With a big open grin, she rested her hands and reins on the saddle horn, “You really want to know?”
“Yeah, I’m a big boy. Tell me.”
“I think you’re an exciting guy. Not many guys your age ride broncs, and still bulldog. I love rodeoing. I like to be around rodeo and their people, but I’m not going to sleep in an old car’s backseat and eat baloney sandwiches with these younger guys to get to enjoy my favorite sport. I found out you don’t have a woman. Besides, you’re tall enough I won’t have to bend over to dance with you.”
He blinked in disbelief. “Wait—Old. Me? I’m just getting started.” But she was right. She might be twenty-one, and would soon tire of him. But by dang, she was a good-looking woman and he was about set on looking around.
She blushed some under her suntan, briefly looked away, then came back with her words for him. “I wouldn’t mind much. They tell me I look a lot younger than I am. What do you say?”
“Good God, sister, you don’t even know me. But maybe we could go dancing after the last show? I promise I’m not dangerous.”
She grinned, and the horse danced under her. The material of the tailored silk shirt she wore clung to her body.
He wanted to find out more about her. She was, after all, in this business and dang good at it. It was more than time he looked around for a good woman or grow old and grizzly.
She grinned, and dimples danced on her cheeks. “I think you’re just tall enough to suit me.”
“Tall enough? You judge men by their height?”
“When they ask me to go dancing. No danger I’d be looking down at the top of your head.”
“I’ll be danged if you aren’t something. I’d like a chance to prove that there’s more to me than being tall.”
“Guess we’d better pen these longhorns first.” She indicated the bulldogging cattle before her and her horse.
“Yes, take them up there to the pen marked number five. You know I won’t be able to get out of here until after the bull riding tonight. But we can talk then or go ahead and go dancing if you’ve made up your mind I’m safe.” He still had his doubts. Was she simply putting him on?
“Oh, so I get an opening in your schedule.” She rocked her head from side to side. “I accept.”
“Do you drink?” he asked as she rode by him.
She twisted in the saddle. “I’m over twenty-one.”
He really did not believe her about that, but it meant she could get in the Paradise Ball Room. They always had lots of Bob Wills music in that place to dance to. He shook his head. Why did this rodeo queen want him? That baloney sandwich business in the backseat of an old car deal wasn’t too far from the truth for cowboys starting out in rodeoing.
But if she really was serious, he’d have to make some changes. He’d been a bachelor way too long and had developed a few bad habits, living-wise. Was she serious? She’d be a great threat to his own sanity. He realized he didn’t even know her name.
She came back short-loping her great horse though the arena. He held the gate open for her. No way this deal between them would ever come off. She was too good looking to come around wanting him. Conscious of his own appearance, he shoved his shirttail in behind his back.
“What’d you like to be called the best?” Only way to find out her name without outright asking.
“Julie.”
“Julie… That’s what I’ll call you. We’ve got to cut those roping calves out next. I’ve got the list of the ones we need for tonight.” He tracked down the wide alleyway after her. They used the wide lane to feed the stock hay off his truck bed.
Ahead of him, she was dismounted at the right pen, pulling down her tight pants that must have rode up on her.
“Where did you get that good steeldust horse?” He admired the fine animal.
“How do you know he’s a steeldust?” Her clear blue eyes looked hard at him for an answer.
“Maybe just a guess.” He winked. Weren’t many of them left and he knew one from across the lot.
She broke up laughing. “They told me that you were tough, gruff, and honest, but I like the funny part the best.”
He settled tight in the saddle and studied her seriously. Maybe, just maybe. Only time and lots of consideration would tell. He wasn’t about to tie up with someone who might break his heart. He’d already had that once.
CHAPTER TEN
THE FIRST TIME HE TOOK her in his arms on the dance floor that night, he had this sense of them belonging together, though he hoped he wasn’t getting too far ahead of himself. Looking down into her closed eyes, he missed a step but just managed to avoid tromping on her toes.
Take it easy buddy. He had to make sure this is what he wanted. More importantly—what she wanted, too. Go slow.
“You sure look pretty with all the horsehair and dust cleaned off.”
She snuggled a bit closer. “Thank you. You don’t clean up so bad yourself.”
With that out of the way, where did he go from here? It’d been a long time since he’d courted a woman and that one hadn’t worked out so well. He wondered where Sheila was and what she was doing. He didn’t really care, but it was a passing thought to take his mind off Julie’s body, so close to his. With Alma, they had just fallen in together. No need for all the proper stuff.
“If you’d like, we could go out to Bloody Basin Sunday. It’s not too far by car and the road is passable. I don’t own it anymore, but we could pay Yates a visit. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind showing off his toy.”
“Sounds great, but I’d rather ride out. And what’s this about his toy? Something special or is it a joke?”
“He’s the son-in-law that was given the ranch to keep him occupied, so he treats it like his favorite toy, instead of a serious enterprise. If Raines doesn’t keep an eye on him, he’s liable to run it down. As to riding out, it’s a hard three days on horseback.”
She grinned up at him. “Too hard for an old man, or can’t your ranch do without you that long?”
“Maybe a little of both? No, really. It’s not something I have time to do till we get the alfalfa crop in and baled, then see the fields turned up, then there’s fall branding of calves and—”
She held up a hand to stop him. “So, it’s going to be that way. Work comes first, fun comes second… or is it last?”
The music ended, and he took her back to their table, one arm around her waist. The muscles beneath his touch were strong. He pulled back her chair, then slid into his own, unable to take his eyes off her. No good for her to think he’d let work come before her, but it had always been the only thing—till now.
She did look pretty, her long mahogany hair tied up in a twist, allowing a few curls to hang around her face. The sparkles on her eyelids glittered under the rotating lights—and oh, those azure blue eyes. With the sweaty longneck in her hand and his icy Coke glass before him, he gazed in wonderment like some lovestruck kid.
He searched for something to talk about to keep from drooling. Finally, he came up with something. “I saw you in Casa Grande on that great steeldust horse.”
“My parents have a ranch at Sonata. I still live there.”
“They know you’re here with me?”
She blushed. “I’m not ashamed to be here with you.”
“I didn’t intend to make you blush about it. I’m Mark Nobody. Why does a good looking, sober young woman come around and want me?”
“Haven’t made up my mind yet. I mean about wanting you.” She raised the bottle and took a sip, watching him around the glass.
“Maybe you ought to make up your mind, then.”
“Give me time. Meanwhile, let’s spend some time together. You might be an old grouch.”
“Hell, you might snore.” The minute he said it, he wanted to take it back. Stupid to assume such a thing so soon.
She got the giggles and almost choked on the beer. When she could speak, she did. “Don’t count on finding that out anytime soon.”
T
he following Friday, he drove down to Sonata to see her and meet her folks. That didn’t go as good as he had hoped.
Her dad met him on the front verandah. The house was a large, two-story structure surrounded by shrubs covered in blooms. He didn’t know what they were, but he wanted some out at the ranch. They had plenty of water with the artesian well. It’d be something to talk about. Women liked discussing flowers.
He introduced himself, which is how he finally learned Julie’s last name.
“Bryce Conroy,” her father announced.
“Julie will be right out, but I wanted us to get acquainted first. We could sit.” He indicated chairs beneath a fall of purple blooms overhead. “You own a ranch up in Paradise Valley, I understand. You been in ranching long?”
“Well, I began working on it soon as I got out of the army when the war ended, so you could say so. Sold the first one after developing it and selling off most of the wild herds running up there at Bloody Basin.”
“Seems like I’ve heard of that one. That Raines guy bought it a year or so ago.”
Mark nodded. “That’s when I sold out and came down to the valley to the land I’d bought before I went in the service.”
“Mark Shaw.” Conroy snapped his fingers. “You’re the man who’s getting in with the movie people to film on your place. How’s that going for you?”
“I’m just getting started but I think it’ll pan out for me.”
He shook his head. “Running with that movie bunch has to be—uh, well, a bit dangerous.”
“Dangerous? I don’t get it.”
“Drinking, carousing. Well, you surely understand what I’m getting at.”
So that was it. The man was trying to figure if Mark was good enough for his daughter. Was he going to take her to dangerous places? He wasn’t surprised. He’d expected it. He tamped down his temper. “Your daughter is safe with me, Mr. Conroy. I don’t drink, and I don’t carouse, whatever that’s intended to mean.”
The older man’s eyes grew hard as flint. “Julie is quite a bit younger than you, it would appear, and you’ve been around, being in the army and all. I just don’t want her hurt in any way.”
The screen door popped open and a fiery-eyed Julie stepped out on the porch. “Are you ready to go, Mark?”
She never even looked at her father.
He wasn’t sure whether to say yes or no. He had a reply for the man and hated to leave without giving it. After all, he wasn’t a young wet-behind-the-ears suitor. But that was Conroy’s main objection to him—what he wasn’t. Perhaps it was better if his reply went unsaid. For now, anyway.
In the robin’s egg blue Chevy he’d bought new a few months earlier, he settled a mad-as-a-wet-hen Julie in the passenger side and went around to climb in, remaining silent till then.
“Okay. First thing I need to know is, just how old are you, anyway?”
“Old enough to make my own decisions and choose my own man.”
“That won’t do. I need to know for sure before this goes any farther. Does your dad have any say in what you do? I can’t be dating some underage gal. It just won’t do.”
“Well, I can tell you I’m not underage, whatever you consider that to be.”
“It isn’t what I consider, damn it. It’s what it is.” He slammed on the brakes and pulled off the road. “Tell me now, or I’m taking you home. I’m serious about us, Julie, and I want to keep seeing you. Now, just how do you feel? Be honest with me.”
Instead of answering him, she scooted in the seat till her knee touched the gearshift, stretched up, and kissed him on the jaw. “There. That’s how serious I am. And I’m twenty-five, that’s how old I am, and my dad is an old grump. He’ll come around. Any more questions?”
For a full minute he sat stock still, then he turned, took her shoulders in both hands and kissed her, well and good, right on the mouth. And she kissed him back, well and good.
—
DESPITE HER FATHER’S OBJECTIONS, JULIE went to the ranch at Bloody Basin with Mark the following weekend, where they stayed for more than a week. Dirty Shirt Jones looked out for the ranch in the valley while they were gone.
In that hard, desolate country up by Bloody Basin, he learned something about Julie that surprised him.
They were sitting around a campfire, bundled up close together since it was getting cold in high country. He asked her why she was so quick to start seeing him after they met.
Silent for a while, she played with a stick in the fire. “It was that picture in Life Magazine. You looked so carefree, so confident, with your arms around that pretty actress.”
“Linda Acosta?”
“Yes, her.”
“But why would that matter to you?”
“I was nineteen years old—a sophomore at U of A dreaming of rodeoing. I’d barrel-raced in the small rodeos since I was sixteen. Seeing you made me wild to be that girl in your arms, but I wanted to be a rodeo queen, not a movie star. I wanted you and me to perform in the Phoenix rodeo and had dreams about that happening. Then I saw you in person and there I was, a rodeo queen. It was just too perfect, too much of what I had dreamed. So, I decided to make my dream come true.”
While she talked, he listened with amazement. “So, you set out to lasso me?”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I hope you don’t mind. I know the man is the one who should do the lassoing, but I couldn’t help it. You were so cute in those boots and spurs, I couldn’t resist. I was actually jealous.”
He hugged her close, then wrestled her to her back on the ground. “Cute in my boots and spurs, huh?”
Her laughter echoed across the hills and somewhere, off in the distance, a coyote howled.
By the time they came back from Bloody Basin, Mark wanted to marry her. Conroy was furious and glared bullets at him when he brought her home. She told him not to mind her daddy, but he had no choice. He knew better than to push it till he could get on the good side of the man. Splitting a family was not a good idea and he wanted the marriage to work. It was the main reason he’d made up to his own dad and loved his step-brothers and sister even though it hurt when he had married again after his mom died. Family was too danged important to him to divide Julie’s. He’d by damn get along with her old man or die trying.
He knew they had to talk about it, he just didn’t look forward to it. He just couldn’t come up with something, and fall was fast approaching. Not much changed in the valley, but the mountaintops showed early snowfalls. When the wind was right, there was a touch of winter in the air. Nights became cooler and a fire felt good. He’d built a bunkhouse first thing at the ranch, but there still wasn’t a house. If he was to get serious about him and Julie, he needed to have a place for her to live. It would also show Bryce Conroy he was serious about his intentions.
When Dirty Shirt came to visit, Mark told him about his plans to build a house.
“Looks comfortable right here to me.” Dirty Shirt peered around the bunkhouse. “Congratulations, though. I’m happy to hear you have finally found a woman to love.”
He became the first to know about Mark’s desire to marry Julie. It was just like Jones to have something to say about it. “Well, it seems like you better get busy then. Does she know about this?”
“Maybe. I’ve made it pretty plain.”
“Takes more than plain with some women.”
“Her old man detests me. I can’t come between them. This is crazy. Since the war, everything I’ve tried has come about. Never have I failed. Not with the ranches or the rodeoing. We’ve got water where there was none. Hell, I’m almost rich.”
Dirty Shirt chuckled. “One cannot be almost-rich. One is rich, or he is not.”
“Well, I guess I’m not.”
“It matters only who you ask. I think you are rich and many others do too. What is wrong with this man that he does not think so?” Upset, Jones rose and poked the fire so hard sparks went everywhere.
“Don’t burn the place down with tha
t poking. He is more than almost. He is way rich.”
“You white people. Almost rich, way rich, just rich. It is crazy. Perhaps if you worked as hard with this problem as you do with others, you could bring about this marriage.”
“I’m trying. Believe me. Funny you can give marrying advice when you still ain’t come up with a woman for yourself.”
“I ain’t been trying that hard, my friend. It would appear you are not trying hard enough, either.”
So, on his friend’s opinion, Mark started trying harder.
He’d once heard that the best place to begin when trying to impress a future father-in-law is to give him a chance to mingle in your world, to meet some important people you knew. So Mark planned a barbecue for Labor Day weekend. He invited Raines and his family, Sam of course—’cause he was even richer than Conroy—and Dirty Shirt, because he was a friend and it was important to remember friends even when one was rich. He called Linda, asking her to come and bring some of the movie people she knew. He made sure Julie knew they should behave themselves and explained his reasoning behind saying so. This would show Conroy just how ordinary they were, despite their unearned reputations.
Of course, they were all rich. He invited people who had built their businesses because of his efforts, like Noah Gaines. He bought thick steaks, black caviar, and had fresh shrimp, crab, and lobster brought in. He also hired a chef and a couple of young boys in white shirts to serve food and drinks. Mark didn’t drink anything but lemonade, tea, and Cokes, but he consulted Linda about supplying the best in malt liquor, bourbon, and vodka, as well as some other drinks he’d never heard of. He cautioned he not to invite anyone who was a drunkard, though.
Almost everyone in the county was invited. It turned out that Arizona senator, Coin Hayden, was a friend of Linda’s and he sent an RSVP. It so happened he would be in the state during that time and he would be pleased to attend. If this did not impress Conroy and make him realize what a catch Mark was for his daughter, then nothing would.
Blue Roan Colt Page 13
