Cowboy Come Home (7 page)
Authors: Janette Kenny
“Don’t expect him back until tomorrow.”
He thumbed his hat up, and it was all she could do not to gasp at the intensity in those dark eyes. Midnight eyes that managed to capture just enough lamplight to make them spark a magnetic blue.
He didn’t say anything for the longest time. “You’re pretty much on your own here, Daisy. Can you handle that?”
For the first time in ages she felt her own anger boil deep inside her. She knew what he was getting at. She was the spoiled rancher’s daughter.
Ramona had cooked her meals, cleaned her house, and helped her dress for as long as she could recall. Without the other woman, would she be able to function?
“Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be just fine.”
She stepped back to close the door but he thrust a boot forward and stopped it from shutting. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Coming inside.”
“No!”
He slapped a palm on the door and pushed it open, forcing her to stumble back inside the kitchen. “You’re not staying here alone, Daisy. No telling what Ned will get in his head to do next.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but knew it was useless. She’d made an enemy of Ned and staying in this house by herself was risky. But how much greater danger was she facing by living here with Trey?
“You can have the bedroom on the south,” she said.
That earned her a cocky grin. “Yes’m.”
Trey strode to the stairs and mounted them with that same unhurried grace she’d admired earlier. The house was small, but the rooms seemed to shrink in on her with him sharing the same space.
She’d walked through the house as soon as she got here, which hadn’t taken any time at all—it was only two rooms and a small pantry on the first level and three bedrooms upstairs reached by a steep staircase at the end of the fireplace. As Trey had warned her before they left, the house wasn’t anything to brag on.
At one time someone had put paper on the walls and hung curtains at the windows, but the paper had yellowed and peeled in places, and the flour-sack curtains at the windows were close to rags now. Daisy was sure if she had given them a smart tug they would have ripped in two.
Everything desperately needed a good cleaning, especially the windows. But it was a roof over her head, and it was her home.
She had felt a certain sense of rightness when she had carried her valise into the north bedroom. It had a good view of the ranch and had a lock on the door. Surely not a substantial one.
If Trey wanted in her room, he could bust down the door. But she knew he wouldn’t do that.
He’d let her make the first move like she’d done before. He’d let her come to him.
Hell would freeze over first.
Now, as she stood alone in the kitchen, she wasn’t nearly as sure. She dropped onto a chair and cradled her head with shaking hands. How could she possibly live here with him? How could she hate him and yet still desire him?
The answer continued to elude her. She’d been unable to shove him from her thoughts the past six months. Now those memories were as fresh as if they’d just happened.
Being his lover had been wonderful. She had thought that the next step would be marriage. She thought he was the man she’d love for the rest of her life.
Now that dream was shattered.
He worked for her now. They’d never be lovers again. She’d never allow it to happen, no matter how much her body craved his touch.
She’d not put herself through that hell again with him.
So for the next two months she’d avoid him as much as possible. Do her best not to get caught alone with him. And those times when they were alone, like now?
Daisy heard an upper door close, followed by his steady tread on the stairs. She pushed from the chair and busied herself setting out tin plates for their supper.
She was obliged to hear out his report of the day. Then she could take her leave of his company.
That couldn’t be soon enough, she thought, as he stepped into the kitchen. He’d taken off his chaps and gun belt, but he still looked big and dangerous.
“Hollis Feth left supper for us,” she said.
For her more than likely and enough to last more than a day, but she knew she’d barely be able to hold food down. She was too nervous and too tired.
Still she’d try to eat something just to keep her strength up. She’d learned the importance of that two months ago when she’d nearly wasted away from grief.
I lost our baby,
she was tempted to tell him.
she was tempted to tell him.
But he hadn’t known about the child. He hadn’t known that she’d fallen from the loft and lost her baby and a bit more of her sanity.
There was no reason to tell him. No reason to strengthen that tie that had been severed six months ago.
“Are all the stock accounted for?” she asked, as she poured him coffee from the pot Hollis had left on the cooking range.
“Didn’t lose a one.” He forked thick slabs of meat onto his plate. “Your daddy’s horses are still here. So are mine, bearing my brand.”
She heard pride ring in his voice then and smiled. “I’m glad.”
“Reckon the only reason they weren’t sold off right away was that they were Ned’s ace in the hole.”
She frowned at that and cut off a small piece of steak. “To think Daddy trusted that snake.”
Trey shrugged, but she sensed an underlying rage in him that she didn’t understand. A rage that she felt was directed toward her as much as toward her daddy’s foreman.
“Ned did what he was told,” Trey said. “I’m guessing with Barton gone, he fancied that he’d get on your good side and move right on up until he was calling all the shots. Which it appeared he’d been doing since your daddy’s passing.”
She laid down the forkful of meat she’d just cut, insides twisting from the innuendoes that were arching between them. Or maybe she was misreading him, because her emotions couldn’t be trusted around Trey.
“In my own defense,” she began, choosing her words carefully so he would not twist them back on her, “I knew absolutely nothing about the business side of ranching when daddy died. So yes, I left those decisions up to Ned.”
He bobbed his head as he ate, but he didn’t comment further. In fact he seemed content to just ignore her troubles.
She wasn’t so easily distracted. The food held little appeal to her now in the face of his disinterest.
How could she have been so totally wrong about this man? How could she have thought he cared for her?
“What? No chastisements for being a fool about the decisions I let Ned make regarding the ranch?” she asked, letting the lid fly off her smoldering anger now.
She was exhausted, but she shot to her feet and stalked to the back door, standing there and staring out over all that was hers. Wondering if she could trust anyone. Worried sick about Fernando and Ramona.
The responsibility of her daddy’s legacy teetered precariously on her shoulders. She’d made mistake after mistake. She’d trusted Trey with her heart. She’d trusted Ned to carry on in the best interests of the ranch when it was all dumped on her.
Both men put their selfish needs first.
“What’s done is done,” Trey said at last. “If you aim to hold on to the land and cattle, then you’d best learn all you can about it. That way when you hire a new foreman, you’ll know if he’s doing right by you or just feathering his own nest.”
She faced him then and knew by the sudden fire in his eyes and rigid set of his jaw that he was giving her sound advice. Didn’t matter that it seemed to rankle him to do so. She knew he was right. Knew too that this was her chance to learn from the best.
“Then teach me,” she said.
“I won’t be around long enough to do you justice.”
“Fine. Whatever you can show me will be far more than I know now.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek, and his expression looked like it’d been carved from stone. “It’d be best if you hired someone else for that job.”
“If there’d been anyone else with your qualifications, I wouldn’t have hired you.”
He gave her a halfhearted grin at that. “All right. We’ll start on the basics and work up. That’ll at least give you the ground work to understand how the cattle business is run.”
“Good. The sooner we start, the better.”
He didn’t share her enthusiasm in word or expression, but then she hadn’t expected him to. He was here under duress. Tacking on the duties of tutoring her about ranching would put more strain on their working relationship. But she wasn’t going to back down.
He pushed to his feet, his mouth no more than a grim line as he looked from the dirty plates to her. “You need help cleaning up?”
“No, I’m fine.” She didn’t have to be instructed on housework to figure out how to wash the dishes.
Still it took her far longer than it would’ve taken Ramona to do the same job, all because the older woman knew how to take care of a house in short order.
Daisy blew out the lamp and climbed the stairs in the dark, feeling like the most helpless female on earth. She paused at the top of the stairs where moonlight filtered in through a small window.
The closed door to Trey’s room was a few steps away. Was he already asleep? Did she cross his mind at all? Did any demons haunt his sleep?
She knew so little about him. Yet here she was sharing a house with him. It’d be so easy to do more. So easy.
Damning her own weakness, Daisy hurried down the narrow hall to her room and slipped inside. She closed the door soundlessly and turned the key.
She just hoped she was too tired to dream about a certain cowboy tonight.
Chapter 6
Trey hung his hat on the excuse that he had to inspect the ranch today. It was easier than voicing a truth that left him chaffing worse than a hard day’s ride in a wet saddle.
He sure wasn’t ready to sit down with Daisy and begin teaching her how to run a ranch. Hell, he wasn’t even sure where to begin with a greenhorn.
That’s just what she was, despite the fact that she’d been born and raised on a ranch. Her daddy had kept her apart from the business end of the operation.
Now, he didn’t mind sharing what he knew with anyone. But the biggest thing bothering him was the fact he’d have to be close to Daisy for the whole two months he was here because it’d likely take her that long to grasp it all.
She’d slipped past his defenses before and got him thinking he could be more than he was to her. She got him believing he could win the hand of the rancher’s daughter.
That’s why he’d been set on keeping his distance from her.
He’d expected to sleep in the foreman’s cabin and take all his meals in the mess hall. He’d see her once a day at best to keep her informed.
But they’d lost the bunkhouse to a fire that started in the blacksmith’s shack, and the men had converted the foreman’s cabin into the bunkhouse.
Since his battered body would protest grabbing forty winks on a bedroll on a cabin floor, and Daisy was all alone in the house, he decided to sleep there. Now he was wondering if he should’ve just suffered the close confines of the cabin that would house ten men.
Not only had she invaded his sleep last night with memories of how it’d been between them, but she’d hobbled him into teaching her about ranching. It was going to be a long two months.
Hollis Feth was busy pumping water into a kettle when he reached the corral. “Don’t know if you’ve ate yet, but breakfast is on in the mess hall in about five minutes.”
Trey jumped at the offer. There’d been no supplies to speak of in the kitchen, and he didn’t look forward to working without a belly full of grub and enough coffee to open his eyes this morning.
Besides this would give him a chance to talk again with the men. So why the hell did he keep thinking about the woman up at the house? Why did he give a care if she sat in the house waiting for Hollis to fetch breakfast to her?
“No supplies to speak of in the house,” Trey said as he followed Feth to the mess hall.
He hadn’t noticed it last night, but today he could see that the cook favored his left leg. Noticed too that the man packed a gun. There was an alertness about him too that hinted he was more than a cook.
The older man slid him a quizzing look. “You saying you didn’t bring supplies with you?”
Trey damned the heat burning his neck, for who the hell would move to a new place and not bring provisions? “The housekeeper would’ve seen to that and likely did, but halfway here she was obliged to take her husband on in to San Angelo to a doctor.”
Whatever was in Ramona’s wagon had stayed with her.
“Reckon I’d best tote breakfast up to Miss Barton,” Feth said.
Trey gave a nod and hunkered down at the table, putting Daisy and her needs from his mind for the moment. They’d gone with short rations yesterday on the trail, and his gut had protested mightily.
But then he’d just gotten back on his feet before trailing to the JDB for his money. So much for thinking he’d be on his way to Wyoming with a string of horses for a long overdue showdown with his foster brother Reid.
He just hoped to hell that Dade had returned to claim his shares. Hoped that one of them turned out to be half the man old Kirby Morris had been.
Water under the bridge.
He had cattle and horses and no land. No place that was his. Nobody who gave a shit whether he lived or died.
“Sounds like things have been going downhill on the JDB since Barton’s death,” Feth said.
Trey looked up from his plate and noted with surprise that the men had filed out of the mess hall. He hadn’t expected Feth to take Daisy her breakfast that quickly. But he had. Now nobody was here but him and Feth and a river of old animosity that he instinctively dammed so nobody would get close again.
“Ned did what he wanted,” Trey allowed.
The old man scowled and scraped out a pan that was as black as Ned’s soul. “Why’d you let it go that far before you stepped in?”
So Feth wasn’t aware of what had happened to him on the JDB? He wasn’t surprised, but he wasn’t inclined to spill his guts either.
He pushed his empty plate aside and leaned forward, cradling his tin cup between his hands. “Didn’t know nothing about how things were being run until I returned to the ranch two days ago. Was a surprise to learn Barton was dead.”
“A stroke took him,” Feth said, going about his work and not sparing Trey a glance.
“That’s what Daisy told me,” he said. “Hard to believe a big hale man like Barton is dead.”
“Yep, surprised the hell out of us too.” Feth ambled back to the table with the coffee pot, and Trey welcomed the refill. “The day Barton keeled over, Galen took a fine mare down to the JDB for him. She was a birthday present for his daughter.”
Trey nodded, relieved that so far Feth’s story was following what Fernando had told him.
“Terrible that Daisy lost her pa on her birthday,” Feth said. “Heard that she took it mighty hard.”
“Barton and Daisy were close,” Trey said, and Feth nodded.
Now Trey understood why she had insisted that her mare be tied to her buggy on the journey up here instead of being driven with the remuda. She wasn’t just being a spoilt princess.
She prized the horse that her pa had likely picked out for her and who Galen Patrick had trained because that mare was the last gift from her pa.
“Damned fine horse,” he said in honest appreciation. “Had Barton been ailing?”
“Don’t know about that,” Feth said. “Galen told us that the boss got into a helluva argument with Ned right before Barton gave Daisy her mare.”
His gaze locked on the old man’s. “Any idea why?”
“Nope,” Feth said, breaking eye contact. Trey knew he was lying but didn’t call him on it. He wanted to talk to Galen first. “One of the hands rode up the next morning to tell us Barton was dead.”
Trey scrubbed his knuckles along his jaw, thinking. All the time he’d worked at the JDB, he’d never heard Barton and Ned exchange a cross word. To think that they’d had a fight shortly before Barton’s stroke raked spurs over his curiosity.
Had the boss gotten so angry with his foreman that he’d brought on his own death? And what the hell had they fought about? The way Ned was managing the ranch? The disappearance of a couple of hundred beeves?
Whatever it was, it’d worked Barton into an apoplectic fit.
Wasn’t that just in Ned’s favor that Daisy was ailing at the same time. The foreman couldn’t have planned it better.
Or had he?
What else had Ned done on his own?
Memories of being waylaid thundered back into Trey’s mind. Of the rope biting into his flesh before he’d seen Ned’s horse take off at a gallop, kicking up dust and rocks that dug into him. Of the pain being so intense that he’d finally fallen into the black hole that promised reprieve. Of waking up deep into the night out on the mesa, bleeding and broken and hurting so bad he wanted to die.
Before he’d lost consciousness, Ned had told him straight up he was meting out the boss’s punishment for trifling with Daisy. God knew Barton was a protective sonofabitch where his daughter was concerned. But did he order Trey nearly dragged to death?
Trey was second-guessing that now. If Barton had wanted him gone for good, then why keep that tally in the ledger of how much Barton owed Trey? Why not mark that page paid in full or just rip it out as he had other debts? Why hold it open as if he expected Trey to return for his due?
Several of the hands had been surprised he’d shown up again after hightailing it. Daisy believed he’d just up and left the outfit. Could Barton have been unaware of the near deadly beating Ned had given him?
Trey bracketed his hands on his hips and welcomed the anger rolling through him. He’d believed what Ned had told him. Believed Barton wanted him dead.
But it was just as likely that Ned had found out he’d been romancing Daisy and took it upon himself to get rid of Trey. It was mighty clear everything had changed drastically on the JDB in the six months he had been gone.
When Barton died, Ned had just slipped in and taken over without anyone making a fuss. He sold off cattle, and Daisy let him do what he wanted.
Trey had been so sure she’d be married to Kurt Leonard now. Then he’d have stepped in to take over when Barton died.
But that hadn’t happened.
He could guess why she hadn’t married, but that’s all it’d be. A guess.
There was just too much unknown to speculate on with any certainty. One thing was clear. Daisy was in way over her head, and it was up to him now to keep the ranch and her from going under.
He huffed out a resigned sigh as his agreement with her settled over him. Yep, he had his work cut out for him just teaching her the ropes of ranching.
And he wasn’t convinced Ned was history.
Trey had best watch his back. The next time Ned might get lucky and kill him.
By mid morning Trey had taken stock of the remaining animals and the availability of supplies on the Circle 46. He credited Hollis with seeing that the storehouse remained stocked and Galen Patrick for keeping a vigilante eye on the horses.
The sixteen horses that Trey had herded up here from San Angelo last year were in their prime now. Reid would be pea-green with envy over these steeds, and that’d been on his mind when he’d won the four blooded horses.
Barton had a good eye for quality horseflesh too, and the thoroughbreds he’d bought at auction were coming into their own now.
The mare Barton had given Daisy for her birthday wasn’t a fluke in the herd. If they continued with the breeding program Galen had lined out, Barton’s dream here would sustain Daisy for years to come, as well as elevate the Barton name among Texas horse breeders. But it’d take longer than Trey had to teach her the ins and outs of raising thoroughbreds.
“We’ve had interest in the horses already,” Galen said, as they stood at the pasture that confined the blooded stock.
Trey could well imagine. “Wonder why Ned didn’t sell?”
Galen fell silent, but the sudden tension tightening his shoulders alerted Trey that he’d hit a nerve. “Wasn’t his decision to make.”
“That didn’t stop Ned from cutting down the cattle herd on the JDB.” Trey studied one of the stallions who stood out from the others, a big chestnut with impressive lines and alertness that he could appreciate. “I can’t see him turning a blind eye on these horses, especially if he’d had offers.”
Galen was clearly as nervous as a deer who’d just caught scent of a cougar. “Did Miss Barton give you the power to buy and sell without her consent?”
“Nope,” he said, and it didn’t bother him to be little more than a figurehead. “We worked a mutual agreement to see us both over a hump, nothing more.”
The wrangler kicked at a clod of dirt, then gave a reluctant nod. “Ned never saw these horses.”
Trey dipped his chin and let that news sink in. It was good to hear he wasn’t the only one leery of Ned.
“How’d you manage that?” he asked, curious how straight the wrangler would be with him.
“That day I delivered that mare to Barton at the JDB, he took me aside and gave me orders I was to follow no matter what,” Galen said. “When I got back here, I fired the three cowboys who were buddies of Ned’s on the excuse that the herd was being sold off and they wouldn’t be needed.”
“But that wasn’t the case at all,” Trey said.
Galen shook his head. “Barton wanted Ned to believe he’d grown tired of raising thoroughbreds and was just going to keep a few mustangs here.”
Trey’s nerves twanged at that news. So Barton hadn’t trusted Ned.
“Why the hell didn’t Barton just up and fire him?” he asked, not expecting an answer.
“Don’t know, but I had the feeling that Ned was holding something over the boss,” Galen said.
Blackmail? What the hell had Barton done that he was desperate to keep secret?
“About these buyers,” Trey began. “Was Barton aiming to deal with any of them?”
“Nope. Told me at the JDB that he’d said all he had to say to the gentleman from Kentucky when he’d outbid him in San Angelo.”
Trey hadn’t been aware of that. But then he’d been busy claiming his own horses.
“You remember the man’s name?”
“Charlton. Owns land and thoroughbreds in Kentucky and Wyoming. Wanted to add these to his stock.”
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