More Than A Cowboy. Peggy Nicholson

any?”

      “You already report on the DOW Web site your cats’ latest doings. Their latest sightings.” Even their pictures, when someone lucked into a telephoto shot. This was pure foolishness, in Adam’s book, drawing attention to potential victims, but try to tell that to a pack of politicians and bureaucrats. He supposed the Division hoped that publicizing the lynx re-intro program would get the public behind it. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad notion, considering the DOW was spending a million or more of the taxpayers’ money.

      “So…” He tapped the map northwest of Trueheart, Colorado. “You post on your Web site that one of your females has moved to this location, where I’ll be waiting. That she’s been spotted and she’s knocked-up for sure. Set to drop a passel of kittens any day now.”

      “They only have three or four, usually.”

      “Fine. Four imaginary kittens. You plant them in my backyard, and I guarantee you, your perp will come hunting. If he’s smart enough to buy his radio direction finder off the Internet, then he’s bound to be checking your Web site for the latest news on his quarry. Heck, if you report every time one disappears, then he can read his own score sheet. Better believe he’s tuning in.”

      Gabe rubbed his jaw. “It might work… I think it would work. Now all I have to do is persuade my boss to try it.”

      “Your problem, friend.” Adam drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Meantime, you gonna show me ol’ Watson’s stuff?”

      He lounged against the hood of his truck, while Gabe loosed the dog and commanded him to ‘fetch the kitty!’ Nose to the ground, tail waving, the hound snuffled off into the night.

      “Did you lay a drag trail?” Adam inquired. By the sound of his snorts, the dog was circling the parking area.

      “No need, with his nose. There’s enough of a breeze to carry an air scent. Once he gets downwind…”

      “If he doesn’t find his hat, you send him back to Montana. How’s that for a deal?”

      “You’re on,” Gabe agreed with a smirk.

      They waited some more. Adam didn’t mind, if it ended this nonsense. He could just picture the other hands’ faces if he showed up with Watson in tow for the cattle drive. A dog with ten pounds of ear, and no cow sense? It would take him all summer long to live that one down. Cowboys loved to tease and a newcomer was fair game. Come on, Watson. Lose the kitty.

      “You know any women over towards Trueheart?” he asked, to pass the time. The Monahan family ranch lay east of Durango, while Trueheart lay northwest, but on the odd chance…

      Gabe cocked his head at him. “Lonesome already? Well, there’s Kaley Cotter.” It was Gabe who’d found Adam the Circle C line-camp job with Kaley’s brother, three summers ago. “But you met her. That was the year she came back, wasn’t it? And I hear she’s married since then.”

      “To Tripp McGraw,” Adam reminded him. He’d be riding for the McGraws this summer. “No, this is somebody else. Met her in passing, but didn’t catch her name. Hair dark as…” Wishing he’d never spoken, Adam jerked a thumb at the starry sky. That dark.

      That velvety, when finally he buried his face in it, but how did he know that already? He stirred with impatience, then forced himself back to stillness.

      “Then there’s Lara Tankersly, one of Ben Tankersly’s daughters,” Gabe continued. “I slow-danced with her once, at a shindig over in Cortez. Didn’t sleep well for the next year. But she moved to San Antonio shortly thereafter, and she’s a cornsilk blonde.

      “Then, speaking of blondes, there’s a café in Trueheart called Michelle’s Place, and Michelle’s—” Gabe broke off as Watson came blundering out of the dark, gripping the hat by its brim. “Well, well, what have we here? Good boy! Whatta guy, whatta nose! Good fella!” He thumped the hound on his side as he accepted the trophy, then straightened with a grin. “And who needs a woman when you’ve got this for company?”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      THE NEXT TIME Adam saw her was the last night of the drive.

      Following a century-old tradition, the combined herd of all the Trueheart ranches arrived on the summer range at sundown. The cowboys held the cows overnight at Big Rock Meadow. Come morning, the best riders would show off their mounts’ cutting skills. The cattle would be sorted by brand, then driven east or west across the foothills, to their own ranch’s grazing allotments.

      Low, laughing voices rumbled around the campfire, punctuated by the occasional satisfied belch. Tonight was the cowboys’ final chance to savor Whitie and Willie’s chuckwagon cooking. Grilled steaks and barbecued beans and cornbread tonight, then tomorrow—and for the rest of the summer—it would be bachelor fare cooked in their own solitary camps.

      This was their last night to pull a prank, swap a yarn or tell a joke to an appreciative audience, before they rode their separate trails. Starting tomorrow, company would be scant and seldom, not that it bothered this crew.

      Line-camp men were chosen for their solitary ways. Solid, self-sufficient men, they were amiable in company and even better apart. After five days of rubbing elbows with sixteen men, most of whom were strangers, Adam had to admit he was ready for a spell of solitude himself.

      “Dubois, this danged hound’s ’bout to break my heart! Claims you ain’t fed him since Christmas.” Across the fire, Jon Kristopherson scowled in mock indignation. Watson stood behind him, with his chin resting on the rancher’s shoulder. “He’s droolin’ down my collar again. Call him off.”

      “Don’t you believe that beggar!” warned Willie. At seventy-five, he was the oldest hand on the drive. Too stiff to sit a saddle these days, he shared the driving of Suntop Ranch’s pride and joy, a genuine mule-drawn chuck wagon that was older than he was. And he reigned over the cookfires alongside Whitie Whitelaw. “Worthless bum stole half a skilletful of biscuits this morning, and Whitie’s been sneakin’ him bacon all the livelong day.”

      Since Watson had turned out to be terrified of cows, he’d been consigned to ride on the wagon, where the old guys were spoiling him rotten. At this rate he’d be too fat to track a lynx hatband, much less a lynx.

      “Watson, get your ass over here!” Adam patted the ground and the hound shuffled meekly around the circle to sit by his side, then heaved a long-suffering sigh. Adam was the only one who refused to be charmed by his “gimme” eyes. “Stay,” Adam told him sternly, then glanced up….

      And there she was, stepping into the glow of the fire on the far side of the gathering. Slender as a young aspen in her boots and jeans, dark hair gleaming loose on her shoulders.

      “Tess! What are you doin’ up here?” called one of the Jarretts, over a shouted chorus of similar questions and greetings. Faces brightened, bodies shifted to make room for the newcomer. Adam sat up straighter. At the edge of his vision, men were rebuckling loosened belts, tucking in shirttails and wiping greasy mouths. Seventeen men with a sexy woman suddenly dropped in their midst.

      “Now, how could I stay away, knowing this was Last Night and Willie would be serving his apple pie with vanilla ice cream?” She laughed and folded gracefully down, to sit cross-legged between Rafe Montana, manager of Suntop and boss of the trail drive, and his stepson, Sean Kershaw. Firelight danced across her vivid face as she cocked her ear to something Sean said.

      She was all he’d remembered and more, Adam told himself, as she glanced up and over her shoulder, then reached for the plate Kent Harris had brought her. The line of her throat lengthened with the movement—glowed golden in the flames. Adam moistened dry lips as he pictured himself laying a kiss there where her pulse beat below her ear. Another in that shadowy hollow between her delicate collarbones…

      She murmured her thanks, dipped a fork into Willie’s famous pie à la mode, then closed her eyes in ecstasy as the fork touched her tongue. “Ohh!”

      He