a range management specialist, Miss Kelleher, I’ll be sure to call you,” he said in a when-hell-freezes-over tone of voice.
“How do you know you don’t need one now?” He started from the barn and she stalked after him.
“I’ve been ranching since before you were born. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it.”
Shannon seriously doubted the first part of that statement. In spite of his weathered skin and the lines that rayed out from the corners of his eyes, he didn’t appear to be much more than five years past her own twenty-seven. In the strong sunlight of the barnyard, she could see that his hair was a deep, rich brown, almost as dark as hers. It was thick, in need of a trim but untouched by gray. He ran his hand through it and settled his hat on his head.
“I’m not here to tell you how to ranch, but am I right in assuming you’re new to southern Colorado?”
He looked at her for a second as if weighing her question for hidden traps, then he nodded. “That’s right. I’m from Arizona. Near Tucson.”
She opened her hands wide. “There you go, then. We have different terrain, different climate, different plants, different water problems. I can help you learn about all of those things.”
He shook his head. “You’re as persistent as fleas on a dog’s belly, aren’t you?”
Shannon tucked her chin in and lifted her eyes to him ruefully. “Well, I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but I guess so.”
As they had been walking across the barnyard, he had been slapping his gloves across his palm. Now he tucked them into his waistband as he reached to untie a big roan gelding tethered to the corral fence. “Since it doesn’t look like I’m going to get rid of you, you can tag along.” He swung into the saddle. “But you’ll have to catch and saddle your own mount.” He gathered the reins and headed the gelding out of the yard.
“Aren’t you going to wait . . . ” she asked, then realized she was talking to the air. He spurred his horse with his heels and galloped away.
She slapped her clipboard against her thigh. “Of all the . . . ” He thought she wouldn’t catch and saddle her own mount, she thought furiously. He thought she couldn’t.
The light of challenge sparked in Shannon’s eyes. Little did he know. She watched to see which direction he had taken, then she whirled and raced to the tack room. She was dressed for riding in the clothes she usually wore to work, jeans, soft and snug from many wearings and washings, a long-sleeved shirt of pale yellow cotton, her sturdy boots and a woman’s cowboy hat. Nothing was going to stop her from following him.
In the tack room, she picked out a saddle blanket and a saddle and bridle, hoisted them onto her shoulder and started for the corral.
The swiftness of her movements made her head spin, and she had to stop for a second and catch her breath when dizziness swirled through her. Cursing the lingering infection that was still slowing her down, she picked out a nondescript brown mare with a wide chest and powerful legs. Bridle in hand, she eased into the corral and moved slowly and steadily forward. She spoke in the soft, quietly crooning tone her father had taught her and cornered the animal quickly.
She slipped the bit into the mare’s mouth, complimenting her on what a well-mannered young lady she was. “Unlike your owner,” Shannon muttered to the horse. “What is that man’s problem, anyway?”
The horse tossed her head as if to say she didn’t know, either, and Shannon laughed. Within a few minutes, she was mounted and heading across the fields after her reluctant host. She concentrated on the ride and quickly caught onto the mare’s smooth gait. Shannon was pleased with her choice. The horse’s easy stride didn’t jostle her head, which would have increased her dizziness. Leaning over the mare’s head, she urged her into a run.
It wasn’t long before she found Luke at the stream where it crossed over from his neighbor’s spread. It was a pretty spot, with a small line cabin nearby. Luke stood with his mount’s reins in his hand as he gazed across the fence.
He didn’t even turn when Shannon approached. She dismounted and led the mare to stand beside him. It wasn’t necessary to ask what the problem was, she could see it for herself.
They’d had a heavy rain the week before, along with lightning. A bolt must have hit a cottonwood tree that stood on the bank of the creek. It had been blasted in half. Branches had fallen into the creek, blocking the narrow channel. Water spread over the land, much of it evaporating in the heat before it could trickle into the path that fed water into Luke’s pond.
“That’s easy to fix,” Shannon said.
Luke glanced at her. “I have to wonder why it hasn’t been fixed before. Do you think my neighbor was hoping to keep all the water for himself?”
Yet again, Shannon stared at him. It was gradually dawning on her that this man’s rudeness to her wasn’t personal. He didn’t seem to like anybody.
“Your neighbor is Violet Beardsley. She’s a nice lady, a good neighbor. If she’d known about this blockage, she would have cleared it.” Shannon placed her foot on the bottom strand of barbed wire and grabbed the second strand, stretching a gap in the fence. “We can go through and clear it now. She won’t mind at all.”
Luke lifted a skeptical brow at her. “I have your word on that?”
“Certainly!”
He reached to hold the barbed wire. “Ladies first, then.”
His direct, challenging gaze made her wonder if he thought she was afraid to get dirty. Shannon took off her hat and tossed it lightly over the fence, where it landed rakishly on a sagebrush.
When she paused before ducking under the wire and looked at him, his hard mouth smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. I won’t let it go.”
Embarrassed because that was exactly what she had been thinking, Shannon crouched and scrambled through. She turned to hold the wire for him, then scooped up her hat and clapped it onto her head.
Luke walked to the stream and began wrestling the branch out of the way. Shannon hurried to help him, grabbing a branch and dragging it. Seeing the expression in his eyes made Shannon repeat to herself the question she’d asked the mare a little while before. What was this man’s problem?
She hoped her help would convince him of her good intentions, but she had to stop a couple of times and catch her breath when she bent over too quickly and her head spun. She hid it, though, not willing to let Luke see her showing weakness. Surreptitiously, she filled her cupped hands with some of the cool stream water and splashed it on her face to revive herself.
When they were finished and the water was once more flowing in its natural channel, they returned to Luke’s side of the fence.
Shannon immediately launched into a speech about the water table and the changes that had developed in the area over the years in the plants and grasses that grew on his ranch, about how last week’s rain had run off rather than soaked in.
Luke interrupted her. “That’s just fine, Miss Kelleher, but you’re wasting your breath. I—” He stopped and his eyes sharpened as if he’d just experienced a mental finger snap. “Kelleher. Now I remember. Gus Blackhawk said your family was the one that tried to buy this place, but he wouldn’t
