The Renegades: Cole (6 page)

“Don’t. Watch your back.”

“That’s
your
job.”

“Pleasant as it would be to have your charming company every minute of every day, there’ll be times when, for privacy’s sake, you’re out of my sight. Watch your back.”

“
You
watch your mouth. These men have ridden together for a lot of years and they
wouldn’t take kindly to such talk about Skeeter.”

He looked down at her with a pitying expression that told her how foolish, how naive she was.

“If you don’t know I have more sense than that, then why the hell did you hire me?”

He turned on his heel and strode away, threw his plate and cup in the wreck pan, and went for his horse.

Aurora couldn’t move from that spot because of the cold chill in her blood.

Cole had been trying to size Skeeter up. He hadn’t been trying to get the men on his side for some mythical future argument between her and him. He’d been trying to protect her, nothing more. Even though she didn’t believe Skeeter would be disloyal, she knew now that Cole believed it.

He would also believe that her mind was unhinged, since she’d accused him of such a ridiculous thing so alien to every impression she’d had of him. It was true she should’ve known better. She
did
know better, and she had since the moment they’d met. She had just let her first-morning-on-the-trail jitters carry her away—that was why she had temporarily lost her judgment.

Now he’d think she was too stupid to come in out of the rain, much less boss a trail drive. Her mind twisted with chagrin.

But why should she care what he thought of her? She had hired him to protect her from Gates and that was it.

That was
all
.

T
hey got the cattle bunched, headed south, and moving well before the sun had risen very high above the horizon. By the time they crossed the boundary of the Flying B and officially started down the trail toward the little town of Rocky Springs, Aurora began to feel much better about everything. Especially Cole.

He had not made one sarcastic comment while she was directing the work, or uttered one personal remark when they were alone. In fact, he had ridden off in each of the four directions to check for trouble soon after they started, and he hadn’t shown the slightest emotion when he was near her. No amazement at her insanity, no disgust at her decisions, no anger, no … desire. Well, to be perfectly honest, he’d
never
really shown
desire
—that look in his eyes when he’d said there were many things he approved about her had been only a leer meant to tease and embarrass her.

She jerked herself up straighter in the saddle
and looked around, as if someone could have seen the imaginings running through her head. Lord help her!

It was fine, it was
great
that he was behaving himself, and she hoped and prayed that he would keep it up. She could certainly do without the aggravation.

She picked Shy Boy up into a trot. Cole was doing his job this first morning, and she was sure he’d continue to do it. Since that was what she’d hired him for, she shouldn’t waste any more thoughts on him. She had a trail drive to boss and a new home to find.

Then there he came, Cole McCord, riding back to her from scouting the next turn in the trail, and her heart just lifted right out of her chest. It was simply happiness that caused it, not the sight of him. She was happy because things were going so well, so far. That had to be the reason.

And because she felt really safe for the first time since Gates had first threatened her. Cole had scouted around, but he had never gone far, never let her out of his sight for very long.

She swung in her saddle to see the herd stretching out behind her. An old longhorn cow that her father had always called Brindle because of her roany, mottled hide had pushed her way to the front of the hundreds of cattle to trot beside a lanky young steer who’d been in the lead since the first day of the gather.

They made her smile. What a pair! But they would be the two main leaders for the whole
drive, she could tell that much right now from the way they held their heads and the look in their eyes. Fine. Anywhere her men could get them to go, the others would follow, plus they were setting a good pace with no urging from the point riders, perfect for a herd on a road instead of on graze and an outfit trying to get them trail-broke in a hurry.

She turned to face south again, deliberately avoiding looking at Cole. Cookie in the chuck wagon and little Nate in the hoodlum one were rolling out to the side, picking up a little speed in front of the herd, so they’d reach the nooning place first and have hot food ready when the men arrived. The next thing she and Cole had to do was ride even faster than the wagons and pick that nooning place.

“Mmrhr, grrhr,” Bubba said, trotting serenely beside her horse.

“That’s right,” she said, her eyes rebelliously fixing on Cole as he came closer. “Next, we have to find a good, shady spot by a creek to have our dinner. A picnic spot.”

Her happiness grew, a feeling stronger by far than her apprehension of the early morning, and it swept all through her. She could do it, by thunder! With the help she had, she could get this herd to a new range and start a ranch of her own where no one, ever, could tell her to leave. The thought made her heart sing.

She rode through the warming sunlight to meet Cole.

“I suppose you and I might as well pull out
now and ride ahead to find the nooning,” she said. “They seem to be trailing just fine.”

He glanced back at the mostly peaceful herd.

“Not bad for the first morning,” he said. “But I’d say we better stick with ‘em until after Rocky Springs. I know this trail to below the New Mexico Territory line, and the only way through is right down the middle of Main Street.”

“I forgot about Rocky Springs!” she cried and immediately wondered if she was really losing her mind after all. “I guess I thought we were halfway to Texas by now.”

“Only a few hundred miles to go,” he said dryly, swinging his horse around so he could ride beside her, heading back to the south.

The easy tone of his voice, low and rich, and the teasing grin he gave her made her want to ride closer, close enough that their legs might brush.

She
was
going insane. What had she just decided about keeping things all business?

“Thanks so much for reminding me,” she said, mildly sarcastic.

“Any time.”

Bubba lifted his big head and added what sounded like a whole sentence to the conversation.

“That’s right,” Aurora said to him. “But first we’re going to get them through Rocky Springs. Then we’ll eat.”

Cole laughed.

“You didn’t forget Rocky Springs because
you thought you were halfway to Texas,” he said. “It was because you were deep in conversation with a dog.”

She smiled at him.

“Bubba’s a better companion than lots of people are,” she said. “At least he agrees with me most of the time.”

She looked up to meet Cole’s slanting glance.

“What?” she snapped.

“Listen to yourself,” he said. “A good companion is somebody who agrees with you.”

She shrugged, grinning a little at the teasing.

“That’s right. Or … somebody who can put up a humdinger of an argument for the opposite point of view.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Well, now, then, we may have a right interesting ride from here to Texas.”

“Meaning you disagree with everything I say?”

He cocked his head and looked at her, then nodded toward the wagons, which were almost out of sight ahead of them.

“No. Only with a few things you’ve done, such as trailing that second wagon. One would be plenty to keep repaired and rolling.”

“No, it
wouldn’t
. I
had
to bring two! I’m moving a household to a place where there are no stores and even if there were, I have no money and if I tried to put everything in the chuck wagon, we’d have no room for food!”

Bubba, responding to the defensiveness in her tone, added his vocal support.

Cole scowled down at him.

“And I’m not too sure about bringing that dog.”

“Good heavens, Cole, you surely didn’t expect me to go off and leave him! Haven’t you ever had a pet?”

Even in the middle of the argument, she suddenly wanted very badly to know. What had Cole been like as a boy? Where had he grown up?

He ignored the question.

“If he gets footsore or hurt, you’ll have to leave him. He’s too big to carry in front of your saddle.”

“We’ve left a spot in the back of the hood wagon in case we need it for new calves,” she said coolly. “We’ll put Bubba there if he needs to ride.”

“What if there’s already a calf in it?”

She scowled at him, her irritation rising fast.

“What if lightning strikes and burns us all to bits? Life’s uncertain, Cole, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed, O Wise Woman of Many Years,” he said. “How old are you, anyhow, Aurora?”

The question surprised her into silence. Was
he
wanting to know about
her
, too? The thought was strangely intriguing.

“Never ask a woman her age,” she said.

“I thought we were dispensing with manners on the trail.”

She struck her saddle horn with her fist. But his quick wit also made her smile.

“Will you
never
stop it?”

“Stop what?”

“Throwing my own words back into my face. It doesn’t become you, Cole, if you’re supposed to be so good at taking the opposite point of view.”

That made him grin.

“I
am
good at it and I’ll prove it. I’ll give you three irrefutable reasons that you ought to sell that wagon and its contents in Rocky Springs.”

“
Sell
it?”

Horrified, she turned in the saddle to face him. His dark, amused eyes captured hers.

“One, selling it gets something out of it instead of wasting it and its contents when you have to leave it by the trail somewhere.”

He lifted one long, brown forefinger to keep count.

“Two, it gives you another man on the herd. Or take the boy off the driving chores and put him with his brother on the remuda. It’s a big remuda for one kid to trail.”

“Eighty horses,” she said, furiously biting off every syllable.

“Three, it saves you from having to worry about all that extra junk when you get to where you’re going.”

She glared at him.

“There’s nothing
extra
. There’s nothing
junk
. The contents of that wagon are the absolute,
bare necessities. I can’t do without any of them.”

He shook his head. “Gimcracks and gewgaws, I’d bet money.”

“That remark just flies all over me,” she snapped. “Bet your money and lose.”

“We had better wager a kiss instead.”

A surprised thrill seized her stomach and turned it over.

“A
kiss?
”

He gave her that impossibly innocent look he’d used at breakfast.

“A minute ago, you said you have no money,” he said, in the voice of true reason. “I’m sorry. I forgot about that when I suggested a bet.”

He smiled in such an infuriating way that her tongue tingled with the desire to tell him off roundly. Yet she couldn’t stop thinking about a kiss.

“Of course,” he said, with a shrug for emphasis, “if you’re afraid you’ll lose …”

“I won’t lose,” she said. “There’s not a gimcrack or a gewgaw in the load.”

His eyes looked deep into hers with the greatest of satisfaction, as if she had just fallen into a trap of his making.

“You needn’t be so smug,” she said. “You’ve already lost.”

“No, darlin’,
you
have,” he drawled.

He gave her a look hot enough to melt her in her saddle.

Then he grinned that crooked, devilish grin
of his, and it and his dangerous, dark eyes told her he knew exactly what she was feeling.

“No, to tell the truth,” he said, sure of himself as the sun in the sky, “I reckon we’ve both just won.”

He turned away, faced forward, and loped on ahead, leaving her seething.

Darlin
’. She’d show him darlin’. She’d show him wagers. It’d be a snowy summer day in hell before he ever collected a kiss from her, the arrogant sidewinder!

She smooched to Shy Boy to pick up the pace and started catching up with him to tell him so.

“The wagons are going into the cut,” he called back. “We need to narrow the herd.”

Aurora wheeled her horse, and they covered the quarter mile back to the front of the herd side by side. In a wordless agreement, they each headed for one of the point riders and rode with them to help start funneling the cattle into the winding gash between two mountains. Just before the leaders went in, Aurora beckoned to Cole, and they rode in front of them.

“The trail goes right through the middle of town,” she called back to the point men. “We don’t want to do any damage.”

Monte raised one hand high to show he’d understood, and then she was following Cole into the narrow passageway with the herd coming on behind them. The horses held a long trot, and the cattle came on only a little slower.

The cut was about a half mile long, with the mountain on each side looming fifty feet or
more over their heads. Then they reached the south end and came out of it into an only slightly wider valley still surrounded by mountains. They passed a farmhouse or two with the herd leaders only a stone’s throw behind them, and entered the town. It was composed of only a dozen or so buildings, if that many, but three times that many people began stepping out of them to watch the herd passing through.

“Never seen a herd trailed by a woman before,” a man’s voice called.

“She ain’t took ‘em nowhere yet,” someone answered, laughing. “Only brought ‘em down from the Flyin’ B.”

Annoyed, Aurora looked at Cole.

“How do they know who I am?” she shouted over the noise of the oncoming hooves.

“Recognize your brand, probably.”

“We’re trailbranded Slash A. They don’t appear to be fellow ranchers who’d know where the Flying B land is … or was.”

He opened his mouth to answer. Then, as if he’d seen something in the corner of his eye, he turned abruptly. Aurora looked, too.

Three men, on muleback, were riding out from behind a building, the first of them already blocking the road. Two more appeared from the opposite side of the street. They all carried shotguns. In their hands, not in saddle boots. They looked poor and mean as snakes.

“Miss!” yelled the one in the middle. “Hey, Missy Benton! Hold it right there!”

A sudden, sharp fear raced through her. Had
the cattle damaged something? No. If that were so these men couldn’t know it, since they were ahead of the whole herd. Who were they, anyhow?

She turned and held up her hand as a signal for the point men, but they had seen and were already slowing the herd. Worried, she stood in the stirrups to try to see whether the flank men had yet made it out of the cut, whether the cattle seemed likely to stay in the road or scatter. She and Cole were almost upon the human and mule blockade when she turned back around again. Thank God she had hired Cole.

Shy Boy responded to her leg pressure and moved her closer to him.

“I don’t know them,” she muttered, half under her breath. “
How
do they know me?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t appear to even hear her, he was watching the men so intently.

He didn’t seem worried, though.

“Whaddya mean,” shouted the man who had called to her before, “comin’ through this valley with all them cattle? You reckon us folks got no more sense than to stand here and let you gather ourn in with ‘em as you go? Yore a cow-thievin’ outfit, ain’t you?”

For an instant, Aurora couldn’t process the harsh words.