Lonesome Ryder. Carol Finch

      “Right.” Vance scoffed. “Ask me, you’re protesting a little too much, which is a dead giveaway in my book.”

      Wade swore ripely. This was his cry for help and his ornery cousins weren’t listening. A man couldn’t even count on his family to save him from disaster.

      “Mind if we borrow Frank?” Vance asked as he reined his sorrel toward the corral.

      “Sure, take my cow dog, too. You’ve already stuck me with Seymour. What’s one more traitorous act between cousins?”

      “Gawd, cuz, you’re breakin’ my heart,” Quint drawled.

      “I think I’m gonna break down and cry.” Vance, grinning playfully, wiped imaginary tears from his eyes and sniffled.

      “Fine, you guys can sit there cracking wise, but I’m telling you that Seymour shirks her duties and you’re paying her for doing diddly-squat.”

      Wade whistled. Frank, his loyal blue heeler, bounded from the barn, wagging his stub of a tail. Frank lived to round up and cut cattle from the herd. He was as efficient as two men on horseback and worth his weight in dog chow.

      When Frank stared devotedly up at him, Wade patted the dog’s head then gestured toward the pasture. “Bring ’em in, Frank,” he ordered. When Frank spun on his haunches and sprang into action, Wade cut his cousins a quick glance. “Just stay out of Frank’s way. He can do everything except open and shut the gates.”

      Quint leaned away from his horse to unlatch the gate. “Did you teach Frank to inoculate and brand, too?”

      “If he could handle something like that I’d have him in the house, cooking and cleaning, because he could run circles around my temp housekeeper,” Wade flung back.

      Duff—the bowlegged cowboy, who’d worked at the ranch since Wade was a toddler, and now, recently retired, helped out part-time—appeared at the barn door. “Need some help with roundup, boys?” he asked as he dusted blades of straw from his shirtsleeves.

      “Naw,” Vance replied. “Frank’s gonna do all the work. Quint and I will just sit back and twiddle our thumbs until the cattle are penned up.”

      Duff grinned, displaying his missing front tooth, and then he gestured toward the barn. “Laura brought down a stack of sandwiches, chips, colas and fresh-baked apple pie and stashed them in the fridge so you boys’d have some lunch. She went to town to restock groceries and pick up supplies. That little gal is something when it comes to working around here. She even helped me muck out the barn and feed the horses before she drove off.”

      Wade winced when his cousins’ narrowed gazes branded him the liar he was. Damn Duff and his flapping jaws!

      “Not getting our money’s worth?” Quint smirked.

      “Lazy?” Vance scoffed.

      Duff’s whiskered jaw dropped open and his sunken chest swelled with irritation. “Wade said that about her?” he hooted. “Hell, the little gal even came by last night to bring me supper and spiffied up my place while I ate. I forgot a house could look that clean and smell that good. She even brought me a vase of wildflowers to brighten up the place.”

      Great, Wade’s strategy to convince his cousins that Seymour wasn’t pulling her salaried weight was blowing up in his face. How was he to know Duff was going to shout her praises to high heaven?

      Duff didn’t shut up, either. He just kept yammering on and on about how “that gal” was the “best thang” that had happened around here in a decade and how she was the “pertiest thang” he’d every laid eyes on in all his sixty-six years.

      “I’m feeling nauseous.” Wade turned an awkward one-eighty and limped toward the house. “I better go lie down.”

      “First you better stop, drop and roll, right where you are,” Quint called after him, “Your pants are on fire, liar.”

      “Does his nose look like it’s growing longer to you?” Vance asked Quint in mock concern.

      “Yup, ol’ Pinocchio is in big trouble,” Quint teased.

      “Darn tootin’ he is,” Duff chimed in. “His mama and daddy raised him better than to pull a stunt like that!”

      Serenaded by teasing laughter Wade returned to the house. He’d gotten no help whatsoever from that quarter. He’d have to run Seymour off the ranch on a rail—all by himself.

      LAURA BEAMED IN DELIGHT when she saw Annie Nelson jogging across the street to meet her for lunch. Annie didn’t look much different than she had in college. She was still an attractive bundle of energy and quick with a friendly smile.

      “I’m so glad you had time to meet me in town today,” Annie enthused as she gave Laura an affectionate hug. “Sitting and gabbing is going to be just like old times.”

      When Annie led the way into Hoagie’s Diner, Laura set aside her frustration of trying to gain Wade’s respect and his ongoing attempts to convince her to find another job. Dining with Annie was the distraction she needed.

      Laura studied her surroundings as she plunked down at the corner booth of the busy café. The place was filled to capacity during the lunch hour and two harried-looking waitresses were darting from one booth to the next, taking and delivering orders. The mom-and-pop diner was doing a driving business and the smell of hamburgers and fries caused Laura’s stomach to growl in eager anticipation.

      “You’ll love the food here,” Annie assured her. “Best hamburgers, chicken fried steak and cream gravy in three counties. And you’re going to love Hoot’s Roost, too.”

      “It’s definitely a change from Denver,” Laura commented as she perused the fifties, malt-shop style café then glanced down at the laminated menu. “But I love the wide-open spaces here and I’m enjoying this new feeling of independence.”

      Annie raked her shiny mahogany-colored hair away from her face and grinned. “I’ll bet your brothers have been calling every other day to check on you.”

      Laura nodded her thanks to the waitress who set two glasses of ice water on the Formica tabletop. “Actually my brothers have been away on a business trip so I’ve had several days of reprieve. I sent them postcards to inform them that I’ve moved. But I fully expect them to call to grill me about my summer job when they return to Denver.”

      Annie sipped her water and her hazel eyes glinted with curiosity. “So…how’s it going with Wade?”

      She shrugged evasively. “It’s a job.”

      “Yeah, right. Like you didn’t notice the man’s so good-looking that he could jump-start a woman in a coma. He’s a babe magnet, same as his cousins. I should be so lucky to be surrounded by the gorgeous Ryder cousins. Sounds like tough work if you can get it.”

      Annie sighed dreamily. “Even when the Ryder cousins were in high school they were gorgeous, athletic and in great demand. Even though I was just in grade school at the time, I loved to watch them play basketball, baseball and rodeo. They were something to see in action, lemme tell ya.”

      “Well, Wade might’ve been a sports dynamo back then but now he’s two-hundred-plus pounds of bad attitude,” Laura confided to her good friend. “He doesn’t want me in his house and I can supply you with a ten-minute list of his offenses if you’re interested. Even worse, when he goads me I sass him right back, without showing an ounce of my former restraint. The man is turning me into the worst version of myself.”

      Annie shrugged, unconcerned. “It’s probably good practice for you. I always thought you were too restrained when your brothers were breathing down your neck, trying to run your life. You just caved in and let them intimidate you. As far as Wade’s concerned, it’s understandable that he doesn’t want a woman in his house after he made the mistake of marrying the original bitch goddess of Hoot’s Roost. Bobbie Lynn didn’t make life easy for him, and it left a bitter