Ruth Dale - The Wrangler's Woman

This would work. She’d make it work. Nothing would stand in her way, not even the dangerously appealing cowboy waiting beside the barn.

DAMN, THE WOMAN COULD ride.

Jack watched the spotted horse sit back on his haunches in a sliding stop. Even bareback and guided only by a halter rope, the animal was under perfect control.

Dani jumped to the ground, her cheeks red and her eyes sparkling. He’d thought she was good-looking before, but he hadn’t seen anything. This was the real Dani Keene, he knew instinctively, not that suspicious woman who’d cut him off back in town.

By the time she reached him, though, the joy had been replaced by caution. “This is beautiful country,” she said, glancing around. “Sure, the ranch itself needs work, but it’ll be worth it.”

“I wondered if you’d see that.” He patted the nose of the curious Appaloosa. “You got a real nice horse here.”

Her smile revealed genuine pleasure. “He sure is. I raised him from a colt and trained him myself. We suit each other just fine.”

“The corral’s empty. You can put him in there.”

She frowned. “Don’t we have any stock at all?”

“Some. Dobe can tell us how much.”

“Dobe?”

“Dobe Whittaker. He’s kinda the caretaker, you could say. He’s around here some—”

“I’m where I’m s’posed to be.” A man stepped from the deep shadows of the open barn door. Looking as old as the hills, he wore cowboy clothes softened by age. The stamp of the West was in far-seeing blue eyes and a lined, leathery face partially concealed by a snowy beard and trailing mustache.

“Howdy, ma’am.” He doffed his hat. “I’m Dobe Whittaker. At the moment you got a dozen horses and a small herd of longhorns and that’s just about it.”

“Dobe.” She smiled, genuinely pleased to meet him. “I’m Dani Keene. My sisters and grandmother are back at the house.”

“Seen ’em go in.” Without waiting for a response, Dobe wheeled back into the shadows.

Dani looked at Jack, her forehead furrowed. “Not very friendly, is he?”

“Depends on who he’s dealin’ with.”

“He doesn’t know me well enough to dislike me,” she pointed out.

“He knew your dad.”

She walked past him, leading the horse toward the corral. “If he disliked my father so much, why is he looking out for things?”

“Because of loyalty to Miss Elsie.” Jack was still cautious about criticizing Wil Keene.

“I see.” She said it so grimly that Jack thought maybe she did see.

Opening the gate, she slipped off the halter, and Sundance trotted inside. Making straight for a patch of dirt stomped and mashed by a multitude of horses before him, he lowered himself and rolled.

When she looked at the horse, her expression softened. Jack wished it would do the same when she looked at him, but so far that hadn’t happened.

Squaring her shoulders, she faced him. “Will you bring Dobe up to the house to meet the rest of the family?”

“I’ll try.” In actual fact, he wasn’t at all sure Dobe was interested in meeting any more Keenes.

“Thank you.” She turned and walked away, covering the ground between barn and house with long, easy strides.

He watched with admiration. She might be a foreigner, but she was no stranger to ranch life. If it was possible to make a go of this run-down dude ranch, Dani Keene was the woman who could do it. Although Jack’s father and grandfather were still determined to own this place, Jack would help her in every way he could.

Or more accurately, in any way she’d let him.

He turned toward the barn and hollered. “Dobe! Come on out here, you old reprobate.”

Dobe shuffled out immediately, his grin sheepish. “Howdy, Jack. What you up to, comin’ in here with them wimmin?”

“Just bein’ neighborly.” They shook hands and then Jack patted the smaller man on the shoulder. “You might give it a try yourself.”

Dobe snorted. “Not hardly. I done my duty by Miss Elsie because nobody else would. Now I’m pull-in’ up stakes. I don’t want nothin’ to do with no more Keenes, no sir-ee-bob, I don’t.”

“You got ’em all wrong, Dobe.” If he couldn’t talk the old man into staying, Dani’s row was going to be even harder to hoe. Dobe had earned the respect of the cowboy community, and if he refused to hang around, who would? “They’re real nice, those Keene sisters and their grandma. Don’t you think you could cut them a little slack?”

“Nope.” The old cowboy shook his head decisively. “I’m leavin’ pronto, already packed and ever’thin’.”

“And going where?”

Dobe blinked. “I can find a job,” he declared defensively. “Don’t you worry about me none.”

Realizing he’d taken a wrong approach, Jack nodded. “It’s not you I’m worried about, it’s the Keenes. They need you, Dobe, whether they know it or not.”

“Yep, but I don’t need them.”

“Why not? They’ll pay you a fair wage—” Jack assumed they would “—and they’re smart enough to realize you know the lay of the land and they don’t.” He hoped.

“They ain’t got a prayer of gettin’ this place back on its feet,” Dobe scoffed.

“Not without you,” Jack said, buttering up the old codger. “How about giving them a chance?” When that didn’t bring instant acquiescence, he added, “As a personal favor to me.”

Dobe thought that over. Then he let out a disgusted snort. “When you put it that way, I don’t have a whole lotta choice. You always been square with me so… Okay, Jack, I’ll do it as a favor to you. But if they turn out to be anything like their old man, I’m outa here, no ifs, ands or buts.”

“Fair enough.” Jack felt great relief. “How about comin’ up to the house with me so you can meet the rest of them?”

“Okay, but I ain’t gonna like ’em.”

You might, Jack thought. That grandma could be just your type.

“THE HOUSE HAS TONS of possibilities,” Toni announced.

“And some of this furniture is wonderful.” Niki ran a hand over the dusty arm of a leather chair with armrests made of animal horns. “I wonder how old this stuff is.”

Dani, who was much more interested in the outdoors than the indoors, looked up from the old ledgers she’d pulled from a desk drawer. “Could be from the twenties. That’s when dude ranching really took off in a big way, according to the research I’ve done.”

Toni looked around with surprise. “Gosh, I didn’t know you’d done research.”

“It’s an interesting subject.” Dani closed the book and leaned her elbows on it. “For instance, dude ranching got started in the late nineteenth century. A lot of people from back East visited friends in the West, and sometimes they stayed and stayed and stayed. When it got too expensive for the ranchers to support all those frequent guests, some of them started charging and voilà! The dude ranch was born.”

“I don’t know about that.” Toni looked worried. “It doesn’t sound too nice to charge your friends.”

“Oh, dear,” Granny exclaimed. “Don’t let Toni handle the billing or we’ll be broke in a month.”

Everyone laughed. Opening a drawer, Dani pulled out a wad of papers. Old bills, mostly, but when she unfolded a piece of lined notepaper it revealed a scrawled message: “Are you having fun yet? You girls don’t know half as much as you think you do.”

“What in the world?” she wondered aloud. “Granny—?”

The front door opened and Jack walked in, leading the old cowboy she’d met briefly at the barn. Hastily stuffing the piece of paper in her jeans pocket, she stood up to greet them.

While Jack made the introductions, she tried to calm her jangled nerves. Finding the unsigned note had upset her because she was sure her father had written it. Reading it had been like hearing his voice from the grave. While he was alive he’d had no interest whatsoever in his daughters, leaving Elk Tooth before they were born and never so much as contacting them afterward. It had been a shock to learn he’d left them this dude ranch, but she’d supposed he’d had no one else to pass it on to.