The Girl with the Golden Spurs

by Ann Major

  “That man—he have huge appetites.”

  “I don’t care about his appetites or where he is,” Lizzy said in a carefully neutral tone.

  “Then you don’t care to know he lit out of this house in boots and chaps and his oldest white shirt and in a dead run.”

  Trying to act indifferent, Lizzy popped a purple grape into her mouth and chewed it until it burst and turned to mush.

  “Or that he’s heading out on Ringo to the Cameron pens?”

  Grape number one was followed by two more that melted juicily in Lizzy’s mouth. Not that she even tasted them. “I don’t care a whit.”

  “Wonder what’s got that man in such a hurry to get out of this house—since you got home?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You two gonna be in a snit the rest of your lives? Usually Kinky gives the men their orders. Cole, he stays and watches the weather forecast and flirts with me a spell.”

  “Kinky better not find out about that.”

  “My Kinky is a mighty understanding man.”

  “Because he understands the best thing he ever did was marry you. Oh, Sy’rai, it’s good to be back even if…” Even if she was totally confused about everything since she’d slept with Cole, and especially about Cole.

  Sy’rai embraced her. “It’s good to have you back, honey. It’s the best thing that’s happened around here in a long time. Except for Vanilla,” she amended. “Which reminds me, I’d better go check on her. With that little rascal thinking she can walk, no telling what she’ll get into, even if she’s in her play pen supposedly taking a nap.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “You know Cole asked about you, too.”

  Lizzy glanced at her in quick surprise.

  “For a girl that isn’t interested, you look mighty interested. Something happen in New York that I don’t know about, girl?”

  Lizzy shook her head way too briskly. Her feelings for Cole were powerful and personal. Her father had been against him. He’d married her sister, and yet she could feel herself growing more dependent on him and attached to him by the day. Still, it was all too new and threatening to share with others. Nobody could know about New York. Country people made it their business to know everybody and everything about everybody. There was no such thing as a secret. Gossip flew across fences and huge pastures from house to house even faster than wildfire.

  After bathing and feeding Vanilla, Lizzy left her with Sy’rai and pointed her borrowed sports car in the direction of the Cameron pens. When she reached the pens, cattle bawled and dusty trucks were parked everywhere.

  Cowboys in leather chaps and boots, some old faces and some new, grinned and yelled good morning to her and then went back to the hard work of weaning calves from their mothers. A few horses, including Ringo, were saddled and tied to a nearby fence.

  Because of the recent rains, the job had been postponed for two weeks. Still, all the cattle and men were as muddy as pigs. Cole was the dirtiest one of all and yelling the loudest.

  Kinky tapped Cole’s broad shoulder and gestured to where she was getting out of her car. Lizzy was surprised when he stopped what he was doing and strode right up to her. Wing Nut trotted behind him, his tail wagging.

  “Sorry I’m so dirty,” Cole said in that slow easy drawl of his, his blue eyes intent as he studied her face and figure.

  “I just wanted to say hi.” She felt shy, strange. She was wishing she’d taken more pains with her appearance. “Haven’t seen much of you.”

  “It’s what you want, Lizzy.”

  “Yes. Of course. It’s what I want.”

  “Good.’ Cause all I want is to make you happy.”

  She bit her lips. Wing Nut stuck his head under her hand and she patted him absently.

  “I heard you went to the doctor yesterday. You’re okay, aren’t you?”

  He went still, and that warned her.

  “Just a routine appointment,” he said, but he bit out the words.

  Her eyes searched his for secrets.

  “I told you—it wasn’t important,” he insisted.

  When she wouldn’t quit looking at him, his black head jerked and he turned away abruptly. For a while, he just stood there as still as a carved stone statue, with his back toward her.

  The cowboys, who’d stopped their work to stare at them, got back to work the minute the boss glanced at them.

  “If I left you alone, it was because I was giving you breathing room,” Cole said after a lengthy spell. “Because you want it that way, damn it.”

  “Thanks,” she muttered, not feeling the least little bit grateful he was following her rules.

  She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she watched the men, too. His nearness made her heart beat so loudly, she was scared he’d hear it.

  Not that he looked at her again. Still, she was glad he stayed beside her. It felt nice, almost right, just standing with him like they belonged together—like maybe someday they could be friends. Which was strange, him being who he was, and them having their history.

  The cattle were bawling as they were herded with electric prods and chased by cow dogs that nipped them into increasingly narrow corridors until they reached the final weaning chute, where they could only fit single file. A young cowboy in a baseball cap with spurs fastened to his duck boots opened and closed the quarto, a swinging door which sent the animals to separate pens.

  Another cowboy was rinsing mud off his hands with fresh water and drying them before returning to the task of roping one particularly stubborn calf and pulling the almost six-hundred-pound animal to the weaning chute.

  “New York,” Cole said in a grim, low tone. “I’ve thought and thought about it. Guess it doesn’t have to mean anything, unless we let it.”

  “Right,” she muttered, suddenly so furious at him she wanted to kick him.

  “Maybe we should wait a few days before I give you that tour,” he continued.

  “Anytime.”

  When he didn’t reply, she just stood there beside him, tongue-tied, until he and the Lab left her to check on Ringo and get to work. She watched them a while longer until she reminded herself she should spend more time with Vanilla instead of this frustrating man and forced herself to drive away.

  Two more days passed without Lizzy seeing Cole even once. Although he and Lizzy shared the same house, it was easy for him to hide from her in the vast, sprawling, multi-floored mansion. For one thing, Cole lived on the third floor in a suite in the southern wing while Lizzy was on the second in an immense suite on the north wing.

  By the time she got up in the morning and came down for cereal and bananas or oatmeal, Cole made sure he was long gone to his crop-dusting office or the range. He never came home until well after supper. Sy’rai always made him a heaping plate of food, which he warmed up before he climbed the stairs and went to bed.

  Lizzy could tell he hadn’t bragged to the hands—or even to Kinky or Eli—that he’d bedded her because they treated Lizzy more deferentially than ever, asking her about Caesar first thing every morning. So she had nothing new to complain about where Cole Knight was concerned other than the fact he ignored her. And that became a maddening torment.

  She couldn’t get her mind off him. Was it the sex that had made her feel this profound connection to him? She liked the fact he hadn’t boasted to the men. Did it mean he cared? Oh, how she hated the way she analyzed everything he did or didn’t do.

  When he was gone during the day, she wondered where he was. In the evenings when he was home and kept to his suite with his door closed, she felt restless and too distracted to read or write in her journal or watch television. No matter how many affirmations she made to erase him from her brain, she thought about him more every day that passed instead of less.

  Thank goodness she had Vanilla to occupy her time during the day. But after she put Vanilla to bed, she would go to the window and stare out into the darkness, feeling extraordinarily jumpy and nervous. Somet
imes she’d go out and walk the long gallery in the moonlight and stew over Cole.

  Why didn’t he spend more time with Vanilla? Why was he always so cool and distant when Lizzy and he chanced to meet? If only she could feel aloof about him, but he had only to look at her and she’d be flooded with hot reckless emotions that she didn’t know how to deal with.

  She knew she should go to her father’s office and at least begin to work on the pressing ranch paperwork and return his phone messages, but some part of her kept hoping she’d get a call from Houston that he was coming home to take over again. So, she kept putting off going to the office. After all, Cole and Kinky were tending to what had to be done.

  Her mother phoned her every other day. Her mom was so depressed, Hawk had stayed in Houston just to be with her. Walker, on the other hand, would be returning to the ranch soon to help work on the museum.

  Then one night when Lizzy had given up on ever seeing Cole or having him react to her, much to her surprise, Cole turned up in the dining room on time right after Sy’rai rang the big ranch dinner bell. He’d showered and wore a clean white shirt and pressed jeans. As he entered, his eyes swept the room and caught hers. When she raised her eyebrows at him but felt too shy to speak, he smiled.

  He sat down and unfurled his napkin with a flourish. “I thought maybe tomorrow we could start that tour of the ranch Leo suggested. I could show you how things have changed.”

  “Like I said before, anytime.”

  He shot her a quick smile, and she felt her skin heat. “6:00 a.m., then?”

  “Anytime,” she agreed, wanting to say so much more, but biting her tongue instead.

  His eyes shone as he grabbed a biscuit, and she felt her face grow even hotter. Slathering it thickly with butter, he ate lustily. When she remained silent, he did not attempt any more polite conversation.

  She wanted to speak to him so badly she hurt. Her heart beat painfully in her throat, but all she could do was sit there, mute as a statue, in that tall, dark room, unable to think of a thing to say.

  They had slept with each other, and yet they couldn’t talk to each other. Why? What were these feelings that threatened to devour her? What did they mean?

  Why was everything going so terribly wrong?

  How could she ever sort any of it out when he wouldn’t even talk to her?

  Oh, if only Daddy would get well!

  If only…

  Lizzy got to the garage before six the next morning. Cole’s truck doors were wide-open, and he was in the front seat, slinging all sorts of things out of it onto the ground.

  She yelled hello and then jumped aside when he threw a trailer tire out.

  “Hey—don’t hit me!”

  “Sorry….” He stuck his head out and grinned sheepishly. “Excuse my lousy housekeeping. My truck’s my office. I was trying to clean it up before you got here—to make a false good impression.”

  She smiled. “Daddy’s truck was the same way.”

  Before they could get in, Cole had to scoop wire cutters, pliers, his cell phone plug, and assorted sales slips from hardware and feed stores that had been stacked on the passenger seat into a bag and stuff it behind the seat. Then he got out and threw everything on the garage floor except the trailer tire into the trash.

  “Would you mind driving?” he asked in an offhanded manner.

  “No,” she said, even though it seemed a little odd. Then she remembered he hadn’t flown the plane by himself. Without making a comment, she took her place behind the wheel.

  As they drove off, he said, “We don’t have any hunters during the first part of this week, so we’ll tour some of the hunting camps to start with.”

  “Great.”

  “Since there’s not much profit in ranching right now, we have to make money any way we can. We use the latest technology, and where we used to focus on cattle, we simultaneously manage ranching, hunting and wildlife touring enterprises.”

  “Wildlife touring enterprises? Like birding?”

  He nodded. “We’re not seeing the growth in hunting that we’re seeing in ecotourism.”

  The truck’s tires whooshed and crunched on the rough caliche road as they drove, and for a while the countryside on either side of the road was lush and green. When they came to a large artificial lake, ducks burst into flight. Everything was beautiful until they crossed the wooden bridge that spanned the pond. On the other side the earth was blackened and the mesquite and oak stunted.

  “What happened over here?”

  His face was grim. “Last fall we chained this pasture, but then in January, our burn got out of control. We nearly lost the camp you’re about to see.”

  “Who was responsible?”

  “Me.”

  “How did it happen?”

  His hands clenched. When he didn’t answer her, she didn’t press him.

  “Your father accused me of doing it on purpose,” he said.

  “Did you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does that mean—you don’t know?”

  “Look, I’m sorry this came up. I wish I hadn’t said that, okay? Forget it. Just forget it.”

  They drove in silence across the scorched land until they reached their first stop, which was the hunting lodge he’d mentioned. It had been remodeled and expanded since Lizzy had last seen it.

  They crossed a creek, and she saw a wall of salt cedar at the edge of green lawns that surrounded the camp. The metal roofs of the buildings glinted through the trees. The sight of so much greenery after the blackened pastures was a welcome relief.

  “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Your high-end hunting experience,” he replied, his mood lightening a little as they drove up to the camp and parked in front.

  The low white building with long porches and antlers hanging on its roofline looked both rustic and comfortable, and yet matched the historic architecture of other buildings on the ranch.

  Jimmy McBride, the camp manager, a tall thirty something eager-looking fellow with a thick mane of blond hair, sprinted out of the lodge and extended a brawny hand to help her down from the truck.

  “Cole said to give you a tour.”

  She smiled, and McBride began to deliver a speech he’d obviously given before. Dutifully he expounded on all the hunting camps and their corporate lessees. Then he went into brush control and told her about the different grasses he was planting to encourage wildlife. But what really excited him was the grant proposal he’d just written to try to promote much-needed quail-management research.

  “Nobody knows why quail populations vary from year to year,” McBride explained.

  “Not that people around here don’t have strong opinions on the subject,” Cole inserted dryly.

  “We’re having a boom year, but on the whole, quail are declining everywhere all over the country, even here in south Texas where we have more than anybody. We need to find out what’s happening to these birds before it’s critical.”

  “And I thought hunting was the salvation for ranchers,” she said.

  “That’s past history. Hunters are declining,” Cole replied.

  After the tour, they had coffee. Then Cole and Lizzy got back into his truck and drove over the flat land for hours. He talked about the ranch’s different soils, about how clay soil encouraged cactus, such as prickly pear, and how they didn’t use herbicides to treat it.

  “But then you know that already, don’t you? You’ve got that fancy degree from A&M.”

  She smiled warily. “Nobody was too impressed in New York.”

  He laughed. “Goes to show you—what do they know?”

  He took her to see several five-thousand-acre pastures that were under a newly implemented, four-pasture, sixteen-month grazing system.

  When he told her to stop the truck, he said, “Three herds are rotated between four pastures, leaving one pasture free to recover.”

  She nodded.

  “With one pasture lying fallow, we have a program
to improve land. Brush can be cleared or the land can be reseeded or grass can have time to grow.”

  “How’s it working?” she asked.

  “Better than we’d hoped. We don’t have to move cattle as much, so we cut down on labor. And the cattle have higher pregnancy rates even during drought conditions.”

  “Impressive.”

  They resumed their tour. When they reached a pasture where brush was being cleared, he helped her out of the truck so she could watch an enormous yellow roller chopper that looked like a bulldozer plowing heavy mesquite and hackberry trees.

  “You’ve seen this before, but the driver’s got a computer in his cab. He’s got GIS data, and he’s leaving oak motts according to a map on his computer screen.”

  “Do you reseed after you chop?” she asked.

  “No. We let the brush lie where it falls for a while so it can dry out before we try to get a burn. I’ve been having trouble getting my guys to build the perfect brush pile.” His expression darkened. “Last time I think maybe the piles burned too hot.”

  His handsome face looked haunted. She didn’t believe he’d let the burn get out of control. At least not deliberately.

  What was really going on? What was he hiding?

  He led her back to the truck. “Sometime I’ll take you up so you can see what pastures like this look like from the air. It’s pretty amazing.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  They drove all over the ranch, not that they covered even a tenth of it. They agreed to meet at six the next morning again, but when she went to the garage the next day expecting Cole, she was acutely disappointed to find Kinky there instead.

  “Leo called late last night, so Cole and John flew to San Antonio.”

  “But why?”

  “Cole didn’t say. More trouble I expect.”

  “He should have taken me with him. I was left in charge, and we’re supposed to be partners.”

  “You’ll have to take that up with Cole. You ready, girl? I don’t reckon I’m as much fun as Cole, but I’ll certainly do my best.”