and she quickly gathered them up as she gestured him into one of the chairs. “I was just going over some figures, trying to see what the stampede is going to cost me.”
“Damage bad?” he asked, and eased into the chair.
“Bad enough.” She walked over to the counter where a coffeepot was half full. “Want a cup?”
“All right,” he agreed. This all felt far too civil and every muscle in his body tensed as if in anticipation of some kind of explosion.
She set a cup of coffee in front of him, then carried her own to the chair next to his and sat. “I lost three cows, six calves and half a fence line.”
“I also heard you’ve lost a number of your ranch hands in the last couple of weeks.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Where did you hear that?”
“Smokey mentioned it to me.” Smokey Johnson wasn’t just the cook and housekeeper for the West clan. When Zack’s mother had been murdered years ago, Smokey had been working as the ranch manager. He’d moved into the house to help Zack’s father with the six motherless children, all under the age of ten.
She shook her head. A faint smile curved her lips, there only a moment, then gone. “That man seems to know everything about everyone in this town. And yes, about half the men walked off in the week following my dad’s death. I’m not sure whether it was because they didn’t want to work for a woman or they assumed I’d be selling the ranch. They ran like cockroaches in the light of day. But I’ve got some good men left.” A frown lowered her perfectly arched eyebrows. “At least, I think they’re good men.”
“Are you thinking about selling out?”
“Not a chance.” Her eyes flashed with a touch of anger. “That vulture, Sheila Wadsworth, came to see me the day after my dad’s funeral to see if I was interested in selling. I told her to get off my property and stay off.”
“Sheila’s just doing her job.” Sheila Wadsworth owned one of the two real-estate agencies in the town.
“She acts like the Donald Trump of Cotter Creek, wheeling and dealing, and she has the sensitivity of a brick.” She bit her lower lip, a lip he didn’t remember being so full.
“What happened to your crutches? Aren’t you supposed to be using them?” He needed to focus on something other than the shape and fullness of her lips.
“Those things are aggravating. I can’t move fast enough with them. Besides, I can bear weight on the ankle this morning.”
“When you called me yesterday, what did you want me to do? What did you have in mind?” He took a sip of the coffee and found it bitter. It seemed somehow appropriate, a reflection of their past relationship.
“I want you to investigate my father’s death. I’d like for you to stay here at the ranch, in the bunkhouse, to see if you can find out who might have been responsible for his death and also who spooked my herd yesterday.”
Zack believed it was a goose chase and apparently his feelings showed on his face. She sighed impatiently. “If you don’t believe what I’ve told you, then why are you here?”
Why was he here? What had prompted him to leave the self-imposed isolation he’d been in for the past month? To momentarily surface from the darkness that had threatened to destroy him?
“I’m here because I loved your father.” It was the simplest of explanations. He wouldn’t tell her that the fear he’d seen in her eyes had haunted him, that despite the fact that he thought her spoiled and pushy and obnoxious, he’d seen her fear and couldn’t help but respond.
His answer seemed to satisfy her, for she nodded and stood. “Then the first thing we should do is get you settled into the bunkhouse.”
“No, the first thing I’d like to do is see where Gray fell off his horse.” He knew Katie well enough to know that if this was going to work at all he had to establish control from the very beginning.
Her eyes narrowed, as if she was aware that a power struggle had begun. In those calculating blue depths he saw the moment she decided to acquiesce. She averted her gaze from him. “Fine. We’ll need to saddle up some horses. He was on a trail about a mile from here.”
They had just stepped off the porch when a handsome blond male approached them. At the sight of her, he swept his dusty brown Stetson off his head and smiled. “Kate, you doing okay this morning? Are you supposed to be off your crutches so soon?”
“I’m fine, Jake.” She flashed the cowboy a warm smile that Zack felt down to his toes.
“I’m heading into town to order the lumber for the fence. Do you need anything?”
Zack took a step toward the man and held out his hand. “Zack West,” he said.
“Jake Merridan.” He shook Zack’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Zack is coming to work for me,” Katie said. “We were just going to saddle up and take a little tour of the place.”
“Nice to have you aboard,” Jake replied.
“Jake is fast becoming one of my most valuable ranch hands,” Katie said, once again offering the blond a full smile. “He’s been with us for the last couple of months but has already made himself invaluable.”
Zack saw the look in Jake’s eyes as he gazed at Katie, a look that told Zack the man would be happy being something much more than a valuable ranch hand. More power to him, Zack thought.
Within minutes Jake was on his way and Zack and Katie were in the stables saddling up a couple of mounts. “Where did you find Mr. Wonderful?” he asked as he tightened a saddle strap.
“Who? Oh, you mean Jake? He came to work for Dad when the Wainfield ranch sold.” Despite the obvious tenderness of her ankle, she swung up into the saddle with the grace he remembered from her as a young girl.
Kate had always been a horsewoman. Like her father, she loved the big creatures and could have been a successful barrel racer, but she’d lacked the discipline and had been too wild, too reckless.
He mounted, as well, and they left the stables heading west across the hard, dusty earth. The horses walked side by side and Zack found his attention drawn to her over and over again.
If he didn’t know her at all, if he hadn’t just gone through a terrible lesson about love and loss, he might have found himself attracted to her.
Her facial features were bold yet feminine and spoke of inner strength. Physically she was the kind of woman who always caught his eye…long-legged and with a little meat on her bones. He frowned, irritated by his observations, and focused his gaze straight ahead.
They rode toward a wooded area and in the distance he saw several other men on horseback and assumed they were some of her men.
“I heard you graduated from college,” he said to break the silence.
She cast him a sideways gaze. “Don’t sound so surprised,” she said dryly. “I might have once been a bit of a handful, but that doesn’t mean I was stupid.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you were stupid. I was just kind of surprised to hear that you’d come back here to work with Gray on the ranch.”
“Why would that surprise you? This is my home.”
“I don’t know, Gray just mentioned to me several times that you seemed to be enjoying college life in Tulsa.” Actually, Gray had worried about her, afraid that her rebellious and impulsive nature would get her into some kind of trouble.
“So, why did you quit Wild West Protective Services?”
He had the distinct impression she was changing the subject on purpose. “I just decided it was time for something different.” He wasn’t about to share with her the personal trauma that had led him to make