The Rancher's Bride Page 10

  “I’ll bring my horse and be right over, Rose. In the meantime, I want you to call your brother-in-law and tell him exactly what you told me.”

  In spite of the heat in the study, goose bumps covered Rose’s skin. “Call Roy? You think the law needs to be involved?”

  “That fence didn’t cut itself, Rose. Someone is up to no good.”

  Of course Harlan was right. But the idea of someone deliberately stealing or barming Bar M cattle was so evil Rose didn’t want to think it could actually be happening.

  “All right. If you think I should, then I’ll call,” she promised him. “Emily and I will be waiting here at the ranch for you.”

  “Give me twenty minutes.”

  “We’ll be down at the stables saddling fresh horses. And Harlan?”

  “Yes?”

  She gripped the receiver tighter and blinked as moisture filled her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Rose,” he said softly, “it’s going to be all right. I promise.”

  She knew he was trying to comfort her, but at this moment Rose didn’t know if anything would ever be all right again.

  “I’ll see you when you get here,” she said in a voice not much more than a whisper.

  Even though it was much farther to drive around to the back of the ranch, Harlan decided it would be better than riding the horses anymore than necessary in the afternoon heat

  On the way, Rose sat wedged between Harlan and Emily, who was hanging her head out the open window, scanning the passing landscape for any sign of the bull.

  “Did you talk to your brother-in-law?” Harlan asked as they headed east down the county dirt road.

  Rose didn’t turn her head to look at him. She was already too aware of his closeness. His thigh was pressed along the side of hers and their shoulders rubbed with each little bump and sway of the truck. She was sweating and not just because of the heat.

  “He’s gone to Albuquerque today and won’t be back until late this evening. He had a lead on the mother of the twins and thinks she might be living up there.”

  Rose could feel him glancing at her. “Are you anxious for him to find her? Or would you just as soon she disappear off the face of the earth?”

  Rose thought about this for a moment. “I can’t imagine facing the woman. If she was standing right in front of me I don’t know what I would say to her. Maybe I’d ask her why she wanted to hurt my father and the twins. And if she’s done the things we think she has, then I believe she should have to suffer the consequences. But in any case, we must find her, Harlan. Otherwise, there will always be the threat that she might return to claim the twins.”

  “I can’t imagine a judge returning the babies to her. Maybe after she served time, but even then I think the chances of that happening would be slight.”

  Rose certainly hoped he was right. “I told my sister Justine about the fence and the bull. She says Roy needs to see the crime scene. I told her I wasn’t yet sure a crime had happened.”

  “Defacing property, endangering motorists and livestock. I’d call that a crime.”

  He sounded angry. At the moment Rose was more scared than anything.

  “Aren’t we almost there, Rose?” Emily asked as she ducked her head back inside the cab. “This land is starting to look familiar to me.”

  “I believe we’ll find it right up the road on our left.” Rose raised herself up in the seat for a better view out the window to Harlan’s left. But after a quick glance at the Bar M rangeland, her gaze was drawn to his face. In spite of all her reluctance and misgivings, it suddenly dawned on her that this man gave her a strength and courage she didn’t know she possessed.

  The uncertainty in her gray eyes brought Harlan’s hand to her knee. He could feel her quivering and wished his daughter wasn’t riding in the pickup with them. He would have liked to pull to the side of the road and simply hold her in his arms until she quit shaking.

  “Rose, it won’t help to think the worst right now.”

  “Daddy’s right, Rose. If the bull is gone for good it still won’t be the end of the world,” Emily spoke up. “Daddy says if you took everything away from a man, he’d still be rich if he had his health.”

  Harlan smiled wryly. “I didn’t know my daughter remembered my philosophizing. I guess I’d better start paying closer attention to what I say.”

  “Well,” Emily went on, “that’s the truth. Once you lose things you can always buy them back later. But when someone you love dies—that’s when you really lose.”

  Rose didn’t know any adolescents whose thinking worked like Emily’s. But then losing her mother at such a young age had left a mark on her. It had also forced her to grow up in ways that most children never have to.

  Her eyes moist, Rose turned in the seat and cupped her palms around Emily’s face. “You’re right, honey. Thank you for reminding me.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a big smile, then before Rose could guess her intentions, Emily leaned forward and pressed a kiss on her cheek.

  Too choked to make any sort of response, Rose merely smiled and brushed the girl’s bangs from her brow, then squared back around on the bench seat.

  For the second time today Rose felt herself on the verge of crying and the lack of control over her emotions totally bewildered her. She was a woman who rarely cried over anything. Her father had always called her his strong, quiet girl. So what was happening to her? When Harlan was kind to her, tears burned her eyes. And now that Emily had kissed her she could hardly swallow down the lump in her throat. Were Harlan and his daughter making her soft? Or just melting her frozen heart?

  “Rose, do most people around here know this land belongs to the Bar M?”

  The three of them were standing a few feet away from the downed fence. A hot wind was blowing from the southwest and Rose’s mouth already felt like cotton. If the bull had simply wandered through the fence, there was no way of knowing if he could reach water. In this heat, the animal couldn’t survive long without it.

  “I think so. Other than you and Emily most of the people who live in this immediate area have been here since before I was born. But that doesn’t account for the people around Ruidoso.”

  “Is there any sort of sign along this stretch of the ranch, marking it as the Bar M?” Harlan asked, then glanced over his shoulder at Emily who was meandering over to the downed fence. “Don’t get any closer,” he warned her. “Sheriff Pardee will more than likely want to get a look at the footprints.”

  Rose waited until he turned back to her before she answered. “I don’t know—wait, I’d almost forgotten there’s a back entrance to the ranch, not far from here. Daddy had a pipe arch built over it. The name Bar M is etched in iron along with our Bar M brand. Anyone passing by on the road could easily read it. In fact, my sisters and I teased Daddy about making a big deal of the sign.”

  Beneath the low brim of his hat, Harlan scanned the horizon to the west. They had already passed that way in the truck and hadn’t spotted any cattle.

  He turned east and walked down the road, studying the ground for any sign of footprints or hoof marks. Rose and Emily followed a few short steps behind him.

  “Look! Here’s a few cattle tracks. It looks as though your fella headed this way.”

  Rose tried not to stem the hope rising up in her. “Then you don’t think someone loaded him up and hauled him away?”

  Harlan paused in the middle of the road. Rose stood beside him, her hands on her hips as her eyes continued to search every hill and dip for a sight of the lost animal.

  “Strange as it may seem, I don’t think so. I believe he found the hole in the fence and decided to go for a stroll.”

  Years ago when most of the land was more or less unsettled open range, it was harmless for cattle to go astray. A rancher merely took a handful of wranglers and rounded them up. But now that there were highways and county roads to be reckoned with, it was a serious matter. Huge lawsuits could result over car accidents invol
ving livestock. Losing the bull would be bad enough, Rose thought, but a lawsuit would be the straw that broke the Bar M’s back.

  “Someone cut the fence purposely. What was their intention if it wasn’t to steal the bull?” she wondered aloud.

  “Meanness. Mischief. Spite. Could be a number of reasons,” Harlan said with a shrug, then motioned for Emily to join them back at the truck. “Come on, let’s ride this way for a mile or two and see if we can find him.”

  Nearly two hours later they found the bull in an arroyo a few yards off the road. He’d obviously gone there searching for water, but the drought had long ago dried up any little water holes to be found. The animal was gaunt with dehydration and Rose quickly said a prayer of thanks for finding him before it was too late.

  Later that evening, after they had got the bull safely back home, Rose tried to express to Harlan just how grateful she was for his help.

  “I should offer to pay you something,” she said, as the two of them stood beside the corral watching the bull eat and drink to his content. “But I know it would only offend you. So I’ll just say thanks and ask you to share supper with us. I don’t know what Kitty’s cooking tonight. But it’s always good.”

  Funny that the issue of money had first brought Rose to him. Yet money was the very last thing he wanted from her now and it pleased him enormously to see that she was finally realizing that.

  “Thank you, Rose, supper sounds very nice. But right now something needs to be done about the fence, or the rest of your cattle will find the cut and the whole herd will be out on the road. Do you have any portable panels?”

  Rose nodded. “In the barn. I’ll show you.”

  She turned to head toward the huge tin building to the right of them, but before she could take more than two steps, Harlan’s hand was on her arm.

  “No. Don’t show me. Just tell me. I’ll find them.”

  It was still broad daylight and the two of them were out in the open where anyone might see, yet to Rose they might as well have been standing in a darkened room. She could see nothing but him, feel nothing but the warm grasp of his fingers pressing into her flesh.

  “But I—you’ll have to have help loading them. And—”

  He swiftly shook his head. “I can manage. I’ve done it for years. You go on to the house and rest.”

  Maybe she should, Rose mused. She didn’t need to spend another hour or more alone with him. But she wanted to, and that was very nearly as dangerous as actually doing it.

  “Just because I asked you to help with the bull doesn’t mean I expect you to do more.”

  He frowned. “I know that. I’m doing it because I want to.”

  She wanted to ask him why. But something stopped her. She might not want to know his reasons for helping her. And he might not really want to tell her.

  He nudged her toward the house. “Go on. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  Nodding, she turned and started walking away from him. But all the way to the house, she could feel his eyes following her and it was all she could do not to turn and look back at him.

  At the house, Rose took a quick shower, then after a moment of indecision, pulled on a long gauze skirt of purple roses and a matching tank top. If Kitty and Chloe thought she was trying to look feminine for Harlan she didn’t care. She was a woman, after all. And she had enough pride not to want to look like a dirty cowhand all the time.

  Kitty was grilling sirloin steaks for supper. While Emily played with the twins, Rose helped her aunt prepare a salad and a casserole of scalloped potatoes.

  By the time Harlan returned from putting up the portable fence, it had grown dark but the temperature still hovered near ninety. His shirt was soaked with sweat and Rose immediately felt guilty for not insisting she go with him.

  “Come on and follow me,” she told him. “I’ll show you where you can wash.”

  She took him through a large living room, then headed down a long hallway. As Harlan walked beside her, he had to struggle to keep from staring. A subtle pink color was on her cheeks and lips and her wavy chestnut hair was tied high atop her head with a wide purple ribbon. The faint scent of sweet honeysuckle swirled around her and the folds of her skirt swayed gently with the rhythm of her hips. He’d never seen this soft, womanly side of her before and the difference was very unsettling to his senses.

  “Supper is ready, so we’ll eat when you’re finished here.” She pushed open a door and flipped the light switch.

  Harlan stepped past her and into a roomy bathroom with pink fixtures. “I won’t be long,” he promised.

  She shut the door behind him, then started back to the kitchen. Halfway there, she happened to think he might appreciate a clean shirt. In her father’s bedroom, she found a white cotton shirt folded in a pine chest. Her father had been a big man with broad shoulders and thick arms. She figured the shirt would fit Harlan perfectly.

  Back at the bathroom door, she knocked lightly. “Harlan?”

  The door swung open and Rose came close to gasping. Harlan was standing in front of the lavatory, stripped to the waist. Soap and water dripped from his face and trickled onto his chest. Like a dumbstruck teenager, Rose’s eyes followed the rivulets disappearing into the black matt of hair swirling around his nipples and across his chest. His heavy work shirts had kept his skin hidden from the sun, making it much lighter than his face and forearms. He looked so hard, so male, so naked that for a moment she forgot why she was standing there.

  “You wanted to tell me something?” He glanced at her as he wiped a washcloth against the back of his neck.

  “I—uh, I thought—you might like a clean shirt.” She stepped close enough to lay the shirt on the corner of the vanity.

  Harlan’s hand reached out and snaked around her wrist before she could step back into the hallway. Rose’s heart beat wildly in her throat as she lifted questioning eyes to his face.

  “Thank you, Rose,” he said huskily. “That was thoughtful of you.”

  “You don’t have to hold onto me just to say thank you,” Rose said pointedly, but her voice was hushed and shaky, telling him exactly what his nearness was doing to her.

  One corner of his lips cocked upward. “Have you ever thought I might simply want to hold onto you, Rose?”

  “No! Harlan, this is…” she glanced desperately over her shoulder, then back at him. “We’re in the bathroom, for heaven’s sake!”

  Before she could guess his intention, he reached behind her and pushed the door shut, cocooning them together in the room.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never stood in the bathroom with a man,” he said, his soft voice full of amusement.

  Her mouth popped open. “I’m a single woman!”

  She said it as though that automatically excluded her from having any sort of connection with a man. Her primness in this day and age both amazed him and endeared her to him.

  “What does that mean?”

  She gasped. “It means I’m not promiscuous!”

  He chuckled softly as his hand slid up from her wrist all the way up to her bare shoulder. “Rose, honey, this is hardly making you a fast woman.”

  Her nostrils flared as color swept into her cheeks. “You like making fun of me.”

  His dark brows lifted. “I’m not making fun of you. I’m enjoying you.” His hand crept upward until the tips of his fingers were playing with her hair. “You look very beautiful tonight, Rose.”

  Her knees were beginning to feel like jelly, and she was sure the two of them had breathed in every last bit of oxygen from the bathroom. “Washing off a little dirt hasn’t changed my looks.”

  Smiling, he moved his fingers to the soft curve of her cheek. “You’re right. You looked beautiful with the dirt, too.”

  Groaning, she stepped back. He instantly followed and circled his arms around her waist. Rose felt herself swaying and was forced to grab hold of his bare shoulders.

  “Harlan, you…promised to be my friend,” she whispered in pro
test.

  He tugged her closer until she was pressed against his naked chest and long, denim-clad legs. “That’s true. But I didn’t promise not to touch you again. Why should I make a promise I know I can’t keep?”

  Her heart was pounding so hard she was certain he must feel it shaking against him. “Because you know I don’t want this. I…”

  Her words ceased as his lips covered hers. In the back of her mind. Rose knew she should lever herself away from him. And fast! But she couldn’t. Just like he said, she wanted this. Wanted him. It was shocking how much!

  His hands framed her face, his thumbs locked beneath her chin. Rose’s fingers dug into his shoulder and her lips parted. The tip of his tongue slipped between her teeth and delved deeper into the warmth of her mouth.

  Rose shivered and clung as the erotic taste of him filled her senses and heated her body. She wasn’t afraid of his strong arms and hands. She wasn’t repulsed by the taste of his lips or the intimate invasion of his tongue. And the realization was both thrilling and terrifying.

  “I think,” he said, lifting his head and drawing in a long breath, “that you’d better get out of here and let me finish before they all begin to wonder where we are.”

  How did he expect her to simply walk out and face everyone now? Her legs were so. wobbly she doubted she could make it down the hall. And she knew without looking in a mirror that her face was red, her lips swollen.

  “You weren’t worried about that a minute ago,” she observed in a voice that sounded oddly hoarse, even to her own ears.

  Smiling, he reached for a towel and hurriedly began to dry himself off. “I’m not really worried about it now.”

  With one hand gripping the edge of the vanity, she watched him slip his arms into the shirt, then shrug it over his shoulders.

  “Was this your father’s?”

  “Yes. I thought it would fit you.”

  “It does.”

  For a man with big hands and fingers, he made fast, graceful work of the buttons. When he reached the bottom one, he undid the waistband of his jeans and lowered the zipper. Rose jerked her gaze off him and studied the pink and white tiles on the floor.