Emily Carmichael - How To Lasso A Cowboy

But the fool cattle would simply stand there and drown while the river ate at their sandbar.

Both Ranger and Jughead climbed onto the sandbar at the same time, carrying rain and riverdrenched riders. Luis raised his arm in the darkness and Rojo barked a greeting.

“Take the rear,” Tess told Josh.

He didn’t argue.

Luis already had the left flank in hand, and Rojo read the situation as any good cattle dog would and harried the beeves on the right. After squinting through the darkness for a few minutes, Tess spotted the lead cow, the animal whose loud bawling drove the others to greater panic, the animal they would follow if she could be persuaded to reason.

Tess urged Ranger through the churning mass of cattle and tried to cut her out. The cow wanted none of it. Tess cursed, but the cow didn’t care. The wind snatched away Luis and Josh’s shouting. Even Rojo’s hoarse barking whipped away into the night.

“Well, damn it all, anyway!” Tess maneuvered upwind of old bossy and let her lasso fly. Three tries later, it hooked around the lead cow’s horns. “I don’t care if you want to go or not, fleabrain. You’re going.”

At a touch of Tess’s heels, Ranger tightened the rope and pulled the struggling cow toward the water. She bawled and bucked, went to her knees, and struggled like a fish on the end of a line until the current snatched her feet from beneath her. Then she followed instinct and swam, striking out for the opposite bank, where Henry and Chief waited to welcome her. Tess snubbed up the rope and swam beside the cow on Ranger to keep her headed in the right direction.

Under the goading of the two men and dog, the beeves began to move, mindlessly following the lead cow. Josh and Luis kept the animals in a tight knot in the current. When the last one climbed onto dry land, Josh turned Jughead back into the current. Tess’s heart caught in her throat as he lunged up onto the rapidly shrinking sandbar and scooped a dripping Rojo onto the saddle in front of him.

Tess would have gone back for the dog, who-forty pounds dripping wet-didn’t have the bulk to fight the stillrising current. A cowboy didn’t leave a good cattle dog, or even a bad cattle dog, behind. The dogs were part of the family. But for Josh to do it, without even being asked- well, there she went turning to mush again, and she couldn’t blame a corset this time.

She didn’t have anything to blame at all, except herself, when she met him at the river’s edge, leaned over Rojo’s wet body, and gave Josh Ransom that fullcooperation kiss she’d thought about all evening. And suddenly the rain, the wind, her drenched hair and soggy clothes no longer were cold.

NEXTmorning, Tess slept long past her usual predawn rising time. Perhaps her slothfulness resulted from stumbling to bed in the wee hours of the morning after hours spent cold, drenched, and in danger of losing both her cattle and her life. Or perhaps she snuggled more deeply into her bed because of the dreams entertaining her sleep. The dreams featured Josh Ransom in a prominent role. Josh smiling, Josh shaving in front of the little mirror hung outside the kitchen door, Josh riding Nitro and giving her that smug look that he did so well, Josh hauling poor Rojo onto his saddle and letting the dog kiss his face. Then Tess was kissing his face.

Josh kissing. Yes indeed, that was the meat of the dream, complete with heartthumping, bloodboiling bolts of sensation that shot through her like lightning.

Periodically she woke, soft and warm with remembered sensations, and in those brief conscious minutes, having a reallife husband didn’t seem like such a bad idea, as long as that husband was Josh. In fact, in those otherworldly moments between one dream and the next, having the man here day and night seemed a hell of an idea. Why had she ever thought that it wasn’t?

Sun streamed through the bedroom window and made square patterns on the bed when Rosie marched in and put an end to Tess’s dreams.

“Aren’t we the lazy one this morning!” Rosie punctuated her comment with a sharp slap to the lump beneath the covers that was Tess’s rear end.

“Ow! Don’t! I’m getting up!”

“Well, you’d better, because you’ve got business to attend to in the kitchen.”

Tess stuck her head out from beneath the blankets. “What business?”

“Just you get up and find out. And don’t be too long about it.”

Tess grumbled as she rolled out of bed, pulled on clean jeans and a cotton shirt, and quickly plaited her hair into one long braid. She couldn’t think of a thing she needed to take care of in the kitchen, except maybe grabbing some breakfast. What had Rosie all stirred up this morning?

She found out when she walked into the kitchen to find Josh sitting at the table. At the sight of him, her dreams hit her smack in the chest and nearly stopped her breath.

She greeted him normally, even though heat climbed into her face. “Ransom.”

“Tess.”

His expression looked a bit grim. And at his feet lay a small carpetbag that belonged to Miguel. What was this? After last night, he couldn’t still be…still be-

“I’m leaving this morning, Tess.”

Her heart nearly stopped. “Leaving?”

“I told you I would go at the end of two more days. Two days is up.”

Right. But he would change his mind if Tess told him she wanted him to be a real husband, that he could be master-well, assistant master-of the Diamond T. Any man’s head would turn at a precious gift like the Diamond T.

Rosie stood by the stove, plump arms crossed over her chest, regarding Tess with a “what are you going to do now?” expression.

“Rosie, git!” Tess didn’t intend to make this bargain in front of witnesses.

Rosie got, but not without sending Tess a look over her shoulder. She pulled the curtain closed behind her, leaving Tess and Josh alone. Tess started talking before she lost her nerve.

“I know you said two days, but things have changed. I don’t think it would be a bad idea for you to stay. I mean, at first I thought you were a sot and a bum, but you’re not. You’re steady, and you’re good with horses, and you know cattle. And…and I don’t mind your company. Not at all.

I figure we’re already married, so that’s out of the way. You might as well stay.”

He replied with an awkward silence, and the muscle at the hinge of his jaw twitched. Tess tried to tell herself that he was overwhelmed by his good fortune, but her heart sank.

“You could run things right along with me,” she said. “This is a fine ranch, with good people. It’s a better life than, well, whatever…”

Tess stared at the toe of her boot, wanting to take back her babbling. She sounded stupid, saying all the wrong things. But what did a girl say to a man to get him to stay?

The crease between his brows deepened. “Tess-”

“Last night…”She couldn’t let him start. Somehow, he had to understand. “Last night you did great. And we… we…” Did she actually need to mention the kiss? The kiss she had started and he had finished, that had turned into two kisses, then three, and then a silence that had seemed heavy with affection, or maybe something more urgent than mere affection.

“Tess…” He sighed. “Last night…I took advantage of you. I apologize.”

He took advantage of her?

“I can’t stay, Tess. I have a place of my own, over by Arrivaca, and I sure as hell need to get back to it. I’ll come back and make sure you get that deed of yours, and then we can talk about this. And if you want, you can just forget the money. I’ll get what I need somewhere else.”

A lead weight descended on Tess’s stomach. She thought she might actually throw up. The money. He cared about the money, not the Diamond T. Not her. Of course. How could she have forgotten about their bargain? Josh Ransom had married her for money, had stayed at the ranch day after day, because of the money.

The lead weight started to heat, to bubble, to boil, firing her blood and sending color racing into her cheeks.

“I’ll get your goddamned money.”

He followed her to the jar where she kept her cash, and when she turned around, he stood so close that she nearly slammed into him. With a forceful push, she knocked him backwards. “Go ahead and leave.” She stuffed a roll of bills into his shirt pocket. “And don’t do me any favors by coming back. I can take care of myself. I can take care of my ranch, and my own business. And I don’t the hell need you!”

Then she fled the room before he could see the tears gathering in her eyes.

JOSH SAT BACK hard onto the stony ground, his clothes as well as his hands-and one long smear on his cheek-grimy with blood and muck. He exhaled a deep sigh, every bit as exhausted as the cow that had just given birth, but also content in the day, the blue sky, the warm spring air, and the satisfaction of being where he wanted to be and doing what he wanted to do.

Only one thing wasn’t quite right in his life, and that was something he didn’t want to think about right then. He was too tired, and his mind wasn’t up to the task of Tess McCabe.

No, he wouldn’t think about her.

The cow lumbered to her feet, and Josh did the same. The bull calf, eyes blinking at the world he had just been launched into, uttered a wondering bleat.

“Okay, kid.” Josh rubbed the newborn’s slimy neck with rough affection. “Let’s get you on your feet.”

He gave the wobbly little creature a hand at getting all four feet beneath him, then nodded in satisfaction as the little fellow instinctively went for the chow wagon. Birth never failed to leave him in awe. It was a wondrous thing to behold.

Some men, a bothersome inner voice nagged, got to watch their own babies open eyes to their first view of the world. Men with wives. Men with families. Men who didn’t have to face an empty house at the end of each day.