Widow Woman by Patricia McLinn Read Free Book Online Page B

portions that went a long way toward making his reputation as a cook.
    Rachel lost track of his preparations when the horses arrived. Pulling her bandanna over her mouth and nose, she mounted Dandy to join Joe-Max in helping guide the horses into the rope corral. Even with Shag and Nick keeping an easy pace, the saddle band kicked up a thick haze of dust.
    Then Tommy and the others started bringing in cattle. She helped guide them to the pen, sending the hands for grub after a morning's work that had started well before sunup. Heat and dust burned her throat and nose, and she was so thirsty she understood why dry cattle stampeded to water.
    As hands finished eating, Shag paired the best ropers with a crew on the ground who would wrestle calves down, hold a sizzling Circle T brand to their sides and then wield their knives to change male calves to steers.
    The stink of sweat, blood, dust, burned hide and animal dung fouled the air. Men shouted, calves bawled and horses protested. Smell, sound, dust, hunger and thirst overwhelmed Rachel's senses, leaving her light-headed and heavy-limbed by the time Davis rode up.
    "Mrs. Terhune, ma'am, Shag says for me to spell you, and you're to take your dinner now, ma'am."
    The polite embellishments on what she'd wager had been a brusque order stirred Rachel's amusement. But she was too weary to do more than thank him and follow orders. Wiping her face with a damp rag, taking a brave swallow of Fred's coffee—"There's no such thing as coffee too strong,” was his motto, “just people too weak"—and downing a plate of hot biscuits, beans and fried beefsteak did much to restore her energy.
    She took a final swallow of coffee, preparing to return to work, when she saw a rider coming into camp.
    Stocky, broad-faced and with a shock of gray hair a shade lighter than his beard, Gordon Wood cut an impressive figure, especially on his strapping buckskin. He looked as weathered and solid as the mountains to the west.
    And equally impervious to hints that his presence was not desired.
    "Just branding now, Rachel?” He shook his head.
    Little drawl and no subtlety remained from Wood's Mississippi upbringing. But his bluntness had a great advantage in her mind over Dunn's polite innuendo—it meant she could answer in kind.
    "What are you doing here, Mr. Wood?"
    "Why, we finished branding at Natchez nearing on two weeks ago.” He added as a hearty afterthought, “None of this Mr. Wood, now. I told you to call me Gordon."
    She hadn't told him to call her Rachel.
    "I don't have as many men as you, Mr. Wood. They worked hard at roundup, and needed rest. If you've come to hire away more, I won't take it kindly. In fact, I'd invite you off Circle T land."
    "An invitation you'd make at the end of that rifle you're known for carrying, Rachel?” He chuckled appreciatively. “A pretty girl like you should be wearing pretty dresses, not toting a rifle."
    "I'm hardly a girl."
    "Not much more than that.” He dismissed her comment with a wave of his gloved hand. “What you need is a man who'd give you pretty dresses. Why don't you let me marry you, Rachel, and I'll get you those dresses. Then you'd have no worries about anyone hiring away hands. No worries about running a ranch at all."
    "I don't mind the worry. And I've been married. I didn't much care for it."
    "That's why I figure you're not staying a widow now from any partial feeling to the Terhune name."
    Accustomed to his blunt speech, Rachel didn't blink. “I'm not."
    "So, why not change it to Wood? It's a good name. Natchez is a good outfit With the Circle T added, it'd be a da—dashed big spread. That'd be a fine thing for a man to leave to a son."
    Rachel ignored the squeeze of pain in her heart—how easily the ranch that her father had loved and lived for, that she'd sacrificed so much for, could be absorbed into the great, sprawling land. As if it had never existed. Gordon Wood's easy disregard for her feelings—as well as his casual