Gayle Wilson - Rocky Mountain Maverick

Michael Wellesley couldn’t remember the last time anyone had doubted his competence. With more than a dozen years of combined special ops and intel experience, some of it in places these three probably couldn’t find on a map even if they’d heard of them, he wasn’t about to let someone start now.

He might be beat up and battered, both mentally and physically, but the day he couldn’t ride a horse or mend fence or herd some frigging sheep well enough to earn his keep, he’d quit. Not until. And that decision, when it came, sure as hell wasn’t going to be made by someone else.

“If you’re worried about Michael being able—”

“I’ll do it,” he said, his voice overriding his sister’s attempted defense of his abilities.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know he’d been played. Or didn’t understand that this was exactly what she’d been hoping for. And he did see the irony in his leaping into something he’d sworn he would never be involved in again.

Hell, he needed a success. Something to go right so that the long years of service to his country wouldn’t end with that fiasco in San Parrano.

Besides, how hard could checking out a sheep farm be? It would do him good to work a few weeks in the open. He could use the time to get back into shape. To work on getting his head screwed back on straight. After all, it wasn’t as if something really dangerous was likely to come up during Colleen’s “therapy” assignment. Not likely at all.

“This way each of the hands gets his own place,” Charlie Quarrels said, as he unlocked the door of the small trailer to which he’d driven Michael. “Privacy. Folks these days seem to prefer that rather than all bedding down in a bunkhouse.”

Despite the fact that he had the skills required for this job, Michael had been surprised at how quickly he’d been hired. The questions Quarrels had asked during his interview had been cursory. Michael’s answers had been accepted at face value.

Now officially an employee, he was being given the grand tour of the Half Spur. Not that there was anything remotely grand about what he’d seen so far.

Employees lived in trailers that were scattered around the outer perimeter of the central compound. Judging by the interior of this one, he decided after he followed the foreman up the high step and then inside, none of them were living in luxury. Heated by propane and lighted by an outside generator, the small metal caravans would be freezing in winter and like ovens in a summer like this.

He’d been given the trailer farthest from the complex where the offices and shearing pens were located because, Quarrels had explained, Michael had his own transportation. Not the SUV, of course. He’d left that at the Royal Flush and purchased the most disreputable looking pickup he could find to make the journey north.

“Meals are down at the main cabin,” the foreman went on. “Six, noon and six.”

He assumed the main cabin referred to the building where his interview had been conducted. Michael had gotten the impression that some of the workers, including the foreman, lived on the premises. Everybody else got one of the trailers.

“I’ll introduce you to the rest of ’em during supper. We’re shorthanded right now, so there ain’t all that many names to remember.”

“Thanks,” Michael said, swinging his duffel bag onto the narrow bed.

Little more than a cot, it didn’t look as if it would be long enough to accommodate his height. Ever since he’d entered the trailer, he’d felt as if he needed to duck his head to avoid bumping the low ceiling. When this was over, Colleen was going to owe him big time.

“You can ride back down with me,” Quarrels offered. “Ain’t no need to start ’til morning. We’ll be taking blood samples then.”

“Blood samples?”

“This ain’t just a sheep ranch. It’s a government research facility.”

Each syllable in the last two words had been enunciated separately, as if Quarrels had had to practice until he got the phrase right. Michael didn’t ask what they were researching. He doubted the normal hired hand would give a damn, so that was the attitude he needed to adopt.

He’d had a lot of experience adapting to whatever role he was playing. Someone who couldn’t bury himself completely in a situation wasn’t going to survive undercover work.

To him, that had always been one of its biggest draws—the tension created by the dichotomy of disappearing into a persona while maintaining the necessary vigilance about who you really were and why you were there. It created a constant adrenaline rush. Or as near to one as he had believed he could get.

“You ready?”

Michael turned to nod, but Quarrels hadn’t waited for his answer. He was already going down the steps that led to the ground. Michael followed to find him standing at the bottom of them, watching his descent with interest.

“Horse or a bull?” Quarrels asked, obviously referring to his knee.

“Something like that,” Michael said shortly, limping around the dusty pickup to climb in on the passenger side.

“The cold up here in the winter plays hell with broke bones.” Quarrels started the truck, again seeming to expect no answer.

“How many hands on the place?” Michael asked.

“Two permanent. Bunk in the cabin.”

“Permanent?” Michael asked, wondering how the foreman made the classification.

“Been here more ’an a couple of years. Don’t many stay that long. Too isolated. No bright lights.”

No lights at all, Michael thought, remembering Quarrels’ explanation about the generator’s limited hours of operation.

As they talked, the pickup rattled over the dirt road that led back down to the main cabin, which appeared to be the center of the ranching operation. The speed at which it was driven made no concession to the potholed roughness of the track.

“Five temps, including you,” Quarrels continued after a contemplative silence. “Ain’t but a couple of them been here more ’an six months. Pays all right for what little you gotta do, but the place itself gets to people.”

Yet it would have been difficult to find a more beautiful location. The magnificent Rockies loomed in the background. Abundant water from the spring runoff guaranteed the lush richness of the pastures. So far, Michael realized, he hadn’t seen a single sheep.

Quarrels roared around the last curve with a shower of gravel, pulling the truck into the yard outside the main cabin. A man stood in its open doorway. His eyes, narrowed against the smoke wafting upward from the cigarette he held cupped in his hand, followed the two of them as they got out of the pickup and walked across the expanse of worn, patchy grass.

“Sal Johnson,” Quarrels said, indicating the man in the door with a forward motion of his head. “This here’s McAdams. What’d you say your first name was?”

“Mac’ll do,” Michael said, nodding to the cowboy with the cigarette.

Small and wiry, Johnson looked like dozens of other hands he’d known growing up. Skin burned to a wrinkled mahogany by a combination of wind and sun. Eyes perpetually squinted against its glare, even when it wasn’t in the sky. Body stripped of every ounce of fat by the work he did.

“Pleased to meet’cha.” Johnson threw the stub of his cigarette into the yard and stepped back, making room for them to come by him.

The central room of the cabin was the office, dominated by a battered old desk piled high with circulars and paperwork. Quarrels led the way through it, entering the hallway to the living quarters. There were three bedrooms off the hall, two on one side and one on the other, Quarrels pointed out as they passed the closed doorways.