The Lone Rancher - By Carol Finch Page 0,30

were the extension of his will. Adrianna wanted to prove she was as capable as her father was.

“You should see the other four bedroom suites.” Elda paused to munch on a cookie. “They must look exactly like they did when his brothers and sister moved out two years ago.” She leaned close and said, “But Quin didn’t confide what caused the rift. He did say he planned to leave things as they are. Maybe forever. Who knows?”

“He told me that his siblings had no intention of running the ranch and they wanted to make their own lives, make their own choices after their parents were gone,” Adrianna said.

Butler smirked. “So that’s why he didn’t approve of you pulling up stakes and moving to Texas. You did exactly what his family did and he didn’t like it.”

Adrianna nodded, then grabbed another tasty cookie while the older threesome chitchatted companionably. Leaving them to their reunion, she wandered outside to consult Rocky. After Elda left, she went upstairs to put away the laundry Bea had washed. She gasped in alarm when she noticed a plume of smoke rising in the distance. It looked as if it was coming from the 4C, perhaps near the grove of trees and underbrush where she had located her missing Herefords—and found herself about to succumb to her secret desires for Quin.

Lurching around, Adrianna bounded down the staircase to alert Bea and Butler. Then she dashed outside to round up her hired hands to help her smother the fire. And blast it, she hoped Quin didn’t believe she was responsible for this latest mischief. Especially not after that steamy incident in the grove of trees. He’d likely think she had tried to lure him in, soften him up, then strike out in another spiteful retaliation.

“Fire!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Men darted from the corrals, barn and bunkhouse to see her pointing northeast. Adrianna grabbed the nearest saddle horse and a gunnysack that Rocky tossed to her. She raced across the pasture at breakneck speed. By the time she and her men opened the adjoining gate and headed north, six 4C ranch hands galloped over the rolling hill toward them.

She became the recipient of six accusatory glares. No doubt, gossip in the bunkhouse blamed her for the woes on 4C. Conversely, her employees thought Quin and his men were responsible for stealing her Herefords the previous week.

“You sure we should be helping Cahill?” Chester Purvis asked as he trotted his horse beside her. “He probably thinks you started this fire to get even for swiping your heifers.”

She frowned in annoyance when several other cowboys nodded in agreement with Ches. “We are not starting some silly range war over incidents likely instigated by outlaws and rustlers,” she declared sharply. “Is that clear?”

“Okay, but if you ask me, it’s the Cahill Curse at work again.”

Adrianna jerked up her head and glared at the scruffy, slow-talking cowboy—Pokey O’Reilly was his name—who had spouted the comment. “I am not the superstitious sort and I don’t expect any of my employees to be, either. If you want to believe in voodoo nonsense, then collect your wages and leave.”

That shut them up in a hurry, thank goodness. Adrianna doubted she had changed anyone’s opinion but she didn’t have to listen to such foolishness. She suspected someone was preying on the 4C because it was so large and it was impossible to oversee so many thousands of acres. Plus, someone wanted to lay the blame on her, the newcomer. Why her reputation and respectability was being sabotaged, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure how to find out, either.

She discarded the troubling thought and hightailed it across the pasture to reach the site of the grass fire. Thankfully, there wasn’t enough wind to engulf all the trees. In addition, the area was nearby Triple Creek so they could soak their gunnysacks with water, then pound out the flames.

Adrianna was hard at work smothering the fire when she glanced sideways to see Quin racing beside a hundred head of longhorn calves that he’d herded from his northern pastures. His narrowed gaze landed on her and she thrust out her chin, daring him to point an accusing finger.

She noticed that every cowboy on hand glanced between her and Quin, waiting to see if a shouting match broke out. She decided to turn rumor of their supposed feud on its ear. When Quin dismounted, she walked up to him, pushed up on tiptoe and placed a kiss