The Cowboy Meets His Match

by Meagan Mckinney

  She nodded, staring up at him. He was still tall, even outside, with the mountains behind him tipped with the first pink buds of dawn light. Beside him she seemed inconsequential, and hopelessly female. No match at all.

  He went back to the horse trailer and swung open the double doors.

  “It’s a good-looking animal,” he conceded. “Good breeding and solid lines. That sorrel of yours is a fine flatland horse. Long-legged animals do real well in deep snow in open country. But we’re going up into the mountains. That means we need good mountain ponies.”

  While he said this, he showed her the two horses in the trailer. That is, Jacquelyn assumed the two ugly, stubby-legged beasts were horses.

  Despite her foul mood, she laughed so hard she almost dropped her saddle.

  “Don’t tell me,” she managed between sputters of mirth. “You rescued them from a rendering plant?”

  “Girl, you don’t know nothing about horses, do you? These ain’t riding-academy nags, they’re genuine mountain mustangs. Some call ’em Indian scrubs. They’ve got the endurance of doorknobs.”

  She looked askance at their dish faces, bushy tails, and mongrelized confusion of colors and markings—no controlled bloodlines here.

  “I won’t ride a pretty horse like yours up in the mountains,” he assured her, guessing her thoughts. “A pretty horse is a petted horse. And a petted horse is a spoiled horse.”

  Something aggressive in his tone hinted he wasn’t talking just about horses.

  She looked at him. By his glance he was obviously summing her up, taking in her designer black quilted barn jacket, her English custom-made paddock boots, and subtracting them from the value of her character. But then his gaze seemed to linger along the generous swells of her chest, and suddenly her net worth seemed to rise again.

  It was still dark enough outside to hide the embarrassment heating her cheeks. Leave it to a macho redneck to view a woman like a piece of meat. But she supposed being a flank steak was better than an icicle.

  She turned her attention back to the ponies. “Look, they’re not just ugly. They’re also so…little,” she objected.

  “‘Praise the tall, but ride the small.’ Sure, they’re barely fourteen hands. But look at those short, thick, strong legs. That’s what you need on rocky, narrow trails. These animals were born in the mountains, they’re surefooted as wild goats. That bluegrass beauty of yours ever been up high in the rim-rock in a forty-mile-an-hour wind?”

  That goading twist to his mouth made her anger flare. She felt half-tempted to slap it right off his arrogantly handsome face.

  “No,” she admitted, resenting him for his know-it-all smugness and the way his eyes still seemed to lower to places below her neckline.

  “You can leave that English saddle behind, too. I brought you a better one.”

  “Better one?” She snorted derisively. “I’ll have you know this was custom-made for me at—”

  “Sure, it’s just fine—for a dog-and-pony show in London. But it’ll be useless to you up in the mountains. Price tags ain’t the issue. Up there you’ll need something between your legs.”

  She flushed to the roots of her hair. “I beg your pardon?” she demanded. Each syllable was so distinct it seemed chiseled.

  He grinned. She was convinced he had see-in-the-dark eyes like a cat because she swore this time he saw her blush.

  “Ease off, girl. I’m talking about a saddle horn. You’ll need one to stay mounted on steep slopes.”

  He closed the trailer door on the mustangs.

  “C’mon, girl,” she called to her mare. “We’ll let the cowboy have his eight seconds. You get to stay home.”

  She tried to coax Boots to come to her so she could lead the mare back into her stable. But the sorrel was excited by the presence of unfamiliar horses; she kept sidestepping away each time Jacquelyn tried to grab the lead line.

  A.J. moved up beside her and gave a soft, fluting whistle. Boots answered with a friendly whicker, then trotted right over and nuzzled the hollow of his shoulder as if they were old and dear friends.

  You damned traitor, she thought, watching her horse with a petulant frown. She grabbed the lead line and took Boots back toward her stall.

  A.J. greeted her when she came back outside. “Hazel asked me to give you this.” He added, smirking, “Seeing’s how you took off so suddenly yesterday.”

  He slid a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his vest.

  “What is it?”

  “An itinerary, I think she called it. Hazel’s got some definite ideas how she wants this trip to be.”

  She started to unfold the sheet, but he stayed her hand with an iron grip. The calluses, thick on his palm, brushed her skin like friction burns.

  “You can look at it in the truck,” he told her brusquely. “I don’t waste time when I’ve got something to do. Let’s go.”

  She pulled her hand free. It tingled afterward, so much so she tucked it along with the sheet in the hip pocket of her jeans.

  He had his door halfway open when she said, “Before we get going here, I just want to make one thing clear—while you seem to be very good at giving orders, I expect you to be my guide, not a drill sergeant. I’m going with you because my job has led me here. But it’s not the rodeo ring, and I’m not one of your adoring fans you can tell jump.”

  “Not yet,” he conceded with a whisper and an infuriating grin.

  She took a deep breath to fire another salvo, but he stopped her by raising one hand like a traffic cop.

  “Look, Scarlett, I ain’t doing this baby-sitting job because I like your company, either. I’m doing a favor for Hazel. She put me in charge of this little excursion because I know where to go and how to get there. So let’s get this straight from the start—when you’re under my watch, I say how it’s going to be, and that’s the way of it. You don’t like those terms, stay home. I’ll tell Hazel you went puny on her.”

  Jacquelyn felt as if a steamroller had just gone over her. “You don’t negotiate at all, do you?”

  Again he trapped her in the full force of his metallic-gray gaze. “Depends what I’m after.”

  Her heart skipped.

  He gave a harsh bark of scorn. “Now get in,” he ordered, “or stay here. I’m damned if I care what a rich, spoiled, snot-nosed bawler like you does, but if you’re not going, tell me so I can get these ponies back to their pasture before they founder.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. Then, for reasons she couldn’t shape into words, she lumbered up into the passenger seat of the pickup.

  They turned onto the road in strained silence, away from Mystery Valley to the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

  As for the “itinerary” Hazel had sent along… Jacquelyn realized, only moments after unfolding the hand-drawn map, that the scheming cattle baroness had some grand design in mind.

  She couldn’t believe how detailed Hazel’s notes were regarding what she was to write about. Not only was she to follow Jake’s exact path, but Hazel insisted she was to camp in the same spots. The culmination of the trip was to be a night spent in the log cabin on Bridger’s Summit—the original dwelling where Jake had taken his new bride on their honeymoon.

  Numbly she folded the paper up and tucked it into her jacket. At least it’s not the dead of winter, she consoled herself, staring at the man hunkered down in the seat next to her.

  Still, she couldn’t help thinking this trip was going to be a lot more grueling—and perhaps even dangerous—than it looked on paper.

  The two-and-a-half-hour drive led them gradually lower, along tortuously winding mountain roads. Their route, according to Jacquelyn’s map, roughly paralleled hidden Eagle Pass and McCallum’s Trace.

  The adventure still wasn’t real to her. She looked at the man sitting next to her and wondered what kind of character he would ultimately prove to be. She would certainly know more about him on their return trip to Mystery.

  He glanced at her and caught
her staring.

  She looked away, uncomfortable with the feeling of being virtually trapped with a man so utterly different from her that she lacked any vocabulary to describe him. A. J. Clayburn was indeed entirely unlike anyone she’d ever met before—and yet she couldn’t deny a certain…fascination in watching the solid thigh and calf muscles bunch under his blue jeans as he worked the clutch and brakes.

  The shared silence wasn’t free of conflict. She had nothing against country-and-western music, in moderation. But she was convinced he deliberately kept the radio volume near full blast to unsettle her. And it was working. Her nerves jangled to every twang.

  A little over an hour into their drive the road dipped sharply, and the old pickup bounced hard like a tank leaping a ditch. One of the chrome radio knobs fell off.

  She retrieved it from the floor, her head bumping into that same muscle-bunched thigh she had just been looking at. Flustered, she straightened and stuck the nob on the volume control.

  “Perhaps with the money you make from guiding this trip,” she suggested in a baiting tone, “you can put a down payment on a new pickup.”

  His sun-slitted eyes cut to her, then back to the road. The hat kept half of his face in shadow.

  “If pickup trucks’re status,” he assured her, “then I got plenty. I drive this old gal because I happen to like her. The older the violin, the sweeter the music.”

  “Just a suggestion.” She settled back against the worn seat. “I just figured a big rodeo star like you’re supposed to be would want to show off a bit, that’s all.”

  He gave a snort. “Stars live in Hollywood. And rodeo ain’t my business, it’s my love.”

  She waited, but he didn’t volunteer any more information.

  “Whatever your business,” she offered, “Hazel certainly does speak well of you.” Her tone also seemed to add There’s no accounting for taste.

  “Hazel and me think a lot alike. Especially about Mystery.”

  The accusation in his tone made her bristle. For a moment she pretended to stare at a dead snake she spotted hanging from a farmer’s fence—a local custom to entice the rain. But his not-so-subtle reminder that she was an unwelcome outsider finally prompted her to retort.

  “If you’re trying to make some point about foreigners,” she told him archly, “don’t let me scare you.”

  “The point is simple. The empty spaces are dwindling out West. And stupidity and greed and Eastern capital will ruin them. Hazel is doing her best to fight it. But she might as well try to hold the ocean back with a broom.”

  “Because of people like me, you mean?”

  “Maybe not you, exactly,” he conceded reluctantly.

  “But like my father, right? Trying to push through his Mountain View residential park with its aerial tramway?”

  “Look, I was raised not to speak bad of a person’s parents to their face. So I’ll leave names out of it, okay? But we’ve got us a few folks around Mystery Valley that don’t like boomtowners. We don’t need people who come into town just to profit quick and then move on—leaving us with the mess.”

  She started to speak. But he pointedly reached over and cranked the radio volume back up, letting music drown her out.

  “‘Why is the rich man always dancing,”’ he twanged along with the singer on the radio, “‘while the poor man pays the band?”’

  Around noon on Tuesday Hazel stepped outside into the coppery sunshine of her front yard. Her Prussian-blue eyes gazed toward the distant, serrated peaks of the mountains. If all had gone well this morning, by now A.J. and Jacquelyn should be on the trail.

  “As the twig is bent,” Hazel said softly to the beautiful summer day, “so the tree shall grow.”

  She’d done her level best to get her ambitious plan off to a strong start. If she did the thing right, then her beloved town would still be here generations from now—and still worthy of the love she felt for it. It was the perfect time to execute the plan. She was still sharp and plenty spry. And although she was still Montana’s cattle queen, she had a top-notch foreman running most of the operation now. She had plenty of time for the one place on God’s green earth she loved best of all. Her Mystery was more than just old buildings and monuments. It was also a collective legacy, the communal memory of a shared past. And perhaps most important of all: it was the home of ghosts who still lived there, their voices whispering in the skitter of autumn leaves, howling in the fierce winter winds.

  Behind the old woman, in the kitchen, a radio deejay’s voice droned on unnoticed.

  “…this weather advisory just received here at KTIX in Lewistown. You cattlemen out there with stock up in the high-altitude summer pastures might want to drive them down to lower slopes during the next couple of days. The National Weather Service has just forecast a late-summer snowstorm for the front ranges of the northern Rockies. Up to thirty inches could be dumped on the peaks, greatly increasing the danger of avalanches and flash floods. Batten down, folks! Looks like La Niña can throw tantrums even in the Big Sky Country…”

  Five

  “You’ll ride this one,” A.J. informed Jacquelyn in a curt tone that bordered on surly.

  He led one of the geldings down the short ramp behind the trailer.

  “It’s a good animal, but tricky as a redheaded woman. Watch him, especially when you cinch the girth. He likes to hold in air so he can dump the rider later.”

  She studied the unlikely steed. The mustangs, with their stunted stature and barrel chests, struck her as ugly, ungracious animals. But they did have impressive muscle definition and powerful haunches.

  “Yours is called Roman Nose,” he added. “He was named after a renegade chief who led the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers in this area.”

  “I know who he was,” she answered, impressed with his knowledge but unwilling to show it.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Y’all do research, don’cha?”

  By now she was too dismayed to rise to his bait. The mountain ride wasn’t the most brilliant endeavor she’d ever agreed to, but she was stuck with it now.

  Or was she? She glanced all around, trying to decide if she was really going to do this.

  The spot hardly seemed like an auspicious start to a ride Hazel promised would change her life. A.J. had referred to this area as a “jumping off place”—a little foothills hamlet called Truth or Dare, population 740. Last century it had been a stage-relay station. Now it was the last cluster of gas stations, restaurants and motels before the short-grass foothills gave way to the riotous upheaval of the Rocky Mountains.

  “Heads up!” he shouted. He had moved to the bed of the truck and was tossing out supplies. Despite his warning, the pack he’d tossed toward her rolled into her legs hard enough to almost knock her down.

  “Look,” he told her, his face granite edged. “I ain’t talking to hear my own voice. Pay attention! I said to start rigging your horse. You’ll have to adjust those stirrups for your legs.”

  She sent him a resentful stare. Then she lugged the worn saddle over to where she’d tethered Roman Nose in a patch of lush grass. They were leaving A.J.’s truck and trailer parked safely in a lot behind a gas station on the western edge of town. From here the mountains were so close she could clearly make out the blue columbine and white Queen Anne’s lace dotting their lower slopes.

  Finding a spot to leave the truck and trailer had presented no problem for A. J. Clayburn. She had quickly learned he was a state-wide celebrity, not just a hero around Mystery Valley. They couldn’t even finish a hasty meal at a local steakhouse without several fans recognizing him and requesting autographs. So much for his “stars live in Hollywood” baloney.

  Roman Nose calmly chomped on grass while she spread the saddle blanket. Then, struggling with the unaccustomed weight, she tossed the saddle across the mustang’s withers. Unlike her English riding saddle, this one had a high pommel with a prominent horn and a high, narrow cantle to support the hips and back. A “working saddle” he had call
ed it.

  “Are you bolted to the ground?” His voice cut into her thoughts. “I’m rigged and ready to raise dust. C’mon, cottontail, get your head screwed on straight. I can’t be wet-nursing you every foot of the way.”

  Hot anger flooded her. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not some scuffed-boot cowboy you hired for a cattle drive. Go to hell.”

  “Nice kitty, rough tongue,” he taunted before grabbing her arm and tossing her to the saddle like a sack of grain. She swore he even ran his hand down her rump in the scuffle. Certainly that hadn’t been necessary.

  “I mean it. I don’t even want to be here. I’m doing this for Hazel,” she spat.

  “Same here. She’s the only reason. Otherwise I’d avoid you like a smallpox blanket.”

  “Even for Hazel, I still have half a mind to call this off right now,” she shouted at his retreating back.

  “Fine by me. We ain’t joined at the hip,” he informed her indifferently as he secured a bedroll to his cantle with rawhide thongs. “Do what you want. Hazel expects you to show yellow, and so do I. Anybody can write about being tough.”

  She nibbled her bottom lip, torn with indecision. He deliberately ignored her, busy now securing a heavy sack of grain to his saddle horn. She had one strapped on, too. Since the horses would be working hard at a high altitude, they would need plenty of oats and corn for strength.

  Hazel expects you to show yellow, and so do I.

  “I’m almost ready,” she mentioned as she bent to finish shortening the stirrups. She was almost finished when he dismounted and strode over to her, his stare filled with disapproval.

  “What is it now?” she asked wearily. “My flannel shirt isn’t the proper pioneer color? My jeans don’t have enough rivets in the pockets?”

  “You got anything besides them show boots?” he demanded, meaning her low-heeled jodhpur boots of sleek ox-blood calfskin. His hand rode on her calf. In her opinion, more unnecessary manhandling.

  “These were hand-sewn in Dorset, England. They’re worn by some of the world’s top jockeys.”