The Cattleman's Unsuitable Wife (Wells Cattle Company Book 1)

by Pam Crooks

  He heard the fear in her quick inhalation and couldn’t much blame her for it. He wasn’t in the habit of rough-handling women, but Zurina had long since stopped listening to any reasoning he attempted to make.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled.

  She smacked both palms against his chest and pushed hard to free herself, but Trey held his ground.

  “Is this how a cattleman acts to get what he wants?” she hissed.

  He gripped her shoulders to stop her wriggling. “Only when he’s driven to it.”

  “Get away from me!”

  “Settle down, Zurina. Just listen, will you?”

  No one could see them here behind the cabin, but Trey knew it wouldn’t be long before someone in her family came looking for her. And it sure as hell wouldn’t do for them to see her like this, wedged between him and the back of the cabin against her will.

  But he didn’t move away.

  Not yet.

  “Tell me where you think Mikolas might be hiding out,” he commanded, his voice low to keep from carrying. “Tell me how to get there.”

  “It has been a long time.”

  Which meant what? That she wasn’t sure? That she could lead him on a wild-goose chase when he’d lost too much time already?

  His eyes narrowed. “Try.”

  She glared up at him. “Why should I have you do what I must do for myself?”

  “You have no idea what you’re up against, Zurina.”

  “Mikolas is my brother.”

  “And he’s with a gang who murdered your sheep.”

  She stiffened. Her throat moved, and Trey knew his point hit home. A raw, aching spot deep inside her.

  “Let me go instead,” he rumbled. His grip lessened over her shoulders. “I’ll do this for you.”

  Her eyes latched onto his, as if she struggled to deem him worthy of her trust. Or her hate.

  She studied him so long, so hard, Trey almost forgot why they were here, behind her cabin. Hidden from the men who wanted only to protect her from those they perceived as their enemies.

  Cattlemen, at the top of their lists.

  His body took note of hers, an awareness that had always been there, he suspected. From the moment he first saw her, beside her burned-out wagon. A simmering of his senses that if he wasn’t careful, if he didn’t rein his attraction in, could very easily boil over into something it shouldn’t.

  Like now.

  A slow heat stirred in his groin, and his thigh registered the feel of hers pressed against him. Their shape, slim and toned. Their warmth through her skirt. How they would feel spread and lifted and curled around his hips….

  He shouldn’t be thinking of her like this, but God help him, he was. He had only to move closer, inches closer, to feel the rounded globes of her breasts against his chest. He had only to lower his head….

  Her mouth drew him. More than anything else, it was her mouth. To taste the softness of her lips, to discover their shape, trace them with his tongue, give in to this damned crazy ache to kiss her hard and long and never stop.

  “What are you afraid of, Trey?” she asked.

  Though her voice whispered between them, the sound jarred his burgeoning lust. He needed a moment to focus.

  To think.

  What are you afraid of?

  Afraid?

  Of being left alone with a beautiful woman up at Rogers Pass? Someone besides Allethaire?

  Is that what it was?

  Fear?

  He drew back. Realization turned him cold. Fear of the truth. Maybe. That he didn’t love Allethaire and never would. And it was being with Zurina, just the two of them without the distraction of the posse, that scared the hell out of him.

  Zurina shook up his world, for sure. Turned it crazy sideways. This Basque woman who had no more a part in his life than he had in hers.

  She was different from Allethaire. That’s all. Just different. So she intrigued him. Made him want her in ways he shouldn’t. Lusty, blood-warming, forbidden ways.

  But she made him determined to protect her, too. She inspired in him a need to help her and Gabirel, to right the wrongs done to them both.

  “Trey?”

  Zurina repeated his name with that same whisper in her voice. Damn, he loved the sound of it. Sultry and easy. As if she’d spoken his name a thousand times before. Intimate as a lover’s.

  His brain cleared. His senses sharpened. He eased his grip over her shoulders.

  Her hands still lay against his chest, but they didn’t seem so determined to push him away. Not anymore. Instead, they rested with gentle familiarity, as if they belonged there. Close to his heart.

  Hell.

  If being afraid got him to feeling poetic, too, then he’d best get to facing his fears head-on, beat them down to a pulp, and get on with his life. . . so Zurina could get on with hers.

  “Only thing I’m afraid of, sweetheart, is not finding that brother of yours,” he drawled, though a hard edge had crept into his voice. “If you’re going to help me do it, then you’d best mount up in a hurry.” His mouth quirked at the irony. “Or I’m leaving without you.”

  She pulled back, clearly surprised at his change of heart. But she didn’t ask questions, and he didn’t give answers.

  Mostly because he didn’t have any.

  But Trey figured by the time things were all said and done, he’d have all the answers they needed.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Well?”

  Woodrow drew up at the rope corral where Mikolas stood waiting, looking as touchy as a teased snake.

  “He’s got the ransom note,” Woodrow said and dismounted.

  “You sure?”

  “Saw him take it.”

  “At the line camp?”

  That had been the initial plan. To leave the note at the nearest WCC line camp so it’d be found by one of the Wells’ cowboys, then delivered to Trey. Woodrow had decided it’d be safer that way.

  But the line camp had been deserted, and Woodrow didn’t want to take a chance on days going by before the note was found. He’d helped himself to the cattle instead, never expecting to run into Trey and the posse in his flight back to the hideout.

  “No.” Woodrow lifted his hat, wiped the grime from his forehead, and slapped the hat back on again. “Paid some sheepherder’s kid to give it to him.”

  Mikolas stilled. “What sheepherder’s kid? That wasn’t the plan.”

  “I had to make a new one, all right?” Impatience sparked through Woodrow like a lit firecracker. “It worked, so what difference does it make if I changed the plan?” Damn, he’d gotten tired of Mikolas’s whining. He craved a drink. And he was starved. “Have the bitch make me something to eat.”

  “She doesn’t cook.”

  Woodrow’s lip curled in disgust. Her not cooking didn’t surprise him. Allethaire Gibson was used to being catered to and waited on, just so she could be lazy her entire filthy-rich life.

  Well, that was going to change.

  He found her near the fire, sitting on a boulder jutting from the ground. If only big-brother Trey could see her now, with her hair tangled and that expensive black dress of hers dusty and creased with wrinkles. Even from here, Woodrow could tell her eyes were red and swollen. Half from crying, the other from swilling too much brandy.

  Woodrow would bet his eyeteeth Trey didn’t know his precious intended was a drunk, and Woodrow looked forward to enlightening him.

  Soon. Very soon.

  Until then, Allethaire was going to have to fall off her high horse, and Woodrow was going to be the one to give her a good, strong push.

  He strode toward her with anticipation in his blood. She held a black kitten in her lap. His black kitten. A stray he’d taken from the WCC barn the night he’d stolen his Appaloosa.

  “Give my kitty to me,” Woodrow snarled and snatched the little feline away. “Now get up and make me supper.”

  “Damn you.” She made no move to obey and showed m
ore vim and vinegar than he’d seen from her so far. “Fix your own supper. I’m not your mother.”

  Woodrow froze. His sweet mama was nothing like this bitch. Mama loved him. She’d always loved him, even when no one else did.

  Including his own father.

  Mama would’ve made him supper. Whatever he wanted, with what little she had, and how dare this hoity-toity bitch defame the one person he’d ever truly loved?

  In pure, unadulterated rage, Woodrow drew up and backhanded her. The blow toppled her from the rock. She cried out, covered her face with her hands and curled into a tight, sobbing ball.

  “Leave her alone!” Mikolas yelled.

  But Woodrow went for her again, his rage unquenchable. Before he could grab her scrawny, pampered arm and yank her up from the dirt, Mikolas clamped a hand on his shoulder and shoved him back.

  Woodrow nearly lost his grip on the kitten. Nearly lost his balance, too. And if Mikolas hadn’t pulled out his shooting iron, Woodrow would’ve gone after him next.

  “Leave her alone,” Mikolas shouted. “You hear, Woodrow? The score we have to settle has nothing to do with her. It’s Trey, damn you. Trey.”

  “I’m not putting up with her sass anymore!” Breathing hard, Woodrow stroked the kitten’s back, furiously, again and again, soothing the tiny creature. Soothing himself. “There’s other ways of getting what’s coming to us. We don’t need her.”

  “Then why don’t you let me go?” Allethaire choked back a sob and pushed herself to a sitting position. Tears streaked her cheeks and smeared the blood streaming from her lip. “Or better yet, just shoot me.” She looked like a wild woman with her wide, reddened eyes, and her hair a rat’s nest. “Shoot me so I don’t have to look at your disgusting face.” Her voice rose to a screaming pitch. “Shoot me like you shot the sheepdog. Or set me on fire. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care.”

  Mikolas stared, first at Allethaire. Then at Woodrow. “What sheepdog? What fire?”

  “She’s talking crazy,” Woodrow said, turning careful fast. “Don’t pay any attention to her.”

  Instinct told him things had gone precarious. Mikolas being part Basque meant he was partial to sheep, and Woodrow had never told him what he’d done to kidnap Allethaire. At least, not all of it.

  “Gorri,” she said. “That’s what they called the dog. Gorri.”

  Mikolas went white.

  “He didn’t deserve to be shot.” Her dirty face crumpled, and she started crying again. “He was just an innocent little dog.”

  “What did you set on fire?” Shaking, pale, Mikolas took a step toward him. “A wagon? A sheepherder’s wagon?”

  “She’s lying,” Woodrow snarled. “I didn’t set fire to anything.”

  “Yes, he did.” Allethaire’s watery gaze jumped between them. “He shot out their lantern, and it shattered.”

  “Whose lantern?” Mikolas leaped toward Woodrow and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Whose damn lantern, Woodrow?”

  “Lamb-lickers, that’s who! Stinking lamb-lickers!”

  “Zurina’s, I think.” Allethaire sat very still, as if she realized the importance of the information pouring out of her. “And her father. He got shot, too. And his sheep. Lots of his sheep, and—”

  Mikolas’s yell drowned out the rest of her words, and he slammed his fist into Woodrow’s jaw. Pain exploded in Woodrow’s head, and he sprawled backward, into the dirt. His bones rattled; he lost hold of the black kitty. Then, Mikolas was there, on top of him, fist swinging, and Woodrow swore, swinging back.

  Suddenly Reggie appeared and pulled Mikolas off him, holding him prisoner with a gun pressed to his back.

  Woodrow, breathing hard, jaw throbbing, glowered up at both of them.

  “Zurina is my sister,” Mikolas panted, straining against Reggie’s grip. “Gorri is our dog, and Gabirel is my father, and—”

  “No,” Woodrow roared. “No, he’s not your father. Sutton is. Was.” The harsh reminder echoed over the camp. No one moved. No one spoke. “You forget you’re a Wells, Mikolas?” he rasped, calmer. “You’re not a sheepherder no more, brother. You’re going to be a cattleman, a rich cattleman, as soon as Trey pays up.”

  For a long moment, Mikolas didn’t move.

  Woodrow held his breath. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed Mikolas in his plan to blackmail Trey for Allethaire. Power in numbers and all that. Because Trey was powerful, too powerful, to fight alone.

  “Yeah,” Mikolas said finally. The fight seemed to drain from him. “Sure.”

  Reggie released him.

  Woodrow sat up.

  But the damage had been done.

  He didn’t trust Mikolas anymore.

  Zurina had barely entered her teen years the last time she headed this way, toward Rogers Pass, but it felt like only yesterday. A lush but prickly blanket of juniper, spruce and Douglas fir draped the foothills of the Rockies. Plenty of crisp, cool air filled her lungs. To the east, the mountains took on the remarkable shape of a giant man sleeping along the horizon, making him appear at peace beneath a sky so sprawling with blue, and who could tire of admiring it?

  Yet the danger of what lay ahead, or at least the potential for it, overshadowed the pristine beauty. Certainly the memory of what she’d gone through that terrible day when she’d come within inches of losing her life.

  She banked the memory. It was more important to think of Mikolas instead. To hope and pray he was there, hiding out near the pass. That he had Allethaire with him, and she was safe.

  And of course, Woodrow Baldwin. The man who Zurina despised most of all. The one she blamed for crushing her dreams for a new and better life. One that would give her respectability as a sheepherder’s daughter in a cattleman’s world. Woodrow had all but stolen her money, too, when he killed the Vasco flock. He’d stolen the comfort her father deserved and the joy she craved in having a new house.

  Worse, he’d turned her brother into someone he wasn’t.

  Zurina was afraid to think of what would happen if she failed to find them and this journey ended as a wild-goose chase. Valuable time would be lost. And where could they possibly look next?

  She couldn’t think of failure. She must think only of success—and of the confrontation sure to ensue when she arrived.

  Well, she’d be glad to have Trey with her then, despite her original intentions to journey without him. Trey would be a formidable ally, a strong force in reaping justice for the crimes committed against them both.

  From under her flat-brimmed hat, she studied him riding beside her, and the tiniest of flutters formed in her belly. He sat the saddle with power. With ease. With an unassuming strength she found damnably… appealing.

  He didn’t appear to notice her staring, and she dared to continue. He seemed more intent on studying the land around him, as if he readied himself for anything unexpected.

  His mind would be absorbed, too, with his intended. Allethaire. He’d be missing her, wanting her back in his arms, looking forward to showering her face with happy, relieved kisses.

  The thought painted a vivid image of the two. Sharing happy kisses. And a burning ache formed inside Zurina, so deep, so sudden, she could barely breathe.

  She yanked her glance away and steeled herself against this illicit longing for what would never be. A man like Trey Wells loving her, a lowly sheepherder’s daughter.

  Pah! Those silly husband dreams again. Zurina gritted her teeth. It was more important to worry over how he would react when he learned Mikolas was his half-brother.

  Zurina dreaded the moment. A cattleman of his standing would only be shamed beyond measure.

  Of its own accord, her gaze found him again and lingered over the straight line of his nose, the square cut of his jaw, the proud thrust of his chin. Trey Wells wore his pride and influence like a king wore his royal cloak, and she suspected she could watch him, just soak the sight of him in, for days on end.

  “Have I sprouted horns, woman?” he asked. His gl
ance slid toward her, then. Slow and knowing. “Or have I turned green all of a sudden?”

  She started guiltily that he’d caught her staring, but she found enough composure to give him a cool smile.

  “I rather think the horns would suit you,” she retorted, lifting her hands and spreading them wide. “Big longhorn ones.”

  “Yeah?” A side of his mouth lifted. “Better horns than a woollyback, I guess.”

  Another time, she would’ve taken grave offense. But the coppery glint in his eye revealed his teasing, and this time, at least, she let her defenses slide.

  “You’re a cattleman through and through, aren’t you, Mr. Wells?” she asked, swinging her head with a haughty sniff.

  “Yep.” He let out a long, satisfied sigh. “Born and bred.”

  Mikolas had been born a Wells, too, she thought, but bred as a sheepman. How different their lives would be had they’d known each other and been raised as true brothers.

  “I would’ve liked meeting you under different circumstances, Zurina.” No longer did Trey’s tone carry a teasing inflection. His expression revealed complete seriousness. “When being a cattleman didn’t matter.”

  The steady pace of their horses rocked his body, but he rode with a fluid grace that showed how much he was at ease in the saddle.

  “Yes,” she said, her sigh heartfelt. “Me, too.”

  “It’s hard—” he hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully “—it’s frustrating for the cattleman when flocks of sheep destroy his range. The grass is too valuable.”

  “It’s valuable for the sheep, too.”

  “But the sheep kill the grass, Zurina.” He heaved a terse breath. “Then there’s nothing left for the cattle. They lose weight. We lose money. The quality of the beef goes down, and the whole market suffers.”

  “Yes.” Many times, she had heard of these problems. “I have seen the range when the grass is eaten down to the roots. I understand how it is a bad thing.”

  “Worse than bad,” he muttered. “It’s intolerable.”

  “You must see the sheepman’s side of it, Trey.”

  “When I see a range stripped of grass, I see all I need to see.”