Counterfeit Cowgirl (Love and Laughter) Read online

  And so she had quit, because if she wanted heart, Daddy could sure enough go buy her one. She didn’t need the aggravation. And she bad done just fine without Colonel Shelby and his nagging. Skiing trips, shopping and facials could more than fill her days. She had been perfectly content until that night in the parking lot.

  But she was safe now.

  Her mind felt fuzzy. Daddy had hired a new chef. Perhaps she’d have crepes for breakfast. Sleep settled in like a cloud of cotton, cushioning her body, soothing her nerves.

  Time passed softly until the sound of a door opening nibbled at her consciousness. A noise followed that sounded strangely like tiny hooves on linoleum.

  “You wouldn’t Mace a movie star, would you?”

  Hannah awoke with a start, and grabbed for the shower curtain. There was a scraping sound, and suddenly the whole thing, rod and all, splattered into the tub.

  She shrieked, shocked as cool water splashed onto her face.

  “Hannah!” Ty said, thumping the door wide and torpedoing into the bathroom. “Are you…” he began, but suddenly his words came to an end. His lips turned up into a satyrlike smile, and he laughed.

  Reality hit Hannah like ice water. She wasn’t with Daddy. She wouldn’t have crepes for breakfast, and she was still in hell. Glaring past the edge of the downed shower curtain that draped her body, Hannah raised an arm at him.

  “Out!”

  He only laughed harder, bending over now to guffaw his glee.

  “Out!” she shrieked.

  He reached for the vanity, his hand shaky from his laughter, and drew a towel to his eyes. “If Howard had been half so entertaining, I’d a begged him to stay.”

  She wasn’t going to hire a hit man. She was going to do the job herself. And she was going to enjoy it.

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” he said, apparently trying to control his jocularity. “But I just…” Laughter again. “Your movie star…”

  She would kill him slowly—smother him with the shower curtain, rather like the guy that had fallen into the swimming pool in the first Lethal Weapon.

  Tyrel motioned behind him, and Hannah saw now that the little, knock-kneed calf stood in the doorway, looking bewildered. “Daniel Day-Lewis is hungry. I brought you up a bottle,” Ty said, righting the nippled thing that dripped milk onto the narrow vanity. Apparently he’d tossed it there when she’d screamed.

  She allowed sanity to creep in. She couldn’t kill him now. She’d have to get dressed first.

  “I’ll feed him downstairs,” she said, gathering the shreds of her dignity.

  He stood in silence for a moment, watching her with a crooked grin. She slicked her hair back and defiantly held his gaze. She must look a sight, no makeup, dressed in a crusty shower curtain and deflating soap bubbles.

  “I can feed him for you,” he said. “You look tired.”

  She straightened. “I’m sorry my appearance isn’t up to your lofty standards,” she said. “I’ll feed the calf.”

  “I don’t mind,” he countered.

  For a moment silence lay gently between them, but then she remembered herself. “It’s not going to be that easy to back out of our agreement,” she said. “That calf is going to live, and he’s going to live because of me.” She jabbed a thumb toward her chest. Water splashed into her eye. She ignored it for the sake of dignity—a slippery thing lately. “You’ll be paying me a thousand dollars and I’ll be leaving this backwater toilet on the first plane.”

  He snorted and bending, lifted Daniel easily into his arms. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.” He turned, then stopped in the doorway. “Oh, breakfast is at six. I like my eggs over easy.”

  OVER EASY! Nothing was easy. Not on this piece of godforsaken tundra.

  Hannah groaned as she slid her feet over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. The cold floor. The cold, uncarpeted floor.

  She didn’t have an alarm clock. She’d always regarded them as barbaric, and had insisted on having Maria awaken her with fresh-squeezed orange juice on those rare occasions when she’d had to rise before noon.

  But now, despite everything, she had awakened on her own every couple of hours during the night. She didn’t know why. Perhaps she was worried about Daniel, whom she’d fed twice since her bath. Or perhaps it was simply because, no matter what, no matter if the sky fell and the sea turned to chocolate mousse, she was not going to let that half-brained, black-haired Neanderthal man beat her.

  He liked his eggs over easy! She would cook them to golden perfection, then dump them over easy on his head!

  The image of Tyrel Fox with an egg flopped over one odd flat ear, propelled her out of her nightgown and into jeans and a short pink, button-down cardigan. She’d bought it on a Christmas trip to London. Derik had said it made her look like a million dollars.

  Derik was an Englishman, with an Englishman’s dry wit and fashionably narrow build. She’d thought herself in love with him. Her first love really, and had decided with a virgin’s determination to make him her first lover.

  Their kisses had been hot and impassioned. Or so she thought. Too hot. Hot enough to scare her. She had apologetically called a halt. The following morning he’d told his cronies that she’d had to quit before her shell of ice melted off. They didn’t call her the ice witch for nothing. Somehow that cliché had sounded even worse with an English accent.

  She’d returned home a wiser woman, she told herself now.

  Hurrying to the ancient chest of drawers near the window, she grabbed the brush she’d left there and dragged it through her hair. Then, in a brave moment, she glanced in the mirror before rearing back in horror. Two nights in North Dakota and she looked like this! She’d better keep an eye on the sky or a house would be sure to fall on her. All that would be sticking out was her ruby-colored slippers.

  But she didn’t care what Tyrel Fox thought of her looks, she reminded herself. All she had to do was get the work done.

  She scowled at herself again, brushed her hair back, and bound it with a ribbon.

  Maybe she should add a little foundation. A dab of lipstick? A few strokes of mascara.

  No! Not for him. Not for the Barbarian Brothers, she determined, and raising her chin, stomped down the stairs to the kitchen.

  It was still relatively clean. She found a pan without undue difficulty, switched on the burner with comparative ease, and broke a couple of eggs into a bowl.

  Before long she had breakfast cooking. It was still dark outside and the house was quiet. Never in all her twenty-four years had she been up at this hour, or if she had, she’d come at it from the other end.

  It was then that she heard the noise. She frowned, glanced into the living room, and saw that Daniel was still asleep beneath his parka.

  The sound came again, a scraping, mewling noise. Going to the door, she peeked through the window.

  A scrawny cat stared up at her. One ear was half the length of the other, and he held one paw carefully out of the snow. He was the color of swirled marmalade and had an attitude like Sean Connery, well aged but alluring.

  Hannah opened the door. “Come on in,” she said. “Breakfast is cooking.”

  The cat entered with wary slowness, watching her the whole while. She noticed now that his tail was truncated barely five inches above his back.

  “Cold?”

  The cat didn’t answer.

  “Hungry,” she corrected herself, then scowled. What to feed a stray cat in the wee hours of the morning? When she was small, she’d always wanted a cat. But her mother thought them dirty.

  This was a cat—kind of, and certainly not too dirty for this place.

  “I know just the thing,” she said, and smiling, hurried to the kitchen to take the colostrum from the refrigerator.

  In a few minutes, Hannah had set a bowl on the kitchen floor, but the cat only looked furtive.

  From the living room, she heard Daniel stumble to his feet, so, taking the bowl with her, she went to greet him and set t
he colostrum there for the cat to eat when he got up the nerve.

  “Just a few minutes, Daniel,” she said, and pattered back into the kitchen to heat more milk.

  She was soon holding a bottle to his mouth.

  Daniel, stood, arched back, tail lifted as he lowered his charming head and sucked the bottle dry.

  “Good boy,” Hannah crooned.

  Just then the door opened. Ty stepped in. Hannah lifted her gaze, ready to share her success. It was then that all hell broke loose.

  Pans clattered. Nate shrieked, a cat yowled, and suddenly the smell of singed fur permeated the house.

  Hannah flew into the kitchen only to find a frenzied cat scrambling over the refrigerator and onto the curtain, from which he launched himself, claws spread, over Nate’s sprawled body and away.

  Ty crossed the living room slowly, his boots squeaking on the floor until finally he leaned his weight against the doorjamb.

  “Tell me, Ms. Nelson…”

  She turned slowly toward him, fully aware of Nate on the floor, the eggs on Nate, and the pan on the eggs.

  “Yes, Mr. Fox?” she said, raising her chin and forcing herself to meet his eyes.

  For a moment his gaze skimmed her—the pink cable knit cardigan with the tiny pearl buttons down the front, her hips, her legs, her stocking feet. But then he fastened his attention on her eyes. “Did you come here simply to make my life difficult, or is that just a side benefit?”

  She pursed her lips. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Fox, that’s my sole purpose in life.”

  “Really? I’m so flattered.”

  “As you should be.”

  “Where’d you find the cat?”

  “He found me.”

  “Your usual type?”

  “Better than most I’ve met.”

  He snorted. “You’re from California then?” he guessed.

  “No. Still Colorado, I’m afraid.”

  “Uh-huh. Nate,” he said, turning his attention to his brother who was still on the floor, “we got a calf coming backward.”

  “I think I broke my tailbone.”

  “Well, get off it and come help out. She’s been at it awhile.”

  “First calfer?”

  “You got it.”

  “God help us.”

  “You had breakfast?”

  “I watched the eggs fly past my head. That count?”

  “You bet. Hannah, I need you to go to town.”

  “What?” she managed.

  “The 4240 won’t start. Can’t feed without it.”

  “Forty-two-four-oh?”

  “The John Deere. Go to Ellingson’s in Valley Green. Tell them I need a new hose.”

  “Ellingson’s?”

  “Yeah. Here,” he said. Digging around in the overflowing laundry basket, he pulled out a scrap of paper and the stub of a carpenter’s pencil. “I’m writing down the number of the part I need. Ellingson’ll know what to do. Take the Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “My black pickup.”

  “Pickup?”

  “You know how to shift it into four-wheel drive?”

  “Four-wheel drive?”

  “Did you split a personality with a myna bird or something?” Tyrel asked, scowling at her.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he raised his hand.

  “Just…get your coat and I’ll show you.”

  He led the way through the snow to a tan, steel building on the north side of the house. Pushing open a huge, sliding door, he flipped on the lights and made his way between several pieces of huge unidentifiable machinery to a black pickup truck.

  “Get in,” he said, pulling the door open.

  She stepped past him and climbed into the truck. It was built like a tank.

  “Shifts just like a car,” he said, “only here…” He reached past her to a lever on the floor. His arm brushed her knee. His words stopped.

  Her breath stopped. Their gazes met.

  “You, um…” He cleared his throat. “You smell pretty good.”

  For one rash moment she considered apologizing for the eggs, the microwave, the kitchen fire. But then she came to her senses. She raised one brow.

  “You smell good, too. For a bull in heat,” she said.

  He snorted and pulled back. “Honey, bulls don’t come in heat. But even if they did, you could freeze ‘em up with one flick of your tongue.”

  “Fiddle dee dee.”

  “I’d tell you to be careful in town, but I think I’ll just issue an all-state warning to the male population. Careful, freezer burn on contact.”

  She opened her mouth to retaliate, but his face was too close and his eyes as dark as fresh ground coffee. Suddenly she could think of nothing to say.

  “How…how do I shift it?” she asked, pulling her gaze away.

  “Figure it out,” he said, drawing back as if for safety’s sake. “You’re a smart girl.”

  Her breath stopped. “I am?” The words came unbidden. Not in two-plus decades of life had anyone ever told her that.

  “Yeah, you are,” he said. They were staring at each other again. But he ripped his attention away and began digging around in his jeans pocket, came up with a note. “You just act like an idiot,” he said. “Here. A list of groceries we need. We’re going to have to give Daniel a calcium IV if we don’t get him milk soon.”

  She tried to jerk herself back to her senses, but they were still reeling.

  He prodded her arm with the list. “You’ll find this stuff at a grocery store.”

  “I know how to buy groceries.”

  “Well, good. That’ll be a first then.”

  She gritted her teeth. “What do I use for money?”

  “Oh. Here.” He drew out his billfold and pulled out several twenties. “You’re the cook. Get whatever you need.”

  She raised her brows at him. “A little short for an airline ticket, isn’t it? But wait. I’ve got the Jimmy.”

  His face turned serious. Maybe even a little pale. And as she drove through the brightening day, the memory of his dire expression made her smile.

  5

  THE TRIP TO VALLEY GREEN was uneventful. Boring, in fact Hannah flipped on the radio. Country music blasted out at her. Wincing, she trolled for stations. But her only alternatives were the grain futures and a detailed report on the health of the residents of Shady Tree Rest Home. Snapping off the radio, she cruised for a while, but finally switched it on again and let someone named Vince Gill croon at her from a dusty speaker.

  Valley Green was neither green nor much of a valley. But Hannah had to admit the white, tree-dotted slopes had a sort of serene beauty. The snow-spattered sign just outside city limits boasted 12,845 people.

  Ellingson’s Farm Deere and Implement was not hard to find.

  Only one employee stood behind the counter. Still in his teens, he was fighting a losing battle against acne and a tendency to let his jaw drop open when he looked at her.

  She offered him the smile she used to charm peasants and handed him the note. Still, he didn’t focus on the paper.

  “I need one of those,” she said, tapping the slip.

  “Oh. Yes, ma’am,” he said, and catapulting back to the business at hand, turned too quickly and ran smack into the wall behind him. Rubber belts of various sizes showered down like acid rain.

  After that, things went more smoothly, but then came the grocery store.

  Hannah swallowed. Regardless of her words to Tyrant Fox, she didn’t know the first thing about shopping for groceries. She could shop for dresses. She was good with shoes. And she was hell on wheels when looking for hats. But groceries… That was Maria’s department. Or maybe it was Natalie’s.

  Glancing at the list, Hannah began wandering down a narrow aisle. It wasn’t a big store, and yet…

  Where did one find peaches? Peaches. She scowled, pattered around and eventually came to a sign extolling the virtues of fresh produce. She regarded the refrigerated shelves. Produce,
possibly, she thought. But fresh? Highly unlikely. Picking up one of the smattering of strawberries, she scowled at its faded, wrinkled face before dropping it back down. There was not a peach to be seen. And right now she’d just about die for a papaya. But she supposed she’d have to fly to Hawaii for that. And until she won this current bet, her flying days were through.

  “They call these fresh?” said a gravelly voice beside her.

  Hannah looked down on a bent head. The woman beside her barely topped four feet tall. Dressed in immaculate white pants and a down coat big enough to protect a Clydesdale from the bitter elements, she raised her face to glare myopically at an orange.

  “He calls this a citrus!” complained the tiny woman. “I could grow better oranges on my Christmas cactus.” She had a face like a dehydrated apricot.

  Hannah didn’t even attempt a smile. “Might you know where I could find peaches?” she asked.

  “Peaches!” The woman reared back as if zapped by a cattle prod. “Here?” She snorted. “You won’t find no peaches here.”

  Hannah scowled at her list. “I was told to buy peaches.”

  The old woman scowled. Her features turned from wizened to frightening. “Who told ya?”

  Hannah considered that an instant. “A barbarian.”

  The woman’s laugh sounded like a road grader on a bad day, the effects of a cigarette habit cured too late. “A cowboy, huh?”

  Now Hannah did smile. The real thing. Straight from the heart. Here was a kindred spirit. “Yes. You might call him that.”

  “He didn’t mean for you to get no fresh peaches. He meant canned.”

  “They can them?” She shivered. “How awful. Where might I find them?”

  The old woman chuckled again. “You’re not from around here, huh?”

  “No.”

  Silence as the woman stared up past her bifocals.

  “I’m, um…” A lie didn’t seem smart, or even safe with a woman like this. “I’m from a lot of places,” Hannah said.

  “Ahh. What’s your name?”

  “Hannah.” There comes a time when only a lie will do. “Hannah Nelson.” She extended her hand, gloved as it was in lambskin cuffed with silver fox. “And you?”

  “Mrs. Puttipiece,” said the tiny person, reaching out a leathery hand. “Widow Puttipiece. Pansy’s my Christian name.”