This Time for Keeps

by Maureen Child

  "Ain't the shoppin'," J.T. went on with another deepthroated chuckle. “It's what she said after.”

  "What?" Seth demanded impatiently, though he knew better.

  J.T. frowned at him but told him anyway. "Said she was wishin' she had a credit card." He shook his head and pulled a deep drag of smoke into his lungs. "Now I ask ya, what kind of fool is goin' to give ya credit on a playin' card? Hell, everybody knows gamblin' ain't nothin' to lend money on."

  Credit card. Seth turned from the older man and looked at Nora. She was making him crazy, in more than one way. It wasn't just the foolishness coming out of her mouth, it was her mouth. And her figure that seemed to be blossoming daily. And the damn quick flash of temper that shot from her eyes whenever he least expected it.

  Hell, it was a host of things that was bothering him. And it looked like nothing was going to change anytime soon.

  Gruffly he said, "Go look in on Sassy. She's about ready to foal. I'm going to have a talk with Nora."

  J.T. grinned and the sun winked off his gold tooth. "I'd say I got the best end of that deal, even if the mare kicks the hell out of me."

  No argument there, Seth thought grimly as he scaled the corral fence and crossed the enclosure in a hurried lope. Laying awake half the night before had left him feeling downright ornery. He'd been itching for a fight all morning and something told him if he talked to Nora he was going to get one. But even that knowledge wasn't enough to make him keep his distance. He climbed over the last fence and walked toward the woman in the middle of the field.

  He smacked the rump of a steer that wandered across his path and the beast trotted quickly out of the way, as if sensing a coming storm. As he neared his employer, Seth heard her shout to Red.

  "Okay, I'm finished with these,” she yelled. "How many do you see over there?"

  Seth pulled the brim of his hat low over his eyes to shade the sun as he looked off toward the young cowhand.

  "Got about ten back here. ma'am," Red called.

  "Ma'am," Nora muttered darkly. "When the hell did I become a ma'am'?" She made a few notations on a folded piece of paper she held in one hand.

  "You're a ma'am," Seth spoke up and enjoyed watching her start of surprise, "because you're the boss. What the devil are you doing, Nora?"

  "You always sneak up on people?" she asked with a brief look at him.

  "I wasn't sneaking, you just weren't paying attention."

  "I'm busy."

  "Well, Red's got work to do," he snapped as the cowboy started toward them.

  "He works for me, doesn't he?"

  "Yeah, but…"

  "No buts," she said. "I needed his help."

  “To do what?” Seth demanded. He glared at Red when the boy stopped his horse alongside them. The freckles on the kid's face seemed to pale a bit.

  "To count cows," Nora told him and used the stub of her pencil to make another quick note on the paper. When she was finished, she shot him a look that shouted "back off." Then she turned to the boy on the horse. “Thank you, Red. I couldn't have done it without you."

  The damn kid flushed beet red. Seth wanted to spit.

  “Aren't you supposed to be out riding fence today?" he asked, his voice a low growl of displeasure.

  "Yessir," the kid answered, then nodded at Nora. "But Miz Nora asked me to help her out a bit."

  Nora gave Seth a tight smile.

  "Well you're finished now," he told the cowboy. "Get goin'."

  "Yessir," Red jerked him a nod, then turned in the saddle to face Nora. "Ma'am," he said, tipping his hat briefly. Then he grinned, tugged at the reins of his horse, and wheeled the animal around, spurring it into a gallop. In moments, they were lost in the distance.

  "Next time, Roy," Nora said, "I'll ask for your help if I need it.”

  Sighing, he realized he was starting to get used to all the strange names she called him. But why in the hell was she counting cows? He glanced at the early morning sun. Nope, it wasn't high enough or hot enough to have given her sunstroke.

  Most of the night before had been spent calling himself all kinds of a fool for arguing with a woman so obviously touched. He should have been more patient. He should have been looking out for her, not shouting at her. Remembering how she had spit fire at all of them, he was convinced that what little was left of her mind was fixing to go.

  He needed to be calm. Helpful. Understanding. Hell, he'd known her almost half her life. He wouldn't turn his back on her when she needed him most. No matter what it cost him.

  Deliberately calling up every ounce of his forbearance, he kept his voice casual as he asked, “Why do you want to count the cattle, Nora?"

  She snorted a choked laugh. "I can't hardly sell them if I don't know how many I have, can I?"

  "Sell 'em?" he shouted.

  Two of the closest steers lifted their heads at his raised voice. With deep-chested rumbles of irritation, they both strolled away from the two people bothering them.

  He lowered his voice, remembering his vow to be patient. "What do you mean, sell 'em?”

  Shaking her head, she turned around to face him squarely. For one split second, he saw her wearing a filmy veil atop her head and some long, straight shift that swirled around her in the dark of a forest.

  He blinked and the image was gone. Rubbing his eyes, he realized that he was more tired than he'd thought. In the next instant he looked at her again and this time noted the real changes in her. Deep purple shadows that had stained the skin beneath her eyes for as long as he could remember were nearly gone now. Her face looked a bit fuller. Of course with the way she'd been eating the last couple of days, that wasn't surprising. But there was also a hint of color in her cheeks that for a change hadn't been caused by a flash of anger.

  He took a step closer, narrowing his gaze for further study. Her eyebrows were different. Thin and shaped into graceful arches, they drew his attention to her shining brown eyes. Was it the glitter of fever he saw sparkling in those dark depths? No, he decided silently. It was excitement.

  God help him.

  "Now really, Roy," she said. "Ask yourself. How many things could I mean when I say I want to sell cows?"

  "It isn't time to sell yet," he told her, battling down a rising tide of worry.

  "Does that really matter?" she waved one hand at him, dismissing his statement. “How much do they go for these days?"

  “Pardon?" He rubbed one hand across the back of his neck, smoothing down the small hairs that were standing straight up.

  She folded her hands in front of her and gave him a weary look. "What's the going price for Big Macs on the hoof?"

  "Big who?"

  She sighed heavily. "Hamburger. T-bones. Steak."

  "Uh," he couldn't believe he was having this discussion. Nora had never once in all the years he had known her asked about the business end of the ranch. "Right now," he finally managed to say, "about thirty dollars a head."

  "Thirty?"

  Those thin eyebrows of hers arched high on her forehead. "Then just right here," she said, a thoughtful smile on her face as she checked the paper still clutched tightly in her hand, "I'm looking at almost a thousand dollars.”

  "Yeah, I suppose so," he agreed, letting his gaze slide across the pasture. Spring grass rolled across the land like a deep green ocean. A soft morning breeze ruffled past them and the warmth of the sun felt good on his back. The last winter had been a hard one, making spring all the more appreciated. In fact, it would have been a perfect morning— if he wasn't so concerned about Nora.

  “And just how many more of these little beasties have I got?”

  Why was she so blasted interested all of a sudden? He tore his gaze from the peaceful view of cattle wandering aimlessly over the rich field and looked at her. "Don't know for sure. Several thousand, I expect."

  Her eyebrows arched another notch. "Several thousand.”

  She made a few more notes on that paper of hers, whistled softly, then asked, "Does several,
mean more than five but less than twenty?”

  "I don't know off hand."

  "How do we find out?" she said quickly.

  “Spring roundup is in another month or so," he heard himself say.

  "Oh, yeah," she muttered. "Roundup. A month?" She frowned, then tapped the end of her pencil against her front teeth. Slowly, she started walking toward the house. Seth fell into step beside her. "There're no rules about this sort of thing, are there?"

  "Rules?" he asked.

  "You know, we don't have to do the roundup in a certain month, do we?"

  He wasn't going to like this, he could feel it. More changes were coming. "No, but if we wait-"

  "I don't want to wait."

  "Nora, I think-"

  "Thanks, Kemosabe," she cut him off neatly. "But remember? I'm the boss. And I don't want to wait."

  The boss. A woman who up until now had lived her entire twenty-seven years without even noticing the cattle that put food on her table now all of a sudden the boss?

  Damn it, he knew more about this land, these cows, than she would ever know and he was supposed to just shut up and take orders? Patience, he reminded himself. Patience. It wasn't her fault. She'd been sick. Her brain had been touched. Pulling in a deep breath, he said softly, calmly, "We don't have enough men for the job."

  She shrugged away the problem. "Hire them."

  A muscle in his jaw ticked and he rubbed it viciously. "The roundup crews won't be around until it's closer to the proper time."

  "Find others."

  "Goddammit!" he yelled and grabbed her arm to drag her to a stop. He released her immediately, ignoring the flash of heat that had charged up the length of his arm when he touched her. "It's not that easy, Nora. Red Deer's not a big town like Helena. There ain't a half a dozen cowboys just waiting around to be hired for work. Any man worth his salt's already got a job."

  "You're making this more difficult than it has to be," she said, tucking her little piece of paper into the pocket of her dress.

  "And you're not making sense!" he shouted.

  "Don't yell at me, cowboy. I'll yell right back."

  "I wouldn't be surprised at anything you did now, Nora.”

  So much for patience. Damn it, a man could only take so much.

  “Good. Then we both know where we stand.”

  "Right," he jerked her a nod. "No roundup."

  "Wrong. We count the cows."

  Anger, white-hot and blistering, rose up inside him. He tried his best to tamp it down, but like a brush fire in a drought, the flames roared through him, leaving his good intentions nothing more than a small pile of blackened ashes. Tipping his hat to the back of his head, he leaned over her, hands at his hips. "Just how the devil do you figure to do that, Miss Wilding?”

  She mimicked his posture and his tone. "You and me are going to take a little camping trip, Buck."

  To his own shame and disbelief, Seth's gaze dropped a fraction to the soft brown fabric straining across her breasts. Her breath came in short, furious bursts and his mouth went dry as he watched her chest rise and fall.

  Sweet Jesus! What in thunder was happening to him? Not only was he noticing Nora's breasts, his palms actually itched to cup them. Was brain fever contagious?

  "But for right now," Nora went on, apparently oblivious to the fact that he wasn't looking her in the eye anymore, "all I need are a couple of cows."

  It took a moment or two, but her words did sink in. When they did, he dragged his gaze upward until he was looking into a pair of determined brown eyes. "A couple of cows," he repeated, "What in hell for?”

  "I'm going shopping."

  "J.T. told me," he said. "And what's all this about getting credit for a card?"

  She shook her head slowly, opened her mouth, then shut it again. After a moment, she said, "Never mind."

  "Since when do you want to shop anyway?" he demanded, irritated that she obviously thought him too stupid to understand whatever wild, deranged thing her brain had dreamed up.

  She straightened and smoothed her palms across her ribcage, drawing his gaze with her movements. "As I see you've noticed, my clothes are a little tight. I need some new things.”

  So she had seen him looking at her chest. Goddammit. Well, she'd play hell getting him to admit it. "They wouldn't be too tight if you'd just wear-"

  “The corset?" She shook her head and gave him a slow, knowing smile. "No way. I’m much more comfortable without all that tight binding."

  Maybe she was, but he sure as hell wasn't. He kept his mind on the problem at hand. Otherwise, he might start wondering what she wore beneath that dress instead of a corset. "Why do you need cows for shopping?"

  "Money, cowboy." She sniffed and lifted her chin. "So toss a leash on a couple of Bossies for me, will you?"

  "A leash?"

  "Yeah, I'll be ready to leave in a few minutes, so snap it up, huh?"

  "Nora.” he said through gritted teeth, "you don't have to take the cows with you to shop."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really. Just get whatever you need at the general store. Mike Dunn will put it on the ranch's tab and we'll settle up at the end of the month." He paused, then added, "Just like always."

  She ignored his last comment. "That makes things simpler, doesn't it?” she asked. She pulled in a deep breath and Seth fought against the impulse to look at her breasts. "You know, Roy," she said and turned in a slow circle, admiring the countryside. 'This place is really kind of pretty in a rough, isolated, no mall for miles sort of way."

  "Mall?"

  "Never mind," she said, giving him a half smile. “Doesn’t matter.” Nodding gently, she let her gaze sweep across the miles of open pasture. “Yeah, it is pretty. Of course, it's far from perfect and not at all what I requested. But I suppose it could have been worse. I might have ended up in some South American jungle or something." She shuddered violently.

  "A jungle?"

  "Yeah," she said. "So when you think about this situation, I guess Tom, Dick, and Harry didn't do too badly."

  "Who are Tom, Dick, and Harry?" he asked uneasily, bracing himself for even more strangeness.

  "You don't know them," she said with a brief wink. "But I'll give you a tip for future reference. When you do meet up with those three, don't believe everything they tell you."

  She looked so serious, he found himself nodding. Looking at her, you would think that she was just what she claimed to be— healthy. But as soon as she started talking, she shot that notion clean to hell. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn't very well keep her locked up on her own ranch. But if he let her go into town alone, the minute she opened her mouth, everyone around her would know what he had just accepted.

  Nora Wilding's bread wasn't quite done.

  Her horse was missing one shoe.

  Her train had run out of track.

  Nora Wilding was crazy as a bedbug.

  "Well," she said brightly and Seth jumped, startled. "If I'm going to town, I'd better get a move on, huh?"

  He stared after her for a long minute, telling himself to stop noticing how her hips had begun to fill out, making for some real tempting-looking curves beneath her too tight dress. His body hardened even as he told himself to remember who it was he was having these thoughts about.

  Nora Wilding.

  A poor crazy woman.

  Damn it, he fumed silently. He didn't know who to be more angry with. Nora, for stirring things up, or himself for even considering what he was considering.

  #

  Nora peeked out through the white lace curtains framing the front windows. The ranch yard was empty and she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't need to run into Seth again. Not so soon after catching him staring at her breasts. It had been as though she could feel his gaze. A spiral of warmth had uncurled in the pit of her stomach only to settle a bit lower. Even now, a half an hour later, her knees got weak just thinking about it.

  And he wasn't even her type, for heaven's sake.r />
  Although that could work to her advantage. She had already decided that she wasn't interested in finding love this time around. Since Seth was not even close to the kind of man she would normally fall for, there shouldn't be any danger in getting to know him a little better.

  All right, a lot better.

  She didn't want to spend the next seventy-five years living like a nun, after all. What would be the harm in having an adult, mutually satisfying relationship with a man who could turn her on with a look?

  Hmm.

  Nora smiled to herself and reached for the doorknob. She'd give him a few more days to get used to the new Nora, then she'd approach him with her plan. Surely he would see that this made perfect sense. She didn't want love or marriage. It was obvious that he was attracted to her. What could be better?

  "Nora?"

  She winced and turned around to face the man hurrying toward her.

  "Richard."

  Why should she feel guilty about contemplating an affair with Seth? Richard had already made it plain that nothing would happen between them without the blessing of church and state. Something that definitely wasn't going to happen. Still, the guilt remained, so she gave him a brighter smile than usual.

  "If you'll wait one moment, I shall be right with you."

  Patiently, she said, "I'd rather go alone, really."

  "It's not proper for a lady to ride into town unescorted, dearest.” He smiled at her and Nora told herself he meant well. It wasn't his fault that he sounded so patronizing. He was simply a product of his time, poor man.

  "I appreciate it, Richard, I do." She looked past him briefly to his sister, standing in the hall. Nora caught a flash of something as it darted across the other woman's features, but it was gone too quickly for her to identify it. She let it go, because at the moment, Elizabeth Bonner wasn't the problem. Her brother was. "But the shopping I intend to do is rather… personal," she said, hoping that the vague reference to unmentionables would be enough to change his mind about accompanying her.

  If she didn't get off this ranch and away from all of her keepers for an hour or so, she really would go nuts.

  It worked.

  "I understand," he said. "Then perhaps Elizabeth…"