Noah couldn’t have agreed more. His head was splitting, and his mouth tasted as if someone had served him scrambled socks. He opened an eye to find a saucy-eyed six-year-old—and her mother, with her bright green eyes and flashing red hair— standing at the foot of his bed.
“It’s your alarm clock calling,” she said brightly. “You need to get up.”
“Can you talk a little more quietly?” Noah burrowed more deeply into his pillow.
“You ignore me when I talk more quietly,” she told him. “Do you remember last night? You got my ranch hands drunk. And we have to brand a couple of hundred cattle this morning.”
He recognized that tone of voice. “Ms. McCann, don’t you realize you work for me?”
She ignored him. “Mr. Campbell, do you ride?”
“Oh, yes. I ride.”
He would ride today, all right, even if it killed him.