Page 20 of Wyoming Heart

She laughed. “Probably.”

“Would that be Bill McAllister, who works for you?” Cort asked his cousin.

“Yes, it would. Mina and I share him, part-time. Neither of us can really afford full-time help.”

“Cousin Rogan says I have to have a full-time ranch hand,” Mina replied with resignation. “So I need you to recommend somebody. I’m not having some strange man on my place,” she added firmly.

“I know that,” Bart said gently. “I’ll find you somebody. If I can’t, I’ll ask Jake McGuire or John Callister for a recommendation.”

“That would be kind of you. I know how to do most everything on a ranch, but I don’t have time to do it every day.” She glowered. “I hate having to have somebody hanging around all day.”

“I’ll make sure it’s somebody who won’t interrupt you.” He pursed his lips. “As you’ll recall, I almost got hit face-first with a boot when I did it that time.” He remembered having interrupted her in the middle of a scene she was writing.

“I didn’t know it was you,” she said, defending herself. “I thought it was Kit, and he knows how to duck.” She shook her head. “He’s like a force of nature. You can’t make him understand that he has to be quiet—he just keeps right on talking until you answer him.”

Cort didn’t understand anything he was hearing. What would somebody interrupt that caused the woman to throw boots at him?

“I’ll get home,” she said with a smile. “But I think I’ll take the front road home, just in case your mama cow’s still around in the pasture.”

He laughed. “Okay. I’ll get the gate for you.”

Cort studied her quietly while she mounted. “Be careful. We have horses that bolt when cars go by them on the highway.”

“Sand isn’t bothered by anything,” she assured him, smiling as she patted the gelding’s neck. “He’s always calm.”

“Sand?” he asked.

“Well, he’s yellow, isn’t he?” she asked. “Like desert sand.”

Desert. Sand.His face hardened. Thirteen years and it was still yesterday. “Like desert sand,” he said, and turned away.

Her eyes followed him, curious about his abrupt change of expression, but Bart called to her. She turned Sand and rode toward the gate.

“I’ll text you,” he repeated.

She grinned. “I’ll be waiting. Thanks, Bart. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. We have to stick together or we’ll both go broke.”

“And isn’t that the truth?” she chuckled. “See you!”

CHAPTER FOUR

BARTHADSENTone of his part-timers into Catelow to pick up a bucket of chicken and biscuits. He could cook, but it had been a long day and he wanted something he didn’t have to produce. He and Cort sat at the table and ate it.

“What happened out in the pasture?” Bart asked as he sipped coffee.

Cort finished the last of his chicken and picked up his coffee cup. “She was inspecting the calf when its mother charged her. She didn’t hear it or see it. God, I never thought I’d get to her in time! I barely made it at all. I cut off the mother cow and yelled at her.” He grimaced. “I’ve never seen a woman react like that to a loud voice.”

“You don’t know about Mina’s past,” Bart said quietly. “Her mother loved men. Plural. She was a rich man’s mistress for a time. She blackmailed him, threatened to tell his wife. Well, his wife found out and she had all the money. So after that, Mina’s mother took up with any man who was willing to pay the bills. They came and went, and there were a lot of them.”

Cort sipped coffee, his face solemn. “I gather that one of them hit her.”

Bart nodded. “Yes. She doesn’t talk about it much, but I think more than one of them did. Another one wanted to do a threesome with her mother, and she hid in the woods all night.”

Cort winced. “My little mother was a saint,” he said softly. “I barely remember her, but Dad talked about her a lot. She loved him so much. There was never another man.”

“Mina’s mother wasn’t like that. The last man she lived with was Henry. He was an alcoholic and when he got drunk enough, he was violent. He beat Mina up, really badly. She called the sheriff, but when the deputy came, her mother lied and said Mina fell down the steps and blamed poor Henry, who’d never lifted a finger to her. The deputy went away without arresting him. Cody Banks, our cousin who’s the sheriff, didn’t believe her mother and he tried to catch Henry in the act. He never did. When Mina was eighteen, Henry and her mother were killed on their way to a bar, in a car wreck. She inherited the ranch, but the memories are pretty bad. She doesn’t date.”

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