miserable life, but our livestock is our livelihood. Your exotic animals snarl, hoot, howl and growl all hours of the day and night and cause cattle stampedes. I spent the whole livelong day gathering cattle because of your zoo. The problem can be alleviated if you’ll get rid of those menaces.”
She glowered at him good and hard. “Can I help it if your wimpy cattle and timid sheep bolt and run because of an unfamiliar noise? You don’t see my animals leaping fences just because dumb cows moo or sheep baa. My fences and pens are holding up just fine. Obviously your ability to build solid restraining fences is lacking.”
Devlin was getting nowhere fast. Miss Hoity-Toity didn’t want to see his side of the situation, didn’t care that he’d busted his butt on roundup and fence repair.
“Fine,” he muttered in exasperation. “Then you can pay for my time and the expenses, and I won’t complain—as much.”
She scoffed and looked down her nose at him again.
“Your livestock is on the rampage and you want me to pay for the fence repairs? My animals are housed in sturdy pens and cages, surrounded by twelve-feet-tall chain-link fences. It seems to me that I’m not the one with the problem here, Culligan. You are.”
“No, you are the problem!” Devlin snapped, at the end of his patience. He skewered her with a glower. “Snippy, dim-witted city slicker. Go back where you belong and take your zoo with you!”
Her chin went airborne as she squared her shoulders and clenched her fists by her sides. “This is where I belong, the only place I belong. I’m here to stay, so you better get used to the idea!” she said, puffing like a blowfish.
They exchanged significant glares, and Devlin was gearing up for a really terrific rejoinder when she slammed the door in his face.
A goose waddled around the corner of the house, honking in objection to Devlin’s presence. A bear growled in the distance, accompanied by several sounds that Devlin couldn’t identify—none of which sounded friendly. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if there was an alligator living in that oversize pond, waiting to bite off his feet if he dared to stalk around to the back of the house.
Pond, he thought. That was another thing that really irritated him, come to think of it. That fire-breathing female had dammed up the spring-fed stream to form a gigantic pond in her pasture. The dam cut off the flow of water to Rocking C’s stream. During the arid summer months Devlin and his brother had been forced to haul water to cattle in the west pasture and fill stock tanks.
Another major inconvenience he failed to mention to the dragon lady.
Devlin had half a mind to reverse his direction, pound on the front door again and insist that she dig a trench in the pond dam. No, on second thought, he’d take the matter up with Sheriff Osborn. Maybe the dragon lady had a legitimate license to shelter exotic animals, but she certainly didn’t have the right to alter the flow of the stream and deprive Rocking C cattle of water.
Wheeling around, Devlin stalked away. The pesky goose lowered its head and charged after him, nipping and honking at his heels. Devlin ignored the feathered pest, piled into his pickup and revved the engine. He sprayed gravel on the low-slung car as he sped away—and he wouldn’t be the least bit sorry if he accidentally cracked the dragon lady’s windshield with flying rock. It would serve her right for being so stubborn.
Devlin muttered to himself as he roared toward home. His brother had recommended using diplomacy when confronting the neighbor lady. Devlin was pretty sure that wouldn’t have worked any better than his direct, confrontational approach. He had noticed the look of disapproval when Jessica Porter gave him the once-over. Hell, he’d have to have been blind in both eyes not to realize she had no use for him. That woman would not have compromised under any circumstances.
What really baffled Devlin was that, despite his irritation, he found her physically attractive. He’d caught himself staring at her body with male appreciation a couple of times during their heated argument and had to jerk his attention to her face. Which didn’t help a whole lot, because she had a bewitching face, to boot. It was humiliating for a man who usually had to fight off women with a stick to know that he liked what he saw and that Miss High and Mighty Porter behaved as if he didn’t measure up to her lofty standards.
What difference did that make? his smarting pride asked. No way would he be interested in dating Porter, not with their conflict over her exotic animals standing between them. And not that he was the teensiest bit interested, Devlin assured himself. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. Well, okay, maybe for a nanosecond—until she’d opened her sassy mouth and let the wisecracks and zingers fly.
Glancing at his watch, Devlin made tracks toward home. It was his brother’s night to cook, and Derrick got bent out of shape when Devlin was late. The Wednesday night menu at Rocking C was always the same: hamburger patties smothered in cream of mushroom soup, fried potatoes and okra. Devlin would have preferred cooked goose—specifically, the one that had appointed itself as Jessica Porter’s guard dog.
Devlin glanced at the cattle herd grazing in the pasture, wondering if he’d wake up in the morning to another stampede. Jessica Porter’s coyotes would probably be howling at the moon, causing the rest of the zoo to join in chorus. The cattle would be to hell and gone by sunrise, Devlin predicted.
He sighed heavily. Tomorrow would undoubtedly test his patience once again.
“STUBBORN, PIGHEADED COWBOY,” Jessica muttered as she doffed her business suit, then snatched up her jeans and T-shirt.
The very last thing she’d needed, after dealing with an unreasonable, demanding client at her accounting office, was to confront her annoying neighbor. She had lived in this community for almost six months, and not once had Devlin Callahan dropped by to welcome her. Oh, no, the jerk hadn’t bothered to set foot on the place until he came to complain and shout ultimatums at her.
It hadn’t helped that Jessica encountered Devlin immediately after opening her credit card statement to discover that her two-timing ex-fiancé had charged a Caribbean cruise, for two, to her account. Damn the man! No, damn all men in general, she corrected bitterly. Why not? Every frustration she’d dealt with during the course of the day had come at the hands of the male of the species.
“Hell of a day, Jess,” she said to herself as she exited her bedroom and trotted down the staircase. There was one surefire way to lighten her black mood, and that was to wander among the exotic animals that had become her charges.
Jessica smiled fondly when her guard goose greeted her on the back porch and performed its usual head-dipping ritual. The goose followed her across the lawn to retrieve feed from the barn. With each step Jessica took toward the pens and cages in the distance, the day’s tension drained away. Despite what Devlin Callahan presumed, these animals could not be returned to the wilds because of their handicaps and special needs. They needed her, she reminded herself, and that cowboy with the attitude wasn’t going to force her to relocate them.
Jessica’s lifelong love of animals and her tendency to pick up strays had become a crusade during her post-college years in Tulsa, where she had learned the ropes of the accounting business. Her high-dollar salary had allowed her to purchase acreage to house her exotic animals, but the generous offer from an industrial corporation convinced her to sell the property and relocate. Jessica had quadrupled her investment and decided to move to the laid-back hamlet of Buzzard’s Grove to establish her own accounting office.
The decision hadn’t been difficult because there were no close family ties to consider, only a few friends from the office who
