How to Lasso a Cowboy (39 page)

“He always wants a lot of money,” Tess said, tucking into her plate of stew.

“Worth it,” Miguel replied.

“Maybe. We can think about it when he shows up.” Normally, Tess loved an evening of talk about horseflesh, cattle, and plans for the future of the Diamond T, but lately she couldn't maintain much interest. She still loved the land, loved the ranch, but her former single-minded concentration had disappeared. Her mood had been gloomy as the gray spring skies.

A week later, the sun shone brightly from a clear blue sky and wildflowers perfumed the warm spring air, but Tess's mood hadn't improved. It dropped yet another notch as the familiar figure of her brother, Sean, rode down the road toward the house.

“Just what I need,” she muttered to Rosie. They were busy hanging wash on a line strung between the main house and the little house on the other side of the courtyard.

“Have patience, Tessie girl. He is family.”

“Which means we're stuck with him for life,” Tess grumbled. “Joy.”

Sean rode up to the courtyard wall and grinned at Tess. “Howdy, Sis. How's life treating you?”

“Thought you'd be headed back to California by now,” Tess grumbled. “Heard that old Maisie at the hotel threatened to take a broom to you unless you paid your bill.”

“A minor misunderstanding,” Sean said. “We worked it out.”

Tess knew that Sean had been hanging around town talking to lawyer Bartlett. She'd had reports from the men that her brother spied on the ranch as well, probably trying to see if her so-called husband was still here. Tess had grown so weary of this deception she could spit, preferably hitting both Sean and lawyer Bartlett with the same effort.

“You're looking good, Tess. Marriage must agree with you.”

“Right,” Tess snapped. “I'm sure you mean that.”

“Mind if I stay and chat awhile?”

“I could stop you?”

He just smiled.

While Sean put his horse in the barn, Tess thought furiously about what she would do. If he had been slinking around as the men said, he probably knew that Josh was gone.

With more violence than necessary, she snapped a wet shirt into the breeze with a sharp cracking sound. Had it connected with someone's backside, the wet material would have delivered an attention-getting sting. She could think of several backsides that would be good targets.

“Miguel is waving from the casita,” Rosie told her. “He wants you to come.”

“Later,” Tess groused. “First I have to send Sean packing. Somehow.”

Sean ambled through the courtyard gate, picked up a bedsheet, and helped Tess pin it on the clothesline. “I don't see your husband about. What's his name?”

“Joshua.” Joshua Ransom. She wouldn't forget the name again. Not ever, as much as she might try.

“Haven't seen him in town, either.”

Tess kept her mouth shut. Lying made a person tired, and she didn't have the energy for it.

“I found out a thing or two about your husband. Want to hear?”

“I doubt you know anything I don't,” Tess said through clenched teeth. “After all, we
are
married.”

They picked up another wet sheet. “Did you know he has a big spread over by Arrivaca?”

“So?”

“And his brother, the fool, gambled away their entire herd of beeves? Ransom came to town because he had a friend at the bank. Tried to hit him up for a loan to get his cattle back.”

So that was why he had wanted her three hundred dollars. That was why he had been desperate enough to marry her. Tess could understand a man—or a woman—going to any lengths to save a ranch. Look at what she had done. Too bad her scheme seemed doomed to fail, thanks to Sean and that lizard Bartlett.

She hoped Josh Ransom had gotten his beeves back.

“Tess!” This from Miguel, impatiently beckoning from the doorway of the little house. Tess ignored him. Whatever it was, she could take care of it later.

“Are you two gonna pin up that sheet or stand there staring at each other like two bad-ass dogs?” Rosie complained.

Stiff-jawed, Tess draped the sheet over the line. Sean sighed unhappily. “Tess, listen, will you?”

“I got ears.”

“This isn't anywhere near a real marriage you got with this Ransom fellow. You know it. I know it. And it won't be hard to prove to Bartlett, who's got the judge wrapped around his finger, anyway, if it comes to that. But hell, I don't want this ranch. To me it's just a hunk of dirt and sand that's full of bad memories.”

She gave up any pretense of hanging the wash and focused a level green stare on her brother. “Sean, if you don't want the Diamond T, then go away. Just go away.”

“No. I won't. Because it's not fair that our rat of a father didn't leave me anything. Not a blessed thing. Do you think that's fair?”

“You left.”

“I lived here fifteen stinking years.” He kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “The only fair thing is to sell the place and divide the money. We should get enough so that I could go back east and go to college. That's what I've always wanted to do. And you wouldn't have to work yourself to death on this stinking ranch. You could get married for real, maybe. Hell, Tessie, when you're not covered in dust and cow muck, you're not half bad to look at. I'll bet you could find someone to settle down with you.”

Tess wondered if strangling him would be worth getting strung up.

“Tess, you're just as stubborn as the old man was. I put up with just as much as you did.”

Not nearly as much. Still, if she were to be entirely fair about it . . .

But Sean continued and took all inclination to charity right out of her mind. “I just wasn't good enough to shine beside the princess of cow pies,” he said bitterly, “the queen of dust and dirt and horse sweat.”

“You piece of—!”

An unexpected voice interrupted. “That's my wife you're talking about, you horse's ass. I suggest you apologize to the lady.”

Both Tess and Sean gaped at Josh Ransom, while Rosie folded her arms and looked on with a satisfied smile. “Where did you come from?” Tess demanded.

He strolled over, casual as you please, and laid an arm across her shoulders. “Sweetheart, I told you I'd be back sooner than an eye can blink. Didn't I?”

Too astounded to answer, Tess just stared.

Leaning on the door frame of the little house, Miguel said, “I tried to tell you.” He shook his head and muttered something that sounded like
Idiota,
but Tess couldn't be sure.

Sean looked skeptical. “Give it up, you two. Everyone knows you're faking it.”

“Really?” Josh sounded as if he were enjoying himself. “Is this faking it?”

Before Tess could pull away, Josh's mouth came down upon hers. Then she decided that she didn't want to pull away. She should have been embarrassed with such an audience looking on, but embarrassment didn't even occur to her. This kiss felt too right, too much like fate, and just too dadgummed good. Her arms wound around him, pulling him closer—that wonderfully wide, wonderfully hard chest. The broad, sturdy shoulders. The narrow hips that pressed so close to hers. Oh my! She had missed him!

Finally, he pulled back just a bit, and softly against her mouth posed a question only he and she could hear. “Marry me for real, you incredible woman? I don't want the Diamond T. I just want you.”

Then while Tess tried to keep her knees from buckling, he grinned at Sean. “Did that look fake to you, college boy?”

ROSIE
wept against Tess's shoulder, turning her shirt into a soggy mess. Smiling, Tess patted the older woman's back. She had smiled a lot these past two days, more than she had smiled in her entire life, it seemed.

“I'll miss you so much,” Rosie sobbed, pulling back a bit.

“What could I do?” Tess spread her hands helplessly. “He needs me, poor man.”

“Ha. You don't fool me for a minute, my girl. You love the man, and he loves you.” Then she broke down in tears from the sheer sentiment of it all, collapsing once again on Tess's shoulder.

Tess gave her a solid hug. “Rosie, Rosie. I'll be a day's ride away. That isn't so much. Besides, you'll be too busy to do much missing. This place doesn't run itself, you know.”

Rosie swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “It's true. Oh, look what I did to your shirt.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Now that you're a married woman for real, you should be wearing a dress.”

There Tess went smiling again, even when she should be taking Rosie down a peg. “I have a full day in the saddle ahead of me, and Josh would think I'd gone loco if I put on something as silly as a dress.”

Who knew a man could be so sensible? Who knew a man, a terrific, good-looking, strong, competent fellow like Josh Ransom, would want Tess McCabe—no, Tess Ransom—just as she was? Miracles never ceased.

“And now that you're a married woman for real, Mrs. Miguel Cabo, you should be paying attention to your new husband instead of bothering me while I'm trying to pack.”

Packing consisted only of stuffing a carpetbag with two pair of jeans, three shirts, a hairbrush, and the hand mirror that used to belong to her mother. There was nothing else in the house Tess wanted to take with her. Her future promised to be far different than her past, and while that frightened her a bit (not that she would ever admit to being frightened), the prospect excited her as well. Josh would be there, and Josh loved her. After the night before, she knew that for a fact. No man could be so sweet, so gentle, and so dadgummed, downright wonderful to a woman without loving the hell out of her. And nothing less than real, no-doubt-about-it love could have convinced her to pull up stakes at the Diamond T and move herself to Josh's place over the mountain.

She wadded up the last shirt and stuffed it in her bag. Rosie still looked at her as if she might disappear forever any minute.

“We up and lassoed me a good one, Rosie. I'm going to be happy as a hen in a barrel of chicken feed.”

Rosie nodded, smiling through tears.

“And we caught you a good one too. And don't you go feeling guilty about hitching yourself to Miguel when that jackass you married all those years ago might still be above ground. He's no husband to you, and God knows that. Miguel's your real husband. He's the one who counts.
I always knew when you two were going back and forth like a couple of feisty jaybirds that you belonged together.”

Rosie ventured a small smile. “That man needs a woman to keep him in line.”

“Well, you kept me in line all these years. Ah-ah! Don't turn into a water pump again. Let's go on out.”

Miguel and Josh waited for them on the porch. At the sight of Josh, Tess's stomach fluttered. She grew warm thinking about the night before, when they'd become man and wife for real. She understood now why mares switched their tails at stallions and cows bawled out their invitations to the bull.

Tess grew warmer when Josh greeted her with a brush of his lips—just enough to tantalize, but not enough to be publicly indecent. “Well, Mrs. Ransom, ready to ride?”

Ranger stood patiently under saddle, along with the stocky chestnut that Josh had ridden in on—a gorgeous animal. Josh obviously knew what he was doing with his horses, at least. But he might need her advice when it came to cattle.

Tess smiled a smug little smile at the thought of the Double R, a huge new ranch just waiting for her to start running things right. Along with her husband, of course. A partnership. They would make it work.

“I'm ready.”

She kissed Miguel on the cheek. Being a man, he certainly wouldn't cry, but his eyes glistened with suspicious moisture.

“You are my angel,” Miguel said. “I will take care of this place like it was my own.”

“It practically is, as long as you pay the rent.” Tess tried hard to keep a stern tone in her voice. Otherwise she might melt down as mushy as Rosie.

“You sure you want the rent to go to Sean?”

Miguel had insisted upon paying rent when Tess asked him to take over the Diamond T. Rent would make him feel like a rancher, not a caretaker, he said. So Tess had named a small amount and told him to send it to Sean. The money
wouldn't send her brother to a college back east, but it would be a start. Sean had been right. The Diamond T belonged to him as well as her.

They rode out to a chorus of good-byes and accompanying barks from Chief, who had been promoted to cattle dog in charge. Rojo trotted by Ranger's side. Where Tess went, he went also.

“I got a dog in the deal along with a wife?” Josh asked when he noticed Rojo.

“Hell yes,” Tess replied. “A woman can buy a husband in any saloon in the West, if she has the cash. But a good cattle dog is hard to find.”