LITMIR.BIZ

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and wait until Cassandra Peterson showed up for her official coronation as the new leader of the pack. He only hoped his fellow “brothers” wouldn’t tear her to bits on the very first morning.

      At that moment Cassandra came through the door, followed by both Nicolette and Sammy. Sammy’s gaze tracked around the room, and when it landed on Lucas he gave him a big smile and an enthusiastic wave before he and Nicolette sat down on the picnic table bench closest to the door.

      Cassandra stood just inside the door and cleared her throat, obviously nervous as she faced the dozen cowboys, who had all fallen silent. Cookie, the ranch-hand cook, made a baker’s dozen and now stood in the doorway between the dining area and the kitchen.

      By the faint tremor in her voice and her forced smile, it was clear that Cassandra was uneasy. Lucas knew his attention should be focused on the woman who held his future in her trembling hands, but instead he found his gaze shifting to Nicolette.

      Both she and Cassandra were clad in skinny jeans that probably cost more than Lucas’s entire wardrobe. Cassandra wore a tailored white blouse, the jeans and a pair of heels, but Nicolette had on a pair of gold sandals and a green form-fitting spring lightweight sweater. And the form it was fitting was slamming hot.

      Unlike last night when her hair had hung freely beyond her shoulders, this morning it was neatly tamed and clasped in a green-and-blue little beaded tie at the nape of her neck.

      Although he’d liked her hair the way it had been the night before, slightly wild with a touch of curl, this morning with it pulled back it gave him a perfect view of her long neck and delicate jawline.

      He was vaguely aware of Cassandra talking to them about repairing the damage from the tornado and getting the ranch back up to normal.

      Sammy turned his head and gave him a quick thumbs-up. Lucas nodded to the boy, whom he had found both bright and a bit precocious the night before. He’d had little interaction with Nicolette as he’d told her son that actually real cowboys bathed every night.

      He wondered where the kid’s father was and if he was in the boy’s life. Lucas knew all about growing up without a father. Hell, he knew all about growing up without much of a mother, too.

      The absence or not of a father in Sammy’s life is not your problem, he told himself and directed his attention back to Cassandra, who had introduced herself as Cassie. As long as she didn’t call herself Cass, he thought.

      They were all Cass’s cowboys, and Cassandra Peterson had a lot to prove before any of them would even begin to consider themselves Cassie’s cowboys.

      He turned his attention back to Cassie, as she appeared to be winding down. “I know it’s going to take a while for us all to get comfortable with each other. I also know that I’m asking a lot in hoping that you all will continue to do whatever you do as daily chores and get the property repairs finished as soon as possible.”

      She turned her gaze to Adam, who worked as foreman. “If you could come up to the house with me, I’d like to have a chat with you about exactly how things run around here.”

      Adam rose, looking none too happy, and he, Cassie, Nicolette and Sammy disappeared out the door.

      “Guess that’s a wrap,” Dusty Crawford said, and grabbed his hat from the bench next to him.

      “They won’t last a week here,” Brady Booth replied. He got up from the table and grasped his hat. “She looked so nervous, like she half expected us to rope and hog-tie her and send her back to New York.”

      Dusty flashed dimples in a grin. “I wouldn’t mind roping her, but I might have something else in mind rather than sending her back to the big city. I wouldn’t mind having her as a bunk mate. She’s just my type, blonde and small and sexy.”

      Lucas stood and tipped Dusty’s hat so it nearly covered his face. “Big talk from the baby in the group.” At twenty-six Dusty was the youngest of all the men. Truthfully, Lucas was just glad that as they all left the dining room the talk was about Cassandra and not Nicolette.

      Not that he cared about the dark-haired beauty. He didn’t know anything about her and in any case didn’t need to know anything. She was just his boss’s friend, nothing more, nothing less.

      He followed the rest of the men out into the early May morning and headed for the stables. The daily tasks were rotated, and today was Lucas’s day to ride the fence line and look for any breeches or issues.

      Thank God he’d mucked the stalls the day before and wouldn’t have to do that nasty task again for another eleven days. It was one of the jobs that had to be done that nobody particularly liked to do.

      This morning it was just his horse, Lucky, and him and the wide-open pasture. He strode toward the stables, breathing deeply of the clean air and enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on his shoulders.

      The stables held twenty stalls, ten on each side. All the ranch hand horses were housed here as well as several other horses that Cass had for herself and guests. When Lucas walked in, several of the men were saddling up their mounts for the morning chores.

      Some of them would be heading out to the pasture to check on the cattle, to make sure none appeared ill and there were no signs of prey that had bothered the herd overnight.

      Dusty had disappeared into the tack room, where he would spend most of the morning cleaning and oiling the saddles and harnesses that weren’t in use.

      The ranch worked like a well-oiled engine. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do each day. Cass had believed in structure and routine, and all of the men had thrived beneath her rigid system.

      It took only minutes for him to saddle up and head out, the sun warm and the smell of sweet spring grass filling his head. Lucky was a strong, fast mount who danced his feet as if eager to go for a run.

      Sawyer Quincy opened the gate that led to the pasture for Lucas, and when Lucas had ridden through Sawyer closed the gate once again. Although it was rare for the cattle to come this close to the stables and other outbuildings, it wasn’t unheard of.

      Somebody checked the fence line every day, but since the storm that had ravaged the area, trees and large limbs had fallen and continued to fall, sometimes causing a new break in the fencing.

      He rode at a slow pace, keeping an eye on the fence while enjoying the freedom and sense of pride he always felt when on the back of his horse and working.

      There had been a time in his past when he was certain his future held only two outcomes, jail or death. Cass had changed all that and now she was gone.

      Sorrow squeezed his heart as he thought of the sixty-eight-year-old woman who had saved them all. Cass Holiday had been tough, but loving. She’d been fair and had instilled a sense of pride, of belonging and of self-esteem in all of the cowboys who’d served her. He shoved away thoughts of the woman they had buried in the family plot not far from where he rode.

      Instead a vision of Nicolette leaped into his head. He’d never felt the kind of instant attraction that he’d felt for her for any other woman in his life. The moment she’d gotten out of the car the night before, something inside him had sizzled with an unusual heat.

      He thought of the little nest egg he’d saved up over the years. He’d always known that this life with Cass wouldn’t last forever, and there was a small ranch on the other side of Bitterroot that had been for sale for the past year.

      He’d often thought about buying it and beginning to build what Cass had here, but his loyalty to Cass had stopped him from any action in that direction.

      Now with Cass gone and the future of the ranch up in the air, maybe it was time for him to go his own way. Still, the idea of leaving the men he’d thought of as his brothers, of walking away from here before he knew what Cassie intended to do, now made the thought of going elsewhere painful.

      In his deepest fantasies, when he made his move he hoped there would be a woman by his side, a woman who wanted to build something lasting and meaningful

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