A Piece of Heaven by Tara Janzen

Author:Tara Janzen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, cowboy, contemporary romance, western romance, tara janzen
Publisher: Tara Janzen

Eight

They’d moved the herd west a week earlier. Callie thanked the Lord a hundred times for that blessing. The four of them never could have saved the calving sheds if they’d had to wrangle a bunch of fear-crazed cattle. Something would have given way—the fences for sure, more of the calving shed and pens undoubtedly, and probably an extra measure of her nerves.

She’d worked around cattle most of her life. She’d trailed them for more than a few miles, sometimes at a pretty good clip, but she’d never been in the middle of an all-out stampede. Shoat had, and so had Curran, the same one.

“Sixty-eight,” Shoat repeated.

“Sixty-seven,” Curran said, shaking his head in disgust. “The boys from the Mountain Back Ranch had brought their herd up, and the Mountain Back was busted by sixty-eight.”

“Sixty-eight,” came the gruff reply.

“Oh, hell, Shoat. I worked for the damned outfit. I ought to know when it went broke.”

That the two of them had the energy to argue was a testament to the toughness of cowboys. She was dead on her feet, covered in soot, parched from the flames they’d fought, and permeated with the smell of smoke, from the scalloped edge of her bodice to the last inch of lace on her hem. She’d changed her heels for a pair of Wellingtons she’d found in the back of the truck, but her feet still hurt.

She leaned over the hood of the pickup, exhausted, listening to the old men and waiting for Travis to finish kicking through the rubble. His succinctly spoken curse stopped the stampede discussion and brought her head up in curiosity.

“Who’s drinking McAlister’s hooch?” he demanded, holding up a mayonnaise jar half full of liquid. McAlister had never had much success with his cattle, and for years he’d been the local distiller.

The three of them knew Travis didn’t think they were drinking the stuff. His question was a request for a current client list of the redoubtable Mr. McAlister. None of them had to think for more than a couple of seconds.

“That sonuvabitch,” Curran swore, banging his hand down on the pickup.

“Dammit, Callie,” Shoat cussed. “I told you to let James do it. I told you Webster wouldn’t take to getting it from a woman.”

“James wasn’t here,” Caine reminded him, her voice firm.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Travis stopped next to the small group.

“Bill Webster, the hand I fired,” Callie said. “I let him go the night before you came home. I caught him drinking.”

“McAlister’s hooch?”

“It was his preferred brand,” she said, her tone wry enough to impart her opinion.

Travis looked down at the jar in his hand, not saying anything for a long time. “He could have left the liquor the last night he worked.”

Shoat snorted.

Curran wasn’t nearly as subtle. “Like he could have left his right arm.”

“Is he still around?” was Travis’s next question, and an uneasy feeling coursed down Callie’s spine. He wouldn’t, she thought, knowing damn well he would.

“He was at the Roundup Bar last Saturday night,” Shoat said.

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