Rancher's Wife

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“See that bull over yonder?” he asked when Angel reined her horse in beside him.

She nodded. “The one with the white blaze down his forehead?”

“Yep. Don’t forget that blaze. Old Red’s the only bull on the ranch with that face. He’s got a mean streak a mile wide, and it’s directed solely at two-legged creatures.”

Angel regarded the bull solemnly. “Why do you keep him?”

“He’s a great stud. Comes from solid stock and his calves fetch good prices. And if we handle him from horseback, he’s as docile as any bull is ever going to be.” Day squinted into the sun. “I doubt you’ll ever have cause to remember this, but I’ll tell you anyway. As long as you’re in a vehicle or on horseback, you’re just part of the scenery to him. But don’t ever let him see you walking around. Couple of years ago, he rolled a pickup over on one of the hands who had gotten out to check a bad tire.”

Angel sucked in a breath and her face paled. “Did he kill him?”

Day shook his head. “Guy got lucky, dived back through the window and stayed inside even after Old Red turned it over.” He laughed grimly. “We had to tranquilize the crazy animal until we could get the pickup towed.”

Angel shuddered. “I’ll remember.”

Her voice was thready and he glanced at her in concern. “Hey, you don’t have to worry. Like I said, as long as you don’t walk around in front of him, you’ll be fine.”

“You went away to college, didn’t you?”

Day raised his brow at the seemingly irrelevant topic. “Yes. I majored in agricultural economics at New Mexico State.”

“That’s why you don’t remember me, because I moved here the year you left. But what you also don’t know is that two years later my dad was killed in a bull-riding exhibition.”

An icy shock ran down his spine. He vaguely remembered his own father telling him about a hand from the Double Dos who’d gotten hammered by a bull at a rodeo. “Did you see it?”

She shook her head, and he noticed that she seemed to be regaining her composure. “I was preparing for my own contest. When we heard that somebody had gotten gored, we all went running over to see—and it was my dad.”

Day reached across the space that separated their horses and covered her hand where it lay on the horn of her big Western saddle. “I can’t imagine. That must have been pretty horrible for a young girl.”

“It was.” She looked at him, her eyes unusually sober, and he realized abruptly how gently good-humored she was most of the time. A man could get used to that kind of quiet presence at his side. If he was the kind of man who needed that, which he wasn’t, he reminded himself.

The ride back to the ranch house from the road was only a few miles, and they rode into the barn in plenty of time for lunch. The last half hour, he was aware of Angel trying to find a more comfortable spot in her saddle.

“Ooh-ouch,” she said, shifting in her seat as he dismounted. “I enjoyed that so much I forgot I’m not used to hours of riding anymore. I’m going to be sorry later.”

Day held up his arms. “C’mon, softy, I’ll help you down from there.”

She smiled ruefully, grimacing as she slid out of the saddle, but the expression faded as his hands clasped her waist and drew her down before him.

He set her on the ground. He knew he should remove his hands from her soft flesh, step back and break the moment, but all the willpower in the world couldn’t have made him release her. Her gaze clung to his, her eyes dark and inviting, and all around them the smell of leather, horseflesh and hay warred with the peculiar feminine fragrance that his body already recognized as being uniquely hers. Damn, but she’d gotten under his skin fast. Unbidden, the thought came that she’d probably done the same thing to hundreds of other suckers.

How many other men had been seduced by those eyes? How many others had inhaled that scent, or been driven crazy by the subtle, soft invitation of her body so near?

It was an intrusion, an uncontrollable break in his concentration, and he recoiled as if she were a rattler delivering a warning buzz. The telephone conversation he’d overheard came back to him and he told himself not to be a fool. This woman had legions of men at her feet already. He wasn’t going to be one of them.

“Who’s Karl?” he asked aloud.

Her forehead wrinkled and the clouded bemusement in her eyes gradually cleared. “Karl? He’s my—” She stopped and her brows snapped together as the accusation in his voice registered. “What business is it of yours?” she demanded in as sharp a tone as he’d ever heard her use.

Day turned away, unwilling to acknowledge the jealousy eating at him, and began to unsaddle his horse. “Anything that happens on my ranch is my business,” he said in a deceptively mild tone. “If your lovers are going to start showing up after you dump them, I want to be prepared.”

“My—?” She stepped back a pace and shook her head as if to clear it. “What does Karl have to do with— You think Karl is my lover?” Her voice rose at the end as if she found the very idea unfathomable.

Hell, for all he knew, maybe the guy was her husband. He forced himself to tune out the snippets of intimate conversation he’d overheard and concentrated on unbuckling her saddle and heaving it off her horse, but she slapped his hands away.

“Just go away. I can take care of my mount myself.” She was madder than he’d ever seen her, red flags of color staining her fair cheeks, her brown eyes nearly black.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “This animal is my responsibility, and I’ll stay until he’s properly cared for.”

She practically gritted her teeth at that and he could see her mouth working in impotent rage. She led the horse to his stall, but in the middle of brushing him down, she whirled with the brush in her hand, pointing it at him like a weapon.

“Karl is my agent,” she said in a voice that shook with fury. “And if you have any other sleazy thoughts floating around in your head, you can keep them to yourself because I’m done worrying about what a jerk like you thinks of me!” She put the horse away, gave him feed and fresh water, cleaned her tack in icy silence and then turned on her heel. “Thank you for the tour,” she said with icy politeness as she stomped out of the barn.

Behind her, Day couldn’t suppress a grin. She sure got high-and-mighty when she got mad. And Karl was her agent, not her lover. But the grin faded as he remembered the headline on the tabloid he’d picked up the day before. She might act offended, but nobody could collect a reputation like that without there being some grounds for it. His ex-wife was living proof of that.

* * *

For the next several hours, Angel pitched in with all the housework she could, which suited her fine. The clean air, the simple yet necessary tasks, the solitude...all were working their magic on her taut nerves, even if Dulcie’s pigheaded brother was determined to believe the worst of her. Determined not to let him get to her, she hummed to herself as she pegged the last of a basket of sheets to the clothesline, then retraced her steps into the house. Passing through the utility room, she entered the laundry room at its opposite end.

It was amazing how many sets of clothes a big man working outdoors could dirty. She grimaced as she started the washer for a load of shirts, then bent to remove several pairs of long-legged jeans from the dryer as the washer chugged into another cycle.

Day’s, she thought. She knew the three hands who lived in the bunkhouse took care of their own laundry and the other three were married, so these clothes must belong to Day. Day...he fascinated her against her will. Something about him appealed to her senses, called to her so strongly that she had to fight back the urge to seek him out, to resist trying to get to know him better, even though he’d been less than welcoming. It would never work anyway. He couldn’t stand her.

But down deep, she thought he must be a good man. In the days she’d been here, she’d seen how hard he worked. And yet he always had time for Beth Ann in the evenings, no matter how exhausted he appeared. The kind of man she’d dreamed of meeting someday.

The kind of man that doesn’t exist, she reminded herself.

Her next handful of fabric yielded a tiny pair of overalls, and she smiled, her mood lightening. She was going to have to keep in touch with Beth Ann after she left the ranch. The thought was incredibly depressing. In just four short days, the little girl had woven herself into Angel’s heartstrings in a way Angel knew was going to last forever. As Beth Ann grew more used to Angel, she was beginning to chatter uninhibitedly, following her around the house to “help” with the chores Angel volunteered to do. The only reason Beth Ann wasn’t with her right now was because she’d gone down for her customary nap after wheedling Angel to read her two stories.