“I have to go, Casey. Please reconsider what you’re doing and come home. You’re completely out of your element. Let your attorney handle this. It’s just not right, two unmarried people living under the same roof.”
“I love you, Mom” had been all Casey could say, and, sighing in defeat, her mother had answered, “I love you, too, sweetheart.”
Casey pulled the patchwork quilt more tightly around her, then rocked quietly in the chair, too tense to sleep. She’d drive into town early tomorrow morning and find some suitable clothes, then come back and start work. Nervously she wondered what kind of assignments she’d draw—especially after she’d insisted she could do anything a man could do. It probably wouldn’t be housework. Jess knew his way around a kitchen, and his home, while old, was impeccably kept.
Which made her wonder who actually kept the house so neat and clean. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Jess tidying up, or running a vacuum cleaner or polishing furniture. He was just too...male. Those rugged features and dark eyes belonged to a gunfighter or a wayward drifter...his hard, lean body to the stark mountain range and rolling grasslands around him.
Casey’s gaze slid to the white adjoining door, a tight knot forming in her stomach. She wondered if the dark-haired cowboy in the next room was having as much trouble sleeping as she was.
Chapter 5
Sweat streamed from the hair at his temples and nape as Jess manhandled the new fence post into the hole, then threw a few spadefuls of dirt in around it to temporarily shore it up. He jammed the shovel into the ground beside him. Man, it was hot. Too hot for the last day in May and only ten-thirty in the morning. Exhaling heavily, he snatched up his shirt from the grass and wiped his dripping face and chest. One more post to go and he could move on to something else.
The sound of an approaching vehicle caught his attention and, tossing his shirt over the shovel’s handle, he turned toward the road. His black Silverado was rumbling up the drive, passing him now, and heading toward the house. Thirty yards down the fence line, he saw Hank Lewis pause to look up, too, then glance away and stretch another length of barbed wire between the posts they’d already replaced. Hank had been around a long time—a good ten years—and though he undoubtedly had some thoughts about Casey’s living in the main house, he wasn’t one to comment or carry tales. Jess liked that about the older man. He only wished he could say the same for Ray Pruitt, the other hand who lived at the bunkhouse. If Hank ignored gossip, Ray made it his business to know everything about everyone.
Jess scooped the sledgehammer out of the high grass beside him, his veiled gaze finding Casey again as she parked beside the house, then swung out of the cab with her packages, hurried up the porch steps and strode inside.
He frowned and kicked more dirt into the hole. Her hair color was all wrong, her clothes were a lot more expensive, and her reason for being here was vastly different...but Casey Marshall made him remember another woman very much like her. Another woman who’d put her city life and city tastes on hold long enough to make him want her... then left.
Once, Lydia had been enthralled with the idea of cattle ranching—couldn’t get enough of starry nights under the big sky and paging through the old ledgers and photo albums in the den. But in the end, the romantic notion of ranching had been a lot more attractive to her than the reality of it. Now, with the smell of the widow Marshall’s expensive perfume lingering in his memory and her designer fashions hanging in an upstairs closet, it was more apparent than ever that she and Lydia were cut from the same cloth. Neither of them belonged here. But, knowing that, he’d still lain awake last night, remembering how she’d looked standing outside the bathroom door in that skimpy towel...how she’d looked with beads of water clinging to the tops of her breasts and bare shoulders, damp terry cloth straining in all the right places.
Swearing under his breath, Jess brought the sledge down hard, slamming the fence post deep into the ground. Last night, in his dreams, he’d snatched that damp towel away. And in retaliation, the widow Marshall had held a yard sale and sold off every damned thing he owned.
Several minutes later Casey strode out the front door, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved light-weight blue plaid shirt—successfully masquerading as a western woman, Jess thought with some irritation, except for her footwear. She wasn’t wearing boots, but her leather sneakers would work for the time being. He planned only to show her around and get her oriented today. So he stood leaning on the sledge in the broken stretch of fence line, watching her long, athletic strides take her across the dandelion-littered lawn and down the packed dirt and stone of the driveway. Her white-blond hair lifted in the light breeze, wispy tendrils skimming her forehead and cheekbones.
“Hi,” she said warily, not quite meeting his eyes.
“Hi.”
“I guess I’m ready. The saleswoman at Hardy’s said long sleeves, loose jeans, and a hat.” She pulled a navy blue baseball cap out of her back pocket and put it on.
Jess’s gaze narrowed as he read the emblem on the front. “‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys?”’ he questioned dryly.
She colored slightly, glancing down the fence line at Hank. “It was better than being a walking billboard for a tobacco company. Who’s that?”
“One of the hands. I’ll introduce you later.”
“All right.”
She kept glancing away, and suddenly Jess realized in surprise that she was bothered because he was shirtless. He started to reach for the blue chambray work shirt hanging from the shovel handle, but before his fingers connected, the angry scorekeeper in his head stopped him dead. She had the upper hand in this lousy little scenario, no matter how many sheets of paper he asked her to sign. It was about time some of the power—however small—slid to his side of the table. He just wondered if she was uneasy because she liked what she saw, or because she was turned off by it. It had been almost a year and a half since her husband’s death. Was Catherine Marshall one of those women who missed a man’s hands, he wondered? One of those women who missed the soft rustle of sheets and breathy whispers in the dark? And if she was...
If she was, maybe Ross’s callous suggestion that he take her to bed to keep her from foreclosing wasn’t quite as outrageous as it had seemed last night. After all, she was a beautiful woman. And a man had a right to protect what was his. Any way he could.
“Well? What would you like me to do first?”
Jess released a ragged breath, suddenly disgusted that he’d even considered playing that game. What the hell was he thinking? “Look, why don’t we put this off until tomorrow? Those jeans you’re wearing should be washed before you do the kind of riding I have planned. The seams are going to rub you raw.” He watched her cheeks pinken.
“They’re fine—they’re prewashed. Besides, I’ve already used up most of the morning shopping, and that wasn’t part of our bargain. Now what would you like me to do?”
Jess tossed a rotted fence post onto the small pile for disposal, then gathered up his tools and nodded grimly toward the stables. “Saddle up,” he said brusquely. “You’ve got the chestnut mare. The man in the tack room is Ray Pruitt. He’ll help you get squared away while I wash up and grab another shirt.”
The slowly greening plains rolled on toward the base of the mountains, rising and falling, forming deceptively deep pockets in the sprawling rangeland. Casey followed along behind Jess as he rode the fence line in the lower pasture, where a mixed herd of cows grazed beside a farm pond, keeping their calves close by. It was a tranquil scene, with sunlight glinting off the water, and Casey surprised herself by actually appreciating it a little. The sky was high and blue, the air was fresh and untainted, and the horse she’d been given required very little direction. If not for Jess’s ongoing instructional monologues, she might have been vacationing on a dude ranch.
“We just moved these cows down from the east pasture a few days ago,” he said with a half glance behind him. “The grass is better down here, which makes the milk
better, which makes the calves stronger and healthier.”
“Oh.” She was saying that a lot, mostly because she had no idea what the correct responses were. Also, riding behind him as she was, she was having a hard time centering on anything but the smooth flex of muscle beneath his cotton shirt and the rocking motion of his hips in the saddle.
Casey swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat. Her unending preoccupation with his body both shocked and disturbed her, because she’d never had these sorts of feelings before. What was worse, she found herself making comparisons between Dane and the man on horseback that left her feeling guilty and disloyal.
I did love him, she told herself—despite the fact that he was weak and insecure about some things, and status symbols were far too important to him. In bed, he’d been a kind and tender partner, older and more experienced in lovemaking than she was. In fact, she’d gone to their marriage bed a virgin, happy to have a man twenty-two years her senior showing her the way.
But for the most part, Dane hadn’t been overtly physical. He’d preferred fine music and dining to more energetic activities, played backgammon and chess rather than racquetball or tennis. Dane’s work had been saving lives in a sterile hospital operating room.
Not sweaty, gritty fence-mending beneath a big Montana sky.
Casey squeezed her eyes shut, willing the vision behind them to go away. But she couldn’t erase the image of Jess standing in the pasture, his back slick with perspiration, sweat glistening in the curly hair that covered his broad chest and flat belly. Jess Dalton had the kind of body and muscle definition that came from hard work—not a chrome-and-glass weight room in a high-priced health spa. She was only now realizing that there was a difference.
Jess growled something at her and, with a jolt, Casey broke from her thoughts. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”
“I said get up here. I’m tired of turning around every time I want to tell you something.”
Obediently Casey put her heels to the mare’s ribs and drew up alongside Jess’s bay. His hat was low on his forehead, shading his brown eyes, his high cheekbones, and the straight bridge of his nose. His face was all hard angles and planes, the face of that outlaw she’d seen the first night at Dusty’s. “What did you want to tell me?”
“There are things you need to be aware of when you ride fence,” he said impatiently. “When you’re in a pasture like this, one where we’re keeping cow-and-calf units, you need to watch for calves that have strayed from their mothers. If you see one, it’s your job to shag him back where he belongs.”
Casey blinked. “All right, but how do I find the right mother?”
“See the yellow tags in their ears?”
“Yes.”
“There are numbers on them—the mother’s number is the calf’s number. That’s how we pair them up. There’s other information on the tags, too, but we don’t need to get into that today.” He glanced across at her. “Okay?”
Of course it was. “Okay.”
And so it went, with him rattling off potential problems she needed to watch for and her nodding a lot. Downed fencing was the big thing. “A rancher can’t survive in this business if he can’t keep his stock at home,” Jess told her. But there were other pitfalls, as well. Like dangerous plants, rotting posts, sick cattle, signs of overgrazing, and a hundred other things she knew she wouldn’t be able to spot or remember. But she would try. She would live up to her end of the bargain if it killed her. And if this ride lasted much longer, it just might.
Finally, almost three hours after they’d trailed their horses out of the barn, Jess reined the bay to a halt in a grassy, straw-colored meadow surrounded on three sides by a copse of trees. He dismounted, motioning for Casey to do the same.
She’d never been so glad to get off a horse in her life. It had been some time since she’d ridden—she’d let their club membership lapse after Dane’s death—but when she had ridden, it had been English-style. The wide western saddle was taking its toll on her behind, not to mention the strain her legs were feeling from clamping the chestnut’s substantial girth. And Jess had been right about the stiff seams of her jeans; they could have been stitched with razor wire. The insides of her thighs were rubbed raw.
“How’re you holding up?”
“Fine,” she lied.
“Really? Nothing’s sore?” Jess’s darkly assessing gaze ran the length of her, seeming to take inventory as it skimmed her face and throat, then lingered on her hips. He released the big bay’s reins to let them trail on the ground, then ambled over to her, something changing in his eyes.
Casey’s pulse quickened, because she couldn’t identify that change. She knew she shouldn’t feel threatened. But they were far from the ranch, alone out here, with only cows and crows within earshot if he decided to do something... imprudent. And there was no denying that, with good reason, she wasn’t one of his favorite people. Casey took an involuntary step backward, and Jess grabbed her shoulders, tugging her back.
“Will you just relax?” he said wearily. “If I wanted to get rid of you, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it on my own property.” His gaze darkened, and he corrected himself. “Forgive me...our property.”
Casey felt a guilty twinge. “I wish you wouldn’t refer to it that way.”
“And I wish it weren’t true.” Without warning, he reached under her hair and flipped up the collar on her shirt. “That’s why I walked over here. Your neck’s going to get sunburned. The wind’s blowing your hair around too much to depend on it for cover.” He took the mare’s reins from her and grabbed her hands, turning them palms down for his inspection. “And the backs of your hands are already red. Before we leave, I’ll get you some gloves from my saddlebags.” He met her eyes, sighing impatiently. “And eventually, you’re going to need boots. It’s dangerous to ride without a wedge heel to keep your feet in the stirrups.”
Casey eased her hands out of his, trying to not overreact to the feel of his hard calluses and broad, strong fingers. Unbidden, another comparison to Dane came to mind: Dane’s hands had been the soft, well-tended hands of a surgeon.
Jess’s were made for loving a woman.
“Y-yes, I know,” she said, clearing her throat and dragging herself back into the conversation. “Unfortunately, the boots I looked at this morning were too expensive.”
“I told you to put whatever you needed on my bill. I didn’t expect you to draw the line at boots.”
“I didn’t put anything on your bill. I appreciate the offer, but after four years of financial stupidity and a year and a half of trying to make things right, I pay my own way now.”
A question rose in his dark eyes at that piece of information, and she looked away, not wanting to be drawn into another conversation about Dane’s ineptness. At the same time, somehow she knew he was enough of a gentleman not to ask.
Snagging the mare’s reins, she brought the conversation back to the original topic. “Anyway, letting you buy my clothes wouldn’t have looked right. If people knew I was living out here, they might draw some unflattering conclusions.”
Jess expelled a short laugh. “You don’t think they know where you’re staying?”
“Why would they? I never mentioned you.”
“You didn’t have to. There are only six hundred people, tops, in Comfort—and that includes the outlying ranches. Everyone knows my truck. As soon as you slid behind the wheel, they knew you were heading for Broken straw.”
“That’s assuming they cared enough to walk all the way to the front of the store to see what I was driving—which is highly unlikely.”
Jess chuckled softly, fine lines splaying beside his eyes. “You don’t know much about small towns, do you?” Taking the reins from Casey again, he led the mare a dozen yards away and ground-tethered her beside some willows, then did the same to his own mount. Instantly the bay’s and chestnut’s heads were down and they were pulling up new grass. Moving to his saddlebag, Jess withdrew a bag of sandwic
hes and a thermos.
Casey’s stomach rolled in anticipation. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that had been at the ungodly hour of five-thirty.
“Ham and cheese,” he said, tossing her a sandwich. “Coffee’s black.”
Casey started to peel away the waxed paper, then stopped, unsure of proper dining etiquette out here in the wild. When he sat at the base of a tree and settled his back against it, she followed suit. The shaded ground was cold on her behind.
“I heard something strange when I was in town this morning,” she said after several long moments of chewing and no conversation. “Well,” she amended, “actually, it wasn’t as strange as it was unbelievable.”
“And what was that?” he asked dryly, opening the thermos.
There was only one cup—the lid of the vacuum bottle—and after he splashed some coffee into it and took a swallow, he handed it to her. Casey stared blankly, then accepted it and took a sip. It was hot and strong, but good. She handed the cup back. “I heard some people talking about cattle rustling.”
Jess stopped chewing and turned sharply to her. “About doing it? Being involved in it?”
“No, about rustlers operating in this area.”
He grunted, chewing again. “Oh. That’s old news. And hardly unbelievable.”
“You mean this kind of thing happens often?”
“All the time. That’s why it’s so important to keep a close eye on the stock. Especially close to the farm roads, where someone can back a horse trailer up to the fence and make off with a good steer.” He scowled, studying his coffee, then draining the cup. “But lately everyone’s more concerned about the greedy S.O.B.s in the semi. They’ve been making life hell for the ranchers a couple of counties over.”
Stunned, Casey watched him unwrap another sandwich. “The semi?”
“Tractor-trailer rig. There are access roads crisscrossing most ranches—owners need to get feed to their animals. The ranchers can lock the gates, but modern-day rustlers have bolt cutters. Then they just open the trailer doors, pull down a ramp and herd the cattle inside. Before the rancher knows they’re gone, a nice chunk of his cash crop’s wheeling down the interstate.”
Accidental Heiress Page 7