Page 2 of Taming the Wild Cowboy

She’d been employed by the Sweet Grass Ranch for five years, so technically she had ranching experience. She knew horses, could drive a tractor, fix a fence, but her cow skills were negligible. And calving … well, she’d loved seeing the new calves cavorting in the pastures every spring, but the nearest she’d come to working cows was participating in guest-centric roundups, managed by the foreman. Her job had been to keep the guests from killing themselves or getting into situations where horses might get injured. She was desperate, but she was also honest. She’d have to be upfront with Wade Matthews about her lack of cow experience, which meant she’d probably be driving back to Marietta.

What happens then?

She brushed the question aside as she navigated a series of ruts and potholes. Maybe Wade had other work that needed to be done. Even a couple days of paid work would put her ahead of where she was now and give her a chance to figure out where to keep her horses, which were currently being housed in small outdoor corrals at the Marietta Fairgrounds facility for $15 a night.

Mac focused on the road as she passed through an aspen grove. Due to a week of unseasonably warm March weather, the trees had started to leaf out. Too bad. The April blizzards would freeze the leaves, and the trees would have to start all over.

Kind of like you.

Just like her, but she wasn’t going to indulge in woe-is-me thinking. Action was key. Action coupled with the fleeting hope that she could talk Wade Matthews into a few days’ work and prove herself worthy of a paycheck before Trev, wherever he might be, found out and threw a monkey wrench into the works … just as he’d done five years ago.

*

“I honestly didn’t see this coming.” Trev Matthews leaned his shoulder against the still-warm side of his truck, his gaze traveling over the herd of close to a hundred cows ready to calve over the next few weeks. The mothers-to-be were strung out in a long line, placidly eating the hay that Trev finished dropping just before his brother called. Two of the younger cows were showing signs of imminent birth, but experience had taught Trev that signs of imminence could stretch into days. Cows could be contrary creatures.

“There’s a reason the Staton brothers were available for hire when no one else was,” Hayes pointed out.

“I didn’t expect them to end up in jail.”

So soon, anyway.

Bill and Phil Staton were good workers with an unfortunate penchant for becoming drunk and disorderly on payday. Because neither brother drove while under the influence, they were usually let off with a warning and a ride back to their house in the sheriff’s SUV, but their last encounter with the law hadn’t gone so well. As a result of a bet, Phil had climbed onto the bar at Grey’s Saloon and performed a few steps of a line dance. He’d been ordered back to the floor by Jason Grey himself, ignored said warning, then blackened the second bartender’s eye with an ill-timed kick-ball-change. The brothers might have been able to talk Jason Grey out of pressing charges, but instead they’d fled the scene when the bartender went down, and Jason made a grab for his bat. Then they’d eluded the deputy who’d happened to be parked outside, eventually being caught in the dead-end alley behind the library. It had been a busy night for the Staton boys, and Trev would have found the incident funny, if it hadn’t put such a crimp in operations at the Tree Fork.

“Pretty sure they’ll be excited to get back to work once they make bail,” Hayes said. “You were.”

“One time,” Trev muttered. That Hayes knew of, anyway. He and his roping partner Dylan Kent had ended up in jail for being drunk and disorderly after winning the big purse at the Kalispell rodeo, just weeks before Brooke Danvers came into Trev’s life as a settling influence. Hayes had bailed them out.

“One time you got caught,” his brother agreed. “What now?”

It wasn’t worth taking a risk on the Statons again. They needed someone steady until the calving season was done. Longer if they found someone good. Wade refused to admit it, but he was not fully recovered from the broken leg that had put him out of commission the previous autumn, which meant Trev and his brother Jordan were taking turns overseeing operations until Hayes finished his first semester of classes. They’d sold a hundred head of cattle in December to reduce the workload, but there was still a lot of births to see to. The one blessing was that the Statons had calved out the heifers, scheduled to give birth first, before commencing their adventure in Grey’s Saloon. As a result, seventy-five first-time moms were chomping hay in the northwest pasture with babies by their sides.

“I put the ad back up in the feed stores and Big Z’s hardware, and Jim Reed said one of his hands was willing to help on the weekends until I find someone.”

“I could always—”

“No. You aren’t bailing on your classes with only two and a half months to go.”

Worst-case scenario, he and Wade would push through, but he wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep. The repair projects he wanted to complete before he headed back to his job would have to wait and he had no idea when he’d be able to break free again. He’d burned through his vacation and PTO during his first four weeks on the Tree Fork and was now on approved unpaid leave for another four weeks—a fact he hadn’t shared with Wade, who would have had thoughts. Thankfully, Jordan had the ability to work remotely once he completed his part of his company’s current project sinking a shaft for a new mine in Idaho. He’d take the reins at the end of the month, when Trev was due back at his desk in Missoula.

Fuck but he hated his desk in Missoula.

“I’ll talk to Bailey.” Hayes’s fiancée. “See what we can work out.”

“No.”

A flash of sunlight on a windshield caught Trev’s eye and he squinted toward the spot where the road emerged from the aspen grove. The vehicle was still half a mile away, but he could make out the color and the make. Did he know anyone who drove a dark blue Ford?

“Got a visitor,” he said to Hayes.

“Hire them.”

“I will. Talk to you later. Don’t cut class.”

Trev put his phone in his pocket, studying the truck as it approached and wondering where he’d be directing the driver to. When the truck got close enough to read the Montana plate, he could see that a woman was driving with a smallish dog bouncing on the seat beside her.

The truck lurched when it crossed the cattleguard, as if its suspension was shot, then continued across the wide gravel yard that separated the houses from the barns and outbuildings, pulling to a stop a few yards away from where Trev stood. She turned off the engine and started to open the door, only to stop abruptly when he pushed his hat back, giving her a good look at his face. He might have been mistaken but it looked like she’d silently mouthed a curse word.

Trev’s first thought was that she was nervous, being miles from the public road and quite possibly lost. His second thought, when she once again raised her chin, was no fucking way.