A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (6 page)

“No. Actually, I had plans to be an architect once upon a time.”

“What happened?”

Nathan glanced at Harry and was surprised by the concerned look on her face. He hardened himself against the growing emotional attachment he felt to her. “Things got in the way.”

“What kind of things?”

“Parents.”

“You weren't overprotected, too, were you?”

“Not hardly. I was the one who did the protecting in my household.”

Harry was stunned by the bitterness in his voice. “I don't understand. Are you saying you took care of your parents? Were they hurt or something?”

“Yes, and yes.”

But he didn't say any more. Harry wasn't sure whether to press him for details. His lips had flattened into a grim line, and the memories obviously weren't happy ones. But her curiosity got the better of her and she asked, “Will you tell me about it?”

At first she thought he wasn't going to speak. Then the words started coming, and the bitterness and anger and regret and sadness poured out along with them.

“My mother was an alcoholic,” he said. “I didn't know her very well. But I took care of her the best I could. Dumped the bottles when I found them. Cleaned up when I could. Made meals for me and my dad. She didn't eat much. The alcohol finally killed her when I was sixteen.

“It was a relief,” he said in a voice that grated with pain. “I was glad she was gone. She was an embarrassment. She was a lush. I hated her.” Harry watched him swallow hard and add in a soft voice, “And I loved her so much I would have died in her place.”

Harry felt a lump in her own throat and tears burning her eyes. What a heavy burden for a child.

“My father and I missed her when she was gone. Dad wanted me to stay on the ranch—Hazards had been sheep ranchers for a hundred years—but I wanted to be an architect. So I went away to college despite his wishes and learned to design buildings to celebrate the spirit of life.

“The month I graduated my father had an accident. A tractor turned over on him and crippled him. I came home to take over for him. And to take care of him. That was fifteen years ago. He died two years ago an old man. He was fifty-eight.”

“Did you ever have the opportunity to design anything?”

“I designed and built the house I live in now. I haven't had time to do more than that.”

She could hear the pride in his voice. And the disappointment. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't pity me. I've had a good life. Better than most.”

“But it wasn't the life you had planned for yourself. What about a wife? Didn't you ever want to marry and have children?”

“I was too busy until two years ago to think about anything but making ends meet,” Nathan said. “Since then I've been looking. But I haven't found the right woman yet.”

Harry heard Nathan's “yet” loud and clear. Nathan knew her, therefore he must have excluded
her from consideration. Which hurt more than she'd expected. “What kind of woman are you looking for?”

Nathan didn't pull any punches. “One who can stand on her own. One who can carry her half of the burden. Ranching's a hard life. I can't afford to marry a woman who can't contribute her share to making things work.”

Harry threaded her hands together in her lap. Well, that settled that. She obviously wasn't the kind of woman who could stand on her own two feet. In fact, Nathan had been holding her up for the past two months.

How he must have hated that, Harry thought. He had taken care of her with concern and consideration, but he'd done it because she was some one who was helpless to help herself. Not as though she were an equal. Not as though she were someone who could one day be his partner. How Harry wanted the chance to show Nathan she could manage on her own! Maybe with this truce it would happen. She would continue to learn and grow. As success followed success, he would see her with new eyes. Maybe then…

Harry suddenly realized the implications of what she was thinking. She was thinking of a future that included Nathan Hazard. She pictured little Nathans and Harrys—blue-eyed blondes and
brown-eyed brunettes with freckles. Oh, what a lovely picture it was!

However, a look at Nathan's stern visage wasn't encouraging. He was obviously not picturing the same idyllic scene.

In fact, Nathan was picturing something very similar. And calling himself ten times a fool for doing so. How could he even consider a life with Harry-et Alistair. The woman was a disaster waiting for a place to happen. She didn't know the first thing about ranching. She was a tenderfoot. A city girl. She would never be the kind of partner who could pull her own weight.

Fortunately they'd reached the turnoff to the restaurant. The lag in the conversation wasn't as noticeable because Nathan took the opportunity to fill Harry-et in on the history of Chico. The hotel and restaurant were located at the site of a natural hot spring that now fed into a swimming pool that could be seen from the bar. It had become a hangout for all the movie stars who regularly escaped the bright lights and big city for what was still Montana wilderness. The pool was warm enough that it could be used even when the night was cool, as it was this evening.

Nathan and Harry were a little early for their dinner reservations, so Nathan escorted her into the bar where they could watch the swimmers.

“Would you like to take a dip in the pool?” Nathan asked. “They have suits—”

“Not this time,” Harry said. “I don't think—” Harry stopped in midsentence, staring, unable to believe her eyes. She pointed toward the sliding glass doors. “Doesn't that man in the pool look a lot like—”

“Luke,” Nathan finished for her. “I think you're right. He seems to be with someone. Maybe they'd like to join us for a drink. I'll go see.”

Nathan had grasped at the presence of his friend as though it were a lifeline. He'd realized, suddenly and certainly, that it wasn't a good idea to be alone with Harry-et Alistair. The more time he spent with her, the lower his resistance to her. If he wasn't careful, he'd end up letting his heart tell his head what to do. He could use his friend's presence to help him keep his sense of perspective.

Of course, knowing Luke, and seeing how cozy he was with the lady, he knew his friend wasn't going to appreciate the interruption. But, hell, what were friends for?

Thus, a moment later he was standing next to Luke and the woman who had her face hidden against his chest. “Hey, Luke, I thought it was you. Who's that with you?”

After a brief pause, Luke answered, “It's Abby.”

Nathan searched his memory for any woman he knew by that name. “Abby?”

“Abigail Dayton,” Luke bit out.

“From Fish and Wildlife?” Nathan asked, astonished.

Abigail turned at last to face him. “Luke and I are just relaxing a few tired muscles.”

Nathan grinned. “Yeah. Sure.”

A female voice from the doorway called, “Nathan?”

The light behind Harry-et made her face nearly invisible in the shadows. At the same time it silhouetted a fantastic figure and a dynamite pair of legs. It irked Nathan that Luke couldn't seem to take his eyes off the woman in the doorway.

“Who's that with you?” Luke asked Nathan.

“Uh…”

“Nathan, is it Luke?” Harry asked. “Oh, hello. It is you. Nathan thought he recognized you.”

This time it was Luke who stared, astonished. “Harry? That's Harry?”

Harry grinned. “Sure is. Nathan tried to convince me to take a swim, but I was too chicken. How's the water?” she asked Abigail. “Marvelous.”

“What are you two doing here together?” Luke asked his friend sardonically. “I thought you hated each other's guts.”

Nathan stuck a hand in the trouser pocket of his Western suit pants to keep from clapping it over his friend's mouth. “We called a truce. Why
don't you two dry off and join us for a drink?” he invited.

Nathan could see Luke wasn't too hot on the idea. But he gave his friend his most beseeching look, and at last Luke said, “Fine.”

Luke gave Nathan a penetrating stare, but made no move to leave the pool. Obviously Luke wanted a few more minutes alone with the Fish and Wildlife agent. Nathan turned to Harry-et and suggested, “Why don't we go inside and wait for Luke and Abby.”

He took Harry's arm and led her back inside. “You really look beautiful tonight, Harry-et,” he said as he seated her at their table.

“Thank you, Nathan.” Ever since she'd come outside Nathan had been looking at her a little differently. She'd seen the admiration in Luke's eyes and watched Nathan stiffen. Really, men could be so funny sometimes. There was no reason for Nathan to be jealous. She didn't find Luke's dark, forbidding looks nearly so attractive as she found Nathan's sharp-boned Nordic features.

She was almost amused when Nathan took her hand possessively once he was seated across from her. He held it palm up in his while his fingertips traced her work-roughened palm and the callused pads of her fingertips.

Harry felt goose bumps rise on her arm. She
was all set for a romantic pronouncement when Nathan said, “It's a shame you have to work so hard. A lady like you shouldn't have calluses on her hands.”

Harry jerked her hand from his grasp. “I have to work hard.”

“No, you don't. Look at you, Harry-et. You spend so much time in the sun your face is as freckled as a six-year-old's.”

“Are you finished insulting me?” Harry asked, confused and annoyed by Nathan's behavior.

“I think you ought to sell your place to me and get back to being the beautiful woman—”

Harry's hand came up without her really being aware it had. She slapped Nathan with the full force of the anger and betrayal she was feeling. The noise was lost in the celebration of the busy bar, but it was the only sound Harry heard above the pounding of her heart. “You never wanted a truce at all, did you, Nathan? You just wanted a chance to soften me up and make another plea to buy my land. I can't think of anything lower in this life than a lying, sneaky snake-in-the-grass Hazard!”

“Now just a minute, Harry-et. I—”

She grabbed his keys from the table where he'd set them and stood up. “I'm taking your car. You
can pick it up at my place tomorrow. But I don't want to see your sorry face when you do it.”

“Be reasonable, Harry-et. How am I supposed to get home?”

“You can ask your friend, Luke, to give you a ride, but I'd be pleased as punch if you have to walk.”

“Harry-et—”

“Shut up and listen! You're going to have an Alistair ranching smack in the middle of your land for the rest of your life, Nathan. And you can like or lump it. I don't really care!”

Harry marched out of the bar with her head held high, but she couldn't see a blamed thing through the haze of tears in her eyes. How could she have believed that handsome devil's lies? And worse, oh, far worse, how could she still want a man who only wanted her land?

Nathan stood up to follow her and then sat back down. That woman was so prickly, so short-tempered, and so stubborn—how on earth could he want her the way he did? It was his own fault for provoking her. But he'd been frightened by his possessive feelings when Luke had admired Harry-et. So, perversely, he'd enumerated to her all the reasons why he couldn't possibly be attracted to her and managed to drive her away.

He had to find a way to make peace with the woman. This Hazard-Alistair feud had gone on
long enough. There had to be a happy medium somewhere, some middle ground, neither his nor hers, on which they could meet.

Nathan made up his mind to find it.

O
ver the next three weeks Nathan thought about all the ways he could end the Hazard-Alistair feud. And kept coming back to the same one:
He could marry Harry-et Alistair.
Of course, that solution raised its own set of problems. Not the least of which was how he was going to convince Harry-et Alistair to marry him.

The way Nathan had it figured, marrying Harry-et would have all kinds of benefits. First
of all, once they were married, there wouldn't be any more Alistair land; it would all be Hazard land. Second, the feud would necessarily come to an end, since all future Hazards would also be Alistairs. And third—and Nathan found this argument for marriage both the most and the least compelling—he would have Harry-et Alistair for his wife.

Although Nathan was undeniably attracted to Harry-et, he wasn't convinced she was the right woman for him. Except every time he thought of a lifetime spent without her, it seemed a bleak existence, indeed. So maybe he was going to have to take care of her more than he would have liked. It wasn't something he hadn't done in the past. He could handle it. He'd finally admitted to himself that he was willing to pull ten times the normal load in order to spend his life with Harry-et Alistair.

Only the last time he'd driven onto her place she'd met him at the end of her road with a Winchester. He'd had no choice except to leave. He hadn't figured out a way yet to get past that rifle.

Nathan was sitting at his regular booth at The Grand, aimlessly stirring his chicken noodle soup, when Slim Harley came running in looking for him.

“She's done it now!” Slim said, skidding to a stop at Nathan's booth.

“Done what?”

“Lost Cyrus's ranch for sure,” Slim said.

Nathan grabbed Slim by his shirt at the throat. “Lost it how? You didn't call in her bill, did you? I told you I was good for it if you needed the cash.”

“Weren't me,” Slim said, trying to free Nathan's hold without success. “It's John Wilkinson at the bank. Says he can't loan her any money to pay the lease on her government land. Says she ain't a good credit risk.”

“Where is she now?”

“At the bank. I just—” Slim found himself talking to thin air as Nathan shoved past him and took off out the door of The Grand, heading for the bank across the street.

When Nathan entered the bank, he saw Harry-et sitting in front of John Wilkinson's desk. He casually walked over to one of the tellers nearby and started filling out a deposit slip.

“But I've told you I have a trust I can access when I'm thirty,” Harry was saying.

“That's still four years off.”

Nathan folded the deposit slip in half and stuck it in his back pocket. He meandered over toward John's desk and said, “I couldn't help overhearing. Is there anything I can do to help, Harry-et?”

She glared at him and stared down at her hands,
which were threaded tightly together in the lap of her overalls.

“So, John, what's the problem?” Nathan asked, setting a hip on the corner of the banker's oversize desk.

“Don't expect it's any secret,” John said. “Mizz Alistair here doesn't have the cash to renew her government lease. And I don't think I can risk the bank's money making her a loan.”

“What if I cosign the note?” Nathan asked.

“No!” Harry said, shooting to her feet to confront Nathan. “I don't want to get the money that way. I'd rather lose the ranch first!”

The banker stroked his whiskered chin with a bony hand. “Well, now, sounds like maybe we could work something out here, Mizz Alistair.”

“I meant what I said,” Harry declared, her chin tilting up mulishly. “I don't want your money if Nathan Hazard has to cosign the note. I'll go to a bank in Billings or Bozeman. I'll—”

“Now hold on a minute. There's no call to take your business elsewhere.” John Wilkinson hadn't become president of the Big Timber First National Bank without being a good judge of human nature. What he had here was a man-woman problem, sure as wolves ate sheep. Only both the man and the woman were powerful prideful. The man wanted to help; the woman wanted to do it on her own.

“I might be willing to make that loan to you,
Mizz Alistair, if Nathan here would agree to advise you on ranch management till your lamb crop got sold in the fall.”

Nathan frowned. Teaching ranch management to Harry-et Alistair was a whole other can of worms from cosigning her note.

“Done,” Harry said. She ignored Nathan and stuck out her hand to the banker, who shook it vigorously.

“Now wait a minute,” Nathan objected. “I never said—”

“Some problem, Nathan?” the banker asked.

Nathan saw the glow of hope in Harry's eyes, and didn't have the heart to put it out. “Aw, hell, I'll do it.”

“I'll expect you over later today,” Harry said, throwing a quick grin in Nathan's direction. “I have a problem that needs solving right away.” She turned to the banker and added, “I'll come in and sign the papers on Monday, John.”

Nathan stood with his mouth hanging open as Harry marched by him and out the door.

“That's quite a woman,” the banker said as he stared after her.

“You can say that again,” Nathan muttered. “She's Trouble with a capital T.”

“Never saw trouble you couldn't handle,” the banker said with a confident smile. “Anything else you need, Nathan?”

“No thanks, John. I think you've done quite enough for me today.”

“We aim to please, Nathan. We aim to please.”

Nathan was still half stunned as he walked out of the bank door and headed back to The Grand. He found Slim sitting at his booth, finishing off his chicken noodle soup.

“Didn't know you was coming back, Nathan,” Slim said. “I'll have Tillie Mae ladle you up another bowl.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“What happened?” Slim asked. “Mizz Alistair get her loan?”

“She got it,” Nathan snapped. “But it's going to cost me plenty.”

“You loan her the money?” Slim asked, confused.

“I loaned her
me.
” Nathan sat down and dropped his head into his hands. “I'm the new manager for Cyrus's ranch.”

Word spread fast in the Boulder River Valley, and by suppertime it was generally believed that Nathan Hazard must have lost his mind…or his heart. Nathan was sure it was both.

Of course, on the good side, he had Harry-et Alistair exactly where he wanted her. She would have to see him, whether she wanted to or not. He would have a chance to woo her, to convince her they ought to become man and wife.
Unfortunately, he still had a job to do—making her ranch profitable—which he took seriously. And Harry-et didn't strike him as the sort of woman who was going to take well to the kind of orders he would necessarily have to give.

Meanwhile, Harry was in hog heaven. She had what she'd always wanted—not someone to do it for her, but someone to teach her how to do it herself. Of course, having Nathan Hazard for her ranch manager wasn't a perfect solution. She still had to put up with the man. But once she'd learned what she needed to know, she wouldn't let him set foot on her place again.

Harry was especially glad that she'd secured Nathan's expertise today, because now that she had the funds to pay the lease on her mountain grazing land, she had another problem that needed to be resolved. So when Nathan arrived shortly after dark, Harry greeted him at her kitchen door with a smile of genuine welcome.

“Come in,” she said, gesturing Nathan to a seat at the kitchen table. “I've got some coffee and I just baked a batch of cookies for you.”

“They smell great,” Nathan said, finding himself suddenly sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a plateful of chocolate chip cookies in front of him.

Harry fussed over him like a mother hen with one chick until he had no choice except to take
a sip of coffee. He'd just taken his first bite of cookie, and was feeling pretty good about the way this was turning out, when Harry said, “Now, to get down to business.”

With a mouthful of cookie it was difficult to protest.

“The way I see it,” Harry began, “I haven't been doing all that badly on my own. All I really need, what I expect from you, is someone I can turn to when I hit a snag.”

“Wait a minute,” Nathan said through a mouthful of cookie he was trying desperately to swallow. “I think you're underestimating what it takes to run a marginal spread like this in the black.”

“I don't think I am,” Harry countered. “I'll admit I've made some mistakes, like the one I wanted to see you about tonight.” Harry paused and caught her lower lip in her teeth. “I just never thought he'd do such a thing.”

“
Who
would do
what
thing?” Nathan demanded.

“My shepherd. I never thought he'd take his wages and go get drunk.”

“You paid your shepherd his wages? Before the summer's even begun? Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”

“He said he needed money for food and supplies,” Harry said. “How was I supposed to know—”

“Any idiot could figure out—”

“Maybe an idiot could, but I'm quite intelligent
myself. So it never occurred to me!” Harry finished.

“Aw, hell.” Nathan slumped back into the chair he hadn't been aware he'd jumped out of.

Harry remained standing across from him, not relaxing an inch.

“So what do you want me to do?” Nathan asked when he thought he could speak without shouting.

“I want you to go down to Whitey's Bar in Big Timber and get him out, then sober him up so he can go to work for me.”

“I don't think this is what John Wilkinson had in mind when he suggested I manage your ranch,” Nathan said, rubbing a hand across his forehead.

“I would have gone and done it myself if I'd known you were going to make such a big deal out of it,” Harry muttered.

Suddenly Nathan was on his feet again. “You stay out of Whitey's. That's no place for a woman.”

“I'm not just a woman. I'm a rancher. And I'll go where I have to go.”

“Not to Whitey's, you won't.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Who's going to stop me?”

“I am.”

Harry found herself in Nathan's grasp so quickly that she didn't have a chance to escape. She stared up into his blue eyes and saw he'd made up his mind she wasn't going anywhere. She hadn't
intended to force a confrontation, yet that was exactly what she'd done. She didn't want Nathan doing things
for
her; she wanted him doing things
with
her. So she made herself relax in his hold, and even put her hands on his upper arms and let them rest there.

“All right,” she said. “I won't go there alone. But I ought to be perfectly safe if I go there with you.”

“Harry-et—”

“Please, Nathan.” Nathan's hands had relaxed their hold on her shoulders, and when Harry stepped closer, they curved around her into an embrace. Her hands slid up to his shoulders and behind his neck. He seemed a little unsure of what she intended. Which was understandable, since Harry wasn't sure what she intended herself—other than persuading Nathan to make her a partner rather than a mere petitioner. “I really want to help,” she said, her big brown eyes locked on Nathan's.

“But you—”

She put her fingertips on his lips to quiet him, then rested one hand against his chest, so she could feel the heavy beat of his heart, while she let the other drift up to play with the hair at his nape. “This is important to me, Nathan. Let me help.”

Harry felt Nathan's body tense beneath her touch, and thought for sure he was going to say
no. A second later she was sure he was going to kiss her.

She was wrong on both counts.

Nathan determinedly put his hands back on her shoulders and separated them by a good foot. Then he looked her right in the eye. “Just stay behind me and let me do the talking.”

“You've got a deal. When are we going?”

A long-suffering sigh slipped through Nathan's lips. “I suppose there's no time like the present. If we can get your shepherd dried out, we can move those sheep up into the mountains over the weekend.”

Whitey's Bar in Big Timber was about what you would expect a Western bar to be: rough, tough and no holds barred. It was a relic from the past, with everything from bat-wing doors to a twenty-foot-long bar with a brass rail at the foot, sawdust on the floor and a well-used spittoon in the corner. The room was packed with people and raucous with the wail of fiddles from a country tune playing on the old jukebox in the corner.

Some serious whiskey-drinking hombres sat at the small wooden tables scattered around the room. Harry was amazed that both cowboys and sheepmen caroused in the same bar, but Nathan explained that they relished the opportunity to argue the merits of their particular calling, with the inevitable brawl allowing them all an opportunity
to vent the violence that civilization forced them to keep under control the rest of the time.

“Is there a fight every night?” Harry asked as they edged along the wall of the bar, hunting for her shepherd.

“Every night I've been here,” he answered.

Harry gave him a sideways look, wondering how often that was. But her attention was distracted by what was happening on the stairs. Two men were arguing over a woman. Nathan hadn't exactly been honest when he'd said no women ever went to Whitey's. There were women here, all right, but they were working in an age-old profession. Twice in the few minutes they'd been in the bar, Harry had seen a woman head upstairs with a man.

The argument over the female at the foot of the stairs was escalating, and Harry noticed for the first time that one man appeared to be a cowboy, the other a sheepman.