Her Stubborn Cowboy

Chet seemed to know his way around well enough, his boots thunking against the kitchen floor as he paced about, gathering his supplies. He wrenched open a cupboard above the fridge and pulled out a first-aid kit. So that was where Granny had kept it. Good to know.

“Wash up,” he said and marched down the hall, his footsteps echoing from the bathroom. She did as he told her—not that she wouldn’t have washed her hands, she mentally noted with an eye roll. Then he came back, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in hand. He deposited everything onto the table and pulled out a chair.

“Sit.”

“You’re a bossy one,” she said with a slight smile.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He pointed to the chair. “I said sit.”

Mackenzie gave him an arch look, then complied. He sat in the chair next to her and took her closer hand in his. He pressed his knees together and laid her open hand against the warm valley between them.

“These blisters are too big,” he said. “I’ll pop the ones that haven’t already with a needle, and after they’ve drained, we’ll disinfect it all and let it dry out.”

“That’s the secret?” she said.

“Yup.” He set to work, his hands moving more gently than she’d have thought possible. He pulled out a needle, and she looked away. Thank goodness he finished the job quickly enough. Her hands were still tender, but they’d heal up. She wasn’t the first person on the planet to get a blister, and she felt a little ridiculous getting this kind of attention for something so ordinary.

When he was through, Chet stood back up again.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “But do me a favor and wait for me before evening chores tonight. You’re going to have to build up to this kind of work, and there’s no way around that.”

She could see that he was right, and she nodded mutely.

“And one more thing.” He pulled open the door and looked back at her, gray eyes boring into hers. “I wasn’t suggesting that you’d take advantage of Andy. I was saying that he’s not completely over you. Just...be careful.”

Andy was the boy who’d unceremoniously dumped her...the boy she’d always wondered about in spite of herself. He’d been her first big heartbreak, the one she’d always fantasized about running into when she looked fantastic and successful. And Chet was saying that he still had feelings for her?

Chet didn’t mention anything further, and she didn’t ask. He simply stepped outside, slamming the door behind him. She went to the window and watched him stride away from the house, hop up into his truck and drive off without so much as a backward glance.

She looked down at her newly bandaged hands. Chet had a point about needing neighbors. She couldn’t be responsible for even fifteen cows without someone else to lean on if the worst should happen. And it looked as if Chet wasn’t going to let her be choosy about whom she chose to lean on, either.

Chapter Three (#ulink_08be6d9c-251b-5945-94cf-a678bacc0bf9)

After a sunny morning, clouds had been rolling in all afternoon, sweeping across the landscape but so far leaving them without any rain. Montana needed the moisture, and like every other landholder in these parts, Chet had been watching the sky, hoping for more than an overcast day. This evening, he stood by the back door of Mackenzie’s barn as the cows filed inside, hooves plodding hollowly against concrete, and watched as Mackenzie closed them into their stalls.

He’d never seen Mack as much of a rancher in their youth. She’d always been the city girl visiting her grandmother’s ranch, but the past decade had changed a lot. Her teenage spunk had matured into a stubborn fortitude. The accidental flirtation that she’d never seemed entirely aware of had evaporated. She now seemed to know what she could make a man feel and her appropriate reserve made him only all the more drawn to her. She knew what she had to offer, and she wasn’t playing games. All of that potential had blossomed. If he’d been smitten back then, he knew that he could fall even harder now if he wasn’t careful.

The goats came in after the cows, and Butter Cream ambled in last of all, her belly less full and a tiny white kid in tow. Chet hadn’t seen the kid when they’d opened the pasture gates. It looked as if Butter Cream had taken care of things herself—a week early, at that. The baby was mussed up from having been licked by its mother, and Chet crouched down to do a quick sex check. The kid was a buck, and its belly was full of milk—an excellent sign. Butter Cream was an experienced mother, and she knew how to care for a kid without much intervention. She’d had only singletons in the past, though.

“She had her baby!” Mackenzie exclaimed, and she bent down, holding her fingers out toward them. Butter Cream let her approach, and the baby stretched to give her a curious sniff. “I guess you were wrong,” Mack said. “There’s only one.”

“I’m not wrong.” It was possible that the second baby was still inside and Butter Cream might need some help to deliver, but there was most definitely a second baby.

“Let me see...” Chet came closer. He and Butter Cream had a good relationship going, and she allowed him to feel her belly. It was still distended from pregnancy, but it was empty of babies. That meant there was at least one more kid outside in the field without its mother.

“What’s wrong?” Mack asked. “Is she going to have another one?”

“She already had it,” Chet replied. “And it’s out there somewhere.”

He jutted his chin toward the open barn door, and a gust of cold, damp air swept inside at the same moment, raising goose bumps on her arms.

“How do you know?” She rubbed her arms, her gaze flickering toward the door.

“I told you that she was pregnant with more than one. The other might not have survived, but there are times when a goat will accept one twin and reject the other. If it’s alive, it won’t be for long if we don’t find it.”

Mackenzie sobered and stood up instantly. “Come on, girl,” she said gently, herding Butter Cream toward the stall. “In your pen. Let’s go...”

When they reached the door, the wind was whipping through the long grass in ripples and sending up spirals of dust from the dirt road.

“Where would it be?” Mack asked, raising her voice above the sound of the wind, and she stopped to look around, holding her hat down with one hand.

“They were in the small pasture, right?” Chet asked. “The one beside the cows?”

Mack squinted, suddenly looking less sure of herself. “I think so.”

“Come on.” He headed for the truck. “We’ll drive over. It’ll be faster. But when we get there, we’ll have to search on foot.”

Mackenzie beat him to the truck, and by the time she slid into the driver’s seat, the first few fat drops of rain were hitting the dusty gravel like tiny bombs. The air smelled moist and good, but rain also meant that the lost kid was going to be even colder than it already was. He could only hope that Butter Cream had cleaned the baby off before abandoning it.

The truck lurched forward before Chet had even slammed the door shut, and Mackenzie glanced in his direction, then back at the road. The wind was blowing harder now, and the rain started to fall in earnest, hurtling straight into the windshield and blurring their vision, even with the wipers sloshing back and forth at full speed.

“I can barely see!” Mack said.

“There, there—” Chet pointed to the turn that would bring them to the smallest enclosed pasture, which was also closest to the barn, and she hauled the wheel left, the tires spinning in the newly created mud. As they pulled up to the gate, the truck dropped heavily at the front end, and the tires spun.

“What was that?” Mack exclaimed, leaning forward to look.

“Pothole. See if you can back up,” Chet suggested.

Mack put the truck into Reverse and hit the gas, but it made no difference. The tires spun again, but they weren’t going anywhere.

“Shoot...” Mack heaved a sigh, and for a moment, he thought he saw tears mist her eyes. He knew she wasn’t looking for sympathy, but he had the urge to put an arm around her—an urge he quickly quashed.

“Come on,” Chet said. “Let’s go look for the kid, and we’ll figure out the truck when we find it. I have some tricks up my sleeve yet.”

She sucked in a breath and exchanged a look with him. Then they both pushed their hats more firmly onto their heads and pushed open their doors, hopping out into the hammering rain. Chet wasn’t sure what he expected of Mack out here, but she wasn’t waiting on him and beelined into the middle of the pasture. Chet stayed closer to the fence. They’d cover more ground searching different areas.

He was still frustrated, though. Ten years had passed and some things just didn’t change. Last night, Andy had called dibs—even though he didn’t know that Mack was back yet—and while that was a stupid way to decide anything, his younger brother also held all the cards. Chet shaded his eyes and looked toward Mackenzie, who was standing with her back to him, legs akimbo and hand still holding her hat securely on her head. She was somehow both softer and stronger at the same time. She’d gotten only more beautiful over the years.

A faint bleat caught his ear, and he nearly stepped on the tiny thing before he saw it. The kid was drenched with rain, even smaller than its brother back in the barn. It was chocolate brown and lay curled up in a pathetic little ball by a fence post.

“Over here!” Chet hollered, and Mack jogged toward them. The rain had wet her through, her shirt clinging to her body and rivulets of water pouring down her collarbones and sticking her hair into dark gold tendrils against her skin. Chet picked up the goat and it shivered in his arms.

“It’s alive—that’s a relief,” Mack said, wiping water from her face. “I think I saw an old blanket in the back of the truck—”

“Helen always kept one back there,” Chet said. “If Butter Cream won’t take her, you might just have earned yourself a bottle baby.”

Mack gave him an appropriate look of alarm. At least she could appreciate how much work was coming her way. They trudged back through the blinding rain toward the truck. The vehicle hung at an angle, the front driver’s-side wheel deep in a pothole. She stayed close to his side, the warmth of her body emanating against his arm, and when he looked down at her, he realized that Mack was oddly comforting—a comfort he hadn’t known he’d even needed.