Bret's tongue lapped on the end of Mindy's nose and she snuggled closer to him. From his side of the bed, she heard his contented purr.
Bret’s contented purr? Something just didn't seem right here.
Mindy forced herself awake from her all too vivid dream to confront her cat George, his face only inches from her own.
She glanced at her watch. Five o'clock. George had earned his keep, at least for the day. As great love interests go, a cat leaves just a little something to be desired. As safe alarm clocks, they beat the heck out of too-handsome men.
Her mental image of Bret followed Mindy into the shower. She could blame the way he haunted her dreams on his looks and body-memories of the sensation of her skin against his as she had bandaged his hand. She was awake now. Did it really make sense to credit her hormones with this fascination? Or could it be that she was succumbing to his charms, just as her aunt had? She couldn't be falling in love with him; she was way too old for schoolgirl infatuations. But her reaction didn't seem purely hormonal either.
Bret wasn't a lot like her preconceptions. From what she'd seen, Bret worked as hard as any of the other hands-- harder in fact. While being her aunt's lover might have helped him land the job, it would have made it almost impossible for him to earn the respect of the crew. Still, he'd done that anyway. From that first night, she'd seen the way the men looked to him. She also hadn't missed the emotion that crossed his face whenever he spoke of her aunt. She swallowed down a small catch in her throat. Mindy had never managed to inspire that kind of devotion in any man, let alone a man like Bret.
Although the sun had barely caressed the horizon, summer heat already radiated through the house. Mindy pulled on a pair of shorts and a crop top and set out to see if she could help Sharon get breakfast ready.
Bret might plan on dragging her along on his cattle drive merely to keep her out of trouble. She intended to earn her keep.
For a change, Sharon seemed happy to see her. "Crack a couple dozen eggs into this frying pan, honey," she called out as Mindy walked into the kitchen. "The faster we get this cooked, the faster we can get someplace cooler."
Six hot burners, a refrigerator blowing out warm air in its attempt to keep its contents cool, and an oversized coffee maker all combined to raise the kitchen's temperature well above one hundred degrees.
Mindy opened the refrigerator and savored the blast of cold air as she retrieved an oversized egg crate. Reluctantly, she closed the door, then went to work.
"Something looks good enough to eat," Bret's voice boomed through the suddenly too small kitchen. He was looking directly at her.
Mindy followed his gaze. Sweat made the thin material of her blouse almost transparent as it clung to her skin.
"Sit down in the dining room. We'll bring the food," Mindy snarled.
He raised one eyebrow at her. "I didn't sleep well last night, either." Ignoring her orders, he grabbed a pair of hotpads and carried a tray of biscuits out of the kitchen, returning moments later for the Dutch oven full of grits. He'd changed his bandages, but Mindy caught his wince when he picked up the hot metal.
"I've never known a man as stubborn as that one," Sharon told her.
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't think I can't see you watching him. Not that I can blame you. If I were a few years younger, I might set my cap on him myself. Still, Bret's a free spirit."
"He settled down with my aunt."
"He settled down with the ranch. I always suspected that he saw your aunt as just part of the package."
Mindy shook her head. "I don't know. There's more to him than just money." But was there? Surely she wasn't starting to believe what he told her.
"Whatever you say, honey." For a moment Sharon looked like she might add a comment or two. Then she shook her head. "Help me carry these sausages into the dining room. The boys have got to eat up this morning. They're heading for the north pastures as soon as they finish."
"Already?" Bret had mentioned that they would be driving the cattle north to better grazing, but she had assumed that she'd have at least a few hours' warning. She needed to go into town and buy some supplies, at least.
"That man decides what’s got to be done, he doesn't waste a lot of time mulling over his decision." Sharon slopped some grease out of the bacon pan into the eggs.
For once, Bret was sitting quietly at the morning meeting. A young cowboy Mindy hadn't seen before was making swooping highlighter lines on a hand-drawn map of the region.
"Mindy," Bret interrupted. "You need to watch this too. There isn't much chance that you'll get separated from the rest of us, but if you do, you need to know how to find your way back. There aren't a lot of landmarks, and things can get pretty sticky out there."
Was he really concerned, or was he still trying to scare her into quitting? She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but Bret always made that difficult.
"I'm all ears."
"A lot more than ears, I'd say," one of the cowboys snickered.
Mindy tried to see who was talking but poker faces met hers. Except Bret's. He didn't bother to hide his anger.
"As long as I'm in charge, everyone who wants to keep working here is going to show some respect to the owners. If I hear another comment like that, there's going to be at least one cowboy carrying his saddle back to town. Am I making myself clear? Bert?"
Bret had made himself wonderfully clear. Of course he had also done his best to make sure that none of the cowboys would talk to her for the entire trip. How was she supposed to find out what was really happening on the ranch?
The young cowboy at the flip chart scratched his head and looked uncomfortable.
"Let's finish up, Rob," Bret ordered.
"Right. Well, I guess the important thing is that we didn't have time to repair the three westmost windmills. We'll have to keep the cattle away from there, cause there's no water. We got the rest of them working."
"Rob and Bert spent the past couple of days getting things ready," Bret interjected for Mindy's benefit.
"Is there really more grass that way?" Mindy asked. For now, at least, she might as well learn something about ranching.
"We had a few thundershowers there as didn't make it down here, ma'am," Rob answered. "Every bit helps."
"I don't know what's wrong with the weather this year," Bret explained. "Not that it’s ever what you might call wet here. But this year the rains stop about five miles north of here. If the rain won't come to the cattle, we'll move the cattle to the rain. Let's hope it continues."
"What happens if it doesn't?" Bret had already given her one story, but she wondered if he'd repeat it in front of the men or if it had been another of his lines.
Bret gave her a look. "Well, Rob?"
Rob shuffled, pulled off his hat, and scratched his scalp through his dirty blond hair. "I guess we'll lose 'em. Or sell 'em cheap to a feedlot. Hard to get good value for a starving animal, though."
Bret passed Mindy a copy of the map. "Have you got a compass?"
"I didn't exactly come prepared for a campout."
"I've got an extra you can have." He turned to the cowboys who were watching their conversation as if it was the most exciting event of their lives. "Gentlemen, we'll be leaving in exactly thirty minutes. Eat up and check your duffels."
As if satisfied that he'd done all that anyone could expect, Bret turned his attention to his food.
"I can't be ready that quickly," Mindy told him.
He looked at her as if she had suddenly crawled out from under a log and he was deciding whether it was worth messing up his boot to crush her. "You're coming or you're leaving."
"Can't you wait another hour? You didn't say that we were doing this at the crack of dawn, and I'm just not ready."
"Have you ever seen a steer die?" His voice softened.
"I guess not." She couldn't figure where this was coming from, but that seemed to be standard when dealing with Bret.
"You'll have a lot of chances during the next couple of weeks. It isn't pretty. They fight it as long as they can. Then they kind of fall over and try to get up. If they've got the strength, they cry out, almost like a person. Of course when they're dying of starvation, they don't have much strength. Still, it takes a long time."
Bret made the image horribly real. She didn't believe that even as talented an actor as Bret could create the real pain she saw in his eyes as he described the plight of their cattle.
"It sounds terrible."
Bret nodded. "It's worse than it sounds. Every hour we wait, sitting around letting the sun get higher, is going to cost a couple of steers their lives. It isn't a good tradeoff."
Suddenly hunger was the farthest thing from Mindy's mind. "I'll be ready."
"I surely appreciate that."
****
Mindy wasn't that hard to manage once he put things in dollars and cents, Bret decided. She had put her cute behind in gear when she realized that the alternative was losing thousands of dollars worth of cattle.
He'd resisted the move as long as he could, probably too long for some of the cattle, but he’d been hoping for rain, hoping the move wouldn’t be necessary. Even a short cattle drive like this would take a terrible toll. Moving already weakened animals was a desperate gamble. Even if conditions up north were as favorable as Rob and Bert's report indicated, and as they had looked the previous day when he'd gone up there before he'd ripped off half his hand, the thin grass wouldn't last long. With luck, they would make the trip without losing too many cattle and buy enough time to let some real rains fall.
He shook his head ruefully. Since Mindy had arrived at the ranch, bad luck had been the only think keeping him from no luck at all. He couldn't figure why he didn't just send her away and let her go to the lawyers. Maybe he liked torturing himself.
Still, the woman wasn't as bad as he'd thought at first. He could halfway believe Lucy would have told her to stay away. Lucy hadn't wanted anyone to see her when she was really sick. Mindy might actually have been fond of Lucy. They had seemed to have a strong relationship years before. He'd never forget the way he felt when she'd helped him with the bandage. Not just the pure sexual excitement, but the strong sense of caring, of care- giving. He could almost imagine her in front of a bunch of kids.
He shook his head in frustration. Mindy might be the most wonderful woman in the world, but it didn't matter. She needed money and Andresson could give it to her a lot quicker than he could. If Mindy sold out to Andresson, the man would find a way to tie up the ranch's assets until tax-time. Andresson would like nothing better than to tangle ranch management and then walk in when the sheriff put the place up for tax auction. Neither Mindy nor Bret would get a penny.
Most of the cowboys had vanished soon after Mindy had excused herself. Like her, they had waited until the last minute to pack. Of course, if today's outfit was any indication of Mindy's wardrobe choices for the journey, she'd be able to pack a week's worth of clothes in a lunch box and still have room for the thermos. He had packed enough sunscreen for the entire group and would make sure that Mindy used her share. The Texas sun cut through unprotected skin like a knife.
A purring shape rubbing itself around his ankles reminded him of how completely Mindy had invaded the ranch house. "Sharon," he called out.
"Yeah?"
"You'll take care of the cat?"
"I guess. Better company than anybody from town at any rate."
He stood and walked over to Mindy's door. "Mindy."
"You said I had half an hour."
"Do you want to borrow some of your aunt's boots? We've got snakes and scorpions out there."
"You do your best to make this sound like fun," Mindy told him. She opened her door and pushed out a backpack.
She'd changed into a pair of jeans, but the change didn't do much to slow his heart. She might as well have painted them on: they accentuated every curve of her body. Her top was one of those things women wear to exercise, with a little more coverage than a bathing suit but made out of some clingy material that puts everything on display.
"Do you really want to go out dressed like that?"
"What are you, my fashion coordinator? I'm a teacher. That means I have a lot of skirt-and-blouse outfits that make as much sense in the country as your cowboy boots would in New York. Even if I had the money for a new wardrobe, you didn't exactly give me time to shop."
He couldn't argue with that. When she put her mind to it, she could be surprisingly logical. "You'd better put some of this on, then." He tossed her a tube of sunscreen. "I'll get you a hat."
Mindy caught the tube then looked at him as if waiting for the other shoe to fall. Had he really been so tough on her that she couldn't accept a simple kindness without suspicion?
"All right." She poured out a thick dollop of the ointment and began to smear it on her arms and shoulders.
Bret meant to find her a hat. He'd already promised he’d do to do exactly that. Somehow, the hypnotic motion of her hands rubbing the sunscreen into her skin glued his feet to the ground and his gaze to her body.
****
Mindy struggled with a glob of sunscreen down the middle of her back. "If you're just going to stand there, you might as well do this," she said, handing him the tube and turning around.
Bret had a healthy appreciation for an attractive woman, but he'd never understood the strange fixation some guys have for particular female body parts. For sure he'd never thought of a woman's back as an especially erogenous zone. The tight girl- muscles in Mindy's back, the smooth, surprisingly cool sensation of her skin against his fingers, and the clean scent of her hair combined to let him know exactly how much he had been missing.
He wanted to return the sunscreen and tell her to do her own back. He wanted to turn her around and start on her chest as well. He wanted--well, he couldn't decide what he wanted.
He gritted his teeth and completed his task, making certain that every exposed inch of her back got its share of the ointment.
"Thanks." Mindy sounded throaty, sexy.
This woman was definitely having an effect on him.
"So what are you going to do with the money you get from your half the ranch?" Bret asked. Not that they had time for a lengthy chit-chat, but that question was better than if she wanted him to spread sunscreen somewhere else, which was what he really wanted to ask.
"I told you. I'm going back to college to get my teaching degree."
"But you said you already are a teacher."
"You can get a job in some private schools with just a college degree, but you can make more money and get better benefits with a public school system. Plus, the school I was working for went out of business."
"So why didn't you get a teaching degree in the first place?"
"Because I'm an idiot. Is that what you're driving at?" She softened. "Maybe I should have realized that I'd like looking at those sweet faces and watching them learn to think. I didn't. It was pure dumb luck that I found something I loved."
Somehow he managed to offend Mindy no matter what he said. Still, when she talked about the children, her whole face lit up. He liked that. Of course, by the time he'd paid off what he'd need to buy Mindy's half the ranch, he'd be too old to have children himself.
Mindy's mouth firmed. "Is this interrogation about over? I thought we were in a hurry?
Sarcasm was not Mindy's most attractive asset. Still, Bret figured that he might have earned it. He had been highhanded with her. He couldn't help himself. "Only one more question."
"What?"
"What size hat do you wear?"
"Do you have some sort of hat store here?"
"I thought I'd see whether you were a better fit for one of Lucy's hats or one of Sharon's."
Mindy colored prettily. "I thought--oh. I don't wear many hats."
"You'll have to try a few."
"Shouldn't we get going?"
"Once we get your hat. A couple of hours in the sun will fry what brains you start out with."
"Whatever."
"Mad dogs and Englishmen," he muttered. He wasn't being fair, he knew. Mindy might care too much for money, but she was intelligent enough. Still, nobody was going on one of his drives without a hat. He'd meant what he said about the heat.
He spotted a straw hat with a scarf wrapped through it. "You could tie this around your neck so it wouldn't blow off," he suggested.
"Do you think you could find an uglier hat if you spent the rest of your life trying, or are you naturally talented?" Mindy inquired.
Bret gave up. "Pick any of these hats," he said, waving at the hat rack, "and wear it."
****
Bret's irrational outbursts had to be a part of his strategy to force her away from the ranch, Mindy decided. Still, if he understood her a little better, he'd realize the harder he pushed, the more she'd resist.
What had she been thinking when she'd asked him to put the sunscreen on her back? His strong hands running up and down her spine triggered an itch she wasn't about to let him scratch. But there was no one else in the world she could imagine satisfying her need.
She pulled the hat she'd selected, a smaller version of the cowboy hat all of the men wore, back on her head so it would cover more of her neck and hoisted her backpack.
Bret merely looked at her. She would have refused any offer to help, but he could have at least tried to be a gentleman.
"You can put your bag in the truck," Bret finally told her as she struggled through the door.
"Thanks." For nothing, she mentally added.
The cowboys had loaded the truck with the strangest assortment of backpacks, army surplus duffel bags, and third generation hand-me-down luggage, but at least some of them were still packing so she wasn’t last. Rob, the young cowboy who'd given directions on the north pastures, took her pack from her and tossed it on top of the others.
"What d'ya have in there, weights?" he asked with a laugh.
"No." She didn't feel any need to explain why she'd taken her cosmetics case, shampoo, soap, and a two liter bottle of mineral water.
"Just a friendly question." He looked disappointed.
Mindy softened. Just because she was mad at Bret didn't mean she should wander around snapping at every other man in sight. Especially when they were helping, and when she was, in some sense, their employer.
"Sorry. Thanks for the help," she said. It wasn't much, but at least it was a start.
"Sure." Rob's youthful smile came back. "There's a place you can go swimming in the north pasture," he told her earnestly. "I mean, if you want to work on your tan or something." His voice trailed off.
"Are you ready, Rob?" Bret's deeper voice cut through the younger man's conversation like a knife through frosting.
"Right, boss." Rob began energetically throwing the rest of the bags into the truck.
The staging area roared with jeeps, the truck, and the shouts of half a dozen cowboys riding horses, each leading one or two additional mounts.
"Which horse am I going to ride?" She hadn't ridden since she'd arrived and was really looking forward to it. Riding had been one of her biggest pleasures as a teenager.
"This one," Bret told her.
She followed his pointing arm and saw only the loaded truck. "I suppose this is your idea of a joke."
"When was the last time you rode a horse?"
"When I was down here last."
"You haven't ridden in ten years and you seriously expect me to trust you with a horse in open country, surrounded by hundreds of cattle? It isn't happening."
"Why don't you just relax, Bret. If you don't like the way I treat my horse, then send me to the back of the class."
"Like I said, I don't have time to waste playing games. You're riding in the truck."
He strode away and, moments later, mounted his huge horse.
"Move it out," he shouted over the din of the engines.
The horsemen rode out first, heading toward the herd of cattle congregated near the dry stream that ran through the property. Mindy remembered the stream being more of a river when she had visited as a teenager. While some of the difference might be due to her overactive imagination, most appeared due to lack of rain.
Even at a distance of a quarter of a mile, the cattle looked skinny and lethargic. If Bret and the cowboys ran these cattle all the way to the north pastures, and the hoped-for rains didn't materialize, they could lose the entire herd.
"Hop in, ma'am." A soft-spoken cowboy at least twenty years her senior had, evidently, been designated her chauffeur.
Suspicion that Bret had assigned her a chaperon immediately crossed Mindy's mind. "Are you the regular driver?"
The cowboy looked down for a moment and drew a checker pattern in the dirt with his foot. "I drive sometimes."
"I'll bet. What's your name again?"
"Call me Hector, Ms. Russell."
"I will if you call me Mindy. Deal?"
For a moment Hector looked confused, then he reached out tentatively and shook her out-thrust hand. "All right, Mindy."
"Fine. Let's go." Mindy stepped into the stifling heat of the truck's cab. It wouldn't help anyone if she made a big stink now, especially since most of her clothes were in the truck. Once they stopped for lunch, she'd find a cowboy willing to let her ride one of the extra horses.
As Mindy snapped her seatbelt, Hector lurched the truck into motion.
The man ground the gears, finally finding something that satisfied him, but he let the truck jerk in start and stop motions.
"Are you sure you've driven this truck before?"
"More the pickups," Hector confided. "This one, she has a lot more gears than I'm used to."
"Well, get out and let's switch positions."
Hector looked at her, pressed the clutch and resumed his search for a gear, then stopped. "Are you sure you know how? Mr. Bret would not be happy if anything happened to you--you being an owner and all."
That gave her pause. Had Bret actually expressed concern about her?
"I know what I'm doing," she said. Her school hadn't had money for a full-time bus driver. Mindy had driven the school bus on a dozen field trips over the two years she'd worked there. The truck's transmission didn't look too different from the ancient bus’s.
Fortunately, after a couple of annoying moments when she forgot to double-clutch, the truck really wasn't difficult to manage.
"Do we stay on a road, or do we just follow the cattle?" Mindy asked.
"Follow," Hector answered. "We got the food on this truck. The guys don't want it too far out of sight."
It didn't make sense, but again, she could argue ranch management with Bret later. She knew she could undermine the ranch's effectiveness if she mocked Bret in front of the men.
So, she found a spot where the shoulder of the road didn’t dip much and headed off.
Somewhere in the past twenty years, the truck must have lost its shocks. It crashed along, huge clouds of dust trailing behind them. Even at the extremely slow pace set by the cowboys and the cattle, the off-road driving made for a bone-jarring ride.
Hector, however, seemed unfazed by the noise, the stifling heat, and the sudden lurches that the combination of the rough trail and her occasional misses with the gearshift created. His snoring soon created a peculiar, but not altogether unpleasant, harmony with the groaning of the truck's engine.
"Heck, what are you doing?" Two hours of cattle drive hadn't calmed Bret's temper.
Mindy, on the other hand, had let the slow ride relax her. Too much. Bret's sudden appearance caught her completely by surprise.
"I think you mean, 'What the heck are you doing.'"
Mindy watched in amazement as Bret's stern face crumbled. He resisted. He bit his tongue, wrinkled his forehead, and rubbed the back of his neck. Nothing he did, though, could stop his descent into laughter.
He had, Mindy noticed again, a beautiful smile. His mouth twitched, then exposed strong white teeth. His laugh, when it finally came, flowed from his body like a stream springing from a secret spring.
When he stopped, Mindy felt as if someone had suddenly removed the air from the truck's tires. She wanted to see him smile again, see his eyes shine with the pure joy of living. Hear his joyous laughter.
"All right. What's so funny?" she asked.
"You are."
"I wasn't the one who mangled a perfectly good cliché."
"I was trying to talk to Hector. We call him Heck. It saves time."
Mindy felt the blood rush to her face. So much for correcting Bret's grammar. Now that she thought about it, he seemed able to slip in and out of his west Texas drawl exactly as it suited him.
"Hector didn't have much luck with the truck, so I took over," Mindy explained. "It's pretty boring, and I guess he just fell asleep."
"I guess he did. Well, I appreciate you driving. If you don't mind keeping the wheel, you'd be a big help."
"I don't mind."
"Perfect. In that case--" He raised his voice into a shout. "--Hector, you have exactly three seconds to evacuate the truck."
Hector snapped to sudden attention. Acting on reflex he pressed the release on his seatbelt and bailed out of the car like a paratrooper invading a hostile nation.
Mindy jammed on the brakes and looked in the rear view mirror, but Hector just waved at her, then ran after the truck, unfastened a saddle horse tied to the truck's back bumper, and mounted up.
"Don't you think you were a little harsh with him?"
"Harsh would be losing more cattle. We're a little light on hands already," Bret explained. "By driving, you free up a hand. Hector knows we need him."
Mindy strained her mind to think of something to say to Bret, something that would make him smile again. She considered, then rejected her meager supply of jokes. If he could really laugh rather than just act out the sullen gigolo, maybe there was hope for him. Maybe her dream that morning hadn't been quite so unrealistic after all.
Finally she decided to be serious. "You seem different out here," she said. "You know, more relaxed. What is it that attracts you to the country?"
No response came immediately, and she looked out her window. Bret had already spurred his horse off in pursuit of a wandering calf. He hadn't heard a word she had said. Just as well, she decided. No point in letting him think she had mellowed.
Except that she had. And nothing would ever be the same.