Cowgirl, Unexpectedly. Vicki Tharp

rattling out its last breath. I coasted the rest of the way and skidded to a halt in front of a small group of men gathered around a campfire.

      I climbed off and stepped to the edge of the circle of men. My engine ticked as it cooled and thin tendrils of campfire smoke curled into the air, but the handful of hot coals remaining provided little heat.

      A sharp whistle from an older man I assumed was the boss or ranch foreman, hushed their chatter, yet all eyes remained on me. Men don’t intimidate me, but I swallowed a grumble when my eyes settled on Hank from the café.

      One of the cowboys spit on the ground. Another stopped whittling. A kid of about nineteen or twenty on Hank’s right sucked in a hard breath. I thought he might choke on his toothpick.

      “Morning, boys,” I said, unfazed by the welcome. For a moment, silence reigned. Even the cow dog stopped chewing at his fleas. “Looks like I’m just in time.”

      “I thought the women’s knitting circle met on Wednesdays,” the kid muttered around the toothpick.

      There was the expected quick round of chuckles. Ignoring the comment, I walked over to the foreman and pulled the flyer from my back pocket. “Says here you need hands. I have two, so I’m here to apply.”

      “You’re a woman,” the foreman said as if the statement would come as a revelation to me.

      I pasted on a bright smile, ran my hand down my ponytail the same deep brown as the horse tied to a nearby tree, and flattened the front of my bomber jacket that all but hid my breasts. “Kind of you to notice.”

      “We need men. Strong men. With muscle.”

      I took the flier from his hand and feigned confusion as I pretended to reread the information printed on the sheet. “No, nothing here specifies men only.”

      “You have to be able to ride.”

      “I can ride.” He probably meant horses, not motorcycles, but he hadn’t qualified the type of riding so I didn’t consider it an outright lie. Besides, how hard could it be?

      “And shoot,” the foreman added.

      A genuine smile tipped my lips. “Not a problem.”

      He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes narrowed. “And wrestle calves.”

      The breath I blew out ruffled my bangs. “Never wrestled calves.” Looking around, I tilted my head, indicating the kid with the toothpick, still lanky from a growth spurt. “But I sure as hell can out-wrestle him.”

      The group of men burst into hoots and guffaws, and one of them piped up, “Aw, c’mon boss, give her a shot, what can it hurt?”

      The foreman scrubbed a hand in nearly a week’s growth of beard and sighed. “Got no quarters for ladies, here.”

      After all the things I’ve done. I don’t think I qualify as a lady anymore. And in all honesty, I felt more comfortable around men than women. “That shouldn’t be a problem.” I sauntered over to Hank with mustered bravado and jabbed a thumb in his direction. “I’ll bunk with Pops.”

      Hank jerked his chin up as if I’d landed an uppercut. “Pops?”

      He had at least ten years on a couple of the other guys, who weren’t long out of the schoolyard at best. It wasn’t as if he was old, old. Just old enough I wouldn’t have to tell him more than once I wasn’t interested in a high country romance.

      In Iraq, the men had learned to leave me be. These guys would, too. In time. But I needed rack time before I had the energy to deal with it. Besides, I figured I’d already pissed Hank off enough this morning that he’d be the least likely one to hit on me.

      Hank eyed me with speculation, the brim of his hat shadowing his expression. “You’re no spring chicken either.”

      I ignored him and let the comment slide, as well as the round of juvenile comments from the guys steeped with sexual innuendo. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, and the guys weren’t meaning any harm, but if my bones didn’t ache and the muscle under the scar on my shoulder didn’t burn, I might have argued with him.

      An ear-piercing whistle from behind me made me jump. The men quieted mid-laugh and a dog sidled up to my leg and leaned against me. I dropped a hand to its head and felt the quick lick of a hot, moist tongue on my palm. I turned and recognized the man I’d restrained this morning and the young girl walking up from the main house.

      The girl’s smile was a quirky mixture of shy and amused. The man spared me a brief nod before turning his attention to the rest of the men. “Enough of that kind of talk. My wife and granddaughter live here. I expect you to behave like gentlemen, and treat them”—the man looked between his granddaughter and myself before glaring back at them— “and any other women, with respect. If you cannot manage that, then you’d best go now.”

      The kid with the toothpick stared down at his boots and kicked sand onto the coals, and someone cleared his throat, but nobody bothered to leave. They had a leanness, a sparseness to them that spoke of a life of hard work without much left for excess. They may have been happy enough with a roof over their heads and a meal in their bellies.

      The old man from the diner took a spot next to the foreman and introduced himself as Dale Cunningham, the ranch owner. “My wife is Charlotte, but people call her Lottie. This here is my granddaughter, Jenna.”

      With a negligent wave of his hand, he then introduced the man next to him. “My foreman here is Link Hardy. I expect you to follow his orders as if they came from me. There’s been mischief in the past, but that’s behind us now. Disloyalty to the brand or stealing from me or mine won’t be tolerated.”

      All the men nodded, as Dale, in turn, caught each of their eyes. I bobbed my head as well. After all, loyalty and following orders came second nature to me.

      “Breakfast and dinner will be served at the main house,” Dale continued. “There are groceries in the bunkhouses, so lunches are up to you. You have thirty minutes to stow your gear and pack a lunch. Daylight’s wasting and we have fences to check, cattle to work, and horses to round up.”

      Dale turned and headed to the barn without any fanfare. I figured that meant I, as well as the rest of the men, was hired. The men went to grab their gear from their trucks. Two had their own horses in a stock trailer and they headed over to offload them.

      The horses’ hooves tapped a nervous, deep staccato on the trailer’s wooden floorboards as they backed out and steel clanked on steel as the rear door banged against the shaking trailer.

      The bunkhouses were downhill from the campfire, so I straddled my bike and coasted down the ranch road after Hank, trying to pry my eyes off the firm curve of his jeans-clad ass.

      * * * *

      When asked, I had no cabin preference, so Hank chose the further of the two bunkhouses. I followed. None of the other men did. Then again, Hank didn’t exactly exude warmth and welcome.

      If his foul mood had bothered me, I would have bunked with the others, but after bending Dale over the café’s counter this morning, I figured the fewer people around me at any given moment, the better. And despite our little run in that morning, he didn’t strike me as a man I needed to worry about.

      I’ve met enough of the bad kind to know the difference.

      A small stand of trees shaded one side of the bunkhouse and provided a modicum of privacy from the other one. I assumed because this cabin was farther from the main house—and meals—the other three men didn’t argue our choice.

      The cabin was constructed with rough split logs, the chinking thin and weathered—and light years away from the modern-rustic designs that resembled giant Lincoln Logs play sets.

      There was a hitching rail for a couple horses and a water trough out front. A small covered porch provided enough shelter to take your boots off and stay out of the rain and snow. Though this late into the spring, I didn’t expect snow