"While I'm here, I might as well help you drive that cow to camp."
So he intended to talk nothing but business. That was okay. She could be just as casual as he. "Where did you learn so much about cows?"
"I told you, I grew up in Texas. My family has a ranch there."
"One of the ranches that generates the income you won't accept?"
"Laurel."
"Somebody had to explain. You wouldn't."
Tyler started the cow and calf trotting toward the camp. "I didn't figure it was anybody's business but mine."
Daisy felt like she'd been slapped in the face. "It isn't. It's just that people who care for you like to understand you. That's a pretty big chunk left out of the picture."
"I guess that's why I've always kept to myself."
Whatever his reason for coming back, it obviously wasn't to beg her forgiveness or anything like that. His heart was as crusted over as ever. "It saves explanations and caring. I understand now."
The cow made a break for freedom. Tyler had her back on the trail in minutes.
"What do you understand?" he asked.
"That you don't want anybody in your life. You don't want to be vulnerable, to let anybody become important to you. You've used your brothers' refusal to give you the money for your hotels as an excuse to drive people away. Secretly you don't think you're worthy of your good fortune. You haven't done anything to earn the money. You're keeping your hotels to yourself because when you finally get them, they'll be your justification for taking your place in the family. If you had to share them, they wouldn't be yours. You'd be afraid you weren't worthy. How did I do?"
"You talked to Laurel a lot."
"I also lived with my father for a long time. You're very much alike. I discovered he could have made a decent income from the ranch, but he was obsessed with gold."
"You think I'm like that?"
"I'm not sure it matters. It may be too late for you to become a normal human being. You may be so firmly caught in your isolation you have forgotten how to break out."
"You've done a lot of thinking."
"I've had a lot of time."
The action in camp came to a halt when they rode in. "This is Tyler Randolph," Daisy said to Rio. "He's been chasing the cows out of the hills for me." The other men in the camp studied Tyler with appraising glances as Daisy introduced him around.
"Ready to get some more?" Tyler said, when the introductions were over.
"I'm ready for you to go back to Albuquerque."
"I'm sticking. You can ride out with me or you can sit in camp. Either way it's your decision." He put spurs to his huge gelding and started back toward the hills.
"You trust him?" Rio asked.
"Like a rattler," Daisy said as she started after him. "Come to think of it, I'd trust a rattler more." She wished it were true, but she seemed to trust him no matter how many times he left her.
"What the hell was that all about?" one of Bob Greene's men asked. "How in hell did she manage to get a Randolph to help her?"
"You know him?" Rio asked.
"Not him, but I know of his family. Everybody does. They're rich as sin and mean as snakes. His brother is in Albuquerque right now. He was a gunfighter. This one's supposed to be looking for gold."
"I think he's found it," Rio said. His gaze turned to follow the pair disappearing in the distance.
* * * * *
Daisy and Tyler rode into camp at dusk. Tyler dismounted, helped Daisy down, then took both their horses and headed toward the remuda.
"The man knows his way around cows," Rio remarked to Daisy as they watched Tyler walk toward the rope corral.
"He grew up on a ranch in Texas. He knows cows backwards and forward. He hates them."
"Doesn't show."
"Very little does." Daisy put her hands to the fire. It was warm while the sun was up, but the temperature fell with dusk. The fire felt good. "I guess I'd better get started with dinner," but stopped before she'd even picked up a pan. "Rio, go take care of the horses for Tyler. Tell him I need him to cook."
Rio looked skeptical. "You sure?"
"Just wait and see."
Thirty minutes later, it didn't take more than one bite to convince Rio Daisy had known what she was talking about. "You ever cooked chuck before?" he asked Tyler.
"All the way from Texas to Wyoming," Tyler replied. "Most of the places in between."
A grin split Rio's brown, leathery face. "Bet you've been on a lot of roundups. What do you think of this one?"
"I'd move the camp each day instead of bringing the cows into a central location. It would save time driving and upset the cows less. They don't like being taken out of their familiar territory."
Rio looked at Daisy. "What do you think?"
It sounded like a lot of unnecessary work. She wasn't going to take his advice quite so quickly, even if he did know far more about roundups than she did. She would think about it. Meanwhile she would ask Tyler a question rather than answer his. "Did you see many cattle in those hills?"
"Some big stuff two and three years old."
"I thought Daddy had you brand the calves each year," Daisy said to Rio.
"I told him I couldn't get them all by myself, but he wouldn't let me hire any help."
"And you've got rustlers," Tyler said.
Rustlers! Greene said they'd been stealing from him and Cordova. Now they were stealing from her as well.
"What do I do?"
"Stop them."
She didn't know how to do that. She needed Tyler's help even though she didn't want to admit it. That would mean putting herself in his hands once again, but somehow that wasn't as distasteful as she had expected. "How much income do you figure I'm losing?"
"Impossible to tell until we get some idea of the size of the herd, but I'd say thousands of dollars."
Daisy felt like cussing. She remembered all the years her mother had suffered because her life was so unlike what she had expected, and none of it had been necessary. Her father had allowed rustlers to take more than enough money to have made her mother comfortable, all because he was afraid somebody would find a gold mine that didn't exist!
"You know these hills pretty good?" Rio asked Tyler.
"I've been riding through them for the last three years."
"Why don't you give the orders tomorrow?"
"You'd better take that up with Miss Singleton."
Daisy would have liked to be able to spurn his offer, but Rio wouldn't have suggested it without a good reason. Besides, it was clear Greene and Cordova's hands respected Tyler. Whether she liked to admit it or not, she felt safer with him around.
"We can try it," she said, unwilling to give in completely the first day he showed up. She was flattered he had followed her, but this was the third time he had come into her life unexpectedly. There was no reason to think he wouldn't disappear again. She loved him, but she wasn't going to let her love overwhelm her good sense.
For the first time in her life she was her own boss, and she liked the feeling. She now knew the ranch could make enough money to support her comfortably. If she could get all her cattle branded and hire a couple of dependable hands to help Rio, she would be independent. If she learned her job well, in a few years she would be free to do just about anything she wanted."Don't you trust me?" Tyler asked.
"I know you can cook, but I don't know whether you can organize a roundup," she replied. "I'd rather see what you can do before I make a decision."
Daisy couldn't deny the feeling of satisfaction that warmed her soul. She'd never before had the power to tell a man what to do. Until she told Guy she wouldn't marry him, she had never refused one. She actually felt like the owner of this ranch, like a boss in charge of making decisions.
It felt wonderful!
She knew she had to keep a cool head. She didn't know anything about ranches. Tyler did. But the decision was still hers. She could tell him to go or stay.
Of course he'd do w
hat he wanted -- Tyler always did -- but that didn't dilute her happiness. She stood up. "I want to be in the saddle at dawn."
"You want me to cook breakfast?"
"We sure do," Rio answered for her.
"Then Jesus has got to help him," Daisy said. "You can't expect him to be cook and foreman without help."
"I don't mind," the boy replied.
"Okay with you?" she asked.
"Sure," Tyler replied.
"Good."
"Wait up a minute," Tyler called when Daisy headed toward her tent. She turned just in time for him to slip his arms around her. Before she knew what was happening, he kissed her long, tenderly, and quite thoroughly.
Daisy thought every bone in her body must have dissolved. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was tension, but she felt unable to stand alone. She leaned against him, the heat of his body flowing through her. Shamelessly she clung to him, her arms locked around his neck.
"I don't like to go to bed without saying good night," Tyler said.
She didn't know how he could talk so casually about what had just happened between them. It was like heaving ground under her feet. She would have rustled every cow between here and the Colorado border to have him kiss her good night like this for the rest of her life. By a superhuman effort, she managed to control her voice. "I don't want you thinking it's going to earn you special treatment."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Tyler said.
Daisy released her hold on Tyler and took a shaky step toward her tent. She'd been able to control her emotions all day, but she didn't know how much longer she could keep it up. It was one thing to say she was going to act as casually as Tyler. It was quite another to do it after he kissed her. It brought memories of their last night in the cabin flooding back.
Shoring up her resolve one more time, Daisy crawled inside her tent, but half an hour later she still hadn't been able to fall asleep. She might be in control of her actions, but she wasn't in control of her feelings, and her love for Tyler was just as strong as ever. It didn't help to know he couldn't forget her any more than she could forget him. Like Laurel had said, Randolph men didn't come easily to love. She couldn't imagine anybody coming more slowly than Tyler. She wondered if he would make it.
* * * * *
Daisy sat her horse, surveying the scene around the camp. She would have to find some way to repay Greene and Cordova for the use of their men. She would never have managed to brand so many cattle in three days without them. She turned away as they castrated a young bull. Tyler had said she should cull the herd, keep only the best bulls and heifers for breeding, fatten the rest to sell. It made sense, but she didn't like it.
They had ridden side by side for three days. She found it hard to believe he was the same man she'd known on the mountain. He talked. A lot. And when he wanted to, he had almost as much charm as Zac. The men would do anything he wanted. To hear them tell it, he was the best cowman in New Mexico.
She watched Tyler straighten up from branding the newly created steer. The animal got to his feet in a rage. He charged Tyler, but he simply stepped out of the steer's way. Rio cut in with his horse and drove the steer away from the camp. Tyler walked over to her. He wasn't even breathing hard.
"I don't know if anybody's told you, but you're going to have to do this again after the new calves are dropped."
"Bob Greene said not to wait, that I had too many unbranded cattle."
"He was right. I just wanted you to know. Next year you can get yourself on a regular schedule. It'll give you time to get a regular crew together."
He'd been doing that for the past three days, dropping bits of information. He was gradually educating her to what she needed to know. It irritated her, but common sense told her to keep quiet. She had to learn. Greene or Cordova might have been able to teach her just as well, but they had their own ranches to worry about
"You won't have many steers to sell this fall, but if you sell some of the scrub cows, you ought to have enough to keep going until next year. Things will be lean until you can get a full crop. Rustlers have made some pretty good inroads into your young stuff."
"I've been thinking about the rustling," she said. "How do I stop it?"
"Most of the time just by keeping your men in the saddle checking on your cattle all the time. I imagine Greene and Cordova would be more than willing to help. No rancher wants rustlers around."
Tyler walked over to his big gelding and mounted. He rode up to Daisy. "You ready?"
"Where're we going this time?"
"A grassy canyon I discovered back in the mountains. I imagine we'll find quite a few cattle there."
Daisy turned her horse to ride off with him. As she did, she caught sight of a dust cloud in the distance. The old fear gripped at her heart. She didn't know when she would stop being afraid the next person to ride up to the ranch would be the killer. Common sense told her even if he were still in New Mexico, he wouldn't come to the ranch with so many people about. Still, she felt the fear tug at her heart until she could make out a buggy. A few minutes later she recognized Guy and Adora.
"You go on. I can't leave now."
"Neither can I." Tyler dismounted, tied his horse to a juniper, and prepared to wait.
Chapter Twenty-three
Adora fixed an unfriendly gaze on Tyler. "I see Daisy is not by herself."
"I thought you were learning how to run hotels," Guy said.
"Or looking for lost gold mines," Adora added.
"I decided to postpone both until Daisy got settled," Tyler said, not the least bit disturbed by the undisguised hostility of brother and sister. "I don't guess that gold's going anywhere."
"Somebody might beat you to it," Adora said.
"There's always that, but I don't imagine anybody's going to find it all."
With a sniff of annoyance, Adora turned to Daisy. "We came to see how you were doing." She looked around. "I'd be afraid to stay here. There's nobody around."
"There never has been," Daisy said. "It would seem strange to have houses and people here now."
"It's not a proper situation for you," Guy said. "You don't have a suitable place to sleep or anyone to chaperon you."
"I have Rio."
"You can't have a man for a chaperon," Adora exclaimed. "That would scandalize half of Albuquerque."
"Especially Mrs. Esterhouse and her daughter," Daisy said.
"To hell with Mrs. Esterhouse and her daughter," Guy said.
"Amen," Daisy added, earning a rare smile from Tyler.
"I'm more concerned about you. This is no way for you to live," Guy said.
"I'm just fine. I've got my tent and enough bedding to survive a blizzard. If the weather gets really nasty, I can sleep in the shed. And Tyler's the best cook in the West."
"You cook?" Guy said, as though it were something only poor Mexicans would do.
"The best food you ever tasted," Rio said, coming up to the group. "You riding out again?" he asked Daisy.
"You go with Tyler. I'll take the next trip."
Tyler looked reluctant to leave.
"What's wrong?" Daisy asked. "You afraid you can't find any cows if I don't go along? That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it?" She was rewarded with a full-grown, honest smile.
"I'd be too ashamed to go back to Texas."
"What's he doing here?" Guy asked after Tyler and Rio rode off.
"He said he felt responsible for my being here, so he's making sure I succeed."
"I thought it was that queen you were talking about."
"Both."
Guy frowned. "He doesn't look like a cowhand to me."
"He's huge," Adora said, impressed with Tyler's appearance in the saddle despite her antipathy. "And handsome."
"He said I needed someone to teach me the rudiments of ranching. And he's right. I can't tell you how much I've learned in the last few days."
"But you don't need to know any of it," Guy said. "If you married me, I would see to everything for you."
"But I don't want anybody to see to everything for me," Daisy said, "Not you, Tyler, or anybody else. I love being my own boss. I never realized how much until now."
"But you can't go on living like a vagabond," Adora protested. "You'll never find a decent man to marry you."
"I will," Guy said.
"I'm not sure I want to get married. At least not for a while. People like Mrs. Esterhouse will always draw attention to my size or some other part of me that's not socially acceptable. I don't want to be apologizing for myself for the rest of my life. Nor do I want my husband doing it for me," Daisy said when Guy started to voice another protest. "Besides, I like living out here. Maybe I was meant to be a rancher."
"No woman was meant to be a rancher," Guy said with conviction.
"It looks like a lot of hard work," Adora observed.
"It is, but now my muscles have gotten used to being on a horse, I don't mind it. My parents did me a great disservice by teaching me only how to live back East."
"Couldn't you run your ranch from Albuquerque?" Adora asked.
"I'd let you run it any way you wanted," Guy added.
"You'd soon start telling me what to do and expecting me to do it," Daisy said. "Men are like that."
"What about Tyler?"
"He works for me. If I don't like what he does, he doesn't do it or he leaves."
"He looks like he's here to stay," Adora said.
"He'll leave," Daisy said. She had never questioned that. The only question was would she go with him. Would he ask her? But she didn't mean to tell Guy or Adora that.
"Then you'll have to come back to town."
"By then I intend to have my own crew and start rebuilding my house," Daisy said. "This is my land, and I mean to live here."
"But you don't belong here."
"I'm beginning to think it's the only place I do belong."
"Then you don't mean to return to Albuquerque?"
"I don't know what I mean to do," Daisy said, honestly. "I may change my mind next month or next year. But for the time being, I like where I am. I don't mean to give it up."
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