Read Online Widow Woman by Patricia McLinn - Free Book Online Page B

sleep.
    After all the long, punishing hours, it was his luck to take his plate of hot food from Fred and prop himself against the nearest wagon wheel, only to find Rachel Terhune not two feet away.
    She had finished supper and was readjusting her hat for another couple of hours in the saddle as the shadows drew longer and longer until they blended into night. He wished to hell he didn't admire her determination. He wished to hell he didn't see the dark smudges and fine lines of weariness around her eyes before the shadow of the brim covered them.
    And he truly wished to hell that he didn't see the purpling marks around her left wrist as she drew on her gloves. The marks that matched the span of his fingers digging into that smooth skin, wrapping around those delicate bones.
    She looked up, meeting his gaze, and a fireball exploded in his gut.
    He flung away the untouched food and spun away. In five minutes he'd found Shag. In ten, he'd arranged to take Davis and a couple other hands and start for a smaller branding camp up-country a ways. In twenty he was gone.
    * * * *
    Sunset came earlier these evenings. The wind in the drying grass rustled a different song. And the mountains to the west drew their white caps lower over their peaks.
    Nick watched the signs. Before much longer, they'd be making the fall roundup, gathering the beef herd and trailing it to a railhead for shipping to market. Then his time at the Circle T would end. He'd head to Texas for a herd, ready to start his own outfit. His temporary stop working for the widow woman would be done.
    Staying clear of her these past weeks would make that easier.
    "There,” he said, pointing. He'd picked out the gash on the flank of a rusty-colored steer even while his mind gnawed on other matters. “You take him."
    Davis Andresson flicked a look at him. “With the both of us, it wouldn't take but a minute."
    "If you're alone next time you spot an animal needing tending, you going to wait around for somebody else to show?"
    "No."
    Nick had taught Andresson a lot, but he hadn't needed any lesson in how an open wound drew blowflies in a swarm, or that when the blowflies set their screwworms, an animal could sicken and die in no time. Andresson, like every hand, carried sticky, pungent screwworm cure in his saddlebags. Daubing it on the wound kept the insects clear. The trick was getting the animal to take the cure.
    "Doctor ‘im.” Nick tipped his head toward the steer. “Alone."
    Crossing his forearms over the saddlehorn, he watched Davis move in, working with his horse to cut the animal, and catching him on the second toss of his lasso. The younger man was a damned good horseman, though not as smooth as Rachel Terhune. His roping wasn't near as neat, either.
    Nick shook his head, trying to clear those thoughts.
    Andresson looped a second rope around the steer's heels. Two riders’ ropes with their horses standing firm at opposite ends could be counted on to immobilize a steer. But with both ropes looped to one saddlehorn, a single cowhand had to rely on the savvy of his horse to counteract the steer's struggles. Screwworm cure in hand, Davis slid from the saddle. Miner kept both ropes taut long enough for Davis to get the mix on the open wound.
    He remounted, released his ropes, gave Miner some low words of praise and tried to suppress a grin of achievement as the steer lumbered to its feet and hightailed it for the rest of the herd.
    They sat by a small fire that night, having heated beans and shared a can of tomatoes.
    Davis broke a long spell of quiet. “I wasn't sure I could do that this afternoon. Not by myself."
    "You're learning. Keep on, and you've got the makings of a top hand."
    "Good as you?"
    "Sure."
    Nick felt the considering weight of Andresson's eyes on him. Long accustomed to hiding his secrets easily, Nick still felt oddly relieved that the waning fire's flickering light would reveal little. For one so young and untried, Andresson's look could make a