Toby winced. “Maybe he’s got a little cold. Or allergies—it’s hay fever season, isn’t it?” When Daniel only shook his head in mock disgust, Toby said, “What will you call him?”
“Trouble.”
“No, really.”
“Really, that’s his name.” Daniel nodded. “The dog who scratched my truck door, got dirt all over my leather seats and peed on my kitchen floor…what else should I call him but Trouble?”
Toby considered. “Well, okay, then. Hey, Trouble.” He went down on his knees beside the dog and rubbed his ears. “That’s your name, boy. Do you like it? You’re Trouble!” Wagging his tail, Trouble leapt to his feet and began scuffling playfully with his new friend. A minute later, he had vaulted the chair blocking the door and gone on to explore the rest of the house, with Toby in hot pursuit. “Trouble, come back. Trouble!”
Daniel looked at Susannah. “He’s never heard the saying, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie,’ has he?”
She gave him her mother’s bright smile. “I guess not.”
Chapter Seven
With Trouble, Toby and Susannah once again in the truck, Daniel drove down to the Mercado barn. The kids got out just as Willa, inside the corral, took the saddle off a big red horse, which immediately bucked and jumped its way to the other side of the ring.
After setting the saddle on the top board of the fence, Willa eased out of the corral gate. Hands propped on her hips, she glanced at Daniel’s truck, then surveyed her children. “Where have you two been?”
Daniel had intended to get out, but he sat motionless, instead, transfixed by the sight of Willa Mercado in a red tank top, snug jeans, boots and leather chaps. The afternoon sun sheened the well-shaped muscles in her arms and shoulders and chest, while the low-riding chaps emphasized the feminine curve of her hips, the slender length of her legs. The memory of their night together surged over him—he relived the slide of her skin under his palms, the softness of her breast against his lips, the heat of her surrounding him. And his body reacted appropriately.
So he stayed in the truck while Toby ran to his mother, telling the whole tale. As she listened, Willa’s expression ran the spectrum from irritated to impatient to embarrassed.
Sending Toby into the barn to start his chores, she came to Daniel’s window. “I’m sorry. If you want to take the dog to the shelter, I’ll explain it to him. You shouldn’t let him impose on you like that.” She glanced at Trouble, now sleeping in the passenger seat, and her mouth softened into a smile. “He is cute, isn’t he?”
“He is. And I’m glad they didn’t just leave him on the road to get hit. I’ve always wanted a dog, but I could never commit to a pet in the Army. He’ll be good company.”
Willa’s gaze came back to his face. “Thanks for bringing them home. Again.”
“No problem.” Some devil inside him made him say, “I talked to Hobbs Sutton this morning. About the rustlers.”
Though he watched closely, he didn’t see a reaction that might signal romantic interest. She lifted one bare shoulder. “I’m sure he told you pretty much what I did. He doesn’t have enough people to cover that area on a regular basis.”
“He did say that. And I told him I’d see what I could do about catching the creeps. Who knows? Old Trouble might come in handy on that job.”
Willa raised her eyebrows. Her eyes opened wide with concern. “You can’t possibly take on a band of rustlers single-handed. Don’t even try.”
“Is that concern for my safety? Or doubt of my abilities?” Her hesitation made the point.
Daniel set his jaw. “My knee may be messed up, but I promise you, Willa, I can handle myself in a fight.”
“Daniel—”
“Gotta go get dog food. Take care.” Putting the window up between them, he shoved the gear stick into Reverse. As soon as Willa stepped back, Daniel swung the truck around and, with a spray of dust, left the woman who doubted him behind.
THANKS TO INFORMATION from Toby, Willa managed to be outside her barn when the trucks containing Daniel’s cattle rumbled up the road. She knew the rancher who’d sold him the cows and would have bought some of the herd herself if she’d had the cash to spare. Daniel had gotten a fair deal on some very good animals, with help from Nate Hernandez.
She still couldn’t believe Nate had left retirement to work for a ranch in competition with the Blue Moon. One of Jamie’s biggest mistakes had been firing Nate, and she’d told him so at the time. But even after they’d discovered the missing tack—saddles and bridles worth several thousand dollars—in the possession of another ranch hand, Jamie had refused to apologize. Nate had a way of speaking his mind, and Jamie didn’t handle criticism well.
Selfishly, she wondered whether Nate would come back to the Blue Moon when—if—Daniel left.
Those cattle trucks looked awfully permanent, though. Five of them passed through, each carrying twenty head of the longhorns Texas was famous for. Would Daniel, with Nate and three cowboys—more information from Toby—be able to get this many cows safely to pasture? Should she send some of her crew to help? Should she go herself?
Once the last truck disappeared, Willa knew she couldn’t resist the urge to at least observe the arrival of Daniel’s herd. With Monty already saddled for the day’s work, all she had to do was enjoy a fast gallop across the fields, which brought her to a ridge overlooking Daniel’s barn and the pens where he would unload the herd. She figured she’d stay unnoticed during the crazy work of unloading cattle and could slip away without anyone knowing she was there.
For all Daniel lacked experience in ranching, his setup looked good, probably thanks to Nate’s advice. The chute fences appeared solid, and the hands stood where she would have placed them herself, as the first truck backed up to the gate. Daniel, she was glad to see, stood off to the side, out of the way of panicked cattle and the men who knew how to handle them. Of course, Nate would see to it that the boss stayed safe.
With the clang of the truck gate opening, controlled chaos began. Lowing and calling, the longhorns rushed toward freedom, down the long wooden chute toward the open ground of a holding pen beyond. At this time of year there were no babies with the bunch, but many of the cows were pregnant. Daniel would have his hands full come late winter and early spring.
Except he wouldn’t be here for the calving, would he?
By lunchtime, all the cattle, including two prime-looking bulls, had been unloaded into the pens. Willa saw Daniel personally thank each driver before the empty trucks rattled back down the road. Standing at the top of the chute—now closed to prevent any cows from coming back up—he gave a sharp whistle.
“Lunch is served under the tent by the barn,” he announced to his hands. “Come help yourselves.” As the men started moving, Willa realized Daniel’s gaze had focused on her across all the cattle between them. “That includes you, Willa,” he shouted. “Please join us.”
She couldn’t very well refuse, not in front of his crew. Setting Monty into a jog, she rode around the pens and the milling cattle within until she reached the yard outside the barn, where Daniel himself waited for her.
“Your horse can join Calypso and the rest in the corral.” He gave her the dignity of being able to dismount without help. “What did you think? Did we pass inspection?”
As she walked Monty to the corral, she felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment. She hadn’t really come here to judge him…had she? “Everything went great, I thought. Looks like you’ve got some seasoned men on your crew. And Nate knows what he’s doing, of course.”
“Sure.” Daniel moved with her toward the tent. He seemed to depend on the cane less than she remembered. “This afternoon the fun will start—getting them to the fields. I hope Calypso is ready for the ride.”
She looked up at him in shock. “You’re going to help move the cattle?”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t be a rancher otherwise, would I?” He gestured to the stack of plates at the end of a long trestle table filled with food. “Help yourself.�
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“Thanks.” As she moved down the line, Willa realized the food itself looked familiar. “Did you cook all of this?”
“Um…Miss Lili and Miss Rosa offered to help me out with some food for the guys while we were getting settled.”
“I see.” So if he wouldn’t eat at the house, Lili and Rosa were going to bring him food. “They didn’t mention it.”
“They’ve been feeding me, too,” he said, as if needing to get everything off his chest. “And sometimes I find boxes of cookies or cake on my front steps.”
“And don’t forget to mention that you had my older son working for you,” Willa told him, as they faced each other across the barn aisle, sitting on bales of hay. “And my younger son and my daughter brought you a dog.”
“And cats.” Daniel jerked his head toward the loft above them. “Somewhere they found a nest of kittens and their mother, all of which are now cozily installed in a box up there.”
Willa allowed her jaw to drop. “Why did you let them do that?”
He shrugged. “A barn does need cats. As long as Trouble gets along with them, we’ll be fine.”
Shaking her head, she dug her fork into Lili’s chicken casserole. “Somebody is crazy here. I’m just not sure who.”
ROSA KEPT AN EYE OUT as the New Moon hands came through the food line she and Lili had set up. Nate Hernandez shooed the rest of the men, as well as Daniel and Willa, ahead of him before picking up a paper plate for his own food. He took a long time choosing between chicken casserole and sliced ham, ending up with a good helping of both, then carefully selected his roll, a brownie and two chocolate chip cookies. As a result, everyone else had found a place to sit and eat by the time Nate reached Lili, waiting to pour him a drink.
“Good afternoon, Miss Lili.” Somehow, he managed to hold his plate, his hat and a fork all in one hand.
“Good afternoon, Nate.” She was blushing, of course, which made her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright. “What would you like to drink? We have sweet tea, lemonade, water and coffee.”
“Is that your homemade lemonade? I don’t think I’ve had anything quite as thirst-quenching in my life as your lemonade.”
“We made it just this morning.” Lili gave him a shy smile, and then it was Nate’s turn to turn red in the face. “Here’s a nice full glass.” She held out the plastic cup.
Nate stared at the drink, as if he wasn’t sure how to take hold of it. “Thank you.” He closed his fingers around the drink and they both jumped.
Rosa smiled to herself. It was about time those two actually touched each other, even if it was only a couple of fingers.
The foreman cleared his throat. “Have you eaten, Miss Lili?”
“I—”
Rosa could see that her sister meant to divert what was obviously an invitation. “No, she hasn’t.” She handed Lili a plate. “Get yourself some food and sit down to eat. That’s what I’m going to do. All the men are served and they can manage their own seconds.” With a full plate of her own, she went to sit beside Luis Vargas, the youngest and most handsome of Daniel’s cowboys. What was the point of being an old woman if she couldn’t flirt with any young man who took her fancy?
Nate and Lili, she was pleased to see, sat hip to hip on one of the hay bales set under the tent, facing in opposite directions so they could see each other as they ate. Lili still seemed shy, and Nate didn’t say much, but at least they’d made contact. Surely they could manage their own romance from this point without so much stage-managing from a concerned older sister.
Or not. Rosa watched, frustrated, as Nate stood, gave Lili a small bow, then dropped his trash into the bin and walked toward the back of the barn. Lili gazed after him with a wistful smile.
“Men,” Rosa muttered, casting an angry glance at Luis.
The young man gave a puzzled shrug. “What’d I do?”
“You were born, to start with.” Getting to her feet, she marched back to the food table to begin cleaning up. “It’s all downhill from there.”
AFTER LUNCH, THE HANDS gathered near their parked trucks to smoke before saddling up. “Nate takes a thirty-minute nap every afternoon,” Daniel told Willa. “If that’s what keeps him so fit at almost seventy, I’m going to start scheduling one into my day.”
She stretched her arms out wide, full of good food and, for once, completely relaxed. “I can understand the appeal. I wouldn’t mind lying down for a few minutes myself right now.”
When she turned her head to smile at Daniel, she didn’t find him smiling in response. The intensity, the hunger, in his face made her suddenly aware of how her T-shirt stretched thinly across her breasts, how the V-neck showed a little cleavage. She sat on a hay bale with her feet planted on the floor and her knees wide apart, which now seemed like an invitation…an invitation, Willa realized suddenly, she desperately wanted to give.
In the next moment, Daniel was on his feet, moving to dump his paper plate and drink can in the trash. “It’s time to get started,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re welcome to stay and watch…or help, if you want. I’m sure we could use extra hands.”
After that, he was all business as he reviewed with the cowboys which pasture they would be driving the first herd to. Willa knew the land better than anyone there, even Nate—knew the gullies and ridges they would cross, the places where a cow might wander or stumble or spook. Listening to Daniel, she realized that he had studied the landscape and taken all those obstacles into account. Since he couldn’t rely on the kind of familiarity her years working this land had created, he’d assessed the terrain with his own military expertise and had arrived at pretty much the same conclusions. Willa could only be impressed.
Mounted on her horse and moving toward the herd with the rest of the crew, Willa found herself riding beside Daniel. “You and Calypso seem to be getting along. Is he working all right for you?”
Daniel glanced in her direction but didn’t meet her eyes. “He’s a great horse. I’d have eaten dirt quite a few times by now if he weren’t so careful. You did a terrific job training him.”
“Thanks.” Perversely, because he didn’t want to look at her, she wanted to make him do just that. “That’s a nice saddle you put on him. Where’d you get it?”
In the shadow of his hat brim, his cheeks reddened. “I…uh…won it. At a rodeo, when I was sixteen.”
“You were riding rodeos when you were a teenager?”
He nodded. “When I was a little kid, about six years old, we visited my uncle—my mother’s brother—on his ranch in Wyoming. He was this cool guy with a big booming laugh who smoked and drank and enjoyed every minute of his life on the range. We went a couple more times, as a family, and then I went out during the summers, when my mom would let me fly by myself. Once, on a dare from the other hands, I signed up for the saddle bronc event at the local rodeo. And I won, thanks to beginner’s luck.” He laughed. “I tried several more times and got thrown almost before we’d cleared the gate.”
She wanted to ask more, but they’d come up beside the chute, where the cowboys were getting ready to release the cattle. The time for talking had passed.
With a warning shout, one of the men released the catch on the gate and let it swing wide. Moments later, a cow or two recognized the chance for escape and meandered into the wider field, followed by their herd mates. Soon enough, a long line of cattle stretched across the ground, and men on horseback moved into place, directing the flow with the angle and motion of their horses. They didn’t have far to go, about two miles across country. As she eased Monty toward a cow that had veered away from the herd, Willa relaxed in her saddle. This was going to go just fine.
And then Trouble came streaking toward the herd, barking at the top of his canine lungs.
The smoothly moving line broke into clumps of startled cows, each clump moving in a different direction. Cowboys and horses reacted quickly, but there weren’t enough of them to manage the breakdown. Longhorns were hard to spook, but as Troub
le raced along, the cattle turned away from the barking dog, maybe seeking refuge in the pen behind them, maybe moving by blind instinct. A few of the lead cows picked up speed, starting to run. More and more of the herd joined them. In the next instant, they had a full-fledged longhorn stampede on their hands.
Willa didn’t realize, until too late, that Daniel and Calypso stood directly in the path of the thundering herd.
Both man and horse froze for an instant. Willa held her breath, trying to see through the dust cloud thrown up by hundreds of pounding hooves, praying that Calypso would be fast enough, that Daniel could hang on through the chaos. For an instant, she saw them through the dust—saw Calypso at the near edge of the herd, ready to jump clear.
But then she saw Daniel throw up his hands, saw the reins fly free. In the next moment, both Calypso and Daniel disappeared underneath the roaring river of cattle.
HE’D BEEN HERE BEFORE, THIS PLACE where pain burned like the desert sun, relentless, inescapable. This time, at least, he could move, thrashing his arms and legs in a weak attempt to find some shade…
“Daniel. Daniel, relax.” A cool hand caught one wrist, while another soothed his forehead. “You’re okay. Just relax.”
He peeked through a half-lifted eyelid, saw the pale walls of a hospital and groaned. “Not again.”
“Open your eyes, Daniel.” The same voice, husky, feminine, appealing. Willa? He did as instructed. “It’s you.”
“Welcome back, cowboy.” She smiled at him but removed her hands, which made him wish he’d disobeyed her order. “That was quite a ride you took.”
Daniel thought back and remembered. “Is Calypso okay? He tripped—I didn’t see what was there—”
“An appropriately named dog was there.”
“Trouble? How did he get out? I know I left him locked in the house. Is that dog some kind of Houdini?”
“He might be, given how many hooves he managed to dodge in the process of causing a stampede.” Willa shook her head. “How the three of you survived intact is something I’ll never understand.”
Christmas at Blue Moon Ranch Page 8
