Never Trust a Cowboy

Especially if she’d found her dog.

“Any luck?” he asked when he reached the clothesline. She shook her head. “I didn’t find anything on the highway.” She paused for a moment. “Guess that is lucky, when you think about it.” He ducked under an assortment of socks and turned so he could see her face. “Maybe he’s off huntin’ rabbits.”

She didn’t look at him, but she smiled a little.

Try again, he told himself. “I haven’t been around too many terriers. Maybe not big enough to take down a rabbit.”

“Size doesn’t matter. Not to a terrier. They’ll take on all comers.” She snapped a wet shirt straight. “So to speak.”

He was pretty sure she meant to be funny, but her face wasn’t showing it.

He smiled big. “A little confidence buys a lot of respect. From most comers anyway.”

“Thanks for your help.” She slid her empty basket across the grass and touch tested a sheet. “Oh, right. Towels.” She headed for another line. “Let me fold these sheets and then I’ll see if they’re dry.”

He stepped forward to help, and they fell naturally into the two-person task of taking down sheets and folding them, meeting corner to corner, brushing hand to hand.

“So your dad’s kicking back and letting Brad take over?” Del asked.

“Take over what?”

“The cattle operation. Sounds like your brother’s stepping up.”

“Stepbrother.”

“Stepping on toes, is he?” He surrendered a smooth sheet to her charge. “Kinda feelin’ my way here. You hire on with a family operation, you like to get a feel for the pecking order before you step into the coop. Don’t wanna slip on anything the first day.”

She bent to the laundry basket. “You’ll be on the bottom.”

“And you?”

“I’m not part of the order. There’s no pecking in my coop.”

“Good to know.” He unpinned a stiff towel. “Is the bunkhouse part of the peck-free zone?”

“That’s up to you. Do you have any terrier blood in you?”

He laughed. “I can sure tell you do.”

“Here you go.” She selected a pair of blue towels, started to turn them over but paused for a quick nuzzling. “Mmm. Don’t you just love the smell of air-dried laundry?”

“Mine usually comes from the Laundromat.”

She straightened suddenly, her attention drawn to something just outside the play yard. “Bingo!” She dropped the towels in the basket, ducked under the clothesline and took off toward a mass of conspicuous greenery. “Bingo?”

A telltale hiss prompted Del to follow her. The woman could sure move.

“Lila, back off,” he shouted, and she froze at the edge of the vegetable garden. “Step back real slow. That’s not Bingo.”

The critter sprang a good two feet above an orderly row of bush beans. It was a badger.

“He’s got something cornered,” Del said quietly.

“Bingo!”

He grabbed her from behind, pulled her to his chest and clamped his arms around her. “Good Lord, woman.”

He held her close and still, and they watched the badger disappear and a rattlesnake spring forth. Snake down, badger up, like squeezing a long balloon, alternating ends. It might have looked funny if desperation hadn’t been alternating with brutality.

“Damn. We’re not even on their radar.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Lila whispered, mesmerized by the hopping and hissing. “Good thing Bingo isn’t around. He’d be right in the thick of it.”

“You were close.” And he wasn’t letting her go.

They were close. She turned her head and looked up at him, and for a moment he was as deep into her as the snake was into the badger. Just as surprised. Just as engaged. Her eyes were crystalline, as blue as the sky, and damn if they weren’t almost as big. They had power.

It wasn’t until she turned back to the combatants that he was able to draw breath. He loosened his arms reluctantly but didn’t let go, and she seemed a little reluctant to be let loose. An even match, neither could gain without yielding. It was too late to compromise, too soon to take prisoners.

Too late for a handshake; too soon for a kiss.

“I can’t tell who’s winning,” she whispered.

He chuckled. All things considered, he’d made gains.

“No, really,” she insisted. “Can you?”

“I think they’re both hurtin’. Probably both wishing they’d never met.”

Finally the two animals jumped apart as though someone had blown a whistle, then turned tail and took off in opposite directions.

“What do you s’pose that was all about?”

“Home.” His arms were a little lazy about letting her go. “Some dank hole in the ground. Had to be. They sure as hell weren’t fighting over the same female.”

“As long as it wasn’t about my dog.”

“I didn’t hear either one call out, ‘Bingo!’”

“You’re funny.” Her little smile settled the urge to apologize. “I like that.”

“You really love your dog. I like that.” He grinned. “How about going to supper with me?”

“You’re expected at the other house.”

“That’s what I mean. How about going with me?” He shoved his thumbs into his front pockets. “When I get my first paycheck I’ll take you to the best café in Short Straw.”

“I thought you’d been to Short Straw.”