Winning The Cowboy's Heart

“Nope.” She dug the heels of her boots into the gravel and heaved backward. Her biceps, revealed by a black tank top tucked into faded Wranglers, strained. With a cry, she fell on her butt, the spare tire still lodged beneath the rear bumper.

“Do you need to change it?” Heath eyed the dual-rear-wheel truck. She could easily get home on what she had.

“I’m. Not. Showing. Up. At. Home. With. A. Flat. Tire,” she grunted, tugging harder.

Heath rubbed the back of his neck, puzzling out the scrappy cowgirl. Why worry about going home with a flat? Her brothers, part of the hot-tempered, impulsive, mouthy Cade clan his family had feuded with for over a hundred years, ribbed her from time to time. Was she sensitive about how they’d react? It seemed improbable. Her impressive left hook kept them in line. Some called Jewel cocky, boastful and brash. Yet he’d glimpsed another side tonight, seen a vulnerable hunger that’d called to him.

“Oof!” She landed hard on her back again and stared up at the brilliant star-studded sky, winded. A warm June breeze ruffled the loose red strands from her braid and carried the scent of decaying pine needles, wet soil and wild honeysuckle.

He held out a hand, but she ignored it, shoved to her feet, and marched back to the spare with her jaw set. “If you keep gawking, I’ll have to charge you for the show.”

“I’m not—”

She angled her face his way, and her bow-shaped lips curved in a knowing smirk that infuriated and excited him. Her rosy mouth nearly blended with the freckles covering her face. She must have as many as the stars overhead, he marveled, taking in her slim nose and lean, angular cheeks. She was sort of cute beneath her frown, like Huckleberry Finn’s younger sister, cowlicks and all. “Now you’re just staring.”

“No... I...” He shifted on his feet. Why did Jewel keep him off-balance and lingering? Heath eyed the empty parking lot and cocked his head at the distant yip of coyotes lurking on the forested slopes surrounding Silver Spurs. “Who are you with?”

“Me,” she panted, the cords of her neck popping as she hauled on the wedged spare harder still.

“No one else?”

“Myself and I.” Her sarcastic tone called a smile to his lips. “Something wrong with that?”

Since he’d only ever dated Kelsey, he had limited experience with women. Kelsey preferred he accompany her everywhere, and his sister, Sierra, was never without at least a four-legged friend. Jewel’s dogged independence, her refusal to ask for help, to depend on someone, intrigued him and left him wondering. Did she have any friends? “No...it’s just... I’m not leaving you here alone.”

Jewel quit tugging to point out a twelve-gauge shotgun mounted on her pickup’s gun rack. “I can handle myself.”

No doubt, yet a desire to help kept Heath’s stubborn feet planted. So much for being a people pleaser. By staying, he angered Jewel, something he usually avoided. But Jewel tapped a stubborn streak he didn’t recognize. Stranger still, he was enjoying their test of wills. “Your mother wouldn’t want me to—”

“Look,” she cut him off, “just because our parents are hitched doesn’t mean you and I are brother and sister now. You’re still a Loveland, which makes you public enemy one.”

He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Just trying to be neighborly.”

“If you want to be a good neighbor, stop suing my family for five million dollars.”

His jaw clamped. “You owe us. A Cade judge revoked our easement across your property without just cause.” Long ago, after the Cades jumped to the wrong conclusions and strung up Everett Loveland for the death of Maggie Cade and the disappearance of her priceless sapphire, the Cades sued to revoke an easement allowing Heath’s family access to the Crystal River to water their herd. With their consistent water source gone, Loveland Hills fell on shaky financial ground that only worsened through the years as summers became drier and drier.

“A lie.” When Jewel staggered backward again, he stepped ahead of her, yanked out the tire and rolled it to the flat.

“Hey!” she protested, but he ignored her, grabbed up a nearby long-handled wrench and fitted the squared-off crank over the tire’s bolts. Within minutes he’d whipped off the flat and heaved it over the top of her truck bed.

“Not bad for a Neanderthal,” Jewel drawled behind him.

“Neanderthal?” When he turned, she’d already fitted the spare into place and stretched a hand out for the wrench. He passed it over, impressed as she secured the new wheel faster than he’d removed the old.

“Yeah,” she grunted as she tightened the last bolt. “Primitive man.”

“I’m not primitive.”

She sat back on her haunches and eyed her tire change. “You practically clubbed me over the head to get the tire.”

“I’ve never raised a hand to a lady.”

Her gaze collided with his. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. And I’m no lady. Or some damsel in distress. Play your hero act with your fiancée.”

With that, she tossed the long wrench in her truck bed, hopped behind her wheel and started up her powerful engine. It throbbed, loud, in the night air. Before she left, she leaned out her window, her expression smug. “And you’re welcome.”

“For what?” Shouldn’t she be thanking him?

“For protecting your fragile male ego. See you in court!” She shifted into gear, then raced off, her tires kicking up gravel.

He coughed on exhaust fumes and dust as he stared after her disappearing taillights. Aggravating, cocky, exasperating woman. Yet the wide smile reflected in his rearview mirror when he started his pickup belied his irritation. He reversed from his spot and cruised onto the road.

Why was he so amped?

He had plenty to worry about. The make-or-break Lovelands versus Cades trial began in August and tomorrow, he’d tell his family, and Kelsey, about his Nashville tryout. Would they support him? He cranked a George Strait tune and lustily sang along, a sense of buoyancy nearly lifting him from his hard seat.

The audition of a lifetime awaited him, but he suspected one saucy redhead might, oddly, have something to do with his mood, too. He’d moved Jewel while performing, her reaction strengthening his resolve to chase his dream.

His foot stomped on the gas and cool air drove through his windows. Potent anticipation lifted goose bumps on his arms. He had the world tucked in his pocket. For the first time in forever, a career in music seemed within reach and Heath aimed to go for it, no matter the cost.

CHAPTER TWO (#u3d7b7885-4653-57cf-8b88-a23f35832bb2)

JEWEL TORE OFF her hat and swiped her damp brow. Overhead, the midafternoon sun beat down, unrelenting in a cloudless blue sky. She peered at the calves she and her brothers had isolated from the herd this morning. Panicked bleats filled the dry air and mingled with their mothers’ answering bellows. They hadn’t been separated since calving season three months ago. The sooner she got them through the pen system she’d designed to lessen their stress, the better.

“Next!” she hollered to her brother Justin. With a clang, he opened the metal latch and released the next calf from the holding pen. It raced forward, encountered a secured gate, and jerked to a stop in the extended neck chute she’d convinced her brother and ranch manager, James, to purchase. The calf tossed its head and rolled its eyes. Air huffed through its flaring nostrils.

“Easy, girl.” Jewel stroked the little one’s soft gray side. The scent of disinfectant soap stung her nostrils. Earlier, her brother Jared and nephew Javi had cleaned the calves to prevent infection. “Easy now.”

The calf settled as Jewel grabbed a syringe of Bovi-Shield while murmuring steadily, her tone soothing. She talked plenty tough to her rough-and-tumble older brothers, but when it came to animals, she took extra care to be gentle.

“Now you won’t get a respiratory infection,” she crooned, pinching the skin on the calf’s neck and pulling it away from the muscle to tent it. She slipped the eighteen-gauge needle into the subcutaneous space to prevent skin lesions.

“See. Not so bad.” She stroked the calf’s quivering neck after pushing in the vaccine, then hustled to its other side. “Now this booster will keep you from getting blackleg.” She delivered the second neck injection. “You’re doing great.”

The calf snorted but otherwise remained still in the narrow chute, absorbing Jewel’s voice, her calm as she circled back to the spot where she injected the third vaccine.

A large Brahman bellowed beyond the fence. Jewel compared the cow’s and the calf’s ear tags, noting their matching numbers.

“Almost done, Mama,” she called to the pacing cow.

“Hold up a minute, Jewel.” Her brother James sprayed the calf’s shaved hindquarter with 99 percent alcohol for adhesion, pulled a poker with a brass number three from the cooler and pressed its cold tip to the area, freeze-branding it.

The calf twitched for a few seconds as Jewel continued petting it, then calmed as the temperature numbed its skin. A couple of years ago, they’d switched to freeze-branding after Jewel attended a cattle conference. It was more time-consuming than regular branding and took practice, but it reduced the calves’ stress.

“Ready?” Jewel called once James grabbed the second poker.

“Go ahead.” James pressed the number five into the now-docile calf’s hip. Over the years, she and her brothers developed routines so ingrained they barely had to talk while performing them.