Deborah Camp (14 page)

D
rew saw Cassie sauntering toward the corral. He bent over the big gray’s newly shod hoof and ran a thumb over the shiny metal, making sure it was a secure fit.

“How does that look?” Ice asked, wiping sweat from his brow as he walked over to Drew. He’d been forging horseshoes all afternoon, and he and Drew had finally outfitted all the newcomers and given them a thorough examination. They were healthy, except that the mare had a sore on her right inside hock.

“This one’s a good fit,” Drew said, sliding the hoof off his thigh and rubbing a hand down the horse’s leg.

“What about that raw place?”

“I put some medicine on it. Looks like she got nipped by another horse or maybe by a dog or coyote.”

Ice noticed Cassie’s approach and pushed his hat back on his forehead. “We just shod the last one,” he told her.

Drew scowled at her, feeling more out of sorts with her than he knew he should. Ever since she’d asked him for that dress, he’d been agitated and wanted to bawl
her out every time she got near him. It didn’t make sense, he knew, but that didn’t stop the angry words that rose in him like bile. Even now he wanted to yell at her, to frown at her, and make her lash out at him. He guessed it had something to do with her wanting to pretty herself up for Monroe Hendrix.

What kind of game was she playing, leading Roe on like that, when she’d said she wouldn’t entertain the notion of him gaining control of this land? He figured it was a female thing, messing with a man’s hopes. Wasn’t right, he thought, watching her as she ducked through the fence rails and came closer.

Her clothes were dusty, as if she’d been rolling in the dirt, although he thought she’d been fixing the roof on the henhouse.

“The windmill’s broke,” she said, tucking her hands inside her belt and staring pointedly at Drew. He stared back at her.

“Well, I didn’t do it,” he said, when it looked like she had nothing further to say on the subject.

“I wasn’t accusing you,” she said, scraping her boots in the dirt and refusing to look him in the eyes. “But I can’t seem to fix it. I thought that you…” She glanced at him, lightning-quick.

Drew brushed his hands together to dislodge dust from them. He knew what she wanted, but she was going to have to ask him, or that windmill could stay broken.

“Well?” she asked.

“Is the well broken, too?” he asked, barely able to keep from grinning, especially when Ice let loose with a bray of laughter and slapped him on the back.

“I hope you two jackasses get stitches in your sides
from laughing.” She turned away, but Ice reached out and grabbed her by the sleeve.

“Don’t be mad,” Ice cajoled. “We mean nothing by our jests.”

“Maybe
you
don’t,” she said, giving Drew the evil eye, “but don’t speak for your partner there. I just thought I’d tell you about the windmill. Thought you’d want to know.”

“That’s not why you told me,” Drew said.

She narrowed her eyes. “What’s that mean?”

“You told me because you want me to repair it.”

Cassie looked away from him and stared off into the distance. After a few moments she kicked at a stone, sending it skipping across the corral. “What if I do?”

“Then ask me. Don’t come to me dropping hints like you’re dropping hankies and expecting me to pick them up and play your silly female games. I’m not Monroe Hendrix.”

He wished he could have taken that back when her gaze bounced up to his and she smiled like she’d drawn a winning poker hand.

“I would never mistake you for Roe,” she assured him. “And I’m not playing any game. I didn’t think I’d have to ask you to help me fix the windmill, since this place is partly yours, or so you keep telling me.”

He saw that Ice was watching this exchange with a sense of puzzlement. Hell, he couldn’t blame him, Drew thought, because he didn’t know what they were talking about either. Whipping his hat off his head, he ran a hand through his damp hair.

“I’m done here, so I can look at the windmill.” He strode toward the contraption, and she was right on his heels. When he got there, he stopped and turned toward
her. “I said I’d look at it. You don’t need to oversee me.”

“I’m going to lend you a hand, that’s all,” she rejoined, the color rising in her cheeks. “Once you get a bolt loose, I think I can take it from there.”

“I’ll fix it,” he said, then started climbing up the windmill. Halfway up he paused to look down and cursed under his breath when he saw her scrambling up behind him. The woman was getting on his bad side right quick, and she was either too stubborn or too thickheaded to know it.

When he reached the mechanisms, he saw the tools scattered around it and a few fresh droplets of blood soaking into the bleached wood. She joined him on the narrow platform, and he noticed the cut on the tender skin of her forearm.

He pulled his red handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to her. “You’re bleeding. Better wrap this around it until you can see to it proper.”

Much to his surprise, she accepted the makeshift bandage. “That bolt is too tight. I couldn’t get it to budge. That gear there has shifted and the teeth aren’t meshing anymore. Needs to be pulled back into place.”

“Yeah, the wind and rain beat at this, then the wood shrinks and swells and splits around these metal parts,” he said, taking up the wrench and fitting it around the bolt. “Before you know it, the whole contraption is out of whack.” He grunted, and the nut on the bolt creaked and then gave way.

She sighed. “I worked on that blasted bolt for nigh on an hour.”

“Must really chap your hide.”

“What?”

“Having to ask a man to do a job because you can’t do it yourself. What with you always proclaiming how you can take care of yourself and don’t need anyone around to help you.”

“I never said I didn’t need help. I just don’t need a man around to take over this ranch. I can run it, same as a man.”

“You just can’t fix the windmill.”

“That’s why I have hired hands.”

He set the wrench aside. “I’m not your hired hand and you’re not my boss lady.”

She picked up a hammer and battered it against the metal workings before he could wrench it out of her hand.

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Knocking that back into place,” she said, huffing.

“You’re going to knock it back into Texas, is what you’re going to do. This is delicate, these teeth and how they meet and all.” He bent over the contraption and tapped it several times with the hammer, made another adjustment, gave it another careful tap, and then reached for the bolt and nut. “There. That ought to work.” He glanced up and saw that he no longer had her attention.

She was staring out at the land stretching to the horizon in all directions. Drew stared at her. In profile she was even more stunning, her nose tipping up gently and her lashes curling against the robin’s-egg blue of the sky. Her hair, gathered in a long plait, moved gently with the breeze, some strands lifting away from the others and floating in the sea of wind. Sadness quivered around her, that and her shining spirit. He’d never met a woman with more mettle, he thought, recalling how she stood up to him at every turn and how she never sidestepped work,
no matter how dirty or backbreaking it might be. She was a gal with a lot to prove to herself, he figured, and wondered why. Hadn’t she done enough by coming here and marrying a stranger, then giving him a fine, strong son? Now she was fighting her dead husband’s eldest Guilt tugged at his heart.

Without pondering the outcome, he placed a hand on her shoulder and was shocked when tears built in her eyes and glistened in the sunlight.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice emerging huskier than usual, his hand slipping away from her.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Nothing. I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“This land… how pretty it is and how much it’s come to mean to me.” She turned to face him. “Excepting for Andy, it means everything to me.”

He could see the truth of that in her brown eyes. “Why? Why does it mean so much? This place is nothing but hard work and hard luck. Nobody’s going to get rich here.”

“Anybody who claims this land is already rich.” She sent her gaze far, all the way to where the sky melted into the earth. “I’ve never had anything and that’s why I came here. I wanted to belong somewhere, to call some place mine. I wanted out of towns where people live on top of each other and most of them are just passing through.”

He examined the area, the gentle slope of the land, the color of it, the smell of it. “When I was in prison, I dreamed of this place. For some reason I thought a lot about Two Forks Creek. I didn’t know the impression that place had made on me until I couldn’t see it anymore.
Then that’s all I thought about—not the house or the outbuildings, not the acres of grain and wild flowers or the fishing hole—just Two Forks Creek and how the banks are mossy and mist hangs over the water every morning like a ghost.”

She nodded and brought her knees up against her body. She looped her arms over them and rested her chin on her knees. Her smile brought dimples to her cheeks.

“When I was a boy I’d go there and hide,” he said.

“Hide from what?”

“From my pa. He’d get mad about something, and I’d head for the creek. I’d forgotten about that until I was in prison and it all came back to me. Funny what you remember when you’re alone and you’ve got too much time to think.”

“I think about my ma when I’m scared or worried. I remember her voice. It was sorta soft and high, like a flute.”

“Like yours?”

“Higher than mine. Girlish. She would sing and she sounded like an angel—not of this world. She’d rock me against her and sing gospel songs, and I’d fall to sleep feeling safe and warm. So when I’m scared, I remember that. It’s about the only thing I recall about her, other than that she cried a lot.”

“You been scared lately?”

Her face tensed slightly. “Some.”

“Scared of me?”

“Of what you might try to do,” she admitted.

His chest closed in around his heart. Did she think him a barbarian?

“Force me off this land,” she added. “I figure you could go into town and get some of the men there behind
you and throw me off this place. A woman alone has nowhere to turn. Men know that. They use that.”

He removed his hat and hung it on his bent knee. “I won’t do that.”

“You won’t?” She narrowed her eyes, scouring him with a hard glare.

“No, I won’t. But if you ever want to leave, I’ll buy you out. I’m not leaving. That’s what I want straight. I was taken from this land once, but now that I’m back, I’m back for good.”

“I know.” She gave him a tight smile. “And I hate to admit it, but I could use your help. Seems to me you know a goodly amount about cattle, and I wouldn’t mind if you’d teach me what you know.”

He’d been settled on one knee, but now he sat back on his rump. “Did I hear you right? Are you asking for my help here?”

“That’s right.” She gave an affirmative bob of her head, and sunlight made her hair glisten like pale gold. “I’m asking.”

He ran a hand over his jaw, and the stubble of his whiskers made a raspy sound against his palm. “If this isn’t a red-letter day …” He slanted her a grin. “Sure, I’ll be glad to impart what I know about cows. First, they’re dumb and second, they stink.”

She popped his shoulder with her small, harmless fist. “They don’t smell any worse than a horse—or than you do right now, for that matter.”

He widened his eyes, then buried his nose in his shirtsleeve. Sweat and dirt and smoke combined to sting his nostrils. “Damn if I don’t. Guess I need to take a dip in Two Forks Creek instead of just thinking about it.” He exchanged a smile with her, and a ribbon of happiness
wrapped around his heart. It felt good. Damn good. His work was done up here, but he was in no hurry to climb down, because he liked talking to her in private. Just the two of them up here close to heaven, where it was quiet and cool and the breeze played with her hair and made her eyes water. “You okay now?” he asked.

“Sure. It’s a female affliction,” she said, picking bits of grass off her breeches. “Life comes at you, knocks you around a little, and you’ve got to cry or go crazy. The tears don’t mean nothing. They’re just drops of frustration rolling out of me. I’m back in working order now.” She patted the platform beneath them. “Like this windmill.”

“And I didn’t even have to take a hammer to you.”

She grinned. “No, but you helped. Talking instead of yelling always helps.”

He knew that, so why did he fuss at her, shout at her every chance he got? Maybe to keep his distance from her—her and her warm, soft lips? He thought about slipping inside her and letting her envelop him in her softness, in her sweetness. He thought of her breasts and her legs and her hands upon his face and his chest. Everywhere. Was that why he picked fights with her? To keep himself away from her?

“Are you going to the barn dance?”

The barn dance
. Why did she have to remind him of that? Of her all gussied up for Roe Hendrix?

“I wouldn’t be caught dead at that dance,” he grumbled. Then suddenly he couldn’t wait to get off the windmill and back on solid ground. He should know better than to stick his head in the clouds and let his mind go fuzzy, he told himself, scrambling down, down, down until his boots hit earth again. He looked up and saw
her heart-shaped behind waggling at him, and all his blood swam to the vee of his legs. In an instant he was as hard as a pioneer winter.

“Hey, wait for me!” she called down to him.

“If you can’t keep up, that’s your problem,” he told her, striding toward the barn, his own voice ringing in his ears.

There he was, yelling at her again.

Two hours later, Cassie emerged from Two Forks Creek feeling fresh and cool. She rubbed herself dry with the toweling cloths she’d brought with her and slipped into her baggy breeches and one of A.J.’s old shirts. Sitting down on a big, flat rock, she pulled on her socks and boots, then ran her fingers through her wet hair, combing out tangles while listening to bird songs and the croak of a frog. The creek babbled to her, and she closed her eyes to listen. A jaunty whistled melody rose amid the bird calls, capturing Cassie’s attention. She sat upright, her senses sharp and quivering.