Authors: Leigh Greenwood
Wyoming Wildfire
LOVE UNDER THE STARS
“It’s not often that a man gets to take a girl to watch the sky at night.” Burch was speaking almost to himself. “It makes you look at things differently.”
“How’s that?” she managed to ask without her voice quavering.
“I can’t say for sure. Sky is sky and I’ve spent more nights in the open than in a proper bed, but when a man has a woman to watch out for, it’s not the same.”
Sibyl’s heart was pounding so loudly she could hardly hear his words. “I like being here,” she answered. “I can’t understand why, but I feel like I belong.”
“It’s because you were never meant to be caught in the web of staid Virginia society. You’re just as wild as those cattle down there, and your spirit needs just as much space as they do.”
His body was next to hers, making it hard for her to think about space, spirits, or anything else. His hands no longer held hers but were traveling hungrily over her body, exploring and setting her skin on fire. She felt helplessly carried away on a raging, uncontrollable torrent of sensation.
She tried to resist, at least she thought she did, but the heat coursing through her had changed into a desire that matched his. Burch was beyond the power of words, his aching need blotting out everything but his own overwhelming hunger….
WYOMING
Wildfire
Leigh
Greenwood
To Fran, Judy, Lee, Sheri, and the CRW.
Copyright © 1987, 2011 Leigh Greenwood
WYOMING
Wildfire
Contents
Burch Randall, in no hurry to reach his destination, allowed Old Blue to canter on a slack rein. The searing heat of the summer sun was mercifully eased by cooler, drier winds that swept down from the hills, but the season had been without rain and the range more closely resembled a desert than the lush grasslands that had drawn the first cattlemen to Wyoming in the late 1860’s. Yet not even the chance of a thunderstorm could keep his mind off the problem that had bedeviled him for weeks. Everyone at the Elkhorn Ranch knew that the new heir arrived today and that Burch was as mad as a wounded grizzly that he would have to share ownership with a twenty-year-old girl from Virginia.
Grinding his teeth in helpless frustration, Burch unknowingly pulled back on the reins. Old Blue resented the unwarranted check and sidestepped in protest. Burch smothered a curse, relaxed his grip, and allowed his mount to settle into an easy stride once more.
Old Blue pricked his ears and slipped into a nervous canter as half a dozen antelope burst from a small canyon just ahead. The fleet animals glided across the plain with effortless grace, but just as the horse and rider reached the mouth of the canyon, a lone buck catapulted across their path almost on top of them. Old Blue shied abruptly at the sound of a rifle shot ricocheting down the canyon.
“You’re too old to be spooked by antelope,” Burch said, pulling him back on the trail just as a second bullet passed through the sleeve of his shirt, painfully grazing his arm. “Damnation!” he ejaculated furiously. Driving his spurs into his horse’s sides, he galloped into the mouth of the canyon, bent on finding out who was fool enough to fire wildly after a fleeing herd. But when he reached the far end he was forced to pull up in disgust; he hadn’t seen anyone and it was next to impossible to find tracks on the dry, stony ground. “Damned fool’s too much of a coward to show his face,” he cursed and turned Old Blue back toward home. Probably some dude from one of the ranches near Laramie, he thought. They occasionally wandered off the beaten path and became a menace until they could be rounded up again. He’d have to bring it up at the stockmen’s fall meeting. It was time to do something when a man couldn’t ride his own range without being shot at.
A hot stinging reminded him of his wound. He reached around the back of his arm and his fingers came away bloody. It wasn’t much—no need to bother with it until he reached home—but it ruined a perfectly good shirt.
Nothing else appeared in the broad expanse of the Laramie River basin to command his attention and his thoughts soon returned to their unprofitable musings. His Uncle Wesley hadn’t felt he could leave the ranch away from his only blood kin, but he had anticipated his niece would sell her half or quietly accept her share of the profits, not move out West. “She’ll probably expect to get milk from a steer,” Burch muttered angrily to the uninterested wind and his equally indifferent horse. He could have paid her a good price, even by Eastern standards. The cattle market was booming, and though his ranch couldn’t match some of the company-owned spreads above Cheyenne or in Montana, the Elkhorn was one of the largest privately owned ranches in Wyoming and certainly the best run.
Ever since he was ten years old, he had worked as hard as any paid hand to earn the position he now held. “You can’t expect a man to do any job you can’t do yourself” had been his uncle’s favorite maxim. So it was a bitter day when the lawyer told him that not only was his cousin not going to sell, she had decided to come out West to run her ranch. The lawyer had listened patiently while Burch turned the air blue with curses, but when his temper cooled he knew he was helpless to prevent the unwanted arrival. Without lifting a finger, she had as much right to live at the Elkhorn as he had after close to twenty years of unremitting labor.
Damn the woman, he thought, kicking his horse into an easy gallop. If she looks anything like Uncle Wesley’s brother, she has a face like a mottled cow. Not the kind of girl he wanted to marry. That had been the lawyer’s idea, not his. His uncle had urged him to marry right after Aunt Ada’s death, and for a while he stirred up hopes in the bosoms of several beauties all too ready to share his bed and wealth. Unfortunately, they didn’t share his interest in the ranch and the hard work that weathered his handsome features, hardened his muscled body, or produced his wealth. Maybe it was time to settle down, but twenty-eight was still young.
“Hell,” he swore with conviction, if anything happened to him now, the ranch would go to his cousin. He’d be damned if he’d see a lifetime’s work turned over to some female itching to play at ranching. Most likely she’d run it into the ground in a few years and have to sell out to the first person to make her an offer. Then she’d go back East and boast for the rest of her life of having lived in the wild West. It had been his uncle’s dream to see Wyoming become a state, and Burch was determined to be the owner of the Elkhorn when that day arrived.
The double yoke of oxen plodded steadily across the open plain through an enveloping silence that was punctuated only by the squeaks of protest from the overloaded wagon as it bumped over the uneven ground. The two women inside could not discern a path through the buffalo and blue grama grass, but the driver, following careful instructions received at the ranch where they had spent the previous night, was confident they would reach their destination well before sunset. He would be glad of it, too, since in all his years on the range he had seldom had a more difficult job.
A crippled ex-cowpuncher, it was difficult for Ned Wright to find any kind of work, so when he was offered the chance of a permanent position if he would drive two women and their belongings to a ranch north of Laramie, he didn’t hesitate. He congratulated himself on his luck when he got his first look at the pair of them. Both were handsome women, but there was nothing in the territory that could hold a candle to that younger one.
Less than twelve hours later he was scratching his head and wondering how any girl could look so pretty and soft on the outside and still be tough as shoe leather on the inside. Pretty girls were supposed to give over to a man, not order him about like a drover on roundup. Still, he was well paid for his trouble, and if he decided not to stay, all he would have to listen to on his way back was the jingle of gold coins in his pocket.
The younger of the two women put her head through the flaps. Thick golden hair falling below her shoulders framed a complexion of creamy smoothness. That rancher said we had to keep a good pace if we were to reach the Elkhorn before nightfall.”
It was uttered as a simple statement, but Ned bridled, feeling his competence was being questioned. “This is a good pace, miss. We’ve still got four or five more hours of daylight, and that’ll be more than enough, even if we get lost.”
“We look lost now,” said Sibyl Cameron, surveying the emptiness around her and shading her deep blue eyes with slim fingers. “Can’t you find some shade? My aunt is suffering dreadfully from this heat.”