A Cowboy for Clementine (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Floyd, Susan

  Dexter had spent most of the past three years building up a stable of horses, training them to track and hold wild cows. Part of his success had come from his ability to buy low and sell high. He spent a lot of time scouring the western states, looking for good stock considered “unsalvageable,” ruined by inexperience or plain abuse. To Dexter Scott, no horse was unsalvageable.

  Take for example this new horse. He’d driven to Nevada to purchase him after getting a tip off the Internet. Even neglected and underweight, this horse had been magnificent—energetic, alive in ways Dexter would never be again. The horse held promise, perfect for a cowboy who needed a good work horse and who understood the symbiotic relationship between man and beast—if, of course, the horse ever learned to accept a rider for any length of time.

  Dexter frowned as he swiveled his arm again, trying to keep it from stiffening up. New Horse, as Randy referred to him, had shown a lot of progress in the past two months. He’d gained weight, and his dull coat was starting to turn glossy. He’d actually nickered in greeting when Dex had arrived this morning, politely accepting the carrot chunk he’d offered. This had prompted Dexter to saddle him up. When the horse carried the saddle in circles around the corral, following Dexter wherever he went, Dexter took this as a good sign. The next step was to get on. And surprise of surprise, New Horse allowed that and even responded properly to the pressure applied to his ribs. Dexter was feeling pretty good about his student as a glorious dawn broke over the desert.

  But once out of the safety of the corral, with miles of dry foothills around him, New Horse got a big fat F in deportment. Dex spat out some gravel-like chunks and then ran his tongue over his teeth, hoping that wasn’t actually a filling or worse, part of a tooth. He hated dental work more than he hated walking. His jaw ached, but he supposed that was because New Horse had just sent him tumbling head over ass.

  Damn. The desert was still. Dex found himself a rock and sat on it as his tongue continued its exploration around his teeth, carefully probing for any sharp, stabbing pain. So far, his teeth were the only intact parts of his body. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. It’d been broken more times than he could remember. His ribs had been cracked an equal number of times, his leg broken in two places twice. Fractured bones were part of the job description. But this was the first tumble he’d taken since before Joanna’s accid—since before he’d retired.

  Dexter shook off the onslaught of feelings that he hadn’t invited and didn’t want to stay. He thought instead of the Miller brothers, who were a party in and of themselves. They radiated fun and irreverence—Randy, the elder brother by four and a half minutes, especially.

  Randy’s heart was as big as his voice. Dexter still could hear Ryan’s laughter last night as he defended himself from Randy’s mock attacks with his malletlike fists. How long had it been since they’d all laughed like that? Afterward Randy had brought out his sketches. He suffered—although he would never use that word—from a rare form of color blindness, causing him to see the world in shades of gray. It was that very disability that made him so effective when chasing cows, because he looked for movement and shape, not color.

  The color blindness also enabled him to produce the most compelling western art Dexter had ever seen. Randy could bench-press three hundred pounds, but then sketch in pen and ink the most delicate, heartrending portraits of cowboy life. Even though his artwork supported his lifestyle, Randy considered himself a dabbler, not an artist.

  The sketches had made Dexter miss the life. They made him think there was much more to living than this desert. He stared in the direction of the main house. It was a heck of a long walk back. Up the small brown hills that obscured his vision of the ranch and down through the pass. Not a bit of water to be found. He flexed his shoulders, trying to ignore the pain that stabbed at his collarbone.

  He gazed down at the brown dust on his boots, the heels worn down as were his spurs. They’d been silver at one time, but now had the dull look of well-used stainless steel. Suddenly, familiar hoofbeats made him perk up. New Horse had come to his senses and returned! Dex watched the distant cloud of dust advance. He knew that the horse had it in him. With training New Horse would become one of his best—

  Who the hell was riding him?

  The fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled as Dex watched the horse that threw him not an hour ago approach, the legs of his rider dangling on either sides. The brown horse remained steady in his trot, his mane glittering in the sunlight, unperturbed by the flapping stirrups.

  Dexter swallowed hard.

  This rider rode well, the skill apparent as New Horse slid down some crumbling red slate. How many times had he seen Joanna ride and skid only to recover and laugh at what she called a “cheap thrill”? The rider held herself in the same way, had the same tilt of the head. Impossible. He’d watched Randy pull Joanna’s lifeless body out from under her horse. He’d touched her ice-cold hand.

  The rider slowed so they wouldn’t spray Dexter with dust and gravel. Dexter squinted up, from his rock unwilling to look into the face of the rider, unwilling to take the chance that it might be Joanna.

  “Hey” was the best greeting he could muster.

  “Lost your hat?” the rider asked, her voice clear and feminine.

  “I THINK THIS IS YOURS.” Clementine Wells offered the cowboy the sweat-stained gray hat she’d picked up along the trail. When she’d seen the empty saddle, she’d known there was either an angry or a dead cowboy out there somewhere. It was okay if he was angry, but it would do her no good if the man she’d spent more than a month searching for had managed to kill himself before he could help her.

  So she had mounted the brown horse and followed the horse’s tracks. When she’d found the hat, she’d felt a little better. She’d have something to give him. Two things. His horse and his hat. Surely, he would help her. Now she held out the hat even farther. His long arm reached up and he grimaced as his tanned fingers curled around the worn felt. He settled it on his head and looked significantly better.

  Clem peered down and doubt flooded through her. If this was Dexter Scott, he was dusty and younger than she’d thought he’d be. Too young for retirement, too young to be as good as the grapevine said he was. Dark eyebrows arched up, framing hazel eyes that were as clear as a still lake at sunrise. Those eyes weren’t dusty at all. And Clementine found herself staring into them, as if she were staring into the lake, watching flecks of gold sparkle along the water’s edge.

  Even though she had a feeling she was talking to him, she shifted in the saddle and said, “I’m looking for Dexter Scott.”

  “How’d you get in here?” His voice was gravelly, as if he hadn’t spoken in a very long time. The horse she was riding skittered from side to side, and the cowboy stilled the horse by tugging the reins out of her hands. He did look menacing, his eyebrows coming together in a scowl, his mouth tight.

  “Are you Dexter Scott?”

  “How did you get in?” Each word was marked by a short staccato. He muffled a groan as he stood up.

  “On the road.” Clem repeated. She hated that he had the reins. It made her feel as if she was being held. And she was, by his eyes, by his angry stance.

  He didn’t say anything for a long time, his eyes flicking over her, running a lie detector test. Then he shook his head. “Gates are locked.”

  Nerves made her laugh. “Not if you know how to get through or climb over.”

  “You shut them?”

  Clem bristled. Even she knew not to leave gates open. “Of course.”

  “I could shoot you, you know. Didn’t you read the sign?”

  “You could,” Clem agreed, but patted the shotgun on the saddle in front of her. “If you had your horse, which you don’t. It seems as if I do.”

  It occurred to Clem she shouldn’t antagonize this man, so she fished out a tattered brochure from her back pocket and proceeded to read.

  “This says you’re an elite cowboy. A cowboy’s cowboy,�
�� she said for emphasis. She stared at him doubtfully. He appeared anything but elite. Knowing that he’d fallen off his horse didn’t give any credence to the brochure.

  “Not anymore.” He rubbed the nose of the horse, and moved to stand right next to her leg. “Retired.”

  God, he was tall. No wonder the stirrups hung so low. Clem refused to be put off by the definitive bleakness in his voice. She had more than six hundred feral cows roaming around on her father’s ranch. Laboring all through spring and most of the summer, Clem and a crew of six transient cowboys had tried to round them up. Tried was the operative word. Oh, everyone had theories as to why the cows were so hard to catch. Difficult breed. Large size. Formidable horn growth. She had hoped that when the feed in the hills had dried up in the summer heat, these cows would want to come down and graze on her green pastures, but those freaks of nature seemed to find their own feed higher up the mountain range. The more she tracked them, the more impossible the task became, not just because of the rocky terrain but also because each seemed to be larger and more fierce than any cow she’d ever encountered. She’d thought she was purchasing a Charolais-Hereford cross, a hardy, disease-resistant hybrid that could grow to a thousand pounds in a season. She was wrong.

  In desperation, she’d had five separate outfits come to the ranch, spy a couple of the cattle, then turn away, saying that it wasn’t worth the money to break their necks in such inhospitable terrain. In each case, the final edicts had been that if she really wanted to solve her problem, the cows needed to be destroyed, especially the bigger ones with horn spreads of nearly six feet. That wasn’t an option to Clem.

  Dead cows fetched no money at market, and if she could only get those suckers to market, they’d be rich.

  “You should’ve chosen something a little tamer, smaller,” the leader of the first outfit had remarked as he’d climbed back into his beat-up truck.

  “Maybe they’re Charolais, got the coloring,” a man in the second had said. “But can’t see no Hereford in them. Maybe longhorn.”

  “Gotta have some Brahman. Look at how mean they is,” a third had offered with a shrug.

  “Man, look at that horn spread. Think you could have a strain of Belgian Blues.” A member of the fourth had shaken his head in awe. “It’s gold if you don’t mind dying while mining it.”

  When the last outfit went, Clem was still left with enormous, renegade cows trampling the land, hiding in the crevasses, growing healthier, heavier and more territorial with each passing day, as disease resistant as the man who’d sold them to her had assured her. Clem had kicked herself a thousand times for not asking about temperament. She’d only seen the potential dollar signs. A swelling sense of pride that maybe this was something that she could do hadn’t helped. Maybe her mother’s faith wasn’t misplaced—no matter what her father thought, no matter what she thought.

  It seemed she’d waited a long time to hear her father praise her for something that she’d done. For years, she just had to walk into the room and her father would light up. Somewhere along the way as Daddy’s little girl, she’d learned that she didn’t have to do, anything, simply being was enough. It was a hard lesson to unlearn since she’d gone from the adoration of her father to the adoration of her husband. Claire Wells had tried to warn Clem, tried to get her to realize that she had to rely on herself, but Clem hadn’t listened. She’d gone ahead and married Nick rather than finish college.

  Clem understood intellectually what her mother was saying, but she’d liked the fact that Nick loved her the way her father did. It felt right to Clem. Nick had done an exceptional job of taking her father’s place until he decided to leave her for his colleague. Devastation couldn’t begin to describe her feelings. Suddenly, at thirty-two, she faced difficulties that most people dealt with at eighteen. How to live alone, how to be alone.

  But with her mother’s help, she realized that there were things she could do. She knew horses. While Nick had been having his affair, she’d been at the stable with Archie, a beautiful chestnut that Nick had given her for their sixth anniversary. She also knew how to rope and brand. But apparently, not how to choose a herd.

  “So tell me who’d help me,” she had finally asked. “There’s got to be someone.”

  The cowboys she’d found had exchanged glances. One shrugged and another kicked at the dust.

  “There is someone,” Clem had said with hope.

  “Yep.”

  “But, ma’am, you just might want to shoot these, take your losses and get a real job.”

  Clem could have laughed at the irony of it all. This was the only real job she was qualified for.

  “I have a real job.” Clem had glared at them. “Tell me who can help me.”

  A long silence followed while the cowboys eyed each other.

  One finally asked the other, “Where’d we last see him?”

  “El Paso.”

  “He was scouting those crazy horses of his.”

  “Ben Thorton still with him?”

  “Nope. Heard they split up after…you know. Those Miller brothers, too.”

  “Who?” Clem asked again. “Give me a name.”

  “Can’t vouch for him.”

  “Craziest son of a— Oops, sorry, ma’am.”

  “Didn’t they single-handedly clear out the old Russell Saloon?”

  “Did some jail time.”

  The oldest man shook his head. “I’d feel bad if something happened to you, ma’am. Even if you could find him, he won’t help.”

  “Why not?” Clem had asked, her voice curt.

  “Retired.”

  “Give me his name,” Clem had begged. If he was alive, he could help her. She wasn’t going to let an itty-bitty complication like retirement get in her way.

  With a sigh, he said, “Scott. Dexter Scott. Trust me, ma’am, you’d be better off if you didn’t find him.”

  Dexter Scott.

  Clem had burned that name into her mind. She’d scoured old copies of Western Horseman, looking for something, anything about him, a mention in an article, a small ad. Ben Thorton and the Miller brothers, too. Tracking one of them could lead her to him. She went on the Internet to the different ranching Web sites. Posted on message boards, sought information during chats.

  Finally, some kind soul sent her a brochure, an old tattered brochure. Clem had treated it like a map to buried treasure, carefully taping the folds intact. And when she discovered the phone number was out of service, she’d used a magnifying glass to read the faded address. The next evening, last night, in fact, she’d driven off in search of Dexter Scott, the legend.

  He didn’t look much like a legend, not with that frown. Clem cleared her throat. “Um, have you ever considered coming out of retirement?”

  “Nope.” The answer was matter-of-fact, given with a disinterested glance in her direction.

  That answer was unacceptable.

  Clem stared at the man who was stroking the nose of the horse. Whether he knew it or not, her fate was in his hands. And she wasn’t going to lose six hundred cattle worth at least a thousand dollars apiece. She could, however, give up forty percent of what they would bring in. It was an enormous amount of money. With her cut, she could pay off her debts and still make enough to buy the most sedate herd of Herefords she could find.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t take no for an answer.” Her voice came out a little weaker than she’d planned. Where was the authority that her father talked with? She sounded like she was asking for permission.

  The cowboy’s lips twisted into what she thought was a smile, but since the brim of his hat shaded his face, she couldn’t quite tell. “You’ll have to.”

  He gave the horse a final pat on the nose, before saying, “Skooch.” The horse lurched underneath her as, in almost one motion, he pulled himself up behind her and then lifted her up and deposited her snugly between his lap and the horn of the well-used saddle. A warm forearm wrapped around her rib cage. As he took the reins from her hand
. With just a touch of his heels, he turned the horse and urged it into a trot back in the direction of the ranch.

  Clem was too astonished to protest.

  Not that she could protest even if she wanted to. Her body was already cinched to his lean frame, his chest pressed flat against her spine, and while he had pulled back in the saddle to give her as much room as he could, it was a tight squeeze.

  She held her breath as the horse danced underneath them, not at all certain he liked this newest burden. She felt the man behind her squeeze the ribs of the horse to establish control.

  “Relax, you’ll be more comfortable.” His voice was polite. “Break fewer bones if we get tossed.”

  “Okay.” But her breath just didn’t want to let go.

  They rode in silence for a cautious few minutes. Clem knew he was testing the horse, seeing if it was willing to take them home. When the horse didn’t protest, she felt the cowboy settle down behind her.

  “So explain again how you got in?” His voice rumbled from deep within his chest, and Clem could feel it reverberate against her back.

  “I just went through the gates,” she said, trying not to sound as defensive as she felt.

  “They’re locked.”

  “They’re latched,” she corrected him. “Only the last one was locked.”

  “And?”

  “I climbed over. Left my truck there.”

  “How’d you find the horse?”

  “He found me on top of the gate.”

  That seemed to be enough of an explanation because he was silent.

  After another hundred yards, he demanded, “So what is it you want from me?”