Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material by Elizabeth Lowell Read Free Book Online

they kept trying, they couldn’t quite wedge themselves between the truck and the trough. Rio and Hope wouldn’t be trampled as long as they kept to Behemoth’s bulky shelter.
    He pitched his voice to carry over the noise of the cattle. “Ready.”
    When Hope didn’t answer, and the hose remained slack, he glanced over his shoulder. She was propped against the dusty truck, eyes closed, soaking in every instant of rest like dry sand absorbing water. Contrasted with the truck’s bulk, she looked very small, almost fragile.
    “Hope?”
    She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. With a grace that belied the exhausted shadows beneath her eyes, she picked up the heavy wrench, fastened it to the valve, and put her whole body into giving it a good solid turn.
    Water swelled the hose and rushed over the lip of the tank, thundering hard and fast into the empty trough. Cattle bawled and crowded closer, jostling even the sturdy truck. When Rio was certain that the hose wouldn’t leap up out of the trough and spray water everywhere, he slipped back under the ancient army vehicle and sat next to Hope.
    “Eager little devils,” he said, watching the forest of dusty legs milling beyond the truck’s shelter.
    “Beautiful little devils.” Hope was smiling and her eyes were alight with pride in her cattle.
    After a time the animals that had been first at the water tank allowed themselves to be pushed aside by their thirsty friends. The cattle that had shoved in for a drink earlier in the day, during Behemoth’s first water run, waited on the fringes of the herd or grazed invisibly among the big sage and scattered piñon that grew over the gently folded land. The grazing cattle were the same ones that would be most eager tomorrow, up in the front of the crowd, shoving and bawling for their first taste of water in a day.
    Hope didn’t waste energy trying to talk over the noise of her cows. With a half-apologetic smile to Rio, she lay on her back in the dust, her head on her hat, her eyes closed. She felt light-headed with the pleasure of stretching muscles that were cramped from the day’s demands.
    This was one of the moments she waited for, when the hardest part of water hauling had been done and all that remained was uncoupling the hose, racking it, and driving Behemoth back to the ranch house. Sometimes before she left for home she would take off her clothes and slide over the lip of the huge tank. She would paddle quietly for a time before she rested her arms along the rim and floated, watching while glittering stars bloomed in the navy-blue depths of evening.
    With an odd smile Rio watched Hope as she lay unself-consciously near him. He didn’t know whether she was too tired for the usual flirtations or forthright advances of the women he had known in the past, or whether she simply didn’t see him as a man because he wasn’t all white.
    Then he remembered the times he had turned and found her watching him, female approval clear in her expression. She was exhausted, not bigoted.
    He was tempted to stretch out next to her, sharing the truck’s bluntly curving shelter and resting his body at the same time. His day had begun well before dawn, when he had caught Dusk, saddled her, and rounded up some of Turner’s skittish Thoroughbreds. The horses were as elegant as ballerinas, and about as much use for working cattle.
    It was Turner’s quarter horses that Rio truly enjoyed. They were muscular, cow-savvy, and quick, perfectly suited to use with cattle. By the time he was done, John Turner would have some of the best cow horses in Nevada.
    Then Turner would ruin his quarter horses trying to win flashy buckles in rodeos. The man had no more sense of how to treat a horse than he did of how to treat hired hands, women, or the land itself. He took, but didn’t give back. He didn’t even suspect that he should.
    Slouching farther down, Rio propped his head against a dusty tire and drew his feet out of the way of the eager