The Cowboy's Bride Read online

  “Sure thing, but it’s liable to take a while. Meanwhile, I’d advise you to get the word out to the Montana Cattle Raisers Association. In case that new bull of yours turns up for sale elsewhere.”

  “Will do.” Cody shook hands with the deputy and thanked him for coming out so quickly.

  Cody and Callie climbed back into the chopper, which had returned from the hospital, for the ride back to the bull’s-eye parcel of land to retrieve their horses.

  “You blame me for the theft, don’t you?” Callie said after she and Cody were back on the ground. They untethered their mounts and swung themselves up in the saddle, then started back at a very brisk pace, Callie following Cody’s lead and riding beside him.

  Cody settled his hat more firmly on his head, so the brim was very low across his brow. “Let’s look at the facts here, Callie. You’re back in my life for what...fifteen hours now, and already it’s costing me a hundred grand and the health of one of my best ranch hands.”

  “I was with you last night—all night!” Callie shot him an outraged glance as his decrepit cabin came into view. “You know that!”

  Cody kneed his horse and picked up the pace. “Perhaps we Should check for tire tracks around the cabin anyway.”

  Callie’s stomach churned as she thought about Buck’s visit to her outside the “powder room” early this morning. Undoubtedly there were tire tracks there somewhere, ones that didn’t belong to Cody’s pickup truck. Cody couldn’t find them. She knew Buck would follow through on his threat. Nothing had changed since she’d run away all those years ago. Buck and Pa still had their hooks in her, but she wouldn’t let them get to Cody. It would be too dangerous for Cody to find out Buck was around. She had to do everything in her power to prevent that from happening. Which meant she was going to have to distract him.

  Directing her horse to canter slightly ahead of his, which was something sure to annoy him, she jumped on the first source of conflict that came to mind. “We have more pressing things to attend to this morning, Cody.”

  “Such as what?”

  “I was hungry and cold last night,” Callie informed him in a tone she was sure would set his teeth on edge. She tossed her head haughtily. The long layers of her hair swirled around her face. “If we’re going to continue to live in that cabin together for the next day and a half, I insist we go into town so that I can at least get myself a sleeping bag.”

  Cody nudged his horse a bit to keep abreast of her. “And if I say no?”

  Keeping a firm hold on the reins, Callie squared her shoulders militantly. “Then I’m out of here now and you lose the cattle operation Uncle Max willed to you. The choice is entirely up to you.”

  Not waiting for his reply, she slowed her horse to a walk and headed for the barn. As she had expected, he quite irritably followed suit. “Assuming I agree to go, how’d you plan to pay for it?” Cody demanded.

  “I have my own money, my own credit cards,” Callie said, reining her mount in altogether. She wasn’t sure how much cash she had left, but she could charge the rest. “I told you I had been working.”

  Cody looked around suspiciously as they dismounted and hitched their horses next to the barn. Callie strode toward the cabin, but Cody headed back in the direction of the outhouse. She followed suit, intending to escalate their argument to an unreasonable degree if necessary, but before she could think of something suitably incendiary to say, he had spotted and picked up the cigarette butt Buck had thrown aside. He held up the barely smoked cigarette for her to see. “Looks like someone has been here.”

  With a great deal of effort, Callie faked a carelessness she couldn’t begin to feel. “You’re imagining things.”

  “No,” he replied evenly. “I’m not.”

  “Cody, come on. Forget about the disturbed grass. I probably did that myself when I was stumbling around trying to find the powder room this morning.”

  “What about the cigarette butt?”

  Callie shrugged. There was no point in trying to pretend it was hers; Cody already knew she abhorred smoking. “It could have been here for days.”

  Cody examined the evidence carefully. “In near mint condition? Not very damn likely.”

  Callie swallowed. They had to get out of here before Cody turned up anything else Buck had left in his wake. “Let me go in and get my purse and let’s get going to town, now, Cody.”

  “You get your purse,” Cody encouraged with a distracted air, already heading off toward the woods directly behind them. “I’m going to have a look around.” Completely ignoring her, he headed off.

  Callie frowned. She could follow him now or sidetrack him again by doing something really outrageous, like trying to drive his pickup truck.

  Intending to look for his truck keys as soon as she had retrieved her purse, she headed for the cabin. Her purse was right where she’d left it, on the sofa. Intending to count her cash, she sat down and rummaged through her wallet.

  Only there was a problem, she soon realized with mounting frustration. There was no cash in her wallet. No credit cards. Nothing except an old photo of her and Cody taken in one of those amusement park booths. Had Cody done this as a way of limiting her options? she wondered, confused. Or had Buck? Did she even dare ask, when doing so might tip him—if innocent—to the fact someone else really had been there? And what if that in turn led him to Buck?

  Swearing beneath her breath at this predicament she found herself in, she stuffed her nearly empty wallet back in her purse and stood up. She had just started her search for the keys when she heard what sounded like someone... something... moving around in Cody’s bedroom.

  Oh, no. If it was Buck, if he’d bunked down in here, she was going to beat the stuffing out of him!

  Agitatedly, Callie started for the bedroom.

  Peeked in.

  The covers on Cody’s bed were deliciously mussed, but it was empty. The room, however, was not. There was an indignant snort from the corner as the beastly intruder staggered menacingly to his feet. Callie took one look at those wild black eyes and let out an earsplitting scream.

  Chapter Four

  That scream sounded like it had come from Callie, Cody thought, alarmed. As he heard her scream again, he abandoned his search for further signs of disturbance around the cabin, did an about-face and raced toward the sound.

  As he reached the cabin doorway, Callie let out another bloodcurdling scream from within. There were several crashing sounds... like furniture falling. “Stay away from me!” Callie shrieked hysterically. “Cody—for heaven’s sake, where are you? Cody, please! Help me!” she shrieked again.

  Through the open portal, Cody caught a glimpse of Callie leaping onto the rumpled covers of his bed. This was followed by an enraged, animalistic snort as the missing Brahman bull lurched drunkenly toward her, a tranquilizer dart still sticking out of his rump. Cody had no time to ruminate on how or why his prize bull had ended up in his cabin. It was plain to see the one-third-grown, four-hundred-pound bull had a heck of a drug-induced hangover and had not appreciated coming to in Cody’s bedroom. Nor, given the size of the headache the bull had to have, was he appreciating Callie’s startled screams.

  “Callie. Be quiet. Now,” Cody said.

  Callie shot him a baleful look. “About time you got here,” she muttered cantankerously beneath her breath, although she was trembling so hard the ancient box springs of his bed were creaking. “What took you so long?”

  The bull snorted and pawed the ground.

  Cody grabbed a silk shirt from the pile of Callie’s clothes on the sofa. He whistled shrilly. “Hey, Zeus! Over here!”

  Zeus craned his large black head around. Snorted again.

  “Just get him out of here,” Callie said, trembling all the harder.

  “I’m trying,” Cody said, waving her shirt as if he were a bullfighter in the ring. He whistled again, even more shrilly.

  Snorting and pawing, the bull staggered toward Cody.

  Cody figured
all he had to do was get the bull outside, then race back in. When it was safely grazing in the pastureland surrounding the cabin, he could get to the shortwave radio in his truck or the cellular phone in his saddlebag and call for more help.

  Cody backed out the door, still waving the shirt. Zeus followed, crashing into the table as he went. Unfortunately, Zeus got only as far as the doorway, when he changed his mind, swung around again, crashing into the sofa as he did so, and headed back for Callie, who was still standing on the bed.

  She screamed. Zeus picked up speed. Misjudging the width of the portal, he rammed his shoulder drunkenly into the bedroom door frame, which enraged him all the more.

  Zeus backed up and, still glaring at Callie, prepared to charge the bedroom again. Cody swore, wishing he had a rope and lasso handy, but he didn’t, so he was just going to have to make do.

  Grabbing a handful of Callie’s clothes, Cody hurled them at Zeus, one right after another. A shirt landed on Zeus’s head, another covered his neck, a pair of jeans fell down to tangle in the struggling, frightened bull’s front legs. Snorting, shaking, the bull backed up and tried to get the clothing off his face. When it all tumbled to the floor, Cody hurled more.

  Seeing her opportunity, Callie raced past the bull to Cody’s side. Figuring it was easier to get themselves out of the cabin than the bull at this point, Cody grabbed her hand, tugged her through the doorway and slammed the oak door behind them. “Now what?” Callie gasped.

  “There’s a rope in the barn. I’ll get it while you get on the cell phone in my saddlebag. Dial one-zero—that’ll connect you to Shorty. Explain what’s happened, and tell him we need help. Pronto. Probably another tranquilizer dart, too.”

  Callie ran off. Cody disappeared into the barn. He raced out again, a lasso in his hand. “Shorty’s on his way,” she told him.

  “Great.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back in to get Zeus!”

  It infuriated her to see him willfully risking life and limb. “Cody, you can’t go in there. Zeus is furious. He could trample you or gore you.”

  His expression pure steel, Cody shrugged off her warning. “He’ll calm down once he has a lasso around his neck.”

  Desperate to protect him, Callie threw herself across the front door. “I’m not going to let you go in there alone!”

  The look in his eyes no less determined, Cody merely slung the lasso over his shoulder, picked her up by the waist and shifted her to the side. In a tone that was not to be denied, he barked out his orders. “Go back to the pickup, climb inside and wait for me, Callie. You’ll be safe enough there.” Without sparing her another glance, he yanked open the door and stepped inside.

  IF CODY THOUGHT THE IDEA of running was an option for her, he didn’t know her at all, Callie thought, setting her chin. If Cody was going headlong into a battle with a demented, drugged-out bull, he wasn’t going in alone.

  She owed it to Uncle Max to see that his nephew didn’t get hurt or killed in such an ignominious way.

  She rushed in after him. Cody did not look happy to see her. “This is not the way you follow orders, Callie,” he murmured, his mouth thinning to a disapproving line as he gathered the lasso in hand and moved slightly to the left.

  “So it isn’t,” Callie murmured right back.

  Watching as Zeus backed into a table and sent it crashing, Callie leaned down, ever so slowly, and reached for her now empty duffel bag. “On the count of three, I’ll distract him, you lasso. One... two... three.” Callie hurled the suitcase so it hit just in front of Zeus. Startled, Zeus backed up just as the lasso swung easily around his neck. Cody tightened the loop. Zeus snorted and tried to go in the opposite direction, then, as his wind was systematically cut off, went promptly down on his side. Callie looked at Zeus nervously. He looked ready to get up and charge again at any minute. “Isn’t this the place where you normally tie his legs together with the rest of the rope?” she asked in a trembling undertone.

  Cody kept his eyes locked with Zeus’s and shrugged. “If he were a calf and we were getting ready to brand him, yeah. We don’t do that with an animal this size, less of course we got a death wish, and I don’t.”

  Zeus started to move. Cody tightened his grip on the rope and stayed where he was. Zeus, having evidently figured out he was not going to win this battle with Cody, stayed where he was, too, panting loudly.

  “Now what?” Callie whispered, trying not to let herself get spooked by the wildness in Zeus’s eyes.

  “We wait for reinforcements.”

  As if on cue, a pickup roared into the yard. It was followed by another pickup, dragging a small horse trailer. Shorty hopped out of the first truck and came running, a tranquilizer dart in hand. Cody gave the nod. Shorty aimed. The dart hit Zeus in the rump, just below the first. They waited. Within a minute, Zeus’s eyes were drooping. The dangerous light in them faded. To Callie’s amazement, Zeus looked gentle as a lamb. While the bowlegged Shorty turned around and barked out orders to the ranch hands that had accompanied him, Cody turned to Callie.

  “Nice work,” Callie told Cody. Though her arm and shoulder were aching from her initial tangle with the bull, and his cabin was trashed.

  Cody did not look pleased, with either the respect she accorded him or the situation. “I thought I told you to go to the truck,” he reminded her harshly, as if a few cruel words could erase whatever camaraderie they had just felt.

  So, now that things were back on an even keel and they were safe, they were no longer partners, Callie thought. “I thought I told you not to go in there alone,” Callie shot back, mocking his irascible tone. She knew what he was thinking; he didn’t want any of the men to think he had been rescued by anyone, never mind the new bride-to-be and coinheritor he considered nothing but a noose around his neck. He didn’t want her thinking she could be of any benefit to him whatsoever. Well, that was just too bad, she thought furiously. She had helped Cody, just as he had helped her, and she didn’t care who knew about their unwitting and unwilling partnership in temporarily subduing the abducted bull.

  The shadows around his eyes deepening, Cody dropped the rope and strode out of the cabin. “You don’t give the orders around here.”

  “Neither do you,” Callie asserted, fast on his heels.

  “That’s news to us,” Shorty put in.

  Cody wheeled on him, for a second looking every bit as dangerous as Zeus. Shorty, however, did not look intimidated. Which in turn made Callie wonder at the relationship between them. “Shorty, stay out of this,” Cody growled.

  “Sure thing, Cody,” Shorty said with a shrug. “C’mon, fellas, help me get this bull loaded into the truck.” With four of them against the newly tranquilized bull, they managed it in short order.

  Soon enough, Cody and Callie were alone again. The yard around the cabin seemed awfully still, considering the commotion that had been. They squared off awkwardly. The silence stretched out between them. “Since you were here, and you did lend a hand, I suppose I ought to thank you,” Cody said grudgingly at last.

  Callie nodded. “Your thanks is accepted.” Unable to bear the warring emotions in his eyes any longer, Callie turned. Suddenly, she was feeling a little shaky. Her knees buckled. She felt herself pitching forward.

  Before she could do more than draw a breath, Cody was there to catch her. “Sit down,” he ordered gruffly as he pushed her onto the sofa, but his hands were gentle on her shoulders. “Put your head between your knees.”

  “I don’t—”

  His breath was warm against her cheek as he pushed her down and held her there. “Just do it, Callie, before you flat-out faint on me.”

  As the room spun around her, Callie gave a low, tortured groan. Maybe this would be best.

  She closed her eyes, letting the blood rush to her head. She heard Cody moving around behind her. Somewhere in the bedroom. The sound of a dresser drawer being yanked open, shut. His footsteps neared again. He sat down beside her, the so
fa cushions shifting with his weight. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” He sounded annoyed again.

  “Because I’m not.” Deciding she’d been weak and silly long enough, Callie straightened. Then found she was dizzy all over again, this time for an entirely different reason. As Cody looked her over carefully, then fingered the rip in her shoulder seam, she felt herself quickly becoming both desirous and ambivalent once more.

  “Then what do you call this?” he demanded softly.

  Callie looked where he was touching. Fighting her reaction to his nearness, she drew in a sharp breath.

  His mouth softened as he flipped open the lid of the first-aid kit. “That’s a mean-looking cut you’ve got there.”

  Callie swallowed. “It’s nothing.”

  “It still needs to be cleaned.” As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he took hold of the ripped fabric and with a sharp tug and a brutal tearing sound widened the rip another several inches in all directions.

  The thought of being in any state of undress with him, for whatever reason, made her nervous. Panic warred with desire as the blood rushed through her veins; she wasn’t ready for this and neither was he. “Cody, for heaven’s sake! Did you have to be so barbaric?”

  “You’re telling me you want to take your shirt off and do it that way?” Half his mouth curved up in a quarter grin as he caught her shocked look, then drawled, “I didn’t think so.”

  Back on task, he was already ripping open a packet of antiseptic.

  “I can carry on myself now,” Callie insisted, putting up both hands to stop him.

  He shook his head in a way that said the argument was closed. “There’s no way you can reach your shoulder blade, never mind see what you’re doing.” He brushed her hands away, pushed them away from the scrape, then moved the cool cloth over the three-inch-long injury. Finished, he brought out a tube of antibiotic cream and, apparently unable to resist, gave her the kind of roguish look she’d been expecting from a hellion like him all along. “Besides, technically anyway, I’m your husband, remember?”