Deborah Camp (6 page)

A rifle barked and spewed a ball of fire, lighting the
darkness for a split second, long enough for Cassie to see a ragged hat fly off a balding head. The now hatless man in the corral yelped and dropped to his haunches.

“Christ! Put down yer gun! Whatcha tryin’ to do, kill me?”

“No, but the next bullet will pull you up lame.”

Cassie stared in the direction of that unruffled, deep voice. She could see nothing except the big stallion standing in the corner, quiet as a mouse.

“We was just watering our horses.”

Cassie could see the man—she thought it was the one called Reb—duckwalk backward, probably toward his buddy. She began to ease her way around the corral, intent on surprising the other varmint. By the time she spotted Dan Harper, he was astride his horse and Reb was leaping onto the back of his. The rifle flashed again from across the corral. Reb shouted and grabbed his leg, while his partner returned fire and whirled his horse around for a quick getaway.

Raising her gun, Cassie squeezed off a shot, aiming high. The bullet whizzed past Harper’s head, and he yowled in pain and clapped a hand to his ear. Cassie grinned, glad to have taken a piece off the mangy coyote.

“Good shooting.”

She nearly leapt out of her skin when the voice sounded right behind her and warm breath fanned her cheek. Blue Eyes grinned at her jumpiness, then calmly pushed aside the gun she had unintentionally pointed at him.

“Don’t go sneaking up on an armed woman unless you’re looking to get plugged,” Cassie said, angry and shaken. “I think I hit the other one.”

“Yeah, you took off some skin. I was thinking of chasing after them, but it’s not worth the trouble.”

“What’s going on out here?” T-Bone shouted, stuffing his shirt into the waistband of his pants as he jogged toward them.

“Who you shooting at?” Gabe asked, bringing up the rear, his shirttail flapping in the breeze.

“We’re shooting at thieves,” Cassie told them. “And they would have taken every horse we have while Gabe sang off-key love songs to you, T-Bone. That stallion was having a fit, but y’all couldn’t hear a dagblamed thing over Gabe’s howling.”

“Those weren’t love songs,” Gabe said. “Them are church hymns. I only know a couple of love songs and I ain’t gonna waste them on Tee.”

T-Bone grinned and shadow-punched the younger cowhand. “You try singing love songs to me and I’ll—”

“It was the same two skunks who were here earlier today,” Cassie interrupted, exasperated with them. She glanced at Drew, wondering why he was so quiet, and caught him examining a wet spot on his sleeve. “What the—Hey, you’re bleeding! Were you shot?”

“Looks like it,” he acknowledged without a hint of concern or discomfort. “I think the bullet went right through the meat. Lucky shot. He sure wasn’t aiming.”

“Let’s go inside where I can take a look at it,” Cassie said, more upset by the sight of his blood than she cared to admit. “You two keep your eyes and ears open,” she told Gabe and T-Bone. “Wouldn’t hurt if you made sure everything’s locked up tight.”

“We’ll do,” T-Bone said, already making for the barn along with Gabe.

Cassie led the way back into the house. She motioned toward a kitchen chair, silently ordering Drew into it while she took down the metal box of bandages and medicines from the kitchen cupboard. Oleta hovered on the threshold of her bedroom, holding Andy on her hip.

“Everything’s fine,” Cassie assured her. “Drew managed to get himself shot, but he’s not hurting or anything.”

“Shot?” Oleta shifted her big, round eyes toward him.

“Yeah, somehow I stepped right into the path of a bullet. It’s all my fault. But at least it doesn’t hurt—or so I’m told.”

Cassie bit her tongue as she set the metal box on the kitchen table and flipped it open. Her gaze wrestled briefly with his before she concentrated on tearing off a length of white bandage. She poured hot water from the kettle into a shallow pan and added a dipperful of cool water to bring down its temperature.

“Well, does it hurt?” she asked, eyeing his soaked shirtsleeve.

“Not much. I reckon I’ll live.”

“Roll up your sleeve and let me have a look.”

“You won’t faint?”

She arched a brow. “Andy was eight pounds and two ounces, and I pushed him out all by my lonesome. When I was done, the sheets were crimson. I didn’t faint then, so I doubt I’ll faint now.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he started rolling up his sleeve, but it was rough going, since the fabric was torn and stiff with blood. Cassie waved aside his hand, grabbed the shirt at the shoulder seam, and neatly ripped the sleeve free.

“Damn it all, woman!” he bellowed, as if it were his arm instead of his sleeve she’d torn off. “That was a new shirt!”

“It’s an old, ragged one now,” she calmly informed him. Bending closer, she squinted at the seeping wound. “You’re right. The bullet went in and out.” She angled her head to see the exit wound better. “Clean. That’s good. It’s not a free bleeder either.”

“You a doctor?”

“I’m
your
doctor for the time being,” she informed him archly. “Unless you want to dress this yourself.”

He firmed his jaw and stared straight ahead. “See to it.”

She wanted to give him a good kick in the shin but restrained herself. Instead, she cleaned the bullet hole and wrapped his upper arm in clean, white strips of cotton gauze. He was as tough as a leather whip, she concluded, scrutinizing his muscled arm. Sure didn’t look like a man who’d been corralled in a prison. He’d be right handy on the ranch, providing he wasn’t all talk and no work.

When she was done, the water in the bowl was pale pink and her patient was chalky white.

“I guess you ought to go to bed,” she advised. “You’ll be sore in the morning but on the mend.”

He nodded. “Thanks.” Then he made his way to the ladder.

She started to tell him he was headed in the wrong direction, that the bunkhouse was outside, not up in the loft, but she clamped her teeth together and held her tongue. Shouldn’t kick a man when he’s down, she counseled herself. Besides, she was grateful for his help tonight with those two mangy rascals. She watched his
slow, steady progress up the ladder and listened to his shuffling footsteps. He grunted a couple of times in pain while he undressed and let out a groan when he settled onto his bedroll. No more than a couple of minutes passed before she heard his soft snoring.

“He is sleeping in here with us?” Oleta asked.

Cassie sighed. “Tonight, yes.” She dumped the water outside and washed and dried the bowl. “I’ll worry about him and everything else tomorrow.” She held out her arms for Andy and Oleta gave him to her. Cassie carried her baby into the bedroom and shut the door.

Sitting in the rocker by the window, she let the baby nurse until he fell asleep. Then she did what she loved to do best. She just looked at him. She never grew tired of admiring her child, his round face, curly blond hair, long sandy lashes, delicate skin, and dimpled elbows and knees. She imagined what kind of man he’d be—big and strong, but a gentleman, a man of his word, and a man of faith and heart.

Not like his father.

She thought of the man up in her loft. If he was like his father, it was no wonder he’d ended up in prison. She harbored no doubt that A.J. hadn’t vouched for his son’s innocence. It would be just like A.J. to stand by passively while his only son was sent off to rot in prison, especially if he felt that Drew was a better man than him. Better at anything. The old devil wouldn’t tolerate anyone challenging his authority, sassing him, or besting him. She’d discovered that the first day she’d met A.J. and revealed that she loved to read. That night he burned her books and letters, even her Bible. She received a few pieces of mail, but she never got to read them because
A.J. collected them in town and tore them into tiny pieces right in front of her.

After he died, she’d written her two best women friends, Doris McDonald and Adele Gold, and explained why she hadn’t been writing. She’d recently received letters back from them, expressing relief and happiness for her present circumstances. Everything had seemed so rosy.

But now she had another Andrew Dalton in her life. She settled Andy in his cradle, smoothing a hand over his soft hair and trailing a fingertip along his dewy cheek. Her baby. The time she’d spent with A.J. had been worth it because she now had her son, her beautiful son. Bending down, she kissed his sweet-smelling cheek, then tiptoed to the other side of the room to undress. Glancing occasionally at the closed door as she removed her clothes, she realized she was tense.
What foolishness!
she chided herself. Blue Eyes was sound asleep. Still… maybe she should sleep with a gun under her pillow. He’d been joshing her about that, but she thought the suggestion might be wise. After all, he’d been in prison. He might awaken during the night with women on his mind.

After slipping into her cotton nightgown, she quietly left her bedroom and retrieved the handgun and tucked it under her pillow. She shoved a trunk against the closed door before getting into bed.

Even with those precautions it was hours before she drifted off to a restless sleep. When the rooster crowed shortly before first light, she was already up and dressed, anxious to face the day and the man who had come to ruin it.

Oleta was stoking the fire in the cookstove. Cassie
smelled freshly brewed coffee and spotted a mug on the table. She glanced at it, surprised to find that it had been used. Usually she was up half an hour or more before Oleta.

“Looks like I’m not the only early riser,” she said, selecting a clean mug for herself from a collection by the stove.

“I don’t know how long he’s been gone.”

A few seconds passed before Cassie gleaned meaning from Oleta’s statement. She whipped her gaze to the loft. “You mean he’s not up there asleep?”

“No. I looked. He is gone. I did not hear him even when he made coffee.”

“He brewed the coffee?” Cassie stared at the dark liquid she’d poured, then crossed the room to stare out the window. “His horse is gone,” she noted. The bunk-house windows were dark. “T-Bone and Gabe haven’t stirred yet. Wonder where Blue Eyes is off to so early? I suppose it’s too much to hope that he decided to hit the trail and leave us be.”

“This is his home.”

Cassie spun to glare at Oleta. “No more than it’s my home.” She set down the chipped mug, sloshing coffee onto the table, and went to wrench open the front door. “I’m going to milk Daisy.”

Crossing the yard and making for the barn, she examined the hoofprints leading from the corral. He had headed east, not toward Abilene or Monroe’s spread, so where the devil was he so early?

As she pulled the milking stool to beside the mooing Jersey cow, Cassie tried to put Drew Dalton out of her mind, but he kept barging in. All day long he barged in.

*      *      *

He came barreling toward the house like a rider shot from hell. Cassie lifted a hand to shade her face from the barrage of the setting sun and thought Drew Dalton looked like he rode in the center of that bright orange orb, surrounded by it, empowered by it. Shaking off the fantasy, she braced herself for another confrontation with him. He’d been gone but not forgotten throughout the day, too often the subject of her snatches of conversation with Gabe and T-Bone, both of whom were itching to know how she was going to handle this new burr under her saddle.

She would have told them if she’d known herself. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what to do with the man, what to say to him, or how to treat him. All she could tell T-Bone and Gabe was that she wasn’t budging.

Drew’s black horse gleamed with sweat, the mane streaking backward in the wind. Before the stallion could come to a complete stop, he was out of the saddle and striding toward them, his face set in angry lines beneath the brim of his midnight blue hat.

“I’ve been riding the fences,” he growled at her, barely sparing a glance for T-Bone or Gabe, who were unsaddling their horses. “And I found three places that were down. You’ve lost at least fifty head from the looks of the tracks. Is this how you run a ranch? I could hire in a twelve-year-old boy to manage it better.”

“You could do squat,” she shot back at him, “because you’re
not
the boss man around here. I am.” She jabbed a thumb between her outthrust breasts and wished she hadn’t when his gaze locked on them. “Boss woman, I mean,” she amended, again wishing she’d left well enough alone.

Some of the anger bled from his face. “Yep, you’re a bossy woman, all right, but you don’t know spit about running a ranch. I bet those cattle are mingled in with the Star H, and Roe’s men won’t weed them out unless I ride over there and say something about it.”

“Roe will bring them back here,” she informed him. “He’s done it before.” She turned away from him.

“What do you mean, he’s done it before?”

“He’s brought some strays home, that’s all.”

“Ever wonder how many he
didn’t
bring home?”

“I thought you liked Roe,” she charged.

“Liking someone doesn’t make him a saint.”

She made a sour face. “Tell T-Bone where the fence breaks are, and we’ll fix them come morning.”

“I fixed them
today
.”

She stopped and turned slowly back to him. “By yourself?”

“By myself,” he said forcefully.

“With what?”

“Wire and nails and sweat.”

And bulging muscles, she added, eyeing his physique. “Guess that gunshot wound isn’t troubling you any.”

“Not enough to keep me from work.” He led his horse to the water trough. “Me and you are going to have to get a few things square over supper tonight,” he told her. “You call yourself a cattlewoman, but you let your herd trample the fences and wander wherever they want, and you wait for other ranchers to round up your strays and bring them home to you?” He shook his head. “It’s a wonder you’ve held onto this place for as long as you have.”

She caught T-Bone’s eye. “How many fences you reckon we’ve fixed this week?”

He scratched at his short beard. “At least a dozen broke places,” he answered. “I betcha them fences wasn’t broke on our side, but on Roe’s side. He’s got himself a couple of randy young bulls with a penchant for butting fence posts. Them places you found busted up were close to the west windmill, weren’t they?”