Cowboy Come Home (3 page)
Authors: Janette Kenny
She stood before him, chin high and big eyes full of worry and heartache. He stilled the urge to reach for her, to pull her into his heat and hardness and drink from her soft lips.
He’d hired on to do a job, and he aimed to put himself first this time. She’d soon find out he wouldn’t bow to her every whim. He damn sure wouldn’t be lured back into her bed again.
Now if he could just convince his body that he didn’t want her ...
Chapter 2
Daisy forced air into her lungs and hoped her knees wouldn’t buckle as she made her way back to her daddy’s big desk heaped with its monstrous responsibilities. My God, the last person she had expected to ever see again was Trey March.
But here he was, just inches from her. Bigger than she remembered.
Each breath she took drew him deeper into her and brought the memories that were never far from her mind to aching, pulsing life.
All she had to do was reach for him.
So tempting.
In his arms she could forget the hell she’d endured these past six months. Just once more she could lie beside him, skin on skin, with their hearts beating in tandem like she’d dreamed of doing night after lonely night.
Nobody could stop her now for giving herself to the cowboy she’d fallen in love with the first time she’d seen him. Nobody but her remaining strong, remembering the sad fact that the only love they’d shared had been physical. The only heart involved had been her own. That’s all she’d ever have with him.
She’d given him all her love, and he’d taken it and her hopes and her dreams and then he’d ridden away.
Daisy couldn’t go through that again, yet here she was sitting behind her daddy’s desk staring at a blank piece of paper. Trey wanted proof that he’d be in charge. He didn’t trust her.
But then she didn’t trust him either. In fact she’d learned not to trust anyone save Ramona, her husband Fernando and their son Manuel.
She wasn’t a starry-eyed innocent any longer. She saw men in a whole new light. She saw Trey for what he was instead of what she desperately had wanted him to be.
Yet right now she was poised to draw him back into her life for a few more months. Only because the plan that Ned had suggested—no, that he had insisted she agree to last week opened her eyes to what he wanted.
She had to cut all ties with Ned Durant. But she needed a strong man to run the JDB spread until she could find a man she could depend on to take Ned’s place.
Trey could handle himself against Ned. She had no doubt about that.
The question was, could she handle herself around Trey?
He’d be at the Circle 46, and she’d be here. She wouldn’t have to deal with him on a day-to-day basis.
She wouldn’t be tempted to expect more from him. Not again. She’d barely survived the consequences the last time with this man. But she had proof that her daddy had cut a deal with him, and there wasn’t one mention in the ledger of Trey taking his money when he’d left.
She owed him, and she damned well intended to use him like he’d used her so many months ago.
“Before you drive the herd to the Circle 46, I think you should ride over there and see that your plan is viable,” she said, and took a break in drafting her agreement with Trey March to give herself another chance to change her mind.
Not that she would. It was just that being confined with him for this long had her nerves cracking like sheet lightning.
She wanted him to take his stock and leave. She wanted to go through this ledger and see what else needed to be done. See what she’d missed. See what other surprises awaited her.
“Aim to do that today,” he said, confirming he’d thought this through. “Cattle are going for around fifteen bucks a head now. Reckon with what Barton owes me, that comes to about one hundred and fifty head.”
She nodded, but tallied it up just to make sure. He was right, though on the shy side. She didn’t take the lesser number as evidence of him being generous. Just the way things were done among cattlemen.
“Take your pick once you get there,” she said.
He didn’t answer right off, so she looked up at him. But he was staring out the window, and by the dark frown he wore she wondered what was going through his mind, if he even heard her.
Trey had never shared much about himself, claiming there wasn’t much about him to tell. He’d spent much of his childhood in an orphanage and then ended up on a ranch in Wyoming. She never knew why or how that came about.
Asking had never netted her an answer, for when she’d gotten too curious, he’d taken her mind off his past by loving her. When she was in his arms, she thought of nothing but him.
A tremor raced through her at the thought, unbidden and uncontrollable. She went still and stared at the telling squiggle left by her pen, standing out just like the error she’d made in thinking with her heart.
This was a mistake, but a worse one would be accepting Ned’s proposal. Her stomach lurched at the thought, but she ignored her unease and read the contract again, wanting to be sure she’d worded it right.
If Trey could find a loophole to claim more than agreed upon ... If he turned out to be as dishonest as Ned ... Hell, he could drive the entire herd off, and she’d not be the wiser.
“Take Ramona’s son with you,” she said.
“Manuel?”
He snorted and jammed both hands in his back pockets, and she wondered how he could look recalcitrant and manly at the same time. Wondered why her mind wandered in that direction after the hell he’d put her through.
“I’m not wet-nursing a boy on a cattle drive,” he said.
“I’m not asking,” she said, glad her voice didn’t crack, glad she wasn’t visibly giving away the turmoil boiling inside her. “He’s seventeen, hardly a boy. If I recall, you said you were younger than that when you took up cowboying.”
Trey’s lips thinned, and his dark eyes turned cold and hard as his heart. She held her breath, and she wondered if he’d tell her to forget it and walk out. He was so difficult to read.
He didn’t give of himself. He always held something back. He wasn’t the staying type either. He’d already proven that to her. He’d left her to suffer shame and tragedy alone.
“All right. Manuel comes with me,” he said at last.
He seemed accepting of her request. But then he’d always taken the younger hands’ side in everything, which earned him more disfavor with Ned.
Ned. She still had him to deal with.
She took a breath but she still couldn’t relax. She wondered if she’d ever be able to again.
Daisy slid the contract toward Trey. “If you’ll just sign this, we will be set to go.”
Trey stepped closer, and she fought the impulse to shrink back. He angled the paper toward him with two fingers, going still as a statue.
She noted the strength in his hands, remembering too well how those long, blunt fingers had felt splayed against her bare skin. How she’d let her own hands skim up his muscled arms to find purchase on his broad shoulders.
Trey March had been the forbidden fruit. The man who was more exciting, more dangerous, more man than the one she’d been engaged to marry.
And just thinking of Trey’s hands brought a new flush to her face. Dammit, she didn’t want to think about what they’d shared. What they’d lost.
She’d convinced herself she had found true love with Trey and that what they did wasn’t wrong. She’d been such a fool.
“Make two copies,” Trey said and slid the paper back to her before ambling over to take a closer look at the books on the shelves.
“Of course.”
She’d not thought of that. She’d have made one copy and given it to him. She wouldn’t have had any record of their agreement.
Stupid, stupid!
Stupid, stupid!
She took another paper and began making a duplicate, achingly aware that Trey was watching her every move. Watching and probably laughing at her ineptness.
And she was inept.
She could blame the headaches that came often, more so since her fall from the loft. But the truth was that she had holes in her memory. Like a child’s puzzle scattered about, with pieces that just didn’t fit.
Snippets of a mother she barely remembered. Of trains and cold dank rooms. Of a boy tugging her along and a fear that wouldn’t leave her. Of being too afraid to even cry.
Nightmares, her mama had called them.
And soon after, her mama had become one of them.
From then on it’d been just her and her daddy. He’d raised her to be taken care of instead of teaching her how to take care of herself and this ranch. He’d kept her removed from his dealings because all she was destined to be was a rancher’s wife. A rich rancher’s wife.
She was supposed to have a life where those menial tasks were done for her. Where every thing she whimpered for would be granted.
She knew how to manage the house, knew how to ride a horse, and knew how to entertain. She knew how to look pretty and what to say to guests that would help her husband’s status in the county.
As her daddy said,
she’d make a husband proud.
she’d make a husband proud.
Just thinking of that old saw made her anger bubble to the surface. She wasn’t an ornament.
Dammit all, she owed it to her daddy to prove that he worked hard to amass this land only to have her lose it.
Right now she was mighty close to losing the empire that Jared Barton had built with his sweat, blood, and determination.
Please don’t let this be a mistake I’ll regret.
She carefully signed and dated both contracts and passed them back to Trey, glad her hands didn’t shake.
She carefully signed and dated both contracts and passed them back to Trey, glad her hands didn’t shake.
“This is a fair deal,” she said, mimicking what she’d heard her daddy say and hoping it was true.
Trey returned to the desk—to her side actually. He was too close, too big, but she kept those thoughts to herself as he stood beside her and slowly read the contract that bound them together for the next two months.
He gave a curt nod, then signed his name on both documents with bold straight strokes that mirrored this no-nonsense man’s attitude.
“If the Circle 46 is in good shape, I’ll move the cattle up there as soon as possible. Then we’ll come back for the remuda. Shouldn’t take more than four or five days to get all the stock settled.” He folded one paper and tucked it into his vest pocket.
“I’d like a weekly report on how things are going up there,” she said, staring at her copy of their agreement because she refused to lean back in her chair to look up into his eyes.
“That’s fair.”
Trey took a step to leave just as the back door slammed shut. He stopped cold, and she did the same.
Dread washed over her as Ramona’s voice took on a strained pitch. Too much so for the visitor to be her son.
The measured tread of boot heels striking the floor grew louder. Someone was on his way to the office and that could only be one man. Ned.
The headache that never seemed to leave her pounded harder when she thought of the coming confrontation between her and the foreman. The fact that Trey hadn’t moved from her side, seeming to tower over the room and her, also kept her anxiety level high.
Every inch of him screamed fury, from the rigid line of his broad shoulders to the strong arms that hung deceptively loose at his sides. Like a rattler, he was ready to strike.
Daisy had no doubt he could be deadly if he so wished.
Ned stepped into the doorway of the office and stopped cold. He stared at Trey, his angular features taking on a honed edge.
She didn’t like Ned, but keeping him on had been easy. She had intended to let him manage the ranch until she decided what to do—stay or sell. But she hadn’t counted on a drought hitting them or on her foreman having an ulterior motive.
Yes, letting the ranch ride as it’d been doing had been easy. She hadn’t had to think about what to do when she’d been crippled by grief. When she felt so alone that she wanted to die too.
Ned’s shrewd gaze swung back to her, hard and assessing. “You need help getting rid of this unwanted visitor, Miss Daisy?”
As far as she knew Ned didn’t know there’d been anything more between her and Trey than infatuation on her part. If she was wrong ...
“Why would you assume Mr. March is unwelcome?” she asked, sensing more than seeing any hint of surprise in Trey.
“You saying he is?” Ned asked.
How to answer? Caution seemed the prudent approach, for the moment Ned sensed he was losing his position here, God only knew what he’d do in retaliation.
“According to Daddy’s ledger, he owes Mr. March a substantial amount that I simply don’t have,” she said, opting for honesty as there were too damned many lies out there already.
“Why would Barton owe the likes of him anything?” Ned asked in a voice taut with poison.
“‘Why’ isn’t the issue here,” she said, not about to divulge anymore than she had. “I inherited daddy’s holdings along with his debts. Since I am cash poor, I can only pay Mr. March in cattle. But he’s land poor, so I’ve agreed to let him run his herd on the Circle 46 and act as foreman there until better times prevail.”
Ned crossed his arms over his chest, and she was tempted to huddle up from the cold hard glint in his eyes. “Going to cost you to go back to having a foreman on both spreads when one man can handle it all.”
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