They didn’t stop until late afternoon, and by then Alex’s throat was so parched she couldn’t even spit. Ahead of her stretched lush green grass and a stand of leafy willow trees and...surely she was beginning to hallucinate...the chuck wagon, parked next to a burbling stream.
She blinked hard. She must be dreaming.
She edged her mount close to the rear wagon wheel and dismounted. The instant her boots touched the ground her knees buckled. She grabbed the saddle and hung on.
“Señorita,” Roberto said at her shoulder. “You must put horse in corral, not dismount next to cook wagon.”
She groaned. “I can’t let go, Roberto. I can’t walk.”
Carefully he pried her fingers off the saddle, grasped her around the waist and settled her on the ground with her back propped against the wheel. “Cherry!” he shouted to the wrangler. “Come get the señorita’s horse.”
Alex leaned forward and dropped her aching head onto her bent knees. Footsteps approached, and the next minute her saddle plopped down beside her and she heard the horse’s hooves clop away.
“Thank you!” she called after whoever had taken her mount.
“Ride too long today,” Roberto observed. She nodded, her forehead pressed against her jeans.
“Be plenty sore mañana. I go get boss.”
“No!” She jerked her head up. “Don’t get him.” She didn’t want to appear weak in front of Mister I-Told-You-So Strickland.
Roberto stood surveying her, his hands propped at his waist. A stained homespun apron covered his bulky form. “I think yes, señorita. You hurt much, no?”
She sighed. “Yes, Roberto. Much. Very much.”
“Ay de mi,” the old man murmured. He moved away and Alex concentrated on straightening one leg, then the other. She tried three times before she gave up.
Then Trail Boss Zach Strickland was standing before her, his long legs spread wide and a stony hardness in his green eyes that made her shudder. He was not smiling. “Sore, huh?”
She clamped her teeth together and nodded.
“Not surprised,” he said. “We covered ten miles today.”
“Ten miles!” Ten whole miles? In her entire life she hadn’t ridden more than two miles, and that was along a shaded bridle path.
“Do you always ride this many miles in a single day?”
He shook his head, the dark hair streaked with gray dust. “Nope. Usually ride twelve to fifteen miles each day, but today bein’ our first day out, the cattle need some trail learning. And you, bein’ a tenderfoot, need some trail learning, too. We’ll ride more miles tomorrow.”
“Where did all these cows come from? Surely Uncle Charlie’s ranch is not big enough for—”
“Huh! Charlie’s ranch is plenty big, plus we picked up some steers from neighboring ranches.” He leaned forward. “Don’t call ’m ‘cows’ on a trail drive unless you wanna get laughed at.” He shot her a hard look. “But as for where they came from, Miss City Girl, cows come from other cows. And a bull, of course.”
“I see.” How could she ever explain about cows and bulls in a city newspaper?
“Got any more dumb questions, Dusty?”
Dusty? She must look a frightful mess for him to call her that. She wiped her sweaty, gritty hands on her shirtfront. “No, no more questions. But...but I, um, I find that I...I cannot walk,” she confessed.
“Not surprised,” he said again. “Well, let’s get it done.” He reached down, grasped her under the arms and heaved her to her feet.
“Ouch-ouch-ouch!”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice dry. “Come on.” He swung her aching body up into his arms and strode away from the chuck wagon and past the roped-off horse corral. When he came to the stream, he paced up and down the bank and suddenly halted, stepped forward and dropped her, bottom first, into the cold water.
“What are you doing?” she screeched. She tried to scramble to the bank, but he laid one hand on her shoulder and pressed down. “Stay there,” he ordered. “Cold water will help. I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
She had no choice. She could barely move.
Zach tramped away from the stream where he’d dumped Miss Murray, or Dusty, as he now thought of her, and halted at the chuck wagon. “Save her some supper, Roberto.”
“Si, boss. But she will not be much hungry.”
“She’ll eat.” He left the aging cook chuckling over his pot of beans and settled himself at the campfire next to Juan.
The young man leaned toward him. “The señorita, she is okay?”
“She is okay, yes. Mad, but okay.”
“Madre mia. She will not be smile tomorrow.”
“Not much,” Zach agreed. Maybe not at all. He kinda felt sorry for her, but kinda not sorry at the same time. Damn Charlie for insisting she come along on this drive. It was no place for a woman. A fancy-assed, citified, back-East newspaper reporter woman was about as welcome as a swarm of locusts.
The clang of a steel triangle announced supper, and the hands around the campfire stampeded to the chuck wagon and lined up with tin plates in their hands. Roberto slapped thick slices of beef onto them, ladled on beans and topped the pile with his special warm tortillas.
Zach brought up the rear of the line, ate leisurely and mentally calculated when Dusty’s half hour would be up.
“Hey, boss,” someone called. “Where’s our newspaper lady?”
Zach laid down his fork and shoved to his feet. “Comin’ right up.”
* * *
Footsteps crunched over the sandy stream bank, and Alex clenched her fists as tall, rangy Zach Strickland came toward her.
“I want you to get me out of here!” she sputtered. “Right now!”
“Yes, ma’am!” He splashed into the water, grabbed her shoulders and jerked her upright.
“Ow! Ow, that hurts!”
“Roberto’s got some liniment in one of his secret cubbyholes. Might help some.”
“Oh, yes, please.”
He swung her upright and half dragged, half walked her onto dry ground. “Not so fast,” she pleaded.
He propped her against
