Billie set her camera down on a wide fence post and did as he asked. As she did so, she voiced the question that had been on her mind.
“How many horses do you think you’ve put shoes on?”
He shrugged. “A couple hundred, I guess. Maybe more.”
“Does every rancher do their own shoeing?”
“They do if they’re watching the budget and don’t want their horses coming up lame on rough ground.”
“And what about . . . ?” She broke off and turned. “Cam, do you smell smoke?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Cam took off at a run with Billie right behind him, scooping up her camera as she went. They dashed across the yard and rounded the corral to where they could hear shouts and see smoke beginning to billow into the air.
“The hay barn!” Cam shouted, running faster.
Brian and Jess were using gunny sacks to fight the blaze that had sprung up. One or both of them had apparently decided it would be a good idea to stack up a few bales of hay and stand on them while they welded one of the overhead beams. Sparks must have started the fire.
Cam took all of this in within a few seconds, then leapt to help, his training as a volunteer firefighter kicking in. He was vaguely aware of Billie swinging her camera up and snapping pictures then following him to help fight the fire. She took off the loose chambray shirt she’d been wearing over her T-shirt and began beating at the flames.
“Brian!” Cam shouted. “Get the hose and drag it over here.”
“Okay, boss.” Brian jumped down and ran for the hose curled up beside the horse trough. He grabbed the end and dragged it over. Cam took it and glanced down, then gave the teenager an incredulous look.
“Attach it to the faucet, Brian, and turn on the water!”
“Oh, right boss.” The boy scurried away.
A quick scan of the area told him that only one bale was on fire, but sparks were shooting into the dry hay and would soon start a conflagration. Cam was impressed that Billie didn’t waste any time asking what to do. She beat at each new flame with her shirt, gracefully climbing the stack of bales beside the one that was burning and balancing herself easily.
“Help me move this, Jess,” he yelled, grabbing the wire that bound the bale. Heat seared his hand, but he didn’t have time to look at it. He and Jess wrestled the bale off the stack, then half-dragged, half-kicked it into the open. By that time, Brian had returned with the hose which now had water pouring from the nozzle. He began spraying water on the bale while Cam, Jess, and Billie returned to beating out the small sparks evident on the remaining bales. Within a few minutes the blaze was out, leaving a wet, but smoldering mess.
Shame-faced, Jess wiped his face with his grimy shirt and said, “I’m sorry about this, Cam. I just didn’t think . . . .”
“You sure didn’t,” Cam snapped. “I’m guessing that since Brian just got here a couple of minutes before we did, that stacking up the bales and standing on them to weld that beam was your idea.”
“Uh, um, yes.”
Cam kicked the bale apart, scattering it around to prevent a flare-up, then stood back to catch his breath. Sharp pain in his hand had him looking down at it. To his surprise, a long red welt streaked across his palm. The hot baling wire had burned him but he hadn’t even noticed until now.
Billie rushed up to him and took his hand in hers. “We need to tend to this right away.”
“I can take care of . . . .”
“Come on,” she said, ignoring him.
“We’ll clean this up, boss,” Brian said and Jess eagerly seconded the offer, the two of them no doubt anxious to get on the good side of their angry boss.
Cam let her lead him to the house. It was probably a good thing he had an injured hand or he might have taken a swing at Jess. And it was definitely a good thing that Billie was getting him out of there. He needed to calm down before he talked to Jess again.
She ushered him into the house, tut-tutting over his hand, sat him down at the kitchen table and glanced around.
“There’s a first aid kit under the sink,” he said helpfully as he settled back in the chair and forced himself to open his hand without flinching. “My mother needs it on an almost daily basis.”
Billie fetched the box which was well-stocked with supplies and sat down opposite him at the table. She opened a bottle of peroxide and poured it over his wound in a stream. The bite of the liquid had him straightening abruptly and his breath hissing in.
She gave him a regretful look. “Sorry, my theory is that it’s best to just pour on the stinging stuff rather than pat it on cause that just prolongs the pain.”
“It’s okay,” he said, then sat back and watched as her dark head bent over his hand. He relaxed, trying to ignore the pain by concentrating on her.
“Actually, it helps if you yell first.”
“What?”
“If you start yelling before the pain of the disinfectant starts then it doesn’t hurt so bad.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Dead level serious. I learned that from my three younger brothers.”
“I’ll remember that. The only thing I learned from my sister was how to spit watermelon seeds.”
Billie’s blue eyes sparkled with laughter as she looked up at him. “Really?”
“She was Lucky Break’ champion five years running. Gave up the title when she went off to college.”
Billie smiled as she looked down at her work once again. In spite of himself, Cam settled back and gazed at the top of her head. While she had been watching him shoe Chaser, she had continually pushed at her messy topknot of hair, catching errant strands and anchoring them with tiny clips. He didn’t even think she’d noticed what she was doing. He had been aware of every gesture in spite of his concentration on his task. He didn’t like the way she distracted him, but for the moment, he was going to sit back and enjoy it.
Billie’s movements were quick and sure, dabbing at the burn, checking it for debris, then spreading on burn ointment – they had a large tube since his mother burned herself frequently – and wrapping it in gauze.
“Where did you learn first aid like that?” he asked when she’d finished. “Don’t tell me -- another of your abandoned careers was as an EMT, right?”
She had been examining her handiwork proudly, but now she lifted her eyes to his. He liked the dark flash of annoyance as she said, “No. Like I said, three younger brothers, all a year apart. What one of them couldn’t think up, the others could. Your sister has her work cut out for her.”
“She’s up to the challenge since she grew up on a ranch. That’s why I have to hire two hands now – to take her place.”
She looked up and smiled. “Ah, interesting that it takes two men to replace one woman.”
He fought a grin. He might have to change his opinion of her. He’d thought she was flaky, but she hadn’t panicked when fighting the fire and hadn’t hesitated to bandage his hand.
He looked down at his hand and made a disgusted sound.
“What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”
“Nah, but I was going to work on a fence this afternoon and now I don’t think I can.”
“I can help,” she said, eagerly.
“Have you ever built a fence . . . oh, wait, was that one of your jobs?” he asked, hoping to see her eyes flash again.
As expected, irritation flared, but she fought it down. “No, but I can learn.”
“It takes a lot of strength.”
She stood before him and held her hands out from her sides. “Do I look like I’m weak?”
“All right, but I’d better not hear any whining.”
“I never whine,” she responded, insulted.
Cam just grinned and gestured for her to precede him out the door.
* * *
“You said we were building fence, not hauling rocks.”
“I thought you didn’t whine.”
“That was merely an observation,” Billie answered, stopp
ing to wipe the sweat off her face yet again. She was filthy, her shirt was soaked through, and she didn’t have one unbroken nail. She stopped to bite off the latest casualty and spit it on the ground.
He had driven them – one handed – across his land to where a pile of rocks and a roll of wire waited. It looked like the kind of fencing gardeners used to keep rabbits out of their vegetables. Instead of using it to keep rabbits out, though, Cam intended to use it to keep the rocks in. With her help, he formed it into a circle and supervised her while she clipped the wire together, forming a bottomless, upright cage. Now, they were filling it with the rocks.
Cam had explained that the cage, once filled, would act as the corner post for the fence he would be stringing to enclose a new pasture. He had been waging a years’ long battle against buffelgrass, a non-native type that had been brought in more than a century before, was viciously invasive, pushing out native grasses, and burned white hot and fast if it ever caught fire. It could only be eradicated by hand and this one pasture had been painstakingly freed from it and replanted with grama grass. It was lush, beautiful, and ready for cattle as soon as the fence was completed.
Billie had managed to snap several pictures of the fencing operation, even though she didn’t think it would make for a very compelling addition to her project about the operations of the green-friendly ranch. Best of all, she had also taken a few pictures of Cam working one-handed and if she had managed to capture him correctly, the pictures would be wonderful. He didn’t like being photographed and had scowled at her several times. She’d snapped those expressions, too, and couldn’t wait to get to her little house and develop them in her primitive dark room.
“You ready for lunch?” he asked, heading for the truck which he’d parked in the shade of a huge cottonwood.
She nodded and followed him, carefully stowing her camera in its case before unzipping the insulated cooler and taking out the thick ham sandwiches she had made for them. There were also bottles of cold water and soda. They each chose their drink – water for Cam, and cola for Billie, then sat on the truck’s tailgate and enjoyed their lunch.
Cam took a big bite and grunted with satisfaction. “It’s good. What did you put on these?”
She shrugged. “Everything. I didn’t know what anyone liked so I just put everything on.”
“You made sandwiches for Brian and Jess, too?”
“Yup.” She grinned mischievously. “Although Jess might prefer his toasted. He can always use the welding torch to do it, I suppose.”
Cam chuckled and continued eating. Billie turned and settled her back against the side of the truck so she could watch him without being too obvious about it.
Cam chewed thoughtfully as he looked out at his beautiful pasture. She couldn’t even imagine the sheer physical effort it must have taken to clear the buffelgrass from this area, but he obviously thought it was worth it. Billie had a hunch that when he worked he worked hard and when he relaxed he relaxed hard, putting his whole body into it. She’d never seen anyone do that before and she wondered if it was because he loved his work and was satisfied with what he’d done. She thought about all the jobs she’d had trying to figure out what it was she wanted to do, what she wanted to be, and about all the people who had been in her same boat, looking for the work they might love.
“What’s it like knowing what you’re supposed to do? I mean, always knowing, not having to stumble around and figure it out?” she asked abruptly, then bit into her sandwich quickly, afraid she’d asked too personal a question. After all, she was a photographer, not a journalist. She wasn’t even sure how to ask the right questions. She only wanted to know about him, everything about him.
He turned to look at her, his dark eyes focused on her face. “It saved a lot of time after my dad died of cancer when I was seventeen. Someone had to take over and this was what I’d been raised to do, all I knew.”
“So you stepped right in.”
“My mom, my sister, and me -- with a few hired hands now and then.”
“But you were seventeen!”
“Like it or not, I was the man of the family and there was work to be done. This ranch has been in my family for seventy years. I wasn’t going to let it go because I wanted to go off partying.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for a kid.”
“I became a man pretty quickly.”
She thought that over as she finished her sandwich and soda, then scooted forward to sit beside him as she placed her empty can in the cooler to be recycled later.
“What made you become interested in environmentally friendly ranching methods?” she asked as she reached up to rub her temples which had begun to throb.
“It seemed like the right thing to do,” he answered with a small shrug.
Cam had become the type of man that would have made his father proud, she thought, but didn’t say it. Somehow that remark was too personal and he might think she was trying to butter him up. She didn’t know much about him yet, but she knew he was reserving his judgment of her. She didn’t want to seem like a kiss-up.
The word ‘kiss’ had her gaze going involuntarily to his lips, though she certainly hadn’t meant to. He had a light stubble because he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. She knew he’d been too anxious to get out and get to work. Sweat had run down his forehead and he’d had to stop several times to wipe his brow with his sleeve while he had been putting new shoes on Chaser. He had perspired even more while he’d been fighting the fire and working on the rock and wire fence anchor with her. She had photographed him more than once as he’d wiped his brow. She wasn’t sure why that didn’t bother her. Maybe because he didn’t smell sweaty. He smelled . . . earthy.
“Billie?” His voice seemed to be coming from a long distance away. The throbbing in her temples had morphed into a pounding headache.
“Hm?” She tilted her head to one side and smiled at him as she looked into his deep gray eyes. She wondered vaguely if the heat was getting to her. “Billie, are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” she responded, leaning closer to him. “Do I look all right?”
“You look a little glassy-eyed.”
“The better to see you with, my dear,” she quipped and then giggled at her own silliness.
He stared at her, reached over and touched her forehead, then her cheek, and ran his thumb over her lips. “You’re dehydrated.”
“I drank a soda.”
“You need water. Lots of it.”
“Oooh,” she said, expelling her breath on a whoosh of air. The sky seemed to spin around her and Cam lunged forward to grab her as she toppled over.
“Crazy city girl,” he muttered as he cradled her against him with one hand and flipped the lid of the cooler with the other. “I’d think someone who’s been on the Amazon and is headed for Borneo would know how to take care of herself.” He opened a bottle of water, wincing as the pain shot through his injured hand. “Come on, Billie,” he coaxed. “Drink this.”
She sipped some water, he poured some over her flushed face, and then made her sip even more. Concerned, he rested his fingers on her neck and was reassured to feel her pulse strong and steady. Mercifully, clouds skidded in front of the sun and a breeze kicked up.
As he forced more water between her lips, Cam gazed down at her face. She was beautiful, with her lovely features made even more appealing by her cheerful outlook and generous personality.
It would be way too easy to get involved with her, maybe even to love her. That wasn’t going to happen, though, because she would be gone soon – to photograph orangutans. He wondered how often she put herself at risk to get a good shot. Was it worth it to her?
“I need to be more careful,” she muttered. “I almost got heatstroke in Death Valley last year. Now I always get overheated much faster than normal.”
He had his answer, Cam thought, listening to the dreamy tone of her voice. She was willing to take risks with her life to get a photo. He couldn’t
help himself. He reached over and tucked her silky hair behind her ear as he asked, “What were you photographing there?”
“The Mojave rattlesnake, the most poisonous rattler in North America. Beautiful shade of green, though. When the light hits it just right, it can be mesmerizing.”
After several more sips of water, normal color began returning to Billie’s face. She blinked and took a deep breath. Cam sat her up, glad she was feeling better and even more glad that he could move away from her disturbing closeness.
“Thank . . . thank you, Cam,” she said taking the bottle from his hand and swallowing several large gulps of water.
“Let’s get you back to your house. I think you’ve had enough outdoor activities for one day,” he responded gruffly.
Billie gave him a puzzled look and scooted off the end of the tailgate. She held on for a second until the world stopped spinning, and then tucked her shirt in. She swept her damp hair back into its topknot and walked unsteadily to climb into the truck.
Cam jumped in and started the motor. Within seconds, they were bouncing across the field. Wind blasted in the window and Billie turned her face to it, glad to have something to cool her off. She hoped Cam didn’t see the incident as evidence that she was too much of a wimp to do this job, but she feared that was exactly what he thought.
* * *
That night after a dinner of grilled chicken, limp salad, and almost-cooked potatoes prepared by Jess and Brian, and many, many glasses of water and iced tea forced on her by the two worried hands, Billie hid herself away in her bathroom/dark room and began developing the pictures she’d taken. Some of them were no good at all, blurred, or taken from an awkward angle, but many were excellent. She clipped the best ones to a line she had strung up over the tub and examined them with a critical eye. She had shots of Brian holding Chaser’s head, his own head leaning close in while he talked to the skittish horse. There were pictures of Chaser ambling away across the corral, apparently oblivious to his new shoes, photos of Cam’s equipment, ones of the fire, and of the men fighting it together. Mostly there were pictures of Cam, many, many pictures of Cam -- shoeing Chaser, spraying the hose over the fire, kicking at the smoldering hay, examining the damage to the hay barn, then working on the fence corner post with his uninjured hand.
Here To Stay (Welcome to Lucky Break, Arizona!) Page 6