Kitabı oku: «The Wrangler's Woman», sayfa 3

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“BAR K DUDE RANCH, Toni Keene speaking.”

“Hi, Toni. It’s me, Jack. Is Dani around?” He’d expected her to answer and hoped his disappointment wasn’t obvious.

“Uh-uh, and neither is Niki. They’ve gone to town.”

“What for?”

She laughed; Lord, she really was nice. “Niki’s looking for a job and Dani’s going to put an ad in the newspaper.”

“What kind of ad?”

“A wrangler wanted ad. Heaven knows we need help around here, and when the guests start arriving…”

He practically heard her shrug. “It’s kinda late in the season to be hiring men,” he said. “That may be a problem.”

“I sure hope not.” But her worry came through loud and clear. “We’ve got so many other problems that we don’t need another one.” She sighed. “Whatever—Dani will think of something. She always does.”

Jack thought maybe he could “guide” Dani in the right direction, but what he said was, “What kind of job is Niki looking for?”

“Whatever she can find. Maybe waitressing? She’s very conscientious and could probably make good tips.”

She could probably make good tips if she just stood in the middle of a room and smiled, he thought. “I don’t doubt it for a minute,” he said.

“That’s why nobody’s here but me and Grandma. Is there anything I can do for you, Jack?”

“Not really. I just wanted to…know if I could give Dani a hand with…anything.”

“That’s real nice of you,” Toni said. “Guess you’ll have to ask her. All I can tell you is that we’re loving this place more every minute we’re here. Sure, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we’re doing just fine.”

“Glad to hear it. Nice talkin’ to you, Toni.”

Jack hung up and stood there for a few minutes, considering. He had a lot of work to do today, including the movement of several longhorns into the holding pen for shipment to Colorado day after tomorrow. Work on the XOX was never done. Besides the ranching operation, they bred a number of exotic species for sale to other ranchers, to zoos and farms. Herding dudes was the least of their endeavors. He’d often thought they should just give it up entirely, but the facilities were there, the cabins and recreation room and the swimming pool—

The telephone rang and Jack picked up automatically.

“This is Dr. Coleman. I’d like to reserve a week in June for myself and my wife at your guest ranch again this year.”

“Howdy, Doc. This is Jack.”

“Jack! Good to speak to you.”

“Maybe not.” Grandpa will kill me for this, Jack thought. “I’m afraid we’re full up in June.”

“Damn! I told my wife to call sooner, but she—”

“Yeah, well, I might be able to help you out, anyway.” Jack switched the phone to the other ear and glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “There’s another dude ranch just a few miles away that might have room for you. It’s the Bar K, and I’m pretty sure you and the missus would really enjoy it….”

DANI AND NIKI CONFERRED in front of the Hard Knox Hard Times newspaper office on Main Street. A light wind whipped through, tossing their hair about their faces as they talked.

“While I place the ad, you can read the classifieds,” Dani suggested. “Then if there’s anything promising you can go check it out while I pick up supplies.”

“Sounds good to me.” Niki sighed. “God, I hate job hunting.”

“If you don’t want to do this—”

“Oh, no, I love working. It’s finding work that bothers me.” Niki grinned. “Maybe because I haven’t had to do it very often.”

“Like once,” Dani said with a laugh. “After the Elk Tooth Chamber of Commerce got hold of you, it took a move to another state to pry you loose. At least you’ll get a good reference.”

“Somebody needs a reference?”

Jack; Dani realized with disgust that she knew his voice from the very first syllable, even when it came from behind her.

Niki smiled. “Hi, Jack. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Uh-huh.” He joined their circle. “Do I understand you’re looking for a job, Niki?”

She nodded. “You wouldn’t happen to know of one, would you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Ever been a barmaid?”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind trying if it’s a respectable bar.”

“Niki!” Dani gave her sister a disapproving look. “I think you’d be much better off in a restaurant.”

“Really?” Niki appealed to Jack. “Is it a respectable bar?”

“The most respectable,” he assured her. “It’s the Sorry Bastard over there.” He pointed.

“Love the name,” Dani said dryly.

“I think it’s funny,” Niki protested. “And you say they need help?”

“Two of the barmaids have quit in the last month to get married. You’d be greeted with open arms.” He cast a surreptitious glance at Dani. “Of course, you could probably get on at the Y’all Come but you wouldn’t make half as much in tips.”

“I’m working for money, not love,” Niki said emphatically. She glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s only nine o’clock. When the Sorry Bastard opens, I’ll just—”

“You don’t have to wait for it to open. Go around back to the service entry and tell ’em Jack sent you. The owners are Rosie Mitchell and her husband, Clevon. Good people.”

Niki’s smile could stop traffic. “Thanks, Jack. You’re a doll!”

Dani watched her sister turn away, pause at the street and then dash across with light steps. Annoyed with Jack, she said, “I sure hope this is no bum steer.”

“Hey, would I burn you?” He looked at her with perfect innocence. “She’ll make more money at the Sorry Bastard than working any other job in town.”

“You mean because she’s so drop-dead gorgeous.”

“Hey, it’s a beginning.”

His crooked smile was so whimsical that Dani had to return it, however reluctantly. “Okay, I get it. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“To do what?”

“I have to place an ad in the newspaper.”

“For what?”

“Dude wranglers.”

He sobered. “It’s kinda late in the season for that. You may have trouble—”

“Hold it right there.” She squared her shoulders and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “I’ve got to find a couple of wranglers to—”

“Three would be better.”

“But I’ll have to settle for what I can get.” And afford. “You wouldn’t happen to know of anyone looking for a job?”

“Only your sister. There may not be a cowboy in the county who’d be willing…” For some reason he was suddenly struggling to find words. “I mean, everybody’s already working and even if they weren’t…”

“If there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s that kind of negative talk,” Dani said firmly. “I happen to think you’re wrong. I happen to think that when push comes to shove, something…something serendipitous happens and we get what we need.”

“I sure hope you’re right.”

“But it’s obvious you don’t think I am.” She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“I hope you are but…no, I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”

“Jack,” she said, “let me tell you something about the Keene sisters. Nothing’s ever been easy for us, up to and including this trip to Texas.”

“When the going gets tough,” he said softly, “the tough get going. Is that your point?”

“Close enough. If you don’t have something positive to say, I’d appreciate it if you’d say nothing.”

“Even if—”

“Even if nothing. When I want something, I go after it—and I want wranglers!” She turned away, still steaming. “See you around, Jack.”

And she marched into the Hard Knox Hard Times, closing the door in his face.

NIKI WAS WAITING on the sidewalk when Dani exited the newspaper office fifteen minutes later. “I got it!” she announced, beaming from ear to ear. “Rosie—she’s the really nice lady who owns the place—Rosie was all set to hand me an apron and put me to work on the spot, but I told her tomorrow was soon enough.”

“That’s great, Niki.” Dani hugged her sister. “You’re certain it’s a decent place?”

“Oh, sure.” Niki shrugged off all such concerns. “It’s actually as much a restaurant as a bar, only waitresses make more money on drinks than food. Best barbecue in Texas!”

Dani laughed. “I’ll just bet it is.” Arm in arm, the sisters walked toward the Jeep parked at the curb.

“You placed our ad?” Niki inquired.

“It’ll be in tomorrow.”

“And we’ll get lots of applicants, I just know it.” Niki squeezed the arm linked with hers. “Dani, everything’s going to be all right now. We’ve had some hard times, but we’ve always managed to stick together. Sure, there’s a lot of work still to be done, but as long as there’s the three of us—four counting Grandma—nothing can stop us.”

Dani was more than willing to believe that was true. If only she could get Jack’s warning tone out of her mind…

DANI’S AD STIRRED UP exactly two calls.

The first sounded genuine enough, and everything was going just fine when all of a sudden the man backed off as if he’d been snake bit. Dani couldn’t figure it out. When no other calls were immediately forthcoming, confusion turned to fear.

The second call came days later and it took all of five seconds to know the man didn’t have the qualifications to be a dude, let alone wrangle one. Dani hung up with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that refused to go away.

At the next family conference, she announced what she called “Plan B.”

“Flyers,” she explained. “I’ll post flyers all over town. And Niki, when you’re at work can you start mentioning to every cowboy you see that we’re looking for—Why are you shaking your head at me?”

“Because I’ve been doing that all along and nobody’s interested. It’s like…” Niki frowned. “It’s like we’ve been blacklisted or something.”

“Blacklisted.” The word went through Dani like a cold chill. “You don’t suppose…”

“Oh, no.” Toni sounded shocked. “These are nice people. I’m sure no one would actually work against us.”

As one, the three turned toward their grandmother.

She frowned. “I wouldn’t want to think there was a conspiracy,” she said slowly, “but it really is strange that everyone’s so standoffish. No one has dropped by to welcome us to the neighborhood, no one has asked if they could help…. Texans are famous for their hospitality, so you do have to wonder.”

The sick feeling that seemed to follow Dani grew more pronounced. “I’ve kind of wondered.” She looked around the solemn circle. “The Bar K is a small fish in a big pond. I don’t see how we could be a threat to any of the other dude ranches, but what if… What if there was some reason we don’t know about?”

Toni looked skeptical. “Such as?”

“Such as…well, like some big rancher wanted to buy us out. Or…or like we have a fortune in oil on our land and don’t know it.”

“Or maybe we control the water rights to this part of the state,” Niki suggested, getting into the spirit of the thing.

Toni grinned. “Maybe they think we’ll bring in sheep! The cowman and the sheepman can’t be friends, you know.”

Granny laughed. “That’s the cowboys and the farmers, hon, but the point’s well made. There must be some reason we’re being treated like pariahs. Guess we’ll just have to find out what that reason is.”

“And in the meantime,” Dani said, rising from the conference table, “we’ve got to find some men. We’re about to work ourselves and poor Dobe to death.”

“That old faker,” Granny scoffed. “I wouldn’t worry about him.”

“Hey, Gran, he’s all we’ve got at this point. I’m going into town right now to tack these flyers on every empty spot I can find. Wish me luck, okay?”

But even as she said it, she knew it would take a great deal more than luck.

JACK READ THE FLYER over Dani’s shoulder as she tacked it to the light post: “Wranglers Wanted For Dudes. Competitive Pay, Excellent Working Conditions On Established Dude Ranch. Experience Desirable But Not Necessary. Contact Dani Keene At—”

She started and hit her thumb instead of the nail, let out a yelp and whirled to confront him. “Look what you made me do!”

“Me?” He gave her his most innocent expression. “I was just reading your flyer.”

“Over my shoulder, and how did I know it was you? You could have been an ax murderer, for heaven’s sake.” She stuck her thumb between ruby-red lips and sucked gently.

Jeez, he’d have done that for her. He caught his breath, shocked at his own erotic thoughts. “I can’t remember the last ax murderer we had in Hard Knox,” he said in a choked voice, “but I’m sorry you hurt yourself. Here, let me finish that for you.” He reached for the hammer, not the hand.

She held it beyond his reach. “I don’t need any help.”

“I’d say you do.”

“You’d be wrong.” Stubbornly she turned back to the task at hand and managed to subdue the nail in a couple of strokes. “There,” she said with satisfaction. “That’s the last one. Maybe now we’ll get some action.”

“I hope so,” he said without much conviction.

She cocked her head and met his gaze, her own narrow and probing. “I didn’t get any response on the ad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If this doesn’t work…”

He said nothing, just stood there torn in a dozen directions.

She leaned forward, and he could see the determination in her brown eyes. “What’s going on, Jack?”

“With what?”

“Why doesn’t anyone want to work at the Bar K?”

“I told you, everyone’s already got jobs.”

“I know what you told me, but I’ve got a feeling there’s a lot more to it than that. Won’t you please tell me what’s going on?”

He wanted to—damn, how he wanted to. But how did you tell a woman that her father had been such an asshole that he had probably forever sullied the name of Keene in Knox County?

The answer was you couldn’t, even if you didn’t know that the owners of the bigger ranches around here were just circling like sharks, waiting for the sisters to give up and go back where they’d come from.

She sighed and that stubborn little chin rose. “All right, I can see you’re not going to help me. Well, I don’t need you! I’ve never needed any man, which is a damn good thing, because no man has ever come through for me.”

“Ah, jeez.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re not one of those ‘men are no good’ types, are you?”

“I sure could be with just about one more little push.” She squared her shoulders. “Forget it, okay? Forget we ever had this conversation. Whatever’s going on, you’re right in the middle of it and I was crazy to think for a single minute that—”

“Now hang on there, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Probably, and you’re not going to tell me.”

She turned away with disgust so heavy he could feel it.

“Since you’re not with me,” she announced, “you’re against me. I’ll just say goodbye and let it go at that.”

He watched her walk away, her back straight and her head held high. He wanted to call out to her, run after her, explain everything, but what would be the point? Just because he’d been in her father’s debt didn’t obligate him to do more than he already had.

She didn’t have a clue that he’d been trying like hell to round up a couple of hands for her. But with other ranchers, including the elder Burkes, saying no, the younger Burke saying please didn’t go very damn far.

He commiserated with himself on the walk to his pickup. Was it his fault that no one in his right mind was gonna trust anyone named Keene? It really wasn’t any of his business anyway, but he did feel kind of protective toward her….

The realization that she’d hate that actually made him smile.

FOR THE NEXT twenty-four hours, guilt was Jack’s constant companion. Even Petey couldn’t shake him out of it. Pa and Grandpa started watching their words as if they thought the least little thing might set him off.

Hell, maybe it would. Maybe until he leveled with Dani he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself. But when he set off for the Bar K, he didn’t have an idea in the world how he was going to do it.

He pulled into the ranch yard and she came out of the barn to meet him. Despite a cool day, she looked hot and mussed, her hair in tangles around her face, sleeves rolled up, paint splatters all over her.

Lord, she looked good enough to eat. Now he not only didn’t know what he was going to say, he’d have to say it with a mouth gone dry.

WHEN SHE SAW HIM drive up, it made her so mad that for a moment she debated whether she should even speak to him. But if she didn’t, Toni and Grandma would, and they’d treat him like an honored guest, which he sure as hell wasn’t.

So Dani met him halfway, keeping her face carefully blank. “Yes?” she said in a chilly tone.

“Uhh…” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and shifted uneasily from one boot to the other. The man looked guilty as sin. “Hired any men yet?”

“You know I haven’t.”

“Now, I don’t know any such thing. For sure.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve been thinking….”

She waited, her head tilted at a challenging angle, refusing to make this easier for him.

After a moment he said, “Maybe a little background is in order here.”

“Background on what?”

“On why everybody around here hate—has had a bone to pick with your father.”

That got through her icy determination not to respond. “My father?”

“Wil Keene was not… Jeez, this is really hard to say in a nice way.” He grimaced. “Wil wasn’t too popular is what I’m getting at.”

She didn’t want to hear this. She’d never known her father, wouldn’t know him if he walked up to her right now. She’d grown up despising him for deserting her mother, but if Jack attacked the man, she’d be forced to defend him.

So she said, “I don’t want to talk about Wil Keene.”

“Maybe not, but he’s the reason you’re having so much trouble hiring men. He had no friends. Nobody liked him—except for Miss Elsie, of course, and she married him, although no one could ever figure out why.”

Dani whirled away. “I said I don’t want to hear this.”

“Well, you’re gonna hear it.”

He moved in front of her with such swiftness that she nearly plowed into his chest. He caught her by the upper arms before she could avoid it.

“Folks hereabouts have no reason to feel generous toward Wil Keene or any of his kin. He was a loudmouthed liar and he’d cheat his own mother if he got the chance.”

“Shut up!” He was confirming every rotten opinion she’d ever held about her father, but hearing it was nonetheless painful.

“Maybe you don’t know he bragged about his kids. Not until Miss Elsie was gone—until then nobody had any idea he even had kids stuck away somewhere else. But after she died, he used to say he had three just like him. He’d say, ‘You think when I’m gone you’ll have everything your own way, but you don’t know my kids. They’re just like me.”’

“As you can plainly see,” she said in a voice that shook, “we’re not.”

He nodded. “That’s right, I can see it, but nobody else has worked up the gumption to get close enough to see much of anything. Yeah, they’ll go to the Sorry Bastard to stare at Niki night after night, but that’s about the extent of it.”

Dani forced a stiff smile that she didn’t feel. “I wondered which one of my sisters you were after. So it’s Niki, is it? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that—”

His grip on her arms tightened so abruptly that she broke off with a little squeak of surprise. His uneasy expression turned to one of stunned disbelief.

“Niki? Damn, if you believe that—”

And before she knew what he was doing, he yanked her close and kissed her, his mouth taking hers the way a dying man takes water in the desert.

Shocked to the core, she let him have his way with her. And as the furious pressure of his mouth gentled, something cold and tight at the core of her flowered into a molten pool of confusion.

She tingled from head to toe and felt so dizzy that if her arms had been free, she’d have wrapped them around him—just until her head cleared. His tongue touched the tight seam of her lips and she gasped, giving him instant access.

Oh, this was impossible—impossibly lovely. The wildness evaporated and in its wake she tasted a sweetness she’d never before encountered. She didn’t know what he was doing, why he was doing it, what he hoped to gain, but she couldn’t think straight enough to know how to respond.

He lifted his head at last and looked down at her, his eyes blazing and his breath coming in great gasps. “I’m sorry,” he said in a grating voice, “not because I kissed you, but because that’s not why I came here today.”

Dani’s voice again came out a squeak. “Then why did you come here? To insult my father?”

He groaned and his hands fell away from her arms. “I’m sorry about that, but you forced me into it. I was trying to be polite.”

It was so much easier to think when he wasn’t touching her. “That doesn’t answer my question,” she managed to say.

“I did not come to insult your father.”

“I don’t care why you didn’t come, I want to know why you did come.”

“I…guess you could say I came in response to your ad and those flyers.”

She stared at him, suddenly seeing a light at the end of her personal tunnel. “You came about the ad and my flyers?”

He nodded.

She drew in a deep breath and smiled, and this time she meant it. “In that case,” she said, “you’re hired!”