How To Lasso A Cowboy

toward the door. She hoped the fool slept through breakfast. Going hungry would serve him right.

He didn’t sleep through breakfast. Ten minutes after Tess had grabbed a biscuit and a cup of strong coffee, her thornintheside husband strolled out of the house and over to where she talked with Miguel, Luis, and Henry at the corrals. He looked annoyingly fresh and chipper from a good night’s sleep.

“Good morning,” he said, cradling a steaming mug in his hands. “Nice morning.”

Tess nodded curtly. The men mumbled a greeting. Rojo quit giving the eye to the horses in the corral and bounded over to the newcomer with a friendly greeting. He scratched the cattle dog’s ears, and the dog melted in ecstasy.

Tess watched in disgust. Rojo didn’t show much taste when it came to people.

“Be careful of Rojo,” Tess warned curtly. “He’s a good cattle dog, but he doesn’t take to strangers.”

The bedstealer gave her a lazy smile. “Most dogs know who deserves a show of teeth and who doesn’t.”

Tess almost showed her own teeth. This fellow had a way of eating at the edges of her temper. What had happened to the woozy, boozy cowboy she had practically poured into Glory’s crib the day before? Or the selfconscious, confused fellow who had looked so ridiculous sitting bare and hairy in her washtub?

Now the man looked almost cleancut. He had taken time to trim the steel and silver mustache, and his silvershotwithblack hair shone in the bright sunlight. Her father’s old shirt stretched tight across axehandle shoulders which whittled down to slim hips and long legs. The man stood at least a head taller than Tess, who looked eye to eye with Miguel.

“Nicelooking bunch of horses.” He pointed his freshly shaven chin toward the green broncs in the corral-two bays, a chestnut, a gray, and two blacks.

Miguel nodded. “We throw a saddle on these for the ?rst time this morning. They are mustangs brought up from Mexico.”

“Sell them once they’re saddle broke?”

“Si. Senora Bermudez at the Circle T has already said she will take the chestnut, and she likes the gray as well. She likes mustangs, because they are smart, strong horses that can work all day. And the army always buys from us. Some of the other ranches too.”

Tess scowled at Miguel. The stranger didn’t need to know their business. But Miguel didn’t notice. Once he got to talking about horses, there was no shutting him up. Her husband seemed to have a similar interest.

“You buck them out?”

Miguel shrugged. “If they have spirit, they will buck.”

The bum grinned. “Kinda like women, eh?”

Miguel looked cautiously from the newcomer to Tess, whose ?sts had clenched, and back again to her husband. When Tess had ?rst walked out of the house, the foreman had given her a swift perusal, then nodded when he found her in one piece after spending the night in a room with her new husband. Now a small smile twisted the mouth beneath his mustache. “A man must know his horses, senor. Some will buck until they drop dead. Some will roll to crush the rider beneath them. There are some who should never be mounted, because they will never be gentled.”

“Have you known many to be that ornery?”

Miguel’s smile grew broader. “Not many.”

The stranger nodded. “On my place, we don’t break a horse, we gentle it. The process takes more time, but it results in a more dependable mount.”

Tess immediately bristled. “The horses we turn out are the best in the area. They’re loyal, smart, and still have plenty of spirit. Hell, they’ll go places even a mule won’t go.”

The uppity fellow just shrugged.

“What’s the matter,” Tess taunted, “are you afraid to buck out a horse? Afraid you’ll land on your tail?”

Luis and Henry leaned against the fence and grinned. Miguel tried to hide a smile.

The stranger met her eyes with an unruf?ed gaze. “I can stick a saddle as good as most others.” He crossed his arms on that broad chest. His eyes, almost green in the morning sunlight, twinkled with something that might be amusement, and that twinkle was the last straw for Tess.

“You can, can you?”

“Usually.”

“You want to put your bony backside where your mouth is, cowboy?”

He smiled. “You think you can stick a horse better than I can?”

“It’s likely.”

“That would be a surprise.”

“Then get ready to be surprised.”

Rojo whined, gave his new friend a sympathetic look, then trotted over to join the men, who looked on, grinning hugely. Even Miguel, usually more cautious, didn’t bother to hide his anticipation of a good time coming up. There was nothing a cowboy loved better than a good broncriding contest.

Well, they wouldn’t get to see much of a contest, Tess told herself smugly. There wasn’t a man on this place she couldn’t outride, and she expected to laugh long and hard when this uppity jackass left his butt print in the dust.

“Okay-what was your name, cowboy?”

That got his goat just a bit. Tess could tell.

“Joshua Ransom.”

“Okay, Joshua Ransom. I’ll let you prove how well you ride, and then we’ll let the men decide who’s got the upper hand when it come to horses. You game?”

His smile shone with con?dence. “I’m game.”

“Good enough.” She grinned wickedly. “Henry, bring out Nitro.”

Miguel’s brows shot up. “Nitro?”

“We want to give our friend here a challenge, don’t we?”

Miguel just shook his head as a grinning Henry sprinted toward the barn. “Nitro’s a stallion we haven’t been able to ride,” he told Josh. “We keep him for breeding, but he’s a wild one under saddle.”

Tess smirked. “Even my daddy couldn’t sit Nitro for long, and there’s more than one cowboy who owes this horse a broken bone or two. Nitro likes to be creative and see how far and how high he can toss anything that climbs on his back. Want to back out?”

Now he looked a little concerned. “Which one of us is going to ride him?”

“We both are. We’ll take turns and see who stays on longest. I’ll cut you a break and go ?rst. Maybe he’ll be tired by the time you get on him.”

Luis chuckled. “Or angry.”

Tess just chuckled. She was about to get revenge for a cold night spent in a chair, and if she got some bumps and bruises in the process, seeing this fellow ?at in the dust would be worth the price.

Nitro came out of the barn snorting steam into the early morning air. He was a horse who enjoyed a good romp-a romp in his mind being a chance to break someone’s bones and then stomp him into the dirt.

They snubbed the stallion to a post to get the saddle onto his back, but he stood in docile patience. Nitro knew the drill, and he looked forward to wreaking a little havoc.

“I’ll go ?rst,” Tess said cheerfully. “Miguel, ear him down while I get on.”

When Miguel let go of Nitro’s ear, the horse exploded. Tess knew she couldn’t stick for long, but she ?gured her performance would be better than anyone else attempting to ride the demon. He bucked, twisted, sun?shed, and did everything but turn himself inside out to send her ?ying. When he connected with the earth, the stifflegged jolt nearly snapped Tess’s spine, or so it felt.

As always, Nitro won. Tess connected hard and painfully with the ground, then scrambled out of the way while Rojo ducked into the corral to keep the horse occupied.

“Ten seconds,” Miguel said, checking his pocket watch. “Not bad, Miss Tess.”

She grinned at what’shisname. “I tired him out for you.”

Nitro did not appear to be tired, though. When Josh climbed aboard, the bronc took off like a badtempered tornado that had just happened to touch down in the McCabe corral.

“Fifteen seconds,” Miguel noted approvingly when the intrepid rider bit dirt. “Damned good.”

“What? Fifteen seconds?”