AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
The first time I laid eyes on Sienna Andrews after more than a full season away from Red Hart Ranch she disappeared into the cleft between two mountains behind the foothills behind the big house before I could take a second glance.
Wild chestnut brown curls danced in her wake behind her as she ran, calfskin boots on her feet to her knees. Her long dress with its puffy sleeves and swirling skirts became my new addiction in an instant. But it was her eyes as she turned back to look down over Red Hart before she disappeared between the trees that left me standing stock-still like a deer in a hunter’s scope. Those forest green eyes flashed with a shot of gold, the darker colour of her namesake.
Then she was gone, and I breathed again.
"Looks like Trader Kyle's been hit by the Jadee club, " Travis, one of Red Hart’s owners commented in a low voice from where he leaned against one of the big house’s struts that held up the long veranda.
Below us in the yard, this season’s hands rifled through my trays of goods and wars, flicking trinkets aside. Some pawed over the tooled leatherwork, while others headed for the jewellery or the tools and the flasks that lined the back of the far case.
Cowboys were relentless love lorns, and I relied on those heartstrings for my livelihood. The hands bunked arounddifferent ranches from season to season, wherever the pay was good, and the work was shorter.
All except veterans like Gage who took hard work and long days over good pay every time. Occasionally one of the newer boys I didn't know took an eye to a particular piece and something sparkly tried to find a home in a pocket instead of being paid for. Those were the ones I watched, not the men with a list of past sins as long as Red Hart's half mile long drive.
The harder men were the sort I recognised but didn't understand completely, not really having had a past life. I was born into this drifter's world, turning through town in a solo journey across the north-west and back again. Red Hart was far as I came north while the Rockies hindered my travels to the east. I’d crossed over the border a handful of times, enjoying the difference in how the Canadians tooled their leather, and tweaked their handmade jewelery. A few good tools came from there, too. That’s what I sold: all the small things that made up a cowboy’s duffel bag that he lived out of into a home.
They had a bunkhouse camaraderie, even friendship on occasion when they crossed paths for more than a season’s work. I’d seen the brotherhood in action on the way back to my truck while they drank and talked and got up tomorrow to do it all again together.
Certainly, plenty of nights the big house filled with chatter and laughter and good food, the sort that made coming back to Red Hart a regular occasion. I took up Travis on his standing offer and stayed for the meal Eve cooked. Those nights were memorable to say the least. Good Nosh. Loyalty. That was the stuff Red Hart bred their floating population on.
The land, the people and the place, filled with prime stock of red-tailed deer and elk made my solo existence feel...less. Not the kind a man should ever want.
I never deviated from it, unwilling to settle down. Not really knowing how, or what family was supposed to look like, other than the occasional glimpse I garnered in Trav’s house. It wasn’t as much about money as it was simply outside my frame of reference.
Seeing the mountain wild child disappear into the trees like she was born to them–that, for the first time–made me want to stop to find out more about her.
"Ten minutes," Gage’s rough voice matched, his guarded face as he shouted from across the yard.
I glanced sideways at Travis, running my hand along my belt and the knife my father gave me that rested there. "That boy’s gonna put you and Jude out of the job."
The fact that Gage was likely twenty years plus my senior didn’t change how I phrased that one.
Travis huffed. "Good. Then I can retire and explain to my wife why she also needs to stop.”
"Sounds like the dream." I grinned at the thought of Rachel, Trav’s other half, ever giving up her veterinarian surgery up the range to the northeast of Red Hart’s boundary.
"Might be some of that going around."
I smiled, watching Gage do his job in winding the boys up for me. I pulled a wad of change out of my pocket as Will Kirk stepped up.
The boy who had a problem with staying on a bull held a hammered, bronze and leather necklace clutched in his hand. "Haven't got anything more like this do you?"
I grinned at him. "Why, you got a girl hidden around here?"
The kids who couldn't have been more than twenty years old turned bright red. "Not here. Down at Montana State."
"He held onto her any longer than he can stay on a damn bull," somebody else yelled out behind him.
Will ducked his head, mumbling something to his shoes that sounded suspiciously like a threat.
I waved the hands away. “Don't you listen to them. You got a girl; they got a whole lot of dry cocks to play with.”
“I’ll do that.” Will’s eyes drifted from my face, across my shoulder, then back again. A sly smile curved his lips. "You got eyes for the wild girl?"
I should have let the hands eat him. Shaking my head, I handed him his change. “You got eyes falling out of your head, kid. Move along."
He laughed at me, pocketing his change and the trinket that took longer than the time he spent deliberating over what to choose.
