Bittersweet Return (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 6)

by Patricia Watters

  Matt followed the direction of his gaze and said, "The two guys are Deke and Seth, and the one that just joined them is Gabe, my foreman. They live with their families in Pine Grove, so you'll have the bunkhouse all to yourself, at least for a while. There are four bunkrooms in there, so you can take your pick. I'm looking to hire one more man for a few months though. Maybe you know someone."

  "My brother, Josh, might be interested," Ryan said. "My dad has him leading trail rides right now and he'd rather be moving cattle and mending fences. But he's also set up to become a farrier as soon as he can afford a new truck and trailer, which he hopes to buy in the fall."

  "Can your father spare him?" Matt asked.

  "Yeah, his twin, Jeremy, can take over. He's okay with leading rides."

  "Fine, I'll talk to your dad," Matt replied. "In fact, I just got a call from him a few minutes ago and he's planning on coming here sometime next week to look over some breeding stock. Maybe your brother could come along and we could talk about it."

  Ryan nodded vaguely while wondering how Annie would receive Josh, who was making a name for himself as a professional rodeo clown. It bothered him some that Annie might actually like Josh. He was a pretty personable guy, and he never had trouble attracting girls…

  "As for eating arrangements," Matt cut into Ryan's thoughts, "the bunkhouse has a small kitchen if you want to fix your own meals, but bunkhouse hands usually come to the house for meals and eat in the kitchen, or if you're willing to change clothes and wash up before coming to the table you can eat with Ruth, Annie and me. Ruth's rules."

  "Then I might show up for dinner one night," Ryan said. "I grew up with rules like that so they won't be a problem."

  "Good. Then I’ll introduce you to the men." Matt raised his arm and gave a sweeping motion for the men to come over. Before Ryan could suggest he change his pants and put on a shirt before meeting them, the men were already half way there.

  After introducing Ryan to Seth, Deke and Gabe, Matt said to the men, by way of an explanation, "Ryan had a little encounter with our resident activist. If you're curious you can get the details from him." All three men smiled, like having an encounter with Annie wasn't anything new. "And speak of the devil," Matt said, glancing off in the distance…

  Coming fast up the long gravel road from the direction of the highway, was Annie’s white pickup. It came to a dust-billowing halt in front of the stable and Annie jumped out. Catching sight of them, she started toward them in ground-eating strides. Addressing her father, she said, "Eighteen people just arrived. Did you order the porta potties?"

  Matt eyed Annie with irritation. "This is your crusade," he said. "I have a ranch to run."

  "That may be," Annie replied, "but if you don’t order porta potties we’ll have men pissing in the wind, and women squatting behind sagebrush along the highway, and that won’t look very good for the Kincaid Guest Ranch."

  Matt folded his arms. "How long do you intend to carry this on?"

  "As long as it takes to get you to start putting pressure on Uncle Calvin to start putting pressure on the BLM to stop the helicopter roundups," Annie replied. "They can hire cowboys to do it on horses and keep the bands together instead of terrorizing them the way they do."

  "That’s rugged terrain out there," Matt said, "and according to the BLM, wild horses can outrun men on horseback, so the herds have to be rounded up by helicopter."

  "The herds don't have to be rounded up at all." Annie planted her hands on her hips, glared up at her father, and said, "Rounding up horses because of overpopulation is pure BLM bullshit. The only reason it's done is because you and all the other ranchers around here want the horses off government grazing land so they don't compete with cattle, and the BLM goes along with it."

  "We're having a drought," Matt pointed out, ignoring the rest.

  "Fourteen horses don't drink that much water," Annie fired back.

  "They don't have to drink it," Matt said. "They tore up a water trough."

  "That's because you fenced them out of their watering hole."

  When Matt just stood looking at her and said nothing, Annie added, "Fine then. Since you don't intend to put any pressure on Uncle Calvin, I guess my protestors will be here for a while, so I'll order the porta potties myself. I assume I can put them on the ranch tab?"

  When Matt shrugged his indifference, Annie started toward the office.

  "What about the trails?" Ryan called out after her. "I understand you're the one who's supposed to show them to me."

  Annie paused and glanced back. "You can get one of the men to show you," she said. She looked at the men standing with her father, all three of whom were eyeing her in amusement, Ryan noticed, and waited for confirmation.

  Deke was the first to respond. "Sorry, kid, we have fence work."

  "Fence work that takes all three of you?" Annie asked, hesitantly, an edge of apprehension to her tone.

  When all three men bobbed their heads, and Matt offered nothing more, Ryan sensed that this was another kind of test—pitting the shirtless rookie wrangler in the soiled pants against his aggressor. A gut feeling also told him Annie was more bark than bite. She was on her home turf here at the ranch, surrounded by allies, but at the Dancing Moon she stuck close to her folks. Not venturing out. At least not where he could intercept her and attempt to get something started.

  Eyeing her steadily, he said, "I guess that leaves you." He caught a worried look on her face that told him she was decidedly uncomfortable with the idea, which had a smile tugging at his lips. Definitely more bark than bite. He'd keep that in mind when he had her alone on the trail. She owed him big time for the barbecue bean mess, and he planned to collect. But before he did that, he intended to set a few things straight.

  ***

  Annie sat on Bridgette while waiting outside the stable for Ryan to get his horse ready so she could show him the trails. She did not like the idea of spending the afternoon alone with him, and the quicker they got started, and the faster they went, the sooner they'd be back.

  Looking between the big open doors into the dusky twilight of the stable, she wasn’t surprised to find Ryan brushing Rocinante. Obviously her father assigned him the job of settling the big horse down, since no one else wanted to fool with him. She was surprised, however, when Ryan led Rocinante out of the stables without a saddle and realized he intended to ride bareback. She’d seen Ryan in the corral earlier, scratching Rocinante's shoulders and curving his arm under his neck and nuzzling him, like Ryan was confiding in him, and all the while Rocinante stood still, even while Ryan moved his hands down his legs and picked up his feet. She also knew that Ryan wouldn't take any guff from the big horse, which Ryan seemed to have gotten across to him because, as Ryan led him out of the stables, Rocinante followed along like a well-mannered horse, unlike when the men tried and Rocinante would toss his head and side-step and rear, and no amount of scolding settled him down. And once Ryan was up—which amounted to Ryan giving a spring and throwing his leg-over—Rocinante came to attention, like he was waiting for Ryan's first command.

  "Good boy, Sultan," Ryan said, while patting the horse on the neck.

  "His name's Rocinante," Annie pointed out.

  "Not anymore," Ryan said. "He doesn't like being named after an old work horse."

  Annie looked at Ryan, dubiously. "What do you know about Don Quixote's horse?"

  Ryan shrugged, like what he was about to tell her was common knowledge, and said, "That he was scrawny, awkward, and past his prime. Even Cervantes referred to him in Don Quixote as a hack. On the other hand, Rodrigo Díaz, also known as El Cid, had a horse named Babieca who was best friends with a horse named Sultan, who was owned by Prince Sancho, the son of King Fernando the 1st of Spain. El Cid was Prince Sancho's knight, so Sultan and Babieca were in many battles together and remained friends right up until Sultan died. It's a good name. It suits him. He's almost black, and he'll one day have a harem." Ryan ran his hand up the stallion's neck and scrat
ched between his ears, and the big horse bobbed his head up and down.

  Annie didn't know anything about El Cid, but Ryan was obviously familiar with the story of Don Quixote, so she had no reason to doubt his story about El Cid's and some prince's horses being friends. She was curious where he got the information though, and surprised that he seemed to know something beyond the usual bronco-busting, bull-riding nonsense that was the entire focus of most rodeo cowboys.

  Still, she was miffed that Ryan took it upon himself to rename her horse. "You could have asked me first before changing his name," she said. "He is my horse."

  "Fine then" Ryan replied. "Pick another name."

  It bothered Annie that she liked the name Sultan better than Rocinante. And he was right. Rocinante had been a scrawny horse. The story was one her father told her when she was a child, and the name of Don Quixote's horse stuck. "I suppose Sultan's okay," she conceded.

  Ryan smiled a sort of self-assured half-smile, like he knew he was right, which bothered her. It also bothered her that Ryan looked so good on Rocinante… or Sultan, like they belonged together, with Sultan's long flowing, sooty, brownish-black mane and tail about the color of Ryan's hair, and Sultan's dark, slate-gray coat almost a match to Ryan's shirt, like Ryan picked the shirt to match his mount, which Annie didn't believe.

  Sultan also acted as if he'd finally found a rider who was on to him, and he didn't intend to test it but was ready for a good ride. But Ryan's ability with horses wasn’t what was holding Annie’s concern right now. She couldn't dismiss the look on his face earlier, when the men claimed they were too busy to show him the trails, and he challenged her into doing it, which meant getting her alone. Little points of light shone in his dark eyes, and his mouth curved into a kind of smile she could only describe as diabolical…

  "I'm ready when you are," Ryan said. He guided Sultan to where Annie sat on Bridgette, who was prancing and bobbing her head.

  Deciding she wanted to be done with this afternoon outing as soon as possible, Annie gathered the reins, and said, "We’ll start on the trail to where there are pictographs on the side of a box canyon on BLM land, and we'll do it at a fast clip so this won't take all afternoon." Before Ryan could reply, Annie clucked her tongue and gave Bridgette a kick, sending the mare bolting forward and breaking into a gallop while heading across a wide-open meadow that stretched toward a grove of cottonwood trees in the distance.

  It was no time before Ryan caught up and was galloping alongside Annie, while yelling, "Is this supposed to be a race or do you always ride hell bent for leather?"

  Annie glanced over her shoulder and yelled back, "I have things I'd rather be doing this afternoon so I thought I'd speed things up. Do you have a problem with that?"

  "No, it works for me too," Ryan said, keeping pace with her. "So where are we headed?"

  "Toward the cottonwood trees and up the mesa behind them," Annie yelled.

  "Fine. I'll meet you at the top of the mesa." Leaning forward, Ryan gave Sultan his head and the big animal lengthened his strides, leaving Annie in a pall of dust. It wasn't long before Sultan reached the cottonwoods and was negotiating the trail that zigzagged up the side of the mesa, taking it in a series of leaps and lunges, which Annie knew wouldn't phase the big horse, who’d once roamed free and was used to navigating rugged terrain. But Bridgette didn't have the stamina to keep up, so she let the mare take the trail at her own much slower pace.

  By the time she reached the top of the mesa, Ryan was waiting, with his hand draped over Sultan's withers and a dark look on his face. When Annie pulled Bridgette to a head-bobbing halt and faced Ryan, he eyed her with irritation and said, "Okay, let's get it out in the open."

  Puzzled with Ryan's change in attitude, Annie said, "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about the way you've acted toward me from the moment I arrived. You've been to my family's ranch several times, the last time being the day of my brother's wedding, but we've never talked, not once. Your father hired me to do a job here and that's what I intend to do, but for some reason you have it in for me."

  "If you're referring to what happened with the beans, you've jumped to conclusions," Annie said. "I told you I was a klutz. You just happened to be in the way when I tripped."

  "And when you tripped, you just happened to have a plate of beans and a hippy burger with barbecue sauce on it in your hands, and you just happened to launch a rocket shot to my racket and balls," Ryan said. "I've even tried to reconstruct in my mind how you coordinated all that, and I still can’t figure out the physics behind it."

  "Inertia," Annie replied. "When you reached out you startled me and I tripped and kept on going until acted upon by an outside force, which was you."

  Ryan let out a sardonic laugh. "It seems there's a lot of inertia whenever you're around. So what's with the helicopter pilot? Did you double him over through inertia too?"

  Annie looked at Ryan with a start. "Where did you hear about him?"

  "I get around," Ryan said. "I take it the guy took a different position from yours."

  "You might say that," Annie replied. "That was Stan Davis. He worked for my father before he decided to become a helicopter pilot."

  "And you gave him the knee treatment because...?"

  "He flips burros," Annie replied. "They can't run fast enough to keep up with the horses when the helicopters are rounding them up, and Stan was laughing with his buddies about using the helicopter runner to flip burros in mid-flight, which leaves an injured animal to die a slow death. And yes, I doubled him over. In fact I sent him to his knees and told him it was only a sample of what would happen if he ever did it again."

  Ryan appeared to be mulling that over. But after a few moments, he said, "And the local cowboys? It seems the name Annie Kincaid's well known among them too."

  "I take it you stopped by Pete's on the way here since it's a cowboy hangout," Annie said.

  Ryan nodded. "There were four of them at a table. They seemed to know you well. Did you send them to their knees too?"

  "If it's the four I'm thinking of, no, I accidentally toppled a pitcher of beer on them and their pizza," Annie replied. "I found out they were making bets as to who'd be first to get me in bed."

  "Who won the bet?" Ryan asked.

  "Are you looking to get kneed again?" Annie replied.

  "I'm safe for the moment," Ryan said. "But I take it you don't like cowboys."

  "Not the rodeo bunch," Annie replied, "which is most of the guys around here, including you. You pride yourselves in participating in the stupidest sport on the face of the planet, and after the ride's over, the women who cheered you on while you were bouncing up and down on a two-ton bull, fawn all over you, oohing and aahing and puffing up your already overinflated egos instead of telling you you're idiots for risking your lives for nothing more than eight seconds of misplaced glory." She could tell from the way the muscles in Ryan's jaw were bunching that he wasn't too happy with her put down.

  "It's not that dangerous if you know what you're doing," Ryan said, in defense.

  "Yeah, right," Annie replied. "The truth is, you rarely see a bull rider past thirty because he's too broken up to continue, and most of those in their twenties have no teeth, can hardly walk, have had multiple broken bones and concussions, have been stomped on or pounded into the dirt, and were carried out on a stretcher, but that's okay because they can watch the rodeo from a wheelchair the next season and still get applauses when they wheel themselves out because they're still on planet earth."

  She had to catch her breath after that diatribe, mainly to regroup her thoughts. The problem was, her argument didn't work with Ryan because he didn't fit any of the scenarios she'd just thrown at him. In fact, he appeared to be all in one piece and still put together, very nicely. Which annoyed her. Even his smile was near perfect.

  Ryan straightened his back and squared his shoulders, like he was getting ready to poke a few more holes in her analogy, and said, "I'm twenty-four
and I've been riding bulls and broncs since I was twelve and nothing's happened to me."

  "Maybe not yet," Annie countered, "but if a nudge from a knee can double you over, think what it would be like to have a two-ton, bucking, kicking, angry bull who's trying to get rid of a flank strap, stomp you there. I imagine it would bring a whole new meaning to the word swagger, while also raising your voice a couple of octaves."

  To Annie surprise, and annoyance, Ryan gave her that half-smile again, like he'd somehow won their verbal sparring, which made her uneasy. In fact, everything about Ryan Hansen made her uneasy. He was too confident, too smug, and although she hated to admit it, too handsome for her peace of mind. But since she wasn't one to be taken in by looks, it wouldn't be difficult to put him in his place if he decided to slap down his money with the betting boys at Pete's Pub and start sweet-talking her.

  "Just for the record," Ryan said, "that wasn't a nudge I got from your knee, it was a battering ram. But out of curiosity, have you ever let a man get close enough to kiss you?"

  "If you're asking if I've ever been kissed, yes," Annie replied, "but I've never kissed a man back because I haven't found one around here worth kissing."

  Ryan gave a short, dry laugh. "I don't imagine any around here would be interested in trying either, so I guess it evens out."

  For some reason, hearing the truth from Ryan bothered Annie. She didn't have a very good reputation with the cowboys in Harney County, mainly because she was on the opposite side from them in some very important issues—rodeos, bow hunting, helicopter roundups, leg-hold traps to name a few—and she hadn't been shy about letting anyone and everyone know exactly how she felt and what she thought of the lot of them. Standing at the entrance to Harney County's biggest yearly event while holding up a sign protesting bull riding, bronco busting, and racing mustangs didn't get her any points either.

  When she said nothing to counter Ryan's comment, he said in an irritated voice, "Let's get on up the trail and get this over with. I have things I'd rather be doing too."