LITMIR.BIZ

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As if he didn’t have enough bumps and bruises already.

      “I’m okay now,” she squeaked, offering him an anemic imitation of a smile.

      She didn’t look or sound very okay, but Vance hoisted her to her feet, nonetheless. When her legs folded up he hooked his arm around her waist to offer support. He had to admit that he admired the way she sucked it up and didn’t whimper and whine. He could easily visualize her taking those self-defense lessons at the academy. She’d give her all and she’d never let a man know she was hurting or let a hard fall slow her down. She’d likely swallow a howl of pain and get back on her feet—even if it about killed her.

      “Why don’t you go up to the house and lie down for a few minutes,” he suggested. “No shame in that. I had my bell wrung plenty of times when I bucked off a rodeo bronc. Stuff happens, ya know, and sometimes you just need a breather.”

      “No, I agreed to do this job and I’m going to do it.”

      She inhaled a fortifying breath and Vance cursed himself soundly when his gaze helplessly dropped to her breasts. The woman could barely stand up and he itched to cop a feel of the lady cop. Man, he was such an insensitive jerk.

      Scowling at himself, Vance helped her into the saddle. He glanced sideways to note that Frank had chased down the bull and nipped the big brute’s heels until he rejoined the herd.

      When the cattle converged from both pastures, Vance motioned for Miranda to dismount. “The next order of business is to cut the weaning calves from the cows for transport to a distant pasture. Then we’ll make another cut of marketable calves from the combined herds, work them and haul them to the stockyards.”

      “Marketable?” Miranda questioned. “What’s that mean?”

      “We’ll package the seven-and eight-hundred-pound steers in groups to sell to feedlot buyers. Heifers, too, but they don’t command the same prices as feeder steers,” he explained as he strode over to the clunker truck to grab two leather whips. “My cousins and I will evaluate and sort out the calves, then pen up the newborns for branding and inoculations. Your job is to open and shut the pasture gate to filter out the cows.”

      “And the bull?” she asked, casting the ton of beef on the hoof a wary glance.

      “Nope, we’re taking him to service the cows at Cousin Q’s ranch. We rotate our bulls to protect against inbreeding.”

      When Vance walked over to speak to his cousins Miranda heaved a pained sigh and rolled her strained shoulder. Of course, she hadn’t told Vance that she’d hurt herself. Pride wouldn’t allow that. She just gritted her teeth and toughed it out.

      Positioning herself by the metal gate, Miranda watched, impressed, as the Ryder cousins directed calves into the loading chute for transport and cut out other calves for branding and injections. She was able to stand aside and watch the interaction between the Ryder cousins, noting the playful camaraderie they employed while working. Occasionally she caught the teasing comments Vance made that kept his cousins grinning, while they went about their tasks. She couldn’t help but wonder why Vance was unable to direct that playful attitude toward her.

      Probably because he hated her and she’d criticized his easygoing manner one too many times.

      Miranda jerked to attention when one of the cows trotted toward her. She managed to open and shut the pasture gate several times without incident. But to her dismay, she wasn’t agile enough to shut the gate before one of the small calves darted around a cow and shot through the opening like a cannonball.

      Her gaze instantly flew to Vance who muttered and scowled. She fully expected him to chew her out royally. Instead he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll bring back the calf.”

      Miranda watched him hop the fence to gather a lariat from the clunker truck then bound onto his horse. Fascinated, she watched him gallop after the runaway calf—with the loop of the lariat circling his head. He roped the calf on the first attempt, stepped down to secure the small calf’s legs then draped the bawling animal over his saddle. When he returned, Miranda opened the gate to let him deposit the calf in the designated pen.

      “Nice work, cowboy. Sorry about that. I won’t let it happen again. Now that I know how sneaky those little buggers can be, I’ll be ready and waiting.”

      “Good, because time-consuming delays will make it hard for us to finish up before dark. I’m on patrol duty tonight, ya know,” he said with a teasing wink.

      Miranda inwardly winced at the reminder. She decided, right there and then, that she wasn’t going to be the cause of another delay. She’d throw herself in front of an escaping calf before she’d interrupt this precisioned process again.

      Ten minutes later she was forced to put up or shut up. Another calf zipped around a cow and scrambled toward the open gate. Miranda launched herself at the calf. The animal bawled its head off and kicked her in the thigh, but she brought it down and rammed her elbow in its wet nose. While the calf recovered from the stunned blow, Miranda surged to her feet to slam the gate shut.

      Vance froze in disbelief, his goggle-eyed gaze fixed on the woman who’d just tackled a two-hundred-fifty-pound calf before it escaped and had to be chased down.

      “Did I see what I thought I saw?” Quint chirped, incredulous.

      “Think so.” Wade glanced at Vance. “Wha’d you do? Threaten to clean her plow if she let another calf get past her?”

      “No,” Vance mumbled. “Jeez, I knew she was about half crazy, but I didn’t realize she was a daredevil, too.”

      Quint chuckled as he turned his attention back to the task at hand. “Damn, those self-defense classes at the academy must be something else. Didn’t know some of the techniques used for steer-wrestling also applied to taking down escaping criminals.”

      “She could’ve hurt herself—badly,” Vance muttered. “That was above and beyond the call of duty.”

      Wade chuckled in amusement. “Nice to know how devoted she is to the job. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing how well I’m being protected by HRPD’s finest.”

      Well, maybe his cousins were properly impressed, but Vance was just frustrated that Randi had risked injury to stop the calf from hightailing it north. She’d scared him. She’d triggered protective instincts he hadn’t realized he had—didn’t want to have—for her.

      She was a pain in the patoot. The proverbial thorn in his paw. He didn’t want to admire, respect or worry about her. That signified that she meant something to him. She didn’t. They were polar opposites. Their approach to life was diametrically different. She took everything seriously. And to the extreme.

      Damn, he’d almost stopped breathing when he’d seen Randi dive at that calf that outweighed her by at least a hundred and twenty pounds. He’d had a horrible vision of dragging her trampled body back to Tate and hearing himself say: Here you go, Chief. Sorry I got your niece killed in the corral because she was trying too hard to live up to my expectations.

      An hour later, when the feeder calves had been loaded in trailers and the weaning calves were penned up, Vance breathed a tired sigh. He’d watched Randi throw herself in front of another oncoming calf and he had suffered another near coronary. At that point he’d called time out and given her quick instruction on where and how to use the whip so she didn’t have to tackle a runaway calf.

      The woman might not know jack about ranching and farming, but she’d certainly taken very seriously the sentence Tate handed down to her. That get-thejob-done, do-or-die attitude of hers was admirable, but it was making him nervous. He didn’t want to consider how he’d react if he had to sit by and watch her handle some crazed criminal that was avoiding arrest. The thought gave him the heebie-jeebies.

      Criminey. This was not going to work, just like he’d told Tate. After one morning with Randi, Vance was ready to call it quits and pay the fine. The woman was affecting him on too damn many levels and he was so aware of her that it was driving

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