Cowgirl Rescue (Selkirk Family Ranch Book 3)

by Irene Vartanoff

  “You wait on dinner, child.” Miss Betty pointed at the fruit bowl.

  Tess obediently picked up an apple. “Did you hear about the rustling?”

  Miss Betty nodded, but her fingers kept working on the pie crust. “I hope they’re caught soon. Don’t like the idea that bad men are roaming this property.”

  “It could be regular ranch hands, you know.”

  Miss Betty put her hands on her hips. “Ungrateful. Selkirk Ranch is the best employer around these parts. Good wages, good benefits, good housing. What more could a ranch hand want?”

  Tess smiled. “I’m glad you feel that way. I intend to ask Hoot how the ranch hands feel about the Selkirks these days. It’s been years since Daddy actually ran things here. He was the one who won their loyalty.”

  “Robert Selkirk has what they call charisma, ’tis true. Otherwise, your mother wouldn’t have put up with his old-fashioned ways.”

  “When he came for Baron’s wedding, it was the first time he’d set foot on the ranch in forever.”

  Miss Betty nodded. “He’ll come back maybe for the next wedding—yours.”

  “I’m not getting married. Not for a long time. Maybe not ever.”

  At the older woman’s snort, Tess said, “No, really. I want to keep on with my acting career, and I don’t want a husband nagging me about quitting.”

  “Who would try that?”

  “Rolf,” she said bitterly. “Nobody here believes in me. Well, okay, Addie maybe, and Paula, of course. But neither of my brothers. And Rolf keeps telling me I should stay here. Stay here and rot.”

  Miss Betty frowned. “You always loved this place. ’Tis Paula who doesn’t enjoy the isolation and the wide open spaces.”

  Tess restlessly paced the room, pausing to look through the window at the stables. “I can’t be here for long just as a visitor. I have ideas. I know how this ranch should be run. But my brothers don’t listen to me.”

  “Does Rolf?”

  Tess slumped into a chair. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Why don’t you give them a chance to see you in a new light? You got no actin’ work for a bit, right?”

  “Right. I’m what they call ‘between roles.’ Unemployed, for now. But a big role could come my way at any moment, so it’s not as if I can start some other huge project.”

  “You mean like the life coachin’ you used to do?”

  Tess scuffed her shoe against the floor. “Some credibility I’d have as a life coach now, after that arrest.”

  “’Tis not the end of the world, if you don’t take it so. You can still do some good if you set your mind to.”

  Tess looked up, feeling more enthusiasm. “That’s true. I’m here for now and I can help track down those rustlers.”

  “’Twasn’t what I meant. It could be dangerous.”

  “I’d be a detective, not a cop.” She finished her apple and spoke with renewed enthusiasm. “Thanks. I’ll go talk to Hoot.”

  “He’s feeling poorly these days. He’d be happy to see you. I’ll pack up some cookies for him.”

  Tess took one of the four-wheelers and drove over to Hoot Hawkins’ cabin. Hoot had finally retired once Rolf signed on to ramrod the ranch hands.

  Hoot answered her knock slowly. Tess counted thirty seconds before the door swung open. Then Hoot’s dear old face appeared, and Tess launched herself into his arms. “Hoot!”

  “Tessie. My little girl all growed up and on television. Come on in.”

  Hoot’s cabin was compact, but held all the modern conveniences a widower needed. A microwave took care of most of his cooking needs, and a coffee maker handled the rest.

  Hoot soon had her settled with coffee and a cookie. “Miss B insists on sendin’ me over these Scotch cookies. She knows my mama used to bake them. I can’t eat as many as she sends. You have some.”

  “I brought more.” She held up the package.

  “Then you’d better eat up the first batch.”

  Tess wolfed down her cookies and started asking Hoot about the ranch hands.

  “Everybody’s real settled these days,” the old man said. “We had a bad year or two when your brother was in the hospital and Baron had to run everything hisself. Mistakes were made, like when Baron sold a batch of trucks to make the ranch more lean and mean, he said. We had to buy new trucks all over again a year later.”

  The old man paused. Shook his head. “Morale was low, too. When JD came back, the men perked up. Him and Rolf both bein’ Iraq War veterans made a difference. The men fell in line when soldiers used to commanding their troops handed down their orders.”

  “What about Davis? Baron used to have trouble with him.”

  “Davis is a hard nut, I’ll agree.” Hoot sat back, contemplative. “He’s got a mystery attached to him. I never cottoned to what it was. Always an edge to him. He doesn’t socialize or live with the others. Most of the men don’t like to be alone. They prefer the apartment-style bunkhouse, seein’ other people, and not cookin’ for themselves. Even the new women ranch hands that Rolf hired have turned one wing into a female-only dormitory, they call it. But Davis lives alone in his own cabin. Isolated.”

  “So does Rolf. Living alone doesn’t have to mean anything. Anyway, Davis has always been nice to me,” Tess said.

  Hoot frowned. “You mean he’s the one who drives the car when you go out to the honkytonks to drink. You shouldn’t oughta go there, Tessie. You know better. Heard you got into some trouble in Hollywood because of the drinkin’ in public and then drivin’.”

  She sighed loudly. “I get lonely there. Bars offer some company.”

  Hoot nodded. “After my wife died, I used to go to town. Miss Betty would rag on me, told me to go to church and find a good woman. Had a good woman. Just was lonely.”

  “Miss Mildred always made me special sandwiches when I came to the ranch compound to visit,” Tess recalled. “I’m sorry she’s gone.”

  Hoot took out his red bandana from a hip pocket and wiped his eyes. “I miss that woman. We were together forty-three years.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She hugged the old man. “Let’s change the subject. What have you heard about the rustling?”

  “The men are upset. They think someone’s bound to accuse them. None of them is disloyal. They wouldn’t do it.”

  Tess nodded. “I believe you. But has anyone seen anything? Anything odd? Different?”

  Hoot pulled at his beard. “Before those veterans’ places were built, I’d say the hands kept a firm eye on the doings of the entire ranch. But now, with so many strangers comin’ and goin’, they tend to back away. If it looks like veterans’ business, they don’t bother questionin’ every person who shows up here.”

  “Maybe they should.”

  He nodded. “Could be. Get JD or Rolf to issue the order.”

  “I guess I couldn’t tell them myself?”

  “Don’t see why not. It’s about mealtime. We’ll go over to the chowhouse and you can talk to the men.” He made to rise.

  She could see how frail he was, what an effort it was merely to stand. She put a hand out to stop him. “You stay here and be comfortable. I can talk to them on my own, I hope.”

  He sank back into his easy chair. “Sure you can. They all know you. Most of them, that is, except the new ones.”

  She grimaced. “That’s the problem. They know me from when I was a little girl. Will they listen to me?”

  “Seems to me you’ve gotta see yourself as all grown before you can convince anyone else of it,” the old man said with a wise look. “You go try. I’ll be rootin’ for you.”

  “I’ll do it.” She was already getting cold feet, but she put on a brave front and let herself out of Hoot’s cabin.

  Why was everything so hard? Did she lack confidence in her ideas? No, but did she have any credibility with anyone? Not with her brothers. Maybe not with Rolf, either. If so, he wasn’t the man for her, despite the tingle she felt every time she saw him.

&n
bsp; The ranch hands’ compound made her proud to be a Selkirk. Every building here was top notch and well-maintained. The rustic look of the unpainted wood siding and the metal roofs of their exteriors hid solid construction, the best grade of insulation, up-to-date utilities, and more. Her father had erected private cabins for management employees and for retirees like Hoot who didn’t want to go anywhere else after a lifetime on this land. Other employees had larger homes if they had wives and children, and there was a neatly fenced community playground. A schoolroom was tucked into the main building for home schooling if parents chose that option. Although it was still called a chowhouse, the building also had large and small rooms for socializing or playing cards, or whatever. Many employees chose to live in town and commute, but they had use of the facilities, too.

  When Tess got to the chowhouse cafeteria, twenty men and several female ranch hands were seated at long tables, talking and eating. The women were new. Her father had never hired women to be ranch hands, but Rolf did. JD didn’t fight him over it as far as she’d heard.

  She called for attention, using a louder voice than she ever had outside a television show. People turned to look at her, and the room fell silent.

  “Uh, hi. I guess you know who I am. Tess Selkirk. Got something to ask you all.” With that graceless beginning, Tess outlined the rustling problem. “So I’m—that is, we’re—looking for anything out of the ordinary that you’ve noticed in the past several months. Did anyone see anything?”

  Davis spoke up, a hard look on his face. “If I’d seen them, I’d have taken them down myself.”

  A couple of the other guys nodded their assent. Davis was a tough one. Everybody knew that. Tess did, too, because he was the one who had extricated her from some of her teenage scrapes.

  After listing items the men should be on the lookout for, Tess urged them to report anything out of the ordinary. “No need to confront anyone. Just report it immediately.

  “I’ll leave you to eat in peace, now,” she said. “Thanks for listening.” She aimed a wave at all, and walked toward the exit.

  Once outside, Tess took a couple of deep breaths. She’d done it. That was step two. Now what to try next? The employees at the veterans’ homes, maybe?

  Davis had followed her outside. A tall, quiet man, he’d been her preferred driver for many juvenile escapades. She thought of him as an uncle type. He was never demonstrative, but he’d always kept her safe. She trusted him.

  “Nice speech. Have you checked on the truck routes?” he asked.

  “Which routes?”

  “The legacy ranch roads on the property for moving cattle. Which ones are seeing traffic? At what hours?”

  Tess narrowed her eyes, trying to comprehend what Davis was telling her. “You think the rustling could be happening using our own trucks? On our regular ranch roads? By our men?”

  He shook his head. “Doubt it’s our men. The trucks could look like ours.”

  “Why?”

  “Your oldest brother sold off some of the ranch trucks a few years ago. Said they weren’t needed.”

  Hoot had brought it up just now. “You didn’t like the idea?”

  He shrugged. “Boss didn’t think we should bother painting over the ranch name before we let ’em go.”

  Tess was working it out. “So Baron made a mistake. There could be Selkirk look-alike trucks driving around, already with our logo on them?”

  Davis nodded again.

  She let out a big breath. “Some of them sold to nearby people, I’ll bet, people who would know that just driving that truck would keep the hands here from asking questions?”

  She didn’t even wait for his slow nod. “Now I get it. We know what to look for. Thanks. Chances are that’s how they’re doing it. And we have so many guys working for us, even if you met up with one of those trucks, you might think it was legit. Okay, you personally wouldn’t.”

  Davis almost smiled at that.

  Rolf drove into the compound, on another four-wheeler. He pulled to a quick stop near them, sending up a gout of dust. He was frowning. “What are you doing here, Tess? And with him?”

  “Investigating.”

  “That’s not your job.” He dismounted and stared menacingly at Davis. “Or yours.”

  “It’s lunch hour,” Davis said, no inflection in his voice. His lean body had tensed, his usual easy stillness now visibly on alert because Rolf obviously wanted to pick a fight.

  Tess asked, “Why are you trying to pull rank on Davis when asking questions was my idea?” Before Rolf could answer, she rushed on. “And don’t tell me this is none of my business. Of course it’s my business to stop the rustling, especially since you and JD are being so pig-headed about my ideas.”

  Rolf glared at Davis as if he had a personal grudge against the older man. “Hasn’t your brother told you to stay at the house, not go wandering around talking to strange men? You could get into trouble.”

  She felt her cheeks heating. Way to embarrass her in front of Davis. She turned to the silent ranch hand. “I’m about to scream at him, so you might want to go back inside. Then you won’t have to hear it. Thanks for talking to me.”

  He tipped his hat to her, the ghost of a smile on his expression as he slowly made his way to the chowhouse door.

  She turned back to Rolf, who was still staring at Davis intently, as if he itched to get into a brawl with him. “Back off, cowboy. What gives you the right to order me around?”

  As he opened his mouth, to reply, she held up a hand. “No, don’t answer that. You’ve been hanging with my brothers too much. You think I’m an idiot, good for nothing except being decorative in some fantasy you have of a girlfriend who has no life. Maybe you think you’re being protective of me, but actually you’re being incredibly insulting.”

  “I don’t mean to—”

  “I grew up on this ranch,” she said, poking her finger at his chest. “I know the men, and they know me.”

  “I don’t want you talking to Davis.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Rolf, you’re out of line. I’ve known Davis since I was a teenager.”

  He eyed her with lust. “You’re not a kid now. He might think you were encouraging him to take liberties.”

  She paced a small circle in frustration, ending up facing him again. “Listen to yourself. You sound like a jealous idiot. Davis isn’t going to come onto me. I bet he’s nearly forty.”

  “Age has nothing to do with it. He’s a man and he can see, can’t he?”

  “I’m not your territory. I haven’t given you the right to mark me as your property, so back off. If I want to have sex with all the ranch hands, that’s my business.”

  Rolf’s eyes widened and he grabbed her by the shoulders. “You wouldn’t do that, would you? Has Hollywood turned you into a slut?”

  She stared at him, seeing his jealousy up close. He was a man who thought she belonged to him alone.

  He raised a hand and ran it down her cheek. “You’re mine, Tess. Every bit of you is mine.”

  “No.”

  He moved in close, crowding her with his taut, powerful body. Her eyes widened. She was mesmerized by the look in his eyes. With a smooth gesture, he gathered her in his arms and pressed her soft flesh against his hard frame. “Feel me, Tess,” he ground out in a low voice. “Feel how you soften against me. Feel how your nipples harden, just as I’m hardening touching you like this.”

  She felt him from her aching breasts to her equally aching lower body, where his hardened groin pressed into her softness.

  She broke away, stepping back from his tempting body. Was she panting? But they hadn’t done anything. Not even a kiss. She could still feel him. She wanted him.

  “No,” she shook her head. “It’s not that simple. If you want sex, we can go to your cabin right now.” She pointed in its direction. “We can do the sex. But it won’t make a bit of difference.”

  “Tess.”

  “Well? You want the sex right now?” She l
ooked him straight in the eye. “I’m never going to deny that I want you, Rolf. I do want you. But you’re not going to boss me with sex.”

  He didn’t say anything, but his face took on a knowing look that argued with her. During their one and only night together, Rolf had been the leader and she the eager follower. She shivered. She wanted him again, but he wouldn’t oblige. Not without conditions she wasn’t willing to accept.

  “No sex, then? Fine.” She stamped a foot. “I’ll investigate the rustling and don’t you tell me I can’t talk to the hands.”

  “There’ve been changes. New employees who might not be as loyal as the ones hired by your father.”

  “Nobody leaped up from lunch and attacked me. You’re being overprotective.” She narrowed her eyes. “Or maybe you’re plain jealous of Davis?”

  Rolf flushed, his pale Nordic skin showing his emotion.

  Tess slapped her hat on her leg, telegraphing her disgust. “Why am I even arguing with you? If you’re not interested in my ideas, get out of my way so I can solve the mystery of who’s rustling and how they’re doing it. It’s not the first time we’ve been missing cattle, and it won’t be the last.”

  ***

  He’d stepped on her toes but good. Tess was livid. Her reaction to JD had been much more cowed. He was the only one who could put her down and make it stick. Not that doing that to her was the right thing, but it would be convenient if she wasn’t wandering around, trying in her girlish, naïve way to do a man’s job.

  Tess said, “I’m heading over to see Addie now. Socializing over lunch should be girlie enough to satisfy your view of how useless I am.”

  He reached a hand out, but she ignored it and hopped on her four-wheeler. With a vicious twist of the key, she started the motor and took off in a cloud of dust. Rolf stood watching her, cursing his clumsiness.

  He wanted her, and he’d gone over the line again, showing his need while trying to get her to admit her own. She’d outdone him there. He had to hand it to her. Tess was as honest as the day was long. Did she care for him? She was the woman for him, if he could tame her.

  He was concerned for her. He wanted to protect her. Instead, she’d interpreted his concern as disrespecting her. The way JD constantly did, cutting her down and calling her names. Rolf had heard how JD picked on Tess as a bad habit during his VA hospital stint. Without Paula to rein him in, JD had fallen into his old way of treating his sister. Rolf hadn’t defended her this morning, and now he’d compounded his error and Tess thought he was on the same side.