Diana Palmer - Cattleman's Choice

She sighed. How well she knew that. Since her uncle’s death four years before, she’d had her share of loneliness. If it hadn’t been for her real estate agency, and her involvement in half a dozen organizations, she might have left Sweetwater for good just out of desperation.

Jake parked in front of the Rodeo bar and got out. Mandelyn was on the ground before he could come around the hood. She started toward the door.

The bartender was waiting in the doorway, wringing his apron, his bald head shining in the streetlight.

“Thank God,” he said uneasily, glancing behind him. “Mandelyn, he’s got a cowboy treed out back.”

She stopped, blinking. “He’s what?”

“One of the Lazy X’s hands said something that set him off. God knows what. He was just sitting quiet at the table, going through a bottle of whiskey, not bothering anybody, and the stupid cowboy…” He stopped on an impatient sigh. “He busted my mirror, again. He broke half a dozen bottles of whiskey. The cowboy had to go to the hospital to get his jaw wired back together….”

“Wait a minute,” she said, holding up a hand. “You said he had the cowboy treed…”

“The cowboy whose jaw he broke had friends,” the bartender sighed. “Three of them. One is out cold on the floor. Another one is hanging from his jacket on a hook where Carson put him. The third one, the last one, is up in a tree out back of here and Carson is sitting there, grinning, waiting for him to come down again.”

Carson never grinned. Not unless he was mad as hell and ready for blood. “Oh, my,” Mandelyn sighed. “How about the sheriff?”

“Like most sane men, he gave the job of bringing Carson in to his deputy.”

Mandelyn lifted her delicate eyebrows. “And?”

“The deputy,” the bartender told her, “is in the hall closet, asking very loudly to be let out.”

“Why don’t you let him out?” she persisted.

“Carson,” the bartender replied, “has the key.”

“Oh.”

Jake pulled his hat low over his eyes. “I’m going to sit in the truck,” he said.

“Better go get the bail bondsman out of bed first, Jake,” the bartender said darkly.

“Why bother?” Jake asked. “Sheriff Wilson isn’t going to get out of bed to arrest the boss, and since Danny’s locked in the closet, I’d say it’s all over but the crying.”

“And the paying,” the bartender added.

“He’ll pay you. He always does.”

The bartender made a harsh sound in his throat. “That doesn’t make up for the inconvenience. Having to order mirrors…clean up broken glass…it used to be once every few months, about time his taxes came due. Now it’s every month. What’s eating him?”

“I wish I knew,” Mandelyn sighed. “Well, I’d better go get him.”

“Lots of luck,” the bartender said curtly. “Watch out. He may have a gun.”

“He may need it,” she told him with a cold smile.

She walked through the bar, out the back door, just in time to catch the tail end of a long and ardent string of curses. They were delivered by a tall man in a sheepskin coat who was glaring up at a shivering, skinny man in the top of an oak tree.

“Miss Bush,” the Lazy X cowboy wailed down at her. “Help!”

The tall, whipcord-lean man turned, pale blue eyes lancing at her from under thick black eyebrows. He was wearing a dark ranch hat pulled low on his forehead, and his lean, tough face needed a shave as much as his thick, ragged hair needed cutting. He had a pistol in one hand and just the look of him would have been enough to frighten most men.

“Go ahead, shoot,” she dared him, “and I’ll haunt you, you bad-tempered Arizona sidewinder!”

He stood slightly crouched, breathing slowly, watching her.

“If you’re not going to use that gun, may I have it?” she asked, nodding toward the weapon.

He didn’t move for a long, taut minute. Then he silently flipped the gun, straightening as he held the butt toward her.

She moved forward, taking it gently, carefully. Carson was unpredictable in these moods, but she’d been dealing with him for a long time, now. Long enough to know how to handle him. She emptied the pistol carefully and stuck it in one coat pocket, putting the bullets in the other.

“Why is that man in the tree?” she asked Carson.

“Ask him,” Carson said in a deep drawl.

She looked up at the thin cowboy, who was young and battered looking. She recognized him belatedly as one she’d seen often in the grocery store. “Bobby, what did you do?”

The young cowboy sighed. “Well, Miss Bush, I hit him over the back with a chair. He was choking Andy, and I was afraid he was going to do some damage.”

“If he apologizes,” she said to Carson, who was slightly unsteady on his feet, “can he come down?”

He thought about that for a minute. “I guess.”

“Bobby, apologize!” she called up.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne!” came the prompt reply.

Carson glared up toward the limb. “All right, you…”

Mandelyn had to grit her teeth as Carson went through a round of unprintable words before he let the shivering cowboy come down.

“Thanks!” Bobby said quickly, and ran for it, before Carson had time to change his mind.

Mandelyn sighed, staring up at Carson’s hard face. It was a long way up. He was tall and broad shouldered, with a physique that would have caught any woman’s eye. But he was rough and coarse and only half civilized, and she couldn’t imagine any woman being able to live with him.

“Jake with you?” he bit off.

“Yes. As usual.” She moved closer and slowly reached out to catch his big hand in hers. It was callused and warm and it made her tingle to touch it. It was an odd reaction, but she didn’t stop to question it. “Let’s go home, Carson.”

He let her lead him around the building, as docile as a lamb, and not for the first time she wondered at that docility. He would have attacked any man who tried to stop him. But for some reason he tolerated Mandelyn’s interference. She was the only person his men would call to get him.

“Shame on you,” she mumbled.

“Button up,” he said curtly. “When I want a sermon, I’ll call a preacher.”

“Any preacher you called would faint dead away,” she shot back. “And don’t give me orders, I don’t like it.”

He stopped suddenly. She was still holding his hand and the action jerked her backward.

“Wildcat,” he said huskily, and his eyes glittered in the dim light. “For all your culture and polish, you’re as hard as a back-country woman.”

“Sure I am,” she replied. “I have to be, to deal with a savage like you!”

Something darkened his eyes, hardened his jaw. All at once, he turned her, whipped her around, and bent to jerk her completely off the ground and into his hard arms.

“Put me down, Carson!” she said curtly, pushing at his broad shoulders.

He ignored her struggles. One of his arms, the one that was under her shoulders, shifted, so that his hand could catch her long blonde hair and pull her head back.

“I’m tired of letting you lead me around like a cowed dog,” he said in a gruff undertone. “I’m tired of being called a savage. If that’s what you think I am, maybe it’s time I lived down to my reputation.”

His grip on her hair was painful, and she only half heard the harsh words. Then, with shocking precision, he brought his hard mouth down on her parted lips and took possession.

It was the first time he’d touched her, ever. She went rigid all over at the unfamiliar intimacy of his whiskey-scented mouth, the rasp of whiskers that raked her soft skin. Her eyes, wide open and full of astonished fear, looked up at his drawn eyebrows, at the thick black lashes that lay against his hard, dark-skinned cheek. He made an odd sound, deep in his throat, and increased the pressure of his mouth until it became bruisingly painful.