“Don’t change the subject,” Alice snapped.
“Aunt Alice, you can’t stop me. You can’t keep me from holding on to my career as a newspaper reporter.”
“Oh, I know, honey. I just wish you’d—”
“Settle down and get married,” Alex finished. “That’s what Mama always wanted, too. But I’m twenty-six. On the shelf.”
Alice shook her head and blew out a sigh. “You will be careful, won’t you? At least try to?”
“Of course I will. Uncle Charlie says Zach Strickland’s the best trail boss in three states. I’ll be in good hands.”
Her aunt let out a long sigh and said nothing.
* * *
Zach stuffed his thumbs in his front pockets and watched Miss Newspaper Reporter trip down the porch steps ready to go cattle driving. She looked so bright and shiny it made his head hurt. And, Lord love little chickens, what her butt did to a pair of jeans was indecent.
“Good morning!” she sang.
“Mornin’,” he growled. “Got a lot of miles to cover today. Sure hope you can ride.”
“Why, certainly I can ride.” She rested her hands on her shiny new belt buckle.
“Yeah? Where’ve you ridden?”
“In the city park,” she said, her voice frosty. “On the bridle path.”
Zach resisted a snort, looked her up and down and unhooked his thumbs. “Those your ridin’ boots?”
She glanced down at the stylish, neatly laced leather boots. “Yes. What’s wrong with them? I bought them in Chicago and—”
“They won’t work.”
She propped her hands on her hips and peered more closely at her feet. “Well, if it’s not too much trouble, Mister Knows Everything, would you mind telling me what’s wrong with them?”
He spit off to one side. “You won’t last half an hour in those fancy city leathers. Brand new and probably too tight. Go ask Alice for a pair of her old riding boots.”
For a moment, Miss Newspaper Reporter looked like she was going to argue, but he stared her down. Finally, she pivoted, stomped back up the porch steps and slammed through the front door.
Hell’s bells, she was a greenhorn. A ladyfied greenhorn, and one with a mouth on her. Charlie had just used up his last favor.
When Miss Fancy-Pants reappeared, she wore a pair of Alice’s well-worn riding boots and a sour look. Zach expelled a long breath and tipped his head toward the corral.
“Saddle up.”
“Oh, yes, sir, Mister Trail Boss.”
His jaw tightened. Gonna be a damn long day.
* * *
Alex snapped open her leather-bound notebook and jotted half a line before the chuck wagon rolled into position at the head of the muddle of cows and horses and riders. Her horse jolted forward. She stuffed her pencil in her shirt pocket and grabbed the reins, but the horse danced a few paces to the left before it settled down. She’d never before ridden anything but old, gentle, city-trained mares, and this horse was neither old nor gentle. Or a mare, she’d been told. In fact, she’d never been this close to a horse that had been...well, gelded.
At least forty horses milled around in a whinnying clump, and she counted seven, no, eight scruffy-looking cowboys, not including the horse wrangler and His Highness the Trail Boss.
And hundreds and hundreds of cows. Steers, Uncle Charlie said. Surely they couldn’t all be steers, because some of them had calves tagging along behind.
She flexed her toes in Aunt Alice’s boots. Her aunt had said they were well broken in, but they still felt awfully tight. She was glad she was riding and not walking the four hundred miles that stretched ahead of her.
The chuck wagon, a bulky-looking top-heavy box on wheels, rattled and clanked its way on ahead of the roiling mass of animals and men on horseback. She watched Roberto, the driver, stash his whip under the bench, put two fingers to his lips and give a sharp whistle. Right away she decided she liked the white-haired old man. The wagon lumbered off down the trail, drawn by two horses.
Bellowing cattle, yipping men on horseback and the thunder of horses’ hooves added to the hubbub. It was deafening. She clapped both hands over her ears and lost control of her mount. A rider swung in close, grabbed her reins and settled the horse. Juan, Roberto’s soft-spoken nephew. He laid the leather straps in her gloved hand, touched his hat brim and reined his horse away.
Dust rose in thick clouds. She had just kneed her horse off to one side when Juan dropped back and shouted something. She couldn’t hear over the noise, so she tried to read his lips. “Señorita.” He mouthed something else, but she had no idea what it was.
She shook her head. He pointed at the bandanna covering his mouth and nose. Oh! Of course. But she didn’t have a bandanna. Oh, well. She smiled at Juan, lifted her chin, and spurred her mount forward.
She was on her way!
It was all fascinating. So this was how people in places like Philadelphia and New York got their meat, a thousand bawling cows lumbering after one old seasoned bull called a “bell steer” because of the clanging bell hung around its neck. They would all end in some rough, dirty railroad town in Nevada with the Indian-sounding name of Winnemucca, where the cowboys would load them up in cattle cars that would end up two thousand miles farther east in slaughterhouses in Chicago.
Just imagine! Right before her eyes were thousands and thousands of thick juicy steaks on the hoof. People back East would be avid for these sights and sounds. She patted the notepad and pencil in her breast pocket. She knew her readers would gobble up each delicious detail of this adventure.
* * *
They were three hours out, and whenever he could manage it, Zach pried his eyes off the herd and glanced back at Miss Murray. She lagged way behind, a good forty yards in back of Skip, who was riding drag, and she was fighting through thick clouds of dust. She’d pulled her wide-brimmed black hat down so far it almost covered her ears, but hell, she couldn’t see what was three feet ahead of her.
He winced in spite of himself. Anybody joining a drive for the first time always rode drag behind the herd, the dustiest position there was. She wasn’t complaining. Yet. He knew she must be hot and more miserable than she’d ever been in her pampered little life, and a small part of him felt just a tad sorry for her. An even larger part was making bets on how long she’d last before she’d turn tail for the Rocking K and a hot bath.
Maybe he should... Nah. Let her suffer. Teach her a lesson.
Juan trotted up on his sorrel and signaled that he wanted to talk.
“What’s up?” Zach yelled over the lowing steers.
“The señorita, she has no...” he swept a thumb and forefinger across his face “...Panuelo.”
Zach nodded, and the slim kid galloped off. So she’d forgotten her bandanna, had she? Where’d she think she was goin’, to a party?
“C’mon, Dancer. Let’s go.” He loped up to the point riders, and when Curly and the new hand, Cassidy, gave him a thumbs-up, he dropped back to the drag position. The air was so thick he could almost chew it.
Skip rode with his chin tucked into his chest, and when Zach fell in beside him, the lanky cowhand didn’t look up.
“Go change with Curly,” Zach shouted. Skip touched two fingers to his hat and thundered off to the head of the herd. In a few minutes, Curly appeared to ride drag.
“Thanks, boss,” he yelled. “Gettin’ bored up front.”
Zach laughed. Nothing