Dancing With Danger: Book 8: Dancing Moon Ranch Series (24 page)

Still, it was a bull to take note. He was young and had some way to go, but he was definitely a bull on the rise. Following the dismount, Josh took over from there, jumping and waving his arms to get the bull's attention long enough for Jeremy to make a beeline for the fence. After that, Josh played around with the bull some to practice his bullfighting maneuvers then sent the bull heading for the exit chute. Jeremy rode a couple more bulls, neither of which were much of a challenge, but they gave him a chance to work on his
timing, technique, and mental calm.

When the buckout was over and the riders were heading for their rigs, Josh walked up to Jeremy, who was waiting just outside the arena, and said, "That Mexican bull's a pretty rank bull. And speaking of rank bulls, which is the one you rode at the Crane Butte Rodeo?"

Jeremy looked toward the bull pen, and spotting Wild Card standing a little distance from the others, he said, "He's the dark red with the crooked horns."

Josh looked to where Jeremy was pointing, and after staring at the bull for an inordinate amount of time, he said, "That bull's a dead ringer for Little Yellow Jacket. Look at the way one horn points upward and the other downward, like Little Yellow Jacket's did, and he's the same dark red. He's also a Brahman Angus cross. If the old bull was still alive, I'd swear this was him. That bull's got to be a close cousin, if not a son. You might start your brand search with that in mind. This could be a stolen bull operation where straws of semen are sold through the black market to breeders who turn up with outstanding bucking bulls. It's a multi-million dollar industry that's not immune from corruption."

"I can't imagine Billy Fitzsimmons and the old man being involved in something like that," Jeremy said, "but I'll know as soon as I get the report on the brand."

"In the meantime, you might want to stay clear of the woman," Josh said. "I've seen the way you look at her, and if you get involved in a personal way you could find yourself drawn into something you might not be able to get out of."

Jeremy knew Josh meant well, but he could make his own decisions about Billy Bree Fitzsimmons and how involved he wanted to be with her, but to get Josh off his back, he said, "Don't sweat it. All I intend to do is fix her chutes, nothing more." The problem was, he might find it hard to ignore the
nothing more
part of his plan. The woman had definitely caught his notice. More than that. She had him doing exactly what Josh accused him of doing, being her unpaid ranch hand.

After Josh left, Jeremy walked over to where Billy was putting grain buckets out for the young bulls, and said, "Your Mexican bull's a good bucker. Where did you get him?" He thought the question was innocuous enough not to raise suspicions, but the bull was definitely another potential winner, and from the looks of the place there wasn't enough money on hand to buy top bucking stock, much less the expensive fodder and grain needed to maintain bucking stock.

"I bought him from a livestock dealer," Billy replied. "Vortex was in with a load of feeder cattle from Mexico. His horns were lopsided so he couldn't be used for fighting since horns have to be symmetrical for a bull to face a matador."

Jeremy was tempted to ask a half dozen questions about her other bull with lopsided horns, like where she'd gotten him and who was his sire, but decided not to start probing into Wild Card's extraction. He'd learn what he needed to know when checking the brand. "I'll be over to fix the chutes this weekend if that works for you," he said.

Billy's gaze shifted to the old man, who was standing on the porch, watching them. "I'll let my man know," she replied. "He worries about strangers coming around since the place is so isolated."

Her comment struck Jeremy as odd. The ranch wasn't exactly in the middle of a ghetto. "Not many people would challenge the Rottweiler," he said, "and crime is almost non-existent in Harney County, but I'll show your wrangler my IDs when I come to fix the chutes. What's his name?"

Billy batted her eyes a few times, like she was caught off guard, before replying, "Bill."

"So you're both Bills," Jeremy mused, wondering at the coincidence.

"It's a common name," Billy pointed out. "We laugh about it some."

"So then, what's your real name?" Jeremy asked.

Billy looked at him with a start. "What do you mean?"

Jeremy shrugged. "The name Billy. It's not a girl's name."

Billy exhaled slowly, like she'd been holding her breath, and replied, "My father wanted a boy and he got me, so he named me Billy. That's also my given name, not Bill or William."

Jeremy eyed the man on the porch, then looked at Billy, and said, "Then your father was Bill or William?"

"No, I'm a junior. His name was Billy. Billy Bree… umm… Fitzsimmons."

Jeremy caught the pause and said nothing, but the questions were quickly mounting. How did a woman and an old wrangler come to have pro quality bulls? Why were they living on a ramshackle ranch in the far corner of Harney County? Why would the brand on a pro-quality bull be altered? Where were the ownership papers? Who, exactly, was Billy Bree Fitzsimmons?

Billy eyed her father, who was standing outside the gate looking off, like he was in deep thought. She was beginning to get used to his beard and mustache and long untidy hair, but she'd never get used to the restless look in his eyes. He'd been uprooted from everything he loved and had spent years working towards and had been forced to block it from his memory, and now he was a broken man. His melancholy was the result.

She scanned her surroundings. The arid, wide open country wasn't so different from what they'd left behind, with juniper scrubland, and sage-covered hills separated by wide canyons, like it had been in Nevada. In fact, she was gradually getting used to the place, though the ranch needed so much work she didn't know where to start. She hadn't counted on that when Mario Moretti squared away the deal. At least it accommodated her animals, but she also needed help with them, and all the cowboys of high school age had been shipped off to a public boarding school seventy-five miles north.

"Dad?" she called out to get her father's attention. "You ready with the gate?"

Her father's eyes sharpened, and he said, "I'll be ready when you are."

Billy cut a two-year-old brindle bull named Dust Devil from the rest, and drove him into the chute. After mounting an electronic, remote-controlled bucking dummy on his back, cinching its girth and tightening the flank strap, she said to her father, "Okay, open the gate."

From her stance, Billy watched the young bull buck out of the chute while kicking and spinning to eject the dummy rider from his back, and after an especially high kick, she hit the remote, releasing the dummy and flank strap, and Dust Devil settled into a trot and headed for the exit chute. Jumping down from her perch, Billy jogged over and opened the gate, and Dust Devil dashed into the pen with the other young bulls. She snatched up the flank strap from the dirt, then hefted the 24-pound dummy over her shoulder, but as she was returning to the chute to buck another young bull, she saw Jeremy Hansen's truck pulling up to the stock barn.

"Why is that man coming here on Saturday?" her father asked. "County workers don't work weekends."

"He's here to repair the chutes in exchange for riding bulls," Billy explained. She had avoided telling her father about Jeremy until now because he'd start worrying, and she didn't want to add more stress.

"How much do you know about him?" Bill asked.

"Not much about his family or personal life," Billy replied, "but he's pretty well known in rodeo circles, and I can use his help fixing the chutes."

"Just don't get too friendly with the man," her father warned.

"Don't worry, Dad. He's the last man I'd want to be involved with," Billy assured her father, even though she was uncertain about her own words. But to make sure she didn't act on her uncertainty, she fastened the top snap on her shirt and slipped her bandana out of her back pocket and tied it around her neck. If that didn't send a clear message to Jeremy Hansen that she was off limits for anything except business, she'd set him straight verbally the next time he eyed her the way he did the buckle bunnies he was used to having hanging all over him.

"I'll head for the house," her father asked. "I don't want him looking from you to me and noticing we have the same color eyes."

"Good idea." Propping the electronic dummy over the chute rail, Billy left the arena and strode over to where Jeremy was climbing out of his truck. Instead of a western shirt, he wore a navy blue T-shirt that stretched tight across his broad shoulders, and when he turned to face her, the way his hip-hugging Wranglers clung to him reminded her that he was as male as her bulls. She looked up to find the hint of a smile on his lips and realized she'd inadvertently scanned the length of him. Then his eyes settled on her bandana, and he said, "Okay, I get the message."

While she was mulling over his straight forward comment, Jeremy reached into the bed of his truck and grabbed a leather carpenter's belt with an array of tools hanging from it and fastened it around his hips, while saying, "Show me where the power is and I'll get started."

Billy scanned his muscular torso defined by the T-shirt, and eyed the tool belt around his hips, while thinking he looked pretty good as a carpenter. He still had the rugged cowboy look, but the tool belt reminded her that he had other skills she could use. "The nearest outlet's in the stock barn," she said, while wondering if he was a man who could ever settle for one woman.

"My saw draws a lot of power so I hope it doesn't overload the circuit," Jeremy said. From the bed of this truck he snatched up a coiled electrical cord and looped it around his shoulder, lifted out a toolbox, grabbed a power saw, and headed for the chutes in the arena.

Trailing alongside him, Billy said, "The wiring's old, but I've had a lot of things plugged into the strip outlet at the same time, and the power still stays on."

Jeremy looked askance at her. "Then there's a circuit box in there?"

"No, it's a fuse box, but we have extra fuses."

"Oh great. Fuses," Jeremy said, with irony. "Then you'd better unplug everything in there while I set up at the chutes and string the electrical cord."

In the stock barn, Billy studied the network of cords plugged into a 6-outlet strip, while trying to decide which to unplug. She couldn't unplug the electric fence charger or the refrigerator with the medications and supplements for the stock, and the pump that went to the old hand-dug well fed the water troughs, so that had to stay.

While she was deliberating, Jeremy came in and walked over to where she stood, and staring at the mess of wires, let out a whistle between his teeth, and said, "It's a wonder this place hasn't gone up in smoke. I'd issue another animal facility citation but since you don't have money to fix the chutes you probably don't have money to put in a new circuit box either, so I'll pick one up at the hardware store in town and put it in myself, unless you want to hire an electrician, which would mean paying travel time from Burns as well as for installing the box. And all of that old wiring needs to be replaced too."

Billy also stared at the wires. Not only were they covered with dust and cobwebs, but the insulation was so old it was crumbling in places. "I suppose I have no choice but to let you do it," she said, "but I'll figure out a way to pay you for it."

"I can think of one way right off the bat," Jeremy said.

Billy looked askance at him, her first thought being that he'd just made an outright proposition, buckle bunny style. Then she realized it was the other proposition. "I told you before I don't want anyone riding Wild Card outside of rodeos. I want him to live up to his name and stay a wild card. That
was
what you were implying, wasn't it?"

Jeremy gave her a wry grin. "Would I have had any other options?"

"No," Billy said, "which still leaves the matter of paying you for the circuit box and wire. I'll have a little money after the first of the month. I'll pay for everything then."

"How about you let me work with your other bulls in exchange? Your remote dummy is okay to a point for the older bulls, but they need live riders too. I can work them and dismount when they perform well so they'll learn what they need to do to unseat a rider."

Billy was concerned about Jeremy Hansen hanging around asking questions and maybe starting to see a resemblance between her and her father, but what he was proposing was exactly what she needed for her bulls. She had barely gotten started in the business when Mario Moretti appeared unexpectedly in her life to turn it upside down, and now she was starting over. But having a bull rider with Jeremy's expertise to work with the bulls would give her a fighting chance to compete against the big time rodeo stock contractors out there. "What about Wild Card?" she asked. "Would you expect to ride him too?"

"Not as part of the deal," Jeremy said, "but the offer's wide open. You want him to make it to the National Finals, and I want to ride him, and he'd get there faster with me on his back than a dummy because he'd also learn to feel the weight and movement of a rider gripping with spurs."

"Except that if you draw him in one of the upcoming rodeos where he's scheduled to buck, you'd have a good chance of breaking his 100% buckoff record."

"Okay, no Wild Card," Jeremy said. "Meanwhile we need to unplug all those cords or my saw with blow a fuse. In fact, I'm willing to bet the fuses in the box are rated too high for the circuit and that's why they haven't blown yet, which is like having a time bomb in an old barn like this. It could go up in smoke any time." He opened the door to the old rusted gray fuse box and let out another whistle. "Just as I thought. You say you have extra fuses?"

"Right up there on that cross beam," Billy said, pointing above.

Moving behind her, Jeremy placed his hand on her shoulder, sending her heart fluttering like it had a tendency to do when he came too close, then reached up and lifted from the beam a small box that was faded with time. After blowing off the dust, he looked at the writing on the box and said, "If the circuit blows, I suppose these will keep the place going until I can pick up the circuit box on Monday. I'll get a roll of 120 outdoor wire too, and some electrical tape and wire nuts."

"Are you sure you know how to do this?" Billy asked, while staring at the outlet strip with the line-up of plugs in front of her, yet vividly aware of Jeremy standing behind her as he studied the wires. At least she thought that's what he was doing, even though he was so close she could feel his breath on the top of her head, and his hand holding the box of fuses was in an arc around her, almost closing her in, and his other hand was still on her shoulder, and neither of them were moving, and she wasn't sure why...

"I've done a lot of wiring," Jeremy replied. He set the box back on the cross beam, gave her shoulder a little squeeze, and said, "Don't worry. I've never short-circuited a job yet. For now, unplug that strip and plug me in and I'll go get started on the chutes. My brother, Josh, is coming to help, but in the meantime you could hand me the boards. It would make the job go faster."

"I'll help in a few minutes," Billy said, while trying to regulate her breathing, which seemed to be a little dysfunctional at the moment. "I need to let Diesel out so he can bring the cows in."

Jeremy eyed her with curiosity. "He's a cattle dog?"

"He thinks he is," Billy said. "It's different the way he does it though, but he gets the job done." For some reason she found herself holding Jeremy's gaze, and he was looking at her like he had something to say. She wondered if he was thinking about riding Wild Card, but the look on his face was more inward, like it had nothing to do with bull riding. Then, saying nothing, he turned and headed toward the chutes.

For a moment she watched him walking away. It was different seeing him in a T-shirt and jeans and with a big leather belt with tools hanging from it. In an odd way, he reminded her of Wild Card—powerful shoulders, a lean hard torso, a butt with just a little bit of a swagger, and a lot of stuff hanging from leather around his middle, bouncing and swaying, like a cowboy in chaps, an overall image that made her smile.

On returning to the house to get Diesel, she found her father asleep in the recliner. The first time she found him like that in the middle of the afternoon, she'd thought it was from stress and exhaustion over the hastiness and abruptness of the unplanned move, but now she suspected he was depressed and just didn't care to stay awake much.

Eyeing the big black Rottweiler, who was crouched on his belly with his head lopped over his front paws, she said, "Diesel, come. Time to roundup stock." Diesel was up immediately and heading for the door, spinning around in excitement when he got there, and when she opened it, he loped on ahead. He knew the routine well.

Three times a day she turned the cattle into a ten-acre fenced pasture that butted up to the arena, where they could run free and get some grass and exercise, but Diesel got them exercising even more, which was important for keeping all of them in condition for breeding and the cows for calving. It also got them bucking some, even the cows, when they saw Diesel coming, like they enjoyed the game of
chase the dog to the cow pen
. She let the cows out in the morning, young bulls around midday, and the older bulls for a longer stretch in the afternoon.

After crossing the cow pen to a wide stock gate that opened into the pasture, she glanced over and saw Jeremy watching her, which sent a little rush of adrenaline through her. Turning back to the gate, she opened it wide and said to Diesel, "Okay boy. Bring them in."

Diesel immediately took off, but instead of chasing the cows, the cows grouped together in a herd, and when Dolly, the lead cow, took off after Diesel, the rest of the cows loped along behind like a swarm of bees following a queen. For a while Diesel led them on a merry chase, running first in one direction, then looping around and leading them in the opposite direction before running in a wide circle around the perimeter of the pasture and back to make a figure eight before heading straight through the open gate. Once the cows were in the pen, Billy closed the stock gate, and said to Diesel, "Good boy," and gave him a dried pig's ear.

After graining the cows, she joined Jeremy at the chutes. He'd already cut up a stack of boards that appeared to match the length of the boards he'd removed from the first chute, and he was in the process of nailing on the new boards. Stopping what he was doing as she approached, he stood, dropped his hammer into a leather loop on his tool belt, and draping his hands on his hips, said to her, "The dog is an interesting herder. Did you train him to lead the cows in?"