He’d once had a cooler stolen off his cabin porch at the ranch by a grizzly bear. That bear did everything possible to get into that old rounded-edge metal cooler, much like the one in the chuckwagon. When Angus had found it, the grizzly had scratched and clawed and even rolled the cooler down a hillside, but still hadn’t been able to get inside it.
There was only one way the black bear had gotten into the one in the chuckwagon. Someone had propped it open like a calling card for any bear in the area. Max was lucky he hadn’t awakened to the noise to find a grizzly staring out of the wagon at him.
“Excellent meal,” Brick said and everyone around the campfire agreed. This high in the mountains, the temperature began to drop even though it was early June.
After everyone had finished, Royce pulled out a well-used pack of cards and challenged anyone who wanted to play with a poker game. Angus passed, but Brick and Cash said they were in. Ella announced that she would watch and make sure no one cheated.
Jinx got up and walked with Angus to the chuckwagon where Max was seated, watching all of them after cleaning up the dishes. As they approached, the older man rose from where he’d been lounging and announced he was calling it a night.
“I’m sleeping in the woods tonight,” Max said. “No more sleeping under the chuckwagon.” With that he took his sleeping bag and disappeared into the darkness beyond the campfire.
“Max isn’t wild about bears,” Jinx whispered with a laugh.
“Hope he doesn’t run across one then out in the woods.” They both chuckled as she and Angus sat on a log with their backs to the chuckwagon.
“With his luck, Max will run across one on its way to the chuckwagon,” she said.
They grew quiet as the campfire popped and the card game grew louder. “I think that’s the second time I’ve heard Royce speak,” Jinx said. “You think he deals off the bottom of the deck?”
“I think you can count on it,” Angus said with a laugh.
“Your brother—”
“Can take care of himself. Anyway, Ella is looking after him.” He smiled to himself, thinking about the three of them working their way across the west from ranch to ranch, camp to camp. It wasn’t Brick’s first card game. Nor the first one that Ella had watched to make sure he wasn’t cheated.
“I’m going to miss this,” he said, surprising Jinx—and himself—that he’d spoken his thoughts out loud.
“Are you quitting wrangling?” she asked, turning to him. Her brown eyes had darkened with concern.
“I’ll never quit ranching. My parents are counting on me coming back and pretty much taking over running Cardwell Ranch. It’s what I was born to do.” He smiled and shook his head. “I’m looking forward to it. But I will miss this. Who knows what Brick is going to do. He wants nothing to do with running the ranch.”
“You two look so much alike and yet you’re so different.” He could feel her gaze on him. “What about Ella? What are her plans?”
Angus glanced toward the campfire. Ella’s pretty face was lit by the golden firelight. “I don’t know. She’s welcome to help with the ranch. She’s family. But you know how that goes. She could meet some man in a three-piece suit and follow him to the big city.”
Jinx laughed. “Can’t see that happening, but like you said, you never know. The big city definitely isn’t for me. Then again, I have no idea what my future holds.”
At the poker game, sparks rose up from the campfire to burn out in the velvet starlit sky overhead. Angus stretched out his long legs, content after a good day in the saddle and a good meal. It didn’t hurt that he was sitting here with a beautiful woman, one who intrigued him and always had.
Jinx seemed as relaxed as he felt. He told himself not to get any ideas. The woman needed him. He was a hired man. Once the cattle were at summer pasture, his job would be over.
Still, as he breathed in the night scents that floated around him, he was aware of Jinx next to him in a way he hadn’t been aware of a woman in a very long time. The night air felt heavy and seemed too busy with that feeling that anything could happen. He wondered if Jinx felt it or if it was all his imagination.
The thought made him smile. Whatever it was he felt right now, he knew that this was where he belonged at this moment in time. Fate had brought him here. Brought him to this woman whom he’d never forgotten.
“You almost look as if you’re enjoying this,” Jinx said as she also stretched out her legs to get more comfortable.
He chuckled. He loved nothing better than being in the mountains, listening to the lowing of the cattle and feeling tired after a day in the saddle. But there was also something about Jinx that drew him to her and it was more than a chance meeting all those years ago. It was also more than his being protective.
“I guess it shows, how much I enjoy this,” he said, looking over at her. Her brown eyes shone in the ambient firelight; her hair seemed to catch fire, reminding him of how red it was when she was but a girl.
“It does show,” she said. “This life gets into your blood. It would be hard to give up.”
“I don’t plan to. What about you?”
She seemed to be watching the flames of the nearby campfire, the light playing on her face. “After my mother died,
