CASSIDY HARTE AND THE COMEBACK KID

by Reanne Thayne

  She tried to be a goad person. She didn't lie, didn't cheat on her income taxes, didn't swear—much, anyway. She obeyed the Golden Rule, she was kind to the elderly and small children and she really made an effort to go to church as often as she could manage. And for all her effort, this is what she got?

  She should have raised a little hell when she had the chance.

  Jean Martineau, steel-gray hair yanked back into her usual ruthlessly tight braid, frowned at her with concern in her snapping brown eyes. "I had no idea, Cassie. I swear I didn't. The man who signed the papers went by William Z. Slater. Other than the last name bein' the same, why would I have any reason to think for one minute that he might have anything in common with Zack Slater, the no-good drifter who caused Star Valley's biggest scandal in years?"

  Thank you so much for bringing that up again. Cassie pounded out more of her emotional uproar on the hapless ball of dough for the next morning's sweet rolls. At this rate, the poor things would be as tough and stringy as cowhide.

  "It's not your fault," she assured her friend and employer slowly. "I'm sure he concealed his identity on purpose."

  But why? That was the question that had been racing through her head all afternoon. If this whole thing wasn't a scam—and apparently it wasn't—why would Zack put himself to so much trouble to buy a small guest ranch that would probably never be more than moderately successful? It didn't seem like the kind of savvy investment a fast-track company like Maverick Enterprises would make.

  The ranch was geared toward families, with plenty of activities for all ages. Jean had the philosophy that children needed to be exposed to the history of the West, to what life was like on a real working cattle ranch, in order to preserve appreciation for the old ways.

  To that end she tried to keep her rates affordable, well within range of the average family's vacation budget.

  Cassie would hate to see Zack come in and turn the ranch into some kind of exclusive resort for the rich and famous, like some of the other guest ranches in the area had become. It would be a shame, not to mention take a huge investment in capital.

  But why else would he want it, especially when he had to know he wouldn't be welcomed back by many of the good people of Star Valley?

  And why all the secrecy?

  Maybe for that very reason—if Jean knew he was the one buying the ranch, she never would have agreed to the sale.

  Cassie pounded the bread one last time, wishing it were a certain man's lean, masculine, treacherous features.

  "I can try to back out of the sale, if it's not too late." Jean didn't sound very confident. Her frown cut through her wrinkled, weather-beaten face like sagging barbed wire.

  Cassie shook her head. "You won't get another offer to match the one Maverick made for the ranch."

  "Well, I can get by without the money." Maybe, but both of them knew Jean wouldn't be able to run the ranch much longer, at least not with the same hands-on approach she had always maintained. Some days her arthritis was so bad she couldn't even raise her arms to saddle a horse.

  "I can't let you back out of the sale," Cassie said gently. "Not on my account. I'll find a job somewhere else. Wade Lowry is always after me to come cook for the Rendezvous Ranch."

  Jean touched her shoulder. "I'd hate to lose you. I wouldn't be able to find anybody else with your gift in the kitchen."

  "I'm sorry," she said helplessly. "I can't work for him. Surely you understand that."

  Jean squeezed her shoulder, then stepped back to lean a bony hip against the table. "The past is past, honey. Nothing you can do to change what happened ten years ago. You got to move on."

  It was so much like the lecture Matt always used to give her, she wanted to scream. "Maybe I can't change the past. But I also don't need to have it thrown in my face every day when I go to work."

  "True enough. Can't say as I blame you."

  Still, the disappointment in the feisty rancher's eyes gnawed at Cassie's insides. Guilt poked at her. Leaving right now in the middle of the ranch's busiest season would create a bundle of problems. Jean would have to find someone else fast to fill her position, which meant she would have to take time from the ranch's guests for hiring and training someone new.

  She wavered. Maybe she could stick it out a little longer, just for Jean's sake.

  Then she thought about working for Zack, having to see him regularly. Ten years ago she had been nothing short of devastated when he jilted her. She had worked hard during the intervening years to get to this place where she had confidence again, where she could see all the good things about herself instead of constantly dwelling on what it was she had lacked that had driven the man she loved into the arms of her brother's wife.

  Seeing him all the time, working for him, was bound to undermine that confidence. She couldn't do it. Not even for Jean.

  "I'm sorry," she said again.

  Jean shrugged and managed a weathered smile. "We'll just have to make the best of a bad situation. That's all we can do. Now, it's been a heck of a day. Why don't you go back to your cabin and I'll finish up here?"

  "No. I'm almost done. You get some rest."

  Jean touched her shoulder again. "Good night, then," she said, then hobbled from the kitchen.

  After her boss left, Cassie quickly finished her prep work for breakfast, then turned the lights off and walked out of the kitchen toward her own cabin next to the creek.

  She considered her little place the very best perk of working for the ranch. It was small, only three rooms—tiny bedroom, bathroom and a combined kitchen and living room—but all three rooms belonged to her.

  For another few days, anyway.

  The cabin was more than just a place to sleep. It represented independence, a chance to stand on her own without her two older brothers hovering in the wings to watch over her, as they had been doing for most of her life.

  She was twenty-eight years old and this was the first time she had ever lived away from home. How pathetic was that? She had never known the giddy excitement of moving into a college dorm and meeting her roommates for the first time or the rush of being carried across the threshold of a new house by a loving husband or repainting a guest bedroom for a nursery.

  She didn't like the bitter direction her thoughts had taken. Still, she couldn't help thinking that if it hadn't been for Zack Slater, her life might have turned out vastly different.

  She had just graduated high school when he blew into her life. She had been young and naive and passionately in love with the gorgeous ranch hand with the stunning gold-flecked eyes and the shadows in his smile.

  To her amazement he had seemed as smitten as she. The fierce joy in his face whenever he saw her had been heady stuff for a girl who had never even had a serious boyfriend before.

  Right from the beginning they had talked of marriage. He had wanted her to finish college before they married, but she couldn't stand the idea of being away from him for four long years. She had worked for weeks to persuade him that she could still attend college after they were married, that he could work while she went to school since she had a scholarship. After she graduated, she would work to put him through.

  Finally she had worn down his resistance. She flushed now, remembering. Maybe if she hadn't been in such a rush, had given him time to adjust to the idea of settling down, he wouldn't have felt the need to bolt.

  But he did, taking her dreams—and her brother's wife—with him, and leaving Matt a single father of a tiny baby.

  What else could she have done but stay and try to repair the damage she had brought dawn on her family? If she had the choice to do all over again, she honestly didn't think she would change anything she had done after he left.

  She sighed and let herself into the cabin, comforted by the familiar furnishings—the plump couch, the rocker of her mother's, the braided rug in front of the little fireplace. She had made the cabin warm and cozy and she loved it here.

  Functioning more on autopilot than through an
y conscious decision, she walked into the small bathroom and turned on the water in the old-fashioned clawfoot tub, as hot as she could stand. When the tub was filled almost to overflowing, she took off her clothes and slipped into the water, desperate to escape the unbelievable shock of seeing the only man she had ever loved, after all these years.

  Taking a bath was a huge mistake.

  She realized that almost as soon as she slid down into the peach-scented bubbles. Now that she didn't have her work in the kitchen to keep her busy, she couldn't seem to fix her mind on anything but Zack and the memories of that summer ten years ago, memories that rolled across her mind like tumbleweed in a hard wind.

  The first time she had talked to him—really talked to him—was branded into her memory. He had worked at the Diamond Harte for several months before that late spring evening, but she had been so busy finishing her senior year of high school that she had barely noticed him, except as the cute, slightly dangerous-looking ranch hand with the sun-streaked hair and that rare but devastating smile.

  Matt liked him, she knew that. Her oldest brother had raved about what a way Zack had with horses and how he worked the rest of the ranch hands into the ground. And she remembered being grateful that her brother had someone else he could trust to run things, while he had so many other worries on his mind.

  Melanie had been in the advanced stage of a pregnancy she obviously hadn't wanted. Never the most even-tempered of women, her sister-in-law had suddenly become prone to vicious mood swings. Deliriously happy one moment, livid the next, icy cold a few moments later. Her brother definitely had his hands full, and she was grateful to Zack for shouldering some of that burden.

  Then, in late May, the week after her high school graduation when the mountain snows finally began to melt, Matt had asked Zack to take a few of the other ranch hands and drive part of the herd to higher ground to graze. Because it was an overnight trip, they would need someone to cook for them, and Cassie had volunteered, eager for the adventure of a cattle drive, even though it would be a short one.

  When she closed her eyes, she could see every moment of that fateful trip in vivid detail....

  * * *

  She loved it up here.

  With a pleasant ache in her muscles from a hard day of riding, Cassie closed her eyes and savored the cool evening air that smelled sweet and pure, heavy with the rich, intoxicating perfume of sagebrush and pine.

  The twilight brushed everything with pale-rose paint, and the setting sun glittered on the gently rippling surface of the creek. Hands wrapped around her knees, she sat on the bank and listened to the water's song and the chirp and trill of the mountain's inhabitants settling down for the evening.

  She would miss this so much in the fall when she moved to Utah for college. The campus in Logan was beautiful, perched on a hill overlooking the Cache Valley, but it didn't even come close to the raw splendor of the high country.

  This was home.

  So many of her most pleasant memories of her parents were built on the firm foundation of these mountains. Every summer and fall on the way to and from their grazing allotment they used to camp right here where the creek bowed. Her mom would cook something delicious in a Dutch oven and after supper her dad would gather her and Matt and Jesse around the campfire and read to them out of his favorite Westerns.

  She smiled softly. Her memories had begun to fade in the six years since her parents had died in a wintry roll-over accident, but she could still hear Frank Harte's booming voice ring through the night and see his broad, callused hands turn the pages in the flickering firelight.

  She missed them both so much sometimes. Matt did his best. Both her brothers did. She knew that and loved them fiercely for working so hard to give her a good, safe home for the past six years.

  Matt had only been twenty-two, Jesse seventeen, when their parents died, and she knew a lot of men would have figured a grieving twelve-year-old girl would have been better off with relatives or in the foster care system. Their aunt Suzie over in Pinedale had offered to take her in, but Matt had been determined they would all stick together.

  It must have been so hard for him. She thought of how rotten she'd been sometimes, how often she'd snapped at him when he told her to do her homework or make her bed.

  You're not my mother and you can't make me.

  She owed him big-time for putting up with her. Someday she would have to find a way to repay him.

  She sighed, resting her chin on her knees. She was reluctant to leave this peaceful spot, even though she knew she should probably go check on the stew and see if the ranch hands had eaten their boots yet.

  When she walked away from camp a half hour earlier, Jake and Sam Lawson had been snoring in their tent in a little before-dinner nap after beating the brush all day. But they were probably awake now and wondering where she'd wandered off to.

  She smiled at the thought of the two bachelor brothers, who were in their early sixties and had worked for the ranch her entire life. They treated her like a favorite spoiled niece, and she loved them both fiercely.

  And then there was Slater.

  A whole flock of magpies seemed to flutter around in her stomach whenever she thought of the lean, hard cowboy leading the cattle drive. This was the longest she had ever spent in his company, and she had to admit she had spent most of the day watching him out of the corner of her eyes.

  The few times he'd caught her watching him, he had given her that half smile of his, and she felt like a bottle rocket had exploded inside her.

  He made her so nervous she couldn't think straight. What was it about him? She'd been around cowboys all her life and most of them were simple and straightforward—interested in horses, whisky and women, not necessarily in that order.

  Zack seemed different. Despite the way he joked with the older cowhands, there was a sadness in his eyes, a deep, remote loneliness that probably made every woman he met want to cuddle him close and kiss all his pain away.

  She rolled her eyes at the fanciful thought. If a woman wanted to kiss Zack Slater, it wasn't to make him feel better. He was totally, completely, gorgeously male, and a woman would have to have rocks for brains not to notice.

  Well, she couldn't sit here all night mooning over Zack Slater. Not when she had work to do.

  Just as she started to rise, the thick brush ten yards upstream on the other side of the creek begin to rustle with more than just the breeze. A few seconds later, a small mule deer—no more than a yearling doe, probably—waked out of the growth and picked her way delicately to the water's edge. After a careful look around, she bent her neck to drink and Cassie watched, smiling a little at the ladylike way the doe sipped the water.

  The deer so entranced her that she almost missed another flicker of movement, again on the opposite side of the creek, at the halfway point between her and the deer. She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out what other kind of animal had come to the water, then inhaled sharply. She caught just a glimpse of a tawny hide and a long swaying tail as something slunk through the brush.

  A mountain lion!

  And he had his sights on the pretty little doe.

  Even though she knew it was all part of the rhythm of life—hunter and hunted, another link on the food chain and all that—she couldn't bear to watch the inevitable.

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then changed her mind and jumped to her feet, waving her arms and hollering for all she was worth. As she'd hoped, the doe lifted her head from the water with one panicked look, then bounded back into the trees with a crash of branches.

  "Ha, you big bully," she said to the cougar. "Find your dinner somewhere else."

  The big cat turned toward her and she could swear there was malice in those yellow eyes. With a loud, deep growl that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention, the animal turned, his long tail swaying hypnotically.

  Uh, maybe drawing attention to herself with a cougar on the prowl wasn't exactly the best idea she'd
ever had.

  "Nice kitty," she murmured in a placating tone. "Sit. Stay."

  The big cat paced the bank on the other side, staying roughly parallel to her. For the first time Cassie began to feel a real flicker of fear, suddenly not at all sure the eight-foot-wide creek would be enough of a barrier between them if the cat decided she made a better snack.

  Moving slowly, she scooped up a softball-sized rock, just in case, and began backing toward camp and the men.

  She had only made it a few yards when the cat tensed his muscles as if to spring back into the brush. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, he turned at the last minute and spanned the creek in one powerful leap. With a strangled shriek, she threw the rock but it only glanced off the cougar's back before landing in the water with a huge splash.

  Cassie didn't wait around to see if her missile found a target. She whirled and took off for camp, heart racing and adrenaline pumping through her in thick, hot waves. The cat was gaining on her. She knew it and braced, expecting jagged teeth to rip into her flesh at any second. This was it, then. She was going to die here in these mountains she loved, all because of her stupid soft heart.

  And then, when she thought she could almost smell the predator's breath, fetid and wild, and feel it stir the hair at the back of her neck, a gunshot boomed through the twilight.

  For an instant time seemed to freeze and she became aware of the total silence on the mountainside as the echo died away. A few moments earlier the evening had buzzed with activity but now nothing moved except the soft wind rustling the new leaves of the aspens.

  She stopped, gratitude and relief rushing through her, then shifted her gaze to see which of the ranch hands had come to her rescue. She wasn't at all surprised to see Slater just lowering a rifle.

  What did surprise her was the yowl behind her. To her shock, the cat wasn't dead, just royally teed-off. Apparently he decided he'd had enough of interfering humans. With a last angry screech exactly like one of the barn cats tangling with the wrong cow dog, the mountain lion skulked back into the trees.