My Kind of Trouble (4 page)

Buddy treated her like the daughter he never
had, and sometimes she thought their closeness made her daddy a
little jealous. Buddy was about eight years older than her
daddy...that put him near seventy now. He was getting old too. The
Double B would never be the same when he finally retired. And her
daddy wouldn't be able to handle things out here alone.

Sadness crept over her like a dark cloud of
impending doom thinking of that day. This ranch meant everything to
her daddy. He'd be heartbroken if she sold it when he couldn't run
it anymore, but ranching was not the life she wanted, he knew that.
She had a life...in Phoenix, a business to run, one she enjoyed
thoroughly.

But for now, she'd be a rancher. It had been
a long time, but she knew the ropes...mostly. And what she didn't
know, her dad or Bud could fill in for her.

Cassie set the microwave timer then leaned
back against he counter and crossed her arms over her chest. "How
many head of cattle do you have right now?" she asked dreading the
answer. It was calving season now, and soon there'd be twice as
many in their herd, until they were weaned.

"Five hundred or so. About half are
pregnant."

She swallowed hard. That many? How could he
think to run that many at his age? "Daddy, that's a lot of cattle.
Can we sell some off?"

"Not now. We'll have a sale after the calves
are dropped."

"But that will be seven hundred fifty head
then. And trying to watch over the cows birthing all those calves
with only five hands will be nearly impossible. We could probably
sell them as twofers now before the births."

"Lose too much money, Cassie Bee. Just hire
a few more hands to help with the calving. Talk to Bud about it
tomorrow. We need to talk about the cotton we have planted on the
back acreage too. It'll need to be harvested in August, if I'm not
back on my feet by then."

Oh hell. Not only did she have the cattle to
contend with, she had crops. At least that didn't require too much
supervision...and she had two months before she'd have to worry
about it, if at all. Maybe she'd be gone by then. The timer dinged
and she groaned and opened the door to pull out the plate. "How
many acres?"

"Hundred."

Cassie stood up and walked over to put her
dad's plate in front of him with a fork, then put her hands on her
hips. "Wow dad--you sure know how to bite off more than you can
chew."

"I've been chewing that for thirty years,
little girl." He picked up the fork and shoved a sizable bite into
his mouth.

"But you're thirty years older now too, dad.
It's time for you to scale down."

"I know how old I am, Cassie. And I know how
much I can handle. If that damned snake hadn't scared that new
filly I was riding, we wouldn't be having this discussion."

Holy shit, he'd almost been snakebit too?
She shivered. If there was one thing Cassie hated, it was snakes.
Poisonous or not they all slithered and made her skin crawl. "Dad,
really...
a snake
?"

"Yeah, big ole rattler. Scared the bejeesus
outta that filly and she took off and left me behind. Good thing
she's barn sour and ran right back here, or I'd probably still be
out there."

"You're lucky you didn't get bit."

"I had my rifle out aiming to shoot the
damned thing when she bolted. Got off the shot and killed it before
I got thrown."

"Thank God for small favors." She breathed a
sigh of relief and walked back around the counter to put her plate
in the microwave. "Where's the filly? Which one were you
riding?"

"Fiona. Clementine's foal."

Clementine had been his favorite mare, but
her dad had told her at Christmas that she was too old to work
anymore, so they'd bred her a few times and put her out to pasture
a while back. Cassie grabbed two glasses, filled them with ice then
poured a large iced tea for both of them then walked over to hand
him one. "How old is she?"

"Four. Under saddle for less than a year.
She's just green." He dismissed the filly's poor behavior.

"I think we should run her through the
auction next month. We don't need unmanageable horses here. Someone
else could get hurt."

"No." He said and popped another bite of
pasta into his mouth.

"What?" Cassie spun back around to look at
him. "A spooky, barn sour horse that leaves you hurt out in the
field and you don't want to sell her?"

"No--she stays. We'll just get one of the
hands to work with her more."

God, the man could be stubborn. "Dad we only
have five hands and they are all going to be busy working with the
five hundred head of cattle."

"Talk to Bud--tell him to find someone. She
stays."

She added working with that damned filly to
her ever-growing mental to-do list. Cassie had no idea how this was
going to work. There was just too much to do.

The buzzer on the microwave sounded, but she
found she'd lost her appetite, as she pulled her plate out. Sleep
was going to be what she needed. She had a feeling that would be in
short supply for the next month.

A few hours later, after she'd tidied up the
kitchen, and helped her dad to get tucked into bed, Cassie grabbed
her sleep shorts, fresh underwear and a t-shirt and headed to the
bathroom. Her muscles ached from first sitting in the truck for so
long, then her war with the heater hose in the truck. She smelled
to high heaven she knew, and would probably leave a ring in the tub
from the grime that had accumulated on her skin from her unplanned
pitstop on the road.

Cassie ran hot water into the large
claw-foot tub, poured in some bubble bath then stripped naked. She
slid beneath the frothy bubbles and sighed, closing her eyes.
Tomorrow would tell the tale on whether she'd survive the next
month or so. Once she talked to Bud, she hoped he'd have the
answers she needed on how they were going to get through this
farming fiasco.

If Bud didn't have a good solid plan,
whether her Daddy liked it or not, they were going to have a mass
cattle sale and he was going to take the time off he needed to
heal. Maybe they could both go back to Phoenix for that. That was
the ultimate solution to this problem. If she could get Bud to
agree that was the answer, they could gang up on her dad and talk
some sense into him.

***

The smothered chicken, mashed potatoes and
gravy Luke ordered at the Bluebird Cafe tasted like sandpaper in
his mouth. This was his favorite dish, so why wasn't he enjoying it
tonight? To distract himself from thoughts about Cassie Bellamy,
he'd called up Katie Smith, the woman he'd been dating lately and
invited her to supper at the Bluebird. The twenty-five year old
redhead worked on auto-pilot with her non-stop chatter, and
required little input from him to keep a conversation going. He
thought that would be the answer for him tonight, but somehow it
wasn't.

Not even the sight of her full breasts
spilling over the V in the tight bubble-gum pink tank top she wore
could distract him. Everything about the woman sitting across from
him was in technicolor, big breasts, bigger hair and she was bold
as a brass penny. Katie certainly provided enough visual
stimulation to keep most men from thinking of little else but her.
Not him, not tonight. Her endless talk about the latest gossip
she'd heard down at the Cut Up Corral while she got her roots done,
was giving him a headache. Her high-pitched voice, which he usually
found cute, bored inside his skull like a drill.

The events of his fucked-up day kept
spinning in his mind like a tilt-a-whirl. With every rotation, he
got madder and madder. Today, Cassie Bellamy had treated him like
an unwelcome acquaintance, instead of the man she'd dated for a
year and half then left without a word. She'd offered no apology,
no explanation, as to why she'd left Bowie like her tail was on
fire. She acted like she didn't owe him one either, like he didn't
matter, had never mattered to her.

That pretty much cemented the opinion he'd
formed of her after she left. She was a spoiled rich girl who'd
chosen him as her play toy, because of his reputation, to put a
little excitement into her life, until she got bored and went
looking for greener pastures.

He couldn't believe he'd been so blind to
her true nature while they were dating. Evidently, she'd grabbed
his brain along with his dick ten years ago. Well, Luke wasn't
thinking with that part of his anatomy anymore. He was a different
man than the one she'd fooled so many years ago, and he had a
different agenda.

A little revenge might go a long way to
making him feel better. Maybe he'd seduce her then leave her
dangling on the limb, like she'd done him back then. Or maybe he'd
fuck her enough times to get her out of his system. The thought
improved his mood a little.

"Luke? What's up with you tonight, hon?
You're as distracted as a bird dog in a chicken coop."

Luke dropped his fork onto his plate and
looked up into the bright green eyes studying him intently.
"Nothing, sugar...just work," he lied. The last thing he needed was
to discuss Cassie Bellamy with his current quasi-girlfriend.

"You have a bad day, doll?" She smacked the
gum she always seemed to be chewing, and blew a bubble. "Want to
talk about it?"

"Nah, can't do that."

She pursed her cupid's bow mouth, the same
mouth that had fascinated him since she first used it on him, then
she blew out a breath. "You never want to talk to me about your
work."

"I can't talk about it, sugar. I told you
that." Luke picked up his iced tea and took a swallow then absently
rubbed his fingers on the condensation ring where it had been
sitting on the red-checked table cloth.

Katie's lips moved into a pout, and she
twisted a strand of her fiery red hair. She looked about sixteen
with the freckles on her nose. "Come to think about it, there's not
much you do talk to me about...other than sex."

They had nothing in common that's why. She
was as shallow as a birdbath and as chirpy as the birds that swam
there. Perhaps it was time for him to move on from the big-haired,
big-breasted woman he was having dinner with. Three weeks was long
enough to know a fourth wasn't going to improve anything.

Inside of the bedroom their compatibility
might be a ten, but outside? Barely a blip on the scale. Luke
cleared his throat and tried to make it easy. "Listen sugar...I
think it's time for us to move on. I'm holding you back from
finding someone who could really make you happy."

She gasped and raised her multi-ringed hand
to her impressive heaving cleavage. "Why, Luke Matthews, I think
you're dumping me."

Give the lady a prize, she got it on the
first try. "I think it would be the best for both of us to date
other people, sugar. I work so much I hardly have time for you. You
deserve someone who can give you more attention."

"Well, maybe you're right. I do deserve
better, Luke." She stood and pulled down the micro-mini blue jean
skirt that barely covered her round ass then picked up her water
glass and leaned closer to him. His eyes automatically traveled to
her cleavage.

"Go fuck yourself, Luke. Because you
certainly aren't going to be fuc--" she pinched her lips on the
last curse and then tossed the water into his face and slammed the
glass on the table, before spinning on her heel and stomping to the
door.

Okay, that just capped his shitty day. Water
dripped down his hair into his eyes and splotched his shirt. He
reached across the table and pulled several napkins out of the
holder and mopped his face with them. Then he noticed that the
entire diner had become eerily quiet and all eyes were focused on
him.

"Just a misunderstanding folks...please, eat
your dinner." He felt a flush creep up his neck and across his
cheeks and he stood, tossed a few bills on the table then picked up
his Stetson and jammed it on his head as he walked to the door.

This would be all over town tomorrow, he
knew. Luke hated to be the fodder for the town gossip mill. He'd
had years of that with his father. It irritated the shit out of him
to be there again. Not to mention, it made him look like a fool,
because he was Sheriff.

He lived a clean life, kept to himself, and
tried to stay on the straight and narrow. As Sheriff he needed to
keep a low profile. The scene that just played out was not helping
that cause. Maybe he needed to date women from Henrietta, instead
of Bowie. Taking his business out of town might be the answer to
keeping it from spilling out in such a public way.

Dammit, this was all Cassie Bellamy's fault
too. Why the hell had she come back to Bowie now after ten years?
He thought he was way past being angry over her desertion so long
ago. Way past feeling
anything
for her. Evidently, that
wasn't the case, since all he could think about all afternoon, and
now, was
her
.

He'd never admit it, but he was thirty-one
years old and unattached for a reason. The gaping hole she had left
inside of him when she left him ten years ago was still there, as
was the lesson she'd taught him. Women couldn't be trusted. They
were fickle, and flighty. Which explained why he only dated bimbos
these days, so he wasn't tempted to get attached.