Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride: Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride

“Oh. I thought maybe after all these years …”

“I’ll stop by and see if she needs a hand. If so I can dig up someone.” The big man had gone a little pale.

“Do that,” Kade said. “And if you can’t find anyone, call me. It’s dangerous doctoring horses alone.”

“Right. I will.” Menace got back in his towtruck and put it in gear. He unloaded the Chevy behind the barn. “You want to pay me now or drop your insurance information by?”

“I’ll pay you now.” While he could. He pulled out his wallet.

“Check on Libby,” he said as he handed over some of Joe Barton’s cash. Menace nodded and got into his truck.

“WHAT THE HELL do you mean, Kade told you to check on me?”

Menace glared, his black beard making him look fierce. “I mean what I said. Kade thinks it’s dangerous to take care of the horse by yourself and he’s damned well right.”

“Well, maybe he is, but I don’t have to like it.” Libby pulled her curls back in a rubber band, then grabbed her gloves off the kitchen table. “Come on, then. Let’s go take care of business.” She was aware that watching her doctor a horse was the last thing Menace wanted to do, but when she’d made a call to the vet in Wesley earlier that morning, he’d told her he had another client in Otto and it would be late afternoon before he could get there.

“Maybe we could call Benny Benson….” Menace ventured.

“Maybe you can just watch while I change the bandage. If the horse knocks me around, you can pick me up.”

Menace’s body stiffened. “If Kade’s so worried about you, maybe he should have come over himself.”

“He’s welcome to do so,” Libby lied as she led the way to the pen, “but apparently he doesn’t want to.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Menace muttered.

Libby turned, took a long look at her big friend and then let out a sigh. “Sorry. Kade did me a favor last night. I hated asking and I don’t like feeling beholden. Things are kind of … weird between us,” she finished. Which was an understatement.

“Libby,” Menace said, “if you’re gonna live in the same community as him, you’re gonna have to suck it up.”

“I’m trying,” she said as she opened the barn door. But it isn’t that easy. She’d just rolled the door back when a truck pulled into the drive. Libby smiled. “Look, Menace … the cavalry.”

“Hey, yeah.” Menace brightened considerably as he recognized Sam Hyatt’s vet truck. The Wesley vet jumped out and Menace started for his truck. “I really gotta get back to the shop, Libby. Call me if you need some help.”

“I’ll do that,” Libby said with a note of irony. Menace didn’t slow down as he waved in response.

THE HORSE’S LEG was swollen, just as Kade had said it would be, and he was hurting, so Libby was glad that Sam had been able to stop by early. The travel costs from Wesley to Otto were going to kill her, though, since Sam’s other client had canceled and she’d be paying the entire fee herself. She had a feeling that Sam would waive it, since she’d agreed to go to dinner with him next Saturday night, but she wouldn’t let him do that. Libby always kept business and pleasure separate. Life was less complicated that way. It was also less complicated if she kept matters from getting too serious and Sam seemed to understand Libby’s emotional boundaries.

“Stan will be back on Monday,” Sam said, “but I don’t think you’ll have any trouble as long as you leave the wound wrapped and keep pouring bute into him.” Sam gave the horse a final pat and then let himself out of the pen. “He’ll be scarred, though.”

“I figured. I just want him healthy.”

“He’s lucky you found him when you did.”

No doubt. Had Cooper spent much longer on his back, he would have died.

“You should have called me,” Sam continued as they left the barn and walked the short distance to his dusty utility truck.

“I didn’t want to pay an after-hours charge,” Libby said with a crooked smile. Sam smiled back and Libby was struck by just how good-looking he was, with his blond hair and blue eyes. Put him in a mackinaw and he’d be the image of a Swedish lumberjack. Shuck him out of that mackinaw—and everything else—and he’d probably be pretty spectacular, too. Libby wasn’t yet certain whether she’d ever be doing that.

“We could have worked something out.”

“I don’t want special treatment,” Libby replied, the smile still playing on her lips, possibly because of the mackinaw ruminations.

To her surprise, Sam settled his big hand on her shoulder, his fingers strong and warm. “You might get some anyway.”

Her surprise must have shown, because Sam suddenly dropped his hand and busied himself loading his equipment, leaving Libby standing there, feeling … She didn’t know how she felt. She liked Sam. And regardless of his good looks, that was where she would leave things for now. The mackinaw would stay on.

“I HEARD YOU’RE getting this place ready to sell.” Joe Barton stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the property as Kade threw a saddle onto the chestnut colt’s back. It was the second time in a matter of days that Joe had made the forty-mile drive from his ranch to Kade’s in order to ride with him.

“There’s nothing to keep me here,” Kade said. Anything that might have kept him there was far out of reach now.

Joe nodded thoughtfully. “I like the way you handle my colts. I was hoping you’d stay around.”

Kade smiled but said nothing. Joe had brought his own horse to ride, another excellent and obviously expensive animal. Kade finished saddling the young horse, then they both mounted and headed off down the county road to the turnoff leading toward the mountains.

Joe was not a natural horseman, but he faked it successfully. The older man watched Kade as he rode, adjusting his body so that his seat was more like Kade’s. He didn’t ask for advice and Kade never offered any. That was probably why they did so well together.

“We’ve done some trail work since the last time we rode,” Kade said. “Junior’s still learning to carry a load downhill.” A young horse had to learn how to sit back on his haunches when being ridden down a steep slope, and sometimes it took a number of tries to teach the lesson.

Joe gave a grunt of acknowledgment, although Kade didn’t think he really knew what he was talking about. Well, the first time Joe went over the head of a horse who stumbled because he carried all the weight on his front end, he’d know. Kade’s job was to keep that from happening.

“How’s your water?” Kade asked. It was a common question in the area, kind of like, “Hot enough for you?”

“Holding out,” Joe said. “But I can’t sell as much hay this year.”

“Feeding it?”

“The BLM won’t let me put all my cows on the grazing allotments, so I’m feeding part of the herd year round. They’re trying to tell me they’re reducing numbers of all animals using the land, but it’s a lie.”

“How so?”

Joe’s jaw tightened. “Because I found out they moved in a herd of mustangs two years ago. They live in the mountains during the summer, but in the winter they come down onto my allotments and eat my grass. When I bought the ranch, I bought the cattle, too. I’d planned on putting the same number out to graze as the previous owner, but this past spring the BLM cut me back by twenty-five percent. Because of the damned mustangs.”

“Doesn’t seem fair to move a herd in, then cut you back,” Kade said, wondering if the herd eating Joe’s grass was Blue’s herd. It was quite possible. “But you know,” he continued, “that’s always been mustang country. I’m not sure what happened to the herd that was there before they relocated this one, but there were wild horses in your valley before I was born.”

“How do you know?”

Kade smiled. “My grandfather used to ranch in the area. He’d let his horses run with the mustangs when he put them out for the summer. Then he’d gather the whole herd, sort out his horses and let the mustangs go.” Most of them, anyway. A few of his grandfather’s favorite mounts were mustangs he’d “adopted” on his own. The BLM finally made him stop running his horses with the herd in the 1970s, but he’d told Kade the story many times.

“Yeah? How’d he get his horses back?”

“He built a mustang trap. A classic one, with a long funnel of camouflaged fencing that narrowed down into a hidden corral.”

Joe grunted again, and then urged his mount to move faster to keep up with the chestnut. “Prior to buying the Zephyr Valley ranch, I liked wild horses. That was before I was aware of the damage they cause to the range.”

Kade debated. Argue with a man who was paying his salary and was convinced he was correct? Or just keep quiet and ride? He chose the middle ground. Diplomacy. “Any animal, in numbers that are too large, can overgraze a range. Usually, in cases like these, the feds cut back on both mustangs and cattle so that there’s enough grass. But cattle are easier to regulate.”