The Lone Rancher - By Carol Finch Page 0,23
his wont, she recalled. He’d told delightful stories about life on the range and cattle drives during their luncheon in town. Then he’d walked her to Rosa’s Boutique, gently guiding her with his hand to the small of her back. His incidental touch had sent pleasure and desire swirling through her.
Perhaps Quin had softened now that they had shared confidences. Maybe he had begun to respect her and accept her for what she was. They might become friends… And perhaps in time they might become some thing more….
Her speculative thoughts shattered when someone rapped on the door. “Addie K. dear, one of the cowhands wants a word with you. Are you decent?” Bea called from the hallway.
“Tell him I’ll be down in two shakes.” Adrianna bounded from bed, ran a brush through her wild, curly hair, then donned the new pair of breeches and shirt Rosa had made for her.
She frowned in concern when she saw Ches Purvis lounging against the post on the porch, his arms crossed over his chest. She noticed immediately that he had made use of the new bathtub she had placed in the bunkhouse two days earlier. He wasn’t as ripe as he usually was, she noted gratefully.
“Is there a problem?” Adrianna questioned.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ches said soberly. “Rocky came back from sorting off your longhorn cattle for the spring trail drive and he noticed some of your purebred Herefords are missing from the east pasture where he put ’em yesterday afternoon.”
“What about the ones I separated and left in the pen for breeding to the shorthorn bulls?” she asked anxiously.
“They’re still there, ma’am,” the shaggy-haired cowboy confirmed. “I checked ’em myself before I came to the house.” He started toward the barn, opened his mouth, then clamped it shut.
“Obviously there’s something else on your mind, Ches,” she said impatiently. “What is it?”
“Well, Rocky was speculating about whether this was one of Cahill’s pranks to retaliate because you hired him away from the 4C. We didn’t want to check 4C pastures in search of your prize heifers without your permission. Don’t need to start a range war if there is a reasonable explanation.”
Blast it, Adrianna silently muttered. That sounded exactly like something Cahill would do, the ornery rascal. First, he had insulted her, then he’d stolen Elda. Then he’d changed tactics and become the attentive companion at lunch in town. She had let her guard down to the point that her instinctive attraction to him had invaded her dreams and left her aching for his touch. She’d even felt sorry for him because his brothers and sister had lit out and he didn’t know what had become of the younger two.
Damn him! He had purposely set her up to humiliate her. The short-lived truce was over and the private feud was on again. Just when she had accepted the inarguable fact that she found him attractive and enjoyed his companionship he had betrayed her feelings for him.
“You want that I should saddle up and check around to find your missing Herefords?” Ches asked.
“No. I’ll tend to that task myself,” she managed to say without biting off the cowboy’s head. She shouldn’t kill the messenger, just because she felt like blowing the deceptive Quin Cahill to smithereens. “Please saddle my dapple-gray gelding. I’ll be down at the barn in a few minutes.”
Cursing Cahill with every step, Adrianna whirled around, then bounded upstairs to fetch her boots and pistol.
“Where are you going with that?” Butler asked when he saw the weapon she had clutched in her fist. “This isn’t Boston, but I doubt you can blast someone to kingdom come without serious repercussions, even in Nowhere, Texas.”
“We’ll find out,” she growled as she barreled downstairs.
Butler blocked her path at the bottom of the staircase. “You better not be planning to shoot someone, Addie K…. If you are, is it anyone I know?”
“Yes, that rattlesnake named Quin Cahill,” she muttered.
Butler’s brows shot up his forehead. “I thought we liked him now.”
“No, he was pretending to be nice, but that snake shed his skin. Damn men everywhere. Easterners or Westerners, they are all the same!”
Butler clamped his hand around her forearm when she tried to veer around him. “I hope you are excluding me, my dear girl. If you can count on nothing else, never doubt that Bea and Elda and I are loyal to you—”
His breath came out in a whoosh when Adrianna impulsively hugged him zealously. “I know. It has comforted me greatly for over a decade, Hiram.