by Em Petrova
“Hold it here.” Irritation made his words sharp. He pointed at the wood farther down so her hands weren’t in danger of being struck. “Haven’t you ever set a fence before?”
Her eyes flashed green. Yeah, definitely green. “What kind of rancher hasn’t done work like this before?”
“You tell me,” he said under his breath, but she heard him. “Now grasp it here so I don’t break your fingers.”
“Fine.”
They set a few more posts without clawing each other’s eyes out. Then she did something that distracted him more than anything—she removed her hat and gloves and swiped the hair that had escaped her ponytail off her face.
He stared at her hair. Warm red. Dark red. No, there were definitely strawberry highlights in it.
Shit, had he just considered a woman’s highlights? It was probably a dye job, though he’d give anything to see if the rug matched the draperies.
Where the hell did that come from? He certainly did not want to see Ryan naked. Ever. Besides, he was paying her wages.
His case of blue balls grew. His Wranglers would burst at the fly if she kept dragging her thin fingers through her tresses. A lock swung down, damp from perspiration.
Biting off a roar of frustration, he snapped, “Are we entering a beauty contest or putting up fence?”
Her eyes narrowed and she jammed her hat down, concealing most of her face. Then she stuffed her fingers back into her gloves and hurried to the next post. Earlier today Beck and he had dumped the posts out, and there must be a quarter mile left to do.
Ryan held the next one up, gaze trained on some far-off point. Suddenly he wished he could see her eyes again, to look closer. At times he thought they were brown with gold flecks and others, green fire.
“I could use a drink, could you?” He was an idiot for wanting her to glance his way.
“No.” Her jaw was set firmly, a stubborn tilt to her head. “I thought you were in a hurry, Dalton.”
It rubbed him wrong, her calling him Dalton. “You’re used to getting your way, aren’t you, Hunter?” he shot back.
That brought her gaze up. Brown with amber flecks, not gold. The Texas sunlight must be playing tricks on him. “I’m not some spoiled Miss Sky Ranch with golden-tipped boots and a parade saddle.”
“I’ll make my own assessments, thank you.” He wanted to rile her, and no, it absolutely wasn’t because he wanted to see if her eyes changed color again. “I’ll make you a bet.”
She pursed her lips, which only drew his attention to them. Crap—his jeans were definitely too tight and the sun too hot. “I’ll take your bet.”
“You’ll take a bet before even hearing what it is?”
“Yes.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ll bet you can’t backfill all these posts by dinner bell.”
She pivoted her head and looked down the long line. Light gleamed on her ponytail, sparking like flames. “When’s dinner bell?”
He looked at the sky. “I’d say an hour and ten minutes.”
“What do I get if I win?”
“How about my slice of Momma’s apple pie?”
She arched a brow that was too perfectly manicured. Easily he could see her in a sparkly parade saddle, waving at the kids on the sides of the road. “How do you know she’s got apple pie?”
“Because it’s Monday and she always has apple pie on Mondays.”
She thrust out her hand. “Deal. Now get in gear. We have twelve posts to set so I can backfill them.”
“Thirteen.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the sledgehammer.
His annoyance was back tenfold. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not running my gums like you, Dalton. Now set that post in the hole.”
“Fine.” Let her break her back while he stood around looking pretty and balancing the post.
The first blow came with a force that surprised him. He masked his features but not before he caught her grin.
Chapter Four
When everyone met at the corral to choose their horses for the day, Ryan made a show of rubbing her stomach. “Man, I’m still full after those two slices of pie last night.”
Kade leveled her with a dark look, and she bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. He followed the action and for a heartbeat, she couldn’t think or breathe. His expression was so untamed… It could turn a dumber girl inside out.
She jerked around, looking for a horse, and settled on one in all of thirty seconds. With her decision made, she went about coaxing it to her. Luckily her oat bar lured it close. The palomino was a little more skittish than the black had been, so she took her time with it, soothing and stroking its mane whenever it inched near.
One of the Daltons whooped and she looked over in time to see Cash hit the dirt. He rolled away from the hooves of the horse that had just bucked him off. She laughed and listened to his brothers chide him.
“Good thing you don’t rodeo for a livin’. Your family would starve.”
“A better man could have stayed on at least eight seconds.”
Manny drifted near her, his face wreathed in smiles. He gestured to the palomino standing docile beside her. “What’s your secret, Greenhorn?”
She returned his smile and handed him half an oat bar. He looked at it a long minute. “This looks different from any I’ve seen.”
“It’s homemade.”
He brought it to his nose and sniffed it, then bit off a chunk. “Don’t let Kade taste one. He’ll be following you all over the ranch.”
The thought made her uneasy. The last thing she wanted was Kade riding her more. After she’d won his bet about the fence posts, he’d been in a foul temper, stomping back to the ranch, tossing shovels and sledgehammer in the corner of the barn. When she’d taken his slice of pie from beneath his nose, he’d stormed out of the house.
His family had enjoyed the display, but Mrs. Dalton had stared at Ryan with a long, appraising look. Obviously the woman didn’t like her little boy messed with.
She fed the rest of the oat bar to the horse and brushed her hands on her jeans. Then she slipped a rope around its neck and led it out of the corral. Easy.
Kade thundered past just as she reached the gate. “Good thing you got a biddable one today, Greenhorn.”
When the others called her greenhorn, she heard affection in their voices. The way he said the nickname made her want to punch something. She put her head down and focused on her job. She didn’t need to work with Kade Dalton today. She’d refuse and go with Manny. Or Beck. Or any other brother.
But twenty minutes later she was on her own with Kade at her side, following coyote tracks through a muddy spot on the ranch. Working with him made her grumpy, but she swallowed her emotions and did her job. “It’s hard tracking with all these cattle prints.”
He threw her a cocky look. “You gotta know what you’re looking for.”
“I see it plain as you do.”
“Yeah, but I know animal behavior.”
“And I know men’s behavior,” she murmured. Kade was a grade-A ass. If there was a brand for it, she’d be heating the iron right now.
The thought raised a laugh in her. She sank her teeth into her lower lip.
On horseback, Kade drifted close and she glanced up to see his gaze trained on her. Awareness prickled over her sun-heated flesh, and her traitorous nipples pinched tight under her T-shirt.
What the hell was that? She disliked Kade and he hated her, so why was her body reacting to his stare?
Twisting her mount away, she rode down the valley a little farther, following the dirt path the cattle beat to the watering hole. Coyotes liked to travel paths too, and just as she’d thought—tracks were visible.
She pointed. “This way.”
It was unlikely they’d actually catch a glimpse of the animal but if they knew its general location, they could hunt it. They didn’t want a coyote around the herd or they’d lose calves.
Her horse snorted and tossed its head. No animals liked a predator. With a hand on her mount’s neck, she guided it along the path. By the time the trail disappeared into the bushes, her horse had calmed.
But she hadn’t. Kade was beside her every step of the way. When he slid off his horse, she couldn’t ignore the carved planes of his back—or ass.
She summoned her coolest expression and said, “Should we hunt it now?”
Instead of answering, he cocked his head as if listening. She strained to hear what he detected, and sure enough she caught the thump of hooves too swift to be cows.
“Someone’s coming,” they said at the same time.
Her heart gave an odd two-step. They turned as one to face the direction of the sound. A dog raced toward them, tongue lolling.
Kade sucked in a sharp breath. His face mottled red and he tipped it down so his hat obscured him. Whatever was wrong wasn’t her business. Maybe he’d gotten stung by a bee. The thought gave her a trickle of amusement.
Then Manny and Ted Dalton appeared behind the dog, and Kade made another noise—this one strangled. With his head up, she saw his face pale under his golden tan.
“Dalton—” Before she got the sentence out, he kicked his horse and shot forward to meet the men. What was going on? He was acting odd.
I don’t know what his normal behavior is, though. And just why was she trying to analyze it? She’d worked alongside dozens of men during her years on her father’s ranch. She’d never been compelled to figure out what was going on with one. If they brooded, she ignored it and pushed them to do their best work.
“What’s wrong?”Kade’s voice reached her, sharp and guttural as he spoke to the men.
His pa’s response was too low to make out. When Kade’s shoulders slumped in apparent relief, her own body echoed it. What the heck? Somehow she’d dialed into his station and was listening hard to each change in him. How irritating.
“He’s going after tractor parts,” Kade’s father was saying. “We can’t live without the equipment another day. Might need to haul it to town for repairs.”
She perked up. “Do you know what’s wrong with it?”
Ted Dalton was a strict old rancher. He didn’t smile often and hadn’t said more than a few words to Ryan, but when he looked at her, she felt a wave of affection. So much like her own father.
“Gears shot.”
“Ah, the heavy loads must have worn the teeth. Not getting good contact,” she said.
All three men gaped at her. Manny looked amused, Ted surprised and Kade…well, he was scowling. What else was new?
Ted gave a short nod. “That’s the brunt of it.”
“Easy fix. Just swap them side to side.” Nobody spoke and she added, “I’ve seen something similar in one of my family’s old farm tractors. I can do the repairs if I have the right tools and parts.”
“We’ll send Beck after them straight away. You can start work after lunch.”
At the mention of food, her stomach cramped. She’d missed first breakfast again, and the morning was dragging, especially with Kade’s taciturn attitude.
“I’ll take a look at it before Beck goes after the parts. I might not need new gears. If it’s what I think, I can switch the parts so the one that’s worn is in the front and move the other behind.”
“You really know your stuff, Greenhorn.” Ted’s crooked smile was the best reward.
She dipped her head in thanks and the men moved off, riding down the path in a cloud of dust. Kade’s gaze connected with hers, and a sensation of melting oozed downward between her thighs. She shifted in her saddle.
He tracked her movements. There go my nipples again. This was getting tiresome. She had no business feeling all…female. She’d never been boy-crazy and had no desire to start.
Especially for that insufferable man.
Twitching her reins, she brought the horse around and returned to the coyote tracks.
“Get down and move that brush aside.” Kade’s order was accompanied by him reaching for his rifle trapped behind his saddle.
She gave him an are you kidding look. “I move the brush aside, the coyote pops out and you shoot?”
“That’s the gist of it.” He fed a shell into the weapon.
“No way. You get down and I’ll shoot.”
His blue eyes flashed, giving her a bone-deep ache she couldn’t explain and wanted to run away from. “I don’t even know if you can shoot. I’m not letting you point a gun in my direction,” he said.
She snorted. “I’ve got the Junior and Senior High School Rodeo Shooting awards in .22 long rifle. I know how to avoid shooting a human.”
He cocked a brow and the urge to smack the look off his face slammed her.
She curled her fingers into fists. “You got any awards, Dalton?”
With a shake of his head, he drawled, “Don’t need ‘em. Out here we don’t care about trophies and medals. We care about protecting our cattle.” He spoke an order to the dog, and it ran into the brush.
The dog rooted around in the patch for about ten minutes. Meanwhile, she sat in the saddle, boiling with frustration and anger. Why had he told her to do a dog’s job? She compressed her lips and waited. The dog’s tail appeared, then it backed out of the brush, muzzle dirty and greenery clinging to its coat, but no coyote.
“You could trap it,” she suggested.
He grunted. The primal noise shouldn’t raise the hair on her forearms, but it did. Son of a bitch.
“Can’t risk a calf getting into the trap. I’ll come back up at night with a red light and hunt it.”
* * * * *
When Kade had told Ryan he’d be hunting the coyote at night, she hadn’t thought she’d be in on it. In fact, she was supposed to be in her bunk, sleeping off a day’s work. Instead she was in the dark with a man she didn’t like, holding a red light for him.
Using only his mouth, he issued a dying rabbit call. The screechy, grating noise reverberated across the prairie, raising a shiver in her. She steadied the light and tried to shake off goosebumps at the same time. There was nothing spooky about a ranch at night, but sounds like that—and made by the man she was with—unnerved her.
He hadn’t said two words to her for over an hour, which was a relief. She stifled a yawn. Exhaustion stole over her and her thigh muscles burned from hunching over a tractor all day. Finally, just after the dinner bell sounded, she’d fixed the last gear into place with a hoot of excitement.
“Nice job.” Manny had clapped her on the shoulder. “You deserve a home-cooked meal.”
“Shouldn’t I start the tractor and see how it runs first?”
“Good news settles on a full stomach just as easily as an empty one.” His dark brown eyes gleamed with approval. And he’d been right—starting the tractor after a full plate of chicken and biscuits had been one of the high points of her life.
Kade made another long, blood-curdling sound, dragging her from her good thoughts. Barely a second passed for him to draw breath before he loosed another call.
She clamped her teeth together and grated out, “I think the coyote heard you the first two times.”
His eyes glittered under the moon and the red glow of her light. “A rabbit doesn’t die in precise intervals.”
“Sounds like you’re dying, Dalton, not a rabbit.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? And quit calling me Dalton.” His dead voice and flat words made her stomach cramp. She pulled her hand back before she could touch his sleeve and reassure him. Wrapping both hands around the flashlight, she ignored Kade and focused on the brushy patch they’d tracked the coyote to earlier that day.
“This would be easier if we still had tracks,” he said as if reading her mind.
When the windstorm had risen that afternoon, she’d been safely in the garage surrounded by tractor parts and tools. While she’d kept dust out of her eyes, the others hadn’t been so lucky. Kade had come in with ruddy cheeks and streaming eyes.
It might have made her giggle if he hadn’t been enjoying himself and grinning like the town fool.
“Just exactly why were you smiling after being in those high winds all day?” The question popped out.
He swung toward her and their shoulders bumped. She hadn’t realized how close they stood. Sliding to the side, she put distance between them.
“My brothers and I always loved storms. High winds, rain, lightning. Feeds our energy supplies.”
“Hmm.” She wasn’t buying it. Storms were scary, plain and simple. Especially when a tornado could suck up your whole life in seconds. And dust storms, huge clouds moving toward you on the horizon, looked apocalyptic. Her palms started sweating and her grip on the light slipped.
Kade’s hand shot out and wrapped around hers and the light. She barely had time to gasp at the shock of warm, hard male flesh when the red light beamed on a set of eyes.
“Right there. Don’t breathe,” he murmured, raising his gun.
She slowed her breathing to remain steady. The gun exploded next to her and the eyes vanished.
Kade issued a whoop of satisfaction. Overcome with happiness that she could finally get to her bed, Ryan whistled and jumped up and down.
His arm locked around her back, spinning her to face him. She tilted her head back.
Their mouths collided.
For five heartbeats she couldn’t remember her own name let alone what planet she lived on.
Kade’s lips weren’t as hard as they looked.
And he smelled like leather and spiced pine.
He yanked free and stumbled back two steps, rifle still in hand. Even in the dim lighting she could see his chest rising and falling harshly. Odd. She couldn’t hear his breaths.
The skin around her lips prickled where his beard scruff had seared her. And his scents lingered in her head. She darted her tongue over her lower lip and tasted him—pure, raw male.
* * * * *
Fire blazed through his system, raising alarms. He’d just grabbed the ranch hand and kissed her. Brushing his lips against hers had turned his brain to mush; but his cock as hard as steel.
