Caitlyn's Prize

“I’m heading for the northeast pasture. Catch you later.” Coop kneed his horse and then pulled up again. “Whoa, we got company.”

Cait noticed the riders, too—Albert Harland, the Southern Cross foreman, and two cowboys. Harland was mean as a rattlesnake, sneaky as a ferret, and resembled the latter. His number one goal was to make life as miserable as possible for Caitlyn. He thought she was uppity and didn’t know her place.

He stopped just short of galloping into her. If he thought she was going to show fear, then the man didn’t have a brain cell that was actively working.

“Mornin’, Miss Belle.” He tipped his hat and grinned like a possum eating persimmons.

“Harland.” She folded her hands over the saddle horn. “Is there a problem?”

“Yep.” The saddle protested from his weight. “The fence is down again on this pasture. One of your bulls, the big black one, keeps getting into our registered cows, and Mr. Calhoun would appreciate it if you’d take care of your fences and keep your mangy bull away. It costs us money every time he breeds a cow. You got it?”

Anger shot through her veins like a rocket. “I got it.”

“And if I catch that bull on the Southern Cross again, I’ll shoot him. Do I make myself clear?”

“You bag of—”

Harland broke into Coop’s effusive tirade. “Yates, if I catch you on the Southern Cross, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later. Ex-cons aren’t welcome there.” He jerked his reins to turn his horse, but Caitlyn reached out and grabbed them, effectively stopping the horse. And rider.

“What the hell?” the foreman spluttered.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Harland. That gun business works both ways. If Judd Calhoun doesn’t want to see a lot of dead registered cows sprawled on his property, then I suggest you think twice before shooting my bull.”

“Why, you—”

“And if you even look crossways at Cooper, you’re gonna have a whole lot of mad woman coming your way. Got it?”

“Bitch,” Harland muttered, and jerked his horse away.

“Give your boss the message,” she shouted as they rode off her land.

“Damn, Cait.” Coop stared at her with a startled expression. “You can bullshit better than anyone I know.” His eyes narrowed. “Or did you mean that?”

She shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. “Actually, if I had to shoot any living thing, I’d probably throw up.” She lifted an eyebrow. “But I can talk a good game. I did mean what I said about you, though.” She turned her horse. “Now let’s go get ol’ Boss before he gets us into any more trouble.”

They’d named the bull Boss because he fought every bull that came within his chosen territory. He liked having the cream of the crop, and usually that included their neighbor’s cows.

Caitlyn and Cooper crossed onto Judd’s ranch through the broken barbed wire, and found the bull easily, smack-dab in the middle of a herd of high-class registered cows. He was busy sniffing every animal in sight.

“This could prove to be a little difficult,” Coop said, pulling up alongside Cait. The two of them watched the two-thousand-pound bull chasing cows. “He’s not going to like having his fun interrupted.”

“Any ideas?” she asked as she caught sight of Harland and his cowboys on the horizon. They were watching, waiting for her to make a fool of herself.

“The old-fashioned way?” Coop suggested.

“Okay.” She knew cattle and she knew horses, and both were unpredictable. Cait wasn’t counting on Boss being docile and following her to High Five. He was in the midst of sealing a thirty-second love affair with a high-priced cow, and he wasn’t going to take their intrusion kindly. “Let’s give our quarter horses a workout. Ready?”

“Yep. Watch those sawed-off horns.”

“I’ll take the left,” Cait said as she meandered into the herd. Coop moved to the right of the bull.

The cows scattered, and as soon as Boss spotted the riders, he swung his head in an agitated manner and pawed at the ground with a you’ll-never-take-me stance. Cait patted Jaz’s neck. “Okay, let’s show him who’s the boss.”

They effectively cut him away from the herd, and Boss wasn’t happy. He charged, but Jaz did her magic, swinging back and forth, not letting him get by. The bull charged the other way, but Coop was there, blocking his path. Boss swung toward Cait again and she let Jaz work the way she’d been trained. The quick moves had Cait on full alert. She had to stay focused and not lose her balance.

As the bull switched gears and charged toward Coop yet again, Caitlyn pulled the Hot-Shot cattle prod from her saddle and rode in and zapped the animal from the rear.

Not liking the sting, Boss spun round and round, snot flying from his nose, and then made a dead run for High Five.

“Hot damn,” Coop shouted. He rode right on the bull’s tail, whooping and hollering.

Jaz was ready to run, too, and Cait had a hard time controlling her. As Jaz pranced around, Cait saw that Judd had joined Harland and the boys. There was no mistaking him. She backed up Jaz with a quick step, thumbed her nose at the watching crowd, then hightailed it for High Five. She didn’t even mind eating Coop’s and Boss’s dust.

“Yee haw,” she cried, just for the hell of it, immensely grateful she hadn’t made a fool of herself. Or maybe that was a matter of opinion.

When she caught up with Coop, he was watching Boss refamiliarize himself with the High Five herd, sniffing each cow to make sure he hadn’t missed one while he was rambling.

“That bull has one insatiable appetite.”

“It keeps calves on the ground,” Cait said, trying not to smile. “Now let’s fix that fence.” She turned Jaz and saw the rider coming their way. “Now what?”

Judd, tall and impressive in the saddle, was headed toward her. He rode a magnificent black stallion, as magnificent as the man himself. Both exuded strength, power and a touch of splendor. And she could be suffering from too much sun, because Judd had more of a touch of the devil than of splendor.

“I’m going to get Rufus,” Coop said. “You’re on your own.”

“Gee, thanks.” She nudged her horse forward to meet her neighbor, wiping dust from her mouth with the back of her hand. At that moment she realized what a sight she must look, with dust from her hat to her boots and sweat staining her blouse. She smelled as foul as her horse, and the fact rubbed like a cocklebur against the feminine side of her nature.

“Why are you playing rodeo in my herd?”

“I was told to get my bull out, and that’s what I did.” She kept her voice neutral and didn’t react to his angry tone.

“My boys could have cut him out much easier.” His tone didn’t change.

She rose a bit in the saddle and the leather creaked. “I thought I did a damn good job myself, considering time was of the essence.”

He squinted against the noonday sun. “What do you mean?”

“Harland said he was going to shoot him if I didn’t get him out in a nanosecond. Something about ‘registered cows’ and ‘Judd Calhoun wasn’t pleased.’”

His face tightened into those taut lines she knew so well. “I never said anything about shooting the bull. You have my word he won’t be shot. Just keep the damn animal on your property.”

A quick thank-you rose in her throat, but his last sentence killed the idea like a blast from a shotgun, successfully scattering it to the saner regions of her mind.

“That’s what I’m doing,” she said through clenched teeth.

He motioned over his shoulder. “I’ll have the fence repaired.”

“I can fix the fence.”