Lonesome Ryder

“Are you going to deny it, Seymour?” he challenged.

Laura knew he was trying to get her goat again, but she refused to let him. “No, I’m not,” she replied. “You’re a stud muffin, Ryder, and I suspect you know it. If I had your picture I’d pin it on the wall beside the other beefcakes.”

When his mouth dropped open and he was left speechless, Laura smiled in triumph and went back to dusting the furniture. She wasn’t sure but she thought she might’ve won that round. Wade didn’t make another peep for an hour.

Although she knew Wade was trying hard to make himself difficult to live with she suspected that he wasn’t normally a grouch. He was being deliberately cantankerous for her benefit. She’d have to remember that the next time he tried to annoy her in his ongoing attempt to make her quit her job.

WADE WAS GREATLY RELIEVED when his cousins showed up at the end of the week. Leaning heavily on a single crutch, Wade slowly progressed down the hill to reach the barn where Quint and Vance were unloading their saddled horses from the stock trailer. He battled the feeling of uselessness as he watched his cousins tighten cinches and bridle their cow ponies.

“So, how goes it with the housekeeper, cuz?” Quint asked, tossing Wade a smile.

Although it was going better than he preferred, because Laura had been amazingly efficient the past few days, Wade said, “I don’t know how much you’re paying Seymour, but it’s too damn much for what little she does.”

Vance’s dark brows jackknifed. “You don’t say.”

“I do say.”

“What’s wrong exactly?” Quint asked.

“Where do I start? The woman tried to burn off my tongue with her thirty-weight-motor-oil coffee that’s as hot as molten lava, and her cooking skills are barely existent.” Wade made a face and cringed—although the truth was that her coffee was just the way he liked it, and she was such an excellent cook that he gobbled every bite of her meals.

Quint and Vance exchanged glances then stared toward the graveled driveway, noting that Laura’s low-slung sports car was gone. Wade used it as another strike against her.

“I haven’t gotten a full day’s work out of her yet,” he went on. “This afternoon she took off to visit her friend.”

“Well, I’m sure that once she gets settled into a routine things will run smoothly,” Quint defended her.

“Yeah well, it’s your money,” Wade said with a lack-adaisical shrug. “But I’m tellin’ ya, she’s as useless as a headache. I have to wake her up every morning by nine to fix my breakfast. She barely has time to prepare lunch while she’s watching all those soap operas.”

Wade was laying it on thick and his conscience was snarling at him for voicing lies, in hopes of convincing Quint and Vance to can her. Truth was, the woman was so energetic and efficient that it wore him out watching her buzz merrily from one chore to the next.

Like a whirling dervish, she’d attacked the mountain of laundry that had piled up before Wade was injured, as well as the mound that had built up after he’d come home in a cast and sling. The kitchen and bathrooms were spotless, and the house had been vacuumed and dusted within an inch of its life. Laura had also booted up his computer to look at his ranching programs. Like a physician conducting an examination, she’d decided what sort of updates he needed then called in her order. And presto, the software arrived by overnight express. Wade had seen her in his office loading the new software and transferring information like the pro she was.

However, if he gave her a ringing endorsement he’d never get Seymour out of his hair—and off his mind.

Sure ’nuff, having her underfoot 24/7 was driving him up the wall. He was starting to like her. When he deliberately provoked and tormented her, in hopes of driving her away, she sassed him playfully. When he tried to communicate through insults—to annoy her—she responded by insisting that he was suffering from a persecution complex brought on by the hang-ups left in the wake of his ex-wife’s betrayal and that he needed to get over himself. And worse, Wade was actually enjoying their conversations, their verbal sparring and her saucy sense of humor. That was not good.

It had been a long time since he’d experienced such an intense and profound physical attraction to a woman. He wanted her—of course, that went without saying, because she was extremely desirable and tempting. But what scared the bejeezus out of him was that he liked being with her, liked sharing his long hours of his inactivity. That was very bad!

Wade was getting so desperate that he was stooping to concocting outrageous fibs. He was tattling to his cousins, trying to convince them to dismiss Laura. He wasn’t very proud of himself, but this was about self-preservation!

Vance appraised Wade’s freshly laundered, wrinkle-free chambray shirt and jeans then smiled wryly. “You don’t look the worse for wear,” he observed.

“That’s because I hand wash my own clothes,” Wade said.

“Uh-huh, sure you do.” Quint smirked. “I hope you realize we aren’t buying this crock of malarkey you’re shoveling out.”

Damn, he was afraid of that. “Fine, turn a blind eye while she blows off her duties,” Wade muttered. “Throw your money down the toilet. What do I care?”

Quint chuckled as he effortlessly mounted his buckskin gelding. “I don’t know why you just don’t admit you like Laura and get it out in the open.”

“I most certainly don’t like her!” Wade objected—loudly. Another outright lie. He did like her. That was the problem and it wasn’t getting better.

“Right.” Vance scoffed. “Ask me, you’re protesting a little too much, which is a dead giveaway in my book.”

Wade swore ripely. This was his cry for help and his ornery cousins weren’t listening. A man couldn’t even count on his family to save him from disaster.

“Mind if we borrow Frank?” Vance asked as he reined his sorrel toward the corral.

“Sure, take my cow dog, too. You’ve already stuck me with Seymour. What’s one more traitorous act between cousins?”

“Gawd, cuz, you’re breakin’ my heart,” Quint drawled.

“I think I’m gonna break down and cry.” Vance, grinning playfully, wiped imaginary tears from his eyes and sniffled.

“Fine, you guys can sit there cracking wise, but I’m telling you that Seymour shirks her duties and you’re paying her for doing diddly-squat.”

Wade whistled. Frank, his loyal blue heeler, bounded from the barn, wagging his stub of a tail. Frank lived to round up and cut cattle from the herd. He was as efficient as two men on horseback and worth his weight in dog chow.

When Frank stared devotedly up at him, Wade patted the dog’s head then gestured toward the pasture. “Bring ’em in, Frank,” he ordered. When Frank spun on his haunches and sprang into action, Wade cut his cousins a quick glance. “Just stay out of Frank’s way. He can do everything except open and shut the gates.”

Quint leaned away from his horse to unlatch the gate. “Did you teach Frank to inoculate and brand, too?”

“If he could handle something like that I’d have him in the house, cooking and cleaning, because he could run circles around my temp housekeeper,” Wade flung back.

Duff—the bowlegged cowboy, who’d worked at the ranch since Wade was a toddler, and now, recently retired, helped out part-time—appeared at the barn door. “Need some help with roundup, boys?” he asked as he dusted blades of straw from his shirtsleeves.

“Naw,” Vance replied. “Frank’s gonna do all the work. Quint and I will just sit back and twiddle our thumbs until the cattle are penned up.”

Duff grinned, displaying his missing front tooth, and then he gestured toward the barn. “Laura brought down a stack of sandwiches, chips, colas and fresh-baked apple pie and stashed them in the fridge so you boys’d have some lunch. She went to town to restock groceries and pick up supplies. That little gal is something when it comes to working around here. She even helped me muck out the barn and feed the horses before she drove off.”

Wade winced when his cousins’ narrowed gazes branded him the liar he was. Damn Duff and his flapping jaws!

“Not getting our money’s worth?” Quint smirked.

“Lazy?” Vance scoffed.

Duff’s whiskered jaw dropped open and his sunken chest swelled with irritation. “Wade said that about her?” he hooted. “Hell, the little gal even came by last night to bring me supper and spiffied up my place while I ate. I forgot a house could look that clean and smell that good. She even brought me a vase of wildflowers to brighten up the place.”

Great, Wade’s strategy to convince his cousins that Seymour wasn’t pulling her salaried weight was blowing up in his face. How was he to know Duff was going to shout her praises to high heaven?

Duff didn’t shut up, either. He just kept yammering on and on about how “that gal” was the “best thang” that had happened around here in a decade and how she was the “pertiest thang” he’d every laid eyes on in all his sixty-six years.

“I’m feeling nauseous.” Wade turned an awkward one-eighty and limped toward the house. “I better go lie down.”

“First you better stop, drop and roll, right where you are,” Quint called after him, “Your pants are on fire, liar.”

“Does his nose look like it’s growing longer to you?” Vance asked Quint in mock concern.

“Yup, ol’ Pinocchio is in big trouble,” Quint teased.

“Darn tootin’ he is,” Duff chimed in. “His mama and daddy raised him better than to pull a stunt like that!”

Serenaded by teasing laughter Wade returned to the house. He’d gotten no help whatsoever from that quarter. He’d have to run Seymour off the ranch on a rail—all by himself.

LAURA BEAMED IN DELIGHT when she saw Annie Nelson jogging across the street to meet her for lunch. Annie didn’t look much different than she had in college. She was still an attractive bundle of energy and quick with a friendly smile.

“I’m so glad you had time to meet me in town today,” Annie enthused as she gave Laura an affectionate hug. “Sitting and gabbing is going to be just like old times.”

When Annie led the way into Hoagie’s Diner, Laura set aside her frustration of trying to gain Wade’s respect and his ongoing attempts to convince her to find another job. Dining with Annie was the distraction she needed.

Laura studied her surroundings as she plunked down at the corner booth of the busy café. The place was filled to capacity during the lunch hour and two harried-looking waitresses were darting from one booth to the next, taking and delivering orders. The mom-and-pop diner was doing a driving business and the smell of hamburgers and fries caused Laura’s stomach to growl in eager anticipation.

“You’ll love the food here,” Annie assured her. “Best hamburgers, chicken fried steak and cream gravy in three counties. And you’re going to love Hoot’s Roost, too.”

“It’s definitely a change from Denver,” Laura commented as she perused the fifties, malt-shop style café then glanced down at the laminated menu. “But I love the wide-open spaces here and I’m enjoying this new feeling of independence.”

Annie raked her shiny mahogany-colored hair away from her face and grinned. “I’ll bet your brothers have been calling every other day to check on you.”

Laura nodded her thanks to the waitress who set two glasses of ice water on the Formica tabletop. “Actually my brothers have been away on a business trip so I’ve had several days of reprieve. I sent them postcards to inform them that I’ve moved. But I fully expect them to call to grill me about my summer job when they return to Denver.”

Annie sipped her water and her hazel eyes glinted with curiosity. “So…how’s it going with Wade?”

She shrugged evasively. “It’s a job.”

“Yeah, right. Like you didn’t notice the man’s so good-looking that he could jump-start a woman in a coma. He’s a babe magnet, same as his cousins. I should be so lucky to be surrounded by the gorgeous Ryder cousins. Sounds like tough work if you can get it.”

Annie sighed dreamily. “Even when the Ryder cousins were in high school they were gorgeous, athletic and in great demand. Even though I was just in grade school at the time, I loved to watch them play basketball, baseball and rodeo. They were something to see in action, lemme tell ya.”

“Well, Wade might’ve been a sports dynamo back then but now he’s two-hundred-plus pounds of bad attitude,” Laura confided to her good friend. “He doesn’t want me in his house and I can supply you with a ten-minute list of his offenses if you’re interested. Even worse, when he goads me I sass him right back, without showing an ounce of my former restraint. The man is turning me into the worst version of myself.”

Annie shrugged, unconcerned. “It’s probably good practice for you. I always thought you were too restrained when your brothers were breathing down your neck, trying to run your life. You just caved in and let them intimidate you. As far as Wade’s concerned, it’s understandable that he doesn’t want a woman in his house after he made the mistake of marrying the original bitch goddess of Hoot’s Roost. Bobbie Lynn didn’t make life easy for him, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth about women in general. I heard recently that she’s already ditched her second hubby and moved on to number three.”

“Bobbie Lynn, huh?” Laura mused aloud.

Annie grinned wryly. “You know the type. Prom Queen, Homecoming Queen and voted most popular girl on campus. All the guys in high school went gaga over her. When Wade returned from college she made herself instantly available by dropping her current fiancé like a hot potato. Not long after Wade and Bobbie Lynn married, while he and his cousins were traveling the rodeo circuit, she started sneaking around on him.”

“No wonder Wade swore off women,” Laura mused aloud. “Bobbie Lynn obviously has fidelity issues.”

“You can say that again! You’d think Bobbie Lynn would’ve recognized the good deal she had going, but she was never known for her commodity of brains, only her eye-catching looks and seductive wiles. I think she even tried to hit on Wade’s cousins, but they have a hard-and-fast rule about remaining loyal to one another,” Annie informed her. “Even Quint drew the line and wouldn’t budge when Bobbie Lynn practically threw herself at him. No matter what the gossip circulating about Quint being a ladies’ man, he does have scruples, so don’t let anyone around here tell you differently.”

Laura grinned in amusement. “Is there anyone in this town whose background you don’t know?”

“Nope,” Annie replied breezily. “I’ve lived here all my life. I know who’s related to whom and which branch of which family tree juts out from what direction. It helps to understand the dynamics of this podunk town when you’re teaching school here. It prevents you from shooting off your mouth and offending someone’s shirttail cousins.”

Laura must have looked a bit shell-shocked because Annie leaned over to pat her hand consolingly. “Not to worry. I’ll be there at school to debrief you when your students troop into your classroom. Of course, my music room is at the opposite end of the hall from the math and computer rooms.” She grinned playfully. “We wouldn’t want to break your students’ concentration while they’re calculating square roots, ya know. All that screeching and howling in my classroom would be a distraction. But I can be at your end of the hall in just over a minute if you need me.”

Laura slumped against the back of the vintage vinyl booth. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I actually packed up, moved away from my brothers and have a life of my own now. The next order of business is to convince the superintendent and school board that I can transform all my students into Nobel prize-winning mathematicians…What if I can’t?”

Annie chuckled. “You’ll do fine here. What happened to your self-confidence, girlfriend?”

“Wade has been trouncing all over it,” she muttered.

“Well, he’s an idiot if he doesn’t know what a great deal he’s got in you,” Annie said loyally.

“Maybe you should tell him that. I don’t think he’s figured it out by himself.” Laura shut her mouth when the waitress reappeared to take their order.

When Mildred—according to the plastic name tag pinned on her Pepto-Bismol-pink blouse—scuttled off, Annie leaned forward, all eyes, all ears and profound concentration. “Okay, what’s up with Wade?”

Laura hadn’t meant to unload on her friend, but she felt the urge to vent her frustration. “Well, for starters, he’s determined to dislike me. He nearly came unglued when I offered to give him a massage to help him relax. Sheesh, the way he carried on you’d think I possessed the touch of death. He rarely eats in the same room with me and you wouldn’t think it’d kill him to say thanks for dinner or for laundering his clothes or cleaning his house every once in a while. In fact, he bites backs the words please and thank you when they occasionally start to slip out.”

Annie slouched in the booth, nodded her head and said sagely, “Ah-ha.”

“Ah-ha, what? What’s that mean, Ms. I’m-Privy-To-Background-Information-On-Every-Resident-of-Podunk City?” Laura blew out a frustrated breath. “See there? What’d I tell you? Wade’s bad habit of being flippant and sarcastic is rubbing off on me.”

Annie grinned wryly. “Jeez, Laura, surely a smart woman like you can figure out what’s going on with you and Wade.”

“Well, color me stupid, but I don’t get it. All I know is that Bobbie Lynn disillusioned him. He mistrusts those of us of the female persuasion and I have this ridiculous obsession to prove to him that I’m not a blasted thing like her.”

“I’m no psychiatrist, but I’d say he finds you extremely attractive and that worries him so he’s trying to build walls to keep you at arm’s length.”

“Phfft!” Laura erupted. “Your analysis is way off base. He just doesn’t want me around, no matter what I try to do to earn his trust and friendship.”

Annie arched a delicate brow. “And you’re trying hard to win his trust and friendship because…?”

Laura squirmed uneasily and sent a prayer of thanks winging heavenward when Mildred returned with their burgers and fries, buying Laura time to collect her thoughts and her composure.

“Because?” Annie prompted.

She should’ve known Annie wouldn’t drop the subject. The woman, after all, had the tenacity of a pit bull.

When Laura pretended an interest in her basket of French fries, Annie snapped her fingers, demanding attention. “Because…?”

“You’re a real pest,” Laura grumbled.

“No, I’m not,” Annie replied. “I’m your best friend. I care about you and I feel responsible for convincing you to move here to teach. I also feel responsible because I’m the one who lined you up with this summer job when Quint and Vance were asking around town about a temp housekeeper. And if I were having man problems, I’d spill my guts to you so you could make me feel better. But since my boyfriend and I are getting along dandy fine, I don’t need a sounding board like you do. So, admit it. You’re sort of interested in Wade, aren’t you?”

“That’s ridiculous.” The lie rang false the instant it popped off her tongue. “Besides, I just moved here.”

“Uh-huh,” Annie said.

Then Laura said, “I’m starting a new job in the school system.”

And Annie said, “Uh-huh.”

Laura said, “I’m not looking to start a relationship.”

Then Annie said, “Uh-huh.”

“And most certainly not with Count Grouchiness.”

“No, of course not,” Annie patronized, lips twitching.

“Clam up and eat, Annie,” Laura muttered darkly.

Annie threw up her hands, as if held at gunpoint. “Fine, but you need to brush up on your geography so you’ll realize this is the state of Oklahoma, not the state of Denial.”

“Cute.”

“Thanks. I like to think so,” she said, fluffing her hair and batting her lashes.

Laura couldn’t stay aggravated with Annie. Reluctantly she smiled and Annie smiled back and all was right with the world again. Even if Wade Ryder wanted to drive her away and her awareness of him just kept mushrooming from one day to the next. She couldn’t help thinking that beyond that six-feet-three-inches high and five-feet thick wall Wade had erected around his emotions there was a man she’d really like if he’d open up and share a small part of himself with her.

After their tasty meal, Annie offered to give Laura a tour of the town. She pointed out the tag agency so Laura could get her new driver’s license. She introduced her to the pharmacist at the drugstore, the owner of the hardware store, the furniture store and every other business owner in town.

Laura and Annie ended up in the town square where a concrete hoot owl in perpetual flight rose above the gurgling circular fountain. They treated themselves to snow cones from the sidewalk vender and sat down to rest after their hike. Annie’s boyfriend stopped by on his way into the courthouse and chatted a few minutes before tending his errands.

The afternoon spent with Annie was exactly what Laura needed to revive her spirits and regroup before purchasing groceries and supplies and heading back to engage in another verbal battle with Wade. Of course, there was the off chance that she’d get lucky and return home to discover that Wade had died of rabies during her absence, she mused with a wicked grin.

4

TIME HAD GOTTEN COMPLETELY away from Laura while gabbing with Annie. With a heavy foot on the accelerator Laura zoomed back to the ranch, knowing she’d probably catch hell from Wade for getting a late start on supper. The man didn’t need another excuse to criticize her.

According to Annie, Laura should continue swapping saucy retorts with Wade, just to let him know he couldn’t drive her away. Fine, she could do that. It sharpened her wits, after all, but she’d rather call a truce and be herself rather than being en guarde, lunging and parrying in verbal swordplay.

Arms laden with groceries, supplies and the potted plants she’d picked up on impulse, Laura struggled through the front door to see Wade lounging on his leather throne, surfing the TV channels. She ignored him, glancing instead at the closed drapes. She’d flung them open wide before leaving the ranch that morning. Now they were shut tightly, enshrouding the room in gloom and doom.

“What happened, Seymour? Did you get lost?” Wade asked. “I knew I should’ve given you a compass and drawn you a map.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you looming there in the shadows,” she tossed back flippantly as she juggled the paper sacks and plastic bags in both arms. Four more sacks dangled from her fingertips.

“I distinctly remember asking you not to yank open all the drapes and allow the glaring sunlight in here.”

“Right, Count Drac, I forgot that blood-sucking vampires prefer cryptlike darkness,” she countered as she headed for the kitchen without glancing in Wade’s direction. “Now where’d I put that stake I intended to drive through your heart? It’s never around when I need it.”

He ignored her taunt. “Why’d you change the furniture in here? I nearly broke my other leg when I rounded the corner, expecting the furniture to be exactly where I set it.”

“Well,” she said, halting in the middle of the room. “According to feng shui—”

“Who the hell is he? And what does he know about rearranging my ranch house!” he blustered.

“Feng shui is the Chinese philosophy of interior design,” she explained.

He let loose with a disgusted snort. Surprise, surprise.

“It’s based on the theory that if you change your environment, you can change aspects of your life.”

“I liked my life just fine until you got here,” he grumped.

“Well, feng shui will make you feel better,” she insisted, “because now this room is well balanced and well lighted—or it would be if you’d open the drapes. This room creates and promotes the flow of positive energy to counter your negativity.”

His response was another disgruntled snort.

“So, how’d the roundup and branding go today?” she asked.