“Thought today would be a good time to start teaching you about ranching,” he said. “Unless there was something else you had to do.”
“No, the sooner we start, the better it’ll be.”
Yep, all he had to do was keep his mind on business around her. That, he admitted, was going to take some doing.
Chapter 7
Daisy sat frozen on the tattered ladies’ parlor chair and simply stared at Trey, stunned that he’d been talking and pacing for the better part of an hour. She’d never heard him string so many words together before. Never heard him speak with such authority and conviction. Never seen him show such passion for anything other than loving.
It was obvious that he knew the cattle business inside and out—the pitfalls and the rewards. He understood what it took to eek through those meager times and how to lay back in the fat ones.
He’d done it himself by having her daddy hold out part of his pay for a year. Shoring up for the lean times, he called it.
“Barton was the shrewdest rancher I’ve ever met,” Trey said, and she smiled. “He didn’t hold with no abuse of the stock.”
“Daddy was a gentle giant.”
“He was a mean sonofabitch when crossed,” he said.
Her smile vanished, and she blinked, thunderstruck he’d say something like that to her. That he believed it of her daddy. And looking into his eyes told her he thought Jared Barton had a streak wider and meaner than the Colorado River.
“Daddy didn’t suffer fools well.”
“Or any man who dared to look too long at you.”
Daisy eased forward on the cushion, sensing a charged energy in the air that had the skin at her nape burning with unease. “That’s in the past. We’ll do well to focus on the lesson of running a ranch.”
“Yes’m,” he said, his lean cheeks taking on a darker hue.
But he launched into the whys and wherefores of winter ranging of cattle, and her mind simply couldn’t absorb it. She was still straddling that accusation he’d hurled out there about her daddy.
Yes, Jared Barton was overprotective. That was no secret.
In his eyes no man was good enough for his little girl. It didn’t matter that she chaffed at the tight rein her daddy held on her.
She loved him. He was her daddy. Her only family. Her world.
He wanted her to marry a man worthy of her—not by her standards but by his. Wanted to leave everything he owned to her and her progeny. God, how she hated that word!
Though he professed to having reservations about Kurt, he had all but pushed her into the man’s arms. She’d gone from Kurt stealing one chaste kiss at the county fair to being engaged to marry him one week later.
Her daddy surely had a hand in arranging that betrothal!
Yes, Trey was right. Her daddy was a mean sonofabitch when crossed, and poor Kurt tied himself to her with that stolen kiss made on a dare.
A dare meant to make Trey March jealous.
She liked Kurt. But she didn’t love him.
Her heart had been lost to Trey March the first time she laid eyes on the rough and tumble cowboy with the crooked smile and hurt look. Those wounded eyes dared her to venture near. Dared her to tear down the barriers and get close to a man who craved love. Who desperately needed love.
Moth to the flame.
She’d reveled in the heat of him—the power he held a tight rein on. The unbridled passion he kept hidden from the world. The smoldering fury that drove him to give enough to please, enough to tempt a woman to want more if she was willing to dance in the fire.
Daisy had opened herself to all he was able to give her. She had trusted him with her heart and her soul. She’d found heaven in his arms and promise in his eyes. She’d found the man she wanted to spend eternity with.
But she’d ended up burned. Used and discarded.
He’d planted his seed in her and vanished.
And yes, her daddy had been enraged when he found out what she and Trey had done. He’d vowed Trey would be sorry for trifling with her affections.
“I’ll drag his sorry ass back here and make him do right by you,” he’d told her.
But soon after there’d been no need to force the issue. She’d barely come to grips with that loss when her daddy had dropped dead.
“You getting any of this?” Trey asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said, flustered that she’d been caught woolgathering. If he only knew what had occupied her mind ... “It’s almost too much to take in at once.”
He nodded, watching her closely. Too closely. “It’s a start in the right direction.”
They were good at starting. It was the staying that they’d failed at.
“There’s much more to ranching than I had realized,” she admitted. “How’d you come to know so much about it?”
“By doing it. Trial and error and a damned patient man to guide me.”
“Who would that be?” she asked, speaking as softly as she would to a buck she’d happened upon so she wouldn’t scare it off.
He frowned. Looked away. For a moment she was sure he was closing her off again. That he’d ignore her question.
“Kirby Morris, the man who took me and my foster brothers in off the street.”
She hid her surprise over that news. He’d told her once he’d been in an orphanage, but she hadn’t known that he’d gone from there to living on the street. Told her once that he had foster brothers but that he didn’t care to talk about them. Told her he’d lived on a ranch in Wyoming but nothing more.
He’d never gone into detail about his life, and asking hadn’t produced any answers. So she was hesitant to start now, because she feared that would signal an end to further talk.
“Is Kirby the Englishman who owned the Crown Seven?”
“That was him.”
“Was?” she asked, coaxing him to say more.
He stared at the wall, his frown deepening, telling her more than words could that whatever had happened to the man troubled Trey still. “Kirby died a couple of years back.”
A year later he’d come to work at the JDB. She could still picture that day clear as glass. He’d caught her eye the moment he’d ridden onto the ranch, seeming as tall and strong as her daddy.
She’d known him for a year, yet he was still so much a mystery to her. This rare give-and-take of conversation wouldn’t last long with him. Nothing lasted long with Trey but lovemaking, and that he took his slow, sweet time with.
The memory of him moving with her, thrusting deep inside her, whispered over her, and she shivered. “You cold?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry you lost Mr. Morris.”
He shrugged, and she knew before he spoke that this interlude was over. “Nothing or nobody sticks around for long.”
Perhaps it’d been that way for him. Perhaps that was what had made him hard. Perhaps that was why he seemed afraid to give too much of himself.
“It doesn’t have to be that way, you know,” she said. “The land will always be here, with strong men and women tending it.”
“True, but ranching is a hard business made harder by the weather and the market.” He shook his head, and one side of his mouth crooked in a rare smile. “But it’s all I ever wanted to do or be. You have to want it too, Daisy, in order to hold on to the land and your sanity.”
What she wanted ... It’d changed so from the girlish dreams of having a family. Of being the rancher’s wife. She’d never aspired to be the one in charge of such decisions or to have men dependent on her for their livelihood.
But the thought of moving into town terrified her more than sticking it out on the ranch. A hazy image of big, drafty buildings and long, dark halls tickled her memory, like a nightmare she’d been told about and could never forget. There were even times she heard crying, and would awaken to find her own eyes swimming in tears.
No, she didn’t want to leave the wide-open spaces and the ranch her daddy had sweat blood to build. She’d learn this business if it was
the last thing she ever did. Maybe if she was lucky, she’d learn to trust another man. She’d find love again. Maybe she’d forget Trey March in time.
“I’m not leaving my home,” she said.
He nodded as if pleased with that answer. “Reckon we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us then. You got any questions?”
Did she ever! If Ned hadn’t intervened, would Trey have stayed with her? But she was tired of talking. Tired of being cooped up in the house in mourning.
She’d ridden all over the JDB and knew its beauty and its pitfalls. But this ranch was all new to her.
“I think it’s time I got a better look at what I own,” she said. “Care to give me a tour of the ranch?”
Again she was treated to a quick half grin before he sobered and tugged his hat brim lower, reminding her of a boy who was embarrassed to say more. “Sounds like a good idea. I’ll have your mare saddled.”
Daisy got to her feet, suddenly excited. “I’ll change into riding clothes and meet you at the barn.”
His curt nod was her reply, but she couldn’t look away from his eyes. He was questioning and measuring her in turns with that mesmerizing gaze, and she caught herself from taking a step toward him.
Or maybe she did move, for he jerked his head back a smidgeon as if surprised by the hold they had on each other too. Whatever it was, the moment was broken. He turned and walked from the room without another word.
Daisy was finally able to draw a decent breath again. Still her legs quaked as she hiked her skirt to her knees and sprinted up the steps. She knew she was just kidding herself by thinking she’d ever find another man like Trey March.
The hesitancy bridling Trey over joining Daisy for a ride vanished as the ranch house and outbuildings blurred in the distance. He’d been itching to take a closer look at this spread, and now was the perfect opportunity.
Didn’t matter that he was alone with Daisy. Didn’t matter that this was all hers.
She’d soon find out that running the JDB would be more than enough to turn a profit with careful management. Holding on to this ranch as well would mean she’d have to employ a second man she trusted to manage this one separately from the JDB.
He hoped to be that man. Yep, she could head back to the JDB when the drought broke, and he’d stay on here.
That’s the way Barton had set the ranches up, though Ned had had other ideas. Did they mirror his own?
“This land is so different from the JDB,” she said when they topped a rise and stopped to rest in the shade of an old pecan grove.
“Deeper draws and hilly,” he said. “Helluva lot more water too, which means better grazing.”
And trees. They were few and far between farther west with the land flattening out and getting sandier. The JDB had triple the acreage of this spread, but less than a fourth of it had water rights.
But in West Texas, a man was rich if his spread had good water rights. Barton had done well by himself there, but Trey couldn’t help thinking he’d have done far better if he’d stayed here.
“Makes me wonder why Barton left this land,” he said.
“Maybe it was the ghosts,” she said, and he wondered if she’d gone loco on him to suggest such a thing.
“Ghosts, huh?”
She nodded, but her attention remained riveted on the acres of rolling land and the cattle that were grazing to their heart’s content. “He lost his first family here. Maybe the memories were too much for him to bear.”
Trey couldn’t imagine big, gruff Jared Barton being haunted by the loss of a family. Yet the man had been overprotective of Daisy. Had he feared losing her?
His gaze flicked over to her again, and he felt a similar twang of worry vibrate through him. Daisy was small and delicate, the kind of woman a man naturally felt compelled to protect. But seeing her astride her horse with her back straight, taking in the vastness of the ranch through those big eyes, told him she had steel in her spine.
Yep, there were plenty of women ranchers in the west, but few who took it up when they knew only the soft side of that life.
“Would you consider selling this spread?” he asked.
“Maybe.” She looked at him with eyes that probed deeply, but for once she gave nothing away of what she was thinking. “You interested, cowboy?”
He knew better than to tip his hand, but he couldn’t stop his grin anymore than he could’ve stopped the sun from rising. She was handling herself like a seasoned horse trader, just like he’d told her to do back at the house.
“You’re a quick learner, Daisy Barton.”
This time she smiled, and he felt that old familiar kick of arousal that had gotten him in a fix with this woman in the first place. “I had a good teacher.”
Dammit all, they were falling back into that easy routine, getting too comfortable with each other. At least he was.
He wasn’t about to travel that road again, not out of pity or want. “You ready to see the rest of it or are you ready to turn back?”
She sobered, and he knew she’d picked up his withdrawal from her. “I’m just getting started.”
With that she kicked her mare into a gallop and left him standing there eating her dust. He should let her go. Let her get her fill of inspecting the land. Get her out of his hair for the rest of the day.
But the fact remained that Ned could’ve followed them up here. He could be up to no good, waiting for a chance to strike.
No matter what his past differences were with Daisy, he wasn’t about to let any harm come to her. Not if he could help it.
He took off at an easy trot after her, content to follow at a distance. To avoid any more talk at least for today. To just watch her.
He’d been uneasy telling as much as he had about himself, doling out a bit more for her to piece together. What would she say if she knew the truth? That he’d been dumped on the steps of the Guardian Angel’s Orphan Asylum when he was a few days old. That the nurses at the asylum had named him because they figured he’d been born on the third of March and someone thought it was a fitting name.
That nobody had ever wanted him.
That he’d lived all his life with that hole in his identity, wondering if the next man or woman he passed was his blood kin. Wondering if he had any blood kin at all.
No, he didn’t want Daisy getting any closer to him, for she was bound to ask more questions about his past. About his family. About his dreams.
He’d said enough. Too much really. Any more and she’d pity him, and that was the last thing he wanted.
She turned her horse south and rode less than a quarter mile before reining up sharply. Dust kicked up in a cloud as her spirited mare shied and scrambled back.
Visions of her riding hell-bent onto a rattler thundered through his mind. He spurred his gelding into a gallop, his body protesting the unnecessary jostling, his heart racing faster than the horse beneath him.
He pulled up beside her with his sidearm drawn, his gaze scouring the ground. Nothing coiled, rattled, or slithered off into the brush that he could see.
But something had sure spooked Daisy. Her face had leached of color, and her eyes were wider than the big silver conchos on her fancy saddle.
He shifted closer and laid a hand on her thigh, jolting from the spark that arced from her to him. “What is it, Daisy?”
“There,” she said, her voice trembling as she pointed to a rag caught in a tangle of brush near an outcropping.
His eyes narrowed on the spot, and his insides heaved, then knotted. It was a red plaid shirtsleeve with the decayed remains of a hand dangling from the cuff.
Trey swung from the saddle and ground reined his gelding, his gaze sweeping the area slowly before focusing on that arm again. Couldn’t tell a damned thing from here. Doubted he’d know much more when he got closer.
But he couldn’t just ride off. He had to see this to the gruesome end now.
He climbed through the barbed wire fence at the back edge of the property, and ease
d toward the body, still alert for rattlers. All was quiet save the wind whistling around the rocks, the sound low and mournful.
Being up close didn’t give him any clearer idea of what had befallen the man. Scavengers had gotten to him. What remained wasn’t recognizable, though the fancy silver buckle on his belt was oddly familiar.
Trey squatted beside the dead man, eyes narrowing and anger kicking up a notch. The back of the man’s clothes was intact, but the shirtfront was shredded and stained red. The jeans from the knees down were damned near threadbare and ripped, and the leather toes of the boats were worn bare.
Memories of the excruciating pain of being dragged behind a galloping horse lanced through him. Made his stomach knot up tighter than a noose.
“Do you recognize him?” Daisy asked, intruding on his dark thoughts.
“Nope, but I’m guessing he didn’t die of natural causes.”
“You think he was killed?” she asked, her voice rising.
“Sure do.”
Sun caught the hook on a watch fob still fastened to the dead man’s vest. There were dark reddish stains on the vest as well.
Trey tugged on the chain. He could hardly believe a watch was still attached to it.
The gold was badly dented and scratched. On one side CS was stamped without flourish or embellishment, as if hundreds of such watches had been produced and doled out, which is exactly what had happened. On the other a W had been etched, proof that the owner wanted to personalize his watch.
As he recalled, Sam Weber had been a Confederate soldier. Sam had also favored big silver belt buckles and silver toe tips on his boots.
Trey had to use his pocketknife to pop open the badly dented watch cover. The timepiece was ruined, the ivory face shattered.
The back fell off on its own, and inside the back cover was another inscription. To Sam, with deepest affection, Lydia.
“Just what I feared,” he said at last. “It’s Sam Weber.”
“My God. Poor man didn’t get far at all.”
If that wasn’t the oddest damned thing to say he’d eat his Stetson. He stood to face her. She was still astride her fine horse and managed to look both regal and vulnerable.
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