Cowboy Brigade

Lacey bounced up and down. “We want macaroni and cheese now.”

“Yeah, macaroni and cheese.” Lyric took her sister’s hand, grinning.

“Okay.” How could Lindsay refuse when they looked so eager? “But you have to eat your green beans, too.”

Both girls shouted, “Yay!” Then they handed their brushes to Lindsay and ran for the door.

Lindsay realized her mistake as she stood with the brushes in her hand, alone in the barn with Wade. She grabbed Whiskers’s bridle and led him into the stall, closing the gate behind her. Taking her time, she finished currying the horse, while she held her breath, willing Wade to go back out to the pasture. As soon as he left, she could escape to the house and have that conversation with her grandfather.

She must have groomed the horse twice before she realized she had stalled long enough. Lindsay slipped the bridle from Whiskers’s head and ducked out the stall door. The barn was empty. Wade had left. Sweetie Pie nickered from her stall, wanting her feed.

“Can’t you wait until Wade feeds you?” Lindsay called out softly.

Sweetie Pie nickered again and Little Joe added his protest, stomping his foot in the hard-packed dirt.

“Really? You can’t wait? But I can’t stick around. I can’t do this now. I’m not ready.” Her heart banging against her ribs, her body tense with the urge to flee, Lindsay looked from the horses to the open barn door. She sighed, grabbed two buckets and scooped up sweet feed—one for Sweetie Pie and one for Little Joe—and hung them inside their stall doors.

Still no sign of Wade or the other horses he was supposed to bring in. “You got lucky this time,” she muttered to herself, heading for the barn door. “He’s going to corner you sooner or later and will want to know the truth.”

“Truth about what?” Wade rounded the corner of the barn door, leading a dappled gray gelding and a golden palomino mare.

Lindsay’s face burned. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Wade smiled, his blue eyes twinkling just like Lacey’s had only minutes before.

Lindsay’s chest tightened. That smile had gotten her into more trouble than she could have ever imagined five years ago. It still had the effect of turning her knees to rubber.

Granted, he looked different. No longer the clean-cut soldier who’d come home on leave. He sported a dark, neatly trimmed beard that made him look even more dangerous and…sexier than ever.

“I always liked it that you talked to your horses.” He didn’t move, he and the horses more or less blocking Lindsay’s escape route.

“I understand them and I like to think they understand me.” She shrugged, wishing she had made her run for the house when she’d had the chance. This conversation reminded her of others equally as intimate in the setting and content.

Anxious to leave him, but not wanting him to know just how he affected her, Lindsay strode forward and reached for the dappled gray gelding. “Come on, Stormy. You’ll be wanting your feed.” When her hand touched Wade’s, that same old shocking electric current coursed through her veins, headed directly south. Heat flared throughout her body, igniting a flame she’d thought burned out five years ago.

She jerked the reins from Wade’s hand and practically ran for Stormy’s stall. Why did she have to be so aware of this man? He’d broken her heart more than once, hadn’t she learned her lesson?

After she got Stormy into his stall, she shoved the latch closed and turned to run for the house.

Before she could take two steps, Wade had the mare’s stall door closed and he’d spun to face her.

Lindsay sidestepped him, but he didn’t let her pass, grabbing her by the arms.

“Look, Lindsay, I’m not here to start something between you and me. I know that’s over. I’m just here because I need a job.”

Where his fingers curled around her arms her skin tingled, reminding Lindsay of the last time he’d held her. The magic of their lovemaking and how much she had wanted to be with him always. The depth of all that emotion pressed against her chest, making it impossible for her to breathe, much less talk.

Her eyes blurred and she realized in horror that she would cry if she didn’t get away from him. And no matter what she did, she refused to cry in front of Wade Coltrane. She’d done enough crying over this man and, as her grandfather would lecture, Kemps don’t cry.

Forcing air past her vocal cords, she said, “I don’t want you here, no matter what your reasons.”

For a brief moment, a sadness so deep it almost hurt her to see flashed in his blue eyes. Then it was gone and his hands fell to his sides, his lips firming into a straight line. “I understand. And I hope you’ll understand that I work for your grandfather.” He spun on his heels and walked out of the barn.

Lindsay stared at his back, anger replacing sadness and the lingering waves of lust of a moment ago. “How dare he talk to me that way?” She pushed her sleeves up and stomped toward the house. Her grandfather would see it her way and fire Wade Coltrane’s butt quicker than he could say I’m sorry.

When she reached the house, the girls waited in the kitchen clean and ready to start cooking supper. Her grandfather was nowhere to be found.

Damn.

WADE FED the horses and turned them back out to pasture before he grabbed his worn, military duffle bag from the truck and headed for the bunkhouse to clean up. Frank beat him there, his booted feet propped on the footboard of his bunk.

“Surprise, surprise,” Wade muttered to himself. Out loud he asked, “Where are the other hands?”

“Out with Old Man Kemp, shoring up the cattle chutes, gettin’ them ready for roundup. Why do you care?”

“I care because I work here and, if they need help, I should be out there.”

“They’ll be back any minute for supper. Lindsay sure can rustle up some fine grub. Not only is she good-lookin’, she’s a good cook. Everything a man could want in a woman.” Frank stuck a hay straw in his mouth, his gaze narrowed as if waiting for a rise from Wade.

Wade tamped down the anger quick to rise when Frank made mention of Lindsay in any way. He ignored the guy and stared around the bunkhouse. “Which bunks aren’t taken?”

“Those.” Frank jerked his head past his bunk to the ones where thin mattresses lay bare on the bed frames.

Dorian’s gaze followed him as Wade moved past. “Hear you used to live on the ranch.”

Wade found a wooden footlocker beside the bed, opened it and shoved his duffle bag into it without unpacking. “You heard right.” He unbuckled the lock on the bag, grabbed out a shaving kit, towel and clean clothes.

“Prior Army?” Dorian asked.

“Yup. What about you?”

“Same. Did some time on active duty.” Frank crossed his arms behind his head. “Why come back to this podunk town?”

“Needed a job.” Wade gathered his things and straightened.

Wade could care less about Frank and his past but, as a new hired hand, he had to try to fit in, even if he didn’t plan to stay long. As soon as he had the evidence he needed, he’d be gone from the Long K Ranch. “What’s your story?”

Frank shrugged. “Same.”

The bunkhouse door opened and two men walked in shaking dust from their cowboy hats.

The first guy, a short, grizzled older man, with a scraggly white beard and skin as tough as leather, tossed his cowboy hat onto the first bed. He held out his hand to Wade. “Roy Kingery, folks call me Dusty.”

Wade smiled, shook hands with Dusty and introduced himself.

The second man, tall, thin as a rail and with facial features as gaunt as Abraham Lincoln, strode in, head down, still wearing his cowboy hat. He didn’t say anything, walked straight to his bed and unlaced well-worn leather chaps.

Dusty jerked his head toward the tall lean man. “That’s Billy Moore. He don’t talk much, but ain’t a man who can out-rope, outride or outshoot him in the county.”