Wrong. She could still feel his nearness, sense his gaze on her, and breathe in his essence. His gentle touch sent currents of warmth through her. Worse, he made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. She’d vowed never to be like her mother, never to depend on a man, never to be ruled by love, and she meant to keep that pledge. To do otherwise would jeopardize any chance of proving herself a worthy heiress to the ranch.
Miss Walker’s advertisement in the newspaper, shortly after her publisher dropped her, couldn’t have come at a better time. Whether it was serendipity or just plain luck, Kate didn’t know, but she was convinced her problems were over. If she could prove to Miss Walker she was capable of learning the ranching business, her future was secure. She wouldn’t have to depend on anyone but herself. Nor would she ever again have to watch a man walk out of her life, tossing her aside like yesterday’s newspaper. She would win the respect of all who knew her and never again be made to feel inferior.
He completed the task and she opened her eyes. “Thank you.”
He studied her. “You aren’t really gonna quit, are you?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, though after today the choice may no longer be hers to make.
“There you go,” he said, standing.
He offered her his hand and she let him pull her to her feet. To refuse his help would be rude, especially since he had shown her such kindness.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, pulling her hand out of his as one would pull away from a fire.
“Had to deliver a bunch of new horseshoes. They go through them like penny candy around here.”
Aware of how awful she must look, she backed away. “I . . . I better go and change.”
He nodded. “Like I said, that was some mighty fancy roping.”
He held her gaze and much to her dismay she felt herself blush. With a quick farewell she whirled around and marched to the ranch house. Only when she had reached the security of the porch did she dare look back.
Luke Adams hadn’t moved from where she’d left him, his face shaded by his hat. She couldn’t say for sure, but she had the feeling that he was still watching her, and the very thought made her already-pounding heart beat that much faster.
Later that afternoon, Kate dipped her hand into the tank and splashed water on her heated face. It felt cool and refreshing. Her body was still sore from her unfortunate roping accident earlier in the day. Now she ducked in the shade of the windmill to take a break.
Laughter drifted from the direction of the ranch house. Some of the other ranch hands were relaxing on the verandah. Mexican Pete leaned against a post, arms folded, straw hat shading his face. Stretch was telling one of his tall tales, this one about the winter he spent on a cattle ranch in Montana.
“It was so cold that your words froze soon as they left your mouth. It took two weeks for the words to thaw out enough to be heard.” This brought more laughter.
How she longed to join them and sit in the shade away from the heat, but she didn’t dare. Feedbag, Wishbone, and the others considered her an outsider and, for that reason, she knew they would not welcome her company. Sighing, she splashed more water on her face. Just wait till I’m the boss lady. They won’t be so eager to discount me then!
She walked around the barn looking for Ruckus. Normally, she would ask for a longer break, but she was already in his bad graces and didn’t want to rile him any more than she already had.
Ruckus rounded the corner. “Where’s Decker?”
“In the barnyard,” she replied.
His lips puckered as they tended to do whenever she called something by the wrong name. “After you brush the chicken feathers off your horse, have Luke check his shoes.”
She grimaced. “I meant corral. Decker is in the corral.”
He spun around and walked away and she hurried to get her horse. A short while later she led Decker around the barn to where Luke and Ruckus stood talking.
Ruckus was discussing a paint horse that had been giving him trouble all week. “Normally, he’s so gentle I could stake him to a hatpin and he would stay put. Lately he’s so ornery he practically bucked off my whiskers.”
Luke examined the horse’s hoof, shaking his head. Obviously he didn’t like what he saw. Not wishing to interrupt their conversation she stopped and waited.
“I’m not much in favor of cold-shoeing,” Luke said. “It made sense during the War Between the States. Time and equipment were limited back then, but this is peacetime.” He ran his finger along the outer edge of the horse’s hoof. “You can’t get as good a fit. That’s why your horse keeps throwin’ a shoe. See this? This should be smooth and it’s not.”
“I knew that greenhorn farrier didn’t know what he was doin’. The horses just didn’t cotton to him. Soon as they saw him comin’ they took off on the run, leaving their shadows twenty minutes behind. All he done is make the horses ornery.”
Luke set the hoof down gently and straightened to stroke the horse’s neck. The black-and-white horse had refused to let anyone ride him in recent days but seemed to welcome Luke’s touch. “I reckon you’d be ornery, too, if you were wearing ill-fitting boots.”
“O.T. sent him packing and now we don’t have a farrier. The job’s yours if you want it.” He pointed to the open door of the ranch’s blacksmith shop. “As you can see we’re fully equipped and the boss lady pays well.”
Kate held her breath. Luke working here? At the ranch? Finding the prospect vaguely disturbing, she waited for Luke’s reply, but before he had a chance to respond, Ruckus motioned for her to join them.
Luke greeted her with a smile. “Your horse givin’ you trouble too?” he asked. He said nothing about their earlier encounter, but his eyes sent a private message.
“I suspect it’s the other way around,” Ruckus muttered.
“Let’s take a look.” After running his hand along Decker’s flank, Luke lifted a back leg and rested it upon his leather-aproned knee to examine it. She marveled that a man able to bend iron was capable of such a gentle touch.
“Got a loose shoe here,” he said. Locking the horse’s leg between his knees, Luke pulled a rasp from his apron pocket and began working on the clinches. Decker twisted his head to look behind him, ears straight up, but didn’t move.
Ruckus watched for a moment before nodding in approval. “We’ll talk later. Let me know what you decide.” He walked away, leaving her alone with Luke.
“Did . . . did I do that?” she asked. “The loose shoe?”
“I doubt it. Nails come out. It happens.” He glanced at her. “You know what they say. For want of a nail the shoe was lost . . .”
Recognizing the childhood ditty, she joined in: “For want of a shoe the horse was lost.”
His mouth spread into a lazy grin. “For want of a horse the rider was lost.”
She tried to think of the next line. “The kingdom was lost?” she asked.
“Battle,” he said. “For want of a rider the battle was lost.”
“Of course,” she said, feeling as if she was losing some sort of battle herself. She studied him while he worked. “Thank you for not mentioning my earlier mishap in the corral.”
Luke glanced up at her, his eyes warm with humor. “I still think that was a mighty fine rope trick. I reckon Buffalo Bill could use someone like you in his Wild West show.”
The idea was so absurd she couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
For a moment they stared at each other and her heart fluttered. His gaze settled on her mouth and warmth rushed to her cheeks. As if to suddenly catch himself, he bent his head down and continued working on Decker’s shoe with firm but careful movements.
Shaken, she was unable to find her voice. What was the matter with her? One smile from him and all good intentions flew out the window.
“You’re lucky your horse isn’t lame,” he said, his voice husky. “I’ll replace all four shoes.”
She swallowed hard. “Is that why he keeps throwin
g me off? Because of his shoes?”
“Hard to tell. There’s no injury that I can see. Looks like we caught it in time.”
She moistened her lips. “Ruckus said that when a rider eats gravel it’s seldom the horse’s fault.”
Luke glanced up at her. “That’s true most times. Except when the rider is a lady. Then it’s always the horse’s fault.”
“It would be just my luck to have a misogynistic horse,” she said lightly.
His square jaw tensed and some unreadable emotion flashed in his eyes. Without a word he straightened, walked to the workbench, and exchanged the rasp for a long-handled pull-off.
Did she imagine the sudden chill in the air? Or had she simply imagined their earlier rapport as they recited that silly rhyme? “I heard Ruckus ask you to work here. Do . . . do you plan to accept his offer?”
“’Fraid not.” He checked one front foot and then the other before returning to the one he started working on. “People in town depend on me. If I worked here at the ranch I’d have to close my shop. Can’t do both.”
Kate let out her breath, surprised at the mixed feelings of disappointment and relief that surged through her.
“I’ll trim him up and give him new shoes and he’ll be rarin’ to go. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“There’s no hurry,” she said. Still sore from the morning’s spills, she looked forward to keeping both feet on the ground for a while. How she longed to take the afternoon off and sit in the shade with a nice cold drink. The thought burst like a bubble the moment Ruckus rounded the corner of the barn and beckoned to her.
“Come on, Goldilocks, let’s get to work,” he called.
She gave an inward groan. Would the day never end? And why didn’t the heat bother Ruckus like it bothered the rest of them?
She thanked Luke and followed Ruckus to the barn.
Chapter 11
Brandon stole a glance at her sweet countenance. The slight stain of tears upon her cheeks added to her innocent beauty and stole his heart.
The day before, Kate had helped clean the calving barn, and now the scent of fresh hay tickled her nose. A loud moo greeted them as they stepped inside and rounded a corner. A pregnant cow in obvious distress was strapped inside a chute. Restlessly stomping her hooves, the bovine bellowed and thrashed from side to side trying to pull free from her restraints.
Ruckus led the way to the back of the cow. “This lady’s ready and you’re gonna learn how to pull a calf.”
Kate’s eyes widened. She never dreamed the term was meant literally. For all the stories she’d heard about working on a ranch, never once had she heard about delivering calves.
Ruckus wrapped twine around the cow’s tail and tied it to her neck. After rolling up his sleeves he picked up a bucket of clean water and splashed it onto the cow’s backside.
“You’re about to witness God’s work at his finest,” he said, lowering the empty bucket to the ground.
Kate clamped her mouth shut and said nothing. If it was God’s work, then why was the cow in such terrible pain? She pushed the thought away and rolled up her sleeves.
The cow’s deep bellows were almost constant. Her hide rippled from head to tail with strained muscles.
Ruckus nodded. “She’s pushing. If we’re lucky, she’ll complete the job herself.”
He talked to the cow in soothing tones. He was equally at ease no matter what he was doing, whether chasing a steer, calming a cow about to give birth, or reciting the Bible.
“How long have you worked on the ranch, Ruckus?”
“I’ve been here ’bout nine, ten years,” he said. “Prior to that I drifted from ranch to ranch, which was hard on the family. Most ranches can’t afford to hire people year-round. When the boss lady offered me a permanent job I grabbed it. She gave my wife and me a place to live and a way to make an honest livin’.”
“You’re married?” That was a surprise. In all the time she’d worked at the ranch, Ruckus had never spoken of his private life and she simply assumed he had none.
“Yep, goin’ on twenty years.”
“That long?” Her voice rose in surprise.
He studied her for a moment before replying. “I don’t know how it is where you came from, but out here for better or worse means for good.”
“Miss Walker’s marriage wasn’t for good,” she said.
He shrugged. “Miss Walker ain’t like normal folks.”
She bit her lip. No argument there. “So where is your wife?”
“We live in a cabin on the northern part of the property. That’s where us married folks live. The good Lord blessed us with three children, two sons and a daughter. One’s in law school and another’s studying to be a preacher.” He chuckled. “A preacher. Imagine that? Soon as he finishes seminary he plans to come back and preach right here in Cactus Patch. After hearing me preach to him all these years, he’s gonna make me sit in church every week so he can return the favor.”
Kate laughed. “What about your daughter?”
He flashed a fatherly smile. “Our daughter got hitched and she and her husband started their own ranch west of Tucson.”
He was obviously proud of his family and she couldn’t help but envy his offspring. Could they possibly know how lucky they were to have such a caring father?
“And you’ve been happy all these years?” she asked. “Some people might even say this is godforsaken land.”
Ruckus’s eyebrows rose as if the thought were inconceivable. “And they would be wrong.” He pointed at the pen. “What do you see?”
She followed his finger. “I see a miserable cow.”
“What I see is God’s amazing handiwork. Man has figured out how to build trains and send messages through wires, but there ain’t no man on earth figured out how to turn grass into milk.”
“I never thought about it that way,” she said.
Ruckus’s faith in an almighty God never failed to amaze her. Growing up, she’d never attended church. Her mama seldom mentioned God except in a drunken stupor and that was to curse, not worship him. So Kate had a hard time believing in the loving and caring God Ruckus so often talked about. She wanted to, oh, how she wanted to. She just didn’t know how to make herself believe that God could be as good or trustworthy as Ruckus insisted.
“Get ready,” Ruckus said. “You’re about to witness more of God’s handiwork.”
One hoof popped out and Kate gasped in delight. Just as quickly another hoof showed.
Ruckus grinned. “Two front legs. See that?” He pointed to the hoof. “The soles are pointing down. Pointing any other way and we’re in a heap o’ trouble. Today, we’re in luck.”
No sooner had he said it than the young cow popped free, dropping upon the pile of clean straw. Ruckus quickly grabbed the not-so-little calf by its hind legs and dragged it to a clean bed of straw.
Fearing the calf was dead or had been injured in the fall, Kate fell to her knees by its side.
“Come on, little fella, you can do it.” She patted the calf’s wet hide. “Breathe!”
Ruckus pushed a strand of straw into the calf ’s nostrils. “This helps the calf cough up anythin’ plugging up its breathing tube,” he explained. It worked. The calf made a funny sound and opened its eyes.
Kate exhaled with relief, her own eyes moist with tears. “It’s alive.”
Ruckus’s grin practically reached his ears. He looked like a proud rooster and Kate couldn’t help but laugh. He scooped the calf in his arms, his body bent backward to accommodate the weight, and laid it down on a pile of fresh hay in front of its mother.
“Whooeee. That baby gotta weigh at least a hundred pounds.” He stepped back and wiped off his hands with a clean towel.
The cow stared at the calf before nuzzling it with her nose and, finally, licking it clean with gentle strokes of her large gray and pink tongue.
“That . . . that was incredible,” Kate said. All the weeks of torturous work were forgotten in the w
onder of the moment. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the little calf. She felt some odd sense of maternal pride when later the little fellow struggled up on wobbly legs and probed its mother’s udder with its mouth.
“Do you normally help with the birthing?” In all her ranch stories, never once had she written a birthing scene. “I thought cattle had their babies naturally out on the range.”
“They do most times,” he said. “But this one lost a calf last year and had been acting strange for a couple of days. We decided to bring her in.”
“How do you know her history?” she asked.
“What?”
“All the cattle look alike. How do you know this one lost a calf?”
He laughed. “A cattleman ain’t worth his salt if he don’t know his cattle,” he said. “We only have to keep track of a thousand or so cattle, whereas God the Father has to keep track of millions of his people. Kind of makes you feel humble just thinkin’ about it.”
“Miss Walker owns a thousand head of cattle?” she asked. She hadn’t seen more than a few cattle at any one time.
“Yep. Used to be two thousand but that was before the drought. It’s getting harder. More ranchers are fighting for grazin’ rights on public land and there’s only so much grass to go around.” He shrugged. “But, God willing, we’ll get the numbers up again. Done it before and we’ll do it again.”
She never met a man like Ruckus, a man so comfortable with his faith that it seemed as much a part of him as his crooked nose and relaxed, easy manner.
“Are we finished here?” She was anxious to clean up. More than that, she didn’t want to hear any more references to God the Father. The very word father turned her blood cold. The term Forever Man didn’t help much either. Nothing was forever, except perhaps land.
“For now. One down and only fifty-five more calves to go.”
Her mouth dropped open and he laughed at her expression. She followed him outside and together they washed in a wooden barrel.
“Don’t worry. The boss lady figured out that if we feed the cattle at night, they’re more likely to drop their calves durin’ the day. Since we switched feedin’ times, we’ve gotten a whole lot more shut-eye.” He studied her. “Speakin’ of the boss lady, it’s late. You better go and get ready for supper.”
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