Cowboy Seeks Bride (3 page)

It was easy to tell that they were all kin to Dewar. They had the same thick black hair. Sawyer had almost black eyes that looked right into her soul when he nodded. His skin was that lightly toasted color that said there was some Hispanic in his genes. Finn had clear blue eyes, light-colored skin, and a tight smile that said he kept his thoughts close to this heart. Rhett sported a tat of a longhorn on his upper bicep and wore his dark hair pulled back in a short ponytail. Obviously the rebel cousin, his green eyes glittered when he shook hands with her.

Dewar rode up and expertly slid off his horse. His knees weren’t bowed in the least and for that Haley could have choked him and enjoyed watching him turn blue.

“You ready to go back yet? My cell phone still has enough battery power to call Liz, the woman you met back at the ranch. She’ll come rescue you. I still think this is a prank Raylen and Liz is pulling on me because I wouldn’t let her come on the trip with us,” he said.

“Why didn’t Raylen come with you?” Haley asked.

“Because he wouldn’t if Liz couldn’t.” Rhett chuckled.

Haley cocked her head to one side. “And why couldn’t she come? She rides and I bet she cooks.”

Sawyer laughed out loud. “She rides, but she doesn’t cook. We got Coosie to do that for us anyway. We don’t need a woman to cook for us on the trail, and I’m willing to bet a hundred-dollar bill that you don’t last a week before you call your people to come get you.”

“I don’t cook either, so if anything happens to Coosie, don’t expect me to do his job. And honey, don’t bet money you haven’t got because I will take it away from you with a smile on my face,” Haley said.

“We planned on this being a…” Dewar stopped without completing the sentence.

“A boys’ clubhouse with no girls allowed?” Haley asked.

He held out his phone. “Something like that.”

Haley’s chin jacked up a full inch. “I’ll stay.”

“Well, you got until tomorrow morning. That’s when I reckon my cell phone will go dead, lady. What does that
B
in your name really stand for anyway?”

“I told you, it stands for bitch,” she said.

Sawyer chuckled. “I believe it and that bet is still on, lady. You leave, you shell it out. You stay all the way up to the time when you get back in that cute little sports car and I’ll hand it over.”

“I asked a simple question. What’s the
B
for?” Dewar said.

Her skin tingled just listening to Dewar’s deep twangy drawl. Sawyer’s was just as deep and twangy, but it didn’t send the vibes to her soul like Dewar’s did.

“And I answered it, Mr. O’Donnell.” Haley pointed at Sawyer. “Bet is on, darlin’. But let’s make it interesting. Let’s up the ante that says you can’t run me off.”

Sawyer shook his head. “Hundred dollars is enough of a bet for me, lady.”

Dewar took a step closer to her. “Name is Dewar. Mr. O’Donnell is my granddad on my father’s side.”

“Well, I don’t like Dew-Are so I’m going to call you Dewy. It sounds like someone is trying to ask for Scotch whiskey to me. Why would your mama name you after something that comes in a liquor bottle anyway?”

“If you call me Dewy, there will be a war and, darlin’, I will win. My mama named me that because she’s real fond of Dewar’s White Label and it’s a good old Irish name,” he growled.

“I wouldn’t call him that if I was you,” Rhett drawled.

Haley turned her head slightly to look at him.

“I heard about this guy who came on to him in a bar and called him Dewy Darlin’.” Rhett grinned.

“That never happened. It’s just a rumor.” Dewar blushed.

Haley turned back to Dewar. “Leave me alone about my middle name and I’ll call you Dewar and I’ll even say it right.”

Dewar stuck out his hand. “Deal.”

The effect of his bare skin touching hers sent shock waves through her body. It really was going to be a helluva long thirty days, and she was going to have to curb her imagination because that tingle was exactly what she imagined the heroine in Cheryl’s book feeling like when the hero touched her.

Dewar raised a gloved hand and called a halt to the ride as the sun drifted toward the treetops on the western horizon. The cattle and horses had free rein in a sixty-acre pasture split down the middle by Flat Creek. It was little more than a shallow gully filled with spring rainwater, but it would water the livestock and it wouldn’t be too tough to cross the next morning.

Haley slid off the horse and untied the saddlebags.

“Let m-m-me help you,” Buddy said.

“Thank you.” Her voice sounded tired even in her own ears.

Together, they removed the saddle and blanket from Apache’s back, brushed him well, and turned him out to graze with the cattle.

When they finished she turned around to find that the cowboys had already staked out a claim for bedrolls and settled their saddles at one end to use as a pillow. She looked around at the circle they were making around the campfire. Coosie and Buddy were on the east side with the foot of their bedrolls toward the fire. The chuck wagon was on the south, and the O’Donnell cousins were lined up on the west. Dewar had rolled out his bed under a weeping willow at the edge of the gully on the north side of the camp.

The aroma of whatever Coosie was cooking caught up in the evening breeze and floated right to Haley’s nose. According to what she’d overheard the guys talking about, they were only a couple of miles south of Ryan. She pushed her hat back and looked toward the west into the setting sun. Was it really the twenty-first century? She felt as if crawling up on Apache’s back had triggered a time lapse. She had settled into the saddle and in that instant, she was suddenly thrown backwards more than a hundred years. Should that be a tagline for the reality show? Can today’s people endure what their ancestors did right after the Civil War?

She heard a rumbling off to the west and squinted into the setting sun. She didn’t see a single cloud, so where was the thunder coming from?

“It’s not thunder. It’s the trains traveling north and south on the tracks parallel to Highway 81,” Dewar said.

How had he known what she was thinking? Lord, if he could read her mind, she ought to put a hood over her head with only slits to see through.

“Sounds like thunder,” she said.

“Sure does. Made me check for lightning too.”

Thank God! She wasn’t looking forward to a hood, and yet there was no way she could control her crazy thoughts.

She nodded. Day one of thirty was finished. She wondered what the reality crew would do with that first day. Would they all be moaning and groaning about sore butt muscles and legs that didn’t want to straighten out? She tried to imagine the contestants going about driving a herd of cattle with cameras pointed at them.

“What are you thinking about? Where to throw that bedroll?” Dewar asked.

“No, I was thinking about the first day of the reality show.”

“They’ll be thinking they were crazier than drunk roosters to sign on for such a trip. I can’t begin to imagine this trip with all the lights, cameras, and action stuff,” he answered.

“Me either.” She pointed toward the ground. “Is this spot taken?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Not the one where your bedroll is but this one I’m standing on. You got a problem with me being this close to you?”

“I snore,” he said.

“So do I.” She threw her bedroll down and paid careful attention to the way it was tied and rolled so she could put it back the same way. Buddy had helped her unsaddle Apache and in his slow stuttering way had refreshed her lessons the riding coach had given her all those years ago.

“Is every day going to be more just like this one?” she asked.

Dewar nodded. “If you are lucky. After the excitement of getting started wears off, your contestants will be bored. Put that in your notes. Fightin’ boredom was a problem during the real Chisholm Trail days and it will be with your fake one. It’s another twenty-nine days and they’ll all be basically just alike. I can’t imagine how you’re going to keep the viewers entertained for a whole season. Only exciting thing I can think of is that you’ll face coyotes, snakes, and rain that swells the rivers and makes crossing tough,” he answered.

“During the real trail drive there were saloons and brothels along the way,” she reminded him.

“Good luck finding even an old empty building where those were. Of course, you could get the film crew to come on ahead of you and build a movie set with a brothel or a saloon,” he said.

“Sounds like a great idea, but we really want this to be as real as possible, so I don’t see that happening. Wouldn’t it be something if I did find an old brothel still standing, though? Or the building where an old saloon once stood? Man, that would make for some real good footage.” She pulled a notepad out of her saddlebags and started writing.

***

Using his saddle for a pillow, Dewar leaned back and stretched his long legs. The woman was crazy if she thought she could control coyotes and rattlesnakes so her reality show would be more exciting. Those things just happened and were totally out of her control no matter what she wrote down.

He could imagine her writing that the first few days would be getting used to the saddle. Coyotes would appear pretty early in her notes. Rain would pour down in buckets at least once, even if it was hot summertime. Hell, she might even think she could make it snow right there in August just by writing it down. Boy did she have a lot to learn about nature.

How could he have been so stupid not have asked to talk to H. B. on the phone? If he’d heard her smooth southern voice, he would have known he was talking to a woman. There wasn’t a man alive that had a voice like hers. But nothing could be redone and everything was in motion. He didn’t have to like it, but he did have to put up with her because her father, Carl Levy, was footing the bill for the whole trial run.

Earlier in the year he had scouted the route as near to the Chisholm Trail as possible, gotten all the permissions to cross landowners’ property, and cut fences where he had to, and figured out where the best places to make camp were located. Not one single time had he thought about taking a woman with him.

When she had fallen flat on her back, he figured she’d dust off her ass, get back in that cute little car, and throw her smelly shoes out the window, but something changed when she went into the barn to take off that fancy black suit. She’d left a businesswoman with an attitude; she’d come back a woman with a purpose and that was by far scarier than a woman with an attitude.

He slid a sideways glance toward her, sitting not six feet from him hunched over a spiral notebook, pen in hand, and writing as fast as she could. When had she braided her hair? She had arrived that morning with it floating on her shoulders and now she sported short braids with hair poking out at every twist. Her jeans were fairly new and hung low on her hips. The jacket she’d worn out of the barn was tied around her waist by the arms. A knit shirt stretched tightly over a big chest. Not Dolly Parton style, but top-heavy on that small frame. Her face was round and reminded him of someone.

Surely he hadn’t met her. She’d been surprised when she looked up at him sitting on his big black stallion and he’d damn sure never forget a redhead that looked like Haley. But there was surely something familiar about that face. His brow furrowed into deep lines and he shut his eyes tightly trying to remember where he had seen her.

Instead of an instant memory of having seen her at a rodeo or in a bar, a song played in his mind—Jo Dee Messina singing “Because You Love Me.”

“That’s it!” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. I was just thinking,” he said without opening his eyes.

Her face was a little rounder, the planes on her cheeks not nearly as defined, but the eyes, the mouth, the smile, and the hair color were very similar to Jo Dee’s. He wondered if Haley had a singing voice. He sat up with the song still running through his mind on a continuous loop and glanced at her. Yep, she might not be Jo Dee’s sister, but she could definitely pass for a cousin.

“What’s for supper?” she asked.

“That’s up to the cook. Coosie makes whatever he feels like cooking and we eat it. That’s the way of the job. It’s plain trail food, nothing fancy. You sure you’re up to a whole month of it?” Dewar asked.

“Why did you hire Coosie to do the cooking, anyway?”

“Because until Lucy went to work over at the Double Deuce Ranch he was the cook and he’s good at what he does. You won’t starve,” Dewar said defensively.

She put up a palm, pen stuck between two fingers. “Hey, I’m not bitchin’ so don’t attack me. I’m just asking, making conversation I guess. I can’t remember the last time I spent a whole day without saying ten words to anyone.”

“You said more than ten words to me at dinnertime,” he told her.

She narrowed her green eyes into slits and set her wide mouth into a firm line. “Why are you fighting with me? I’ll stay out of your way and keep my notes. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

“Just make sure that you do.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t have to worry a bit about me getting in your way.”

He detected a bit of a different accent. Not totally Texan, southern, but not Deep South. “Where are you from?”

“Dallas.”

“Originally? Were you born there?”

“Yes, I was, but my mother is from Louisiana. Down in the Cajun country,” she said.

Before he could say anything else, she uncrossed her legs, rolled up on her knees, and slowly stood up. Her walk as she headed toward the chuck wagon was positive proof that she wasn’t used to riding all day. It was far different than the cute little wiggle she’d had when she stormed off to the barn to change clothes earlier that morning.

Sawyer squatted down at the edge of Dewar’s bed and groaned. “Damn! I’d forgotten how much it hurts the first day.”

“So did I,” Dewar said.

“You tell her that?”

Dewar chuckled. “I did not! You notice the difference in the way she’s walkin’?”

“Oh, yeah. Pretty woman. Sexy walk any way she does it. Little too old for me or I’d be doin’ some sweet-talkin’. Is that what you were doin’ before she left?”

“Not me. She’s not ranch material and I don’t waste my time on hard-core businesswomen. Work and pleasure don’t mix, anyway. I’ll find a woman when I get back home. I’m ready to settle down, but it won’t be with a big city gal.”

Sawyer stood up and moaned again. “Hurts sitting. Hurts standing. I’ll have blisters on my ass by the end of the week.”

“You aren’t getting any sympathy from me, feller,” Dewar said.

“Maybe I’ll go see if Haley will feel sorry for me.”

“If I remember right your woman wasn’t so happy about you being gone for a whole month. You want to tell her all about that redhead massaging your sore ass when you get home?”

Sawyer chuckled. “She
was
pretty pissed. There’s something about goin’ back in history to herd cattle and eat trail food that a woman just doesn’t understand. She’d throw a tantrum if she knew a woman was on the drive. I swore to her that it was for guys only.”

Dewar nodded seriously. “Amen to women not understanding. I’m not so sure I would have taken the job if I’d known H. B. was a woman.”

Coosie rang the dinner bell and everyone gathered around the back of the chuck wagon. While everyone else took care of cattle and horses, he’d set beans to boiling, made biscuits, and fried an enormous skillet of potatoes. He handed each person a tin plate and a spoon and set a tub of soft margarine and a jar of plum jelly on the worktable that dropped down from the back of the chuck wagon and propped on a single leg.

Sawyer stepped aside and motioned for Haley to go first.

“Thank you,” she said.

Dewar watched her expression when Coosie removed the lids and carried them to the wagon. She didn’t flinch or snarl her nose, which was a good sign. She broke a biscuit in half, dipped the ladle deep into the pot, and covered her bread with beans. Somewhere in her background there were country people who had been raised on a farm or a ranch. City slickers did not eat their beans like ranch hands.

***

Haley sat up so quick that it made her dizzy. If the wind rustled last year’s leaves lying on the ground, she heard it. If one of the cowboys groaned in his sleep, she thought someone was breaking into her apartment. She tuned out the hoot owls and strained her ears toward the cattle.

It wasn’t bawling cows or even a disgruntled rangy old bull that had awakened her that time. It was voices—low whispers just across the barbed wire fence to the east of the campsite. She pulled on her boots and cocked her head to one side. There were people out there among the cows, and she intended to find out what they were doing.

Dewar had set his rifle against the tree behind their bedrolls when he tossed his saddle down for the night. She eyed it for a split second before she picked it up and eased through the mesquite until she saw the pickup truck with a cattle trailer behind it on the other side of the barbed wire.

She had no idea if the rifle was loaded or not. The only gun she’d ever shot was her cousin’s BB gun, and that had been twenty years before. But by damn, she was the queen of bluff and those sneaky little shits were not stealing one of their cows. There were two of them, a tall one with blond hair that shined in the moonlight and a shorter one with dark hair and a white T-shirt that glared just as brightly as Mr. Blond’s hair did.

“How many you think we can get?” the taller one asked.

“Two or three anyway, and I got a kid over in Grady who’ll buy them from us for a hundred dollars apiece,” the other one answered.

She popped the gun up on her shoulder like she knew what she was doing and said in a loud voice, “You boys really want to try that?”

Their hands shot straight up in the air and they fell down to the earth on their knees in the middle of the milling cows. She hoped they were on the verge of pissing their pants when she stepped out into the moonlight, rifle still on her shoulder.

“Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot! You might kill a cow.”

“I’d rather kill a rustler,” she said.