“By what date?”
“Thirty-seven days.”
“Thirty-seven days.” Hunter whistled softly. “You left it kind of late, little girl.”
“My name is Miss Sutton,” she said through her teeth. “If you can’t remember that, Elyssa will do nicely. I don’t answer to ‘missy’ or ‘little girl.’ Do you understand me?”
“Touchy little thing, aren’t you?” Hunter asked.
Elyssa’s temper flashed, but she controlled her tongue. Her English cousins had taught her with cruel precision just how her reckless temper could be used against her.
“I don’t enjoy strange men being familiar with me,” she said.
“In a few days I won’t be a stranger.”
“You are rude.”
“I’m blunt, Sassy. I don’t have any patience for little girls who think that big eyes and swinging hips are all a man wants in a female.”
“You arrogant, overbearing—”
“No doubt of it,” Hunter interrupted impatiently. “Now, do you want this job done or do you want to spend the next thirty-seven days praying for a gentleman gunfighter who also knows how to lead men into battle and round up cattle between skirmishes?”
It took every bit of the control Elyssa had learned at the hands of her cousins, but she managed not to say what she dearly wanted to: Go to hell, Hunter. I don’t need you.
But Elyssa did need Hunter, and she knew it.
So, obviously, did he.
“I want the job done,” Elyssa said distinctly. “Then I want to see you mount up and ride off Ladder S land.”
“No problem there. I’ve got better things to do than herd cattle for a spoiled child.”
“I hope you lead men better than you judge women,” Elyssa retorted.
Bugle Boy nudged Hunter hard enough to lift a smaller man right off his feet.
Hunter was barely budged.
“Follow me,” Elyssa said curtly. “Your horse has waited long enough for water and food.”
Hunter followed Elyssa’s swirling, scented silk skirts along the paddock fence, paced every inch of the way by Leopard. Yet despite the stud’s fearsome reputation, he made no offer to pick a fight with Hunter’s stallion. Leopard was like the ranch dogs, curious about the new scents of man and horse.
Well, at least the devil has some manners, Hunter thought. Wish I could say the same for his mistress.
Sassy to the core.
As Hunter walked, he watched the quick-tongued girl who had looked at him first with apprehension, then with a frank feminine appreciation he was doing his level best to turn into distaste.
Looks like I’m succeeding, Hunter told himself. Last thing I need is another girl like Belinda rubbing against me until I can’t think for the heat in my blood.
I’m here to get Culpeppers, dead or alive.
For that, I’ll need my wits about me, or I’ll end up killed before the job is done.
The rattle and screech of a heavy barn door sticking to its iron railings drew Hunter out of his bleak thoughts. Just in front of him, Elyssa was pushing and shoving against the creaking barn door.
Hunter’s left hand shot past her cheek. He pushed once. The door complained some more and then slid obediently aside.
“Need some grease on those door rails,” Hunter said.
For a moment Elyssa was too rattled to answer. The sheer male strength of Hunter had unnerved her. She could still feel the heat and coiled power of his body close to hers. He had pushed the door aside as though it weighed no more than her silk skirt.
“We’re out of grease and I haven’t wanted to risk going to the settlement,” Elyssa said huskily.
“Try some of that scented soap you’re wearing. It’s good for more than making men come to a point when you walk by.”
Elyssa’s head turned around sharply.
Hunter was close, so close that she could see the gleam of reflected moonlight in the dark centers of his eyes and the subtle flare of his nostrils as he drank her scent.
Then Hunter turned away abruptly, freeing Elyssa from his intense, sensual interest.
Without a word Hunter led Bugle Boy through the barn door. Then he waited while Elyssa struck a match to light the small lantern that hung by the door.
The smell of sulfur was sharp against the mellow scent of hay and horses. The clink of the glass chimney sounded loud in the silence.
“You can put Bugle Boy in the big stall at the end for now,” Elyssa said, her voice uneven. “There are loose rails in the fence on the east paddock. After I get the fence fixed, you can keep your stallion there, unless you would rather stable him.”
“I’ll see that the fence is sound.”
Elyssa went to the grain bin and returned with a brimming gallon measure to Bugle Boy’s stall. The grain made a hushed, whispering sound as she poured it into one side of the manger.
She was reaching for the pitchfork when Hunter’s arm shot by her and grabbed the heavy wooden handle.
“Give that to me,” he said. “It’s more likely you’ll stab me or yourself than the hay, what with those long skirts swirling around your ankles like hungry cats every time you move.”
“Thank you.” Elyssa smiled impulsively. “I think.”
Hunter bit back what he wanted to say, which was that a girl with a smile like Elyssa’s had no business being alone in a barn at night with a strange man, much less taking care of his horse.
That was what truly disturbed Hunter. He had expected Elyssa to stand aside and be alluring while he did what was necessary for his horse.
But she hadn’t stood aside. She had gone to work as though used to it.
She got the alluring part right, though, Hunter thought sardonically. Even Belinda couldn’t put Sassy in the shade.
Especially with that smile.
Cursing beneath his breath, Hunter rammed the pitchfork into a mound of hay that was piled just below the trapdoor that opened into the hayloft. Soon the manger was full.
Hunter put Bugle Boy in the big stall and took off saddle and bridle. He groomed the stallion with strong, rhythmic sweeps of the brush.
Elyssa pulled her silk shawl more closely around her shoulders against the chilly night air. She knew she should go back to the house, but something about watching Hunter work over his horse held her in the hushed silence of the barn. There was a natural grace and economy to his movements that pleased her.
And there was real strength.
Lord, and here I thought Mickey was strong. He has a lot more sheer bulk than Hunter, but no notion of how to put it to best use.
“Before you work the cattle or catch mustangs, you’ll need to round up some Ladder S horses,” Elyssa said after a time, thinking aloud.
“Are they broken?”
“Some of them, but most haven’t been ridden since the men started leaving.”
“Then they’re probably running with mustangs by now.”
Elyssa sighed. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“When did your hands decide to drift?”
“Spring roundup.”
“Before branding?” Hunter guessed.
“How did you know?”
“It’s easier to rustle unbranded calves.”
Elyssa made an unhappy sound.
“Are you sure it’s Ab Culpepper stirring the pot around here?” Hunter asked.
“Mac mentioned the name several times.”
Elyssa’s mouth flattened into an unhappy line when she thought of Mac. Though she had never been close to the crusty old woman hater, he had been a part of her childhood just the same.
First Mother. Then Father. Now Mac.
Thank God that Penny seems to be getting over that ague that’s been wearing her down. I can’t run the Ladder S alone.
“Any others?” Hunter asked.
“Other what?”
“Culpeppers.”
“Oh.” Elyssa frowned. “I couldn’t tell from what Mac said whether Abner is here or coming he
re soon. The man comes and goes without notice.”
Amen, Hunter thought sardonically. That old boy is as hard to pin down as swamp gas.
“Horace and Gaylord,” Elyssa said slowly. “Mac told me they were here all the time. More Culpeppers are expected soon. Rumor has it that they’re east of here, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.”
The line of Hunter’s mouth shifted in the lantern light. The slight curve was far too hard to be called a smile.
“Maybe,” Hunter said. “And maybe some of those Culpeppers are buried up Colorado way.”
A chill went through Elyssa.
“Your doing?” she asked.
“No. I got there too late to be useful. A man called Whip did the honors, with help from his woman.”
The line of Hunter’s mouth softened as he remembered. His brush slowed in its sweeps over Bugle Boy’s glossy hide.
“Quite a woman, too,” Hunter said. “Eyes like sapphires and a walk that no man would ever get tired of watching.”
“Do tell,” Elyssa said tartly. “Of course, I have it on excellent authority that men want more than big eyes and swinging hips from a female.”
Hunter gave Elyssa a narrow look.
She gave it right back. She didn’t know why Hunter’s admiration of another woman rankled.
But it did.
“What help will the army give me?” Hunter asked, brushing his stallion briskly again. “It’s their future beef being stolen, after all.”
“Precisely what I pointed out to that insufferable captain.”
“Was that before or after Leopard tried to flatten him?”
Elyssa’s lips tightened.
“After,” she said reluctantly.
Hunter grunted. “Figures.”
“What does?”
“You couldn’t hold your tongue even to save your ranch.”
“I disagree,” Elyssa said through her teeth. “I’m holding my tongue right now. Admirably. In fact, I will apply for sainthood by the next mail!”
Hunter made a sound that could have been a cough or a strangled chuckle. Because his hand was smoothing over his mustache at the time, it was hard to tell.
“So there won’t be any help from the army,” Hunter said after a moment.
“No, As the captain pointed out to me in generous detail, the livestock will still exist. The army simply will purchase them from a different owner.”
“A true officer and a gentleman,” Hunter said ironically.
“I will defer to your superior judgment in the matter.”
“That would be a first.”
Elyssa bit her tongue.
“How many head of cattle carry the Ladder S brand?” Hunter asked.
“Before I left for England, Father said there were nearly a thousand.”
“How many now?”
Elyssa’s eyelids flinched. It was an involuntary response to the sinking in her stomach that came whenever she thought how close she was to the crumbling edge of disaster.
“I don’t know,” she said starkly.
“Guess.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?” Hunter asked.
“Mac never told me.”
“Try counting them yourself.”
“I tried,” Elyssa retorted.
“Too much work?”
“Too much Ab.”
“What?”
“Ab caught me away from the ranch house just after spring roundup. I haven’t dared ride out since.”
Hunter’s gut clenched. He knew precisely what kind of evil Ab could wreak on a girl’s soft body.
“Did he hurt you?” Hunter asked.
The promise of unleashed hell in Hunter’s voice shocked Elyssa. She swallowed once, then had to swallow again before she could trust herself to speak.
“N-no,” she whispered. “Leopard is very fast.”
“So are those racing mules the Culpeppers ride,” he said, but his voice was neutral once more.
Elyssa let out a long breath as Hunter resumed brushing Bugle Boy’s muscular haunch. For a few moments he had looked like a man poised on the edge of violence.
“The mule wasn’t much on hurdles,” Elyssa said.
“What?”
“I jumped Leopard over ravines and deadfalls and boulder piles and creeks. Ab’s mule couldn’t stay the course.”
The thought of Elyssa racing headlong over the rough country made Hunter’s heart hesitate, then beat with redoubled speed. He didn’t know why the thought of her in danger should affect him so fiercely, but he couldn’t deny that it did.
“That was a fool thing to do,” Hunter said bluntly. “You could have broken your horse’s leg.”
Elyssa didn’t disagree. Even now the thought of that wild ride made cold sweat gather at the base of her spine.
But nothing made her feel as cold as what her fate would have been if she hadn’t outrun Ab Culpepper.
“Damn,” Hunter muttered. “You don’t have the sense that God gave a goose. You never should have been out alone in the first place.”
Hunter walked around Bugle Boy and went to work on the stallion’s other side.
“Someone had to do the count,” Elyssa said.
“What about your cowhands?”
“They left,” she said simply.
“How many do you have now?”
“Oh…three, at last count. Depends on how their Dutch courage is holding out,” Elyssa added wryly.
“Just three? A ranch this size could use four times that many hands.”
“Finally we agree on something,” Elyssa said beneath her breath. “I will treasure the moment.”
Hunter looked at her over Bugle Boy’s back.
“Did you say something?” Hunter asked, his voice bland.
Elyssa cleared her throat and decided that baiting Hunter was tempting, but not very bright.
“I agree that the Ladder S could use more men,” Elyssa said. “In fact, when Mother and Father were alive, we had thirty hands for the busiest times of the year. In the winter we had fewer, of course. It depended on how many cattle we were holding over.”
Hunter was silent for a moment. Then he pinned Elyssa with night-dark eyes.
“Do you have enough money to hire at least seven more men at gunfighting wages?” he asked bluntly.
Elyssa’s stomach tightened again. Money wouldn’t be a problem if the cattle and horses were delivered to the army on time.
If they weren’t, she would be bankrupt.
“I can pay,” Elyssa said tightly. “But the men will have to work cattle, too.”
Hunter nodded. The brush moved in long strokes over Bugle Boy’s bloodred hide.
“The kind of men I’m looking for won’t mind pushing cows,” Hunter said.
“There is a problem.”
“Just one?”
“Until this one is solved, the rest can’t be,” Elyssa retorted.
“I’m listening.”
“Another moment to treasure,” she muttered.
Hunter’s head came up.
Elyssa started talking. Fast.
“The Culpeppers are scaring away the men who would normally look for work here,” she said.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Even the Turner clan off to the south is staying away, and Turners have worked autumn and spring roundups on the Ladder S for years.”
Hunter nodded.
“That doesn’t worry you?” she asked tartly.
He shrugged.
“But how will the men get through the Culpepper gang to be hired by the Ladder S?” Elyssa demanded.
“Same way I did. By using their heads. Or in a group, using their guns. Either way, they’ll come.”
“You sound very certain.”
“Cash jobs are hard to come by out here. A man can make more money in a month at fighting wages than he can in a season of pushing cows.”
Elyssa sighed and rubbed her arms, feeling the night chill through the heavy silk shawl.
She wished she had the shawl’s cost in plain old homespun wool.
But she didn’t. There was no money for more suitable clothes for her or paint for the house or for anything else that wasn’t essential for the ranch’s survival. The Ladder S was all she had in the world.
And she was very much afraid she had already lost it.
“I wish Mac were still here,” Elyssa said unhappily. “He liked women even less than you do, but—”
“Smart man.”
“—nobody knew the Ladder S the way he did,” she said, ignoring Hunter’s interruption. “Every ravine, every spring, where the grass was good and in which season, even the marsh. He knew all of it.”
“Didn’t do him much good against the Culpeppers, did it?”
Hunter lifted one of Bugle Boy’s big hooves and began cleaning it with swift movements of a hoof-pick.
Slowly Elyssa shook her head, blinking against the tears that burned at the back of her eyes.
“I tried to find Mac,” she said in a husky, ragged voice. “As soon as I heard shooting, I grabbed the shotgun and rode Leopard out of here at a dead run.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Hunter said. “It probably was all over before you even tightened Leopard’s cinch.”
“I didn’t bother.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“With a saddle,” Elyssa explained. “Or a bridle.”
“Girl, only an idiot would ride—”
“I didn’t even find where Mac had fallen,” Elyssa said, not hearing any words but her own. “I searched until a thunderstorm broke and washed away the tracks. Then I quartered the land until it was too dark to tell trees from rocks.”
“You are a fool! What if the Culpeppers had found you?”
“I was afraid Mac was lying injured out in the storm, maybe even dying,” Elyssa said tautly. “I couldn’t just turn my back and leave him to the cold rain.”
“Getting grabbed by the Culpeppers wouldn’t have helped Mac one damned bit. But you didn’t think of that, did you? All you thought of was tearing around in the rain like the heroine of some fool dime novel.”
Elyssa’s mouth turned down at the corners. She watched as Hunter went to work cleaning another of Bugle Boy’s hooves.
“You’re going to love Penny,” Elyssa said wryly. “She said the same thing, and more besides.”