Cowboy Seeks Bride (5 page)

He explained that the fork should rest neatly over the withers and she should always lower the right stirrup and cinch and not just give them a toss because they might slap Apache. After that he lifted up on the front part of the saddle pad to create an air space between the blanket and the withers. He talked about the cinch, the latigo, and the rigging ring next and how to be careful that the cinch wasn’t twisted. She glanced over at Dewar, who was busy performing all the same steps without even thinking about it. Would she ever remember everything and be as comfortable doing it as he was?

“I’ll help you tomorrow m-m-morning,” Buddy said.

She patted him on the shoulder. “It might take a few days for me to get the hang of it.”

“That’s okay, m-m-ma’am.” He grinned and whistled shrilly. His big buckskin horse trotted over to him and Buddy rubbed his nose.

“You’re a good boy, Major,” he crooned. “You’re going to d-d-do alright, old boy.”

Haley rubbed Apache’s nose but she couldn’t make herself talk to him. Maybe by the end of the trip she’d like the horse, but right now it was the cause of her legs aching and her tailbone feeling like it was poking through her skin. And if she said anything to him, it would probably be peppered with enough cuss words to scorch the hair out of his ears.

Dewar and the other three cowboys were already in the saddle and rounding up a herd of mixed breed of cattle with the one rangy old brown and white mottled longhorn bull. He reminded Haley of the king of the mountain game she and Michelle played with the Cajun cousins. He meandered along ahead of the rest of the herd showing the whole bunch that he was the leader and the rest of the stock had best be walking behind him at least two steps.

“Kind of like Dewar,” Haley mumbled and quickly looked around to see if anyone heard her.

She checked the ground for fresh horse manure, got a good foothold in the stirrup and a handhold on the saddle horn, and mounted up for the day. Shooting pains went from her fanny to the top of her head when she plopped down into the saddle. Her inner thighs felt like a dock hooker the morning after a ship of sailors came in from a six-month sea tour. She wrapped the reins around the saddle horn and jerked on her gloves. They weren’t made for riding but for driving and she hoped they lasted a month.

She’d put the next expensive pair on her expense account right along with the price of her fancy shoes and suit if Liz’s cleaners couldn’t get the stains and the smell of crap out of them. Oh yes, sir, her father was going to rue the day that he sent her on this trip.

If you are not the lead dog, the view never changes.

By mid-morning, Haley had decided the person who came up with that quote was the smartest person since Einstein and deserved a Pulitzer Prize for writing the single sentence. She’d seen nothing since she’d saddled up the day before but the south ends of northbound cattle, and the view was not a pretty one.

If she had a lick of sense, she would take Dewar up on his offer to use the last of his cell phone battery to call Liz to come get her. With what she already had to contribute to the reality show, she might be forgiven for not lasting until the end of the cattle run. But that would make her unworthy of the straw hat and denim jacket. Liz had entrusted her with both and they’d already become the equivalent of a queen’s crown and velvet robe. Giving them back without finishing the drive would be like giving up a Miss America title.

If only she hadn’t read that excerpt from Cheryl Brooks’s upcoming book, her thoughts might not keep going to Dewar’s sexy green eyes or the ripped abs she imagined underneath his shirt. She vowed to read nothing but sweet romances from that day forth.

She shut her eyes tightly and tried to remember the last book she’d read that had no sex. It had to have been back when she was still in grade school because in junior high she found her mother’s stash of Jude Deveraux and Bertrice Small novels and from then on she was hooked on hot, steamy romances.

A blush reddened Haley’s face when she looked up and saw Dewar riding toward her. A sudden picture of him tangled up in the gold sheets on her bed fixed itself firmly in her mind. Candlelight and the color of the sheets brought out those little gold flecks in his eyes. His dark lashes lowered as he moved toward her and then those hot, sexy lips would meet hers in a clash that would blow out every candle in the room.

She sighed. “So much for sweet romance books.”

Lord, have mercy!

She needed something to do other than sit on the back of a horse and let her imagination run wild. He herded a cow back into the herd and turned that big black stallion of his around to go back to the head of the pack without even a sideways glance her way. But just being there in close proximity had already set her mind into a tailspin.

It was all because there was nothing else to think about. She made a few mental notes along the way about the reality show, but that didn’t take up nearly enough time. So there she was, time on her hands, and Dewar looking like a cross between her two favorite television characters. What was she supposed to do? A ninety-year-old nun would have trouble keeping her thoughts pure with that man around to tempt her, and Haley McKay didn’t have a holy cell in her body.

“You talkin’ to me?” Coosie asked.

“No, I was talking to myself. It gets lonely out here, don’t it?”

He nodded.

Thank God that Coosie couldn’t see inside her mind.

“Is it just day after day of the same thing? Or is there something exciting coming up?” she asked.

“You got it, darlin’.”

“But surely something happens,” she said bleakly.

“Nope, it’s the same thing every day. Get up, eat breakfast, herd cattle until noon, and eat dinner—that’s the noon meal out here and supper is the evening meal. Then we get back on the trail, stop for supper, and go to bed. Don’t know how in the world they’re goin’ to make a
Survivor
thing on the television with this to work with,” he said.

“Oh, they’ll glamorize it all to the devil and it’ll be the next big thing. Think about that one about grappling fish. It had millions of viewers.”

Coosie’s big head barely tipped forward. “Boys have been doin’ that for years in our part of the world. Never even heard of it being called hand fishin’. Even Lucy got all involved with that crazy show.”

“Lucy? Is she your wife?”

Coosie shook his head that time. “No, ma’am.”

He didn’t appear to be much for talk.

Talk!

That was a great idea for the show. Who could tell the best story? After a hard day they all had to come up with a story to entertain everyone around the campfire. The public could call in their vote and the contestant who got the least votes would have to go home the next week. She’d already decided that there would only be three guys and three women at the end of the journey and they would bring the herd into the feedlot at Dodge City in a big season semi-finale. Then the public would vote on the best cowboy and cowgirl of the finalists, which would be announced at the finale. Those two would get the big bucks.

Haley was bored out of her wits so she pushed on, “Is Lucy your daughter?”

Coosie shook his head. “She could have been if I’d have got an early start with a family, but I didn’t. No, Lucy is just Lucy.”

“And she cooks at the ranch where y’all work.”

“She cooks at the ranch where Buddy and I work. Dewar lives on another ranch, and the other O’Donnell cousins live on still another one.”

Haley felt like she was pulling teeth. “Tell me about her.”

“Like I said, Lucy is Lucy.”

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“Ain’t got much to say.”

Haley’s curiosity was piqued. “Why don’t you want to tell me about Lucy?”

“You want to know about Lucy, you ask Lucy.”

“Then tell me about you,” she said.

“Ain’t much to tell that would interest a television person like you.”

“Come on, Coosie, I’m just asking for a story to make the time go by. Anything to beat looking at cows meandering ahead of us at a snail’s pace. I’m not taking notes and I’m not interested in writing your personal stories. I just want someone to talk to me. I’m used to dozens of people around me all day and the buzz of several conversations going all at once.”

“Get unused to it, Miz Haley. All you’re going to get is cows bawlin’ and cowboys cussin’ out here.”

“If you don’t want to talk about Lucy, then tell me about Dewar.”

“You want to know about Dewar, ask him. You want to know about Finn, ask him. You want to know about Rhett…”

She held up a hand. “I know, ask him. This morning I want to know about you. Tell me something, anything. Talk to me about the wagon or the horses or how you got roped into this job.”

“Didn’t get roped into jack shit. I volunteered for it. Me and Buddy both. We had a lot of vacation time that we ain’t never used because we get a week a year and we ain’t never took any of it, so we asked our boss, Ace, and he said that his brothers could help out on the ranch this month. So here we are. So I chose this vacation. I wasn’t roped into it, not like you were.”

“Is Ace Lucy’s daddy?”

“No, Ace is Lucy’s boss.”

Haley was thoroughly confused. If Lucy was just a working woman, then why did Coosie’s eyes go all soft whenever he talked about her?

“What do you do on the ranch?” she asked.

“Anything Ace wants me to do, now that Lucy is doing the cooking. Me and Buddy grew up on ranches so we know what needs to be done and we do it.”

“And this wagon? Is it rented or what? Can we rent it for the reality show?”

“Hell, no! It’s my wagon. I built it from the ground up. Took me two years to get it designed and built just like I wanted it, and it’s damn sure not for rent.”

“Would you show my team how to build one?”

“Be easier to buy one. Big shots like y’all should be able to find places to buy them on the computer.”

Haley sighed. So that was the problem? Coosie viewed her as a big shot, not as a bored-to-tears woman already tired of the long ride and wishing to hell she was back in Dallas.

“Then tell me what we should look for when we go shopping,” she said.

“Look for one that has a Studebaker design. Mr. Goodnight chose that design for a reason. It’s sturdy and it’ll hold up over the rough rides for many years.”

“Who is Mr. Goodnight?”

“He was the one who designed some of the first, if not the first, chuck wagons. You can’t talk to him about it though because he did all his work way back during the Civil War days.”

They rode along in silence as she made mental notes about the chuck wagon. It would play an important role in the show because it would carry the food supply and not a single contestant would stick around if they weren’t fed.

“Do they come in different sizes?” she finally asked.

Coosie nodded.

“Like small, medium, and large?”

“I have no idea. I just patterned mine after the Studebaker. It’s ten feet long by forty inches wide with the bentwood bows of a traditional covered wagon. The canvas that is tied down over the bows is waterproof because you can bet your redheaded fanny that it will rain sometime while we are gone. Like Goodnight, I added a chuck box to the rear of the wagon.”

“A chuck box?”

“Yes, it’s the thing that looks like a desk with cubbyholes to hold spices, bakin’ soda, and such to help with the cooking, and it’s got a hinged lid to serve as a worktable. And there’s a boot underneath the wagon for extra storage for my pots and pans,” he said.

“What’s inside?”

“Food, lanterns, kerosene, a spare wagon wheel, rain slickers.”

“For a whole month for all seven of us?” she asked incredulously.

“For a few days. We can buy supplies along the way and we refill our water barrel when we can if it don’t rain enough to catch water that way.”

“Oh, then, we get to shop?” She could hear the excitement in her own voice.

“I shop. You and the guys will take care of camp. You aren’t here for a good time. You are here to take notes and learn all about how to herd cows so your show won’t be a big flop.”

You
sound
like
my
dad, even if you don’t look a damn thing like him.

“What kind of food is in there?”

“That is my business. I am the cook so I decide what’s in there and when it gets used. And at night I turn the wagon’s tongue toward the North Star so the trail boss, that would be Dewar, has a compass direction in the morning.”

She giggled. “Really, now.”

“This is as authentic as we can make it, lady. You might want to remember what I’m telling you because it might come in handy. You want those city slickers to get turned around and waste a whole day going the wrong way?”

It was thirty minutes before she could think of another question, but one finally came to mind. “Is the Studebaker design the only one out there?”

Coosie shook his head.

“What else is there?” she pressed on.

“The Studebaker is my favorite, but there’s also the Springfield Wagon, Old Hickory Wagon, Moline Wagon, and the Mitchell Wagon Company.”

“This one doesn’t look a thing like the ones in the old Western movies. Which one did those folks use?” she asked.

“They used the Conestoga, but it was for the movies, not for real life cattle drives.”

“Why?”

Coosie inhaled deeply.

Haley didn’t care if she was bugging him. She needed to know for the show and she wanted to know because it beat ambling along behind cows.

“It’s too heavy and bulky. It just looked good for the movies. Kind of like your reality people. They’ll look good but they won’t be the real thing.”

The cattle stopped as if on cue and Coosie pulled up on the reins. He hopped down off the wagon and lumbered around to the end where he pulled down the lid, propped it on the single leg, and started preparing dinner. Dewar slid out of his saddle and walked to the creek where he counted the herd. The rest of the cowboys all grouped around Coosie and waited.

Haley took a few squares of her precious toilet paper and made a fast trip to a mesquite thicket. When she returned Coosie was handing out biscuits stuffed with eggs and ham. A big community bag of barbecue potato chips was opened on the table and everyone helped themselves.

Buddy pointed to the water barrel attached to the side of the wagon. “You’ll need to fill up your canteens. Coosie is going to refill when we go through Comanche. There’s a gas station there on M-m-main Street and they got a water hose.”

Haley washed her hands in the dishwater and dried them on the seat of her jeans, picked up a handful of chips, and reached for a biscuit. Dewar grabbed at the same time she did and their fingertips brushed. The sizzle startled them both and they jumped like they’d grabbed hold of a rattlesnake.

“Excuse me,” Dewar drawled.

“Quite all right,” she said.

“Coosie said you were full of questions this morning,” he said.

“I just wanted to know what kind of chuck wagon we needed to buy for the reality show,” she answered.

“You won’t ever find one as neat as his. He built it from the ground up and made adjustments until he got it just right.”

She bit into the biscuit. “That’s what I hear.”

Dewar carried his food to the other side of the table. “Coosie, did I hear you say we had enough clean water to last till Comanche?”

Coosie nodded. “Just like the plans you drew up, it’s goin’ to last until then. Miz Haley, you write in your notes that it might not last that long if the show people are going to make this trip in the summer. It all depends on how hot it is.”

“Why?” She had already fetched her notebook and paper and was writing as fast as she could remember while she ate.

“Because,” Finn answered, “if it’s hot, they drink more water. If it’s nice like it is now, they won’t need quite as much.”

“It’s goin’ to get hot. You sure you don’t want to give me that hundred dollars now and go on back to the comforts of air-conditioning and long, lazy baths and ice in your water and…” Sawyer teased.

Haley butted in before he could go any further. “I’ll take these cows in by myself if you want to go on home to your jealous girlfriend. I’ve been razed by specialists, Sawyer, and you ain’t nothin’ but an amateur.”

“Whew!” Rhett wiped his forehead. “Looks like you done met your match, Sawyer. How’d you know about his girlfriend, anyway?”

She smiled and kept writing. “Tell me those kinds other than Studebaker again.”

Coosie rattled them off so rapidly that she had to write fast.

“And you are sure you won’t rent us yours?”