A blush reddened Haley’s face when she looked up and saw Dewar riding toward her. A sudden picture of him tangled up in the gold sheets on her bed fixed itself firmly in her mind. Candlelight and the color of the sheets brought out those little gold flecks in his eyes. His dark lashes lowered as he moved toward her and then those hot, sexy lips would meet hers in a clash that would blow out every candle in the room.
She sighed. “So much for sweet romance books.”
Lord, have mercy!
She needed something to do other than sit on the back of a horse and let her imagination run wild. He herded a cow back into the herd and turned that big black stallion of his around to go back to the head of the pack without even a sideways glance her way. But just being there in close proximity had already set her mind into a tailspin.
It was all because there was nothing else to think about. She made a few mental notes along the way about the reality show, but that didn’t take up nearly enough time. So there she was, time on her hands, and Dewar looking like a cross between her two favorite television characters. What was she supposed to do? A ninety-year-old nun would have trouble keeping her thoughts pure with that man around to tempt her, and Haley McKay didn’t have a holy cell in her body.
“You talkin’ to me?” Coosie asked.
“No, I was talking to myself. It gets lonely out here, don’t it?”
He nodded.
Thank God that Coosie couldn’t see inside her mind.
“Is it just day after day of the same thing? Or is there something exciting coming up?” she asked.
“You got it, darlin’.”
“But surely something happens,” she said bleakly.
“Nope, it’s the same thing every day. Get up, eat breakfast, herd cattle until noon, and eat dinner—that’s the noon meal out here and supper is the evening meal. Then we get back on the trail, stop for supper, and go to bed. Don’t know how in the world they’re goin’ to make a Survivor thing on the television with this to work with,” he said.
“Oh, they’ll glamorize it all to the devil and it’ll be the next big thing. Think about that one about grappling fish. It had millions of viewers.”
Coosie’s big head barely tipped forward. “Boys have been doin’ that for years in our part of the world. Never even heard of it being called hand fishin’. Even Lucy got all involved with that crazy show.”
“Lucy? Is she your wife?”
Coosie shook his head that time. “No, ma’am.”
He didn’t appear to be much for talk.
Talk!
That was a great idea for the show. Who could tell the best story? After a hard day they all had to come up with a story to entertain everyone around the campfire. The public could call in their vote and the contestant who got the least votes would have to go home the next week. She’d already decided that there would only be three guys and three women at the end of the journey and they would bring the herd into the feedlot at Dodge City in a big season semi-finale. Then the public would vote on the best cowboy and cowgirl of the finalists, which would be announced at the finale. Those two would get the big bucks.
Haley was bored out of her wits so she pushed on, “Is Lucy your daughter?”
Coosie shook his head. “She could have been if I’d have got an early start with a family, but I didn’t. No, Lucy is just Lucy.”
“And she cooks at the ranch where y’all work.”
“She cooks at the ranch where Buddy and I work. Dewar lives on another ranch, and the other O’Donnell cousins live on still another one.”
Haley felt like she was pulling teeth. “Tell me about her.”
“Like I said, Lucy is Lucy.”
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
“Ain’t got much to say.”
Haley’s curiosity was piqued. “Why don’t you want to tell me about Lucy?”
“You want to know about Lucy, you ask Lucy.”
“Then tell me about you,” she said.
“Ain’t much to tell that would interest a television person like you.”
“Come on, Coosie, I’m just asking for a story to make the time go by. Anything to beat looking at cows meandering ahead of us at a snail’s pace. I’m not taking notes and I’m not interested in writing your personal stories. I just want someone to talk to me. I’m used to dozens of people around me all day and the buzz of several conversations going all at once.”
“Get unused to it, Miz Haley. All you’re going to get is cows bawlin’ and cowboys cussin’ out here.”
“If you don’t want to talk about Lucy, then tell me about Dewar.”
“You want to know about Dewar, ask him. You want to know about Finn, ask him. You want to know about Rhett…”
She held up a hand. “I know, ask him. This morning I want to know about you. Tell me something, anything. Talk to me about the wagon or the horses or how you got roped into this job.”
“Didn’t get roped into jack shit. I volunteered for it. Me and Buddy both. We had a lot of vacation time that we ain’t never used because we get a week a year and we ain’t never took any of it, so we asked our boss, Ace, and he said that his brothers could help out on the ranch this month. So here we are. So I chose this vacation. I wasn’t roped into it, not like you were.”
“Is Ace Lucy’s daddy?”
“No, Ace is Lucy’s boss.”
Haley was thoroughly confused. If Lucy was just a working woman, then why did Coosie’s eyes go all soft whenever he talked about her?
“What do you do on the ranch?” she asked.
“Anything Ace wants me to do, now that Lucy is doing the cooking. Me and Buddy grew up on ranches so we know what needs to be done and we do it.”
“And this wagon? Is it rented or what? Can we rent it for the reality show?”
“Hell, no! It’s my wagon. I built it from the ground up. Took me two years to get it designed and built just like I wanted it, and it’s damn sure not for rent.”
“Would you show my team how to build one?”
“Be easier to buy one. Big shots like y’all should be able to find places to buy them on the computer.”
Haley sighed. So that was the problem? Coosie viewed her as a big shot, not as a bored-to-tears woman already tired of the long ride and wishing to hell she was back in Dallas.
“Then tell me what we should look for when we go shopping,” she said.
“Look for one that has a Studebaker design. Mr. Goodnight chose that design for a reason. It’s sturdy and it’ll hold up over the rough rides for many years.”
“Who is Mr. Goodnight?”
“He was the one who designed some of the first, if not the first, chuck wagons. You can’t talk to him about it though because he did all his work way back during the Civil War days.”
They rode along in silence as she made mental notes about the chuck wagon. It would play an important role in the show because it would carry the food supply and not a single contestant would stick around if they weren’t fed.
“Do they come in different sizes?” she finally asked.
Coosie nodded.
“Like small, medium, and large?”
“I have no idea. I just patterned mine after the Studebaker. It’s ten feet long by forty inches wide with the bentwood bows of a traditional covered wagon. The canvas that is tied down over the bows is waterproof because you can bet your redheaded fanny that it will rain sometime while we are gone. Like Goodnight, I added a chuck box to the rear of the wagon.”
“A chuck box?”
“Yes, it’s the thing that looks like a desk with cubbyholes to hold spices, bakin’ soda, and such to help with the cooking, and it’s got a hinged lid to serve as a worktable. And there’s a boot underneath the wagon for extra storage for my pots and pans,” he said.
“What’s inside?”
“Food, lanterns, kerosene, a spare wagon wheel, rain slickers.”
“For a whole month for all seven of us?” she asked incredulously
.
“For a few days. We can buy supplies along the way and we refill our water barrel when we can if it don’t rain enough to catch water that way.”
“Oh, then, we get to shop?” She could hear the excitement in her own voice.
“I shop. You and the guys will take care of camp. You aren’t here for a good time. You are here to take notes and learn all about how to herd cows so your show won’t be a big flop.”
You sound like my dad, even if you don’t look a damn thing like him.
“What kind of food is in there?”
“That is my business. I am the cook so I decide what’s in there and when it gets used. And at night I turn the wagon’s tongue toward the North Star so the trail boss, that would be Dewar, has a compass direction in the morning.”
She giggled. “Really, now.”
“This is as authentic as we can make it, lady. You might want to remember what I’m telling you because it might come in handy. You want those city slickers to get turned around and waste a whole day going the wrong way?”
It was thirty minutes before she could think of another question, but one finally came to mind. “Is the Studebaker design the only one out there?”
Coosie shook his head.
“What else is there?” she pressed on.
“The Studebaker is my favorite, but there’s also the Springfield Wagon, Old Hickory Wagon, Moline Wagon, and the Mitchell Wagon Company.”
“This one doesn’t look a thing like the ones in the old Western movies. Which one did those folks use?” she asked.
“They used the Conestoga, but it was for the movies, not for real life cattle drives.”
“Why?”
Coosie inhaled deeply.
Haley didn’t care if she was bugging him. She needed to know for the show and she wanted to know because it beat ambling along behind cows.
“It’s too heavy and bulky. It just looked good for the movies. Kind of like your reality people. They’ll look good but they won’t be the real thing.”
The cattle stopped as if on cue and Coosie pulled up on the reins. He hopped down off the wagon and lumbered around to the end where he pulled down the lid, propped it on the single leg, and started preparing dinner. Dewar slid out of his saddle and walked to the creek where he counted the herd. The rest of the cowboys all grouped around Coosie and waited.
Haley took a few squares of her precious toilet paper and made a fast trip to a mesquite thicket. When she returned Coosie was handing out biscuits stuffed with eggs and ham. A big community bag of barbecue potato chips was opened on the table and everyone helped themselves.
Buddy pointed to the water barrel attached to the side of the wagon. “You’ll need to fill up your canteens. Coosie is going to refill when we go through Comanche. There’s a gas station there on M-m-main Street and they got a water hose.”
Haley washed her hands in the dishwater and dried them on the seat of her jeans, picked up a handful of chips, and reached for a biscuit. Dewar grabbed at the same time she did and their fingertips brushed. The sizzle startled them both and they jumped like they’d grabbed hold of a rattlesnake.
“Excuse me,” Dewar drawled.
“Quite all right,” she said.
“Coosie said you were full of questions this morning,” he said.
“I just wanted to know what kind of chuck wagon we needed to buy for the reality show,” she answered.
“You won’t ever find one as neat as his. He built it from the ground up and made adjustments until he got it just right.”
She bit into the biscuit. “That’s what I hear.”
Dewar carried his food to the other side of the table. “Coosie, did I hear you say we had enough clean water to last till Comanche?”
Coosie nodded. “Just like the plans you drew up, it’s goin’ to last until then. Miz Haley, you write in your notes that it might not last that long if the show people are going to make this trip in the summer. It all depends on how hot it is.”
“Why?” She had already fetched her notebook and paper and was writing as fast as she could remember while she ate.
“Because,” Finn answered, “if it’s hot, they drink more water. If it’s nice like it is now, they won’t need quite as much.”
“It’s goin’ to get hot. You sure you don’t want to give me that hundred dollars now and go on back to the comforts of air-conditioning and long, lazy baths and ice in your water and…” Sawyer teased.
Haley butted in before he could go any further. “I’ll take these cows in by myself if you want to go on home to your jealous girlfriend. I’ve been razed by specialists, Sawyer, and you ain’t nothin’ but an amateur.”
“Whew!” Rhett wiped his forehead. “Looks like you done met your match, Sawyer. How’d you know about his girlfriend, anyway?”
She smiled and kept writing. “Tell me those kinds other than Studebaker again.”
Coosie rattled them off so rapidly that she had to write fast.
“And you are sure you won’t rent us yours?”
“D-d-don’t nobody touch his wagon,” Buddy chuckled.
“I didn’t build it so someone else could ruin it. Better quit your jawin’ and start your chewin’ ’cause the nooner don’t last half the afternoon.”
Dewar set about eating like nothing at all had happened when their hands touched. Maybe he had a woman back in Ringgold. No one as handsome and sexy as he was could possibly be single. He had to be close to her age and that would put him at thirty or a little more.
She shut her eyes and visualized the file that Carl had on Dewar back when they first came up with the idea of the cattle drive reality show. He was part owner and operator of a cattle-slash-horse ranch and that he could easily get a crew of six and a herd of a hundred cows together for the reenactment. It didn’t even have a place for married, single, or divorced.
“Shit!” she mumbled and quickly jerked her head up to see if anyone heard her.
He was probably engaged and that was the underlying reason that he did not want a woman on the drive with him. If she was his fiancée, she’d be on her way to drag his sexy little butt right back to Ringgold, Texas, as soon as the gossip hotline told her that H. B. McKay was not a stuffy, middle-aged man.
Chapter 5
Dewar was sitting straight up when he awoke. Nerves on the back of his neck prickled and his heart thumped around in his chest like it was looking for an escape route. He quickly turned his boots upside down, shook any possible bugs out, and jammed his feet down into them. A lonesome coyote yipped in the distance, but he didn’t get an answer. Crickets and tree frogs chirped away. Still, something wasn’t right. He could feel it in his bones and they never lied to him. He quietly unsheathed his rifle and held it beside his leg.
He scanned the campsite. Buddy even stuttered when he snored. Finn mumbled in his sleep, and Sawyer rolled from one side to the other, trying to get comfortable. The fire crackled in the moonlight, but everything and everyone looked all right.
Until he turned around and realized Haley’s bedroll was empty. His gun was still standing beside the tree, which meant she hadn’t gone to check on rustlers again. Dear God! Someone had kidnapped her for a ransom?
“Not without a fight from that redhead,” he mumbled. “She’d be pitching a screaming hissy fit.”
Lord, why did H. B. McKay have to be a woman!?
Everyone along the trail knew they were bringing a hundred head of cattle down the old Chisholm Trail. It would be easy to back a trailer right up to a gate on the far side of the pasture and drive off with a straggler or two or even half the herd. He could imagine a dozen places where it could happen that very night.
He leaned against a scrub oak tree, keeping himself out of the moonlight as he scanned the area for stealthy rustlers. He felt a presence behind him, spun around, and whipped the rifle up to point right at Haley’s heart.
“Shit! It’s me. Haley. Don’t shoot.” She grabbed her chest with one hand and held up
her palm.
He quickly lowered the rifle. “What in the hell are you doing out here?”
“I might ask you the same thing,” Haley smarted off right back at him.
“Trouble is brewing,” he said.
“How did you know?”
“It woke me up. Now you? What were you doing out here?”
“I woke up and went down to the creek for a bath. When I came back you were gone and I came to see what you were doing sneaking around out here. We got more of them pesky kids trying to steal cows?” she whispered.
The aroma of sweet-smelling soap wafted across the night breeze to his nose. At the same time a slinky, low-to-the-ground movement near the mesquite trees at the far fence line caught his attention.
He pointed. “It’s probably a bobcat or maybe a mountain lion. Wind is blowing away from us right now or he would have picked up our scent and run away before now.”
The longhorn bull put his head down and let out a low bawl that sounded like a warning. The cows moved restlessly behind him.
“Shoot ’im?” she asked.
“Not unless I have to. It would spook the cows, maybe cause a stampede, and definitely wake everyone up. Walk with me.” Dewar’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Chill bumps chased down Haley’s backbone, not from fear of danger but from his voice at that timbre. It was so damn sexy that it brought all kinds of naughty images into living high-definition color.
He moved across the pasture in long easy strides with her doing double time to keep up. Finally, he reached down and took her hand in his. She wasn’t even a bit surprised at the warmth spreading through her body.
Before they got around the herd, she heard a deep-throated growl and another shadow ran back into the woods in a lope. Dewar turned to look at the bull that was already trotting back to his herd with his head up.
“That bull thinks he’s the big hero,” she said.
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