Material Witness (35 page)

He rolled his dark eyes, kicked his
dusty cowboy boot in the hard, dry dirt, and said almost under his breath, “I’m
gonna live to regret this.”  Then looking at her straight on with sapphire eyes
as dark as a moonless night, he said, “You’ve got yourself a guide.”

# # #

Chapter Two

“Just so you know, this won’t be some
cushy ride.”

Melanie listened to Stoney’s deep
baritone voice as he sputtered, hanging on his tail as he ground his dusty
cowboy boots in the path leading to the house.  He stopped short and swung
around again, and she almost plowed into his hard body for the second time that
day.  Why did he keep doing that?

He thumbed his chest.  “Remember one
thing, I call the shots.  You got it?  If you so much as think of going against
my instructions, the deal is off,” he said, slicing the air with his splayed
hand.

“I asked for your help.  If I didn’t
need your experience, I wouldn’t have put myself through this...”  She stopped
herself from going any farther and bit the skin on her bottom lip, not wanting
to let her big mouth get the best of her good fortune.

To her surprise, Stoney just cast a
slow, sexy smile that under different circumstances would have made her insides
stir.  Okay, she was stirring, she admitted to herself.  What irritated her
more was that she was suddenly thinking about how Stoney’s deep blue eyes made
her knees weak instead of what she’d set out to do this morning.  That wasn’t a
good sign at all. 

“You think I’m being tough, huh?  You
ain’t seen nothing, Sunshine.”

She lifted her chin defiantly, as
she’d done so many times before when she was standing in her father’s study,
trying to argue why she should do something that meant a great deal to her.  In
those instances, she usually lost the fight.  She was determined to win now. 
“I’m up for anything you can dish out.”

“I won’t be dishing out anything. 
I’ll leave that to the good old Wind River Mountains.  That ought to be enough
for you to handle.  When were you planning to leave?”

“Ah, right away.  Tomorrow if we
can.”

He shook his head and knotted his
arms across the wide expanse of his chest, stretching his denim shirt tight
across his shoulders.  “Impossible.  I’m going to need more time to find
someone to take my place here.”

Melanie drew in a deep breath and
remained firm.  “It’s important we leave as soon as possible.  How soon can you
get a replacement?”

  He opened the screen door leading
to the house and paused with one boot on the threshold.  Angling back to her,
he said, “We’ll see after I start making some calls.  If I’m going to be off
this ranch for the next month, I’m going to need someone full time.  That may
be hard to find.  Where’s your gear?”

“My luggage is in the trunk of my
car,” she said, waving her hand back at the sedan she rented at the airport.

“Luggage?  How much did you bring?”

“Four bags and a carry on for the
plane.”

His dark eyebrows drew together and
he frowned.  “This ought be good.  Well don’t just stand there, bring it on in
and we’ll take a look at it.  When we’re through, we’ll take a ride out to
Hammond’s store for anything essential you might have forgotten to pack.  I’d say
old man Hammond is deserving of a good visit from me right about now.”

* * *

Stoney watched from between the white
lace curtains of the kitchen window as Melanie struggled with her suitcases and
plopped them on the front porch.  He couldn’t take his eyes off her was more
like it.  And that was just the beginning of his trouble.  There was the matter
of trying to get the woman to part with those non-essentials that he was sure
Melanie had packed in her luggage.  His sister Delia had always insisted they were
a vital part of every woman’s life.  When would women ever learn that nail
polish and herbal shampoos weren't a necessity in the wild?

Then there was the matter of securing
a ranch hand.  Black Rock Ranch wasn’t big enough to have a whole herd of
cowpokes to keep it running.  And a good ranch hand was hard to come by on such
short notice.  Most everyone worth having was already out working at one of the
bigger ranches, making better money than he could afford to pay them. 

He sucked in a short breath and felt
a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek as Melanie sat on the edge of the porch
and gracefully crossed one long, slender leg over the other.

What in God’s name was he doing
agreeing to take a city girl like her up into the hills?  Women like Melanie Summers
vacationed on the banks of some expensive resort town in Europe or the
Caribbean.  They didn’t trudge their way through the foothills of Wyoming. 
They skied Aspen and spent lots of money on fancy hotels and things they wanted
but didn’t need.  They didn’t come strutting onto his ranch, asking him to take
a month out of his life to guide them through the mountains.

Luggage.  That’s what she’d called
it.  He groaned inwardly, punching in the telephone number, and then waited for
someone to pick up on the other end of the line.  She wouldn’t last a day, let
alone a month.  He’d seen her type a hundred times.  They come to God’s
country, looking for a little peace of mind they’d spotted in a travel brochure
and complain about how they can’t get the little conveniences of life along
with the pleasures of nature.  All this trouble and they’d probably turn around
and head home in a few days. 

Maybe it was just as well, he thought
with a sigh as he hung up the line, deciding he wasn’t going to catch Rob Johnson
at home today.  He didn’t really like the idea of being away from the ranch
what with medical bills still pouring in and the balloon payment on the
mortgage they’d taken out three years ago to buy the rest of old man
Wiltermeir’s property due too soon for him to want to think about.  At least if
he was here, he’d be on top of whatever crisis came their way.  How the hell
could he spend a whole month in the mountains when all he’d do is think about
whether or not he’d have his ranch to come home to?

He’d called his cousin Joshua
Lightfoot, who lived and worked in the clinic on the Wind River Reservation as
a doctor, hoping he could recommend some help for the ranch.  Joshua was the
son of his mother’s sister.  She’d married an Arapaho Indian she’d met at the
Frontier Days Rodeo around the same time Stoney’s parents met.  When they were
younger, he and Joshua had traipsed through the wilderness--practically lived
in the mountains--until Joshua went to medical school and Stoney started riding
rodeo.  Although he’d reached Joshua, he was disappointed to learn there wasn’t
anyone on the reservation that he could recommend.  He’d offer to help himself,
but he was tied up getting ready for a new intern who was coming to work at the
clinic on the reservation in September. 

 Frustration surged to the
forefront.  “All this to turn around and come home in a few days,” he muttered
to nobody but himself.

Although Mitch Broader would have
been his first choice, Stoney dialed his number last.  He hadn’t heard from
Mitch since he’d gone back East for his father’s funeral and heard he’d only
recently come back to town.  He dialed him up on the chance he’d be home.

Mitch had been working at Black Rock
as a full time ranch hand for the better part of eight years.  He’d grown up in
the city and moved out to Wyoming at seventeen when his parents divorced.  He’d
dodged the gangs that plagued most inner city communities and embraced the
simple life once he’d found the serenity of Wyoming’s wide open land.  He loved
ranching as much as any man with country blood running through his veins.  Like
many ranch hands Stoney knew, Mitch had talked about one day having a spread of
his own. 

Stoney owed a tremendous debt to
Mitch, one that could never be repaid.  It was Mitch who’d been there for his
father and pulled him from the barn fire.  The beam that fell on Wally could
have cost him his life.  And Mitch had been there to save him. 

Stoney should have been there.  It
still ate at him that he was out riding rodeo when the barn went up in flames
and it seemed all their hopes and dreams had gone up with it.  And it killed
him that he was going to leave the ranch again.

“Hey, buddy, you made it back,”
Stoney said when he recognized Mitch’s voice.

“I almost didn’t.  I just got back a
few days ago,” Mitch said.  “Still have my suitcase full of dirty laundry. 
What’s up?”

“I need a favor.”  Stoney outlined
the course of events leading up to Melanie’s offer.  And although Mitch’s take
on it was one of pure amusement, a kind of “you lucky dog” attitude, he’d
agreed to fill in at the ranch, seven days a week, for the next month.  Stoney
should have felt relieved he was leaving the ranch in good hands, but the
feeling of not being there still gnawed at him.

Half an hour later, Stoney found
Melanie on the porch, drinking iced tea with his mother and fanning herself
from the heat with a folded road map.  Adele was beaming with the sheer
pleasure of having some female company at the house.  It had been a long time
since he’d seen her smile that way.  If Melanie Summers was responsible for
giving her that smile, then he was at least grateful for that.

He cleared his throat and the two
women looked up.

Adele rose from the Adirondack chair
she’d been sitting in and brushed her hands on the front of her apron.  “I’ll
let you two get down to your business.  Can I get you anything, hon?” she asked
Stoney.

He shook his head.

When the screen door closed behind
Adele, Stoney turned his attention to Melanie.  “You’re in luck.  Day after
tomorrow we can get started.  You can stay here in my sister’s old room until
we leave, if you’d like.  That is, if you haven't already made other
arrangements in town.”

Melanie shook her head, tossing her
brown curls back and forth on her rounded shoulders.  “I don’t want to intrude.”

“Ma will be happy to have some female
company for a while.  Even if it’s only a day or two.”  He pointed to the
leather suitcases lined up neatly in a row on the porch.  “Let’s see if we can
consolidate some of this...stuff.”

Melanie threw him a questioning
stare.

“You weren’t planning on taking all
this gear.”  He said the words as a statement, hoping she understood the
meaning.

And she did, he noticed, as a slight
blush crept up her cheeks, bringing with it a delicate side that he hadn’t seen
until now.  “I suppose I won’t be needing all of it,” she said sheepishly.

His insides suddenly felt warm. 
“Good.  Progress.  First off, you’re going to need a decent pair of hiking
boots.”

He watched her dip her gaze to survey
the riding boots she had on.  They looked brand spanking new as if she’d gotten
them at some flashy store in New York City.  The leather was soft and the sole
was flat.  “What’s wrong with these?  I usually use these for riding.”

Figures.  Poodle jumps.  “We’ll be
riding, but they’re no good.  Look at the sole.  You need something with a good
sole for gripping rocks.  And you have to be prepared.  What if your horse goes
lame while we’re up there?  You’ll have to walk him easy alongside of you.  He
won’t be able to take the weight of you on his back.  You won’t last an hour
hiking in those.”

Awareness sparked in her cinnamon
eyes.  He wondered just how many men had been unknowingly put under a spell
just by gazing into the those eyes.  Never mind, he told himself.  It was no
time to be thinking with any part of his body but the head that held his hat. 

“I saw some trail boots at the
store.”

He nodded and waved a hand to the
rest of the luggage.  “As for the rest of this, everything is going to have to
stay here unless it is absolutely essential.”

“It is.  All of it.”

A grin tugged at his lips and he
couldn’t help but tease her.  “You do realize a hair dryer isn’t going be much
good, seeing there’ll be no electricity.”

She scowled at him, her jaw set.  “I
suppose one or two bags can stay here.”

“See if you can get it down to one
bag.  We’ll be needing the room for enough supplies to last us a month.”

She was standing now, balling her
fists at her side. “I’m not going to wear the same clothes for a month and
smell like-”

“Me?”  His lips were twisted into a
wry grin.

“You said it.”

Damn, but she was pretty when she was
all riled up.  He resisted the urge to goad her more.  “We’ll be camping near a
stream or a pond most nights.  You can rinse out any unmentionables then and
hang them to dry overnight.”

Her cheeks flamed again, as if the
thought of her lacy underwear--yes, she was the kind of woman who’d wear
lace--hanging on a line in Stoney’s full view was too much.  Actually, the
thought of seeing a woman as pretty and fine as Melanie Summers out of her
underwear was darned appealing.  Heat coiled inside him and he blinked hard to
rid himself of his thoughts.  Had it really been so long since he’d had himself
a woman?

She looked as if she were thinking,
maybe assessing all the items packed neatly in her designer luggage.  “I need
two bags.”