Diana Palmer - Wyoming Tough

E DITH D ANIELLE M ORENA B RANNT was not impressed with her new boss. The head honcho of the Rancho Real, or Royal Ranch in Spanish, near Catelow, Wyoming, was big and domineering and had a formidable bad attitude that he shared with all his hired hands.

Morie, as she was known to her friends, had a hard time holding back her fiery temper when Mallory Dawson Kirk raised his voice. He was impatient and hot-tempered and opinionated. Just like Mories father, whod opposed her decision to become a working cowgirl. Her dad opposed everything. Shed just told him she was going to find a job, packed her bags and left. She was twenty-three. He couldnt really stop her legally. Her mother, Shelby, had tried gentle reason. Her brother, Cort, had tried, too, with even less luck. She loved her family, but she was tired of being chased for who she was related to instead of who she was inside. Being a stranger on somebody elses property was an enchanting proposition. Even with Mallorys temper, she was happy being accepted for a poor, struggling female on her own in the harsh world. Besides that, she wanted to learn ranch work and her father refused to let her so much as lift a rope on his ranch. He didnt want her near his cattle.

And another thing, Mallory said harshly, turning to Morie with a cold glare, theres a place to hang keys when youre through with them. You never take a key out of the stable and leave it in your pocket. Is that clear?

Morie, whod actually transported the key to the main tack room off the property in her pocket at a time it was desperately needed, flushed. Sorry, sir, she said stiffly. Wont happen again.

It wont if you expect to keep working here, he assured her.

My fault, the foreman, old Darby Hanes, chimed in, smiling. I forgot to tell her.

Mallory considered that and nodded finally. Thats what I always liked most about you, Darb, youre honest. He turned to Morie. An example Ill expect you to follow, as our newest hire, by the way.

Her face reddened. Sir, Ive never taken anything that didnt belong to me.

He looked at her cheap clothes, the ragged hem of her jeans, her worn boots. But he didnt judge. He just nodded.

He had thick black hair, parted on one side and a little shaggy around the ears. He had big ears and a big nose, deep-set brown eyes under a jutting brow, thick eyebrows and a mouth so sensuous that Morie hadnt been able to take her eyes off it at first. That mouth made up for his lack of conventional good looks. He had big, well-manicured hands and a voice like deep velvet, as well as big feet, in old, rugged, dirt-caked boots. He was the boss, and nobody ever forgot it, but he got down in the mud and blood with his men and worked as if he was just an employee himself.

In fact, all three Kirk brothers were like that. Mallory was the oldest, at thirty-six. The second brother, Canea coincidence if there ever was one, considering Mories mothers maiden name, even if hers was spelled with a K was thirty-four, a veteran of the Second Gulf War, and he was missing an arm from being in the front lines in combat. He was confronting a drinking problem and undergoing therapy, which his brothers were trying to address.

The youngest brother, at thirty-one, was Dalton. He was a former border agent with the department of immigration, and his nickname was, for some odd reason, Tank. Hed been confronted by a gang of narco-smugglers on the Arizona border, all alone. He was shot to pieces and hospitalized for weeks, during which most of the physicians had given him up for dead because of the extent of his injuries. He confounded them all by living. Nevertheless, he quit the job and came home to the family ranch in Wyoming. He never spoke of the experience. But once Morie had seen him react to the backfire of an old ranch truck by diving to the ground. Shed laughed, but old Darby Hanes had silenced her and told her about Daltons past as a border agent. Shed never laughed at his odd behaviors again. She supposed that both he and Cane had mental and emotional scars, as well as physical ones, from their past experiences. Shed never been shot at, or had anything happen to her. Shed been as sheltered as a hothouse orchid, both by her parents and her brother. This was her first taste of real life. She wasnt certain yet if she was going to like it.

Shed lived on her fathers enormous ranch all her life. She could ride anythingher father had taught her himself. But she wasnt accustomed to the backbreaking work that daily ranch chores required, because she hadnt been permitted to do them at home, and shed been slow her first couple of days.

Darby Hanes had taken her in hand and shown her how to manage the big bales of hay that the brothers still packed into the barnrefusing the more modern rolled bales as being inefficient and wastefulso that she didnt hurt herself when she lifted them. Hed taught her how to shoe horses, even though the ranch had a farrier, and how to doctor sick calves. In less than two weeks, shed learned things that nothing in her college education had addressed.

Youve never done this work before, Darby accused, but he was smiling.

She grimaced. No. But I needed a job, badly, she said, and it was almost the truth. Youve been great, Mr. Hanes. I owe you a lot for not giving me away. For teaching me what I needed to know here. And what a good thing it was, she thought privately, that her father didnt know. Hed have skinned Hanes alive for letting his sheltered little girl shoe a horse.

He waved a hand dismissively. Not a problem. You make sure you wear those gloves, he added, nodding toward her back pocket. You have beautiful hands. Like my wife used to, he added with a faraway look in his eyes and a faint smile. She played the piano in a restaurant when I met her. We went on two dates and got married. Never had kids. She passed two years ago, from cancer. He stopped for a minute and took a long breath. Still miss her, he added stiffly.

Im sorry, she said.

Ill see her again, he replied. Wont be too many years, either. Its part of the cycle, you see. Life and death. We all go through it. Nobody escapes.

That was true. How odd to be in a philosophical discussion on a ranch.

He lifted an eyebrow. You think ranch hands are high-school dropouts, do you? he mused. I have a degree from MIT. I was their most promising student in theoretical physics, but my wife had a lung condition and they wanted her to come west to a drier climate. Her dad had a ranch. He stopped, chuckling. Sorry. I tend to run on. Anyway, I worked on the ranch and preferred it to a lab. After she died, I came here to work. So here I am. But Im not the only degreed geek around here. We have three part-timers who are going to college on scholarships the Kirk brothers set up for them.

What a nice bunch of guys! she exclaimed.

They really are. All of them seem tough as nails, and they mostly are, but theyll help anyone in need. He shifted. Paid my wifes hospital bill after the insurance lapsed. A small fortune, and they didnt even blink.