beckoning the two wide-eyed boys to follow.
Jordan struggled along on one side, Night Hawk on the other, the latter muttering, “Do what you like, ma’am, but I’m tellin’ you, they ain’t gonna like it.”
She did what she liked, rather, what she thought best. In order not to mix up the clothes, she spread each bedroll beneath a tree or bush where she could hang that man’s clothing.
“The boys like to choose their own sleepin’ spots,” Night Hawk fretted.
“They can move their bedrolls later. I’m more concerned about not mixing up their clothes.”
Night Hawk shook his head. “A passel of things’re fixin’ to get mixed up, ma’am, but it’s your funeral.”
An hour later, she stood with hands to aching back, surveying her handiwork—holey socks and long johns, most of which cried for a mender’s needle, flapped in the breeze beside shirts and britches. Another day perhaps she would find time to mend.
“Jordan, you and Night Hawk take the wagon down to the river and fill the water barrel, like Mister Catlin said.”
“Sure thing, Ma.”
“Sure thing,” Night Hawk muttered. “I don’t hanker to be around when the boys ride in an’ see their unmentionables bared to the world.”
Andie laughed. “Everything will be dry and rolled in the bedrolls before they return.”
Reese spurred his horse, propelled toward camp by an eagerness he didn’t quite understand. He told himself he was concerned about those fellers whose trail he had cut earlier, but that wasn’t necessarily the case, and he knew it. Those tracks had beat a steady path west. If it hadn’t been for Andie and the kid, he wouldn’t have given them another thought.
If it hadn’t been for Andie…Everything he did these days revolved around that woman. He argued that he would be as preoccupied with any cook, since grub was important to his success. But that wasn’t entirely true. Ordinarily he would have left Cookie to fend for himself against travelers or out of work drovers who might or might not be ridin’ the grub line.
He tried to ignore the fact that she was out to catch a husband, and in that he had been partially successful. To his good fortune she had turned out to be one heck of a trail cook. She kept things running at a clipped pace, the way he liked. No lollygaggin’ around. She was up at three in the morning without so much as a yawn that he’d seen; she had breakfast ready in a little over an hour, called the boys, and had them in the saddle by sunup. She prepared dinner with the same dispatch, with never a grumble. And at supper she was a delight to behold.
Who would have suspected havin’ a woman around camp could make such a difference? Oh, the boys groused some at having to clean up their language and curtail their tall tales, but each and every one of ’em was more relaxed and easier going than Reese had ever seen a bunch of cowboys.
She had even made a difference in him. At the start of this drive, red-hot determination stewed in his gut; now, he worked day by day as hard as he ever had, but dang if he didn’t accomplish more. And at the end of the day, he returned to camp, not filled with anxiety to be on the trail, but with anticipation of what he would find—a delicious meal hot and ready, served by a woman who was every bit as tempting. Not that he was about to get himself caught in her noose.
Reese was mildly surprised that he found her company so enjoyable, knowing she was planning the demise of his bachelorhood. He put that down to his ability to make the best of any situation. He needed Andie on this drive. So why not grin and bear it?
Of course, he didn’t intend to grin where anyone could see him. Cowboys were relentless to a fault at bedevilin’ a feller. He may be attracted to her, but he dang sure didn’t have to let on in front of the boys.
He had tried to get her off his mind, but so far he hadn’t been successful at that, either. Images of that night in the tepee taunted him—her curly black hair brushed to a glow, her two mounded breasts jutting from a white muslin nightshirt. The rest was pure imagination, but Reese was good at that.
Actually, he figured he might be a better hand at imagining than at performing. He hadn’t been seriously involved with a woman since Cynthia Roland, a little affair that ended abruptly when her pa discovered Reese to be the son of the Double M Ranch foreman, rather than of the rancher who owned the spread. Reese figured he stepped over a snake with that one.
Afterward he heeded Mister Matthews’s advice not to let a female distract him from his primary goal in life—to become a rancher in his own right. Henceforth, he had limited his romances to dancing with local girls at barn dances and infrequent visits to trail-town bordellos, none of which had entered his mind since two weeks ago, when he rode into camp and discovered that he had hired Andie Dushane to do his cooking.
She was preoccupied with supper when he arrived, bending over the fire, a lid in one hand, a long-handled spoon in the other. Her skirts bustled up behind her, her waist curved in, and her breasts pressed down against the taut apron bib. Loose black curls had escaped her bun and wisped enticingly against her nape. It hit him then that she was as dedicated to her work as he was to his.
They were alike in that. Was that what drew him to her? Of course, they were poles apart in a major way: She was out to catch a husband, and he intended to sidestep every loop cast his way.
She turned when he stepped down from the saddle, and the unguarded welcome in her prairie green eyes set his spurs to jangling. Try as he did to see a scheming woman in their depths, he had yet to get past their start
ling beauty.
He faked composure. “See any sign of those two fellers I told you about?”
She shook her head. “Did Monte butcher the calf?”
“He’ll be along directly.” Crossing to the fire, Reese took a pot hook, lifted a lid, and dipped a spoonful of frijole juice. His taste buds thought sure they’d died and gone to heaven. “Mighty fine.” Awkward as a spring colt and determined to conceal it, he glanced around camp. “Did the boys take the wagon down to the river?”
“Yes, they—”
Then he saw them. “Son of biscuit eater!” For a moment, he was certain his mind was playing tricks on him. What the devil was that flappin’—“What in tarnation are the boys’ long johns doin’…” His words trailed off. “What’re my…” His gaze flew to Andie’s innocent expression.
“I was glad to have time to wash, Reese; those clothes had begun to smell up the wagon. Next time I’ll do the bedding.”
Exasperation flashed through him with the heat of a July Sunday. “Next time, hell! How’d you figure the boys are gonna feel, you handlin’ their…their…” When he met her luminous green eyes, the heat inside him leaped into flame.
Confounded woman! Handling his long johns…His loins throbbed at the thought; he glanced back at the bush, as for confirmation. She had done it, all right. There they hung for all the world to see, holey knee and all. Flappin’ in the breeze.
“Dangit, Andie, you shouldn’t’ve…” Her green eyes held him, beckoned him, promised him…The earth rocked beneath his feet. His heart felt like it might beat itself out.
By the time he regained his senses, his hands were two inches from her shoulders. He froze. He had reached for her. His lips trembled. He had almost kissed her. He staggered backwards. Lordy! He almost played right into her scheming hands.
“I’ll find the boys,” he mumbled, turning toward the river even as he spoke. “Help them with the…” On trembling legs he headed for the river. For safety. Freedom.
Andie watched him go, mortified to her toes by her reaction to this man. And by his to her. He had almost kissed her! She had seen it in his eyes, the want, the intent. Mesmerized, she had watched him consider holding her, kissing her. A familiar, but long-forgotten yearning glowed shamefully in her stomach. She pressed both hands against her fluttering heart. He had almost kissed her and she hadn’t made one move to stop him. Would she have? Could she have?
Monte arrived then with the slaughtered beef, and she set to work, grateful to have steaks to fry and meat to hang out to cool in the night air.
Come morning, she would wrap the fresh meat in cheesecloth and pack it on the wagon bed beneath a tarp. That should keep it a couple of days. Gradually her emotional equilibrium returned. Andie was good at that, stuffing her emotions back in a corner of her mind, putting on a tranquil face. But not any better than the cowboys, she discovered.
Monte was the first, after Reese, to see the clothes flapping from bushes around camp. After a couple of frowns and a shrug, he thanked her for doing his laundry and rolled his clothes and put them away wet. If she hadn’t been busy chastising herself for having almost kissed Reese Catlin, she might have been more concerned about the cowboys’ exposed unmentionables. As it was, she had enough on her mind without succumbing to guilt over something that had needed doing in the first place.
While she fried the steaks, Reese and the boys returned with the wagon. Reese put his clothes away, too, avoiding the campfire and lid as though they were located on the outer rim of Hades.
Pop arrived next, snaking in a load of firewood. At sight of the longjohns, his face flushed hot as the fire for which he was so ready to provide fuel.
The others drifted in then—Goosey, who was always quick to help turn the wagon after supper; Woody and Dink, who fought nightly over who would grind coffee for her.
Watching them flush and fidget, the guilt she felt over almost kissing Reese took its rightful place behind her regret for embarrassing these men. In two weeks, they had accepted her with a grace she would never have dreamed possible, given their shaky beginning. She had known they were hesitant to wash their own clothes, but she put it down to the chore itself, woman’s work, rather than a desire for privacy.
The steaks, biscuits, and mustang grape jelly went a long way toward relaxing them, all except Grumpy.
“Beats me how womenfolk get to be so nosy,” he grumbled. “Never knowd a one who’d leave a man to rest in peace.” He stuffed his clean clothes down in his bedroll, and after supper, he poured a second cup of coffee at the fire and told Andie, “Next time I’ll do my own washin’, thank you, ma’am.”
Reese sat back against a tree, stroking his mustache and watching Andie fend for herself. Even though she avoided him with obvious ease, he couldn’t help looking at her. And liking what he saw. And wishing he had gone ahead and kissed her and gotten it over with. Hell, he’d been wanting to for two weeks now, ever since he burst into her tepee and looked into those innocent green eyes, and…
But that was the problem. She wasn’t innocent; she was scheming, casting with a narrow loop, her sights set on him. And, by damn, he wasn’t gettin’ himself lassoed. Not by her, not by any woman. He learned early and well that an isolated ranch was no place for a woman.
His own ma died young, overworked by a well-meaning, but ignorant husband, and Reese’s pa had grieved until the day they carried him to his own grave.
Mister Matthews’s wife hadn’t died, she picked up stakes and ran off. Matthews’s reaction was opposite of Reese’s pa’s.
“Good riddance!” he’d told his foreman. Matthews maintained that for a man to be a rancher of any note, he had to shy away from a double harness, and Reese intended to be the best dang rancher in Texas. But one kiss? What harm could one little kiss do?
As though she heard his thoughts, Andie glanced his way. Their gazes held; Reese began to feel like a too-tight saddle cinch had a stranglehold on his chest. She turned away first, but not before telltale blotches sprouted on her cheeks.
When their gazes collided, Andie’s heart raced out of control. She had felt him watching her all evening, but until she met his eyes, she hadn’t known what he was thinking. Now she knew. His heated expression was hot enough to sizzle the grease in which she fried bear sign.
No man had ever looked at her that way—except Samuel. No man had ever set her head to reeling and her heart to racing this way—except Samuel.
Samuel, her husband. Samuel, who had loved her long and well. Samuel, to whom she owed loyalty and honor and respect. She couldn’t let him lie in that cold grave while she carried on with another man. She wouldn’t.
Finished with the bear sign, she emptied them in a crock and tossed them with sugar and cinnamon. “Wait until they cool,” she called to the group, “then help yourselves.”
“Told you they wouldn’t like it none,” Night Hawk observed, heading for the horse herd. “Save some bear sign for me.”
She worked quickly, anxious to finish her chores and retire before her distress over offending these men turned to guilt, before she inadvertently met Reese’s gaze again.
Hank and Jordan helped her wash dishes, like other nights, and Goosey helped turn the wagon tongue toward the North Star, but the silence around camp was anything but ordinary. Although Dink ground coffee, it was without arguing with Woody. Andie wondered whether the men had flipped for the chore, and Dink lost. The peppermint stick wrapped inside each Arbuckles package likely wasn’t enough pay for the embarrassment she had caused. Somehow, Andie vowed, she would make it up to them. Somehow—in addition to never touching their clothes again.
She was so engrossed in finishing her chores without drawing attention to herself, that when Tom Lovejoy stepped around the back of the wagon, he startled her.
“Tom! What—?”
His blue eyes danced with mischief. “Any lady who’d wash the smelly ol’ clothes of a dozen smelly men deserves something sweet.” With a flourish, he produced a bouquet o
f wildflowers.
“Why, Tom…” She buried her nose in the flowers, then cast about to find a jug to put them in. That’s when she saw Reese.
He jumped to his feet and headed for the chuckbox with long strides. “What in tarnation’re you doin’, Lovejoy, traipsin’ around out there in the dark? You want t’ frighten the dang herd?”
Tom grinned. “Figured someone oughta thank Cookie for her trouble. Why, she washed our clothes, an’ cooked us big steaks, an’ fried up a batch of bear sign.” He dipped into the crock of hot doughnuts, pulled one out, and took a bite. “Man alive!” His face beamed with delight. “If these things won’t satisfy a sweet tooth, son…” Draping his free arm around Andie’s shoulders, he grinned at Reese. “I figure I know somethin’ that will.”
Reese’s eyes spit fire. “Tom Lovejoy, if you don’t want to lose your job in the next two minutes, unhand our cook.”
His anger took Andie by surprise. “Tom didn’t mean—” Reese ignored her.
“I’ve been waitin’ for you to make some damn fool move like this. For the last time, unhand our cook.”
Andie ducked out of Tom’s embrace. “Time for me to turn in.”
But Tom wasn’t through. Adding insult to injury he winked at her. “Don’t let an ornery ol’ trail boss scare you, Cookie, you’ve got as much say so around here as him.”
Andie cast a wary eye to Reese, who glared at Tom; she looked to Tom, who exuded mischief. Eager to escape this standoff, she called to the group in general, “The bear sign are cool now. Come an’ get ’em.”
Finally, in a gesture she later recognized as one of defiance, she picked up the wildflowers. Ignoring Reese, she smiled at Tom. “Thanks for the flowers, Tom. They’re beautiful.” When she headed for her tepee, inspiration struck.
“They’re just a bunch of flowers,” Lovejoy objected to the disgruntled trail boss. “There’s plenty more where they came from. If it riles you for me to give ’em to her, go out an’ pick ’er a bunch, yourself.”
A Wish to Build a Dream On Page 4
