Chancy's Cowboy. Lass Small

bad enough for Tim, but she’d put her hand on his forehead to see if he had a fever.

      He’d raise his one good knee. The crowding rest of his visitors, from the place, watched and bit at their laughs. But they were sympathetic. They understood.

      Chancy never caught on at all.

      And she was puzzled when Tim left them and moved to another ranch. But sometime later, she went to Tim’s wedding to a charming girl who giggled.

      It was not the first time that Chancy had heard giggling but it was something she’d never really understood. She asked Creep, “Why did the bride giggle?”

      Chancy was interesting but she was a nuisance.

      

      Chancy was eighteen when her daddy died. He was just through. Apparently he figured Chancy was old enough and he was free to find Elinor, his lost love.

      Chancy didn’t even cry because her daddy had been so withdrawn for so long that she hadn’t really known him well. She’d forgotten how he’d once been. It was too long ago.

      It was the minister who explained love to her. Why her daddy had gone to be with her mother. Their love had been special.

      Chancy was thoughtful about love. It was crippling, obviously. And she decided she’d never get entrapped in such a serious mess.

      

      So it was about two years after Chancy’s daddy had been planted next to her almost forgotten momma, and Chancy had no inkling what would come of being in charge of the place.

      Chancy could only remember a woman who sat on a cane chair that had a high back and woven armrests. Her mother had watched what Chancy did and smiled.

      That was about all she remembered of her mother. She didn’t recall anything about walking on the picket fence.

      So Chancy was then twenty years old. She’d taken her first two years of college by TV lessons. She was registered by mail and bought the books the same way. She sent in her computer assignments on time.

      Chancy worked hard and she did well, but she wouldn’t go on campus. The older men had been determined that she should mix with other females who were her age. But she was stubborn. And she owned the ranch. She was their boss if she ever got around to realizing it. They weren’t about to mention it to her.

      

      With the times changing and becoming more complicated, it was obvious to the crew that they needed another man. One who could organize and direct them as they ought to be handled. They needed a man who knew computers and how to run the place more efficiently.

      Chancy was no leader.

      The assembled crew told her seriously that they needed somebody who knew how to direct them. along. Silent as her dad had been, he’d at least nodded or shaken his head. He’d been a mute sounding board...when it was serious enough and they’d had his attention.

      So three of the men went east in Texas to find somebody who knew how to take care of the place. And they were directed to Cliff Robertson.

      

      Clifford Robertson had a degree from A&M, which, in all sports and just competition is Texas University’s mortal enemy. Cliff not only was born and bred on a place like the Bar-Q-Drop, but he knew how to run a place. He understood men.

      In the Texas questioning statement, the crew inquired nicely with remarkable subtlety, “A woman who is still budding, owns the place?”

      “How old?”

      “Twenty.”

      Cliff smiled. “She’ll be okay.”

      They weren’t sure what that meant. But the man was exactly what they wanted, so they didn’t warn him about Chancy. They didn’t want to discourage him. What little they’d said was enough.

      

      Cliff had green eyes, blond hair and he was a wedge-shaped man. All shoulders, no hips and long legs. He wore boots as a part of him. And he had a good, easy stride.

      He knew women. They didn’t boggle him. The crew members took him places to eat so they could watch his reaction as the women watched him. He could handle that real easy.

      He didn’t flirt, nor was he distracted. Women were easy for him when he wanted one. He not only understood and could handle women, he knew how to organize a place and make it profitable. He liked animals. He was efficient and he knew what to do.

      And he was young enough not to demand half of the proceeds from the place.

      

      If it hadn’t been for Cliff, who was about ten years older than Chancy, she would never have made it to being the breathtaking adult she came to be.

      At that time, to the crew, she was a problem. They had to spend too much time being sure she was all right.

      Even so, the men looked at Cliff with some sweat in their hair and down their chests and under their arms, and they narrowed their eyes watchfully as he first met Chancy. Men had trouble meeting Chancy. They got a little silly. If Cliff reacted that way. they’d have to find an older man who would be harder for the crew to handle.

      Chancy treated Cliff like one of the bunch. No flirting, no wiggling, no licking lips slowly, no rubbing against him.

      His eye wrinkles were white as he considered her. The crew expected that. It was a normal, male reaction to her. And since she acted like a normal person, Cliff apparently figured he’d be okay.

      However, every single man on the place managed to find a way to warn Cliff. They explained her thinking she was one of them and could do whatever a man could do.

      Each man warned Cliff that it was up to him to discourage her pushy conduct.

      That caused Cliff to pull his head back and give the first couple of men a startled look.

      So each assured Cliff that she would be pushing in to help the men with the herding and cutting and branding and everything else! To remember that she considered herself one of them.

      And at separate, found times, each one of them told him in a deadly voice, “Don’t you let her experiment with you.” Their eyes were squinched up and very serious.

      They told him that no man who had all his marbles would get within fifty miles of her.

      Having seen her, Cliff nodded soberly.

      The men went on that if a man was around her, he’d spend all his time rescuing her—from water, blizzards, being lost or risking being trampled by beeves or horses. And they’d add, “Fooled you there, didn’t I.”

      And Cliff understood there was a serious problem.

      

      But then Clifford Robertson moved to the spread: He brought his neat little sports car towed behind his truck. He had his clothing packed neatly. He stopped near the house and got out He looked around and breathed. His soul smiled. It was as he’d remembered. It was a perfect place.

      The sky was wide and the trees were oaks and hackberry, and pushing in were the relentless mesquites. There was a proliferation of wild, spring flowers and the Texas bluebonnets that filled his soul.

      His room was in the house. That had caused Cliff to hesitate. He would rather be around the men. And he wondered who was the chaperone for the nubile female.

      The terrifying woman was as he remembered. A slip of a girl who greeted him nicely and didn’t do anything else. Well, she showed him his part of the house and where to put his things.

      His unit was downstairs at the front of the house, which was of adobe. The walls were thick and the air inside was cool. There was a separate door to the outside.

      His part of the downstairs had been built for her parents. There was a reading room next to the bedroom with a desk, and he had his