Ella shook her head. “I wouldn’t be counting your chickens just yet.”
“She’s right,” Angus agreed. “I don’t think the fire did the kind of damage T.D. was hoping for. Whatever he has planned it will be tonight and I suspect it will be much bigger.”
Ella poked the fire with a stick, sending sparks into the air. “I don’t get why he’s doing this. Just to torment her?”
Angus shrugged. “I’m not sure T.D. has a point. He’s angry, probably drunk most of the time and feeling he has to do something to save face.”
“It’s stupid and dangerous,” Brick said. “If that fire had gotten away from us or that rain squall hadn’t come through when it did...” He shook his head. “The cowboy’s crazy.”
At the sound of someone coming out of the darkness, they all turned. “Brick’s right. T.D. is crazy, stupid and dangerous,” Jinx said. “That’s why we aren’t going to get much sleep tonight.”
“I still think we should pay him a visit,” Brick said.
“Don’t you think they’re expecting that?” Ella asked only to have her cousin shrug.
“Also, there’s five of them now,” Angus said, having earlier seen them trailing the herd. It didn’t surprise him that Cash had joined their ranks. “Riding into their camp would be more dangerous than staying where we are and waiting for them to hit us.”
“Except we have several hundred head of cattle,” Ella said. “If I were him, I’d try to use them against us.”
Jinx looked over at her and nodded. “My thought exactly. He’ll try to stampede the herd tonight when he thinks we’re all asleep. He’ll drive them right at us.”
“Unless we stop him,” Brick said. “That’s why we have to hit him first.”
Ella saw that Angus was studying Jinx and smiling as if they’d just shared a secret. “You have a plan?”
“Once it’s dark enough where we can’t be seen, we booby-trap one side of the perimeter,” Angus said and Jinx gave him a knowing smile.
Brick caught the exchange and said, “Bro, why do I get the feeling you told her about what we used to do when we were kids to catch critters?”
“Subject must have come up some time or another,” Angus said.
“They have us outnumbered,” Jinx said, clearly warming to the plan. “We have to better our odds. I suspect they’ll come riding in fast, yelling and shooting to spook the herd. To drive the herd right at us, they’ll come in from the north. We just need to be waiting for them, subdue the ones we catch and quell the attack. Any we can get on the ground, should be fairly easy to tie up and gag, right?”
Brick laughed. “I like the way you think. Less bloodshed.”
“Hopefully, no blood will be shed.” She looked at Angus. “It’s going to be another dark night. We weren’t going to get any sleep anyway. At least this way we’ll be ready for them.”
Unless we’re wrong and T.D. came at us another way, Ella thought. She wondered how far she’d have to ride to get cell phone coverage should things go as wrong as she feared they would.
“You mind staying here with Max and making sure everything is all right?” Angus asked her as the others rose to go to work.
Ella nodded, knowing exactly what he was telling her to do.
THEY WORKED QUICKLY and quietly, setting up the traps some distance from the herd in the path T.D. would have to take to stampede the cattle into their camp.
Angus checked with Brick to make sure he was ready before he went to the spot where they’d left Jinx. He let out a soft whistle as he approached to let her know it was him coming through the trees and was careful not to trip any of the booby traps.
“You ready?” he asked when he reached her. He could tell she was nervous. They all were. “It’s going to be all right.”
She smiled. She really did have the most beautiful warm smile. There was a gentleness to her along with strength. He found himself drawn to her in a way he hadn’t ever been with another woman. He didn’t believe in love at first sight and yet he hadn’t forgotten how taken he was with that redheaded girl who’d turned up at Cardwell Ranch, all those years ago.
He touched her cheek, unable to stop himself any more than he could hold back the feelings that swam to the surface when he saw her. He felt connected to her in a way he couldn’t explain. He would have said fate had thrown them together not once but twice, years apart, if he believed in it.
Ella would have understood what he was feeling better than he did. She believed in a lot of things he didn’t including love at first sight and destiny and true love. But this feeling was so strong that had he believed in true love, he would have been tempted to call it that.
Brick always said that falling in love was like falling off a horse. You had no choice but to get back on. Well, Angus much preferred falling off a horse. To him, falling in love was like jumping off a cliff and not knowing if you would survive. He knew one thing. The landing could be hell.
He’d survived his last breakup, but even as strongly as he felt, he knew he wasn’t ready to make another leap. Especially if that leap involved Jinx McCallahan, he told himself. Even if she wasn’t married and in the middle of a divorce and didn’t have a crazy, dangerous ex who wouldn’t let her go. Jinx was a mess. It didn’t matter that she’d kicked T.D. out months ago, filed for divorce and didn’t want him back under any circumstances, apparently. Her husband wasn’t through with her yet. Angus feared she might lose more than her ranch because of T.D.
“Is
