The Best Man

by Maggie Osborne

  When the mortifying tears finally stopped, Alex closed her eyes and rested a minute. She needed to dry her hair, which was now falling around her shoulders in soggy strands, and change clothes, and she couldn’t imagine how she would obtain the privacy in which to do it.

  “Grady?” she called in a small voice. “Will you fetch my bedroll now, please? I need my toiletries and a change of clothing.”

  “Miz Mills,” he said, coming around to stand in front of her with a frown. “It ain’t my place to tell you your bidness, but you got ten hungry boys who’s gonna be ridin’ in here in about two hours looking for their dinner which you ain’t started yet. ‘Fore you go fussing with female fripperies, mebbe you better get some dinner a-cooking.”

  Astonishment widened her eyes. “After all that’s happened to me… I thought… surely you don’t except me to fix a meal after I was almost burned to death!”

  “Well, ma’am, if you’re hinting that I should wrassle up the grub, I ain’t about to.” He stuck out a whiskered chin and stared at her. “You’re the cook, and I’m the wrangler. You don’t mess with my ponies, and I don’t mess with your chuck, and that’s how it is.” Anger glinted in his eyes. “Ain’t that always the way? Offer a woman a helping hand and pretty soon she wants your whole body for doing her work. Well, I got a job, Miz Mills. I don’t have time to do your job, too.”

  Blinking with disbelief, fresh tears welling in her eyes, she watched him stomp away. She could not believe what was happening to her. If ever there was a lady in distress who needed assistance, she was that lady. Yet four able-bodied men stood within sight and not one was willing to lift a finger to help her.

  Pulling a handkerchief out of her cuff, she wrung the water from it, then blotted her face and wiped tears from her eyes. She took her time pushing strands of wet hair up beneath her wet hat, hoping that Grady would reconsider and return to cook the noon meal. He couldn’t really expect her to go on wearing a skirt that was ripped up the back and burned full of holes, or ignore the fact that she was drenched to the skin from the top of her head to the tip of her boot.

  She waited a full five minutes before she accepted that Grady would not return. Then, teary with self-pity, she forced herself to consider the noon meal. Last night, which seemed like a decade ago, she had planned to cook a roast for the noon meal. But there wasn’t time now, so she decided on bacon stew, an uninspired throw-together that she’d been told cowboys actually liked.

  Once upright on her crutch, she found the knives and cut a slab of bacon into small squares. The puncture on her wrist opened and bled on her work surface, so she took a minute to wrap her handkerchief around the base of her hand. The wrapping made it awkward to work, but she was beyond caring. She hurled the squares of bacon into a deep pot, hung the pot over the flames, then, being careful not to set herself on fire again, she poured water into the pot, before returning to the worktable to peel what seemed like a million potatoes and slice an equal number of onions. At home she would have insisted that the early carrots be peeled because that was the right and civilized way to do it. But here she just whacked the carrots in pieces and dumped them in with the other vegetables that she would add to the pot when the bacon was half-cooked.

  She wasn’t up to making biscuits, so she threw together some dough for dumplings. The secret to dumplings, she’d been assured by Señora Calvos, was to roll the dough very very thin before cutting it into squares to drop on top of the boiling stew. Well, today that was not going to happen. If she hurried this chore along, she might have time to change her clothes and do something with the wet hair that kept dropping in her face.

  There was no point whatsoever in having standards if a person didn’t live up to them. Alex Roark Mills was not a woman who served a meal looking as if she had just crawled out of a burning building. She was a person with superior standards. She would find time to repair her appearance.

  But shortly after she dumped the vegetables into the greasy stew water, she glanced up and spotted an enormous dust cloud rising on the horizon. With a despairing heart, she stared at the haze and frantically counted the tasks she had to do yet. There was not going to be a spare minute to fix her hair or change her ensemble.

  The herd was coming. And her standards were going.

  Chapter 10

  “What in the hell happened to you?” Dal demanded, climbing down from his horse and handing the reins to Grady. He examined Alex with a hard stare. Her hair hung down in frizzy loops and her skirt had turned into a wrinkled black rag with charred holes that exposed scorched petticoats. A bloody handkerchief wrapped her hand. Picking up a mug, Dal walked behind her to the coffeepot and noticed that her skirt was ripped up the back.

  She balanced a hip against the worktable and narrowed her eyes. There was no ice in her gaze today, just fury. “Don’t let the fact that I almost died delay the enjoyment of your coffee.”

  Actually, he wasn’t enjoying the coffee. It had that weak, clean-pot, new-grounds taste.

  “Cowboys want their coffee first thing.” It was hard not to smile. He hadn’t imagined she could look this disheveled. She told him what had happened, waving the hand without the crutch, furious tears glittering in her eyes. “I don’t see why you’re still upset,” he commented at the end of her tirade. “You didn’t get injured, and a drenching never killed anyone.”

  “Look at me,” she shouted, pink blazing on her cheeks. She waved the bloody handkerchief under his nose. “I almost burned up! What more do you want?”

  “Dinner for twelve,” he answered. He tossed the rest of his coffee on the ground, and watched his point men bring the herd in. He wondered if Freddy and Les had caught up yet. “Better set out the plates,” he said absently, turning to inspect the observers’ camp. Leaving Alex sputtering, he walked toward the two wagons parked closer to the main camp than he preferred.

  As he’d expected, it was a greenhorn’s camp. He’d ask Grady to show Luther or Ward how to dig a decent fire pit. He was willing to offer that much assistance.

  “How do you think the drive is going so far?” Ward. Hamm demanded. Dal noticed a layer of cream atop Hamm’s coffee and curled his lip. To a man, cowboys drank their coffee black.

  “About as expected.” Whiskey would grow on trees before he started reporting to Ward Hamm. He addressed Luther. “From now on, I want your camp farther from the outfit.”

  “Why is that?” Jack Caldwell asked, leaning against the side of the wagon riffling a deck of cards between his fingers. “You don’t want us to see what you’re doing?”

  “I don’t want my men distracted.” He frowned at the playing cards, then looked back at Luther. “There’s going to be a stampede in the next few days. If we can, we’ll turn the herd right, away from the wagons, but that isn’t always possible. So you boys sleep with one eye open.”

  Ward peered at the drovers drifting toward the chuck wagon for their noonday meal. “Who watches the herd while they’re eating?”

  “I don’t have time to explain a cattle drive,” Dal said sharply. The more he saw of this man, the more he resented his presence.

  Freddy and Les rode in as he returned to the main camp. They were as wrecked as Alex. Their eyes were reddened from dust, and dust packed every crevice of their skin and clothing. Small muddy lines ringed their nostrils and lips. Loose hair flew around faces that were already starting to scorch in the sun, and sweat soaked their shirts. The first thing they did after climbing off their horses and rubbing their lower legs with groans was pull off thin, fashionable gloves and stare at the blisters rising on their palms.

  Freddy looked up and saw him watching. “If you say I told you so, I’ll… I’ll…”

  He smiled and pushed his hat to the back of his head. “All I’m going to say is maybe you’ll listen the next time I make a suggestion. Ask Grady for some heavier gloves.”

  Stepping up to her, he touched the bandanna tied around her throat, letting his knuckles brush her warm skin. “This isn’t
a decoration.” He pulled the bandanna up over her nose and mouth, watched her green eyes flare at the familiarity. “It’s to filter the dust.”

  “I know that,” she snapped, jerking the bandanna back down to her throat. Leaning forward from the hips, she narrowed her eyes. “There’s something I want to say to you.”

  Like hell she’d known. “So? Say what’s on your mind.”

  She stood close enough that he could smell the sweat plastering her shirt to her skin. It didn’t smell like a man’s sweat, but instead reminded him of glistening bodies and damp sheets. The image was strong enough that he clenched his jaw and stared back at her.

  “That kiss didn’t mean anything to me either! Absolutely nothing.” After glaring into his eyes, she tossed her head and marched toward the plates stacked on the chuck-wagon worktable.

  He stood rock-still as if she’d hauled back and smacked him between the eyes with a fence post. Whenever he’d thought about kissing her, and that had been frequently, he’d been so focused on assuring himself that kissing her had meant nothing to him, that he hadn’t considered her point of view. Now that he knew her reaction, it pissed him off.

  Scowling, biting down on his teeth, he watched her knock the dust from her clothing, then wash her hands and face in the basin on the sideboard of the wagon. Reddened eyes snapping, black hair flying, covered in dust and sweat, she was more appealing right now than she had been in her stylish gowns with every hair carefully curled. His eyes flicked to the damp V between her thighs, and he felt a sudden stirring that irritated the bejesus out of him.

  “Get out of my way,” she snarled when he walked up beside her. Reaching past him, brushing against his arm and chest, she picked up one of the tin plates.

  “Turning into a tough cowboy, are you?” he drawled, stepping back.

  “I can take anything you throw at me,” she said, looking up and holding his gaze.

  She was so full of bristling pride and bravado that she actually seemed taller. When he’d kissed her, he had intended to cut her down to size and teach her a lesson, but apparently it would take more than one kiss to subdue this woman. The next time he kissed her—and there would be a next time—his kiss would damned well mean something to her. He’d make sure that it did.

  “Well, my God,” she said suddenly, staring past him at Alex. “What happened to you?”

  “Just shut up,” Alex hissed. Lifting a ladle, she flung a splash of dinner onto Freddy’s plate. “You look like a filthy ragamuffin yourself!”

  Freddy blinked down at the chunks of bacon and vegetables floating in grease. Puzzled, she looked at Dal then back to Alex. “What the hell is this?”

  “It needs lots of salt,” Drinkwater commented from near the fire, “but it ain’t too bad.”

  Charlie Singer poked a fork at a dumpling. “This is bad,” he said unhappily.

  “Stew needs pepper, too,” Peach said. “Ma’am, you got to put some seasoning in. Salt, pepper, whatever other seasonings you got.”

  Alex whirled on them and bared her teeth. “When I want a critique, gentlemen, I will request one!” Furious tears glittered in her eyes.

  “Just offering a few suggestions, that’s all,” Drinkwater said hastily.

  Charlie Singer stared mournfully at his plate. “She’s got the temperament of a cook. Now if she’d just learn to cook like a cook.”

  Dal watched Freddy carry her dinner a few yards away from the others. She looked around like she was searching for a chair, then she sighed and sat on the ground to eat. There was something wildly erotic about a woman wearing a pair of man’s pants, he decided. Usually a man could only speculate about the shape and size of a woman’s hips, thighs, buttocks, and legs. Now he could see how she was put together, and the sight of shapely slender curves made his muscles tighten and his thighs burn. Clamping his lips together, he turned a frown toward the herd, sending his thoughts out where they ought to be.

  “Dal?”

  “Yes?” Looking down at Les, he wondered why the sight of her wearing male trousers didn’t make his mouth go dry.

  “I don’t know if I have to ask permission, but I’m going to the observers’ camp to have a word with Ward.”

  Glancing over her head, he spotted Hamm leaning against the side of his wagon, tapping a boot in impatience. “You can eat or you can go visiting,” Dal said, looking back at Les, puzzled by the anxiety in her eyes. “You don’t have time to do both.”

  Indecision puckered her eyebrows, then she sighed deeply and straightened her shoulders. After replacing the plate she’d been holding, she walked toward the observers’ camp, dragging her boots. When she reached the wagon, she called a greeting to Luther and Caldwell, then Hamm grabbed her arm and led her behind the team, where they wouldn’t be observed. Something wasn’t right about that relationship, Dal decided, watching, but he didn’t know what it was. Unless it impacted the drive, he guessed it wasn’t any of his business.

  Alex dropped a ladleful of stew on his plate and gave him a look that dared him to comment. He grinned, then walked over and sat down beside Freddy.

  “This is the nastiest stuff I ever ate,” she said, making a face as he lowered himself to the ground. “The vegetables are all right, I guess. But the liquid is part grease and part pond scum.”

  “Tell me something.” He didn’t look at the material stretched tight across her crossed legs. “Whose idea was it for Hamm to come on this drive? Was it his idea or Les’s?”

  She tasted the coffee and rolled her eyes in disgust. “How should I know?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  Freddy stared at him then laughed. “The last time my sisters and I shared any confidences, we were all wearing our hair down.” A humorless smile faded from her expression. “Once this drive is over, my sisters and I will go our separate ways, and I doubt we’ll ever see each other again. Believe me, none of us will consider that a great loss.” After looking at her plate, she turned it upside down on the ground. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Ellie is married and lives north of New Orleans. My brother died early in the war.”

  “Were you close to your brother?” Freddy asked curiously.

  “Yes and no. Mac was ten years older, so we didn’t have a lot in common during the growing-up years. I guess I idolized him the way younger brothers do.” The drovers had called it right. The stew was bland and tasteless, the dumplings soggy, half-cooked lumps. Dal glanced toward the chuck wagon and reminded himself this was only the first day.

  “It’s odd to think of you as a little boy idolizing someone,” Freddy said. “When I was a lot younger I used to wish that my sisters and I got along better. But I outgrew the feeling.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Why would you care?”

  “We’re just making conversation here,” he said irritably. “I never saw a woman bristle the way you do.” She had an annoying way of appearing sociable one minute, then slamming the door in a person’s face the next minute.

  “If I seem touchy, it’s because there’s something about you that irritates me. I’m sorry to be rude and blunt, but that’s the truth.”

  “Well, there’s something about you that irritates me, too.” They squinted at each other, glaring against the sun. “Now here’s how it is. I don’t give a damn about you or your sisters or whether you get along or any of that. But I do care about this cattle drive. If we hope to succeed, everyone has to work together and that means you three have to pull together.”

  “We’re doing our part,” she snapped. The chip jumped back on her shoulder.

  “It’s too soon to judge. But you and Les sure aren’t working as a team. Didn’t you tell me you’re responsible for one side of the drag, and she’s responsible for the other? That’s not teamwork, and that could be part of the reason why you’re losing cattle.”

  “I knew you were going to bring that up.” An angry flush brightened her sunburn. “No one could have prevented
those steers from going home!”

  “You’re wrong,” he said flatly, his gaze on her lips. How in the hell could she claim that his kiss had meant nothing? It was an insult of the highest water. No other woman had ever complained about his kisses. “None of the other drovers lost four beeves before noon.”

  “Is that so!” She jumped to her feet, clamped her hands on her hips, and glared down at him with burning eyes. Her stance placed him at eye level with her crotch, and he had to force himself to drag his gaze up to meet hers. “Well, we aren’t going to lose any more!”

  All of the sisters responded to a challenge, but none more than Freddy. The problem with using this observation was that he couldn’t predict how she would react, only that she would.

  “Freddy?” he called, watching her buttocks move as she flounced away from him. “Come back here and get your plate and cup. We forgot to bring servants to wait on you. So pick up your dishes and put them in the wreck pan to soak.”

  Face flaming, she glanced at the drovers who had heard his remark and were grinning, then she came back for her plate and cup. Bending close enough to him that he felt the heat of anger rolling off her body, she said in a low, sharp voice. “You don’t think any of us can do any real or worthwhile work. Well, you’re going to eat those thoughts.”

  “I hope you’re right.” He emptied his own scraps on the ground before he leaned back on the sparse grass and finished his coffee. He hoped like hell that the Roark sisters would learn to carry their weight, but in his heart he doubted three women raised as ladies would ever be worthwhile hands on a cattle drive. His plan was to work around them whenever he could.

  The problem, of course, and Joe Roark had known it as well as anyone, was that a drive of this size needed every available man. There were areas where Dal could not compensate for the sisters’ incompetence. Those were the areas that worried him.

  That and thinking about a green-eyed, lush-bodied woman who had walked away from his kiss with indifference. He’d have to do something about that. It was a matter of pride.