By then, Buck had returned to his former position several yards ahead of Chase. And there was no purpose in trying to resume that particular conversation. The O’Rourke family worked the herd to cut out their strays, while Chase and the other riders kept the cattle loosely bunched.
Chapter II
During the noon break, the cowboys switched again to fresh horses from the remuda string held in a rope corral close to the camp. Chase swung his saddle onto a blood bay gelding with a white snip down its nose, and pulled the cinch tight. As he stepped into the stirrup and swung aboard, Buck rode by on a blaze-faced roan.
“Hurry up there, pilgrim. We’re burnin’ daylight,” Buck admonished in a poor imitation of a John Wayne drawl.
Chase held in a sigh. From the day he could remember, Buck had laughed, joked, and grinned his way through each hour. He appeared never to take anything seriously. Reining his horse around, Chase fell in alongside him.
“You’re a hopeless case, Buck,” he declared with a brief shake of his head.
“I know it, but ain’t it fun!” He grinned so often, there were already permanent grooves in his cheeks, and laughter lines fanned into the corners of his eyes. “I’ve been thinking, Chase,” Buck said very sober and straight-faced. “It wouldn’t be right for both you and me to visit Jake’s niece at the same time.”
“Why is that?” Chase gave him a slow sideways look, knowing he was being set up for something.
&
nbsp; “Once that little gal gets a look at this face and this body, she’s going to forget you’re even around. That just wouldn’t be fair. We’re practically brothers.”
“Buck, you have to be the most conceited man I know.” There was a rueful lift to one corner of Chase’s mouth, slanting it at a mocking angle.
Buck was acquiring a reputation as a ladies’ man, not wholly unjustified. There was something about his engaging smile and the laughing wickedness in his eyes that the women went for. Through tall tales, wild flattery, and sheer persistence, Buck eventually wore down any woman’s resistance. It wasn’t Chase’s style, although he usually got what he went after, too.
The remark only drew a laugh from Buck. “I’ve told you before, Chase, that I’m really you and you’re really me. My momma just switched us when we were babies so she could have the handsomest one for her own,” he said, repeating his often-told theory with a twinkling look.
“Is that right?” Chase mocked his friend with a challenge. “Then why is it you have curly hair and blue eyes like Miss Ruth, instead of brown hair and eyes like me and my dad?”
“Hell, I ain’t figured that out, either!” Laughter peeled from Buck’s throat, ringing loud and hearty.
The thunder of running hooves attracted their attention to the herd they were approaching. A cow had been separated from the others, a Shamrock brand on its hip. Now it was bolting for freedom, its tail high in the air. Pursuing it was the young O’Rourke girl. Chase watched her force the cow to turn, then manhandle her horse onto its haunches, and roll it back to keep the cow from taking off again, slapping a coiled rope against her thigh.
“That little gal sure can ride,” Buck remarked. “She’s making that heavy-headed nag do things it didn’t know it could do.”
“You spoke too soon,” Chase said as the cow made another lunge for freedom. When the girl stopped the horse and tried to haul it around on a pivot, the bay couldn’t get its legs under itself and lost its balance. The girl was catapulted from the saddle as it went to its knees. She hit the ground hard and didn’t immediately move. “I’ll see if she’s okay.” Chase spurred his horse forward.
Half a dozen other riders had seen the spill, too. If the downed rider had been a man or a boy, they would have waited to let him get up on his own. But the fallen rider was a girl, and that made all the difference.
Chase reached her first, dismounting and walking to where she was sprawled face down in the grass. She had just started to shakily push herself up from the ground. Her hat was knocked askew, but the coiled lariat was still in her hand.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
He heard the broken, airy sound to her voice and guessed she’d had the wind knocked out of her. Bending, Chase took hold of her arm. “I’ll help you up.”
As he began to lift her, he reached with his other hand to catch her under the opposite arm and stand her up. The unbuttoned jacket was hanging open. When his hand slipped inside, it closed around a soft, budding breast. For an instant, he was stunned by the rounded shape hidden under the oversized clothes.
Before he could move his hand, she had found her feet. “Take your dirty, lousy paws off me!” She knocked his arm down. The violence of her action caused her hat to fall off, and a swathe of long black hair spilled free to ripple in black waves nearly to her waist. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Chase released her arm. “I’m sorry, Miss.”
As he apologized, his dark eyes were taking in the changes in her appearance, the mass of black hair, the embarrassed flush to her cheeks, and the blazing fires in her angry green eyes. Perhaps his apology would have been accepted if his curious gaze hadn’t wandered down to her opened jacket, trying to see the jutting roundness his hand had felt.
The coiled lariat was in her right hand. She lifted it to strike at him, a stream of abuse coming from her lips. Chase raised his arm to ward off the blow and backed up. But she came after him, whipping him with the coiled rope. He shielded himself with upraised arms and continued to retreat.
“I told you I was sorry,” he reminded her tersely, holding his anger while feeling like a fool for being beaten up in front of all these men by a young girl.
“Oowee! Look at that little gal give Chase hell!” Buck’s voice taunted from the sidelines, where the other riders were smiling and chuckling at his predicament. “Go after him, honey!”