“If I seem touchy, it’s because there’s something about you that irritates me. I’m sorry to be rude and blunt, but that’s the truth.”
“Well, there’s something about you that irritates me, too.” They squinted at each other, glaring against the sun. “Now here’s how it is. I don’t give a damn about you or your sisters or whether you get along or any of that. But I do care about this cattle drive. If we hope to succeed, everyone has to work together and that means you three have to pull together.”
“We’re doing our part,” she snapped. The chip jumped back on her shoulder.
“It’s too soon to judge. But you and Les sure aren’t working as a team. Didn’t you tell me you’re responsible for one side of the drag, and she’s responsible for the other? That’s not teamwork, and that could be part of the reason why you’re losing cattle.”
“I knew you were going to bring that up.” An angry flush brightened her sunburn. “No one could have prevented those steers from going home!”
“You’re wrong,” he said flatly, his gaze on her lips. How in the hell could she claim that his kiss had meant nothing? It was an insult of the highest water. No other woman had ever complained about his kisses. “None of the other drovers lost four beeves before noon.”
“Is that so!” She jumped to her feet, clamped her hands on her hips, and glared down at him with burning eyes. Her stance placed him at eye level with her crotch, and he had to force himself to drag his gaze up to meet hers. “Well, we aren’t going to lose any more!”
All of the sisters responded to a challenge, but none more than Freddy. The problem with using this observation was that he couldn’t predict how she would react, only that she would.
“Freddy?” he called, watching her buttocks move as she flounced away from him. “Come back here and get your plate and cup. We forgot to bring servants to wait on you. So pick up your dishes and put them in the wreck pan to soak.”
Face flaming, she glanced at the drovers who had heard his remark and were grinning, then she came back for her plate and cup. Bending close enough to him that he felt the heat of anger rolling off her body, she said in a low, sharp voice. “You don’t think any of us can do any real or worthwhile work. Well, you’re going to eat those thoughts.”
“I hope you’re right.” He emptied his own scraps on the ground before he leaned back on the sparse grass and finished his coffee. He hoped like hell that the Roark sisters would learn to carry their weight, but in his heart he doubted three women raised as ladies would ever be worthwhile hands on a cattle drive. His plan was to work around them whenever he could.
The problem, of course, and Joe Roark had known it as well as anyone, was that a drive of this size needed every available man. There were areas where Dal could not compensate for the sisters’ incompetence. Those were the areas that worried him.
That and thinking about a green-eyed, lush-bodied woman who had walked away from his kiss with indifference. He’d have to do something about that. It was a matter of pride.
By the time Les and Freddy came dragging in for the evening meal, Les felt so exhausted that she didn’t know if she had enough energy to lift a fork to her mouth. Her eyes stung from the wind, sun, and constant dust, her tailbone was sore, and her legs and thighs ached and quivered. She could hardly walk after she slipped to the ground, groaned, and handed the reins to Grady.
“Git back here, and take off your saddle,” Grady called peevishly. “You women just kill me. Every goldanged one of you think I got nothing better to do than wait on you hand and foot. Well, it ain’t gonna happen, so you can just…”
Tuning out his voice, blinking at tears of fatigue, she reached deep and found enough strength to pull off her saddle before she staggered toward the lanterns hanging on the wagon.
“It’s about time you and Freddy showed up,” Alex complained. “I could have cleaned up the supper mess twenty minutes ago and been done with it if I hadn’t had to wait for you two!”
“We couldn’t get the laggards to hurry up, then we had to learn how the steers bed down for the night, and then—” She halted abruptly, hating it that she was always apologizing for one thing or another. It wasn’t her fault that some of the steers wouldn’t keep up with the herd.
“Just hurry up and eat.” Alex dumped something on her plate that looked suspiciously like the noon meal only with additional vegetables tossed in.