Wyoming Bold (9781460320891)

by Palmer, Diana

  “Cort will calm right down when he finally finds a woman who can put up with him.”

  “Well, Dad found you,” Morie noted. “So there’s hope for Cort.”

  “You think so? He won’t even go on dates anymore after that entertainment rep tried to seduce him in a movie theater. He was shocked to the back teeth when she said she’d done it in all sorts of fancy theaters back home.” She laughed. “Your brother doesn’t live in the real world. He thinks women are delicate treasures that need nourishing and protecting.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “He really needs to stop watching old movies.”

  “Have him watch some old Bette Davis movies,” Morie advised. “She’s the most modern actress I ever saw, for all that her heyday was in the 1940s!”

  “I loved those movies,” Shelby said.

  “Me, too.” Morie hesitated. “I like Grandma’s old movies.”

  Maria Kane had been a famous movie star, but she and Shelby had never been close and theirs had been a turbulent and sad relationship. It was still a painful topic for Shelby.

  “I like them, too,” Shelby said, surprisingly. “I never really knew my mother. I was farmed out to housekeepers at first and then to my aunt. My mother never grew up,” she added, remembering something Maria’s last husband, Brad, had said during the funeral preparations in Hollywood.

  Morie heard that sad note in her mother’s voice and changed the subject. “I miss your baked fish.”

  Shelby laughed. “What a thing to say.”

  “Well, nobody makes it like you do, Mom. And they’re not keen on fish around here, so we don’t have it much. I dream of cod fillets, gently baked with fresh herbs and fresh butter... Darn, I have to stop drooling on my pillow!”

  “When you come home, I’ll make you some. You really need to learn to make them yourself. If you do move out and live apart from us, you have to be able to cook.”

  “I can always order out.”

  “Yes, but fresh food is so much nicer.”

  “Yours certainly is.” She glanced at her watch. “Got to go, Mom. We’re dipping cattle today. Nasty business.”

  “You should know. You were always in the thick of it here during the spring.”

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, sweetheart.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Bye.”

  She hung up, then got out of bed and dressed. Her mother was one in a million, beautiful and talented, but equally able to whip up exotic meals or hostess a dinner party for royalty. Morie admired her tremendously.

  She admired her dad, too, but she was heartily sick of men who took her out only with one end in mind—a marriage that would secure their financial futures. It was surprising how many of them saw her as a ticket to independent wealth. The last one had been disconcertingly frank about how his father advised him to marry an heiress, and that Morie was at least more pleasant to look at than some of the other rich men’s daughters he’d escorted.

  She was cursing him in three languages when her father came in, listened to her accusations and promptly escorted the young man off the property.

  Morie had been crushed. She’d really liked the young man, an accountant named Bart Harrison, who’d come to town to audit a local business for his firm. It hadn’t occurred to her at first that he’d searched her out deliberately at a local fiesta. He’d known who she was and who her family was, and he’d pursued her coldly, but with exquisite manners, made her feel beautiful, made her hungry for the small attentions he gave with such flair.

  She’d been very attracted to him. But when he started talking about money, she backed away and ran. She wanted something more than to be the daughter of one of the richest Texas ranchers. She wanted a man who loved her for who she really was.

  Now, helping to work cattle through the smelliest, nastiest pool of dip that she’d ever experienced in her life, she wondered if she’d gone mad to come here. May had arrived. Calving was in full swing, and so was the dipping process necessary to keep cattle pest-free.

  “It smells like some of that fancy perfume, don’t it?” Red Davis asked with a chuckle. He was in his late thirties, with red hair and freckles, blue eyes and a mischievous personality. He’d worked ranches most of his life, but he never stayed in one place too long. Morie vaguely remembered hearing her father say that Red had worked for a former mercenary named Cord Romero up near Houston.

  She gave him a speaking look. “I’ll never get the smell out of my clothes,” she wailed.

  “Why, sure you can,” the lean, redheaded cowboy assured her, grinning in the shade of his wide-brimmed straw hat. “Here’s what you do, Miss Morie. You go out in the woods late at night and wait till you see a skunk. Then you go jump at him. That’s when he’ll start stamping his front paws to warn you before he turns around and lifts his tail....”

  “Red!” she groaned.

  “Wait, wait, listen,” he said earnestly. “After he sprays you and you have to bury your clothes and bathe in tomato juice, you’ll forget all about how this old dipping-pool smells. See? It would solve your problem!”

  “I’ll show you a problem,” she threatened.

  He laughed. “You have to have a sense of humor to work around cattle,” he told her.

  “I totally agree, but there is nothing at all funny about a pond full of... Aaahhhhh!”

  As she spoke, a calf bumped into her and knocked her over. She landed on her breasts in the pool of dip, getting it in her mouth and her eyes and her hair. She got to her knees and brought her hands down on the surface of the liquid in an eloquent display of furious anger. Which only made the situation worse, and gave Red the opportunity to display his sense of humor to its true depth.

  “Will you stop laughing?” she wailed.

  “Good God, are we dipping people now?” Mallory wanted to know.

  Morie didn’t think about what she was doing; she was too mad. She hit the liquid with her hand and sent a spray of it right at Mallory. It landed on his spotless white shirt and splattered up into his face.

  She sat frozen as she realized what she’d just done. She’d thrown pest dip on her boss. He’d fire her for sure. She was now history. She’d have to go home in disgrace...!

  Mallory wiped his face with a handkerchief and gave her a long, speaking look. “Now that’s why I never wear white shirts around this place,” he commented with a dry look at Red, who was still doubled over laughing. “God knows what Mavie will say when she has to deal with this, and it’s your fault,” he added, pointing his finger at Morie. “You can explain it to her while you duck plates, bowls, knives or whatever else she can get to hand to throw at you!”

  Mavie was the housekeeper and she had a red temper. Everybody was terrified of her.

  “You aren’t going to fire me?” Morie asked with unusual timidity.

  He pursed his sensuous lips and his dark eyes twinkled. “Not a lot of modern people want to run cattle through foul-smelling pest-control substances,” he mused. “It’s easier to take a bath than to find somebody to replace you.”

  She swallowed hard. The awful-smelling stuff was in her nostrils. She wiped at it with the handkerchief. “At least I won’t attract mosquitoes now.” She sighed.

  “Want to bet?” Red asked. “They love this stuff! If you rub it on your arms, they’ll attack you in droves.... Where are you going, boss?”

  Mallory just chuckled as he walked away. He didn’t even answer Red.

  Morie let out a sigh of relief as she wiped harder at her face. She shook her head and gave Red a rueful wince. “Well, that was a surprise,” she murmured dryly. “Thought I was going to be an ex-employee for sure.”

  “Naw,” Red replied. “The boss is a good sport. Cane got into it with him one time over a woman who kept calling and harassing h
im. Boss put her through, just for fun. Cane tossed him headfirst into one of the watering troughs.”

  She laughed with surprise. “Good grief!”

  “Shocked the boss. It was the first time Cane did anything really physical since he got out of the military. He thinks having one arm slows him down, limits him. But he’s already adjusting to it. The boss ain’t no lightweight,” he added. “Cane picked him up over one shoulder and threw him.”

  “Wow.”

  He sobered. “You know, they’ve all got problems of one sort or another. But they’re decent, honest, hardworking men. We’d do anything for them. They take care of us, and they’re not judgmental.” Red grimaced at some bad memory. “If they were, I’d sure be out on my ear.”

  “Slipped up, did you?” She gave him a quizzical look. “You, uh, didn’t throw pesticide on the boss?”

  He shook his head. “Something much worse, I’m afraid. All I got was a little jail time and a lecture from the boss.” He smiled. “Closest call I’ve had in recent years.”

  “Most people mess up once in a while,” she said kindly.

  “That’s true. The only thing that will get you fired here is stealing,” he added. “I don’t know why it’s such an issue with the boss, but he let a guy go last year for taking an expensive drill that didn’t belong to him. He said he wouldn’t abide a thief on the place. Cane, now, almost jumped the guy.” He shook his head. “Odd, odd people in some respects.”

  “I suppose there’s something that happened to them in the past,” she conjectured.

  “Could be.” He made a face. “That girl, Gelly, that the boss goes around with has a shifty look,” he added in a lowered tone. “There was some talk about her when she and her dad first moved here, about how they got the old Barnes property they’re living on.” He grimaced. “She’s a looker, I’ll give her that, but I think the boss is out of his noggin for letting her hang around. Funny thing about that drill going missing,” he added with narrowed, thoughtful eyes. “She didn’t like the cowboy because he mouthed off to her. She was in the bunkhouse just before the boss found the missing drill in the guy’s satchel, and the cowboy cussed a blue streak about being innocent. It didn’t do any good. He was let go on the spot.”

  She felt cold chills down her spine. She’d only seen the boss’s current love interest once, and it had been quite enough to convince her that the woman was putting on airs and pretending a sophistication she didn’t really have. Most men weren’t up on current fashions in high social circles, but Morie was, and she knew at first glance that Gelly Bruner was wearing last year’s colors and fads. Morie had been to Fashion Week and subscribed, at home, to several magazines featuring the best in couture, both in English and French. Her wardrobe reflected the newer innovations. Her mother, Shelby, had been a top model in her younger days, and she knew many famous designers who were happy to outfit her daughter.

  She didn’t dare mention her fashion sense here, of course. It would take away her one chance to live like a normal, young single woman.

  “You went to college recently, didn’t you?” Red asked. He grinned at her surprise. “There’s no secrets on a ranch. It’s like a big family...we know everything.”

  “Yes, I did,” she agreed, not taking offense.

  “You live in them coed dorms, with men and women living together?” he asked, and seemed interested in her answer.

  “No, I didn’t,” she said curtly. “My parents raised me very strictly. I guess I have old attitudes because of it, but I wasn’t living in a dorm with single men.” She shrugged. “I lived off campus with a girlfriend.”

  He raised both eyebrows. “Well, aren’t you a dinosaur!” he exclaimed, but with twinkling eyes and obvious approval.

  “That’s right—I should live in a zoo.” She made a wry face. “I don’t fit in with modern society. That’s why I’m out here,” she added.

  He nodded. “That’s why most of us are out here. We’re insulated from what people call civilization.” He leaned down. “I love it here.”

  “So do I, Red,” she agreed.

  He glanced at the cattle and grimaced. “We’d better get this finished,” he said, looking up at the sky. “They’re predicting rain again. On top of all that snowmelt, we’ll be lucky if we don’t get some more bad flooding this year.”

  “Or more snow,” she said, tongue-in-cheek. Wyoming weather was unpredictable; she’d already learned that. Some of the local ranchers had been forced to live in town when the snow piled up so that they couldn’t even get to the cattle. Government agencies had come in to airlift food to starving animals.

  Now the snowmelt was a problem. But so were mosquitoes in the unnaturally warm weather. People didn’t think mosquitoes lived in places like Wyoming and Montana, but they thrived everywhere, it seemed. Along with other pests that could damage the health of cattle.

  “You come from down south of here, don’t you?” Red asked. “Where?”

  She pursed her lips. “One of the other states,” she said. “I’m not telling which one.”

  “Texas.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. He laughed. “Boss had a copy of your driver’s license for the files. I just happened to notice it when I hacked into his personnel files.”

  “Red!”

  “Hey, at least I stopped hacking CIA files,” he protested. “And darn, I was enjoying that until they caught me.”

  She was shocked.

  He shrugged. “Most men have a hobby of some sort. At least they didn’t keep me locked up for long. Even offered me a job in their cybercrime unit.” He laughed. “I may take them up on it one day. But for now, I’m happy being a ranch hand.”

  “You are full of surprises,” she exclaimed.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he teased. “Let’s get back to work.”

  Copyright © 2011 by Diana Palmer

  Be sure to check out the second volume in Diana Palmer’s WYOMING MEN miniseries, WYOMING FIERCE. Can rancher Cane Kirk’s wounded body and soul be healed? Bodie Mays isn’t sure, but she’s sure going to try. Turn the page to get a glimpse of WYOMING FIERCE, available at your local bookstore and e-tailer.

  CHAPTER ONE

  BOLINDA MAYS WAS having a hard time concentrating on her biology textbook. She hadn’t slept well, worrying about her grandfather. He was only in his early sixties, but he was disabled and having difficulties paying his utility bills.

  She’d come home for the weekend from her college in Montana. The trip was expensive, considering the gas it took to get her back and forth in her beat-up but serviceable old truck. Thank God she had a part-time job working for a convenience store while college was in session, or she’d never have even been able to afford to come home and see about her grandfather.

  It was early December. Not too long before Christmas, and she was having final exams the next week. Really cold weather would come soon. But Bolinda’s stepfather was making threats again, about turning her grandfather out of the house that had once been Bolinda’s mother’s. Her death had left the old man at the mercy of that fortune-hunting fool who had his fingers in every evil pie in Catelow, Wyoming. Bolinda shivered, thinking how impossible it was going to be for her, trying to pay off her used textbooks that she’d charged on her credit card. Now she was going to have to try to pay for her grandfather’s utility bill, as well. Gas was so expensive, she thought miserably. The poor old man already had to choose between groceries and blood pressure meds. She’d thought about asking her neighbors, the Kirks, for help. But the only one of them she knew well was Cane, and he resented her. A lot. It would be dicey asking him for money. If she even dared.

  Not that he didn’t owe her something for all the times she’d saved people from him in the little town of Catelow, Wyoming, not too far from Jackson Hole. Cane had lost an arm overseas in the Middle East after the
last big conflict but while he was still in the service. He’d come home embittered and icy cold, hating everyone. He’d started drinking, refused physical therapy, refused counseling and then gone hog wild.

  Every couple of weeks, he treed the local bar. The other Kirk brothers, Mallory and Dalton, always paid the bills and they knew the owner of the tavern, who was kind enough not to have Cane arrested. But the only person who could do anything with Cane was Bolinda, or Bodie as her friends called her. Even Morie, Mallory Kirk’s new wife, couldn’t deal with a drunken Cane. He was intimidating.

  Not so much to Bolinda. She understood him, as few other people did. Amazing, considering that she was only twenty-two and he was thirty-four. That was one big age difference. It never seemed to matter. Cane talked to her as if she were his age, often about things that she had no business knowing. He seemed to consider her one of the guys.

  She didn’t look like a guy. She wasn’t largely endowed in the bra department, of course. Her breasts were small and pert, but nothing like the women in those guy magazines. She knew that, because Cane had dated a centerfold model once and told Bodie all about her. Another embarrassing conversation when he was drunk that he probably didn’t even remember.

  She shook her head and tried again to concentrate on her biology textbook. She sighed, running a hand through her short, wavy black hair. Her odd, pale brown eyes were riveted to the drawings of internal human anatomy, but she just couldn’t seem to make her brain work. There was going to be a final next week, along with an oral lab, and she didn’t want to be the student trying to hide under the table when the professor started asking questions.

  She shifted on the carpeted floor, on her stomach, and tried again to concentrate. Music started playing. Strange. That sounded like the musical ring of her cell phone, the theme from the Star Trek movie...

  “Hey, Bodie, it’s for you!” her grandfather called from the next room, where she’d left her cell phone in her coat pocket.

  She muttered something and got to her feet. “Who is it, Granddaddy?”