by Janet Dailey
He reined his horse down to a walk to cross the last few yards to Webb Calder, stopping at a right angle to him. Flashing the man one of his patented smiles, he respectfully touched a finger to the pointed brim of his Stetson.
“Good morning, Mr. Calder.” Angus O’Rourke sounded deliberately cheerful and carefree.
“Angus.” The stone-faced man with the hard eyes simply nodded in response to the greeting.
Irritation rippled through Angus. He was angry with himself for not calling Calder by his first name, and putting them on equal terms. The man had a way of making him feel worthless and a failure. Hell, he was a rancher, too, the same as Calder … in his mind. But Angus hid his bitterness well.
“It’s a fine day, isn’t it?” he remarked with a broad, encompassing sweep of the clear sky. “It’s mornings like this that make you forget the long winter behind you. The meadowlarks out there singing away. Wild-flowers are sprouting up all over, and those little white-faced calves all shiny and new.” It was a few seconds before he realized his prattle was making no impression on Webb Calder. Again, Angus checked his angry pride and hid it behind a smile. “You remember my son, Culley, and my daughter, Maggie.”
Webb Calder acknowledged the boy’s presence with a nod. The black-haired boy paled under the look and mumbled a stiff, “Morning, sir.” Then Calder looked at the girl.
“Shouldn’t you be in school, Maggie?” It was a question that held disapproval.
Actually, her name wasn’t Maggie. It was Mary Frances Elizabeth O’Rourke, the same as that of her mother, who had died four years ago. But having two women in the family with the same name had been too confusing. Somewhere along the line, her father had started calling her Maggie, and it had stuck.
She shrugged a shoulder at the question. “My pa needed me today,” she explained.
The truth was she missed more days of school than she attended. In the spring and fall, her father claimed he needed her to help on the ranch. Maggie had grown to realize that he was too lazy to work as long and as hard as he would have to by himself. The ranch was such a shoestring operation that they couldn’t afford to hire help, so her father took advantage of her free labor.
During the winter, the tractor was broken down half the time, which meant they didn’t have a snow blade to clear the five-mile drive to the road where she could catch the school bus. When her mother was alive, she’d saddled the horses and ridden with Culley and Maggie to the road on those occasions, then met them with the horses when the bus brought them back in the afternoon. But it was always too cold and too much trouble for her father.
Maggie no longer missed going to school. She had outgrown her clothes and had little to wear, except blue jeans and Culley’s old shirts. At fifteen, nearly sixteen, she was very conscious of her appearance. She had tried altering some of her mother’s clothes to fit her, but the results had been poor at best. None of her classmates had actually ridiculed the way she dressed, but Maggie had seen their looks of pity. With all her pride, that had been enough to prompt her into accepting the excuses her father found for her to stay home.
Her mother had been adamant that both of her children receive an education. It was something Maggie remembered vividly, because it was one of the few issues that the otherwise meek woman wouldn’t be swayed from, not by her husband’s anger or his winning charm. So Maggie kept her schoolbooks at home and studied on her own, determined not to fail her mother in this, as her father had failed her so often.
The disapproval that was in Webb Calder’s look just reinforced her determination to keep studying. Maggie made no excuses for what her father was—a weak-willed man filled with empty promises and empty dreams. All the money in the world wouldn’t make her father into the strong man Webb Calder was. It was a hard and bitter thing to recognize about your own father. And Maggie resented Webb Calder for presenting such a stark example of what her father could never be.
Realizing the conversation was going nowhere, Angus O’Rourke turned his gaze to the herd gathered in the hollow of the plains. His face took on the expression of one reluctant to leave good company but had work to be done.
“Well, I see a Shamrock brand or two in the herd.” He collected the reins to back his horse before turning it toward the cattle. “I’ll just cut out my few strays and head them back to their own side of the fence.”
“I’ll have one of my boys help you.” Webb started to raise a hand to signal one of his men.
“We can manage,” Maggie inserted. They may be poor, but she wasn’t short on pride. She’d been taught by her mother never to accept favors unless she could return them someday, and it was ludicrous to think a Calder would ever need a favor from them.
Webb Calder’s hand remained poised midway in the air while he looked silently at her father for confirmation that they wanted no help. “The three of us can handle it,” her father stated to back up her claim, although he would have readily accepted the offer if she hadn’t spoken up.
The hand came down to rest on the saddlehorn. “As you wish, Angus.”
As he turned his horse, Angus flashed Maggie a black look and rode toward the herd. She and Culley trailed after him. Feeling the Triple C riders looking at them, Maggie sat straighter in the saddle, conscious of their overall shabby appearance, from their clothes to their ragged saddle blankets.
From the far side of the herd, Chase watched the motley trio of riders approach. Nate Moore had already passed the old man’s orders around, so he knew one of the three riders was female. Buck let his horse sidle closer to Chase.
“How do you tell which one’s the girl?” Buck’s low voice was riddled with biting mockery.
“It must be the small one.” Chase let a smile drift across his face. “She’s supposed to be the youngest.”
“She’s young, all right,” Buck agreed dryly. “I like my women with a little more age on ’em and more meat on their bones. Crenshaw was telling me this morning that Jake Loman has him a new blonde ‘niece’ working in his bar.”
“That right?” Chase murmured, aware, as everyone was, that Jake’s “nieces” were prostitutes. “That man does have a big family, doesn’t he?”
Buck grinned. “When this roundup is over, you and me are going to have to check her out. She might know some new tricks of the trade.”
“Another week of looking at these cattle, and I’ll be satisfied if all the new girl knows is the old tricks,” Chase replied and turned his horse to head off an errant cow, succeeding in changing its mind about leaving the herd.
By then, Buck had returned to his former position several yards ahead of Chase. And there was no purpose in trying to resume that particular conversation. The O’Rourke family worked the herd to cut out their strays, while Chase and the other riders kept the cattle loosely bunched.
Chapter II
During the noon break, the cowboys switched again to fresh horses from the remuda string held in a rope corral close to the camp. Chase swung his saddle onto a blood bay gelding with a white snip down its nose, and pulled the cinch tight. As he stepped into the stirrup and swung aboard, Buck rode by on a blaze-faced roan.
“Hurry up there, pilgrim. We’re burnin’ daylight,” Buck admonished in a poor imitation of a John Wayne drawl.
Chase held in a sigh. From the day he could remember, Buck had laughed, joked, and grinned his way through each hour. He appeared never to take anything seriously. Reining his horse around, Chase fell in alongside him.
“You’re a hopeless case, Buck,” he declared with a brief shake of his head.
“I know it, but ain’t it fun!” He grinned so often, there were already permanent grooves in his cheeks, and laughter lines fanned into the corners of his eyes. “I’ve been thinking, Chase,” Buck said very sober and straight-faced. “It wouldn’t be right for both you and me to visit Jake’s niece at the same time.”
“Why is that?” Chase gave him a slow sideways look, knowing he was being set up for something.
&
nbsp; “Once that little gal gets a look at this face and this body, she’s going to forget you’re even around. That just wouldn’t be fair. We’re practically brothers.”
“Buck, you have to be the most conceited man I know.” There was a rueful lift to one corner of Chase’s mouth, slanting it at a mocking angle.
Buck was acquiring a reputation as a ladies’ man, not wholly unjustified. There was something about his engaging smile and the laughing wickedness in his eyes that the women went for. Through tall tales, wild flattery, and sheer persistence, Buck eventually wore down any woman’s resistance. It wasn’t Chase’s style, although he usually got what he went after, too.
The remark only drew a laugh from Buck. “I’ve told you before, Chase, that I’m really you and you’re really me. My momma just switched us when we were babies so she could have the handsomest one for her own,” he said, repeating his often-told theory with a twinkling look.
“Is that right?” Chase mocked his friend with a challenge. “Then why is it you have curly hair and blue eyes like Miss Ruth, instead of brown hair and eyes like me and my dad?”
“Hell, I ain’t figured that out, either!” Laughter peeled from Buck’s throat, ringing loud and hearty.
The thunder of running hooves attracted their attention to the herd they were approaching. A cow had been separated from the others, a Shamrock brand on its hip. Now it was bolting for freedom, its tail high in the air. Pursuing it was the young O’Rourke girl. Chase watched her force the cow to turn, then manhandle her horse onto its haunches, and roll it back to keep the cow from taking off again, slapping a coiled rope against her thigh.
“That little gal sure can ride,” Buck remarked. “She’s making that heavy-headed nag do things it didn’t know it could do.”
“You spoke too soon,” Chase said as the cow made another lunge for freedom. When the girl stopped the horse and tried to haul it around on a pivot, the bay couldn’t get its legs under itself and lost its balance. The girl was catapulted from the saddle as it went to its knees. She hit the ground hard and didn’t immediately move. “I’ll see if she’s okay.” Chase spurred his horse forward.
Half a dozen other riders had seen the spill, too. If the downed rider had been a man or a boy, they would have waited to let him get up on his own. But the fallen rider was a girl, and that made all the difference.
Chase reached her first, dismounting and walking to where she was sprawled face down in the grass. She had just started to shakily push herself up from the ground. Her hat was knocked askew, but the coiled lariat was still in her hand.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
He heard the broken, airy sound to her voice and guessed she’d had the wind knocked out of her. Bending, Chase took hold of her arm. “I’ll help you up.”
As he began to lift her, he reached with his other hand to catch her under the opposite arm and stand her up. The unbuttoned jacket was hanging open. When his hand slipped inside, it closed around a soft, budding breast. For an instant, he was stunned by the rounded shape hidden under the oversized clothes.
Before he could move his hand, she had found her feet. “Take your dirty, lousy paws off me!” She knocked his arm down. The violence of her action caused her hat to fall off, and a swathe of long black hair spilled free to ripple in black waves nearly to her waist. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Chase released her arm. “I’m sorry, Miss.”
As he apologized, his dark eyes were taking in the changes in her appearance, the mass of black hair, the embarrassed flush to her cheeks, and the blazing fires in her angry green eyes. Perhaps his apology would have been accepted if his curious gaze hadn’t wandered down to her opened jacket, trying to see the jutting roundness his hand had felt.
The coiled lariat was in her right hand. She lifted it to strike at him, a stream of abuse coming from her lips. Chase raised his arm to ward off the blow and backed up. But she came after him, whipping him with the coiled rope. He shielded himself with upraised arms and continued to retreat.
“I told you I was sorry,” he reminded her tersely, holding his anger while feeling like a fool for being beaten up in front of all these men by a young girl.
“Oowee! Look at that little gal give Chase hell!” Buck’s voice taunted from the sidelines, where the other riders were smiling and chuckling at his predicament. “Go after him, honey!”
That did it. The next time she swung the rope, Chase ducked it and grabbed her wrist, wrenching the lariat from her grip with the other hand. When she tried to hit at him with her free hand, he captured it, too. Her head was thrown back to glare up at him, her breath coming in short, angry spurts.
“You crazy little spitfire, stop it!” Chase shook her hard once. “If you don’t start behaving yourself, I’m going to use this rope on your backside.”
Her eyes dared him to try. “Give me my rope,” she ordered.
The heat of anger—or something equally as violent—was running through his veins. Chase didn’t take time to sort it out. All his muscles were coiling into tight bands, a raw tension building inside of him and seeking an outlet.
“Maggie!” Angus O’Rourke came striding up to take the matter out of Chase’s hands. “What on earth were you doing, girl?” Chase released her into his custody and took a wary step away. “Now you are going to apologize to Mr. Chase Calder for making him look like a fool in front of all these men,” Angus ordered.
Chase didn’t feel the last phrase was necessary. It was a little man’s dig at the public humiliation of a big rancher’s son. His jaw hardened as the girl’s eyes swept the onlooking group of riders before returning to him with a taunting gleam. A nerve twitched along his cheekbone, the only visible indication of his inner feelings.
“Tell him you’re sorry,” her father urged.
Chase knew she wasn’t a damned bit sorry, and neither was O’Rourke. He wouldn’t accept an apology forced from her. “Let it ride, O’Rourke,” he mumbled, and walked to his horse.
Buck was on the ground, holding the reins to both his and Chase’s mount. He handed the latter to Chase, his blue eyes dancing with wicked mischief. Buck said nothing, wise to the taut control Chase was exercising over his anger.
While Chase mounted, the girl had turned her back to him and was winding her black hair into a coil to fit under the tall crown of her hat. With that accomplished, she swung into her saddle and rode off with her father, not glancing again in Chase’s direction.
“You sure did have your hands full with that wildcat,” Buck commented, deciding a safe amount of time had passed. “What set her off, anyway?”
“I rubbed her the wrong way,” Chase replied coldly.
“Buck!” There was no mistaking the commanding voice of Webb Calder. He rode his horse into the center of the riders. “You heard my order this morning. No swearing in front of the girl. You are on foot the rest of the day.” The punishment was severe for someone like Buck, who thrived on the excitement of horse and rope.
“Hell, it just slipped out!” Buck protested.
“Two days on foot. It slipped out again.”
“What?” Buck gave a vivid display of incredulous astonishment, his arms lifted from his sides in a gesture of innocence. “She can’t hear me, not from clear over there!”
“Three days. That’s for arguing.” Webb never backed down. He was harder on those he liked. Lifting the reins, he started to turn his horse.
Buck’s hands moved to his hips as he shook his head in disgust. “Shi—”
The word was never finished as Webb Calder turned back. “Do you want me to make it four days, Buck?”
He swept the dusty black Stetson from his hand and threw it to the ground. “Sweet jumpin’ jehosaphats!” Buck expelled the words in a rush.
A smile cracked the sternness of Webb Calder’s expression. “Now you’ve got the idea, Buck.” Touching a heel to the horse’s flank, he started it forward.
“Three d
ays,” Buck grumbled.
“I’ll take your horse back to the remuda.” Nate Moore edged his horse up and reached down to grab the trailing reins.
When Chase started to ride away, Buck caught at his bridle to stop him. “Put a word in with your old man. I didn’t do anything to deserve three days.”
“Speak to him yourself.” Chase knew better than to ask a personal favor from his father. Buck knew the rules, but he always believed there was a way around them.
Returning to the herd, Chase took his place while O’Rourke finished his cut. It was a slow business due to the small rancher’s lack of trained horseflesh and the inordinate number of strays in the herd. Any one of a dozen Triple C cowboys could have finished it in a third less time, and all of them were itching to do so, including Chase, but without an order from his father, they sat in their saddles and watched. O’Rourke and his son worked the cows, while the girl held their gather some distance away, beyond the range of Chase’s vision, behind another one of those low rises in the deceptively flat-looking plains. Her image kept slipping into his mind, the coiling tightness within him never fully released.
The branding fires were hot when Angus rode through the herd the last time and found no more Shamrock cattle. He signaled to the ramrod Nate Moore that his cut was finished, and rode out from the Triple C herd. The impatient expressions of the riders indicated that his ineptness had caused an unnecessary delay. His mind had a ready excuse because he couldn’t afford the high-priced cutting horses they rode. Never once did O’Rourke consider the hours of training that went into making such an animal, hours he wouldn’t spend trying to improve the ability of his grade horses.
Angus knew that the delay would work to his advantage, so he convinced himself the slowness had been deliberate. If the Calders were impatient to get on with the work, he would be ignored as an irritating nuisance that was finally out of their way. While he was silently congratulating himself for being so intelligent, he filed away a mental reminder to explain to his son how cleverly he had planned everything.
