Page 40 of Lawbreaker

Heather sat down.

“And Dan, too,” Odalie added.

“I did,” Cole replied. He glared at Heather. “At least my baby backs up her dad.”

Odalie laughed. “Don’t. She already thinks it’s us against John and Tanner.”

“Yes, I do, because it always is,” Heather shot back. “You two...!”

“We have company,” Cole said with affectionate amusement. “Be nice.”

“Tony’s not company—he’s family,” Heather replied.

Tony’s face had the oddest expression. He averted his eyes. Odalie had heard a lot about Tony from Stasia, who said that Tony’s homelife had been pure hell. It obviously touched him that Heather considered him part of her family.

“Suits me,” Cole said. “He can come help with the bull roundup.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Odalie began.

“And you, too,” he added.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Dad!”

“Anybody who’s here during work hours is free labor,” Cole said with a grin. “Look it up. It’s in the bylaws of the cattlemen’s association, somewhere.” He clapped his hands. “So get changed,” he told Tony and Ben. “You’ll do,” he told Odalie. “Outside in ten minutes.” He avoided Heather’s poisonous gaze and barreled out the door.

“He’s joking, right?” Ben asked, wide-eyed.

“He’s not,” Odalie said apologetically. She clapped him on one broad shoulder. “It’s okay—he’ll put you to watching for the cattle trucks or counting heads or something.” She added under her breath, “I hope.”

Tony just laughed.

He had jeans and boots and a straw hat on, with a blue checked shirt that was all too revealing of the muscles in his chest and the thick mat of hair over his breastbone. Odalie deliberately didn’t look at him except for a quick glance as they rode out to the pasture where the culls were being readied for shipping and a selection of new calves Cole had bought at auction the day before were being processed.

“There’s flies,” Ben muttered, swatting at them as he rode not on a horse, like Tony and Odalie, but in the bed of a pickup truck.

“Oh, those aren’t flies. Those—” she indicated a black mass of flying insects as they arrived at the portable processing fences and tilt trays “—are flies!”

“If they spook you, just shoot them,” Tony advised easily as he swung out of the saddle.

Odalie jumped down with ease and they both went to help at the tilt trays where the new calves were being processed.

It was dirty, sweaty work, but not nearly as bad as roundup, Heather had told Tony. Then, there were swarms of volunteers. In cattle country, neighbors turned out to help with what was a big-time enterprise on a ranch the size of Cole’s. Of course, he and his own men were ready and willing to help the neighbors when they were doing their own roundups.

“Isn’t it awful?” Odalie asked Tony with a grin. She wiped away sweat from her forehead and loosened hair from her ponytail. “I love it!”

He laughed at the picture she made. Lovely in couture clothes, incredible in evening wear, she was just as pretty in stained jeans and shirts and with no makeup on. No wonder Connie had been so impressed with her, he thought, and with a sense of pride. Odd, feeling proud of a woman he could never have. He didn’t think about that too long. It led to a place he wasn’t going. Ever.

They finished just as night was falling. Everybody ran for the showers and thank goodness it was a many-bedroom house, each bedroom with its own bath. Then a late supper, and off to bed. Nobody wanted to sit on the porch and talk. Not after that exertion!

The next day, there was going to be a barbeque for the treaty sale Cole had scheduled for some of his young bulls and a few heifers ready to be bred. He did private sales for these rather than use the auction house, which he did use for his yearling calf crops.

Odalie, in a summery yellow-print cotton dress with puffy sleeves and a demure neckline, went up the hill to see about a kitten one of the hands had found. Tony went with her. They hadn’t said much to each other, but there was a companionable silence between them. No arguing. For the moment.

They looked around in the sparse trees beside the path that the riders used when they rode out to tend cattle, but there was no kitten in sight.

“It’s probably looking for a cool space,” Tony suggested.

She avoided looking at him. He was still wearing jeans, but with an emerald green designer pullover shirt today, and he looked good enough to eat.

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