by Cathie Linz
“I don’t know. Maybe because I refused to sell out to Hoss Redkins, the local bigwig bully.”
“Sell out?” Dylan repeated with a frown. “You may be his niece, but this is still Pete’s ranch and there’s no way in God’s green earth he’d sell to an overblown buffoon like Redkins.”
Abigail bit her lip, realizing she still hadn’t told him about her uncle’s death. “My uncle passed away two months ago,” she said quietly. “His attorney called me and told me he’d left the ranch to me.”
“I thought he disowned his family when they sold out to Hoss.”
“He did. Over the years, I tried to stay in touch.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you did,” Dylan retorted. “You’d want to stay in the good old guy’s graces, after all.”
“Meaning what?”
“Nothing,” Dylan said wearily, taking off his hat and shoving his hand through his hair before setting the Stetson back on his head again. It shook him to realize that Pete was dead. Dylan had met him at a local rodeo where Pete had supplied some of the horses. The old man might have been about as friendly as a grizzly caught in a bear trap, but Dylan had enjoyed his company over the past ten years—since he’d moved west, in fact. Pete had taught him a lot. It pained him to think that Pete wouldn’t be sharing any more tall tales of the “good old days” with him over a steaming cup of coffee generously laced with whiskey.
“So what are you going to do with the ranch now?” Dylan asked.
“Why, keep it, of course.”
“Keep it? Like some kind of science project? Do you have any idea how much work it takes, not to mention money, to run a ranch, even one as small as this one?”
“I have a good idea, yes. I did a lot of research before I came up here.”
“At the library down in Great Falls, no doubt,” he said mockingly.
“That’s right. And don’t forget that I grew up on the ranch next door.”
“Decades ago.”
Stung, she said, “It wasn’t that long ago!”
“Yeah? How old are you?”
“How old are you?” she retorted.
“Twenty-eight.”
My God, he was just a baby! Well, maybe not, she amended, noting the fit of his jeans. He was definitely all grown-up. But he was a good four years younger than she was.
Thirty-two had never felt so old to her before, but then she’d never been attracted to a younger man before. She was also vastly irritated by him, she reminded herself, lest her hormones incite a temporary memory loss.
“Let me guess, a gentleman never asks a lady her age, right?” Dylan said. “So, Ms. Librarian, are you and your horse going to come along quietlike, or am I gonna have to lasso you?” Seeing her startled look, he continued, “I’ve got a double horse trailer parked a short ways away. It’s attached to my pickup, and I can give you both a lift back to the ranch house.”
“If you think I’m going to hitch a lift with a stranger-”
“I’m not the stranger, you are. You know my name. I still don’t know yours.”
“It’s Abigail,” she replied, staring him right in the eye, the tilt of her chin a challenge and a dare. “Abigail Turner.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” he teased her, but she was no longer paying attention.
It suddenly occurred to her that maybe she was looking a gift horse, or in this case a gift cowboy, in the eye here. “Now that I think about it, you might be just what I’m looking for,” she murmured.
“Really?” he murmured right back with a lift of one devilish eyebrow. “And how do you figure that?”
“Are you looking for a job?” she asked.
“Why? Are you aimin’ on hiring me for something?”
“Maybe. I know you’re experienced…with horses, I mean,” Abigail added in a rush. She felt like an idiot. “I write better dialogue than this,” she muttered.
“You do?” Dylan replied. “That mean you’re a writer?”
“That’s right.” She lifted her chin, waiting for the inevitable question—What do you write?
Instead, he cautiously said, “What kind of job are we talking about here?”
“I don’t suppose you take dictation, do you?” she couldn’t resist inquiring with the slightest of smiles.
“You’d suppose right.”
“How about typing?”
“Nope.”
“Is that championship belt buckle you’re wearing really yours?”
His dark eyes gleamed in the sunlight. “Want to check out the initials yourself?” he inquired wickedly, propping his two thumbs behind the wide silver buckle in a gesture that was downright inviting and very, very sexy.
For a moment, Abigail wondered what he’d do if she called his bluff. Then she decided she’d better not find out. At least, not right now. “I’m looking for a temporary ranch foreman,” she said briskly. “During the past few years, my uncle wasn’t able to keep up with things, and the property and fences show it. There’s also livestock to be taken care of. I need someone willing to work hard. Hoss has put out the word, so none of the men around here will apply for the job. I should warn you that if Hoss scares you, then this isn’t the job for you.”
“Hoss doesn’t scare me.” You do, Dylan almost added. The blond librarian might be old Pete’s niece, but she looked city bred and very high maintenance. Her jeans weren’t anything fancy, nor was her denim shirt, but she had a way of carrying herself that was downright feminine. Yet she’d been quietly confident when she’d checked her horse, moving with quick capability. The woman was a study in contrasts. And she smelled like lily of the valley. Damn.
Her problems weren’t his, he reminded himself. If he had a lick of sense, he’d remount and head on out. But cowboy chivalry demanded otherwise, just as it had decreed that he rescue her when he’d seen her wildly racing off across the meadow. Dylan wasn’t the kind of man who went looking for trouble, but somehow trouble always seemed to find him anyway, despite the fact that he liked to keep moving.
His roving life-style suited him just fine; he wasn’t looking to settle down. His older brother might have gotten married and his sister might have eloped, but Dylan wasn’t ready to be put out to pasture just yet. Not by a long shot.
Still, Dylan never could resist a challenge, be it from a horse that they said couldn’t be ridden or a woman as bristly as a porcupine. There was something about both that made his Gypsy blood run hot.
Wild Thing snorted and impatiently stamped her foot, as if publicly declaring her irritation with being ignored.
“I think I will take you up on that offer for a lift,” Abigail decided. “Then we can talk some more about the foreman’s job when we get to the ranch house.”
Once the horses were safely ensconced in the double horse trailer and Abigail had climbed aboard the front bench seat of his pickup, she had the distinct feeling that she’d just taken the first step in an entirely new direction for her life. Only problem was that she wasn’t sure this was the right direction.
Dylan wouldn’t stay long; cowboys rarely did. But maybe he’d stay long enough for her to get someone more permanent for the job. Someone older and preferably married. Someone settled down.
Not that the words settled and cowboy often went together. They never had in her experience. Her third and final relationship with a cowboy had ended two months ago with him heading for Arizona and her nursing a broken heart. She’d be the first to admit that it was rather ironic that a successful writer of Western romances like herself could write a best-seller of a happy ending, but couldn’t seem to find one for herself. At the moment, she was more concerned with finding out exactly who’d sabotaged her horse—putting both her and Wild Thing’s safety, if not their very lives, in jeopardy.
“What the hell is that?” Dylan demanded, staring in disbelief at a strange-looking structure perched alongside the gravel lane heading to the ranch house. The compact building looked as if it had sprung from the earth and, un
less his eyes deceived him, it even had grass on the roof. He knew Pete had been getting a little eccentric in his later years, but he wouldn’t have built something this bizarre.
“That’s Ziggy’s place,” Abigail replied as Dylan pulled his pickup truck to a slow halt.
“Who the hell is Ziggy?”
“A friend of mine.”
“And you let him build that monstrosity on your land?”
“Ziggy is an artist.”
As if to accentuate that point, the sudden and unmistakable roar of a power saw filled the air, causing a jay sitting on a nearby cottonwood branch to go skittering across the sky in raucous disapproval.
The sound of horses’ hooves hitting the bottom of the horse trailer conveyed their nervous reaction to the unfamiliar loud noise.
“Get him to turn that damn thing off!” Dylan ordered her in a growl. “He’s upsetting the horses.”
“Wait a second, who’s the boss around here?” she demanded, but she was speaking to empty air since Dylan had hopped out of the pickup cab and gone around back. By the time she’d slid out of the truck, Dylan was already marching over to Ziggy’s place as if determined to shut him up himself.
Even though the day was sunny and warm, Ziggy was wearing his customary Swiss army cap. His shaggy white hair stuck out at wild angles from beneath it. Baggy overalls, a plaid lumberjack shirt and work boots completed his outfit. The middle-aged outdoorsman and wood-carver was described as unique by his friends, crazy by his enemies and talented by those who bought the sculptures he carved out of whole tree trunks. He was up to his ankles in sawdust and standing to one side of the weird dwelling he’d built.
Ziggy spoke English with an accent, but whenever he was upset he reverted to German and French curses mixed with a touch of Italian—a result of his Swiss heritage. When Dylan interrupted him, Ziggy glared and the international string of swear words filled the air instead of the sound of the power saw.
“How can I work when I am always interrupted?” Ziggy demanded of Abigail, his tone much aggrieved.
“Baaaaaaaah.”
“Now see what you are doing? You are upsetting Heidi und Gretel,” Ziggy stated.
“Who are they? Your kids?” Dylan asked.
“In a matter of speaking,” Abigail replied on Ziggy’s behalf. “Goat kids,” she added, pointing to the grass roof, where a trio of goats was munching on the grass.
To her surprise, the beginning of a rueful smile tugged at the corners of Dylan’s lips, making her realize what perfectly sculpted lips they were. As before, the brim from his hat shadowed much of his face from her view, but the sun shone full force on his mouth, accentuating the aesthetic curve of his upper lip and the sensual fullness of the lower one.
“Nice friends you’ve got here,” Dylan drawled.
“No kidding,” she replied with a grin of her own.
He groaned. “You didn’t say anything about bad puns being part of this job.”
“That bother you?” she inquired saucily.
“Do I look bothered?” he countered. Using the tip of his thumb, he angled his hat a little farther back on his head. The shape of the broad brim gave an added edge to his appearance. Aside from a red cardinal’s feather, there was nothing fancy about the rather dusty black Stetson, and there was nothing fancy about Dylan. She had a feeling that the L-shaped rip in the left leg of his jeans wasn’t a fashion statement, but was instead a sign of wear and tear.
Feeling her eyes on him, Dylan decided that turnabout was fair play. So he stared at her, his gaze appreciative and speculative, as he fantasized that he was touching her with more than just his eyes.
“Stop that, you two!” Ziggy commanded. “I can feel fire from here. All this emoting is too distracting for an artist like me.”
Dylan watched the pink blossom in Abigail’s cheeks and shook his head in amazement. “I thought blushing was a lost art,” he murmured.
“It’s sunburn,” she shot back. “We’re leaving now, Ziggy.”
“My name’s Dylan, by the way,” Dylan said, nodding at Ziggy by way of introduction. “You been working on this piece long?” he added, indicating the tree trunk Ziggy had been carving.
“Since early this morning,” Ziggy replied.
“Did you happen to see Abbie here go riding by while you were working?”
“My name is Abigail,” she inserted.
“I call you Abbie,” Ziggy commented.
“That’s because you’re my friend. Dylan is…”
“The new ranch foreman,” he said on his own behalf. “Temporarily.”
“You will be helping Abbie, then,” Ziggy noted with a wide smile. “That is good. She needs help. I can do some but not everything. I am good with horses, I was raised on a farm near the Jura Mountains. We had horses and many cows. Goats, too.”
“You’re good with horses?” Dylan asked.
Ziggy nodded but added, “I’m better artist than cowboy.”
“That’s okay, Dylan here is the cowboy,” Abigail said.
“Did you happen to visit the barn this morning?” Dylan asked Ziggy.
“I was here working on my sculpture all morning,” Ziggy stated.
“Yeah, well, horses don’t like loud noises, especially sudden ones. If you were raised on a farm, you should know that.”
“Swiss horses are much better behaved than American ones,” Ziggy maintained.
“Right. And I’m Buffalo Bill Cody,” Dylan scoffed. “Just watch out when you use the saw, make sure that you don’t make that racket when someone is riding nearby.”
“No one rides nearby here,” Ziggy declared. “They know I am working.”
“Dylan, I really do have to get back to the ranch house,” Abigail inserted, practically tapping her boot in impatience.
Once they were back on the road again and the sound of Ziggy’s power saw was a distant annoyance, Abigail began questioning Dylan. “Why were you interrogating Ziggy that way?”
“Just trying to get a lay for the land. Did you see Ziggy in the barn this morning when you were saddling your horse?”
“Of course not. He likes horses but he loves sculpting. It’s hard to drag him away from his work. Why the sudden curiosity?”
“Because someone put those burrs on your horse’s saddle blanket.”
“It wasn’t Ziggy.”
“What made you bring an eccentric like him up here?”
“He used to come into the library a lot. We’d talk about books and artists. Over the years, he became a friend. When I moved up here, I took pity on his neighbors in Great Falls, who were forever calling the authorities on him for using his saw at seven in the morning. I figured there would be enough space here on the ranch for him to be able to work in peace and quiet.”
“I have a feeling peace and quiet don’t go hand in hand with Ziggy.”
“How about you? Does peace and quiet go hand in hand with you?”
“Sometimes.”
“When you’re sleeping, right?”
The image of her curled up asleep filled his mind, stealing into his soul. Did she sleep on her side or her back? And what did she wear to bed—a slinky nightgown, a cotton sleep shirt or maybe nothing at all?
“I usually make it a point to avoid trouble,” Dylan said, as much as a reminder to himself as a reply to her.
“And how do you manage that?”
“By moving around a lot.”
It was the answer she expected but not the one she wanted.
Coming around the corner of the barn and seeing the ranch for the first time never failed to touch Abigail’s heart. Others might notice the weather-beaten smallness of the three-bedroom log house. They might see the work that needed to be done: the sagging gutters, the neglected yard, the slightly off kilter chimney. Even the porch swing hung unevenly and needed a new coat of paint.
But Abigail saw home. She had always loved the location of her uncle’s ranch, which had an even better view of the surrounding mou
ntains than her parents’ ranch had had. A hillside rose directly behind it, with two tall fir trees standing sentinel atop it. In the evening, she’d climb the path up the hill and sit there, smelling the evergreen mixed with wood smoke from the cabin. Lower down, the aspens’ pale bark glowed in the sunshine. The hill protected the house from the fierce northern winds, while the front porch had a southern exposure.
She and Dylan had unsaddled their horses without any further comment. Dylan had been as familiar with the layout of the barn as she was. And she’d discovered that his horse, an Appaloosa gelding, was aptly named Traveler.
Her thoughts of Dylan and his traveling ways were interrupted by the realization that they had company. An oversize man sat on his much besieged horse, glaring at Abigail’s friend, Raj. The young woman was glaring right back.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Redkins?” Abigail inquired.
“Like I was telling your servant there—”
“Raj is my friend, not my servant,” Abigail declared.
“Whatever. I’m here to see if you’ve decided to accept my offer to take this place off your hands,” Hoss said, shifting in his saddle.
“And I told you that I’m not interested in selling,” Abigail stated.
“I thought you might have changed your mind.”
“Now, why would you think that?” Abigail demanded.
“Yeah, why would you think that?” Dylan drawled, speaking for the first time.
Instead of answering, Hoss said, “What are you doing here, boy? I heard you busted your leg in some rodeo down in Oklahoma. Come to loaf the summer off old man Turner, have you? Must have been a surprise to hear he’d kicked the bucket.”
“Still as charming as ever, I see, Redkins,” Dylan retorted.
“Is this man bothering you?” Hoss demanded of Abigail, his face florid as he glared at Dylan.
“No, but you are,” she muttered under her breath.
“What was that?” Hoss asked.
“I said that Dylan is not bothering me. He’s…”
“Come to help her,” Dylan inserted.
