Branding the Wrangler's Heart Read online

  Buck whirled his mount away as the cow swung her wide horns. Jody took in after her at a trot and Whit joined the brothers as they pushed the threesome to the corrals.

  “That was close,” Whit said.

  Buck grinned. “She’s a snorty one for sure. Glad I was watchin’ her close. Don’t need a gutted horse or a hole in my leg.”

  Exactly why Whit didn’t want Baker gathering stock. A good cowman through and through was Hubert Baker, except when it came to admitting his age and his bum leg. Grief over his wife’s death was also carving a notch in him, and now he had a burr under his saddle over the train war. Rarely had Whit heard him swear, and doing so at the table—with Livvy in earshot—was even more of a puzzle. The stubby little man’s mind wouldn’t be on the work out here, and Buck wasn’t the only cowboy who didn’t need to take a hookin’ this summer.

  The homebound parade drew a bellow at the red-rock patch, and Jody loped off to pick up two more head and their calves. By the time Whit and the Perkins boys closed in on the outlying pens, they’d flushed twelve cows from the near canyon. Only one was barren. Pretty good return.

  By noon, twenty head were branded and turned out from the holding pens at the windmill. Whit dismounted, left his hat on his saddle horn and stuck his head under the trough pump. Cold mountain water gushed out over his neck and down his back. He scrubbed his face and hands and flung his hair back. Wiping his face on his shirtsleeve, he turned in time to see Livvy driving up in the buckboard, a sun bonnet hiding her best features.

  Buck and Jody took their turns at the pump and got into a shoving match. Suited Whit just fine. Gave him more time alone with Livvy.

  Drying his hands on his pants, he hurried to the wagon to help her. She wrapped the reins around the brake handle and gathered her skirt in one hand, then took Whit’s with the other as she climbed down the front wheel. He thought about looping her narrow waist with his hands and lifting her down, but if he knew Livvy Hartman, she’d wallop him good with both fists while he was at it. The idea quirked his mouth and he frowned to cover his thoughts.

  “What now, Whitaker Caleb Hutton?” Two daring eyes challenged him from inside the shadowed bonnet.

  Full given names, was it? “Watch your step there, Olivia Hannah Hartman.”

  She glared at him and he glared back. How often had she beaten him at a staring match when they were children?

  “Did you bring dinner?” Jody sauntered over. “I’m so hungry I could eat my saddle blanket.”

  “Then go to it, brother. Leaves more for the rest of us.” Buck jerked Jody’s hat over his eyes as he walked by.

  The bantering snatched Livvy’s attention. If Whit didn’t need the Perkinses’ help with the branding, he would thrash both boys into a stupor.

  A midday meal during roundup was a treat. Usually they worked clear through and didn’t eat again until evening. Livvy walked to the end of the wagon, where she dropped the back railing into a makeshift sideboard and pulled out two baskets and a covered crock. From one basket she withdrew forks and tin plates and cups. The other basket held fried chicken that licked Whit’s nose as soon as Livvy folded back the checkered cloth.

  Livvy heaped three plates with crisp chicken, potato salad and molasses cookies, and then dipped lemonade from the crock into three tin mugs. Whit waited for her to help herself to the meal but she didn’t.

  “You eating?”

  She dusted her hands on the ever-present apron. “Don’t worry about me. Just have at it. I’ll be fine.”

  Livvy Hartman was fine all right, but she’d picked up a burr like her granddad. She turned and walked off toward a pine and aspen cluster, leaving Whit and the brothers to enjoy her handiwork alone.

  “What’d you do now?” Jody shoved the meat end of a drumstick in his mouth and pulled out the bone.

  Whit resisted the urge to punch him. If the kid choked on a hunk of chicken, they’d be short-handed.

  * * *

  A blue patch at the clearing’s edge caught Livvy’s eye and she hiked her skirt to walk through the ankle-deep grass. Whit Hutton made her want to say what Pop had said at breakfast, and her mother would have a fit for sure if she knew it. He was more irritating as a man than he’d ever been as a boy. Could she last six months isolated in these mountains with no one to talk to but her grieving grandfather and his sassy-mouthed foreman who was too big for his britches?

  She stooped to cup a blossom in her hand and peeked back at the wagon. Whit leaned against the buckboard drinking lemonade. His britches fit him just fine. Blood rushed to her cheeks, from bending over no doubt, so she knelt before the patch and focused on the delicate petals.

  The flowers weren’t blue at all but more lavender, like Mama Ruth’s lilacs. She’d not seen anything like them in Denver, but living in the city offered little opportunity to ride into the high country. Up until now, schoolwork, helping her mother at the parsonage and playing the organ for Daddy’s congregation had filled most of her days. She had jumped at the offer to escape to Pop’s ranch—without any thought of what awaited her.

  “How beautiful,” she whispered as she leaned over to breathe in their fragrance.

  “They’re columbines.”

  Catching herself before she tumbled onto her face, she looked back to see Whit towering over her. A grin lifted his mouth and his hat perched on his head like the comb of a cocky rooster. Peeved that he had walked up on her while her backside was in the air, she dropped to the ground and assumed a more dignified arrangement.

  Whit laughed.

  “And tell me, please, what you find so humorous.”

  He took his hat off and sank smoothly to a cross-legged position. “No need to worry, Miss Hartman. Only a memory that tickled my funny bone.” His dark eyes snapped.

  Livvy curled her fingers in the grass. She made to stand and he reached for her arm. The smirk vanished and remorse took its place.

  “Don’t go.”

  Surprised by his candor, she sank down. He released her arm.

  She pushed her bonnet back and let it hang on the wide strings tied beneath her chin.

  “I just thought you might like to know what these flowers are called. I’ve seen ’em all white like snow, higher up in the mountains.”

  Livvy relaxed and looked again at the wildflowers. Each one bore a white face, yellow center and long clawlike growths that tapered from the bottom of every lavender petal.

  Whit picked one and twirled it slowly in front of her. “See these long tubes? They’re called spurs and they hold the nectar that draws hummingbirds and bees.”

  How did a cowboy know about flowers? She shot a quick glance his way and caught him squinting at the ridge above them.

  “Spurs, you say?”

  Her remark brought his gaze back to her and his features softened. “Yes, ma’am. Kinda like us cowboys.” For a moment he looked exactly as she remembered him from her previous visits, before he worked for her grandfather. But now he was somehow more...handsome?

  “Well, that’s very nice.” She fussed with her skirt, making sure it covered her ankles.

  He offered her the flower.

  She took it and raised it to her nose. Perhaps the taste attracted the hummingbirds rather than the scent. “So you could call it a cowboy flower, I suppose.”

  “You could call it anything you want.”

  His emphasis shot heat back into her face and this time she succeeded in standing before he stopped her. With one hand she shook out her skirt and smoothed her apron. “If you and the others are finished, I’ll be heading back to the house.”

  He stood with an inscrutable expression, his jaw set like stone, his eyes flat. “Suit yourself.”

  Livvy cradled the fragile flower in her palm. The velvety spurs pricked her conscience and she rebuffed the guilty stab. She
was simply being proper. She and Whit were no longer children who played hide-and-seek and—

  She whirled on him and fought the impulse to shove him off his feet. “You...you...scoundrel.”

  Stunned and rooted in his tracks, he stared at her, clearly befuddled. “Pardon?”

  “You scoundrel! I know what you were laughing at. I remember now—the day we were playing at the church house in Cañon City and I bent over the horse trough.”

  The slow smile pulled at his mouth and his eyes came to life. “I do believe I have never seen anyone madder.”

  She burned from the inside out. How dare he make light of her humiliation. Why had she ever forgiven him? “You pushed me.”

  “I was nine.”

  “I was humiliated.”

  He coughed to cover a full-blown laugh. “I’m sorry.”

  “You are not. And you were not sorry then, either.”

  Choking back his laughter, he grabbed her upper arm. “Please, Livvy, I’m sorry. We were children and I couldn’t resist the temptation of...of...”

  With cheeks flaming, she fisted her fingers. “I could have drowned.”

  “But I saved you.” Humor and regret battled across his features and the former was winning.

  Jerking away, she marched to the wagon.

  Buck and Jody saw her coming and ran to their horses.

  She threw the dishes in a basket, slammed the drop board against the wagon railing and locked it in place.

  “Livvy—wait.”

  She would rather die. Lifting her skirt with one hand, she gripped the bench seat with the other and climbed up the wheel spokes.

  Whit ran to the horse and grabbed its bridle. “Livvy, that was nearly ten years ago. We were children. Can’t we start over?”

  The only thing she wanted to start over was his foot. With a hard yank, she slapped the reins on the horse’s rump and nearly got her wish as the wagon lurched ahead. Whit jumped out of the way.

  Expecting to see an impish grin plastered on his face, she frowned at the pain gripping his features. Maybe she had run over his foot. She pulled on the reins, but the barn-soured horse would not be deterred and continued forward.

  It was just as well, for stinging regret watered her eyes and blurred her vision, and she would not let Whit Hutton see her cry.

  After a jostling quarter-mile ride, Livvy pulled around to the kitchen entrance and carried the baskets inside, making a second trip for the heavy crock. As she unloaded the dishes and set them in the sink, the crushed columbine fell to the floor.

  She must have dropped it on a plate when she packed up.

  She stooped to retrieve the bruised and broken flower, so delicate and once so lovely. Holding it against her bodice, she closed her eyes and let childish frustration and grown-up disappointment slip down her cheeks.

  Chapter 3

  Whit Hutton did not swear. “Not by heaven or earth,” his preacher pa had taught him. But he sure enough knew a few colorful phrases he could let fly to fit the situation.

  He gathered Oro’s reins and swung into the saddle, looking to see which way the Perkins boys had fled. He hadn’t even told them which draw to work next. Livvy had driven every logical thought and plan right out of his head.

  Exasperating woman.

  Scanning the ground, he spotted the print of the bar shoe on the back right of Buck’s mount and followed the tracks. The brothers were loping their horses toward the next canyon, running scared from the storming fury of Miss Olivia Hartman.

  He kicked Oro into a lope. Livvy was as bad as his sister, Marti, who still saw him as bothersome. What did he have to do to show Livvy he’d grown up and was as much a man as the next fella?

  Stop teasing her.

  He snorted. That’d be harder than jumping a maverick steer and not near as much fun. He should forget about Livvy, leave her uppity little self alone.

  Priscilla Stockton came to mind. Now there was a more appreciating gal. She sure enough paid him heed the last Sunday he was at church—three months back. He was due for another trip to town, but not until after branding.

  He eased Oro into a walk as they skirted a cholla cactus patch, and the hair on the back of his neck raised like a porcupine’s quills. He peered up at the rimrock, tried to see into the shallow caves tucked under the top layer. His right hand slid to the Colt and Oro tensed beneath his legs, feeling Whit’s apprehension. One ear swiveled to the right and one pointed straight ahead.

  A lion attack in broad daylight was rare. Whit yanked that truth to the front of his mind and focused on the cattle they were hunting.

  A strangled bawl caught his ear and he gave the gelding its head.

  Jody had himself a stubborn one. He held his rope dallied around the saddle horn and the taut line stretched over the butt of his horse as he tried to drag the cow. Buck was slapping his chaps behind her but she choked down. Her eyes rolled white and her tongue hung out as she bellowed at her calf.

  “Let up,” Whit called as he neared the standoff. “Give her some air before that rope snaps and takes off the side of your face.”

  Apparently stunned by the idea, Jody eased his horse back and the cow lowered her head and sucked air. The calf made for dinner, taking a kick for it from its frustrated mother.

  They pushed the pair out of the canyon, and on the way to the corrals Whit found a couple more. At this rate, it’d take a month to get the cattle in.

  “You need a different horse, Jody. The mare’s too small. It’s a wonder that cow didn’t drag you all the way to the top of Eight Mile Mountain.” Jody looked as if his feelings were hurt. Better his feelings than his neck. “You and Buck ride to the upper park and cut out one of the bigger geldings.”

  After bunching and branding a few more out in the open, the brothers took off into the hills.

  By the time the sun tucked in, Whit had driven a dozen pairs to the holding pens. In the morning, they’d brand and cut what they had, then head for the higher bunch grounds and start gathering there.

  Whit unsaddled Oro, rubbed him down and turned him out in the pasture behind the house. The buckskin had earned his keep today. So had Whit, but Livvy Hartman’s angry scowl sat sour on his gut. He had half a mind to turn in early and skip supper.

  He slapped his hat against his leg. Baker would hunt him down if he didn’t show, that was for certain, and the man didn’t need any more worries on his mind.

  How could one little blue-eyed gal stir up such a storm in Whit’s belly? Even when they were children she’d needled him, driven him into fits with her pestering. Then if he got her good, she’d turn those tear-filled blues on him and he’d feel like a mangy cur. As he had today when she remembered him dunking her in the horse trough.

  He chuckled in spite of himself. Served her right, trying to see her reflection in the still water. He just hadn’t expected the prank to dog him the rest of his days. One little shove, and she hated him for life.

  He had apologized, thanks to his mother nearly twisting his ear off. And Livvy had accepted, right there in the churchyard, her soaked dress clinging to her skinny legs, two yellow braids dripping water.

  Without realizing it, he’d walked to the washstand on the wide back porch. The kitchen window framed Livvy working at the table, peeling the root-cellar spuds he’d brought in yesterday morning.

  The lamp on the table cast a yellow light against her hair, setting it to gold. His insides twisted at the thought of touching it—not yanking it the way he had as a boy, but filling his hands with it, burying his face in its softness.

  Confounded woman had him all in a knot. One minute he regretted knowing her, and the next he wanted to take her in his arms.

  He hung his hat on a nail, rolled up his sleeves and splashed cold water over his head, trying to wash away the imag
e of Olivia Hartman. Lord, what was he going to do? The woman made him loco.

  * * *

  Livvy skinned the small potatoes and sliced them into a bowl. When she had it filled, she took it to the stove and dumped the slices into hot bacon grease in the big iron skillet. They spit and spattered and she set a lid half on and returned to the table. The peelings went into a tin she kept for chicken scraps and she set it on the back windowsill.

  Outside a man bent over the washstand, splashing water on his face. With a gasp she jerked back. Whit.

  She hurried to the stove, where she wouldn’t have to face him when he came inside. She prayed he’d go straight to the dining room without stopping to make small talk or apologize. As if Whit Hutton would apologize.

  The door opened and shut softly. Spurred boots crossed the bare kitchen floor and stopped a few feet away. She held her breath, bunched her apron in hand and lifted the lid on the potatoes, feigning distraction over supper. The boots continued into the dining room, where their steps muffled against her grandmother’s imported carpet.

  Livvy blew out a sigh and returned to the table, where she fell into a chair. Oh, Lord, she couldn’t live all summer like this, tensing up every time Whit came around. Maybe she should leave, go back to Denver, and carry on with her normal, boring life. And abandon Pop?

  Never. She slapped her hands on her apron. Those no-account cowboys didn’t cook or tend a garden or gather eggs or feed the chickens. They barely kept the firewood stacked and the cow milked.

  She pushed her hair off her forehead and stood with new resolve. The men had cleaned up every scrap of dinner today, so she sliced the leftover breakfast steak into the fried potatoes. Good thing she hadn’t taken her canned-peach pie out to the bunch grounds, or they’d have nothing to go with their coffee tonight.

  By the time Livvy had the table set and herself seated, Buck and Jody’s absence hung like a cold lantern. She held out her right hand to Pop, buried her left one in her lap, and jerked her head down without looking across at Whit. Beneath her lashes she saw him withdraw his hand from the table where he had reached across for hers.