Pink light filtered through the willow branches. Nia finished her prayers, swept aside the sheltering leaves, and nearly collided with a pair of scuffed boots. A yelp escaped as she snapped her head up.
A cowboy in a red plaid shirt stepped backward and yanked off his hat. “I’m sorry, miss.”
Her fingers curled. He shouldn’t be intruding on her special place or getting so close to the main house. At the very least, he shouldn’t disarm her with his obvious discomfiture. “Can I help you with something, mister?”
Three nicks dotted his neck, two more on his shaved cheeks. Auburn hair, ends blunt-cut and ragged, hung almost to his shoulders. “Rumor is you’re the rancher’s daughter.”
Nia lowered her brows. “What’s it to you?”
“Also heard you was planning to compete. That true?” He stared over her shoulder, eyes flitting up, down, sideways.
She jutted her chin forward. “And again I ask, what’s it to you?”
He scratched the corner of his mouth. “Just wondering if I’m wasting my time, is all.”
For a heartbeat, Nia’s attention was captured by the firm set of the man’s lips—until his words connected with her brain. She gave him a frown. “Look, mister, I don’t know who you are, but I’d appreciate some privacy.”
“I’m sorry, miss. I… I haven’t spent much time with womenfolk…” He looked heavenward, like he was searching for an answer to something. “Well, except for the last nine months, but”—he shook his head—“I think I’m goin’ about this all wrong.”
Nia scratched an itch under her left eye. “Going about what?”
He turned the brim of his battered hat in circles. “Well… uh… I’m trying to figure how to ask something without getting you as riled up as a new mama protecting her calf.”
“Then why don’t you straight up ask instead of beating around the bush?”
He jammed his hat on and looked her in the eye. “You planning on marrying one of the cowboys that’s come to compete?”
All the breath left her lungs. For weeks, Papa talked about how Marigold marrying well was such a comfort. If Nia didn’t know better, she’d be tempted to think he sent out another advertisement, this time for a husband for her. “Who told you that?”
He shrugged.
Nia stomped close. “I asked you a question, cowboy.”
His eyes were green. Green with flecks of brown, and so clear she saw herself in them. Not the mistake-prone girl—or who she’d become to make up for that girlhood—but the woman she wanted to be someday.
Nia cut off the fanciful thoughts. Twelve years ago—and again a few years later—she’d indulged such nonsense. Both times it led to disaster. Had she been wiser back then, there would be no need now to choose a foreman to keep her home. She gritted her teeth and stepped close enough to smell lye soap and leather. “Who told you I planned to compete and marry?”
He held his ground, gaze pinned on her. “I overheard it at the cookout last night, miss. Seeing as how I just got here, I don’t rightly know the men’s names yet.”
She stepped back and stood tall. “What’s your name?”
His eyes widened. “We met yesterday when I registered.”
“I met about eighty cowboys yesterday. That doesn’t mean I remember everyone’s names. And judging by the fresh nicks on your face, you lost a beard between now and then.”
His fingers went to his shirt collar. He withdrew a leather strip and toyed with the medallion. It looked like a button with the center drilled out.
Something about him was… disturbing? Or familiar? Maybe both. “Did we meet before yesterday?”
He looked down at his boots. “No, miss. I been workin’ the south end of Texas probably as long as you’ve been alive.”
How old did he think she was? He appeared about thirty, but Texas aged its residents with harsh winds and hot sun. “All right, mister, I’m going to answer your questions on one condition: you leave me in peace.”
When he lifted his head, Nia lost her breath for a second time. Hunger, pain, desperation, hope—she saw it all, warring in his eyes. She wanted to reach out, touch his face, assure him that everything wrong in his world could be made right.
“Yes’m.”
She dropped her gaze, inhaled and exhaled before looking at him again. “I am the rancher’s daughter, but whom and when I plan to marry is my business.”
He bobbed his head in time with his Adam’s apple. “But you’ll be real careful about who you choose, if’n you do marry?”
“You said you’d leave me in peace. I expect you to keep your end of the bargain.” For some reason, though, she cared why it mattered to him.
“Yes’m.” To her surprise—and dismay—he turned and walked away.
Dismay? Because he didn’t search her out to turn her head with flattery? Surely she had more sense than that. “Why do you care who I marry?”
He stopped and swung around. “’Cause it matters.”
“Why?” She couldn’t read his expression. Exasperation? Surprise?
“Look, miss, I got no right to speak to you like this. I know that. But you got upwards of seventy men competing for straw boss. There are certain things we come here expecting, and number one on the list is working for your father. He’s built up a fine spread. He didn’t even have to give directions to the Double L in the newspaper advertisement ’cause everyone knows who he is and what he’s done here.”
Nia nodded like she understood what that had to do with whom she’d marry. Heat prickled across her neck and chest.
He stepped closer. “Men have given up good jobs to compete. Some of them won’t be welcomed back.” He spread his hands out. “If’n you marry someone that’s just gonna up and fire men the moment he’s in charge, well…” He gave a flick of his arms and wrists.
So it was nothing personal.
Like she’d hoped.
Fickle, traitorous heart! Had it learned nothing from past experience?
She turned on her heel and fled toward the house. Once safe inside her bedroom, she realized she never did get the cowboy’s name.
Toby checked his saddle, rope, and pigging string. Blaze’s ears twitched at the sound of cattle. The calf roping event was in full swing, and they were up next.
They’d done this a thousand times, but this was different. Today, Toby couldn’t concentrate for seeing the rancher’s daughter in wool pants and leather chaps.
“Seventy-three!”
Toby patted Blaze’s flank. “This is it, boy.” He went to the horse’s head, grabbed the trailing reins, and headed for the starting chute. His neck burned under the glaring sun. Or maybe it was the heat of dread. Everywhere he looked, someone watched him. Any moment, he’d be recognized and run off the Double L.
Blaze nickered and pulled the reins from Toby’s hand. Spinning around, Toby saw a wild look in his horse’s eye. He grabbed the reins and slowly pulled. “Whoa, boy.”
The horse resisted, neck craning upward. He pranced sideways and bumped into a gray gelding being led the opposite direction.
“Hey! Watch it!”
Toby kept trying to calm Blaze. Nothing worked, not the repeated tongue clicks, the gentle words, or a firm hand on the reins. Blaze tugged and sidestepped, causing havoc for spectators and competitors crowded around the calf-roping pen.
A hand reached over his shoulder. “Here. Give me the reins.” It was the rancher’s daughter, and so close to his ear that Toby jerked like he’d been hit.
He glanced over his shoulder. Her brown eyes were full of confidence and something softer. Toby hesitated. “You sure you can handle him?”
She nodded.
“Okay, then.” He let go and, using his hands and eyes, checked for whatever was making the horse wild. It took about four seconds to realize the cinch was too tight. Toby pulled up on the buckle and released it. Blaze stilled, but his muscles quivered. Toby rubbed the horse’s flank and began checking for signs of injury. Nothing appeared swollen or cut.
Gentle words from the rancher’s daughter calmed Blaze’s nervousness.
Toby’s heartbeat slowed and his breathing eased with each undamaged hoof and hock. After checking all four, he returned to the horse’s head and took the reins.
“He okay?” She started her own inspection of Blaze.
Not sure if he should be offended, Toby watched her examine every part of the horse. “Someone must’ve cinched the buckle while we was walking.”
The woman bent to check. Toby had to look somewhere else.
Ten feet away, Peltzer leaned against a split-rail fence wearing a malicious grin. “Havin’ a little trouble there, Scrubby?”
Hot indignation surged through Toby. He clamped his teeth shut. Turned until the only thing he saw was Blaze’s nose. Even if Peltzer had messed with the buckle, finger-pointing without proof would start a ruckus. And the odds weren’t good: Peltzer plus ten other cowboys against Toby and a woman who’d like as not throw the first punch.
Raucous laughter pelted his back like rocks.
“He looks okay.” The feminine voice grated.
Toby bobbed his head once, pulled on Blaze’s reins, and headed for the starting chute before what was left of his temper exploded.
“You’re welcome!”
With a lift of his hand, Toby acknowledged the woman’s help and her sarcasm. “Thank you” tickled his tongue, but so did “You slimy weasel.” Best to keep his lips tight until he controlled the words.
Toby pressed down on the saddle.
Blaze swung his head around and snorted.
“Just makin’ sure there’s no burr under there that’s gonna get me bucked off before we even start.”
A leather-skinned cowboy with hair as red as a sunset met Toby at the gate. “You seventy-three?”
“Yes, sir.” Toby pulled the registration paper from his back pocket and handed it over.
The man unfolded the sheet, checked it, and then passed it to a young boy, who ran off. “Your horse okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to register a complaint?” He tipped the brim of his hat up and looked Toby eye to eye.
“Not without proof.”
Approval flickered in the man’s eyes. “Fair enough.”
Toby mounted, but his nervousness made Blaze toss his mane. “Yeah, yeah. I hear ya.” Toby forced himself to relax as they walked inside the starting chute. He leaned close to Blaze’s ear. “Let’s show these folks how calf roping’s done.”
He placed the pigging rope between his teeth and nodded at the cowboy holding the chute closed. Twelve seconds later, Toby and Blaze took over the top spot. He sought out the rancher’s daughter. She had a brilliant smile on her face but stood within inches of Peltzer, whose grin was now triumphant. Possessive.
Like a man who’d just won the best prize of all.