still ran the household, Izzie owned the cattle. It was a sticking point between her and her mother, for her father had left the entire herd to his eldest daughter instead of his wife. Her mother, a righteous woman with a knack for scripture, also had a habit of spending more than her husband could make. And though her father had had trouble telling his wife no, Izzie did not. Which was why she had increased the herd by forty head and also why her mother was equally furious and proud of her. Izzie planned to keep her promise and pass her father’s legacy to her brothers. Up until today she had done well. Up until today when she had lost fifty-one head. Her shoulders slumped a little, but she managed to keep her chin up.
“That’s a deal.” She stuck out her hand and pushed down the hope that he would take it.
He stared at her hand and then back to her and then back to her hand. Finally he clasped it. The contact was brief. But her reaction was not. She felt the tingle of his palm pressing to hers clear up to her jaw. Why, oh why did she have to have a thing for this man?
Clay broke the contact, leaving Izzie with her hand sticking out like a fool. Clay rubbed his palm on his thigh as if anxious to be rid of all traces of their touch. She scowled, recalling a time when things were different.
“When do we start?” she asked.
“Sooner is better. Tracks don’t improve with time.”
“Let’s go, then. We can take my truck.”
He hesitated, glancing to his vehicle. She followed his gaze, noticing he did not have a gun rack.
“You want to bring your rifle?”
“Don’t carry one.”
She frowned, thinking she had not heard him correctly. Clay hunted. He fished. Surely he had a rifle. It was part of life here. Shooting at coyotes and gophers and rattlesnakes, though she usually took a shovel to the snakes. Everyone she knew carried a firearm. But everyone she knew had not been charged with a crime.
He was allowed to carry one. His rescue earlier today proved that. Was it because he now knew the difference between robbery and armed robbery?
“What did you use earlier?”
“Belongs to the office.”
She eyed him critically. He didn’t just look different. He was different in ways she could only guess at.
“You don’t hunt anymore?”
“Sometimes with my brothers. I mostly fish.” He glanced away, and his hands slid into his back pockets as he rocked nervously from toe to heel, heel to toe.
Finally he looked up. She met Clay’s gaze, and his expression gave nothing away.
“Still want my help?” he asked.
Izzie nodded.
He glanced toward his house, and she realized that he must not have eaten yet, since she’d caught him before he even made it to his front door.
“I’ll buy you a burger after,” she promised.
His mouth quirked. “Okay.”
He strode past his battered pickup toward her newer-model Ram with the double wheels front and back and the trailer hitch behind. Oh, how her mother hated this truck, even though it was a used model.
Izzie watched Clay pass. His easy gait and graceful stride mesmerized her until she realized he was headed toward the driver’s side. For a minute she thought he meant to drive. Izzie still had two years’ worth of payments on her truck, and nobody drove it but her. But instead of taking the wheel, Clay opened her door for her and stepped back.
She felt her mouth drop open but managed to hold on as she nodded her thanks and swept inside the cab. He waited a moment and then closed the door before rounding the hood and removing his hat. Then he slid in beside her, hat in his lap. He fiddled with the seat controls, sending his seat as far back as it would go, and still his knees were flexed past ninety degrees. Then he sat motionless as she headed home.
“Who do you think cut your fences?” he asked as they rolled down the narrow mountain road from his place and toward hers out past Pinyon Lake. Here the forest lined both sides of the road with the pavement creating a narrow gap in the walls of pines.
“I have no idea.”
“Anyone threatening you or trying to buy you out?”
“Buy me out, no.” She remembered something, and she squeezed the wheel. “But my neighbor did ask me out a few times.”
“Who?”
“Floyd.”
Clay straightened. “Floyd Patch? He must be close to forty.”
She and Clay were both twenty-four. He was born in February and she was born on the same day in March. There was a time she had joked that she liked older men. But that didn’t seem funny right now.
“He’s only thirty-six.”
Clay rolled his eyes and brushed the crown of his felt hat, but said nothing. He considered the ceiling of the cab for a long moment. His usual posture, Izzie recalled, when he was thinking.
She smiled at the familiarity. It seemed that so much about him was the same. But not everything. Izzie steered them onto the main road, deciding to take the long way back to keep from the possibility of encountering her mother on the road. Izzie glanced at the clock, realizing her mother would likely be home because the boys should be climbing off the school’s late bus about now. Clay’s voice dragged her back to the present.
“Clyne said he was on the agenda a while back. I saw him talking to my boss a time ago about the tribe’s communal pastures.”
Who was he talking about?
“Which ones to close for renourishment.”
Patch, she realized. Her neighbor.
“I heard Donner say that Patch was asking the council to impose a lottery for grazing permits again.”
Izzie clenched the wheel. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Lotteries mean ranchers might get grazing land clean on the other side of the reservation.”
Clay shrugged. He had no horse in this particular race.
“You think Floyd wants my permits?”
“Don’t know. But if he can’t get the council to change the way permits are distributed, he could get them by marrying you.”
Izzie let out a sound of frustration. “Those permits and the cattle don’t belong to me. They are my brothers’.”
“Whose name is on the permits?”
Izzie said nothing because they both knew that a minor could not own permits. Of course you had to be of age and Apache to even apply. As long as she didn’t miss the October first application date, which she never did, then the permits were hers until her brother Will was old enough to apply in her place. That was the way it had always been. She hadn’t come
