by Arlene James
She shook her head. “No. I was just... No.”
He understood perfectly. Gazing off into the distance, he gave the others a few seconds to fix their attention on the lunch truck before turning his smile on her again. “Well, I’m ready for a break. You set a mean pace, woman.” But she had already turned her mount and was riding slowly toward the gate. Rye bowed his head, uncertain what to say or do next. He decided to just keep giving her space.
It turned into the proverbial situation of giving her an inch and having her take a mile. By the time he’d secured his horse and loosened the saddle girth, Kara had disappeared. Momentarily alarmed, Rye elbowed his way to the head of the line and demanded of the only person he knew who might have an inkling, “Where is she?”
Dayna shoved a barbecue sandwich and a bowl of coleslaw into his hands. “Shoes trailed her over the rise.”
Absurdly relieved, Rye frowned. “Anybody tell you what happened this morning?”
Dayna nodded, turning a stricken gaze at him. “Afraid so.” Her gaze flickered away again, as if she didn’t want to discuss it. He could understand that. Kara was another matter.
“She’s not acting like herself today.”
“Yes, she is,” Dayna told him. “She’s acting exactly like herself. You just don’t know her yet.”
“Well, how could I? I’ve never seen her all quiet like this. She’s usually wrangling with me over every little detail.”
“She’ll be wrangling again in no time, not like it was when Law died.” Dayna shook her head. “It was months before I could get a rise out of her back then.”
Suddenly Pogo appeared at Dayna’s elbow. “Let me lend a hand, ma’am,” he said, scooping sandwiches out of the hot box in the back of the truck. “You and Rye look like you need a few minutes.”
Dayna sent him the sparest of looks and moved away from the truck without so much as a word of thanks. Rye followed her, poking his plastic spoon into his shirt pocket and tucking the plastic bowl of coleslaw into the bend of his elbow. He unwrapped his sandwich with one hand and bit out a huge chunk. The thinly sliced pork with sweet sauce was dark, so tender it fell apart in his mouth.
“What’s your read on what went down out there this morning?” Dayna asked, her fingertips slipping into the front pockets of her jeans.
Rye gulped and wiped the corners of his mouth with the pad of his thumb. The barbecue went down sour as he thought about what he’d seen. “Somebody wants this drive stopped, and he’ll be as cruel as he needs to be to see it done.”
Dayna nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Any idea who it might be?”
Dayna shrugged. “Someone hoping to get both properties cheap, maybe.”
“Or maybe just someone hoping to get both properties, period.”
Her gaze rose to meet his. “Smitty could do something like that.”
Rye shook his head. “Smitty’s not one of the heirs.”
“If it’s Payne’s, it’s Smitty’s,” Dayna said flatly.
Rye considered that. “Okay, so there’s Smitty, some nebulous hopeful buyer, and there’s Payne.”
“Meryl suggested it might be one of the creditors hoping to force an early settlement.”
Rye held up four fingers. “Okay, that’s four possibilities.”
“Could be a disgruntled former hand, too, according to Meryl.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, not anyone I ever met. Every one of those boys was pretty broken up when Plummer went. I didn’t sense resentment or anything there.”
“So Payne’s number one on your list,” Dayna deduced correctly.
He cocked his head, trying to find more than a gut instinct behind his reasoning. “He stands to gain the most.”
“But he loves Kara,” Dayna told him, “almost as much as I do. We often thought that if they weren’t cousins... Well, let’s just say that Law preferred him as a nephew.”
Rye’s stomach turned over. The succulent sandwich in his hand suddenly looked about as appetizing as a cow patty. He folded the paper over it with one finger. “I better check on her. She’s been gone for a while.”
Dayna just smiled and folded her arms. “I figure she’ll be ready to bite anytime now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Rye gave her an arch look and strode away. Truth be told, he’d relish getting bitten right about now. His appetite had returned by the time he’d climbed the hill. He found Shoes standing just on the other side, his hands tucked into his armpits.
“What’re you doing?”
“Keeping my distance.” Shoes nodded in Kara’s direction. She was sitting alone at the base of the hill, her forearms on her knees, staring off to the east.
“She said anything to you?”
Shoes nodded. “Oh, yeah.” He repeated, word for word, what she’d told him. Rye felt his jaw drop. He’d used those words himself, of course, but somehow coming from her they were shocking. Suddenly he was chuckling.
“Damn, she’s something, isn’t she?”
Shoes folded his arms a little tighter. “She works and acts like a man, but I think she’s really a lot of woman.”
This was straying into territory Rye was eager to avoid. He changed the subject. “She had any lunch?”
Shoes shook his head. “Me, neither, and I think I better get me a piece of that pig before it’s all gone. Why don’t you go down there and see if she’s morphed back into a human?”
Rye grinned at him. “Yeah, you go ahead.” He started down the hill. Well, she was biting, but something about the set of her shoulders bothered him.
She heard him coming and swiped at her face. He grimaced. Damn if she wasn’t bawling. She snapped over her shoulder, “I thought I told you to—”
“Nope, not me,” Rye said cheerfully. “If you’d told me that, my ears probably would’ve caught fire.”
She stiffened, then slumped forward in a kind of huddle. He sat down next to her and made himself comfortable. “What do you want?” she asked huskily.
He looked regretfully at his sandwich and shoved it at her. “You won’t believe what your mother is peddling down there. I mean, it’s a travesty.”
Her head whipped around. He saw the glitter of tears in her eyes, the smeared tracks of them on her dirty cheeks. It bothered him more than he’d even expected it to. Damn.
“What’re you talking about?” she demanded, yanking the sandwich from his hand.
“Taste it,” he said, watching her unfold the paper and look at the spot where he’d taken out his bite. She turned it slightly and took a small bite out of the side.
“There’s nothing wrong with this,” she said after chewing awhile.
He plucked the spoon out of his pocket and plunged it into the milky coleslaw. “I know. She’s spoiling the hands rotten. They’re going to be expecting four-star-restaurant treatment before we’re halfway to New Mexico. She just might have ruined them for life.”
Kara rolled her eyes and took another bite of his sandwich. He let her munch on that awhile, then traded her the coleslaw for what was left. She looked at the spoon he’d just pulled from his own mouth, then she turned it over and put it in her own, sucking on the bowl. He went hard as stone, just like that, and it nearly choked him, his jeans suddenly cutting him in two, lungs seizing up. He swallowed, trying to breathe normally, and concentrated on the sandwich she’d nibbled. He gulped the rest down in three bites, thankful he didn’t wind up hacking and with her beating him on the back. He wadded up the paper and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. She handed him the coleslaw back. He was hurting, and his hands were shaking so badly that he bobbled the bowl, nearly spilling the last few bites.
“Careful,” she said, wiping her hands on her thighs. She sighed and stared off into nothing while he gingerly finished off the coleslaw and tried to concentrate on not squirming or tugging at his jeans.
When he’d scraped the last bit from the bowl, she abruptly stood. He looked up, unsure he
could do more without doing himself bodily harm, but suddenly she was bending toward him, one hand on his shoulder, the other pushing back his hat brim.
“Thanks,” she said, and tilting her head, she placed a slow, lingering kiss right next to his mouth, almost in his mustache.
It burned right through him, nearly doubling him over when it reached his groin. He sat dazed while she straightened, dusted her hands together and said, “Well, this isn’t getting any work done.” She started up the hill. “You coming?”
He swallowed and murmured, “In a minute.”
It was several, actually, before he could stand, and then he had to talk himself out of running fast in the other direction. But then he told himself that it was just a friendly little kiss, just a friendly thank-you for sharing his lunch with her. What the hell had he been thinking? He was still hungry! And she was probably working already, making him look like a darn fool.
He beat the dust off the seat of his pants. He’d dropped the empty bowl and spoon. Bending, he swept them up in one hand, fishing the sandwich paper out of his shirt pocket with the other. Crushing them together, he carried them up the slope and over the top of the rise. He made a determined effort not to look for Kara, and that was why he was halfway down before he realized Kara wasn’t working at all.
She was throwing herself into Payne Detmeyer’s arms, laughing, and taking his big fat head in her hands to kiss him on the cheek. Rye’s jaw dropped. The son of a bitch had very likely slaughtered nearly two dozen head of prime cattle just to unnerve her and here she was throwing herself at him! He watched Payne catch her up and whirl her in a circle, the pair of them laughing like maniacs, and Rye reassessed. No, Payne didn’t kill those cattle. He’d had it done. Payne didn’t have the guts or grit to do the dirty work. Rye wanted to put a bolt in his brain. He’d gladly pay for the opportunity. He went down that hill with murder in his eye, but the instant he drew near, Kara flew from Payne’s arms right into his own. He nearly fell over. Luckily, she was jumping up and down exuberantly, which made it all seem perfectly reasonable behavior on his part.
He got an arm around her waist and pulled her off him. She was grinning like an idiot.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Isn’t what wonderful?”
“Payne’s good news!”
Now he knew she’d definitely slipped a cog. “What in blue blazes are you talking about?”
“Payne’s getting married!”
Rye blinked at her. Payne was getting married, was he? Excellent. He found a smile breaking out, and he turned it on Payne Detmeyer. “So, the big man’s getting hitched, is he?”
Detmeyer laughed, all affability. “I asked her last night. She said yes. We were on the phone for hours.”
“Well, well,” Rye said. Did he smell alibi?
Kara cleared her throat and bounced back toward Payne. Damn if she wasn’t acting just like a woman now. Rye thought wickedly of nailing her boots to the ground.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said, sliding an arm around Payne’s thick waist. He tweaked the end of her nose.
“I knew you would be. That’s why I made sure you were the first to know.”
“Ah, thanks, cuz,” Kara purred, going up on tiptoe to kiss Payne’s cheek. She sure did kiss a lot all of a sudden, Rye noted sourly.
“Aren’t we going to cull those cattle?” he asked through a fake smile.
Kara wilted, but she tried not to show it. “Yeah, you’re right. We better get to it.” She hugged Payne. “You take care, and I expect to hear all about the wedding plans as soon as I get to New Mexico.”
“Sure thing. But you’re the one who needs to take care of herself. Promise me, now.”
“I promise.”
“Good.” He hugged her once more, then dropped his arms. She bounced away and started off toward the corral, flipping him a wave. Rye started after her. “Wagner.”
He stopped and turned around. “Yeah?
Payne leaned back against the fender of his splashy convertible and folded his arms. “I want you to take care of her for me,” he said quietly. “She’s important to me.”
“More important than a few thousand acres?”
Payne smirked. “I knew you’d try to blame me for that ghastly prank, but I was at the house all night, on the phone for most of it.”
Rye stepped close, his fists on his hips. “Prank? I don’t think so.”
Any hint of affability left Payne’s face. “I meant what I said. If anything happens to her, it’ll be your fault, and I’ll personally hold you responsible.”
“Anything happens to Kara,” Rye said, getting right in old Payne’s face, “you won’t have to come looking for me. I’ll be bringing it to you. She may think you’re sweet enough to spread on toast, but I know rot when I smell it.”
Payne chuckled, looking not in the least intimidated. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve been talking to cows too long.”
“That’s right,” Rye said. “Dead cows, and they’re every one saying your name.”
Payne Detmeyer’s heavily handsome face was menacing . “If I was going to cut throats,” he said darkly, “I’d start with yours.”
Rye grinned. “Okay. Anytime you want to try, just come on. But remember this. I’m not nearly so easy to kill as a herd of dumb cows.”
Payne’s eyes glittered dangerously for a moment, but then he dropped his gaze, eyelids lowering, and the easy smile was back. “You better get back to work, Wagner,” the big man said, as if he had the right to order Rye’s actions and expected unquestioning obedience. “You’ve got a big job cut out for you.” He opened the car door and slid inside. Rye caught it and shoved it closed.
“It’s a job I intend to do well,” he said. “Plummer wanted Kara to have that ranch, and I mean to see she gets it.”
Detmeyer wrenched the key, grinding the ignition, and threw the transmission into Reverse. Rye backed up, aware that Payne would have run him down if he’d thought he could get away with it. Well, let him try. The more Payne focused on him, the safer Kara would be.
He grinned wolfishly as be yanked his gloves from his hip pocket and strode toward his mount, pulling them on. So the kissing cousin was marrying, was he? Good. He only hoped old Payne-in-the-Butt’s intended was a virago who would sink her claws deep into the puke’s hide and keep him close to home from the wedding day on. He wouldn’t have to worry about Kara then, no matter what happened.
Not that he would once this damned fool drive was over. Not by a long shot. Not even if Plummer Detmeyer whispered in his ear from the grave.
Chapter Seven
Kara felt one hundred and ten percent better. Yes, someone was definitely trying to nix the drive, but it wasn’t Payne. She just knew that it wasn’t. She had never really thought it was, and yet, somehow it had helped to see him, to feel his love and concern for her. She was so excited for him, so happy that he was getting married.
Whoever was trying to scare them off—and she felt certain that’s all they were trying to do—wouldn’t succeed, because she and Rye were taking the herd to New Mexico, period. She wouldn’t think of those slaughtered beeves anymore. Instead she would concentrate on getting the job done.
With freshened resolve, she pushed everyone ruthlessly. They worked hard, and as a result had the herd culled to three hundred thirty-one head and a quarter of those treated and ear-tagged before nightfall. She slept like a rock and hit the ground running before daylight.
Owing to the previous day’s experience, they had their treatment technique down to a fine science. George and Dean would load the animal into the chute from the rear, George on horseback with a loop ready. Then Dean would press it by shoving on the plunge gate until the cow stuck its head out the opening in the front gate. Once the cow was locked down, Pogo pried open its mouth and ran in a pill pusher, ejecting the thumb-sized tablet far into its throat. At the same time, Kara reached through the spaces in the pipe that made up the walls
of the chute and shot an injection, prepared for her by Shoes, into the animal’s flank. Finally Rye stapled a colored and numbered tag into the cow’s ear, and they turned it out into the corral by dropping the front gate, jumping out of the way and letting the animal run over it. Then the front gate went back up, the rear one was opened, and the process started all over again. They were turning out about one per minute and had the whole herd done an hour or so after lunch. It was time to pack for the drive.
Rye had decided the previous day to start posting a guard on the herd. He’d teamed the men in pairs, George and Bord, Pogo and Shoes, himself and Dean, leaving Kara as the odd one out, and assigned them four-hour rotating shifts. Kara spoke to Dayna, and together they presented Rye with an ultimatum. Either they played equal roles or the men could start feeding themselves. Rye looked at the lunch truck, its hot box securely bolted and the key tucked into Dayna’s pocket, and reluctantly relented. He drew up new assignments while munching on pasta salad and tuna sandwiches. The new pairings consisted of George and Bord, Pogo and Dean, Shoes and Dayna, and himself and Kara, working in three-hour shifts. Pogo and Dean had first watch that afternoon.
Rye and Kara were each pulled in a dozen different directions as they organized, reorganized and then attempted to streamline the whole outfit. Ultimately, they had it together. Foodstuffs and cooking utensils went into the motor home generously provided by Dean. Shoes took the extra tack into the farrier’s wagon with him. Rye’s double-cab truck was for personal gear and bedrolls—stored out of the weather in the second cab—and horse feed, which was covered with not one but three tarps in the truck bed. Dayna’s old rattletrap became the water wagon, the bed given over to an enormous collapsible plastic container, which, with the addition of two short lengths of rubber hose, became a cold shower. The motor home would provide the occasional hot shower, if and when they could keep the water heater tank filled. In addition to the two trucks, motor home, and farrier’s wagon, they had two four-horse trailers to pull, allowing them to keep at least half of their remuda rested at all times. That meant they had four drivers and four riders, unless circumstances required them to leapfrog the vehicles in order to put more riders in the field.
