Nothing But Trouble (4 page)

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Chapter Two

“Just so you know, this won’t be some cushy ride.”

Melanie listened to Stoney’s deep baritone voice as he sputtered, hanging on his tail as he ground his dusty cowboy boots in the path leading to the house.  He stopped short and swung around again, and she almost plowed into his hard body for the second time that day.  Why did he keep doing that?

He thumbed his chest.  “Remember one thing, I call the shots.  You got it?  If you so much as think of going against my instructions, the deal is off,” he said, slicing the air with his splayed hand.

“I asked for your help.  If I didn’t need your experience, I wouldn’t have put myself through this...”  She stopped herself from going any farther and bit the skin on her bottom lip, not wanting to let her big mouth get the best of her good fortune.

To her surprise, Stoney just cast a slow, sexy smile that under different circumstances would have made her insides stir.  Okay, she was stirring, she admitted to herself.  What irritated her more was that she was suddenly thinking about how Stoney’s deep blue eyes made her knees weak instead of what she’d set out to do this morning.  That wasn’t a good sign at all. 

“You think I’m being tough, huh?  You ain’t seen nothing, Sunshine.”

She lifted her chin defiantly, as she’d done so many times before when she was standing in her father’s study, trying to argue why she should do something that meant a great deal to her.  In those instances, she usually lost the fight.  She was determined to win now.  “I’m up for anything you can dish out.”

“I won’t be dishing out anything.  I’ll leave that to the good old Wind River Mountains.  That ought to be enough for you to handle.  When were you planning to leave?”

“Ah, right away.  Tomorrow if we can.”

He shook his head and knotted his arms across the wide expanse of his chest, stretching his denim shirt tight across his shoulders.  “Impossible.  I’m going to need more time to find someone to take my place here.”

Melanie drew in a deep breath and remained firm.  “It’s important we leave as soon as possible.  How soon can you get a replacement?”

  He opened the screen door leading to the house and paused with one boot on the threshold.  Angling back to her, he said, “We’ll see after I start making some calls.  If I’m going to be off this ranch for the next month, I’m going to need someone full time.  That may be hard to find.  Where’s your gear?”

“My luggage is in the trunk of my car,” she said, waving her hand back at the sedan she rented at the airport.

“Luggage?  How much did you bring?”

“Four bags and a carry on for the plane.”

His dark eyebrows drew together and he frowned.  “This ought be good.  Well don’t just stand there, bring it on in and we’ll take a look at it.  When we’re through, we’ll take a ride out to Hammond’s store for anything essential you might have forgotten to pack.  I’d say old man Hammond is deserving of a good visit from me right about now.”

* * *

Stoney watched from between the white lace curtains of the kitchen window as Melanie struggled with her suitcases and plopped them on the front porch.  He couldn’t take his eyes off her was more like it.  And that was just the beginning of his trouble.  There was the matter of trying to get the woman to part with those non-essentials that he was sure Melanie had packed in her luggage.  His sister Delia had always insisted they were a vital part of every woman’s life.  When would women ever learn that nail polish and herbal shampoos weren't a necessity in the wild?

Then there was the matter of securing a ranch hand.  Black Rock Ranch wasn’t big enough to have a whole herd of cowpokes to keep it running.  And a good ranch hand was hard to come by on such short notice.  Most everyone worth having was already out working at one of the bigger ranches, making better money than he could afford to pay them. 

He sucked in a short breath and felt a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek as Melanie sat on the edge of the porch and gracefully crossed one long, slender leg over the other.

What in God’s name was he doing agreeing to take a city girl like her up into the hills?  Women like Melanie Summers vacationed on the banks of some expensive resort town in Europe or the Caribbean.  They didn’t trudge their way through the foothills of Wyoming.  They skied Aspen and spent lots of money on fancy hotels and things they wanted but didn’t need.  They didn’t come strutting onto his ranch, asking him to take a month out of his life to guide them through the mountains.

Luggage.  That’s what she’d called it.  He groaned inwardly, punching in the telephone number, and then waited for someone to pick up on the other end of the line.  She wouldn’t last a day, let alone a month.  He’d seen her type a hundred times.  They come to God’s country, looking for a little peace of mind they’d spotted in a travel brochure and complain about how they can’t get the little conveniences of life along with the pleasures of nature.  All this trouble and they’d probably turn around and head home in a few days. 

Maybe it was just as well, he thought with a sigh as he hung up the line, deciding he wasn’t going to catch Rob Johnson at home today.  He didn’t really like the idea of being away from the ranch what with medical bills still pouring in and the balloon payment on the mortgage they’d taken out three years ago to buy the rest of old man Wiltermeir’s property due too soon for him to want to think about.  At least if he was here, he’d be on top of whatever crisis came their way.  How the hell could he spend a whole month in the mountains when all he’d do is think about whether or not he’d have his ranch to come home to?

He’d called his cousin Joshua Lightfoot, who lived and worked in the clinic on the Wind River Reservation as a doctor, hoping he could recommend some help for the ranch.  Joshua was the son of his mother’s sister.  She’d married an Arapaho Indian she’d met at the Frontier Days Rodeo around the same time Stoney’s parents met.  When they were younger, he and Joshua had traipsed through the wilderness--practically lived in the mountains--until Joshua went to medical school and Stoney started riding rodeo.  Although he’d reached Joshua, he was disappointed to learn there wasn’t anyone on the reservation that he could recommend.  He’d offer to help himself, but he was tied up getting ready for a new intern who was coming to work at the clinic on the reservation in September. 

 Frustration surged to the forefront.  “All this to turn around and come home in a few days,” he muttered to nobody but himself.

Although Mitch Broader would have been his first choice, Stoney dialed his number last.  He hadn’t heard from Mitch since he’d gone back East for his father’s funeral and heard he’d only recently come back to town.  He dialed him up on the chance he’d be home.

Mitch had been working at Black Rock as a full time ranch hand for the better part of eight years.  He’d grown up in the city and moved out to Wyoming at seventeen when his parents divorced.  He’d dodged the gangs that plagued most inner city communities and embraced the simple life once he’d found the serenity of Wyoming’s wide open land.  He loved ranching as much as any man with country blood running through his veins.  Like many ranch hands Stoney knew, Mitch had talked about one day having a spread of his own. 

Stoney owed a tremendous debt to Mitch, one that could never be repaid.  It was Mitch who’d been there for his father and pulled him from the barn fire.  The beam that fell on Wally could have cost him his life.  And Mitch had been there to save him. 

Stoney should have been there.  It still ate at him that he was out riding rodeo when the barn went up in flames and it seemed all their hopes and dreams had gone up with it.  And it killed him that he was going to leave the ranch again.

“Hey, buddy, you made it back,” Stoney said when he recognized Mitch’s voice.

“I almost didn’t.  I just got back a few days ago,” Mitch said.  “Still have my suitcase full of dirty laundry.  What’s up?”

“I need a favor.”  Stoney outlined the course of events leading up to Melanie’s offer.  And although Mitch’s take on it was one of pure amusement, a kind of “you lucky dog” attitude, he’d agreed to fill in at the ranch, seven days a week, for the next month.  Stoney should have felt relieved he was leaving the ranch in good hands, but the feeling of not being there still gnawed at him.

Half an hour later, Stoney found Melanie on the porch, drinking iced tea with his mother and fanning herself from the heat with a folded road map.  Adele was beaming with the sheer pleasure of having some female company at the house.  It had been a long time since he’d seen her smile that way.  If Melanie Summers was responsible for giving her that smile, then he was at least grateful for that.

He cleared his throat and the two women looked up.

Adele rose from the Adirondack chair she’d been sitting in and brushed her hands on the front of her apron.  “I’ll let you two get down to your business.  Can I get you anything, hon?” she asked Stoney.

He shook his head.

When the screen door closed behind Adele, Stoney turned his attention to Melanie.  “You’re in luck.  Day after tomorrow we can get started.  You can stay here in my sister’s old room until we leave, if you’d like.  That is, if you haven't already made other arrangements in town.”

Melanie shook her head, tossing her brown curls back and forth on her rounded shoulders.  “I don’t want to intrude.”

“Ma will be happy to have some female company for a while.  Even if it’s only a day or two.”  He pointed to the leather suitcases lined up neatly in a row on the porch.  “Let’s see if we can consolidate some of this...stuff.”

Melanie threw him a questioning stare.

“You weren’t planning on taking all this gear.”  He said the words as a statement, hoping she understood the meaning.

And she did, he noticed, as a slight blush crept up her cheeks, bringing with it a delicate side that he hadn’t seen until now.  “I suppose I won’t be needing all of it,” she said sheepishly.

His insides suddenly felt warm.  “Good.  Progress.  First off, you’re going to need a decent pair of hiking boots.”

He watched her dip her gaze to survey the riding boots she had on.  They looked brand spanking new as if she’d gotten them at some flashy store in New York City.  The leather was soft and the sole was flat.  “What’s wrong with these?  I usually use these for riding.”

Figures.  Poodle jumps.  “We’ll be riding, but they’re no good.  Look at the sole.  You need something with a good sole for gripping rocks.  And you have to be prepared.  What if your horse goes lame while we’re up there?  You’ll have to walk him easy alongside of you.  He won’t be able to take the weight of you on his back.  You won’t last an hour hiking in those.”

Awareness sparked in her cinnamon eyes.  He wondered just how many men had been unknowingly put under a spell just by gazing into the those eyes.  Never mind, he told himself.  It was no time to be thinking with any part of his body but the head that held his hat. 

“I saw some trail boots at the store.”

He nodded and waved a hand to the rest of the luggage.  “As for the rest of this, everything is going to have to stay here unless it is absolutely essential.”

“It is.  All of it.”

A grin tugged at his lips and he couldn’t help but tease her.  “You do realize a hair dryer isn’t going be much good, seeing there’ll be no electricity.”

She scowled at him, her jaw set.  “I suppose one or two bags can stay here.”

“See if you can get it down to one bag.  We’ll be needing the room for enough supplies to last us a month.”