The Lies Uncovered Trilogy (Books 4, 5, and 6 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (50 page)

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Thanks so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed
Bittersweet Return
. If you did, I'd love for you to:

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Bittersweet Return
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www.patriciawatters.com

Read the first three chapters of
Cross Purposes
, Book 7 in my Dancing Moon Ranch Series, in which Ryan Hansen ventures away from the Dancing Moon Ranch and signs on at the Kincaid Ranch in southeast Oregon, where he butts horns with Annie Kincaid, daughter of the ranch owner.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
: For those who missed reading
JUSTIFIED DECEPTION
, the Prequel to the Dancing Moon Ranch Series, now could be a good time to catch up. Annie Kincaid was abducted when she was two years old, and it took her mother four years to find her. In
JUSTIFIED DECEPTION
you'll read about Ruth and Matt Kincaid's bumpy start in which Ruth suspects that Matt's 6-year-old daughter, Annie, is Ruth's own little Beth. Then you can jump ahead fifteen years to
CROSS PURPOSES
, in which 21-year-old Annie butts horns with Ryan Hansen from the Dancing Moon Ranch. Here's the link to
JUSTIFIED DECEPTION
on
Amazon
.

CROSS PURPOSES
STORY DESCRIPTION: Annie Kincaid's a wild horse advocate. Ryan Hansen's a bronco buster. The fact that Annie's father hired Ryan to oversee the trail horses and take guest ranch visitors on trail rides definitely doesn't sit well with Annie. She's had her fill of hot-shot cowboys who think life's all about busting, breaking or bulldogging, and of all the Hansen boys from the Dancing Moon Ranch, Ryan's the cockiest of the bunch. Ryan also has a lot to learn about managing Annie Kincaid. In the past he's had no problem attracting women, but now he wants the one woman who'll take special handling. But in the process, Annie also learns something about Ryan she never could have imagined, something that has her taking a second look.

PROLOGUE

Dancing Moon Ranch, Sheridan, Oregon

Annie Kincaid stood with her parents at the wedding reception for Jack and Grace Hansen’s son Marc, while listening to Jack Hansen rattle off a litany of reasons why his next son in line, Ryan—who at the moment was at the food table, sandwiched between two women who were flirting and hanging off him like a set of drapes—would be suited for the position of managing the herd of Kincaid Ranch horses and leading guests on trail rides. But from the anxious look on Grace Hansen's face, as her husband praised the glory of their son, Annie sensed that the woman wasn't in agreement with her husband about sending off one of her sons.

Annie knew that look because she'd seen it on her own mother's face when anyone brought up the subject of her only child one day leaving the nest. It had never been a real issue though, because she'd never had the desire to be anywhere but on the Kincaid Ranch. Obviously Jack Hansen saw a need for his son to cut the ties and go off on his own…

"Ryan has a natural ability with horses," Jack Hansen continued. "He works with our most unmanageable ones and has them settled and ready for greenhorn riders in no time. There's a running joke around here that Ryan never has trouble with horses because he always knows what to do just before the horse decides." As he said the words, Jack’s eyes narrowed in irritation as he watched the woman on Ryan’s left take an olive on the end of her finger, poke it into Ryan's mouth and withdraw her finger slowly from between Ryan’s lips. Ryan winked at her while he chewed, but after swallowing he said something that made the woman laugh in a way that led Annie to believe it was off color because the woman gave Ryan a playful swat on the arm.

Annie’s dad, who had his back to Ryan and wasn’t watching the absurd interaction, said to Jack, "He sounds like the man I’m looking for. Our riding horses are trail wise but I want a skilled handler to deal with inexperienced riders when a horse spooks."

Jack threw his shoulders back in a way that reminded Annie of a proud peacock, and said, "Ryan makes a point of spending time with the greenhorns before they set out. He also connects well with people."

Annie’s dad glanced around just as the woman on Ryan’s right brushed Ryan’s lips with the pad of her index finger, which Ryan playfully nipped. "Yeah, he doesn’t seem to have a problem connecting," Matt Kincaid said, with irony.

Annie hoped
that
would convince her father that Ryan Hansen should not be the one to lead the daughters of ranch guests into the back country or anywhere else. In fact, of all the sons of Grace and Jack Hansen, Ryan was the one Annie
least
wanted working for her dad. He’d be around the stables and in the vicinity of the house all the time, and she could think of nothing she’d hate more than having to watch him on a daily basis, strutting around, flexing his muscles.

Jack, who looked pretty ticked with what his son was doing at the moment, said in an almost apologetic voice, "He’s really not a womanizer, but women seem to gravitate toward him because he’s made a name for himself in the rodeo circuit by taking championships in bull riding and bronco busting."

La di da
, Annie almost said aloud. She also noted that Ryan had removed the jacket he’d worn during the wedding ceremony, and since his western shirt was tight around his biceps, every move he made seemed choreographed to show off his muscles in Mr. America like poses—arm curls while bringing ham rolls and cheese puffs to his mouth, body twists while reaching around to retrieve tea sandwiches…

Annie’s dad draped his hand against the back of Annie’s mother’s neck, and said, "Ruth’s been wanting to set up overnight horseback campouts for months, but even if I could spare one of my men, they aren't willing, so I haven’t pushed it."

"Ryan’s been taking guests on overnights for years," Jack said. "He’s as comfortable in a sleeping bag surrounded by ranch guests as he is in his own bedroom."

Annie couldn’t help jumping into the conversation. "We have rattlesnakes and wood ticks," she said. "They crawl into sleeping bags at night. You don’t have them in this part of Oregon." Although she was addressing Jack Hansen with that tidbit of information, it was intended to get his wife's attention so she'd put pressure on her husband to keep their miracle boy safe and sound on the Dancing Moon Ranch.

Jack Hansen eyed Annie curiously, as if he’d been so consumed with talking about the great and wondrous Ryan that he hadn’t noticed she was there. "We’ve all spent time east of the mountains and we take snakes and ticks into account."

Annie glanced at Ryan, who was holding up a glass of wine she presumed came from the ranch’s Whispering Springs Winery stock, while saying something to the women, both of whom seemed to be clinging to his every word. Then he took a sip of wine, rolled it around his mouth like he was a wine connoisseur, and swallowed. Smiling at the woman on his right, he tipped the glass toward her. She took a sip, all the while holding Ryan’s gaze over the rim of the glass.

And Annie had to fight the urge to dash over and accidentally bump Ryan, sending the crimson contents of the glass splashing across the front of him. Returning her focus to Jack Hansen, she said, "Your son seems to like wine, which none of the guys at the ranch drink, and the nearest pub’s almost twenty miles away."

Her dad looked at her with brows drawn, like he was trying to figure out what she was up to, then turned to Jack, who also seemed a bit puzzled by her comment, and said, "We always have cold beer available for the men, and they’re free to keep wine in the refrigerator in the bunkhouse or go to the pub in Pine Grove after quitting time."

"Ryan’s not much of a drinker," Jack said, again in a slightly apologetic tone. "A cold beer or two at the end of a hard day does it for him."

Annie glanced over at Ryan again and was startled to find him staring at her, even ignoring the woman on his left, who was running her hand up his arm while saying something to him. But he didn’t seem to catch what the woman was saying because his gaze remained fixed on her, as it had been during a good part of the wedding ceremony, she’d noticed. She didn’t flatter herself into thinking he’d singled her out as the woman of his dreams, but suspected he was trying to work his macho male magic on her in order to expand his circle of female groupies.

Before breaking from the circle, Jack Hansen said to Annie's dad, "I’ll get Ryan and bring him over so you can talk to him some and ask him any questions you want." As Jack turned to walk away, Grace Hansen broke from the group and caught up with him, and Annie noticed her talking to her husband like she wanted him to reconsider sending Ryan away, and Jack patting his wife's hand like it would be okay.

Taking the opportunity to address what was foremost on her mind, Annie said to her father, "Ryan Hansen is so full of himself, Dad. Can’t you hire one of his brothers instead?"

"I’m looking for the most competent man for the job," Matt replied, "and from the way Jack Hansen talks, Ryan’s it. He also looks like he’d be good with guests. Like his father said, he’s certainly personable."

"Studs are always personable when they’re trying to mount a mare… well, two mares in this case," Annie said to her dad.

Matt eyed Annie in amusement, as he said, "Honey, just don’t send him packing too soon. The men have been griping for weeks about being stuck leading guests on trail rides, and Ryan Hansen’s right for the job."

"But his brothers are just as capable," Annie countered. "We’re not talking about scaling steep mountain trails and swimming the horses through rivers."

"But Ryan’s the only one who wants to strike out on his own right now," Jack replied.

Annie suspected she wouldn’t get her way this time, but sensing that her mother shared her feelings about Ryan, and hoping she might be able to convince her dad to give it more thought, she said, "You don’t much like him either do you, Mom?"

Ruth shrugged, and replied, "He is the most qualified. And I agree with your dad that he’s personable, and not just with those women. I saw him mingling and talking to several of the older guests earlier and they all clearly liked him."

Annie gave a kind of disgruntled snort and said to her dad, "Well, if he’s going to be the pick of the litter, I vote we offer week-long horseback campouts that take him a long way from the ranch. Maybe he’ll fall off a mesa or something."

She glanced to where Jack Hansen was obviously telling Ryan to come over and talk to her dad because Jack was gesturing in their direction, and Ryan was looking their way and nodding, but when the men started walking toward them, Annie said to her parents, "I’ll be outside when you’re ready to go," then turned and left the lodge.

Harney County was filled with cocky, hotshot, bronco-busting cowboys like Ryan Hansen and she intended to spend as little time as possible with him. In fact, no time at all from now until eternity would suit her just fine.

CHAPTER 1

Pete's Pub - Pine Grove, Oregon – 3 weeks later

Ryan Hansen lifted a frosty mug from the bar top, took a long draft of beer, and strolled to the back of the room. Leaning against the wall, he scanned the folks in the pub, mostly weathered, work-hardened wranglers from ranches in the area, along with several women who seemed to be enjoying the company of the men. Since he was soon to be the new kid on the block at the Kincaid Ranch, he decided to check out the locals and maybe get a glimpse of what they thought of Matt Kincaid and his operation before heading out there. The Kincaid Ranch was spread over more than twenty-five-hundred acres, much of it prairie and high-desert rangeland, and Kincaid had three regular wranglers who'd been with him for years, so Ryan knew he'd be tested by the men to see what kind of stuff the rookie wrangler was made of. He hoped they'd match him up with the orneriest, most ill-tempered bronc on the ranch. That, he could handle.

While he watched, he couldn't help overhearing a lively exchange between three men at a nearby table who, from the gist of the conversation and the emblems on their hats and khaki shirts, were helicopter pilots. They were talking about some kind of upcoming wild horse roundup, but he also heard the words,
Kincaid's daughter
, bantered about, accompanied by hoots and guffaws, and wondered what Annie Kincaid would have had to do with any of the men. He didn't know much about her, other than she'd come to the ranch with her parents on several occasions, the first time being a couple years back when the Kincaids were considering opening their ranch to guests and wanted to see how the Dancing Moon managed theirs. It was the weekend of the big rodeo and he'd just won the bull riding competition and returned to the ranch pretty excited, only to have the sight of Annie Kincaid catch his notice and take his mind off rodeos. He'd attempted to make contact with her, but Annie stuck close to her parents. The Kincaids came again a few months later to buy riding horses, and again the following summer, when they managed to hit another rodeo weekend in which he'd taken first in bronco riding, and as it was the times before, Annie stayed close to her parents.

The last time they came was the day of Marc and Kit’s wedding, the same day Matt Kincaid hired him. But what caught his notice each time he saw Annie Kincaid was that she had the face of an angel—big innocent blue eyes, child-like features with softly rounded cheeks, well-defined lips that arched in high peaks and tipped up at the corners, reminding him of angel wings—the kind of face you find on a china doll...

An older wrangler, who'd been standing across the room, walked over to where he stood and said, "You're new here. Are you passing through or did you hire on somewhere around here?"

"I hired on," Ryan replied. "I'll be working at the Kincaid Ranch."

The voices in the immediate vicinity died, and Ryan realized most eyes were on him. Scanning the faces, he said, "Is there something I'm missing?"

"You been out to the Kincaid yet?" the older wrangler asked.

"No," Ryan replied. "Kincaid hired me from my father's ranch. Why?"

"They're having a few problems out there right now," the older wrangler said.

The pub became animated with ironic snorts and laughter.

Ryan scanned the amused faces. "What kind of problems?" he asked.

"Problems like Kincaid's daughter," a younger wrangler called out.

Ryan looked at the man who'd spoken, and who was sitting at a table with three other cowboys, and said, "I take it you know her."

The man gave a short guffaw. "Every wrangler around here knows Annie Kincaid."

The other men at the table laughed, like it was an inside joke.

"Not only the wranglers," one of the helicopter pilots called out.

Ryan eyed the helicopter pilot, who had a wry smile on his lips, which Ryan assumed meant he'd screwed Annie, as it appeared most of the men in the pub had. It bothered him, not so much that Annie liked to sleep around, but that he hadn't picked up on it. He was usually pretty good at sizing up women, but it seemed he'd been dead wrong this time. He conjured up the image of her sitting sedately with her parents during the wedding ceremony and couldn't seem to connect her angel face and poised demeanor with the woman the men were describing. "Does Matt Kincaid by any chance have more than one daughter?" he asked, while scanning the faces of the men.

"Nope, just Annie," one of the wranglers replied. "About now he's probably thanking his lucky star she's the only one."

"Amen!" another man said, with a snicker.

Ryan considered that maybe Annie Kincaid could be a fringe benefit he hadn't counted on—a warm female body in his bed to make up for the isolated existence of working at the Kincaid. "Then I take it Kincaid's daughter's a hot little number," he ventured, while imagining Annie in a whole new light. He hadn't missed the shape of her either, filled out in all the right places. If she was also a lively one in bed, all the better.

One of the helicopter pilots gave a short guffaw. "Yeah, Kincaid's daughter's hot all right. Get within three feet of her and you'll get burned, if you don't get kicked in the nuts first."

Okay, so apparently she didn't sleep around, Ryan surmised, but the sweet pretty angel face still didn't fit the image of a woman who’d kick guys in the nuts.

Deciding it wouldn't serve him well to engage in a discussion about the daughter of his new boss, he finished his beer, set his mug on the bar top, and said, "It's been nice talking to you men. I'll probably be seeing you again soon."

As he started for the door, the older wrangler called out, "Good luck, son."

Ryan wasn't sure, but as he headed for his truck, and the final eighteen miles of his trip, he suspected that luck was exactly what he'd be needing, very soon.

Pete's was located just on the edge of town, so before heading out to the ranch, Ryan made a pass through Pine Grove, a town that looked as if it had been caught in a time warp. Laid out around a courthouse square, it didn't take long to see the whole place. The courthouse, which included the police department, tax office and city records, as noted on the front of the building, was brick, with a bank of concrete steps leading up the center. And across the street from it was the post office, also of brick and looking like it hadn't had upgrades since it was built a century ago. Moving around the square was a small hotel,
The Pine Grove Gazette
newspaper building, a barber shop about the size of a single car garage, a small bank, a few one-room-wide businesses that included the Pine Grove Realty, an attorney, a chiropractor, the High Desert Hairdressers, Papa Joe's Pizza and a few other businesses that didn't register as Ryan drove past.

Down a side street he spotted a church, and another one a couple of blocks further, and a third at the dead end of street. With three churches holding a town with a population of just over three thousand accountable, he couldn't imagine things getting too out of hand on weekends, except that in addition to the churches were Pete's and a couple of taverns, which could make things a little rowdy if the local boys got to drinking heavily.

On leaving town he passed a motel that looked like a throwback from the fifties, an air strip lined with hangars, a four-pump gas station, an irrigation, ranch supply and feed store, and probably the most important place in the entire county—the rodeo grounds. Its prominence shown through because, painted on the outside perimeter of the bleachers surrounding the rodeo arena were advertisements of about every business in Harney County. And a huge above the entry billed the rodeo as
THE ROUGHEST, TOUGHEST CONTESTS BETWEEN MEN AND ANIMALS IN THE COUNTRY
. The way Matt Kincaid described, the town
exploded
into over eight-thousand the weekend of the rodeo, which Ryan interpreted as the entire county camping in fields surrounding the rodeo grounds or living out of campers on the backs of their pickups. It was pretty much the same for the St. Paul Rodeo, a yearly event in a sleepy little town a short drive from the Dancing Moon. But whereas Pine Grove boasted
the roughest, toughest contests in the country
, St. Paul was one of an elite group of eight rodeos attracting the top competitors in the world, with prize monies approaching a half-million-dollars and nearly a thousand competitors. He was right in there among the competitors, with his scores moving up each year.

He let out a little chuckle. Maybe next year he'd kick butt with the cowboys from Harney County and see just how rough and tough they were…

Twenty minutes later, as he neared the road that would take him to the Kincaid Ranch, what caught Ryan’s notice was what appeared to be an assemblage of people and vehicles occupying a wide area just off the main road and on both sides of the gravel road leading to the ranch. Beyond the gathering were the upright timbers and cross beam of the Kincaid gateway, which would undoubtedly have the Kincaid inscription and KR brand carved into its cross timber. Since the ranch was eighteen miles from Pine Grove, or from much of anything else except for a few ranches that encompassed thousands of acres, it seemed odd that people would be gathered in the middle of nowhere.

They're having a few problems out there right now...

Seems like some of what he'd heard at the pub was true. What Annie Kincaid had to do with it he'd probably soon find out.

As he drew nearer, he saw that the area was filled with encampments, some with large weather-worn tents that looked lived-in, a hippy van with peace signs and camouflage paint and numerous save the everything-or-anything stickers, and several tents that looked new, as if they'd just come out of cartons, one encampment even having a late model Lexus parked beside it. The
'cause'
that seemed to link the diverse group was evident from the signs several of them held reading, SAVE THE WILD HORSES, and FIRE THE BLM, and NO MORE HELICOPTERS.

A couple of women, also holding signs, and a bearded middle-aged man with a pony tail and arms covered in tattoos, who stood blocking the entrance to the Kincaid, flagged Ryan down as he turned off the main road and drew near. When Ryan stopped, the man with the pony tail peered through the window and said, "Are you a guest here?"

"Would that be a problem?" Ryan asked, deciding to stay neutral. Being the new wrangler at the Kincaid could get him bombarded with eggs, though the dissimilar crowd didn't look inflammatory.

"It's not a problem if you don't care about saving our wild horses," the man with the pony tail said. "Senator Kincaid doesn't get the picture and we're trying to change that."

"Senator Kincaid?" Ryan asked, puzzled. He thought Matt Kincaid was a rancher.

"The brother of the man who owns this ranch," the man said. "We've been trying to get Senator Kincaid to lobby the Bureau of Land management to stop the helicopter roundups of wild horses, but so far he's ignored us because his brother's right in there with the rest of the ranchers, so we're trying to get Senator Kincaid's attention by warning guests that if they stay at the Kincaid Ranch they're aiding and abetting the BLM horse slaughterers."

…stop the helicopter roundups of wild horses…

So the helicopter pilots at Pete's were apparently working for the BLM, Ryan figured. He didn't like the idea of landing in the middle of an animal activist protest, but since Matt Kincaid was on the opposite side of the issue, and Kincaid was his boss, he'd better take that side as well, at least as long as he intended to work for the guy. "I'll keep it in mind," he said.

The ponytailed man moved away from the truck, and the women stepped back, and Ryan's truck rumbled across the cattle guard as he drove beneath the Kincaid gateway. He followed a road that was bordered on one side by rangeland made up of sagebrush and prairie grass, and dotted with Kincaid's reddish-brown Angus-Hereford cross cattle, and on the other side by hills that rose sharply above a winding stream, forming buttes and high mesas.

On continuing around a bend in the road, he caught sight of a white pickup barreling toward him, which he noticed, moments later, was being driven by a woman. As the truck flew past, he was enveloped in a cloud of dust that had him pulling to the side to let it dissipate some. But from the glimpse of ash-blond hair whipping around the woman's head as she passed, he wondered if it might have been Annie Kincaid. The way the men at the pub talked, it sounded like she'd be up to the job of clearing out a bunch of protestors, though the men might be walking bowlegged when she finished. Pulling back onto the road he continued on.

A few minutes later, what stood out from a distance was the stable—a huge red building that probably stabled upwards of three dozen horses. Trail rides at the Dancing Moon usually meant leading no more than a dozen guests, and he'd been fine with that, but leading a string of riders that stretched behind him a half mile suddenly took on reality. When Kincaid mentioned he’d be expected to lead large groups on occasion, he hadn’t been listening too closely because he’d been scanning the wedding reception for Kincaid’s daughter, who seemed to have disappeared. But seeing the size of the stable, he was getting the message now. Wiping the noses and backsides of a couple dozen city dudes had him reconsidering what he was getting into. But he couldn't deny that getting to know Kincaid’s daughter played a big part in his decision to take a job in the middle of hell and gone. That angel face had called to him over the years.