Proving Herself Page 3

  Darn it.

  The big, rawboned heifer lurched weakly and bugled out a cry for help that tore at Laurel's heart. Heaven knew how long it had struggled here, exhausting itself, before she'd rid­den over to check the water hole nearest her claim. An hour had passed since then, to judge by the slant of the sun, and she'd barely managed to free and tie two of the bogged cow's legs.

  While she waited, Laurel pulled another rawhide strip from her filthy dungarees, under her tied-up skirt, then set about fighting the cow for possession of its right leg. Dodging the animal's overlong horns when necessary, she kept watch for a rider to appear over a swell of the rolling foothills.

  When someone did, she squinted to clear her vision.

  This was no cowboy, but the man from the bank. He rode a white thoroughbred, rather than a mustang, and sat one of those useless Eastern saddles with no place to tie a rope or hang a canteen. And the closer he came, the prettier he got.

  Today he wore riding pants, not dungarees, and a jacket that looked to be split-tail. Even under his straw boater, sun­light glowed from his tawny hair.

  Laurel felt mixed relief and disappointment. Maybe she would free this cow herself, after all.

  The stranger cocked his head as he rode closer, and even confusion looked good on him. "Good Lord," he murmured, sounding just as British as she remembered. "You aren't... yes, I see that you are. What is she playing at?"

  Laurel stood there in the mud hole, feeling not only frus­trated but stupid and dirty, and not liking it one bit.

  "Excuse my boldness," he added quickly—and just in time. "But... you are Miss Laurel Garrison, are you not?"

  She nodded, still eyeing his white jacket, white hat, white horse. Was it humanly possible for any man to be so clean?

  Beautiful or not, he should not have laughed.

  Follow the track past the aspens, Alexandra had insisted. The view is quite singular.

  Faced with a girl in a mud hole, Collier marveled at his cousin's misdirection. She wore a sweat-stained cowboy hat. Her scrawny excuse for a pony sported a cowboy's saddle— one of those heavy monstrosities with fat leather stirrups, a wide saddle horn, and a cantle so high as to rob riding of any skill whatsoever. And she'd been wrestling with a bovine beast that surely outweighed Collier five times over.

  A casual observer might think he'd come across a boy, with her being waist-high in water. When it came to women, though, Collier was no casual observer. He recognized this one's heart-shaped face, small nose, narrow chin. Curves be­neath her frock's soaked bodice confirmed her femininity quite as thoroughly as had the sway of her green serge skirt outside the bank.

  As a gentleman, Collier tried not to stare. As an exiled gen­tleman, he did not try too hard.

  A singular view indeed—local flavor, like an Italian maiden stomping grapes or a Spanish boy running with the bulk—but not at all what he'd expected. Alexandra had so clearly contrived the meeting, and likely at Collier's expense, that he had to laugh.

  Then, at a wet spat, he stopped laughing.

  A glob of mud stuck to, then dribbled off of, the shoulder of his coat and onto his borrowed mare. And Laurel Garrison, her hand especially muddy from her volley, eyed him mur­derously.

  "You threw mud at me," Collier accused—stating the ob­vious, true, but quite an unexpected obvious.

  "You were laughing at me." As she waded out of the mud hole, he saw that she not only wore a filthy calico dress, which might once have been red, but had on drenched dun­garees under gathered folds of her skirt. Sloshing, heavy with muck, to her pony, she turned modestly away from him to untie the wet knots in her skirt, so that it fell in filthy folds to cover her pants. More's the pity. The denims actually showed her figure to better advantage.

  "I did not laugh at you," he defended—as if she deserved explanation. Who knew what was in that mud?

  Mounting her pony, the girl retrieved a length of rope off her saddle and shook out a loop. "I'm what you were looking at."

  "And I suspect you are what—who—my cousin sent me to see," he admitted, intrigued by how easily she swung the loop over her head before tossing it toward the cow. That she missed hardly lessened the show. "I expected buffalo, or an Indian village, or perhaps an unusual rock formation."

  Dragging her wet rope back to try again, the girl squinted at him from beneath the shadow of her soiled hat.

  "No matter," he insisted, taking refuge in good manners. "If I insulted you, please do let me apologize."

  Instead of accepting his apology, much less returning it, she tossed her rope again. In the meantime, he wondered what his cousin could possibly be up to. The rope landed neatly around the cow's horns, and it so impressed him that he said, "Good show."

  The cowgirl secured the rope around her saddle horn, then clucked her horse into backing up, starting to pull.

  Dividing his attention between her, the trussed cow, and

  his soiled lapel—a handkerchief made little headway against the stain—Collier realized her goal. "Pardon me," he called, "but did you mean for all the animal's feet to stay tied?"

  She glared at him, remarkably threatening for such a small young woman.

  "I only ask," he added, "because your cow just kicked one of them loose. Likely it's of no consequence ..."

  "Whoa!" Immediately seeing the truth of it, Miss Garrison rode her pony back toward the pond to create slack. She closed her eyes for a long, tired second, then dismounted and trudged back into filthy water.

  In that moment she seemed even less suited for so grueling a task. Likely the cow was tame, but it still sported the longest horns Collier had ever seen.

  "Does your father not hire people to do this?" he asked. Then again, the man had allegedly leashed her, when she was a child.

  "I'm not doing this for my father," she said.

  "But can't I fetch someone to help you?"

  She stopped, as if his voice grated on her—despite the fact that it had been called by many ladies "delicious." Then, as if she'd made a decision, she turned. "Once I tie off her foot, you could back Snapper up while I guide her out."

  What? Him?

  "Snapper being the pony," he clarified, eyeing the shaggy little horse with its mud-smeared excuse for a saddle.

  "Never mind." The girl went back to cow wrestling.

  Was there truly nobody else to summon? Collier looked around him at the sloping, tree-strewn wilderness that was northeastern Wyoming. From town he'd ridden an hour, mostly uphill across boulder-strewn, ditch-cut fields. The aptly named Rocky Mountains loomed ahead of him.

  Perhaps there was nobody, at that.

  Blurring class divisions weakened the fabric of society... but Miss Garrison was a young woman, from a marginally good family. Passably pretty, even, under the mud.

  Bloody hell. At least, thought Collier as he dismounted, nobody would oversee and report his social lapse.

  The girl's shaggy bay pony had a longish head, a deep body, and short legs. Collier offered it a gloved hand to sniff, scratched behind its shaggy ears, then blew gently into its nose to introduce himself. Only once "Snapper's" ears signaled wary acceptance did he wipe some of the mud from the creature's saddle with his ruined handkerchief.

  Miss Garrison did not actually clear her throat, but Collier sensed her impatience at the same time the pony's ears flick­ered in her direction. Giving up on the mud, he stepped into the fat leather stirrup and swung onto the little beast.

  "Don't we make an inadequate pair?" he murmured as he patted its withers. How one ever posted a trot in a saddle like this, he could not imagine.

  "There!" Miss Garrison raised both hands, empty, as if in victory. "Now back Snapper away slowly; he knows how to do it. Lean away from the rope so it won't cut you."

  Delightful. Doubting that so small an animal could do such heavy work, Collier nevertheless drew back on the reins and touched the pony with both heels. As it slowly retreated, the rope drew taut. With a great slurping noise, the cow pu
lled free to be dragged, thrashing and bellowing, to freedom.

  As soon as the beast made dry land, the pony stopped on its own. It was not stupid at all... and stronger than it looked.

  Wading from the water, Miss Garrison tripped slightly, mut­tered something under her breath, then turned around and plunged her hands into the muck to retrieve her boot. She limped the rest of the way out, dumped the boot's muddy contents, then balanced on one foot to pull it back on.

  "Would you like some assistance—" But Collier bit back his offer to help when she managed the task, stomped her foot to secure the fit, then scowled up at him. He remem­bered her bright blue eyes from the bank. They were flashing now, too.

  You are very welcome, he thought darkly.

  "There's too much slack," she said, once more approach­ing the struggling cow. "Back up again, just a little ... please."

  Since he'd not had to demand that small courtesy, Collier did as she requested. Miss Garrison then untied the cow's feet.

  The miserable animal, ribs heaving, still did not rise. To Collier's amazement, the girt took it by the tail and hauled upward with what must be all her strength.

  Then, as it suddenly scrambled to its feet, she ran for his thoroughbred.

  Good Lord. The long-homed cow was nowhere near tame!

  It lunged after the girl. The rope, still around its horns, pulled Snapper and Collier forward before slowing the beast's charge. And Collier's borrowed mare, clearly wanting nothing of muddy locals or charging cattle, danced back with rolling eyes well before the girl could reach it.

  Stranded, Miss Garrison spun to face her cow, wide-eyed, and whipped off her hat as if for defense.

  The cow lunged at her again.

  The rope held.

  Annoyed, the beast turned with a snort and charged Col­lier.

  Snapper leaped back so nimbly that Collier grasped the oversize saddle horn, lest he lose his seat. Miss Garrison shouted.

  The huge, homed monster swung in her direction, drag­ging Collier and the horse with it for several feet before the pony regained traction.

  Collier whistled sharply between his teeth.

  Laurel shouted again and waved her hat.

  Only when the cow slowed its angry charges and merely glared, turning its heavy, once-white head from Collier to Lau­rel, then back, did Collier even remember to breathe.

  "Good Lord," he marveled, and moved to wipe his brow with his handkerchief. Then he laughed, for it was a muddy mass. "Good Lord. Are you even marginally sane?"

  "Sane enough to wish your mare hadn't bolted," admitted Miss Garrison, low, and Collier's slowing heartbeat sped again.

  She wasn't yet out of danger.

  Eyeing the cow, and noticing how angrily it still eyed both of them in return, Collier mimicked her low, feigned calm. "Shall I come get you, then?"

  Now he heard the tremor of uncertainty beneath her tone. That would be a help, yes."

  "You needn't resort to sarcasm," he murmured, edging the pony carefully toward her. It responded beautifully.

  The cow watched them evilly.

  "I wasn't being sarcastic," she protested through her teeth, smiling at the cow as if to disguise her true intentions. Then she said, still not looking at him, "But if I insulted you, please do let me apologize."

  Mocking him, too! Did Americans even understand com­mon courtesy, or did they merely scorn it?

  "Saucy," he chided, now close enough that the slack rope could not protect her. "P'raps I should let the cow have you."

  "I'm not so sure you won't," she challenged. Still not taking her gaze off the horned beast, she reached out one small hand toward the pony, toward Collier—so close, as if to touch safety would attain it…

  And with a strangled bellow, the cow charged them both.

  Chapter Three

  So this was what Papa had tried to protect her from!

  Laurel felt the ground shake under the cow's hooves while she dove—too far, too far!—toward Snapper and the green­horn.

  She felt herself miraculously caught and lifted, one strong arm hard around her, up and against the man's side. Mud thrown from the cow's horns spattered across her, even as Snapper half wheeled, half leaped out of the beef's way.

  Her feet flew out from the force of the turn, but amazingly the Englishman kept both his seat and his tight hold on her. When her mustang dove nearly sideways, he held firmly with his thighs—she felt one of them clench under her—and leaned so far over that she practically lay on top of him.

  He could ride! And he smelled very good, too.

  Embarrassed, Laurel tried to swing a leg over Snapper, be­hind the cantle. Her foot caught in her wet skirts; when Snap­per lurched awkwardly, she nearly fell.

  "Do stop wriggling," commanded the Englishman.

  "Give Snapper his head!" she commanded right back, de­spite his forearm cutting across her ribs.

  "You must be—"

  "He's trained for this!" Though Papa hadn't seen the sense.

  The Englishman must have believed her, because Snap­per's movements became more natural then, more his own, as he faced off against the cow.

  The cow snorted, still furious over its perceived mistreat­ment. But though it had considered charging Snapper's flank, some herd-animal instinct made it hesitate to approach the mustang face-on. Laurel drew a deep breath and realized that the Englishman's arm, around her middle, also circled scan­dalously beneath her bosom.

  Worse, it felt rather... nice. Nicer than it should.

  Maybe the thrill of facing danger made her giddy.

  "Help me turn," she asked, again trying to swing her leg over the horse's rump. Damn these skirts!

  "Here," he offered in that thick voice of his—but instead of slinging her behind him, he pulled her up into his lap. At least she was no longer dangling.

  But thank goodness they knew each other's families!

  When the cow moved to circle Snapper, Snapper blocked its way. The cow snorted.

  Momentarily distracted from her compromising position, Laurel called, "You're welcome, you old bag of bones!"

  "Clever," complained her rescuer. The word breathed across her temple, rumbled against her shoulder, in his chest. "Taunt it. Wise choice. Shall we insult its mother?"

  Who knew Englishers could be funny? "We could do that."

  "Your mother," he called, "was a cow."

  Laurel laughed up at him, even as his bright eyes—a silvery blue, or maybe gray—sparkled down at her. He seemed even prettier the closer he got. Overwhelmingly so.

  Maybe that tingling sensation was the excitement of es­caping the cow, but Laurel didn't think she'd normally notice a fellow's jawline, his cheekbones, his lips, or even how his gold-streaked hair brushed against his collar and clean-smelling neck. Or how increasingly surprised he also ap­peared as neither of them turned away.

  No. It wasn't just the cow.

  He felt warmer and stronger, more solid beneath her, than his fancy clothes hinted. And he rode remarkably well.

  Laurel had been warned often enough to know exactly what was happening to her. She'd just expected to feel it with a cowboy.

  He's foreign, she argued weakly with herself. Those full lips! He should look sissified with such a gentle mouth. Instead he just seemed sincere.

  And so beautiful it dizzied her.

  He's a dandy, she told herself as he leaned nearer. But his hard arms, his thighs, didn't feel like a dandy's. She couldn't breathe.

  And it didn't matter. Against all sense, she wanted nothing more than to linger close to him, admire that handsome face, let him kiss her the way she felt sure he meant to.

  The way she hoped ...

  Which was why it annoyed her that he suddenly, firmly, closed his eyes. He had very long, thick eyelashes for a man. He pursed those full lips ... and opened his bright eyes, only to look away. "Ah," he murmured. "Well."

  Well?

  She sat there on his lap, huddling into his warmth against the s
ummer breeze on her wet clothes, and he said well?

  Laurel reached up, wove her fingers into his hair to draw his face back to hers—and only then saw just how filthy her mud-caked hand looked beside his clean-shaven cheek.

  Oh, no. No! How must the rest of her appear?

  But before she could drown in embarrassment, the En­glishman's eyes shined down at her.

  "Pleased to meet you; my name is Lord Collier Ellis Pem­broke." His voice sounded thick and rich enough to lick from a spoon, despite his hurry.

  Then he kissed her.

  Collier had not intended to kiss Miss Garrison. She was soak­ing wet. She'd covered him in muck. She smelled of dirt and water and disturbingly like cow.

  And despite that, he found her lack of artifice somehow as refreshing as he found her clinging clothes sensual.

  Perhaps he had wanted to kiss her. But a gentleman could rise above his baser instincts, and he was one. And she came from a marginally good family.

  But then she'd touched his face and hair, the most inti­mately he'd been touched in weeks. He'd looked into those true blue eyes, that fey, if muddy face, and he kissed her anyway.

  Clearly Laurel Garrison had not been kissed a great deal, but when Collier gave a gentle nibble on her lower lip, she quickly softened into willingness beneath him. Ah... much better. Not surprisingly, for a girl bold enough to challenge horned beasts, she met his dare, mimicking his entreaty on his lower lip—which made him all the more aware of her warm, wet curves in his arms. When Collier changed the slant of his mouth on hers, she sighed in approval. Her fingers dug into his back through his riding coat, as if to keep pur­chase ... and he was not the slippery one! He found himself curling down and over her, felt the earth move.

  He nearly fell when her horse, with a shake of its head, took several steps that nearly rid the beast of them both. Col­lier grasped a handful of the gelding's coarse black mane. Laurel, still in his arms, grabbed a handful of him. "Oh!"

  "Whoa," soothed Collier at the same time, and drew back on the forgotten reins in his hand. "Whoa, boy."