Читать книгу Hot On His Trail - Kristin Eckhardt - Страница 13

CHAPTER TWO

MATT RADCLIFFE stood at the corral as the sun set on the horizon, the last golden rays caressing the sparse grass and sagebrush growing along the fence. He propped one boot up on a metal rail and watched the herd of one hundred longhorn steers paw up a cloud of fine dust inside the large enclosure.

He tried to ignore the spark of excitement in his belly. But it smoldered there, refusing to be doused by good common sense. At sunup, he would embark on a fool’s errand, dreamed up by Rufus Tupper, New Mexico’s richest resident fool. A gentleman rancher, Rufus had never raised so much as a blister. He left that to the real cowboys, like Matt. Men who loved the land but couldn’t afford to buy a ranch of their own.

That was all about to change.

“Hey, cowboy.”

Matt turned to see Marla Mackovic walking up to the corral. She was a former Las Vegas showgirl who had hoped to cash in on Tupper’s wealth when he’d asked her to come live at the ranch. Instead, she spent most of her time dusting his horse trophies and preparing his hangover tonics.

“I missed you at supper,” she said, ambling over to him, her hands behind her back. Her overpermed hair hung like a black cloud down her back. He’d always liked Marla, even if she did wear too much makeup and perfume. But he didn’t like the calculating gleam he saw in her eyes this evening.

“I had a few last-minute preparations to make.”

“I brought you a piece of cherry pie.” She took a step forward and placed the napkin-wrapped pastry into his hand. Warm, red filling oozed out and ran over his thumb.

“Thank you,” he said, sucking the sweet filling off his knuckle. Not wanting to disappoint her, he ate the pie in three bites, though it tasted like sawdust in his mouth. He had too much at stake today to care about food.

“Rufus wants to see you before you go,” she told him, her long yellow broom skirt swaying softly in the warm breeze.

“Then he’d better get his butt out here,” Matt said, licking the last crumbs off his fingertips.

“He wants you to come inside. Rufus is in one of his moods. I made him a bloody Mary a little while ago and he threw it against the wall. Said the tomato juice had too much pulp in it.”

Matt stared at her for a long moment. “Why do you stay here, Marla? You can do better than this.”

She arched one waxed eyebrow. “Why do you?”

His jaw tightened. “I’m leaving tomorrow. And I’m not coming back.”

“Take me with you,” she cried, reaching out to grasp his forearm. “I can cook for you and the cowhands. Wash your clothes. Sing and dance. Anything you want.”

Matt smiled. “You wouldn’t like it out on the trail, Marla. There aren’t any televisions or stereos or refrigerators. No indoor plumbing.” He reached for the hand still clutching his arm, and gently patted her thin fingers. “And no beauty salons to keep up this pretty manicure, either.”

She pulled her hand out of his grasp, curling it into a fist to hide the long, polished red nails. “I don’t need manicures, Matt. Or any of those other things. I just need…you.”

He swallowed a sigh. Marla didn’t need him and she sure didn’t love him. She just wanted someone to take care of her. She’d been looking for that someone ever since she’d run away from home at seventeen. Young and pretty and temperamental, she’d wasted the last two years of her life to be at Tupper’s beck and call. Obviously, she’d finally realized that she’d never find her way into the eccentric rancher’s heart.

“I’m too old for you, Marla,” he said gently.

“You’re not as old as Rufus. He’s almost fifty.” She tossed her long black curls over her shoulder. “And you’re only thirty-two.”

“And you’re barely twenty. You should be out having fun. Not traipsing around on a dusty trail with a bunch of cowboys.”

“Anything is better than here,” she muttered, then sidled closer to him, placing her small hands on his chest. “Besides, I like you, Matt. I’ve always liked you.” Her soulful brown eyes gazed up at him. “You’re so big and strong.”

Her hands slid up around his shoulders and smoothed over the biceps outlined by his chambray shirt. He inhaled the stale aroma of her heavy perfume and saw the mascara smudges beneath her eyes.

“And so brave,” Marla whispered seductively. “None of the other cowboys stand up to Rufus like you do.”

Her soft, voluptuous curves pressed against him, and for one brief moment Matt considered her request. It had been much too long since he’d held a woman in his arms. Maybe she could assuage the loneliness that seemed to seep into his bones during the long nights on the range.

His silence encouraged her to snake her arms around his neck and press her face into the crook of his shoulder.

“Please take me with you,” she entreated in the singsong voice of a little girl. “Please, Matt.”

He gently disengaged himself from her, then took a step back. “Sorry, Marla. I always travel solo.”

She shrugged, a petulant pout on her lips. “Fine. Then I’ll ask Boyd to take me with him.”

Matt bit back a smile at the thought of Tupper’s hapless nephew. “Where is Boyd going?”

“With you on the cattle drive,” she retorted. “I heard Tupper tell Boyd it would make a man out of him.”

“Hell,” Matt muttered under his breath. This drive was going to be complicated enough without dragging along a spoiled city boy. “Don’t waste your time sweet-talking Boyd, Marla. I’m the boss out on the trail and I’m not allowing any distractions on this trip. It’s too important.”

“Fine.” Anger flared in her brown eyes. “I hope all the cattle stampede and fall off a cliff! I hope your precious horse kicks you in the head! I hope you get lost in the desert and your cojones dry up and fall off.”

“Gracious as always, I see,” he said, smiling as he reached into his pocket for the keys to his pickup truck. He tossed them to her. “You can still leave, Marla. Anytime you want. My truck has seen a lot of miles, but it’s dependable. It will take you anywhere you want to go.”

“I just want you to go to hell,” she cried, throwing the keys back at his feet. Then she spun around and ran toward the barn.

Matt stared at the keys for a moment, then turned and walked away. Marla might change her mind when her temper cooled off. Or she might decide to mow Rufus down. Either way, he wanted to help her out. She was a sweet kid when she wasn’t contemplating destruction of certain portions of his anatomy.

With Marla’s curse still ringing in his ears, Matt walked to the ranch house. Heat lightning flashed across the sky.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Matt looked up to see Rufus Tupper standing on the front porch. He wore a paisley silk robe and a pair of ostrich skin cowboy boots.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Hell, yes,” Rufus grumbled. “You can’t leave without a proper send-off. And I’m sure as hell not gettin’ out of bed before sunrise. Meet me in my study.” He turned around without another word and ambled back into the house.

By the time Matt reached Rufus’s study, the rancher had poured two whiskeys.

“A toast,” Rufus said, handing one of the tumblers to Matt. Then he raised his own glass in the air. “To the best trail boss west of the Mississippi.”

Matt took a sip of the whiskey. It burned its way into his stomach and made him feel slightly queasy. But then, so did Rufus Tupper.

Matt set down his glass. “What do you want?”

“Hell, Radcliffe,” Rufus said, pouring himself another whiskey. “You always this suspicious?”

“It comes with the job. I’ve got to be on the lookout for rattlesnakes, coyotes and other predators.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Rufus settled into his chair. “I just want to make sure that everything is all set. I’ve got a lot of money riding on this bet with Lester Hobbs. In fact, we’ve decided to up the ante.”

Matt felt himself tense. Rufus and Lester were rich men with too much time and money on their hands. One whiskey-soaked night they’d reminisced about the good old days when a man could prove his mettle by driving cattle to market. Nowadays, most cattle were transported via semitrailer truck. Cattle drives were either short jaunts from one pasture to the next, or part of a tourist package for bored city slickers who wanted to play cowboy for a week.

Rufus and Lester decided to take a trip down memory lane by recreating an old-fashioned cattle drive on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, which had run west from Central Texas to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, well over a hundred years ago. Tupper had just laughed when Matt pointed out that the drive they had routed was headed in the wrong direction, running east instead of west.

“Up the ante?” Matt echoed. “You mean you’ve decided to make my job even harder?”

Rufus chuckled. “Hey, if you want to win that half a million dollars, you’ve gotta earn it. Or have you changed your mind?”

Matt folded his arms across his chest. “Are you going to tell me the new terms of the bet or are you just going to keep wasting my time?”

Rufus swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Basically the same as before. Lester and I each send one hundred longhorn steers on a cattle drive from here to my ranch near Jacksboro, Texas. First one to pass over the property line at the Lazy R wins the race.”

“And?” Matt prompted.

“And we’ve set the death loss at five percent. Which means if more than five steers die on the trail, the bet is forfeited. It would be too easy to win by cutting down the herd.”

Matt narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but I don’t shoot cattle just to make my job easier.”

Rufus slowly sipped his whiskey. “Actually, I’ve heard so many good things about you I’m starting to wonder if you hired a publicity agent. You’ve got a reputation as the best long-distance trail boss in the country. Even better than Rich Weaver, who Lester hired to lead his drive. Now let’s see if you live up to it.”

Matt knew people spoke highly of him, marveling at his dedication to his work. They never seemed to realize that he didn’t have anything else.

But that was all about to change.

“I want a check for five hundred thousand dollars waiting for me at the bank in Jacksboro.”

Rufus pulled open his top desk drawer. “That reminds me. I had a contract drawn up so we do everything legal. That damn IRS is always breathing down my neck.”

Matt picked up the contract, leafing through the pages. Despite the legalese, he could see it clearly spelled out that Rufus would pay him the amount they’d agreed upon if Matt and his crew were the first ones across the finish line.

“Do you have a pen?”

Rufus fumbled in his drawer, then handed him one. “So when do you expect to hit Jacksboro?”

“I’m hoping to travel ten to fifteen miles a day, depending on the weather.” Matt scribbled his signature across the bottom of the contract, right below Tupper’s messy scrawl. “We’ll drive the cattle hard for five days at a time, then graze for two. With a little luck, we should arrive at the Lazy R about a month from now. Probably mid-February.”

Rufus scowled. “You’d get there a lot faster if you didn’t stop to graze.”

“Three hundred miles is a long way to go. Your steers would be nothing but skin and bones by the time we got to Jacksboro. If they made it that far.”

“I don’t give a damn about that.” Rufus scowled. “I just don’t want to lose.”

Matt slid the contract back across the desk. “I don’t intend to lose.”

“Good.” Rufus settled back in his chair. “Although I should warn you that Lester cheats at cards. No reason to believe he won’t find a way to cheat on the trail, too.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open.”

The rancher smirked. “’Course, I wouldn’t mind if you caused Lester’s cowboys a little trouble along the way. I even put a few ideas in Boyd’s head that should add some fun to the trip. Did I mention he’s going along?”

“So I heard.” Matt stood up, planting both palms on the polished surface of Tupper’s desk. “But let’s get one thing straight. I don’t cheat. And any man on my crew who decides to implement one of your plans will find himself walking barefoot back to Fort Sumner.”

Rufus chuckled. “That’s the difference between us, Radcliffe. You’re honest and poor. I’m dishonest and rich. It’s time you wise up, son, before you lose both the bet and the nice fat check that’s already got your name on it.”

Matt had never been so tempted to walk away. Leave behind Rufus and his frivolous bet. Finding work had never been a problem before. Finding someone willing to pay him half a million dollars was another story. Especially since he was only three hundred miles away from making his dream come true.

A ranch of his very own.

He’d dreamed of it ever since he was fifteen years old, lying under the stars on his first cattle drive. Some cowboys liked the nomad life, but Matt needed roots to feel whole. Roots that had been ripped away when he was twelve years old and never replanted.

Now he was so close to his dream, he couldn’t resist the offer Rufus dangled before him. Hell, why should he resist it? Rufus wouldn’t miss the money. It was a stupid, meaningless bet, but if Matt didn’t take the job, Rufus would find someone else to do it.

“Don’t worry,” Matt said, moving toward the door. “I’ll win your bet. And I don’t intend to let Lester Hobbs or anyone else stop me.”