by Laurie Paige
He muttered a prayer for patience. “We don’t have time for cowboy-crazed females, either. You cause any trouble and you’re out of here, pronto. Got that?”
“I got it.”
Her glance was resentful, but he didn’t let it bother him. He knew from talking to Rand that the sister was twenty-six and the youngest of the three kids. As a child, she’d been indulged in her passion for horses with riding and roping lessons instead of the ballet and piano lessons her mother had wanted for her. As far as he could tell, she was a spoiled kid who’d never grown up.
Except physically.
She was all woman in that department. A jolt of current went down his back as the image of that perfectly formed breast sprinted unbidden through his mind.
He directed her to park under the long overhang beside the bunkhouse, built to shelter the cowboys’ trucks from the blizzards that sometimes started in September and didn’t let up until March or April. And sometimes May and June.
There were four private rooms in the downstairs section. He directed her to one of those, empty now that another of the cowboys had moved on, uncomfortable with the Kincaid curse and the problems caused by some joker named Baxter who thought he had a claim to the ranch and was holding up the closing of the sale.
“Cookie,” he called.
An old man ambled into view. Of mixed Gilas-Latino descent and uncertain age, he’d hired on about the time Cade and the other five bastard half brothers had arrived.
“Yes?” the cook said, taking his own sweet time.
The man had an attitude but he was the best ranch cook Cade had ever run into. “Found you a helper. Seems Rand Harding’s sister has decided to visit for a while.”
Cookie looked Leanne over until she thought he saw every secret, crazy wish she’d ever harbored. His eyes, a curious mixture of brown and blue that contrasted sharply with his black hair and olive skin, crinkled at the corners. “I can use her. You know how to peel potatoes?”
“Yes,” she admitted glumly. She hated to be ungrateful, but she equally hated cooking and household chores.
“Good. Cowboys want ’em at every meal. Now they can have them again.”
She saw the sardonic smile light up Cade’s dark good looks and a satisfied glint appear in his eyes. It was obvious he thought he’d done his duty by her and gotten her out of his hair at the same time.
“I’ll put my stuff away.” She took her overnight case to the assigned room, feeling tired and unwanted.
Grow up, she advised her bruised spirit. No one on the ranch cared a darn about her. Maybe it was better that way.
Her family loved her, but they had wanted to tell her what to do, especially her big brother, Rand. After their parents’ deaths, he had taken over as head of the family, consoling her and Daisy while hiding his own grief. He’d handled all the problems and rarely demanded anything from his sisters during that sad time.
She wondered if that was why she’d agreed to marry Bill. As Rand’s oldest and best friend, he’d been around all her life. She had felt the not-so-subtle pressure that it was time for her to “settle down.” Marriage to Bill had seemed the next logical step.
She sat on the bed in despair, feeling the weight of her family’s disapproval yet again. Why was it she always seemed to disappoint them?
After getting Leanne settled, Cade talked to Garrett and Wayne about hiring her on to help the cook. He was aware that Garrett Kincaid—he had trouble thinking of the man as his grandfather—found the situation amusing. So did Wayne Kincaid, the ranch manager, who was also Garrett’s cousin.
In the absence of the foreman, Wayne had okayed the additional help, but he’d made it clear the runaway bride was Cade’s responsibility.
Immediately after lunch, Cade had headed for the bunkhouse to check on her. Still in his clothing, she’d been busy at the stove, frying up a huge pan of hash browns in bacon drippings. She’d given him a severe frown, then had spoiled it by grinning at him.
Now, four hours later, leaning on the pasture fence where the spring foals frolicked near their moms, he still felt the effects of that bright smile. He laid a hand on his chest where his heart suddenly beat fast and furious.
She was an enigma, this woman who had blown into his life with the storm heralding her arrival. She was going to cause tumult in his life. He just couldn’t say how yet.
A car appeared on the ranch road. He turned and watched Leanne as she parked and climbed out. Cade gritted his teeth as she bent and gathered several packages in the back seat.
The new ranch hand had gone shopping in Whitehorn. She was now dressed in snug jeans that neatly cupped her shapely rear. She wore an open cowboy shirt over a blue T-shirt. A gray Stetson, set at a jaunty angle, shaded her face from the summer sun, and sneakers protected her feet from the gravel on the road.
“Hi,” she called. “I have your clothes all washed and ready to return.” She brought them over. “I took them to the laundry. Was light starch okay?”
He took the package. “In my jeans?”
“Your shirt. I don’t think they starch jeans and T-shirts.”
Her smile was droll and somewhat mocking. He felt himself warming to it, and put on a stern face. “Isn’t it time to start the next batch of potatoes?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I peeled two dozen before I left for town, so I’m ahead. For one meal. Don’t you have some cows that need herding or something?”
He ignored the wistful look in her eyes. “No. Wayne Kincaid has approved your working here. There’re some forms you need to fill out, and we need your social security number.” He eyed her packages. “Meet me in the office in five minutes.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” she said smartly, and headed for the bunkhouse, packages swinging from both hands.
Smart-mouth female, he grumbled as he headed for the office, feeling only slightly guilty for not helping her with the packages. She might be his responsibility, but he wasn’t going to cater to her.
After the forms were filled out, he left her in the kitchen slicing potatoes into home fries and headed for the newly built horse arena. He was completing the work in the tack and storage rooms himself. He knew exactly how he wanted them laid out.
When he’d presented his plans for the new Appaloosa line to Garrett and Collin, the one legitimate son of Larry Kincaid, they had approved it at once. Cade was now in charge of the horse breeding and training program on the ranch.
They had worked out an arrangement in which he would buy the horses needed to establish the line and the ranch would provide the quarters. He would do the training while the ranch supplied the feed. The profits from sales were to be shared equally between him and the ranch. The deal suited him just fine.
Working alone, he continued culling the remuda for those horses he wanted to keep and those the ranch could sell. He observed the yearlings and two-year-olds as well as the spring foals. Using a can of bright orange spray paint, he marked the keepers. The rest, when he finished, would be sold at auction later that month.
He grimaced at the work still to be done. They had already sent flyers to all the ranchers in the area, plus some of the big spreads down in Gilas. Cookie had been alerted to prepare a big barbecue.
That brought him back to Leanne. She could be of help during the auction, but he doubted she would be around that long. Although she came from a ranch and acted as if she knew about animals, he doubted she’d ever done much work in her life. Besides, flighty females weren’t to be counted on.
“Ah, the Appaloosa,” a feminine voice said behind him.
He jerked around, irritated that he hadn’t heard Leanne approach.
“I was worried about him getting back to the ranch, but I see he made it,” she continued, her gaze on the horse that grazed in a nearby paddock.
“He’s been trained to return to headquarters.”
Cade winced at his harsh tone. He couldn’t seem to find an equilibrium around this woman. He was too darn aware of everything about
her, such as a subtle perfume wafting around her. She smelled good enough to eat. And looked that way, too.
Her eyes were no longer red. Free of all makeup, her face had a wholesome freshness that was pleasing. Her hair glistened in the sun. Little strands curled around her face and neck while the rest was swept up on top of her head.
He wanted to nuzzle his way down her neck, to smell and taste her skin, which was smoothly tanned with only an occasional golden freckle—
Damn! He had to stop thinking along those lines. He looked away with an effort.
The heat of late afternoon lay over the ranch, which was tucked into its own lush valley between the mountains. Two cowboys drove a fractious herd to a new field and closed the gate behind them. The men headed for the stable.
“Cookie give you some time off?” he asked.
She sliced him a sideways glance. “Supper is ready and on the table. He told me to ask if you were eating with the cowboys in the bunkhouse or at the main house.”
“The bunkhouse,” he decided. “Cowboys tend to be young and lonely. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.”
She spun and walked off, clearly angry with him.
He suppressed a need to apologize for the implied insult. With quick strides, he closed the distance between them. “You’re an attractive young woman. They’re men. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Maybe they aren’t like you,” she said coolly.
“How’s that?”
“Lecherous.”
He had to smile. “That’s the second time you’ve done that,” he drawled.
Her stride didn’t falter as she marched with grim purpose toward the dining room on the lower floor of the building. “Done what?”
“Turned the tables on me. Last night you called me haughty. Today, it’s lecherous.”
She turned to him, her eyes mockingly wide. “Wonder what tomorrow will bring?” She walked inside and let the door swing closed in his face.
“It won’t be anything good,” he muttered, still worried about his reactions to her as he went inside.
The few hands the ranch had were seated around the table, which could accommodate three times their number. They had already filled their plates and had dug in. A roast held pride of place on the long sideboard, along with green beans, creamed corn and a huge platter of home-fried potatoes and onions, which were Leanne’s contribution. Rolls, salad and a banana pudding completed the meal.
Cookie ate in the kitchen, but Leanne, after getting a glass of tea and filling a plate, sat at the table. Cade took a chair beside her. He caught several cowboys glancing at her then him, speculation in their eyes. He wondered if he needed to make it clear she was under his protection until her brother arrived.
He took a deep breath. He had a gut feeling that two weeks were going to seem like forever, and his nights were going to be disrupted by dreams he didn’t want or need.
Hell, he’d always been a sucker for sweet-faced gals and a sob story.
Three
“Hey, come on, you’ll enjoy it.”
Leanne paused in cleaning up the breakfast dishes and peered worriedly at Gil Watts, the cowboy who was urging her to join the rest of the hands at the big Fourth of July celebration at the Laughing Horse reservation. She wasn’t sure her warden, alias Cade Redstone, would approve.
“You can go with me,” Cookie spoke up. “We ain’t gonna feed these no-good bums any more today.”
Within twenty-four hours of arriving, Leanne felt like a fixture at the ranch. After getting through lunch and dinner without mishap yesterday, the men had accepted her as one of them. The cook, who occupied the other downstairs bedroom in use at the time, evidently thought he was her keeper when Cade wasn’t around.
“So, you gonna come with us?” Gil demanded.
She was curious about the residents of the reservation and interested in their culture. Cade was half Cheyenne. That was his heritage, too, the same as being a Kincaid. He would probably be there.
Her heart pounded furiously at the thought, startling her. Each time she’d seen him around the ranch yesterday, it had done the same thing. The habit was worrisome and irritating.
When she and Cookie finished cleaning the kitchen, she went to her room and changed to white slacks and a red top that tied at her waist. She put on a strong sunblock and a light touch of makeup.
The men were piled into one truck. Gil told her to hop in. She saw he had saved a place in the cab for her, but there was no place for Cookie.
“I’ll drive my car,” she called. “See you there.”
Cade came out of the arena structure. From the disapproval on his face she figured he’d heard the cowboys’ arguments.
“She’s coming with me,” he told the men as he strode across the gravel road and stopped beside her.
Gil looked angry, but left off cajoling her to join them. Cookie came out of the bunkhouse, saw the empty seat in the pickup and climbed up beside Gil, who drove off with a scowl.
“It’ll take me a few minutes to shower and change,” Cade said. “I’ve been working with the horses.”
“I prefer to drive myself. I saw the reservation on my way here. I know where it is.”
“Fine. I’ll ride with you.” With that, he walked off.
She made a face at his back.
“Hope you don’t freeze like that,” he said without looking around.
Surprised, she burst out laughing. “I knew you were weird, but I didn’t think it extended to eyes in the back of your head.”
He gave her a wicked glance over his shoulder. “Haughty, lecherous and now weird. Interesting traits, huh?”
Very interesting, she mentally agreed, watching his long-legged stride to the main ranch house. He had lean hips and muscular legs that balanced his upper body very nicely.
Realizing she was staring at him—okay, at his superb body—she mused on the way her heart pounded when she saw him and the fact that she experienced the oddest tingles in the deepest part of her being and that her breath grew short when she was around him.
All the signs of falling in love, if romance books and fairy tales were to be believed.
But how could that be when only two days ago she was set to marry Bill Sutter? Maybe she was flighty as her brother had often accused. Tears burning her eyes, she hurried to her car as if a stampeding herd were on her heels.
Turning on the air conditioner to full-blast, she drove to the main house and waited for Cade under the shade of an ancient cottonwood. He joined her in ten minutes.
“Add ‘fast’ to the list,” she said, striving for a light note. “Haughty, lecherous, weird and fast.”
“At least in the shower,” he drawled. “And if you spread that around, people are going to wonder how you know and maybe think you’re a bit fast yourself.”
It was a challenge she couldn’t refuse. She tossed him a daredevil grin. “I’ve never much worried about what other people think.”
“Sometimes words can hurt as much as sticks and stones,” he said on a more thoughtful note.
She thought about his life. The newspapers had been filled with stories on the Kincaid brothers, legitimate and otherwise. “Were you taunted as a child?”
“No. My mother was married when I was conceived. Her first husband was abusive. Larry Kincaid gave her the money to leave him. She was the housekeeper at the Kincaid place at that time. She moved to Gilas and eventually married Judd Redstone, who became a real father to me.”
“He sounds like a super person.”
“The best.”
A warm tingle went through her at the gruff emotion in his voice when he spoke of his stepfather. She added loyal and loving to the list of descriptive words for Cade.
They arrived at the Laughing Horse reservation in time for the opening ceremony—a parade of Native American men in full battle colors riding down the central corridor of the fairgrounds.
Leanne and Cade joined up with the other cowboys from the Kincaid spread
. They tried their skill at the ring toss and bowling pins. And lost.
“Hey, shootin’ is my game,” Gil declared, leading the way to the rifle range kiosk. Ducks, bears and figures of other wildlife paraded back and forth among miniature trees and bushes. “Anyone want to take me on, a dollar for every time one of us misses?”
No one did.
“Come on, Redstone,” he dared. “You got any moxie?”
“Maybe,” Cade said in the laid-back Gilas drawl he sometimes used, “but I left my shooting eye at the ranch.”
This brought a chuckle from the other men, that seemed to defuse the tension. Leanne realized Gil had continually challenged Cade since they had arrived.
The male ego on display, she mocked silently.
“Bunch of chickens,” Gil scoffed.
“Show us your stuff,” one of the other men spoke up.
Gil tossed his money down and selected a rifle. He lined up his first shot and hit it dead-on. He proceeded to demolish all the targets. “I’ll take that big teddy bear,” he said, laying the gun down.
“Darn good shooting,” Cade told him. “Glad I didn’t let myself get suckered into a bet.”
Gil preened under the compliment. He presented the three-foot-tall, pink-and-white bear to Leanne. “To the prettiest little gal to ever set foot in Montana.”
Leanne couldn’t refuse the gift. It would have been too great an insult to the cowboy. “Why, thank you, Gil. That’s very kind of you.”
“Nah,” Cookie declared. “He jus’ wants you to keep fixin’ those potatoes.”
Gil frowned as the men laughed. As a group, they toured the display booths lining the grounds. Leanne admired the pottery and blankets and wished she had some money. She’d used her credit card to buy clothing and was afraid to spend any more. She had no idea how much she would be paid by the ranch and was too proud to ask.
“Oh-h-h,” she crooned when she saw the jewelry display at the next booth. “What are these?”