Page 18 of Wyoming Heart

He was still shocked by her unexpected behavior when he’d shouted at her. He felt guilty. Something had happened to her, something bad. She was afraid not only of loud voices, but she seemed to expect violence to accompany them.

“You didn’t see the cow that was charging you,” he said after a minute. “I wasn’t sure I could cut her off in time. I lost my temper. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t expect the apology. It changed the stubborn, hard set of her face into something less antagonistic. She shifted from one foot to the other. “I didn’t even see her. I should have realized that the calf was just separated from her. I thought it was hurt.”

He smiled. It was a genuine smile, not the sarcastic one of their first meeting. “So you knit and run cattle.”

She glowered at him. “And wear cut-rate dresses. Yes. I don’t like dressing up.”

He shrugged. “Neither do I, honestly,” he said. “I’m more at home with cattle than people.”

She smiled shyly. “Me, too. Cattle are usually nicer than people.”

He chuckled. “Is that a dig at me?”

She flushed. “Not really. I was thinking about...other people.”

He tilted her hat up just a little so that her whole face was on view. “Someone yelled at you and hit you,” he said abruptly, and saw her wince and bite her lower lip. “A man.”

She backed away a step. “It’s ancient history. I need to talk to Bart.”

He wanted to pursue the conversation. She troubled him. “Okay,” he said instead.

She turned and went back to Sand, patting his neck gently as she took the reins and jumped up into the saddle with an ease that wasn’t lost on her companion.

“He’s beautiful,” he said, indicating her mount.

She smiled. “His owner died and he was mourning. They had him at the sale barn. He saw me and trotted right over to the barrier and lowered his head against mine. I knew he belonged to me. My cousin gave him to me as a birthday present.”

“Your cousin?”

She nodded. “Rogan Michaels. He owns a cattle station in Australia with Jake McGuire, who has a ranch outside Catelow, too.” She laughed softly. “Their ranches make mine and Bart’s look like hobby farms.”

He knew Rogan Michaels. They both owned shares in an oil venture in Oklahoma. “Is he around?” he asked idly.

“No. Cousin Rogan has itchy feet,” she said on a sigh. “He’s back in Australia. He hates snow. His cattle station—well, his and Mr. McGuire’s—borders on desert. No snow.”

“I like snow,” he commented, his eyes sliding over the white pastures. “Where I live, it’s like desert most of the year. We get snow occasionally. Never enough to bother us.”

“Do you work on a ranch there?” she asked.

He nodded, his Stetson slanted over one eye. “I work with purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle on a ranch in West Texas.”

She glanced at him. “Bart has another cousin who’s sheriff of our county,” she said.

“That would be Cody Banks,” he said. “He has a cousin down in San Antonio who’s a Texas Ranger.”

“My great-grandfather was a deputy U.S. Marshal,” she said. “And my father used to be a policeman in Catelow, when I was a little girl.” Her face tautened.

He frowned. “Is he still alive?”

She laughed shortly. “Who knows? I haven’t seen him since I was nine. He ran off with another woman. I’m not sure my mother even noticed that he was gone.”

She was as tense as a taut rope. “You don’t like your mother,” he commented.

“My mother died the year I graduated from high school.” It was a flat statement.

“Of some illness?”