Cowgirl, Unexpectedly

by Vicki Tharp

  “What does your mother think?” That’s out of line, Parish. Under the boldfaced, red-inked category entitled None of Your Damn Business. “Wait. Sorry. Scratch that.”

  “No. It’s okay,” Jenna said, but the smile had fallen from her face and her jaw clenched so hard I waited for one of her fillings to pop free. “I don’t know what the egg donor thinks. I don’t even remember the last time I spoke with her.” Her upper lip curled as if the words had turned to sulfur on her tongue.

  Egg donor?

  “Anyway, I figure the moment she dumped me at my grandparents’ door was the moment she lost the right to have an opinion about Hank. He’s not perfect, by a long shot, but he rode hard, sent money back to support me, visited as much as he could when the circuit swung up this way. I don’t know if he’ll ever make father of the year, but at least I’ve never doubted that he loves me.” The anger drained and her voice wavered on the last few words.

  I had to clear my throat before I spoke. “That he does.”

  Then she pointed to a building near the road, part house, part business. “Pull in there.”

  “What’s here?”

  “The closest thing we have to a clothing store within a forty-mile radius. Hank said you needed to buy a few things. And, um, there’s a local rodeo tonight that I’m competing in. Hank’s going. You can come too if you want.”

  Hank hadn’t said anything about it to me, but I didn’t need an invitation from him to go. Dale had given everyone the night off after the hard week. “What are you competing in?”

  “Barrels. On Angel.”

  “That crazy thing?”

  “He may be crazy, but he’s wicked fast.” Then her infectious smile returned. What is it with girls and horses? “I’ll either win the night or knock down all the barrels. Depends on what kind of mood he’s in. So will you come?”

  I avoided crowds at all costs. Somehow “Wouldn’t miss it” fell from my lips without hesitation. Huh, what do you know about that?

  As we stepped into the store, Jenna said to the lady at the makeshift counter, “Miss Shelly, Mac is gonna need an outfit guaranteed to make Hank’s eyes pop.”

  * * * *

  In the history of bad ideas, I figured this one landed somewhere between buying a ticket on the Titanic and deciding to get front row seats to watch the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. A disaster either way. Why did I let Jenna talk me into this? By this, I meant the dress, the makeup, the whole nine yards.

  For a date.

  With her dad.

  I hadn’t been on a real date in years. Frankly, I wasn’t sure this really qualified either, because when we’d returned to the ranch with the newly re-casted Dink, Jenna tossed Hank his keys and told him she’d invited me to the rodeo and then promptly informed him he was taking me because I couldn’t be expected to ride my Harley in a dress. Though I had to hand it to Hank, he recovered after a quick readjustment of his hat with a stammered, “Yeah, sure,” before he climbed into the truck we’d returned in and headed back down the drive.

  Now I was sitting at the table in my cabin feeling as if my best friend was getting me gussied up for the prom. I hadn’t enjoyed it then either. Jenna tightened the skin above my left eyebrow and snagged a few more stray hairs with the tweezers.

  “Geez, would you hold still already? I’m almost done,” she said.

  “Is this really necessary?”

  “How else do you expect to snag the most eligible bachelor in the county?”

  Snag? Most eligible bachelor? “Ahhh…I’m…I’m not looking to snag anything.”

  She either wasn’t paying attention to me or chose to ignore me because she rattled on. “Of course, it wasn’t hard for my dad to make it to the top of the list. Not that he isn’t attractive enough, but in this town, being single and young enough to still have your own set of teeth gets you qualified.”

  “Ouch!” I grabbed Jenna’s wrist as she dove in for another hair. “You’re done.”

  “But—”

  I stood up and stepped away from the table. All the blinds were open, trying to get as much light into the room as possible for Jenna to do my makeup. I’m not really sure I liked feeling like I was back in high school, but it seemed to make Jenna happy and she sure could’ve used a little something to take her mind off the ranch’s problems.

  “Okay, okay, but, at least, sit down and let me finish your eye shadow.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her, but that made her smile.

  “I promise I’ll be done after that. Please?”

  Dang it. Hopeless to resist those blue eyes of hers or her daddy’s, I sighed and sat back down.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is, why I have to get all spit polished.” I’m not sure I’d been this well-groomed since graduating from basic training. Which might have had something to do with only having a few dates since then, come to think of it.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” She held my head back and swiped color on my eyelids and beneath my brow. I swore if she made me into the Bride of Frankenstein, I’d make her pay.

  “No. Clearly.”

  “This is the first time Hank has gone out with anybody around town since he was with my egg do—”

  “Don’t call her that,” I softly chided, glancing at her with the one eye she wasn’t working on. “I know she isn’t top of your list of favorite people right now, but she’s still your mother.”

  She nodded once and I closed my eye to let her finish. “Anyway, people will notice is all.” She put the eye shadow compact down. “Done.”

  When I opened my eyes, she had her elbow on the table, her head resting in her hand, her eyes soft and turned inward like maybe she’d found something she’d been searching for. My stomach flopped like a cold fish and I leaned forward, picked up her free hand, and held it in mine. “Look, Jenna—”

  She sat back, a rueful smile on her lips. “Uh-oh. That sounds ominous.”

  “I don’t want you making more of this than it is.”

  She nodded, but that didn’t keep her eyes from getting all glassy again. “Yeah. It’s okay. I get it. I just…you know…sometimes I wish things had worked out differently for me. I see the way he looks at you and”—she shrugged— “I get my hopes up even when I know I shouldn’t.”

  Tears stung the back of my eyes and I quelled the urge to hunt Jenna’s mother down and strangle her, or give her a piece of my mind at the very least. Not that it was any of my business.

  The truck rumbled outside the cabin, announcing Hank’s arrival. I sniffed back the sudden stuffiness in my nose, stepped away from the table, and did a quick twirl in my red sundress that stopped a hair above my knees and my newly cleaned and polished cowboy boots courtesy of Jenna. She’d been a busy little beaver while I’d been cleaning up. “So what do you think?”

  She smiled. “Honestly?”

  Well, duh! “Yes, honestly.” Her lips shifted and suddenly her smile turned a little sad. At her hesitation, my heart hammered against my ribs to the percussion of Hank’s heavy boots coming up the porch. This was a really bad idea. What was I thinking?

  “I think you’re gonna break his heart.”

  I opened my mouth to protest as Hank swung open the door and stepped inside. He removed his hat and held it in his hands in front of him. He was dressed in dark starched denim and a stark-white button-up western shirt, with a dark leather belt encircling his trim waist. A shiny silver belt buckle with a bull and carved gold rope trim sat north of his fly. A blond James Bond and the Marlboro Man all rolled into one. I could see why he’d had the attention of all the women on the circuit. And yeah, I really needed to move my eyes farther north.

  My perusal down south hadn’t escaped his attention. When I glanced up at his face, one corner of his lips had a mildly arrogant tilt and a dimple popped out on his cleanly shaved face.

 
“You cleaned up well,” he stated, though his voice sounded a little rough, like he’d gargled with rocks, or he liked what he saw.

  Jenna let out an exasperated huff. “Smooth, Hank, real smooth.” She shook her head at him. “All those rumors about that little thing you do in bed must be true ’cause I guarantee you lines like that won’t drive them to your bed.”

  Hank’s eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing,” Jenna said as she hustled toward the door. “You kids have fun. I’ll see you after my ride.”

  Hank glanced down fumbling with the hat in his hand, and sure enough, a flush of embarrassment had pinked his cheeks. He shook his head and a chuckle tumbled free. “Sorry about that,” he muttered. “I don’t have any idea what she’s talking about.”

  For a second, I wondered what Jenna had eluded to and a part of me wondered if I would like it too. “Pity.”

  Holy shit, I’d said that aloud. Okay, Parish, get your mind out of the freaking gutter.

  I stepped up, snagged his hat from his hands, and plopped it down on my head. This one must be his dress hat because it was coal-black with a wide brim without a speck of dirt on it. “It seems your reputation precedes you. Apparently, buckle bunnies talk. A lot.”

  His head snapped back as if he’d been smacked with a truth he’d never even considered. “It’s not…I didn’t…” He paused, clearly uncomfortable but mixed in his expression came a healthy dose of amusement and chagrin.

  I kind of enjoyed seeing him struggle with a response to that verbal bombshell, but I let him off the hook. “Don’t worry cowboy, your sexcapades aren’t any of my concern.”

  Gently, he placed his hands on my shoulders and skimmed them down my arm until they cupped my elbows. “That was all a long time ago.” His eyes held mine, his sincerity palpable. Maybe that had been a part of his life at one time, but he didn’t hit me as a player. At least not anymore. Still, that little devil in me made me needle him. “So it got a little old after the first ten or twenty?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” He shrugged noncommittally. Then added, “But after the first hundred or so, it does start to wear on you.”

  Hundred? Holy fucknuts! Then I caught the gleam in his eye. My heart skipped sideways for a couple beats, the way Sierra had done beneath me, all excitement and tightly reined control, as his smile hit full wattage. I could see how that smile alone would have a whole—Herd? Gaggle?—whatever you call a pack of bunnies jumping into his bed.

  I was a little too old to fall that way, all googly eyes and heavy sighs, ready to hop right in when a sexy man smiles at me, but I had to admit, when he ushered me out the door with his hand low on my back, I had a little bunny spring in my step.

  Parked in front of the cabin, instead of his truck I’d driven this morning was an older truck, in good condition, but certainly long in the tooth. Hank walked me to the driver’s door and handed me up into it. This one had a wide bench seat and as I went to slide over to the passenger side, he said, “Center seat is fine.”

  I buckled in the middle seat and tried to arrange my skirt demurely over my legs, but it was a tad shorter than I’d expected and I couldn’t quite manage. This was so not a good idea. At least when he’d been behind me on the bike, bracketing my legs with his, I’d had to concentrate on the road and not the feel of him behind me.

  In the truck, I’d have nothing to keep my mind from wandering to places they shouldn’t, like, say, wondering about a certain technique that had the rodeo girls all dewy-eyed and panting heavy. I shook my head determined to turn my musings more G-rated. When he climbed in beside me, I asked, “Something happen to your truck?”

  He stared at the windshield, deep in thought, then reached down and turned the key in the ignition. The engine spun for a few seconds before catching and a cloud of black exhaust billowed from the tailpipe. As he backed out, he said, “I traded it in.”

  The first question that came to mind was Why would you go and do that? Then, I considered the timing. The missing cattle, the vet bills for Dink, the burned barn. The money. He needed the money. “That’s why you were gone all afternoon?”

  He nodded.

  The small amount of cash I had in my boot left over from my week’s pay scratched against my calf. Now I almost felt guilty for taking it from Dale. “Money’s that tight?”

  Reaching for my hand, he twined our fingers together, resting it on his thigh and gave my hand a little squeeze. “Dale’s scrambling. Cash flow is tight. We lost a lot of feed in the fire that we have to repurchase. He had insurance on the barn, but it could be weeks before he gets a check, and the cost of rebuilding, even if he doesn’t build as big, will quickly outstrip that money. Losing those cattle certainly didn’t help matters any and the hay is only now starting to come up. It’ll probably be a month or so before we can have the horse strings we overwintered tuned up and ready to lease to the dude ranches for the summer.”

  My stomach heated, and it had nothing to do with the fact I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and everything to do with anger burning in my gut for the wrongs perpetrating on these strangers who were becoming more like family every day. “I’m sorry,” I said, though I knew the platitude wouldn’t change anything.

  “It’s all right. I won the truck on my last ride. The one where that bull gored me. The truck kinda made my leg twinge every time I drove it if you want to know the truth.”

  “I’m sure Dale was thankful.”

  “Hardly.”

  I shot him an incredulous look. How could Dale be anything but grateful? Hank had sold his very new, very expensive, all-the-bells-and-whistles truck to help keep the ranch afloat. I opened my mouth to protest, but then Hank chuckled, raised my hand to his lips, and kissed it.

  I tried real hard to ignore how his warm, firm lips sent a stampede of goose bumps up my arm. “What’s so funny?”

  “You. About to go all Zena, Warrior Princess on Dale. I appreciate the sentiment, I do. But it isn’t necessary. I’ve known Dale a lot of years. He’s a proud man, not one to take handouts.”

  I could respect that, but Dale had more to consider than his pride. “But if it’ll help the ranch, why wouldn’t he take it?”

  “Oh, he took it. He’s proud, not stupid. I told him it was a gift, though he insisted he’d pay me back when he could. The reality is, I’d sell every last thing I have and give him every last penny if he asked.” His voice suddenly grew thick and he cleared his throat to finish. “I owe Dale and Lottie everything. For what they’ve done for Jenna. For me. There’s no way I could ever repay them.”

  I gave his hand a little squeeze and he glanced over and gave me a quick wink of appreciation that I’m embarrassed to say made it a little hard for me to swallow. No wonder he was the Pied Piper of buckle bunnies.

  As we followed the curved ribbon of road through the valley, we passed other ranches with their fields of hay sprouting, and their cattle grazing in the pastures. The more I sat there enjoying the beauty of the green grass and wildflowers and the rugged, snow-capped mountains in the distance, the more my frustration grew at the trouble Hank and the Cunninghams were dealing with.

  It was one thing to fight the land, to fight the elements to build a life in this harsh land, but to have to fight an unknown element…to have your hard work destroyed and your livestock stolen and property vandalized, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, and it had to stop before it was too late.

  So far, all we’d been able to do is react after the fact and, as far as I could tell, besides the few head of cattle that had turned up at one of the auction barns, the sheriff hadn’t seemed to have made much, if any, headway in finding who was behind all the trouble.

  Maybe it was time for me, Hank, Dale, and Lottie to put our heads together and see if we can come up with a proactive solution. The list! I gave myself a mental slap. Hank had taken off as soon as we’d returned with Dink and
I hadn’t seen him again until he picked me up so I hadn’t had a chance to tell him about it. Luckily, like a good Marine—or was that Girl Scout?—I came prepared.

  Hank tugged my hand and bumped my shoulder with his as he parked at the end of a long line of trucks at the fairgrounds. “What’s got you so riled?”

  Riled? He gently shook our joined hands. I glanced down. I had a death grip on his hand, my fingers all pasty white, his deep red, engorged with blood since I’d practically cut off his circulation. Now that he brought my attention to it, I realized I’d begun blowing air through my nostrils more like a bull than a lady. I dropped his hand and he snapped it back, rubbing life back into it with his other one.

  “Sorry.”

  He unfastened his seatbelt and turned toward me. “’S okay.” He nodded his whisker-free chin in my direction and I couldn’t quite say if I liked the GQ version of him better than the country one. “What’s on your mind?”

  I blew out a breath, suddenly unsure what he’d think of the steps I’d taken that morning. “I’ve got something for you.” I reached a hand down the front of my dress and dug around a bit inside my bra where I’d placed the list. I didn’t have a purse so it was the best I could come up with on short notice.

  He sat back against the door, with that damned brow raised at me full of curiosity and—if I wasn’t mistaken by the way his pupils had dilated and his irises had shifted from Paul Newman blue to something decidedly dark and untamed—with more than a bit of carnal hunger.

  “Something I can help you with or do we need to go somewhere more private?” he drawled.

  I rolled my eyes at his dimpled grin, then, finally, found the edge of the paper, and slipped it free. I flattened it on my leg to rid it of its breast-like curve. “Here,” I said, triumph in my voice as I held the sheet to him. He paused before taking it as if I was playing a game no one had explained the rules to. “It’s a list of all the customers who came into the diner before Jenna and I stopped in there this morning.” He unfolded the small sheet and perused the list of names. There were close to twenty if memory served me right.