Authors: Janette Kenny
Cowboy Come Home (5 page)
“Did it play out before the cattle got their fill?” Daisy asked.
He shifted his stance and snorted. “Long before. My guess is someone manned that pumped continually the whole time we were gone, taking delight in letting the water run onto the ground.”
“Why would anyone do such a malicious thing?” she asked.
“That ought to be obvious.”
Her troubled gaze fixed on his. “Ned?” Then before he could voice his opinion, she asked, “Did Fernando see him?”
“No.” He looked at Ramona standing still and tense in the hall. “He was coldcocked from behind and trussed up. But he’s all right,” he added when Ramona let out a gasp of distress.
The older woman ran to her husband’s side, muttering a torrent of Spanish prayers. Fernando’s gaze begged a moment alone, and Trey gave it, his heart aching as the old couple left the house arm in arm.
Trey hadn’t expected her to take his word for it. He was one who had to see for himself as well.
“I shouldn’t have left the house,” Daisy said, rubbing her hands over and over her drab skirt until friction sparks crackled in the air.
“You couldn’t have stopped him,” he said, and if she’d tried she’d have been stopped. Likely permanently. “Whoever did this made sure there wasn’t a witness. If Fernando had seen him, I bet he’d be dead now.”
Her big eyes filled with distress and an emotion he’d never seen before. “Now what?”
He huffed a breath of annoyance that she hadn’t grasped the obvious. Or maybe she did know what must happen next and was just testing him to see how he’d respond.
Without water, Daisy couldn’t stay here.
He hoped to hell she had friends in town who’d take her in. Hoped she wouldn’t insist on moving to the Circle 46 too, for the longer he was near her, the more those old memories and longings would torment him.
Right now he had enough aggravation to deal with.
“We continue hauling water for the cattle tonight,” he said, and that earned him a shaky nod. “I’ll head the herd out before dawn.”
That dire news seemed to steal the strength from her. She moved to a stiff chair and eased onto it, looking frail and vulnerable again.
He took a step toward her and reined the urge to take another. Dammit, he wasn’t going to let her get to him again. He’d been down that road once.
Never again.
Yet like it or not he’d cut a deal to work for her for two months. It was an uneasy alliance that he’d only agreed to because they’d be living apart. Because he wouldn’t be tormented by having her at arm’s reach from him. Because he wouldn’t be tempted to pull her to him and ease the ache that had gnawed at him since he’d been dragged from here.
“Is there any chance the well will replenish itself soon?” she asked.
He shrugged. “A slim one, though I’ve heard of one that was usable a week after it’d been tapped out during the drought. But it’ll take rain to bring the water level up to normal again.”
There was no sign of a break in the punishing weather.
Until there was, the creek beds would remain cracked, and the wells would stay dry. Living in West Texas would be pure hell. Survival of the fittest.
A glance Daisy’s way confirmed she didn’t belong in that group. She needed to be taken care of. That damn sure wasn’t going to fall on his shoulders.
“You had best head out tomorrow as well,” he said.
She bobbed her head. “I’ll be ready.”
“Let me know where you’ll be staying so I can send you reports every two weeks, and find you when my agreed-upon two months are due.”
That statement seemed to be the string that jerked Daisy up stiff. The back of his neck crawled as he read the determination in her eyes.
“I’m going with you to the Circle 46,” she said.
“Not a good idea,” he said, and cussed himself as he saw his reasoning for what it was. Weak.
That firm little chin of hers snapped up, and he knew that arguing with her was going to be a losing battle. But he couldn’t give up either, not when having her close was going to drive him crazy with a smoldering combination of anger and desire.
“We have no way of knowing what condition the old homestead is in,” he said, doggedly pursuing his line of reasoning. “The house wasn’t much to look at the last time I was there. Primitive compared to this. The bunkhouse wasn’t much better, but the men are prepared and able to bunk under the stars if they have to.”
“I’ve slept under the stars before,” she said.
Yeah, in his arms. Just what he didn’t want to remember with aching clarity.
“Daisy, use your head. The house was built as shelter for a frontier family. There’re three bedrooms upstairs and two rooms and a pantry down. Cooking is done on an old cookstove, and there’s an outhouse to see to your needs.”
“I’ve lived in a cabin before,” she said.
“Where?”
She opened her mouth, then frowned. “I don’t remember right off. But even if I hadn’t, I’ve read about how our ancestors had to live.”
“Reading about it and doing it are two different things.”
“My mind is set.”
He looked her up and down, and would sooner have died than tell her how much she appealed to him. How much he wanted to be the man to take care of her. That dream had been killed.
“You’re not fit for that life. You need Ramona to cook and care for you. You need your conveniences.”
“I can learn to do for myself.”
Dammit, she was digging in her heels and threatening to make this a challenge for him. Fine. Let her have her way.
It wouldn’t take long for her to realize her mistake. Fernando and Ramona could make do in the room in back of the blacksmith’s shop.
But Daisy living in that house, making do?
She’d never had to lift a finger her whole life. Wouldn’t be easy for her to start now.
Nope, she’d head for town before one week was out. Hell, she’d be doing good to hold out overnight.
But no matter how long she stubbornly hung on, he’d keep his distance from her.
Daisy knew Trey didn’t want her at the Circle 46.
That fact made her more determined to go there. His dogged insistence that she find lodging elsewhere actually eased some of the misgivings she had about living around Trey again.
What she couldn’t be sure of was his reasoning.
She wanted to believe that he simply didn’t want to be around her. But there was that other worry—the one that she’d exchanged one untrustworthy foreman for another.
She had to keep watch over him and her stock, and there was only one way to do that. Stick it out like her Daddy would’ve done.
It wasn’t as if she had many choices anyway. She didn’t have any money to her name, so she couldn’t take a room at a boardinghouse.
As for friends ... Well, she didn’t have many. The one woman she considered her closest friend was married. Newly so. Daisy wasn’t about to intrude on their honeymoon period.
So unless she was able to find a job in town to support herself, her only option was moving to the Circle 46. Daisy had to admit to a good deal of curiosity about the place where her daddy had begun ranching.
She knew he’d lost his first wife and child there, but that was the extent of it. It was time she visited the place.
She was from strong stock. Trey’s frank appraisal of the conditions there wasn’t going to scare her off.
“Now that we have that settled,” she said, with as much false bravado as she could muster, “I’ll start packing for the move.”
“Don’t think you can take everything you own, because you won’t have room for it in that house,” he said.
She stared at him, growing more annoyed with his assessment of the grim conditions she’d face there. Yes, she was sure the Circle 46 was more primitive, and certainly it had fallen into neglect.
She was aware it wouldn’t be a grand house—likely a step above the cabins she’d seen in the area. But it was hers, and she damned well had every right to go there.
Besides, if she was honest with herself, she found it ironic that she was starting over at her daddy’s first holding.
She didn’t recall seeing it before, but she had to have lived there early in her life. He hadn’t moved to this spread until eight years after she’d been born.
Maybe seeing the place would jar loose some of the memories locked in her mind. Maybe it would ease the uncertainties that nagged at her.
Maybe like her daddy, she’d be able to bury her own past at the Circle 46 and finally move on with her life.
Chapter 4
Amazing what Daisy found she could live without when she had to load those things she prized or needed into one wagon. She’d certainly not need any of the fine gowns her daddy had commissioned for her. The fripperies her mother crowded on every surface had to remain here too.
She only needed the barest necessities and a few treasures she couldn’t bear to part with—the cameo pictures of her mama and daddy along with his books and records on the stock.
Nothing else really mattered. God knew some memories generated here were best forgotten. Not that she ever would forget her biggest heartaches.
“You about ready?” Trey asked, startling her from cleaning out the last of her daddy’s desk.
She closed a drawer and stuffed the last journal into an old satchel. “I think so. Is my mare tied to my buggy?”
“Yep. Now let’s get a move on.”
Trey hefted the satchel and marched from the room. She lit a candle then doused the lamp and followed, closing the office door in her wake.
She stood there a moment in the hallway in that flickering candlelight and let the memories crash over her, soaking up the details as best she could. Trey would be waiting outside, but she couldn’t leave without taking another look at the house that her daddy had built for her mama.
Ramona had draped all the furniture with sheets to keep the West Texas grit from settling too heavily on every surface. With the drapes drawn, the coverings made the parlor look ghostly, like her memories.
“Daisy.” Trey’s voice was a mere hush of sound behind her that played over her skin and left her tingling.
“I don’t want to forget it.”
She thought she heard him sigh, but it could’ve easily been a curse. “You’ll come back home in time.”
Would she? She wondered if she’d ever see this house again or if it’d fade into her mishmash of memories. Wondered what she’d find at the Circle 46.
“Let’s go,” she said, blowing out the candle and leaving the house in the dark.
She’d walked this hall too many times to count in the dead of night. But those memories too were best left here. Not that she would.
Some things a woman never forgot. With Trey back in her life, she had to keep the memories fresh. She had to remember the pain and heartache.
She stepped outside into a morning that promised another scorching hot, dry day. Dawn was just beginning to color the horizon in swaths of pink and gold.
A glance at the pasture showed the hands mounted and ready to turn the stock out. Fernando and Ramona sat on a laden wagon by the house.
Daisy’s trim buggy was hitched and ready for her. Her saddle mare was tied to the back.
“Follow Fernando,” Trey said.
She nodded and started toward the vehicle that would carry her away from the only home she could remember. An image of a rundown shack tapped her memory and was gone. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen it, but it didn’t fit with any clear memory she had.
Daisy put the confusing image from her mind. “How long will it take to get to the Circle 46?”
The anxious lowing of cattle answered her. She glanced back at Trey, but he was already halfway to the pasture and the men.
She wasn’t about to feel offended that he hadn’t helped her into the buggy. She didn’t want his touch, for it’d make the memories that much stronger and that was the last thing she wanted to dwell on during this long journey.
No, all she wanted was for him to do his job for the next two months. Surely in that time the drought would end and she would find another man who could manage the ranch.
And she would manage her daddy’s legacy.
Dusk was on them by the time they reached the western edge of the Circle 46’s property line. Trey was relieved to see the fence intact here, but he still had no idea what awaited them further on.
He would’ve rested easier if Daisy had done as he’d asked of her when Fernando had taken a turn for the worse at the halfway point. He’d given Manuel leave to guide his folks on to San Angelo, for Ramona wouldn’t have made that journey alone.
Trey had insisted that Daisy go with them. But she’d stubbornly refused, saying her place was with her daddy’s herd and cowhands. He knew there was more to it than that.
“You still don’t trust me,” he’d said once the others had driven off.
“Can you blame me? I trusted you once, but you broke your promise when you left me without a by-your-leave.”
He sieved air through his teeth. “Dammit! I told you Ned roped me from behind, and then dragged me into the desert where he left me to die. I was lucky I didn’t, though at times I hurt so damned bad I sure prayed I would.”
The color drained from her flushed face. “If that’s the truth—”
“It is,” he said, and he had the scars to prove what had happened. But he wasn’t about to show them to her, or tell her that his thirst for revenge had helped him live with the pain.
That would only make her distrust him more. He had enough to deal with already without adding to it.
“If you’re going on to the Circle 46 with us, then get a move on,” he said.
She’d flashed him a peevish glower before flicking the buggy lines and moving on down the trail.
Dammit, Trey had enough to worry over with greenhorn hands, and a herd of thirsty, near-starved cattle without fretting over having a lone woman in their midst. But Daisy was his boss.
So for the rest of the day, Trey took a position between her and the drovers behind him. With Manuel gone, he’d started relying more on Ansel. The young cowhand was proving to be a fast learner.
But Trey wasn’t about to take anything for chance now.
Knowing they were getting close to the Circle 46, he left Ansel in charge of the herd and caught up with Daisy still holding the buggy at the same steady clip. He had to hand it to her that she had handled the lines with ease the entire day.
“I’m going to ride on to check things out before we drive the herd closer,” he said to her.
“We’re that close then?” There was no mistaking the weariness in her tone.
“Thirty minutes or less.” He tipped his hat and rode on, relaying the same to the crew as he passed them.
Trey took off in an easy lope that’d eat up the last few miles without taxing his tired gelding. The rattle of wheels and hooves keeping pace with him had him looking back.
Daisy was right behind him, chin up and mouth pulled in a grim line. She was the picture of exhausted determination if he ever saw it, and his chest tightened with admiration and something he damned sure wasn’t about to name, let alone dwell on.
He chewed out a curse and doubled back to her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Going with you,” she said, the challenge in her voice clear as she kept the buggy moving forward at the same pace. “We’ve no idea who Ned left in charge, but they will likely believe my word over yours when they realize Ned is no longer the foreman of the JDB.”
That was the idea behind having her sign the damned paper back at the ranch. Depending on who was here, having a contract could’ve taken some wrangling before he convinced anyone that it was real and he was managing Barton’s holdings. But he was forced to admit having the boss’s daughter here would carry more weight than a name on a paper.
“All right. But stay behind me,” he said, and heeled his tired horse into an easy trot.
Less than a mile down the road they came to the lane leading to the ranch. A sign swinging from a gate post proclaimed this was the Circle 46, the brand burned into the weathered wood.
He reined into the lane without looking back and had the satisfaction of hearing Daisy wheel the buggy the same way.
Her thin arms had to be aching something fierce from handling the reins all day. Never mind she was adept at driving a buggy. It was a whole other thing to drive one in heat that would tempt stone to wither.
But she hadn’t complained.
Not once.
He didn’t want to admire anything about her. Didn’t want to think kindly of her or commiserate over the aches and pains that would surely ride the devil over her tonight.
But he couldn’t block her from his mind either.
She was her daddy’s daughter after all, possessing the face of an angel and the courage of a she-cat. Not knowing how to do something didn’t stop her.
It hadn’t when he’d romanced her either, and just remembering how she’d come in his arms, how she’d clung to him and whispered her love twisted something inside him again.
He couldn’t trust this woman. He sure wouldn’t profess to like the way she walked and talked and smiled at him. But he wanted her still. With a deep, burning ache in his groin that he’d never felt with any woman except her.
“I smell smoke,” she shouted, yanking him from thoughts of stroking her skin and hair and sex.
He sniffed the air and caught the telltale whiff of burning wood. Wind was in his face, so he scanned the horizon ahead of him.
It was neither impressive nor dilapidated. Just a simple homestead with a smattering of outbuildings.
“There.” He pointed to the old stone ranch house in the near distance. Threads of gray smoke were rising from the chimney. “We’re in time for supper.”
“You think they’ll see it that way?”
He smiled. “We’ll soon find out. Come on, Miss Barton. Let’s get you settled.”
Trey urged his horse on, and the creak of wheels soon joined him. In the distance the cattle were starting to bawl their need for water again.
Their arrival wouldn’t be quiet by any means. In twenty minutes or less, over six hundred head of registered Hereford cattle would crowd down the lane that was flanked by three tight strands of barbed wire.
He couldn’t see any stock in the pasture that rippled with a fair stand of buffalo grass. Couldn’t see any sign of animals beyond the few horses grazing on the ridge, and those sure as hell weren’t thoroughbreds.
Had Ned sold his horses along with the ones Barton had bought? He wouldn’t be surprised.
Ned hadn’t had any desire to run a stud farm. Cattle was his game, and he made no bones about it.
After Barton’s death, who’d be the wiser if he sold off the horses and pocketed the money? Certainly not Daisy.
Before they reached the house, a short, stout man stepped out onto the porch. Trey didn’t need sunlight to know the man was cradling a rifle.
He damn sure wished he could’ve paid a visit before they had to drive the cattle here. But a dry well had taken that choice from him. He just hoped they hadn’t ridden into a trap.
“That’s close enough,” the man said in a gravelly tone that had Trey hauling back on the reins and had Daisy stopping as well. “State your business.”
“Trey March. I’m the new foreman of the Barton ranches.”
For a moment Trey wondered if that meant anything to the man. Hell, he wondered if the ranch was still in Barton’s name or if Ned had pulled a fast one here as well.
“What happened to Ned?” the man asked.
“I fired him,” Daisy said.
That grabbed the man’s full attention. He ambled to the edge of the porch and peered out into the smoky dusk that was fast chasing away the lingering remnants of light.
Trey remembered him then. Hollis Feth, the ranch cook. He’d barely spoken to the man the last time he’d been here.
“As I live and breath,” Hollis said. “What brings you up here, Miss Daisy?”
“Hollis? Thank God you’re still here!”
She vaulted from the buggy like a farm urchin at the circus sideshow and ran across the dusty ground. The man hobbled down the three steps and swept her up in a bear hug.
Trey would put Hollis around Barton’s age, only twice as shopworn. But somewhere along the way he’d gained Daisy’s trust. Question was, did the man deserve it?
The bellowing of cattle sounded at the far end of the lane. The herd was nearly here.
“We need to get that buggy moved and those beeves turned into the main pasture,” Trey said.
Hollis eyed him across the expanse, his expression nearly swallowed by shadows now. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll let Daisy explain it.”
With that he rode to the stout wooden gate by the barn and got it open just as the herd rounded the bend. They were near loping now, likely scenting the water that glistened in the stock troughs.
A cowpoke came running from the darkened hulk of the bunkhouse. It was too dark now to see his face, and Trey was too busy swinging the gate back to bother with introductions or to give orders.
But the cowpoke seemed to know what to do, vaulting into the buggy and pulling it out of the way. Ansel rode into the yard ahead of the herd and took up a position alongside Trey.
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