A Cowboy for Clementine (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Floyd, Susan

  “We’d need to set up two corrals and lead them out, corral by corral.” Ryan said.

  “Maybe three.” Dex nodded.

  “Do we have enough?”

  “We have enough fencing for two,” Randy said. “But we can dismantle the first and make it the third.”

  “We have a portable one, also,” Clem put in.

  “Do you think we could herd them?” Dexter asked Clem directly.

  “If you could find them, you might be able to—as long as you’ve got steel-plated chaps for you and full body armor for your horse.”

  No one spoke, and she realized that they really didn’t believe her.

  “You think I’m making this up?”

  The men looked at one another and shifted uncomfortably.

  “Not exactly.” Ryan spoke first. “We’ve just been around a lot more cows than you have, and we’ve seen some hostile ones, but haven’t yet come across a breed that charges in herds.”

  “A stampede, maybe,” added Randy. “But not direct charging, like to scatter anything.”

  “These charged,” Clem insisted. She stood up, her face red. Even her father hadn’t believed her when she’d described what had happened. He’d just verbally patted her on the back and suggested she call some of his friends to help her.

  “You thought they charged. Something might have spooked them from behind.” Dex’s voice was placating.

  “We’ll have to find out how they’re organized,” Randy remarked.

  “If they are organized,” Ryan said.

  “All I know is that they’ve scattered all over the property and then some. And I just didn’t have the muscle power or the dogs to enclose them. Now I’m not even certain about the ratio of bulls to cows.”

  Dex’s face didn’t quite mask his disgust. “Didn’t you check your herd?”

  Clem felt her cheeks get hot, but replied in an even voice. “I had help that wasn’t nearly as careful as they should have been. And I was so blinded by the notion of the big profit rolling into my bank account that I didn’t care what kind of cows I had. I just wanted to get them out to that great feed up there.”

  She tapped another spot on the map to show them where. “Even when we went up to check on them in January, and I saw how big they were getting, I didn’t do anything about them. All I could think about was how much more they would grow in the next two months.” She frowned and then added, “I guess the feed was better than I thought.”

  “Or the breed was different.”

  “I, also, didn’t realize that cattle were territorial,” Clem commented.

  “Not in the traditional sense of the word,” Ryan answered, shooting a mischievous look at Dexter. “It’s more like each bull is trying to keep what’s his, so he has to tag along to make sure the other bulls don’t venture into his territory.”

  Randy swatted at his brother, which Ryan ducked with a chuckle. Dexter changed the subject.

  “How are your horses?” he asked. His voice was all business and Clem appreciated his professionalism.

  She sat down again.

  “Not as fit as yours are,” she said. “Archie is the best of the bunch. He’s got a lot of cow sense and he and I get along well.”

  Ryan turned his head toward Dexter. “It would be good to have a horse out there that knows where it’s going.”

  “He’s very well trained and takes to strangers easily.”

  Randy nodded before turning to Dexter. “We’ll need to see how they travel and check in on any favorite watering spots over the next day or so.” To Clem, he added, “Ryan has a way of knowing where cows want to hang out, where they’re heading. He can even tell you what they’ve eaten last, and match it up with the feed from a particular area.”

  “I want to take a ride up this creek,” Ryan said as he pushed his plate back and patted his tummy with satisfaction. “Is there a peak or two that would give me a good vantage point?”

  Clem tapped three peaks. “You can get to those with a truck, in about forty minutes, but it’s actually quicker by horse. It gets pretty steep. You can always tell where you are by where the reservoir is.” She pointed to the big man-made lake. “Once you get to the top, you’ll need to ride or walk down if you want a closer look.”

  Ryan exchanged glances with his brother. “Sounds good.”

  “How long do you think this phase will take?”

  Ryan shrugged and gave her a broad smile. “Depends on the cows. They might like me enough to reveal themselves to me.”

  “A couple of days. We’ll see,” Randy assured her.

  Ryan blotted his mouth with the napkin and looked at Clem as he stood up. “You cooked, point me to the kitchen and we’ll clean up.”

  Clem protested. “No, no. You just relax. You’ve been driving all day. I’ve got it taken care of.”

  Randy brushed the biscuit crumbs off of his flat belly as he got up. “At least let us clear the table. It’s mostly our junk, anyway. Also, that dinner was excellent.”

  Clem smiled. “Thanks.”

  “We love home cooking.”

  “Good. I have a great menu planned for your entire stay. I’ll also do all the laundry you need. I set out fresh linens in the bunkhouse for anyone who wants it—unless you’d rather stay in the house. There’s plenty of room.”

  Randy and Ryan exchanged a laugh. “No, ma’am. We much prefer the bunkhouse. If you knew how we were raised, you’d understand.”

  In quick time, the brothers had cleared the table, folded up the tablecloth and put away their maps. Then they grabbed their hats off the long pine bench next to the front door and tipped them toward Clementine. “It’s an early start tomorrow. We should be hitting the sack. Five a.m. comes awfully early.”

  “Clem, thank you again for the delicious dinner,” Ryan said. “We’ll see you then.”

  Clem smiled. “That you will. If you liked the dinner, you’ll love what I’ve got planned for breakfast. Oh, by the way, which one of you wants to borrow Archie?”

  She had a month’s worth of backlogged correspondence to attend to and she had planned on a day of paperwork. This would be perfect because Archie would get some well-deserved exercise and companionship.

  “Borrow Archie?” Randy chuckled. “That’s funny.”

  Ryan laughed. “We’ve got our own mounts. You’ll be riding Archie.”

  “Me?” Clementine squeaked, and shook her head in protest. “No, I’ll just get in the way. I’m sure that you all ride much faster and better than I do. I’ll just slow you down.”

  “We promise we won’t go too fast,” Ryan said, winking at her. “Besides, I’m being purely selfish. You see, we’re inherently lazy. Your knowledge is worth a fortune. See you bright and early.”

  “Coming, Dex?” Randy asked.

  “In a minute,” Dexter said. “There are a couple of things I’d like to discuss with Clem.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY WERE ALONE and the house seemed cavernous to Clem. Dexter stayed seated, leaning back in his chair.

  “I can’t believe they want me to go with them tomorrow,” she said with a small smile.

  Dexter’s face was pensive, then he cleared his throat. “It’ll save us time,” he acknowledged. “If it were up to me, though, I’d rather you stay home.”

  Stay home.

  Those words brought back clear images of her father telling her to stay home during a rare lightning storm when the horses were going crazy. She’d been about fourteen at the time and knew the horses better than anyone. It had been one of the few times Jim Wells had ever raised his voice to her. She remembered seething, knowing she could help and feeling as if her father had just discounted her contribution to the ranch. Part of her realized that he’d been concerned about her safety, but the part of her that was still fourteen years old told her different.

  “Really?” Clem experienced a small prick of annoyance. “And why exactly would that be?”

  “Probably for the same reason you
don’t want to go.” He leaned forward, hands on the back of the chair. “You’ll be a lot safer right here than out there.”

  Clem felt her back straighten. How odd. Five minutes ago, she couldn’t wait to give them this burden, now she was bristling.

  Stay home.

  “You sure you don’t need me to go to this party with you?” Clem asked her husband.

  Nick gave her a distracted smile, his fingers fumbling with his tie. Clem straightened it for him, her fingers lingering on his broad chest. Did he flinch or was that just her imagination?

  She smiled up at him. “I can be ready in a jiffy. I can wear the sparkly black number you picked out in Las Vegas.”

  He shook his head. “No, no. You’ll just be bored. You look tired. Why don’t you just stay home and rest?”

  Stay home.

  She knew now that was the night her husband had begun his affair. Would her life have been different if she’d insisted on going? Or would she have simply put off the inevitable?

  “Sometimes we can’t always do the safe thing,” she said, not able to keep the snap out of her voice.

  Dexter sat a little straighter at her tone, but said nothing, just waited for her to finish her thought.

  When she didn’t, he pressed her. “Would you like to elaborate on that?”

  She shrugged and walked to the kitchen, not wanting to look at him. It seemed as if he saw too much with those eyes. Forcing her voice to be light, she said over her shoulder, “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Dexter followed her.

  Clem jerked up the faucet handle, running the water at full blast, checked to see if it was hot, then plugged the sink before she squirted a stream of dishwashing liquid into the basin.

  “And?”

  “You’re retired, remember? Isn’t it a lot safer to stay retired than come out here?”

  “You don’t know why I’m here.” His voice was so quiet she turned down the faucet to hear him.

  She pressed her lips together and then looked him straight in the eye. “I have a pretty good idea.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up, but the smile didn’t make it to his eyes. “Really, now.”

  She nodded. “You’re here to face whatever it was that made you retire in your prime.”

  The silence lasted so long Clem knew she’d guessed right. And you don’t want to be lonely anymore. But she wasn’t going to add that. Maybe his friends had reminded him there was a lot more to life than existing. Dexter continued to say nothing. He just opened and closed the cabinet drawers.

  “Looking for something?” Clem asked.

  He didn’t respond but kept on with his methodical survey.

  Clem sniffed. If he didn’t want to talk, that was okay. Clem had plenty to keep her occupied, each dish getting special attention. She worked her way through the china and the silverware, stacking them on the dish drainer. When she turned to get the goblets, she was surprised to find Dexter pulling a couple of dish towels out of a drawer.

  He plucked a plate off the dish drainer and dried it with efficient movements.

  “It was nice of you to put out the good stuff,” he said gruffly.

  “My mother always did that when we had company.”

  Another silence.

  He broke it this time. “The dinner was excellent.” Clem could tell his compliment was sincere.

  “Thank you.”

  Long pause.

  “Where do these go?” Dexter asked. He had two cabinets open, searching for a similar china pattern.

  “Oh, those go in the dining room. Just stack them up. I’ll put them away later.”

  “Don’t trust me, huh?” He gave her a real smile that transformed his whole face.

  DEXTER MEANT IT AS A JOKE, but somehow his voice had taken on a much more serious tone.

  Clem’s eyes were enormous as she dried her hands on a towel, then picked up his stack of plates.

  For once, he shifted uncomfortably. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  She hugged the plates to her chest, her blue eyes never leaving his face. “I would trust you with my life.”

  The words hung in the air, and as if she was disturbed by her admission, she swept out of the kitchen.

  Dexter swallowed hard. Why did even the simplest conversations with her have such an impact on him? Dex didn’t know what hurt him the most—the complete trust in her eyes or the sad fact that her trust was misplaced. He couldn’t save lives. He could barely live his own.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, his voice strained, as he followed her into the dining room with the silverware.

  She nodded. “I would.”

  They lapsed into silence again, and he held out the forks and knives. She stared at them as if she didn’t know what they were. Then, avoiding all contact, she took them from him and began arranging them in the top drawer of the china cabinet.

  “Your mother didn’t want the china?” Dexter asked. He’d been impressed with the quiet opulence of the ranch house. It was as expansive as the Victorian was cloistered. The ranch house spoke of elegant holiday meals and happy family gatherings. It seemed far too big a place for Clementine to rattle around in by herself.

  “Their new house is a lot smaller and my mother didn’t want to take too much. As long as I’m staying here, it made sense for them to keep the bulky furniture here.”

  “And your furniture and china?”

  “My furniture and china?” Clem straightened each plate in the cabinet so the designs were all in perfect alignment.

  “You said you were married before.”

  “Sold” was all she said.

  CLEM DIDN’T WANT TO BE RUDE, but Dexter was probing too deeply for comfort.

  He seemed to be aware of that because he let the subject drop.

  “I guess I should get going,” he said, moving toward the door.

  “You don’t have to,” Clem blurted as she watched him walk across the living room to retrieve his hat. “You could stay here.”

  He stopped still and Clem realized what that had sounded like.

  “No, n-no. Not that.” She waved her hands in the air and then dropped them at his inquiring look. She crossed over to the pine bench, wanting to explain that she’d just wanted to offer him the same thing she’d offered the Miller brothers—a bed in the house. Not her bed. The words, however, wouldn’t come out.

  DEXTER HAD ALWAYS THRIVED on the unknown, which was why he’d loved chasing feral cows and why he loved the challenge of working with difficult horses. But he was smart enough to know that if he was going to survive an encounter with the unknown, he’d better partner it with the familiar. Randy and Ryan Miller were familiar. They’d worked together so long that they could be a quarter mile away and still predict each other’s movements, relying on hand signals, intuition and the actions of the cows they herded. That’s what made them so good.

  Dexter could sense the personalities of the cows, and they seemed to telegraph their movements, their intentions to him, which allowed him to direct a dog to watch those cattle that seemed restless or discontent. Some cowboys complained that his drives were boring because nothing happened; others said Dexter was the luckiest son of a gun who ever walked a cow trail. Dexter knew it wasn’t about luck. Accidents didn’t happen because he didn’t let them happen.

  Until Joanna died.

  From that day on, his abilities and intuition had evaporated with the intensity of his grief. But now, three years later, he yearned for their return so he could read this woman who barely came up to his chin. His mouth went dry, and Dexter became acutely aware of how close she was standing to him, so close he could smell the shampoo in her hair. She looked up and then glanced away, but didn’t move an inch.

  “No. I don’t think so.” Each word was distinct. He studied every detail of her face, wanting desperately to take her up on her offer. Instead, he very carefully placed his hands on her shoulders.

  Clem jumped at the warmth of his han
ds, the intimacy of his touch.

  “So tense,” Dexter murmured.

  “I’m not tense.” She shook her head for emphasis.

  Those hands began to massage her shoulders, not sensuously, as she would have suspected, but clinically, therapeutically. She felt her knees give way as she closed her eyes and realized she was no better than Cowchip, falling victim to those lethal hands.

  When the motion of his hands stopped, Clem remembered to open her eyes, and found his intense gaze on her face, but something in his green eyes changed as he looked at her mouth. His hands moved from her shoulders to the base of her neck, his fingers tangling in the fine hairs at her nape. Until that moment, Clem hadn’t known how sensitive that part of her body was.

  With his hands cupped around the back of her head, she stared up at him, at the sensual curve of his bottom lip, the slight cleft in his chin, the dark stubble. She could see his even teeth up close. She swallowed hard, mesmerized by the combination of the rhythmic caress of his hands and the fact that she was sure—just as she’d been sure she wanted him to come today—that he was going to kiss her.

  She knew it.

  And wanted it.

  She closed her eyes and could feel the warmth of his breath fan her eyelashes. The back of his right hand stroked her temple, and she thought she was going to pass out if he didn’t kiss her soon.

  Then those magnificent hands were gone, leaving her with only a slight flick on her nose. Her eyes popped open at the desertion.

  “I think—” Dexter said, his voice low and husky, “I’d better sleep in the bunkhouse.”

  With a laugh, he jammed his hat on his head and was gone, moving quickly and silently for a man so large. Clem slid down the wall until she met the pine bench. Her head was suddenly dizzy, the blood having drained out of it to puddle at the soles of her feet.