Cowboy Country

Brody laughed. “Now, Conner,” he drawled, because he knew slow talking made his brother crazy, “you need to simmer down a little. Take life as it comes. The cattle have a thousand acres of grass to feed on, and the fences will get fixed—”

“Brody,” Conner broke in tersely, “this is as much your ranch as it is mine. We split the profits down the middle, and by God we’re going to do the same with the work!”

“What got up your backside?” Brody asked. “For a man getting regular sex, you’re pretty testy.”

He could literally feel Conner going from a simmer to a boil on the far end of that phone call.

“Enough of your bullshit,” Conner almost growled. “Get over here, unless you want me coming after you.”

“Maybe you’re not getting regular sex,” Brody speculated.

“Brody, I swear to God—”

“Okay, okay,” Brody relented affably, logging off of the computer, pushing back his chair and rising to his feet. “Don’t get your bloomers in a wad. I’m on my way.”

Barney scrambled upright, with a lot of toenail scrabbling against the plank floor, and Brody didn’t have the heart to leave him behind. He decided to give Moonshine a day off and drive out to the ranch in his truck.

It was big, that fancy new extended-cab truck, painted a bluish-silver color, and it had all the upgrades, from GPS to video screens in the backs of the front seats. For all the flash the rig had, Brody still missed his old pickup, the one he’d driven right down to the rust.

He hadn’t had to worry about denting the fenders or scraping up the bed of the previous truck with feed sacks and tools. And it would have gone anywhere.

Unfortunately, it had finally breathed its last, a few months before, and Brody had been forced to sell it for scrap.

He opened the rear door on the driver’s side and Barney leaped through the air like a movie dog showing off for the paparazzi. Settled himself on the far side and stared eagerly out the window.

Chuckling, Brody took his place behind the wheel and started up the engine. He should have been thinking about downed fences and stray calves and generally staying on Conner’s good side, but his mind was stuck on Carolyn.

Nice horse? What the devil was that supposed to mean?

Fifteen minutes later, he and Barney pulled in at the main ranch house.

He let Barney out of the truck, watched as he and Valentino met in the driveway and sized each other up.

Conner strode out of the barn while the dogs were still getting to know each other, his face a thundercloud with features.

He started right in, tapping at the face of his watch with one index finger. “Damn it, Brody, do you have any idea what time it is?”

Brody didn’t wear a watch. Hadn’t for years. He went to bed when he felt like it and got up when he was darned good and ready, and old habits were hard to break.

“No,” he replied smoothly, “I don’t know what time it is, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t give a rat’s ass anyway.”

Conner glowered at him, hard, but when it came right down to it, he couldn’t sustain his bad humor. Hoarsely, and entirely against his stubborn Creed will, Conner laughed.

Brody grinned and slapped his brother on the shoulder. “That’s better,” he said. “You’re going to be somebody’s daddy one day soon, little brother, and that means you’ve got to stop stressing out about everything. What good will you be to that kid if you keel over from a heart attack?”

Conner shook his head, took his hat off and then plunked it back in place again. Shoved out a loud sigh. “You’re impossible,” he finally said.

“So they tell me,” Brody replied lightly. “What’s on the schedule today, boss?”

Conner let the word boss pass without comment and arched one eyebrow. “The usual. There are strays to round up, calves, mostly. Davis spotted half a dozen of them down by the river, but he didn’t go after them because that gelding of his threw a shoe, and he had to head home to fetch another horse.”

“We running low on horses these days?” Brody asked, with a pointed glance at the barn, and the surrounding corral and pasture area. He counted eight cayuses right there in plain sight.

“You know Davis,” Conner said. “He wants to ride the roan, and it’s up at his place, in the pasture. He’s pigheaded and set in his ways, our uncle.”

Brody grinned. “You’d think he was a Creed or something,” he said.

Conner laughed again, started back toward the barn. “Let’s ride, cowboy,” he replied. “Calves aren’t known for their intelligence, and we’ll have a hassle on our hands if any of them take a tumble into the river and get swept off by the currents.”

The possibility was real enough; they’d lost plenty of cattle, a few horses and a handful of people to the falls. The plunge was better than a hundred feet, and there were boulders directly below, in the white water.

This probably explained Conner’s sour mood earlier, during that phone call.

Brody and Conner saddled their horses at the same pace, with the same motions, and when they rode out, they were side by side.

Barney and Valentino kept up.

Brody enjoyed that ride, enjoyed being with Conner, on horseback, and out in the open air.

But once the brothers reached the ridge overlooking the river, where a narrow trail ribboned off the dirt road and down the steep side-hill to the stony bank, the fun was over.

Five yearling calves bawled in loud dismay at edge, and a sixth was already in the drink, struggling in vain to regain its footing and get back to shore.

“How’s this horse in the water?” Brody asked Conner, with a nod to his own mount, resettling his hat as he spoke.

“He’s good,” Conner said, with grave reluctance. “Brody, maybe you oughtn’t to—”

But Brody cut him off with a whooping “Yee-haw” and headed straight down that hill, Snowy-River style, unfastening the leather strap that secured his coiled rope as he went.

Conner yelled a curse after him and followed.

Having gotten a head start, and with the trail barely wide enough for one horse, forget two, Brody reached the riverside first. He and the gelding he’d saddled back at the main barn splashed into the water at top speed.

Back in his rodeo days, Brody’s event had been bronc riding, but he was a fair roper, as well. He looped that lariat high over his head, shot a wordless prayer heavenward and flung.

The rope settled around the calf in a wide circle of hemp, and Brody took up the slack. The yearling beef bawled again and paddled furiously, being too stupid to know he’d already been helped.

The current was strong, though, and it was work, for man and horse, hauling that noisy critter back to the riverbank.

Conner was mainly dry, except for a few splashes on his shirt and the legs of his jeans, and he’d corralled the other calves into a loud bunch, his well-trained cow pony expert at keeping the animals together.

Brody, of course, was soaked, but he laughed as he brought that calf out of the water, out of sheer jubilation.

“Looks to me like your horse is doing all the work,” he called to Conner, swinging down from the saddle to grab hold of the rope and pull that calf along.

“You damn fool,” Conner retorted, messing with his hat while that pony danced back and forth, containing the calves in a prescribed area, “you’ve been away from this ranch—and this river—for too long to go taking chances like that!”

Brody grinned, removed the lasso from around the calf’s neck and prodded it toward the herd.

The poor critter didn’t need much persuading and, for a bit, the cacophony got louder, while the baleful tale was told.

This time, Conner was in the lead as they drove that pitiful little herd back up the trail to high ground. Valentino and Barney waited up top, their hides dry and their tails wagging.

It just went to show, Brody figured, that they were the smart ones in this bunch.

“What is it with you and rivers, anyhow?” Conner grumbled, as they walked their horses slowly along the dirt road curving along the edge of the ridge.

Brody sighed, took off his hat and wrung the water out of it, leaving it a little worse for wear. “First you bitch because I wasn’t here at the crack of dawn, punching cattle. Then, when I get a little wet pulling one out of a river, you complain about that. Damned if I know what, if anything, would make you happy.”

Conner shook his head. “You always were a grandstander,” he accused, though not with much rancor.

“Oh, hell,” Brody groused back, “you’ve just got your tail in a twist because you wanted to show off your roping skills.”

Conner let loose with a slow grin. “I can outrope, outshoot and outwrestle you any day of the week,” he said, “and you know it.”

Brody laughed at that. His clothes felt icy against his skin, and his boots were full of water—again. At this rate, he’d need a new pair every payday. “Keep telling yourself that, little brother, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“You could have roped that calf from the bank,” Conner pointed out, almost grudgingly, after tugging his hat brim down low over his eyes because they were riding straight into the sun. “Instead, you risked your life—and the life of a perfectly good horse—to pull a John Wayne.”

“I was safe the whole time,” Brody replied, “and so was this horse. It was the calf that was in a fix, and I got him out of it. Seems like you ought to be glad about that, in place of griping like some old lady whose just found muddy footprints on her carpet.”

Conner’s jaw tightened and he looked straight ahead, as though herding six yearling calves along a country road required any real degree of concentration. When he did speak up, Conner caught Brody off-guard, as he had a way of doing.

“I reckon Carolyn’s out to find a husband,” he said, with a hint of a smirk lurking in his tone. “And she’s not too picky about her choice, as long as she doesn’t get you.”

The words went right through Brody’s defenses, as they’d no doubt been meant to do. Heat surged up his neck, and he glared over at Conner. The two dogs were traveling between them now, both of them panting but otherwise unfazed by the morning’s adventure.

“If you’re looking for a fight, little brother, you’ve found one,” Brody said. “As far as I’m concerned, we can get down off these horses right now and settle this discussion in the middle of the road.”

Conner smiled without looking at Brody and rode blithely on. The main part of the herd was up ahead, grazing on spring grass.

The stray calves seemed to know that, too, because they picked up speed and quit carrying on like they were being killed.

Conner didn’t speak again until they’d reached the edge of the range, where the view seemed to go on forever, in every direction.

Even with his hackles raised, Brody couldn’t ignore that scenery. The land, the trees, the mountains and the sky, the twisting river—all of it was as much a part of him as his own soul.

Conner raised his hat and swung it in a wide arch, as a greeting to the mounted ranch hands on the far side of that sea of cattle.

Then he turned to look Brody’s way. “You’d better get on home,” he said. “Get out of those wet clothes before you come down with something.”

Brody just sat there, breathing in his surroundings, letting it all saturate him, through and through. “I’m already half-dry,” he argued, “and not the least bit delicate, for your information.”

Conner laughed. “I got to you, didn’t I?” he said, in quiet celebration. “I do like getting a rise out of the great Brody Creed.”

“Why don’t you go to hell?” Brody suggested mildly.

Again, Conner laughed. It seemed there was no end to his amusement that morning. “Are you just going to stand back and watch Carolyn order up a husband online?” he asked, a few moments later.

“She can do what she wants,” Brody bit out, more nettled than he would have cared to admit.

“What do you want, Brody?”

“Me?” Brody asked. “What do I want?”

“That was my question, all right, ” Conner replied, implacable and amused.

“Fine,” Brody answered, nudging his horse into a trot, figuring the dogs had had time to rest up a little by then. “I want you to stay the hell out of my business, that’s what I want.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS TIME to take action, Carolyn thought, a wicked little thrill going through her as she reread Brody’s response to her message earlier that day.

Want to go riding with me?

She bit her lower lip.

Brody had asked her to go riding with him, and she was actually considering it. A sad commentary on her level of intelligence, she figured, since she’d been burned, and badly, the last time she played with fire.

And she’d be doing exactly that if she spent any time alone with Brody Creed, no doubt about it.

That was that, then.

She wasn’t getting any younger, and if she ever wanted a home and a husband and children, if she ever wanted to take real family vacations, instead of buying souvenir mugs at garage sales and pretending she’d been somewhere, she had to do something, take matters into her own hands.

Prince Charming, if he’d ever been headed in her direction in the first place, had obviously been detained.

“Carolyn?” Tricia appeared in the office doorway, a merciful if temporary distraction from her troubling thoughts. True to Carolyn’s prediction, they hadn’t had a customer all morning, or since lunch, and the apron orders from the website were wrapped and ready for shipping. “I’m going now. Do you want me to drop the packages off at the post office before I head for home?”

Not wanting Tricia to see that she’d been checking Friendly Faces, Carolyn turned to face her friend with a wide smile, blocking the computer monitor from view.

She hoped.

“That would be great,” she said brightly. Too brightly, probably. “Thanks, Tricia.”

Tricia eyed her curiously, maybe even a little suspiciously. “You’ll be okay working alone for the rest of the day?” she persisted.

I’ve been working alone my whole life. Why would today be any different?

“I’ll be fine,” Carolyn promised cheerfully. “I’m just tying up a few loose ends online, then I’ll go upstairs and start sewing. We’re going to need more aprons soon, and I’d like to finish the gypsy skirt before I die of old age.”

Tricia hesitated a moment, then smiled and left the doorway. “See you tomorrow,” she called, in parting.

“’Bye!” Carolyn sang out, all merry innocence.

Then she turned back to the computer, and Brody’s brief message.

If she agreed to go anywhere with this man, even for a horseback ride, she needed her head examined.

In the first note, he’d asked for a second chance.

A second chance to hurt her, to rip her heart out and stomp on it? Was that what he’d meant? Or was she being too cynical? Suppose the man simply wanted to be friends?

That would make sense, wouldn’t it, given the way they were always running into each other at social functions, both in town and on the Creed ranch? Maybe Brody was as tired of those awkward encounters as she was.

He’d said as much, just the other day, but then he’d gone and kissed her and confused the issue all over again.

And then there was the fact that Carolyn never felt freer, or more alive—or lonelier—than when she was on a horse’s back, riding through wide-open spaces.

To have someone riding alongside her out there on her favorite trails, someone who knew horses and was comfortable around them, well, that would make the experience close to perfect.

Adrenaline jolted through Carolyn’s system when she made the reckless decision: she would accept Brody’s invitation. It was, after all, a horseback ride, not an elopement, or a wild weekend in Vegas, whooping it up in the buff.

Heck, it wasn’t even a date, really.

Still, the idea made her nerves leap around under her skin like tiny Cirque du Soleil performers determined to outdo themselves.

What she needed, as she’d already concluded, was some sort of emotional insurance, protection against Acts of Brody, and there was only one way to get that—by going out with other guys. As many other guys as she reasonably could.

Not only would they insulate her, create and maintain a safe distance between her and Brody, but she also might actually fall for one of them and forget him entirely.

What began as a defense mechanism could turn out to be the kind of true and lasting love she’d always dreamed of finding.

And wouldn’t that be something?

Yes, she would make a definite and honest effort.

She finally entered a reply to Brody’s note, a lackluster okay and flashed it off to his mailbox.

She checked her new messages then.

It was sort of gratifying to know she was popular on Friendly Faces—five different men wanted to get acquainted with her, three from Denver and its close environs and two from right there in Lonesome Bend.

Forehead creased with the effort to place the pair of locals, Carolyn studied their photos, one after the other, and came up with no clear recollection of either of them.

Both were moderately attractive, in their thirties.

Richard was tall, if his bio could be believed—wasn’t she living proof that people stretched the truth, calling herself Carol?—with dark hair and brown eyes. He was a technical writer, divorced, with no children, and he’d moved to Lonesome Bend only a month before. Since he worked at home, he hadn’t made many friends.

He liked to cook, loved dogs, but was violently allergic to cats.

Carolyn, mindful of Winston, gently dispatched Richard to the recycle bin.

The other candidate was named Ben, and he, like Richard, was a fairly recent transplant to the community. He was a widower, with an appealing smile, a nine-year-old daughter and a job that took him all over the western states, fighting forest fires.

He looked like a nice guy, which didn’t mean for one second that he couldn’t have made the whole story up, invented the daughter, the adventurous career, the dead wife. Stranger things had happened, especially when it came to online dating.

Still, if she was going to have any chance at all against Brody Creed and his many questionable charms, assuming he even meant to turn that effortless dazzle on her anyway, she had to do something, get the proverbial ball rolling, here.

After drawing and releasing a very deep breath, Carolyn responded to Ben’s friendly inquiry with a short, chatty missive of her own. Not wanting to give away too much information—Lonesome Bend was, after all, a small town—she chose her answers carefully.

Ben’s response was immediate. Did the man have nothing better to do than hover over his computer, waiting for his trial membership in Friendly Faces to pay off big?

Hi, Carol, he’d written. Nice to hear from you. So to speak.

Carolyn reminded herself that what she was doing could conceivably be described as hovering, and she certainly had better things to do, so she’d better get off her high horse, and answered, I like your picture.

I like that you didn’t bail out on your daughter after your wife died.

If you even have a daughter.

If there isn’t a current wife, very much alive, innocently cooking your favorite meal or ironing one of your shirts at this very moment, unaware that you’re flirting with other women online.

Carolyn reined in her imagination then, but it wasn’t easy, and she didn’t know how long she could keep it from running wild again.

I like yours, too, Ben responded. I’m new at this computer-dating thing. How about you?

Brand-new, Carolyn confirmed. It’s awkward.

Tell me about it, Ben answered.

Carolyn drew another deep breath, rubbed the palms of her hands together. What brought you to Lonesome Bend?

That seemed innocuous enough.

I wanted to raise Ellie in a small town, and my late wife’s family lives nearby.

That’s nice, Ben. Where did you live before?

Down in L.A. I’m not scared of a wildfire, but the traffic on the 405 is another matter, especially when Ellie’s in the car.

Carolyn smiled. Ben was a conscientious father, and he had a sense of humor. She began to warm up to the conversation a little, though she was still wary of the man. I’m not crazy about crowded freeways myself, she replied.

Ben came back right away with Have you always lived in Lonesome Bend?

Carolyn hesitated. I came here eight years ago, she wrote. Before that, I traveled a lot.

You’re mysterious, Ben replied, adding a winking-face icon.

Hardly, Carolyn typed. I’m not a woman with a past or anything exciting like that.

Unless, of course, my week-long, red-hot affair with Brody Creed makes me a woman with a past.

The thought of Brody, even in that context, gave Carolyn a twinge of guilt, but she shook it off quickly. It wasn’t as if she was cheating on him, for heaven’s sake.

So why did it feel that way?

Ellie just came in, Ben told her, and she’s trying to get my attention, so I’d better find out what’s up. Hope we can chat again soon, Carol.

Me, too, Carolyn wrote in response.

Liar, accused the voice in her head, the one she was always telling to shut up. You’re interested in using this guy to keep Brody at arms’ length, nothing else. And, admit it, Ben’s other main attraction is that he has a young daughter.

“Shut up,” Carolyn told the voice.

Then she logged off, wrote a hasty note for any customer who might happen by and taped it to the front door.

Working upstairs today. Just ring the bell, and I’ll be right down to let you in, she’d printed, in large letters.

Always better off when she was busy, Carolyn felt pretty chipper as she turned the handle on the dead bolt and headed for the staircase.

Winston, who seemed to be in an unusually circumspect mood that day, scampered after her and, when she entered the kitchen, leaped gracefully onto his usual lookout perch, the windowsill.

Carolyn fussed over him a little, scratching behind his ears and nuzzling his silky scruff once, and washed her hands at the sink, prior to fixing them both lunch.

Winston had his beloved half tin of water-packed sardines, eating off a chipped china saucer right there on the windowsill, while Carolyn nibbled her way through a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, breaking all the food rules by foregoing a plate and standing up while she ate.

Actually, she could have argued that there were sensible reasons for her choice.

Number one, her sewing machine was on the table, and she’d be working there in a little while, and a stray drop of jelly might stain a piece of fabric. Furthermore, who really ate sandwiches off a plate?

In any case, the sandwich was soon gone, rendering the whole subject moot. Carolyn washed her hands again, fetched the gypsy skirt from the hook on the other side of her bedroom door and took a few sweet moments just to admire the creation.

It really was gorgeous, she thought, loving the way the gossamer ribbons shimmered and shifted. The reds, golds, blues and greens seemed to ripple, like liquid light.

Not for the first time, Carolyn was seized by a crazy urge to keep that skirt, alter it to fit her own figure and never let it go. She held it close against her chest for a few moments, as though prepared to defend it against a crazed mob.

“You’re being silly,” she murmured aloud.

Still, the skirt was so pretty, almost animate with all that subtle motion going on, a true work of art. Her art, born of her dreams and her imagination and all the fairy-tale hopes she’d cherished as a lonely child.

She ached to hold on to this one piece, this glorious thing woven with strands spun in the deepest places of her own heart.

Practicality took over quickly.

She’d been over this with herself before, hadn’t she? A garment like this should be worn, seen, enjoyed. Where would she, Carolyn Simmons of Lonesome Bend, Colorado, wear such a thing?