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  Cowboy for Hire

  Dorsey Kelley

  I dedicate this novel to the entire ranching Twisselman family of California. On your cattle drives you’ve helped me, taught me and laughed at me when I wore my spurs backwards—not easy to do! Someday I’ll get everything right and show you all. In the meantime… Yeehaw!

  Wranglers & Lace

  Dear Reader,

  What could be more thrilling than to be swept into the hard-muscled arms of a compelling man? Especially when said man has honed those muscles in the labor of helping animals grow and making land produce? Who could be sexier than a man who understand the value of hard work and reward—and wants nothing more than to share those rewards with the woman in his life?

  Cowboys live this difficult life everyday. It may surprise some that this is what I find sexy about cowboys and about the Western life-style. It’s not so much the jauntily cocked Stetson, worn jeans and boots, although these, too, when wrapped around a good-looking man, are reason enough for any redblooded woman to get hot and bothered.

  For me, it’s the tiny wrinkles around his eyes, earned from starting at distant sun-filled horizons. It’s his ability to find something positive in even the most devastating calamity, to shrug off adversity and forge ahead in the face of defeat. Even more, it’s his wealth of human knowledge, of commitment to the land and to one special woman that you can discern if you bother to search. So, the next time you meet with a cowboy, look deep into his eyes. You’ll see what I mean.

  Dorsey Kelley

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter One

  From under the brim of his beat-up cowboy hat, Bent Murray glanced around the overcrowded arena grounds and snorted in disgust. Dust clouds kicked up by city slicker boots, the smell of popcorn and burned hot dogs, shrill crying children, scantily dressed young women posturing behind the chutes hoping to catch a cowboy’s eye—it was all too much.

  A Los Angeles rodeo.

  He hated California smog, traffic, short tempers, conmen. Too many rats in a cage, in his opinion. A man needed space—open country—where he could breathe. As soon as he could, he’d collect Sarah and hit the road for Montana high country. He’d buy a fair-size ranch, run a few hundred Angus, raise lightning-fast quarter horses.

  It was a wonderful fantasy, a dream to comfort him when he felt the oppressive atmosphere of fast-paced southern California clamp down.

  But for now, there were horses to shoe. With a resigned sigh, he hung the scarred leather apron around his waist, grabbed up hoof nippers and bent to the task.

  “Mr. Murray?”

  The female voice sounded somewhere above Bent’s left ear. He grimaced at the intrusion.

  “I need you, Murray,” she insisted.

  A live one, he thought with weary cynicism. In his younger, rodeo days, when a girl made such a suggestive remark, he would never let her get away. Not until he’d had his fill of her.

  The old days were ancient history.

  Now, as he stooped over, holding a colt’s forefoot between his knees, with a hammer in one hand and a brace of nails clamped between his teeth, he wondered impatiently why people always waited until he was in this awkward position to bother him.

  Well, he couldn’t be bothered looking up. “Yeah?” he said through the nails.

  The girl moved closer, and into the line of his lowered vision came a pair of slim legs in scuffed and scarred boots and worn jeans. She held a bay horse on a lead rope. Right away he noticed that the horse had been badly shod. This girl probably wanted him to wave a magic wand and cure her horse’s problem, whatever it was. The worst horse owners were teenage girls—they loved their horses like precious pets and figured they knew worlds more than a professional farrier. Such clients often made his life miserable by demanding unreasonable and crazy remedies to their darlings’ hoof problems.

  “Murray?” she persisted. “Please.”

  Bent sighed. Slowly he straightened his stiff back, letting the hoof down to examine the girl—who wasn’t a girl at all as he’d first supposed, but a small, slender woman. Her anxious expression couldn’t hide the prettiness of her bright hazel green eyes or the golden color of her braid beneath her straw cowboy hat. Not late teens, he thought, revising her age. Early twenties?

  Nevertheless, a small stab of disappointment arrowed through him. Bent was thirty-eight himself; she was too young for him. He leaned his tough, callused hand against the horse’s flank and ignored his aching back. “You need me, huh?”

  Her gaze flickered. “My, uh, horse does.” She gestured behind her to the brown-coated mare. “I’ve heard you’re the best farrier around. Sierra needs the best if she and I are going to win the World.”

  Bent raised one skeptical brow. “Gonna win the World, huh? Barrel racing?”

  She drew herself up proudly and stroked the nose of her horse. “We want it all.”

  “Lotta competition.”

  She shrugged. “Sierra’s great.”

  His gaze skimmed the bay’s muscled-up hindquarters, the straight, strong tendons and alert eyes. “Nice looker.”

  For the first time, the woman smiled. “Thanks.”

  “What’s your name?” Bent’s eyes lingered on her mouth, her straight white teeth, shapely lips and the light dusting of freckles sprinkled on her cheeks.

  “Kate Monahan.” She faced him squarely, without artifice. He liked that. His glance drifted downward, over the hollow of her throat and the rising of her breasts beneath her plain, Western-cut shirt. Her shirt was open at the throat, and at her chest he noticed that one of the pearlized buttons was slipping free of its buttonhole. If the thing came open, would he get a glimpse of cleavage? Was the display deliberate?

  He walked to the horse, ran his hands down its legs where the brown coat turned black, and lifted its hooves. Carefully, he inspected each, holding the hard hooves against his leather-aproned knees until he was satisfied. At last he faced the woman. “This mare shouldn’t be used, Kate. She’s got a quarter crack on her right front and maybe a light case of navicular disease. You race her all year and she’s gonna go lame.”

  “No!” Kate snapped, and stepped forward to grab his forearm. At the touch of her fingers he went tense with awareness and his eyes narrowed in surprise. “Sierra has everything it takes,” Kate said urgently. “There isn’t a faster horse on the circuit—and she’s got heart. She’s always done whatever I’ve asked of her and more. It’s just her hooves...” She faltered, licked her lips and started again. “She needs care. You can give it to her. You are the best, aren’t you?”

  Bent looked down into Kate’s wide hazel gaze and felt stirring sexual interest. Well, who wouldn’t, with her big eyes pleading and her hanging on to his arm like that? He wondered if she had a boyfriend. Not that it mattered.

  Next to her he felt old, jaded. Kate had an innocent freshness that made him think of things hopeful, like spring flowers and young love.

  He pivoted so that her hand fell away. With his fingers at the mare’s soft muzzle, he inserted his thumb into its mouth, gently pried it open and took seconds to inspect the teeth, which revealed age.

  “Your mare’s getting on, too. What is she? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  “Almost seventeen. But she’s in great shape,” she said defensively.

  “Uh-huh.” He watched for a moment as the mare nuzzled the woman’s shoulder. “And that heart you say she’s got is why. She wants to please you. But you may be working her beyond h
er ability.”

  Kate firmed her mouth. “Will you help us or not? I know her feet are going to need a lot of attention. I can pay.” She added this last with a note of desperation.

  Despite himself, he felt a response to her helplessness and cursed inwardly. It came from something deep inside he couldn’t control—a primitive chemical reaction of a male sensing need in a female. A need only he could fulfill.

  Something very much like a male answering the cry of his mate.

  He’d never been stupid about women. At least not since Alicia. He wouldn’t start now.

  “Sure, I’ll shoe your horse. Why not? None of my business if you run her into the ground.”

  Without waiting for a reply he brushed by her. He collected his hammer, placed the nails back in his mouth and told her in a muffled voice, “Come back later. Around three o’clock.”

  Ignoring her, he carefully pounded five nails through the shoe into the hoof wall, then twisted off the sharp points with the claw end of his hammer.

  “What’s your first name?” Kate asked suddenly, and he squinted up at her from his position.

  “Thought you’d left,” he said discouragingly.

  “Not yet,” she retorted, and he had to admire her tenacity. She was peering at him like she was trying to place him. His heart began to sink and he averted his face. She leaned toward him. “So, what’s your name?”

  “Benton,” he growled.

  “Benton Murray.” She rolled the name around and even without glancing up he knew the exact moment when dawning recognition widened her eyes. “I thought you looked familiar. You—I know who you are—”

  “A farrier,” he supplied dryly. “You know—a horseshoer?”

  “No, I mean who you used to be.”

  He winced and braced himself.

  She was excited now, her words tumbling over themselves. “Benton Murray—All-Around World Champion Cowboy. Bull rider and bareback bronc. Back in...was it ‘81 or ‘82?”

  He caught up another tool and clinched the hooves. “Can’t remember.”

  “I think it was ‘81. My dad was so excited—we were there at Oklahoma City when you rode that bronc on the last day of the Finals. The scores between you and the other riders were so close, but in the last go-round you were the only one who stuck on for the full time. The crowd went wild—even my dad jumped up yelling for you and spilled my soda.”

  Bent turned his head sideways to give her a wry glance. “Spilled your soda, huh? Sorry. I’ll buy you another sometime.”

  “Sure.” She was looking at him with a mixture of awe and reverence—an expression he hadn’t seen cross a woman’s face since the height of his rodeo days. Back then, he had considered women’s adulation his due and had taken full advantage of it. Now, it just made him uneasy.

  “Look, I’m busy,” he said a bit more gruffly than he’d intended. “I’ve got a lot of work. Bring your mare back at three.”

  “Bent Murray,” she repeated, and he wondered if she’d heard him. “I can’t believe it. You’re a world champion—the real thing. This is an honor. Maybe you could help me, give me pointers.”

  “Forget it.” He shook his head and drew in a deep breath. She was bending toward him, her hands braced on her knees. Suddenly he noticed that the button had worked free and he did indeed see a shadowed valley at the tops of her breasts.

  Was she coming on to him? Accordingly, his body reacted. She was young, possibly willing; in his mind she was already beneath him, hips undulating as he pleasured her.

  Yeah, sure.

  He shrugged off the vivid images and gritted his teeth against his body’s tightening. Had he become an aging lecher, lusting after sweet, innocent girls? Why would a pretty thing like her look at him? He was just a lowly horseshoer now. A nobody. Nothing.

  Some might say he was wasting his life, his talents, doing this menial work and nothing more. But he’d made his peace with himself long ago, hadn’t he?

  “Forget it,” he repeated harshly.

  She made no move to leave and suddenly he lost patience. He stood up so fast the horse spooked and threw up its head. Automatically, he put out a soothing hand and rubbed its withers.

  With an effort he controlled his voice, but still the words sounded short, bitten off. “Look, I was a world champion a long time ago. Fourteen years ago. Now I make my living beneath the tail of a horse. Got it? I can’t help you, I can’t help anybody.”

  He disliked seeing her thrilled smile fade, but he forced himself to go on. “I’ve got no more time for you right now, Katie girl, so git.”

  She did not. But he noticed her flush heightened and she appeared to dig her heels into the hard-packed earth. “I remember you used to offer rodeo schools—that you even helped a few barrel racers win titles. What about Maria Vendala? You coached her, didn’t you? Turned her from a good barrel racer into the greatest champion rodeo’s ever seen.” She licked her lips. “I need a trainer, Murray. You come to a lot of rodeos, anyway, tending horses, don’t you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You’d be perfect for the job,” she went on. “You could train me.”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while. You’ll get a percentage of my purses. I know most barrel racers don’t have formal trainers. But think about it. You need money, don’t you?”

  He felt his face darken. How did she know? “What do you mean?” he asked grimly.

  “Well, everybody needs money.”

  “You’re crazy, you know that? And if you don’t leave me alone, I won’t be able to take you at three, either.”

  “All right,” she said so obediently he sent her a sharp glance, sharp enough to see the flash of rebellion in her eyes. She turned to go. “I’ll be back at three. By the end of this year Sierra and I will have enough winnings to qualify for Nationals. We’ll win the World, Murray.”

  The note of conviction in her words gave him pause. He didn’t think she could win—not without experience. And not with that aging horse who was ready to come up lame. He hadn’t seen Kate perform, but her youthful bravado was good. It might take her pretty far; champions needed a touch of arrogance to succeed. They needed to believe they were better than others; they needed hunger to drive them on through rodeo’s many adversities—slow, losing score times, horse trouble, injuries and financial woes.

  The woman had spunk, he’d admit that. And it was the kind of open-faced, eager honesty that drew men. Being new on the circuit and easy on the eyes, she’d field plenty of offers.

  Rodeo cowboys weren’t as shy as people believed. The young waddies he knew would descend on this one like a pack of starving coyotes.

  Bent watched her walk away, heading toward a beat-up one-horse trailer and rusted pickup truck. She was slender, but her hips and thighs were rounded and feminine. Her breasts, though not large, were high and youthful.

  Young.

  Too young for him.

  Bent forced himself to resume his task. He’d tend her horse and those of his other clients and continue stashing away the money—as he had been doing for years—until he had enough to buy that spread in Montana. Then he could finally be a real daddy to Sarah. God knew his mom was getting too old to raise an active twelve-year-old.

  As if thinking of his daughter could conjure her up, she appeared before him, sipping cola from a straw. As always when he saw Sarah, he felt his tension easing. She was the single bright light in his life, his only source of joy.

  “How’re you doin’, Sport?” he asked.

  She smiled, showing orthodontic braces he’d worked overtime to afford. “Good, Daddy. I watched the barrel racing this morning. It was so exciting—”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” he warned.

  “Dad.” She drew out the word. “I wouldn’t get hurt. I just want to try—”

  “No. We’re not a rodeoing family, so forget it. But...” he relented, “I’m shoeing one of th
e barrel racer’s horses later. You can come talk to her.”

  Sarah’s brown eyes shone. With an impatient movement, she swept back her ill-cut hair, which hung unevenly about her shoulders. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll come back.”

  She raced off to watch the bull riding and he smiled. She had such pretty eyes. He wished she’d get rid of her baggy jeans, wear something more girlish. He’d buy her something if he knew where to go or what to get.

  Shrugging, Bent put the notion from his mind. Sarah had no mother and he wasn’t cut out for the role. Even his mother, with whom Sarah lived most of the time, didn’t fuss over the girl’s appearance.

  He thought about Kate Monahan and her neat braid and well-fitting denims. She had a dream of winning the World? Well, he’d already done that—much good it had done him. Now he was just a has-been, a solitary horseshoer picking up a hundred bucks here, two hundred there, and saving his money. Always saving. For Sarah. For a home.

  Bent straightened to get a bar shoe with low calks and hesitated a moment while the pain in his lower back predictably bore down, then receded. From the corner of his eye he saw Kate Monahan toss her hat aside, then stake her horse under a live oak so it could graze on a bit of grass after the morning’s performance. Sunlight dappled through the tree branches and fell on Kate’s blond hair, burnishing it to spun gold. She stroked her horse’s sleek neck and suddenly looked over her shoulder directly at him.

  Their eyes met across the forty-some yards and Bent felt the impact of feminine yearning she directed at him like an anvil blow to his gut. This was no little girl pining for a boyfriend, he realized. Kate Monahan was a fully mature woman—younger than him, yes, but a woman nonetheless, who wanted a man. Him. She wanted him.

  He stared, unable to break the band of awareness that strung between them.

  Again he heard a cry. Somewhere in his consciousness, in a shadowy place deep in his psyche, emotions roused. From a powerful well of loneliness he rarely acknowledged, a wail of need and desire echoed, shivering up his spine to rest heavily in his chest.