How to Train a Cowboy

by Caro Carson

  “You want to watch me gallop?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That doesn’t sound very fun for you.”

  She was so very wrong. As he watched her sweeping in a wide arc through the pasture, he felt a very real pleasure. Horse and rider were graceful, beautiful by any standard, but more than that, this was Emily, his Emily, the woman he knew intimately, flying like magic, riding like a stuntwoman, absolutely spectacular. Always.

  When she came back, she looked down at him from her horse, and he felt a moment of reverence for her. She was amazing. She was better than he could ever deserve.

  He wanted his hands on her.

  She wanted more than that. They were kissing from the moment she dismounted. Even as she tied her horse next to his, he was kissing the back of her neck, and then she turned into him. Her leather gloves hit the ground at their feet and her warm hands were under his clothes, sliding up his body.

  She spoke his name over his lips. She whispered in his ear, “Did you bring protection?”

  No—so he needed to slow things down. He kept his hand on the side of her neck, braced his other hand on the tree trunk behind her. “I thought I was spending the day with Sid and Bonner, shoveling out stalls. Not exactly the kind of day you slip a packet in your pocket for.”

  She panted from their kisses but frowned with concern. “Those two are going to try to trick you. So be careful. They won’t give up.”

  “It’s not so different from the military. They feel obligated to try to haze the greenhorn, but they aren’t thrilled that I’m the greenhorn. I’m a tougher bite than they ever expected to have to chew, but they’ll get me sooner or later. Then they’ll be relieved to give it up.”

  “They’ll get you?”

  “Of course.” He shrugged. “I’ll forget to check if the sugar is really salt or something dumb. It’ll be over after that. But I’ll give them a run for their money first.”

  Emily started to smile, started to sigh and ended up shaking her head. “I wish I had your confidence.”

  You did. Where did it go?

  The hesitant Emily he was looking at now was too different from the bold Emily who’d kissed him goodbye at dawn yesterday. He’d been with her most of the day yesterday, so he knew she’d been disappointed with Gus. He didn’t know how things had gone later. He should have asked sooner.

  “How did things go with your parents last night?”

  “How did you know I went to see them?”

  “I knocked on Trey’s door, looking for you. When I saw you this morning in the barn, I assumed they hadn’t kicked you out.” He ducked his head to see her face better. “Did they?”

  Her dark eyes welled with tears. “I’m so... I’m so sorry.”

  Cursing himself for not seeing the problem sooner, Graham pulled her away from the tree and held her against his chest. “It’s going to be okay. If you can’t live with Trey, then we’ll find a place to live together, somewhere nearby. I have some money.” He gave her an encouraging squeeze. “I didn’t finish my master’s either, remember? We’ll spend that.”

  “Oh, Graham, it’s not like that.” Her tears were falling now. “I have a place to live. Oklahoma Tech. I have to go back.” She wiped her cheeks with her hand. “But I’m not taking any master’s courses. I have to take three classes to keep my apartment, so I insisted that I choose the other two. They’ll be undergrad classes toward a minor. I’ll graduate this May, and that will be the absolute end of it.”

  She tried to pull away from him. He didn’t want to let her go, not while tears were falling. He cupped her head with his hand and held her against his chest.

  It took her a long while to relax into his arms, another few minutes after that to stop crying and catch her breath.

  He smoothed a few loose strands away from her face. “We’re just back to our original plan. Three months apart. Twelve weeks. We can do that.”

  “But I’m not the woman you thought I was. I was going to be this great rancher, Miss Independent. I was going to finish my degree online this summer. I was going to pay my own way and have my own place to live. I’ve done none of that. None of it. You have every right to be so...disillusioned. That Emily you made love to? She didn’t last long. I failed. I’m so sorry.”

  “When did you decide all this?”

  “Last night, I knew it.”

  “Why did you want to make love to me under this tree just now? Was that supposed to be break-up sex?”

  That sounded pretty bad—and pretty accurate. Since he held her face in his hands, she couldn’t hide. “Well...” She bit her lip. “I wanted to feel like I belonged to you just one more time. I’m leaving tomorrow, and you may not be here when I come back for roundup. I’ll understand. I wasn’t able to make anything work the way I thought it would.”

  It was stunning that she could think he wouldn’t want her because her first run at her goals didn’t work out perfectly. This wonderful woman had no idea, none at all, just how wonderful she was.

  “Emily, I know you hate the scary military voice, but if you don’t adjust your attitude, you’re going to hear it.”

  She sucked in her breath, that little pinprick breath that he already loved.

  “You opened up Gus’s eyes yesterday. When he said you were overqualified, you called his bluff and accepted the position he’d just said you were qualified for. If Trey hadn’t come home, you would have had Gus in a corner. This morning, refusing to work for free was a winning strategy. Gus is going to realize your value quickly.

  “Even when it comes to college, you succeeded. You’re not going to waste your time or money or effort on master’s degree classes you don’t want. You did it. You got the main thing you wanted, even if you had to trade September for May.

  “I’m in awe of you. I don’t want to say you’re perfect or you’re a goddess, because I don’t want you to be that unreachable, but believe me when I say that I know I’m reaching above myself to be with you. You are everything exciting in the world. You have a future. You have the daring to go after happiness. Watching you strip by a pond, watching you gallop your horse, watching you braid your hair—you bring me to my knees, Emily. To my knees.”

  He held her face in his hands and kissed her cheeks, her nose, her forehead. “So you go ahead and have your doubts. You go ahead and keep trying to get better. That’s you going after the future you want. But while you’re in the middle of making your dreams a reality, you need to know that when I kiss you, I already taste that bit of perfection that is you.”

  If she wanted to belong to him one more time, then he was willing to oblige. He could do it without that damned foil packet. He kissed her face, her throat. He bent his head and kissed her breast through the warm plaid of her shirt, and then he dropped to one knee. He put his arms around her waist and pressed the side of his face to her stomach. Then he was on both knees, undoing her belt, anticipating that bit of perfection.

  Emily put her hands in his hair for balance. “Graham, what are you doing?”

  But of course, she already knew.

  He smiled anyway and told her. “I’m belonging to you.”

  * * *

  Ten weeks down, two to go.

  Graham rode his horse into the temporary camp, counting the days. The James Hill Ranch would begin its roundup two weeks from now, and Emily would come home for nine days on her spring break. The days would be hard and they would be long, but they’d be spent side by side with the woman he missed so
much. His heart hurt with the sheer anticipation of it.

  Before the roundup of the thousands of calves on the James Hill, he’d get his first taste of the work today at this smaller, neighboring ranch. The Chavez family was known for having the first roundup of the spring, and they threw a picnic for everyone who came to help. A wood fire was already smoking meat by an old-fashioned chuck wagon. Then roundups would begin at other ranches, one after the other. The James Hill would be the biggest one in two weeks, and the River Mack would be the last one in May.

  Graham knew the basic concept. All the calves that had been born in the spring were required by law to be branded, doctored, tagged and counted. Most of the ranching in January and February had centered on putting out hay bales and other tame stuff, but roundup was the real deal, with the cattle herded into a fenced area by the hundreds, bawling and dusty. Cowboys on horseback rode among them, lassos at the ready, scattering the cattle as they looked for unbranded calves. The men threw their lassos at running calves while on running horses themselves.

  How long is that going to take me to learn?

  Ranching was nothing if not humbling.

  Graham enjoyed it, though. There was the same sense of camaraderie he’d once felt in a platoon, minus the threat of violence. Wrestling a cow to wash out an infected eye required as much teamwork as clearing an enemy bunker. Repairing fence lines had been as much a test of strength and grit as a road march wearing sixty-five pounds of war gear. The edgy sense of alertness that had never quite left Graham served a purpose once more, but rather than looking for things that might kill him, he was looking for things to fix, animals to help, weather to prepare for.

  Luke and Trey had offered him a six-month contract yesterday, and since Graham couldn’t imagine going back to suits and ties, he’d taken it. From what he’d seen so far this morning, he was going to need all six months to get proficient with a lasso. He stood at the fence with members of the Chavez family to watch and learn.

  Each calf was roped by either the head or the back leg—heading or heeling—and the horses would back up immediately to keep the ropes taut. Other cowboys on foot then ran in to lay the calf on its side. The calf was branded and doctored, then released from the ropes and allowed to trot back to the milling herd. Each calf was on the ground for less than a minute, a point of pride among the cowboys. The Chavezes’ herd of hundreds would be done in one day.

  Graham couldn’t watch the roping without thinking of Emily and her rodeo event. Then he couldn’t watch the roping because he was expected to give each calf a dose of medicine, working as part of the James Hill team as they took their turn to earn their supper.

  Luke and Trey manhandled the calves. There was a technique to it. When the calves were caught by the heel, they could be laid down pretty easily by using their tail and a leg. The ones caught by the head were more difficult, needing to be picked up completely off their feet and thumped onto their sides. That was hundreds of pounds of protesting, kicking beef that had to be manhandled. Obviously, everyone preferred the calves to be heeled.

  Sid and Bonner were on a streak. Ten consecutive calves had been brought to the branding irons by the head.

  “For the love of God, can’t you heel one?” Everyone had been razzing them for heading all the calves, but Luke was starting to get ticked off. He looked around the crowd of neighborhood cowboys milling at the fence. “Emily! Come save our backs. Sid, get out of there. Let Emily handle it.”

  Emily. Graham turned to look, and sure enough, there was the woman he loved, sitting on a horse she loved, wearing a braid down her back. She looked amazing in full color, vivid 3-D after a ten-week absence—not twelve. Had he ever said he didn’t want her to be an untouchable goddess? Too bad. She was a goddess on horseback.

  Trey slapped him on the back. “She just got in an hour ago. You’re supposed to be surprised.”

  “I am.” Not once during all their phone calls and video chats had she hinted that she’d be home today.

  Luke took off his hat and smacked it against his chaps to get the dust off. “Watch this. She gets it from me. I taught her everything she knows.”

  Graham watched. Emily might as well have been a centaur, she moved so fluidly with the horse as it cut in every direction, but it was her roping that thrilled the crowd. Within a minute, she rode over to them with her first calf, both of its back legs neatly caught in her lasso, making everyone else’s job easier. Everyone on the ground professed their love for her, but Graham meant it.

  He was going to marry her.

  * * *

  Emily stood before the main building on campus and posed for photos in her cap and gown with each person who had made the trip to her graduation. Her mother smoothed her stole and centered her summa cum laude gold cord at least every third shot.

  It was humbling how many people cared enough to make the long drive to Oklahoma. Her parents, grandparents, sisters and brother-in-law, Aunt Jessie and Uncle James, Trey and his fiancée, Luke and his wife were here, and Gus, who still claimed to be prettier than she was.

  And, of course, Benjamin Graham, who slayed her with a wink when nobody was looking. They had a secret.

  Everyone knew they were going to get married this year, and everyone knew that Graham had gotten her the best graduation gift a girl could want: cattle. The fifty thousand dollars he’d saved by not completing his master’s degree had purchased fifty head of a rare breed of cattle, one intended for a specialty market. The land for them to graze on was unaffordable, but the James Hill Ranch would allow her herd to graze there in return for half the calves born the first year.

  Emily and Graham had designed and registered their own brand. They’d both be working the entire herd at the James Hill, but from now on, at roundup and when moving cattle to auction, she and Graham were going to have to be on their best horses to cut their cattle out of the James Hill herd. She looked forward to it. She was a cattle rancher.

  “Okay, everyone,” her mother called. “Let’s head over to the restaurant. It’s time for the party.”

  Graham came up behind Emily and put his arms around her. Prom pose, cap and gown version. “You ready?”

  “You bet.”

  They waited until the rest of the group had cleared out, and then Emily took off her square cap. Her long hair flowed freely down her back, almost to her waist. She shed her graduation robe. Underneath, she wore a mini dress, one with bright, white ruffles up to her neck.

  She and Graham just had one stop to make before they met everyone at the restaurant. Her mother didn’t know it yet, but Emily’s graduation party was about to become a wedding reception.

  “This is going to be so fun.” Emily slid her fingers between Graham’s, and they ran all the way to the courthouse.

  * * * * *

  And don’t miss out on previous books in the TEXAS RESCUE miniseries:

  A COWBOY’S WISH UPON A STAR

  HER TEXAS RESCUE DOCTOR

  FOLLOWING DOCTOR’S ORDERS

  A TEXAS RESCUE CHRISTMAS

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE RANCHER’S UNEXPECTED FAMILY by Helen Lacey.

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  Acknowledgments

  I received much-needed support to complete thi
s book, so I really must thank:

  Gail Chasan, for being so encouraging while keeping one eye on the clock for me so that I didn’t have to worry. Much.

  My husband, for five pans of enchiladas, fifty you-can-do-it-honeys, and a thousand real-life kisses to help me write one fictional kiss.

  Sam Hunt, for keeping me company all night long, one writing session after another, just us and the speakers on.

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  The Rancher's Unexpected Family

  by Helen Lacey

  Chapter One