Page 36 of Unwilling Wolf

Lenny left Eliza standing there, her lips parted to argue that it was really okay by her, so they could be open with it, but Lenny was visibly upset. Her eyes were lightened as she threw Eliza an angry glance and disappeared into a stall to gather Roy’s mules.

She’d upset her friend, and that hadn’t been her intention.

Eliza sidled up to the stall. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. I just…I don’t understand the dynamics here yet.”

“Garret should know better,” Lenny said angrily. “It is not safe for you to know this side of life here. He puts you in danger. It is not right.”

Lenny brushed past her, leading Roy’s mules with her. Eliza followed a few paces, utterly baffled. “I said I was sorry,” she called after her friend, but Lenny didn’t stop.

Eliza had such an intrusive, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach—like she’d messed up by exposing that she knew.

****

Lenny led Roy’s mules out to the corral to stretch their legs, and Eliza settled in to milk the cows with her wrapped hands. Macey seemed thoroughly unimpressed with the new texture pulling at her full udders, and let her know with dirty looks and a swishing tail in her face. The other cow didn’t seem to care as long as she had a fresh pile of hay in front of her. Lenny wouldn’t let her do much of anything after that. Garret must have talked to her. Unfortunately.

Watching the petite woman do all the chores without being able to lift even one blister-covered finger to help was stultifying. Eventually she went into the cabin. Since she couldn’t do much else, today she would try to master the elusive art of pie baking, and apologize to Lenny for whatever she’d said to anger her with something delicious. She cleared off the entire dining table to use as a work space. Three hours later, by the quiet striking of the clock in the den, dusted with flour, she glared critically at a rather bedraggled strawberry pie. It looked awful, but tasted like it ought. Pride warmed her, and her mouth turned up at the corners in a smile. She would try and make it a little prettier next time, is all.

Cooped up and restless, she pulled on her shawl and stepped onto the porch. Rain didn’t seem imminent, so she went out to saddle Buck. Garret’s earlier request to have him ready had gone by the wayside while she’d been baking and overthinking. Now, uneasiness skittered through her. Wyatt could still make good on his promise after all.

After Buck was saddled, she searched for Lenny to no avail. “A ride it is then, my old friend,” she said, combing through Buck’s mane with her fingers. “We could use a little adventure, yeah?”

She took the horse’s snorted response as a yes, and mounted him with an ease that was slowly coming to her the more she rode. This was her first outing in one of the smaller and more casual dresses and, happily, the skirts were easier to maneuver.

As an afterthought, she pulled Buck up to the porch and ran inside to grab some food. Biscuits and a hunk of cheese in the saddlebag, she pointed the old gelding in Garret’s direction. Surely he was starving by now. With any luck, he would be hungry enough to tolerate her unexpected presence with some semblance of gratitude. Or maybe not. Either way, she would find out shortly.

Long before he appeared behind all the cattle, his loud whistles and shouts to keep the herd moving came to her. The Lazy S kept roughly two hundred head back each year to sustain the herd for the next season’s drive, and to keep the residents comfortably fed on beef when game grew harder to hunt in the winter months. Or so Lenny had explained to her when she’d asked if the men would get a break from their bovine duties.

Garret and the cattle were already close enough to the pond, so she patiently waited to the side. He was a man completely in control of his horse as he worked. The sight of him was both exciting and flustering. A length of rope hung from his hands, which he occasionally swung around when the stubborn cattle needed extra motivation. The motion accentuated the muscles in his trim waist and strong arms. He roped a young calf and tied the rope to the saddle horn, pulled his horse forward and separated the calf from the chaos of the herd as the men fell on the calf to work it. A minute later, the calf was up and making its way back to its bellowing mother, and Garret was off roping another. The men worked like a well-oiled machine, and she watched them in awe.

Eliza put her hand to her cheek and felt the warmth there. Embarrassed that she was watching him while he was unaware, she urged Buck in Garret’s direction. The movement must have caught his eye, because he nodded a terse greeting but kept working.

“Keep that one over there back, will ya?” he yelled, pointing to a group of cattle on the edge of the herd. “Eliza, come around the back there and keep them in tight.”

She pulled the rest of the herd animals in the same direction he seemed to be working. Her work wasn’t pretty or organized, but thankfully, Buck seemed to know what he was doing better than she did. He was even biting at the cattle who weren’t moving fast enough and pinning his ears all the way back. She’d never seen him act like that. The behavior worked though. Those cows grew to respect Buck real quick.

She didn’t doubt Garret and the men could handle it on their own, but she was happy for a chore and jumped at the chance to do something new. Clucking her tongue, she steered Buck back toward a line of cattle that was meandering away from where Garret was roping another calf. At a loss for training, she looked to Garret often to seek direction. His horse lurched forward and back at his command, and he yelled indecipherable words at the herd to move them in the direction he wanted as he picked out the calves he wanted to rope.

Again and again, a spotted young bull ran for the brush and pulled the confused group’s edge with him. She drove the beastly little leader back, but he wasn’t gracious about going. “Move it, you biscuit-licking son of a puckered arsehole!” she yelled as her frustration mounted. More and more of the cows were beginning to follow him.

She spun Buck around. When she looked to Garret for direction, he was staring at her like she’d grown an extra head. “What?” she asked.

“Your mouth is absolutely filthy,” he called. She thought she caught the hint of a smile on his lips though, and Burke was full-out laughing in his saddle.

Lenny had snuck up from somewhere and was also hiding a smile.

“Well, everyone else is saying naughty words,” she said defensively.

“Not like that,” Garret said. “You’re a lady, Eliza.”

“Not today!” she yelled, and kicked Buck to head off that damned spotted demon-bull again.

It was a couple of rough hours more before Garret seemed satisfied enough with the herd to take a break.

Garret trotted up beside her on Rooney and inspected the sky as the tiny rain drops that had been sparse until then became more substantial. “I’m sending the boys back. I was going to head back to the house and grab the wagon so I could haul some feed out here, but I think those clouds are about to open up out here. You surprised me today, Eliza. You were bad out there, but you weren’t terrible.”

Aaah, the compliments of an asshole. “Thank you, sort of. I actually didn’t come out here to work.”

He snorted.

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