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She’d lost a little confidence in her own intuition after the setup in Tahoe, but it didn’t take much skill to read Dawn’s thoughts. That glance was irritation and arrogance, not with Charlie, but with the camera. She was clearly thinking, If only that stupid camera wasn’t there, I could use my master key to get inside.
What Charlie couldn’t see on Dawn’s face was why. Why? Yes, Charlie had met Dawn’s husband for drinks one evening, but if Dawn was going to be that paranoid about Charlie being a femme fatale, why had she recruited her for the job? It made no sense. None of it did.
They’d been close in high school, despite their different interests. Charlie had filled her time with volleyball and track and tutoring, and Dawn had been student council president and head of the honor society and in charge of half the student volunteer organizations. But they’d had something in common, she and Dawn and Sandra and a few other overachievers: none of them had been popular with boys. While other girls had been out drinking beer around bonfires with horny teenage cowboys, Dawn and Charlie and their group had usually been at school. They’d shared running jokes about saving themselves for marriage. They’d assured each other that those party girls were going nowhere fast. They’d shaken their heads at the bad judgment.
But they’d also secretly yearned. Charlie had, at least. She’d tutored those boys in the library after school. Sometimes she’d even gone to their houses to sit in their rooms with them. But she’d never been in danger of being led astray. She was just Charlie. One of the guys. Another runner on the track team. Taller than most of them and flatter-chested, too. They’d hung out with her. They’d asked if they could copy her homework. They’d shoved her on the shoulder when they joked. And then they’d sidled away to flirt with the fun girls.
So she’d claimed not to want anything to do with them and their restless hands and crude mouths, but boy, had she imagined!
Luckily, when she’d gotten to college, she’d found a new role. A new group of friends. She’d assumed Dawn had, too. But all Dawn seemed to have gotten was more uptight.
Charlie shook her head and unpaused the video. Shoulders tight, she scanned the remaining hours, but nothing else happened. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Her instincts had failed her in Tahoe, but she wasn’t going to let them fail her here. Dawn was jealous, that was all. Maybe Dawn’s husband had made a stupid comment about Charlie’s ass or something. Maybe Dawn had just expected Charlie to be the same harmless tomboy she’d known in high school. Whatever the reason, it was Dawn’s issue. Charlie wasn’t going to get sucked into it. Dawn had started spying on her, commenting on Charlie’s comings and goings, implying she was a man-stealing slut, so Charlie had moved out. End of story.
She wouldn’t be paranoid and scared. She wouldn’t turn into one of those people who was carried along by life, tumbled over and knocked around every time the current got too fast. Like her mother, who could never grab on to anything, could never find a handhold.
No. Charlie would work hard. She’d let the scandal in Tahoe die down. She’d pay off her legal bills. And then she’d find a job somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just not at the Meridian Resort.
But for today, just having her apartment at the Stud Farm was enough. She felt a little stronger. A little more herself. She’d hit rock bottom, but she was on her way back up now, and she’d be damned if she’d leave the best parts of herself behind.
CHAPTER FIVE
“GODDAMN IT!” the ranch foreman yelled. “Pull!”
Walker wrapped the rope more tightly around his wrist, took it in both hands and hauled as hard as he could as the heifer struggled and fought against the mud. The slick goo must have felt like a predator’s mouth tugging her deeper in, and her eyes rolled in wild panic. Walker pulled harder, urging the other men on when they wanted to stop. The poor girl was going to freeze to death if they didn’t get her out. Granted, she was destined for the packing plant in a year or two, but there was no reason for her to go like this, cold and shaking and scared.
“Fuck this,” the hand next to him muttered.
“She’s almost there,” Walker said, getting a new grip on the rope. Actually, she seemed to be slipping deeper, but he wasn’t going to give up. “Come on. One more good haul should get her.” In the end, it took three more hauls, but they pulled her free. She stumbled a few feet, then went to her knees.
There wasn’t anything out here to clean her off with, and the ranch was a mile away, so Walker swept his gloved hand down her flank, over and over, sluicing off the thick mud. Her big body shook under his hands, but her panicked lowing had stopped. By the time he stood and went to his horse to grab a blanket, she was breathing almost normally. She struggled to her feet and took a few steps toward him.
“Well, look at that,” one of the cowboys crowed. “You really do have a way with the ladies.”
The younger one laughed. “I’ve heard they follow you around like cats in heat, but damn, I’d never heard anything about heifers.”
Walker laughed off the jokes and took the blanket over to scrub some warmth into the cow. It only took a few moments before she was alert enough to jerk away from his ministrations and trot back to the herd. Hopefully she’d stick close to the others and the collective body heat would do the rest.
“All right,” the foreman snapped. “Move ’em on the last mile, and come collect your pay.” He trotted off without a word of thanks.
They remounted and spread out to move the herd on. Once they got them going, the older cowboy rode closer. “Mr. Kingham is a real asshole, but the trail work with the guests is okay if you can get hired on at the lodge. Heard you was looking for work.”
Walker glanced at the guy. His name was Tom, but Walker didn’t know more about him than that. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” He tipped his chin toward the foreman. “He asked me to keep an eye on you, see how you did. Too many years at one of these dude ranches can make for a soft cowboy.”
“You think?”
Tom shrugged. “Teaching pretty ladies how to ride?” He shot Walker an arch look, but he smiled and shook his head when Walker met it with a straight face. “Hey, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. Just saying if you’re used to having a warm woman at hand, it might make it harder to face a cold night on the range.”
“Yeah, well. They bring their own sets of problems.”
“Don’
t I know it? Anyway, the back end of the operation is pretty quiet. No guests out here. Obviously Kingham’s not ‘customer service oriented.’”
“Yeah, I worked here ten years ago. Kingham wasn’t here, but I know they only use a few dozen head of cattle in the guest areas and keeps the rest of the work behind the scenes.”
