"Get off of him," the woman yelled, her hands fisted at her sides. "Can't you see you're hurting him?"
Birch tackled her barely in time to avoid getting their heads kicked in by the bull's slashing hooves. They landed on the ground, with him on top of her. One of the ranch hands ran out to distract the bull and give Birch time to get the woman away.
"Get off me." She shoved at him. "What do you think you're doing attacking me like that? You've no doubt ruined my dress."
"Your dress? I saved your life and all you can think of is your dress?" Standing up, he threw her over his shoulder and marched toward the sidelines.
"Let me go this instant." She pounded his back with her fists and kicked her feet, sending her petticoats all directions.
Birch tightened his grip and kept going to the cheers and laughter of the crowd. What was wrong with the woman? Was she blind? Stupid?
He set her on her feet at the edge of the arena and got his first good look at her. "You!"
"Yes, me." Annora Bostwick, Lissette's uptight, New York society cousin, who had cost him the race, glared back at him. "What do you think you're doing manhandling me like this? I've a good mind to have you arrested. I'm not someone's ignorant spoiled brat, you know."
"You act like one, I'll treat you like one." Why hadn’t he recognized her right off, with all that red hair?
"Oh!" She straightened her dress and made certain her petticoats were in place and covered. Her hat sat askew on her head, and a few curls had come free to dangle over her forehead and flushed cheeks.
He imagined steam coming out her ears, she was so angry. She wasn't the only one. "What did you think you were doing, walking into the path of an enraged bull? Couldn't you see what was going on?" He gestured toward the arena where Texas Jim and Pure Devil still danced their dance.
"What I saw was a poor cow... I mean bull, being kicked in the sides with sharp spurs so hard he jumped like a jackrabbit on a bed of coals. Why do you allow such cruelty to be perpetrated at your precious rodeo games?" Her hands fisted on her hips, head thrust toward him, her eyes blazing fire.
"They aren't games." With her fiery red hair tumbling down around her shoulders, she was the prettiest thing he'd seen in a year of Sundays. "Don't you understand I saved your fool life? As for the bull, those spurs are too dull to do more than scratch his tough hide. He's bucking because he doesn't like being ridden, not because he's being hurt."
"Ha! You need spectacles if you think that." She poked him in the chest. "I intend to report you to the head of the ASPCA. Investigators will be sent out to look into your treatment of these animals."
"Throw her over your shoulder again, Birch, and haul her off," someone in the mob yelled.
"While you got her up there, paddle her behind," another called.
Livid, Annora whirled to glare at them. One by one, under her heated gaze, they quieted and stepped back. She returned her attention to Birch. "You ever touch me like that again, and I'll have charges brought against you for assault."
"Good luck with that. Marshal Wilkes is a close friend."
She gasped. "What sort of crooked, backwoods place is this?"
He stuck his nose in her face. "The kind that doesn't allow women to be trampled by a bull even when she deserves it."
~~^~~
The crowd of men parted as Annora, fists clenched, mouth scowling, marched back to where her new friend waited. She spoke to no one, not even Beth.
"Why did you do that?" Beth asked, scurrying after her. "You could have been hurt. Killed, even."
She whirled toward the woman. "Didn't you see the man gouging the bull with spurs to make him jump? The poor thing was doing his best to get free."
Beth cringed back. "Yes, but I understand that's how bull riding has always been done."
"Well, it's cruel and should be stopped." Annora resumed her march toward her office. Chance would be coming to pick her up when the competition ended. She would have a few choice words for him, and any other man who condoned such goings on. What sort of savage place had she come to?
She tried to understand the motives behind the activities the men of Sheridan enjoyed. What could they get out of watching these vicious performances? The boosting of their manly egos? Are they so insecure that they must enhance their manhood by mistreating dumb beasts? Couldn't they see they were lowering themselves below even the lowest of creatures?
"I shouldn't have talked you into going." Beth's skirts swished as she scurried to keep up with Annora.
"I'm glad you did. This is the exact sort of thing the ASPCA sent me here to fight. And fight it I will."
"You're going to make enemies," Beth warned. "You know that, don't you? The men won't like you interfering in their business."
"Too bad. I'm not here to please them. I'm here to protect animals."
Beth subsided after that. When they reached the office, Beth hurried home, and Annora let herself inside the staircase that led to what would soon be her home.
She wandered from room to room, touching a bit of peeling wallpaper here, a scratched molding there. In her mind, she saw how it would look when she finished with it. Cream walls, blue curtains, a blue quilt on the bed. She'd make a blue calico table cloth and a matching curtain for the tiny window that looked out onto the vacant lot on the north side. Both the sitting room and bedroom boasted nice windows with lovely views of the countryside beyond the town. She could even see the Big Horn Mountain range.
She had no table yet, but there was a small wood stove in the kitchen. She made herself a cup of tea, using the teapot and cup and saucer she'd brought with her from home. What were her mother and father doing at this moment? Father no doubt sat in his study working on some sort of business, while Mother supervised the cook in preparing supper.
Thoughts of her mother reawakened the hurt and anger she felt for what the woman had done to Lissette's parents. And to her. Forcing her to marry against her will. Unconscionable. She intended to write her mother a scathing letter but hadn't yet figured out what to say. To admit her mother had accomplished what she'd intended grated against the very principles her parents had taught her. Up until now, her father had always been expounding on the importance of maintaining one's integrity. Where was her parents' integrity now?
To think she might soon be wed to that brute of a man who had so humiliated her by hauling her bodily from the arena today. Her skin went hot thinking about it. How she wished she could stay here. She had no desire to ever set foot on that man's property again, and Lissette and Chance's home sat on ranch grounds.
She glanced at the pendant watch she wore around her neck. Lissette no doubt had their meal ready and waiting. What was keeping Chance?
The door downstairs slammed, and boots thudded on the stairs. He had arrived at last.
She rose to fetch her purse from the kitchen and found her way blocked by none other than her least favorite person at the moment—Birch Struthers.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Are you ready to leave?" Birch growled.
Annora had expected a verbal blasting from him over what she had done at the competition. His unexpected question took her aback. For him to be civil when anyone could see the anger seething inside him confused her" His tone hardened.
"Not with you." She laid her purse back on a rickety, three-legged chair leaning against the wall. "Where is Chance?"
"Unless you wish to spend the night here—" his gaze roamed over the dirty, empty apartment, "—you will be coming with me. It's up to you."
He wheeled about, marching down the stairs. She stood there a second, listening to the thud of his boots. Sleep here, with no bed or anything? No. She could go to a hotel, but she needed every penny of the money she'd brought with her to furnish her office. She smiled. What she had in her hands was an opportunity to inflict on him a fraction of the misery he'd dealt her this day.
She grabbed up her bag, racing down the stairs after him.
The wagon waited on the street ou
tside her office. She'd had a small hope of seeing Chance and Lissette there as well, but only Birch occupied the wagon seat. Just as well. She could speak her piece without embarrassing her cousin. Not that she cared about that right now.
She considered climbing into the back instead of joining him on the seat, but that would make talking to him more difficult. That he did not offer to help her up came as no surprise. She clambered up as best she could and put as much space between them on the bench seat as she could manage.
This time, the wagon lurched, causing her to jerk. She grabbed her hat from falling and bit her tongue to keep from speaking. She would start her crusade with the silent treatment.
Stores passed, one by one. Businesses gave way to homes at the edge of town. The houses vanished, leaving fields or pastures of grass and wildflowers, and still, neither of them said a word. Why had he bothered to come for her if he had nothing to say? She could almost smell the anger emanating from him. Perhaps, he waited to calm down.
That might be his excuse, but what was hers? Was giving him the silent treatment an excuse on her part? What was the best way to deal with this difficulty? She composed a dozen speeches inside her head but said nothing.
A dozen horses raced away from the road as the wagon lumbered past. She watched the graceful creatures until they vanished in the middle of a meadow. There must have been a hollow or gully she couldn't see. The closer they drew to the ranch, the tenser she became, certain she would not be lucky enough to escape his fury unscathed. And although she assured herself she could give back as good as she got, her confidence in her ability to handle the situation faded.
By the time they drove under the huge cross-beam made of massive logs that marked the entrance to the High Plains Ranch, she had begun to admire his remarkable restraint. And her own. Her father could never have contained his temper this long.
She glanced at Birch out the side of her eye. He had a handsome profile, with a high forehead, a not-too-large nose that bore signs of having been broken, a wide mouth with full lips beneath a trimmed mustache, and a strong chin. Wavy chestnut-brown hair hung down from beneath his hat to brush his collar, as seemed to be the popular style with men here as if a visit to a barber cost more than they could afford.
If he reeked with the odors of animals and the dirty, sweaty activities he'd spent the afternoon engaging in, the wind kept it from her. Or perhaps he'd bathed somewhere before coming for her. The town would have public baths available. His denim trousers appeared clean, as did his coat. Worn, leather gloves concealed his hands, but not their generous size.
He slowed the team as they approached the foreman's house a good quarter of a mile from the main ranch house. Annora forced herself to loosen her grip on her fragile, crocheted, drawstring bag. She would not let him rattle her. Should he choose to give her the scolding she'd expected ever since he stepped into her apartment, she would take it silently, descend from the wagon and go inside without retaliating. He wouldn't be expecting that.
The wagon halted. Lissette emerged from the house and waited on the porch wringing her hands. Annora stood, preparing to descend, but Birch latched onto her arm. She sat and refused to look at him.
"You ever pull that prank and interfere with the ranch competition again, I'll load you myself onto the first train heading east. Understood?"
She stared at his hand on her arm. He released her.
Keep your mouth shut. Do not give him the pleasure of seeing that he'd gotten to you.
"Understood?" He repeated.
Just say yes, nothing more.
"Yes." She rose to her feet, leaned forward, and swiveled about to climb down the wheel spokes.
One spoke—not a word.
Two spokes—she bit the inside of her cheek and clamped her lips tight.
Her feet touched ground.
The need to give him a taste of her mind ate at her like a tangle of tapeworms.
Don't do it. Don't do it. Leave him confused and puzzled.
With her feet safe on earth again, she looked up at him, and her determination wavered. "You ever touch me again, and you'll be doing your ranching one-handed," she said. "Understood?"
~~^~~
Birch gritted his teeth all the way to the barn. His hands itched to encircle that woman's neck and squeeze the life out of her.
And to think he might be forced to marry her.
He could get out of it, of course. As a lawyer, all he had to do was insist on seeing a copy of his father's will and find the loophole he needed.
So why didn't he?
Because, damn it, he wanted to marry. He wanted children. He yearned to see his own progeny scampering around the ranch as he had done when young. He wanted a family.
He could send back East for a bride, but the idea of marrying a woman he'd never met before soured his stomach. Placing ads in several Wyoming newspapers might bring him a suitable bride. But he found the coldness of these methods unbearable.
Gus came, took the reins from him after he'd alighted, and led the team into the barn. Birch stood a moment alone, remembering how Annora Bostwick had kept silent the whole way to the ranch, got down from the wagon, then turned, faced him, and delivered a last line that had him seething still.
She wasn't much bigger than the feather sticking out of her ridiculous hat. Hadn't weighed much more than that either when he'd hauled her out of the bull riding arena. He started for the house but didn't get far before the ridiculousness of the entire situation struck him, and he burst into laughter.
Never would he have expected that little wisp of a nothing female would get the better of him, yet she had.
So, why not marry her?
Because she had no wish to wed him. When he agreed to the Ride for a Bride Race, he had assumed that whatever woman signed on as the bride would do so because she wanted to be his wife. Not because she had been tricked into it without her knowledge.
He shook his head at the seeming hopelessness of the situation while jogging up the porch steps and entering the great room. His father had built the house forty years before when he established High Plains Ranch. It struck Birch that Annora reminded him of his mother. Verna Struthers had never let his father have the last word either. Birch had loved her for that. Loved that someone could stand up to the old man. He'd never been able to. Even when he left the ranch for the last time almost six years ago, after his mother's death, he'd taken the coward's way out and left while Shank bought bulls in Montana. Birch had mounted his horse to ride away without looking back.
Until the day Chance hunted him down in Cheyenne to tell him Shank Struthers was gone.
Even then, he might not have come home if some idiotic, stubborn, hopeful part of him had not clung to the hope that his father had changed his mind about the threat he'd issued almost as often as he said good morning. Shank had known Birch hated their next-door neighbor, John-B Angstrom, so he vowed to leave the ranch to him should Birch not behave as ordered.
The question that haunted Birch was if Shank had followed through on his promise, why would the lawyer request Birch's presence at the reading of the will? Had it been Shank's idea, his way of rubbing it in? Yeah, Birch could imagine that.
But the will had been a surprise. Instead of being cut out, his father had issued a challenge: Run the ranch for a year and get married, and High Plains would be his. How Birch had laughed at those words. But his laughter had contained a bitter taste and hadn't lasted long.
Now, he had three months left to fulfill the requirement; three months in which to find a wife and marry. He knew every unwed female in the county. Of those close to his age who had all their wits and weren't three-bag ugly, Charlotte Angstrom, John-B's daughter, stood at the head of the bunch. To Birch, not even High Plains was worth a life spent with her.
The two families, the Angstroms and the Struthers, had pioneered Sheridan, Wyoming, together. Birch and Charlotte had grown up side by side, and everyone had assumed long ago that they would make the relat
ionship permanent eventually.
Everyone except Birch.
No one disputed Charlotte's physical beauty. But her character left much to be desired. Spoiled, pushy, demanding, whiny, manipulative, shrewish—all appropriate adjectives. No, Birch could not marry Charlotte Angstrom.
Unfortunately, he was having the same difficulty wrapping his mind around the idea of taking Annora Bostwick to wife. That she was spoiled and pushy, he could attest to, but nothing more. He didn't know the woman. Didn't want to. But could he avoid tying the knot with her under the circumstances?
Damn Chance Brownell for having ever mentioned a Ride for a Bride Race.
No, damn Shank Struthers for composing an impossible will.
He tossed his hat onto a hook on the log wall while walking to the kitchen for something to eat. The housekeeper, Mable, had been with them most of his life. At the moment, she was basting a roasting chicken in the oven.
"Any chance of getting a snack to tide a man over until supper?" he asked, poking into the breadbox.
She slapped his hand with the towel she'd used to protect her hands from the hot oven. "If you're hungry, you wait 'til the meal's ready, Mr. Birch."
Damn, bossy women had him surrounded.
"You must be getting old, Mable. You used to be able to hit a lot harder than that."
She snapped him with the towel again, and again. "You take that, you mouthy boy. Get outta my kitchen."
"Oh, now, Mable." He snared her with his arm and reeled her in for a bear hug. "You know you love me."
She giggled and slapped at him again, this time with her hand. "Go on, get. There's apples on the table in the dining room. Fill up on them 'til you hear the supper bell."
He swatted her lightly on her ample behind and left before she got her dander up again.
On his way to his study, he snagged an apple from the bowl. Mable would be sixty in another month. She'd be wanting to retire soon. Her husband, who had been their wrangler for twenty years, had already retired. To the grave. The thought of losing Mable too saddened Birch. Maybe, if he could find the right woman to wed, he wouldn't need to hire a new housekeeper.
Ride for a Bride in Wyoming (Rocky Mountain Romances Book 4) Page 4