Undercover Cowboy

by Beverly Bird

Her gaze shot his way again. “Three hundred and seventytwo. But most of them aren’t cows.”

  Jack lifted a brow. “No?”

  “No. They’re steers, or at least they will be shortly. My men are castrating them now.”

  He’d had to ask.

  “Is it healthy for them to travel after such surgery?” someone asked.

  “It’s not surgery,” Carly Castagne answered. “We just push them into chutes and brand them and give them their vaccines at the same time. Slice underneath and punch and burn the top. It’s over with before they know it. Any other questions?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “How fast will we travel and how far?”

  She swore under her breath. “Didn’t Michael tell you anything?”

  “Not nearly enough,” he answered emphatically.

  Carly sighed. “Well, it’s about two hundred and fifty miles to the stockyards. Normally, I make about sixty-five miles in a very long day with a herd. Under the circumstances, with all you guys underfoot, I’ll settle for fifty, and even that’s going to practically kill you. I hope you all brought aspirin.”

  Jack stretched lazily, knocking his hat brim back just a little. “So what do we do first?”

  She looked at her watch. “We’ve got enough time before lunch that I can teach you how to tack up a horse. And you’ll need to know how to care for one. You’ll each be responsible for your own, and you’ve got about three more days to get to know them as well as you know your worst nightmare.”

  Jack nodded absently. He was beginning to formulate a plan—a loose one, depending uncomfortably upon Scorpion making any and all first moves. But he was sure that whatever the assassin did now, Carly Castagne would be in the thick of it. He wouldn’t need to stick close to the assassin, he decided. That was too risky. If he got too close for too long, the man would almost have to wonder what he was doing. Scorpion didn’t know who he was exactly, but the assassin did know that an agent code-named Gemini had been playing cat and mouse with him for a whole lot of years. Scorpion knew that in the end, he had finally shot him, but it wouldn’t be out of the question for the agency to have sent someone else.

  No, he’d just keep close to the woman, Jack decided. He looked at her again. He had little doubt that when Scorpion made contact with her, she would, in some way, let it show. She was a pawn, an innocent, an amateur, as clear as a pane of glass.

  Carly Castagne set off toward the barn. Jack let his eyes continue to follow her. She wore gratifyingly tight jeans and a bright red shirt. Her hair was all caught up in a long, heavy braid that bounced when she moved.

  She moved purposefully now, with a neat, little sway to her hips. She flipped the braid over her shoulder as she went, and it danced against her back. He found himself staring at the little rubber band there at the end of it, found himself thinking of tugging it free, found himself wondering about all that long,’ dark hair—not quite as black as in the photograph, he realized, but more of a mahogany color. He wondered what it would feel like spilling into his hands.

  He realized what he was doing and felt his heart kick.

  She was Scorpion’s woman, whether she knew it yet or not. She was Scorpion’s weakness, not his own. He was too smart. Too wary. Too jaded to ever believe in happily-ever-afters again.

  He dragged his eyes away from her. He had to get through to Paul, he thought, had to put the home office onto the chore of finding out who Michael was and how much money the man would need to smooth the seams of two unexpected tourists showing up for this little roundup.

  A cattle drive, for God’s sake.

  “Can I help you?”

  Jack turned sharply to find a heavily pregnant woman standing on the back porch. He fished out his wallet and held it up. “I need to make a phone call. It’s long distance but I’ll use my calling card.”

  “Certainly. Come on in.”

  Jack jogged up the steps and followed her inside. At the last moment, he glanced back over his shoulder, toward the barn. Then he realized that he was not keeping an eye on the assassin, but trying for one last glimpse of Carly Castagne.

  Jack swore silently. Maybe he hadn’t just lost his nerve. Maybe he was losing his mind.

  Carly leaned against one of the stalls and watched the guests work on the horses she had assigned them. It was the first chance she’d had to assess all of them.

  There was a short, stocky woman named Myra. She said she was a schoolteacher, and she fluttered a lot. Carly wasn’t quite sure how she was going to manage on a horse without sending it into a blind bolt. And, as luck would have it, there was a wellendowed blonde. Her name was Leigh Bliss—appropriate, Carly thought, if the looks the men were giving her were any indication.

  One of those men was so bumbling and urgent he set her teeth on edge. His name was Winston Meyer and he reminded her of a very large, very eager puppy, inclined to act before he thought. Carly let her gaze wander away from him to Reggie Toppman. Compared to Winston, he was compact and solid, but he was taciturn and grimly watchful.

  Then there were the Johnny-come-latelies. Well, one of the Johnny-come-latelies, she amended. The other one was still back at the house. She’d get to him later.

  “Excuse me.” She stepped closer to the one she had at her disposal. “I didn’t get your name.”

  The man turned away from his horse and gave her a slow, knowing smile. It made her skin pull into gooseflesh.

  Someone walked over my grave, she thought. She shook her head to clear it and looked down at her clipboard.

  “Your name?” she repeated impatiently.

  “Can you guess?”

  Oh, God, was he some kind of nutcase? She looked up at him again. “No time,” she explained, trying hard to keep her voice mild and polite.

  The man nodded, but he didn’t answer her. Carly made a sound of exasperation and turned away.

  “Brad Patterson.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. She spun back to him. “What?”

  “Brad Patterson. That’s my name.”

  “I…oh.” She shook her head, feeling foolish.

  She had been dwelling far too much on her ex-husband lately, and that was purely Holly’s doing. She had stopped missing him a very long time ago. She wrote this man’s name, so similar to Brett’s, on her clipboard, then she stuck her pencil behind her ear when she heard another sound behind her.

  She turned around again and found the other newcomer entering the barn alley. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Jack paused, looking concerned.

  “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Oh. Jack. Jack Fain.” He smiled—almost.

  The instinct she’d felt when she’d first seen him in the barnyard came back to Carly hard and fast. There was something off about this guy, too, she thought despairingly. Why couldn’t Michael have just sent her a bunch of nice, normal city folks?

  A niggling, uncertain feeling came to the pit of her stomach when she looked at Jack Fain. He was supremely confident— maybe that was all it was. She sensed that he was a man who needed no one, and she had a hunch that he would prefer it if no one needed him either.

  He was attractive in a rough sort of way, she allowed. Well, okay, he was very attractive, and she felt a subtle physical pull toward him. But she simply didn’t have time for that, so she clamped down on it, trying to judge his face dispassionately.

  His were the kind of looks that had probably been arrestingly handsome ten years ago. Now his face was handsome and it contained character. What kind remained to be seen. His eyes were an odd color, a sort of leonine gold, and they said that he’d seen it all and found most of it humorous, albeit in a dark and twisted way. His smile was a slow, incomplete quirking of his mouth. There were faint lines at the corners of his eyes. All in all, she thought, he looked rough, hard, capable…and somehow dangerous.

  “Is this mine?” he asked, stopping beside the last available gelding.

  Carly nodded, still watching him pensively.
/>
  “What’s wrong with his ear?” He stepped closer to examine it.

  “He had a run-in with some barbed wire last summer.” Her voice sounded defensive, and that annoyed her. “Don’t worry. It won’t affect his performance.”

  Jack muttered something she couldn’t hear.

  She explained what she wanted him to do with the horse and he set about grooming it. As she watched, his horse planted its left front hoof stubbornly, refusing to allow him to lift it and clean out the shoe. Carly stiffened out of pure instinct as he moved around in front of the animal, but he only closed one strong-looking hand over the beast’s muzzle, bringing its eyes on a level with his own. He said something to it in an undertone and the horse lifted its foot.

  Carly’s mouth twitched, and then she frowned again. “Mr. Fain?”

  He looked up at her.

  “Just out of curiosity, have you ever been within spitting distance of a horse before?”

  “Nope. Never.”

  “You certainly have a…uh, way with them.”

  “Just a natural talent, I guess.” His mouth went halfway into that grin again.

  Carly played with the end of her braid. He went on working with the animal with absolutely no trace of the skittish wariness that most people displayed the first time they came nose to muzzle with an animal so much larger than themselves. Winston, on the other hand, was clearly terrified. She glanced over at the big man and thought that it was going to be a very long week.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “Now that you’ve got them all cleaned up, we’re going to tack them.” She lifted her own Western saddle from the portable rack she had wheeled into the barn alley. “First, just watch me.”

  She began explaining what she was doing as she stepped into her own mare’s stall and put the saddle on her. Then she had the guests do the same thing with their own horses. Winston more or less threw his in the general vicinity of his mount. His gelding shot out with one irritated hoof, just missing him.

  “Gently,” she clarified, rubbing her eyes. She should be over at the chutes helping with the castrating and the branding. She should be bringing in the last of the cows from the far pastures, the ones who wouldn’t calve this year but were going to Kansas anyway. She should be—

  “Can we get hurt doing this?” Winston asked.

  “Well, sure, if you’re stupid,” she answered, startled. She’d thought that was pretty much a given.

  “I think I made a mistake,” Leigh piped up. “My horse doesn’t look like yours.”

  Carly groaned silently. “Move over.”

  She went to the blonde’s horse, nudging her out of the way. She started to fix her saddle for her, then she felt warm breath on her nape where her braid left her skin exposed. She whipped around and found Jack Fain.

  The fact that he had moved from his own horse to Leigh’s so fast, so silently, unnerved her all over again. Or maybe it was just the tickle of his breath on her nape. God knew it had been a long time since she’d felt such a thing.

  She fought the urge to shiver with the memory of it. Even the fact that the urge was there for her to fight left her mildly shaken.

  “You want to give me some room here?” she demanded too harshly.

  Jack stepped back a little. A very little. “Sorry. I couldn’t see what you were doing.”

  For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what she had been about to do next.

  She forced herself to turn her back on him again. She did it with a last slow, wary glance.

  She finished with Leigh’s horse and stepped away just as the dinner gong rang out from the house. “Lunchtime,” she announced breathlessly.

  She left the barn without looking back to see if they followed her. By the time she reached the porch, she heard them chattering like a flock of crows as they streamed after her. She held the door open for them, then Jack Fain passed her. She found herself inching backward to give him a wider berth.

  It was Brad Patterson she ought to be keeping an eye on, she thought, catching that man watching her again with a strange, intent smile. She was starting to think he was definitely a loose cannon.

  They all moved into the kitchen, and she stepped in behind them. Her great-great-grandfather had built the house with an extended family in mind, and the kitchen table seated twenty in a pinch. The little knot of tourists looked lost as they gathered at one end.

  Carly went to the head of the table and they all grabbed chairs and sat. Theresa brought a platter of fried chicken and a large pitcher of iced tea. Carly filled her plate and her glass, then she felt Jack’s eyes upon her.

  He had taken the seat directly to her left. After a moment, his gaze moved from her face to her plate.

  “Hungry?”

  “If you don’t grab it fast, you might have to do without,” she explained shortly.

  One of his brows went up, but then the back door creaked open again and Plank and Gofer, the two full-time cowboys she still managed to employ, came into the kitchen. Then there was a soft thump on the back stairs and Holly joined them as well.

  “Ah,” Jack said. “He who hesitates goes hungry.”

  Under other circumstances, she might have smiled. “Now you’re catching on.”

  He reached for the chicken platter with no more apology than she had displayed. Carly watched Holly. Her daughter’s eyes stayed sullenly on her plate, and it made her throat squeeze. Theresa followed the chicken with a steady stream of biscuits, corn and mashed potatoes. Carly realized that Jack was watching her sister now.

  “Is she coming with us on this trip?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Carly bit hungrily into a leg.

  “Can she ride a horse in that condition?”

  “No.”

  He looked back at her quizzically. “So…” he prompted.

  “So she drives the ones that pull the cook wagon.”

  “Drives?”

  She paused in midchew to mime the snapping of a whip over a team of horses. “Giddy-up.”

  “Oh.” He was silent for a moment. “You don’t let much stand between you and your food, do you?”

  Carly deliberately swallowed a mouthful of corn before she answered him. “Lunch is for eating, not for inane conversation.”

  She heard Holly suck in an appalled breath at her rudeness, conveniently forgetting that she didn’t think much of the tourists either. Then again, Jack was a man, and Holly was more than a little critical of her mother’s interaction with anything in pants.

  Carly reached for her tea, feeling suddenly cornered, as if any step she took was wrong. Jack Fain closed a hand over her forearm before she could touch her glass.

  Something happened to her. She was aware of a frisson of heat shooting through her. It was much stronger than the shivery flutter that had gone through her when he’d breathed on her neck in the barn.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped.

  “Mom!” Holly cried.

  “We’re going to have to try to get along a little more amicably here, cowgirl,” Jack said quietly.

  Carly tried to pull her arm back. He wouldn’t let her go. “Why?” she demanded.

  “Well, I’m your guest, for one thing. I don’t want to be locking horns with you all week.”

  That was certainly reasonable, but her temper was beyond caring. “I haven’t locked anything with you yet,” she snapped, “but keep it up and I’ll be more than happy to oblige.”

  Holly groaned. Theresa jumped in brightly, sensing trouble at the other end of the table.

  “So what brings all of you to the Wild, Wild West?”

  Jack finally released her arm. Carly pulled it back, rubbing it, frowning at him angrily.

  “I have my own electronics firm,” Reggie said quietly when no one immediately answered. “I wanted to go somewhere where there wouldn’t be any phones.”

  Winston stopped chewing long enough to nod. “Same here,” he said urgently. “I’ve got a meat-packing company. You’ve
no idea how the smells can get to you after a while. I wanted fresh air. At least here the cattle are alive.”

  Theresa looked quickly at Myra, obviously trying to get Winston off the subject of his factory smells and dead animals while everyone was eating. “What about you?”

  “I have a birthday this week,” said Myra. “No, I won’t tell you how old and I won’t tell you which day, but just once, before I get too old, I want to do something….” She trailed off

  to shiver. Carly stopped chewing again to stare at her. “Something wild,” she finished.

  “I want a cowboy,” Leigh contributed.

  Gofer leaned across the table toward her. “You’ve found yourself one, ma’am.”

  There was a chorus of nervous laughter, then everyone looked pointedly at Jack and Brad, the only two who hadn’t answered.

  “I’m taking the long way to nowhere,” Brad said finally, enigmatically, and the odd comment made Carly’s skin pull tight. Then he smiled sheepishly. “I’m a poet,” he explained.

  “What about you, Mr. Fain?” Theresa asked.

  Carly paused with her next piece of chicken halfway to her mouth. She angled her gaze toward him. She was very interested in hearing this.

  “Call me Jack,” he said after a moment.

  Carly waited.

  “I’m hiding from an ex-wife,” he added finally.

  “Is she big and mean with a double-barreled shotgun?” Carly didn’t really intend that anyone should hear her, but Jack answered fast and easily.

  “Nope. She’s a redhead.”

  Laughter rippled across the table again. It was more relaxed this time. Six strangers were becoming friends.

  “My lawyer’s serving her with the divorce papers this week,” Jack went on. “I thought it would be a good idea for me to get out of town.”

  “I hear Acapulco’s lovely this time of year,” Carly drawled.

  “Then you hear wrong. It’s too hot.”

  She pushed her chair back abruptly. “If we’re going to get everything done by Friday, I have to get you people on horses ten minutes ago.”

  They all looked up at her, surprised. At least half of them were still chewing.

  “Carlotta…” Theresa chided, but Carly had no intention of listening to a dissertation on her manners right now. Her manners could be damned. Manners weren’t going to keep these fools on horses across two hundred and fifty miles. There would be strays to chase down, rivers to cross and who knew what else. She wouldn’t be able to baby-sit them once they set off. They were going to have to be able to handle their mounts reasonably well on their own.