“He only agreed to stay on for two months,” she said.
Hollis stared at her, and for a moment she thought he saw through her bravado. That he knew about the history between her and Trey. That he was aware of her shame and heartache.
“Didn’t peg him for the type who’d poke a rattler just to goad him to strike,” Hollis said, bringing her worry swinging right back to Ned.
Pumping the well dry had been a cold, malicious act. But she knew that Ned was capable of far more brutal things. She knew it could turn deadly if Ned set his mind to it.
Trey had to be aware of that. He had to have known just what Ned was capable of before he’d agreed to stay on.
Hollis finished transferring the meat and fried potatoes into the tin pan. “Best get down to the mess hall and feed the men. I left enough for your supper.”
“Thank you.” She got the door for Hollis. “I’m glad you defied Ned and stayed on. As soon as we turn a profit, I’ll pay you the lost wages.”
Hollis pulled a face. “Ain’t no need to do that. Man my age don’t want for much more than a roof over his head.”
Sadly that’s all he’d had since her daddy died. How many other good men had Ned let go?
She closed the half glass door in his wake, then stood there for the longest time scanning the area between the corrals and the bunkhouse. Men milled around, but there was no sign of Ansel.
Her gaze flicked back to Hollis. Before he got halfway to the bunkhouse, a tall cowboy stepped into her line of vision.
His strides were long and unhurried. His shoulders broad and racked straight, as if he wasn’t the least weary. Though his hat was pulled low over his brow, his head was up as if he was looking the world dead-on at an almost defiant angle.
A shiver of recognition tingled on her skin as the cowboy passed Hollis with a nod and kept right on walking toward the house. Trey. There wasn’t enough light to see his face, but she knew it was him all the same. Knew he was coming to her.
Of course he would. He was obliged to report the day’s events to her. Maybe even apprise her of what he intended to do tomorrow.
As he got closer, she noticed he carried his rifle in one hand. The other steadied the saddlebag slung over a shoulder.
Her stomach did a restless flutter, but she forced herself to stand tall in the doorway. She was the boss.
“Everyone settled in now?” she asked, holding her place in the doorway.
“Yep. Reckon they’re chowing down about now.”
Which is what he should be doing. With the men, not here staring at her.
He stopped, too close for her peace of mind. So close she had to tip her head back to look up and meet his eyes. Even then the shadow cast by his hat kept her from reading any emotion in them—not that she expected there was any.
They’d burned out all emotion and desire between them before. Or should have.
The hum of need that tormented her now wasn’t welcome. If she wasn’t so tired, she could’ve squelched it before it became something she even acknowledged.
“Has Manuel returned yet?” she asked, actually making a point of looking around him then, knowing it was rude and not caring.
She was too stressed from the ordeal at the JDB, the journey here, and having Trey back in her life to worry about manners.
“Don’t expect him back until tomorrow.”
He thumbed his hat up, and it was all she could do not to gasp at the intensity in those dark eyes. Midnight eyes that managed to capture just enough lamplight to make them spark a magnetic blue.
He didn’t say anything for the longest time. “You’re pretty much on your own here, Daisy. Can you handle that?”
For the first time in ages she felt her own anger boil deep inside her. She knew what he was getting at. She was the spoiled rancher’s daughter.
Ramona had cooked her meals, cleaned her house, and helped her dress for as long as she could recall. Without the other woman, would she be able to function?
“Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be just fine.”
She stepped back to close the door but he thrust a boot forward and stopped it from shutting. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Coming inside.”
“No!”
He slapped a palm on the door and pushed it open, forcing her to stumble back inside the kitchen. “You’re not staying here alone, Daisy. No telling what Ned will get in his head to do next.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but knew it was useless. She’d made an enemy of Ned and staying in this house by herself was risky. But how much greater danger was she facing by living here with Trey?
“You can have the bedroom on the south,” she said.
That earned her a cocky grin. “Yes’m.”
Trey strode to the stairs and mounted them with that same unhurried grace she’d admired earlier. The house was small, but the rooms seemed to shrink in on her with him sharing the same space.
She’d walked through the house as soon as she got here, which hadn’t taken any time at all—it was only two rooms and a small pantry on the first level and three bedrooms upstairs reached by a steep staircase at the end of the fireplace. As Trey had warned her before they left, the house wasn’t anything to brag on.
At one time someone had put paper on the walls and hung curtains at the windows, but the paper had yellowed and peeled in places, and the flour-sack curtains at the windows were close to rags now. Daisy was sure if she had given them a smart tug they would have ripped in two.
Everything desperately needed a good cleaning, especially the windows. But it was a roof over her head, and it was her home.
She had felt a certain sense of rightness when she had carried her valise into the north bedroom. It had a good view of the ranch and had a lock on the door. Surely not a substantial one.
If Trey wanted in her room, he could bust down the door. But she knew he wouldn’t do that.
He’d let her make the first move like she’d done before. He’d let her come to him.
Hell would freeze over first.
Now, as she stood alone in the kitchen, she wasn’t nearly as sure. She dropped onto a chair and cradled her head with shaking hands. How could she possibly live here with him? How could she hate him and yet still desire him?
The answer continued to elude her. She’d been unable to shove him from her thoughts the past six months. Now those memories were as fresh as if they’d just happened.
Being his lover had been wonderful. She had thought that the next step would be marriage. She thought he was the man she’d love for the rest of her life.
Now that dream was shattered.
He worked for her now. They’d never be lovers again. She’d never allow it to happen, no matter how much her body craved his touch.
She’d not put herself through that hell again with him.
So for the next two months she’d avoid him as much as possible. Do her best not to get caught alone with him. And those times when they were alone, like now?
Daisy heard an upper door close, followed by his steady tread on the stairs. She pushed from the chair and busied herself setting out tin plates for their supper.
She was obliged to hear out his report of the day. Then she could take her leave of his company.
That couldn’t be soon enough, she thought, as he stepped into the kitchen. He’d taken off his chaps and gun belt, but he still looked big and dangerous.
“Hollis Feth left supper for us,” she said.
For her more than likely and enough to last more than a day, but she knew she’d barely be able to hold food down. She was too nervous and too tired.
Still she’d try to eat something just to keep her strength up. She’d learned the importance of that two months ago when she’d nearly wasted away from grief.
I lost our baby, she was tempted to tell him.
But he hadn’t known about the child. He hadn’t known that she’d fallen from the loft and lost her baby and a bit mor
e of her sanity.
There was no reason to tell him. No reason to strengthen that tie that had been severed six months ago.
“Are all the stock accounted for?” she asked, as she poured him coffee from the pot Hollis had left on the cooking range.
“Didn’t lose a one.” He forked thick slabs of meat onto his plate. “Your daddy’s horses are still here. So are mine, bearing my brand.”
She heard pride ring in his voice then and smiled. “I’m glad.”
“Reckon the only reason they weren’t sold off right away was that they were Ned’s ace in the hole.”
She frowned at that and cut off a small piece of steak. “To think Daddy trusted that snake.”
Trey shrugged, but she sensed an underlying rage in him that she didn’t understand. A rage that she felt was directed toward her as much as toward her daddy’s foreman.
“Ned did what he was told,” Trey said. “I’m guessing with Barton gone, he fancied that he’d get on your good side and move right on up until he was calling all the shots. Which it appeared he’d been doing since your daddy’s passing.”
She laid down the forkful of meat she’d just cut, insides twisting from the innuendoes that were arching between them. Or maybe she was misreading him, because her emotions couldn’t be trusted around Trey.
“In my own defense,” she began, choosing her words carefully so he would not twist them back on her, “I knew absolutely nothing about the business side of ranching when daddy died. So yes, I left those decisions up to Ned.”
He bobbed his head as he ate, but he didn’t comment further. In fact he seemed content to just ignore her troubles.
She wasn’t so easily distracted. The food held little appeal to her now in the face of his disinterest.
How could she have been so totally wrong about this man? How could she have thought he cared for her?
“What? No chastisements for being a fool about the decisions I let Ned make regarding the ranch?” she asked, letting the lid fly off her smoldering anger now.
She was exhausted, but she shot to her feet and stalked to the back door, standing there and staring out over all that was hers. Wondering if she could trust anyone. Worried sick about Fernando and Ramona.
The responsibility of her daddy’s legacy teetered precariously on her shoulders. She’d made mistake after mistake. She’d trusted Trey with her heart. She’d trusted Ned to carry on in the best interests of the ranch when it was all dumped on her.
Both men put their selfish needs first.
“What’s done is done,” Trey said at last. “If you aim to hold on to the land and cattle, then you’d best learn all you can about it. That way when you hire a new foreman, you’ll know if he’s doing right by you or just feathering his own nest.”
She faced him then and knew by the sudden fire in his eyes and rigid set of his jaw that he was giving her sound advice. Didn’t matter that it seemed to rankle him to do so. She knew he was right. Knew too that this was her chance to learn from the best.
“Then teach me,” she said.
“I won’t be around long enough to do you justice.”
“Fine. Whatever you can show me will be far more than I know now.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek, and his expression looked like it’d been carved from stone. “It’d be best if you hired someone else for that job.”
“If there’d been anyone else with your qualifications, I wouldn’t have hired you.”
He gave her a halfhearted grin at that. “All right. We’ll start on the basics and work up. That’ll at least give you the ground work to understand how the cattle business is run.”
“Good. The sooner we start, the better.”
He didn’t share her enthusiasm in word or expression, but then she hadn’t expected him to. He was here under duress. Tacking on the duties of tutoring her about ranching would put more strain on their working relationship. But she wasn’t going to back down.
He pushed to his feet, his mouth no more than a grim line as he looked from the dirty plates to her. “You need help cleaning up?”
“No, I’m fine.” She didn’t have to be instructed on housework to figure out how to wash the dishes.
Still it took her far longer than it would’ve taken Ramona to do the same job, all because the older woman knew how to take care of a house in short order.
Daisy blew out the lamp and climbed the stairs in the dark, feeling like the most helpless female on earth. She paused at the top of the stairs where moonlight filtered in through a small window.
The closed door to Trey’s room was a few steps away. Was he already asleep? Did she cross his mind at all? Did any demons haunt his sleep?
She knew so little about him. Yet here she was sharing a house with him. It’d be so easy to do more. So easy.
Damning her own weakness, Daisy hurried down the narrow hall to her room and slipped inside. She closed the door soundlessly and turned the key.
She just hoped she was too tired to dream about a certain cowboy tonight.
Chapter 6
Trey hung his hat on the excuse that he had to inspect the ranch today. It was easier than voicing a truth that left him chaffing worse than a hard day’s ride in a wet saddle.
He sure wasn’t ready to sit down with Daisy and begin teaching her how to run a ranch. Hell, he wasn’t even sure where to begin with a greenhorn.
That’s just what she was, despite the fact that she’d been born and raised on a ranch. Her daddy had kept her apart from the business end of the operation.
Now, he didn’t mind sharing what he knew with anyone. But the biggest thing bothering him was the fact he’d have to be close to Daisy for the whole two months he was here because it’d likely take her that long to grasp it all.
She’d slipped past his defenses before and got him thinking he could be more than he was to her. She got him believing he could win the hand of the rancher’s daughter.
That’s why he’d been set on keeping his distance from her.
He’d expected to sleep in the foreman’s cabin and take all his meals in the mess hall. He’d see her once a day at best to keep her informed.
But they’d lost the bunkhouse to a fire that started in the blacksmith’s shack, and the men had converted the foreman’s cabin into the bunkhouse.
Since his battered body would protest grabbing forty winks on a bedroll on a cabin floor, and Daisy was all alone in the house, he decided to sleep there. Now he was wondering if he should’ve just suffered the close confines of the cabin that would house ten men.
Not only had she invaded his sleep last night with memories of how it’d been between them, but she’d hobbled him into teaching her about ranching. It was going to be a long two months.
Hollis Feth was busy pumping water into a kettle when he reached the corral. “Don’t know if you’ve ate yet, but breakfast is on in the mess hall in about five minutes.”
Trey jumped at the offer. There’d been no supplies to speak of in the kitchen, and he didn’t look forward to working without a belly full of grub and enough coffee to open his eyes this morning.
Besides this would give him a chance to talk again with the men. So why the hell did he keep thinking about the woman up at the house? Why did he give a care if she sat in the house waiting for Hollis to fetch breakfast to her?
“No supplies to speak of in the house,” Trey said as he followed Feth to the mess hall.
He hadn’t noticed it last night, but today he could see that the cook favored his left leg. Noticed too that the man packed a gun. There was an alertness about him too that hinted he was more than a cook.
The older man slid him a quizzing look. “You saying you didn’t bring supplies with you?”
Trey damned the heat burning his neck, for who the hell would move to a new place and not bring provisions? “The housekeeper would’ve seen to that and likely did, but halfway here she was obliged to take her husband on in to San Angelo to a doctor.”
Whatever was in Ramona’s wagon had stayed with her.
“Reckon I’d best tote breakfast up to Miss Barton,” Feth said.
Trey gave a nod and hunkered down at the table, putting Daisy and her needs from his mind for the moment. They’d gone with short rations yesterday on the trail, and his gut had protested mightily.
But then he’d just gotten back on his feet before trailing to the JDB for his money. So much for thinking he’d be on his way to Wyoming with a string of horses for a long overdue showdown with his foster brother Reid.
He just hoped to hell that Dade had returned to claim his shares. Hoped that one of them turned out to be half the man old Kirby Morris had been.
Water under the bridge.
He had cattle and horses and no land. No place that was his. Nobody who gave a shit whether he lived or died.
“Sounds like things have been going downhill on the JDB since Barton’s death,” Feth said.
Trey looked up from his plate and noted with surprise that the men had filed out of the mess hall. He hadn’t expected Feth to take Daisy her breakfast that quickly. But he had. Now nobody was here but him and Feth and a river of old animosity that he instinctively dammed so nobody would get close again.
“Ned did what he wanted,” Trey allowed.
The old man scowled and scraped out a pan that was as black as Ned’s soul. “Why’d you let it go that far before you stepped in?”
So Feth wasn’t aware of what had happened to him on the JDB? He wasn’t surprised, but he wasn’t inclined to spill his guts either.
He pushed his empty plate aside and leaned forward, cradling his tin cup between his hands. “Didn’t know nothing about how things were being run until I returned to the ranch two days ago. Was a surprise to learn Barton was dead.”
“A stroke took him,” Feth said, going about his work and not sparing Trey a glance.
“That’s what Daisy told me,” he said. “Hard to believe a big hale man like Barton is dead.”
“Yep, surprised the hell out of us too.” Feth ambled back to the table with the coffee pot, and Trey welcomed the refill. “The day Barton keeled over, Galen took a fine mare down to the JDB for him. She was a birthday present for his daughter.”
Cowboy Come Home Page 7
