Destiny Wears Spurs Read online

  She undid the buckles on her overalls, dropped the bib, and then pulled off her top. Turning it around, she winced when she saw the gaping hole smack dab between her shoulder blades, high enough to be seen above her overalls. At least she’d followed Cody’s advice, dressing in layers this time.

  Leaving the shirt off, she redid her bibs. When she glanced up, she saw Buggy’s frank look, as if to say it served her right for wearing rayon in the first place.

  “Yeah, yeah. So my idea of working at a cattle ranch and reality are a little different.” She studied her gym clothes. “Okay, way different, but it’s not like I’m naked.”

  The calf blinked at her.

  “Well, not exactly, anyway.” Maybe her “layers” were another mistake as well. But he was only a calf, so who cared? She’d finish early and change before the men returned. After all, it wasn’t like anyone else would see her.

  * * *

  “Worthless piece of shit,” Cody shouted, giving the small, portable dam a hard shove into the stream. When the water failed to back up and overflow, he gave the gadget a vicious kick and then stumbled back, panting.

  There were better irrigation systems. Just one more thing he needed to upgrade that had to be put on hold. He ripped off his Stetson and plunged his fingers through his hair, dropping down to rest. If he were truthful, he’d admit his irrigation system didn’t have a damn thing to do with his frustration.

  He groaned, stretching out on the grass to stare blankly at the brilliant sky above until his breathing returned to normal. The sweet smell of wildflowers and strong smell of pine filled the air. Crystal clear, vibrant colors surrounded him. A slight breeze helped cool the temperature outside, but it didn’t do a thing to cool his insides. His senses didn’t give a hoot about the beauty around him because they were overloaded with a beauty far more powerful.

  A beauty by the name of Miss Monica Hammond.

  Scrubbing his palms over his face, he tried to erase her from his mind but only succeeded in reminding himself of dainty fingers with a touch far more gentle than his own, caressing his cheek. His hands stilled. He couldn’t breathe.

  When he thought about how her fingers had felt running through his hair, the same streak of desire that had coursed through him then rippled through his body now. He pounded his fist into the ground. “I’ve been too long without a woman is all,” he chanted, wanting desperately to believe it.

  Shaking his head, he willed anger to possess his body. Distance wasn’t working, and anger seemed to be the only defense he had left. He rolled to his feet and dusted off his chaps then headed toward Babe, setting his jaw. He was going to put an end to these ridiculous feelings once and for all, dammit.

  He reached Babe’s side in a few quick strides, then vaulted onto the horse’s back. Babe responded to the slightest movement of Cody’s thighs, and they were off to another part of the pasture where the men were moving the other portable dams.

  Fifteen minutes later, Cody reined in behind a tree and watched. He needed a minute to pull himself together and to cool off before facing his men.

  Jake stood and massaged the small of his back with gnarled fingers. “Who-wee, it’s a hot one. What’d’ya say we take us a little breaky?”

  Hank and Rusty exchanged glances. “I sure am thirsty, partner. Hey, did Izzy send any of her homemade lemonade?”

  “Why, my Izzy would never forget your favorite, Hank. How ‘bout you, Rus?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “May as well add another.” Cody spoke with a calm voice in stark contrast to his racing heart.

  “Dangit, boy. Don’t be scarin’ me thataway. I didn’t hear you ride up.” Jake pulled the lemonade from his saddlebags and threw him a knowing glance.

  Had they noticed the changes in him lately? Shoot, he knew they thought he’d had sex with Monica, but did they realize he’d been wrestling with wanting more than that from her? “Any problems with the dams working properly?”

  “Not a one. We’re almost finished. What’s next, son?”

  “Finish up here and then head on over to my end and see if you have more luck than I did. Stupid thing doesn’t work worth a hill of beans.”

  “That’s a good one, boss. You had me going. That’d be the day when Cody Rafferty can’t handle ranchin’.” Not noticing Cody’s frustrated scowl, Hank continued with the easy camaraderie between them, reminiscing with Rusty and Jake.

  “Ain’t that right, boys? Why, it used to make me jealous as hell, but then I realized I’d rather spend my energy on the finer things in life. Know what I mean?” He wagged his eyebrows twice and flashed his famous lady-magnet dimples.

  Jake got swept up in the memories and smiled broadly. “Yep. He’s always been like that. His pa used to say he had the touch, but I always thought he was plain stubborn as a mule. He’d stay up all night, until he figured out what in tarnation was wrong. Doggone it, by mornin’ that sucker would be fixed. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

  “Well, you’re both wrong this time. That worthless thing’s a piece of junk. I’ve got more important things to do than waste my time messing with it or listening to you hens squawking about the past like I ain’t even here.” It killed Cody to admit it, but they were right. He’d always been able to fix most anything pertaining to ranching. People came to him for help, not the other way around.

  Well, not today. Not since her!

  “Just fix the stupid thing,” he snapped, pulling on Babe’s reins and wheeling around to head out across the pasture.

  “Say hi to Mo for me,” Hank hollered behind him. Cody gritted his teeth, listening to their laughter as he urged Babe into a gallop and tried to ride Monica out of his brain. It didn’t work.

  A while later, he pulled his mount to a stop outside the barn and inhaled deep to calm his racing heart. Dismounting, he stroked his stallion’s heaving sides. “Sorry, boy. Didn’t mean to run you so hard.” He leaned his forehead against Babe’s thick neck and wondered how a woman--a city woman, at that--had managed to turn his life upside down. He stepped away from his horse and hooked him up to a hot walker. The merry-go-round type device came in handy to cool his horses off when he didn’t have time to walk them out after a hard day’s work. The last thing he needed was for Babe to have a colic attack from being too hot.

  Cody patted Babe on the rump to start him walking, and then squared his shoulders and headed for the barn. Just inside the door, he stopped and sniffed. “What the?” He blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness of the barn after working in the brilliant sunshine. He sniffed again. Hank’s cologne? Something nudged him in his back pocket, and he whipped around, ready to attack. What was the calf doing out of his stall?

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that, boy.” He tried to lead the critter back to his stall, but the calf stared at him and held his ground. Cody paused and thought of another pair of big brown eyes, shimmering with green flecks instead of gold.

  He cursed long and hard. “Looks like she’s gotten to you, too.” He cursed again, only, softer this time. “Is there a single member of the male species who isn’t affected by her?” Cody leaned over to pick up the calf but jerked his head back.

  “That’s Hank’s cologne, all right. Whew.” Wrinkling his nose and holding his breath, he picked up the heavy calf and struggled to get him across the barn and dump him in his stall. When he succeeded, he stepped away to gulp some fresh air, then he locked the door, and the calf bawled.

  “I know you don’t like it, but you’re not supposed to be loose. Don’t look at me like that. Why’d you have to have brown eyes, anyway?”

  Speaking of brown eyes, where’d Monica go? He scanned the barn. The office and tackroom doors were ajar. His eyes widened as the neatness surrounding him registered. “Well, I’ll be damned. The little minx managed to do a pretty good job.”

  Considering what he’d returned to yesterday, he hadn’t been sure what to expect. The crazy woman was always surprising him. One corner of
his lip turned up, coaxing a reluctant smile. Just when he started to feel as if things were looking up, an awful screeching noise erupted at the other end of the barn. Christ that sounded painful.

  Monica.

  He ran toward the sound and came to a skidding halt about six feet behind her. His jaw unhinged as he stared in disbelief.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Monica worked the broom back and forth, gathering a pile of dirt from the dark corner of the barn to the center. She stood in front of the open doors that led outside and glanced up, searching the horizon. No Cody.

  Tuning in another radio station on Bobby’s Walkman, she cranked it up when a song by some Trace Adkins guy began to play. Loud music brought back nostalgic memories of her teenage years, when she and Natalie would blast the stereo in the car and sing at the top of their lungs. She smiled, remembering.

  Monica couldn’t hear herself, but she had a feeling she was way off key. She’d been told she wasn’t any good, but that didn’t stop her from singing, so she belted out something about honky tonks, badabing badabonks. She didn’t get half the words right, and her rhythm was nowhere near perfect as she gyrated to the beat, feeling more like a belly dancer than a country line dancer. But she was having fun for a change, and that was all she cared about right now.

  When the song ended, she leaned forward to pull down the bottom of her black spandex workout shorts and then straightened to tug down the bottom of her black sports bra. As she went to sweep the last pile of dirt out the door, one side of her headphones jerked away from her ear.

  A deep voice bellowed, “I said, what the hell do you think you’re doin’?” The headphone snapped back into place.

  She yelped, flinging both Cody’s extra cowboy hat and Bobby’s headphones as she spun around. Cody loomed over her with his boots spread wide apart and his corded arms crossed over his broad chest. She hopped back a step, and heat flooded her system. “I, um, was singing and, uh, dancing, when you--”

  “No, not that.” He cut her off with a swipe of his big hand. “Although, I’m not sure I’d call that dancing and singing. You looked a heck of a lot more like you were hopping around in agony and crying in pain. I was talking about what you are--”

  “You came to rescue me?” She stared at him in disbelief.

  “That’s not the point. What happened to your clothes?”

  She looked herself over. What the heck was wrong with her clothes now? Was there no pleasing this man? “Well, the carrot managed to rip my pants.”

  “The carrot?” He let out a snort and shook his head.

  She never had been good at explaining herself when she was rattled, and Studly rattled her in a big way. “It was in my back pocket. I thought Bugs was trying to eat it--”

  “Wait a minute. Who’s Bugs?”

  “My baby of course.”

  “Your what?”

  “Baby calf. Relax, cowboy. You’re turning red.” He must think she was a complete wacko. She certainly felt like one, babbling like an idiot and wearing her workout clothes. She sighed. So much for going back to change before anyone saw her.

  Cody knotted his fists and gritted his teeth. Turning red? Hell, he was seeing red. The crazy woman would give him a heart attack yet. He tamped down his frustration with an iron will. “Continue.”

  She shrugged. “When he nibbled on the seat of my pants, I figured he was after the carrot. He’s a calf, so I assumed carrots weren’t a part of his diet.”

  “No, they’re not. Animals smell things all the time.” Like when he stuck his nose in my ass, Cody thought, asking wearily, “What happened next?”

  “He ripped my pants, of course.”

  “Of course.” Why did this not surprise him? “How come you took them off?”

  “Well, I couldn’t wear them with a big gaping hole in the center of my butt, now could I?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him as if he were the crazy one.

  “You had workout clothes on underneath, and it would’ve covered far more of you than now.”

  “True, but I didn’t want to damage my clothes any further. Those were designer jeans.”

  “What happened to your shirt? Let me guess. It has a big gapin’ hole in it. Right?” He dropped his hands to his hips.

  “Actually, yes.” She raised her chin a notch. “I caught it on a nail. I can’t believe you’re complaining. I dressed in layers just like you said.”

  He barked out a laugh. “Yeah? Where in God’s name are the rest of your layers?”

  “What do you mean, where are my layers? I’m wearing them.” She spread her arms wide and glanced down at her outfit.

  He tipped his head back and roared with laughter. “You call that skimpy scrap of material an outfit? What the hell are you outfitted for, teaching my animals morning aerobics?”

  “Funny,” she ground out. “I didn’t have anything else small enough to fit under my clothes. Besides, I am exercising, after all. Not that you’d notice all the work I’ve done around here. You could eat off the floor, it’s so clean.”

  He leaned in until the tip of his nose almost touched hers. “I’ve noticed the work and the indecent attire.”

  “Indecent? Give me a break. This isn’t the Stone Age. I only wore them in case I got hot again.”

  “Hot? Yeah, right. You’re ‘hot’ all right. I know exactly why you wore them, but it ain’t gonna happen, woman. I’m no one’s cowboy toy.”

  “Get over yourself.” She poked her finger in his chest. “The last thing I want is to play with your toy, cowboy. People dress like this all the time in New York.”

  “Well, you’re not in New York, now, are you?” He poked his finger in her much softer chest, causing her to gasp. “Out here, it just ain’t proper.”

  “Why, you little--”

  “Look out, Miss Hammond. You’re turning a mite red there yourself.”

  “Oh, you’re the most bullheaded, impossible man I’ve ever laid eyes on.” She scuffed her purple boot across the floor then took several deep breaths and said in a calmer tone, “You can’t tell me you didn’t notice the fantastic job I did.”

  He looked around the barn and grudgingly admitted, “You did a good job. Better than I expected, anyway.”

  “That’s the best you can do?”

  He shrugged.

  She sighed. “Let’s just change the subject.”

  He glanced at her heaving chest. Damn, she stirred his passion something fierce. He had to give the spitfire credit, though. She gave as good as she got. “Fine,” he responded.

  “Fine,” she sounded much calmer. “Why do I let you get to me? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  He looked at her in surprise. Though he wasn’t about to admit she got to him, too, it comforted him knowing he wasn’t the only one confused. He decided to call a truce. “Explain why my calf was out of his stall, smelling like he took a bath in Hank’s cologne.” He couldn’t wait to hear this one.

  “Probably because he did take a bath in Hank’s cologne.” Her eyes met his. He lifted a brow, and she bit her lip.

  “Start talking.” Cody could feel the beginnings of a headache behind his right temple.

  “Well, I know next to nothing about taking care of babies, so I thought of what my cousin would do, since she’s had three of her own. Only, hers are the human kind, but how much different can they be, right?”

  His jaw throbbed, his head pounded, hell, his damned teeth ached. The lady always managed to turn a simple answer into a story. When she tucked her hair behind her ear in what he now recognized as a nervous habit, he forced himself to relax and soften his features. “And?”

  “And I managed to feed him. Oh, the carrots are for the horses. Remind me to thank Festus. He’s such a nice ....”

  Cody frowned.

  She took the hint and steered the conversation back to the question at hand. “Anyway, I finished feeding Buggy, but he escaped and ran into me, but he’s fine. I checked.”

  Sh
e sounded like she truly cared about the calf. A city chick caring about a calf. Something inside Cody went soft, but then she started babbling again, squelching the feeling in a hurry.

  “Anyway, he really smelled, so I used some soap and the hose. I found some towels in the bunkhouse and--”

  “You used my good towels? Why not let him air dry?”

  “He was soaking wet.”

  “So. He’s a calf. Not a human.”

  “I realize that, but he’s just a baby. I didn’t want him to catch a cold. Anyway, I was putting the soap back on the shelf, and I left the door open by mistake. Buggy came up behind me and nudged my leg. I was so startled, I grabbed the shelf and the cologne fell. By the time I climbed down, the bottle was empty and Buggy smelled like a gigolo. End of story. Care to know anything else?” She smiled.

  “Good God almighty, no.”

  Her smile slipped.

  “I mean, I won’t have time to show you how to saddle the horses if we don’t get going.”

  “Okay. Give me a minute to finish up. Oh, and thanks for coming to my rescue.” She twisted around and bent over to sweep the last pile of dirt into the dustpan. “That was sweet of you.” She took a few steps, her hips swaying, and then leaned forward to dump the dustpan outside. “So, is it hard?”

  Cody gulped. Christ is it ever.

  “I said is it hard to saddle a horse?”

  That may have been what she meant, but it sure as hell wasn’t what she’d said. “Uh, no,” he managed to get out.

  She peered at him over her shoulder. “Is something wrong? You’re sweating.”

  He didn’t answer.

  She turned around, stepped over to his side, and touched his forearm.