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

He smiled at the image, the tension in his muscles easing as he recalled the exhilaration, the sense of empowerment he’d felt when he’d turned Blue loose, slapping him on the butt and sending him off the hill to join the mustang herd.

Take that, Dad.

He and Libby had known enough about herd dynamics to realize Blue wouldn’t be welcome, but would hang about on the periphery until he’d managed to steal a few mares of his own. They’d discussed the possibility that Blue might not survive, but to Kade, young as he was, he thought it would be better for Blue to die in the wild than to be abused by an angry man. Kade’s father.

So they’d borrowed a trailer from Menace’s dad, taking it late at night without permission, and then they’d led Blue through the pasture and out the far gate to load him in the trailer on the county road so there’d be no suspicious tracks. A two-hour drive over to the Manning Valley, with Libby sitting close to him. They’d arrived at dawn, released Blue and been back in town by six o’clock. Menace’s trailer was back behind the barn and Libby had her dad’s truck in the garage before he’d come home from the bar. Kade had climbed in through his bedroom window and sprawled across his bed. Fifteen minutes later his dad had slammed the door open and told him to get his sorry carcass out of bed and go feed. Which Kade had done, coming back in a few minutes later to tell his dad that the blue stud was gone.

Kade had spent the rest of that day hovering between the satisfaction of knowing that the stud was safe and out-and-out fear. He’d been unable to meet up with Libby for several days, due to his old man’s fury. His dad hadn’t let him out of his sight.

Now Kade mounted and started up a road that would soon deteriorate into a rocky trail. A mustang trail. He sucked in a deep breath of mountain air. It had been too long since he’d been out here. He and Maddie had ridden around his rented property in Boise before he’d sold his second horse, but other than that, he hadn’t spent enough time in the saddle. He’d be rectifying that.

When he topped the pass leading into the next valley, he paused to let his horse have a breather. The meadow below was greening up, but the junipers and brush around it were little more than twisted black snags—evidence of a fire. The creek still ran through the meadow, pooling up at one end, but he could see that this was no longer the mustangs’ watering hole. In fact, he hadn’t seen a single sign of the herd.

He made a slight movement with his rein hand and his mount started to pick her way down the rocky trail to the meadow. If the mustangs weren’t watering there, where were they?

He drew his horse up and reversed course. He’d ride the ridge line and check the next drainage. They had to be somewhere close. Mustangs kept to their own range.

Six hours later he dismounted at the trailer. Both he and his horse were exhausted and he was by now certain that the mustang herd no longer resided in this valley.

Had some natural disaster wiped them out? There were fire scars. Disease? Had someone shot them?

Libby was a wild horse specialist. She would know.

And she’d be so happy to see him.

Maybe he’d wait a day or two before he asked.

ALMOST A WEEK had passed and Libby was still stewing over Kade’s recent visit. And it didn’t help that she couldn’t stop forming a mental picture of Kade and his daughter whenever she looked across the field and saw the lights of his trailer. The girl holding on to his belt, Kade putting a protective hand on her thin shoulder. Those little silver hearts and hot-pink kitties on the pjs.

Kade was a dad. He knew about parenting and diapers and midnight feedings. He’d experienced things that Libby was beginning to think she never would experience. Sure, she dated. She liked men. But every time someone got close, she felt the need to send him packing. Togetherness made her freeze. As a consequence, she generally didn’t didn’t date guys who wanted to put down roots.

She wasn’t certain if her commitment phobia was a character flaw or the result of Kade screwing around on her. Or if it went back even further than that, back to the time she’d finally figured out that not all parents were so busy drinking that they didn’t have time for their kid.

But she’d made her own family ties by then, attaching herself to Jason’s and Menace’s families, as had Kade. Since she and Kade had the most in common, however, and lived closest to one another, they’d hung together the most, understood each other the best—which was exactly why she’d never comprehended what had happened between them. She’d decided long ago that she wasn’t going to waste any more of her life trying to figure it out. The past was just that, and she was moving forward—if she could just get that damned father-daughter snapshot out of her head and stop feeling the jabs of pain that came with it.

Libby finally gave up and closed the computer file she’d been working on. She wasn’t accomplishing anything while her thoughts were all over the place, and she needed to concentrate as she tabulated the research results of a two-year range study. Then, as soon as she was done with the tabulations, she would write her section of a report that weighed the effects of animal usage, including cattle, native herds of deer, antelope and elk and mustangs. Which animals had the most impact on the land, which needed to be cut back during certain negative conditions. And most importantly, the optimum numbers that the range could sustain.

Glen, her former boss, had started the project the year before he retired, and she, Stephen and Fred, her coworkers, had spent the past eighteen months gathering data, as well as searching archived reports for information. Now, with no end to the drought in sight, the findings would be used as the basis for making some serious land-usage decisions. Libby wanted to be as careful and accurate as possible with her part of the report—which meant that this was not the time to work on it.

She reached for the phone and dialed the number for Menace’s service station. “This has been one long week,” she said as soon he answered.

“You at work or home?”

“Home.” Such as it was. Libby glanced around her living room, thinking she really had to spend less time in the barn and more time making her house a home. But right now her animals were more important to her than new curtains or furniture.

“Lucky you,” Menace grumbled.

“I did four ten-hour days this week,” she retorted. And thanks to Ellen and a series of “important” yet useless meetings, it felt as if she’d worked six ten-hour days. “So … are we on for this evening?”

“What do you mean, are we on?” Menace asked, sounding shocked. “It’s chorizo night at the bar. Of course we’re on.”

Chorizo night. Great. Libby wasn’t really a fan, but the Basque sausages were a local favorite, and she’d much rather lose herself in a crowd than sit at home and brood about what was. And wasn’t.

“I only asked because I heard you’ve made a new friend and I thought you might have other plans,” she said.

Menace coughed. “Uh, what new friend?”

“Your new female friend.” The one the waitresses at the café had been buzzing about when Libby had stopped to pick up dinner on her way home the night before. The new owner of the hardware store. Ginger someone.

“No plans,” he said stiffly.

“I’d like to meet her.”

“I’m taking it slow. Don’t want to scare her off, you know?”

“Good idea.” And it was about time. Menace had dreadful luck with women, and part of the problem was that his enthusiasm at actually being with a woman often overwhelmed the new girlfriend. “See you around eight?”

“Sure. But what if, you know, Kade shows up, too?”

“We already cleared the air.” Sort of. Enough for him to stay away from her, she hoped.

“Any broken bones?” Menace was only half joking.

“No,” Libby said with a sigh. If only it had been that simple.

“Glad to hear it,” Menace said. “You can’t go living your life being mad at someone.”

“I never said I wasn’t mad,” Libby said softly. “See you tonight.” She hung up and went to the back porch, where she slipped into her barn boots, whistled for the dogs and went out to feed her horses. Four hours to burn. Four hours to think too much. Maybe it was a good time to muck out the stalls.

JOE BARTON SHOWED up with three beautiful colts late Friday afternoon, colts that radiated breeding and money. Joe had come to inspect the premises before allowing his animals to stay with Kade, but since Kade had put in two backbreaking days bringing the corrals up to standard, fixing the sagging gates and rebuilding the mangers and wind shelters, Joe had no problem with what Kade had to offer. He’d stayed while Kade started ground work with the first colt, a black Appaloosa with a splashy blanket.

“I can see this will work out just fine,” Joe said when Kade released the colt and caught the second. “I’d heard good things.” He smoothed his mustache with a forefinger. “You know, I was in the stands the night that bronc beat the snot out of you. I apologize for not recognizing you at the feed store.”

“Not one of my better nights,” Kade said, tying the colt to the hitching rail. “And I don’t really want to be remembered for being beat up.”

“You came back.”

“I did.” He just hoped he could do it again, prove he wasn’t a loser.

“You don’t mind if I stop by to check progress?”

“Anytime you want,” Kade said. “I, uh, want half the payment now. The other half when the thirty days are up.”

Barton reached for his wallet and damned if he didn’t give him cash. “I want a receipt.”

“Sure.” It would have been cool to whip out a regular receipt book, but instead, Kade went into the horse trailer and wrote a receipt on the legal pad he used for his grocery lists. He handed the yellow paper to Barton, who took it and folded it carefully into quarters.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to you?” Barton asked as he put the receipt in his shirt pocket.