by B. J Daniels
“You or one of the cowhands you conned into it. You’re the only person ignorant enough to pull a stunt like that and the only one who has gained by it.”
She felt as if he’d slapped her. “What kind of person do you think I am?”
“Scheming, manipulative, devious, conniving and underhanded,” he said.
She felt her cheeks flame, surprised that his opinion of her was so low—worse that it bothered her. “You forgot uncompromising.”
He sighed again. “What can I do to make you stop this?”
“Give my offer some serious thought.” She held up her hand. “Just tell me you will think about it. If you still don’t want to do the commercial by the time Buck returns tomorrow, then I will leave and you will never see me again. I give you my word.”
“Your word?” He let out a laugh. “I have a better idea. You give me the truck part, I pay you a week’s wages and I won’t make you walk out of here. I’ll drive you myself tonight.”
She cocked her head at him. “You’re afraid you’ll change your mind about my offer if I stay the night?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. His eyes, a paler blue than her own, turned as hard and cold as ice. “Ms. Holland, this is a cow camp. I have six hundred cattle to get out of these mountains before the snow falls, which could be tomorrow. I have men who need to keep their minds on their jobs. In order to do that, they need a dry place to sleep, food they can actually eat and no distractions. You are a distraction.”
She smiled. Maybe she was getting to him. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment. Please, just give me the truck part. Even if you were to stay up here the rest of the week you would never convince me to do your commercial.”
He actually sounded as if he meant it.
“I wish I had this distributor cap thingy,” she said honestly. She could feel his gaze on her. He didn’t believe her.
“Fine,” he said, sounding even angrier. “You want to keep up this charade, you got it. As long as you stay, you’re the camp cook. Breakfast is at daybreak.”
She shuddered involuntarily. Daybreak? What time was that? “You’re rehiring me?”
“We generally have ham, bacon, pancakes, eggs and hashbrowns.”
Holy cow. She should have known a continental breakfast would be too much to hope for. “Anything else?”
“Make the eggs fried, over easy.”
“Why not.”
He raised a brow. “You think you’re up to frying an egg on a woodstove, Reggie?”
“I’m ready for whatever you throw at me, McCall.” She didn’t want to even think about seeing an egg that early in the morning let alone cooking one. “Anyway, Buck says it’s possible to cook anything on a woodstove. It’s just all a matter of getting the heat adjusted.”
“Is that what Buck says?” He muttered something under his breath she couldn’t hear and was glad of it. He pulled off his hat and raked a hand through his hair in obvious frustration. “Dammit, woman, don’t you know you’re in over your head?”
She said nothing. If this evening were any indication, she had a pretty good idea of what she’d gotten herself into.
He shoved his hat back on his head. “You’re making a very big mistake and so is your accomplice.” With that, he turned and stalked toward the camp.
As she watched McCall’s perfect posterior walk away from her, she felt a stab of real doubt. Was he right? Was she wasting her time? Would he ever agree to the commercial?
She tried hard not to think about daybreak or eggs or this accomplice he suspected. But if she hadn’t taken his stupid distributor cap he kept talking about, then someone had. But who? Buck? Was he trying to help her?
Or was there someone else in the camp who didn’t want her or anyone else leaving tonight?
She shivered as she hurried back toward the lights of the cabin, afraid she really had gotten in over her head this time.
IN THE WEE HOURS of the morning, J.T. woke to the sound of someone walking around outside his tent. He slipped quietly from his sleeping bag, pulled on his jeans and boots and stepped out of the wall tent. Clouds hung low over the pines, making the night even darker, as if someone had dropped a blanket over the mountaintop. The last embers of the campfire cast an orange glow between the tents and the cabin. Beyond was blackness.
The horses whinnied softly in the corral. He looked in the direction of the line shack, suddenly worried about Reggie. Was it possible that she and one of the cowhands were in this together? But she hadn’t known any of the ranch hands before yesterday. Or had she?
He’d just assumed that she’d conned one of them into helping her once she got to the cow camp. But what if the plan had nothing to do with a TV jeans commercial? Then what? Rustling? That had been the plan nine years ago.
J.T. heard the creak of a porch floorboard and worked his way through the pines to the opposite side of the structure.
The darkness was complete, the air heavy and cold. He could see his breath as he worked his way along the side of the cabin.
He’d just reached the porch railing along the side when he spotted a ghostlike figure at the edge of the trees. He froze, pretty sure he couldn’t be seen from where he stood in the darkness.
The figure took a few tentative steps deeper into the woods. There was no mistaking the size, shape or the way she moved. Reggie. She leaned forward into the pines as if looking for something. Someone?
As she stepped deeper into the darkness and trees, he lost sight of her, but he could hear her whispering to someone.
He cursed himself. Who was she talking to? The person who had disabled the truck? He let out a silent oath as he realized this might have been a setup from the get-go. Had she known he’d be going into town yesterday and been waiting for him with that flat tire? No man could have driven past her, not the way she looked. But why go to so much trouble? So she could end up at his line shack. Her and her accomplice.
He told himself he was being paranoid, but then was reminded of the dead cow, the missing distributor cap, the feeling he couldn’t shake that the incidents were just the tip of the iceberg.
She came back out of the pines, barefoot, tiptoeing, holding up the hem of her long white nightgown. The fabric hugging her curves, leaving little to the imagination.
He cursed the effect it had on him as he watched her run back inside the line shack and quietly close the door and lock it, and hated to think what effect she had on whoever she’d been meeting in the woods.
He stayed hidden for a long while, waiting to see who came out of the trees. No one did. But the person she’d been talking to could have sneaked back around to his wall tent easily enough without being seen.
“Everything all right?” Buck whispered drowsily as J.T. reentered into the wall tent.
J.T. hoped so. “Just checking things,” he said, slipping into his sleeping bag on the cot. He lay there staring up into the darkness, listening to the soft whinny of the horses, the whisper of the night breeze in the pines, the occasional pop of the dying campfire, wondering who the hell Reggie was and what she really wanted with him. Also who she’d roped into helping her.
He had no way to check out her story—or her. Nor could he find out more about the men Buck had hired. Not until he returned to the ranch and that would be days from now. Too late. Even if he owned a cell phone, it didn’t work up here. There was no service even in Antelope Flats.
As he lay there, he couldn’t help but think about the cattle roundup nine years ago. That one had been cursed, Buck used to say. “Weren’t nobody’s fault what happened up at that line shack. Sometimes things just happen and no one on this earth can stop it.”
J.T. didn’t believe that any more than he believed in curses. But he did believe there was evil in the world, evil in some men, and he knew only too well what could happen when you put a handful of strangers in an isolated place miles from civilization and that evil showed up with a grudge and a knife.
He closed his
eyes and tried to get some sleep. In the dream, a woman in a bright red dress danced while behind her the line shack burned, flames shooting into the black night sky and a man stood in the darkness watching her, waiting.
J.T. WOKE to the smell of smoke. Through the canvas of the wall tent, he heard the crackle of flames and saw the glow. Fire!
He rolled over. Buck’s cot was empty. He must have already gotten up and left for town.
Heart racing, J.T. pulled on his jeans and boots and lunged out the tent door headlong into the steel-gray morning, convinced one of the wall tents or the line shack was on fire.
Will Jarvis looked up in surprise beside the campfire.
J.T. stumbled to a stop, his pulse thundering in his ears as he tried to calm himself. The line shack wasn’t on fire nor the other wall tent. History wasn’t repeating itself.
“Everything all right?” Will asked, his tone almost mocking.
J.T. knew he must have looked like a fool the way he’d come barreling out of his tent. He glanced toward the line shack. Dark.
He pulled on his jacket as he walked over to the fire, needing the warmth and taking the opportunity to find out what he could about Will Jarvis.
“Smells like snow,” Will said, sniffing the breeze before turning to warm his hands over the fire.
“Let’s hope not,” J.T. said, his mood not improving. He was tired and cranky. What little sleep he’d gotten had been haunted with nightmares. He hadn’t been able to get Reggie off his mind, especially after seeing her sneaking out to talk to someone in the middle of the night.
Obviously there was more going on than he knew. The sooner he got her off this mountain, the better.
With luck, Buck would be back before noon. J.T. had told Reggie last night that she had to cook breakfast. Fortunately, it was only a threat. He’d make breakfast and by the time he got back in the evening for supper, the new cook Buck found would have dinner ready and Regina Holland would be history.
So why did he feel so disagreeable this morning? Because he couldn’t forget that someone had helped Reggie. Possibly someone in this very camp. He couldn’t forget that Reggie had been talking to someone in the woods last night. An accomplice. But an accomplice to what?
He took a deep breath of the morning air. Will was right. The weather was changing. It wouldn’t be long and snow would blanket these mountains and stay for the long winter months to come.
“You been on a lot of cattle roundups?” J.T. asked Will, trying not to sound suspicious. But he was suspicious of all the cowhands now and there was something about Will….
“I’ve been on my share.”
“What ranches?”
Will looked over at him and shook his head. “Some in Colorado and Wyoming. None you would know.”
J.T. wanted to be the judge of that. He waited.
“The Pine Butte, the Triple Bar Three, Big Spring Station.”
All ranches J.T. had heard of. All ranches pretty much anyone would have heard of. Which meant Will could be lying through his teeth, knowing there was no way to check….
J.T. heard a rustle from the second wall tent and Slim Walker and Cotton Heywood came out, followed by Roy Shields and Nevada Black. After a few minutes of standing around the campfire, J.T. asked about Luke Adams.
“Haven’t seen him,” Slim said. “He was already up and gone when I woke.” Roy and Cotton nodded in agreement and everyone looked to Will Jarvis.
“His cot was empty when I got up and made the fire,” Will said.
J.T. took a look in the wall tent. Luke’s gear was gone and when he walked over to the corral, he wasn’t surprised to find Luke Adams’s horse gone as well. What the hell?
Maybe after last night’s dinner Luke decided he didn’t need any more of this. Luke just hadn’t seemed like the type to leave in the middle of the night.
Now J.T. was a man short. Worse, he didn’t like the way Luke had left—without a word. Was it a coincidence that Luke Adams was gone and Reggie had been talking to someone in the woods in the middle of the night? J.T. highly doubted it as he headed for the line shack.
Shafts of pearl-gray shot down through the tops of the pines, turning the early morning dew to diamonds.
As he neared the cabin, he found himself getting angrier by the minute. The woman had lied and somehow disabled his truck and even tried to blackmail him! She was definitely after his ass all right. But he doubted it had anything to do with a TV commercial. She was trying to sabotage his cattle roundup. Had already done a pretty good job of it. He’d had to send Buck back to the ranch and now he was short another hand with Luke gone.
What the hell was J.T. going to do with her? He knew what he’d like to do with her—and it wasn’t let her cook.
He just couldn’t let her get to him. Look what she’d done to poor unsuspecting Buck. All that delicate softness, curvaceous sweetness and apparent defenselessness sucked a man in. He remembered the way she’d been last night after that awful meal, all doe-eyed and apologetic. It still annoyed him that she’d made him feel guilty as if all of this was his fault.
As he stepped up onto the porch, he wondered what devious plots she’d been hatching last night. He paused just outside the door. He didn’t need to announce his entrance. After all, it was his cabin. But he still scooped up an armload of firewood before noisily stomping his feet on the porch. He didn’t want to catch her naked, that was for damned sure.
He started to open the door, but stopped himself. Irritated, he knocked.
When he didn’t get an answer, he opened the door a crack. “Ms. Holland?”
To his surprise, the fire in the stove crackled warmly, casting a faint glow over the room. He took a couple of steps into the room, reminded that he was walking into her bedroom. “Ms. Holland?”
Still not a sound. He cleared his throat and called out again wondering if it was possible that she’d taken off with Luke Adams.
No hint of daybreak bled through the windows and he realized that she’d draped towels over them for curtains. As his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, he could make out a lump burrowed under a pile of covers on the first bottom bunk. He figured she’d be dead to the world after last night—no doubt her first real manual labor.
He stomped over to the woodstove, making enough racket to raise the dead—if not a Los Angeles talent agent. If that really was what she was.
She didn’t stir—not until he stumbled over something out in the middle of the floor. A series of objects thudded loudly and something rolled across the floor.
Cursing under his breath, he worked his way around the far edge of the floor to the woodstove, dropped his armload of wood unceremoniously and felt around for a match. From the bunk came a loud groan.
He lit the lantern. Reggie was completely covered by blankets, not even her head visible.
“Buck?” came a faint sleepy voice from deep in the bunk.
“No,” J.T. snapped, sounding as irascible as he felt. Buck was on his way to Antelope Flats because of her. Reggie was on her own. And look what had happened last night when Buck had helped her cook.
“Oh, McCall,” she said from under the blankets, not sounding in the least pleased that it was him.
He held up the lantern to see what he’d tripped over. All of the canned goods and food supplies Buck had brought up were now stacked in a semicircle around Reggie’s bunk on the floor.
“What in the—?” J.T. shook his head as he stepped closer. Why in the world would she literally surround herself with groceries?
He swung the lantern around to shine it on the bottom bunk. All he could see of her was one bare arm sticking out of the mountain of blankets. The arm was curled around a ten-pound bag of flour. J.T. frowned in nothing short of true bewilderment.
“Why is all the food on the floor?” he asked patiently.
Reggie’s head poked out from under the blankets, she blinked as if blinded by the firelight—or him, then she ducked back under with a louder groan.
She looked out at him, blinking away sleep, seeming to find it hard to focus on him.
In the lantern light she looked a lot better than he felt. It annoyed him greatly.
“How were your accommodations?” he asked, hoping she’d gotten less sleep than he had, especially since she’d had that late-night secret summit in the woods. He wanted to demand who she’d been talking to out in the woods last night but he decided to keep that piece of information to himself a little longer. First he would watch her with the cowhands. Better to let her think she had gotten away with her late-night rendezvous. “Sleep well?”
“Like a baby.” She blinked those big blue eyes at him, clearly lying through her teeth. “What time is it?”
“Time to start breakfast.”
Her gaze went to the window. “It’s still dark outside.”
He didn’t tell her that normally the cook got up way before daybreak to start the fire. It took an hour before the fire was ready to cook on.
Fortunately, she’d kept the fire going so breakfast wouldn’t be as late as he’d figured.
“As camp cook,” he said, “you have to get up earlier than anyone else and usually go to bed later.”
She tried to sit up and then seemed to realize she still had her arm around the bag of flour. She sneaked a quick look at him, then haughtily freed her arm and glaring at him, sat up, banging her head on the over-head bunk. “Ouch.” She rubbed her forehead and eyed him as if this too were his fault. “Well, aren’t you going to say something smart?”
He tried not to laugh. Served her right. If she hadn’t been glaring at him—
“If you will just go away and let me get up and dressed….”
“Not so fast.” The more he looked at the semicircle of staples, the more curious—and concerned—he’d become. “You haven’t told me what the food is doing around your bed. I’m sure there is a simple explanation.” He highly doubted it since it was Reggie. He wasn’t sure what exasperated him more about her, the fact that she looked so good in the morning or that she really thought she could evade his question.