Nelson's Brand

“Shoshone Canyon gives me the cold willies,” Winnie said, shivering. “It’s eerie, especially when you have to come across the dam to Cody, through the mountain tunnel. I only have to go that way when we’re coming back from Yellowstone National Park, thank God. Cody is northwest of here, so we can avoid the canyon altogether.”

“You chicken, you,” Allison gasped. “I’d love it!”

“I imagine you would. Well, we’ll go when Dad gets back, but I’ll wear a blindfold.”

“I’ll make sure you have one,” Allison laughed.

There was no more mention of Gene Nelson, even if he did seem to haunt Allison’s dreams.

Then, all at once, she seemed to run into him everywhere. She waved to him in town as he drove by in his big Jeep, and he waved back with a smile. She saw him on his horse occasionally as she drove past the ranch with Winnie, and he seemed to watch for her. When she and Winnie visited Dwight, he sometimes paused in the doorway to talk, and his green eyes ran over her with frank curiosity as he joined in the conversation. It always seemed to be about cattle or horses or rodeo, and Allison never understood it, but then it didn’t matter. She just loved looking at Gene.

He noticed that rapt stare of hers and was amused by it. Women had always chased him, but there was something different about this one. She was interested in him, but too shy to flirt or play up to him. Ironically that interested him more than a blatant invitation would have.

He began to look for her after that, despite his misgivings about getting involved. She stirred something inside him that he didn’t even know he possessed. It was irritating, but he felt as if he’d been caught in an avalanche, and he couldn’t stop it.

A few days after the barbecue he noticed Winnie’s car going past the ranch, with a passenger, on the way in to Pryor. And he’d found an excuse to go into town himself. To get a new rope, he said. The ranch had enough ropes to furnish Pancho Villa’s army already, but it was an excuse if he really needed one to appease his conscience.

That was how Allison came upon him, seemingly accidentally, in Pryor that afternoon while she was picking up some crocheting thread for Mrs. Manley and Winnie was having a fitting for her wedding gown.

He was coming out of the feed store with what looked like a new rope in one lean hand. He’d been working. He was wearing stained jeans with muddy boots and dusty bat-wing chaps. A worn and battered tan Stetson was cocked over one pale green eye, and he needed another shave, even though it was midafternoon. He looked totally out of sorts.

In fact, he was, and Allison was the reason for his bad humor. All the reasons why he should snub her came falling into his brain. It didn’t do any good, of course, to tell himself that she was the last complication he needed right now. Miss Chic Society there wasn’t cut out for ranch life or anything more than a wild fling, and he was beginning to feel his age. Instead of running around with wild women, he needed to be thinking about a wife and kids. Except that kids might be out of the question, considering the character of his real father. His expression hardened. Besides that, considering his reputation with women, it was going to be hard to find a decent woman who’d be willing to marry him. This wouldn’t be a bad time to work on improving his image, and he couldn’t do that by linking himself with another sophisticated party girl. Which Miss Hathoway seemed to be, given her performance at the barbecue.

Of course, it wasn’t that easy to put the brakes on his interest. Now here she stood, looking at him with those big hazel eyes and making his body ache. And he’d initiated the confrontation.

“Hello, Mr. Nelson,” she said, smiling at him. “Out looking for a lost cow?” she added, nodding toward the rope in his hand.

His eyebrows arched. “I came in to buy some new rope, Miss Hathoway.” He was irritated at having told a blatant lie.

“Oh.” She stared at it. “Can you spin a loop and jump through it?”

He glared at her. “This,” he said, hefting it irritably, “is nylon rope. It isn’t worth a damn until you tie it between the back bumper of a truck and a fence-post and stretch it.”

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“I am not.” He moved closer, looking down at her. She was at least average height, but he still had to look down. She seemed very fragile somehow. Perhaps her lifestyle made her brittle.

He searched her soft eyes. “Did you drive in?” he asked so that she wouldn’t know he’d followed her to town.

“Yes. With Winnie,” she said. “She’s trying on her wedding gown.”

His thick eyebrow jerked. “The wedding will be Pryor’s social event of the season,” he said with faint sarcasm. The thought of the wedding stung him. Dwight was a Nelson, truly his father’s son. Dwight had inherited the lion’s share of the business, even though Gene couldn’t complain about his own inheritance. It was just that he’d been the eldest son all his life. He’d belonged. Now he didn’t. Dwight and Winnie’s wedding was a potent, stinging reminder of that.

“It hurts you, doesn’t it?”

The gentle question brought a silent gasp from his lips. He stared down at her, caught completely off guard by her unexpected remark. The compassion in those eyes was like a body blow. She almost seemed to glow with it. He couldn’t have imagined anyone looking at him like that a week ago, and he wasn’t sure he liked it even now.

“Haven’t you got someplace to go, Miss Hathoway?” he asked irritably.

“I suppose that means you wish I did. Why are you wearing bat-wing chaps in the northwest?” she asked pleasantly. “And Mexican rowels?”

His eyes widened. “I used to work down in Texas,” he said hesitantly. “What do you know about chaps?”

“Lots.” She grinned. “I grew up reading Zane Grey.”

“No better teacher, except Louis L’Amour,” he murmured. His pale eyes slid down her body. She was wearing jeans and a white shirt, short sleeved, because it was June and warm.

“No hat,” he observed, narrow-eyed. “You know better, or you should, having lived in Arizona. June is a hot month, even here.”

She grimaced. “Yes, but I hate hats. It isn’t usually this warm, surely, this far north?”

Those hazel eyes were casting spells. He had to drag his away. “We get hot summers. Winters are the problem,” he said, nodding toward the distant peaks, snow covered even in the summer. “We get three and four feet of snow at a time. Trying to find calving cows in that can be a headache.”

“I expect so.” Her eyes went to his thin mouth. “But isn’t summer a busier time?”

He looked down at her. “Not as much so as April and September. That’s when we round up cattle.”

“I guess that keeps you busy,” she said softly.

“No more than anything else does,” he said shortly. He had to get away from her. She disturbed him. “I’ve got to go.”

“That’s it, reject me,” she said with a theatrical sigh, hiding her shyness in humor. “Push me aside— I can take it.”

He smiled without meaning to. “Can you?” he murmured absently.

“Probably not,” she confessed dryly. She searched his eyes. “Winnie warned me to stay away from you. She says you’re a womanizer.”

He stared down at her. “So? She’s right,” he said without pulling his punches. “I’ve never made any secret of it.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “Did you expect a different answer?”

She shook her head. “I’m glad I didn’t get one. I don’t mind the truth.”

“Neither do I, but we’re pretty much in the minority. I find that most people prefer lies, however blatant.”

She felt momentarily guilty, because she was trying to behave like someone she wasn’t. But she knew that her real self wasn’t likely to appeal to him. She couldn’t help herself.

Gene saw that expression come and go on her face and was puzzled by it. He glanced past her, watching Winnie in the doorway of a shop, talking to another woman.

“You’d better go,” he said abruptly. “Your watchdog’s about to spot you talking to me.” He smiled with pure sarcasm. “She’ll give you hell all day if she sees us together.”

“Would you mind?” she asked.

He nodded. “For Dwight’s sake, yes, I would. I don’t want to alienate Winnie before the wedding.” He laughed curtly. “Plenty of time for that afterward.”

“You aren’t half as bad as you pretend to be,” she remarked.

He sobered instantly. “Don’t you believe it, cupcake,” he replied. “You’d better go.”

“All right.” She sighed, clutching the bag of thread against her breasts. “See you.”