Miss Murray on the Cattle Trail(31)

* * *

For the next three days the cattle rumbled on, drawing nearer and nearer to their destination, and Alex watched the man she now suspected of stealing her heart. Never in her life had she wanted to belong to anyone the way she wanted to belong to Zach Strickland.

She knew it was foolish, letting herself be so undone by one single kiss. Well, yes, maybe it was, but she didn’t regret it. As the herd got closer to Winnemucca, she resolved to store up all the memories she could for when she went back to Chicago.

She rode long hours under the searing sun, watching Zach from a distance. Little by little she noticed how his eyes followed her until he saw her watching him, and then he would quickly look away.

And that was how she realized what Zach was working so hard to hide from himself. He cared about her. Zach Strickland wanted her the way a man wanted a woman. She knew instinctively that was what was frightening him. He was in love with her.

She couldn’t help smiling inside. Zach was withdrawing from her because he didn’t want to be in love with her! Some woman had hurt him in the past, and now he was protecting his heart.

She laughed aloud and kicked her horse into a trot alongside the sea of lowing cattle. True, there was no future for this just-discovered connection between Zach and herself, but just knowing that this wondrous feeling was shared between them made her happier than she could ever remember.

And at the same time, it made her sad. When the drive ended, she would be leaving, going back to Chicago and her newspaper.

She caught sight of his tall, lean frame moving gracefully on his horse and a shocking stab of pure animal hunger shimmered into her belly. Up until this moment she had hated this cattle drive—hated the long, hot hours in the saddle and the dust clogging her throat and the bugs crawling into her hair. Some days she even hated her newspaper editor for sending her along on this venture.

This whole ordeal had been a kind of baptism of fire, and more. It had brought her to an awareness of what life was really all about, of the bonds between people, of the feeling that could bloom between a man and a woman.

Of course, a permanent relationship with Zach Strickland was not possible. She knew that. When the drive was over, she would return to Chicago and he would start that ranch in Oregon he wanted so much. He had scrimped and saved and struggled to buy that ranch. And she had fought long, hard years for her career as a newspaper reporter.

They weren’t so different, really. They both wanted to follow their dreams. The problem was that her dream was in Chicago and his was in Oregon. When the drive ended she would never see Zach Strickland again.

That realization didn’t dampen her feelings for him, or her happiness at knowing that he cared for her. It did give her pause, however. She did not want her heart broken. But...well, maybe it would be worth it to have known this man.

In camp, Zach was still ignoring her, but now Alex understood why. Unless, of course, she was mistaken about his feelings. That thought brought her up short. A good reporter never jumped to conclusions, especially about a man’s most private feelings, but...she still felt lighter than air. All afternoon she thought about Zach and that kiss they had shared, and the bubble of joy inside her refused to go away.

That evening, during a supper of Roberto’s chili beans and corn bread, Jase promised to show her how to throw a lasso. The minute she dumped her supper plate in the wash bucket, he produced a braided lariat and beckoned to her.

“Come on, Miss Alex. You said you wanted to learn ropin’.”

She stood up, stepped over José’s long legs and followed the slim blond cowhand to a spot half a dozen steps from the campfire. She would pay extra-careful attention to Jase’s instructions; her newspaper readers would gobble up an article on lasso throwing.

From outside the circle of cowhands, Zach surreptitiously watched Dusty and chuckled at her attempts to control the whirling lariat. It flopped into the dirt or went lopsided or spun off sideways. Why did she want to learn to throw a rope in the first place? Then he figured maybe she’d want to use the knowledge in a newspaper column she’d write someday.

A shadow slid over his heart.

He took a sip from the mug of cold coffee in his hand and kept watching. She sure didn’t give up easy. She worked with Jase for two hours, until she could rope a rock and then a hunk of firewood. And then, unexpectedly, she danced over and dropped a lasso over his shoulders. With a triumphant squeal, she pulled it tight.

The hands cheered, and Dusty’s face shone with pride. He shrugged off the rope, and she immediately re-coiled it and looked for another target. She lassoed Juan, then Skip, even Roberto, who was caught lounging near the wash bucket. With her every success, the hands cheered and whistled.

It sure was obvious his men liked her. She’d won their respect by just hanging in there during the hot, dusty days on the trail, and then she’d won their hearts. Nothing surprising in that, he figured. She’d done the same with his heart.

A choking rush of an emotion he couldn’t identify closed his throat into an ache. What am I going to do when I have to put her on the train back to Chicago?

After another half hour she coiled up the lariat and handed it back to Jase. “Gentlemen, I am going down to the stream now for a bath,” she announced. “Juan, would you stand guard for me?”

Without a word he stood up, and Dusty moved to the chuck wagon, hauled out her travel bag and walked off toward the creek. Juan started after her, but Zach gave a short whistle to stop him and took his place. No way were any of his hands, even one as polite and well-behaved as Juan, going to watch Dusty take a bath.

No one was going to watch her but himself.

The night was warm and peaceful with a fat, almost-full moon hanging low in the sky and a million frogs croaking from somewhere near the river. Dusty moved along the faint path through grass so thick it felt like a Turkey carpet, and Zach followed silently, keeping to the shadows twenty paces behind her.

Quietly he stationed himself near a spreading oak tree, settled his back against the trunk and watched her peel off her jeans and shirt. When she got down to her smallclothes, he wished he wasn’t watching.

Aw, hell, he did and he didn’t. A twinge of guilt nibbled at his conscience for spying on her, but he sure didn’t want to stop. In fact, he admitted, he couldn’t stop.





Chapter Twenty

Alex waded out into the stream until the water reached her knees, then dived forward into a deep pool. Oh, what heaven to wash away days of salty perspiration and dust! She sighed with relief as the cool water sluiced over her itchy mosquito bites, then she soaped her skin, unbraided her hair and scrubbed her scalp until it tingled. After she rinsed away the bubbles, she rolled over on her back and floated.

Millions of stars winked above her. The tree branches over her head looked like ghostly sailing ships in the silvery moonlight, and she fancied the jagged black boulders tumbled at one end of the pool were huge sea captains standing guard over her.

A cattle drive might not be so bad if she could take a bath every night. As it was, she had forgotten what it was like to smell scented powder or perfume. Even her hair smelled of sweat and dust. With one hand she gathered it up on top of her head and wished for a ribbon or even a piece of twine to secure it.

She had worn the single braid down her back for so many weeks her curls had straightened somewhat, but the thought of ever taming the mass of waves into a semblance of a proper coiffeur made her laugh.

These past weeks spent herding a thousand hulking cows along a trail for days on end had been an unexpected ordeal. The experience had changed her. She had come to know the cowhands, and she prided herself on winning their respect. She suspected that some of them even genuinely liked her.

But, she sighed, then there was Zach Strickland. He liked her, even though he didn’t want to. But the fact that he felt that way about her made her happier than she could ever remember, almost as happy as seeing her first newspaper column in print. She laughed aloud, and then she froze when she saw the shadow leaning against a thick tree trunk suddenly straighten up.

Oh, poor Juan. Good-natured and patient, the young man had faithfully guarded her privacy for the better part of an hour without complaint. Feeling safe from prying eyes, she splashed gleefully around and around in a wide circle.

But the shadow against the tree was now moving toward her. Her breath stopped. “Juan? Is something wrong?”

“There’s nothin’ wrong,” a low voice replied. “And it’s not Juan.”

She trod water and peered through the darkness toward the voice. “Zach! What are you doing here?”

“Watchin’ you take a bath.”

“I thought that Juan—”

“Juan was busy.”

“But—”

“And I wasn’t.”

“Then you should be really standing guard,” she reminded him, “not watching me.” She tried to make her tone accusing, but secretly she was glad it was Zach. She didn’t even mind the fact that he was watching her.

What on earth was the matter with her? No man had ever laid eyes on her naked form, but here he stood with both hands propped on his hips, calmly studying her as if she were a pony or a heifer. Of course, she was chest deep in the water, so he couldn’t see much.

Then a deliciously shocking thought settled in her brain. What if she were standing up? What if he could see all of her? What would he do?