The Cowboy Meets His Match

“People still date?” she asked as innocently as possible.

“Well—”

“Did you take Glory on a date?” she asked, pinning him with a look she hoped would wither him on the spot.

His brow wrinkled in thought. “We—” He made a face she took as a concession. “Not a real date. But that doesn’t mean that—”

“How about you and Hayley, Luke? Did you go on a date?”

He smiled with superiority. “As a matter of fact, I did take her out to dinner. A real nice restaurant in the city, as I recall.”

“How did it go?”

His smile vanished, and he muttered.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“She got sick.”

Erin couldn’t stop her smile. “Food poisoning?”

He shook his head. “Too much to drink.”

“Well, there you go.”

They both sat and stared at her, until Dylan pushed away from the table. “What’s on your agenda today?”

When Luke didn’t answer, Erin looked at Dylan. “Me? Are you asking me?”

“I already know what our plans are.”

He’d said it as if she was twelve again and he was trying to prove that bigger meant smarter. It didn’t. Being only eleven months older than him gave her an advantage.

“Nothing special,” she answered. Her lack of having something to do was beginning to get on her nerves. She’d always been self-sufficient and kept busy, and she couldn’t tell them that she was as broke as anyone could get without being completely homeless. Between entry fees and living expenses, with money going out faster than it had come in, she’d had to take a break, regroup and hoped to find a way to earn enough money to get back on track. But she wouldn’t take a penny from her brothers.

“You need to do something,” Dylan said.

What she needed was a job, but the only offer she’d had was from a man who’d broken her heart. She quickly searched for something to say. “I thought I might drop in at Glory’s shop later and see if there’s anything I can help with.”

“She’s at the Big Barn at the Commune, finishing the last of the painting.” Dylan got to his feet and looked down at her. “She probably wouldn’t mind if you stopped by. I’m sure she could use some help.”

Erin nodded but didn’t commit herself. She really liked her brothers’ fiancées and hoped they would become good friends. But that would probably come later, when she didn’t feel as if she were living in some kind of limbo.

Luke had left the table and joined Dylan at the door, where they both grabbed their hats from the rack on the wall. “We’ll be down at the barn, in case you need anything.”

She told them goodbye and waited until they were gone, then closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. Going into town for her own coffee to make in her motor home would solve the problem of feeling useless. At least it was something to do.

Two cups later, she was out the door and headed for her motor home, thinking she’d make a list of groceries she should get. It wouldn’t be much, but enough to get her by, until she had a job. Even though she’d asked everywhere she thought might be hiring—even the day care center that was run by a friend of a friend—she’d come up empty-handed.

She wasn’t particularly looking forward to a trip into town. Driving her gas-guzzling home-on-wheels in Desperation had proved cumbersome, at best, but unless she borrowed Dylan’s pickup, she was stuck driving it. The thought didn’t thrill her.

As she reached for the door handle of her small but comfortable home, she stopped at the sound of something rustling in the nearby line of trees. Maybe a rabbit. Probably a skunk, with her luck. Hopefully not anything bigger. Her shotgun was inside in the back of a cabinet.

She immediately saw she’d been wrong, when the big, hairy dog pushed through the undergrowth and shot into the open. “Well, hello,” she called softly, being cautious so as not to frighten it.

The dog froze when she spoke. Its long, gray-and-white coat nearly reached the ground. Even its eyes were partially hidden. Lifting its nose higher, it sniffed in her direction.

Hoping the dog wouldn’t bite, she snapped her fingers and called again. “Come on, pup. Come here. Let’s see what you’re about.”

She barely had the words out of her mouth, when the dog came running toward her, its furry tail wagging back and forth. Bracing herself for what she suspected might be a lunge—although a friendly one—that would knock her over, she was surprised when the dog came to a skid in front of her, all four feet still on the ground. Most dogs would jump up. This one obviously had some training.

Kneeling, she put her hand on the back of the dog’s neck, feeling for a collar. “Good dog,” she whispered. “Now let me see if you have a tag or some kind of identification to go with this.”

She was rewarded with a tag dangling beneath the dog’s neck but had to brush away the thick, long coat of hair to see it. “Solomon?” She leaned back to take a closer look at the dog. “Is that your name?”

The dog’s tail wagged so hard when she spoke the name that she had no doubt it was his. But she couldn’t find a phone number or anything else that would give her an idea of who the owner might be. Solomon appeared to be well fed and fairly clean, considering the thick brush he’d walked through, and he’d probably come from somewhere nearby.

“Let’s go talk to my brothers,” she said, getting to her feet. “Come on, Solomon. Stick with me, and we’ll get you home in no time.”

He walked beside her to the barn, where she found her brothers helping with the birth of a new calf. Luke looked up as Erin and the dog entered, and he shook his head. “Sollie, are you out visiting again?”

“So you know who his owner is?” she asked, relieved that the dog wasn’t a stray. “Should I call someone?”

Dylan glanced at them quickly. “No. Just take him home.”

“Take him home where?”

“Sollie belongs to Jake.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked at the dog. Traitor. Even though her brothers were working, she didn’t want to deal with the dog...and especially his owner. “Why can’t I leave him here with you?” she asked. “Jake can come get his own dog.”

“Just take him home, Erin,” Dylan said without glancing her way again. “Can’t you see we have our hands full?”

“Of course I do. Can I take your pickup? I don’t want him in my motor home.”

“Walk.”

She started to ask why, but it was clear Dylan’s patience was wearing thin. This obviously wasn’t the first time the dog had come visiting, and her brothers had taken him home. That meant they’d known Jake was back. Why hadn’t they mentioned it?

“Let’s go, Sollie,” she said, heading outside and blinking at the bright sunlight.

The walk wasn’t as long as she wanted to make it out to be, and the dog stayed by her side. At one point, not far from the ranch that Jake now owned, Sollie came to a dead stop, sniffing the air, his ears on alert.

“It’s a rabbit, I’m sure,” she told the dog. “We’re almost home, so don’t you go running off after it.”

As if he understood what she’d said, Solomon loped along beside her, but now and then he would look off in the distance. She was surprised that anything that had been around Jake could be so well behaved.

Approaching the ranch from the back side, as she’d always done, she spied Jake on a small tractor with a forklift attached to the front, struggling to move a large stock tank. As she and the dog got closer, she heard the frustration in Jake’s voice, and she laughed at the words he shouted at the galvanized metal tank that kept tipping to one side. She understood frustration well. She’d bought an extra horse, hoping to train it to be as good as Firewind. But she’d had to have Firewind put down, and MacDuff’s training hadn’t gone well. Just one more reason she’d left the circuit.