“I’ll ride with you from now on,” he said quietly.
Hope didn’t argue. She was relieved to know that she wouldn’t have to face Turner alone again. The man simply didn’t understand plain English. To him, no was a coy prelude to a wrestling match.
Maybe that was how his other women liked it, but not Hope. The thought of fighting Turner both frightened and sickened her. Like the thought of having his hands all over her again. It made breakfast do a backflip and try to climb right up her throat.
Mason went to the pickup truck and lifted a rifle from the rack that stretched across the rear window. He checked the load, eased the firing pin back into place, and pulled a box of shells out of the glove compartment. When he came back to Hope, he was smiling.
There was something in his smile that made her very glad to be his friend rather than his enemy.
“Snake gun,” Mason said laconically. His voice was rough with age and the fury that still turned deep inside his gut at the thought of Turner lying in wait for Hope like a coyote at a water hole. “Drought like this, you git snakes at the wells.”
She cleared her throat. “Yes, I’ve noticed that.”
He stopped smiling and looked at her unflinchingly. “If I ain’t around and you gotta go to a well, you be goddamn sure you got a snake gun with you. And you keep it real close to hand no matter what you’re doing. Hear me, Hope?”
She tried to smile. She couldn’t. Instead, she hugged Mason quickly. “I hear you.”
He nodded curtly. “I’ll watch the pump. You go over that little rise and run some rounds through this here rifle. Been a long time since we done any shooting together.”
Hope didn’t argue that she would rather have dozed in the cab. She took the gun and the shells and walked over a rise until she came to a place where there would be no chance of a ricochet hitting any cattle. She found a particularly ugly clump of big sage growing against the bank of a dry ravine, mentally labeled the bush John Turner, and began trimming it down to size one twig at a time.
When Hope had shot enough rounds to soothe Mason and herself, she walked back over the rise to the well. Mason was tinkering with the generator. Whatever he was doing had an immediate effect; the sound of the engine decreased by about half. He stood up to listen, nodded, and bent over the machinery again. There was a long-spouted oilcan in his hand.
“You’re incredible,” she said, half-exasperated, half-delighted. “I oiled that blasted machine from one end to the other two days ago and it didn’t get a bit less noisy.”
He smiled, pleased that there was something he could still do right despite his aching hands. “You done fine, honey, but you don’t like this generator and she knows it. Takes a gentle hand to keep her humming.”
“Not to mention gas and oil,” Hope said beneath her breath. Her fuel bills were a constant drain on her cash. She reached out to unscrew the fuel-reservoir cap and gauge the contents with a pessimistic eye.
“Already checked it. It’ll do ’til tomorrow.”
Hope hesitated, made sure the cap was on tight, and unconsciously squared her shoulders. “When I get back to the ranch, I’m calling Hawthorne.”
It had to be done and Mason knew it. But nobody had to like it.
He took off his hat, rubbed his forehead, and settled his hat back into place with a quick jerk. “How many you selling?”
Closing her eyes, she tried not to think about her range cattle burning like garnets against a sunset ridgeline where piñon grew in ragged lines of black flame.
“I—I don’t know. Half.” She swallowed. “Yes, half. That should stretch the natural feed enough to last until the rain comes.”
“Hawthorne gonna use his own men for the cows?”
“He did the last time.” Hope bit back a curse and shrugged instead. Whining never made a job easier. “If he can’t use his own men, I’ll hire the Johnston boys. They love a roundup.”
Mason smiled. “Yeah. Good kids. A mite young, but we all was once.”
She remembered her own teenage years and smiled a bittersweet smile. “Yeah. Real young.”
He rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. The gesture said all that he didn’t have the words to tell her: respect, support, love, understanding. He had never been more proud of her than at this moment, when she squared her shoulders and faced what had to be done without complaining.
“You grew into a damned fine woman,” he said simply.
“I just do what I have to for the ranch.” She smiled crookedly and looked around the dry, mysterious land that was part of her soul. “I spent most of my time after I was fourteen being homesick for the Valley of the Sun. I hated L.A. Julie and Mom loved it.”
Hope sighed and fell silent. If her father hadn’t had to pay for two homes, he would have had enough cash to look for more wells. But her mother had insisted on having her daughters go to high school in a “civilized place.” So her father had taken the ranch’s small profits and mailed them to L.A. Then he had prayed that the Hope well would keep on running sweet and pure until he had saved enough money to dig a deeper well.
“Poor Dad,” she said softly, not realizing that she had spoken aloud.
Mason put his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t go feeling sorry for him. He done what he wanted and let hell take the rest.”
Her throat ached with tears she wouldn’t cry. “But he worked so hard.”
“He didn’t grudge a bit of it. He lived for the summers when you and your ma came home.”
Mason didn’t mention Julie. Hope’s sister had always been a beautiful butterfly child, barely able to stand up to the heat of a simple summer day. The hard work and isolation of the Valley of the Sun had defeated her as much as they had bored her.
Hope had been the opposite. She loved the heat, the isolation, the silence, and the sight of cattle moving through the piñons. She had been born for this land in a way that her mother had never understood.
Mason smiled, remembering the good times. “Having you following him around with bright eyes and bushels of questions made your dad feel taller than God and smarter than Satan.”
Hope smiled sadly. She had loved her father very much.
So had her mother, something that Hope hadn’t realized until her mother was dead and a grieving daughter found the letters that her parents had written while they were separated.
“Mom loved him,” she said.
Mason sighed. “Love. Hate. Coins have two sides. Your ma’s passions ran deep. Deeper than the wells we never drilled.”
Hazel eyes looked up at Mason, seeing the past in his lined face, hearing it in his familiar voice.
“You’re like her in that, honey, when you let yourself be. You got your dad’s grit, though. His and then some. You musta got Julie’s, too.” Mason shook his head at the memories welling up like a clear, unexpected spring. “She was pretty as a Christmas calf, and just as sure to die young.”
A familiar tightness settled in Hope’s throat. She had loved her older but not wiser sister, had held her hand through wrongheaded affairs and brutal rejections. Hope had tried to talk with Julie, to help her understand and cope with a world that simply did not care whether one Julie Gardener had champagne and roses or vinegar and skunkweed.
Julie had never accepted the basic truth of the world’s indifference. Her self-absorption had been both innocent and soul-deep. After their mother had died, Julie discovered drugs.
She had died within two years.
“Don’t look so down in the mouth, honey.” Mason tugged gently on a handful of Hope’s dark curls. “Julie just wasn’t made for this world. It happens that way, time to time. So you bury the ones that can’t make it and you wipe your eyes and you get on with living. Because you was made for this world, Hope. No mistake about it. You’re strong and straight and giving. You was made to love a good man and raise strong sons and daughters with staying power. You and your children will heal the Valley of the Sun. And then the past will all be worth
it, all the dying and the tears and the pain.”
Looking at Mason’s seamed face and clear eyes, she felt his certainty like a benediction. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his gray-stubbled cheek. “You’re a good man,” she whispered, her voice catching. “The best.”
He smiled gently at her and handed her a faded scarlet bandanna to catch the tears that were welling from her wide hazel eyes.
“Thanks.” She laughed oddly as she wiped her eyes. “Lately I seem to have more water than my namesake well.”
“You’re tired, honey. You’re doing the work of two men.”
Hope’s only answer was a long, ragged sigh and a shrug. “Not of two men like Rio. Did he get any sleep at all last night?”
“He’s a tough son.” Approval warmed Mason’s laconic statement.
“But it isn’t fair for him to—”
“Fair don’t water no cows,” Mason interrupted bluntly. “You git to worryin’ about fair and you won’t have no time left to smile. Take my word for it, gal. I been there.”
“The least I can do is fix up the other bunkhouse for him to use.”
“Don’t bother. Rio liked the porch just fine. If it gits too cold,” Mason added matter-of-factly, “he can take one of the upstairs bedrooms.”
Hope knew her shock showed on her face. She had expected Mason to object to any arrangement that ended up with Rio and the unmarried boss lady sharing the house.
“Something wrong?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Speak plain, honey. I’m an old man.”
She snorted. “As long as I’ve been at the ranch, you’ve been standing over cowhands with a shotgun if they so much as said hello to me. But Rio—Rio moves into the house with me and you don’t turn a hair.”
“He’s different.”
“Are you saying he likes men better?” she asked baldly.
Mason laughed and shook his head at the things she had learned during her modeling career. Then he looked at Hope with eyes that were faded by age and made wise by experience. “Nope. He’s not married, neither. But that’s not why Rio won’t touch you.”
She made a wry face and swiped her hand down her blouse, brushing out dust. “I’m not real happy about touching myself right now.”
Mason didn’t smile. “Oh, you tempt him sure enough. He ain’t blind. But he won’t do nothing about it.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice tight with the surprising pain she felt. “Is something wrong with me?”
“You know better, honey. Rio’s just got too much respect for you—and for hisself—to bite off something he ain’t got no mind to chew.”
“What does that mean?”
“Rio knows you’re a permanent sort of woman. And Rio . . .” Mason rubbed his neck and shrugged. “Rio’s a temporary sort of man. He never stays nowhere for more than a few months at a time. Just the way he is. Footloose as the wind.”
Hope said nothing for the simple reason that her throat was closed tight. She didn’t doubt the truth of what Mason was saying. In the deepest part of her mind she knew that he was absolutely right.
And in the deepest part of her heart she wished that he was absolutely wrong.
Nine
BECAUSE THERE WAS no one around to notice, Hope climbed slowly, almost painfully, down from Behemoth’s cab. Stretching helped, but not much. Her arms were cramped and aching from the effort of manhandling the heavy vehicle out of ruts and through tight curves.
Even with only half the range cattle left to take care of, she still had barely enough hours in the day to make the necessary water runs. Since Hawthorne’s men had trucked away her cattle last week, she had worked constantly while dry winds churned dust devils out of an empty sky.
In the past week the temperature had dropped into the low sixties for several days. The nights had edged down toward freezing. Rain had been predicted yesterday and the day before, part of a northern storm front sweeping down from Alaska and Canada.
So far, no rain had fallen.
Half-eager, half-dreading what she would see, Hope looked toward the Perdidas rising tall and hard from the dry land. Thin clouds shimmered and swirled around the rugged peaks. Other patches of clouds floated randomly in the deep blue sky.
Not enough.
Not nearly enough.
Although the air was no longer so dry that it burned against Hope’s skin, rain hadn’t fallen in the high desert. Only the mountains had been blessed with water. Clouds had condensed in the cold air high up the Perdidas. After a day, moisture thickened into a black veil stitched with glittering threads of lightning. Wind carried the sound of thunder to the desert below like a distant sigh, bringing with it a scent of rain that was as thin as a shadow.
Some of the temporary creeks that drained the Perdidas’ rugged slopes carried small streams of water again. There wasn’t much, but it was enough so that the most adventurous cattle could spread out from the wells. Every cow that moved out into the countryside eased the strain on the natural feed around the troughs. The animals were on the edge of dangerously overgrazing the land around the wells, damaging it beyond repair or recovery.
Yet the small pools in the creek beds and ravines were already drying up. The parched land and dry air sucked up water much faster than it could be replaced by mountain runoff. If it didn’t rain again soon, there wouldn’t be any more surface water around than there had been a week ago.
If it didn’t rain soon, she would have to haul feed as well as water to her remaining range cattle.
“You’re borrowing trouble again,” she told herself. “No need to do that. God knows you have enough without going looking for more.”
Nearby an Angus mooed and walked with heavy grace toward her. The cow’s eyes were huge, dark, and had lashes as long as Hope’s little finger. The animal’s coat was thick, slightly curly, and had a black satin richness that begged to be stroked. Butting gently against Hope’s arm, the cow demanded attention.
“Hello, Sweetheart.” Smiling, she rubbed her palms vigorously over the cow’s long, solid back. Automatically she looked for any cuts or scratches that might need a swipe from the bottle of gentian violet that she always kept in the truck. “Where’s your Sweet Midnight?”
Sweetheart snuffled.
“Out running around again, huh?” she said sympathetically, scratching the base of the cow’s blunt ears. “Well, what do you expect of a half-grown bull calf?”
Sweetheart butted Hope less gently this time. The cow knew there was a handful of grain somewhere nearby.
Laughing, Hope shoved against the cow’s muscular neck. She might as well have shoved on the Perdidas. Sweetheart stood pat on her four sturdy legs, demanding her due as Hope’s first and most favored Angus.
“Sweetheart, if I’d known eight years ago that such a cute little ‘kivver’ would grow into twelve hundred stubborn pounds of confident cow, I’d have sold you for steaks.”
The Angus blinked her incredibly long-lashed eyelids. Her moist muzzle prodded Hope’s stomach again.
Giving up the game, Hope went back to the truck’s cab. She untied the grain bag, picked up a battered cake pan, and scooped out some grain.
“Here you go, girl.”
Sweetheart cleaned the pan with more enthusiasm than manners. Her long, thick, surprisingly agile tongue slicked over the metal until nothing was left but a vague scent of oats. The cow lifted her head and looked patiently at Hope.
“Nope,” she said. “Just one pan for you.”
She threw the pan back in the truck and started to pull the hose off the back. As she dragged the ragged canvas tube toward the well, Sweetheart backed off a bit and watched with what could have been interest, confusion, or amusement.
None of the more than thirty black cattle crowded in around the trough as Hope filled it. She was careful not to let the water get so low in the Angus trough that there would be shoving matches and trampling hooves around the big tank. Her breeding animals were too valuabl
e to risk in a free-for-all among thirsty cows.
To Hope, the Angus were the very core of her dream of building the Valley of the Sun into a productive ranch. For that—and for their massive, muscular beauty—Hope loved the Angus. Sweetheart was more a pet than the lean cats that kept the barn from being taken over by mice.
Sweetheart was also a valuable breeder. Hope had kept four of Sweetheart’s calves for the breeding herd. Sweet Midnight, the most recent of her calves, showed promise of being a prizewinning bull. Several ranchers had offered to buy the robust yearling. Hope had turned them down, even though the money would have helped her out. She was saving for the future.
Sweet Midnight would be the founding sire of the Valley of the Sun’s Angus herd. The cows he would breed were as carefully researched and chosen by Hope as Sweetheart had been. Their bloodlines were the finest. It showed in their bulky grace, surprisingly gentle temperaments, and their vigorous, muscular offspring.
Relaxing against Sweetheart’s massive warmth, Hope listened to cattle suck cool water from the trough she had filled. Other cows came up and snuffled over her shirt as if to say hello. Then they moved off to bury their noses in the fragrant hay Mason had brought to the pasture earlier in the day.
Hope watched each cow, each calf. She knew them individually, their strengths and weaknesses, their quirks of temperament. She was alert for any signs of disease or injury, no matter how small.
There weren’t any. With a wry smile she admitted that the cattle were in better shape than she was.
The wind stirred, shifted, blew more strongly.
Sweetheart turned and watched beyond the truck. Her blunt, furry ears were cocked forward, but she wasn’t nervous.
Hope glanced over her shoulder and saw Rio walking toward her. Sweetheart mooed softly as she wandered over to the tall man. Hope saw the sudden flash of Rio’s smile as he held out one hand and ran the other down the cow’s neck. Sweetheart’s long tongue curled out, swiped across his extended palm, and vanished.
When Rio walked up to Hope, the cow followed like a pet dog.
“What’s your secret?” she asked.
Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material Page 9