Читать книгу Caitlyn's Prize - Linda Warren, Linda Warren - Страница 14

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Caitlyn was on the way to Mr. McGruder’s. She wanted information about selling sand and gravel. She could have called, but Mr. McGruder was the kind of man who responded better when talking face-to-face. Being of the older generation, he didn’t care for phones all that much. He liked the personal touch.

It didn’t take her long to get the buyer’s name and number. She didn’t ask about price because she knew McGruder wouldn’t divulge it.

Back in her office, she called only to learn the man had all the suppliers he needed. Damn! She told him to keep her in mind if he ever needed another one, and gave him her name and phone number.

By the time she hung up, all the excitement had oozed out of her and she felt stupid. Their financial situation wasn’t going to be that easy to fix. There must be a black cloud over her head or something, but she didn’t have time to wallow in misery. There was work to be done.

She saddled Jazzy, her brown quarter horse, and set out to join Coop and Rufus. Red neighed from across the fence. The mare didn’t like it when Cait rode another horse, but Jaz was for work. Red she rode for pleasure.

The day was already getting hot. Cait pulled her straw hat lower to shade her face. Her arms were protected from the sun by a long-sleeved, pearl-snap shirt. The sun was hell on a woman’s skin.

Coop came to meet her riding a bay gelding. “We have a good count of calves in this pasture to go in June, and we have a lot more on the ground, maybe a September sale.”

They ran a mixed-breed cow-and-calf operation now. Cait’s father had sold the registered stock years ago. In High Five’s heyday her great-grandfather would have nothing but purebreds on his property. But it took time and money to keep records of an animal’s ancestry, so that wasn’t an option for the ranch anymore.

“We can make this work.” Coop glanced around at the knee-deep coastal the cows and calves were standing in. “They have plenty to eat and all we have to do is supply water, salt and minerals.”

Cait moved restlessly in the saddle. “It’s the summer I’m worried about. When the coastal has been eaten and we have barren dry ground.”

“We’ll rotate the pastures like always.”

Cait’s gaze swept over the grazing cattle. “Where’s Ru?”

“Checking the windmill.”

“Good. We have to make sure they have water at all times.”

“I’m heading for the northeast pasture. Catch you later.” Coop kneed his horse and then pulled up again. “Whoa, we got company.”

Cait noticed the riders, too—Albert Harland, the Southern Cross foreman, and two cowboys. Harland was mean as a rattlesnake, sneaky as a ferret, and resembled the latter. His number one goal was to make life as miserable as possible for Caitlyn. He thought she was uppity and didn’t know her place.

He stopped just short of galloping into her. If he thought she was going to show fear, then the man didn’t have a brain cell that was actively working.

“Mornin’, Miss Belle.” He tipped his hat and grinned like a possum eating persimmons.

“Harland.” She folded her hands over the saddle horn. “Is there a problem?”

“Yep.” The saddle protested from his weight. “The fence is down again on this pasture. One of your bulls, the big black one, keeps getting into our registered cows, and Mr. Calhoun would appreciate it if you’d take care of your fences and keep your mangy bull away. It costs us money every time he breeds a cow. You got it?”

Anger shot through her veins like a rocket. “I got it.”

“And if I catch that bull on the Southern Cross again, I’ll shoot him. Do I make myself clear?”

“You bag of—”

Harland broke into Coop’s effusive tirade. “Yates, if I catch you on the Southern Cross, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later. Ex-cons aren’t welcome there.” He jerked his reins to turn his horse, but Caitlyn reached out and grabbed them, effectively stopping the horse. And rider.

“What the hell?” the foreman spluttered.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Harland. That gun business works both ways. If Judd Calhoun doesn’t want to see a lot of dead registered cows sprawled on his property, then I suggest you think twice before shooting my bull.”

“Why, you—”

“And if you even look crossways at Cooper, you’re gonna have a whole lot of mad woman coming your way. Got it?”

“Bitch,” Harland muttered, and jerked his horse away.

“Give your boss the message,” she shouted as they rode off her land.

“Damn, Cait.” Coop stared at her with a startled expression. “You can bullshit better than anyone I know.” His eyes narrowed. “Or did you mean that?”

She shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. “Actually, if I had to shoot any living thing, I’d probably throw up.” She lifted an eyebrow. “But I can talk a good game. I did mean what I said about you, though.” She turned her horse. “Now let’s go get ol’ Boss before he gets us into any more trouble.”

They’d named the bull Boss because he fought every bull that came within his chosen territory. He liked having the cream of the crop, and usually that included their neighbor’s cows.

Caitlyn and Cooper crossed onto Judd’s ranch through the broken barbed wire, and found the bull easily, smack-dab in the middle of a herd of high-class registered cows. He was busy sniffing every animal in sight.

“This could prove to be a little difficult,” Coop said, pulling up alongside Cait. The two of them watched the two-thousand-pound bull chasing cows. “He’s not going to like having his fun interrupted.”

“Any ideas?” she asked as she caught sight of Harland and his cowboys on the horizon. They were watching, waiting for her to make a fool of herself.

“The old-fashioned way?” Coop suggested.

“Okay.” She knew cattle and she knew horses, and both were unpredictable. Cait wasn’t counting on Boss being docile and following her to High Five. He was in the midst of sealing a thirty-second love affair with a high-priced cow, and he wasn’t going to take their intrusion kindly. “Let’s give our quarter horses a workout. Ready?”

“Yep. Watch those sawed-off horns.”

“I’ll take the left,” Cait said as she meandered into the herd. Coop moved to the right of the bull.

The cows scattered, and as soon as Boss spotted the riders, he swung his head in an agitated manner and pawed at the ground with a you’ll-never-take-me stance. Cait patted Jaz’s neck. “Okay, let’s show him who’s the boss.”

They effectively cut him away from the herd, and Boss wasn’t happy. He charged, but Jaz did her magic, swinging back and forth, not letting him get by. The bull charged the other way, but Coop was there, blocking his path. Boss swung toward Cait again and she let Jaz work the way she’d been trained. The quick moves had Cait on full alert. She had to stay focused and not lose her balance.

As the bull switched gears and charged toward Coop yet again, Caitlyn pulled the Hot-Shot cattle prod from her saddle and rode in and zapped the animal from the rear.

Not liking the sting, Boss spun round and round, snot flying from his nose, and then made a dead run for High Five.

“Hot damn,” Coop shouted. He rode right on the bull’s tail, whooping and hollering.

Jaz was ready to run, too, and Cait had a hard time controlling her. As Jaz pranced around, Cait saw that Judd had joined Harland and the boys. There was no mistaking him. She backed up Jaz with a quick step, thumbed her nose at the watching crowd, then hightailed it for High Five. She didn’t even mind eating Coop’s and Boss’s dust.

“Yee haw,” she cried, just for the hell of it, immensely grateful she hadn’t made a fool of herself. Or maybe that was a matter of opinion.

When she caught up with Coop, he was watching Boss refamiliarize himself with the High Five herd, sniffing each cow to make sure he hadn’t missed one while he was rambling.

“That bull has one insatiable appetite.”

“It keeps calves on the ground,” Cait said, trying not to smile. “Now let’s fix that fence.” She turned Jaz and saw the rider coming their way. “Now what?”

Judd, tall and impressive in the saddle, was headed toward her. He rode a magnificent black stallion, as magnificent as the man himself. Both exuded strength, power and a touch of splendor. And she could be suffering from too much sun, because Judd had more of a touch of the devil than of splendor.

“I’m going to get Rufus,” Coop said. “You’re on your own.”

“Gee, thanks.” She nudged her horse forward to meet her neighbor, wiping dust from her mouth with the back of her hand. At that moment she realized what a sight she must look, with dust from her hat to her boots and sweat staining her blouse. She smelled as foul as her horse, and the fact rubbed like a cocklebur against the feminine side of her nature.

“Why are you playing rodeo in my herd?”

“I was told to get my bull out, and that’s what I did.” She kept her voice neutral and didn’t react to his angry tone.

“My boys could have cut him out much easier.” His tone didn’t change.

She rose a bit in the saddle and the leather creaked. “I thought I did a damn good job myself, considering time was of the essence.”

He squinted against the noonday sun. “What do you mean?”

“Harland said he was going to shoot him if I didn’t get him out in a nanosecond. Something about ‘registered cows’ and ‘Judd Calhoun wasn’t pleased.’”

His face tightened into those taut lines she knew so well. “I never said anything about shooting the bull. You have my word he won’t be shot. Just keep the damn animal on your property.”

A quick thank-you rose in her throat, but his last sentence killed the idea like a blast from a shotgun, successfully scattering it to the saner regions of her mind.

“That’s what I’m doing,” she said through clenched teeth.

He motioned over his shoulder. “I’ll have the fence repaired.”

“I can fix the fence.”

“I want it done right and not half-ass.”

Any other time she would have spat holy hell at his high-handedness. But it would take money to repair the fence properly, money she didn’t have. For the sake of High Five she pushed her pride aside. And the weight was heavy. It took her a full minute to nod her head.

He stood in the stirrups and picked up his reins. Suddenly he eased his butt back against the leather, his black eyes holding hers with a gleam she remembered from her younger days—a gleam of playful teasing. Talk about a blast from the past. It was so unexpected it almost knocked her out of the saddle.

“Your blouse is open.”

She glanced down and saw that two snaps were undone, revealing the white lace of her bra. They must have come open when she was bulldogging Boss. Oh, sh…

Raising her eyes to his, she replied, “I know. I like it that way. It’s cooler.”

“It might give Yates the wrong idea.”

“Maybe. But that’s none of your business.”

He inclined his head, and she wondered if he remembered all the times he had undone her blouse, and what had followed afterward. With all the women who’d followed her in his life, she doubted it. But she remembered the tantalizing brush of his fingers and the excitement that had leaped through her—much as it was doing now. Some memories were gold plated and stored in secret places. Why she’d chosen this moment to review them was unclear.

“Enjoy the fresh air.” He kneed the stallion, and the horse responded beautifully, turning on a dime and kicking up dirt. She watched rider and horse until they disappeared into the distance.

Then she slowly snapped her shirt closed.

JUDD GAVE BARON HIS HEAD and they flew through fields of coastal and herds of cattle. They sliced through the wind effortlessly, but no matter how fast the stallion ran, Judd couldn’t outrun the fire in his gut from when he’d looked at Caitlyn.

He shouldn’t feel this way after all these years. How could he hate her and react like this? All he could think about was reaching out and undoing the rest of those snaps, lifting her from the saddle and then sliding with her to the grass. Nothing existed but the two of them, and together they rode to places only lovers knew about….

His hat flew off and he slowed. He turned Baron and headed back for it. Reaching down, he swiped it from the ground. After dusting it off, he galloped toward home. And put every memory of Caitlyn out of his mind. That came easy. He’d been doing it for years.

Over the ridge, Harland and the cowboys were waiting. Judd stopped.

“Get supplies and fix that fence today,” he said to the foreman. “I don’t want that bull back in my herd.”

“You want us to fix the fence?” Harland asked, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

Being second-guessed rubbed Judd the wrong way. Harland questioned too many of his orders, and he wanted it stopped.

“Do you have a problem with that?” he asked, his eyes locking with the other man’s.

“No, sir, but—”

“On the Southern Cross, I’m the boss and what I say goes. If that doesn’t suit you, you’re welcome to leave. Now.”

“C’mon, Judd, I’ve worked here a long time. I just thought Miss Belle should be the one to fix the fence. Her bull broke it.”

“Miss Belle would only patch it. I want it fixed right. In a few months her place will become a part of Southern Cross and I don’t want to have to redo it.”

Harland grinned. “I knew you had a damn good reason. I’ll get the boys right on it.”

“Another thing, and I hope I’m clear about this—do not shoot that bull or any neighbor’s animal that strays onto our property. I don’t do business that way. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir. I was only trying to scare her.”

“Miss Belle doesn’t scare that easily.”

Judd kneed Baron and rode on toward the barn. Nothing scared Caitlyn, except losing High Five. That was her deepest fear and he knew it. Knowing your enemy’s weakness was half the battle. Victory was just a matter of time.

It was his goal, what he’d dreamed about for fourteen years. But as he dismounted, all he could see and think about was her open blouse and the curve of her breast.