The Cowboy's Bride

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “The hands are sending a fire truck,” she shouted as the billowing smoke stung her eyes and throat.

  Cody nodded his understanding and finished spraying the last of the foam around the perimeter. “Get back to the truck,” he ordered as his extinguisher made a dry, sputtering sound and then fell silent. He tossed the empty extinguisher into the dirt.

  Ignoring his order—Cody needed her help whether he wanted it or not — Callie grabbed a shovel and began to help. Intending to dig a ditch around the perimeter of the still-burning acre, she picked up a shovelful of dirt and tossed it on the fire.

  Cody scowled at her. Then he moved on ahead of her and with a powerful motion of his arm began to rake the pickax through the dirt, loosening the soil ahead of her. The digging and shoveling began to go faster for Callie as Cody then picked up a blanket and beat at the flames.

  Some fifteen minutes and much backbreaking labor later, they had the fire pretty much contained. And it was then that the hands came barreling into the wheat field in a convoy of pickups. Jumping out of the truck, with the crew boss Shorty in the lead, they carried other fire extinguishers over and quickly put out the rest of the flames.

  Cody was already moving off through the fields, studying the crops. “What are you looking for?” Callie asked, jogging after him breathlessly.

  He shot her an angry glance over his shoulder. “Like you don’t know.”

  Callie was covered with dirt and soot. Perspiration streamed down her face and chest. She found a relatively clean square of shirtsleeve and wiped her face. “You think there’s more fires starting?”

  “I think that a fire like this doesn’t start by itself, not on a green wheat crop.”

  He hunkered down. Callie paused beside him.

  He was studying an empty gasoline can, turned on its side. It was the kind used to carry fuel for a lawnmower and it was drained completely dry, and not the least bit weathered.

  Buck and Pa had left quite a calling card. And unfortunately, because she had been compelled to follow through on their hint, she had implicated herself in the malicious mischief, as well.

  Cody glanced back up at her. “You want to tell me what you know about this?” he demanded furiously, as a short distance away the hands began the job of cleaning up.

  Callie swallowed and knit her hands together nervously. “I had nothing to do with what happened here.”

  “And yet you knew about it.”

  What could Callie say to that? It was true. Unable to bear the hurt and betrayal she saw in Cody’s eyes, she turned away. She did not want to have this conversation. Now or ever. She did not want to be in a position to have to turn her own family in to the authorities. Let someone else do that. The way Pa and Buck were popping up and taking chances, it wouldn’t be long before they were caught doing something.

  Cody followed her, refusing to let the matter drop. When he spoke, his voice was dangerously soft. “You urged me to come out here.” He grabbed her shoulders roughly, shook her slightly, as if that would tumble the truth out of her. “Why, Callie?”

  Callie drew an enervating breath. She felt hopelessly torn. The truth was, she didn’t know what to do. She knew her mother would have expected her to protect Buck and Pa, to somehow put them back on the right path as she had time and again. They were her family, after all. But Callie had tried to get them to do what was right and failed in that endeavor countless times years ago, and she had finally come to the conclusion it wasn’t going to happen, not in her lifetime, not in Cody’s. So what was she supposed to do? Tell Cody her pa and Buck were back around, causing trouble for him, and have him think she was in on it, too, and turn her into the police? Or keep silent and pray Buck and Pa would either get caught and turned in by someone else or go away when they didn’t get what they wanted? Either way, her relationship with Cody was ruined almost before it had even been rekindled.

  Aware Cody was still waiting for an answer, Callie swallowed and looked up at him in desperate appeal, answering him as truthfully as she could: “I had a bad feeling. All right?”

  The accusation in his blue eyes deepened. “At precisely the time the fire here was starting,” he concluded disbelievingly. “What next, Callie?”

  That was it, Callie thought, her own despair increasing by leaps and bounds. She didn’t know. And wouldn’t until it happened.

  Before she could respond, Shorty came up to talk to Cody. “Looks like everything is under control here,” Shorty reported.

  “And elsewhere?” Cody inquired as Callie looked on with bated breath, hoping nothing else bad had happened.

  “Nothing much,” Shorty reported, looking from Cody to Callie and back again. “We’ve got a maverick calf out in pasture ten twenty-six. I was about to go out and pick him up and return him to the rest of the herd when I got your call.”

  “I’ll do it,” Cody was quick to volunteer. He still looked as if he wanted to explode.

  Shorty nodded. “I’ll get you the stuff.” He returned to his truck and brought back a first-aid kit, a rope with a lasso on the end of it and a bottle of formula.

  In silence, Cody turned and headed for his pickup truck, his strides long and angry. Silent and upset, Callie followed him and got in, too.

  Cody shoved the key in the ignition and started the truck up with a roar that had everyone turning to look their way. “I don’t know what my Uncle Max was thinking when he tried to fix me up with you.” He thrust the truck into gear and roared off, out of the pasture. “You don’t have a heart. You don’t even have a conscience!”

  “That is not true!”

  Ignoring her, Cody floored the accelerator. They flew over the gravel lane, bouncing back and forth and up and down. Cody’s hands gripped the wheel fiercely as he shot her a debilitating look. “’Course, Uncle Max was probably right to think that you’d want to marry me, if for nothing else than to get your hands on my money and thereby enhance the quality of your own life. But as for you knowing anything at all about being a good wife to a man like me...” He shook his head disparagingly.

  Callie flushed. “So I forgot to turn off the stove and boiled the soup pan dry,” she railed. “That was your fault as much as it was mine.”

  Cody’s sensual lower lip curled in remembered satisfaction. “The lovemaking, maybe. But you forgot the stove first,” he swore as he took a hard right turn, then screeched to a halt that sent them both tumbling forward. Thrusting the vehicle into park, he caught her up short and hauled her close. “Or was that your intention?” he wondered, his fingers tightening almost painfully on her upper arms. “First, burn my house down, then my crops? God knows you’ve already trashed the old outpost, which was my home away from home!”

  Callie put a hand square on his chest and pushed until he released her. “I told you I had nothing to do with the theft of your bull.” She scooted back to the far corner of the pickup cab. “Furthermore, your theory doesn’t even begin to make sense. If I had known about the bull being inside your cabin, why would I have put my own life in jeopardy by going in there?”

  “How the heck should I know?” Cody shrugged. “Maybe you wanted to make sure no clues were left that would point to your partners in crime. Though I think it is pretty clear who those fellas are.”

  Callie couldn’t disagree with him on that. So she jutted her chin out stubbornly and changed the subject back to her domestic skills. “Furthermore, I do too have what it takes to make a good wife.” It had been wrong of him to say otherwise.

  His left arm casually looped over the steering wheel, Cody sat back against the driver’s door. “It’s more than making a man happy in bed.”

  Now this, Callie thought, was getting interesting. “Go on.”

  Cody exhaled an exasperated breath. “It’s more than simply cooking and cleaning, too. It’s making a place a home,” he said wistfully. “Making it warm and cozy.”

  Callie rolled her eyes. He sure had strange ideas about what he wanted in a wife. “A decorator could
do that for you, Cody,” she said dryly.

  Cody frowned. “I’m not talking about spending money here, Callie. I’m talking about a gift from the heart.” He paused to dramatically palm his chest. “I’m talking about creating the kind of warm, loving ambience you can’t buy in any store or read how to do in any magazine. Being able to do that comes from in here.” Cody pointed to her heart. Finished, he started the engine and thrust it roughly into drive again. “Although now that I ruminate on it a bit, I think I know what all this homegrown terrorism is about.”

  Callie narrowed her eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

  Cody slanted her a complacent glance. “You’re trying to get me to refuse to marry you so you can have the lion’s share of the ranch. Well, it’s not going to work, Callie,” he warned decisively. “You stole my happiness years ago. You’re not robbing me of anything else, no matter what you do or say.”

  “Well, you stole my happiness, too!”

  “Then we’re even.”

  No, Callie thought as Cody stopped at a pasture gate marked 1026. But one day soon they would be.

  He got out, unlocked the padlock on it and swung it open. He drove the truck through, then continued on until he spotted a bawling calf, no bigger than a full-grown golden retriever, tangled up in a section of fence.

  Cody got out of the truck, grabbed the lasso, the first-aid kit and the bottle of formula. As he looked toward the maverick calf, his face softened compassionately. It was clear he identified with the calf, and Callie could see why. The maverick had been accidentally separated from the herd through no real fault of his own. Now, miserable, alone, frightened, the calf had no idea how to find his way back to the herd. Just as Cody had no idea how to find his way back to her or the people he loved.

  “How’d he get stuck out here all alone?” Callie asked.

  Cody frowned and shook his head, the distant look still in his eyes. “Probably got scared by the sound of the trucks and ran off and hid while we were rounding the cattle up a couple of days ago. We move them from pasture to pasture in trucks nowadays,” he explained.

  Callie struggled to keep pace with Cody. “How come?”

  “It saves time and money and is a lot easier on the grass and the horses. Anyway, my guess is this maverick calf is missing his mama desperately by now. And from the looks of it, he’s gotten a little banged up, too.”

  Callie squinted at what she thought was blood. “Are those cuts on him?”

  Cody nodded. “Probably from the barbed wire,” he said tersely, already waving her off. “You don’t have to help me out with this. You can wait in the truck.”

  Callie grabbed his arm, momentarily slowing but not entirely stopping his headlong pace. “I want to help,” Callie insisted. And it was true, she did.

  Cody looked as though he had neither the time nor the patience to argue with her. “All right. But don’t get m my way,” he growled. “And do exactly as I tell you. This calf is not used to being handled. He may only weigh seventy pounds or so, but he can still wield a mean kick.”

  As they neared, the calf stumbled to his feet and, still bawling, tried to run away, dragging a section of downed barbed wire with him. Cody handed Callie the first-aid kit and formula. Swirling the lasso around his head, he threw the rope. It landed neatly around the calf’s head. He tightened the noose, which subdued the maverick calf enough that they were able to get close.

  “Just as I thought,” Cody said, looking at the calf’s untagged ear after he had untangled the bawling animal from the barbed wire. “This one missed the branding. He looks a little dehydrated, too. Get the bottle, Callie. See if you can’t feed some formula into him.”

  Callie moved around as directed, finally sitting so the calf’s head was in her lap. The animal’s steady bawling was so plaintive it brought tears to her eyes. Offering the bottle, she stroked his head softly. After a moment, the maverick calf began to suck greedily on the nipple. As he did, his bawling ceased.

  “Poor calf,” Callie said.

  “Probably was frightened,” Cody agreed, getting right to work, cleaning the jagged cuts and applying antiseptic cream.

  “He’s not going to like being branded and innoculated, either, but it has to be done.”

  “Now?”

  “No. I’ll have Shorty send someone over to do it later.” Finished, Cody stroked the calf’s side. “Right now we have to get him reunited with the herd. He’s too young to be weaned.”

  While Callie gathered everything else up, Cody carried the calf over to the bed of the pickup and set him inside. Callie and he climbed into the truck and took off again. Moments later, they were at another pasture. Cody unlocked the gate and set the calf inside. “What if he can’t find his mother?” Callie asked. There were more than one thousand cows inside the vast, rolling pasture.

  “He’ll know what to do,” Cody told her confidently.

  And sure enough, the calf took one look at the other cows and immediately began bawling at top volume again, almost as if he were calling for his mama to come and get him. Cody closed the gate again. As he and Callie leaned against the fence and watched, a huge cow came lumbering out of the herd toward the calf.

  Cody smiled. “That’s his mama, I’ll bet.”

  “She must’ve wondered what happened to her baby,” Callie said as the calf stopped bawling and began to nurse.

  “They both look happy enough now,” Cody said. “It’s funny how Mother Nature is a powerful force in animals.” His mouth tightened, and a distant look came into his eyes.

  Cody settled his hat lower on his head so his eyes were shadowed by the brim.

  “Are you angry you lost your parents?” Callie leaned against the pasture gate and looked up at him.

  Cody continued studying the horizon. “I don’t know that angry is the right word, but I do regret that my brother, sister and I had to grow up without parents.” His voice dropped a husky notch as the afternoon sun wanned their shoulders and the gentle June breeze stirred their hair. “I regret the opportunities to be close to each other that were lost to us when my folks passed away.”

  Callie had the distinct feeling he was talking about more than just his parents. He was talking about the loss of their marriage, too. He felt she had walked away from him, not caring about what she left behind, when nothing could have been further from the truth. But how to convince him of that, she didn’t know.

  Silence settled upon them like an unseen weight. Their work in rescuing the maverick calf done, they made the drive back to the ranch house in silence. Once again, Callie yearned to tell Cody everything, but she knew that even if she did he would never believe she was innocent now. Which had, of course, been Buck and Pa’s intent. That left her only one choice. She had to marry Cody, and then she had to leave.

  And she had to find a way to prove to him that she wasn’t what he thought she was, and make up for at least some of what had occurred in the last eighteen hours.

  21:00

  CODY STOOD AND STRETCHED. Working on the ranch books for the last two hours had proved therapeutic. Playing his stereo at a volume matched only in his college days had also aided in dissipating his foul mood.

  Cody grinned, wondering what Callie had thought of that last Van Halen song, which—thanks to his programmable CD player—he had played a record twenty-three times in a row. It didn’t matter where she was in the ranch house or what she was doing, he thought as he moved away from his computer. She couldn’t have missed either the music or the lyrics, which had suggested that the dream they had once shared was over and it was time for them both to move on.

  And that, Cody thought as he switched off his computer, was exactly how he felt about their romance. Once, a very long time ago, it might have worked. But not now, no matter what his crazy Uncle Max had thought.

  Deciding to see if his music had managed to get his point across to Callie, he strode over and swung open the study door.

  The first thing that hit him was the incredible
glare of light in the normally dark hallway. The second was the fresh, early summer breeze wafting through the entire downstairs.

  “What the heck—” Frowning, Cody crossed the hall and stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the back parlor. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear he was in a different house. The heavy drapes had been removed. Sunshine streamed in through the windows. The ancient black cherry sofa and matching overstuffed leather armchairs had been moved around to form a cozy conversation pit facing the sandstone fireplace. The books in the shelves on either side of the fireplace had been lined up in an orderly fashion that was both sensible—they were sorted by subject—and appealing to the eye. Another, smaller bookshelf, dragged down from one of the upstairs bedrooms, now contained neat stacks of magazines. The captain’s desk and matching swivel chair had been moved to the opposite wall, between the two windows. The desk’s contents were also neatly organized. The ugly, mud brown rug had been removed, the wooden floor polished to a golden glow. The rug’s absence opened up the room, just as the white afghan tossed over the back of the sofa and the vases of strategically placed wildflowers warmed it with a woman’s loving touch.

  Callie came in, looking very fetching in another one of his shirts, jeans and red western boots. She had washed up after their fire-fighting, calf-tending chores and braided her hair in one loose plait that fell midway down her back. Tendrils of hair framed her piquant face. She had two freshly polished silver candlesticks in her hands.

  Seeing him, she drawled, “What happened? Did you finally go deaf?”

  Ignoring her gibe, Cody pointed to the straight-backed rocking chair next to the fireplace. “Where did that come from?”