Linda Broday - Give Me A Texan

“John, it’s wonderful to see you.”

“I’m here every spring.” He helped her down. “Or are you surprised I didn’t freeze over the winter?”

“Your skin is about as tough as alligator. I doubt you felt the cold. Besides, your hogan is probably warmer than the inside of Hades. I’m just glad for the company.”

Now let McCord come calling. She wasn’t alone.

“Only a fool would refuse the offer of a new wool shirt in exchange for shearing a few sheep.” John’s eyes twinkled. “Your handiwork is some of the finest. You spin and weave in the old customs. If I didn’t know of your heritage I’d believe you had Navajo blood.”

Amanda scowled. “With a Spanish mother and Scottish father, I’m afraid I’m a sorry mixture.”

The blend of nationalities was the kind that aroused prejudice and misgivings. The kind that destroyed chances of a normal life. It seemed men couldn’t look beyond the surface to see how she ached to fit in.

John peered into the bed of the wagon. “You’ve been to town. It explains the burrs under your serape.”

“Can’t hide much from an old war-hide like you.”

“People will continue to shun if you keep adopting the ways of the Indian. Your moccasins remind of your stubbornness.”

“Who said I want to be a horn-tossing hypocrite? My feet are happier in these moccasins than heavy boots.” Images of cold stares, the sneers of some of Amarillo’s finest, created a brittle hardness inside. “Those buffoons wouldn’t accept me no matter what I do.”

“Pain in your heart says this time was worse.”

She side-stepped the unpleasant subject, casting an eye to the sun’s overhead position. “We’re wasting time flapping our gums. If we hurry we can get a few sheep done before dark. I’ll fix a place for you to bed down until we finish the job.”

“I sleep outside under the stars.”

“As you wish.”

“It is.” John lifted the sack of flour, threw it over his shoulder, and carried it into the house while Amanda gave a sharp command for Fraser to round up the flock.

Sight of the collie marching the sheep toward the fold like fat, little soldiers banished raw feelings. She could count on the animal to do his job with skilled perfection. Unlike people. Bitterness rose. Years had flown and yet certain events ate at her sanity…

Argus Lemmons’s abandonment upon the heels of her mother’s death opened wounds that had scarred with age. Sure, he’d left Amanda in the care of an old aunt. But he did his daughter no favor, considering the woman forced her to stand on the street and pretend blindness so passersby would toss a few coins in her cup. Not that she got to keep any for herself. Dear Auntie made her strip and scrubbed her thoroughly for any hidden tokens.

“Worthless stray mutt,” Aunt Zelda would call Amanda, wrinkling up her nose. “Argus shoulda drowned you.”

Amanda turned fifteen before she got up enough courage to set out alone for Santa Fe to start a life that had to be better than lying, begging, and starvation.

Except new surroundings didn’t improve Amanda’s situation. A few years later, her fancy suitor left her at the altar after he made the less than thrilling discovery that she was heir to nothing but a scraggly flock of sheep. He abruptly moved Amanda from the assets to the liability column.

And fighting Argus’s second wife for a place in her father’s heart had most certainly shown the worst of humanity.

The hollow victory of survival spared Amanda peace in the dead of night. She was still that stray mutt looking for a home.

If the world had a dropping off point, she’d found it on this rocky piece of land in the Texas Panhandle. High winds, dry winters, and low rainfall didn’t represent being in high cotton, but this parcel of shortgrass prairie was hers and they’d have to kill her to get her off.

Today she’d almost forgotten the anguish that twisted like a knife before McCord up and heaped on a lot more. Then, she did the same as she’d always done. She ran.

Well, she wouldn’t run again. She squared her jaw. This was the last button remaining on Jacob’s coat!

Stashing the supplies, Amanda changed from her finery and hurried to help John. Together they penned the sheep and set up the foot-pump clippers.

Fraser watched over his charges with guarded vigilance. No ram, ewe, or lamb would dare shirk its duty in filling the bags with wool, not with the faithful collie on hand. Amanda rewarded him with a tasty morsel of cured bacon.

“Keep a sharp eye for trespassers, boy. P.M. will be coming.”

John’s dark stare narrowed. “You expect trouble.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

“Who is this P.M.?”

A man who’d given her hope, who walked with purpose, and who snatched away airy dreams with the lift of an arched brow.

“No one much.”

“And yet, you are sure he will come.”

Oh, yeah. The awakened lion would definitely ride her way.

“He’s just another two-bit cowboy who fills Amarillo’s establishments. Works for the Frying Pan. I turned the tables on him and he’s madder than a frog on a hot skillet at being bested by a woolie.”

“Whatever happened he earned. He comes, we scalp him.”

“Now John, no reason to get out the bows, arrows, and tomahawks. I can handle one measly nuisance. I am grateful to have your company for a few days though.”

“Hmph!”

The Navajo flipped a ewe onto her back and began peeling the thick wool from the belly and throat with the clippers before moving to the topside. Amanda stuffed the greasy fleece into a burlap bag to separate later. She’d keep a good portion and sell the rest. What she kept would get a thorough washing before she carded and spun the long fibers into yarn.

She was so busy planning she failed to hear approaching hoofbeats until a low growl rumbled in Fraser’s throat and the hair on his neck rose. She jerked around and her spit dried.

McCord sat astride a spotted appaloosa. Sparks in his gaze betrayed the easy slouch that might’ve suggested he’d stopped for a moment to discuss nothing more than the weather.

Steel strengthened Amanda’s spine. “Get off my land.”

“Not very hospitable. I recall you seemed pretty friendly when you were dragging a man’s life through the muck. What did you do with that woman? She was soft and…obliging.” A lazy smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“If you came out here to discuss my qualities or the lack thereof I’m afraid I have no time.”

With a quick motion, he untied the worn leather valise and held it out. “Thought you might need your equipment before nightfall. The assortment appears well broken in. Must get regular use I figure. Lord only knows why a handsome woman would have to depend on restraints to hold a man. Seems you’re awfully insecure of your abilities.”

Amanda gritted her teeth, becoming rigid at the suggestion she had to hogtie a man for his company. McCord bedeviled in a thousand impossible ways and every last one of them irritated beyond belief. Every fiber prodded for attack. So she blocked out the sight of his sandy, sun-streaked waves ruffled by the wind, and the mustache that drew attention to the firm shape of his mouth. Amanda met the dangerous glint in his eyes head on.

“Begs to ask why you pried into personal belongings.”

“It wasn’t by choice, believe me. The damn thing flew open and everyone in the hotel and hell’s half acre saw the contraptions. Made me a laughingstock. I hope you’re happy.”

“Not yet, but close.”

John Two Shoes Running Deer released the freshly naked ewe and stood to his full six feet. “Ahhhh, this must be P.M. Can we scalp him now?”

Waning light bounced off the glistening coat of a border collie as it danced around Payton’s horse, Domino, threatening to tear the strapping animal limb from limb. Leave it to a woman who played with torture devices to keep a dog with the temper of a rabid coyote.

Had he heard or imagined the threat to scalp him?

Good God! He should’ve had better sense than ride out alone. He didn’t know who was crazier: Amanda, the Navajo, himself, or the dog.

The woman had seemed perfectly normal back at the hotel. He never would’ve mistaken her for a lunatic.

It must be the sheep. Those God-awful, smelly sheep.

They would make anyone lose their ever-loving minds. Payton scowled at the sneaky cotton-balls-with-eyes, shifting to the critter the Navajo had just stripped bare. One problem with the animals-besides the fact they weren’t cows-was they either looked like scrubby, puffy clouds or so spindly a gust of wind would blow them away. Cows looked the same day in and day out. They were hefty on their hooves and their bellering could lull a man right to sleep. He’d have to stick something in his ears and a clove of garlic under his nose if he had to put up with this damn baahing.

“I can’t relieve you of your loathsome burden right now.” Amanda raised palms that were greasy from handling the wool and pointed to the ground. “Drop it there and I’ll get it later.”

He stiffened in the saddle. “Since you’re up to your elbows in mutton, I’ll set the bag inside your door. Just call off your dog. I’d like to be gone before your friend gets out the scalping knife.”

Annoyance and open irritation pinched her kissable lips into a narrow line. He’d like to believe he saw the makings of a smile, but that appeared merely wishful thinking. Lush willingness he’d glimpsed in the hotel had given way to a tough-as-almighty-steel banshee.

“Fraser, enough!” The collie ceased yapping after Amanda’s stern order, but sat on his haunches and watched with distrust.

Payton adjusted the brim of his new hat that didn’t fit quite right yet, slid from Domino’s back, and ambled toward the adobe structure.