by Floyd, Susan
Now, that was a cowboy.
BY THE TIME DAWN was breaking over the Sierras, Dexter sat on his favorite horse, Calisto, who was delicately working her way through the rough brush of the Diablo mountain range. Calisto was as moody as they came, but after fifteen years, Dexter would trust the horse with his life. Dexter would never take New Horse out for serious work. He just wasn’t ready, though Dexter still had hope he would turn out to be a good cattle horse. After all, it seemed as if the best cattle horses were as crazy as their owners.
Not that there was any craziness to this ride. He felt as if he was out on a Sunday, just enjoying the view. He wasn’t about to let Clementine near any danger, so they’d slowed the pace and picked her brain for all the information that she’d collected over the past year.
He would have preferred to explore on his own. By himself, Dexter would have taken a ride around the perimeter, poked around in different areas, maybe even spotted a few cows, which was the best way to find out how dispersed they actually were. He’d be ready to compare notes with Randy and Ryan when they returned from their own scouting trips. But with Clem riding along, they’d be lucky to get halfway before having to turn back. That wasn’t Clementine’s fault, Dexter allowed. She’d shown enough sense to know that she couldn’t keep up.
Dexter heard Clementine’s delighted laugh behind him and, against his will, looked over his shoulder. She had a cream felt Stetson pulled down over her face. At least it didn’t look as new as she did. Randy and Ryan had slowed to walk with her.
Dexter ignored the twinge that he felt. He wasn’t jealous or anything. He just didn’t appreciate the way Randy watched her, almost as if he wanted to swallow her down in one go.
Well, Randy hadn’t kissed her.
Dexter shook off that thought and wondered why he just didn’t have the guts to walk away. Hell, he couldn’t even stop himself from stealing another look at her. She was certainly a no-frills kind of rider, her saddle was plain but fit perfectly, and she sat on Archie as if she’d been born there.
But he was none too pleased with the way she smiled back at Randy.
Randy would be the worst thing for Clementine. He and Joanna had fit each other like milk and cookies, cake and frosting. But Clem needed someone different from Randy. She needed someone to protect her, keep her safe. Randy was the easygoing type. Whatever Joanna had wanted, Joanna got, even if it wasn’t necessarily the best thing for her. Clem needed someone more like—himself.
He rolled the thought around in his mind.
She was a nice-looking woman, a little on the complicated side, but he kind of liked that about her. He couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Clementine Wells had proved herself to be a bundle of contradictions, helpless and resourceful, uncertain and determined, soft and stubborn.
“There’s one!” Clementine hissed as she reined Archie to a stop.
Randy halted Shuckabur right next to her, and they all turned to look in the direction she was pointing.
“I didn’t think we’d find one this close to the ranch,” Clem said with disgust. “It’s mocking me.” She shook her finger at it. “Well, I tell you, cow, I brought in the big guns, so enjoy your freedom. You’ll be steak soon. Oh, there’s another.”
“Woooo-whee!” Ryan whistled through his teeth, then pushed his hat back so he could see better.
Dexter backed up Calisto several feet, for a better angle, his heart thumping with curious excitement. He scanned the area and spotted at least four more cows, peacefully grazing on the new grass. They were clearly marked with the Wells family brand—bright yellow tags in their ears.
The cows gave warning snorts, and Dex could feel Calisto go tense with anticipation. He tugged slightly on the reins to keep her from moving forward to investigate.
If anything, Clem had underestimated the size of the cattle. Dexter couldn’t stop the satisfied smile that overtook him. It mirrored Randy’s as he studied Clem’s herd, almost pure white with small brown markings on the face and legs. Longhorn? He shook his head. It was impossible to tell what they were that far away. Dexter allowed Calisto to go a little closer.
The horn span wasn’t four feet, like Clem’d said earlier, but at least five. And they weren’t benign, either. They turned up and out, and even looked as if they’d been sharpened with some regularity. They could do some real damage to a horse and cowboy alike if the pair wasn’t careful.
The nearest cow looked at them. Yes, there was some Longhorn. But there was something else that gave it a wily appearance. Massive chest, narrow, agile legs, skinny tail. Lots of lean muscle, not a lot of fat. A formidable opponent.
Something that might have been called fear, if he could remember what fear felt like, rippled through him. He sat up straighter, scanning the narrow sloping hills for signs of even more cows. His palms itched to get closer and he actually gripped his rope.
Calisto continued to move from hoof to hoof, a small dance of anticipation. It’d be foolish to try anything now. They didn’t have the dogs. But he wanted to. He hadn’t had a challenge like this in too long. These cows explained why no one else had taken this job. Clem had actually been able to get in several hundred of these? How had she done that with out-of-shape horses and untrained dogs? The experience would be fodder for conversation later on this evening.
For now he studied the biggest cow. It studied him back, apparently having dismissed Clem, Ryan and Randy as no threat.
You aren’t so big, the cow telegraphed to him without a blink of its dark eyes. Then with the ease of a confident contender, the cow turned and walked away, tail twitching at something small and annoying.
Calisto neighed and skittered backward with excitement. Calisto definitely enjoyed her work, even sometimes to her own detriment.
Clem came up beside Dexter; Archie was perfectly comfortable with the terrain.
Her face was flushed and she looked thrilled. “Did you see them?”
“See what?”
“The cows.” She clicked her tongue with impatience.
“Those things?” He tilted the brim of his hat in the general direction.
“Yes.”
“Anomalies.” That’s what he wanted to think. It was better to believe that what he’d just seen was nothing more than a few strands of DNA gone astray.
Clem shook her head with great regret. “’Fraid not. Those are the midgets. Their bigger siblings are up the mountain a ways. These are the weaklings.”
He swiveled his head to see if she was kidding.
She wasn’t.
Her mouth turned down into a pensive scowl. “I marked the ones that we couldn’t get in. See the red paint on the rear? That’s me. He was a little critter three months ago.”
“What do you have up there? Plutonium?”
Clem shook her head. “Don’t know. There are power lines over that way. Don’t know if that would make them radioactive. Especially when you consider my family’s been putting out cows here for two generations. This is the first set that’s grown so big. Maybe their water got an extra dose.”
Dexter felt a new wave of respect for Clem. She was readily accepting the blame for her renegade cattle, admitting her inexperience, but the truth was even a very experienced rancher would have a heck of a time getting those beasts in. This didn’t seem like Clem’s fault at all. Calves pretty much looked alike. Who could know what they’d eventually grow into?
Randy rode up, still studying the cows. “Maybe they’ll herd.” But he didn’t sound too convinced.
“They might,” Dexter acknowledged.
Randy gave him a quick look. A wide grin lit up his face. “You want to try?”
It wasn’t a dare, but it felt like one.
“The horses are dying for a workout,” Ryan added.
“What about her?” Dexter angled his head toward Clem.
He could see her straighten in the saddle, her frown telling him what she thought about his words.
“Clem?” Randy addressed her.
“Yes?” She looked alert.
“Can you follow orders?” Randy asked. “I mean seriously follow orders.”
“Yes,” she answered.
“We want to see how easily they herd, so we’re going to try these few out. We don’t have the dogs…” Ryan’s voice trailed off.
“So I’ll be the dogs?” Clem looked at Randy and then shot a quick look at Dex.
Ryan grinned. “Not just you, but me, too.”
Dexter edged Calisto forward. “No, Ryan, I’ll do it. If Clem wants to go, I’ll go with her.”
“So, Clem, you up for a little excitement?” Randy asked.
Clem looked uncertain and Dexter didn’t want to push her.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Ryan and I’ll go and you can stay with Randy.” Dexter meant the words to be supportive.
If anything, all they did was stiffen Clem’s posture.
After a long pause she said in a firm voice, “I’ll go.”
“You should get to the other side and wait,” Randy said to Dexter.
Dexter nodded. “We’ll wait for your signal.” He bestowed a rare smile on Clem. “You wanted some excitement. Looks like you’re going to get it. We need to ride right up to them as quickly as we can and then start to make a lot of noise. But get out of the way fast.”
Clem nodded.
“Clem, go northwest, and Dex, you go northeast. See if you can turn them so they’ll start running south. If they herd, our job is going to be a lot easier than we thought,” Ryan said, his eyes never leaving the cows.
Clem could hardly breathe, her heart was beating so wildly. So this was what it was like to work with people who knew what they were doing. She directed Archie down the small incline, not daring to look at Dexter, who rode right next to her. Controlling her excitement, she reined Archie in the direction that Dexter sent her. When she was in position, she stopped and waited for Randy to wave his hat.
She thought she could see excitement in Dexter Scott’s eyes, and Clem suddenly realized that Dexter needed to prove something as much as she did. He looked at her and nodded. They were equals now, and Clem felt a burst of joy. Then the signal came and she hunkered down over Archie and let him go.
AS HE URGED CALISTO FORWARD Dexter watched Clem ride straight toward him, her body low, her legs in perfect position. She spurred Archie faster, a grin plastered on her face, then cut left at the same moment he cut right, and as they rode side by side, something inside of him burst open. Life didn’t get any better than this.
When he increased his speed, she stayed right with him effortlessly. Then as if reading each other’s minds, they both began to whoop. Dexter watched the cows startle, then scatter, only to organize a little farther down, at which point Randy and Ryan took off after them, trying to turn them. In a perfectly synchronized move, the cattle swerved left, and then right, all at a dead run.
Dexter allowed Calisto to join the fun as he followed the cows, determined to figure out every trick they had. These critters were speedy and used to running. They could easily stampede if there were too many of them. So Dexter made a mental note to keep their number low—groups of fifteen to twenty, and no more—while moving them from one corral to the next.
After about fifteen minutes, he signaled the Miller brothers and they dropped off, letting the cows disappear into the brush.
Clem came riding up, her face flushed with excitement, her breathing hard. “Gosh, that was fun.”
Dexter could barely look at Clem, she was so beautiful. Her eyes sparkled, and her I’m-not-too-sure-what-I’m-doing veneer had slipped just a little with her exertion.
Randy reined Shuckabur right next to them and grinned with great optimism. “They turned really easy.”
“Skittish, though,” Ryan put in. “They’d be prone to stampeding, don’t you think?”
Dexter nodded. “Small groups.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Fifteen or twenty.”
“Maybe ten to start with, just so we know what we’re dealing with. Once we get a little experience with them, we can move a whole group,” Randy suggested.
Dexter understood his point. He turned to Clem, whose cheeks were still bright pink with her effort. “You said these were small?” he asked. He didn’t mean to be skeptical, but he’d been around a lot of cattle and they didn’t come much bigger than these.
She nodded. “Yes. There are some bigger ones up the mountain, where we lost them. We didn’t do any trial runs.”
“Our form of research,” Randy said. He nodded to Clem. “You did great out there.”
Dexter watched Clem smile at Randy’s compliment and kicked himself for not complimenting her first.
“So where does this road go?” Dexter indicated the small truck path as his eyes settled on Clem. She was still beaming.
“Up, around and back to the ranch,” Clem replied. She pointed and Dexter’s eyes were drawn to the slender curve of her forearm. He’d felt those arms wrapped around his neck. “This cuts north, the other trail we were on goes south. That road will put you out by the corral, this will put you by the bunkhouse.”
Dexter nodded to Randy. “Which one do you want?”
“Road or partner?”
“Road. You and Ryan go one way, we’ll go the other.”
“You sure?” Randy raised an eyebrow. “If you want to go it alone, we’ll take her—don’t mind having Clem along.”
Dexter minded Randy having Clem along.
He minded a lot.
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I’m up for a little baby-sitting.”
CHAPTER FIVE
CLEMENTINE STIFFENED AT Dexter’s words, then almost lost her seat on Archie, she was so startled by a swift wink Dexter sent her way. It was a private, intimate wink she was positive neither Randy nor Ryan saw. In fact, he’d delivered it with such stealth she wasn’t certain she’d seen it. But then she noticed the twinkle in his eyes. Lord above. Dexter Scott was devastating when he was relaxed. Twice as dangerous as usual.
“There’s some information I’d like from Clem, anyway,” Dexter said as he straightened up.
“Okay.” Randy met Dex’s eyes, and then cleared his throat. “Ryan and I’ll go that way. Meet you back at the main house.”
Clem watched Randy and Ryan take the north trail. She and Dexter continued in their original direction. She’d already become accustomed to Dexter Scott’s lack of chatter, but she didn’t expect to ride in complete silence. After fifteen minutes, she ventured, “Don’t know how much I know.”
“What?” Dexter regarded her seriously.
“You said you wanted some specific information from me,” she said. She found herself gesturing with the reins and dropped her hands. “You said that to Randy.”
“Ahh.” He nodded but didn’t say anything else.
They rode some more, the horses content at a slow walk.
“Pretty country,” he commented.
“I like it,” she replied. “It’s different from the desert.” Then she added. “I like the desert, too.”
“I don’t know if I so much like the desert. It’s where I ended up. I didn’t exactly choose it.”
That observation surprised Clementine. She’d assumed he had. She’d figured he’d traveled all over the West and settled in the place he liked best. Each small piece of information she learned added yet another facet to him. He had a reason for coming out of retirement and he didn’t choose to live in the desert. She wanted to probe him for more.
Instead, she said nothing, and for a while they just rode, their horses in perfect step.
“Seems like it’d be easier than this,” he commented.
“What?” Clem asked.
“Getting to know someone.”
Clem’s mouth went dry and the joke she’d meant to utter got stuck in her throat. Did he want to get to know her better?
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“Would you stop doing that?” Clem was disconce
rted by the steadiness of his gaze on her face.
“Doing what?”
“Answering questions I never ask.”
“You ask them.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” he contradicted her. He reached out to touch her cheek. “You’re easy.”
“Easy?” Clem didn’t know whether to be pleased or offended.
“To read. Your face tells me everything I need to know.”
“Like what? What question do I have?”
“Whether or not I have designs on you. If that’s the reason I didn’t want you to go with Randy and Ryan.”
“And do you?” She was trying to make her voice light, flirtatious even, but it came out uncertain.
He took a deep breath and said, “Yes,” before he spurred Calisto forward. “I do need to know a few things, though.”
“Such as?” Clem gladly accepted the change in subject. If they talked about cows, she didn’t have to notice how his hands rested on his thighs when he rode or how straight he sat or that he’d admitted he had designs on her.
“Why was it so important for you to run the ranch?”
She swallowed but didn’t reply.
“How much did it have to do with your divorce?”
She didn’t know what to say. How could she tell him everything and nothing? Yes, the divorce had caused the upheaval that had led her back to her parents’ ranch, but running the ranch had more to do with something she’d been missing long before the divorce.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Instead of answering, Clem plunged in with a request of her own. “Tell me first why you decided to retire.”
DEXTER COULDN’T BEAR to look at Clementine. Her eyes were so compassionate.
“I had a sister.” He could barely say the words. She didn’t say anything, just listened.
“You ride like her. She was very good. She, Randy, Ryan, my good friend Ben Thorton and I did everything together. We roped cows, we traveled together. She and Randy were getting close.”
“What happened to her?”