Gripping the seat of his saddle, Dal turned to look over his shoulder and spotted her about a quarter of a mile behind him. Grinning, he watched her gallop after a muley who had decided to head for open spaces. She cut off the escape and deftly turned him back where he belonged.
In every way, she was a magnificent woman. Strong and spirited and beautiful. And damned if she wasn’t turning into a cowboy.
In the beginning she’d done just enough to get by, but that had changed. Before the drive began, she’d been playing a role; now she was living it. Maybe she hadn’t guessed her own strengths back then. Perhaps she hadn’t understood that her nature was to give more, not less. And she did give more. She was tougher, gentler, more understanding, braver, and more uninhibited than he had ever imagined she would be.
She was becoming the kind of woman who turned a man’s thoughts toward settling down.
Frowning, he released a string of cusswords. What in the hell was he thinking? He and Freddy mixed as well as silk and rawhide. She dreamed of big-city theaters and waves of applause. He dreamed of high mountain pastures and solitude. She had hated ranching and cattle all of her life. He thrived outdoors and preferred the company of longhorns to that of most men he knew. They didn’t fit into each other’s worlds.
He couldn’t believe he was wasting time considering a future with her. He must be experiencing an attack of chivalry. A decent man didn’t despoil a good woman without reflecting on his responsibilities, which meant an offer of marriage. This obligation accounted for his settling-down thoughts. That and an urge to put his brand on her every time he saw Jack Caldwell look in her direction.
Jerking off his hat, he pulled a sleeve across his forehead and swore again. If he mentioned marriage to Freddy, she would laugh her head off, and rightly so since they were such an unlikely match. She would guess that he proposed out of a sense of duty. And because, bastard that he was, he wanted to bed her again. She would be right about that. Making love to her again was all he could think about.
The ironic thing about their conflicting dreams was that Freddy’s dream was destined to fail. She might go to San Francisco and buy herself a fancy playhouse, but she would never be the famous actress she longed to become.
Dal had observed her performances around the campfire at night, had watched her emote in the affected manner she unconsciously assumed when she was acting. The inescapable fact was that Fancy Roark was a lousy actress. She just wasn’t good at it.
The kindest thing he could wish for was that she never discovered how bad she was at the one thing she wanted most. He cared for her enough to hope her audiences were as appreciative as the drovers and as equally lacking in critical judgment.
Alex spent the afternoon jerking meat, a disgusting chore that she detested. When she finished preparing the jerky, she hobbled around the chuck wagon on her crutch, draping thin strips all over the sides to dry in the hot sunshine.
Today she was very aware of the empty space beneath her right knee. She kept wanting to step down on that side and discover a miracle had occurred and her leg and foot were restored. “Stupid,” she muttered, shaking her head. She was never again going to plant two feet on the ground and feel her hips align, or stand straight and tall. Never, never, never again.
“Sit down and rest. You look plumb wore out,” Grady ordered, bringing her wheelchair up behind her. “I got good news and bad news. Which you want to hear first?”
“I’m in a low mood anyway, so tell me the bad news,” she said, sitting down.
“The cooney’s empty and there ain’t a stick of wood within five miles of here. I got a horse needs doctoring so I can’t go looking for prairie coal for you. It’s gonna be that way for most of this week.”
She sighed and blotted perspiration from her throat. The rest of this afternoon and all the afternoons of this week would be spent struggling to shove her chair over rough ground looking for dried cow pies. If nothing else, this cattle drive was teaching her humility.
“What’s the good news?”
Grady nodded his hat brim toward the range. “Your mute friend is back.”
Her head jerked up, and her heart skipped a beat. Shading her eyes, she peered across an ocean of grass and saw him walking toward the wagon, followed by his three cows. He was dressed this time, but it was John. Without thinking about her reaction, she pulled off the man’s hat she wore and smoothed back tendrils of hair that had escaped the bun coiled on her neck.
“Why is that good news?” she asked Grady, feeling a blush heat her skin.
“I got eyes in my head,” he said, grinning at the color in her cheeks.
His comment embarrassed her. But she had indeed spent a lot of time thinking about John, missing him since they parted company in Fort Worth. And that was so wrong of her.