Last Chance Cowboys: The Drifter (5 page)

Roger stepped forward and wrapped his arm around her, dismissing Chet with a scowl that needed no words. “Come, Maria, you're overwrought. Tomorrow, I'll send for the doctor, and he can advise us on the best way to handle your—”

Maria pulled free of him and glared up at the man. “Don't you dare finish that sentence, Roger Turnbull. That woman is my mother—not some wild horse in need of ‘handling.' She needs time, is all, and patience, and if you are unwilling…”

As Chet made his way back to the bunkhouse, he couldn't help but smile. Despite whatever Roger Turnbull hoped, it was pretty clear to him that Maria Porterfield—and her mother—could take care of themselves.

* * *

Weeks passed without any more late-night calls to rescue Mrs. Porterfield. Chet settled into the routine of the ranch, taking his turn keeping watch on the herd, handling chores, and when he was off for a night, he spent the hours between supper and bedtime with the other cowhands in the bunkhouse playing cards or sitting outside trying to catch a breeze. Talk now had turned to the ongoing drought and just when the rains might come—if they would come. Every night before turning in, Bunker drew a large
X
through the date on the calendar and announced, “Maybe tomorrow, gents.”

But the cloudless sky and the relentless heat gave no sign of relief. Other than that little rain they'd had the morning after the herd was spooked, every day had been the same. They were more than halfway through June, and according to Bunker and the others, none of them could recall a season when the rain came so late.

Riding the range was solitary work. Sure there were other men around—maybe a dozen or more. But with a herd the size of the combined stock of four ranches, even a dozen men were spread too far apart to do more than communicate with a whistle, a shout, a wave of a hat, or in the case of an emergency, a gunshot fired in the air. Chet had learned to use the long hours spent alone in the saddle in ways that passed the time without jeopardizing the work. Sometimes he worked out little songs in his head—silly little ditties about his surroundings or a calf who refused to go along with the herd. Sometimes he thought about the people he'd left behind in Florida—friends he missed, family he might never see again. Sometimes he wrote letters to his sister, Kate—his only close family—who lived with their aunt and uncle. Often he carried on a conversation with Cracker, and all the while he kept watch, his senses on alert for some sound, scent, or movement that seemed misplaced.

He chose to ride his own horse when he could but was equally at home on any one of the ranch's quarter horses. Usually he left the reins slack, looped around the horn of his saddle, his hands free to write his letter or lines of a song or devour an apple or piece of jerky he'd brought along. Chet didn't smoke or chew tobacco—never could understand the attraction of either one. Besides he was saving his money—what little there was of it. He had plans. They were little more than dreams now, but some day…

Cracker let out a short bark and sniffed the air to the east. Chet pocketed his paper and stub of a pencil and shifted in the saddle to watch the horizon behind him. As he did, he scanned the herd—saw the other hands going about their business, saw a whisper of smoke rising from the cook wagon Eduardo had set up in a grove of trees near the river—and decided to wait and see what was coming before raising a false alarm. He watched a puff of dust blossom and then settle as the lone rider became fully visible. Instantly he knew the rider was Maria. How he knew that he couldn't say, but he had the oddest sensation of pleasure at the sight of her. He shook off that feeling. He'd gotten himself mixed up with a woman before. It was the main reason he'd left Florida. “Leave the ladies to someone else, Hunter,” he muttered, but Cracker continued to stand at attention, tail wagging and eyes riveted on Maria's horse.

Chet couldn't seem to help himself, and he too watched as Maria rode up to the cook wagon, slid off her horse, and spoke with Eduardo for several minutes. He saw her scan the range, then remount and head toward the cowboy positioned closest to the cook wagon. Rico raised his hat in greeting as Maria reined up beside him. He and Chet had teamed up—one on either side of this section of the herd, Chet riding the Tipton fence line while Rico took the other side. Other pairs of cowboys from the other ranches had taken up similar positions until the entire area was patrolled. At this point, the stock from several smaller ranches was mixed in together, but Chet knew that by week's end, they would need to start the process of separating out the Porterfield stock that still needed branding.

He watched the exchange of conversation between Rico and Maria, although he could hear nothing. They spoke for several minutes. Apparently she was able to get more conversation out of the young man than any hand—even Bunker—could spark when the men were all together in the bunkhouse. Rico was a couple years younger than the next youngest hand, and Chet remembered how that felt. He expected that the others had played some nasty tricks on the kid when he first joined their ranks, in spite of the fact that he was the son of the Porterfields' housekeeper. And from what he'd observed of the young man, he doubted Rico had seen the humor in those tricks—or realized that they were the men's way of saying he was accepted as one of them.

Still, even though Chet could not hear the conversation, there were signs that Maria had a talent for drawing the boy out—even making him laugh. After a while, she turned her horse's head and rode on, waving to Rico as she left.

He realized that she was coming toward him, slowly weaving her way through the herd as she came. The closer she got, the more nervous Chet was. What was she doing out here? Where was Turnbull? As Bunker had reported, the foreman had once again taken up residence—not in the bunkhouse but in an anteroom just off the kitchen of the main house. Aside from Bunker's warning to stay clear of the man, there had been gossip in the bunkhouse that Turnbull considered Maria his woman…although from the little Chet had seen of the two of them together, that feeling was pretty much one-sided. It was pretty clear to him that Maria was the kind of woman who did not see herself as property. He'd also noticed that she seemed pretty good at handling herself, so it was nothing that Chet needed to get mixed up in. But he also figured that staying on Turnbull's good side was just common sense if a man wanted to keep on working at the Clear Springs Ranch.

But shouldn't it be Turnbull out here checking on things, getting reports, and giving orders? Why was Maria out here without him? Why was she out here at all?

Cracker ran a few steps forward, then returned and looked up at Chet. “Yeah, I see her.” Should he ride over and meet her? Should he wait? Cracker took matters in hand by running to meet the approaching horse—a black quarter horse that the men had told him had been her father's—and then racing back to Chet, tail wagging. “He's not your type,” Chet muttered. He pointed down at Cracker. “Dog.” And then at the horse coming their way. “Horse. Figure it out.”

He felt the heat of embarrassment rise on the back of his neck when he saw Maria smile as she came alongside him. No doubt she had heard him talking to his dog.

“Hello, Chet. Cracker.”

“Miss Maria.” Chet touched two fingers to the brim of his hat. “You're a long way from home,” he added before he could censor himself.

She laughed. “This is home.” She swept her hand to encompass the range as far as they could see. She sat back in her saddle—as comfortable as any man—and took in her surroundings. And as she did, Chet took the opportunity to study her. He'd acknowledged her beauty that first day he'd ridden up to the adobe house, but now that he knew her, he could see a calmness and contentment that held no trace of arrogance or vanity. A half smile curved the corners of her mouth—full lips that a man had to practically drag his eyes away from to tamp down thoughts of how it might be to hold her, kiss her…

“I spoke with the other ranchers, and we've decided that tomorrow, we'll need to move the herd to higher ground,” she said without looking at him. She continued to stare out over the land and speak more to herself than to him. “Roger says it's too soon, but Papa always believed…” Her voice trailed off.

“You want to make sure the land doesn't get overgrazed, that it has a chance to recover some.”

She looked at him. “Exactly. Papa always said that we have to learn the lessons nature gives us, and after what happened in Texas… Well, the same thing could happen here as well. Roger says—”

“Begging your pardon, Miss Maria, but it seems to me that your father taught you well. I'd be inclined to stick with his advice if I were you—and the advice of your neighbors.”

She squinted at him as if trying to figure him out. “You don't like Roger, do you?”

“I don't know the man well enough to form an opinion. What I'm saying is that your father knew this land better than any man currently working your ranch. For that reason alone, I would think first about what he might say or do.”

“Roger does not like you.”

“Well, now that's a shame since he doesn't know me any better than I know him, and by some people's judgment, I'm a pretty likeable guy.” He grinned at her, wanting to lighten the mood and move away from any further discussion of Turnbull.

She laughed. It bubbled up from someplace deep inside her as if it had been kept under control far too long. “Not exactly the self-deprecating type, are you?”

“Here's the thing, Miss Maria—if I knew what that fifty-cent word meant, I just might have to agree with you. But since I don't know whether you've insulted me or paid me a compliment, I'll just keep quiet.” He was teasing her and acting like they'd known each other for some time. He thought she might take offense, but she didn't. In fact she smiled at him.

“Fair enough.” She took up her reins and turned the horse toward the camp, but just before she rode off, she looked back at him and added, “The fact is, Chet Hunter,
I
like you. I'm not sure I can trust you to stick around for as long as I'm going to need help, but I like you.”

“Now that's a straight-up compliment,” he replied and tipped his hat to her again.

She turned fully in the saddle to look back at him, any trace of lightheartedness gone. “Yes, it is. Don't disappoint me, Chet. I've had about all the disappointment I can handle for a while.”

He watched her knee her horse and ride fast toward the cook wagon where Chet could see the night riders finishing their food before taking up their posts to relieve the day shift overseeing the herd. She'd asked him not to disappoint her. But in the end, he knew he would because she would want him to stay…and if he was going to realize his dream, he would have to go.

* * *

What had she been thinking?
I
like
you?
That sounded like something her sixteen-year-old sister might blurt out. She was a grown woman and the head of this family now. These men worked for her.
That
man worked for her. “Oh, Papa, this is so much harder than you made it seem,” she muttered as, instead of stopping, she waved to the men around the chuck wagon and turned her horse for home.

Her mother and Juanita were sitting in the courtyard when she arrived as the sun set, the shadows of dusk settling in. Trey was there as well, sketching them. Amanda was no doubt in her room, where she spent every spare minute trying new styles for her long strawberry-blond hair or experimenting with the rouge and powders she wasn't supposed to wear. Maria waved as she rode past the house to the corral. She was pulling off Macho's saddle when she saw Roger come striding out of the barn toward her.

“Where were you?” he demanded.

“I went out to check the herd.” She certainly did not owe him an explanation, so why was she giving him one? “I wanted to let Ricardo and the others know we've decided that it's best to move to higher ground. The north slopes will provide more relief from the heat and better grazing until we get rain.” She swung the saddle around and rested it on the fence, then faced Roger. “It's the right decision, Roger. Grass in that area is already patchy. Besides, moving them north gets them farther away from the Tipton boundary.”

“You could have told them all that here at the ranch.”

“I like being out there. It makes me feel…I don't know, like maybe I can do this.”

“You're the boss,” Roger muttered without looking at her.

“For now, yes I am, and I am doing the best I can, Roger.”

“I just don't get why you think you have to do it alone.”

“I don't. I'm not. This was a group decision made at the cattlemen's association meeting the other day. Besides, in addition to our good neighbors, I have Nita and Eduardo and you and—”

“The drifter?”

“I was going to say the men.”

“But you seem to want his opinion over the others.”

She was incredulous at the assumptions he was making without the slimmest bit of proof. “Roger, stop this. Chet Hunter is no threat to you. He has proven himself to be a good worker, and right now, we need good workers. We are shorthanded,” she reminded him.

“I came back,” he fumed.

“That you did, but where were you this morning?”

“I had to go into town—some unfinished business. I'm back to stay, Maria.”

“But the men who left with you are not. We are still short of a full group, and there's the rest of the branding to be done, and then we have to move the herd to market—” She stopped. She understood that Roger needed a gesture, some assurance that she trusted him and had accepted him back into the fold. Recalling what Chet had said about it maybe being better to have Roger on her ranch instead of working for the Tiptons, she pulled off her riding gloves and placed her hand on his forearm. “Roger, don't fight me on this. I need you.”