Cowboy Seeks Bride (2 page)

Liz stepped back and pulled off her well-worn straw hat. “Fair as you are, you’d best have this too.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because Dewar deserves it. I wanted to make this trip, but oh, no! A woman could not go. It was boys only, and girls were banned,” Liz said.

“That’s ridiculous!”

Liz giggled. “That’s exactly what I told him. I’m hoping you give him grief all month. Think you can do that?”

“You bet your sweet ass I can.” Haley nodded.

Liz led the way out of the stall with Haley keeping step right beside her. “They’ve all been crowing all week about spending a whole month out in the wide open spaces without a woman to nag, whine, and bitch. This is just too sweet.”

“They haven’t seen bitching yet, but it’s coming,” Haley said.

Liz handed her a fist full of rubber bands from her pocket. “That hair is going to be so tangled by the end of the day that you won’t be able to do a thing with it, so take these so you can braid it startin’ tomorrow morning.”

“I packed a brush, a bar of soap, and a couple of headbands, but I didn’t think I’d really be doing this,” Haley said.

“What else have you got?”

“Two pair of jeans, shirts, and underwear. I barely got it all in the saddlebags.”

“You’ll be all right.”

“For thirty days?” Haley asked.

“Did you pack toilet paper?”

Haley groaned. “Daddy said I couldn’t have a laptop or a phone because the batteries wouldn’t last and there was certainly no electricity. I thought that was a death sentence. I didn’t even think about toilet paper and using the bathroom in the woods.”

“Just hope that you can find woods or bushes or even mesquite trees. Some of the land where you are going is flatter than a pancake. You’ll be lucky to find a tumbleweed to squat behind,” Liz said.

The door was in sight, but Liz detoured to a tack room with a small bathroom and handed her a roll. “Shove it down in your duffel bag and don’t share.”

“I can’t believe you are helping me,” Haley said.

“The paper won’t last thirty days, but by the time it’s gone you’ll have your bluff in on them, and Dexter, or Coosie, as he insists everyone calls him on the trail, will be more than glad to pick up some for you when he buys supplies. I’m just evening up the playing field. I can’t wait to see the reality show that comes out of this. Did you know they filmed part of that noodlin’ show not far from here?”

Haley frowned. “Noodlin’? Oh, you mean hand fishing?”

“Yeah, that’s it, but the folks in this area call it noodlin’. Looks like it’s time to mount up. Don’t worry about your shoes and suit. I’ll take care of them and they’ll be ready when you come back.”

“Who are all those cowboys? Tell me their names. I’ve done my research, so I know that Coosie is the nickname for the cowboy who drives the chuck wagon and who does the cooking,” Haley whispered as they walked toward the horses.

“The one on the ground is Raylen, my husband. He’s not going with them. Dexter, I mean Coosie, is driving the wagon. Buddy is the middle-aged man who stutters. And then Sawyer, Finn, and Rhett are O’Donnell cousins. They would have made a man prove himself on this trip, but they sure didn’t plan on
you
, so go strike a blow for women.”

Haley settled the hat down better on her head. “You are scarin’ me a little bit, but don’t tell them I said that.”

She marched right up to the horse named Apache with new determination, stuffed her roll of toilet paper into her saddlebag, jammed her scuffed-up work boot down into the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn, and threw a leg over the horse. It was like riding a bicycle and it all came back to her, right along with the reasons that she didn’t like that class all those years ago. Her butt hit with a thump and the jar traveled up her backbone with enough force to make her wince before the horse took a single step.

“You ready?” Dewar asked.

Haley nodded.

She had a hat and a jacket.

She had toilet paper.

It didn’t transform her into a cowgirl, but by damn, those cowboys didn’t know that.

“I can take notes and send back to Carl. You don’t have to go,” Dewar said.

“Oh yes I do,” Haley said. She’d show her father that she was as tough as any field reporter on his payroll.

Dewar inhaled deeply and yelled, “Head ’em out!”

He rode ahead of the whole crew, slapping his hat against his thigh to start a hundred head of cattle moving out of the pasture and across the two-lane highway. Four other cowboys did the same, with the chuck wagon bringing up the rear. Haley wasn’t sure what she should do, but finally she and Apache fell in behind the whole affair. In an hour her butt was asleep, her legs felt like they’d never be straight again, and the bagel she’d eaten early that morning had vanished.

She urged Apache on to a trot and rode along beside the cows so she could see Dewar better. He sat loose in the saddle, his back ramrod straight, and his long legs didn’t look like they hurt like hers did. An image appeared in her head of him riding strip stark naked like the hero in the Cheryl Brooks book she’d heard about from a friend who worked on the
RT
Book
Reviews
magazine.

Cheryl wrote amazing erotic paranormal fiction. In a recent interview she’d described the beginning of her new book. Just reading the interview had given Haley hot flashes and had been the primary reason she called off the engagement with Joel. If her fiancé couldn’t make her as hot as a book teaser, then there was something wrong with the relationship. She couldn’t very well tell her father such a thing, but it was the truth.

She’d imagined Joel sitting on a horse with no clothes on and all it did was make her giggle. She’d imagined him doing the things to her body that Cheryl’s heroes did to her heroines and not one faint little shiver of anticipation tickled her backbone.

But imagining Dewar sitting all straight and tall and
naked
, now that was a different matter and it scared the bejesus right out of her. She’d only just met the man and he could be married or engaged or in some kind of a relationship. Surely someone that sexy wasn’t single, so she had no right to be drawing mental pictures of him naked.

Hmmm, if that’s against the rules, then he can keep his hat and boots. Oh, my! That even presents a sexier picture
, she thought.

She leaned forward for a better view through the cows, and when she sat back a fresh stab of pain hit her tailbone. She wanted to cry, but she’d be roasted alive over a barbecue pit in the devil’s backyard before she complained.

Her stomach grumbled, but she kept a death grip on the reins and fell back far enough that she couldn’t see Dewar so plainly. She would definitely slide right off Apache if she kept leaning to one side to get a better virtual vision of him wearing nothing but boots and a hat.

Her stomach growled again. Were there chocolate cookies somewhere in that wagon? In her research cowboys ate a hell of a lot of beans on the trail, especially if no one killed a deer or enough rabbits for Coosie to fry up for supper. The reality show would have a helluva time getting seven cowboys and as many cowgirls to do a Western reality show if all they got was beans and wild game on the whole trip. Or would they? That big payout at the end of the trip in Dodge City would bring contestants out by the droves.

Next week, while she was gone, the committee would begin throwing around names for the show and that’s where she wanted to be. It had been her idea from the time she heard about the
Hand
Fishin’
reality show, and it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t be sitting behind her desk fielding ideas. Just because Joel was Carl’s golden-haired boy wonder at the office, he got to stay in an air-conditioned office while Haley got bunions on her ass and a nose full of fresh cow-shit scent with every foot that the cowboys herded the cattle through the mesquite.

Who would have believed that cows could crap so much and just keep walking the whole time? Or that it took five cowboys and a chuck wagon to herd a hundred of them to Dodge City, Kansas?

She rode along behind the wagon and talked to herself, wishing that she could write down ideas and ride at the same time. “We’ve got to cross the Red River, and I bet there’s no way that egotistical cowboy is going to use the bridge. I wouldn’t on the reality show. It’s too great an opportunity for things to go wrong, and that’s what makes a good show. Note one when we stop tonight: first there’s going to be saddle-sore tempers at the end of the day, and the Red River will have to be crossed, so get the cameras rolling from the other side. Fall off the horse and it’s an automatic point deduction. Let a cow get away from you and it’s more deductions. Fall into bed with the trail boss and you get fifty extra points.”

She looked around to see if anyone was listening, only to find a straggling old black and white cow staring at her. Haley stuck her tongue out at the heifer and she looked the other way.

“One cow down. Six cowboys to go. Wonder if I stick my tongue out at them if they’ll back down and leave me alone?” she mumbled.

Dewar led the way across the Red River at a narrow place with sloped sides down to the water’s edge. The clay-colored water flowed gently that morning and barely skimmed his horse’s belly. Only the bottom of his jeans and the soles of his boots were wet when the cattle reached the other side.

The horses pulled the chuck wagon across without a problem. Haley made mental notes and hoped that when her contestants crossed the river that it was rolling and much deeper.

They would begin filming in late summer. She planned on having the season ready to roll by spring of the next year. If pretty boy Joel hadn’t gone back to his precious West Coast by then, he could just stand back and know that she had as much film smarts as he thought he had. The first season wouldn’t be prime time, but it did have a pretty good chance at a slot on Sunday afternoons, and reality shows had better ratings if there was danger.

It was a probably a good thing that her father had sent her on the trip. Joel, bless his heart, would have died of acute nose snarling the first time he got a good solid whiff of cow shit. And his delicate skin would break out in hives for sure if he had to wear tight-fittin’ jeans.

On the Oklahoma side of the river they passed through several acres of mesquite before coming out in a flat pasture between the ghost town of Fleetwood and Terral, a small town located to the west of them. Haley could hear traffic passing on Highway 81 even though she couldn’t see anything except patches of mesquite, tractors stirring up dust in fields, and pastureland.

Haley read that the Chisholm Trail came out in Indian territory right across the river. In one account, it said that cattle were so thick at times in the river crossing that a cowboy could walk across the river on their backs. She looked for the places where her research said that there were still signs of a million cattle being herded, but she only saw green grass.

The wagon pulled up under a big pecan tree and stopped. As if they knew it was midday, the old longhorn bull who’d been leading the herd came to a halt. He bawled out a message to his followers and they all lined up around a farm pond for a drink before they started nibbling on the green grass.

Haley tugged on Apache’s reins. “Whoa, boy!”

When the cowboys dismounted, she slung a leg over the side and stepped out of the stirrup only to get a charley horse in her calf. She sucked air, stomped it out, took a step, and looked down at her bowed legs. If her knees ever touched again it would be a sheer miracle. She would have to wear long flowing skirts for months to cover up the effects of riding every day.

“Little sore, are you? It will get better every d-d-day. I’m Buddy,” the cowboy stuttered.

“Pleased to meet you, Buddy. I hope it gets better real soon,” Haley said.

Buddy was taller than she was, but that couldn’t be counted as bragging about much since she barely tipped the charts at five feet three inches. He had arms as big as hams and a belly that hung out over his belt. Haley didn’t figure anybody would ever mess with him, not even with a stutter. His thick hair was brown, and his eyes were the same color. His face was round and kind looking, and she’d guess him to be somewhere in his forties. His boots were scuffed and his jeans worn, and his confidence said that he knew everything about riding, camping, and herding cows.

The man on the chuck wagon hopped down and extended his hand. “You shocked us so bad we weren’t even polite back at the house. My real name is Dexter but on the trail I’m Coosie and I run the eatin’ part of this trail ride. Every time a cowboy calls me anything different than Coosie he gets his pay docked by a dollar at the end of the line. Since we didn’t have breakfast there were no leftovers to use for dinner, so I’ve got bologna sandwiches and chips today, but that’s a treat we won’t be gettin’ very often.”

Haley shook hands with him, her small hand dwarfed by his. “I’m glad to meet you, Coosie.”

He should have been one of those huge football players that ran a couple of steps and blocked anyone trying to get past him to the ball. He was somewhere around Buddy’s age but twice his size. His arms were enormous, and his big round head was shaved smooth as a billiard ball. His eyes were gentle and his smile genuine, but Haley sure didn’t want to ever get on his bad side.

One of the younger cowboys spoke up, “And we’re the O’Donnell cousins. Dewar’s daddy had three more brothers. We each belong to one of those brothers. I’m Sawyer. This here”—he pointed to his left—“is Rhett, and that would be Finn.” He pointed to his right. “We weren’t expecting a woman on the ride, but if you’ll keep up, we won’t hold the fact that you’re a girl against you.”

“Hell, we might even convert you to a real cowgirl by the time the trip is over. You might get a tat on your neck and learn how to two-step,” Rhett said.

“Don’t bet on it,” she said.

Tat, her ass! Two-step? They could all go to hell. She might have a hat and a pair of boots, but she couldn’t wait to get back to her high heels and power suits.