LoversFeud (21 page)

“And here I thought the Bar C was just a great big ranch. You guys have your fingers in more pies than I’d have ever imagined,” Buck said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of land to play with. Anyhow, I’ll be glad to have somebody go over to your place and assess what needs to be done.” Bye looked embarrassed, Karen thought when she watched him take a swallow of water. “Not too many folks know about Four’s dabbling in wildcatting operations. We’d like to keep it that way.”

Bye had exposed her in a few short weeks to his world full of Learjets, Porsches, Mercedes sports cars purchased for six figures on a young girl’s whim and now this—some unknown number of producing oil and gas wells that poured not the usual quarter or three-eighths royalties but all of their earnings into the Bar C coffers! Karen glanced down at her ring and wondered if she ought to be afraid to wear it. “I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to the owner of the wells, Bye. I’m afraid Pop would go ballistic if you sent your people over, but I love you for offering.”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “Okay, but at least let me take a look at the well that’s so close to your house, before I call Jake. I’m nowhere near as knowledgeable as a petrochemical engineer, but I can at least give Jake some idea of what may be going on.”

“All right. I have to go home in the morning, anyway, or I’ll run out of clothes for the office. You can come with me.” Karen needed to go home and stay there until they married. It was too easy for her to fall in with Bye’s wishes and let him take care of her. “I need to move back home before I get too used to living practically in your pocket.”

He raked her with a gaze that had her nerves on end, her pussy creaming with anticipation. “I sort of like havin’ you in my pocket, baby. Want to play a little?”

Oh yeah. She wanted to play every time he looked at her that way, but since she’d fallen in love with him, she didn’t enjoy the prospect of public play the way she used to. “Wouldn’t you rather play in private?” She’d gotten the impression Bye had never been much of an exhibitionist, with him wearing that hood the way he had the first time they’d played.

“I like that idea. Let’s go home and get it on. Anything for my brand-new fiancée,” he told her as he stood and dropped a casual kiss on her lips. “Buck, we’ll see you later.”

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning Bye took one look at the pumpjack outside Karen’s bedroom window before forbidding her to move back home until it was fixed. From what she’d told him, he figured most of the wells on the Rocking O were in secondary or tertiary production, which explained why the income from them had dwindled to the point that the operator GreenTex had contracted with saw little point in servicing them. When Bye spoke to Jake Green, he gave the man hell about that, and a few hours later a GreenTex maintenance crew landed on the Bar C airstrip and went to work on the poorly maintained wells.

Bye had never been quite so busy as he was during the coming weeks, between making wedding plans with Karen and Maria and taking part in the spring roundup at the Bar C. Four seemed to be giving him more and more responsibility around the ranch, which pleased him. One afternoon he was out in the northeast pasture, having just climbed up and checked out a windmill that had been damaged in a recent storm, when Karen called him from her office.

“What is it, sweetheart?” He ducked into Diego’s pickup and put the phone on speaker because a gusting wind made it hard to hear. “Did you say something about your father?” Maybe the psychologist thought it might be time for Four to visit.

“Jake Green called me. He believes they can rework a couple of the wells and get production up. Should I ask Pop to let them do that?”

For an attorney working in oil and gas country, Karen seemed pretty clueless about how oil leases worked, but then she concentrated mainly on criminal law. “As long as the wells are in production, the lessee has the right to take them down and rework them whenever it wants to. If they’re capped and abandoned, then the lease terminates. It sounds to me like GreenTex wants to rework existing wells. If that’s the case, they don’t need to get the landowner’s permission unless there are unusual terms written into the original leases. Frankly, I wouldn’t fight them, because they wouldn’t commit the money it will take to do a rework if they didn’t believe the wells could be profitable again. If you want me to, I’ll talk with Jake and find out exactly what he has in mind.”

“I hate to sound stupid, so I went to the house today and looked for the leases. I couldn’t find them.”

“Might Slade have a safety deposit box at the bank?” That would make sense since he had no document safe at the Rocking O. Unfortunately Bye was learning that most of what her father had been doing for most of Karen’s life didn’t make good sense.

“No. I already checked.”

“You could ask Jake to get you copies of the leases. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Karen sighed. “Legally speaking, he couldn’t release them to me. My name’s not on them and Pop hasn’t been in condition to grant me power of attorney.”

“I know, sweetheart.” Bye knew how reluctant Karen was to go before the court and have her father declared incompetent, but she’d have to do that if he didn’t come out of rehab soon. “Four is in Lubbock today, buying cattle futures. He said he’d stop by and see if Ms. Hudson thinks Slade is ready to see him. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

“They are. What are you doing today?”

Bye looked up at the windmill that still wasn’t turning the way it should. “I was rounding up cattle in the north pasture when I noticed one of the windmills was damaged, probably in that storm we had right after Mom died. I spent an hour trying to figure out what’s wrong before calling the service engineers, and now I’m about to climb back on a horse and drive more calves into the branding chutes.”

“Are you riding Vampire today?”

He laughed. “Hardly. Vampire’s no cutting horse. He’d be insulted if we put him in the remuda. I see I’m gonna have to teach you all about ranching.” It seemed ludicrous that Karen had lived on five thousand acres of northwest Texas her whole life without taking part in a roundup. “Do you even know how to ride horseback?”

“Yes. It’s been a long time, though. We had an old mare when I was little. I used to take her on rides through the pasture. We’d have picnics together down by a stream that dried up a few years back.”

“I miss you, sweetheart. If you don’t have appointments this afternoon, why don’t you come here, change into jeans and boots and have one of the gardeners who’s not too busy drive you out to me? I’ll pick you out a gentle quarter horse and you can brush up on your riding skills.”

“All right. But you may be sorry you asked me. It’s been nearly fifteen years since that old mare died.” She sounded nervous when she laughed.

“See you in an hour or so. I love you.”

Bye got out of the foreman’s pickup and strode to the pen where the extra horses were kept. After taking his time to choose the gentlest-looking one, he pointed it out to Manuel, the stableboy who’d been sent to tend the remuda. “Go get that chestnut mare and saddle her for Ms. Karen. She’ll be out here soon. Meanwhile, I’ll take the next one from my string now.”

“
Sí
,
señor
Bye. That mare, she is favorite of
señorita
Deidre. Sweet as sugar, but she is plenty spirited.”

Maybe he hadn’t chosen well enough. Deidre was an expert rider and liked to be challenged. “Miss Karen hasn’t ridden much. Do you think you could find a pretty mare or gelding that’s easy to handle?”

Manuel beamed. “
Sí
,
señor
. Your friend would be very safe on Antonio.” When he paused and whistled, a buckskin gelding trotted toward the fence. “Antonio and I, we work together well. I ride him every day now.”

Bye reached over the rail and fed Antonio the sugar cube he’d dug out of his pocket. The horse took it then stood still, looking at him with soft, brown eyes. He ought to have recognized the gelding right away, because Mom had ridden him when her favorite mare had gotten too much for her. “Hey, Antonio. Manuel thinks you’ll give my sweetheart a nice, easy ride.”

When Antonio whinnied, Bye laughed out loud. “I think that’s Antonio’s way of saying he’ll be good. When you saddle him up, be extra careful to get the cinch tight. Help Miss Karen mount when she gets here, and come with her to find me. I’ll stick close to the branding pens.”

“
Sí
,
señor
.”

* * * * *

The Bar C’s north pasture, with its field of towering windmills and fresh green grass, was one of Karen’s favorite places on the vast Bar C. She thanked the driver and got out of a Bar C Jeep, catching her balance in the cowboy boots Bye had bought her when they were in Lubbock last week. When she didn’t see him right away, she headed for the pen where the extra horses were kept and saw the stableboy, Manuel, was holding a pretty buckskin already saddled and ready to go.

“
Señorita
Karen,
señor
Bye picked Antonio for you. He is good horse. Gentle. The
patrona
used to ride him before she got too sick,
que descanse en paz
.”

May she rest in peace
, she translated silently. Everybody on the Bar C, from Four down to the stable hands, seemed to have adored Bye’s mother. Karen hoped she’d do well enough to earn half of the admiration afforded Mae Caden.

She was none too certain Antonio would be gentle enough for her, but she managed a smile as she tried to remember long-ago lessons.
There’s a way to mount a horse. One side’s not as good as the other. I think you mount on the horse’s right side.
When she stood, staring at Antonio’s velvety nose, Manuel cleared his throat. “If you will allow me, I will help you mount. Then I will take you to
señor
Bye.”

So her memory must have been right, because Manuel was standing there by the right stirrup, an expectant look on his face. “Thank you.” When Manuel gave her a leg up, she settled her right foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle, on top of what seemed like a large horse from her vantage point. Tentatively she picked up the reins.

Antonio perked up his ears as the stable boy approached on horseback. He didn’t move, though, for which Karen was grateful. “
Señor
Bye said for me to take you to him.” When he took the reins and both horses started to move, she tried to hold steady in the saddle.

When Bye saw them coming his way, he hurried and drove the calf he’d been herding into the branding chute. Then he spurred his mount and joined Karen. “Thank you, Manuel,” he said as the stable boy handed him her reins.

“I don’t think he needed to go that far to deliver you to me.” Not wanting to hurt Manuel’s feelings, he waited to say so until the boy was out of earshot.

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Though Karen smiled, Bye started to worry that roundup wasn’t a place where he should be teaching a rank novice how to ride. “Most of our horses respond to both rein and knee commands. I’m not sure about Antonio, though. Why don’t you try pulling gently on your left rein?”

He did the same on his horse, and they both moved slowly to the left. “Now try going right.” Antonio dutifully turned right when she pulled the right rein.

“Now pull on both reins at once. Not too hard or he may rear on you.” As Bye had expected, Antonio came to a halt. “See, it’s not that hard to ride horseback.”

“So you say. What do you want me to do?” She seemed to be looking carefully at cowboys using their horses and their quirts to herd calves into the pens. “I’m not sure I can manage that.”

He laughed. “Nobody’s expecting you to, not this time at least. We’re gonna take an easy ride around the pasture. If we run across a calf the cowboys missed, I’ll rope him and we’ll drag him back where he belongs.”

When she looked over at him, her eyes sparkling, she warmed his heart. He couldn’t rightly fire the ranch hands for staring at her, because she was too beautiful for words in a red plaid shirt and jeans, with her long hair in a loose braid that hung over one shoulder. She might not be a cowgirl, but she looked the part, down to her hand-tooled western boots and the doeskin gloves that protected her pretty hands.

“Won’t you be giving your men a bad example?” She glanced over at the workers as they moved slowly toward the perimeter of the pasture.

“Probably, but they won’t complain. They don’t think of me as the boss, anyhow, because they answer to Diego when Four’s not around. He’s the ranch foreman, the swarthy-looking guy who’s standing over by the truck. When I work the roundup, I’m just another cowhand, only Diego can’t fire me for shirking. How does it feel, riding again?”

“Good. The air’s so fresh and clean up here, and I love the way the wind makes the grass ripple across the ground. Can we go a little faster?”

“Sure, if you’re up to it.” Bye spurred his mount to a ground-eating gallop then turned and trotted back to Karen. “How fast do you want to go?”

“Half as fast as you just did.”

“You sure you won’t fall off?” He hated to discourage her but wasn’t certain she knew how to grip the horse with her legs. “You know how you wrap your legs around me sometimes when I’m on top? That’s how you need to grip Antonio’s middle, only harder.”

“I know. I may not have ridden horses much, but I’ve gotten a lot of practice on you.” The hot look she gave him made his jeans feel uncomfortably tight.

Suddenly she dug her heels into Antonio’s sides and he took off in an easy canter. Scared that she’d fall in spite of what she’d said, he took off and caught up with her after she’d made it fifty yards or so. He leaned toward her and grabbed her reins, slowing Antonio until they both came to a stop. “Cock tease. I ought to drag you off that horse and spank your sassy little ass.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you did, if you wouldn’t care if most of the cowboys on the Bar C watched you do it.” Leaning over, she gave his leg a squeeze.