“Excuses aren’t going to replace those steers, Les. Excuses won’t get my store back. Excuses aren’t going to make it possible for us to marry or put food on the table if we do.”
She was so tired that her mind reeled. All she wanted to do was splash water on her face to remove some of the dust, and then fall into her bedroll. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the wagon and let him rail at her, detailing her selfishness, her incompetence, her disregard for him and their future. When she tilted forward and missed vomiting on his shoes by mere inches, he was so disgusted that he slapped her and stalked away without helping her to her feet.
Staggering and wiping her mouth, trying not to cry, she returned to the main camp and the fire, which was burning low now. The coffeepot still hung above the embers, but she was too tired to think about the coffee she had wanted so much an hour ago.
Fetching her bedroll, she carried it over near Freddy, who was already asleep. Silent tears spilled down her cheeks while she struggled to pull off her boots. Then, when she finally and gratefully crawled inside her blankets, she discovered she’d chosen a site scattered with small rocks that dug into her flesh. She was too exhausted to brush the rocks out from under her or move to another place. In less than two minutes she was sound asleep.
She didn’t twitch or roll over until Dal nudged her awake a few hours later.
Then she sat up, startled and confused to see stars overhead and the other drovers still in their bedrolls. “What’s wrong?”
“Night watch,” Dal reminded her in a low voice. “It’s your turn. Put your boots on and grab a quick cup of coffee. I’ll ride with you tonight, and for the rest of the week.”
Blinking, trying to swim out of a deep sleep, she rubbed her back while she watched him return to the fire. Night watch. Now, she remembered about taking a two-hour shift each night. She wanted to weep when she realized this meant they would not have a full night of uninterrupted sleep until the drive ended.
She didn’t know how she was going to live through this.
Freddy woke when Les gave her a kick on the way back to her bedroll. Sitting up to rub her leg, she hissed an insult then yawned. “Night watch,” Dal called softly, his voice coming out of the darkness. “Grab a quick coffee, then we’ll go.”
Stretching the kinks out of her shoulders and rubbing her eyes, Freddy stood, then stumbled across a couple of bedrolls on her way to the fire, earning muttered curses and insults for her carelessness. The sharp rebukes were further proof, if she’d needed any, that she wasn’t going to be shown any special consideration on this drive.
Silently, she drank a cup of scalding coffee, studying the spangled sky and wondering how she would know when her two-hour shift had elapsed. Unexpectedly, a long-ago memory popped into her head, and she remembered sitting on the porch steps of the ranch house, leaning against Joe’s shoulder, inhaling the mingled scents of leather, soap, and cigar smoke while he pointed out the constellations and talked about the stars. Since Freddy hadn’t imagined that she would ever need to tell time by the position of the Big Dipper, she had forgotten the incident until now.
How odd. Until a minute ago, she would have sworn there had never been any close moments between her and Pa. Surprised by a sudden lump in her throat, she wondered if there were other incidents, just her and Pa, that she’d forgotten.
After shaking her head, she noticed Dal watching her across the embers glowing in the fire pit. He sat on the ground, his wrists resting on upraised knees, his cup dangling loosely from his fingers. Even at this time of night, he radiated an intense physical energy and presence that made her catch a quick breath and hold it. Tonight, with pinpoints of flame reflecting in his steady gaze, and a new beard shadowing his jaw, he looked hard and dangerous. The sudden hot tightening in her lower stomach startled her, as she had never been drawn to hard men who couldn’t quote a line of Shakespeare if their lives depended on it.
Wetting dry lips, she jumped up and walked to the chuck wagon, where her night horse was saddled and waiting, tied to the spokes of a wheel. Dal Frisco’s past had nothing in it to recommend him, she thought with a frown, nor did his dream of building a ranch in Montana. As far as she could see, they had nothing whatsoever in common. Yet he looked at her, and she started vibrating as if his gaze set off an inner earthquake.
Irritated, she swung into the saddle, suppressing a groan as aching thigh muscles protested another grueling bout on horseback. “How does this work?”
“There are two guards on each shift. You circle the herd in opposite directions. You’re looking for anything unusual, marauders, wild animals, the start of a stampede.” A light flared briefly, then she smelled the smoke of a cigar. Freddy had always enjoyed the scent.