The Rancher's Untamed Heart (15 page)

The next day, Clint and I were riding out on an ATV, tooling around the property checking on fences and trading kisses.

He'd offered me a spot on his ride. Usually, I took a second ATV out so that I could explore and race with him, but today I had wanted the excuse to keep my arms wrapped around him. I was enjoying my decision, leaning my face against his flannel work shirt and shutting my eyes, smelling his spicy, masculine scent, and feeling our bodies against each other.

"Shit," he muttered, and I snapped my eyes open, sitting up. I'd never heard Clint cuss before, although he didn't seem to mind my rougher language.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

There were a few men off in the distance, I saw, peering over his shoulder.

"I wish you were on your own, and I could send you back," he said. "Hold on tight."

"I wouldn't go," I muttered.

Clint spurred the ATV faster. "I don't know those men, but I know that that's my land."

I shrugged, and held tightly to him as the ATV bumped along.

When we got within earshot of the men, Clint yelled "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

A leader stepped forward, smiling, holding his hands out ingratiatingly. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.

"Morning, Clint," he said. "Our apologies if we startled you, a few of our cows busted the fence and headed through this way, we were trying to round them back up."

Clint said nothing, but I could feel the anger and tension in his entire body.

The man pointed off to the fence, where there was definitely a break, and a few horses standing on the other side of it.

"We didn't think you'd want us riding through here, so we came on foot," the man continued.

"I don't want you on my land," Clint growled. "I'll send my men out to fix the fence and round up your animals, we can load them into a livestock trailer and take them over your way."

The man nodded.

"Fine, fine. It's a nice day, at least. Glad not to be chasing the sorry shits through six inches of mud," he said. "Beautiful day to ride around with a pretty girl."

One of his men said something too low for us to hear, and the others chuckled. I didn't like the sound of their laughter, it raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

"I've actually been wanting to talk to you, Clint," the man said.

"Pick up the phone," Clint ground out.

"Would you answer?" the man asked. Before Clint responded, he said, "While I have you, I want

to let you know that I'd like to make an offer on your old place."

Clint sat up even straighter.

"Not for sale," he said.

"Are you sure?" the stranger said. "It's a lot of work, and you're not quite up to it, are you?"

No one spoke for a minute.

"Anyways," the man said. "Nice running into you. We'll be waiting for those cows."

When they'd headed back through the break in the fence and mounted up, Clint turned the ATV

and watched them ride off.

"Who was that?" I said quietly.

"Glenn Yates’s son, Dennis, and a few of his boys," Clint ground out. "I don't know what the hell they were doing on my land, but it's twenty miles from where they usually have cattle this time of year."

"Shit," I muttered
.

Clint turned the ATV back to the ranch without a word to me. He was silent when we parked back in the barn, hauling his leg over the seat and climbing off, heading in the direction of Brandon's bunkhouse.

I followed him. He hadn't told me not to, and I'd never seen Brandon's place. Besides, I wanted to know what the hell that was all about.

His long legs ate up the distance to the cabin quickly enough that I had to trot a little, but I slipped in the door behind him.

"Clint?" Brandon asked, "I know your momma taught you to knock."

They came around the corner. Brandon was wearing an apron and Will had bright yellow dish towels on. It looks like we’d interrupted some sort of secret domesticity, and Brandon looked grumpy about it.

"What's wrong?" Will asked, the first one to catch sight of the other man's face.

“Dennis Yates was on the ranch,” Clint spit out.

“Where?” Brandon demanded. “What did that fucker think he was doing?”

“He said that he was after some stray cattle, but there’s more than one animal that can break down a fence,” Clint said.

Will pulled his gloves off and tossed them over his shoulder, over a low dividing wall, presumably into the kitchen.

“He said he wanted to make an offer,” I said.

All three men turned to look at me, look hard, and for the first time since I’d been out here without clipboard, I felt like an outsider on Clint’s ranch.

Brandon was the first to relax.

“Did you tell him where to shove it?” he asked, turning to Clint.

“I told him to get his sorry self off my property,” he said.

Will nodded, firmly. “That asshole prowling around can’t be up to anything good, though,” he said, walking back into the kitchen again. I heard running water. It appeared that Will didn’t think this was serious enough to forgo doing the dishes for.

Brandon and Clint both looked at Will, then at each other. Even though their bodies were in hard lines of anger, I saw their lips twitch, and then they looked away.

“Pull up a chair,” Brandon told me, gesturing at the dining room table and taking a seat himself. “What has Clint told you about Yates?”

“He said that Will saved him twenty grand when Yates tried to steal stuff off the ranch,” I said, easing myself into an oak seat.

Will came out of the kitchen, gloveless, drying his hands on a dish towel.

“What?” he asked, before anyone said anything, “There was one knife left to wash, I couldn’t just leave it there.”

Brandon rolled his eyes.

“I know you couldn’t,” he said, and patted Will’s knee as Will took the last seat, beside me.

Clint cleared his throat. “Yates has been a nuisance for, well, I don’t even know how long. His daddy bought up a lot of land, and Yates has always wanted to buy the rest of the state.”

Brandon nodded. “Unfortunately, this ranch is between him and the rest of the state. He can’t buy in the other direction, there’s a national park, and even he wouldn’t try it.”

I winced.

“What did your father do?” I asked, looking at Clint.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “He talked about Yates like a pest, but not a real threat. After he passed, though, things have gotten uglier.”

“We’ve found a handful of poisoned sheep, some broken fences,” Will volunteered.

Brandon sighed and stretched his arms, lacing his fingers and pushing against thin air. “We’ve called the sheriff out a few times, but he always says that that’s bored teenagers, not rancher stuff.”

The three of these men talked as though they owned the ranch together. They were a tight team, and I was struck with sudden curiosity.

“How long have you two been together?” I asked Brandon and Will.

They both blinked.

Will wore a puzzled frown and opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asked.

I looked at Brandon, and he was fixing me with that hard stare again. He wasn’t as tall as Clint, but when he glared at me I realized how large those arms were underneath his work shirt, and how broad his chest was.

Brandon was a powerful man, and even wearing an apron, he was intimidating. For a lot of reasons, I hoped that I wasn’t making an enemy of him tonight.

I glanced quickly at Clint before I answered Will. His face was almost blank, but I thought I saw a trace of a puzzled frown like Will’s.

“Nothing,” I admitted. “I just saw how close the three of you were and wondered how long you’d known each other. Nosiness, pure and simple.”

Brandon laughed out loud, and after a minute, Will chuckled. Clint shook his head, but he was smiling too.

“We met about eight years ago,” Will said, “Moved in together about a week later, and when Clint asked Brandon to come look after the ranch, I came with, bitching the whole way.”

“I didn’t consult him before I agreed to up and move and quit my job. I have learned the error of my ways,” Brandon said drily.

Will nodded, and they both grinned.

“He’s been working here for maybe five, six months,” Clint said. “He started listening to what me and Brandon had to say about ranchin’ earlier than that, though.”

“Can I get anyone something to drink?” Will asked, pushing his chair back and standing up.

“Coffee, please,” Brandon said, and Clint and I nodded and thanked Will.

Brandon looked at me and Clint. “Not that I don’t prefer talking about Will, and, most importantly, myself, but we probably should stick to the Moores,” he said.

I ducked my head and blushed a little. He was right, I was being flighty.

Will came back with coffee for me and Clint, and quickly disappeared for mugs for himself and Brandon.

The coffee was excellent when I took a sip, strong, but not bitter. They had cream and sugar on the table, and I put some of each in my coffee. Clint and Brandon took theirs black, but Will put even more sugar in than me, and a healthy dollop of cream.

“Will doesn’t actually like coffee,” Brandon said, once again as dry as the desert.

His partner rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. I heard a rustle and a thump, I think that Brandon was kicked under the table.

“More seriously,” Brandon said, looking me in the eyes without a trace of mirth on his face, “You need to be careful. I know you’ve been out ATVing without Clint, that ends.”

“What?” I asked, “I’ve been all over half the ranches in this region.”

“Brandon’s right,” Clint said.

I glared at them both.

“I’m not a child,” I began hotly.

“That’s right, you’re a pretty young woman,” Clint said flatly. “You saw the men Yates had with them. I wouldn’t let them within fifty paces of a sheep without supervision, I don’t want you to stumble across them like we did today, without me and Yates.”

Brandon and Will both nodded firmly.

“If you want to go out and Clint’s busy, come find me,” Will said. “I’m usually doing something less crucial anyways, and most of those men are cowards. I don’t think they’d mess with you with any witness.”

I nodded, reluctantly.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll stay close for now.”

“Good,” Clint said, and nodded firmly.

After that, the conversation moved to speculation about what Yates had been doing on the property that day.

Will suspected that they were just looking around, part of a larger plan. Brandon’s theory was that they were picking at the edges of the business again, trying to cause trouble out of malice or revenge.

Clint said that he didn’t care why, he just wanted them gone.