“Why haven’t you?”
“Because I look like this. Because your mother and brother think I’m a crook.”
“I don’t understand about the debt, but I don’t think you’re a crook.”
“Why?”
“Crooks and thieves don’t act the way you’ve acted.”
“I could be working for you so I could steal your mother’s silverware.”
Amanda laughed and some of the tension between them eased. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting that horrible stuff.”
“It’s silver, and many people lost everything in the war.”
“Did you lose everything?”
“I had no material possessions, but I lost my career on the stage. It was the only way I knew to make a living.”
“Now you know all about ranches. Will you stay and teach me what you’ve learned?”
Broc felt tension crawl along the back of his shoulders. “If I stay, I’ll want to kiss you again.”
“That’s okay.”
“I don’t mean I’ll just want to kiss you. I mean I’ll need to kiss you.”
Amanda’s gaze didn’t waver. “That’s okay.”
Broc couldn’t believe she really meant what she said, but now was a good time to find out. He moved closer, slipped his arm around her waist, and pulled her to him. She didn’t resist even when her breasts came in contact with his chest. Slowly, still afraid he might be asking more of her than she was ready to give, he lowered his head until their lips met.
Her mouth was as soft and sweet as he remembered. He had lain awake most of the night reliving their kiss, trying to imprint on his mind every moment, every sensation, every feeling. Now he didn’t have to try to remember because he would never forget this kiss. He hadn’t acted on impulse. His thought processes hadn’t been suspended. He had approached this as a test, but once their lips met, all that mattered was holding Amanda in his arms and kissing her.
He had kissed many women during his days on the riverboats, young women and not-so-young women, eager to indulge in a moonlight tryst with a handsome actor. Some had been beautiful, several rich, others amorous—some rich, beautiful and amorous—but nothing had affected him as powerfully as this simple kiss from Amanda, because she was kissing him back with as much purpose and vigor as he was kissing her.
It was enough to make a man lose his moorings and start imagining that anything might be possible. To hold her, breathe in her scent, feel the heat of her body against him, was more intoxicating than the finest cognac. He didn’t want to get his hopes up too soon, but—
“Why are you kissing Amanda?”
Eddie’s voice cut though the bubble of unreality around them like a knife through soft butter.
“Mama said Amanda has to come to breakfast. She said if she had to cook it, Amanda had to eat it. I thought you were going into town,” the boy said to Broc. “I asked Mama if I could have your biscuit. She said she was going to give it to the chickens. I don’t like chickens. I don’t want to give them your biscuit.”
Amanda had busied herself straightening her clothes and schooling her expression to impassivity before she turned to face her brother. “I was just trying to convince Broc to stay here rather than go into town.”
Eddie looked uneasy. “Do I have to kiss him if I want him to stay?”
Amanda put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, but Broc let his roll out without restraint. “No,” he said when he caught his breath, “but it would be nice if you asked me to stay.”
“Mama doesn’t want you to stay,”—Eddie hadn’t yet learned that some things were better left unsaid—“but Leo and I do. I don’t count Andy.”
“I’m going to stay, but I’ll have to leave soon.”
“If Amanda kisses you again, will you stay longer?”
Amanda blushed and giggled.
“We’ll have to see,” Broc said. “Now I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell your mother you saw me kissing Amanda.”
“Hell, no!” Eddie exclaimed. “She’d have a conniption fit.”
Broc was able to contain his amusement, but Amanda was overcome with a very undignified fit of giggles. “Go back and tell your mother we’ll be in shortly.”
“Can’t. She said I was to come back with Amanda, or I wouldn’t get any breakfast. I gotta eat so I can grow big enough to beat up Gary.”
“Okay.” Common sense told Broc not to be foolish, but he couldn’t extinguish the tiny flame of hope that his future might not be as bleak as he’d always imagined it would be.
“Do you think these are some of the one hundred cows you said we’re missing?” Amanda asked Leo.
“I don’t know,” the boy replied.
“What do you think?” she asked Broc.
After two days’ hard work, they’d finished the rough tally of the cows on their range. When they came across cows belonging to Carruthers or Sandoval, they’d hazed the cows back to their own range. They’d been in the process of returning a cow to Carruthers’s range when they noticed a Lazy T cow and calf. When they went to chase that cow back to their range, they found another. That had led to another until they had found five, two of them with calves by the stud bull.
“It’s hard to say,” Broc said. “We’re still fairly close to your range. They could have wandered this far on their own. If you really have lost over a hundred cows with calves by your stud bull, then my guess would be that they were stolen. It sounds like someone was choosing which cows he wanted.”
That’s what she thought, but she’d hoped Broc would tell her something different.
“I don’t see how there could be rustlers around,” Leo said. “Sandoval or Carruthers would have lost enough cows to be suspicious.”
“It’s hard to know when you have so much land to cover,” Broc said.
The glance he sent Amanda’s way told her he was thinking what she was thinking: this was no common rustling operation. Whoever had taken the cows had concentrated on the Lazy T herd, with special attention to calves by the stud bull.
“What do you think we ought to do?” she asked Broc.
He took a moment to survey the prairie that stretched before them. “There are so many trees on Carruthers’s land, it’s hard to tell if there might be more Lazy T stock there. Why don’t you and the boys take these cows back while I look around?”
“If Carruthers finds you, he’ll kill you,” Andy said.
“He’s in town interviewing drovers to take his herd to Abilene. Sandoval, too. I heard them talking about it last night.”
Amanda was feeling exhausted from working on the ranch during the day and in the saloon every night, but the men had responded well to her performing with Broc. Every time Corby saw a man who usually went to another saloon, he rushed over to tell her. She suggested that he add a dollar to her night’s pay instead, but he wasn’t that grateful.
“Andy and Leo can take the cows back,” Amanda said. “I’ll go with you.”
Broc tried to talk her into going with the boys, but she refused. She didn’t think it was good leadership to ask people to take risks she wouldn’t take herself. That was no way to build loyalty or respect, and being a woman in a man’s world, she needed a lot of both.
“Be careful,” Leo said as he and Andy were getting ready to leave. “Even if Carruthers is in town, his men could cause trouble.”
“We’ll be okay,” Amanda assured him. “I’ve got Broc to watch out for me.”
She didn’t know how much faith Leo had in Broc’s ability to protect her, but Andy’s sneer implied he didn’t have any.
“You really think I’ll watch out for you?” Broc asked after the boys had left.
“You’ve been doing it for close to a week. I don’t know why you’d stop now.”
Broc grinned in a way that had come to be very special to her. “Then let’s go. You look for cows, and I’ll watch for Carruthers’s men.”
It was hard to think of cows when she was with Broc. The last
two days had been wonderful and terrible at the same time. She found it hard to believe how much she liked being with him. It didn’t make any difference whether they were in the saddle, taking care of their horses after a long day, talking about problems over a meal, or working together in the saloon. Being with him was like being with a part of herself. That is, if she could discount the growing physical attraction.
She couldn’t.
Her mother still sulked when she had to be around Broc, but Amanda was finding it increasingly difficult not to show her growing attraction to him. Especially when he kissed her, which he did as often as he could manage to be alone with her for a few minutes. It wasn’t as hard as she’d thought to find these isolated moments. The hard part was keeping them short to avoid suspicion. How could she have known that being wrapped in Broc’s embrace, being kissed by him, would be something she’d want to do as often as possible? She hadn’t wanted to kiss or be held by Corby or any of the other men she knew. She’d been uninterested in men for so long, she’d begun to wonder if she was too coldhearted to fall in love.
All that had changed with Broc. They worked together nearly all day, but that wasn’t enough. When she wasn’t with him, she was thinking about him. When she was sleeping, she dreamed about him. When he talked to her about the ranch or the cows, it was all she could do to keep her mind on what he was saying. She didn’t understand why any woman would notice his scars when there was so much more of him to appreciate. She felt herself grow warm remembering some of the dreams that had been inspired by his strong arms or powerful thighs. Why would any woman care what kind of clothes he wore when they clothed a body that seemed perfect in every way?
She felt guilty hiding her feelings from her mother, who still insisted Broc was a thief. She was irritated that Corby watched the two of them with the suspicious eyes of a jealous lover. Gary was irritated, Andy angry, and Leo amused. Eddie was just happy to have Broc around. She wondered, not for the first time, why everybody couldn’t keep their opinions to themselves.
“There’s one.”
Amanda came out of her abstraction and turned her gaze in the direction Broc was pointing.
“She has twins,” Broc pointed out. “That almost never happens. Let’s make a big circle around her. She looks ready to bolt.”
The cow eyed Amanda suspiciously, her two calves huddled against her flanks. Amanda decided to ride on the far side of a thick grove of post oak tangled with grape vines. When she did, she found herself confronting one of Carruthers’s men. She recognized him as the one who’d told Carruthers he wouldn’t help him hang Broc.
He looked behind her, then over his own shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re after a cow that strayed off our land.”
“We? Who’s with you?”
“Broc.”
“Shit!”
The expletive surprised her.
“Carruthers has ordered us to shoot any of your men we find on his land. He was especially insistent that we keep a look out for Broc.”
“We were bringing some of your cows back when we noticed a few of ours,” she explained.
“That won’t make any difference to Carruthers.” They had cleared the thicket and Amanda saw that Broc had circled the cow and was hazing her back toward her ranch. “Come with me,” the cowboy said and put his horse into a gallop.
Amanda saw Broc tense, then relax a little when he saw who was with her.
“Dan,” Broc called out. “What are you doing here?”
“We have to hide,” Dan replied as soon as he got close enough for Broc to hear. “There’s no time to ask questions. I’ll explain later.”
He looked over both shoulders. Amanda didn’t see anybody, but it was clear Dan was expecting someone very soon. She looked at Broc, but he nodded his head to indicate they were to follow Dan.
“This isn’t the best place,” Dan said, “but I don’t have time to find another.”
Amanda was unprepared to see Dan gallop his horse toward a post oak thicket about a hundred yards away. It wasn’t until their horses’ noses were touching the branches that Amanda saw the small break in the trees.
“In there.” Dan pointed to the opening. “Don’t leave until I come for you. It may be a long time, so just stay put.”
Without hesitation, Broc rode his horse through the opening and disappeared into the thicket. Giving Dan one last look, Amanda followed.
What had looked like an impenetrable thicket proved to be quite open once they passed the tangle of vines. The trees provided a canopy so dense that the lower branches had died and fallen off. The ground was covered with damp leaves that muffled the sound of their horses’ hooves. Broc motioned her to dismount.
“Hold your hand over your horse’s nose so he won’t nicker if he scents other horses.”
Being careful to move quietly, Broc approached the edge of the thicket.
“Why did you follow Dan without question?” she whispered. “He works for Carruthers.”
“I’ve talked with him a couple of times. I trust him.”
“Why did he want us to hide? If he was afraid of what Carruthers might do, why didn’t he just tell us to go back?”
“I expect some men he doesn’t trust are close enough he thought they might see us.”
Amanda wanted to say more, but her horse suddenly jerked his head up. She covered his nostrils just as his belly tightened up for a nicker.
“Somebody’s coming,” Broc warned.
Keeping a tight hold on her horse, Amanda strained her ears for the slightest sound. She was surprised at the number of little sounds she would never have noticed at any other time. But she wasn’t interested in rustling leaves, birds, small rodents, even the breathing of the horses. It wasn’t long before she heard approaching horsemen coming from two directions, one from the Lazy T and one from the Carruthers ranch house.
“What are they doing?” she whispered.
He shrugged his shoulders and indicated she wasn’t to talk. She suddenly realized why. The riders were approaching the thicket where they were hiding.
Chapter Thirteen
“This is a waste of time.”
“It’s what the boss wants, and he’s the one paying our wages.”
“That guy would be a fool to come back.”
“The boss is certain he will. He says he’s the type to get in trouble trying to help a woman.” The man laughed. “Hell, I’d get in trouble if I could get a piece of that woman.”
Amanda felt heat flame in her face, but it was impossible to move away. The speakers were too close.
“I think it’s stupid to waste time chasing cows off their land just to tempt them to come after their beeves. I don’t like this kind of stuff. I’m thinking about shoving off.”
“Why should you care?”
“What do you think, Dan?”
“Not my decision,” Dan replied. “I just take orders.”
“That’s what you ought to do.”
“I don’t know. I’m getting tired of riding around looking for chances to make trouble. Besides, I don’t see why that lady can’t send her hands over to look for stray cows.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dan said. “They all get sorted out at roundup.”
“Then why are we chasing her cows over here?”
“Just to cause trouble,” the other guy said.
“Well, I’m fed up with it. She seems like a nice woman. Even the guy ain’t too bad.”
“Carruthers is just angry the fellow refused to work for him and hired on with that woman instead.”
“I’d work for her if she offered me a job.”
“You’d be a fool.”
“Time you boys get back to work,” Dan said.
“Want us to take that cow along with us?”
“No. She’s more likely to attract attention if she’s close enough for someone to see her.”
“Carruthers said chase every cow with calves by that stud bull as far
away from her land as we can.”
“This cow can’t be bait if she’s five miles from here.”
“Let’s go. I’m starting to feel hungry. You coming?”
“Not yet,” Dan said. “I want to look around some more.”
“Make sure you give a signal if you find him. I don’t want to miss the fun.”
“You mean like when you caused that fool kid to bust his shoulder?”
“Nobody forced him to lasso that steer.”
“Get going,” Dan said. “You can argue on your way home.”
“Which way did the other hands go?”
“They’re making a broad sweep about a mile this side of the creek on their way back to the ranch,” Dan told them. “You ought to catch up with them in about ten minutes.”
“I’m not riding that hard. My horse will sweat, and I’ll have to wash him down.”
“You shouldn’t mind doing it after he’s carried your sorry ass all day.”
“Quit bitching and ride,” Dan ordered, “or you’ll be rubbing down every horse that went out today.”
The two men headed off at a canter. Amanda didn’t know whether Dan had gone with them until he spoke. “Wait about ten more minutes and you can leave. Head back toward that row of hills. It’s about twice as far that way, but no one will see you.”
Amanda wanted to thank him for helping them, but he rode away too quickly. She had some questions she wanted to ask, too, but this wasn’t the time.
“That clears up the mystery of why so many cows keep wandering in this direction,” Broc said.
“Why would Carruthers chase them off if we get them back at roundup?”
“He doesn’t care about the cows, just causing trouble. He’s determined to have your ranch, and he’ll do anything he can to make that happen. One of the best ways is to make sure you don’t have anybody working for you. That’s why he’s so angry with me.”
“Do you think those men would have tried to hang you?”
“No. It’s just Carruthers who seems to want me dead.”
“Why? I’m sure other men have refused to work for him.”
“But they haven’t worked for you instead. I think ten minutes have passed. Let me take a look.”
When Love Comes Page 16
