Asking For Trouble

One

March 1880
Brownsville, Texas

Trouble rode into camp.

She sat sidesaddle on a high-stepping Tennessee Walker worth more than a drover like Nick Colter earned in one year. He felt a familiar tightening in the hollow of his gut and let out a tired breath.

Nick had thrown a bounty hunter a blind trail and wasn't looking to find more trouble when he'd joined this branding crew. He could lay low a while here, just one among a handful of men and vaqueros who sweated their guts out to finish earmarking and road-branding the Mexican stock turned in at Matamoros by the interior rancheros.

Beyond camp dust devils swirled. Men swore. Cows bawled. Behind the chuck wagon flowed the Rio Grande, two hundred yards wide and swimming level from bank to bank. It wasn't yet spring, but the sun baked down with promise.

The breeze ran the tide in from the Gulf and strummed across Nick's face as he wiped his gritty cheek on his sleeve, then sloshed coffee into a tin cup and glanced past the chuck to the herd. From force of habit, he was counting, looking, picking out the steers who would be strong leaders and those who would need watching.

The segundo strode over, mopping his forehead with a dusty bandanna.

John Henry Sunderland was an unreconstructed rebel Nick had gone up the trail with a time or two. When he had come across the camp a few days ago, it had been easy for the two of them to slip back into the camaraderie that came from shared hardships in a trail outfit. In the Georgia native, Nick saw himself in a few years -- dried up, reedy, skin bone-stretched and weathered beyond his thirty-five years, and drinking to forget.

"That her?" Nick said and took a sip of bitter coffee.

"Boss Donovan's daughter in the flesh," John Henry said. "Half of Texas worships the ground her cows walk on."

"She reps for her father?"

John Henry nodded and spat into the dirt. "She did before he died. Reckon she reps for herself now, but ain't many hands willing to work for a female, even if her name is Donovan. The good ones lit out faster'n spit on a hot stove, and the half dozen we got here is what's left."

Nick grunted. "How they doing?"

"They're green, but they're game. And what with the extra cattle added to the Bar D's, I count the trail herd close to thirty-one hundred head."

"Not the largest bunch you and I ever drove north."

"Enough to keep every man in this short-handed outfit wishing he was born twins."

Jamie Donovan halted her black mount a few feet away from the wagon. John Henry touched his hat brim and did the introductions.

Nick tolerated her perusal, letting his appearance proclaim the kind of man he was: big, dirty, smelly, and not fit company for a lady obviously used to sitting around and sipping tea out of elegant cups. Then he returned the favor with a once-over born from days in the saddle and nights alone, gazing from the black John B. shading her face to the matched riding outfit adorned with silver conchas, down to the polished Justins at her skirt hem.

Fire crept into her olive skin and hinted at a temper equal to Nick's own.

"Mr. Sunderland tells me you were once called the best drover since Charlie Goodnight," she said.

Nick cut John Henry a look laden with meaning.

"That was a lot of years ago," Nick said.

"A good hand never forgets." She tucked a lock of midnight hair behind her ear. "We've got five months to deliver a million-pound beef contract to the Blackfoot Indian Reserve at Benton."

"Impossible," Nick said. "Ten miles a day will be good. Fifteen will be luck. Even under the best circumstances, it's a six-month drive from here to Fort Benton."

"Difficult," she said. "Not impossible. If anyone can make the deadline, you can. Name your price, Colter. I want you with me as ramrod on this drive, and I won't waste time haggling."

Nick chucked the coffee dregs in the dirt. The cup followed.

In those few seconds, he couldn't help but notice more stray strands of hair bowing before the breeze and fluttering against the most kissable mouth he'd ever beheld. He watched the fascinating dance flit to her throat where a silver pendant nestled. When she pushed the hair aside, his gaze faltered on a white shirtwaist filled out the way he liked them -- round, firm, and inviting.

"No," he said. "It doesn't much matter to me if your father left you richer than God. What a lady knows about a trail drive wouldn't make a pimple on a pissant's butt."

The segundo cleared his throat, mumbled, and then made himself scarce.

She countered with lake-colored eyes, calm and stormy at once, and a mutinous set to her jaw that told Nick indelicate talk wouldn't send her hightailing home; she'd heard worse before.

"I learn fast. Teach me what I need to know."

"Ever see a river so swollen with raging waters a fish wouldn't dare to swim it? Between here and Montana, there'll be plenty of them to ford. Ever see a stampede in a lightning storm that had you riding all night through stands of mesquite so thick they ripped the meat off your hide? Ever sleep in the rain, hunched into a soggy bedroll? Been so dry with thirst you couldn't even spit?"

He paused to let his words sink in, and the ruckus of bawling cows and calves filled the void.

"I didn't think so," he said, shaking his head. "A woman doesn't belong alone with a dozen men for months at a time."

With an unforgiving stare, Nick compelled her to call her little game.

Her gaze slid away, silhouetting the aristocratic lines of her profile against the cloudless sky, and her tense expression softened to a faraway look. She blinked twice and then sniffed the air as if catching the fragrance of wildflowers instead of the stink of wood smoke, singed hide, and ripe beef on the hoof.

An instant later, she squared her shoulders and settled her attention back to Nick. Light shifted in her eyes. The intensity and determination burned bright, but a tinge of sadness dampened the flame. The sight disarmed him so, the silent appeal in her gaze slipped past his defenses to touch, then linger in a place the drover thought too buried for any woman to reach again.

"Don't worry about me; I'm durable," she said. "Just name your price to bring this herd in on time."

Her sultry voice slid down his spine and swathed in fire every male nerve ending he owned along the way. He cursed to himself. Rich girls learned early how to play with fire, but Nick knew from experience he'd be the one who got burned.

Another life ago, Nick had pulled his gun and interfered in a woman's problems. He'd believed the price worth paying.

What a fool he'd been.

It hadn't taken him long to figure out he'd been used by Prairie MacKenzie. Everyone in town knew her husband as a bully and a womanizer -- everyone except her father-in-law. Mel MacKenzie had been blind to the faults of his only son, and it was tough for a man to learn that dreams were the hardest things to let die.

Playing the grieving widow to the hilt, Prairie had turned to Mel for solace, showering the older and wealthier widower with helplessness and affection, hanging Nick out to dry in the process. The law called it a fair fight, but Mel became a vengeful man, staking top dollar to see Nick brought back to swing at the end of a father's rope.

Once Nick ran out of fight, he just ran and was running still. Somewhere in his flight, he had shed resolve and passion like a tattered old coat.

Now he watched an incredibly naive and determined woman wrap those qualities around her like a coat of steel. He didn't like being reminded of how much he'd dropped by the wayside -- especially not by a rich girl like her.

"Any hope I have of securing future beef contracts depends on fulfilling this one," she added. "If there's any trouble, it won't come from me, Nick."

He shook his head again and fought to remain impervious to the tiny tremble of her lips that hinted Jamie Donovan was running scared.

"Whether you mean it to happen or not, there'll be trouble," he said. "Some women just bring out the devil in men."

"And you're certain I'm that kind of woman?"

"Yes," he said. "I know that, even if you don't seem to."

Tugging his worn hat down tighter onto his sweaty forehead, Nick turned away to survey how the boys were faring with the branding.

A creak of leather, a soft thud to the ground, and in the next instant he felt a gun barrel shoved in his back.

"Like I said," she murmured in his ear, "I don't have time to haggle."

Nick angled his head over his shoulder and collided with a furious regard. Any trace of vulnerability in her had vanished, and he knew, without giving it a thought, that Jamie Donovan was no quitter.

"Driving cattle is no game," he said. "It's a man's business, and you're not a man."

"I don't play games, Colter. Not now. Not ever. I'm going to stay one step ahead of the cutthroat cattlemen who'd like to see me fail, and you're going to help me."

He turned slowly to face her. "And if I refuse?"

"You won't," she said. "A man casts a long shadow on the road to hell."

"Seems John Henry told you a lot about me."

"Enough. Care to add to it?"

Nick dropped his gaze to the ground, then looked dead at her and shook his head.

"It's a long story about a quick decision."

"Have it your way," she said. "John Henry's a good man, and I trust his word, so I'll tell you what I told him. I need your experience enough that I won't quibble over past misdeeds. I'm willing to take a man for what he is and give him the benefit of the doubt, as long as he pulls his share. What you did before the drive, and what you do after the drive is over, is your own business."

They stared at each other in a battle without blows.

Working for a woman didn't bother Nick half as much as the protective feeling she roused with the desperation he heard underlying her words. Women always managed to look to some big, dumb son of a bitch to help save their bacon -- like the way Jamie Donovan was staring at him.

And damned if he could stop himself from looking back.

He hated the way she prodded him through eyes that promised the pleasures to be found on hot nights between cool sheets. . . hated the way sunlight rippled like fire through the cord of hair falling over her shoulder . . . the way the pulse at her throat teased him to bury his face in her soft skin.

"Now that we understand each other," she said, holding the gun level between them, "name your price."

Damn Nick's rotten luck, Jamie had expressive eyes, the kind with innocent roundness and rimmed with dark lashes. She was a woman who cried easily, he decided, yet rarely for herself -- not her father's daughter at all. Nick had met up with the powerful cowman a few years back and saw no resemblance between this willowy bit of sensuality and the florid Irishman.

Boss Donovan had been a bull of a man, with craggy features and fists like deer haunches. As abrasive as buffalo hide and with a booming voice to match, he was ugly enough to make an onion cry.

She must take after her late mother, for as sure as Nick knew his name, Jamie Donovan was nothing like her father.

He leaned close, ready to slap her parlor gun away like an annoying fly, and realized his mistake when he inhaled the seductive scent that veiled Jamie's skin. The earthy harmony curled around his senses, expanded through his chest, and dissipated in his groin with an echo of pure heat. She smelled lush, as sultry as nature itself, with a lingering essence of wildness that urged every primitive male instinct in his body to attention.

It'd been too long since a sweet-smelling woman had touched any part of him, and the vital spirit of this one touched places within him that made him nervous. And randy.

That combination would get him killed.

An uncertain life was the reason Nick should run like hell from Jamie Donovan and her problems. At the same time, she was the reason he had to stay -- he was intrigued by her recklessness.

He glanced down to the puny gun in her hand, then back to a face full of conviction.

"Princess, my price is three dollars a day," he said. "And you. For one night -- all night. Soft. Sweet. Willing. Take it or leave it."

• • •

Jamie's heart did a funny two-step in her chest. Words to deny Colter lodged in her throat, and she struggled so hard to appear calm and controlled, her teeth hurt.

The Walker stood as if fettered, munching on the short grass, while Jamie stared eye to eye at Colter, a man of no small stature himself. He met her challenge through eyes drawn as black as sin.

She resented his arrogance even while she admired it, bristled at his tone of authority even while she envied it. Everything about Colter said he was a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

He wore a no-nonsense expression under a week's shadow of new beard. Tiny lines spread out from the corners of his piercing eyes, lines etched by experience and years of grueling work in the sun. The bridge of his nose attested to an old break or two, and his mouth was set in a grim line. Not a handsome face, but sturdy and reliable. Not a face one would willingly cross.

As if Pa perched at her elbow, she felt his presence, heard his voice, his caustic words, doubts unending, not even lessened by the ravages of illness. He expected her to fail, again.

By God, not this time.

But how much longer could she keep up the sham?

The Bar D ranch was bankrupt by too many years of bad luck, and ravaged with it were Boss Donovan's dreams. Only the bank knew that staggering debts were concealed behind a powerful name. And since Pa's death, Jamie had struggled to maintain the illusion.

But her time was running out.

Rival cattleman Gentleman John Dunsford had coveted Donovan land for as many years as Jamie could remember. Once he got wind of her financial troubles, he'd stop at nothing to grind her into the dirt and take what he wanted. She couldn't let that happen, not after selling what remained of her mother's jewelry to put together a herd.

For the dream that once was the sprawling Bar D, this drive was the last hurrah. For Jamie to prove her pa wrong, it was her last chance.

The damp ends of Colter's brown hair brushed the sweat on his collarless shirt, but no amount of grime would alter Jamie's first impression of him -- unshakable and strong and hard as the land.

He knew how to drive men and cattle. She didn't. Jamie needed an experienced man like him on her side in this fight.

But she wasn't naive. Rangy drovers wouldn't be forced to do what they didn't want to do. She couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger, and nothing else would stop Colter from turning his back on her and riding away.

Nothing except. . . "Payable when the herd is delivered," she heard herself say. "And not one moment sooner."

An indrawn breath hissed between his teeth, and she felt the suppressed anger seep off him as hot as the sun's rays.

"In Montana, then," he said.

"If we lose the herd, you get nothing. Do we have a deal?"

"I said so, but if you need it plainer, consider me signed on to drive three thousand head of the rangiest, orneriest longhorns ever to come out of Texas. And for the promise of you, I'll do the job, right across the toughest and driest land this side of hell."

Heat crept up Jamie's neck as Colter assessed her through cat's eyes, eyes now lit so golden-brown they bordered on predatory.

He jabbed his thumb into his chest. "But get this straight -- in this trail outfit, I'm the boss. What I say damned well goes."

On a slow breath, she tucked the derringer back into her skirt pocket.

"Aren't you forgetting two things?"

Colter crossed his arms over his vest front. "And they are?"

"Those are my cattle," she said, "and I pay your wages. I'd say that makes me in charge." She smiled, but her voice turned hard. "What I say goes."

Copyright © 2001 by Geri Borcz