Counterfeit Cowgirl (Love and Laughter)

by Lois Greiman

  Both men exited the room. It took Hannah less than two seconds to react. This was her chance to leave!

  She was dressed and out the door in a minute. The uncarpeted stairs were cold against her bare feet. She stopped at the sight of the snow outside, then slipped into an oversize pair of rubber boots and a parka that waited by the door.

  Both men stood with their heads together under the hood of her Rabbit.

  Wrapping the parka more closely about her body, she hurried over to them. The wind had died down, but it was still bitterly cold. Waiting, she shifted from foot to foot.

  Eventually Nate looked up.

  “Well?” she said.

  “We can do the kind thing, and put it out of its misery right here and now. Or we can send it to town and see if they can save it. But I’m afraid that would only make it a long and painful death.”

  She scowled at him. It was cold, she was tired, and she was in North Dakota with a pair of cowboys who thought they were funny. None of these things made her happy.

  “How much would it cost?” she inquired.

  “To resurrect it?” Nate asked.

  She gritted her teeth, held on to her patience, and nodded.

  “I don’t know. Maybe eight, nine hundred dollars.”

  “Eight or nine—” she squawked.

  “I could be wrong,” Nate said.

  “How wrong?”

  “Could be closer to fifteen hundred.”

  “Dollars? I don’t have fifteen hundred dollars.”

  Nate shrugged. “Sorry.”

  She swept the hair out of her eyes. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “’Scuse me but…” Nate shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Weren’t you gonna work on the farm here—”

  “Nope.” Ty cut him off. “Where Miss Nelson comes from they swim their horses in pools, not in muck. Isn’t that right, honey?”

  Hannah didn’t even bother to glare at him. “What could I get for it?”

  “The car?” Nate looked doubtful, if not pained. “I’m afraid you might have to pay them to haul it away.”

  Ty chuckled.

  Now she glared at him. “What would it take to buy a plane ticket?”

  “From where?” Nate asked, looking befuddled.

  “To where?” Ty chortled.

  “To anywhere but here!”

  “How much do you have?” Nate asked.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “That means she’s busted,” Ty said.

  “I’ve got your hundred,” she corrected.

  “What’s that?” Nate asked.

  “Never mind,” Ty said.

  “I could give you a ride into the Valley,” Nate offered.

  “How could I get out of there?”

  Nate shrugged again. “Hitchhike?”

  “Hitchhike!” Hannah gasped. None of this could be real. No more real than the nightmare that tormented her. But the nightmare was real.

  “Listen, Hannah,” Ty said, sounding serious now. “There are a couple decent restaurants in town. You could waitress there till you get enough cash.”

  “Waitress!”

  “Well, why couldn’t she just work here?” Nate asked.

  “No!” Ty said, emphatically shaking his head.

  “Why not?” Nate inquired.

  “She’s…” Ty shrugged. “She’s too good for us.”

  Hannah studied him for a moment. “You think I can’t do it.”

  “No. That’s not it,” Ty said.

  “It is. You think I can’t do the work!” she persisted.

  “Well, yeah! Yeah, I do!” Ty agreed. “You in your prissy little boots and your—”

  “A thousand a month plus room and board,” she interrupted. “That’s what was agreed upon. Am I correct?”

  “Well, yeah,” Nate said.

  “No!” Ty argued. “That was only if it worked out, and this ain’t working out!”

  “Oh, come on, Ty. She’s down on her luck!”

  “She is not down on her luck. She’s bad luck!” Ty argued. “You can take my word for it. I know her type.”

  “The calf wouldn’t suck for me this morning, either.”

  Ty scowled. “I suppose you think he’s mourning Miss Fancy Pants, here.”

  Nate shrugged, grinning slightly. “Could be.”

  “No, it—”

  “I can get him to eat,” Hannah interrupted.

  “The hell you can!” Ty countered.

  “He’ll eat.”

  Ty snorted.

  “If I can’t keep him alive and healthy for the next two weeks you don’t have to pay me. But if I do, you owe me twice the agreed salary and a ride to the nearest town.”

  “That sounds fair,” Nate ventured.

  “It doesn’t sound fair,” Ty argued. “It sounds crazy. You think she can just sit around and look…irritating, and it will be fine just so long as she keeps one little calf alive and I’ll give her a thousand bucks.”

  “I can do the work,” she said. “Whatever needs to be done.”

  He stared at her in silence for a moment, then said, “Hell, this here’s a four-man ranch, short about two men.”

  “Could be she’s worth two men,” Nate said, grinning. “Come on. You promised Dad.”

  Ty ground his teeth, then threw up his hands. “All right. Fine. You win,” he said, turning away. “But if she burns down the house, we lynch her.”

  Hannah watched him march off toward the barn.

  “He was just leggin’ ya,” Nate said. “I think he likes you.”

  “Believe me, Mr. Fox,” she said, turning stiffly toward him. “I couldn’t care less if he likes me or not.”

  “Well, good. ‘Cuz he’s gonna act like he don’t,” Nate said, and followed his brother into the cattle yards.

  Hannah blew out a heavy breath. She’d won. She would work at The Lone Oak just as…

  Wait a minute. What had she done? She didn’t want to stay here. She wanted to leave. They’d tricked her into staying, but it wasn’t going to work. She was going to leave. Now!

  Storming back into the house, Hannah slammed the door behind her.

  The calf lurched unsteadily to his feet and blinked at her with huge, blue-black eyes. Hannah stumbled to a halt. If a calf could cry, she would swear this one was about to.

  Lowering its round little head, it let out a tiny bellow. It was a pathetic sound. Hannah bit her lip.

  The calf stumbled toward her, its tattered umbilical cord swaying as it came.

  “Are you hungry?”

  The calf bellowed again, the sound so weak and low it was barely audible, but the effort was enough to make him wobble on his feet. The imbalance made its uneven hooves slip on the yellowed linoleum, and in a moment it fell in a heap on the floor.

  Hannah rushed to him. It lay hopelessly on its side and stared at her with limpid eyes.

  “Poor baby,” she crooned, squatting down to scratch his neck. Her own tears felt ridiculously close to the surface. But it was just because she was angry, of course. Angry and frustrated. “Are you okay? You must be lonely, losing your mother. In here alone with—”

  A noise distracted her. Hannah brought her head up with a snap. Tyrel Fox stood in the doorway, watching her.

  She got to her feet. Silence stretched between them. She cleared her throat and looked over the calf.

  “I think he’s lonely.”

  Despite her expectations, he didn’t laugh at her. “Could be. But he’s for sure hungry.”

  Tyrel’s eyes were coffee brown and his expression somber as he watched her.

  The scrutiny was making her nervous. “I thought you were busy outside.”

  “Thought I’d better show you where to find the colostrum and stuff.”

  “Oh.” Despite her best efforts, she could come up with nothing more scathing.

  Their gazes locked.

  He pulled his away. “It’s, uh…” He scratched the b
ack of his neck where his hair brushed his collar and strode toward the kitchen. “It’s in here.”

  She trailed after him, noticing as she entered that inhospitable domain that its condition had not improved since her last sojourn there.

  “We keep it frozen,” he said, opening the freezer. Four plastic pint containers stood between an empty ice tray and an open bag of corn that had spilled frosted kernels onto the deck. He cleared his throat. “We meant to get that cleaned up.”

  She said nothing.

  “Anyway…” Taking out one pint container, he closed the freezer and reached into the open drawer below the oven with his other hand. Not surprisingly, it was empty but for five dried noodles and a small charred puddle of something unidentifiable. “We meant to get them pans cleaned, too.”

  He was looking at her strangely, she thought, as though he could read her thoughts, see into her soul. It made her uncomfortable at best, panicked at worst. She straightened her back.

  “Listen, Mr. Fox, despite all your failed intentions, I’m certain I can manage to feed Daniel if you’ll simply explain the procedure.”

  The ice queen was back. Tyrel snapped his attention onto that one fact. For a moment he could not fail but see the vulnerability in her eyes, but now she had it locked away. And a good thing, too, he told himself as he knocked last night’s charred beans into the trash, rinsed the pan, and filled it halfway with water.

  “Daniel?” he asked, suddenly realizing she had used that name.

  She almost backed up a step, as though he had surprised her. She pursed her lips, looking defensive, and in that one wild moment, he wondered what it would be like to kiss her.

  God, he had to get out more.

  “Daniel?” he said again, and managed, just barely, to sound mocking instead of smitten.

  “His eyes. They remind me of Daniel Day-Lewis.”

  He would never understand how she could manage to make it sound as if he were daft not to have realized the resemblance himself.

  “Have you seen The Last of the Mohicans?”

  He shook his head and steadied his brain. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans that did things most jeans didn’t do. “I think I missed that movie.”

  “Then you wouldn’t understand,” she said, and paced to the stove. “What do I do with the water?”

  “You boil it.” He stared at her. Her face was very close now. She had scrubbed off her makeup, or maybe she had never worn any, but still, even in the harsh morning light that streamed through the east window, her complexion looked perfect and her eyes huge and gleaming. It made him all the more irritable, especially since his own face was unshaven and his eyes felt as though they had been sandblasted and spray painted. “You can boil water, can’t you?”

  She smiled at him. Perfect teeth. His felt slimy. “Of course I can boil water,” she said.

  “Well, I didn’t know,” he said, turning on the burner, “after last night.”

  “I assure you, last night was merely an unfortunate accident.”

  “Then you can cook?” He watched her face.

  “Of course I can.” She didn’t meet his eyes.

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. Somehow it made him feel better to know she was lying, to know she had faults…besides her personality. “Yeah, well,” he said, “maybe we’ll let Nate cook. He’s pretty good—”

  “I can cook!” she said, glaring at him.

  “Then you won’t mind making dinner?” he asked. He couldn’t help himself. Everything about her got him riled up.

  “Dinner?” She raised her brows at him. “Isn’t it a bit early to be considering dinner?”

  “You might call it lunch,” he said, and thumping the frozen pint into the pan, turned to go. “But whatever it is, we usually have it about noon.”

  “You’re expecting me to cook for you?”

  He turned. “You said you could. Said you could do any work that needs doing. So I guess the kitchen will need some cleaning. You’ll find meat and vegetables frozen in the deep freeze in the basement. I’m a meat-and-potatoes kind of man. Oh, and watch that colostrum. You don’t want to burn the house down,” he said, and smiling, left her to her own devices.

  Three hours later, Hannah disagreed completely; burning down the house was not a bad idea at all. It had taken her over an hour to get the calf to drink, and then he’d only consumed a little. She’d worried that he was weakening and had gone into the living room to check on him. He’d lain flat on his side again, so she’d covered him with the parka she’d worn outside this morning. She hoped it was Ty’s and that Daniel did disgusting things to it.

  But even with her worries about the calf, Daniel was still the bright spot of her day. The kitchen, on the other hand…She swayed in the doorway, on her way back from returning a boot to the hall. Why it had been in the sink, she couldn’t say. But it was past eleven o’clock, the place was still a mess, and she hadn’t started lunch.

  Taking a fortifying breath, she made her way across the kitchen to the basement door. Once in the bowels of the old house, she searched for a light, found one bare bulb operated by pulling a string, and proceeded to rummage around in the huge, chest freezer. After several minutes and minor frostbite, she pulled out two rock-hard packages wrapped in white paper and marked steak.

  Frozen peas were easier to find and identify.

  Stumbling over indistinguishable piles of everything on her way to the stairs, she caught sight of a bag of potatoes. Dragging it along with her, she stumbled back into the light of day and set to work.

  Half an hour later, Hannah was quite proud of herself. The steaks were in the oven, the potatoes mashed and the peas cooking.

  In the living room, Daniel had rolled onto his chest and was peering rather cheekily into the kitchen, so she heated more milk, poured it into a clean bottle and went over to him.

  It took several minutes to get him to show the least bit of interest But after his initial taste, he staggered to his feet and drank a bit before flopping back to the floor.

  The door creaked open. Hannah glanced up.

  “See,” Nate said, stepping inside in front of his brother. “I told ya he’d come around for her.”

  Ty grunted and hung his hat on a nearby peg, then finding no more available spots, dropped his jacket by the door. “How much did he drink?”

  She shrugged, feeling strangely self-conscious. “A half a cup maybe.”

  “He’s never going to make it like that.”

  “He will, too.” She was on her feet in a moment, and though she called herself a thousand kinds of fool, she felt tears sting her eyes.

  The two men stared at her as if she’d grown an extra head.

  “He will, too,” she said, more softly now. “He’s not going to die.”

  Nate cleared his throat. Ty glanced toward the kitchen.

  “Dinner ready?”

  Despite herself, Hannah was grateful for the change of subject. Nodding, she covered the calf again, and hurried through the doorway to the oven.

  The men followed. Seeing she’d neglected to set the table, but delighted to find a trio of clean, mismatched plates near the sink, they distributed the crockery, then stood beside their chairs, looking anything but at ease.

  She glanced toward them, then turned swiftly away, wondering with some anxiety, what she should do next.

  She cleared her throat. “Sit down,” she said.

  They did so, bumbling with their chairs before settling in. In a moment she had the steaks out of the oven and deposited on their plates. As for herself, she was too nervous to eat, so she rushed back to the stove for the potatoes.

  The men were bent over their plates, so she deposited the pan on the table and hurried away in search of a serving spoon.

  “Hey!” said Ty suddenly. She turned to half standing as he lifted the pot in his right hand. The vinyl tablecloth came with it, but finally gave way, leaving a perfectly melted, panshaped hole where the table now showed through.

>   “Oh!” Hannah murmured.

  Ty stared at her, then settled back into his chair. “It’s, uh, an old tablecloth,” he grumbled.

  Nate was staring at his brother with raised brows. Ty glared at him. Nate grinned, then said, “Yeah, and happily sacrificed for a good meal. Mashed potatoes,” he crooned. Taking the pan from Tyrel, he peeked inside. His brows raised even farther. “Or not.”

  Hannah rubbed her hands nervously against her thighs. “They, umm…They were quite hard. It made them difficult to mash.”

  Both men were staring at her again.

  “Some people cook them before they mash ‘em,” Nate said.

  “Oh.”

  “It’s not necessary, ya understand,” he added.

  “God help us,” Ty said.

  Hannah propped her fists on her hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” Ty said, raising his hands in surrender.

  Frustration boiled with a thousand other emotions in Hannah. “Eat your steak,” she said.

  “Sure,” Ty responded, setting his knife to the meat. “I like mine frozen in the middle.”

  4

  “WHAT THE HELL!” Ty shouted, racing into the house.

  Sparks were shooting from the microwave like a light show gone mad. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he gathered his nerve and punched a button.

  The blue sparks faded to oblivion, but his temper did not It had only been a few hours since he’d forced himself to eat half-frozen steaks. Now this!

  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted into the living room.

  Hannah sat on the floor beside an empty milk bottle. It was obvious she’d fallen asleep there. A crease bisected the smooth skin of her cheek where it had rested on the parka, her hair was messed, and one slim hand still rested on the calf’s back, but it was her eyes that held his attention. They were as large and soft as a fawn’s.

  “What?” she asked, looking disoriented…and vulnerable.

  Vulnerability. It seemed a strange attribute for this woman who could slash him to shreds with nothing more than a word or a glance. And yet it was there in her expression, just as he had seen her earlier when she’d been talking to the calf.

  He tried to remember his anger, but it had burned to ash now, with only a bit of heat left to punctuate his words. “What were you doing?”