Summer Rose Read online

“Best get your things in the wagon,” he finally allowed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the buckboard.

  “Yes, thank you. I’m Cassandra Dalton.” He nodded his round-brimmed hat in her direction. “And this is Millicent Groden and my younger brother, Andrew.”

  “They call me Wilbur.” He addressed them all. “I ’spect that’s ’cause I do the cooking. And this here’s Brady—my swamper.”

  Brady shyly tipped his hat in greeting. As though aware that he’d used far more words than necessary, Wilbur turned toward their wagon. He produced a canteen, which they gratefully shared.

  Brady jumped down and examined the broken axle as the threesome drank thirstily of the stale water, warm from the hot canteen.

  “Let’s get ’er loaded up,” Wilbur ordered his helper as he picked up a heavy trunk.

  Thinking they’d traveled so far to meet such a sorry end, Cassie stared at the pathetic reminders of their former lives, littered about the dusty ground as though they were yesterday’s trash. Their trunks and barrels stood like uprooted scrub amidst the desolate countryside. And her mother’s treasured spinet piano lay sprawled against a boulder, its hand-carved rosewood now sadly scratched, one leg twisted irreparably into the granitelike earth.

  But in a short time everything was loaded, and the draft horses were tied to the rear of the wagon. The buckboard lurched forward, sinking into the foot-deep ruts in the clay road, raising a sandy storm of dust. The wagon moved upward, rapidly gaining altitude. It was hard to believe they were in the same territory as they left behind the flat land decorated only with bleak tumbleweed and cacti, and rode upward into the wooded thicket of juniper and pinyon pines that melted into the mountains.

  The wind tousled Cassie’s ebony hair and skipped through the grass, furrowing the clustered blades against rock-hard earth while prairie clover, virgin bower, and foxfire battled the elements, poking their gold and scarlet heads skyward.

  After the long bumpy ride, they were all relieved when Wilbur pulled up to the Dalton ranch. A whitewashed frame house and red-planked barn sat on the rise of a gently sloping hill. It was almost exactly as Cassie had pictured it.

  She remembered the countless nights she’d lain awake trying to decide whether or not to accept her uncle’s legacy. Night after night she’d told herself the reasons why she shouldn’t give up her teaching job to pursue a wild dream. Each night had been spent listening to her neighbors quarrel through paper-thin walls. Coupling that with the disturbing sounds of crime from the streets below, Cassie was convinced they had to leave the slums.

  Since their father’s death, she and Andrew had been forced to move to a dreary tenement in a dismal section of Boston. It was all she could afford after the solicitor had absconded with their inheritance, but she’d always envisioned life where home was more than a cramped one-room flat. A life where fear didn’t rule. She wanted so much more for Andrew than she could provide on her meager wages, so the inheritance from Uncle Luke had seemed like a godsend.

  Now there was no turning back, no job to return to. She had escaped the suffocating life they’d led since her father’s death, and nothing would make her give up this chance to make a new start.

  Slowly she climbed down from the wagon, surveying the first true home they’d had in years. She paused at the front porch, running her hand along the smooth wood of the well-used swing. Hesitantly she turned the handle on the front door, feeling as though she were intruding as she stepped into the neat keeping room.

  The massive hearth and dusty, man-sized furniture dominated the room. Sunshine poured in the curtainless windows, spilling over the black cooking stove and onto the worn trestle dining table. Cassie’s sturdy traveling shoes echoed against the bare wooden floor as she moved to the oak sideboard, lightly touching the humidor and pipe that sat neatly to one side. She felt a sharp pang of regret for her uncle as she stared at the evidence of his solitary existence.

  Cassie gazed around the sun-filled room and felt her heart catching as she realized she was truly home. Remembering the wagon outside still to be unloaded, she reluctantly left the house, pausing once more to savor the rightness of her decision in coming here.

  “Wilbur, where are the animals?” Cassie asked, nearing the wagon. Not one chicken scratched about the deserted henhouse, and the corrals were empty except for the horses that had brought the Daltons west. Only a few ornery ducks waddled past. They glared at her, intent on reaching the water trough.

  “I reckon the Basque’s got ’em,” he answered, not pausing as he rolled a distended barrel to the rear end of the wagon.

  “The Basque?”

  “Yep.”

  This time the single word would not suffice. “What’s a Basque?”

  “Sheepherder—name’s Hector. He was a friend of your uncle’s,” Wilbur replied.

  “But why does he have my sheep?” Cassie persisted.

  Disgust was written in Wilbur’s faded blue eyes. “’Cause the critters are too stupid to even graze on their own.”

  Cassie tried to digest this information, wondering who and where this Basque person was.

  Wilbur shifted his eyes toward the low, greenish-brown hills to the north. “Up there.”

  “Oh.” Cassie tried to imagine finding a lone sheepherder in the vast landscape. There wouldn’t be any street signs to guide her here, she thought ruefully, remembering how easily she’d navigated the twisted streets of Boston.

  “How will I know him?” Cassie questioned.

  “He’s more garbed up than a saloon gal on Saturday night…Sorry ’bout that, ma’am. Forgot I was speakin’ to a lady.”

  Cassie nodded to show his choice of words hadn’t offended her. “What do you mean by ‘garbed up’?”

  “Wears purple and red doodads around his middle where his belt should be. Black hat with silver geegaws all over it—crown big enough to take a bath in. And them pants.” Wilbur rolled his eyes. “Him and a couple of friends could fit in ’em, they’re so baggy.”

  “And this Hector was a good friend of my uncle’s?”

  “Yep. His best one, I’d say.”

  “And he has my sheep?”

  “Yep. He’d probably buy the lot of ’em off you,” Wilbur answered, busying himself with a leatherbound trunk that contained her carefully selected books on sheep ranching.

  “But why would I sell my stock? Without the sheep we can’t keep the ranch.”

  Wilbur stood still and looked her in the eye. “You’ll save yerself a mess of grief if’n you sell the stock and the land.”

  “Why does Mr. Lancer want my land so badly?”

  Wilbur decided to let that pass. If she was lucky, she’d get her fill and leave before she found out the truth. He mumbled a noncommittal reply.

  Cassie visibly stiffened, her resolve apparent. “I appreciate the advice, but we’re staying. This is our home now.” As she spoke, she turned to the whitewashed house nestled snugly on the hillside. The determination in her face was clear.

  Wilbur grunted in exasperation and bent to retrieve another fully loaded trunk.

  Cassie studied his shaded face and made one last attempt. “I do thank you for your help. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

  “Yes’m. We don’t hold to Dal…to sheepherders,” he corrected himself hastily, “but we don’t hold to leaving women and children in the brush, neither.” He pulled the trunk forward with a kerplunk and lowered it over the rear board of the wagon.

  Cassie faced him as he straightened up, and she held out her hand. “Nonetheless, we’re grateful to you, and I hope we can repay the kindness.”

  Grudging respect crept into his wizened eyes as he accepted her handshake with his own weathered paw. “Mebbe so, ma’am. I’d best be gettin’ the rest of yer trunks down,” he replied, gesturing to the half-filled wagon.

  Cassie turned slightly toward the oversized barn. Wilbur watched her, thinking she seemed forlorn for all her pluckiness. “I’ll send Brady over
tomorrow or the next day.”

  Turning back to face him, Cassie gazed at Wilbur inquisitively. He flushed a bit under her intense regard. “You ladies and the boy might be needing a man’s help.” He’d better make damn sure Shane didn’t find out he was helping a Dalton. What’d possessed him to offer a fool thing like that?

  Her lips parted in a tremulous smile. Flustered, he turned back to the wagon, busying himself with the remaining cargo. Either he’d had too much of the Texas sun, or it had been a far sight too long since he’d seen such a pretty filly.

  Suspecting further thanks would only embarrass Wilbur, Cassie walked past her uncle’s sturdy wagon. She glanced at the vehicle, glad to see Luke’s reliable wagon, considering the sorry state of theirs, and then continued into the barn. The rafters secured the giant beams in place, while the loft still held bales of sweet-smelling hay. Cassie breathed in the fecund smell of horses redolent in the closed stalls and remembered her dreams of land as far as the eye could see. And a home of their own after living in bleak, ugly rented rooms since her father’s death.

  Straightening her shoulders, Cassie firmed her resolve. This was her dream, and no robber baron was going to scare her away. She wandered back to the double doors, fingering an oil lamp hung on a wooden peg and a bridle tossed on a bench as though waiting for a rider that had never returned. I know you can’t come back, Uncle Luke. But I’m here now.

  2

  Cassie swiped the back of her gritty forearm across her temples, pushing away the straggly hair that clung to the sheen of sweat she’d worked up. Expelling a deep breath, she rubbed the small of her protesting back and glanced down at her trouser-encased legs with a rueful grin. Andrew and Millicent had been shocked when she’d appeared in them that morning. But it took only one day for her to decide that a skirt was no garment in which to tend sheep.

  Ignoring her aching back, she bent to the task at hand. She glanced at the diagram in the book that outlined a perfectly formed corral. The bent and twisted frame she was trying to repair held little resemblance to the one pictured in the book. Glancing at the other text spread out before her, however, she knew she had no choice. Reinforcing the corral was her first priority.

  Trying to read the book at the same time, Cassie pulled a ten-penny nail from the edge of her mouth where it rested with several others. Wielding the heavy hammer, she concentrated on the placement of the nail. Recent experience had taught her that pounding one of the nails in the wrong place meant a lot of hard work removing it. As Cassie strained to study the diagram, the wind kept teasing the pages of the book, making the task of reading the book and hammering at the same time nearly impossible.

  Engrossed in her work, Cassie didn’t hear Shane as he rode up to the corral. He reined in his horse, studying the provocative derriere that greeted him. The trousers had thrown him. But there was no doubt in his mind that the form they clearly outlined was female. She sure didn’t look like a priss in that outfit. Studying her with a grin, he ignored all the reasons why he shouldn’t be eyeing Cassie’s trim curves. His horse inopportunely whinnied, and Cassie swung around, straightening up as she saw him.

  If the first view had been pleasing, the second was damnably breathtaking. Dressed in what appeared to be her brother’s shirt and pants, the material clung to her like the skin of an overripe fruit. He found himself swallowing a gathering lump as he gazed at the straining material stretched taut against her full breasts. Forcing his eyes upward, he paused at the droplets that enveloped her neck and slid maddeningly into the gap of her too-tight shirt. Her skin had darkened slightly to the shade of light honey, enhanced by the slick sheen from her labors.

  His eyes drifted upward to the dewy mouth and flushed cheeks that were framed by wisps of raven curls. And, finally, her eyes. Those startling violet eyes that looked as if they were stolen from a jeweler’s case and framed with spiky dark lashes.

  Cassie’s unfriendly voice jarred him back to earth. To reason, he hoped. “Afternoon, Mr. Lancer. Can I help you with something?”

  He forced the hardness in his tone, knowing it should come naturally, resenting that it didn’t. Looks aside, she was still a Dalton. “Some of your sheep wandered onto my range.”

  “I’m not surprised. This corral has more posts missing than in place.” Shane watched her hands flutter gracefully in the air as she gestured to the hammer and nails. A tiny bead of perspiration gathered and rolled into the vee of her shirt, disappearing in the valley between her breasts. He tore his eyes from the elusive drop and tried to remember what she’d said.

  Cassie rushed on defensively. “Andrew and I will round them up as soon as we can.” Her hands moved nervously to the tendrils of hair escaping about her face.

  “There’s no hurry,” Shane surprised himself by saying. He stared spellbound as her hands moved from the escaping curls to rest near her legs. He should be telling her to leave, not giving her more time to get entrenched here, he thought.

  She seemed to weigh his words and then said reluctantly, “I appreciate that. We’re a little green, and this is taking longer than we thought. None of the books mentioned fixing corrals.”

  “Books?” He couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “You’re using books to figure out”—he made a sweeping motion with his hand as he twisted around in his saddle—“this?”

  “Well, yes. I realize it may not always be exactly like what I’ve studied…”

  He harrumphed in the middle of her words as he glanced down at her feet to the manuals spread around her like primers on the first day of school. Books! An Easterner trying to run a sheep ranch based on a bunch of books. They were probably written by some dude who had never set foot outside of the city. Momentarily forgetting his mission, he tipped his hat forward to hide a growing smile. Green, hell. They were as helpless as the sheep running loose over half the countryside.

  “Excuse me, Miss Dalton. I didn’t realize you were so learned.”

  He read the wariness in her eyes as she replied, “I am—was—a schoolteacher.”

  A schoolteacher! She sure didn’t look like a schoolmarm to him. Every schoolteacher he’d ever had looked as though they’d had every shred of femininity removed when they’d taken the job. His memories were of starched, dull black, high-necked dresses that primly covered every inch of skin. Not an alluring open-necked man’s shirt, breeches…He jerked his mind back with a snap.

  “That explains it, then.”

  Cassie glared at him as though she’d read his thoughts! Shane was certain she was about to retort when Millicent neared the corral.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Lancer,” Millicent greeted him with her usual good cheer.

  “Miss Millicent,” he replied politely, unable to dislike Cassie’s friend.

  Millicent turned toward Cassie. “I found these letters in the back of the cupboard. What do you want me to do with them?”

  Cassie, who wasn’t thinking at all of the letters, answered absently, “Put them back in the cupboard, I guess.”

  Millicent nodded in agreement, turning to Shane. “Won’t you join us in some refreshment?” she asked, smoothing the starched white apron over her calico skirt.

  Shane glanced at Cassie’s irate face and realized the only refreshment she’d like to serve him would be arsenic-laced. He started to refuse, but the chance to goad her was too tempting.

  Then again, maybe there was more than one way to get her to sell the land. Maybe he should try a little honey instead of vinegar. If she hadn’t found a husband by now, she might be susceptible to a little well-placed charm.

  “Thanks, that sounds mighty good.” Dismounting, Shane led his horse to the hitching rail and looped the reins around the rough wood. Following Cassie through the open door, he focused involuntarily on the gentle swing of her hips. He gazed about the house he’d never set foot in before and recognized the signs of a woman’s touch.

  Shane had never thought he’d find himself in this house. Old wounds seeped as he stared around the
neat room. Bringing himself back to the present, he realized the embroidered pillows and lace runners covering the furniture must be new additions.

  Tapping down buried emotions, he searched for something civil to say, allowing his gaze to roam about the comfortable keeping room.

  “Let me see if I can find one of those sweet rolls I baked this morning,” Millicent said as she walked toward the oak sideboard. Not waiting for a reply, she turned to the immaculate kitchen where Cassie resentfully picked up an enameled coffee pot simmering on the stove.

  Shane eyed the laden tray Millicent carried into the room a few moments later. Accepting a steaming mug of coffee, he settled stiffly into an oversized leather chair.

  He watched with veiled interest as Cassie sullenly perched on the edge of the horsehair settee that faced him. Continuing his study, Shane found to his annoyance that he liked the way her ebony hair curled about her face as though it had a will of its own. Glancing at her breeches again, he wondered what the women in town would say if they saw her in them. As if another Dalton back in the valley wasn’t bad enough. Seeing Cassie in form-fitting trousers made him think that they were previously a highly underrated garment. He felt his breath coming a bit shorter.

  “Won’t you have a roll, Mr. Lancer?” Cassie offered, hoping he’d choke on it.

  “Just Shane—my father was Mr. Lancer.”

  Cassie wondered at Shane’s emphasis as he chose a sticky bun from its resting place. Her hand grazed his as he accepted the tray, and she almost drew back from the startling contact. Stuff and nonsense! He was, after all, only a man.

  “Hmmm,” she tried to reply noncommittally. Handing him a dainty saucer for his sweet roll, she thought of all the unsavory things she’d rather call him.

  He accepted the plate while Cassie secretly studied the planes of his face. Now clean-shaven, except for a well-trimmed mustache, he no longer looked like a desperado. In fact…Her stomach tightened abruptly when she spotted the tufts of chestnut hair escaping from the open neck of his chambray work shirt. She glanced at his well-muscled arms. There she saw an equal measure of alluringly silky hair covering the bronze skin of his forearms. Swallowing, she wished her suddenly rapid breathing would return to normal.