Cowgirl Rescue (Selkirk Family Ranch Book 3)

by Irene Vartanoff

  Finally, the meal was over. Tess said, “I’m going to town tonight, to a honkytonk.”

  Paula raised a hand to object, but then dropped it. She seemed not to have the energy to argue.

  In deference to her, Rolf said nothing. He excused himself and followed Tess out. He confronted her in the kitchen. “You’re in no condition to drive.”

  Tess fired up. “Don’t even think of trying to stop me.”

  “I didn’t say anything about stopping you. And don’t call Davis. I’ll be your driver.”

  Tess looked at him with suspicion in her eyes.

  “Scout’s honor. Wherever you want to go tonight,” he swore, raising his right arm.

  “My favorite honkytonk. It’s got good music.” There was challenge in her stance.

  “Okay.”

  Tess took a beer from the refrigerator. “One for the road,” she said. “You want one?”

  He shook his head. Was she trying to provoke him?

  She knocked back her beer in three gulps. “I’ll get dressed. Meet me back here in an hour. It’ll take nearly fifty minutes to drive there.” She set the beer bottle on the counter. She put her hands on her hips, arching her back and thrusting her breasts forward. “Or we could just go to your cabin right now and have some fun.” She raised an eyebrow. “What do you say, cowboy?”

  Rolf steeled himself to resist her blatant come on. Her pouty lips were open and inviting, promising him heaven. On a strangled breath, he said, “Honkytonk.”

  He beat a swift retreat, not willing to subject himself to more of her allure.

  An hour later, Rolf picked up a true honkytonk angel from the front porch. Tess was togged out in a sparkly low-cut pink top that made the most of her womanly assets. Her chestnut hair draped over her collarbones and made the effect more teasing than blatant. Tess had class. Her nicely pressed jeans were tight and showed off her figure. The pink number was hot, and her long dangly earrings sparkled, too. Her boots were intricately tooled, the best quality leather.

  Had she been drinking more? Probably. The scenes with JD today had been ugly. Living here, with JD so willing to tear a strip off her, would put Tess in constant conflict with her brother. Tess had been right about their relationship.

  Tess hopped in and slammed her door. He set the four by four in motion toward the highway. The isolated Selkirk ranch was nearly thirty miles from the little town with the honkytonk, but that was typical of ranch living. With luck, Tess wouldn’t take advantage of being so close to him on the drive and come on to him again, but there was no telling with her.

  “How’s your PTSD therapy coming?” she asked.

  Surprise made him turn the wheel suddenly and almost send them into a ditch. “Why do you want to know? You hoping to cure me?”

  “Wow. That sounds bitter.” She turned on his radio. “Guess you can dish out life advice but you’re not interested in taking it.” She turned up the radio, clearly dismissing him.

  Her cold shoulder made him sorry he’d snapped at her. He had some nerve lecturing her on how to behave and then expecting his own issues to be off limits.

  The honkytonk was surprisingly busy for a Thursday night. Tess spent the first hour dancing with whatever man asked her, including Rolf a couple of times. She was a wild two-stepper, and she could shake it up like no other girl on the dance floor. All the men wanted a turn, but they acted respectful, knowing who she was, and that Rolf was there to guard her.

  He nursed a beer, talked to neighbors, and watched her account for a lot of liquor. He liked the way she moved her hips to the music. Too many other men did, too. They eyed her, then him, calculating their chances. He wasn’t much for dancing, but he made sure he took enough turns on the floor to convince his rivals that Tess was spoken for. Even if she didn’t realize it yet. She was drunk as a skunk. How could she notice anything?

  One man tried to hold her too close. Before Rolf could rise and rescue her, she kicked the cowboy’s shin hard with her leather boot, all the while smiling at him. The man jumped like a wounded squirrel. That had to hurt. Rolf ambled over for his next dance with Tess, making it seem like it was planned, so the cowboy got the message two ways. These were country dances, not meant to be intimate touching.

  When she was taking a break and downing yet another drink, he said, “Tomorrow’s a working day for me. How about we go home?”

  “You can go. I’m staying. I see Davis over there.” She pointed to a corner of the large room. “He can take me back.”

  His hackles rose. “You’re not going anywhere with Davis.” He made to grab her wrist, “Come on, let’s leave.”

  Fire rose in her eyes as she pulled her hand away. “Don’t even think of trying that strong-arm stuff. Touch me the wrong way and you’ll be lucky to still have your hand.”

  Rolf blinked. “Did you just say that to me?”

  “You were out of line, soldier.”

  That was telling him. He took a sip of his beer to give himself time to think. And to let Tess cool down.

  She was right. He’d let the meat market atmosphere of the honkytonk rub off on him. Too much lust in the air, and too much frustrated possessiveness at being near Tess and not able to have her on his terms.

  “My mistake,” he said.

  Tess smiled her beautiful smile, subsiding into drunken happiness again. She didn’t hold grudges. “You got carried away. Dancing is exciting. Drinking is exciting. You ought to learn how to enjoy yourself without it having to mean anything or go anywhere.”

  For a minute, they sat watching the singers and dancers. A man about their age, who seemed to be the manager or owner, came up to their table and asked to sit. “Tess, how would you feel about singing a couple songs for us? Just a little karaoke. I’d donate the fee—it’s not much, a hundred bucks—to the charity we’re runnin’ tonight. The band that was supposed to play can’t make it. They’re stuck in Kansas with a dead bus.”

  “You’re asking a lot, bud,” Rolf said.

  Tess put her hand on Rolf’s arm and he fought not to jerk at the electric response his body made to her soft touch.

  “This is Gary. We went to junior high together before I got shipped off to boarding school. How’s your mom?”

  “She’s good. She’s working tonight. We’re doing okay here,” he said. “Except I hate to disappoint the crowd. They’re expectin’ live entertainment tonight.”

  Rolf asked, “You can sing?”

  Tess grinned. “’Course I can. I’m an actress—an actor. I can fake anything. Lead the way, Gary. I’m gonna sing two songs. That’s all. Got karaoke backup for me?”

  “Yep. Name your songs.”

  Tess did, and Gary hustled off to arrange them. A minute later, he motioned her up to the stage.

  Tess seemed to throw off her drunkenness as she stood and walked to the small stage. She squared her shoulders and began to walk more like a cat on the prowl than with her usual boyish stride. She visibly took on the persona of a television star.

  The bar owner grabbed a hand mic and signaled for the canned dance music to stop. Then he announced Tess. “She’s doin’ us a favor by singin’ a couple of songs to help us get our neighbor Seth, a Viet Nam War veteran, a new van. I’m donatin’ the fee I usually pay a band. I hope you all will add to the pot. Let’s give it up for our hometown girl done good, Tess Selkirk!”

  Tess bowed to the applause, and then sat on a stool and began to croon into the microphone, to the accompaniment of wordless music from the karaoke machine.

  Tess was a revelation. Suddenly she was a brokenhearted woman moaning about the man who got away. As she whispered the closing lines of the lyrics, a hush came over the bar. She seemed to be crying. Rolf could have sworn he heard somebody at a table behind him sniff back tears.

  “…away,” she trailed off, with a soulful sigh. Then she bowed her head and closed her eyes.

  Thunderous applause.

  After a few seconds, Tess looked up, “Now I can’t leave y�
��all cryin’, so here’s a happier tune.” She signaled Gary and launched into an upbeat rendition of an old bar-stomping favorite about exes living in Texas. With a twinkle in her eye, she changed the words so it was a saga about a woman who left men with broken hearts all across the Lone Star state. Her grin was infectious. Rolf started clapping and others joined in. As she yodeled the last lines, she leaped up and threw up one arm, swinging it to the rhythm. She threw up both her arms at the end.

  The applause was deafening. Tess took her bows, and Rolf went up to meet her just as Gary said a public thank you and reminded the patrons to donate at the bar.

  “You had enough yet, glamour girl?” Of course not. He could have kicked himself for trying to bring down her happy mood. Why was he trying to limit her like this? Did he want to rain on her parade?

  Tess ignored his selfish comment. She spent the next minutes smiling and talking to neighbors and having a ball. When dance music started up again, she whirled away with the first man who asked. Rolf was left standing watching her. He went back to their table and ordered another beer, not that he wanted it. The waitress who brought it said, “It’s on the house. I’m Nellie, by the way. I don’t think we’ve met. Me and my son run this place.” Rolf looked away from watching Tess into the friendly eyes of a portly, middle-aged lady. She sat down. “It was kind of Tess to help us out tonight. The Selkirks are a nice bunch. Real good people.”

  “They are.” He introduced himself. “Who’s your veteran you’re raising funds for?”

  “Seth Wilkins. Want to get him a new van. He’s had a hard road back from Viet Nam. Before your time, son. Those were bad days.”

  “Can’t he apply for some assistance?”

  “I expect he could. Don’t know how many hoops he’d have to jump through, and a man has his pride. He’ll take some help from neighbors and friends. Charity from the government when he’d have to prove he deserved it, not so much.”

  A common story with veterans. “Yeah, I get that.”

  “Thought you might. Heard you’re an Iraq vet yourself.”

  Rolf nodded curtly.

  She visibly measured his attitude. “Don’t want to talk about it, eh? Not a surprise. I’ve known Seth all my life. Some days, old vets like Seth hide up in the hills and keep away from people.”

  Rolf’s hand clenched on his bottle. “Most people don’t understand.”

  The expression in her eyes was compassionate. “You look to be doing better than Seth.” She glanced around the noisy room. “I don’t think he could handle all this loud music, people carrying on, shouting and shrieking, and dancing, too.”

  “It takes practice.”

  “Do those fancy veterans’ homes the Selkirks built help with guys who shy away from crowds?”

  “They offer a lot of different stuff. All free to vets. He could drop by, check one out. He wouldn’t have to sign in or fill out any forms.”

  “Trouble is, guys like Seth don’t reach out for help.”

  Rolf stared at his bottle. “The older vets can help the younger ones. I’ve seen it.”

  “Now, that’s interesting. People want to be useful in this world. I’ll mention that to him.” She fixed a shrewd look on him. “Maybe some time you could go visit him and tell him yourself. He’d take it better from another vet.”

  Nellie gave him Seth’s address on a bar tab she pulled from an apron pocket. He had a lot to think about. He’d benefited from the veterans’ homes walk-in therapy programs, but there always were guys who couldn’t bring themselves to take the first step. Maybe they’d been burned by government red tape surrounding other veterans’ programs. Or maybe they were fighting too much PTSD to make the first move. He should talk to JD about local outreach. Although the beds filled up fast, there was always room for another person at a group talk session.

  The evening wore on. Tess danced with whoever asked her. Now that she had done a celebrity turn, even more men wanted a dance. She looked to be having a fine time.

  At one a.m., he’d had enough. Tess finished a dance and went directly to the bar to order another drink, which she downed as she approached their table.

  “Slow down. You chugged that one,” he said.

  “It’s not safe for a girl to leave an open drink on a table.”

  “You’d be okay. I’m sitting here.”

  “But what if you got up? Or if you danced with me? Bad things happen to girls who leave their drinks where anyone can get to them.”

  Why had she said that? Did something happen to her? He frowned at her empty glass. “You’re not very trusting.”

  “A girl’s gotta take care of herself.”

  “While you’re with me, I’ll watch your back.”

  She grinned at him, very obviously three sheets to the wind. “I’d rather you watched my front. Let’s dance.”

  Rolf danced with her some more, but the music had turned slow, and now she was in his arms and all too tempting. Her body relaxed against his, as if she was meant to be there. She was, but not tonight, not without things settled between them. Holding her so close was leading his hormones into dangerous territory, and Tess was drunk. Guy code forbade messing with a drunk lady. This was getting too heavy. Time to break the spell.

  He said, “I thought you wanted to investigate the rustling. You can’t do much investigating if you indulge in late nights off the ranch.”

  Through her alcohol-induced haze, Tess considered his words. She waggled a finger at him. “Good point. Cowboy, take me away.”

  Chapter 10

  As they barreled down the highway, headed for the ranch, Tess said, “Let’s turn in at the Green Gables veterans’ home and see if anything’s happening.”

  “It’s late.”

  She waggled a finger at him, as she’d done in the honkytonk. “You promised we’d inves—investigate.” Although her voice was slurred, she had no trouble remembering.

  “At this hour, we wouldn’t be welcome visitors.”

  “We’re not going inside. We’re going around back, where there’s an old ranch road from when the home was the Shepherds’ ranch. Their old road leads to one of ours on the main part of the ranch.”

  “It’s not on the office maps.”

  “That’s because it’s on the old Shepherd land. Mostly a faint track these days. It just happens to connect up to one of our internal roads.”

  “You think the rustlers are using it to move the cattle?”

  She nodded. “Yep.”

  “Looking at it in the daytime would be better,” he said.

  She shook her head with exaggerated slowness. “Nope. We should check it out now. We might catch the rustlers in action.”

  Rolf didn’t bother to say what he thought of such a far-fetched idea, but he had promised her, so he turned the four by four toward the veterans’ home they’d called Green Gables.

  A while later, when they were closer, he asked, “Where’s the road go?”

  “Over beyond the first meadow, to a line cabin.”

  “Doesn’t the road stop at the cabin?”

  She shook her head solemnly, in the sideways, exaggerated motion of an owl. “Nope. Behind the cabin, it picks up and goes straight to our holding pens. Road peters out at one point, but by then it’s almost at one of our regular ranch roads.”

  He was intrigued, but it wouldn’t be easy to see anything at night. “This isn’t a good time to go exploring.”

  “I bet you’ve got at least one gun in this vehicle.”

  His eyes went to the side pocket where indeed he kept a pistol.

  She continued on breezily, “Anyway, if we meet a rustler’s truck we’ll just act as if we don’t realize they’re rustling.”

  “That’s not how it works. What you’re talking about is very dangerous,” he said flatly. He drove on past the entrance to the veterans’ home. “On second thought, I’m taking you straight home.”

  “Then I’ll pick up a ranch vehicle and drive that road myself and check it ou
t.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” He wrenched the steering wheel and retraced the last hundred feet. “We’ll do it together, right now.” He took the driveway to the veterans’ home at highway speed, fighting to keep the vehicle steady.

  The sudden turn threw Tess into the passenger door despite her seatbelt. “Ride ’em, cowboy!” she whooped, as he fought with the results of his sudden decision.

  “You think this is a game?” he asked, as he steered the four by four down the mile-long entrance road to Green Gables. He was angry at himself for not calling her bluff. Although she wasn’t the bluffing kind.

  “No way,” Tess said. “We can’t delay even one night, and JD’s out of commission tonight for sure because Paula’s sick. Unless you’re willing to trust some of the older ranch hands, like Davis,” she made a point of underlining his name, “you’ve got to deal with the rustling yourself.”

  “Why am I doing it alone, with no backup but a drunk lady?” Rolf asked, not humorously.

  “Because you don’t trust anybody but JD. It’s part of your PTSD.”

  How had she guessed? Tess had always acted as if she thought Rolf’s loyalty to JD was just a hangover from serving together in the same unit. How had she intuited how much his war experience had dimmed his trust in strangers? Not that he wanted to admit it out loud. “You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “When I’m drunk, I tell the unvarnished truth. Ask Baron or Addie if you don’t believe me.”

  “Not JD?”

  She was silent for so long he thought she’d fallen asleep. “JD hates me now for some reason. He wasn’t like that when we were growing up.”

  “Being in a war changes a man.”

  “And not for the better,” she said, on what sounded suspiciously like a sob. “He always has something mean to say to me.” She swiped at her eyes with one hand. “Let’s forget about that.”

  He rolled down his window. “I need some air.”

  Tess did the same. “The night smells good.”