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Heath shook his head. “Shots are stressful enough. We don’t separate them.”
“We don’t, either.”
“Huh.”
“Huh.” Their eyes clung for a moment, and she noticed a thin band of black surrounding his brilliant blue irises.
When Heath cleared his throat, she remembered to breathe. “Anyways. I’ll need you ready to go in an hour.”
Jewel peered at their destination, noting the coordinates, the elevation. “We can’t go there.”
Heath frowned. “Why not?”
“It’s your southernmost point...the most exposed to the drought. I bet forage sorghum grows there, right?”
“Some sorghum, but mostly ryegrass.”
“But sorghum is hardier in extreme weather,” she countered. “There’ll be more of it.”
The beginnings of a crease developed between Heath’s eyebrows. “What if there is?”
“We’ve never had a drought this bad. Extreme dry weather causes prussic acid to build up in sorghum grass, which will weaken the cattle. It slows their ability to take in oxygen, might even kill some.”
Heath rubbed the back of his neck. “And you know all this because...”
Outside the office, the horses nickered and shifted in their stalls. “I read. Go to conferences.”
Shock splashed across Heath’s face. “You read about cows.”
One shoulder rose. “Yeah—so?”
“Took you for more of an outdoorsy type than a bookworm.”
“Who says you can’t be both?” Her shoulders shot up, nearly reaching her ears. Why did everyone want to put her in a box? If life was a road, then shouldn’t you be allowed to change lanes? Take detours?
He stared at her for a long moment and nodded. With his vibrant eyes and near-heavenly features, he looked like she imagined an angel would. He had cheekbones and a jaw you could cut glass with, a face any artist would die to sketch—or touch. And those full, expressive lips were parted. “Look, the Lovelands have been driving cattle in this pattern for over a hundred years. We always start here. It’s how my father wants it done.”
“He’s not here. You are.”
A muscle feathered in Heath’s jaw. “And I’m doing it Pa’s way.”
“Don’t you ever just do what you want?”
He stilled, his expression as shuttered as any Loveland’s. Yet something in the corners of his eyes, a darkening, a creasing, betrayed his discontent. Was he dissatisfied with his life? Impossible. Soon he’d be married to the daughter of a wealthy family, about to have it all, respect, money, prestige.
Whereas she...she’d continue being just another hand on her family ranch if she didn’t get the range boss job.
She must have made a noise because Heath’s gaze lasered into her. Sparks of electricity crackled from his deep blue eyes. “Let’s get something straight. I call the shots.”
Their breaths came a little faster, harder, as they stared each other down. “Still doesn’t make you right about the pasture,” she snapped. “I’d make a better range boss.”
“Then why aren’t you Cade Ranch’s range boss?”
Her heart throbbed like a giant open wound. She willed away the sting of his words and pressed on. “James promised to give me the job if I proved myself this summer. Since I’m stuck here, I’ll prove it on Loveland Hills instead.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I challenge you.”
Heath’s frown deepened. “To what?”
“To prove who’s the better rancher.” She gestured between them. “Cade versus Loveland.”
“We’re on the brink of foreclosure,” he responded in clipped tones. “I’m not playing games or keeping score.”
Jewel picked up a pen and clicked the tip in and out. “I’m not playing, either, but I will be keeping score.” She dropped the pen and peered up at Heath. “And I intend to win.”
Heath made a quick, sharp, shaking-away motion with his head. “Play whatever games you want but know this... I’m in charge of everything on this ranch, including you.”
Her fingers curled in, nails biting into her palms as anger flushed through her system, hot and bitter. Oh, the terrible, crushing, breath-stealing burden of people who thought you didn’t measure up. “You’ll never be in charge of me.”
“We’re doing it this way, end of story. Be ready to head out in an hour.” He turned on his heel, strode away, then paused in the doorway. “I’m the range boss. Not you.”
He tossed those last two words at her like he was throwing down a gauntlet—the one she’d been battling her whole life.
Challenge accepted.
She stomped to Bear and flung her arms around his neck. “Miserable, stubborn, know-it-all Loveland,” she whispered into his thick mane inhaling his comforting, musky scent. “I can’t stand him,” she insisted, wondering who she was trying to convince.
James didn’t take her seriously, and now Heath?
Her skin tingled like a thousand fire ants were marching all over it. Heath had a lot of lessons to learn, one of them being to never underestimate a woman.
Especially her.
From here on out, it was war. Cade versus Loveland, and may the best rancher win.
* * *
HEATH LIGHTLY TAPPED his spurs into his mare’s sides and cantered along the line of trudging Brahmans. With his index finger and pinkie in his mouth, he whistled three sharp blasts. Blue wheeled around from the front. The cattle dog raced toward a pair of heifers who’d paused to graze. A few jaw-snapping lunges got the hungry animals moving forward again.
With a yank, Heath freed his kerchief from his back pocket and mopped his dripping face. It was drier and hotter than the center of a haystack, despite the lack of sun. The Loveland rain dance had conjured only clouds...and a different kind of storm. His gaze swerved to the petite redheaded rough rider who effortlessly drove the cattle ahead of him, her body in perfect sync with her enormous black stallion. In the distance, their destination, a southern valley with abundant greenery and a natural spring, beckoned.
Was Jewel right about the sorghum grass?
She hadn’t spoken since they set out a couple of hours ago, her silence bugging him for no good reason. His family rarely talked when working. Besides, he wanted this time on the range to make peace with his future as a married businessman, yet his thoughts kept returning to his and Jewel’s earlier argument.
She’d acted as though she’d save the day by steering them from this pasture and prove herself a better range boss. It’d blasted away his usual patience. He’d had to remind her who was in charge.
His stomach twisted, and his back tensed.
What’d gotten into him?
You’re under my control...
His words echoed in his ears. Who spoke like that? Shirtless guys on the covers of Sierra’s romance novels, that’s who. Not him. Not before Jewel blasted into his life, intent on shaking it—and him—up.
With a slight tug, he slowed his Appaloosa, Destiny, and plodded alongside the bawling cattle. Their heads bobbed as they lumbered on dry, rocky ground. Choking dust rose. Up ahead, Jewel expertly headed off a small breakaway trio and nipped them back into the group. In the rear, Travis patrolled the end of the herd, keeping an eye out for stragglers or predators.
Why had Heath acted like a demanding jerk before? Jewel triggered something inside him, a part that wanted to assert itself even when he knew the disastrous consequences of putting his wants ahead of others. A disturbing image of his mother on the night of Cole’s sixteenth birthday momentarily blinded him. Just in time, he spotted a depression and guided Destiny around it. Her hooves clattered over bedrock.
Jewel wasn’t to blame for his actions. He was chafing inside his own life. A mustang resisting the bit. Sometimes he felt as though his life was like a railroad car that had been shunted onto a side track—all the wasted, carefree years of his youth spent worrying about his mother’s moods, her well-being, her effect on the family. And now here he was, still lagging behind, still not on the main track, worrying he’d look back on his adult years and wonder what he’d accomplished beyond making others happy.
And shouldn’t that be enough for any man?
To please is a disease.
He frowned and touched his spurs to Destiny again. Instantly, she transitioned into a trot, then a gallop before he pulled her up alongside Jewel. “Nice work.”
Her pert nose lifted, the only indication she’d heard him. Beneath her white Stetson, her face was pink; she suddenly looked pretty. And dainty. Thick leather reins disappeared inside one small hand. The other rested on her jean-clad thigh. It was shapely for it being so short, he observed before tearing his eyes away to gaze at the nearing pasture. “You’ve ridden with your brothers all your life?”
“What else would I have been doing?” she asked from the side of her mouth, eyes locked straight ahead. “Playing dolls? Dress-up? Baking? This is the twenty-first century. We have things like electricity now...and women have the vote...”
He flushed. “I get that. My sister Sierra was more interested in caring for the animals, and Kelsey, she—”
Jewel’s loud, noisy yawn cut him off. When she finished, she angled her face his way, one eyebrow arched, her expression mock-innocent. “Sorry, what was that again?”
A reluctant smile tugged up the corners of his mouth. Fine. She wasn’t interested in hearing about Kelsey and honestly, he wasn’t even sure why he’d brought her up. Invoking her name erected an invisible wall between him and Jewel. It was a reminder he was taken...though who, exactly, needed the reminding? With a jolt, he recalled an invitation to dine with her family tonight. His throat tightened. Would they expect some kind of an announcement?
“How long have you had your horse?” he asked, eyeing Jewel’s enormous mount. The stallion had to be seventeen hands, yet Jewel rode him effortlessly, clearly in control.
The dimple appearing in her freckled cheek fascinated him. “Eight years. His name’s Bear.”
“Good name.”
“Your Appaloosa’s pretty. What’s her name?”
“Destiny. I figured wherever she took me was where I was supposed to go.”
Jewel’s dimple disappeared. “You’re the one guiding her. You choose where you go, not Destiny.”
Her words struck him momentarily mute. Before he could speak, Jewel gasped. “What’s that!”
He followed her finger point into the looming pasture and took in the overgrowth of sorghum, the wilted leaves, the lack of ryegrass, just as Jewel predicted.
“The grass,” he began, but she cut him off again.
“No! That!” She spurred Bear forward, leaning low over his neck, her red braid lifting behind her.
“Yah!” Destiny responded to his cue and gave chase. They’d nearly caught up to Jewel when she stopped Bear on the edge of the grazing area and vaulted from the saddle.
“Look.”
He followed her nod and spied a buzzing cloud of flies over a dead animal. A large animal. Was it...?
“This one of yours?” Jewel pointed to a motionless cow.
His stomach turned as he eyed the brand on its flank and the ear tag. “She went missing a couple of days ago. We’ve been looking for her...” He eyed the white foam around the Brahman’s mouth and pale gums. A dark suspicion grabbed him by the throat. His gaze swept over the yellowing field of water-deprived sorghum, then to the approaching herd. They were walking to their deaths if they got any closer.
“Prussic acid poisoning.”
Jewel glanced up at him sharply when he spoke.
He braced for the “I told you so” that didn’t come. Instead, Jewel nodded, leaped into her saddle and grabbed Bear’s reins to yank his head up from the deadly plants. “Let’s turn them around.”
The top of the herd began descending the small slope, just yards from the poisoned forage. “No time to waste.”
Together, they sprang into action, hustling the cattle, arcing them left and back. At his whistled commands, the cattle dogs streaked to and fro in a blur of white and black. Jewel was like a scarlet lightning bolt as she thundered along the front line, waving her bright red kerchief, spooking the cattle to change course. She was fearless, as bold as she was skilled. He’d be darned if Cole could do as good a job turning the massive herd back on itself.
“What’s going on?” Travis shouted over the panicked bellows of the confused, hungry Brahmans.
“Pasture’s no good. Stay here and run any off that get by me or Jewel.” He charged forward on Destiny, his heart pounding hard enough to come out of his chest when he spied a drop-off hidden by a copse of spruce. If they didn’t control the herd while turning it, they might stampede to their deaths.
Yet hotheaded Jewel was surprisingly cool under pressure. She applied pressure when needed and eased off when it wasn’t, her small features set in fierce concentration. She was as tough a cowgirl as he’d ever seen when she faced down one of the larger Brahmans determined to get by her. Without hesitation, she drove Bear forward, hollering, “Yip! Yip! Yip!” until the cow balked at the last minute and turned. Others followed suit and gradually, after hours of painstaking work, they had the cattle back home, watered and hay fed.
He’d expected Jewel to gloat, but she’d been all business, and darned if he didn’t miss sparring with her when they’d finally gotten the situation under control.
At last, he mounted the stairs to the house, bone weary and longing for a shower. Jewel’s voice stopped him before he reached the top tread.
“You still haven’t said it,” she drawled.
He turned and flicked the brim of his hat up off his soaked brow. “Said what?”
“That I was right.” She climbed past him and stopped on the top step, meeting him eye to eye.
He sighed. “Fine. You were right.” She’d saved the herd today—no denying it.
“And...” she prompted.
He stared at her steadily. “Thank you.”
“Yes, and...”
He lifted a palm to the rosy orange sky, then dropped it. “What else is there?”
“You’d be a better range boss than me.” Her lips curved into a smirk.
The tension was palpable between them, and instinct told him it ran deeper than the fact that their families were enemies. “I’m not saying that.”
