Rancher's Choice

by Kylie Brant

  A lassitude began to creep into Kaly’s limbs, and she slipped more deeply into the water, allowing her mind to continue its meandering. The two brothers were physically similar enough to make their relationship unmistakable. Both were tall, dark and blue-eyed. But there the similarities ended. Jeff’s eyes were a clear sky-blue, which reflected his sunny temperament. His brother’s navy eyes were shrewd and assessing. Though Jeff was almost as tall as his brother, he lacked Jackson’s massive build.

  Kaly shivered unconsciously, reliving that burst of awareness she’d felt earlier. She was used to dealing with men, through school and her jobs, but none had ever affected her as strongly as Jackson Roberts, and the knowledge made her uneasy. He was a dangerous-looking man. There was something threatening about him, something more than his size and his demeanor. She had felt almost dwarfed when he was near, and it had been all she could do not to take a self- protective step back at their introduction.

  His dark features were too hard, too irregular, to be considered handsome in the conventional sense. Yet his was an arresting presence, more compelling than mere handsomeness. A forceful sensuality radiated from him, and Kaly knew he would overshadow more pleasant-looking men, making them pale by comparison. Those huge shoulders had strained his denim shirt, mute testament to the manual labor involved in running a ranch. Dark hair had peeked from his shirt’s open throat, and she wondered if the rest of his chest was covered in a mat the same color as the hair on his head....

  She sat bolt upright in the tub, aghast, her eyes flying open. Where had that thought come from? That was more worthy of Susan, to mentally undress every attractive male around. She, Kaly Scott, never harbored such musings!

  Blaming her unaccustomed thoughts on weariness, she stepped out of the tub. She grabbed the thick towel she had laid out and began to dry herself vigorously. Jackson Roberts appeared much too arrogantly sure of himself; he was everything she detested in a man, and she mentally vowed to stay a safe distance from him.

  She recalled his description of her, which her arrival had interrupted. She secured the towel around herself and looked closely at her reflection in the mirror. She examined her face, finding nothing remarkable about her wide green eyes, oval face and short straight nose. She had never focused much on her looks, usually finding them only a deterrent to being taken seriously. Her hair was her only vanity. Her dad always said the long thick tresses reminded him of honey.

  Kaly made a face in the mirror and exchanged the towel for her robe. What difference did it make what Jackson Roberts thought? She thrust her arms through the sleeves and tied it at the waist. Unfortunately he probably wouldn’t be the last man she met who indulged in gross generalizations about women. Although more women were studying anthropology than ever before, it was still a male-dominated field. She just hadn’t been prepared to have to deal with such a man the entire summer. She hung her damp towel on the rack and headed back to her room.

  As she crossed the threshold, she experienced the same lethargy that had almost overtaken her in the bathtub. She still had two hours before dinner. Pulling back the coverlet of the bed, she stretched out on the mattress, after first setting her wristwatch alarm. It wouldn’t do to be late the first night she was here.

  At a quarter to six, Kaly descended the front stairway and followed the hallway into the dining room. Upon awakening she had remembered Carrie’s advice and put on a casual denim dress. She walked in just as Jeff was seating Carrie.

  The two greeted her. “You look refreshed,” Carrie said brightly.

  Kaly smiled. “A cool bubble bath and a short nap were just what I needed.” She looked at Jeff and said politely, “I’m ready to work tonight if you’d like to get started.”

  Jeff looked eager for a moment, but a warning glance from his wife made him subside. “Carrie has promised to skin me if I so much as talk shop with you before tomorrow.” He added teasingly, “We’re all scared to death of her around here, so we’d better do as she says.”

  Carrie punched him lightly on the arm. “Jeff! You’ll make her think I’m a shrew!”

  “But such a lovable little shrew, honey,” Jeff joked, kissing his wife on the cheek. “Kaly, would you like a drink? Or will you join my wife in a tall glass of milk? I was going to pour myself some wine.”

  “A glass of white wine would be lovely, thank you.”

  Jeff poured a glass and handed it to her, before turning away to fill his own. He returned with his glass and raised it high. “A toast to our partnership,” he proclaimed. He touched his glass to Kaly’s, and Carrie raised her milk glass high.

  Jackson’s arrival at the table interrupted the levity. It was obvious he had just showered. His glossy brown hair glistened damply, his smooth jaw suggested a recent shave, and he had changed his shirt and jeans. “What are we drinking to?” he asked.

  “To the successful completion of my book,” Jeff announced. He winked at the women. “How can I go wrong with these two beauties on my side?”

  Jackson cocked an eyebrow but said nothing as he joined them at the table. Carrie began telling the men about the phone messages she had taken for them during the day. Minutes later the swinging door opened and a tall rawboned woman in jeans and T-shirt came through and started setting food on the table.

  “Kaly, this is Peg, our cook and housekeeper. We couldn’t last a day without her,” Carrie said.

  Kaly greeted her and Peg smiled back. “Welcome, Miss Scott. I’m the one who keeps these three on the straight and narrow. This one here—” she nodded at a silent Jackson “—needs a powerful lot of guiding. Takes a strong hand to keep him in line.” She didn’t quail at all before the hard gaze he aimed at her.

  “Do we have to listen to you jaw all night or did you actually plan to feed us sometime?” Jackson asked with deceptive mildness.

  “You’ll get your food,” Peg scolded as she bustled about, bringing more and more dishes to the table. “I ain’t never let you starve yet, have I? You don’t look like you’ve missed too many of my meals.” The others at the table laughed at her ribbing.

  The mealtime passed pleasantly. Kaly politely answered the questions Carrie and Jeff put to her about her school career, dissertation and project experience. Good-natured laughter was heard as both brothers joked with Carrie about various mishaps she’d suffered when she’d first come to live on the ranch.

  Soon after they’d finished, Peg brought out a cherry pie and a pot of coffee. The two younger women groaned in unison.

  Kaly pleaded. “No more, please. I won’t be able to walk away from the table as it is.”

  Carrie chimed in, “Same for me, Peg. I have a doctor’s appointment soon, and if I put on any more pounds, he’ll have to weigh me on a livestock scale.” The two women sipped coffee while Jeff and Jackson consumed alarmingly large slices of dessert.

  Carrie rolled her eyes at Kaly. “Isn’t that disgusting?” she indicated the men’s plates.

  Jeff protested, “Not at all. It just proves that men’s metabolism is superior to women’s.” The two began bantering amicably about the virtues of the two sexes.

  Kaly watched in frank amazement as a second wedge of pie disappeared from Jackson’s plate. She was embarrassed when he looked up and caught her eyes on him, but she refused to look away. She was not going to let this man intimidate her.

  Jackson returned her look unwaveringly as he took a sip from the strong black coffee in front of him. The way the woman was staring at him, you’d think she’d never seen a man eat after spending a hard day at work. Most likely she hadn’t, he decided. She was probably used to absentminded professor types who ate tofu and sprouts after a strenuous day cracking the books. Well, he wasn’t going to apologize for his appetite. The labor he did on the ranch burned off thousands of calories daily. He ate to replenish those needed calories, and he knew there was no spare flesh on his frame. But her steady regard annoyed him, nevertheless. Still perusing her, he leaned deliberately back in his chair.

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nbsp; “Kalinda.” He drew the name out in a drawl. “What kind of name is that?”

  “It’s a combination of both my parents’ names. My father’s is Kasey and my mother’s is Linda. My friends call me Kaly.”

  “And what do your friends think of your spending the summer on a cattle ranch?”

  She smiled in amusement as she thought of Susan’s exaggeratedly romantic view of life on a ranch. “I must admit that my roommate had visions of strong silent cowboys on endless cattle drives.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t share her ideas,” Jackson muttered, already envisioning the possible problems with his hired hands if the beautiful woman before him decided to collect admirers.

  Kaly was taken aback. Although his words were innocent enough, they were at odds with the flinty look in his eyes.

  Jeff’s amiable voice cut in. “Jackson, you’re not harassing my assistant already, are you?”

  “Not at all,” Jackson denied deftly. “We were just getting acquainted.” He rose from the table. “I’m going back out to the cattle barn.” He shot a meaningful glance to Jeff. “Send any visitors out to see me there.”

  Jeff nodded, understanding that Jackson didn’t want to mention the forthcoming visit from the sheriff in front of the women. Jackson strode from the room, and Jeff got to his feet. “I really have some work I need to get to,” he said apologetically.

  Carrie waved him away. “Go on. I’ll just watch TV and do a little reading.”

  “And I’m going to go to my room and work on my paper,” Kaly said. “I’ll probably make an early night of it tonight.”

  “Get your rest,” Carrie teased, knowing Jeff was still within earshot. “My husband is a real slave driver!”

  “I heard that!” floated back through the doorway, and the women laughed.

  Kaly returned to her room and set up the laptop computer she’d brought with her. A Christmas gift from her parents a couple of years ago, it had astounded her at the time, but had since proven invaluable to her in her studies. She brought the latest chapter of her dissertation to the monitor. Soon she was immersed in revising her work.

  When Jeff Roberts looked out the window and saw the sheriff’s car coming up the drive, he hurried out the front door to intercept him. “Evening, Sheriff.”

  “Jeff. How’s that pretty little wife of yours?” Sheriff Roy Dumont was a portly man with a florid complexion. His was a labored, country charm that quickly had Carrie gnashing her teeth whenever they had a conversation. But despite his bumpkin appearance, he possessed a shrewd intelligence and insight that Jeff hoped would aid in this investigation.

  “Doctor says she’s doing just fine. Jackson’s down at the south cattle barn and said to bring you there as soon as you arrived.”

  Jackson saw the two men as they entered the barn, and he approached them in long strides. “Sheriff,” he said tersely.

  “Jackson.” The older man returned the greeting pleasantly. “I’ve been looking into your complaint and have some news for you. Seems a couple of your neighbors were hit this time, too. Blane and Schmidt reported some missing head shortly after I talked to you. Already been out to their ranches.”

  “Find anything?” Jackson asked impatiently.

  The sheriff scratched his head. He plainly didn’t like to be hurried. “Well, I found some tire tracks at Blane’s, but haven’t found out yet if they belong to one of his trucks or not. Didn’t find nothing at Schmidt’s. Same kind of operation that hit you, though. Not many head missing, and they took them from the pastures closest to the houses.”

  Jackson exchanged a look with Jeff and cursed. “How do you figure it, Roy?”

  “ ‘Pears to me that someone was bound and determined to fill up a truck with prime beef. How many head were you running in that pasture?”

  “Close to eighty. The rustlers could have easily filled their truck here, without risking going to other ranches. It doesn’t add up.”

  “Well, mebbe it doesn’t, mebbe it does,” Roy mused. “Let’s say the rustlers only struck here, like last time. But they want a big haul this go-round—they’re not gonna be satisfied with a measly dozen or so. What are the odds they can fill up a truck and have that big a loss go unnoticed for long?”

  “Not a chance,” Jackson stated surely. “Any more than a dozen, and one of my men would have noticed, even from a distance.”

  “Well, there you go then,” the sheriff answered. “The thieves wanted to buy some time. They were gonna get their truckload one way or another, but they figgered they’d risk hitting more than one place in a night for the extra getaway time it’d buy them. Instead of a few hours head start, they could count on at least a day, mebbe more.”

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Jeff said slowly, as Jackson mulled this over in silence. “But it still seems like they’re taking unnecessary risks. They could have hit the more remote pastures and still had a pretty good chance of being undetected for a while.”

  “But getting to those pastures in the dark with a truck that size would be a hell of a risk, too,” Jackson said finally. “They’d have to travel farther, over rougher ground, to get to the herds. It would be easy to break an axle at night in some of those pastures.”

  Roy nodded. “That’s how I figger it, too.”

  “But what are we going to do about it?” Jeff asked in frustration. “We can’t patrol the whole ranch indefinitely. If we’ve been hit twice, what’s to stop them from striking here again?”

  “Well, I’ll put another area watch on your place, of course,” the sheriff assured him.

  Jackson snorted. “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to help me sleep better at night, Roy. It sure didn’t do much good the last time. We got hit again almost the minute the watch was over.”

  “So you did. What do you make of that?”

  “Make of what?” Jeff asked, looking between his brother and the older man.

  “Jackson knows what I mean.”

  Jeff’s eyes swung to his brother’s. “Jack?”

  “He means maybe the rustlers knew there was an area watch on the place and knew when it was due to end. Because maybe the people who stole our cattle also work on this ranch.”

  “What?” Jeff’s mouth hung open in disbelief, but Roy was nodding and Jackson’s jaw was like granite.

  “You gotta look at all the angles, Jeff,” the sheriff told him. “Now, I ain’t saying it’s so, but it’s a possibility. We gotta look at all the possibilities.”

  Jeff shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Who do you suspect?”

  Jackson shrugged impatiently. He didn’t want to consider the idea any more than his brother did. He had hired most of these men himself, and the others had been here since he was a kid. He worked alongside them daily. He knew them, and he knew most of their families. He hated the ugly suspicion that kept cropping up in his thoughts ever since the ranch had been targeted, but as Roy had said, they had to consider every possibility, no matter how distasteful. “I don’t suspect anyone, yet,” he finally answered his brother. “I’m just keeping my eyes open.”

  “Still,” Jeff muttered, “it’s too unbelievable that one of our own men would be involved.”

  “Whoever it is,” Jackson said flatly, “they won’t get clean away. Nobody steals from me—I protect what’s mine.” His eyes were glacial when he looked at Roy and then at Jeff. “They better hope Roy catches them first.”

  The sheriff clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jackson, these guys usually leave a trail. We’ll find them. It’ll just take a little time. In the meantime, I’ll alert the markets to be on the lookout for brands from the three ranches.”

  Jackson heaved a sigh of frustration as Jeff escorted Roy back to his car. He leaned wearily against the side of the barn. Alerting the markets wasn’t going to be much help if the rustlers changed the brands on the stolen cattle, which they undoubtedly would do. Nor did he have much faith in the protection a renewed watch would give the ranch. It looked as if
he was going to have to rely on his own methods for guarding his cattle.

  But instead of focusing on his strategy for protecting the ranch, his tired mind formed a picture of Jeff’s new research assistant. Kaly’s delicate features swam in front of him.

  She was a pretty little thing, no denying it. And tiny. She stood almost a full foot shorter than he was. In that pink suit she’d worn earlier she’d looked as dainty and fragile as a desert flower. Something about the way she wore her hair all pulled up in back made him want to see the golden tresses released to cascade around her shoulders, or better yet across his own bare chest.

  His eyes snapped open. Hellfire and damnation! All he needed right now was to be thinking of Jeff’s hired bookworm. He had a finely honed radar when it came to women, and it screamed a warning about this one. Women with her looks were practiced at tying a man into knots, and that wasn’t Jackson’s style at all. His relationships tended to be hot, short and shallow, and that was the way he liked them.

  His ex-fiancée had been a woman just as attractive as Kaly Scott. Pretty, pampered and spoiled, she had spent all her time pouting for him to come and play with her and whining that it wasn’t enough. And then she had found someone else just as spoiled and useless to play with full-time. The pain of her betrayal had faded in the years since, but the lesson she taught him had not. Women weren’t to be trusted, and beautiful women were treacherous.

  He shoved impatiently away from the wall and strode toward the house. Thinking about past mistakes was a waste of time, except as a reminder to avoid repeating them. Morning came early at a ranch. He still had a pile of paperwork to do before he could turn in.

  Late that evening Kaly leaned back in her chair. She saved her work on her computer and shut it off. Stretching her tired shoulders, she readied for bed. As she ambled wearily back from the bathroom with her eyes at half-mast, she ran into a solid wall. Her eyes flew open. Jackson Roberts, looking as weary as she and very bad-tempered, held her away from his chest with two hard hands on her shoulders.