“Friends it is. Shall we cut our wrists and bind them together?” He grinned lazily.
His teasing apparently hit the right tone.
“The sight of blood makes me sick, Jacob. I doubt that comes as any great surprise, considering how fast I blacked out when you slugged Joe and blood spurted from his nose.” She unbuckled her seat belt, picked up the satchel that held her dirty clothes and slid out of the Cherokee. “I cheered you on, even if I don’t hold with violence.”
Jake blocked her from closing the door. “This from the lady who took a potshot at me?”
“Are you blaming me for protecting myself? Men think they have a right to use muscles or kisses to overpower a woman. Well, they don’t. You don’t.”
“I backed off, Hayley. There are men, of course, who wouldn’t. Those same men might turn your gun on you. Sometimes it’s smarter to hide or just plain climb in your truck and flee. Promise me you’ll do that if need be.”
“You mean if Joe shows up to jump my claim, don’t you? I’m supposed to tuck my tail between my legs and let him take it? No, Jake, I won’t.”
“Hayley, no amount of opals is worth putting your life or your baby’s life in danger. You’ve recorded your find. There are legal avenues to beat Joe.”
“Tell that to someone who believes in fairy tales. He forged my name on the sale papers for the Silver Cloud. He walked off with seven-eighths of the money. The law said it was his right as my husband. So much for your legal avenues.”
“Shad Tilford does not speak for the real law in this state. You have my word, Hayley. Joe won’t get away with stealing from you again.”
Hayley wanted to believe him. The thought of Joe playing her for a fool twice frightened her. A rare sliver of luck had allowed her to land on her feet. But luck and Hayley Ryan weren’t best buddies. “Here we are, Jake, arguing over something that may never come to pass. I have work to do before the sun sets. As do you. So long, and stop worrying. I’ll be fine. You said yourself it won’t be easy for Joe to find the Blue Cameo even if he stumbles onto the recorder’s files.”
“I said that, yes.” Jake only wished he was as sure of that fact as he’d let on.
“Well, then.” Hayley smiled softly as she circled a palm over her swollen belly. “Junior and I will be right as rain. Speaking of rain, aren’t there a lot of black clouds moving in?” She squinted up at the darkening sky.
Hunching down to peer out the windshield, Jake saw she’d spoken the truth. “I sure wish I didn’t have to leave you alone. Heed your own advice and stop digging if those clouds do open up and dump on us.”
“I will. Jake, if you’re headed to the Triple C to collect Mojave, would you mind taking a minute to call Eden and let her know I’m back?”
“Will do. I’m telling her to buy us tickets to the harvest dance, too. I don’t care if you can’t dance— I’m taking you.” Jake shut the door, buckled himself in and threw the Cherokee into Reverse.
He didn’t want to admit that Hayley had scared him, talking about Joe’s criminal traits. Jake intended to do more than notify Eden of their return and ask her to buy dance tickets. He planned to speak with his father about releasing him from his duties at the roundup. In view of Joe’s threat, Hayley needed a full-time bodyguard.
The dark clouds had begun to roll with thunder and dance with heat lightning by the time Jake drove the Cherokee through the gates of the Triple C.
Wade Cooper glanced up from tying a tan slicker over a bedroll that spanned the broad rump of his favorite mare. He waited impatiently for Jake to alight. “About time you quit fiddledee-fartin’ around the countryside with that fool woman and remembered it’s getting our steers to market that pays your bills, as well as ours.”
Jake froze, his hackles instantly raised. “Actually I came by to tell you I’m going back to help Hayley dig as many opals as possible before bad weather sets in. Dock my share of the profits from this sale, if it’ll make you feel better. I already rounded up more than half the strays.”
“Now they’re all strays,” his father roared. “I just got off the mobile with Dillon. A big clap of thunder spooked the herd. They scattered nine ways from Sunday. We need every hand we have to track them down. That includes you.” He jabbed a finger in Jake’s chest.
“A stampede?” Jake’s jaw went slack.
“Has playing Romeo made you deaf? Throw a leg over Mojave and let’s make tracks.”
“You go on ahead. I promised Hayley I’d phone Eden.”
“Forget that. I already called your mom. Jacob, quit letting that little bloodsucker lead you by the nose. Before you know it, she’ll have you convinced to move her lock, stock and barrel into our house.”
Eyes narrowed dangerously, Jake cut his gelding out of the corral. As he slung a saddle on Mojave’s back and cinched it tight, he said in a deadly quiet voice, “I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue any time you mention the woman I plan to marry.” His sudden glimpse into the future shocked even Jake. An idea took shape in his head. He clearly knew his next step. “I won’t be bringing Hayley to the Triple C. After I round up the herd, I’m coming home and calling Carl Brown, that architect who designed Dillon’s house. I want my own finished by December. I want to marry Hayley before she has the baby.”
“December?” Wade almost spooked his own mount with his shout. His face turned beet-red as he hopped around with one foot in his stirrup. By the time he finally managed to drag himself into the saddle, his scowl was more formidable than the low-riding clouds. “I told Nell not to visit that Ryan woman, I knew it’d only encourage your foolish interest in her. Marry her? You hardly know the woman. Do you hear what you’re saying? It wasn’t six months ago everyone in the valley laid bets on how soon you and John Westin’s daughter would be booking a church.”
“I dated Ginalyn twice. Maybe three times,” Jake said, getting as red in the face as his father. “She’s spoiled as sin. Hayley Ryan is a hundred—no, a thousand times more woman.” Vaulting into his saddle, Jake clattered off without waiting for Wade to chew on his ear any longer.
Jake had the faster, stronger horse. He managed to stay ahead of Wade until they got into rough terrain. Then the surefooted mare came into her own and drew abreast of Mojave. Together, father and son flushed eight or so bewildered-looking steers bearing the Triple C brand from a thicket of greasewood. Jake unlooped a lariat and swung it back and forth to try to head the cattle in the right direction.
Hearing steers bawling in the distance, Wade rode over the next rise. He had ten more head on the move when Jake rejoined him.
“Where’s that cow dog of yours?” Wade asked. “He’d keep these strays on track and leave you and me free to hunt down the remaining delinquents.”
“I left Charcoal with Hayley. By the way,” he added, changing the subject. “Did you know Eden’s offered to buy everything Hayley’s mine can produce?”
“The lot of you encouraged her. If you’d let things be and hadn’t taken her milk and garden greens, likely the little gal would’ve pulled up stakes by now. But no, my own family facilitated her operation, even though every last one of you knew I’ve been dickering for years to acquire that property.”
“Don’t forget the chickens I gave her.”
Wade seared his son with a scowl.
“I was being facetious,” Jake informed his dad. “But what’s the big deal? Hayley’s agreed to the same water arrangement you negotiated with Ben.”
“Jake, I didn’t want to spout off out of turn. All I have is an unsubstantiated rumor. When I collected our last stock check, Charlie Goodall, a rancher I know from Phoenix, asked what we thought down here of John Westin hobnobbing with developers.”
“Developers?” To a rancher, developer was a scary word, too often synonymous with resorts and golf courses. It generally meant the demise of the government land ranchers leased to graze large herds. “Are you sure this Goodall didn’t mistake John’s chat with the governor on behalf of the coop’s w
ater interests as a move to develop?”
Wade rubbed a thumb over a stubbled jaw. “Charlie sat near John’s party at lunch. He knows who attended that meeting and what he heard. He’d have no reason to lie. Marshall Rogers from the Rocking R was hip-deep in it, too. I know for a fact that for the last two years he’s made noises about selling out.”
“Are you going to confront John at the next cattlemen’s meeting?”
“Not knowing the extent of his backing, I’m almost afraid to. What I need is control over the spring. Without a water source, the developers will back out.”
“Right now Hayley controls the water. So I can’t understand why you aren’t treating her more nicely.”
“She controls the mineral rights. Not water. Westin could make a case to the governor that the valley ranchers need the water rights split off from the mineral rights. It could happen as fast as that.” He snapped his fingers.
Jake finished his father’s thought. “And if John’s convinced a majority of our neighbors to go along with his scheme, he’s nabbed a pot of gold. The Triple C either capitulates and sells to the developer, or we’re eventually squeezed out.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I can’t believe John would be so sneaky. If he’s of a mind to sell the J & B, why set Ginalyn up with a spread of her own?”
Wade scrammed three steers out of a thicket of mesquite. “I figure it’s a smoke screen for those of us not in on his racket. Think about it. A few of us have been on John’s case for bringing in too much new stock and overgrazing the leased rangeland. I always suspected the guy was a wheeler-dealer out to make big bucks.”
“So you’re saying Westin’s depleted the rangeland and now plans to sell and make an even bigger killing on the property?”
“Much as I hate it, that’s my theory.”
Jake charged off after a stubborn yearling bull who objected to being brought into the small herd they’d mustered. “Then it seems to me,” he said, out of breath when he returned, “that’d be in the best interests of the Triple C for me to stick close to Hayley’s operation. Won’t John think twice about pulling any shenanigans if I’m on-site?”
They rounded up several more strays before Wade responded. “My druthers, plain and simple, is for you to talk that gal into revoking her claim so we can purchase the acreage fair and square. That would stonewall John.”
“The mine is Hayley’s insurance policy. Her ex swindled her out of Ben’s property in Tombstone. I don’t want her thinking we’re shysters, as well.”
Wade looked at Jake long and hard. “Don’t talk to me again, boy, until you make up your mind where your loyalty lies. With your family or with that woman.” Reining his mare sharply to the left, he kicked her into a gallop. Horse and rider soon disappeared over a rise, leaving Jake to swear at the steers they’d already rounded up.
His herd grew in size during the long grueling afternoon. Night had fallen by the time Jake merged his group of stampeded runaways with the main body of steers captured by Dillon and the vaqueros. Again the storm had rolled over the Santa Cruz Valley without dropping any rain. The milling, bawling cattle were winded from their run and they were dry. The added humidity left herd and wranglers cranky.
Dillon rode out to meet Jake, who pivoted in the saddle, expecting his dad to be bearing down on him, too. Jake had been ganged up on by family more than once. This time, apparently, Dillon was alone. Which was a relief.
Until Dillon skidded his mount to a stop, dropped his reins, dismounted and grabbed Jake right out of his saddle. Their noses inches apart, Dillon shook his younger brother hard enough to rattle Jake’s teeth.
“It’s not enough that you have Mom and Dad arguing over that woman you’ve befriended. Now she’s got you turning your back on the blood, sweat and tears we’ve all put into the Triple C.”
Jake broke Dillon’s grip on his shirt. Seeing red, Jake lowered his head and rammed it hard into Dillon’s midriff. With a huge oof, the two began punching wildly. Locked together, they rolled down a rocky incline. Furious though he was, Jake was the first to hear the cattle lowing in alarm. He stiffened an arm against Dillon’s throat. “Listen, you idiot, maybe you like blistering your butt in the saddle all day digging these cows out twice. Once is enough for me.” Though his chest heaved from the exertion, Jake stood and jerked his brother to his feet.
Dillon dusted off his hat and jammed it on. “I don’t need your help, you—”
“Shoot your mouth off again and I’ll start a second stampede myself. Anyway, I don’t believe Hayley caused an argument between Mom and Dad. They never fight.”
“They are now. Dad fired Ernesto Torres for coming back drunk between the north-and south-area roundups.”
“What does that have to do with Hayley?”
“Mrs. Torres is a midwife. Mom told Dad right in front of the crew to give Ernesto back his job because she’d already talked to Mrs. Torres about moving out to Hayley’s camp in case her baby comes early. I guess you’d know she’s pregnant.”
“Mom did that?” Jake relaxed his shoulders. “She’s brilliant.”
“Well, Dad didn’t think so. The vaqueros wouldn’t respect him again if he reversed his decision. You know we can’t condone drinking on the job.”
“Ernesto has worked roundup on the Triple C for ten years. That ought to be reason enough to consider letting him dry out and stay on the crew.”
“Exactly what Mom said. But she didn’t let up. Dad finally blew his cork. They put on quite a show for the hands.” Dillon sounded disgusted.
“So how did it end?”
“Dad won. Mom is furious. They’re barely speaking. As if losing Ernesto isn’t bad enough, according to Dad you’re leaving us even shorter-handed while you go help that woman dig her opals.”
“He never mentioned losing Ernesto. If you’re in a bind, I’ll ride back and forth, helping Hayley whenever I can—unless you badmouth her again. Then the deal’s off.”
Dillon stuck his fingers into his back pockets and leaned close to Jake. “You’re serious. I can’t believe it. Some days it’ll be a two-hour ride each way. You’d give up sleep and stretch yourself thin for this woman?”
“I would,” Jake said, his face stony.
Dillon bit back a snarl and wrapped his reins around one hand. He mounted fluidly, the stiff set of his shoulders conveying his disapproval. “I certainly hope you’re not expecting me to like a woman who’d pit husband against wife, son against father and brother against brother.” He wheeled his star-faced gelding off into the darkness before Jake could formulate a comeback. Probably just as well, though. He was too angry now. And someday in the not-too-distant future, after he’d finished building his house and installed Hayley in it, Dillon would be forced to eat his words. Once she was no longer Hayley Ryan but Hayley Cooper, they’d return to being one big happy family.
Jake’s good fortune continued. His path never crossed either Dillon’s or their dad’s over the next two days. Every last hand extended himself to help bring the herd’s count to what it’d been before the stampede. The heat and dust, which had seemed to double after the passing of the rainless storm, sapped any will the cowboys might have had for bickering.
Jake didn’t bother to check out with anyone at noon on the third day after he’d driven the last six strays he’d found into the main herd. Mopping sweat from his brow, he refilled his canteen from the water barrel and lit out for the Blue Cameo.
An hour later his heart did a fast jig as he rode into Hayley’s camp. The fire was out, her camp empty of the ever-present piles of ore. Jake panicked.
But her pickup was there, so she hadn’t taken a load of ore to Tubac. Then where was she? He called himself all kinds of fool for leaving her alone, unprotected.
Wait! He hadn’t left her totally unprotected. Charcoal. Where was that dog?
Swinging down from his horse, Jake unsaddled the big bay and tied him to a tree near a patch of grass that wasn’
t completely brown. Though Jake hadn’t the vaguest idea where Hayley’s mine was located, he set off on foot to search the foothills. She’d said she was digging in a ravine that, if it rained, would feed the waterfall. Considering how much ore she’d already gathered, Jake didn’t think she could be hauling it far.
The longer he walked and the more barren his uphill ascent became, the greater his worry. His stomach bottomed out when he heard the muffled blast of dynamite.
He ran blindly and pulled up panting under the shade of a gnarled piñon. Placing a shaking thumb and forefinger against his teeth, Jake whistled for Charcoal. He was rewarded by a far-off but recognizable bark. At first delighted, then concerned that Hayley might be lying ahead somewhere hurt or disabled, Jake charged up the rocky cliff in the direction of the still-vibrating cloud of dust.
His boots slipped on the slick granite. He cursed the steep grade, but didn’t slow down. Not until a shot rang out, coming so close it knocked the hat from his head. His heart slammed against his chest as he dived for cover behind clumps of desert bloom that wouldn’t hide a flea. As his throat tightened convulsively, Jake’s immediate thought was that someone had jumped Hayley’s claim. The shot had come from a higher-powered rifle than she owned.
Sweat poured down his neck in rivulets. He buried his face in broken bits of shale and wondered how he’d let himself get pinned down so neatly.
No other shots followed, but it wasn’t long before Jake felt eyes boring into his back. He had little choice but to raise his arms slowly. Maybe it would buy him time with the claim-jumpers.
He didn’t even get one hand up before he felt a cold nose sniff his ear.
“Jake? Is that you?” Hayley shrieked. By then, Charcoal had all but deafened him, barking in his ear.
“What are you doing sneaking up on me when I’m blasting?” Hayley demanded, ejecting an unused shell from the chamber of a deer rifle Jake recognized as his own.
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