Callie's Cowboy (15 page)

Abruptly he broke away. “Welcome to Roundrock,” he said with a mischievous wink. “Make yourself at home. I'll be back for dinner.” He kissed her again before she could even say anything. “Mmm, wish it could be more.” He released her and walked away to join his men.

Callie touched her lips, not sure whether she should smile or frown. The kiss had awakened her better than even the caffeine-laden coffee had, and she knew she would think of it often during the day. She was also sure that's what Sam had intended.

But she chafed at the role of the “little woman” waiting at home for her man to return from his manly work.

Well, it was only a temporary situation, she told herself as she wandered back into the dining hall to finish her biscuit and coffee. Anyway, she had plenty to occupy herself for today, or even a few days, until Sam had time to teach her about ranching.

Funny, she'd never imagined herself wanting to learn something like that.

Callie thought she had plenty to keep her busy. First she called home and checked her answering machine. Nothing.

Next she called Sloan. She felt guilty for walking away from the mystery of Johnny Sanger's death and leaving Sloan to his own devices. She'd promised to help, and now she'd bugged out. She wanted to let him know that she was still keeping her eyes and ears open, even up here in Nevada. And she was still thinking.

“Have you questioned Nicole Johnson?” she asked Sloan at the first opportunity. Not that he owed her any explanations.

“Danny Fowler did. I sat in. Uh, I don't think she did it, Callie.”

“Oh, I don't either,” Callie said quickly. “Her grief was too genuine. But that doesn't mean she isn't involved somehow. If she was … spending time with Johnny, he might have confided in her.”

“Exactly. And she is hiding something. I just don't know what.” He sighed. “Nicole
isn't
a bad person. I've known her for years. And, for your information, I don't believe she and Johnny were physically involved. I think they were friends, just like she claims.”

Callie didn't say anything. She was unutterably relieved to hear someone echo her own thoughts.

“Pretty naive of me, huh?” Sloan said.

“No. Not at all. Did Johnny actually leave her anything in his will? She seemed to believe he would.”

“Maybe he would have, if he'd known he was going to die. We'll never know.”

Callie ended the conversation by promising Sloan that she'd let him know if either Sam or Beverly told her
anything useful, tamping down the twinge of guilt she felt over “spying” on her friends.

Putting Johnny's death out of her mind once more, Callie sent out her daily round of résumés. The quarter-mile walk down to the mailbox allowed her her first good look at Roundrock. It was picture-postcard impressive. The view went on for miles, and she wondered how much of what she could see was Sanger land.

She stood and looked at the view, with its subtle colors of green-and-purple sagebrush across the valley the ranch was nestled in. A thin mist shrouded mountain slopes in the distance. The scene's subtle paint-box hues wavered and changed as the sun played hide-and-seek behind wispy clouds. She hadn't imagined that Nevada would be so colorful. The air was crisp and cold too. Frost still clung to the tan grass in shady areas. But it was a dry, invigorating chill that made Callie want to run laps—or maybe even ride a horse.

When she returned to the house, she wandered into the kitchen, where Rena was baking.

Rena gruffly refused Callie's offer of help. So Callie poured herself another cup of coffee, as if she weren't wired enough already, and sat down at the table where Rena was rolling out dough.

“Are you making pie?” Callie asked.

“Mm-hmm.”

“What kind?”

“Blueberry.”

Callie's mouth watered. “You've been with Sam's family a long time, I guess. I remember Sam talking about you when he was just a kid.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Her answers didn't invite further questions, so Callie quieted down for a while. She suspected Rena would be even more reticent if she learned Callie was thinking of writing a story about Roundrock.

Callie decided to ask questions of a less personal nature. “How big is Babcock?”

“Dunno. A few hundred people, I guess.”

“Does it have a newspaper?”

Rena finally cracked a smile, but it wasn't a kind one. “What would we need a newspaper for? Nothing ever happens.”

Callie didn't argue, but she knew differently. Most people were hungry for news of their community, no matter how small.

It was easy to see why Sam's wife had gone stir-crazy here. Not that that was any excuse for leaving a husband and baby, but Callie could sympathize with the boredom. She looked forward to the time when Sam would be free to show her around and teach her to ride. If she was going to fit in around here, even for two weeks, she would have to find some useful pursuit.

“What do the men do for lunch?” she asked Rena.

“I'll take it to them.”

“Oh, do you need some help?” She couldn't keep the eagerness out of her voice. It was pathetic, how desperate she was for a few minutes with Sam.

“Not really.”

“But I'd like to help.” Then she could find out what Sam and his men were doing. She'd come here for him, not his empty ranch house.

Rena sighed. “You can come along if you're really that bored.”

“Thank you,” Callie replied. “Just call out when you're ready. I'll be in the house somewhere.”

She wandered around for a bit, eventually stumbling on Beverly in the living room, reading a story to Deana, both of them tucked under an afghan. Beverly looked up, and Deana jumped off the couch, running like a steer out of the shoot at a rodeo. She wrapped her chubby arms around Callie's legs. “Callll,” she said in obvious delight.

Callie picked her up. She was amazed at how comfortable she was starting to feel with the little girl. “Hi, munchkin.”

Beverly smiled. “I guess I haven't been very good company this morning, Callie. You must be bored stiff.”

“Not really. I'm going with Rena to take lunch to the men.”

“Oh? Are you sure you want to do that? They're up to some messy, disgusting work, you know.”

“I want to see it. I'm not sure why I have this sudden urge to learn about Sam's ranch—”

“I think I know,” Beverly said with quiet certainty.

Callie could guess what Beverly was thinking, and she quickly shook her head. “It's not because I want to live here. I just never realized the ranch would be so … intriguing. I'm thinking of writing some kind of story about it—that is, if you and Sam don't object.”

“Doesn't bother me,” Beverly said complacently.

“Good. Um, since I have a few minutes, there's something I want to ask you.” She thought briefly of Nicole, then nixed the idea again. Not in front of Deana. Maybe never. “It's about Johnny and his computer. He was pretty proud of it, huh?”

Beverly smiled nostalgically. “He thought getting computerized was the best thing to come along since sliced bread. He's always hated paperwork, and the computer saved him a lot.”

“I understand that he used a fax modem to place orders for feed.”

“And for any other supplies we needed. Almost every business has a fax machine these days.”

“And then did he print a hard copy of the fax for himself, for the files?”

Beverly looked surprised. “Oh, heavens, no. He didn't believe in making hard copies of anything. A receipt for the goods was all the paperwork he needed.” Beverly narrowed her gaze. “Why are you asking me about this?”

“Because …” She took a deep breath. “The last thing Johnny printed before he died was a hard copy of a week-old feed order.”

“You mean, when I heard the printer …”

Callie nodded. “It might not mean anything, Bev,” she cautioned. “If he was distraught, he could have simply pushed the wrong button.”

“But then, what did he intend to print?”

The question hung between them.

“Callie!” Rena's voice boomed from the kitchen. “We're leaving in five minutes!”

“You better run along,” Beverly said. “Rena won't hesitate to go without you.”

Callie gave Beverly a quick hug, almost squashing Deana between them. But she didn't go right to the kitchen. She wanted to talk to Sloan about her newest suspicion. She ran upstairs and punched in his number
on the extension in her room. But he wasn't available, so she was forced to leave a message.

Her five minutes were slipping away fast. She ran full tilt for the kitchen.

“There.” Rena, pointed to a box.

Callie grabbed the box off the table and breathed in the scent of freshly baked corn bread and steaming chili as she followed Rena out the back door to her battered pickup truck. The sun had chased the nip from the air, and Callie found she didn't even need a jacket.

“Beautiful day,” she said to the reticent Rena as they both climbed into the cab of the truck.

“Warm for October,” Rena offered.

The truck bounced its way along dirt roads that crisscrossed acres and acres of pastureland. Some pastures were empty, some contained placidly grazing cattle, many of them with half-grown calves nearby.

When they finally located the cowboys, the scene wasn't exactly what Callie had pictured. No one was on a horse. In fact, all the horses were tethered nearby, looking bored as they cropped browning grass. The action was in some pens, which looked as if they'd been hastily built that morning. Groups of white-faced cattle were milling about nervously. The men were gathered in two small groups, doing something to the animals.

Rena rang a bell, announcing lunch's arrival. “Come and git it while it's hot!” she bellowed.

Callie's gaze locked onto Sam. He was sweaty and dusty—and was that blood on his shirt? Was he hurt?

She ran up to him as he approached the truck. “Sam, are you okay?”

He appeared puzzled. “Sure. Why wouldn't I be?”

She pointed to his shirt.

He grinned. “That's not my blood. Musta got that when I was dehorning.” He turned and shouted to his men, “C'mon, boys, take a break.”

“Be there in a minute,” one of them called. Callie looked around Sam to the closest pen, where three of the men had a large calf immobilized in a tiny enclosure. She saw the flash of a knife, and before she could even guess at the wielder's intent, it happened. The calf made an unearthly screech.

“Oh, dear.” She put a hand to her mouth and the other to her stomach to quell the sudden nausea.

“Callie?”

“What're they doing to the poor thing?” she asked.

“It's called castrating. Don't keep staring at it—for God's sake, you're white as paper.”

Sam wrapped his hands around Callie's shoulders and forcibly turned her around so she couldn't see the gory scene that had mesmerized her. He marched her to the tailgate, moved a cooler full of lemonade, and sat her down. “You okay?”

She nodded weakly.

He grabbed a foil-wrapped packet of corn bread from a box and peeled it. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see what y'all were up to.”

“Well, you saw,” he answered matter-of-factly.

“I thought I had a strong stomach, but apparently not.”

“You get used to it. Here, want some corn bread?”

Her stomach roiled. “No, thanks.”

Without comment he filled a plastic tumbler full of lemonade and handed it to her. That she could handle. She drank greedily.

“Ranching's not nearly as romantic as it sounds from a distance. But look.”

“What?”

He pointed into a nearby pen. “There's the calf that was just castrated, branded, and dehorned.”

Callie did look. The half-grown calf was milling about with its herd mates, grazing calmly. He seemed to have forgotten all about his recent ordeal.

“It seems so cruel,” she murmured.

“It's not nice,” Sam agreed, “but I guess I don't often think much about how the cattle feel. They're a commodity. They're my living.”

She looked up at him. This was the part of Sam she didn't know, the part she'd never had the opportunity or perhaps taken the time to see.

Surprisingly, she found that this unfamiliar aspect of his personality was admirable, somehow, and gave him more depth. She could no longer think of him as the fun-loving boy she'd dated. He was a cowboy, and she admired the grit of any man who could do this for a living.

Especially this man.

She grinned foolishly, then reached into the box for a piece of corn bread. Her stomach was feeling better.

Sam got himself a bowl of chili, then sauntered back to lean against the truck near Callie. He cocked one skeptical eyebrow at her. “You still want to ride the roundup?” he asked smugly.